A Maze of Murders

by Roderic Jeffries

  At this point, the course of events became uncertain. Had he been having an affair which had turned his thoughts to murder; or had he already been contemplating it, even if more as a daydream than a real possibility? Had he been having an affair with Fenella, so similar in looks yet so different in character, because she was Vera’s sister and this afforded him perverse satisfaction; or, having decided on murder, had he evolved a plan that called on Fenella to play a major part in it and then pursued her, using every ounce of charm and cunning to persuade her to join him?

  Not, of course, that Fenella would have needed all that much persuading. Life had turned very sour for her, while for her sister it had become ever sweeter (in her world, husbands were superfluous). Added to which, Vera was always seeking to help and little bred a more positive hatred than the sense of being beholden to someone of whom one was intensely jealous. So when Clough had proposed a move that would benefit both of them, she had not rejected the idea with horror, but had agreed to co-operate.

  Clough had recognized the biggest problem of any murder – what to do with the body? Both its presence and its absence could become a voice from the grave. So what surer way of overcoming the problem than to make it appear there had been no murder? The two sisters were alike in looks, except for the colour of their hair, and very dissimilar in character; hair could be dyed and restyled, a false character could be assumed. No one would wonder what had happened to Fenella if she had made it known that she’d fallen in love with a Frenchman and was going to live with him in France. Of course, those who knew Vera even moderately well would not be fooled for long if face-to-face with Fenella, so Fenella and Clough would have to live abroad and contact with Vera’s friends would be restricted to letters or phone calls on an ever-diminishing scale; should any of them propose a visit, good reasons would be found to postpone this until the person concerned accepted that Vera had found a new life and didn’t wish to maintain contact with the old one. Her financial assets would be transferred to an offshore base and since the advisers would be dealing with Fenella from the word go, they would never have cause to question her authority.

  Clearly, if the murder took place abroad, there was a better chance of consolidating the switch of identities. The house in Pellapuig was nigh perfect for the murder – it wasn’t overlooked and the cliff was high enough to ensure that Vera must be killed on the rocks below … Perhaps it was only at this point of the planning that Clough had recognized a problem. There was little or no tide in the Mediterranean and few strong currents, so if Vera’s body was left where it fell there had to be every chance it would be discovered before decomposition made identification virtually impossible. It must be taken out to sea, weighted, and sunk. He could do that, of course, but because fate so often made a mockery of certainty, he had to allow for the fact that it might become necessary for him to prove he was nowhere near his wife when she died to his great benefit. This raised a further problem. The hired accomplice might, after dumping the body, decide to try blackmail. In which case, he would have to be paid whilst plans were made for his murder …

  Fenella had rented the house in Pellapuig. It had been planned that Clough, ever the loving husband, should join Vera there for a few days, but when he arrived it was to find that Vera had not. Whilst he and Fenella were on their own, he’d made the mistake of sharing her bed, probably at her insistence, never stopping to think that the maid might have sufficient intelligence to realize what was going on …

  Fenella had received her sister with hypocritical affection. Vera would have been so gratified by this that it would not have occurred to her to wonder what had brought about Fenella’s conversion on the road to Pellapuig. Her belief in the eventual triumph of goodness over evil made her a natural victim.

  One evening after dark, Fenella had drugged the drink she had given Vera and very soon Vera had become comatose. Fenella must have found it very difficult to lift Vera out of the chair and drag her to the rails of the patio, then to tip her over. Had the physical effort helped her to blank her mind to the actuality of what she was doing? Or had hatred and jealousy long since strangled the last vestige of conscience? Lewis had been waiting, probably in an inflatable, and he had sailed out to sea, weighted the body, tipped it over the side.

  As Clough had foreseen, Lewis had decided he’d been given a passport to an easy life. A traditionalist, when he’d demanded a million pesetas as the price of keeping his mouth shut, he would have promised this to be the first and last time. Clough would silently have agreed.

