‘Would you be very kind and make me some?’
‘As if I could imagine you would do it for yourself!’ She moved the saucepan. ‘Have you ever wondered what is a woman’s greatest burden? Of course you haven’t, so I will tell you. It is sympathy for the weakness of a man, because this causes her blindly to accept that it is her duty to obey his wishes, that it is his right to be waited on hand and foot, that he is entitled to indulge his every desire and ignore all hers. And how does he express his thanks? By fresh demands. No doubt, you are about to ask me again to warm the bread as well as make the chocolate?’
‘I’ll do that,’ he said hastily.
‘And reduce the barra to a cinder? As my mother so often cautioned me, “There is only one thing at which a man excels and that is incompetence.” ’ She went over to the bread bin and brought out a barra, crossed to the sink and used her fingers to brush a dusting of water over it, put it in the oven and lit the gas. She collected up the ingredients for hot chocolate and carried them back to the stove. When she next spoke, her manner had softened. ‘I met Benito yesterday in the supermarket.’
‘Benito?’
‘Ortega. He is back from Argentina.’
‘Didn’t expect to hear from him again.’
‘Times have changed both there and here. And as he said to me, the older one becomes, the more one misses one’s country of birth. He is looking to own a grand property since now he is a man of great presence.’
‘Only in his own mind.’
She poured hot chocolate into a mug, put that on the table. ‘If he is not very wealthy, how can Luisa wear so many fine jewels?’
‘They’ll all be false.’
‘You think I can’t tell the difference?’
He was certain she couldn’t, but was not prepared to say so. ‘If genuine, they’re wasted on Luisa.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘As I remember her, even air-brushing wouldn’t help.’
‘How like a man! Considers only what he sees and ignores what lies hidden. A woman may be a saint, but unless a man thinks her beautiful, he scorns her.’
‘Luisa’s never been a saint.’
‘Now what are you suggesting?’
‘There was at least one man who sought and found what lay hidden.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘It was common knowledge.’
‘As is all cruel slander, made all the crueller by mindless repetition.’ She turned off the gas in the oven, brought out the barra, put it on the bread board and this on the table. ‘What else do you want?’
‘Is there any honey?’
She put a pot down by the bread. ‘Who was named?’
He cut a length of barra, sliced it in half. ‘You wouldn’t want me to add to the cruel repetition, would you?’
‘Was it Mauricio Campos?’
‘You think he had the cojones?’
‘Then who?’
‘Luis Guillen.’
‘Ridiculous! Nothing could be more absurd.’
‘Why?’
‘If you cannot answer, you must remain ignorant.’
‘Have you never asked yourself why he enjoyed such a succession of ladies?’
‘I do not insult myself with such questions.’
‘He always told them they were safe with him because his interests were different. Those who believed him soon found out their mistake.’
‘To lie about such things! Have men no shame?’
He ate.
After a while, she sat. ‘Benito is thinking he will buy Son Estar.’
‘Him in a possessio. That would be like a tramp sitting on a golden throne.’
‘Things have changed.’
‘Not that much. In any case, he’s too old to own an estate that’s so run down it’ll need a mountain of work to get it back in order.’
‘He will hope someone will join the family who can help him. He has but one child, Eva. Daughters marry.’
‘If she has her mother’s looks and character, only a man who’s half blind as well as half-witted will marry her.’
She pushed back her chair and stood. ‘There is more wisdom to be found in a donkey’s bray than a man’s words.’ She swept out of the kitchen.
He drank some chocolate, tore off a piece of barra, buttered it, added honey, ate. Woman had been defined as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. How could there be any logical explanation for Dolores’s sudden anger . . . A thought abruptly provided one. Like all women, she believed a man needed to be instructed and corrected and this was best done by a wife. If Benito truly was wealthy enough to buy Son Estar, then Eva’s husband would eventually share her inheritance of the manor house, several fincas, two hundred hectares of good land, orange and olive groves, fields of almond trees, three deep wells, and half a mountain. Even in his wildest dreams, he never imagined himself in possession of such an estate, yet perhaps now . . . Dreams addled the brain. Had life not taught him that even as one enjoys the sunshine, one should be preparing for either a drought or a downpour? Under Mallorquin law, Eva would own the property in her own name so would she ever be prepared to accept her husband’s authority if there were a disagreement between them?
Five
ALVAREZ DROVE OVER THE TORRENTE – NOW A DRIED-UP, boulder-strewn river bed, occasionally in the winter a raging, dangerous flood – and along the Palma-Port Llueso road. Five minutes later, he parked under the shade of a tree, then walked to the guardia post, to arrive sweating and slightly breathless. He nodded at the duty cabo, who barely acknowledged the greeting – the young were becoming ever less mannered – and climbed the stairs to his room, which left him sweating more freely and definitely breathless. He slumped down in the chair behind the desk and stared blankly at the closed widow and shutters which for the moment he lacked the energy to open. Perhaps his doctor had reason – he was out of condition and did need to lose weight, give up smoking, and drink far less. Why was medicine dedicated to denying pleasure?
