Suspects All !
Page 26
I knew he wouldn’t text me till the signal gave a strong indication of a new position, but the long delay began to alarm me. Had he lost his nerve? Had a furious comandante discovered that I’d gone against her orders and put a stop to the text messages?
At last, perleep perleep perleep peep peep. The message, Cabo Girão.
I had to wait an agonizing couple of minutes while yet another laden truck, followed by what seemed an interminable stream of cars, crawled past. At last I was on my way – at the tail end of the line and moving slowly, oh so slowly. The road was narrow and winding, offering no chance to overtake even one car. As we crept uphill, I fumed and fretted at every approaching side road, willing the truck’s indicator to blink.
I had time to ponder why Winterton had gone to Cabo Girão. It certainly wasn’t to enjoy the famous view from the miradouro. And what was she up to now? Was she at this very moment hiding the cat-carrier among the scrub on the headland? My grip on the wheel relaxed. If so, all I’d have to do was lurk till she’d driven off. Searching among the bushes might be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, but G would respond to me calling her name and blasts on the ultrasonic cat whistle. To rescue G wasn’t going to be so difficult after all. I managed a smile.
Time is relative, speeding up or slowing down depending on whether one dreads or looks forward to the coming event. Though it seemed to take an age to reach the turn-off to Cabo Girão, when I glanced at my watch I was surprised to find that barely twenty minutes had passed.
‘Not long now, G,’ I whispered as I drove along the stretch of tarmac road leading to the car-park.
The rain had cleared the headland, though inland, grey clouds were resting heavily on the shoulders of the mountains, leaving the air humid and cool. Tourists were conspicuously absent, the car-park almost deserted.
There’d been no message on the mobile. Winterton must still be here. Then I spotted her green car tucked inconspicuously behind a telephone engineer’s van near the low building that housed a small museum, café and toilets.
Desperate as I was to confront Winterton and snatch the cat-carrier from her, I sat in the car for a moment. Should I confront her? No, I couldn’t predict what might happen. It would be better to follow my plan and keep safely out of sight till she’d driven off.
I curled up on the back seat, willing the mobile to ring with the message that Winterton was on the move again. When she’d gone, I could start the search for G. I saw myself forcing my way through the bushes, calling her name, hearing her answering mew….
But what if Gorgonzola was still in Câmara de Lobos? Or what if Winterton took G with her when she drove off from here? Would it be better to make a discreet reconnoitre, even at the risk of coming face to face with Winterton? Should I remain in the car? I didn’t know it, but I was about to make what perhaps would be the most important decision of my life.
Time was running out. Winterton had already been here for half an hour. She might appear at any moment. The thought that G might be in the boot of the green car, only two hundred metres away, settled the matter. I couldn’t just lie here and do nothing. I had to know whether Winterton had brought the cat-carrier with her. All I needed to do was to open the boot with my picklock. Even if that activated the car’s alarm, I’d grab the carrier and be away.
Next moment I was out and running across the car-park. I peered through the green car’s windows. There was no sign of the carrier. Putting my ear to the cold metal, I tapped the boot.
‘G,’ I called softly. ‘G?’
No answering mew. No quiet thump of movement.
She might be lying in there, drugged or dead. I had to know. With shaking hands I fumbled with the picklock, inserted it in the lock and flung open the boot. Empty.
Had Winterton decided to hide the carrier on the viewpoint itself? I closed down the boot and looked around. The museum building and a small café stood between me and the paved area of the cliff top. From previous visits I knew that the centre of that paved area was taken up by a huge pine tree with spreading dark branches. Two large concrete blocks and a line of iron railings fenced off the drop to the sea. There was nowhere that a cat in a carrier could be hidden from the inquisitive pokings and pryings of the crowds of tourists who usually frequented the spot.
Perhaps she had taken the carrier from the car for safekeeping? G might be only a few metres away. My heart was pounding. I peered round the corner of the museum wall. Twenty metres away a lone figure was sitting with her back to me at one of the café tables. A woman, yes, but it wasn’t Winterton. No flowery straw hat, no silk dress, the mark of the aristocratic Englishwoman abroad. The woman wearing a cheap cotton sunhat, voluminous psychedelic-patterned shirt and coarse, baggy, sack-like trousers was merely an American tourist from one of the cruise ships in the harbour. I could have wept with disappointment.
Then she turned her head. Winterton. The huge spectacles, as distinctive as a fingerprint, revealed her true identity. Cup, teapot and crumb-strewn plate were indications that she had been indulging in her habit of taking afternoon tea, and accounted for the length of her stay at the Cabo.
As I watched, she bent down, reached for something under the table and rose to her feet. In her hand was the cat-carrier. She’d be returning to her car. Coming this way. I ducked back round the corner. Elderly woman though she was, I’d have no qualms whatsoever in knocking her to the ground. I braced myself for the coming assault that would restore G to me.
