Relatively Dangerous

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘Is something up?’

  ‘I think, Ian,’ he replied slowly, ‘that perhaps I have been investigating a murder without, until now, recognizing that fact.’

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘Let me try to understand,’ said Superior Chief Salas wearily. ‘You now claim that three years ago Steven Taylor faked his own death in England by bribing an undertaker to provide a body which he could substitute for his own in a faked car crash in order to escape arrest for fraud?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  ‘And you go on to say that Steven Taylor’s real death, two weeks ago, was not accidental, but was murder—yet once again, you can prove nothing?’

  ‘At the moment, no, but it does seem possible . . .’

  ‘For you, is anything impossible?’

  ‘What I’ve done is put two and two together . . .’

  ‘And inevitably arrived at several solutions, none of which is four.’

  Alvarez doggedly continued. ‘We know that when Steven Taylor was over here, he was probably engaged in some kind of business. What could be more likely than that it was similar to what he’d done in England before his “death”—in other words, a swindling scheme? There are many wealthy foreigners who live here and by all accounts he could talk so persuasively that he could encourage even a rich man to part with money. When one swindles, one breeds bitterness and anger. Someone he swindled was determined to get his own back.’

  ‘Did this someone arrange the car crash?’

  ‘No, señor, what he surely did was to substitute a capsule containing poison for one containing the drug which Taylor took whenever he felt a migraine threatening. The fact that the initial symptoms of the poisoning caused him to crash was pure chance.’

  ‘And you have reached this conclusion solely on the grounds that he was sick after the meal?’

  ‘He ate and drank very little, then suffered symptoms that were unlike those he’d ever suffered before. Señor, I wish to investigate further.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I would like to find out where he lived after his faked death and who he has defrauded on this island. May I have your permission to proceed?’

  ‘Why bother to ask?’ demanded Salas, with a fresh rush of anger. ‘You never have in the past.’

  Alvarez drove round the side of Las Cinco Palmeras and parked in the yard. Two cats watched him climb out of the car and then scurried away. The sun beat down and he remembered the cool, moist green of Kent.

  Helen stepped out of the back door of the kitchen, hand raised to shield her eyes. When she identified her caller, her expression tightened. ‘Mike’s not here.’

  She was a fighter, he thought admiringly. ‘Do you know when he will be back, señora?’

  ‘It’s señorita and you damn well know it is.’

  ‘I hoped you would accept that as a compliment, not as any intended insult.’

  The answer surprised and bewildered her because there could be no mistaking the sincerity with which he had spoken. Then she remembered that on his previous visit he had shown himself to be very sympathetic and her manner changed. ‘I’m sorry, but I really don’t know when he will. You see, he’s gone to try and find the builders.’

  ‘They still have not done the work?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Do you know their name?’

  ‘It’s Ribas. Someone told Mike that they were the most reliable people around. If they are, all I can say is, God help anyone employing one of the others.’

  ‘I will have a word with Javier. I will tell him that if he doesn’t start, I will investigate all the work he’s recently done for which no proper licence was ever issued. He will arrive here immediately.’

  She smiled. ‘You really are a most extraordinary detective. Blackmailing a builder! You’re either one of the nicest men I know, or one of the nastiest.’

  ‘Am I permitted to ask which?’

  ‘You may ask, but you certainly won’t get an answer. Now, let’s go inside and have a drink. And this time I can even offer you ice. Mike managed to persuade an electrician to come here and do a lash-up job and get one of the refrigerators running.’

  They went inside. Since Alvarez’s last visit, the painting had been finished and the tables and chairs were now set out. She pointed to the nearest table. ‘Grab a seat. And what would you like to drink?’

  She went into the kitchen, returned with a tray on which were two glasses, already frosting. ‘Brandy, ice, and no soda, for you.’ She handed him one glass, raised her own. ‘To long, sunny days with few shadows.’

