Confessional

by Anthony Masters

  ‘Yes, she’s a nice person.’

  ‘Absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. You can’t take it for granted,’ she said, and laughed to take the sting out of the comment. ‘I always seem to need reassurance,’ she added quickly, almost angrily. ‘Especially with Estelle’s disapproving face around.’

  Larche tried to be more positive, to imagine that there was life outside Molino and it included Monique. ‘Look – we don’t have to restore Letoric. Let it rot – and Estelle with it.’

  ‘She’ll be all right if you’re here.’

  ‘And when I’m not? I’m going to get rid of her,’ he said and then wondered if he was overdoing it.

  ‘You can’t do that – she’s a family retainer.’

  ‘She’s a menace.’

  ‘Estelle can’t help it – she really can’t. She sees me as an interloper.’

  ‘You’re the mistress of the house, not her.’

  ‘God, how can you be so feudal? That’s what comes of owning a chateau – however run-down.’

  ‘I’ll phone you tonight in Lyon.’ Larche looked at his watch, wanting to end the conversation.

  ‘OK. Goodbye, darling. Take care of yourself.’

  ‘And you.’

  He put the receiver down gently and got off the bed. Going over to the windows he pushed the shutters open, desperately needing fresh air. But all he smelt – or seemed to smell – was fetid Mediterranean ozone.

  ‘Buenos dias.’

  ‘Oh – good morning.’

  Alison Rowe stood in bright eight o’clock sunshine, staring out to sea. She had returned to the same cove she had visited the night before, not sure now of the resolution she had made there. Their love-making had been very special, and although Alison was entirely certain that she was not in love with Marius Larche, she also knew that she wanted him again – wanted him badly. Mixed feelings of guilt came and went but the central overruling desire remained. She needed Larche – and she was sure that he needed her. Then to her surprise, her thoughts were interrupted by Blasco Tomas, jogging across the sand towards her, looking slightly incongruous in a grey jogging track suit with a blue flash down one side. He laughed as she examined his appearance with interest.

  ‘Aren’t monks allowed to jog?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And wear jogging suits?’

  ‘Why not?’ She laughed too, easily confident of their relationship.

  ‘I’ve always kept myself fit.’

  ‘I try to,’ said Alison, wondering how artificially bright she sounded, ‘but there’s not a lot of time. I play squash regularly, but I don’t think I could fit in a jogging programme.’

  ‘Surely a police officer needs to be able to chase the villains?’

  ‘Not when you’re in my position. I just push pieces of paper round a desk.’

  ‘You look well on it,’ he said, smiling. ‘In fact you look radiant.’

  ‘Well, I made a decision last night.’

  ‘What was that?’ Blasco asked gently. ‘If it’s not confidential.’

  ‘I decided to leave the police force and get married, and have children.’ Alison wanted to affirm the commitment.

  Blasco clapped his hands and opened his arms. Without thinking she ran into them and they hugged each other. ‘May God bless you,’ he said. ‘May God bless you.’

  Alison slowly broke away from him, feeling uneasy. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world to run into his arms and receive his blessing, but now all she felt was increased guilt.

  ‘Will you have a paddle?’ said Blasco unexpectedly. ‘It’s the kind of activity monks are allowed to do – better than jogging and sweating anyway.’

  They stood knee-deep in the cool Mediterranean, looking out towards the islands that sparkled with crystal sunshine. A few early sailing boats skimmed the emerald surface and gulls wheeled and dived in the wake of an outgoing fishing boat.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Alison shivered suddenly. ‘I’m behaving like a child. You’re mourning your brother’s death and I’m just going on about myself. Please forgive me.’

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ His legs were brown and slender under his rolled-up track suit trousers. He must have been about forty-six but he had the legs of a much younger man, she thought. ‘I loved Eduardo very deeply – as a brother and as a man. He had great power of personality – of influence. He had achieved most of what he set out to achieve. I know he didn’t want to become Prime Minister. And he was proud of the model fishing fleet he had created here – the way he had revived an old and failing industry.’

  ‘Was he a good Catholic?’

