A Love to Kill For

by Conor Corderoy

  Rupert was frowning at his butler and blowing water. I could see his arms and legs, pale and deformed, kicking below the surface. He said, “It’s all right, Forbes. Thank you. You can go. I’ll deal with it.”

  Forbes turned, gazed down at me from his average height, and walked back into the house, straightening his dignity as he went. I lowered myself into a wicker chair by a table under a palm and watched Rupert climb out of the pool and start toweling himself. He was frowning at the lawn around my feet as he did so. I knew it was his way of asking what the hell was going on, but I felt uncooperative, so I pulled out a cigarette, lit up and watched him some more through the smoke. I was waiting for him to ask in words, like everybody else. Finally, he sat and said, “Forbes said you had found Peter, but there was some kind of trouble.”

  I sucked in smoke, held it then let it out slowly. I said, “What did you do after you dropped Mary-Jane Carter at her apartment the other night?” His frown grew deeper and he stared at the tabletop. “Why, I came home, naturally, a-a-as one would.”

  “What time?”

  He shrugged. “I imagine it must have been half past eleven—or thereabouts.”

  “Anybody see you? You talk to anybody?”

  “Good Lord! I don’t think so. What’s this all about, Liam?”

  “Just answer the question, Rupert.”

  He avoided my eyes furiously and flushed. I could see his lips bunching. For him, I thought, this must be rage. “Forbes had already gone to bed.” He was biting the words, like an Australian castrating sheep. “I got in and went straight to my room. In answer to your questions, no, on both counts.”

  “What did you do for the rest of the night?”

  Now he stared at me. There was real anger in his eyes. I wondered if that anger was enough to drive him to kill somebody. He snapped, “I slept!”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Suppose I said to you that you didn’t come home, that you suspected her of screwing Strickland all along. Suppose I said to you that you stayed outside her apartment watching, waiting for her to leave. After about thirty minutes, you saw her come down then you followed her up to Kensal Rise, to Pete Strickland’s apartment. There you went up and surprised them in bed together.”

  His face went ashen and he rose slowly to his feet. I could see his knee shaking. I took a pull on my Camel and let the smoke out slowly, watching him. He clenched his thin, white hands and when he spoke, his voice was trembling. “How dare you…? How dare you suggest such a thing! I—”

  I cut across him, watching his face, “You took the .22 you’d brought along with you and you shot Strickland between the eyes while he slept. Then you took Mary-Jane and… I don’t know, Rupert, what did you do with Mary-Jane? Did you lock her up somewhere? Did you kill her? What did you do with her?”

  He waited for me to finish. Then he raised a trembling finger and pointed toward the drawing-room door. When he spoke it was more of a rasp than a whisper. “Get out of my house! Get out of my house! How dare you come here saying such things about Mary-Jane! How dare you?”

  I didn’t move for a minute. I was noting the fact in my mind that he was outraged at what I had said about Mary-Jane Carter, not at my suggestion that he’d killed Strickland—or her. After a moment I said, “Shut up and sit down, Rupert. I told Forbes you had a pile of trouble and I’m giving you a taste of the trouble you’ve got. Strickland was murdered, probably on the night that Mary-Jane went missing. You can kick me out if you want to, but you can’t kick Detective Inspector Sydney Harber out when he comes knocking with his search warrant.”

  I reached in my inside pocket and pulled out the envelope with the letter in it. I held it up for him to see. “They haven’t made the connection Strickland-Carter-Fergusson-Medicci—yet, but they will.”

  I threw the letter on the table in front of him. While he frowned at it, I crushed out my cigarette. He was confused and badly shaken. He sat down again slowly. I leaned back and pointed at the letter. Somewhere outside, in the garden that Strickland should have been tending, a blackbird was singing a song that was becoming increasingly complicated. A bee buzzed inside a flower. I said, “I’m holding that letter, knowing it’s evidence in a murder investigation. I’ve been inside once. If I go inside again because of this case, I could go away for a very long time. But you’d be in there with me, Rupert. We’re talking life. Now read it, and tell me again where you were the night Mary-Jane disappeared.”