There were several unopened letters on the desk, left there earlier by the duty cabo. If they remained unopened, he wouldn’t know if one of them called upon him to do something. It was only the twenty-first of May, yet already the days were so soporifically hot . . .
He was awakened by the phone. As he waited in the hope the caller would impatiently disconnect, he looked at his watch and was surprised to note it was time for his merienda. Since the ringing continued, he reached out and picked up the receiver.
‘Inspector Alvarez?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Policia Local, Port Playa Neuva. The body of Señorita Coates had just been recovered.’
‘Who?’
The name was repeated.
‘Recovered from where?’
‘It was not you who Pedro, in Port Llueso, rang last night?’
‘It was me, yes.’
‘Then surely he told you Señorita Coates was missing after going swimming in Llueso Bay?’
‘Of course . . . My problem is, my work is endless and I’m sometimes at my desk eighteen hours in the day so that my mind becomes over-burdened and I can’t remember things immediately. So how was the señorita found?’
‘A tourist from Hotel Playa Tanit went snorkeling and found a body amongst the seaweed, some four hundred metres out from the shore. He told the hotel receptionist who phoned us and one of our chaps put on the gear, dived down and pulled her ashore. Señor Short, her nephew, was asked to make an identification, which he has.’
‘Then everything’s sorted and there’s no call for me to be further concerned in the matter.’
‘You’d better have a word with the doctor who examined the body before you decide that.’
‘Why?’
‘He says there may be an ambiguity about her death.’
‘She didn’t drown?’
‘That’s not the problem.’
‘Then what is?’
‘Can’t rightly tell, but the doctor said the Cuerpo
had to be called in.’
‘Then I suppose I’ll have to find out what’s bothering him. I’ll be over as soon as I can make it.’
‘He says he’s very busy and you must get there right away.’
And miss his merienda at Club Llueso?
‘I’ve been waiting over half an hour,’ Dr Garzon said with angry impatience. ‘Weren’t you told to get here right away?’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Alvarez answered, ‘but something very pressing held me back in Llueso.’
‘And left me standing around.’ Garzon had a habit of thrusting his pointed chin forward, adding an air of further belligerence. ‘Don’t just stand there – follow me.’
The morgue at the back of the undertaker’s office had been modernised and now visually bore a resemblance to an operating theatre – walls and floor were tiled, there were two adjustable examination tables, sinks, work surfaces, and cupboards were of stainless steel, and there was an overhead, trackable light pod. A body, covered with a green sheet, was on the nearer table. The doctor pulled the sheet back.
The sight of death always affected Alvarez badly since familiarity never reduced its cruel reminder that he was mortal and one day it would find him.
‘The p.m. will confirm my judgement that the cause of death was drowning.’
Garzon, Alvarez thought, as he tried to look anywhere but at the dead woman and in consequence found himself repeatedly staring at her, never suffered the thought he could be wrong.
‘Taking into account the temperature of the water and the body, the degree of rigor remaining, the wrinkling of the skin on hands and feet, I place death as having occurred between nine and midnight on Tuesday.’
‘There’s reason to think she didn’t die accidentally?’
‘The possibility has to be considered.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘What do you know about drowning?’
‘Nothing, thankfully.’
Garzon joined his hands together behind his back, held up his head, and spoke as if giving a lecture to fractious students. ‘Immediately preceding death, even if a suicidal act, the victim will struggle. On my initial examination of the victim, I found that under the fingernails of both hands were many grains of sand, sufficiently embedded to show the hands had been dug into sand with considerable force. You can understand the significance of this?’
‘If in her struggles she dug her hands into sand, she must have been in shallow water. So why didn’t she save herself merely by standing up? The report I’ve received states she had been drinking heavily before she went swimming. Perhaps she was too drunk to try to save herself. There are cases where drunks have drowned in a puddle.’
‘Quite,’ said Garzon, showing his surprise that Alvarez should appreciate the possible significance of the facts. ‘I examined the body very closely, but the only visible sign of trauma was a small incision on the back of the head, probably, though not certainly, incurred before death.’
‘How important is that?’
‘Difficult to be precise.’
‘Suppose her head was being forced under water until she drowned, could the wound have been inflicted during this time?’
‘It’s possible to envisage a fingernail bearing down on the scalp and her struggles causing the nail to pierce the skin.’
‘You can’t be more positive?’
‘I cannot.’
‘So you can’t decide whether or not this was murder?’
‘My task is to give you the medical facts. I have done so.’
‘If she was so drunk she’d lost the natural instinct of self-preservation, would she have been able to walk from the hotel to the sea?’
‘I cannot answer that.’
‘I’ll need to know her alcohol level.’
‘I have naturally taken the necessary samples for analysis,’ Garzon said pompously.
As Alvarez drove along the road which ringed the bay, his thoughts were gloomy. Dr Garzon had enough self-confidence for two, yet had been unable to determine whether the case was one of accidental death or murder. As a consequence, Superior Chief Salas would have to be informed of the problem and this meant endless trouble and a workload increased to unbearable limits. Except it would have to be borne.
