Juan Foot in the Grave

by Roger Keevil

  “Bit of a financial juggling act then, sir, by the sound of it.”

  “As you say, sergeant. And don’t forget the fact that you have to tie up a lot of money in stock so that you’ve always got stuff available.”

  “Sounds a nightmare.”

  Tim smiled. “You’re not wrong, but fortunately it’s X-Pat’s nightmare and not mine. He obviously does well out of it, so it must be worth it in the long run. And even these days, the clients seem to have plenty of cash, so there’s no problem.”

  Andy Constable decided to resume the questioning. “I’m sure that all this background is going to stand us in good stead, sir, and if my sergeant here ever decides to start up a construction enterprise, he’ll have a head start on the competition. However, I’m rather more concerned with getting a little more detail on the events of last night at Mr. Vere’s party, which I am given to understand that you, in common with the dead man, attended. Correct?”

  “Correct, inspector.” In response to the increase in formality in Constable’s voice, Tim sat up a little straighter. “And…?”

  “And therefore, sir, we’d be very glad if you can tell us anything about what happened when, anything about who Mr. Laborero talked to, what he did – I’m sure you understand what we need.”

  “Come off it, inspector – you really can’t expect me to remember the whole evening so that I can give you a blow-by-blow of what went on! It was a party. You know what it’s like.” A thought seemed to hit him. “In fact, I’ve just realised – you know exactly what it was like. You two were there, weren’t you? I remember Percy was going on about two chaps who were over here on holiday, that he’d asked along, but that they’d gone before we arrived. That was you two, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” affirmed Constable.

  “Well then, I might just as well ask the two of you about your movements on the night in question,” challenged Tim. “I think that’s the jargon, isn’t it?”

  Constable sighed. “Mr. Berman, this isn’t helping.”

  Tim subsided. “I’m sorry, inspector,” he said. “I’m off again. I think it’s the shock of Juan being killed – it’s only just starting to hit me. And I wish I could tell you chapter and verse about who did what to whom last night, and if I’d known I was going to need to give an account of things, I would have paid more attention. But as it is, I’m just an ordinary bloke without a photographic memory. Yes, I saw Juan on and off last night, and I spoke to him, but then I spoke to a lot of people.”

  “And do you remember when you saw him last?”

  “Ah. That’s a thought.” Tim screwed up his face in recollection. “I remember when I didn’t see him.”

  “How do you mean, sir?”

  “Well, I wanted a word with him about… oh, something or other, I forget what… and I went looking for him, but I couldn’t find him. I think I assumed he must have gone off with the Spanish lads, because they all left early. No, hang on – he was still there after they left.” Tim smiled helplessly. “I suppose that’s not the slightest use to you, is it, inspector?”

  Constable knew when he had reached an impasse. “Look, Mr. Berman, don’t worry about it too much. I know that sometimes, the harder you look at something, the more difficult it is to see. We still have to track down a couple of the people who were at Mr. Vere’s last night, so it’s entirely possible that they will be able to fill in some of the blanks. And also, you never know, you may well remember something that’s slipped your mind now, so we’ll probably come and have another word with you at some time. So I suggest you go back to your drink inside, and we’ll see you later.” He smiled in a friendly fashion. Dave Copper, who knew that smile, tried not to wince too obviously, as Tim stood and, with a slightly uncertain nod, re-entered the bar.

  “Can’t make him out, sir,” said Copper as Tim disappeared. “Is he being unhelpful on purpose, or was he just too ratted to remember?”

  “That I couldn’t tell you. But he does have one thing in common with everybody else, which does strike me as a little odd.”

  “And what’s that, sir?”

  “Apart from Mr. Connor, I don’t think anyone’s asked us yet how Juan Manuel Laborero died. Don’t you find that strange?”

  “And Philippa Glass, guv, don’t forget. But you’re right. It does seem a bit peculiar. You’d think that’d be one of the first questions, wouldn’t you?” As he mused, Dave Copper’s mobile suddenly sprang into musical life.

