‘Didn’t I say you were part dreamer?’
‘And didn’t I say I was casually practical? A dreamer would have gone on dreaming and staying in England so that he could never suffer disillusionment. I came out to discover how my dreams matched up to reality.’
‘You’re twisting things round. A dreamer pursues his dreams: the practical man doesn’t because he’s so certain they’re false.’ She relaxed, lay out at full length and closed her eyes as she rested her head on her arms. ‘So how has the dreamer — or the casual practicalist — made out?’
‘He’s discovered that nature abhors complete perfection. If a thing appears perfect, it contains within it the seeds of imperfection. Parts of this island are Arcadia: but because they are, they are dangerous and therefore much less than Arcadia.’
‘Is that very profound?’
‘It’s probably pretentious tripe, but blame the wine.’
She rolled on to her side. ‘What is it? Are you scared that you could be drawn too tightly to this island because it can seem so perfect?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it’s you who is imperfect — you’ve admitted to a lack of self-control.’
‘Better to be a coward than fall a-over-t on the banana skin of over-confidence.’ He refilled their glasses with white wine, chilled from the bottle having been kept in a freezy-bag. ‘I’ve decided I’d better start thinking of when I’m going to go back to the UK.’
‘I’m sure you’re right there, Harry. It doesn’t matter what I’ve been saying, the truth is that this place isn’t any good for anyone who still has enough ambition to want to be a hundred per cent alive.’
He finished his wine. ‘Do you like living here?’
‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.’
‘Aren’t you worried about its effects on you?’
‘Not really, because it’s not the same for a woman. We can remain fully alive because we carry our interests around with us so much more than you men do. And in any case, when I get too fed up with meeting the same people who keep saying die same things at the same cocktail parties, I fly back to England and have a long, sybaritic wallow among the plays, concerts, operas, films, museums, art galleries — even the television there gets better and better the longer you have to watch other countries’.’
‘You’re lucky to be able to go back when you want.’
‘Evan has always been a very generous man.’
‘Is he your husband?’
‘My ex. The divorce was finalized a year ago.’
‘What is he like as a person?’
‘Kind, thoughtful, wealthy, and very generous.’
‘Then what went wrong?’
‘That’s a bloody silly question! Surely to God you’ve enough common sense not to think that all a husband needs to offer his wife to make her happy are kindliness and a limitless dress allowance? . . . The marriage was a mistake, just as much mine as his. I can’t live a lie so I told him how I felt. Being the man he is, he accepted my decision and told his lawyer — much against that desiccated man’s advice — to give me an irrevocable settlement in lieu of maintenance.’
‘So now you’re rich?’
‘I’ve more than I need, which I suppose meets most people’s idea of being rich.’ She suddenly sat up to face him. ‘But I’m rich only as long as I remain on my own. If ever I marry again I’m handing all that money back irrevocable or not, because if I kept it I would be back to living a lie.’
‘That leaves me free to tell you something you already know, I love you. Marry me, Diana. Your standard of living will take an almighty bump . . .’
‘Don’t step out of character and become all corny,’ she said sharply. Then she noticed his expression and she smiled. ‘Haven’t you realized I can be a real bitch without even trying? Look, what I was trying to say is this, I don’t ever want to be poor because it’s nicer being well off — love on the dole sounds hideous. But I don’t need to have wardrobes full of new clothes and a mock Tudor mansion in Bagshot to be happy. I just need to live with someone I both respect and love and who loves and respects me.’
‘I qualify for the last half: what about the first?’
‘I’m sorry, really sorry, Harry, but I’m not certain.’
‘Competition?’
‘For you — no. If I had to consider just you I’d know my feelings for sure, but I’ve also to worry about myself.’ She leaned forward and kissed him, briefly yet with tender passion. ‘You see I don’t want to make a second mistake. It would be so bloody painful for both of us.’ Her eyes remained rather sad as she said softly: ‘Just for once, give in to the sirens’ song. Let yourself drift. There’s no yesterday and no tomorrow, only today to be enjoyed without thought or consequence.’
CHAPTER XI
Superior Chief Salas was an impatient man and scornful of anyone whose mind appeared to work less quickly than his own. ‘Don’t you understand? I want to know whether the señorita did or did not die from natural causes?’ Alvarez sighed as he held the telephone receiver a little away from his ear. ‘Señor, until the results of the postmortem . . .’
‘Surely you’ve conducted at least some sort of an investigation into the circumstances of her death?’
‘Indeed I have . . .’
‘Then with what results?’
‘I suppose to be accurate, señor, I should say that at the moment there aren’t any.’
‘Why not?’
‘It hasn’t been easy . . .’
‘I imagine you find considerable difficulty in most things.’
In many ways, that was true.
‘I want a full report on the present state of the investigations on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. Is that quite clear?’
‘Indeed, señor.’
Salas hardly bothered to say goodbye before ringing off.
Alvarez replaced the receiver, sighed, ran the palm of his hand over his forehead at the point where the hair was receding far too quickly for his peace of mind, and sighed again. He reached down to the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk and brought out a glass and a half-full bottle of brandy.
