Suspects All !

by Helen Mulgray

‘Busy?’ I said. Perhaps I’d got it all wrong. Perhaps her enthusiasm for detective work had flitted out of her butterfly head as quickly as it had come. ‘You mean at the hairdresser? What’s happened to the green hair?’

  She straightened up, her breathing more under control. ‘Yes, it’s a disguise. All part of being a PI, a private investigator, you know.’

  ‘Disguise?’ It was as bad as I’d feared. Worse, as it turned out.

  Zara did a little jig of excitement. ‘I thought of everything: if the maids saw me coming into the old cow’s room, I’d say that the Agençia had sent me.’

  I walked to the bench and sat down heavily. ‘You’d better tell me all about it.’

  She followed me over. The words tumbled out of her. ‘… so there I was standing behind the shower curtain. When I heard the maids leave, I nipped out and rummaged through her stuff.’ Her face clouded. ‘Didn’t find anything, though.’

  Sweat filmed my forehead. ‘But … but … if Mrs Winterton notices her things have been disturbed she’ll know that someone has searched her room.’

  Zara laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Debs. I put everything back more or less where I found it.’

  More or less where she’d found it. Oh, my God! I stared at her.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how I managed to be so good at all this private eye work, aren’t you?’ She tapped the side of her nose knowingly. ‘I’ll give you a clue – Plum and Millhone.’

  If there had been a wall nearby, I’d have beaten my head against it. ‘So that explains this early morning jog?’

  She clapped her hands delightedly. ‘You’ve got it. When Kinsey’s trying to figure out her next move, a three-mile jog gets the little grey cells working.’

  Little grey cells! The catchphrase of Hercule Poirot. Now she was morphing into him!

  ‘And what have you come up with?’ I dreaded the answer.

  She jumped to her feet. ‘I’m off to search her sidekick Haxby’s room, of course. Ciao.’ Zara Plum-Millhone and her Nikes trotted off.

  Victorian ladies would have been left with an attack of the vapours, but twenty-first-century ladies are made of sterner stuff. I headed for the bar and a very strong black coffee.

  I was always surprised how the heat built up in the tiny office space allotted to me by the comandante even when there was little sun. I went through the routine of flicking the ceiling fan to high and throwing the window wide open. Zara’s amateurish search of Winterton’s room – and presumably Haxby’s – was a time bomb ticking away. But with less than seventy-two hours left to come up with results or be slung out of Madeira, I had more pressing things on my mind.

  I settled down to write an email to London with attached photographs of Haxby’s paintings. I red-flagged the message as urgent and clicked on the Send button.

  That done, I decided I might as well try to nail David Grant too: the high security on the orchid farm, his over-reaction to me seeing those plants behind the locked doors of his laboratory. Smuggling rare orchids into Britain – could that be Grant’s little dodge? If so, HM Revenue & Customs would most certainly be interested. I was certain that it all added up. Another query email winged its way, this time to DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

  I put copies of the sent emails in the filing cabinet and turned my attention to the contents of the in-tray. It usually contained, if anything, sharp notes from the comandante and so was never my first port of call, on the principle that if I hadn’t read them I couldn’t act on them. And indeed, there was a message waiting for me in my in-tray.

  I picked up the first sheet of paper. There were only three words, printed in bold capitals. TWO DAYS, SMITH; tomorrow the message would be, ONE DAY, SMITH; and on Monday, SMITH, TOMORROW ADEUS. I crumpled the paper into a ball and lobbed it out of the window in direct defiance of the comandante’s anti-litter campaign.

  I picked up the remaining sheet of paper in the in-tray. As I scanned it, my pulse quickened. Raimundo had come to my aid again. Clipped to the paper was a police mug shot of Silvestre Gonçalves, the man I’d seen on the videotape in the Massaroco Hotel gardens. The most memorable thing about him were his ears, close to the head but very long and slightly cupped. His hairline had receded to leave a U-shaped bald patch with an island of sparse hair on the centre top of his forehead. A light stubble covered cheeks and chin.

  I skimmed the attached official report that Raimundo had dug out of the files for me. Unemployed … small time crook and known associate of drug dealers … three previous convictions for carrying and small-scale dealing … seen in the company of Roberto Gomes on several occasions. I let out my breath in a sigh of disappointment. No new lead here after all.