When there was no sound of footsteps, I risked another peek. To my surprise, Winterton was walking away from me towards the railings that protected the 600 metre drop to the sea. It was the purposeful stride that signalled her intention.
In a sudden flash of insight it all became clear. She’d make that promised telephone call from South America telling me where to find G. In that sweet old lady’s voice of hers she’d say, ‘Your cat is at Cabo Girão, Deborah. You’ll find her easily enough, I think.’ There’d be a long pause to raise my hopes and make the next words even more devastating. ‘Just look over the edge, my dear. The creature’s at the foot of the famous cliffs, but quite, quite dead, I fear.’
With her every step the distance to the railings was narrowing.
‘Sto—’ The word died to a whisper in my throat. Alerted by my shout, she’d whirl round, make a dash and hurl the carrier over before I could reach her.
In desperation I whipped the ultrasonic whistle out of my pocket and blew it as hard as I could. I heard nothing, neither did Winterton, but all at once the cat-carrier took on a life of its own, rocking and twisting violently, tearing itself out of her hand. It thudded to the ground, the catch released and Gorgonzola tumbled out. I sprinted towards her, but was still ten metres away when Winterton saw me.
‘Here, G! Here!’ I screamed.
But dazed or drugged, she just crouched there. Seizing the chance, Winterton grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and, with surprising agility for one of her years, clambered up onto the stone bench beside one of the concrete blocks.
‘Back off, Smith.’ Her eyes were icy cold. ‘Or your little friend here goes over the railings. The second highest cliffs in the world, aren’t they? Six hundred metres of free fall, though I may be over-estimating a little. The creature will enter the Guinness Book of Records, posthumously of course. And don’t think I’m bluffing. That fool, Mason, he got in my way, poked his nose in where it wasn’t wanted.’ A contemptuous snap of her fingers. ‘Disposed of. Gone!’
I took a couple of steps forward, measuring the distance for a desperate lunge. Now or never. I threw myself forward.
‘I warned you.’ Clutching Gorgonzola tightly to her chest, she stepped nimbly up onto one of the concrete blocks, level with the top of the railings.
She should have known that cats, especially frightened cats, hate to be held in a painfully tight grip. Their instinct is to claw and struggle to escape. Alley cat genes transformed G into a spitting, clawing, biting fury.
END GAME
Still in nightmares I hear that fading scream. Even more haunting was the silence that followed. Filled with an awful dread and with tears streaming down my face, I rushed to the railings and forced myself to look down. Far, far below, two blue fishing boats were drawn up on the grey sand beach, beside them, a tiny patch of psychedelic-coloured cloth.
I buried my face in my hands. ‘Oh, G,’ I sobbed. ‘G.’
If only I had backed off as Winterton had told me, perhaps, just perhaps, I could have negotiated some kind of deal. If only … if only …
People had materialized from nowhere as if a genie had rubbed his lamp. At first I was only dimly aware of the agitated voices behind me. Then a sharp elbow jostled me aside and I heard a shrill, ‘Look, look, down there!’ I couldn’t bear to hear any more, had half-turned to push my way through the excited throng, when the words, ‘Down there – something’s in that spiky bush’, stopped me in my tracks.
A spark of hope ignited in the darkness of my despair. I elbowed my way through to the railings and leant over as far as I dared. Three metres or so below, a fringe of aloes and blue-green prickly pear clung precariously to a bulge of rock before the cliff’s sheer drop to the sea. I blinked rapidly to clear eyes blurred with tears. Then I saw G – a mound of reddish-brown fur wedged between the fleshy segments at the base of one of the biggest aloes.
‘G,’ I whispered.
She was safe for the moment, but any attempt to respond to me, any movement, might tear off that fleshy leaf or loosen the plant’s shallow roots from the crumbling rock.
For a wild moment I contemplated climbing over the railing and somehow scrambling down to her. But that way lay death – for both of us: when I fell, as I inevitably would, G would be knocked from her precarious perch by my falling body.
What I needed was a rope and a ladder. And I’d seen one, not so long ago, on the roof of the telephone engineer’s van in the car-park. I didn’t stop to consider the practicalities of such a rescue. Heedless of the stares and comments, I shouldered my way through the knot of spectators and ran.
Please, please, let the van still be there…. I rounded the corner of the museum. I wasn’t too late. There it was. Out of the nearside window rose a thin grey spiral of cigarette smoke.
Curled on my lap in my London flat, G shuddered and mewed softly in her sleep. After that traumatic experience at Cabo Girão I wasn’t the only one who suffered from nightmares. I stroked her head gently.
‘It’s OK, G,’ I murmured. ‘You’re safe now.’ I pondered the irony of her rescue. ‘Saved by killer nicotine, eh, G? If Jorge and Ricardo hadn’t delayed their departure to take an unofficial smoking break, you wouldn’t be here.’
