by Roger Keevil
“And you think she’ll buy that, guv?” Dave Copper sounded highly dubious.
“Not a chance,” laughed Constable. “But I thought I’d give your power of positive thinking a go. I could do with dusting off my acting skills.”
At the Runcorn, two or three of the terrace tables were occupied by young couples in the final stages of a meal or lingering over a bottle of wine, while the interior was silent save for the murmur of a television perched high in one corner of the bar, broadcasting a game show to an audience of empty chairs and tables. Philippa Glass, neat in jeans and a shirt knotted at the waist and with her hair caught back in a practical ponytail, was briskly straightening bottles behind the bar, replacing glasses in their racks, and seemingly engaged in the routine operations of tidying up at the end of the day.
“Good evening,” she called as the two officers entered, accompanying the greeting with a bright professional smile. “Oh, hello,” she added as she recognised her new customers. The smile faded slightly.
“Good evening, Miss Glass,” replied Constable.
“It’s Philippa. That is unless you’re going to tell me that you’re on duty and you’ve come to ask me more questions.” Philippa’s manner was confident and assured, a far cry from the nervousness she had displayed earlier in the day.
“By no means, Miss Glass… Philippa,” returned Constable. “We’ve just come in for a quiet drink to relax. It’s been quite a full day.”
“Yes, I guess it has.” Philippa’s tone held reservations. “Anyway, what are you having?”
“You seem very quiet in here this evening,” remarked Constable as Philippa poured their drinks. “Is it normally like this on a Sunday?”
“No, normally we’re very busy,” replied Philippa. “But most people have gone into town for the fiesta procession and the fireworks, so there’s not much going on. We won’t get much more in the way of customers tonight, so the cook’s just gone as well.”
“And you’re here on your own.”
“Yes.”
“Not quite the image of the Spanish bar that everyone thinks of at home, though, is it?” commented Copper. “I mean, crowds of happy tourists, all the local Brits in here talking about football and the winter fuel allowance, landlady perched on a bar-stool doing her Peggy Mitchell impersonation – it’s not quite the social whirl of the T.V. programmes, is it. I bet it can get quite lonely at times.”
“I suppose so,” admitted Philippa.
“Still, if you’ve got friends… ”
Philippa broke off from unloading a glass-washing machine and rounded on Copper. “You’re fishing, aren’t you?” she said suspiciously. “I might have known. Never trust a policeman. You come in here all innocent, but you’re still sniffing around to see what dirt you can find out.” A thought struck her. “You’ve been talking to Eve, haven’t you? Well, if you want to know something, why don’t you come straight out and ask me?”
“We’ve been talking to a number of people, Miss Glass.” Constable declined to reveal the sources of any of his information. “But yes, it has been mentioned that there were tensions between certain people over the nature of your friendship with Mr. Laborero.”
Philippa flushed. “I wish people would mind their own damned business instead of gossiping about things that don’t concern them,” she said hotly. “And I don’t see what good it does for you to start stirring up trouble for me where none exists.”
“You know, Miss Glass, I think you’re deceiving yourself if you think no trouble exists,” countered Constable patiently. “We’ve heard from more than one source that you and Mr. Laborero were involved with one another, so I think it’s pointless for you to deny it. On top of that, we know perfectly well that Mr. Connor had got wind of the relationship, and that there was some sort of confrontation between you and him at Mr. Vere’s house. And, in addition, I can’t so far find anyone who will tell me that they saw Mr. Laborero after you followed him out into the darkened garden on the night of the party. Now, in my book, that all adds up to quite a lot of trouble.”
“It’s all lies,” blustered Philippa, with a quaver in her voice. “I told X-Pat, Juan and I were just friends, nothing more, and if he believes me, I don’t see why you shouldn’t. It’s mad for anyone to think I had anything to do with his death. And as for Friday night, you can say what you like, but nobody can prove that I was the last one to see him alive, because there were loads of people looking for him that night. I was with Eve a lot of the time – you just ask her if you don’t believe me.”
