Mistakenly in Mallorca (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1)

by Roderic Jeffries

  It wasn’t a cockroach, but one of the many varieties of flying insects which abounded on the island: he failed, however, to convince her of that.

  He led them into the music room and switched on the hi-fi. In honour of their arrival, he’d put on Beethoven’s Fifth. Naupert said he didn’t like Beethoven. Ingham switched off the hi-fi and became possessed of the gloomy certainty that his trump card, the fake Renoir, was going to turn out to be just a joker in this no-joker game.

  In the sitting-room, he stood in the centre, behind the circular settee, and pointed out that the fireplace with its beautiful marble surround was fully functional even though the central heating was more than adequate: some people liked the cheerfulness of crackling flames, quite apart from the heat. He noticed that Naupert was staring at the wall where hung the three paintings and suddenly felt a shade more cheerful: at least the fish’s attention had been attracted by the dangling bait.

  ‘Will you come and have a look at the windows just to see the point I’ve mentioned: that I’ve made the builders use only seasoned wood of first class quality. In most houses out here, they reckon a window fits provided there isn’t a gap bigger than a centimetre. I think these windows fit as well as any back home.’

  Frau Naupert walked across the room with him, but Naupert merely stepped several paces closer to the Renoir. Softly, softly, catchee monkee, thought Ingham. This isn’t fly-fishing, this is deep-sea fishing. He spoke to Frau Naupert. ‘From here, of course, you’ve virtually the same view as from the tower. And I’ve been around the world a bit, but I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anything to beat it. There are places with starker views on a larger and grander scale, but they all seem to get a bit too awesome. Here, everything is in just the right proportions to be comfortable and friendly. Come here after months of hard work and intense pressure and one can feel the tiredness sloughing off. It’s worth a fortune just to enjoy that.’

  ‘The view is useless when it’s raining and you cannot see it,’ she said.

  Lady, he thought, it’s people like you who give capitalism a bad name. He laughed. ‘On a day like this — which happens maybe once in five years — all one really wants to do is remain in bed.’ With someone a hell of a lot less sharp than you, he thought.

  She became chatty. ‘It is a very expensive house to run.’

  ‘I wouldn’t agree, especially when you consider what a place like this would cost you in Germany.’

  ‘I would not have a place like this in Germany.’

  Naupert called out loudly. ‘How much are you asking?’

  ‘As it is, with all its present furnishings and equipment, twenty million.’

  ‘Twenty million?’ repeated Naupert, as if he’d been stung.

  ‘It may sound a lot, but this house is unique, both in itself and its situation. There’s not another place on the island to equal it.’

  ‘Twenty million pesetas is very nearly nine hundred thousand marks.’

  Ingham nodded.

  ‘It is a —’ Naupert seemed to be about to say one thing, then changed his mind — ‘a very great deal of money. You are asking that much with all the furnishings as presently exist?’

  ‘Yes. There are, of course, some things which are personal to me or my stepdaughter.’

  ‘What, for instance, would you call personal in this room?’

  Ingham smiled. ‘Only the bottles in the bar! Everything else, carpets, tapestries, curtains, chairs, tables, knick-knacks, paintings … Though I doubt you’d want them around.’ Should he get more specific, he wondered? In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘In particular, that Renoir.’

  ‘The — er — Renoir?’ said Naupert, suddenly slightly uncertain.

  ‘That’s what the one in the centre is supposed to be. Apparently it’s got a name, but I can never remember it.’

  ‘La Premiere Sortie,’ murmured Naupert, then his eyes flicked a look at Ingham and his expression suggested he was annoyed at himself for having spoken.

  ‘That’s it! The friend I showed it to told me the name, but for some peculiar reason I always forget it. Funny, isn’t it, how there seem to be certain simple things which one can never remember?’

  Naupert took a crocodile-skin cigar case from his inside coat pocket, was about to take one when he checked himself and offered a cigar to Ingham, who refused, chose one for himself and took painstaking care in clipping the end and lighting the cigar. ‘You say you showed the painting to a friend? Had you some particular reason?’

