*
Dolores put the earthenware bowl of soup on the dining table, by the side of the basket of oven-dried thinly sliced bread.
‘Caldereta!’ said Jaime enthusiastically.
She stared at Alvarez and saw that his attention was far away: a look of annoyance spread over her handsome, regal face. ‘Perhaps some people expected something far better?’
‘Hurry up, Mum,’ said Juan, with all the impatience of a starving eleven-year-old.
Jaime kicked Alvarez under the table.
‘God Almighty!’ Alvarez exclaimed, as he leaned over to rub his shin.
‘Wake up, Uncle,’ said Juan delightedly.
‘Do you want some soup?’ asked Isabel.
‘Anything that’s going.’
‘Get your uncle a slice of bread and some cheese,’ said Dolores, with disdain.
Very belatedly, Alvarez realized what the trouble was. ‘Caldereta! Wonderful!’
Jaime chuckled. ‘Three parts asleep. Spent the afternoon with the widow along the road, I suppose.’
‘Jaime!’ snapped Dolores.
‘Only joking.’
She served, putting three slices of bread into each plate and then ladling the fish soup over it.
The telephone rang as Dolores, helped by Isabel, was clearing away the soup plates. Alvarez answered it.
‘London’s just been through to us, Enrique,’ said one of the guards from the post. ‘They confirm that the woman in the flat is Señora Waite.’
‘Confirm? … But she can’t be.’
‘That’s what the message said.’
‘I tell you, it’s impossible.’
‘Argue it out with them, mate, not me.’
The guard said a brief goodbye and cut the connection. Alvarez stared blankly at the wall, the receiver still in his hand.
‘Are you coming back,’ Dolores called out, ‘or shall I keep your food warm?’
He returned to the dining-room and sat.
‘You look as if that was bad news,’ she said, suddenly worried.
‘It’s going to be very bad news when I report it tomorrow morning to Salas.’
Jaime pushed a bottle of wine across the table. ‘Tomorrow’s tomorrow. Drink and enjoy what’s left of today.’
CHAPTER 20
In his office, Alvarez replaced the telephone receiver. There had not been any need for Salas to have been quite so sarcastic: every man made mistakes at some stage of his career, even the Salases of the world.
He stared through the unshuttered window at the sun-blasted wall of the house on the opposite side of the road. So the woman in the flat was Señora Waite: she had received Erington in her bed, even though she knew him to be her mother’s gigolo: Erington had been in England throughout Saturday night and Sunday morning and so he had not murdered Señora Lund.
He lit a cigarette. Erington wasn’t the murderer, so who was? Who else had the motive, the opportunity, the will to murder … ? Matas? Or the señor who, according to Victoriana, had borrowed money from the señora and had then been asked to pay a wicked amount of interest which he couldn’t afford? Or Trent, who had proudly refused to be her gigolo? … Even if one accepted that murder could be committed for slight motives, was it really reasonable to believe that any of those motives could have been sufficient?
What had he been taught all those long and only half-remembered years ago in Barcelona? In every crime, look to the motive: motive identifies the criminal as surely as his fingerprint. When there were hundreds of millions of pesetas at stake, how could the motive be anything but the money? Yet only Erington inherited …
Dear God, a man could destroy his brain by too much worrying. Forget it.
He stared at the tangle of papers on his desk and thought that he really ought to start work on them. But not just yet …
Alvarez had had to speak to a man down in the Port and he was driving back to Llueso when, for no immediately discernible reason, he suddenly remembered something Victoriana had said to him. ‘Looks quite nice now, doesn’t she?’ At the time it had meant nothing. But now … ?
He carried on past the football ground and turned right on to the Festona road, slowed for the dirt track, and bounced over the pot holes to Ca Na Nadana.
Ana opened the front door and he asked if Victoriana was in? ‘She’s still here, yes, but she’ll be leaving later on. The señor says he only needs one of us to run the house now it’s just him living here.’ It was impossible to judge from her manner how she felt about this.