  “Good grief, Copper, what the hell is that?”

  “My ringtone, guv? Don’t you like it?”

  “What is it?”

  “Disco song, sir. ‘Let’s Hear It For The Boy’. One of my old girlfriends put it on there, and I never got around to changing it. Actually, I’m quite fond of it now.”

  “Fine. Just don’t sit there boogying to it. Answer the wretched thing.”

  “Hello… oh, hi… yes… right… we’ll be there.” And in response to Andy Constable’s enquiring look, “Alfredo, guv. He’s got something for us. Up at the station.”

  “Did he say what?”

  “Something about stuff in the dead man’s car, sir. He didn’t specify.”

  “Then I suppose we’d better go and see what he’s found. Looks as if you’re not getting that coffee I promised you. We might as well take the car – I’m getting too old to keep walking up and down hills in the sun, and it’ll give you another chance to show off your toy. Come on then, sergeant – fire up the Quattro.”

  *

  The front desk at the police station was manned by the young officer who had accompanied Alfredo that morning. Recognising the two Britons, he smiled shyly and pointed down the silent corridor behind him in the direction of Alfredo’s office.

  “Thanks, mate – we ought to know the way by now,” Dave Copper greeted him cheerily, receiving a slightly baffled nod in reply.

  Alfredo rose from behind his desk as his visitors entered. “Andy, David, thank you for coming. I thought you would want to know some new information. I have things to show you.” He gestured to the items in front of him.

  Spread out on the desktop, and encased in the clear plastic evidence bags with which the detectives were very familiar, was an incongruous array of objects. Most startling was a large padded envelope such as would normally be used to send books or documents in the post, but it was not the envelope but its contents which caused Constable’s eyebrows to rise in surprise. Bundles of high-denomination Euro notes, ranging from garish orange fifties up to sophisticated purple five-hundreds, were tumbled together in random order, held together with a mixture of paper-clips and rubber bands.

  “That,” remarked Copper, “is a helluva lot of dosh. How much is there, for goodness sake?”

  “It is twelve thousand Euros,” replied Alfredo. “I have counted it.” And as Constable drew breath as if to voice objection, Alfredo held up a hand to forestall him. “Do not worry, Andy. I am not so foolish as not to have worn gloves to do this. If there are any fingerprints on the money, I think they will still be there, but I do not have a big hope for this. It is money. It is all the time in people’s hands.”

  “What, even the five hundreds?”

  “No, you are right. Those you do not see every day, so we will try.”

  “On Tuesday, I presume?”

  Alfredo grimaced. “Of course, yes, on Tuesday, when everybody else is working, and we do not have to do this all by ourselves.”

  “And the envelope too, I take it.”

  “Yes, that too, and you can see, it is not new. It has been used before, and the address label has been carefully… pulled off, is it you say?”

  “Peeled off. Right. So maybe somebody was anxious not to reveal who had been the original recipient.”

  “This may be. But look here.” Alfredo turned the envelope over. “It is clear who was the… recipient, did you say… now.” In bold black letters, written in marker pen, were the words ‘JML – FOR THE
NEXT 3’. “It is Juan Manuel Laborero.”

  “And you found this where?”

  “It was in his car, under the seat – not of the driver, but the other side.”

  “The front passenger seat?”

  “Yes, Andy. And this I think is also strange. The car was not locked.”

  “That’s a bit dodgy, guv, isn’t it,” said Dave Copper. “He should have been a bit more careful than that. Anybody could have taken it.”

  “Or… ” Andy Constable paused in reflection. “Or, anybody could have put it there. Unobtrusively. By arrangement. You don’t necessarily go handing over envelopes containing stacks of cash in the middle of a crowd, do you? Depending on what you’re up to, of course.”

  “So what’s this ‘NEXT 3’ business?” enquired Copper. “Do we know what that’s about?”

  “As yet, no,” replied Alfredo.