  ‘I had, but it’s one of those reasons which are somewhat embarrassing to bring out in the cold light of day!’ He lit a cigarette. ‘It may be a bit early, but it’s such a terrible day a drink seems the only antidote. Can I persuade you to have one?’

  Frau Naupert said: ‘Thank you, but I …’ Her husband interrupted her. ‘Thank you, that will be an excellent idea. I would like a scotch and my wife always prefers a sweet vermouth with a dash of soda and a slice of lemon.’

  Ingham suggested they sat and he went through to the small bar and poured out the drinks, which he handed round on a tray. He sat down in one of the chairs and raised his glass. ‘Here’s to everybody.’ Had the bait been tweaked expertly enough?

  Ash slid off Naupert’s cigar and trickled down the front of his beautifully tailored green light-weight jacket. He took off his unrimmed glasses and polished the lenses with a handkerchief.

  Ingham began to chat about a holiday he had had in Cochem.

  ‘A nice little town,’ said Naupert, dismissing the subject. He drew on the cigarette, then said: ‘You mentioned that you had a particular reason for showing the painting. I’m sure it’s an interesting reason?’

  ‘Well, I don’t mind publicly putting on a fool’s cap for a little! After all, I’m not the first person to have had big ideas … I found the painting when I was down in Perpignan a few years back. I was rooting around in an old junk shop — you know, the kind of place there used to be in most countries before antiques became such big news: everything from a rusty piece of armour to a broken-down zither. There were a load of paintings ranged against a wall and I looked through them and saw that one. I’ve always liked the Impressionists and this one seemed a very attractively-done copy of something that was quite familiar. I remember having a stab at naming the painter and came up with Cezanne, which shows how much I know! Anyway, I had a good old bargain and ended up by buying the painting for the equivalent of a couple of pounds.

  ‘When I got home and had another look at it, I suddenly began to get the wild idea that I might have discovered an original. There was something, maybe the authority of the work, that seemed so much above the ordinary copy. I guess we all day-dream about finding an old master or a Ming vase. I took the painting along to a friend who’s an art teacher at a polytechnic and asked him what he thought of it. He identified it immediately as Renoir and showed me a reproduction of the original in one of his art books … That’s when we found in this one that the girl’s dress is slightly different, especially the very flowing hat and the cuffs, and that the man on the left isn’t looking the girl’s way — which apparently has always caused a bit of a mystery. I said why should there be these slight differences unless this was an earlier study? He looked at me and roared with laughter. Asked me whether I really thought it could be a genuine Renoir? I denied that, of course. He didn’t believe me and told me to look at the quality of the brush-work and said that if he couldn’t do better than that he’d give up art teaching. I tried to get him to suggest a reason for the differences between the copy and the original, but he wasn’t interested. So I took my copy away and kept it out of sight until I was furnishing this room. I know it’s a crude copy, but it looks gay … Sentiments which must offend you?’

  Naupert replaced his glasses. ‘It would be interesting to know why the copyist changed certain features.’ He stood up and crossed to the painting and studied it closely, even turning it round to examine the back. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘No doubt the wh
im of a man who reckoned he knew so much better than the master.’ He returned to his chair.

  ‘How about another drink?’ offered Ingham.

  ‘I think not, thank you. I seldom have more than one. Herr Ingham, you understand that I should not consider buying any property without having it completely surveyed and the title-deeds examined by my own experts?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And if I were at all interested in buying this house, the price would have to be a matter of negotiation?’

  The bait had been snapped, thought Ingham: hook him tight. ‘No, I’m sorry, I never negotiate a price. I add a reasonable profit on to site and building costs and that has to be that.’

  Naupert fiddled with his cigar. He began to look towards the wall on which hung the Renoir, but stopped himself. ‘That is a point which could be discussed at some later date, should there be reason to do so. I would like two friends of mine to come and survey this house. That will be in order?’

  ‘They can check anything they want, for as long as they want.’ One of them would be a surveyor, thought Ingham, but the other would be an art expert. His sole job would be surreptitiously to examine the Renoir to authenticate it, or dismiss it, in so far as this could be done by visual examination only. If Antonio Galan’s boast proved to be justified — that the fake was so good it would defy all but a couple of experts in the world, and maybe even them — then Naupert could be reeled in, gaffed, and landed. No one was greedier than a rich man.

