He turned. ‘Can’t you guess?’
‘He mustn’t ever find out. If he does, he’ll do something terrible … ’
‘Only you know who the father is, so he can do nothing unless you tell him.’
‘I’ll never do that,’ she said fiercely.
CHAPTER 5
Friday night was still and hot and it might have been mid-July rather than the end of May. Alan, not yet ready for sleep, left the house. The moon was full and the sky cloudless and from the pool patio it was possible to make out the shimmer of the distant sea. Cicadas were shrilling, a Scops owl was belling, and just audible was the unmusical, but not unpleasant, clanging of sheep’s bells.
He walked down the steps at the side of the pool patio and across the sloping lawn of gama-grass to the first dry-stone wall of the terracing. He sat. He wondered how long it had originally taken to fashion the terraces and how poor the economy must have been to make it worth while to invest so much time and labour to bring under difficult cultivation so little land. Near him there grew an ancient olive tree. In the moonlight, its twisted, hollow main trunk looked tortured. It was one of the few now remaining. When Steven had bought the property, he’d employed a consultant landscape architect whose brief had been to design a garden more striking than any other on the island. The man, who had had considerable expert knowledge but no instinctive love of natural beauty, had decided to fill the terraces with a profusion of unusual flowers, shrubs, and trees, and in consequence he’d had almost all the olives and almonds ripped out. The terraces were now exotically striking, but they no longer belonged.
There was a sound from somewhere behind and Alan turned; in the moonlight he could just make out Susan as she descended the steps by the side of the pool. He was sorry she was approaching. Recognizing how easily he could like her a lot, he’d been careful during the past few days to make certain they were seldom on their own together. Whatever her true relationship with Steven, there was no future in one developing between himself and her.
‘Alan. Where are you?’
Since she’d obviously seen him cross the lawn, there was no point in remaining silent. He called out. She half turned and came directly over to where he was seated. She settled by his side.
‘Isn’t it heaven here, on a night like this?’
‘That depends on the humans.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘It’s people who decide whether anywhere’s heaven or hell. There are a lot of stupid, selfish, pompous people on this island, but there are also a few nice ones. So 1 suppose the place is part heaven, part hell.’
‘It’s funny to hear you … ’ She stopped.
‘Funny to hear me talking this way? Why?’
‘I’m sure you’re being serious and until now you’ve been so careful never to be serious over anything.’ She was silent for a moment, then she continued: ‘When I saw you come down here I followed because I’ve been wanting to say something to you for days, but you seem to do your best to make certain I never have the chance.’
‘I’ve done nothing.’
‘You should have been more subtle if you expect me to believe that … What’s the matter? Have I got the plague?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘That’s a relief. But you’d still rather keep me at arm’s length?’
‘Are you offering an alternative?’
‘I’m speaking metaphorically and you know very well I am … Alan, I’ve been trying to apologize.’
He turned and looked directly at her. The moonlight softened her features and added a suggestion of vulnerability. She could be easily hurt, he thought.
She picked up a small stone and threw it. They heard it crash through a bush. ‘I want to apologize for reacting so stupidly when you assumed Steve was bedding me.’
‘I’d have thought it was I who ought to apologize for making the assumption in the first place.’
‘You didn’t have much option. I mean, it’s not the first time you’ve come back to find a woman living here, is it?’
‘No. But the moment I met you I should have had the intelligence to realize that you came from a different mould.’
‘That … that’s the first really nice thing you’ve said to me … Years ago, when I was about to go into the great big world, I promised myself that it didn’t matter what happened, I’d always be honest with myself. So being angry at you was really being angry at myself because you’d forced me to realize I wasn’t being self-honest any longer. Can you understand that?’
‘I think so. But there’s no need to explain … ’
She interrupted him. ‘I had a hell of a year, eighteen months ago.’ She raised her knees and clasped her hands together in front of them. ‘My fiancé decided other grass was greener and my mother (my father died several years ago) had a bad stroke and had to go into a nursing home. She lived for another very long six months, hating the cruelty of being alive. She’d spent all her married life in a flat — they once had the chance to buy it, but Father wouldn’t; he lived for the day and forget tomorrow — and she left very little. I’m not complaining, just trying to paint the picture.
‘When it was all over I felt completely empty and I chucked up my job and came out to Menorca, determined to try to live as Father had and not to worry about the future. It was spring and there was the sun and the sea and people enjoying life and gradually I thawed out. By midsummer the money was running out and it was time to return, but I desperately didn’t want to. That’s when I heard there was a job suddenly going as a courier. The woman who’d been doing it was very ill and had to return to England for specialized treatment and she wasn’t expected to return. I’d learned Spanish at school and had kept it up afterwards, so I went for the job and got it. It finished in autumn, for the winter, but by then I’d saved enough to see me through to this spring. In April, I was getting ready to start work again and make the money to see me through another year when suddenly the other woman returned, having made a miraculous recovery. She wanted her job back. The travel firm were a bit hesitant about getting rid of me, but I’d known from the beginning the job officially was only temporary, so I felt I had to bow out gracefully …
‘It’s easy enough to make a decision that’s morally right, but it can be hell to have to live with it. Financially, I was in a tight corner. I tried everywhere for another job, but when there was a vacancy the employers were demanding a work permit because the authorities had tightened up and with all the unemployment in Spain the authorities weren’t really issuing any. It looked like grey skies and a miserable office job once more when, two days before booking a flight back, I met Steve in a café in Mahón. We got talking and he said he was on his own and wouldn’t it be fun to have lunch together? … That night we went dancing at El Molino — somewhere I’d never been near before because it’s so expensive. And afterwards he didn’t try anything, but just dropped me at my flat and left.