  Blasco paused. ‘I wouldn’t say he was that. But then, who is?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘I try. And fail.’

  He turned to look back up the cove and the silenced automatic pistol fired again and again. Blasco moved forward protestingly a few feet, the ragged holes opening in his chest and forehead. Then he pitched forward.

  Glancing at his watch Marius Larche saw that there was just time to take a quick stroll on the cliffs and then return for breakfast.

  As he ran lightly down the stairs, he met Paco who looked more rheumy-eyed and mottled than ever.

  ‘When will you require breakfast, señor?’

  ‘Half eight? I thought I’d just take a quick stroll.’

  ‘Very well, señor. Your colleague is also walking.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And Father Tomas followed soon after.’

  ‘Tomas?’

  ‘Father Blasco Tomas.’

  ‘Ah – well, maybe I’ll catch them up.’ He had an odd, unsettling feeling of anxiety. ‘Do you know which way they went?’

  ‘Over towards the sea – I think to the cove.’

  ‘Just over there?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  Feeling childishly excluded, Larche hurried over the rocks, climbing up the valley and then down towards the flickering cobalt blue of the ocean.

  Within seconds he was sweating, and looking up he saw the sun was already high in the sky, a red, hazy orb which was nevertheless already generating a substantial heat. It’s going to be blazing hot, he thought miserably, not a day for sitting indoors conducting interviews. I’ll use the terrace, he decided, as he scrambled down the warm boulders to the lapping water, but all the time he was really thinking about Alison Rowe’s body and of how their love-making had changed him. On the one hand Larche felt elated, and on the other confused and apprehensive.

  The cove was tiny and bounded by long fingers of sinewy rock that ran out into the breeze-stirred sea. Again, as last night, he was struck by the silence of the island; there was not even the cry of a bird to break the flat calm of air and water. Then he saw them – dozens of gulls perched on the ledges of the cliff, staring down at the narrow strip of beach.

  Suddenly, one of their number detached itself from the cliff face and fluttered down to a great slab lying on the sand, half in and half out of the sea. Slab? It didn’t quite look like rock. It was softer, less substantial. Puzzled, Marius Larche stared down at the unrecognizable object. Then, with a little gasp, he began to run.

  Chapter 6

  Alison Rowe and Blasco Tomas lay together, face down on the beach, their heads almost dug into the sand. Spreadeagled, half in, half out of the water, they lay still while the tiny waves licked at the great pools of crimson liquid flowing from their shattered bodies. Pulp, brains and other matter protruded and already a cloud of black flies hovered over the whole shambles.

  ‘God!’ Marius Larche sank to his knees beside them, shaking all over, making little noises of combined fear and revulsion. ‘Please God – no.’ The shock was incredible; the nausea overwhelming. He shut his eyes, looked again at the carnage and the dark blood and was sick all over the fine white sand.

  Larche went on retching until he could retch no more. Then, very shakily, he stood up and moved closer to the bodies, horribly aware that the cloud of bla
ck flies had thickened. At once he noticed that their hands were interlocked, and as he bent down to touch Alison Rowe’s arm he found that it was still warm.

  By now he was sweating so profusely that it was as if he was running a fever; every limb of his body seemed to be immobile and his head throbbed with searing pain. Hot tears sprang to his eyes and he clenched his fists tightly, looking up at the mocking heat of the burning sun. Then he cried out with rage and horror and despair, the sound ringing and echoing over the cove, frightening the seabirds into flight above him, their cries combining with his, rending the air with primeval force.

  ‘Holy Mother!’

  Calvino was suddenly standing beside him without Larche having even noticed his arrival. He was wearing a white suit with sweat patches under the arms and he wore no tie.

  ‘Holy Mother!’ He repeated the phrase and then looked, mesmerized, at the bodies.

  ‘You found them?’ he said at length, raising his numbed eyes to Larche.

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘No one must leave the island,’ said Calvino more calmly. ‘No one. Whoever did this is still here! God in heaven – we have the island secured and this happens. How?’

