Alvarez spoke impulsively. ‘He must have done.’

  ‘A professional difference of opinion?’ A brief smile.

  ‘But . . . There’s still the stink of exhaust fumes.’

  ‘Had he died from monoxide poisoning, his skin would be discoloured cherry red. There is no hint of this.’

  ‘Then was it a heart attack?’ He spoke hopefully. A natural death would entail far less work than would suicide.

  ‘The post-mortem will have to decide on that. However, there is an injury to his head.’

  ‘He may have been attacked?’

  ‘One can never be certain from a surface examination, but I think it will be found to be relatively minor and most unlikely to have caused death, so an attack seems doubtful. The time of death, inaccurate as ever when judged by the spread of rigor and the temperature of the body, was between ten and twelve hours ago. You will have remarked the somewhat sideways manner in which he rests in the car?’

  He had noticed this, but had been too preoccupied to accord it any significance.

  ‘It is not a position in which one normally sits behind a wheel, but perhaps suggests a slump after seating. The dust and dirt on the back of his shirt and trousers may well mean he was lying on something pretty dirty before his death.’

  ‘What do you reckon that signifies?’

  ‘I have always found it expedient to leave a qualified person to answer the question when his skill is required.’ He smiled, robbing his words of implied criticism. ‘You can arrange for the body to be taken to the morgue.’ He shook hands, left the garage.

  With disrespectful annoyance, Alvarez stared at the body as the doctor drove away. A simple suicide had seemingly become a complicated question mark. Sterne had not died of monoxide poisoning, had an injury to his head, had been lying somewhere dirty before his death . . .

  He became more cheerful. A heart attack would explain everything. As Sterne entered the garage, an initial shaft of pain caused him to lurch forward and bang his head on something which projected. To overcome his confused fears, he had lain down on the garage floor. Recovering, he had climbed into the car, started the engine, realized the garage doors were still closed, reached across for the remote control to open them, suffered a second and fatal attack.

  He returned to the hall, called out. Roldan hurried into view. ‘Sorry, Inspector, but I was helping Marta, my wife.’

  ‘Have you had any further word from the brother or sister to suggest when they’ll be back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It will be better if they don’t return before the body is moved. It might well affect them very badly.’

  ‘It will deeply upset Señor Sterne . . . That is, Señor Alec.’

  ‘Not the sister?’

  ‘She has a stronger character. Is there anything more I can do for you?’

  ‘Not for now, thanks.’

  Alvarez was amused to note how Roldan’s manner contrasted sharply with what it had been on his arrival. Show a mule who was boss and there’d be no trouble.

  For once, there was parking space immediately in front of No. 16. Alvarez used his key to unlock the front door – property could no longer be left unsecured without fear of theft, due to the depredations of foreigners, illegal immigrants, and drugs.

  The entrada was dust free and immaculately tidy, the furniture was newly polished, fresh flowers were on the ancient dough-mixer. A housewife’s ability was judged by the condition of her entrada.

  Jaime was in the sitting/dining-room; he sat at the table, in front of a glass and a bottle of Fundador. Alvarez settled on the opposite side of the table. ‘It’s very quiet. Where are the kids?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  Dolores called out from the kitchen. ‘Why ask him when his only interest is in drinking? Isabel and Juan are having lunch with a friend.’

  Alvarez reached down to open the Mallorquin sideboard, brought out a glass, filled it with brandy and four cubes of ice.

  Dolores stepped through the bead curtain across the doorway. One of the strings of beads became caught on her shoulder; she cast if off with a forceful gesture. She wore a recently stained apron over a working dress, her midnight hair was in slight disarray, her only jewellery was her wedding ring, her only ornament, the crude novelty brooch which Isabel and Juan had given her after their visit to the Christmas fair. Because they had bought this at the expense of sweets for themselves, she wore the brooch with the same pride as a rider at the Feria, dressed immaculately on a horse of impeccable pedigree, displayed herself. ‘I’ve something I wish to tell you, Enrique.’