  They chatted. She told him about the difficulties they had encountered in buying and altering the restaurant, trying to give it more character than it had had, and then spoke excitedly about the future.

  They heard the shrill scream of the Citroen van’s engine. When this was cut off, there was the slam of a door, then the stamp of approaching feet. Taylor shouted: ‘Helen!’

  ‘In the main room.’

  ‘The bastards say . . .‘He stopped abruptly as he entered and saw Alvarez. ‘So it’s your bloody car that’s in the way.’

  ‘Mike, the Inspector’s promised to help us,’ she said, trying to lessen the impact of his boorish words.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘He says he’ll have a word with Ribas and persuade him to start on the work right away.’

  Taylor turned and went into the kitchen. They heard the chink of ice being dropped into a glass. Helen’s expression was once again worried and her previous vivacity was gone. ‘Please,’ she said in a low voice, ‘remember it’s all been so difficult for him. He’s not really trying to be rude.’

  Taylor returned, slumped down on the nearer of the two free chairs at the table. ‘What d’you want this time—apart from free booze?’

  ‘To tell you something and ask you something.’

  ‘What’s the news? My work permit’s still at the bottom of the pile?’

  ‘On Wednesday I flew to England and went to Brackleigh.’

  Taylor’s expression tightened.

  ‘While I was there, I learned certain facts. First, your father’s funeral three years ago was faked.’

  ‘You knew that before you went.’

  ‘Second, I learned why it was faked.’

  Taylor drank, put the glass down with so much force that a few drops of liquid spurted up and spilled out on to the table. ‘In this bloody world, you run and you run and still you get hit by what you’re running from.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ asked Helen, with sharp worry.

  ‘Ask him, not me.’

  She faced Alvarez. ‘Why did Mike’s father fake his own death?’

  Alvarez hesitated.

  ‘Are you suddenly suffering scruples?’ asked Taylor violently. ‘Don’t bother. Have fun. Throw the family’s dirty linen high into the air.’

  ‘Señor, I would prefer to discuss the matter with you alone and then you can decide what to say to the señora.’

  ‘D’you get an extra kick out of hypocrisy?’

  ‘Mike!’ Now there was anger as well as worry in her voice.

  ‘What’s the matter? Haven’t you realized that this is other people’s fun day?’

  Alvarez said: ‘Señor, I am here because what I have learned suggests that your father was poisoned before his death.’

  ‘Now you’re being bloody crazy.’

  ‘Why should anyone want to poison him?’ she asked.

  ‘Because such person had been tricked out of money.’

  Taylor ran his fingers through his rebellious mop of hair. He picked up his glass and drained it, abruptly stood, went through to the kitchen, returned with a bottle of brandy, one-third full, and a rubber tray of ice cubes. He sat, refilled his own glass, pushed the bottle across the table, pressed four ice cubes out of the tray into his glass. He drank heavily, then said: ‘You’ve got to understand something. If at the beginning life hadn’t kicked him so hard . . .’ He stopped, slammed his clenc
hed fist down on the table. ‘Who the bloody hell am I trying to flannel? If a man’s honest, he stays honest, however unfairly life treats him.’

  ‘Can you be so sure of that?’ asked Alvarez.

  ‘What’s a copper’s philosophy? Call no man honest until he is dead; until then he is at best lucky? . . . Just for once, I’m going to indulge in the painful luxury of seeing things as they really are, not as I’d like them to be. Father was a man who couldn’t see that there’s always a distinction between right and wrong, even if the base for that distinction can shift; for him, right was what he wanted . . . I don’t know what his scheme was, but it was something to do with shares. For a time, he made a lot of money and it was one of our “rich” periods, then things went wrong and he ended up in court on a charge of fraud. They found him guilty.’

  She drew in her breath sharply.

  He faced her. ‘So now the skeleton’s out of the cupboard and stalking the land and the dirty linen’s flying high. If I were you, I’d start walking.’