  CHAPTER VIII

  MARIE MAYANS, small, petite, light-brown hair which was unusual for a Mallorquin, with a figure which rigid dieting kept slim, said, with much emphasis: ‘No.’ She put a new price tab on a mock-antique sword.

  ‘You’re being very stupid,’ said her husband loudly.

  ‘Am I?’ She came out from behind the counter. ‘And have you any other kind compliments for me?’

  He was too annoyed to heed her tone of voice. ‘I keep telling you, this foreigner will pay two million for the field.’

  ‘Maybe. But he will have to come and tell me that, to my face.’

  ‘Tell you? Why should he tell you? I’m the man in the house.’

  ‘Oh yes, you’re the man!’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘You’re the man who spends all his time in the Llueso Club drinking cognac and comes back all mutton-headed as though it were his Saint’s Day. I’m just the woman of the house. I just open the shop and work from dawn to midnight in order to buy food which I cook for you and you never eat because you’re too filled with cognac fumes. We all know who the man is in this house. Isn’t that right, Dolores?’ She turned and called across to the teenage girl who worked as an assistant in the shop for the spring and summer season.

  Dolores giggled.

  ‘Are you saying I don’t work myself sick?’ he demanded furiously.

  ‘Work yourself sick? That’s a wonderful idea. You’re sick most of the time, right enough, but it’s from cognac, not work.’

  ‘I go into Palma and buy at the flea market, I go round the towns and buy cast-off furniture, I make things, I talk to representatives …’

  ‘And offer them a cognac so that you can start swilling. Your guts must be more pickled than the cask the cognac comes in.’

  Dolores giggled again.

  He ran his hand through his short, crinkly black hair. ‘On the Peninsula,’ he said furiously, ‘you would be nobody.

  The fields, the fincas, and the shop would be mine. If you dared speak like that, I’d put a whip across your back.’

  ‘But I’m not a Spaniard, I’m a Mallorquin, this is not the Peninsula, it is Mallorca, and by our law the fields, the fincas, and the shop are mine, even though I’ve suffered the terrible misfortune of being married to you. And you try to put a whip across my back and I’ll land a pair of scissors in that fat, cognac-pickled belly of yours.’

  He stalked over to the door of the shop. A party of three tourists, English to judge by the gauche clothes the woman was wearing, stopped outside and poked around in one of the trays of olive wood knick-knacks. They left and returned to the pavement. He turned back and shouted at his wife: ‘Two million pesetas for a field worth a quarter of a million.’

  No Mallorquin, not even an indignant wife, could resist the lure of money. ‘And where did you meet this rich foreigner?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘In one of the back bars and after the fifth cognac so that his wits were as befuddled as yours?’

  ‘He’s Dutch and he has a big car and he wants to build a very big house. He likes the land because it’s clear of the shadow of the mountain until very late at night.’

  ‘You’ve taken him along to see it, have you?’

  ‘And why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘No doubt you told him it was your land and you’d sell it to him?’

  ‘I just fixed the price.’

  ‘Two million? In cash?’

  ‘In cash.’

  ‘It’s not land that’s good for anything else,’ she said slowly.

  ‘With two million you could build a house to make Carmen spit with fury.’

  Marie walked slowly back to the counter and she tapped her fingers on the studs of the hand-operated adding machine. Carmen was her sister-in-law. She’d be so jealous, she’d be miserable for weeks and weeks. ‘Bring the Dutchman along so that I can talk to him.’

  ‘There’s no need. I’ve discussed the matter fully. He’ll pay two million, in cash, for the field.’

  ‘But he’ll pay me the two million, not you.’

  ‘I have arranged —’ he began.

  ‘And from now on I will arrange. D’you think I’d dare let you manage anything, after the mess you made of Ca’n Manin? If I let you manage this affair, you’d sell the field for a hundred thousand.’

  Dolores giggled.