‘The next day there was another lunch and he asked me about myself and listened to all my troubles and was so sympathetic that it made it seem as if things weren’t so hopeless after all. And that’s when he asked me why I didn’t come and stay with him here for a while and see whether I could find a job in Mallorca, where there were so many more jobs going … And before I could refuse, he made a point of explaining that the offer was only made because he’d known hard times in the past, so now that his life was so much easier he liked the chance to help other people …
‘Of course, if I’d been honest with myself as I’d always sworn to be, I’d have recognized the proposition for what it was. When a man in his late forties tells a woman in her twenties that he’d like her to stay in his bachelor home because of the goodness of his heart, she’s got to be dumb to believe him. I was dumb because I desperately didn’t want to return home. And so I persuaded myself that he was the exception to the rule … ’
‘So what happens now?’
‘I don’t know what happens now.’
‘Still not being honest with yourself?’
‘That … that’s not a very nice thing to say.’
‘Why not?’
‘You can’t see why not? My God! you men can never understand because it’s all so much easier for you.’
‘What do you really want — sympathy?’
She came to her feet. ‘In some ways, your brother’s the nicer man.’ She left.
He stared out at the moonlit countryside. If he’d given her sympathy, a bond would have begun to be forged between them. And since that could get them nowhere, it could only lead to further heartbreaks for her.
CHAPTER 6
Margaret picked up her appointments diary from the bedside table and opened it. ‘We’re having drinks at lunch-time with the Piersons and dinner with the Roscoes.’
‘I know,’ replied Palmer, in the tones of someone who never forgot appointments. He left his bedside and crossed to the nearer window, which was open with the curtains drawn and shutters fast. He pulled back the curtains, unclipped the shutters, and pushed them back against their catches. The air was crystal clear and fresh, scented with pine and wild herbs, but he was more interested in making certain the gardener was working.
The gardener wasn’t in sight. Probably he was mucking around with the vegetables in the side bed. Like all the locals, the man was half simple and would insist on growing vegetables on the pretext that one could eat them and one couldn’t eat flowers.
‘And Amelia rang up to ask if we’d go there at lunchtime Friday week, when her husband is back. I said we’d love to. That is right, isn’t it?’
He turned. She was excitingly beautiful, even though newly awakened and tousle-headed. She was wearing a transparent nightdress and her neat breasts were hazily visible. They reminded a man that he was not as old as his passport said.
She replaced the appointments book on the table. ‘You do like Amelia, don’t you?’
‘She’s quite pleasant.’
‘She has to put up with so much, but she’s never anything but cheerful. And she doesn’t spend her time criticizing everyone, like some of the dried-up old bitches do.’
He frowned. ‘I’ve asked you before not to refer to people we know in that fashion.’
‘How else can I describe them?’
‘That is not a very intelligent thing to say.’
All right, so she wasn’t very intelligent. But she knew a dried-up old bitch when she met one.
He walked away from the window, stopped when opposite the full-length mirror. Sixty-one and his stomach as flat as a board. Or nearly …
‘Are you satisfied you’ll make Mr Universe?’
If he hadn’t known that sometimes she chose the wrong words so that she didn’t mean what she said, he might have suspected her of trying to be sarcastic. He gave his stomach a last pat of satisfaction and returned to his bed.
‘He’s not at all well off, is he?’
‘Who?’ He watched her breasts and began to contemplate some ding-a-ling, but being a cautious man he remembered their last session had been only two nights ago and at his age — not that he was old — too much ding regretfully often meant not enough ling.
‘Pat, of course. Pat Hart.’
‘What about him?’
‘I said, he’s not very well off, is he? I wonder why? I mean, he’s clever.’
‘Clever?’ He considered the possibility. ‘No, he’s certainly not that.’
‘But the other day when he was talking about something to do with astrology, I couldn’t understand a word.’
‘Astronomy,’ he corrected, annoyed by so elementary a mistake. He forbore to point out that whether or not she understood someone was a poor basis for judging that person’s level of intelligence.
‘Why d’you say he’s not clever?’
‘He messed up his career.’
‘I’ve never heard that before. What happened?’
‘He was with a big firm and doing well and they offered him promotion, but he was sufficiently ill-advised to turn it down. That marked him as unambitious and unable to accept greater responsibility, so when they had to shed part of their workforce due to the recession, they made him redundant.’
