Meegan brought out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘What else had Mary heard about John?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing more.’
A couple, nicknamed the biggest boars in Spain, came up the wide steps on to the level section, looked round, saw Helen and Meegan, and crossed. ‘Hullo, there,’ said the man. ‘Long time, no see. In fact I was only saying to the little lady wife yesterday that it was simply months and months since we’d seen Helen and Jim … Don’t mind if we join you? Lovely evening, isn’t it? And it’s raining back home. Talk about laugh! Us here, sitting out for a snifter, all of ’em back home huddling in their houses … Have you heard the news?’
‘About poor John? Yes,’ said Helen.
‘D’you know, he’d put the muzzle of the gun in his mouth and pulled the triggers! Half his head was missing. Just think of it! Half his head.’
Meegan’s voice was high. ‘You mean …’ He stopped abruptly.
‘I’ll tell you something. I wouldn’t want to eat a plateful of Frito Mallorquin after seeing him, that I wouldn’t.’
‘Arthur!’ said his wife, with the delighted indignation of a woman stupid enough to be amused by her husband’s repeated gaucheries.
The waiter came to the table with two coffees. The man said in a loud, hectoring voice: ‘I’ll have a large gin and tonic and the little lady wife’ll have the same.’ He repeated the order, even more loudly, although it was obvious the waiter had understood, then turned back. ‘I’ll tell you something more. There’s going to be no end of trouble over his having committed suicide. At the best of times, us English get buried well away from all true believers — all on account of ’Enery the Smart.’
‘Who?’ asked his wife dutifully.
‘’Enery the Eighth. Six wives and never paid a halfpenny in alimony — you can’t get smarter than that.’ He roared with laughter. ‘So like I was saying, what are they going to do with the body? There’ll be no cemetery that’ll have him.’
Meegan stubbed out his cigarette. ‘D’you think John would give a damn where he was buried?’ He drank his coffee.
‘No knowing, is there? I met a bloke who was always going on and on about how death was toes up and that’s it. Then he turned up his toes. Guess what? In his will there were orders for a slap-up funeral and a tombstone big enough to live under — or die under, eh? Know what I call that? Buying the insurance too late! … Been busy writing, then? Churning ’em out? Didn’t win the Nobel prize for literature last year, I see. But I’ll have a quid on you for this year. Not that I’ve ever read one of your books — can’t really find what I like out here.’
‘They do have English comics down at the Port.’
He stared at Meegan, his round, turkey-cock face expressing perplexity. Then he decided to accept it as a joke. ‘That’s a good one, that is. Very comical — what?’
Meegan saw Helen had finished her coffee. He stood up. ‘We’ve got to go.’
Helen tried to make their departure seem less abrupt. ‘I’ve left something cooking in the oven.’
‘Not a bun?’ said the man, and laughed again.
Helen ignored him. ‘And you know what the man in the house is like if his food is even slightly dried out or burned?’
The woman sniffed. ‘Anyone moans about the food I serve up, I tells ’em, cook it yourself. I never have stood any nonsense in my kitchen and that’s fact, as Arthur’ll tell you.’
‘That’s fact,’ said her husband. ‘I can remember when she was preparing a five quid special — that’s a tart. Got it? — and I went into the kitchen … ’
Meegan turned and walked into the café where he paid for the two coffees. When he returned outside, Helen joined him. They crossed to the steps, went down them and along to where their car was parked.
When they were both seated, she said: ‘Did you have to be quite so rude?’
‘In words of one syllable, yes.’ He engaged the starter and the engine fired, then died. The same thing happened a second time and he swore with rough violence.
‘Try accelerating as soon as it fires,’ she suggested.
‘Try a seven-pound hammer. The only way you can ever keep a car running on this bloody island is never take it to a garage. The last time it was in for service …’
‘Jim, don’t get like some of the English who criticize everything and everybody, but still go on living here.’