“We already have done,” said Constable shortly. “And what she tells us, I’m afraid, goes nowhere near clearing you of suspicion. And I have to tell you that the Spanish police also have items in their possession that have nothing to do with your personal relationships – items that they may well want you to explain.”
“But it’s not as if Juan knew anything about me.” Philippa was sounding increasingly desperate. “Well, not that I’d want to kill him for, anyway. You want to look at some other people if you want that sort of motive.”
“And where might I want to look, Miss Glass?”
“Tim,” blurted Philippa. “Juan got bashed with a piece of wood, didn’t he? Well, Tim’s the wood expert around here. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. The police are going to want to check up on his actions, I bet, and there are a few others who’ve got some explaining to do.” She seemed to recover a little of her self-possession.
“Including your Mr. Connor?” suggested Constable gently.
“Look,” said Philippa. “X-Pat’s got nothing to do with this. I’m very happy with him, and we’ve got a very good life together, so why would I put that at risk?”
*
As the two detectives left the now deserted Runcorn, the sky over the hill, beyond which the old town of San Pablo nestled around the harbour, was suddenly lit up by extravagant showers of red and silver sparkling light, as the sound of distant explosions drifted through the night air.
“Fireworks tonight, guv,” said Copper. “Looks as if the Spanish like to celebrate their fiestas with a bang.”
“Fireworks tomorrow, with a bit of luck, if I can get my thinking straight,” replied Constable. “I am damned if I’m going home without this case sorted out. I’m sure we’re nearly there. I need a good night’s sleep.” He turned and headed for the ‘Casa del Torero’.
Chapter 13
“Tea up!” carolled Dave Copper as he pushed open the door of Andy Constable’s bedroom with a bare foot. “Eight o’clock! Can’t moulder in bed on our last day!” He stopped short. The bed was certainly not being mouldered in. The shutters stood fully open with the sun streaming in, the bedclothes were thrown back, but of the inspector there was no sign. Viewed from the balcony, the pool below lay silent and ripple-free. “Fine,” muttered Copper as he placed both steaming mugs on the balcony table and slumped into a chair. “I’ll drink it myself, then.”
The sound of the doorbell brought him swiftly to his feet again. “Daft sod’s forgotten the key,” he thought to himself. “Why doesn’t he come round the side? And where’s he been off to at this hour?” He padded to the door with a selection of quips forming in his brain.
“Good morning. I hope I am not too early to call.” Captain Alfredo took in the colourful design of Copper’s boxers but forbore to comment. “Have I wake you out of bed?”
“What? Oh… no,” replied Copper in slight confusion. “Morning, Captain. Come on in. No, I was up. I’d just made some tea. Would you like a cup?”
“No, thank you,” declined Alfredo gracefully. “I have coffee in the morning, but I have just had some. No, I am afraid I am here on business. Can I speak to Andy please? It is a little urgent.”
“Oh no,” returned Copper with a groan. “Don’t tell me you’ve found another one!”
“Another one what?” frowned Alfredo.
“Another dead body. This place is starting to look like Ca
bot Cove!”
“Cabot…? I do not understand.”
“Never mind. But is it?”
“Is it what?”
“A body!” Dave Copper felt as if he was hanging on to his sanity by his fingernails.
“No, no, not at all. Sorry.” Alfredo was apologetic. “I did not mean to make you think that. No, it is just that I have some information, and I think it will be useful if you know it as soon as possible because I am sure it will be important for the investigation. So I have come to tell you and Andy.”
“You can’t, I’m afraid. He’s disappeared.”
“What?” Now it was Alfredo’s turn to look disconcerted. “When did this happen? Why have you not told me this at once?”
Dave Copper laughed. “No, I don’t mean disappeared as in… ‘disappeared’. I just mean he’s not here. I just took him some tea, but he’s nowhere to be seen. He’s obviously gone off somewhere for one of his thinking sessions. He does that. Do you want to come in and wait?” He stood back from the door to allow Alfredo to enter. “Mind you, I’ve no idea where he’s gone or how long he’ll be, but I could make you a coffee if you like. We’ve only got instant, I’m afraid.” And as Alfredo smilingly shook his head, “Well… have a seat anyway. I’ll… er… I’ll get some kit on, then.”
