Murdered by Nature

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘What are you going on about? If you die before me, I’ll be inconsolable.’

  ‘Because you will no longer get your meals cooked, the house cleaned, your clothes washed and ironed, a shoulder to lean on when something insignificant upsets you. But perhaps you will die first, content in the knowledge I will tend your grave every day with fresh flowers and through the distorted glass of memory will remember you as a man of love, compassion, and great kindness.’ She stood. ‘I will go up to my bedroom. If you want coffee, you will make it.’

  They watched her climb the stairs and turn into the passage; a door was shut.

  ‘If you had four feet,’ Alvarez said, ‘you’d put them all in your mouth at the same time.’

  ‘I suppose you think that’s amusing?’

  ‘With her in an ill temper and supper to cook, and me being told to believe the impossible, there is not a sliver of humour in my universe.’

  Alvarez’s customary pleasure gained from driving along the bay road was absent. His mind was too occupied with the coming meeting, his need to question Señora Ashton and inevitably making it seem he believed her capable of, guilty of, murdering Kerr . . .

  As Alvarez drew up outside Son Dragó, Benavides stepped out through the front doorway, walked over to the car. ‘You wish to speak to me again?’

  ‘No. With the señora.’

  ‘She is not here.’

  There was a call from the hall. ‘Manuel?’

  ‘She has a sister who sounds exactly like her?’ Alvarez asked sarcastically.

  ‘Inspector, please forget what I told you.’ Emotional pain was visible in the expression on his plump face. ‘She can’t have done it.’

  ‘Emilio,’ Laura said as they entered the hall, ‘I want to know if you can tell me . . . Inspector!’

  ‘Good evening, señora.’

  ‘You’re working late.’

  ‘Unfortunately so.’

  ‘Whom do you wish to talk to this time?’

  ‘You, señora.’

  ‘You’ll find it a fruitless conversation.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so, señora.’

  ‘A strange wish.’ She looked quizzically at him. ‘We’ll go into the sitting room.’

  Benavides crossed the tiled floor, opened the door, stood to one side as they entered.

  ‘Inspector, would you like coffee or a drink?’ she asked as she sat.

  ‘If I might have a drink.’

  She spoke to Benavides. ‘I’ll have an orange juice.’

  He left the room.

  ‘May I ask you an out-of-the-way question?’ she asked Alvarez.

  ‘Of course, señora.’

  ‘You must notice more about people than most. Do you think Manuel is very troubled about something?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have judged so.’

  ‘I’ve gained the impression he has become reluctant to stay here because, bluntly, I am now his employer.’

  Benavides saw himself as a traitor and was ashamed to face the woman he had betrayed. ‘Señora, I am as certain as I can be that your fears are unjustified. He has told me how happy he is to serve you, as he did your husband.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me. Now, an impertinent question.’ Again, that artless smile which escaped her sadness. ‘Have you always lived in Mallorca?’

  ‘I was born at the other end of the island and was there for many years before I moved to this end.’

  ‘You must have seen many changes.’

  ‘So many, I sometimes wonder if I remember correctly.’

  ‘A friend who has been here for a long time says it’s been like moving a century in forty years.’

  ‘In some ways, he is correct. When he first came to the island, it is likely roads were badly made, were dirt in villages; shops were family run and sold mainly locally produced food; the furniture was limited; towns had irregular electricity and in the countryside there was often none; as little as two hectares of land would enable a man to grow the food his family needed; donkey carts were the major form of travel; doctors were few, and many patients could not afford their fees, yet perhaps were treated for nothing; and pigs were killed at matançes and might provide the only meat a family would eat for a long while. When tourists arrived and brought money with them, goods were imported from abroad and for a while could become a symbol of pride. Refrigerators were kept in the entrada so that friends and neighbours would see them, cars became commonplace, roads were macadamized, donkey carts became too dangerous to be used in the growing traffic, and supermarkets introduced food and goods from around the world.’

  ‘It was a wonderful change for people?’

  ‘We used to have a saying, señora. Find a hundred peseta coin and tomorrow you will receive a bill for a hundred and one pesetas. When there were few rich but many peasants, peasants envied only the rich. As times changed, the man with a Seat Punto envied the man with a Mercedes, and the owner of a small town house envied the owner of a large villa in one of the urbanizacións. Drug dependancy arrived and, with it, theft in order to sustain the dependency. Houses had to be locked. Supermarkets drove the small family-run shops out of business. Land began to lie idle because to work it demanded too much labour for too little income.’

  ‘Then modernization was a bad thing?’

  ‘There are now doctors and health centres in every town or large village, hospitals treat the ill without payment, and no rich man can use the threat of poverty to make another do as he demands. It is like an orange tree. Never feed and water it and it will produce small, juiceless oranges; feed and water it too heavily and the oranges will be large, but will have less taste and begin to rot soon after picking.’

  ‘One needs the happy medium.’

  ‘But how does one know what that is until one has learned what it is not?’