‘In our case … ’
‘In our case, we’re here because it’s so much better for my health. And until recently, we’ve both liked living here, despite the mañanas. But … ’ She looked briefly at him. ‘But since you got that bee in your bonnet about John you’ve been a different person: bitter about so many things.’
‘With cause.’
She didn’t try to argue further.
He started the car and this time kept the engine running, backed, turned, and went down a one-way street and out to the Palma/Puerto Llueso road. He was silent for the seven-minute drive to their house and she made no effort to break that silence, but as soon as they were both indoors she faced him. Her expression was troubled and fearful. ‘Jim, please tell me now we’re on our own. What is the matter?’
‘Nothing. I keep telling you that. Try changing the record.’ He went over to the settee and slumped down on it.
‘Something is worrying you sick.’
‘I’m no more worried than usual when my book won’t … ’
‘Whatever it is, it’s nothing to do with your book.’
‘If you know all the answers, stop asking the questions.’
She nibbled her lower lip, somehow managing to contain her normally volatile temper. ‘It’s to do with John, isn’t it? When I told you the police had found his body, you were frightened. Why? You knew he’d said he was going to kill himself.’
‘I didn’t believe he’d ever really do it.’
‘If that were the case, you’d have been surprised, not frightened.’
‘You’re imagining how I felt.’
‘And did I imagine the way you knocked that glass off the table or your shocking rudeness to Arthur?’
‘He’s so thick-skinned he’ll have thought I was being polite.’
She crossed to the settee and sat down beside him. ‘Why won’t you tell me, so I can help?’
‘There’s nothing to help over.’ He stood up. ‘D’you want a drink?’
‘I’d like that seven-pound hammer you were talking about earlier,’ she said, her voice bitter and strained.
*
Alvarez usually spent Sunday evenings at the Club Llueso. There, he would lose a few pesetas at the local variety of two-handed whist, at which he was a poor player, drink too many brandies, and smoke too many cigarettes. His cousin’s family would have been happy if he’d spent the evenings with them, but he was determined to remain as independent as he could: one day they might no longer be able to have him live with them and then he didn’t want the hurt of loneliness to be too great.
Pedro slapped down the two of trumps to take the last trick. ‘Got you again, Enrique. That’s another twenty pesetas.’
‘If only I could catch you actually palming the cards.’ He took a handful of loose change from his pocket and counted out twenty pesetas. ‘There you are — add that to your fortune. Next thing is, you’ll get a stroke from too much luxurious living.’
‘Or women,’ said Pedro slyly. Since he was nearly seventy, there was cause for his amusement. ‘By the way, d’you hear about Juan, the baker?’
‘What’s he been up to this time?’
‘Working too hard. The stupid simpleton has been baking bread and cakes so hard he’s never stopped to wonder what Marie was really doing when she told him she was working down in the Port two days a week for a Frenchman. Now the Frenchman’s returned to France and she’s gone with him. And taken all the thousand peseta notes he’d tucked away in their mattress.’
‘More fool him for leaving the money where a woman could get at
it.’ He called across to the barman for two more brandies.
A man walked up to where they sat, by one of the windows, and he shouted at the barman, ‘Make that three.’ He sat down at the table. ‘D’you hear about poor old Juan? His wife’s gone off to Italy with an Italian.'
‘France, with a Frenchman,’ corrected Pedro.
‘I’m telling you, it was an Italian.’
‘And I’m telling you … ’
‘Keep your blood pressures low and forget it,’ cut in Alvarez. ‘Ten to one she’s at home right now. And tomorrow she’ll be in the shop, trying to overcharge us all as usual.’
The waiter brought three brandies to the table and Pedro went to pay him, but Alvarez said: ‘This round’s on me.’
‘It’s what? You lose a fortune and then offer to pay for a round without me reminding you it’s your turn. What’s up? Have you won the lottery?’
‘I just feel good. All my major troubles are behind me, I haven’t a wife to take off with a Frenchman, or an Italian, and I’m one day nearer retirement than I was yesterday.’
