Later that afternoon I homed in on Dorothy Winterton as she sat at a table on the terrace. She was wearing a green silk polka-dot dress, on her knee the Agência’s distinctive blue information booklet. The lavender-blue flowers of a nearby massaroco, the plant from which the hotel took its name, toned with the soft blue rinse of her iron-grey permed hair. Yesterday’s little outing with Celia didn’t appear to have done her much good. She looked as colourless and depressed as ever. Perhaps, of course, a morning spent in the company of Celia in full-blown artistic creativity would leave anyone looking limp and faded.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Winterton,’ I said brightly. ‘Enjoying the sunshine?’
‘Not really.’ Dorothy Winterton’s grey eyes peered at me over the top of the enormous lenses of her spectacles and her thin lips tightened to an almost invisible pale line.
Pointedly she raised a spindly arm and consulted her watch. ‘Five o’clock. That’s when it stated that your office hour would be held today.’ She stabbed at the Agência’s booklet to emphasize her point. ‘It is now,’ – she consulted the watch again – ‘three minutes past.’
From her disgruntled expression it was clear that no excuse would soothe the savage breast. Even, I’m so sorry. I was giving the kiss of life to Mr X who has just suffered a massive heart attack, or I’m sorry but I was telephoning the airport arranging for the ashes of Mr Y to be flown home. Both explanations would be treated as completely inadequate. I settled for an unqualified and abject apology.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Winterton. I shouldn’t have kept a valued client waiting. It will not happen again.’ I’d read her character correctly. A satisfied smile played briefly across her lips. ‘Now do let me order you a drink while I give you my undivided attention.’
She awarded me a nod of gracious forgiveness. ‘A glass of Henriques & Henriques, medium dry. Large.’ She levelled a sharp glance at me over the top of those enormous lenses. ‘I always go for the expensive. That way I can be sure of getting the very best.’
I waited till the glass of nutty brown Madeira and a thin slice of dark honey cake were set on the wicker table beside her, then asked, ‘Just how can I assist you, Mrs Winterton?
She didn’t reply immediately. Now that she had me at her disposal, Mrs Winterton seemed to be in no hurry to broach the urgent matter that had demanded my presence at precisely 5 p.m. She slid the Agência’s blue booklet back into her bag, took a leisurely sip from her glass and nibbled daintily at her cake before replying.
‘As you can imagine, the recent death of my husband has had a catastrophic effect on my health.’
I gazed across at her. Why did I have the feeling that far from being a cry from the heart, this was merely a device trotted out to elicit sympathy from the listener?
She pulled out a lace-edged handkerchief. ‘But when I chose Madeira to recuperate,’ – she took off her spectacles and dabbed daintily at her eyes – ‘I didn’t realize that there would be all those hills.’ She waved a thin arm. ‘Everywhere, hills.’ Again, her lips compressed into a tight line of discontent.
‘I’m not very fond of driving, you know, so I have decided I need a chauffeur-driven service—’ She broke off and delved into her capacious handbag.’
At home in England she’d probably potter along in her car, top speed 35 m.p.h., behind her a hooting backlog of frustrated drivers. As I reached into my briefcase for some leaflets, it slid from my knees. I leant forward to pick it up and caught a glimpse of some small packages beside the Agência’s booklet in the interior of her handbag.
She located and drew out some pages of newsprint and handed them to me, ‘I’ve seen some advertisements in that tourist paper The Madeira Times. Quality and reliability. That’s what I’m looking for. Which would you say was the best of these firms?’
‘There’s a good firm not far from the hotel. You can phone them, or go in person.’ I sketched a quick map on the back of the flyer and handed it over. ‘You’re most wise to choose a chauffeured car, Mrs Winterton. Most of the roads are impossibly narrow and steep, with dangerous hairpins and you’d have to cope with drivers who treat the road as a racetrack.’
‘Yes, you’re right, my dear. Peace of mind, that’s what I want.’ A look I couldn’t quite decipher flitted across her face.
She slipped the flyer into her bag and zipped it up, then with a curt nod headed off through the gardens in the direction of the hotel, her thin shoulders squared against anticipated onslaught from a hostile world.