  There was a knock on the door, and Benavides entered. He straightened the runner on Laura’s table, placed the glass of orange juice on it; as he handed Alvarez a brandy and ice, he mouthed a few words. He was no lip-reader, yet Alvarez was convinced he had been asked to ignore what he had learned.

  Laura held the glass above her lap. ‘It’s been interesting to talk to you, but I’m sure you’re wanting to ask more questions.’

  ‘I fear so.’

  ‘Then let’s get them over and done with.’

  ‘Señora . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It is difficult for me.’

  She smiled. ‘And for me as I wait to answer a question which might be about anything.’

  ‘Is it correct that you knew Colin Kerr?’

  She started, as if jabbed by a needle; the features of her face tightened, and a smile was aeons away. She had forgotten the glass in her hand, and it tilted to spill orange juice over her dress. She stood, hurried out of the room.

  He stared through the nearer window at the bay. Shock or surprise? Surprise because she had believed any such contact was unknown or shock because this had been disclosed?

  If Kerr had been blackmailing her, over what?

  Benavides entered, spoke angrily. ‘The señora says it will take time to change, so you can leave.’

  Alvarez sat in his office, stared through the unshuttered window at the uninviting view of the wall of the property on the other side of the road. Had Benavides merely blamed him for the accident of the orange juice, or had he feared a continued questioning of the señora could uncover a new link to inculpate her and that was why, in the señora’s name, he had been told to get out? Was Benavides constantly, by word and manner, denying the possibility of her guilt in order to cover his own guilt? Would it be a waste of time further to consider the possibility of a link between Kerr’s death and the staff? Salas had contemptuously dismissed the possibility that Kerr had a criminal record in England, but was that possibility so absurd? A further request to ask for the information to be provided would be sharply dismissed since Salas viewed hunches as pernicious irrelevancies. What would be the consequences to him if Sala
s was right and he was wrong?

  He opened a top drawer of the desk and brought out a list of the telephone numbers of international police forces.

  He hoped Salas had been called away to a meeting, was in conference, had slipped out for a quick drink, even fallen when crossing a road to be overwhelmed by a bus. Hope was the drug of mankind.

  ‘Yes?’ Salas said.

  ‘Inspector Alvarez speaking.’

  ‘I am aware of that.’

  ‘I mentioned my name because in the past you have said—’

  ‘That I am too busy to suffer my time being wasted. You have something to report?’

  ‘I began to question Señora Ashton as you unfortunately demanded.’

  ‘Why unfortunately? Why began yet seemingly did not finish?’

  ‘She became upset and spilled a glass of orange juice over her dress and had to leave to change. She sent Benavides to tell me this would take a long time and so I should go.’

  ‘You believed her?’

  ‘I had no option.’

  ‘You are unaware how quickly a woman can change a dress?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  ‘I should like to believe that, but cannot. Did you shout at her as if she was a fishwife?’

  ‘No, señor. I began by telling her a little about the local history . . .’

  ‘Quite unnecessary and uninteresting. Your questioning was inconclusive?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, when it seemed possible she was acknowledging she had known Kerr.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It’s possible she was so shocked when I asked her if it was correct she knew Kerr that she started and consequently spilled the orange juice. She would only have been shocked if it was fact and she had hoped it would never come to light.’

  ‘Things do not come to light, light comes to them. You believe she spoke to and met Kerr before his death?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been afterwards.’

  ‘The repetition of an inane remark.’

  ‘But the way you asked . . .’

  ‘Did you accuse her of murdering Kerr?’

  ‘Had I done so, she would have become exceedingly upset.’

  ‘When a person is distraught, she is most likely inadvertently to speak the truth.’

  ‘That’s not a sympathetic attitude.’

  ‘You believe sympathy is good reason for being diverted from your duty?’

  ‘It’s not so long since you wrote that all officers must show compassion to those they question.’

  ‘Compassion is not another word for incompetence. Am I correct to believe the only certain result of your questioning the señora is that she spilt orange juice over her no doubt very expensive dress?’

  ‘Because it showed she was shocked . . .’

  ‘Your supposition. An alternative would be that she heard far too much about the local history, for which few can have any interest, but you lacked the social savoir faire to realize this; she spilled the juice in order to provide an excuse to ask you to leave.’

  ‘Rather an excessive method of persuading me to do so, señor.’

  ‘A measure of her distress. You will return and resume your questioning of her. Should she spill more orange juice over herself, you will stay until she has changed and then continue your questioning.’

  SIXTEEN

  On Tuesday, there was a cold wind from the north, light drizzle, and snow on Puig Major. Alvarez sat at his desk and wondered how he would spend the millions he would win on the next lottery draw. Dolores could employ a woman to do all the housework and menial jobs which were part of cooking while she devoted herself to producing ever greater dishes. Jaime could officially retire instead of unofficially. Juan and Isabel would, as adults, be financially supported. He could give up work. Buy a farm. Hire men to do the physical work while he watched the sowing, the harvesting . . .

  The telephone rang. He left the hectares of rich land, returned to the small office, lifted the receiver. ‘Inspector Alvarez, Cuerpo General de Policía.’