Fernadez — the newcomer — produced a pack of cigarettes and offered them. As he flicked open a lighter, he said: ‘Someone was telling me that the Englishman who blew his brains out used a gun worth a king’s ransom.’
‘I’ve handled some guns in my time,’ said Alvarez, ‘but that one was something different. It sits in your hand like a feather and it comes up to your shoulder like it was doing it on its own.’
‘A gun like that must cost something?’
‘A quarter of a million, so the Englishman once said.’
Fernadez whistled. Pedro said: ‘If it’d been me, I’d’ve sold it for the quarter million, spent the money on fun, and then blown my brains out.’
Fernadez spoke sarcastically. ‘What with, if you’d sold the gun?’
‘Someone else’s I’d borrowed. Don’t ask bloody silly questions.’
‘It’ll probably go to his wife,’ said Alvarez. ‘Now she can sell it and have the fun.’
‘More fool him. Leave a wife too much and there’s a smart fancy-pants knocking at the front door before your coffin’s had time to settle.’
‘If that’s how you feel, don’t marry.’
‘And get like you?’ Pedro laughed shrilly. ‘By God! I’d rather marry a real witch and take the consequences.’
Alvarez drained his glass and then looked up at the clock on the wall behind the bar. ‘I’ll be on my way — I’ve a hell of a day tomorrow, coping with all the bumf over the Englishman. God knows why he couldn’t have knocked himself off in the next department … Ah, well, life’s never perfect!’
He left the club and walked along the narrow roads which were without pavements — up to four years before they had been only packed earth and stone. It was almost dark and the well separated street lights were switched on, casting long shadows across the shuttered houses. At night time — when youngsters weren’t tearing the place apart on their motorbikes — there was a peace about the place which soothed a man’s soul, even a man of the soil who basically disliked all villages. Perhaps, he thought, it was because within the area in which he lived almost all the houses were old: when a man reached a certain age, there was something very comforting in the past.
His cousin and her husband were in the sitting-room watching the television, now much clearer since a new repeater station had been built on a hill near Puig Llueso: before then the repeater had been on Puig Llueso and the reception had not only been poor, but the nuns had switched off the repeater whenever they considered the subject-matter was in danger of becoming of doubtful morality. His cousin asked him to join them, but he thanked her, said he was too tired, and went upstairs, thinking as he did so that that last brandy had been the dangerous one.
In bed, he tried to read, but the lines of print became too mobile — thanks to that last brandy — and so he switched off the light and prepared to sleep. Immediately, his mind became uneasily active.
Was suicide the act of a coward or a brave man? It was interesting that Calvin had chosen to kill himself up on that rock shelf so that he could take a last look at the starkly beautiful mountains and lush green valley, only lightly brushed by man’s work — a final assurance that although his life was about to end, life went meaningfully on. Death could teach more than life. Even Calvin’s sardonic, iconoclastic nature had bowed before the teachings of death.
What a gun! When he’d been young he’d gone shooting with a gun which should have exploded in his face whenever he fired it, but mercifully hadn’t. He was now saddened to remember that the ejector had been broken, because when he handled something so superbly made he felt offended, disillusioned, when it proved to be faulty … A hammerless ejector, he suddenly thought, ejected only when the chamber had just been fired: breaking the gun and then closing it again re-cocked it so that when it was next broken without being fired, it would not eject.
He silently swore. That bloody last cognac.
CHAPTER XI
The sunshine which filtered through the louvres of the shutters was reflected off the highly polished dressing-table on to the ceiling in blobs of light which danced. Watching them, Alvarez was reminded of a dance he had gone to with Juana-Maria, when for the first time he had dared to hold her tightly to himself even though her duenna had been sitting very upright on a wooden bench against one of the walls. Duennas! What would the modern youngster, chewing gum, pockets filled with pesetas, sophisticatedly certain the world owed him a living, say if his girl-friend came with her duenna?
