Relatively Dangerous

by Roderic Jeffries

  Ballester’s finca lay between the port and Llueso, three-quarters of a kilometre back from the main road. Two years previously, he’d been left a little money and he’d used this to have a well drilled. He’d been very lucky. They’d struck flowing water that was sweet and not tainted by sea-water, as so much was now that more and more fresh water was extracted from existing sources to service the tourist industry and the natural water table was dropping. He was young, which was unusual since few young men now went into farming or horticulture because the work was so much harder and less well remunerated than were jobs in the tourist industry; even more unusually, he was ready and eager to learn new methods.

  He was working a rotovator when Taylor arrived. He stopped this, crossed the brick-hard land, shook hands with traditional courtesy, talked about the weather. It was almost ten minutes before Taylor was able to introduce the subject of the vegetables. Ballester listened, thought, finally said that he thought it might be possible; then he added that the vegetables would, of course, have to cost a bit more . . .

  Taylor returned to the port. He stopped at a newsagent to buy an English paper, but all these had been sold and he had to be content with the Daily Bulletin. He continued on to one of the front cafes where prices were merely high and not exorbitant and sat at one of the outside tables. He stared across the road at the yachts in the harbour and he thought about his earlier promise to himself. . .

  A waiter asked him what he wanted. He replied in good Spanish—he was a natural linguist—that he’d like a cafe cortado. After the waiter had left, he began to read the paper. On the second page, it stated that the Englishman who’d been killed in the car crash near Fogufol had been identified as Steven Thompson. His expression abruptly changed.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Telex message arrived at ten-thirty on Monday morning. Reference the request for identification of the next-of-kin of Steven Arnold Thompson, passport number C 229570 A. This passport was one of twenty-five which had been stolen before issue some four years previously. An examination of records showed no Steven Arnold Thompson. It was, therefore, impossible to advise on next-of-kin.

  London added that they would be grateful if they were informed should any details come to light as to how the deceased had come into possession of this stolen passport and they would in due course welcome the opportunity to examine it.

  ‘That,’ said Alvarez to a passing fly, ‘is not going to make Salas’s day.’

  ‘I suppose I should have expected it,’ said Salas over the telephone.

  ‘Señor . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how simple a case is beforehand, the moment you have anything to do with it, the complications start.’

  ‘Señor, I really cannot be blamed . . .’

  ‘How much do we know about the dead man?’

  ‘Very little, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the only person apart from the man who hired him the car and the porter at the hotel—and their evidence is virtually useless—who I’ve been able to find who knew him is Señor Higham. He’s in hospital because he was in the crash . . .’

  ‘To save time, please assume I have taken the trouble to acquaint myself with the basic facts of the case.’

  ‘Yes, señor. Unfortunately, there’s very little that Señor Higham could tell me. Señor Thompson—according to the three of them—flew in from somewhere where it was noticeably colder than here, he owned a boat, he was gregarious but yet a little secretive at the same time, and he suffered from migraine.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that these details are of the greatest importance?’

  ‘No, señor; I said they weren’t. But I wanted to illustrate how little I’ve been able to find out.’

  ‘Have no fear on that score.’

  ‘But he said nothing personal . . .’

  ‘Has it not occurred to you that he must have said more to the hitch-hiker than that.’

  ‘I know it sounds reasonable . . .’

  ‘Which is, no doubt, why you are so reluctant to accept the conclusion. Question him again and this time do so thoroughly.’

  ‘You don’t think . . .’

  ‘Will you kindly obey my orders without arguing.’

  ‘Yes, señor. I’ll drive in to Palma tomorrow morning and . . .’

  ‘You will drive in this morning.’

  ‘But I have a great deal of work in hand.’

  ‘I want this matter cleared up and cleared up quickly.’ The line went dead.

  Alvarez replaced the receiver. He’d planned a quiet day. But now he had to rush into Palma and question Higham again, when it was perfectly clear to anyone but a mule-headed superior chief that it would be a complete waste of time. He sighed.

  The door banged open and a guard walked in, dropped a large brown envelope on to the desk, held out a sheet of paper. ‘Sign this.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s come from Palma on the bus and they want a receipt. That’s all I know.’

  Alvarez signed and the guard left. He stared doubtfully at the envelope for several seconds—it was his experience that communications direct from Palma were seldom of a pleasant nature—finally opened it. Inside was a British passport and a wallet. He opened the passport. Jack Higham, accounts clerk, born in London on 21 October, 1941, residence England; height, 1.80 cms; signature a bit of a scrawl; photograph the usual stark, unflattering reproduction which left Higham’s face almost expressionless.

  He checked the wallet. No money, of course. No credit cards. A couple of stamps, a receipt from a hostal, a list of numbers with some crossed off, and a photograph of a woman who was laughing. The wife who had run off with another man because she couldn’t take the bad times as well as the good? He replaced the photograph. If she were the wife, then the fact that Higham had kept it showed that his casual acceptance of all that had happened was a mask, concealing his true emotions. Poor sod, thought Alvarez, knowing what it was like to suffer.