  Lewis’s death was to be an ‘accident’. This was made very much easier by his having extravagantly chartered a motor cruiser because it helped in the pursuit of women. Every year, people fell overboard and drowned, often when tight; such a death seldom aroused even the slightest suspicion. Clough had watched and waited. He’d seen Lewis and Sheard pick up Kirsty and Cara and settle in a café, had quickly boarded the Aventura and drugged the full bottle of whisky. When they’d sailed out of port, he’d followed them in his own boat and anchored close to where they’d anchored. Once all aboard the Aventura was quiet, he’d swum across and boarded, little suspecting that Kirsty was not completely unconscious. He’d exchanged the bottles and glasses, pushed Lewis over the stern, bruising him in doing so, then held him underwater until he’d drowned.

  He had overlooked Sheard. There were Sheards in every Mediterranean tourist centre, cunning, amoral, doing as little real work as possible. Sheard had probably surprised himself when he’d befriended Lewis. If so, he’d have seen it as a just reward when Lewis suddenly had money to spend, because instinct, experience, and common sense all suggested this wealth had in some way to be illegal and therefore might be a source of profit for him as well. At some point, he’d learned that Lewis was in contact with Clough – perhaps when Kirsty had heard the reference to Larry – and, after Lewis’s death, he’d set out to turn that knowledge into profit. Basically a very stupid man, he’d never foreseen that in doing this he might easily become the victim of another ‘accident’.

  Guilt could make even the most self-confident man fear danger where, in fact, none existed; a casual remark could bear a meaning never intended by the speaker, a joke could become a threat, silence an accusation. As the inquiries into Lewis’s death, and then Sheard’s, continued, Clough had begun to fear that however incompetent the investigation, a corner of the truth might become lifted. So he had decided that the best way of averting such danger was to introduce someone who would, apparently guilelessly, confirm all he’d said …

  Any man could lose his wits to wine and woman; the lucky one lost his only to wine. Phoebe had earned every peseta or pound she had been paid. With professional skill, she’d set out to capture his affections, thus ensuring that while he shamefacedly set out to question her without her suspecting, in truth she had fed him the lies that Clough had paid her to …

  A jolting thump scattered his thoughts and jerked him back to the present to find they had landed, undercarriage, wings, and engines still attached. It seemed suitably ironic that his bitter thoughts should have saved him from the terrors of the landing.

  CHAPTER 25

  Dolores hugged Alvarez, then released him. ‘How are you?’

  ‘All right.’

  Jaime, standing by her side in the front room, said: ‘She’s done nothing but worry about you. Can’t think why!’

  ‘Because you are incapable of thinking about anyone but yourself,’ she snapped. She spoke once more to Alvarez. ‘I’ve cooked you Llom amb col for supper.’

  ‘That’s great,’ he answered dully. He picked up his suitcase. ‘I’ll go up to my room and unpack.’

  ‘Never mind that. Have a drink to celebrate your return.’

  ‘And another to celebrate your arrival,’ suggested Jaime.

  She swung round. ‘Can you talk nothing but stupidities?’

  ‘Here, why d’you keep going on and on at me?’

  ‘Because you should realize that Enrique is
too exhausted to have to listen to nonsense.’

  ‘Exhausted, is he? Been enjoying himself too much in gay Paree!’

  She made a sound of sharp annoyance, crossed to the inner doorway, then came to a stop. ‘Before I forget, there was a phone call from Palma. You’re to ring back as soon as possible.’

  Life, Alvarez thought, enjoyed trampling with hobnail boots on a man who was already done. ‘How did the superior chief sound – even worse than usual?’

  ‘It wasn’t him, but someone called Amengual from the Institute of Forensic Anatomy. You can ring now; it’ll be some time before supper’s on the table.’

  He stared at the telephone as they left. Why bother to ring Palma and learn what he already knew – that he had been an utter fool? Nevertheless, he dialled the Institute’s number and asked to be connected with Amengual.

  ‘We’ve heard from England regarding the dentist’s chart you arranged to have sent to them. They managed to identify Señora Clough’s dentist who provided a chart of her teeth for comparison. There’s no match.’

