‘Then it is on this island?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Where?’
He plopped his lip a few more times. ‘Playa del Xima,’ he said finally.
‘Would that part of the coast be any good for scuba-diving?’
‘It’s where they held the championships a year or two back.’
Xima was a small village (nevertheless, more than four thousand people lived in it) which had been built around the top of an oblong hill to give protection from raiding Moors. One of the last battles between Moors and Christians on the island had been fought at the base of the hill and this anniversary was celebrated every June 10th. The Moors had inflicted heavy casualties and had only turned back because a storm had suddenly blown up and put their boats in danger, but because of the need for artistic balance they were now, every June 10th, routed and slaughtered.
Playa del Xima was three kilometres away. Once a low, unspoilt, beautiful stretch of coast, it was now a forest of concrete buildings.
Alvarez parked his car on the front by a bulbous palm tree, and climbed out. He looked to the east and there, many kilometres away but looking close in the clear air, were the two mountain crests which leaned towards each other. Now to identify the spot from which the photograph had been taken.
Some twenty-five minutes later he was talking to the assistant manager of one of the largest hotels on the front. The assistant manager, pot-bellied, harassed, unable to keep still for very long, said: ‘Yes, that’s us: taken before we had the extra floors put on which was a couple of years back.’ He put the photograph down on his desk, then almost immediately picked it up again.
Tm trying to identify the oldest man.’
‘He’s never been on the staff here, that’s for certain.’
‘He could have been a guest—the other two were—but I think it’s more likely that he was an instructor. D’you see the scuba gear in front?’
The assistant manager brought the photograph slightly closer to his eyes. ‘Yes, if you mean the two air tanks?’
‘It’s possible that he was the instructor and the other two were on a package tour which specifically catered for anyone interested in scuba-diving.’
‘As a matter of fact, the Hotel Bahia—that’s the next but one to us—used to deal with a firm which specialized in clients who were interested in diving.’
‘You said, used to deal with—have they stopped?’
‘ According to what I’ve heard. The hotel decided the custom wasn’t large enough and the organizing firm wanted very cheap holidays.’
‘But the Hotel Bahia will have the records?’
‘What records?’
‘The name of the instructor and of all the guests who’ve come out with the firm?’
The assistant manager smiled tiredly. ‘It’s most unlikely. If any of us had to keep those kinds of records for more than a year, we’d have to build somewhere to house ‘em.’
‘Damn! But it’ll be worth asking, anyway . . . Look, could you do me a favour and ring them and ask?’
The assistant manager telephoned the other hotel, spoke to his opposite number, wrote briefly, then replaced the receiver. ‘I’m afraid it’s like I said. They don’t keep detailed lists of guests for more than the year required by law and there’s no way in which they can help you name someone from several years back. But they do have a record of the name of the travel firm which used to cater for diving enthusiasts and they’ve given it to me.’ He passed a slip of paper across. ‘And they suggest you get on to the Hotel Azul, at the other end of the beach. They’re now dealing with that particular firm.’
The Hotel Azul was a small, one star hotel, set three roads back from the front. Potted rubber trees grew on either side of the reception desk and a segmented, very spiny cactus, its withered air roots making it look geriatric, was trained up the side of the archway over the main staircase on the far side of the lobby.
The receptionist, a young man, nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s right. We deal with a British firm which specializes in scuba-diving.’
‘Is there an instructor?’
‘Yep. Looks after all the gear and takes the people out diving and sees not too many of ‘em drown! Not employed by us, of course.’
Alvarez brought the photograph from his pocket. ‘Is this the instructor—the eldest of the three?’
‘No. A much younger bloke.’
‘How long’s he been doing the job?’
‘Ever since I’ve been working here and that’s two years.’
‘Is there someone who’d know who was the instructor before the present man?’
‘The manager probably does. Hang on while I go and ask him.’
‘Take the photo with you and see if he can identify the man.’
The assistant manager returned in less than two minutes. ‘That’s the first instructor, all right. The manager says they changed something like a year before I moved here.’
Three years ago: the same period that marked the time when Clarke and Allen had suddenly become wealthy. Alvarez knew the heady satisfaction of someone who had long pursued a distant objective and, against all the odds and despite endless disappointments, at least seemed to be in sight of his goal.
Garcia liked himself. There was no doubt on that score. Whenever he had a free moment, he walked up and down the beach in his very brief trunks displaying his bronzed, muscular body. Any attractive and unaccompanied woman became a target and such was his degree of self-satisfaction that if she turned down his advances he judged her a fool without taste.
Alvarez disliked him on sight, but initially managed to hide this fact. He introduced himself. ‘Is it right that you take people out and teach ‘em scuba-diving?’
‘Sure.’ Garcia smiled at two women who sat on rush mats on the sand and were looking in his direction.
‘Did you ever meet the man who did the job before you?’
‘What if I did, dad?’