  Then I saw the lines scrawled at the foot of the page.

  My second cousin, Maria, she lives in the Curral and cleans the church there. She tells me that she has seen him many times in the cemitério in the early morning. He does not have family buried there, so she tells me about his visits as she knows information like this is useful to a policeman.

  The Curral das Freiras, the Nun’s Valley, was a spectacular crater-like hollow surrounded by towering peaks, forty-five minutes’ drive from Funchal and only accessible by mountain path till sixty years ago. I’d visited it by bus a couple of times. The information Maria had passed on to Raimundo wasn’t much to go on, but it was all I had. I pulled out a map from the drawer. The village of Curral das Freiras lay deep in the mountains north-west of Funchal and directly north of Câmara de Lobos. A deep ravine slashed through from the village towards the sea; a dotted line marked a rough footpath ending at the main road above Câmara. I picked up the map and went in search of Raimundo.

  I found him crouching down behind his car securing the exhaust with a piece of wire. He spread out the map on the bonnet of the car.

  ‘Ah, senhora, many old paths lead into the valley, and there is indeed a path as you say, along the Ribeira dos Socorridos but it is very, very dangerous, so dangerous that walkers are warned about it. There have been many fatal accidents. In old times the path over the mountain pass was the most important route into the Curral, but it is three hours’ walk and you have to have the feet of a mountain goat. You are not thinking of taking that path?’

  I could tell by his voice that it wouldn’t be a good idea. ‘No, no,’ I hastened to reassure him. ‘But it would be possible, for someone who is familiar with the mountains?’

  He nodded. ‘Of course. But there is a shorter way. An easy path starts here.’ He stabbed a finger down on the map. ‘Behind the miradouro at Eira do Serrado it goes down the cliff through the chestnut trees. In less than an hour you are down at the Curral walking through the streets of the village.’

  He slipped behind the wheel and started the engine. Clang clank clang clank clang clank. I grabbed the map just before it slid off the bonnet and bent down to the open window.

  ‘That information from Maria might be worth following up,’ I howled above the din. ‘I think I’ll take the cat for a sniff around the Curral cemetery.’

  And no time like the present. I could go all the way to the Curral by bus. The buses were usually full, so I’d have the advantage of arriving as one face in the crowd. The snag was Gorgonzola. No way would G lie low in a rucksack for the hour’s bus journey. Her antics would make me a talking point and the focus of attention. Going all the way there by car would involve driving round hairpin bends with a drop of a thousand metres on one side, which I didn’t fancy a bit. Besides, down in the village there was nowhere to tuck away the car, nowhere that I wouldn’t be seen stuffing a reluctant G into my rucksack. I decided to take the car to the miradouro, park there, and go the rest of the way on foot by that path down though the chestnut trees.

  Up, up I drove, past the stands of eucalyptus trees, a wooden army of ramrod-straight camouflage-mottled trunks. Up, up past the mimosas smudged with the sulphur yellow of tiny pompom flowers. Ten minutes later I was looking down on
the tops of these same trees, level with the low clouds that drifted wraithlike through the branches of pines and laurel. The air was colder now. I closed the car window and concentrated on the narrow, winding road ahead.

  A blue notice, Eira do Serrado, marked the entrance to a cobbled lane snaking off to the right. I drove carefully up it and parked outside the building that served as tourist centre and hotel. Leaving Gorgonzola catnapping on the warmth of the just-vacated driver’s seat, I sat down in the weak sunshine outside the café and ordered a milky galão and a large piece of chestnut cake to fortify me for the walk down into the village. I sipped and ate, watching chiffon scarves of mist trail round the jagged peaks and fluffy kapok-ball clouds chase each other across the bare slopes, casting patches of blue shadow on the other side of the valley. From the village far below, sharp in the clear air, drifted up the excited barking of a dog and the chime of church bells.

  Back at the car, I yanked the door open. ‘Come on, then, you pampered cat. Walkies!’

  With G stepping daintily ahead of me at the end of her lead, I set off along the narrow path winding steeply downwards through the chestnut trees. Last year’s leaves rustled crisply underfoot and through the grey haze of bare branches I could just make out, far below, a scatter of red roofs.