  Alvarez failed to judge from the tone of her voice whether the something was likely to be unwelcome.

  ‘I met Ana Loup when I was shopping.’

  His concern had been unnecessary. ‘How is her arm?’

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘Someone told me she had broken it.’

  ‘You are thinking of Ana Barrio who tripped over a box because of her husband’s thoughtless stupidity.’

  ‘According to Felix,’ Jaime remarked, ‘it was entirely her own fault. He’d warned her it was there.’

  ‘As my dear mother used to say, “A man will blame an angel rather than himself.”’ She turned to Alvarez. ‘She asked how you were and was glad to hear you were well.’

  ‘That was friendly of her.’

  ‘Typical!’ She stared sharply at him, returned into the kitchen.

  Alvarez leaned across the edge of the table in order to be able to speak in a low voice. Dolores had the female ability to hear what was not intended for her ears. ‘Who’s Ana Loup?’

  Jaime did not lower his voice sufficiently. ‘No idea.’

  Dolores reappeared. ‘You have no idea about what?’ She was not answered. She addressed Alvarez. ‘Were you asking who Ana is?’ There was now frost in her voice. ‘You do not remember her?’

  He tried to divert her annoyance. ‘The name does seem to ring a bell.’

  ‘Very faintly.’

  ‘One meets so many people in my job, it takes a little time to sort out who someone is.’

  ‘You have no great reason to remember her? Perhaps you cannot differentiate her from the many women who have the misfortune to be in your memory.’ She turned, went back into the kitchen.

  Alvarez drained his glass, refilled it, offered Jaime a cigarette before lighting his own. Ana Barrio was the only Ana he could recall.

  ‘Have you laid the table?’ Dolores called out.

  After a quick look at the bead curtain, Jaime refilled his glass. ‘Lay the table . . . Won’t give a man a moment’s peace. Expect us to do everything while they fiddle around.’

  She reappeared, studied the table. ‘You do not intend to eat?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’ Jaime asked.

  ‘Lacking plate, knife and fork, you will find eating difficult and the slightest difficulty defeats you.’

  They ate Greixonera d’anguiles, a dish from Mestara which was the only place on the island where eels were found. She cleared the table, returned with clean plates, oranges and baked almonds. She sat, helped herself to several almonds, did not immediately eat. ‘You have decided to remember Ana?’

  ‘I still can’t place her,’ Alvarez answered reluctantly.

  ‘You clearly choose not to do so.’

  He peeled an orange.

  ‘As Ricardo Fons wrote, “When a man admits to ignorance, it is because he fears the truth.” And after what Ana mentioned, you clearly have every reason to fear the truth.’

  ‘So what did she tell you?’

  She ate.

  ‘If you won’t explain, how can I understand what you’re going on about?’

  ‘Conscience makes many cowards.’ She ate two almonds. ‘In an age when so many are concerned only with themselves, it is uplifting to meet someone of such a forgiving nature. Had it been me, I would not have concerned myself with your well-being. That would be a matter of total indifference.’

  Having washed-up, tidied the kitchen and the sitting room, Dolores left the house to collect Isabel and Juan. As he heard the front door close, Jaime poured himself another brandy and dropped three ice cubes into the glass. ‘You’re in the doghouse.’ He passed the bottle across the table.

  ‘I’m damned if I know why,’ Alvarez said.

  ‘You don’t fool me, any more than you did her.’

  ‘Can’t you understand, I don’t remember an Ana Loup.’

  ‘And don’t want to. It’s obvious that when you were a lot younger, you had fun with her. And being female, she had to tell another woman all the details.’

  If he did have fun, Alvarez thought, he might at least have been allowed the pleasure of the memory.

  THREE

  Alvarez awoke and initially enjoyed the pleasure of doing nothing, then remembered he would have to speak to Salas on his return to the office. He stared up at the ceiling, partially criss-crossed with reflected sunshine coming up through the shutters, and wondered why life was so unfair.