*
The white sand beach stretched north from the San Pablo headland for several miles in a gentle curve, with the city of Alicante rising out of the morning haze in the distance. At seven-thirty, the sun had not yet had the chance to dispel the fresh chill left over from a night of clear skies, but there was already a promise of warmth as the day grew older. Apart from a very distant solitary figure walking a large dog, Andy Constable was alone as he strolled along at the water’s edge, shoes in his hand, stepping over the edges of the gently-lapping wavelets with a faint smile on his face. Just like every case we ever get, he thought. The facts come at you in a constant procession, and at the start of things, you’ve no idea which is going to be important and which you can ignore. And just as crucial, which facts are not what they seem to be, and which ones are going to point you in completely the wrong direction. He gazed up at the blue sky with just a few ribbons of tinted clouds low towards the horizon. Last day in Spain. Time for marshalling the facts into some sort of order, and where better than a lonely beach with no distractions and a clear brain? Right – what have we got?
Juan Manuel Laborero, obviously. You don’t get a murder case without a victim, and how many times had it been said that the victim is so often the most important clue when starting any investigation. Constable had always insisted on drilling that vital rule into every junior officer who had ever worked with him – know the man, and you know his murderer. Well, not invariably, but it was a very good place to begin. And nothing was ever as simple as it first appeared. At the start, it had seemed that Juan was the darling of all and sundry, charming, helpful, blessed with a string of excellent contacts which oiled the works for everyone. Constable smiled to himself. First impressions, eh? It was quite a journey from Percy Vere’s description of Juan as ‘keeping the wheels turning’ to Liza Lott’s characterisation of him as ‘a scheming little rat’. The question was, how to disentangle the various strands of information. ‘Know the man’ is a very fine maxim, he thought, but how often do you actually know the victim other than from what others say about them? Once in an extremely blue moon, was the rueful reply. So everything’s hearsay, and everything is slanted according to the relationship between the victim and the informant. So what was Juan Manuel Laborero to each of the people in the case?
It was clear that there were two sorts of relationships, the personal and the professional, and sometimes a convoluted mix of the two. Take Philippa Glass, for instance. It was pretty clear from what Eve Stropper had told the detectives that there was a continuing affair between Juan and Philippa which was nowhere near as secret as the latter appeared to believe. Was she fooling herself, or were the increasingly desperate denials a way to divert attention from herself and towards her notoriously short-tempered and violent lover, Xavier Patrick Connor? But Philippa was not the only woman to have been involved with Juan. Although it had not been spelt out in so many words, it seemed obvious that Liza Lott and Juan had also had an affair in the past. How serious it had been was impossible to tell, but it was evident that it had left some sort of scars on Liza’s psyche. ‘Only after one thing’, Liza had said of Juan. No woman likes to think she is being used, so could it be that Liza’s groomed and glossy exterior hid a seething resentment over Juan’s treatment of her, a resentment which had tipped over at some as-yet-undisclosed trigger? And there again, there seemed to be no attempt to conceal Roxanne Stone’s emotional involvement with Juan, at least not after the death of her husband. Beforehand, it looked as if the participants in the affair had at least preserved some half-decent discretion in preventing the relationship coming to the attention of the late Ed Stone, again according to Eve, but afterwards was a different matter. But on Roxanne’s evidence, her affair with Juan was long over, and apparently with no hard feelings on her part. She professed a total lack of interest as to whether Juan was involved with Philippa Glass or not. But on the other hand, Roxanne was described by Eve as being ‘very close’ to Tim Berman at present. Constable laughed quietly. If it weren’t for people in the business of supplying alcohol, he thought to himself, I wouldn’t get half the information that comes my way. Maybe it’s something in the personality of pub landlords and barmaids that encourages confidences and draws out facts which sometimes people would prefer remain concealed. And coupled with Eve’s snippet, and Walter Torrance’s evidence that Tim went looking for Juan on the night of the party, was it possible to construct a scenario whereby Tim was holding some sort of lingering grudge, however unjustified, over Roxanne’s previous involvement with Juan, which might cause him to wish the Spaniard harm? In Eve’s view, somebody had tipped X-Pat off about Juan and Philippa. Could that have been Tim, in an attempt to get someone else to do his dirty work for him and keep his own hands clean? Far-fetched, but not impossible.