  He lost his temper and called his wife a lot of names he was subsequently to regret. Some of his resentment stemmed from the fact that the Dutchman had agreed to pay two and a half million.

  *

  ‘You really do have such a lovely house here, Mary,’ said Mrs Cabbott. ‘It’s quite the most lovely house I know. But then you have such taste.’ She was large and bulging, blue-rinsed her hair, and wore a double rope of pearls.

  Lady Eastmore thought it was odd she could exhibit such bad taste as to praise excessively. She summoned a maid with the portable bell push and ordered two more drinks.

  They sat by the pool, now free of all rose petals, in the hot sunshine which had succeeded the torrential rain. A light breeze from the north came over the mountain to rustle the fronds of the palm trees, but the pool was protected by the glass and brick wall which backed the whole of the complex. Freed of wind, the day was hot and Mrs Cabbott was noticeably sweating.

  ‘I met the new people who’ve moved into Ca’na Amoza,’ said Mrs Cabbott. ‘Letty asked me to coffee and never told me they’d be there: so unthoughtful of her not to warn me. Of course, she’s half American and they are so impulsive.’ The maid brought them two fresh drinks and took away the empty glasses.

  Lady Eastmore ate the queen olive which had been in her Martini. ‘What were these new people like?’

  ‘Oh dear, it was so very difficult. We knew absolutely no one in common so there was nothing to talk about: no mental touching point, if you know what I mean?’ She paused. ‘The man writes some sort of books and the woman was dressed badly. So depressing to meet those kind of people.’

  Lady Eastmore lit a cigarette as they heard a car draw up in front of the house. Shortly afterwards, Brigadier Gabbott and Lord Eastmore came round the side of the house.

  ‘Freddie beat me two and one,’ said Lord Eastmore. ‘I really must order a new putter from home.’

  ‘You’ll need a whole new set of clubs, Charles, before you’ve any chance of beating me,’ replied Cabbott breezily. He was a tall, thin, cadaverous-looking man with the cheerful ignorance of a retired officer from one of the better regiments.

  ‘What’ll you have, Fre
ddie?’ asked Lord Eastmore.

  ‘I could really murder a pint. Haven’t any Red Barrel, have you, by some miracle?’

  ‘Of course we have,’ said Lady Eastmore in gentle reproof. ‘We have it specially imported.’

  ‘My God! My guts are aching at the thought already.’

  ‘I’ll have a long G and T,’ said Lord Eastmore.

  Lady Eastmore rang the buzzer, and when the maid hurried up, she gave the order.

  ‘Heard about Guy?’ demanded Cabbott, as he relaxed in a cane chair and stretched out his long, thin legs. ‘You know he’s as short-sighted as an angry rhino? The silly bastard didn’t wear his specs when he was doing his swimming pool and he picked up a carboy of gin instead of the usual chlorine. He poured it all in. Everyone who went in swimming came out plastered, what!’

  Lord Eastmore smiled indulgently, Lady Eastmore was frostily not amused, and Mrs Cabbott kicked her husband’s ankle.

  ‘Steady on, old girl,’ said Cabbott. ‘Charles, d’you hear about old Morley? That Bank of England imshi turned up at his house and started asking very nasty questions. Of course, old Morley said he didn’t know anything, but. this bloody imshi seemed to know the lot: even told him how much capital he’d shifted out illegally in the past year.’

  ‘Awkward,’ said Lord Eastmore.

  ‘You ought to hear old Morley’s language. Make my old RSM turn green with envy. Of course, he’s facing God knows what fines. The bloody imshi even knew about the bank account in Switzerland.’

  ‘Good God! But the Swiss bank surely couldn’t have disclosed the account?’

  ‘Not them. No, it’s some bloody little gobbins-tiki here who’s been talking.’

  ‘Gobbins-tiki? Been talking? What do you mean?’ demanded Lady Eastmore.

  ‘These imshis are like the slat-wallahs in the income-tax at home who learn all about tax evasions from anonymous tip-offs. You know how it goes, Mary. Someone living here is jealous so he or she writes an anonymous letter to say old Morley keeps boasting about how he putt-putts all his money out of England.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. No one could be so undignified as to do such a thing.’