Death Trick

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘I’ve nearly finished.’

  ‘Let me help.’

  The offer flustered her. She said that perhaps she’d enough already, since the bean crop was peaking and so would everyone else’s be and maybe not all the ones she had already picked would be sold . . .

  He began to pick the beans. The sun drew the sweat out of him and in no time at all his back and legs ached and his belly seemed to grow, making it a major obstacle to his continued bending. But the discomforts were as nothing to the pleasure of harvesting. Provided, he thought ruefully, that it didn’t go on for too long . . .

  When they reached the end of the row, he held the half-filled sack open and she tipped the beans from the two buckets into it. Then, despite her protests, he carried the sack to the casita where he put it down near the table; Monserrat watched him with sneering dislike.

  ‘You’ll have a drink?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s a great idea.’

  ‘Adolfo, would you . . .’ She stopped, realizing the futility of asking her son to do anything. She went into the casita.

  Alvarez thankfully sat. He looked out at the field and thought with grateful pride that just for a short time he had been allowed to remind himself of what life was really about.

  When she returned, she carried a battered tin tray on which were three glasses of red wine. She offered the tray to Alvarez, who took a glass, then to her son.

  ‘I don’t want that muck.’

  ‘But you know that’s all there is.’

  ‘Then I’ll go and get something that’s drinkable.’ Monserrat stood, stamped off.

  She said, very uneasy: ‘It’s true it’s only homemade wine, señor. Perhaps you would rather not have it?’

  ‘I would prefer it to anything else you could offer.’

  She was both relieved and gratified.

  He drank. The wine was raw and a connoisseur would no doubt have suddenly remembered a very pressing engagement, but he savoured every mouthful. It returned him to the days when he’d been sent along to the bodega with a jar that was filled with wine at a few centavos a litre.

  After a while he said: ‘Señora, while you’ve been working at Casa Gran in the past few weeks, have there been many visitors apart from the women?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘If I mentioned thugs, would you be able to picture what sort of person I was talking about?’

  ‘I . . . Well, I think so.’

  ‘It’s the kind of man you take one look at and reckon you’d best not start an argument with. He doesn’t have to be all muscle, just vicious.’

  She nodded her head to show that now she fully understood.

  ‘Have you seen someone like that at Casa Gran recently?’

  ‘Never,’ she answered immediately.

  Her evidence hadn’t taken things very far, but then he hadn’t expected it to. If Roig had hired a contract man who had turned on him, it was reasonable to suppose that he’d have made as certain as possible that no one else saw them together. But if Oakley had been guilty of the murder and was intending to put forward the defence that Roig had been killed by a man he’d hired to kill, then her evidence might add just a little weight towards the demolition of such a defence.

  She said deferentially: ‘Your glass is empty, señor. I poured one out for Adolfo, but he didn’t want it. Would you like it?’

  He thanked her and picked up the full glass.

  The outside door to Roig’s office was slightly ajar and Alvarez pushed it open. Clearly, Marta, chewing gum, seated behind the reception desk, had imagined the door firmly closed and herself safe from observation, because she had propped up a copy of ¡Hola! against the typewriter and was intently reading it. Then the door squeaked. Startled, she looked up, grabbed the magazine and dropped it on to her lap. ‘What d’you want?? she demanded with guilty bad temper. Then she recognized him. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ She smoothed out a page of the magazine which had become bent over and set it down by the side of the typewriter.

  ‘There’s something more I want to ask you.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  He moved a chair and sat.

  ‘Make yourself at home.’

  As he grew older, he understood the young less and less. He’d always shown respect to his elders, even when they’d been utter boors. But the young today didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word respect—or of work, for that matter.

  ‘You might tell me what you’re on about—I haven’t all day.’

  ‘You are, perhaps, in a hurry to return to ¡Hola!?’

  She was, just for the moment, disconcerted.

  ‘Señorita, did Señor Roig do much criminal work?’