He poured himself out a large drink and lit a cigarette. Sudden and unexpected death always raised questions, but usually these were quickly answered: the English, though, forever ungraciously awkward, seemed unable to die straightforwardly. It seemed as if Señorita Stevenage had died from some form of natural food poisoning. But wouldn’t she have felt the symptoms become worse and worse, and even if she had initially ignored them have made every effort to summon help instead of remaining in the kitchen? True Ca’n Ibore was partially isolated and without a telephone, but still it was difficult to believe she could not have dragged herself to the next house . . . If she had been poisoned, surely the motive must concern her lover? Francisca had heard her tell a man that she loved him and ‘he wasn’t going to mess around with other women or she’d make trouble for him: Señora Browning had visited the house unexpectedly and had been met by a woman whose eyes betrayed the fact that she had just been making love. (It made a man uneasy to learn how far a woman’s eyes betrayed her to another woman.) After the death of Señor Heron, whom she had been betraying so callously, had she expected her lover to love her openly, perhaps marry her? And had he decided that his only way of escape was to murder her, either because he didn’t love her that much, or he was married and unable or unwilling to obtain a divorce. . . ?
Alvarez entered the block of flats and climbed the stairs and by the time he reached the third floor he was sweating profusely. He ate, smoked, and drank far too much: one day he would go on a diet, give up smoking, and limit himself to one drink a day.
Waynton opened the door of Flat 10. Alvarez saw a face which suggested its owner had been around, had taken and given a few hard knocks, and had learned to face the world with a wry sense of humour.
They went into the sitting-room which was also the dining-room, and sat.
‘Señor,’ said Alvarez,
in his slow, tired-sounding voice, ‘you will know that Señorita Stevenage died and that her death was unfortunately not discovered until yesterday morning. I am now having to make certain enquiries. I understand you knew the señorita well?’
‘Without wishing to quibble, it depends what you mean by “well”. I saw her quite often, but only casually and it was merely a case of having a drink together or even just a chat.’
‘Will you tell me if you liked her?’
Waynton looked curiously at the detective. ‘I suppose I didn’t really think of her in those terms. She was just an acquaintance.’
‘Then I wonder why, if you were not so very friendly with her, you saw her so frequently?’
‘Isn’t all this very immaterial?’
‘It may be of importance, señor.’
‘Why? Because there’s something odd about her death?’
‘I cannot answer you because I do not yet know.’
‘But you suspect or you wouldn’t be asking these questions?’
Alvarez made no comment.
‘You asked me why I saw Betty as often as I did — it’s because she only had to see me in the far distance to rush over and nobble me.’
‘Nobble you?’
Waynton allowed his irritation to surface. ‘I was introduced to her at a party and I said all the conventional, meaningless things one does and very quickly decided that we hadn’t much in common. Usually if one feels like that the other person does as well, so when you meet you just smile and pass on. But she only had to see me to make a beeline over to wherever I was. It got so I became chary of sitting in the square for a drink.’
‘Do you think she had become very attracted to you?’
‘I knew she wasn’t. Or to put it a bit more accurately, I was convinced she wasn’t.’
‘Then why should she have so insisted on meeting you?’
‘God knows!In the end I came to the conclusion that all she really wanted was someone to talk to. She didn’t get on well with most of the other residents and I suppose I gave the impression of listening sympathetically. To tell the truth, I began to feel rather guilty because if I saw her before she saw me I’d duck out of the way.’
‘What would she talk about?’
Waynton shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nothing much — just to add to the confusion. I’d ask her how Bill was, what the doctor had said . . .And she’d sometimes hardly bother to answer. There’d be long, unpregnant silences.’
‘Did she not speak about other residents who live here?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Can you remember who she mentioned?’
Waynton, reluctant to recall memories of a woman who had died so distressingly, finally said: ‘I really can only remember the last time. I was in the square, waiting for Diana who was late, and Betty came to the table. She started asking who I imagined Diana was out with. She suggested two names and these were quite ridiculous because Diana couldn’t stand the sight of either man/
‘Would you be kind enough to give me their names?’
‘But as Diana disliked them both . . .’
‘Please, señor, their names?’
‘Alex Dunton and Gordon Elliott.’
‘And can you tell me where they live?’
Waynton gave their addresses.
Alvarez finished writing on the back of a crumpled envelope and looked up. ‘One more question, señor. Would you believe that Señorita Stevenage was a woman whose emotions would become very involved with another person other than Señor Heron?’
‘I didn’t know her well enough to answer you.’ Alvarez nodded, then stood. ‘Thank you very much for all your help,’ he said, with formal courtesy.
CHAPTER XII
Alvarez parked his car in front of a squarish bungalow set among the maquis scrub. It was an unimaginative, grace less bungalow, made no more attractive, since it was so obviously fake, by the steepled well in front of the patio.