I’d run up to the telephone van and gasped out my request. Galvanized by the very substantial reward I’d offered, the engineers had ground out their cigarettes, rummaged in their van for safety harness and rope and hotfooted it to the railings.
I’d thrust my jacket into Ricardo’s hands as Jorge secured the rope. ‘If the cat struggles to escape, you’ll drop her. Grip her behind the head and wrap her up in this.’
Ricardo began his descent. I’d turned away, unable to watch. There was no way of telling how G would react.
‘And you recognized my scent, fastened your claws in the material, and Ricardo brought you back with no bother at all, you brave little girl.’
I tickled her behind the ears. She purred and relaxed.
‘It’s been a long journey. What we both need is a good night’s sleep.’
There had been no way, of course, that I could hide my involvement in Dorothy Winterton’s death. The flood of calls to 112, the Portuguese equivalent of 999, reporting an incident on Cabo Girão, soon came to Comandante Figueira’s ears. This, together with the message that Winterton’s mobile phone signal, last location Cabo Girão, had been lost, was enough to bring her in person to the scene. She found me cradling a trembling G and downing a glass of poncha to get over the shock to my system.
Having interrogated the little knot of police and paramedics, she’d advanced on me, thrust her face close to mine and hissed, ‘Winterton was our best lead. Our only lead. And it seems that you have once again blowed it. Please tell me, Sshmit, by what strange coincidence you are here when Winterton comes with the cat?’
Behind her Raimundo hovered anxiously.
‘It is no coincidence, Comandante,’ I said, all injured innocence. ‘The fact is—’ I caught Raimundo’s eye. ‘The fact is … I was in Câmara de Lobos,’ – I searched for a plausible reason and came up with – ‘hoping to find Haxby at her easel in her usual spot. You see,’ I smiled guilelessly, ‘a photograph of the painting she was working on would be evidence in the case HMRC is bringing against her for using fake art as a cover for her money laundering activities. And then, Comandante,’ I injected a note of excitement, ‘who should I see but Winterton driving past! I thought to myself, The mobile phone contact may have been lost. Perhaps the Comandante doesn’t know where she is. I’d better follow her.’
Justinia Figueira’s eyes narrowed. She knew a dodgy story when she heard one. ‘Where Winterton went, it did not matter.’ She stamped her foot. ‘Idiot! We wait till she walks into the airport, and then we have the woman.’
I’ll draw a veil over the rest of the scene – suffice it to say that Raimundo was detailed to escort me, and Gorgonzola, to the airport to catch that evening’s London flight. For the second time within a fortnight, it had been an ignominious adeus to Madeira.
Ahead lay a debriefing session with Jim Orr. Judging from his terse note demanding my presence at the office, the comandante had already apprised him of my second ejection from Madeira. But my mood was buoyant – mission accomplished, drug ring broken.
I spread a thick layer of marmalade on my breakfast toast and propped up the newspaper against the teapot. ‘What we both need, G, is a holiday somewhere quiet: a little country cottage, or a B&B that takes cats….’ A newspaper headline momentarily halted my coffee cup halfway to my lips.
ART WORLD SHAKEN BY AUDACIOUS FRAUD
Michael Coggins, 36, owner of the prestigious St Ives gallery, Avant-Garde Art, appeared yesterday at Truro Magistrates Court charged with forgery and fraud. He and co-accused, artist Celia Haxby, 43, are alleged to have sold works of art in the knowledge that the signatures of the artists were not genuine. All the paintings were passed off as the work of famous artists and were sold for considerable sums of money. Coggins also faces a second charge of money laundering.
The Crown opposed bail due to the serious nature of the charges and fears that the accused might abscond. Coggins and Haxby have been remitted for trial at Truro Crown Court at the beginning of July.
‘What’s the bet that Haxby’s paintings of prison bars will pass for Modern Art and make her fortune, G?’
I looked over to where Gorgonzola was sitting, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the radiator and swaying gently to the melancholy notes of a Portuguese fado playing quietly in the background. Recalling how relaxing she’d found the Spanish madrilena music on that assignment in Tenerife, I’d bought her a fado CD at the airport.
And I too had received an unexpected present at the airport. With a conspiratorial wink, Raimundo had thrust a last minute gift into my arms in recognition of our little secret. Now, on my windowsill, five orange and blue strelitzia flowers pointed imperious beaks towards a grey London sky.
In a sense, Comandante Justinia Figueira was with me still.
By the Same Authors
No Suspicious Circumstances
Under Suspicion
Above Suspicion
Copyright
> © Helen and Morna Mulgray 2011
First published in Great Britain 2011
This edition 2012
ISBN 978 0 7198 0725 1 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0726 8 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0727 5 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9281 0 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of The Mulgray Twins to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988