  He had a shower and went downstairs, expecting to enjoy a breakfast of hot chocolate and perhaps a newly baked ensaimada from the nearby baker. There was a note on the dining-room table, written with some difficulty because Dolores had missed the schooling which a later generation were able to enjoy. She had had to leave home early to help a friend who was ill. Since he was so late getting up, he must get his own breakfast.

  Uncertain how to make the rich chocolate he enjoyed, he decided to have coffee. After a brief examination of the electric percolator, he was able to judge how it worked. Since there was no ensaimada, he tried to make himself some Pa amb oli. He toasted the pan moreno, drizzled this with olive oil, rubbed it with a halved bush tomato. The result did not taste as it would have done had Dolores made it. The coffee was weak. A poor breakfast. He understood it was reasonable for her to help a friend, nevertheless . . .

  He drove to the office, sat at his desk. It was necessary to steady his confidence. He opened the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk, brought out a nearly empty bottle of 103 and a glass. The bottle was empty before he phoned Palma.

  ‘Doctor Antignac has examined the dead man, señor. It seems there is a problem.’

  ‘How unusual!’ Salas spoke sarcastically.

  ‘Señor Sterne did not die from monoxide poisoning.’

  ‘It is as well I do not expect you to corroborate facts before presenting them.’

  ‘But he was found dead in the car and the garage was filled with exhaust fumes.’

  ‘A man found dead in a bath obviously drowned?’

  ‘It did seem . . .’

  ‘Since you thought it unnecessary to visit the scene, the impossible would have seemed likely to you. Would it trouble you to inform me what was Doctor Antignac’s judgement as to the cause of death, without putting your own interpretation on his words?’

  ‘There was a small injury to the deceased’s head. But the doctor was reasonably certain that was not the cause of death. As I had noted, the dead man sat partially sideways, not what one would normally expect, because of discomfort. However, this would be explained by his having suffered a heart attack as he closed, or immediately after he closed, the driving door. We won’t know until after the post-mortem.’

  ‘The doctor cannot give the possible cause of death?’

  ‘No, señor.’

  ‘Then what did he say it was?’

  ‘I have just explained, that won’t be known until the post-mortem.’

  ‘You’ve just said he has given a cause.’

  ‘I was agreeing that he cannot give a cause.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you answer “yes” to my question?’

  ‘Surely that would have sounded as if he had given one?’

  ‘You destroy the belief that speech enables meaningful communication. Is there anything else to report?’

  ‘No, señor.’

  ‘That is not intended to infer you have something?’

  ‘Yes, it isn’t.’

  Salas replaced the receiver.

  Alvarez went to pour himself a reviving brandy, was reminded the bottle was empty. He decided to have an early merienda.

  He left the post, crossed the old square, filled with idle tourists seated at shaded tables and indulging themselves, went into Club Llueso.

  Roca, behind the bar, said: ‘Looking at you makes it certain you haven’t won the lottery.’

  ‘You think I’d be here if I had?’

  ‘You’d want a bar with crystal glasses, Krug champagne, and whatever else the nouveau riche think they ought to like?’

  ‘I’d find a bar with a competent, dumb barman. As it is, I’ll have coffee cortado and a decent sized coñac.’

  ‘You’ve brought a tankard to pour it into?’

  When served, Alvarez turned to look through the window at the passing tourists, noted a couple arm-in-arm. She was celebrity attractive – thin, long-legged and in danger of losing modesty if she leaned too far forward. Years ago, she would have been arrested for wearing indecent clothing.

  ‘You’d be wasting your time,’ Roca said, as he put a glass, cup, and saucer down on the bar.

  ‘Not if I’d won the lottery.’

  ‘She’d have you as a sugar-daddy?’

  Alvarez stopped in front of the portico entrance of Ca’n Mortex, climbed out of the car, stood by the opened door and stared at the bay. Natural beauty could never be dimmed by familiarity; it possessed the potential to redeem failure, soothe the troubled soul, restore pleasure to life; it possibly could even introduce Salas to humanity.