  ‘Appleby, Interpol officer. Do you speak English?’

  ‘Fairly well, I hope.’

  ‘Then it’s likely better than half the English do. You asked for enquiries to be made concerning Colin Kerr and provided details of his passport and entry date into Spain. The British police were able to identify him. I’ll email his full criminal CV, but in brief, he started his criminal career when young; grew ambitious; was caught trying to rob a supermarket and suffered a ridiculously short sentence, yet it still changed his lifestyle. He was described as good looking, had a very agile tongue, and women were attracted to him. He started on the until-death-do-us-part routine. He found a woman with some money, often newly widowed and depressed, wormed his way into her affections, married her, grabbed all her money and departed. It’s thought he married and defrauded at least five women.

  ‘One of the victims complained to the police, and they were interested in him when the father of a previous “wife” met him in a pub, rammed a broken bottle into his neck. He spent several weeks in hospital, and on leaving was charged with perjury, theft and bigamy – his final bigamous marriage being with a nurse, Laura Dorothy Lomas, who had looked after him in hospital and was credited with having saved his life when he suffered a sudden tear in an artery. Not a man to show gratitude! The magistrates at the preliminary hearing, for a reason no one could understand, granted him bail. He naturally disappeared.’

  A silence.

  ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘I’m sorry, señor, but what you have told me is . . . very disturbing.’

  ‘It’s a wrong identification?’

  ‘On the contrary, I am certain it is a correct one.’ He thanked Appleby.

  What significance was there in a name? Had she not known Kerr, would he judge there to be any? Yet how to ignore the fact that Laura Lomas had been a nurse, as had Laura Ashton?

  Like Benavides, he wished he had not done what he had.

  The phone rang. His mind so occupied in self-inspired despair, it was if he was acting involuntarily when he lifted the receiver. He said nothing.

  ‘Alvarez?’ Salas demanded.

  He did not answer.

  ‘Who is on the line?’

  Reaching through despair, he mumbled his name.

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘I wish I was.’

  ‘Alvarez –’ Salas’ tone had changed from annoyance to an emotion approaching concern – ‘are you ill?’

  ‘No, señor.’

  His tone returned to normal. ‘Do you accept you have knowingly and deliberately disobeyed my orders?’

  ‘In what respect?’

  ‘You need to determine to which occasion I am referring? I have just been informed that you requested Interpol to provide information concerning Kerr. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did I not say that was unnecessary?’

  ‘You were wrong, señor.’

  ‘A junior officer does not tell his superior chief that he is wrong.’

  ‘If you don’t believe you were—’

  ‘Can you explain your inexcusable disobedience?’

  ‘I don’t think it was.’

  ‘I ordered you not to get in touch with Interpol.’

  ‘You didn’t specifically forbid me from contacting them, señor, and I considered it essential to learn if there was anything about Kerr’s life that was relevant to this case.’

  ‘You should not be surprised to learn that I am considering whether it would be in the best interests of the Cuerpo to treat your disobedience with just severity.’

  ‘All I’ve—’

  ‘You are unwilling to appreciate it is insolent to contradict your senior’s judgement, believing it to be of less value than your own?’

  ‘But as I’ve learned—’

  ‘I will take time to determine my future course of action in regard to your behaviour.’

  ‘Señor . . .’


  ‘I have nothing more to say.’

  ‘It appears possible that Kerr had been married to Señora Ashton.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Salas finally demanded.

  ‘Interpol are providing a CV of Kerr, but they gave me a résumé on the phone. Kerr was a small-time crook who was jailed. When he came out, he changed course and set about finding women who were single or newly widowed and had money, used his agile tongue to persuade them to marry him. After defrauding each one of all she had, he left in search of another victim.

  ‘The father of one met him by chance, jammed a broken bottle into his neck. He went to hospital where his life was saved by a nurse whom he soon married. Laura Dorothy Lomas.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Approximately three years ago.’

  ‘Have you understood the full significance of what we have learned?’

  ‘We, señor?’

  ‘The course of events can now provisionally be plotted. Laura Lomas, defrauded and abandoned by Kerr, bigamously married Señor Ashton because of his wealth. They came to live on the island, perhaps at her instigation since it would be safer for her than remaining in England. Kerr, when out of jail, managed to learn where she now was, married to money. He came to the island, demanded she pay him for his silence or he would inform her husband that he was not legally married to her. Since his will bequeathed by far the largest part of his estate to his beloved wife, without naming her, she could not inherit since she was not his wife. She paid the first blackmail demand, getting the money from her husband with lies since she was too scared to explain the situation. Further demands from Kerr were bound to follow. Her husband was ill and could not be expected to live very much longer. Should her true status become known before he died – she lacked the honesty to tell him the truth – he might very well change his will and she would inherit nothing. If it became known shortly after his death, the law would hold she was not entitled to inherit under the terms of the will. Kerr had to die. She found a way of persuading him to ingest prussic acid when out with her in the yacht, dropped his body over the side.’

  ‘It could seem that was what happened, but it has to be wrong.’