  He couldn’t make sense of that. ‘There has to be.’

  ‘They say not.’

  ‘Then they’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘The report’s too definite for that.’

  If the dead woman was not Vera Clough, then she was an unknown victim which meant that his whole reconstruction of events on the island and in Pellapuig crumbled into dust. Señora Clough was alive and well and living in Son Preda. Phoebe had not been paid to fool him into believing lies. And when she had murmured ‘Not yet’, he had read the truth in her words. The room was suddenly filled with sunshine even though it faced north.

  He laughed as he replaced the receiver. The joys of being wrong; the pleasures of being proved incompetent!… Because he had believed Phoebe a bitch, he had bought her nothing in Paris. Now he could be certain she was not, it became imperative to give her a present. (Guiltily, he accepted that in part this was to salve his own conscience.) Then she should have the one intended for Dolores and somehow he’d make it up to Dolores …

  He whistled as he went through to the dining-room.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Jaime asked.

  He poured himself a drink, raised his glass. ‘Tonight, I drink with the gods.’

  ‘If you ask me, you’ve been doing that all the way back from France.’

  Alvarez laughed, whistled a few bars from ‘Viva España’, drank.

  * * *

  Alvarez left his car, crossed to the front door of Son Preda and struck the knocker a resounding blow. In his right trouser pocket was a gift-wrapped miniature model of the Eiffel Tower in silver. It certainly was not what he would have chosen for Phoebe, but he could be certain that she would treasure it because he had given it to her. The door was opened by the older maid.

  ‘I’ve come to see Señorita Owen,’ he said.

  ‘She’s not here.’

  The evening was becoming late so she’d soon be back. ‘I’ll wait.’ He stepped inside.

  ‘I’ll tell the señor.’

  As he waited, he pictured Phoebe’s return. First, the rising sound of the approaching car, the slam of a door, the crunch of her feet on the gravel surface. Then, surprised, she’d come face to face with him …

  Clough entered the hall. ‘I understand you want to see Phoebe?’ His manner was cold.

  ‘That’s right, señor. The maid said she wasn’t here, but I imagine she’ll be back before long.’

  ‘She’s in England.’

  His disappointment was immediate and bitter. ‘When did she leave?’

  ‘At the weekend.’

  ‘Where’s she gone?’

  ‘As I’ve just said, England.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but I meant where in England? Perhaps you’d be kind enough to give me her telephone number?’

  ‘When she left, she had no idea where she’d be staying.’

  ‘Then how can I get in touch with her?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Bewildered, Alvarez said: ‘Did she leave a message for me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Vera looked out from one of the rooms. ‘Larry, she did leave the inspector a note.’

  He swung round.

  ‘She asked me to give it to him when he returned from Paris.’

  ‘I told her…’ He stopped abruptly.

  ‘I’ll get it for you, Inspector,’ she said. She disappeared into the room. Clough, his expression furious, followed her.

  Alvarez heard a murmur of voices too low for him to understand what was being said, but the tone in which the words were spoken made it clear they were arguing bitterly. After a while, Vera, her face flushed, returned alone to the hall. She held out an envelope.

  ‘I hope…’ She shook her head, did not finish.

  He thanked her, said goodbye, left. He drove down the dirt track until the headlights picked out the tarmac road, came to a stop. He switched on the interior light, opened the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of paper, read.

  ‘I’m desperately sorry it’s got to end like this because I know you’ll be hurt and you’ve told me how much life has hurt you in the past. Try to remember all the fun times we’ve had, not the way it’s ended. P.’