  * * *

  He returned both wallet and passport to the brown envelope.

  Higham was sitting in the armchair near the window, to the side of the settee. His colour was much better and the bruising on his chin had almost disappeared. Alvarez handed him the copy of the Daily Mail which he had just bought.

  ‘That’s really decent of you.’

  He sat on the edge of the bed, produced the brown envelope and emptied out the wallet and passport. ‘These were dropped into a litter-bin, here, in Palma.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘I’m afraid all the money’s gone. What happens is, the thief takes everything he wants, then drops the rest. That way, he gets rid of any incriminating evidence at virtually no risk to himself.’ By leaning forward, Alvarez was able to pass them across. Higham flicked through the passport, then checked each compartment of the wallet.

  ‘Have you spoken to the consul and asked him about the money?’

  ‘Yes, I did; that is I phoned and spoke to someone who knew what I was talking about. She’ll contact the bank who issued the travellers’ cheques and tell them they’ve been stolen. One problem was, I couldn’t say which ones I’d cashed.’ He tapped the wallet. ‘But I’ve a note of them here and I’ll ring her again and give the numbers.’

  ‘I hope the refund will come through quickly.’

  ‘They always promise it will . . . You know, I’ve done a lot of thinking since I’ve been in here and I’m seeing things straighter. At my age, drifting around Europe won’t change anything or get me anywhere; I’ve got too old for the dream. I need to return home and find another job; and perhaps meet someone . . .’ He tailed off into silence and stared out through the window.

  ‘I am very sorry that your visit to the island has been so unfortunate.’

  ‘It has, hasn’t it? But even so, I’m going to come back as soon as I can. It’s so beautiful.’

  ‘Then next time, I hope that nothing happens to spoil your pleasure.’

 
‘I’ll drink to that!’ He smiled. ‘One thing, I’ll not try thumbing a lift.’

  There was a short silence which Alvarez broke. ‘Señor, I am sorry, but I have to ask you more questions. You see, because we did not know who Señor Thompson’s next-of-kin was, we sent the number of his passport back to England and asked them to give us what information they could. They have reported that his passport was one which had been stolen, along with others, before it was issued.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’

  ‘So now we are back to knowing almost nothing about him, but we need to trace his next-of-kin.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can help there.’

  ‘Perhaps he said something which at the time seemed of no importance, and so you didn’t bother to mention it when I spoke to you before, but which might help me now. For instance, where had he been driving from that morning?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And I think you told me, he didn’t say where he was going?’

  ‘He didn’t, no.’

  ‘Nor did he give you any hint of why he was on the island?’

  ‘I’m not so certain about that. You see, there’s something tickling my mind . . .’ There was a longish silence before Higham continued: ‘He mentioned something about having been driving around the island, seeing people. I asked him if he was on business. He laughed.’

  ‘Did you understand why he should laugh at that question?’

  ‘No. Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘So either for some reason the question held an amusing connotation or it was the answer that did—the answer he didn’t make.’

  ‘It must have been something like that.’

  ‘Did he ever mention the name of anyone on the island?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or any place?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But he did tell you he’d visited the island before?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did he make any reference to the previous visits?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or talk about his home life?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘So although he was a talkative man, he hardly told you anything about himself?’

  ‘That sums it up.’

  ‘D’you think he was being deliberately secretive?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to say one way or the other.’

  ‘You didn’t gain any kind of an impression?’

  ‘Look, you’re asking me a whole load of questions I just can’t answer.’

  ‘No, of course not. But as I mentioned earlier, it’s just that sometimes one can look back and realize one gained an impression, even though at the time one wasn’t aware that one had.’

  ‘Not this time.’

  ‘So then it seems that maybe he’ll remain a man with no background. All we shall ever know about him is that he flew in from somewhere, he’d been here before, perhaps was here on business, enjoyed sailing, suffered from migraine, and it was an attack of this which indirectly killed him.’

  ‘In fact, not even that’s certain.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Because . . . Well, I’m damned!’ Higham’s voice expressed his astonishment. ‘It’s funny how the memory works, isn’t it? I’ve only this moment remembered that after he’d decided to take another pill—because the earlier one wasn’t doing any good—and we’d driven off and he started feeling ill, he said no migraine had ever been like that before; his mouth and throat were burning as if he’d chewed half a dozen of the vicious little peppers which grow on the island and on top of that he didn’t have any of the usual symptoms. He wondered if some of the food at the restaurant had been bad. But he’d only had steak and ice-cream . . . And then, like I said before, he was as sick as a dog, but would carry on driving. It’s funny how life goes, isn’t it? If he’d been more ill, he couldn’t have gone on driving; if less ill, he’d have been able to keep control.’

  Alvarez’s mind flicked back over the years. If Juana-Maria had walked fractionally quicker or slower, the drunken Frenchman would not have pinned her to the wall with his car . . . He stood.

  ‘You surely don’t have to go yet awhile?’

  ‘I am afraid so. It is still lonely for you?’

  ‘And frustrating! There’s a new night nurse who could be fun, but she doesn’t understand a word of English.’