‘I want a word with her. And is the señor here?’
‘He drove into Palma earlier on.’
He went into the sitting-room and several seconds later there were several short, sharp yaps as Lulu reached the doorway through which he’d just passed. She waddled across to sniff his trousers. Eventually recognizing him, she wagged her tail. He bent down and stroked her.
Victoriana, dressed in a brilliantly coloured frock, walked into the room.
‘Good morning, señorita. I hear you are leaving here?’
‘Kicked out, just like that,’ she answered bitterly. ‘Been working here for nearly three years, but that doesn’t mean anything to him. These foreigners all think they can treat us like slaves.’
‘After three years, surely he can’t dismiss you just like that? Not with the law on employment as it is now.’
She looked slyly resentful. ‘Well, he did give me a bit of cash. But with all his money and after three years, you’d have thought he’d have made it more.’
It was easy to judge that what she really resented was Erington’s refusal to consider marrying her. ‘Señorita, I have to check something with you. Do you remember the first day I came to this house: just after you’d found the señora dead?’
‘Not likely to forget that in a hurry, am I? Keep having nightmares of finding her dead again.’
‘I asked you a lot of questions, one of which was about the photo of her daughter which was on the dressing-table in her bedroom.’
‘Did you?’
‘I wanted to know if the woman in the photo was the señora’s daughter. You said yes, she was, and didn’t she look quite nice now … What made you say that?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘It’s the “now” I’m interested in.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘Señorita, why did you say “now”, as if some time previously things had been different? Hadn’t the daughter always looked nice?’
‘Not before, she didn’t. Every time I looked, I thought what a bad-tempered, spoiled kid she must have been.’
‘Every time you looked at what? A different photo? One taken when the daughter was much younger?’
‘That’s what I’ve just said, isn’t it?’
‘How old d’you think she was in the other photo?’ he asked, with endless patience.
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. Ten, maybe.’
‘And when was that photo changed: recently?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How recently?’
‘Can’t rightly say. When something’s always there, you don’t really notice it, do you?’
‘Then when was it that you first realized the photo had been changed?’
She thought back. ‘Can’t really remember seeing it before the Sunday. I opened the curtains and pushed the shutters back and turned and noticed the different photo before looking at her to see if she was awake …’ She became silent.
He ought to have realized the significance of the photo very much sooner: a clever man would certainly have done so. The señora had disinherited her daughter: in those circumstances, was it likely she would ever have replaced a photo of her daughter when young and still under her dominion with one taken when her daughter had become antagonistically independent? … Erington had changed the photos.
And because one key had turned and opened one lock, now another turned to open a second one. Those letters from Samantha to her mother. T
wo envelopes had been crumpled but the sheets of papers inside had not been: the dates of three of the letters had not matched the postmarks of the envelopes. At the time, sentimentally he had projected a sentimental reason for the facts … Even to tear drops … But now, with hindsight, he could see design, not sentiment. The envelopes, containing something unimportant, perhaps advertising material, had been sent to the señora: two of them had been crumpled up and thrown away by her before Erington had been able to retrieve them. The letters to go inside the envelopes had been sent to Erington and in three cases the writer had forgotten to correlate the dates. The reason for all this? So that Dolly Lund’s fingerprints would be on the envelopes to prove she had handled them. (A totally wasted precaution because a slow-witted inspector in the Cuerpo General de Policia had never stopped to doubt that she had!) The woman who had written and posted the letters, which were to verify her own identity, was the woman who had been living as Samantha Waite in London. Because Erington was a clever man, he had foreseen the possibility that doubts would be cast on her identity and so he had provided the proof of the lie …
‘Is there anything more you want?’ asked Victoriana impatiently.
He started. ‘What’s that?’
‘I’ve got to catch the bus to Inca and time’s getting on. If I miss this one, I’ll have to hang around for hours and the sooner I get clear of this place, the better I’ll like it.’
‘Of course, señorita. I’m sorry to have taken up your time. But just before you go, I need your home address.’