  No address. No suggestion of a future. All too clearly, a final goodbye. She’d been so right. He felt as if the hurt were fatal …

  He drove on to the road and headed for home. Seven minutes later, he braked the car to a halt as confusing thoughts suddenly began to race through his mind. Her note was affectionate. There could be no doubting that. If she had affection for him, why hadn’t she waited for his return so that she could explain things in person? If circumstances had suddenly arisen which made this impossible, why hadn’t she explained in the note what these were? It was as if she’d written it in a tearing hurry. Could this have been because there was someone who had ordered her to leave silently and quickly and she’d had so little chance to defy the order?… Clough’s manner back at the house had made it obvious that he’d not known about the note; the muffled, angry argument between him and his wife suggested he’d been trying very hard to prevent her handing it over – she, intensely determined when she needed to be, had insisted …

  A false character could be assumed with considerable success, but the true, inner character was very difficult to hide. What had he learned about the true characters of the two sisters? Fenella – selfish, resentful, bitterly jealous; Vera – warm-hearted, loyal, generous. The maid in the villa at Pellapuig had found a twenty-thousand-peseta tip in Vera’s room. Would anyone set out a tip until just before leaving? It was perhaps conceivable that someone with a very faulty memory might do so in order not to forget, but there was no evidence that Vera had a poor memory … In Paris, Fenella had given the chambermaid what had obviously been a considerable gift because she’d been touched by learning about her father’s illness …

  He now knew he’d been right … until he’d been wrong.

  Clough – ever more bitter and frustrated because his wife had made it obvious, when she’d briefly reneged on her agreement to stand surety for him, that if she ever had proof he was being unfaithful to her, she would cut him out of her life of luxury – had decided to murder her and so gain her fortune. The plan had been straightforward. Vera was to be thrown to her death, Fenella would take her place. But Clough had not known about, and therefore could not warn Fenella against, the possible side effects of the modified chloral hydrate. When it had seemed Vera was unconscious, Fenella had started to drag her towards the edge of the patio. At which point, Vera had gone berserk and, by chance, not intention, forced Fenella over the edge to her death before collapsing into unconsciousness. Lewis had collected the body, never realizing it was the wrong one …

  When Vera had recovered consciousness sufficiently to realize what had happened, she’d panicked and in desperation telephoned her husband for help. Shocked
to hear she was still alive, initially he must have been terrified she was going to accuse him of trying to murder her, but then he’d realized that she suspected nothing and was consumed by fear and guilt; ironically, the failure of his plan could lead to the fulfilment of his ambitions. Fenella had played to perfection the part of a sister welcoming reconciliation, so he could remain the ever-loving husband determined to save his wife. He’d told Vera that she’d obviously suffered some kind of brainstorm and therefore was without the guilt of intention, but in a foreign country it could be almost impossible to persuade the law of her innocence. However, since Fenella’s body had fallen into the sea, it was very unlikely ever to be found; even if it were, identification would not be made because no one would know Fenella was missing (thanks, as he naturally did not explain, to the arrangements made for Vera’s murder) …

  Terrified, tortured by conscience and remorse, needing his constant reassurance that she had no reason to blame herself for her sister’s death, convinced that she must do exactly as he said because he was trying to save her, Vera had been putty in his hands. She had allowed herself to question nothing; whatever he said was the truth. It was just possible that in a masochistic way she had been grateful for the chance to stifle her common sense … And when told to travel to Paris to further the lie, she had seen this as nothing other than self-preservation …

  As the investigation had dragged on, Clough had begun nervously to wonder if it were just possible that the bumbling Mallorquin detective might stumble on something incriminating. (Would he have been so worried if he had learned how long it had taken to appreciate the significance of the lack of any forensic traces on the bottles and glasses from the Aventura?) So he’d paid Phoebe to come to the island to bolster his evidence in a subtle way, guaranteed not to arouse suspicion, and he’d forced Vera to impersonate Fenella in Paris so that no matter what happened, Fenella’s death in June would not be suspected. These would have been master strokes had not Fenella’s body been discovered by scuba divers. Even then he, Alvarez, had believed that the woman who had stayed in the Paris hotel had been Fenella – until Clough had made the mistake of ordering Phoebe to leave (worried that perhaps she was becoming too emotionally sympathetic?) so abruptly that she had written a note to try to belie the curt insensitivity of her silent departure. Finally, had Vera’s nature not been so sentimental that she had refused her husband’s demands to tear up the note …