  He finally turned back, crossed to the entrance and was about to knock when Roldan opened the door. ‘Good morning, Inspector.’

  Gone was the hint of snobbish superiority assumed by those who served the rich or famous. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’d like a word.’

  ‘Please enter.’

  As he stepped into the hall, a young woman, with a duster in her hand, and an older woman wheeling a Dyson, came out of a room.

  ‘My wife, Marta, and daughter, Susanna,’ Roldan said in introduction. ‘Inspector Alvarez.’ They nodded, continued across the hall and went into another room.

  The twists of nature were serpentine, Alvarez thought. Marta, whilst probably not yet quite middle-aged, had unremarkable features and a figure which suggested a love of rich food. But her daughter might have been born rising from the sea. Susanna was garlanded with wavy, bronze-coloured hair, had an oval face of classical symmetry, eyes a lustrous blue, nose a Phidias masterpiece, lips of promise, a neck to shame a swan. Yet, possessed of such natural beauty, her expression had been bitter discontent.

  ‘Would you come this way, Inspector, into the staff sitting-room.’

  It was square and stark because of the stone walls which were bare, the furniture had the look of having descended from the owner’s quarters.

  They sat. Alvarez said: ‘I want to know about Señor Sterne’s lifestyle. Whether he had many friends, were there people he did not get on with. So tell me what you can.’

  ‘I only know what I have learned in the normal course of my duties.’

  ‘I’d not expect otherwise.’ Yet had not Roldan ‘spied’ on his employer as did many employees who sought reason to scorn their employers? ‘You are not from the island, are you?’

  Roldan’s accent and sing-song form of speech marked him a forestero.

  ‘I was born and lived in Burgos.’ Knowing the antipathy to a ‘forestero’ – anyone not from the island, even if Spanish – he added: ‘Work became difficult and we were told it would be easier to find a job here.’

  And more profitable when one found a foreigner who knowingly or unknowingly, paid an above-average wage. ‘You have always been in service?’ Any islander would regard the question to be insulting. A Mallorquin did not serve, he worked for someone.

  Roldan showed no sign of resentment. ‘There was a rich man in Burgos whose butler wanted an assistant and I gained the job. After a couple of years, I married and Marta was employed as the cook. The owner died suddenly, we then had a daughter, so needed to find another position as quickly as possible and came to the island.’

  ‘Your wife is also from Galicia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does she cook Angulas en cazuelita?’ A dish with a taste beyond description. Baby eels from Aguinaga, and nowhere else, garlic, pimiento . . .

  ‘The señor so liked the dish, he had the angulas sent down here. There was a batch due in two days, but we have cancelled it.’

  A mistake. Had they forgotten to do so, the batch would have arrived and they might well have seen fit to share them with another.

  ‘The señor is divorced and his ex-wife does not come here?’

  ‘I have not known her do so.’

  ‘Did you like the señor?’

  ‘I think it sensible never to like or dislike the person for whom one works.’

  Those who worked for Salas had no such reservation. ‘Did he pay well?’

  ‘Isn’t that a matter of opinion, Inspector?’

  ‘Your opinion is?’

  ‘He thought he bought more than he paid for.’

  Alvarez was surprised by the bitterness of Roldan’s reply. Made to work a great deal of unpaid overtime? ‘You’ve told me he did not have many friends.’

  ‘He gave dinner and cocktail parties, but not often and I would not say there were ever a large number of guests.’

  ‘In a place like this, one would expect endless parties. Why d’you think there weren’t?’

  ‘Difficult to say.’

  ‘Was he not a well-liked man because he was rich? That always creates jealous dislike.’

  Roldan spoke slowly. ‘I understand the English have the reputation of being small-minded over some things.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Behaviour.’

  ‘Did he dress like a tramp, swear in front of women, spit in the street?’

  ‘He was always meticulously well dressed and mannered.’

 

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