After she had left the room, he walked over to one of the windows and stared out at the kidney-shaped swimming pool, doubly inviting in the brilliant sunshine. All right, the woman in flat 3a was a fraud. But that still left one very important question unanswered. How had Erington managed to fly to the island, drive from Palma to Llueso and back again, and fly to London, all without leaving the slightest trace of his passing? Why hadn’t Carolina Cardell, suffering from toothache, heard a car go past since she’d been awake for much of the night? Of course she could have slept more often and for longer than she thought, but wouldn’t the passing of a car have awakened someone sleeping so fitfully? … Only the Mobylette had passed at about two in the morning. (That prompted the thought that he’d never checked up to make certain whether the bike had been ridden by one of the four people with land further up the track. But unless one of them had an animal ill — and then the old couple would surely have known about it — it was difficult to accept that it could have been any of them.) Could Erington have been riding the Mobylette? Palma to Llueso and back was about a hundred and ten kilometres and that was far too long a journey for such a vehicle. In any case, the bike had returned along the track only half an hour afterwards, one and a half hours before the estimated time of death …
Suppose he had been Erington, planning this murder. Then obviously, knowing how essential it was that no one recognized him, the entire journey became dangerous. A fellow passenger on either plane might live in Llueso. There were always couriers at the airport, waiting for incoming flights or seeing off passengers on outgoing ones, and several couriers lived in either Llueso or Puerto Llueso … The odds against arriving and departing without being seen were really too great to be risked …
He suddenly swore aloud. God had granted him few brains, but at least he might have used those which he had been given. Ca Na Nadana was six kilometres from the Port and what easier than to ride up from there on one of the very small motorized bikes which many boats carried …
Now it was all so obvious that the only point of mystery was how it could have taken him so long to discover the truth. Erington had flown from London to Menorca, where no one knew him. He had set sail in a motor yacht, previously chartered, and had crossed to Mallorca, specifically Puerto Llueso, a voyage which might have taken under two hours. He’d anchored in the bay, gone ashore in the tender, taking the motorized bike with him, and ridden the bike from the Port to Ca Na Nadana, passing the old couple’s home just after two. (The doctor, annoyed this was necessary because he was a man of much precision, had warned against accepting his estimate of the time of death.) He’d used a key to enter the house, had gone upstairs and had murdered Dolly Lund. He’d returned to the Port, set sail for Menorca, flown to London …
So now there were more facts which had to be checked. Who had recently chartered a fast motor yacht in Menorca? Had the harbourmasters of either Ciudadela or Puerto Llueso noted the passage of the yacht …
*
At six-forty-eight on Monday evening, Erington replaced the telephone in the hall of Ca Na Nadana and swore. Carol had said she was very sorry, but she wasn’t free tonight. Nor tomorrow night. She’d been lying. Refusing to go out with him because she believed the rumours, which must inevitably be circulating, that it had been he who had murdered Dolly? He shook his head. She would never think the worst of anyone until circumstances positively forced her to do so — it was this stubborn belief in goodness which had always so attracted him. Then the reason had to be that she had become too friendly with Trent. Which was absurd. A mechanic, straight from the slums, when he could offer her wealth untold …
He walked through the sitting-room to the patio. Wasn’t he really a fool to bother with her any more? When she walked into a restaurant, no heads would turn. Her natural milieu was a semi-detached in Tonbridge, not the Pink Suite in the Parelona Hotel. Now that he was no longer a middle-aged woman’s impecunious gigolo, but was rich, surely he was not going to be a fool to search for something he no longer needed?
Ana walked out on to the patio. ‘There is a señor who wishes to speak to you.’
She amused him. Now that Victoriana had left, she had become even more reserved than before. Did she fear that one night he’d try to break into her bedroom? … She could always allay such fears by looking at a mirror. ‘Who is it?’
‘Inspector Alvarez.’