  Halfway down, the head-high tree heathers edging the path thinned, revealing the road, a narrow grey tarmac strip corkscrewing down from Eira do Serrado to the Curral, the white blocks of its safety barrier a frail protection against a 300-metre drop. Several hundred metres above on the cliff edge the treetops were tossing in the wind, but down here, sheltered by the shoulders of the mountain, all was still. Tukk tukk tukk. A bird’s sharp clear call rang out like a hammer chipping away at stone, its source impossible to pinpoint in the sounding bowl of the mountains.

  The lead in my hand tightened. G was in stalking mode, homing in on a tiny blue-grey lizard basking in the sun, its splayed fingers suckered to the rock. Just as her muscles bunched to pounce, a lizard eye swivelled and, with a flicker of movement her prey was gone.

  ‘Mind on job, G,’ I said a trifle unfairly as her job was not going to begin till we got to the cemetery.

  I would set G loose there to sniff. If drugs were being brought in over the mountains or along that dangerous levada track from Câmara de Lobos, what better place to leave packets than amongst graves? Who’d think of rummaging in a mound of funeral wreaths or upending a vase of flowers? If any drugs were stashed away, G would find them.

  And if she didn’t? If I reported back to the comandante empty-handed, three days from now I’d be boarding a plane at Funchal Airport. David Grant, Exotic Cut Flower Exporter, would no doubt hear of my deportation and be there to give me a triumphant two-fingered salute from the public viewing terrace.

  ‘I’m relying on you, G, to save the day,’ I said.

  At the first signs of cultivation I stopped, shrugged off the rucksack and opened it invitingly. ‘OK, G, time to rest your paws, time to go undercover.’

  I didn’t have to ask twice. With a plaintive miaoow she leapt in, and before I’d time to unhook the lead, sank into the depths of the rucksack with a longsuffering sigh. I wasn’t taken in. It was just her little ploy to make me feel sorry for her, ensure a bigger helping of food in her bowl this evening.

  With G safely out of sight, I descended a steep flight of steps and headed off in the direction of the church. Leaning on the cemetery wall, I looked down at a line of cypress trees standing sentinel over a grit path lined with low box hedges. Somehow I’d expected the cemetery to be overgrown and neglected, affording hiding places a-plenty for illicit packages. To my surprise, it was well tended: a mass of flowers and an ornate white or black metal cross marked each low mound.

  I descended the short flight of steps, pushed open the gate and let G out of the bag under cover of the cone-shape bulge of the first cypress tree, running my finger round her collar to remind her of her sniffing duties.

  ‘Search!’ I pointed in the direction of the nearest grave.

  I watched as she stepped carefully round the collection of glass and silver vases filled with white carnations and lilies. While she continued to work her way methodically along the double row of crosses, I trailed after her along the path, reflecting, as one does in such surroundings, on those who have died – a young man smiling shyly out from an oval plaque; an old woman, her once-red cardigan bleached pink by the sun; a man standing stiffly proud in his Sunday suit, carnation in buttonhole. The distant shouts of children and the sharp clink clink of a hammer seemed to underline the unbridgeable gulf that separates us, the living, from the dead.

  ‘Poignant, eh, G,’ I said, when I caught up with her in a slightly neglected area at the far end of the cemetery. Here, half-a-dozen metal crosses were propped haphazardly against the wall of the church, the photographs of the dead water-marked and faded, the flowers plastic and leached of colour.

  G had abandoned her search and was sitting on the lid of a sarcophagus constructed of flat slabs standing on end. Eyes closed, she was swaying gently, her face lifted to the warm sun.

  ‘How about earning your keep and finishing the job?’ I said sharply. Disappointment at her failure to find anything had made me edgy.

  Her eyes opened. Affronted by the unfairness of the reprimand, she stared at me for a moment, then narrowed her eyes and sheathed and unsheathed her claws. Guiltily I reached out to pat her head, but she sprang out of reach. Stiff-legged she walked slowly to the edge of the slab and, with an expressive wiggle of her bottom, leapt down into the narrow gap between the sarcophagus and the wall of the church. From experience I knew that she’d play hard to get till she judged that I’d realized the error of my ways.