  “It’s got to be something pretty substantial, hasn’t it? After all, twelve thousand Euros, that’s about… ” Copper did a quick mental calculation. “Strewth, that’s about ten thousand quid! That’s a nice little earner. Do you reckon it’s all tied up with the building business, guv?”

  “It could easily be, Copper. We keep getting told that there’s a lot of dealing done in cash.”

  “So, supplies, permits, the sort of stuff Percy and Liza were going on about?”

  “That is one explanation, sergeant. I could think of others. So, Alfredo, we have a large amount of cash and no immediate explanation as to its origin or purpose. That’s fine for starters. What else have you got?”

  “There is this.” Alfredo held up a second plastic envelope, which contained a crumpled hand-written note. “It was in Juan Manuel’s pocket.”

  “Let’s have a look, sir,” said Dave Copper. “Dreadful writing. ‘Ewan’,” he read aloud, “‘If you think it’s hot here, try the Atlas. I’ve got some friends who will pay for a free one-way ticket for you if I talk to them. Think about it!’ That doesn’t sound too friendly, sir, does it?” he remarked, handing over the plastic bag to his superior for a closer examination.

  “Okay. This was in Juan Manuel’s possession, but it’s addressed to someone else,” said Constable. “So, do we think it’s from Juan, but he never got to pass it on, or is it from someone else entirely, and he has somehow come into possession of it? And look at the writing compared to the envelope with all the cash. Does that look the same to you?” He held the two up together and scrutinised them.

  “Difficult to say, sir. But I don’t know about you, but that handwriting doesn’t look English to me. And are we to assume that this Ewan is the Mr. Husami who’s on my list as being at the party, sir?”

  “Not a stupid assumption, sergeant. You may be right. When we track him down for a little conversation, we’ll have an interesting ice-breaker, shan’t we? Excellent. More questions than answers. The story of our lives. Okay, Alfredo, what else have you got to confuse us?”

  “There is this. It was in another pocket.” Alfredo pushed a third bag across the desk to Constable. Inside lay several hundred pounds-worth of gleaming smart-phone.

  “Copper?” The inspector turned to his junior colleague. “More your field than mine. You’re the technology expert.”

  “Nice one,” commented Copper. “That’s cost him a few quid. It’s a damn sight better than mine. Looks as if we’re ruling out robbery as a motive then, guv?” he added facetiously. “Have you had a look at it, Alfredo? Is it locked?” And in response to the Spanish officer’s negative, “Do you mind if I have a butcher’s?” He picked up the phone with care and gave a few exploratory dabs and swipes to its screen through the plastic bag. “This is daft. He’s not even put the most elementary security on it, guv. A two-year-old could pinch it and use it. That’s pretty naïve. What was he, stupid?”

  Alfredo smiled grimly. “I think whatever you could say about Juan Manuel, from what I know, you would not say he was stupid.”

  “Hold on a sec.” Copper reacted to an icon blinking on the phone’s display. “There’s an unread message here. Just let me… there you go. Hey, that’s interesting. Have a look at this, sir.” He handed the phone to the inspector.

  “‘Juan,’” read Constable aloud, “‘This business ends now – it’s too dangerous. Act as usual in public, but no more private arrangements, okay? Don’t even think about not doing what I say. You know I mean it.’ Unsigned. Of course. I suppose there’s no way of telling where that’s come from?” he asked, passing the phone back to Dave Copper.

  After a few moments fiddling, the sergeant shook his head. “Sorry, guv. No can do. Looks as if it’s come in as an email, but the sender’s identity is concealed. We get that a lot in cyber-bullying cases, if you remember. Just another one of the little advantages that technology gives the villain. Maybe Alfredo’s techno-boys can get something out of it if they get it into their lab… ”

  “… On Tuesday,” chorused the Britons.

  “But can’t we get anything from the content?” continued Copper. “I mean, whoever-it-is is talking about ‘business’ and ‘private arrangements’ – that’d go with the cash and all this talk about permits and liaison with the authorities and whatnot, wouldn’t it?”