  ‘You damned fool,’ she said, as she reached over and gripped his hand.

  He drained his glass and, using his free hand, refilled it.

  ‘D’you want to learn what hell really is? It’s not the traditional pit of flames, it’s not merely Sartre’s other people, it’s a crowd of little bastards of your own age circling you and shouting that your father’s a thief. D’you want to know what abject, humiliating betrayal is? It’s standing in the middle of that circle and hating your father and wishing to God you could be given the chance of denying him . . .

  ‘He was sentenced two days after he was found guilty. The judge said he’d needed that time to consider the matter. He decided not to jail Father because he saw in him a sense of real remorse and the desire for redemption . . . I can still remember Father laughing and boasting about how he’d softened up the old fool of a judge with his superb eloquence; laughing, when I’d been suffering hell because of him . . . We left that district, which meant I changed schools. No one ever found out at the new one what had happened and for once some of the boys were friendly to me even though I was a newcomer, arriving in the middle of the term. So life ought to have been a whole lot happier. But every time I looked at Father, I remembered how I’d have denied him if only I’d been given the opportunity . . .

  ‘Then he met Muriel. As I said, he saw things not as they were, but as he wanted them to be. Before he married her, he saw her as a loving wife whose money would screen him from ever again risking imprisonment. He couldn’t see her as the bitch she really was.

  ‘There was never any mistaking his background, even though he never tried to impress; even when he stepped out of the dock a convicted, but freed, criminal, he was one of the upper crust. And when they were together, this became even more obvious; as did the fact that her background was totally different. And because she’s an arrant snob, she pretty soon came to hate him for something over which he’d no control. And d’you know how she set out to get her own back? By making him plead with her for every penny she gave him. Then, she could despise him.

  ‘I couldn’t stand seeing him humiliated, so I cleared out. Just before I went, I told him he’d got to do the same. He laughed and said he would, all in good time. I soon learned what that really meant. He’d worked out a new scheme for making money and was determined to get this going and so become financially independent before he broke away from her. I told him to forget it—look at last time. He said it wasn’t the same and the idea was cast-iron. Soft brass, more like. Things went wrong and the police got on his trail again and it became clear that the moment they’d collected enough evidence, they’d arrest him for fraud. And this time, not even he could be bloody optimistic enough to believe the judge would give him a second chance. It would be jail. And so he thought up a way of escape. And because, with his help, she’d been impersonating the landed gentry—large house and God knows how many acres, cherry brandy-stirrup cup for the hunt—the thought of what people would say if he was publicly branded a convicted criminal was enough to give her hysterics. She agreed to finance his plan.’

  There was a long silence, which Alvarez broke. ‘Thank you for telling me all that.’

  Taylor shrugged his broad shoulders.

  ‘Where has your father been living in the past three years?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You really do not have any idea?’

  ‘Look, I cleared out because I couldn’t stand what was going on. It was a complete break.’

  ‘When you saw him here, he didn’t mention anywhere?’

  ‘Not specifically. But on one occasion he talked about getting the train into Barcelona, so I suppose if he had a place, it was near there.’

  ‘How near?’

  ‘I’ve told you all he ever said; and if he’d ever said any more, I bloody wouldn’t pass it on.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Haven’t you understood what I’ve been saying?’

  ‘Yes, señor, I have. But have you, for your part, understood that if he was murdered, it is necessary to find the murderer? Can you tell me whether he was carrying out some business on this island?’

  ‘No, I can’t.’ He poured himself a third drink. ‘All right, you’d have to be stupid not to be able to guess. He’d some scheme or other going on.’

  ‘A scheme that was connected with shares?’

  ‘What d’you think?’ Taylor stared into space. ‘And you know something really comic? He’d finally hit the jackpot. He told me that when he gave us the money to buy this place. He’d made so much that he was going to retire and imitate an honest man. He’d made it, just in time to die . . . according to you, to be murdered.’