  ‘Get the fuck off your arse. We’ve got to find whoever did this. We’ve got to find them now!’

  Calvino went across to Larche and grabbed his arm. ‘Steady – you must be steady.’

  ‘I am.’ He tried to control himself, to make his body steel, to pray for some blessed anaesthetizing of the senses. But none came – and the shock waves continued to roll through him, while he thought again and again of how they had made love last night and then someone had shot away so much of her head.

  ‘Someone’s been sick,’ said Calvino.

  ‘I have.’

  Calvino turned and spoke sharply into his portable radio, giving rapid, precise instructions in Spanish. Larche stared at him in silence, noticing that his hands were shaking and there was a daub of spittle on his chin; beyond him he could see a fishing boat, moving slowly and silently towards the cove, its engine cut, drifting towards the beach.

  Still issuing instructions into the radio, Calvino hardly looked up. The prow of the boat bumped on the sand and came to a halt, and Larche could just make out amongst the flaking blue paint the name El Santos. Then someone emerged from the wheelhouse. The man was small, slightly built, and looked almost like a boy until he jumped into the water and began to wade ashore. Then Larche could see that he was in his forties, had a stubbled chin and a square, deeply tanned face with delicate features.

  The man’s sudden appearance seemed unreal, as if he was some kind of mythical figure emerging from the sea. ‘God in heaven!’ he said to Calvino.

  ‘There’s been a massacre here,’ Calvino replied unnecessarily. ‘A bloody massacre.’

  ‘That’s Blasco.’ The man’s face was working. ‘Who’s the woman?’

  ‘A British police officer.’

  ‘The one who’s after this –’ His accent was guttural.

  ‘Who is this?’ broke in Larche.

  ‘Lorenzo Solana,’ said Calvino. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Larche of Interpol.’

  They nodded at each other and then looked down again at what lay on the sand. Alison. Alison Rowe, thought Larche. He remembered the pale blue dress she had worn at dinner last night, the dark blue stockings, the necklace at the throat – the good, healing sex they had had. Why had she gone for that walk with Blasco? Was it just a coincidence – the two of them going to the same cove and deciding spontaneously to take a stroll together? And did the killer come across them by chance, or was it all planned in some way that he couldn’t even begin to think about?

  The questions rattled around in his head as he also dimly registered that this slight man was the infamous Lorenzo, the slave-driver, the much-hated tyrant. He stared down at Alison Rowe’s shattered head. Could this Lorenzo have had something to do with it? Why had he brought his boat in here? The questions intensified in his mind and were then interrupted as a helicopter suddenly chattered into view.

  The machine landed on a flat area of headland above them. With its rotors still gusting a flurried wind, half a dozen uniformed Spanish policemen disembarked and with guns in their hands began to scramble down to the beach and along the line of rocks that flanked the cove. Above them another helicopter appeared, bleeping and flashing, mechanical instructions clattering away, radios buzzing, lights winking – all the paraphernalia of modern technology.

  The ragged wind from the hovering helicopter’s blades caught Alison Rowe’s blouse, making it flap on her cooling body. Lorenzo took Larche’s arm. ‘Get in the boat,’ he yelled over the roar of the blades. ‘We’ll go up the coast – see if we can head him off.’

  Needing action – any kind of action – Larche followed Lorenzo on board and joined him in the wheelhouse as he steered the El Santos out of the cove, away from the penetrating noise, and headed for the open sea.

  ‘Take this.’ Lorenzo produced a flask.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Brandy.’

  ‘No –’

  ‘Drink – you’re in shock.’ With one hand on the wheel, Lorenzo rammed the flask into Larche’s hand. He took a swig and then another and the fire surged through his body. As he handed it back, he could smell the brilliantine on Lorenzo’s dark thatch of hair. It smelt good – herbs and a thick scent, almost like marzipan.

  The fishing boat was nosing along past the towering cliffs of Molino now, staying close inshore as the swell carried them right up to the seaweed-hung rocks. The water was a greeny-grey and it made a hollow gushing sound as it slapped against the cliffs and occasionally foamed into shallow caves.