Any mechanical thing could go wrong, then right itself for no apparent reason. Was there a television owner who hadn’t suffered a fault which never repeated itself when the repairman arrived? If the Purdey now ejected every single time it was fired, this wouldn’t prove that it had been opened by someone after it had fired the fatal shot … Yet the odds must surely be …
He looked at his watch. In ten minutes’ time, he must get up. His indecision made him swear. Forget the cartridge which hadn’t been ejected and the case was over and done with, bar the paperwork. But start asking questions, questions which could surely only have initially occurred to a mind awash with brandy, and there was no knowing where it would all end …
He slept wearing only a pyjama bottom. He sat upright and put his feet on the tiled floor. For a while his head pounded, but then it eased off sufficiently for him to consider moving further. A happy man was a wise man (who didn’t drink too much) and a wise man always tried to find the easiest possible passage through life. He would forget the Purdey which had once not ejected and he would write his report to Palma, saying he had carried out his investigations and Señor Calvin had committed suicide by blowing half his head off.
*
The Guardia post in Llueso was in an old building which was in urgent need of renovation — a new post, with quarters for married families, was being built down in the Port — and cockroaches were a frequent fact of life. Alvarez had a primitive, illogical, and unthinking fear of them. He leapt back as a black shape scuttled away from the bicycle which had just been moved.
The Guard who was in charge of the exhibits room roared with laughter. ‘Run, man, or he’ll have your guts for garters.’
‘Bloody things,’ muttered Alvarez.
‘They’re deadly, right enough. I knew a bloke who fell asleep in his office and when he woke up they’d eaten shoes, socks, and all the flesh on his feet and he was looking at his own bones.’
‘So they transferred him to the skeleton staff … Come on, cut the cackle and reach over for that gun.’
‘All right, all right. There’s no need to get sharp. Or are you going shooting? Bring us back a plump partridge if you are.’
‘At this time of the year? Give over.’
The Guard handed Alvarez the shotgun. He began to walk towards the door.
‘Hang on, mate. You’ve got to sign it out.’
‘What the hell for? I only want it for a few
minutes.’
‘You know the rules, Enrique.’
‘Feed ’em to the cockroaches.’
He went up the stairs to his office, put the gun on the desk, sat down, and looked at it. There was dried blood on the muzzles, looking more like old varnish, and an overall light haze of rust which had been caused by the dew over successive nights up on the rock shelf. Instinctively, he wanted to get an oily rag and remove as much of the rust as possible.
He opened the top right-hand desk drawer and brought out the two cartridges which had been in the gun. He placed them, brass caps downwards, on the desk alongside the trigger guard and then put on his glasses which he needed more often than he used them. He examined the cartridge which had been fired and found on the edge of the brass cap a small mark which suggested it had struck something hard — rock?
He removed his spectacles, took from his pocket two used cartridges he had brought with him, picked up the gun and inserted them in the chambers. He slid the safety-catch forward with his thumb and pulled the front trigger: there was the sharp metallic sound of the firing pin striking the cap. He broke the gun and the right-hand cartridge was ejected in an arc which took it high over his shoulder. He ‘fired’ the right-hand barrel a dozen times and a dozen times the cartridge was ejected.
He replaced the gun on top of the desk and sat down. As he’d told himself earlier that morning, the fact that he couldn’t now get the gun to malfunction did not prove that it had not malfunctioned the previous month. But it did mean that he had now to accept the possibility that when he’d picked up the gun on the rock ledge and broken it, the fired cartridge had not been ejected because the gun had been broken after the fatal shot had been fired.
*
The shepherd, looking if anything a little older and a little more gnarled, was by the edge of the road, leaning on a stick and watching both a flock of sheep and lambs which were grazing the verge and his black and white bitch.
Alvarez braked his car to a halt and climbed out. ‘Did you find the missing sheep?’
‘Aye. The silly sod’d got itself tied up in some brambles.’ The shepherd hawked and spat. ‘There’s only one thing dafter than sheep. Humans.’
Two-Faced Death (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 11