Cultivate each one individually. Everyone has his secrets. I reviewed my little tête à tête with Dorothy Winterton. Everything she’d said and done had been in keeping with the stereotype of the elderly upper-class English lady abroad: the colonel’s widow, stuffily old-fashioned, self-centred and autocratic. And yet … how to explain those little discordant notes. What were the small plastic-wrapped packages glimpsed in the depths of her bag? Was she one of those foolish women who used their handbags as a portable safety deposit box for euro notes, passport and jewellery? Was that why the handbag sported a high security combination lock? Should I upgrade her from the bottom of my suspect list? Possibly yes.
No other guests sought me out. In contrast to yesterday, office hour today had been quiet. I snapped shut my briefcase and followed the route Mrs Winterton had taken through the grounds of the hotel.
The Hotel Massaroco prided itself on its gardens planted with clumps of the blue Pride of Madeira, flamboyant purple jacaranda and tumbling bougainvillea of every hue imaginable. Gardeners in wide-brimmed straw hats weeded the flowerbeds, ensuring everything was neat and tidy.
That’s why the crumpled piece of paper tossed carelessly into a flowerbed made me slow, then stop. I’ve always had a short fuse about sweet wrappers, empty cigarette packets and pieces of orange peel dropped for others to pick up. The offensive paper had lodged itself in a clump of thorny-leaved bushes. I reached over and extricated it from its resting place. As I tossed it into the wicker litterbin discreetly positioned only a few metres away, a gust of wind caught it, sending it fluttering back to the ground at my feet.
Staring up at me was the map I’d hastily sketched for Dorothy Winterton, the information she’d requested, the paper I’d last seen being carried away in her tightly zipped bag.
Cultivate each one individually. Everyone has his secrets. On Monday I turned my attention to David Grant, Exotic Cut Flower Exporter. It was still dark as I made my way to the Mercado dos Lavradores, the flower and fish market at the eastern end of the Avenida do Mar. Though I passed it every day on my way to the nearby police headquarters I’d never actually been inside. I’d had to spend all my time learning the ropes under the comandante and establishing my cover by visits to the Hotel Massaroco for the Agência, so any market activity was well and truly over when I finished work. All I’d seen of the market to date had been the blue and white picture-tiles at the entrance, and the women in their striped skirts and straw hats seated outside under the red tulip trees selling their exotic orchids, proteas and carnations from tall vases and wicker baskets.
Early as it was, the fruit and vegetable courtyard was crowded and noisy. From my position on the gallery above, I had a bird’s eye view of the stalls piled high with pyramids of oranges, greyish-green custard apples, lemons and wrinkled purple passion fruits.
On the other side of the courtyard, half hidden from me by the spreading branches of a tree and a bougainvillea-covered pergola, I spotted David Grant in close conversation with one of the flower sellers. I hurried down and positioned myself on the steps overlooking the covered fish market where he’d be sure to see me on his way to the traders’ car-park.
I half-turned away and stared down at the array of fish lying on the rows of tables running the length of the light airy hall. I didn’t have to feign an interest. The fish market was just as interesting in its own way as the flower market.
I didn’t see him approach. I was too busy exchanging stares with one of the huge-eyed espa
da fish, draped like a patent leather scarf over the marble slab. Midnight black like the ocean depths from which it came, it lay shrouded in diamond chips of ice, its gaping mouth edged with fearsome saw-like teeth.
‘Debs from the Agência, isn’t it?’
My thoughts elsewhere, I must have stared at him blankly.
A trifle disconcerted, he repeated, a shade less heartily, ‘Debs from the Agência?’
Quite often I’d seen him lolling at the far end of the bar, but we hadn’t even exchanged pleasantries. Why had he made a point of speaking to me now?
‘Mr … er – I’ve seen you at the Massaroco Hotel, haven’t I?’ My furrowed brow and distant smile indicated that I had no interest in him at all and couldn’t quite place him.
Wrong tactics. I saw the flicker of irritation.
‘It’s Grant. Dave Grant.’
A silence fell like a stone between us.
That had obviously not been the best way to make his acquaintance and peel back those layers to find the most suspicious circumstances in his background. Grant was the type who needed someone to feed his ego, hang on his every word, bolster his self-esteem.