  “But ‘dangerous’? Where does that fit in?” objected Constable. “And ‘Act as usual in public’? No, my instinct is that it’s something more personal than that. Don’t ask me why – it’s just the smell of it.”

  “Well, Andy,” said Alfredo. “Do you think all this helps us?”

  “I’m sure it does, Alfredo,” responded Constable. “But at the moment, I have to admit, I have absolutely no idea how. But we’ve still got people to talk to, so maybe something will jump out at us. Let us have a bit of a think. And I promised young Mr. Copper here a coffee before we came up here, so he won’t be firing on all cylinders either.”

  “You need a coffee, there is a bar over the road,” pointed out Alfredo. “My officers go there all the time, in special when they want to talk about me.” He smiled. “Of course, it is not so good as my own bar… ”

  “I reckon it’ll do fine, sir,” interjected Dave Copper. “And we’ll stand more chance of having a chat without being overheard by… anyone,” he finished lamely.

  “Yes, the lovely Eve again,” mused Constable. “Which reminds me, she had something she wanted to tell us, so we’re going to have to go back later anyway. But for now, I shall take pity on you. Over the road will do fine.”

  Chapter 8

  In the shade of the awning on the bar terrace, Dave Copper took a long draught of coffee and sighed. “I’ll tell you one thing, guv. They do make a fine cup of coffee over here. I doubt if I shall be able to drink that swill they serve in the station canteen ever again. So, what do you reckon? Recap?”

  “I’m not sure that we’ve got all that much to recap at present,” replied Constable.

  “Well, sir, let’s look on the positive side. We know who’s dead, and we think we know how he died. We know where he died, because I can’t believe that he left the site without anybody seeing him, and then got smacked on the head and brought back at some time during the night, so we don’t have to go tracing his movements from where he was last seen to where the body was found.” Copper’s voice grew gradually more enthusiastic as he warmed to his theme. “And also we’ve got a reasonable time-frame for when he died, or at least when he was last seen by various people. Not only that, but we’ve got a pretty restricted list of who was there and when, so we’re not thrashing around in the dark trying to identify suspects. I call that a bit of a result for a morning’s work.” He looked hopefully at his superior.

  “Okay, Copper,” agreed the inspector. “That’s not a bad analysis as far as it goes. The main problem is that it only goes so far and no further. For a start, we haven’t got a sniff of a motive. From what everybody has been telling us so far, Juan Manuel Laborero was the nicest guy in the world and the best thing since sliced bread when it c
ame to organising the building business. Everybody loved him.”

  “Self-evidently not everybody, guv, or else we’d be lying around the pool gently sizzling with a glass of beer in our hands instead of wondering why he’s lying on a slab.”

  “True.”

  “Also, sir, you say no motive, but surely we’ve got something. We just don’t know what it is.”

  “By which you mean…?”

  “Well, there’s the note, and that message on his phone. It’s obvious that somebody isn’t somebody’s favourite bunny. And what’s he doing with that great wodge of cash? I don’t go around with envelopes containing ten thousand quid lying about in my car. Somebody must have an explanation for that, and I’ve had enough dealings with dodgy characters since I joined the force to know that it’s highly unlikely to be an innocent one.”

  “Yes, well, don’t let the brass hear you talking about dodgy characters and large lumps of cash in the same sentence when we get back home,” advised Constable with a smile. “Put that together with your obvious skill in finding your way into other people’s mobiles, and I reckon the police force is in enough trouble with the press without giving them any more gratuitous ammunition to chuck at us.”

  “Righty-ho, guv,” grinned Copper in response. “So shall we revert to normal boring old foot-slogging detective work? In which case… ” He fished in the pocket of his shorts and produced his notebook, “… as the character says in ‘The Mikado’, ‘I’ve got a little list’.”

  “I have to say, Copper, that I never had you down as a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan.”

  “There are many things you don’t know about me, sir,” said Copper. “Some of which I shall take great care that you never find out. So, my little list. We’ve already got quite a long way down the list of names Alfredo gave us… ”