  ‘Some, but most of his work was for the foreigners because it was so much more profitable.’ She spoke with knowing slyness.

  ‘If I talk about a hard criminal, you’d understand the kind of person I mean?’

  “Course I would.’

  ‘Has there been such a man in this office in the past month?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Has such a man consulted Señor Roig in the past year?’

  ‘That’s a different matter—I mean, you are talking about a long time.’

  ‘You’re saying that off-hand you can’t be certain one way or the other?’

  ‘You can’t expect me to remember all that way back.’

  ‘True. So that is why I’m going to ask you to go through all the records pertaining to the past year and to pick out the names of anyone who you think fits the description of a hard case.’

  ‘That’s an awful lot of hard work,’ she complained bitterly.

  On returning to his office, Alvarez found a message on the desk. The cabin personnel manager of Iberia had rung to say that the cabin staff would be at the airport at eleven the next morning and he was to be there sharp on time.

  CHAPTER 17

  The personnel manager turned out to be exactly the kind of woman Alvarez had visualized; sharp, lean looks which included a beaky nose, thin lips, and a body whose curves suggested cutting edges rather than rounded smoothness. ‘It’s taken a great deal of trouble to organize,’ she snapped.

  ‘I am sorry to have caused so much upset,’ Alvarez answered.

  ‘We’ve more than enough work to do as it is.’

  ‘I can assure you that the matter is very important.’

  ‘But it is not in the interests of flying . . . Come with me, please.’

  She reminded him of the schoolmistress—in those days, one of the few on the island—who’d taught him mathematics; every mistake in reciting one’s tables had resulted in a sharp slap from a heavy brass-edged ruler.

  They entered a room, obviously heavily used, along one wall of which ran a coffee and snack bar, and along the opposite one a line of TV monitors. Four women and one man, all in Iberia uniform, were grouped around the bar.

  ‘This is the inspector,’ the personnel manager announced in tones of dissociation. She turned to Alvarez. ‘You have fifteen minutes and no longer.’

  ‘Thank you very much, señora, for all your help.’

  She nodded, left.

  ‘Left, right, left, right, straighten your backs,’ said the smallest of the stewardesses.

  ‘She’s not so bad,’ said the steward pacifically, his accent marking him to be a Madrileño.

  ‘Not so bad as who—Dracula’s aunt?’

  The steward turned to Alvarez. ‘Would you like a coffee, Inspector? I’m afraid there’s nothing stronger served here.’

  ‘A coffee would be very nice, but is there time?’

  ‘Forget what she said; we’ve half an hour before we need to move.’ He called out: ‘Jose.’ A man wearing a white apron came through the doorway behind the bar. ‘Make it one more coffee, will you?’ He turned to Alvarez. ‘How would you like it?’

  ‘Cortado, please.’

  ‘What say we sit?’

  Once they were seated, the younger of the two blonde stewardesses said: ‘Wh
at’s all this about, Inspector?’

  ‘I’m going to ask all of you, señorita, if you can identify a man as having flown to Heathrow a week ago last Tuesday.

  ‘That’s really asking!’

  ‘He was first class.’

  ‘Even so, you’re talking about nearly a fortnight ago.’

  ‘Come on, Cati,’ said the brunette on her right, ‘this ought to be right up your street. You’re always telling us what a wonderful memory you’ve got.’

  ‘Wonderful, but not computer-infallible.’

  Jose came round the bar and up to the table, placed a cup and saucer in front of Alvarez, who reached down to his trouser pocket. The steward said: ‘Forget it . . . Put it down on my slate.’

  Jose left.

  The second blonde—the roots of her hair more noticeably darker than those of her companion—said to Alvarez: ‘What’s the case you’re interested in?’

  ‘The murder of a man called Roig.’

  The steward whistled. ‘I read about that in the local paper. There was a photograph of the house and it looked like a mansion.’

  ‘Is the man you’re interested in the murderer?’ asked the elder blonde.