The silence was broken by the high-pitched notes of Land of Hope and Glory trumpeting forth from the inner pocket of his linen suit.
He whipped the phone out and held it to his ear, ‘Grant. Yes, I’m in the market now,’ he bellowed. ‘The price of cymbidiums has risen to a high?’ A grunt. ‘It’s always the same story. End of season scarcity and market forces. Do I want the usual? Yes, good quality, mind you. None of those common colours. OK, I’ll take a hundred and twenty boxes.’
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and made a brief note on the small clipboard he carried.
I saw an opportunity to polish his ego. ‘One hundred and twenty boxes! I see I’m in the presence of a business tycoon.’
‘Well, Debs, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there.’ His lips stretched into a self-satisfied smile. ‘Want to see me in action? I’ve an order to pick up.’ He didn’t actually say, ‘I’ll grant you the privilege’, but his tone said it for him.
‘Oh, that would be interesting,’ I said, and meant it.
‘Right then.’ He turned briskly on his heel. ‘Follow me.’
We headed across black and white mosaic tiles to the flower stalls. He stopped at one stacked with more orchids than I’d ever seen en masse – green orchids, white, pink, cream, yellow. I recognized the familiar rounded blooms of the phalaenopsis or moth orchid, and the tiered spikes of cymbidiums with their strap-like leaves, but the purple daffodil-like types and the waxen-pouched oddities were new ones on me.
‘Just watch this.’ That smile took another curtain call.
The next few minutes were a revelation. A quick assessment of the flowers, a rapid negotiation of prices with the vendor, an entry on the clipboard, and the deal was done. Thoughtfully I made a note on a mental clipboard of my own. I was up against an astute and agile brain. Ruthless about beating down any opposition, quick to seize advantage of any weakness, he was certainly capable of running an illegal operation.
His fingers caressed my shoulder. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely amazing,’ I said honestly.
He nodded, matter-of-factly accepting the praise as merely his due.
I waved a hand at the organized chaos going on around us. ‘And I’d no idea that it would be as busy as this so early.’
‘Early?’ A snort of derision. ‘It’s eight o’clock. The market’s beginning to wind down. The rest of the morning’s a good show for the tourists, but the real business has already been done.’ His fingers tightened on my shoulder. ‘To play the market you’ve got to get out of bed early.’
On the word bed the pressure on my shoulder increased. His eyes wandered over me, assessing, undressing.
‘You mean, you’ve been here for hours already?’ I stepped back as if in amazement, forcing him to loosen his grip.
‘Since six. The early bird catches the worm, y’know, Debs. Have to beaver away. Can’t afford to let the other guy steal a march. Now that order there,’ – he tapped the clipboard – ‘I took a five minute break and that filho-da-puta’ – a nod in the direction of a swarthy middle-aged man – ‘got his foot in the door. But I snookered him on the next deal when—’
The chords of Land of Hope and Glory cut him short.
‘Y’see, Debs, I’m available 24/7.’ One eye closed in a meaningful wink. He held the phone to his ear. ‘Grant. Yes. Right away.’ He slipped the mobile back into his pocket. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Gotta go. See you later, Debs.’
What a beer-bellied, oily, smug, far from charming Prince Charming! That chat-up routine, arrogantly certain of success, held no interest for me. But something else did. I gazed after him speculatively. I had been keeping watch from the shadows on the first floor balcony of the flower market since 5 a.m. He’d said he’d been here since 6 a.m. but he hadn’t made an appearance till 7.30. I was absolutely certain of that, because if he had been (in oily Dave-speak) beavering around, that light suit would have stood out like a sore thumb among the dark jackets and shirt-sleeves of the locals.
David Grant, Cut Flower Exporter, didn’t know it but he’d just elevated himself to one of the prime suspects on my list.
I didn’t go back to my car immediately. A stroll along the seafront promenade would give me a chance to sift through the questions thrown up by my encounter with that ghastly lothario Grant. I’d just drawn level with the Beatles’ Boat café-bar when a luminous day-glow figure caught my eye. It was Zara Porter-Browne, draped like some exotic wilted orchid over the rail on the upper deck. Today her shoulder-length hair was a vivid emerald green, exactly matching the silk mini-tunic that set off her bronzed skin to perfection. Three days ago when I had watched her giggling tête-à-tête with the Playboy of the Western World, she had been an unremarkable brunette.