‘Then I want to hear about him.’
‘Some other time maybe. I’m busy,’ he said, as one of the women smiled back at him.
‘You’d rather I took you in and held you as a material witness?’
‘Hey—there’s no call to be like that.’ Garcia’s contempt for this slack-bodied, middle-aged man gave way to the uneasy realization that although he’d be laughed out of a Mr World contest, he was after all a detective.
‘Then perhaps you’ll tell me when you met him?’
‘When he quit. Bloody old fool. Tried to teach me the job just because he’d been diving since the Ark was salvaged.’
‘How long ago was this?’
‘Three years.’
Alvarez produced the photograph. ‘Is he in this?’
‘That’s him.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Try harder.’
A couple came and stood close to them and clearly wanted a word with Garcia. Alvarez nodded and Garcia went over and spoke to them, looked at his watch and at Alvarez, shook his head. The man asked a couple of questions, then he and his wife walked away. Garcia returned.
‘Have you remembered his name?’ Alvarez asked.
‘He was a Frenchman. Always dressed like a tailors dummy and thought himself a ladies’ man. His name was something like Massif . . . Massier, that’s it. Seemed to reckon he’d bloody well invented scuba-diving.’
‘What happened to him after he quit here?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Why did he quit?’
‘I don’t know that either. Look, all that happened was, I’d done a lot of diving, especially when I was doing my military service, and so when I heard the job was going I came along. And I was good, so I got it.’
‘What time of the year was this?’
‘August.’
‘You’re saying he left in the height of the season?’
Garcia sniggered. ‘That’s what got everyone really steamed up. Tourists coming
out for the diving and no one to check the gear or hold their hands . . . The firm was screaming for someone. That’s how I screwed ‘em for a solid wage.’
‘What happened when you took over?’
‘He handed me the keys of the place where the equipment’s kept, tried to tell me what to do, and then was away. Got a bit of skirt all lined up, like as not.’
‘And that’s the last time you saw him?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re quite certain?’
‘Haven’t I just said . . . No, as a matter of fact, that’s not right. I’ve just remembered. I did see him once more, the next day. And was that a surprise!’
‘Why?’
‘Because he was sitting at a cafe with old Loco Llobera.’
‘Why was that so strange?’
‘Because the Frenchman was all smart and dainty and old Loco was a bag of rags who smelled like a midden.’
‘Any idea whether Sen or Massier is still on the island?’
‘None at all.’
‘D’you keep records of the names of people who come out and go diving?’
‘Have to. The bloody firm makes me keep a log on what progress everyone makes and what standards they reach so that if they come out again I know all about ‘em. PR exercise, they call it: a bloody waste of time, I call it.’
‘How far do the records go back?’
‘The year dot, judging by the dust.’
‘I want to see them.’
CHAPTER 15
There were many restaurants along the front at Playa del Xima and without exception they catered for the tourists: three roads back was a small dingy-fronted restaurant which catered for the locals—and those few tourists who had the wit to eat there—where the food was excellent and it cost only half as much.
Alvarez regretfully put the last forkful of suckling pig in his mouth. It was a dish which varied enormously in quality, even at the same restaurant, and this had been one to dream about. He swallowed, looked down at his now empty plate, and sighed. He emptied the last of the wine from the earthenware carafe into his glass.
The waiter came and cleared his plate and asked him if he wanted a sweet. He chose banana with almonds. When these came, he peeled the banana and ate it and the toasted almonds alternately, but for once his mind was far removed from the food.
The records had been in a rusty filing cabinet in one corner of the lock-up garage that was used to store the diving gear and an air-compressor. Forty minutes after starting, he’d found what he wanted. July 5th to 18th:
Simon Allen, Peter Short, James Marsh, and Roger Clarke. Clarke and Allen had been in the photo. Short had not. But he was assuming that there was some connection between them so this surely meant that it was logical to include Marsh and, probably Massier . . .
Assume he’d identified the five men in the conspiracy, three of whom had been murdered. Murdered for what? Their share of the loot? What loot? No unsolved crime on the island three years ago had yielded the kind of money that was involved here. And in any case, hadn’t he decided that, as amateurs, they couldn’t have carried out a successful crime in the normal sense of the word . . . ?
The waiter returned to the table. ‘D’you want anything more? A coñac?’
‘Make it a large one.’ Perhaps he could drown his sense of frustration. How many times now had he made some progress in the case, only to come up against the question: where had the money come from?
It was time to make an inspired guess, he thought as the waiter brought him a brandy. The four Englishmen had been from different backgrounds (at least, it seemed likely they had: nothing at all was yet known about Marsh), but one thing they’d obviously had in common had been a restricted budget—otherwise they’d have been on a more luxurious package. Massier had thrown up his job at the height of the season, when he’d have been making the money which would normally have kept him through the winter, so something suddenly and unexpectedly had happened to enrich him. The two events had to be connected. In other words, the source of Massier’s good fortune and theirs was the same. Taking that one stage further, since Massier had been an expert diver and they had come out on a diving holiday, what more likely than that they had discovered their fortune through diving?