  ‘I have heard that in such circumstances it is possible to communicate the essentials with signs.’

  ‘I tried, but we don’t seem to speak the same sign language.’

  Alvarez smiled. ‘How much longer will you have to stay here?’

  ‘I’m feeling fit enough to leave now, but the quack says he still can’t understand why I suffered a loss of memory at the beginning so he wants to make absolutely certain I didn’t suffer any brain damage. I told him, only softening of the brain. He didn’t see the joke and it took a hell of a long time trying to explain it . . . I guess the Spanish and English senses of humour aren’t very similar.’

  ‘That is very true . . . Señor, should you remember anything more, however unimportant it seems to you, will you get in touch with me?’

  ‘Sure. But how do I get hold of you?’

  ‘I will give you my home and office telephone numbers.

  If you say my name, whoever answers will know to get hold of me if I’m around.’ He wrote out the numbers, handed the piece of paper over, said goodbye and left.

  The telephone rang at six-thirty that evening, just as Alvarez was wondering whether it really was too early to leave the office and return home.

  ‘It’s Cantallops here, Inspector.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The undertaker from Fogufol. You must remember—I rang you the other day.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’

  ‘I want to know if it’s all right now to go ahead with the funeral?’

  ‘There’s no reason why not. What name are you going to use?’

  ‘Thompson, of course. What are you on about?’

  ‘He was travelling on a stolen passport so the odds probably are that that’s not his real name. But then I don’t suppose St Peter will keep the gates shut just because he’s buried under the wrong name.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘I don’t see why. Surely by then the name’s quite unimportant?’

  ‘It’s ridiculous to say his name wasn’t Thompson.’

  ‘Why is it?’

  ‘His son would have told me if it wasn’t.’

  ‘His son? Here, you’d better tell me what’s been going on.’

  ‘Nothing’s been going on. Why do you people always suspect everybody and everything?’

  ‘Because that’s what we’re paid for . . . But just for the moment, I’m not suspecting you of anything specific. All I want to know is, how come you’ve heard from the son?’

  ‘There was this phone call. The son had just learned of the tragic death of his father and he wanted to know what arrangements there were for the funeral. I told him there weren’t any. He said his father was to be decently and honourably buried.’

  ‘When did you receive this call?’

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘Why didn’t you get on to me right away?’

  ‘The money hadn’t arrived then.’

  ‘What are you talking about now?’

  ‘Until I had the money, I couldn’t go ahead and arrange the funeral, could I?’

  ‘Depends what kind of a man you are . . . How much?’

  There was a slight pause. ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand pesetas.’

  ‘Has the son ordered a gold coffin?’

  ‘He asked me to prepare an honourable funeral.’

  ‘How are you getting in touch with him to let him know the time of the honourable funeral?’

  ‘I’m not. He said it was quite impossible for him to come over from England because of family problems . . . May I go ahead and arrange everything?’

  ‘Y
es. And then get back on to me with all the details.’

  Alvarez replaced the receiver. He stared through the open window. Thompson had been travelling on a stolen passport and so it was reasonable to assume that Thompson was not his real name. The report of his death had been in the local papers, but was unlikely to have appeared in the British national papers. Then how had the son learned that he had died in the car accident?

  CHAPTER 9

  The present cemetery at Fogufol was three-quarters of a kilometre outside the village, reached by a narrow, twisting lane. From it, there was a view across the central plain of the island and, especially after rain, the sea to the south-east was clearly visible. The high surrounding stone walls had been erected in the eighteenth century, the chapel and room of remembrance in the late nineteenth. Originally, the graves had been marked merely by single headstones, but then the custom had arisen of spending on death more than had ever been spent on life and headstones had become large and elaborate, while those families with property had erected mausoleums. The land was stone, making excavation both difficult and costly, and therefore there were no single graves; always, there was a shaft and excavated out on either side of this were cubicles into which coffins could be fitted.

  The cemetery was, of course, for Catholics and the first non-Catholic to die within the parish—a German botanist —had presented the priest and the council with a problem. The law said that the dead had to be buried within consecrated ground, the Church said that only a Catholic could be buried within the cemetery. In the end it was decided that just before he died, and even though he’d been alone when he’d fallen fifteen metres on to his head, the German had expressed the wish to become a Roman Catholic and therefore it was in order to bury him within the cemetery. Since then, the number of foreigners, many of them non-Catholics, had risen very considerably and it had become clear that since deaths must be expected, an elegant solution for one must become an inelegant, not to say absurd, solution for many. Eventually, it was decided to provide an area of consecrated ground outside the actual cemetery where all non-Catholics could be buried. A deep shaft, which accommodated six cubicles on either side, was blasted out of the rock and above this was built a sandstone edifice which resembled an old-fashioned steamer trunk; on the sides of this were plaques on which, for a suitable fee, the names of the deceased could be inscribed. When the last cubicle was filled, the first one was emptied and the bones were taken out and stored with the bones of those locals who had died well back in the past; in death there was no equality, in disintegration there was.