One did not rush towards trouble. He stopped the car and parked just off the road on the sand, a few metres short of the nearest heap of seaweed, thrown up during the winter, which in good time would be removed and stored in clamps until fit to use as fertiliser. As he stared out at the mountain-ringed bay – its beauty unequalled anywhere in the world – his depression began to lift. As the doctor had indicated, the incision on the scalp might well have been caused in any one of the many minor accidental injuries anyone suffered throughout life; Dora Coates might well have drunk to the point where she was able to stagger to the water but was incapable of saving herself from drowning; the cries which had been heard were likely to have been uttered by a tourist who discovered it wasn’t just her beauty which excited her companion. The case might well only call for a little extra work on his part.
He drove back to Llueso by the slower route and as he passed the small fields, bounded by stone walls, he studied with a critical eye the flocks of sheep and goats, the occasional crop of rye grass, sunflowers, wheat, or barley, the vineyard of dessert grapes, and he sadly noted how much land was left untended because few young were willing to work it when money was so much more easily earned in the tourist trade . . . What if that one trade on which the island’s prosperity now depended were suddenly to vanish? There were few industries which were not tourist-orientated and there would be next to nothing to export in order to earn the money which would be needed for imports. Would the islanders be forced back to an even harsher life than their forefathers had suffered because now there were so few who had the skills and knowledge to produce the food desperately needed?
Back in his office, he sat and stared at the telephone on his desk. Perhaps Salas was away at one of the many conferences he attended; he might not be well; he might . . . Vain hopes. To wish for something to happen was to ensure it did not; to wish for something not to happen was to ensure it did. He dialled.
‘Yes?’ said the secretary who always sounded as if she had a plum in her mouth.
‘I’d like a word with the superior chief.’
‘You have a name?’
‘Inspector Alvarez.’
‘Wait.’
It was difficult to decide who was the more rudely curt, she or her employer.
‘What do you want?’ was Salas’s greeting.
‘Señor, yesterday evening when we were having supper . . . or was it just after we’d finished eating?’
‘I am uninterested in the details of your domestic life.’
‘I’m just trying to sort out things in my own mind.’
‘One can appreciate the difficulty of that.’
‘It was probably some time after eleven o’clock when there was a phone call from the Policia Local in . . .’
‘An official call?’
‘Yes, Señor.’
Then refer to your communications log so that you can give me an exact time.’
‘But I was at home.’
‘So you have already said.’
‘I don’t have the communications log at home.’
‘You did not make a note yesterday evening of the time and then transfer that to your log this morning when you arrived at the office? It seems not. . . I suppose you will not be aware that after listening to you for several minutes, I still have not the slightest idea what you are trying to tell me.’
‘Señor, I was about to explain when you objected to what I was saying.’
‘With good reason. But now, perhaps you can bring yourself to explain what was the import of the phone call from the Policia Local?’
‘An English woman who was staying at Hotel Monterray in Port Llueso, Dora Coates, went swimming on Tuesday night after dark. When she didn’t return, her n
ephew became worried and searched for her, couldn’t find her, and reported her absence. It was later ascertained that a woman on the beach reported hearing a cry in English which was something like, “What are you doing? Don’t. Please don’t,” but there was no certainty the call had come from the sea, not the beach; and if from the beach, what more likely than that it had been made by another woman . . .’
‘Why should you believe that?’
‘The words strongly suggested a woman who had been encouraging a man by inaction and then . . .’
‘How does one encourage inactively?’
‘By doing nothing.’
‘If one is doing nothing, one is not encouraging.’
‘Yes, if one should be discouraging.’
‘Words can enable a listener to understand what would otherwise be inexplicable. Unfortunately, they also have the ability to make what should be simple, totally opaque. Will you explain, in the simplest terms of which you are capable, just what in the devil you are talking about?’
‘When a young man and woman are alone together on a warm night, in the dark, the man is very likely to become amorous. If she doesn’t stop him early on, he thinks he’ll be allowed to go all the way; but when she discovers that’s what he reckons, she may panic and beg him to stop in words such as were heard.’
There was a pause before Salas said: ‘Experience should have reminded me of your perverse interest in a subject ignored by those of even moderate refinement.’
‘My interest isn’t any greater than anyone else’s.’
‘That you can make so absurd a claim is proof you are in need of psychiatric help.’ Salas cut the connection.
Alvarez replaced the receiver, leaned over and opened the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk, and brought out a bottle of Soberano and a glass; he poured himself a large drink.
The phone rang. He put the glass down, lifted the receiver. ‘Inspector Alvarez, Cuerpo . . .’
‘Unfortunately, you have no need to introduce yourself,’ Salas said bitterly. ‘There is not another officer in the Cuerpo who phones his superior to make a report and spends minutes recounting his domestic arrangements before he displays the perversity of his interests and then rings off without another word.’
An Air of Murder Page 4