The early morning sun twinkled off the brass rails on either side of the drooping figure, throwing golden rays skywards like the searchlights of 20th Century Fox. From what I’d seen of Ms Porter-Browne, I’d have staked a bet that 8.30 a.m. was still the middle of the night for her. I stopped and took a closer look. She had probably been there all night. The silk tunic was crumpled, the green hair disarranged, the eye make-up smudged, the green eyes red-rimmed.
It was obviously not a good time to cultivate her acquaintance, but too late, unfortunately, to make a tactical detour round one of the pavement kiosks. I turned my head away and pretended a sudden absorbing interest in the bus disgorging its passengers at a nearby stop.
‘Yoohooo, Bo-a. No, no,’ – a wild giggle – ‘Debo-ah!’
I swung round, looked up in feigned surprise. ‘Oh, hi, Zara. Er … good party?’
A tipsy tear trickled down the side of Zara’s nose, leaving a pale trail through the green eye-shadow. Shakily she wiped it away, transferring a green smudge to the back of her hand. ‘There’sh something you should know, Deboah. Something not a lot of people know.’ She gave a watery sniff.
A long pause.
‘Yes?’ I ventured.
Zara prised herself into an almost vertical position. ‘Yesh, Deboah. I think you should know that … that I, Zaza Poata-Bowne, am an abandoned woman.’
Like a marionette whose strings had been cut, she flopped dramatically onto the deck in a shuddering green heap. ‘Chas has left me,’ she wailed.
If Charles Mason had indeed loved and left her, it could prove useful to find out what was behind it all. She was in no state to make her own way back to the hotel, so with the help of one of the café’s waiters I ladled her into a taxi. As it stuttered its way through the Funchal rush hour, she stared with vacant, glazed eyes at the grid-locked traffic.
Various approaches on the lines of, ‘Anything I can do to help?’ met with no response. We were nearing the hotel. There wasn’t much time to winkle something out of her. Perhaps a direct approach would open the flo
odgates.
I put an arm round her. ‘Something wrong between you and Charles, is there?’
Her shoulders shook in what I took to be a paroxysm of grief. I prepared myself for a torrent of tears, or a vengeful tirade on the lines of men are shit! But a high-pitched giggle ricocheted round the cab.
‘Zara!’ I gasped. ‘You’re not upset? I thought you said that Charles had … had.…’ I tailed off, lost for words. ‘Left you for another’, seemed too prissy and ‘dumped you’, somehow too brutal.
‘Caught him out, didn’t I, Deboah?’ She waggled an unsteady finger in my face. Another shoulder-heaving giggle. ‘He thought I was a dim bird who couldn’t spell.’
‘Spell?’ What on earth was she rambling on about?
Zara attempted to tap the side of her nose knowingly. After three near misses she stared morosely at the offending finger. ‘He bet me that I couldn’t spell my name.’
My mind raced, ranging over the possibilities – some kind of erotic game like strip poker, perhaps?
‘Well, that was an easy one, wasn’t it?’ she laughed scornfully. ‘But he cheated. Insisted I’d got it wong. How can you make a mistake with you-ah own name? Za-wa Poat-a Bw.…’ She tailed off chewing her lip. ‘Anyway … he was laughing like a dwain until I asked him to spell the name of that flashy watch of his, the … the … Wo–Wo—’
‘Rolex?’ I offered.
‘Yeah. Well, he wattled it off, W-o-l-e-x. So I said, “How come, then, how come, then, that watch on your wist spells it with two l’s?”’ She collapsed in a glissando of alcohol-fuelled giggles.
‘And he went off in a tiff, eh?’ I said casually.
‘He looked at me in a funny way and … and … pushed back his seat and went and sat at the back with his back to me.’ The giggles hiccupped into a series of snuffling sobs. ‘He wouldn’t speak to me again. Picked up a blonde and went off with the bitch.’
She raised a tear-stained face. ‘I’ve blown it. Messed it all up! I should nev-ah have said that.’
Suspects All ! Page 3