  Alvarez shook his head. ‘Nothing as definite as that. In fact, at this stage, we don’t even know for sure that he’s connected with the case, but as I guess you’ll know, we have to follow up all sorts of leads.’ He produced a photograph —it was an enlarged reproduction of the one in Oakley’s passport—and handed it to the steward.

  The steward passed on the photograph. ‘Have I got this right? You want to know if this man was on Flight 628 a week ago last Tuesday?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘As Cati said a moment ago, it’s some question! We do more than one short-haul flight a day and so one becomes very much like another . . .’

  The second blonde interrupted him. ‘Except when one of the passengers is threatening to have a baby.’

  They laughed; clearly, they’d recently experienced such a situation.

  ‘What I’m hoping,’ said Alvarez, ‘is that on the Tuesday something—probably not so dramatic as that!—did happen which will enable you to fix the flight in your minds. One thing is, although the first class was completely booked, one passenger didn’t show.’

  ‘Completely booked?’ said the steward. ‘That’s unusual even at this time of the year, when economy is bulging at the seams . . .’ He tailed off into silence.

  ‘Isn’t that the day the champagne ran out because there were so many in first and the old bitch with a fortune in diamonds on her fingers became so rude?’ suggested one of the brunettes.

  ‘I reckon it must be,’ said the steward, after a while. ‘Everyone seemed to be on champagne and I hadn’t checked stocks. And that old battleaxe threatened to report us all to the director, the prime minister, and anyone else she could think of. And when I put in a report on the incident—just in case she did create a stink—Jose Maria remarked that that sort of thing always seems to happen on a Tuesday . . . Right, I think we’ve nailed down the flight. Was this bloke aboard?’ The photograph had been returned to him and he picked it up and looked at it for several seconds. ‘I certainly don’t recall seeing him.’

  None of them remembered Oakley; Cati, perhaps determined to bolster her claim of a very good memory, stated categorically that he had not flown with them.

  Indicative, thought Alvarez, but very far from conclusive.

  London rang at ten-fifteen on Saturday morning.

  ‘Mallinson here,’ said the cheerful inspector. ‘It’s still raining and we’re all beginning to grow webbed feet . . . We’ve done what we can for you, but I don’t think you’ll find as much cheer in what I’ve got to tell you as you probably hoped. When the passport was issued eight years ago, Oakley was living in Bromley. We visited the address and spoke to people who might be able to help. I don’t know if you’ve any idea of what life’s often like for a lot of people in a place like that? Half the time it’s superficial, the other half it’s empty; people come and people go and precious few roots are put down; friendships are only as deep as seems worthwhile and neighbours are barely on nodding terms across the garden fence. So after one year there’s no one can remember much, and after two or three . . . The Oakleys weren’t gregarious and didn’t join in the social rounds. He’s described as pleasant and good-humoured, but rather reserved, she as more extrovert; according to one person, she was on the stage before she married. Incidentally, there was no suggestion of any rift between them; quite the contrary, in fact—in the days of energetic wife-swapping, they were noted spoilsports. There’s one daughter, attractive, bright, who trained at RADA—that’s a drama school; following in her mother’s footsteps, perhaps. Their lifestyle was comfortable, but not ostentatiously wealthy.

  ‘The people who bought the house from them* still own it. They’ve had no contact with them since the sale was completed and they can’t remember any mention of where the Oakleys were moving to beyond a vague impression that they were going abroad.

  ‘The estate agents have had no further contact with them, the post office were paid for six weeks to redirect any mail to the local Lloyds Bank and the bank has no record now of where they sent the redirected mail. Some four months after the house was sold, the two accounts with Lloyds were closed down and the money transferred to a Swiss bank.’

  Alvarez said, a little hesitantly: ‘Could all this suggest they deliberately set out to hide their tracks?’

  ‘It’s impossible to say. They’ve certainly drawn a curtain behind them, but a lot of people do that without ever setting out to do so and there’s nothing here to say whether it’s happened deliberately or fortuitously.’