  The meaning of my words was slowly filtering through. His eyes were wild, swiveling from left to right like searchlights seeking a way out. He reached over and picked up the letter, unfolded it and started to read.

  I said, “I found it in Mary-Jane Carter’s apartment.” When he’d finished, I said, “The apartment’s been cleaned out. All her clothes and possessions are gone. Did you know they were lovers, Rupert?”

  He looked away at the grass. “No!”

  “Did you wait outside her apartment that night and follow her?”

  He was shaking his head. “No! No!”

  “Did you kill Strickland?”

  “No! God damn it, Liam! No!”

  “Do you own a .22?”

  He drew breath, staring at me now, but his eyes wavered. “Yes. Yes, I own a couple. I’m a member of the club.”

  I gave him a moment then said, “You have a powerful motive. You had the opportunity. You have the right weapon and no alibi. You are what is commonly termed fucked, six ways to Christmas, Rupert.”

  His eyes were lost in the glare on the pool, where he had recently been bathing in the transparent turquoise of his privileges. Suddenly he turned and slammed his palm on the letter. It made a small, pink smack. “It just doesn’t make any sense! I just can’t believe that she was seeing that…that bum! She’s an elegant, sophisticated, charming woman! How, how could she be with that”—he gestured with his open hand at the letter, searching in his well-bred mind for an adjective damning enough. He settled on—“oaf!”

  Maybe, for people like him, the small things hurt more because the only big things they know are the soft, cushioned numbers in their banking accounts. I said, “You’re missing the point.”

  He glanced at me, then turned away, biting his thumbnail. “I have contacts, a cousin. I’ll get a good lawyer.”

  “It won’t do you any good.”

  He snapped around, like I was annoying him. His eyes were intense. “Well, what do you suggest?”

  I pulled another cigarette from my pack and leaned forward. “How did you meet Mary-Jane?” He paused while I lit up and a small smile glazed his eyes. “It was at a party a couple of months ago, at the Van Dryvers’ in Walton-on-Thames. She was wearing—”

  “Can it. What did you talk about?”

  He gave me a look that in his circle was probably devastating. “I don’t recall, Liam, and I must say that your tone is bordering on the offensive!”

  “You’ll find the Crown Prosecutor’s tone more offensive then mine, Rupert. Wake up and smell the coffee. The writing is on the wall. You’re going down! Do you understand that? Do you know what they do to men like you in prison, Rupert? Now, one more time, what did you talk about?”

  The penny hadn’t quite dropped, but it was getting there. He hesitated a moment, then sighed and said, “We talked about her family and mine—this and that.”

  “Did she talk to you about Almodóvar?”

  “Who? The director?” He shook his head and frowned.

  “Not who, where. It’s a town in Andalucía. Almodóvar.”

  “No.”

  “Bibles?”

  He screwed up his face like I was making his head ache. “Bibles? For God’s sake, no!”

  “She didn’t offer to sell you a Bible?”

  He sighed. “No, Liam, she didn’t offer to sell me a Bible. Where is all this leading?”

  Either he was the best actor in London or he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. He didn’t strike me as the talented sort. I reached over and took th
e letter back, folded it into its envelope and tucked it back in my jacket pocket. “How long did Strickland work for you, Rupert?”

  “I don’t know… Two months? Really, Liam, I’m lost. I asked you to find Mary-Jane and suddenly you’re…” He gestured at me with both hands.

  I ignored him. “So he started working for you about the same time you met Mary-Jane.”

  He drew breath, caught my drift then turned away with his mouth clamped shut. I pressed him. “Who introduced you to Mary-Jane?”

  He shook his head. He was about as much use as a lace parasol in a monsoon. “I don’t recall.”

  “Make an effort,” I said. “Your life might depend on it.”