  ‘Could anyone hide here?’ asked Larche hesitantly.

  ‘Difficult. There’s no access except by boat really, but maybe – someone who was fit and was prepared to take one hell of a risk.’

  Was Hooper here? The thought flashed into Larche’s mind. Would he really have been prepared to take such a risk? To kill them both – almost a leisurely act on an island seething with policemen. And what was he, Marius Larche, doing out in this damned boat? He ought to have stayed with Alison, making sure they didn’t hurt her – didn’t hurt her any more.

  ‘We’ll go as far as the village,’ Lorenzo said.

  He’s like a cat at the wheel, thought Larche, desperately trying to distract his thoughts, supple and pliant. Slightly crouched, with muscular shoulders and that mop of luxuriant dark hair, he looked magnificent, but there was a coarseness to him as well; the skin on his neck was dry and tough, sun-baked.

  ‘Here is Sebastia,’ said Lorenzo suddenly.

  The place was not what he had imagined. There was a natural harbour with a low stone wall and a sandy beach, but it was not shambling and sleepy. Two long jetties ran down either wall and a crane stood on a small quayside with drying and storage sheds in harsh new concrete just below it.

  ‘We’ll go back along the coast.’ Lorenzo turned and smiled at him. His eyes were gentle and his white teeth gleamed against his tan. ‘There will be hell to pay now. The Minister for Home Affairs murdered in Franco’s mausoleum along with a priest, and now his brother – a monk – and a police lady shot dead on Molino with the island swarming with security men.’

  Determined not to feed his melodrama, Larche didn’t reply.

  When the El Santos returned to the cove, the beach was full of police and plainclothes security men. The bodies had been covered. Anita Tomas was standing beside them with three companions. The first two, a man and a woman, were extremely elegant. The man was tall, willowy and had smooth brown hair tied back into a pigtail. He wore a white tennis shirt and bermuda shorts while at his neck were a number of gold chains and there were bracelets on his deeply tanned arms. The woman was taller, extremely thin, and her long, narrow face was framed by silky black hair. She wore a cotton skirt and a patterned top. The man, who bore some slight resemblance to Eduardo and Blasco, was crying and the woman was
comforting him.

  ‘Are they Jacinto and Maria?’

  ‘That’s them!’ There was a scoffing note in Lorenzo’s voice. ‘And there’s Salvador.’ Instantly, Larche could detect a softer tone.

  The boy was beautiful as he stared expressionlessly out to sea. He wasn’t very tall and looked even younger than his fifteen years, his dark eyes enormous in a delicately cut oval face.

  The sun burnt down fiercely on them all while a group of policemen searched beach and rocks on their hands and knees. A man with a small case, possibly a doctor, was standing talking to Calvino.

  Then Lorenzo whistled.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Larche.

  ‘Here comes Bishop Carlos. He’ll get things moving, if anyone can!’

  The Bishop was tall but with a substantial paunch. His face, narrow and aquiline, was chalk white, without a hint of a tan, and his linen suit, although clearly expensive, seemed to emphasize his pallid appearance. Larche watched him walk across to Anita. Rather surprisingly for someone so reserved, she flung her arms round him. Jacinto, Maria and Salvador also converged on him, and Larche had the surreal idea that they were all going to try and embrace the Bishop as well.

  Whether it was the brandy or the horror of it all or a combination of the two Larche had no idea, but he felt light-headed and indecisive as he jumped awkwardly from the prow of the fishing boat on to the sand below.

  ‘I think you should organize a press black-out,’ said Larche to Calvino as he approached him, his face grim and expressionless.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ he replied irritably. ‘Besides, I don’t think it’s going to take too long to run our man to earth.’ He looked down at the draped corpses. ‘I think we both underestimated the assassin theory.’

  ‘You think that Hooper is here – on the island?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But how could he have got through your security net?’

  ‘God knows. But every fishing boat that comes in and out of the harbour is very thoroughly searched.’ He paused. ‘I also allowed the Bishop here; he insisted on coming and I agreed.’

  ‘His presence is necessary?’ asked Larche.