  He’d been murdered, thought Alvarez, because he had been about to retire a dishonest man, not an honest one.

  Alvarez stared at the list of figures which the meteorological office in Palma had just provided over the telephone. On May 14 Steven Taylor had flown in to Mallorca and that day the weather had, along the Mediterranean coast, been sharply layered as it often was at that time of the year. From the French border to just south of Barcelona, there had been strong winds and the temperature had been cool (relatively speaking); from just south of Barcelona to Alicante, the winds had been light and the temperature warm; further south still, there had been virtually no wind and the temperature had been hot. These conditions had been holding for several days. Taylor had told the man in Worldwide Car Hire, at Palma airport, that he had just come from somewhere noticeably colder; he had told the porter at Hotel Verde that recently there had been too much wind for him to sail his boat; he had told his son that he had caught a train to Barcelona. Put those facts together and there was good reason for saying that he had been living on the coast between Barcelona and the French border.

  It was going to be necessary to telephone Salas. Alvarez sighed, leaned over and opened the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk. He brought out the bottle of brandy and a glass.

  CHAPTER 14

  The moving walkway carried Alvarez from the airport to the station, from which a train left within five minutes. On arrival at Sants, the more westerly of Barcelona’s stations, he inquired when the next train for Figueras left, and from which station, and was told that the Talgo would be departing from there in twenty minutes.

  He enjoyed train travel. One didn’t take off and land, so that there was no need to shut one’s eyes and pray, believing, yet very conscious that there were times when the Almighty slipped up. He stared out at the green, rolling, and in parts wooded countryside, and thought that here one could buy very many more hectares of fertile land for the same money as on the island. Perhaps after he’d retired, he could move to the Peninsula and buy the finca he had always longed to own, could till the land, plant the seed, harvest the crop . . . But he knew he was deceiving himself. He would never be truly happy away from the island.

  The train drew into Figueras and he alighted. He’d been promised that someone from the municip
al police would meet him, but there was not a uniform in sight so he crossed to a seat, near a board which showed the make-up of the next train to Barcelona, and let the drowsy warmth engulf him . . .

  inspector Alvarez?’

  He awoke with a jerk, stood, and shook hands with a man much younger than himself who spoke in Catalan, yet seemed to have some difficulty in understanding his Mallorquin. They walked down the platform and left by one of the unmanned exits, crossed to a car which was parked under the shade of a tree. They drove to the police HQ, an old four-storey building not far from the Dali museum. There, he spoke to a man who had checked with the town hall and the Ministry of the Interior. ‘Sorry, but there’s no house been purchased by a Steven Arthur Thompson and no one of that name’s taken out a residencia or permanencia.’

  ‘Blast!’

  ‘Don’t forget, despite the amnesty, there are still one hell of a lot of foreigners living in the area who ought to have papers, but don’t.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have a list of’em?’

  The man laughed. ‘I don’t know exactly what you had in mind . . .?’

  He looked at his watch. ‘A drink and then lunch.’

  Along the coast, a number of developments specifically aimed at yachtsmen had been built and of these, Corleon, set around canals, was perhaps the best. Spain’s answer to Port Grimaud. Unfortunately, its initial success had proved to be far in excess of expectations, with predictable results. More canals were dredged, the density of housing was increased and finally, on the outskirts of the urbanization, dozens of rabbit hutches were built, specifically aimed at the French holiday market, while large and ugly blocks of appartments began to line the beach.

  Alvarez parked the borrowed car and climbed out. The sun shone out of a cloudless sky, but a sea breeze prevented the heat from building up. He looked across the raised pavement at the estate agent and sighed. When he’d said that he intended questioning all the estate agents in Corleon to find out if any one of them had sold a house to Steven Thompson, which for some reason had not been registered, he had been regarded with amusement. Having gained a rough idea of the number of estate agents there were, he understood the reason for that amusement.