Alex Dunton was tall and thin and he had a creased, lean face which held a raffish air that was reinforced by a golf-club secretary’s moustache. He had the kind of laugh most frequently heard in the saloon bar at a favourite local and he dressed with great attention to detail and impeccable bad taste, often in country checks. Diana’s nickname for him, Provincial Percy, was cruel but not inaccurate.
‘Señor,’ said Alvarez, as he sat down in an uncomfortable chair on the patio, ‘I have to ask some questions concerned with Señorita Stevenage’s death.’
‘So it’s true she didn’t die naturally? Well, it’s not much good coming here. I hardly knew the woman.’
‘But I understand that you were friendly with her?’
Dunton laughed contemptuously. ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonus, and all that, but give me a bit of credit for taste.’
‘Was she not rather beautiful, then?’
‘Depends how you like ‘em, doesn’t it?’
‘And how do you like them, señor?’
‘That’s a good question! With a bit more je ne sais quoi than she’d got, that’s for starters.’
‘Did you see her very often?’
‘You’ve got things all wrong. I didn’t see her at all unless I couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough.’
‘When you did see her, where would this be?’
‘Where? What a damned funny question. Where d’you think? In the street, at the post office collecting the mail on the odd occasion I found the place open . . .’ He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Tell me, did you ever visit the señorita at Ca’n Ibore ?’
‘Now you’re joking! Don’t you understand, I couldn’t stand the woman. Look, all this is a load of cod’s, so let’s have an end to it, right?’
‘As this is a police matter, señor, regretfully you must continue to answer my questions.’
Dunton looked scornfully at Alvarez, wanting to show his contempt for the muddling stupidity of foreigners, but as always he could not prevent himself feeling uneasy in the face of authority.
‘I wonder,’ said Alvarez with quiet curiosity, almost as if he were really putting the question to himself, ‘whether it is not the truth that you knew the señorita a little better than you wish to say?’
‘For Pete’s sake! I hardly knew her, I didn’t like her, and I’m sorry she’s dead but I’m not going to start wearing black because of it.’
‘Then if all that is true, why should she have been so interested in what you were doing?’
‘This is becoming even more bloody daft. She wouldn’t have given a damn if I’d been living it up with a mermaid.’
‘It seems that she did worry, señor. For instance, there was the day when she was very keen to know if you were seeing Señora Carrington.’
‘Like hell.’
‘I assure you, it was so. She became quite excited.’
‘Who have you been listening to? Some of the people out here have got bloody twisted senses of humour.’
‘In this case I think the person was quite serious. Do you know Señora Carrington ?’
‘What if I do?’
‘Perhaps you are friendly with her?’
‘What are you getting at now?’
‘I wish only to discover the truth.’
‘Well, the truth about her doesn’t take much discovering. She’s one highly stuck-up bitch. Thinks herself no end of a creme de la creme, but I’m telling you she’s no smarter than the next bit of bint and she’s twice as scratchy.’
‘Señor, are you married?’
‘What’s that to do with anybody else if I am?’
‘And the señora lives here, with you?’
‘Where the hell d’you think my wife’s going to live?’ He stood up. ‘Señor, as you are English that is a question impossible to answer.’
Gordon Elliott lived on the north side of Llueso, in a modernized finca on a hill: from the garden, one could see both Llueso and Playa Neuva bays. He was tall and too thin for his height, so that he looked bean-poley. He
might have been considered good-looking but for the signs of weakness in his face, which made him appear perpetually apologetic. By contrast his wife, who was large if not exactly fat, looked as if she hadn’t ever apologized in the whole of her life.
Alvarez, as he stood in the entrance room which was also the sitting-room, explained the reason for his visit.
‘A very nasty business,’ said Avis, in her deep, masculine voice. ‘Of course we can see why you have to check up. So ask away. And do sit down — there’s no extra charge for using the chairs.’
He sat. ‘Señora, I regret, but the questions are for your husband.’
‘I realize that.’
‘Then I think it would be best if I spoke to him on his own.’
Her manner became frosty.
‘Avis, don’t you think it might be best if you left,’ said Elliott nervously.
‘There’s nothing,’ she snapped, ‘which you can possibly say which cannot be said in front of me.’ She stood in the centre of the room, hands on hips. Alvarez smiled patiently.
‘Very well! It’s the kind of thing one expects from this country. I’ll go into the village and do the shopping.’ She left, trailing her sharp annoyance behind her.
Elliott waited until they heard a car door slam before saying: ‘I’m afraid my wife gets a little impatient at times.’
‘It is a woman’s prerogative, señor. . . Now, if we may discuss Señorita Stevenage. She was a friend of yours?’
‘Oh no, not a friend. That is, if you mean someone we knew well and liked to see a lot of.’
‘But you did know her?’
They heard the car drive off. Elliott took a coloured handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead.
‘We knew her to speak to, of course. But nothing more than that. She didn’t go out much and anyway . . . Well, my wife didn’t like her. You must know what it’s like when the ladies take a dislike to someone. You just can’t talk them into being charitable.’
‘Was it, then, necessary to become charitable?’
‘I suppose that’s being very unkind. But Betty was. . .
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