  Despondently I sank down on the lid of the sarcophagus and leant back, eyes closed, face turned to the sun. It seemed that those visits by Gonçalves to the cemetery had an innocent explanation, after all. I’d been so sure I was on the verge of a breakthrough, had anticipated snapping the cuffs, so to speak, on Winterton and her sidekick, Haxby. Morosely I contemplated the now inevitable ignominious send-off and the equally ignominious reception in London.

  The hornet-like buzz of a motor scooter on the road above, almost drowned by the loud rustle of leaves turned over by G’s questing paw, infiltrated these gloomy thoughts.

  ‘Sorry, G,’ I sighed. ‘How could you possibly find something that wasn’t there? It was mean of me to take out my frustrations on you. I’ll make it up to you tonight with—’

  The rustling stopped. Two paws followed by a gingery face appeared above the stone lid, only to vanish abruptly.

  I looked over at the mountainside and the towering buttresses of rock. Somewhere up there was the path that I’d descended so hopefully such a short time ago. I’d planned to return the same way, but since there was no drug drop-off in the Nun’s Valley, it didn’t matter now if I attracted attention by carrying a cat in a rucksack.

  I levered myself off the sarcophagus and set the rucksack down on the ground. ‘C’mon, G. Let’s go for the bus.’

  From the narrow gap, no sound, no movement.

  ‘C’mon, G. The bus. We’ll miss the bus.’

  The rustling among the dried leaves recommenced with a new vigour. She was still miffed and I had only myself to blame.

  ‘No need to be like that, G. I’ve said I’m sorry, haven’t I?’

  The rustling stopped. Silence. At the far end of the cemetery, the gate sque-a-ked open and cla-nged shut. At that moment, purr purr purr, the sound I’d given up hope of hearing, rose softly up from behind the sarcophagus.

  G was signalling a find.

  ‘Atta girl, G.’ I flung myself across the stone lid and peered into the gap.

  A pair of copper eyes stared back at me. She was sitting in front of a triangular hole between two of the upright slabs – a hole that before G’s excavations would have been well-hidden by a thick pile of dead leaves. I reached down and groped in the cavity. My fingers touched sacki
ng, touched – and pushed the object further into the hollow interior of the tomb.

  ‘I should have trained you to fetch, G,’ I grunted, straining to reach in just that little bit more. The edge of the stone bit painfully into my armpit as I inserted my hand and wrist into the hole as far as I could, curving my fingers in an effort to get a grip on the object. Again my fingers made contact with it, only to push it further in. Another nudge and it would be out of reach.

  ‘If only I had claws like yours, G,’ I muttered.

  I withdrew my hand from the cavity and rested for a moment. Perhaps I could make use of G to hook the packet out? I picked up a couple of dead leaves, held them inside the cavity, and closed my hand. Scrunch.

  G stiffened and her ears pricked up. She lowered her head and stared intently into the aperture. Scrunch, rustle. I whipped away my hand. She quivered. A clawed paw streaked into the aperture. Thunk. It hooked onto the sacking. She withdrew her paw. And with it, the packet.

  ‘Well done, G. You’re a star.’ I tickled her behind the ears and patted her head.

  Her long loud purrr signified acceptance of praise due.

  Gripping the packet, I wriggled backwards and levered myself upright, then sat there brushing the dirt off my knees. The sacking-wrapped package of drugs weighed about half a kilo. But anyone could have put it there. I needed to link this packet to Gonçalves. We already had the CCTV evidence of a connection between him and a woman at the Massaroco, so.…

  As I sat there in the warm sunshine, the key to the operation in my hands if only I knew how to turn it, the rustling resumed in the depths of the narrow gap behind me. G was making further probings of that enticing cavity, on her mind something very different from the problem that I was grappling with.

  Two quick footsteps crunch crunched on the grit path. A rough hand snatched at the package in my hands.

  ‘I’ll take that.’ Gonçalves was looming over me, his face contorted with rage.

  The package was torn from my grasp. I lunged forward and made a grab, knocking it from his hand. It sailed through the air and thumped down beside the stack of metal crosses. I got there first, but only just. His full weight landed on top of me. As I gasped for air, he plucked the package from my unresisting hand and scrambled to his feet. A kick aimed at my head gave me the chance to clutch his boot and give a quick upward heave. Off balance, he staggered back and fell with a crash onto the stack of crosses.