He sighed as he sat. ‘Like the bad penny, always turning up … OK, bring him out here. And since he’s a thirsty type, wheel out the drinks.’ He lit a cigarette as she returned indoors. How much longer before the bungling detective finally managed to put two and two together and accepted that the evidence proved he’d had nothing to do with Dolly’s death?
When Alvarez came out of the house, he nodded and said hullo, but did not bother to get to his feet and shake hands. He was rich now.
‘Señor, with your permission I have a few questions.’
‘Heaven only knows how you can dredge up any more … Grab a seat. There’s no extra charge for sitting.’ As Alvarez settled, he said: ‘What is it this time? What did I have for breakfast a week ago?’
‘No, señor. When were you last in Menorca?’
The question shocked him and his previous thoughts returned to mock him: how much longer before the bumbling detective managed to put two and two together? He gained time by offering cigarettes and then lighting them. ‘The only time I’ve been on that island is something around a year ago. Dolly, in a rare burst of enthusiasm, decided she wanted to explore Menorca, so we booked a hotel for three days and went over in the morning with our car on the ferry from Playa Neuva. By the end of the afternoon we’d been everywhere and seen everything, so we returned that same evening.’
‘Did you not fly to Menorca from London a week ago last Saturday?’
‘I most certainly did not.’
‘And did you not hire a car from Hertz at Mahon airport and drive to Ciudadela?’
Erington felt an icy cold settle in his stomach, yet the sweat was breaking out on his forehead and his body.
‘And did you not sail from Cuidadela in a motor yacht called Pariki Three which you had earlier chartered, by telephone, for a fortnight?’
He struggled to overcome the fog of panic and gratefully saw Ana wheel out the cocktail cabinet. After she had told them there were stuffed olives, toasted almonds and ice on the top shelf, he spent a long time putting the small earthenware bowls of olives and almo
nds on the glass-topped table and pouring out the drinks. Despite the time he took, Alvarez showed no signs of impatience. Like a bloody cow chewing the cud, he thought, knowing that his contempt was really fear.
Alvarez drank, put his glass down on the table. ‘Señor, it will be much easier for everyone, including yourself, if you now tell me the truth about where you were and what you did on the night of the seventeenth and the early morning of the eighteenth.’
‘I’ve told you. If you won’t believe me, get on to Samantha Waite …’
‘She has already been questioned twice, but because there is still doubt the English police have been requested to question her very closely a third time and to ask her to prove — without the aid of letters she had previously written or a photograph of herself — that she really is the daughter of Senora Lund.’
Erington finished his drink and poured himself another. Momentarily, his fear was submerged by a wild, unreasoning anger — how could this dolt of a man have had the incredible luck to stumble on the truth? ‘I can tell you one thing for absolute certain — you’ve got a wild imagination. The English police can question Samantha until they’re blue in the face and all they’ll discover is that she’s Dolly’s daughter.’
Alvarez spoke curiously. ‘Did it not occur to you that no daughter would ever wish her mother’s gigolo to make love to her?’
‘It didn’t occur to me because it happened.’
‘Señor, you are perhaps a very clever man, but I do not think you understand much about people … On the seventeenth you flew from Gatwick to Mahon under the name of Brown: you arrived at eight-forty-five. You hired a car from Hertz, at the airport, also in the name of Brown, and you drove to Ciudadela, where you boarded a motor yacht called Pariki Three which you had previously chartered. On this yacht there was a large inflatable, with an outboard, and a small motorized bike, of the kind which is very popular on boats. You sailed from Ciudadela and arrived at Puerto Llueso just after a quarter to one on Sunday morning. You did not enter the harbour, but anchored in the bay and went ashore in the inflatable, taking the bike with you. You rode from the port to here and passed the caseta at the beginning of the dirt track just after two o’clock. You murdered the señora by asphyxiating her with a pillow. You rode back to the Port, sailed to Ciudadela, drove to Mahon, and caught a plane back to Gatwick which left at ten-fifteen in the morning.’
Unseemly End (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 6) Page 15