  But he didn’t make an effort, and all I got was a wall of denial and silence. Finally, I stood to go and pocketed my cigarettes and my Zippo. He didn’t see me out. Before I left I said, “You’d better make arrangements for me to stay somewhere in Çalares. I figure it’s time I went out there.”

  He watched me go and when I’d reached the plate-glass doors, he called after me, “Liam?”

  I turned.

  “You have her all wrong, you know. Somebody’s framing her—setting her up or something. She isn’t the way you’re making out. She’s good and sweet and kind.”

  “Framing her?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded. I hesitated a moment, but there was nothing I could say, so I left.

  I pulled up in the shade of some trees a hundred yards from Rupert’s house and did something I had never done before. I called the Yard and asked for Detective Inspector Sydney Harber. After a moment, I was put through. He still had those pencils up his nose.

  “Detective Inspector Harber speaking.”

  “Hello, Sydney. It’s Liam Murdoch here.”

  “Murdoch… And what, may I ask, brings you calling at my telephone?”

  “Sydney, listen, I may be able to help you.”

  “That would be a first.”

  “Where was Strickland from?”

  “Well now, Liam, you should know that. You found the—”

  “No, originally. Where was he from originally?”

  There was a heavy silence. “You’re not going to start playing private dick, are you, Murdoch? Interfering with police procedure—”

  “No, Sydney, just humor me. Where was he from?”

  “Hang on…” I heard him rustle some papers and, after a bit, his voice came back. “He was from somewhere in your neck of the woods. USA, somewhere in the South… That’s it. South Carolina. Why?”

  “Did he come to England from the States? Or did he come via somewhere else?”

  Another silence, then, “He was in Spain, actually. Andalusia. Some place by the name of Çalares. What’s this all about?”

  I could feel my brain straining like it had constipation. I said, “Thanks, Sydney.”

  “So how does this help me?” His voice was nasal-peevish.

  I said, “It will.” I hung up and dialed Bernie again.

  “Whu?”

  “Bernie, it’s Liam. Did you get anything on del Roble?”

  “Yeah, like I said, he’s the genuine goods. Works for the Vatican via the Opus Dei. So, what’s the gen?”

  “Not now. Soon.”

  I hung up as he protested through a mouthful of doughnut and started the big Daemon V12 engine. As I pulled out onto the road from the shade of the trees, I could feel everything coming together in one perfect Gestalt. I could feel it, but I was damned if I could see it. One thing and one thing only kept me pushing—the promise of stupid amounts of money at the end of it. At least, that was what I told myself. But I knew there was also a compulsive need I didn’t understand—a need to find the connection, Carter, del Roble, Strickland…Howard…

  * * * *

  I rode the elevator to my apartment and wasn’t that surprised to find Catherine Howard gone. I had no doubt that she would resurface soon enough, with a whole new set of Astounding Stories from the Dark Side. I felt mad. I felt like a schmuck—like Rupert—and I had never felt that before.

  It was muggy and close. I opened the windows, stripped off my jacket and fell on the sofa, smoking and staring at the ceiling. The time had come to pack and book a flight to the disintegrating kingdom of Spain, where all those years ago Russell had experimented with mind-altering hallucinogens. More precisely, it was time to head to the embryonic, emergent Independent Republic of Andalusia—there to meet the Goat People of Çalares and find…who the hell knew what?

  PART TWO

  The Obscure Epistles of Love

  Chapter Seven

  I landed at the airport in Malaga under the molten glare of the midday sun. The plane was practically empty because Spain was now officially a dangerous destination. You were better off on the Gaza Strip or swimming with sharks in South Africa than sunbathing on the desolate, barbed-wire beaches of the Costa del Sol or Almeria. Andalusia had established its own borders, set up passport controls and asserted its independence, and now the enraged and crippled government of Spain was rattling what was left of its saber and making proclamations to the effect that the separatists should not ‘wake the sleeping lion’. The separatists replied that they were too busy drilling for oil to bother with zoology, and somewhere in the background you could hear the growing growl of tanks. Oil has that effect on tanks.