Constable restrained himself. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, he thought. Constructing over-elaborate accusations on flimsy evidence was never going to be productive, when there were much more obvious explanations. Of course Roxanne was very close to Tim, but that needn’t necessarily mean emotionally. They worked in very close association, supplying and handling materials all through the business of villa construction which lay at the heart of the narrow circle of people caught up in the case. The two diverging invoices were the only piece of concrete evidence of Walter’s assertion that the building business was full of people on the fiddle, but they did not stand alone. Running all through the conversations which Constable had had with suspects and witnesses alike was a constant stream of references to bureaucracy, permits, contacts, and cash flow. Liza and X-Pat were in perpetual negotiation with the authorities for the permissions without which their businesses simply could not function. Ewan Husami was the spider at the centre of a web of enterprises supplying design services, work personnel, and travel arrangements for builders and their clients alike. Was it possible to imagine more fruitful soil for the propagation of a culture of corruption where, according to Ewan, everybody had their price? And a brown envelope full of unmarked notes had been found in Juan’s own car. Where had they come from, and what was the meaning of ‘the next three’? Three what? Projects? Permits? People? And how much did twelve thousand Euros buy in whatever context? Who was the buyer? And could even Walter himself be ruled out, or was his pointing the finger at Roxanne and Tim, subtle though it was, a classic diversionary tactic to draw attention away from his own wrong-doings? After all, it was in Walter’s own trench that the body of the dead man had been found. And everywhere you looked, in the whole convoluted network of contacts, there was Juan Manuel Laborero. He was the man who knew everyone, he was the man who knew everything about everybody. The cliche from all those
dreadful old gangster movies, thought Constable – ‘you know too much!’.
Constable grunted. In my case, he mused, there’s too much I don’t know. There was the question of the two anonymous communications, for instance. At least it was plain who was the recipient in each case. The note to Ewan clearly contained some kind of threat, but why had it been found on Juan’s person? Was it from him to Ewan, but had he not yet had the chance to pass it on? Or was it from a third person, in which case, had Juan intercepted it before it got to Ewan, or had Ewan received it but then afterwards passed it on to Juan? What could the reason be for doing so? What a blessing it would be, thought Constable, if this blasted fiesta hadn’t closed down all the avenues of forensic investigation. I might not feel as if I were thrashing around in treacle, and I might know who’d had their mitts on some of these things instead of having to guess all the way through. Another threat was implicit in the message left on Juan’s mobile phone. The text spoke of dangerous business, and private arrangements, but were the business and the arrangements of a personal or commercial nature? And was the threat an actual physical one such as a violent man might use, or was it the more impotent threat of a woman who felt her position to be insecure? Yet another matter where a little technical assistance would answer a myriad of questions.
What about that coastal map on Tim Berman’s office wall? Did that have any significance, other than the obvious one of showing a good place to fish? According to Walter, Tim enjoyed fishing, but he was not the only one. So did the many cousins of Ewan Husami, some of whose identity cards had been found hidden, not so efficiently, among Philippa Glass’s property. But what did the 12.30 written on the map mean? Mid-day, or midnight? The latter time might be a very convenient cover for something which someone did not wish to be observed. Constable had his own very clear views as to what the likely explanation for this might be. But as to why the cards would be in Philippa’s possession was not at all clear to him. Was she in some way mixed up with the activities concerned, or had someone else taken the opportunity to conceal, not very expertly, a piece of damning evidence when the police came calling? Except, of course, that nobody had expected the police to come calling at that particular time, and Philippa was the only person in the house when they did. So was she, for all her professions of innocence, somehow involved with Ewan Husami in some manner which had not yet been revealed?