  ‘Then you were right and there isn’t any help. But thank you for all your trouble.’

  ‘Hang on. As a matter of fact, what I actually said was, as much cheer as you’d probably hoped. But in another respect we have learned something worthwhile. Oakley worked in the City for a firm of stockbrokers. That firm was swallowed up by another, but quite a few of the staff stayed on with the new concern and one of them was able to tell us that Oakley quite definitely had personal dealings with the man who’s the suspect in the insider dealing case. So there’s little doubt that Oakley uses information from London to make money, then launders this money through Ashley Developments.’

  ‘Are you any nearer being able to prove that?’

  ‘Not at the moment. I don’t have to tell you that surmises on their own never put a guilty man behind bars—and hell, at this stage we can’t even go so far as to prove there’s been insider trading, thanks to the blasted laws of Cayman Islands.’

  ‘Is there no chance of persuading someone over there to leak the information you need?’

  ‘Perish the idea! Imagine the screams from the pink loonies in Parliament if the news ever got out. No, at the moment we can see only two ways of moving forward. Either, when our chap comes over to you and questions Oakley, he manages to learn something incriminating, or you can corner Oakley and persuade him that it’s in his interests to talk. Perhaps the promise of a slightly lighter sentence—if that’s possible.’

  ‘Is that an official request?’

  Mallinson laughed. ‘Nothing so definite. Merely a vague thought.’

  ‘Talking about your chap coming over, is there any date fixed yet?’

  ‘Only as soon as possible—and I know that that doesn’t answer your question. But I gather there’s so much work in hand it’s proving very difficult to find anyone who can be spared for a few days; fraud’s booming, if nothing else is.’

  A couple of minutes later, the call was over and Alvarez relaxed in the chair. Yet again, evidence was inconclusive. Oakley might have deliberately set out to disappear from sight, on the other hand there could be no certainty. But, remembering that it was now all but certain that Oakley, through Ashley Developments, was working hand-in-glove with the man engaged in insider dealing, it surely was more likely that the re
sult had been intended.

  He yawned, looked at his watch. Almost two and a half hours before he could break off for lunch . . .

  Alvarez drove into Palma on Monday morning, parked in the underground car park at Plaza Major, and from there walked to Roig’s office. On this occasion, Marta was busy typing.

  ‘You look as if you’re back in business,’ he said.

  ‘The señora’s arranged for someone else to take over the business and I’m to get everything up to date.’

  ‘And is that a bit of a job?’

  She had been prepared to be as bad-tempered and uncooperative as before, but his friendliness disarmed her. ‘It’s more than that . . . And the señora’s no idea how much more. To listen to her talking, I’ll finish by this evening.’

  He sat on the edge of the desk. She told him that even though it seemed the new man might offer to keep her on, she didn’t know that she’d accept. Working for a solicitor was hard and often boring and sometimes she became so depressed because of all the troubles that she had to deal with that she didn’t think she could carry on.

  He sympathized with her, then said: ‘Have you had a chance to look out those names for me?’

  ‘Yeah. It took ages.’

  ‘I was afraid it might. I’m really grateful. How many cases have you found?’

  * ‘Five.’ She hesitated. ‘You did talk about really vicious men—it wasn’t just someone picking a pocket or mugging a tourist?’

  ‘That’s exactly right. The kind of brutal crime which makes you draw in your breath when you hear about it.’

  ‘Then it is only the five. Like I told you, the señor preferred to work for the foreigners.’ She searched the top of her desk, then opened the top right-hand drawer and brought out a folder from which she extracted a sheet of paper. ‘There are the names.’

  He took the paper from her. ‘Again, many thanks.’

  She smiled and suddenly no longer looked fretful and slightly bad-tempered.

  He left the office and returned to the traffic-clogged street. Five names, none of which he recognized. Immediately, he decided, he’d hold them in reserve. But the moment it began to look as if the motive for Roig’s murder was none of the more obvious ones, then he’d ask Records for full details on the five men and would check them out . . .