  NATO, the United Nations and the European Union were all desperately trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement. But with Catalonia and the Basque Country suing for independence, Spain had already lost her industrial base. With Andalusia leaving and taking her oil with her, Spain was now losing not only her agriculture and tourism, but also the political power that owning fifty percent of Europe’s future energy reserves bestowed. The loss would be crippling, and Spain risked becoming a third world economy. She could not negotiate from a position of strength, unless it was by mustering what was left of her army. From here—on the ground at the airport in Malaga—it didn’t look like the international community’s negotiations were making much headway.

  Before the collapse, you were met from the plane by an articulated bus that took you to the terminal building. But I guess they hadn’t tapped the oil they’d been drilling for yet, because the twelve passengers who climbed down the steps from the plane had to walk across the hot, melting tarmac to customs and passport control. Squinting through the glare as I walked, I noted half a dozen tanks dotted around the runways, a dozen machine gun emplacements and another half-dozen trucks with what looked like Patriot SAM trailers. It seemed that the Junta de Andalusia had taken to heart Roosevelt’s advice on international policy—speak softly but carry a big stick.

  Inside the terminal it was like a military barracks. Regular grunts stood around with automatic weapons, smoking and looking worried, while Guardia Civil patrolled the area with submachine guns, chewing gum and looking like they thought they should look mean. The green uniform on passport control eyed me and asked why I was visiting Andalusia. I said I’d come to visit friends and he scowled back at my passport, like he might find some of my undesirable friends hiding in there. Obviously he didn’t, because he handed it back with a stamp saying I could stay for a month. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need a month.

  I crossed the vast, empty hall, haunted by the dead echoes of my own feet. They tapped like a terminal clock, as empty as the vaults above my head, among the ghosts of the drunken millions who had passed, singing in stupid hats and flowered shirts, through that hall every year. That was before the specter of war had reared up out of the wells of black gold under Almeria. I was also followed by the sullen, suspicious stares of soldiers and the Guardia Civil, standing watch for that specter to come through arrivals with fire and blood, any day now. They watched me while I collected my keys and papers from the Hertz desk, and they watched me cross the hall again and step out into the full glare of the sun to collect my car. I’d hired the new Mustang convertible. I figured, what the hell? Rupert was paying.

  The rumble
of the big V8 was a little tame after the raw aggression of the Daemon’s V12, but it was satisfying. After I’d negotiated the first roundabouts and I was heading east out of Malaga with the soft-top down, I hit the gas and the Mustang thundered like a wild bronco.

  I followed the coast, keeping the ocean on my right, and everywhere there were signs of a population paralyzed by that mixture of panic and disbelief that precedes war. The bars and cafés I had always seen full of pink, half-naked people in oversized shades, happily broiling in the sun, were now desolate and closed. I saw empty terraces, doors and windows shut like eyes wincing in the face of imminent violence. The people, Malagueños, usually brash and noisy, now stood sullen and afraid, morosely watching for the arrival of bloodshed.

  It took me a while to leave the city, but about twenty minutes after I did, the blue-black mountains of the Sierra de Tejeda began to loom in the distance to my left. And massive among them, the great hulk of La Maroma, signaling the frontier between Malaga and Granada. Pretty soon after that, my satnav was telling me to hang a left at Algarrobo, then I was climbing steeply among terraced fields of vines and avocado plantations, dotted with houses built precariously into the face of the hills, looking like they were about to slide down and crash among the mauve oleander and banana trees that filled the steep gulches of the sierra.

  The heat was oppressive and the glare of the sun on the black surface of the road was blinding, but the smell of aromatic herbs on the hot air made me ease and smile. Who said work was a drag? I wound through frightened, silent villages with names from a more ancient time, which didn’t sound Spanish at all—Sayalonga, Corumbella, Árchez—and all the while I seemed to be going deeper into remote, wild lands. I took a couple of forks and the roads became more like tracks, then I was winding, descending again, down toward Çalares and the violet-blue foothills of the massive Maroma.