Drugs, as he’d originally considered? Consignments of drugs were often dropped into the sea off the shore of the country into which they were to be smuggled, to be picked up later. Perhaps the five, when out diving, had found a considerable quantity of heroin or cocaine, had taken it ashore, and had subsequently sold it for large sums of money. Now, the men to whom it had been consigned but who had lost it, were extracting their revenge . . . But amateurs couldn’t peddle drugs and hope to escape attention and there’d been no reports of unusual drug activity . . .
The waiter came near the table. Alvarez ordered another coñac.
He drank slowly, irritated because some memory, important in the present context, was knocking at his mind but refusing to enter. Something he’d heard very recently . . . Of course! Garcia had said that the last time he’d seen Massier, Massier had been drinking with a man called Loco Llobera, a stinking old bag of rags. Yet Massier had been a very fastidious man, over-conscious of his appearance, and normally not the kind of person to consort with a tramp . . .
He called the waiter across.
‘Another coñac?’ asked the waiter, with the tired disinterest of someone who’d spent much of his life serving food and drink to people who ate and drank too much.
‘D’you know a man called Llobera: Loco Llobera?’
‘No, I don’t know him. On account of the fact that he died three years back.’
The guardia post had been built within the past couple of years so there were as yet few visible signs of structural decay and only one outer wall was cracked. Administrative quarters were to the front, living quarters to the rear. The office open to the public was to the left of the main entrance and here a guard sat and watched television, resenting any interruption.
‘Inspector Alvarez, Cuerpo General de Policia, from Llueso.’
The guard scratched his right ear.
Alvarez sat down on one of the chairs. ‘I want a rundown on a man called Llobera who died three years ago.’
‘I wasn’t posted here then,’ said the guard quickly.
‘But I expect you can find someone who was?’
The guard muttered something, waited until the commercials began on the television, then came to his feet and left. When he returned, he said: ‘The sergeant’ll be along,’ after which he slumped down in his chair and watched the television once more.
The sergeant was equally unfriendly, but there was nothing significant in this. Guards were never posted to the part of the country in which they’d been born and brought up, so none of them was an islander: like everyone from the Peninsula, they regarded the islanders as foreigners and disreputable ones at that.
‘I’m interested in a man who died three year ago—used to be known as Loco Llobera,’ said Alvarez.
‘I remember him,’ said the sergeant, slurring and swallowing his words in true Andalusian style.
‘What can you tell me about his death?’
‘What’s there to tell? He was as pissed as a newt and fell over the cliffs at Setray.’
‘The PM said he’d been tight?’
‘PM? Who needed a PM? There was an empty bottle to show what had been going on before he fell over and broke his neck. And done himself proud, too: a bottle of French cognac’
‘Had anyone seen him there, drinking?’
‘It sounds like you don’t know the cliffs at Setray?’
‘I don’t.’
‘They’re a couple of kilometres from anywhere.’
‘Then why was he there?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Didn’t anyone ask that question?’
‘If a drunk falls and kills himself, you don’t spend days investigating his death. There’s no call for that.�
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‘What time of the year was this?’
‘End of August, beginning of September.’
‘There was never any suggestion it mightn’t have been an accident?’
‘No.’
‘How old was he?’
‘The family said he was sixty-four. To look at him, he was a hundred and sixty-four. Filthy old sod! I had to help carry the body round and up and I didn’t get the stink out of my nostrils for weeks.’
‘Why was he known as Loco Llobera?’
‘Why d’you think? He was crazy.’
‘In what way?’
‘How many ways are there? You’re either crazy or you aren’t . . . I did hear it was because he got a bullet in the head during the war.’
‘Was he dangerous?’
The sergeant laughed contemptuously. ‘Him! He was just soft: always giggling at nothing.’
‘D’you know if he did any scuba-diving?’
‘I know he hadn’t been near water in thirty years.’
‘What kind of family is left?’
The sergeant shrugged his shoulders.
‘But there was one three years ago. Could you get me their address?’
The sergeant said belligerently: ‘He died because he was so pissed he walked over the edge of the cliff. That’s all. So why keep asking so many questions?’
‘There’s a chance he didn’t fall, he was pushed.’
The sergeant walked past Alvarez, his expression angry. When a man’s death had officially been held to be accidental only a fool Mallorquin would ever start asking questions about it.
The finca lay two kilometres back from the beach. At the end of a short dirt-track, among small fields which were bounded by dry stone walls, was the house, squat, of the most elementary design, and in need of repair. Yet because it had been built with stones taken from the fields as these were cleared, with wood grown locally, and with roof tiles made of clay dug half a kilometre away, it was part of the countryside, something which a modern and superficially more attractive house could never be.
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