‘I’d have said he’d lots of ambition and wasn’t the least bit frightened of responsibility. Are you sure that’s right?’
‘He told me himself that promotion would have meant travelling abroad frequently and he wasn’t willing to leave Amelia so much on her own.’
‘That was the reason? Then it was wonderful of him to turn it down.’
‘When he was ruining his career?’
‘He was doing it for her.’
‘He should have been capable of making a sounder judgement.’
‘Are you saying … ’ She stopped. She could argue all day and he still wouldn’t understand. She spoke as casually as she could. ‘D’you think his cousin will be at the cocktail-party on Thursday?’
‘I sincerely hope not.’
‘Why d’you say that? I don’t think Steve’s nearly as bad as people make out.’
‘Then you are in a very small minority.’
‘All right, he chucks his money around rather, but who wouldn’t?
‘Anyone who is not so unmistakably noveau riche.’
‘But he was so badly off before … ’
‘It’s a matter of breeding.’
‘He’s very kind to Amelia and Pat.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. He’s let them have that finca for months and months; and a car.’
‘He thinks it makes him look good in the sight of others.’
‘My God, you’ve got a nasty, suspicious mind!’ She immediately regretted her words. But there had been no need to worry.
‘There’s a saying in the City — “Probity will earn you respect, suspicion will earn you money.”’ He spoke with satisfaction.
‘You really can’t imagine he might just want to help them? Just because he’s inherited a fortune he’s beyond the pale, whereas if he’d swindled it out of other people in that wonderful City of yours he’d be a hero?’
‘Please don’t show how ignorant you are on such matters … Why are you so concerned about him?’
She realized that she’d become indiscreet. She forced herself to relax and shrugged her shoulders. ‘No reason except I think it’s rotten the way some people are always going for him.’
‘Manners makyth man.’ He looked at the bedside digital clock. ‘It’s past breakfast time and I haven’t heard Ana yet.’
‘I expect one of her kids is ill again: they don’t seem a very healthy lot.’
‘We pay her to start work at nine.’
‘But you know what the Mallorquins are like where time’s concerned — it just doesn’t mean anything to them. Bill says it’s because they’re one of the few people in the world who’ve learned that life’s for enjoying, not enduring.’
‘That’s the kind of ridiculous rubbish he would say. And since you’ve mentioned his name, I’d rather you weren’t nearly so friendly with him. He’s a homosexual.’
‘Bill’s gay? For God’s sake!’
‘He’s not married.’
‘Maybe he’s got more sense … Bill’s no more a queer than you.’
‘I’d prefer you not to couple our names together.’
‘That’s a great way of putting things!’
It took him several seconds to understand what she’d been getting at. He frowned. ‘That is in very poor taste … Why are you so certain he’s not a homosexual?’
‘Because a woman can judge a whole lot better than a man. And not because he’s been after me in the broom cupboard.’
‘Are you quite certain?’ he demanded loudly.
She spoke in her ‘little girl’ voice. ‘You can’t really think I’d let Bill do anything when I’ve got my wonderful, wonderful Ray?’
He nodded. It was, he now acknowledged, an absurd thought. Apart from anything else, she was
so greatly in his debt. When he’d first met her, she’d been nothing but a brassy receptionist. Phyllis, never realizing the strange twists of fate which lay in the future, had once casually referred to her as ‘that little tart at the desk’. Phyllis had died suddenly and after a decent period of mourning he’d married Margaret. He’d taught her to be far less obvious in dress and behaviour and so had changed her from brassy to beautiful. It always gave him a feeling of satisfaction when he saw the covetous way in which other men looked at her.
Downstairs, a door banged. ‘There’s Ana,’ she said.
He checked the time again. ‘When you pay her at the end of the week, deduct twenty-three sixtieths of two hundred and fifty pesetas. D’you know how much that is?’
‘Four thousand and sixty?’
‘Approximately ninety-six,’ he said severely.
She wouldn’t deduct anything. Ana had a husband who was not very strong, and five children, and life was a constant battle. She could still vividly remember when for her also life had been a battle …
His mind had moved on. ‘Make certain you look nice for the Roscoes tonight.’
‘All right.’ The Roscoes were an elderly and spiteful couple whose continued existence had convinced her that euthanasia was a good thing.
‘And don’t wear the blue dress again; the one with that extreme décolletage.’
She loved that dress and by any modern standard it was not low cut. But to put the matter in the terms that he would have used, he’d paid the bill and no one was going to get a free ride. Still, she’d dozens of other dresses to choose from. He was many things, but he wasn’t mean. Her clothes filled three large cupboards. Sometimes she wondered how much they’d all cost and then she remembered Jean, crying bitterly when her only reasonably smart frock had been torn and she couldn’t afford to have it invisibly mended …
He left his bed and returned to the window. He stared at distant Llueso Bay. ‘I think it’s time we gave a party.’
‘But we had one last week.’
‘That was cocktails.’
There was a knock on the door.
Layers of Deceit (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 9) Page 4