‘You deemed that a matter of greater importance than your investigation into the death of Señor Sterne? It would not occur to you that any delay in solving this crime will enable the English press to repeat their canard that in Spain, only the siesta is pursued vigorously.’

  ‘No officer would take a siesta when on duty, señor.’

  ‘Being a hypocritical race, the English prefer to believe that perfidy when given the opportunity by the action, or lack of action, of an officer with little conception of the meaning of priority. Have you found time while pursuing shoplifters to learn who are the dead man’s heirs?’

  ‘The son and daughter had left Ca’n Mortex and so I could not ask if they knew where the keys of the safe were kept. I have questioned Marta.’

  ‘I might find that information pertinent if I knew who she is.’

  ‘The wife of Emilio Roldan who is . . .’

  ‘I am well aware of his identity.’

  ‘Marta confirmed that Señor Sterne had few friends even though many people came to his infrequent parties. As she put it, they were thirsty when it was free.’

  ‘An indication of their character as well as of his.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Restrict your comments.’

  ‘He entertained many women.’

  ‘There is no need to indulge your unwelcome pleasure by repeating what you have already told me.’

  ‘More than one was married and most were tarty.’

  ‘Not an expression with which I am familiar.’

  ‘Flashy, provocative, vulgar.’

  ‘Pointless tautology. A woman who knowingly cuckolds her husband cannot be of any other character.’

  ‘A little difficult to do so unknowingly.’

  ‘An unnecessary vulgarity.’

  ‘Since a married woman has a husband . . .’

  ‘A witless remark.’

  ‘A husband who has been betrayed has very good reason to hate the man responsible. There can be no surprise if he seeks revenge.’

  ‘Must you repeatedly state the obvious?’

  ‘I told Marta it was very possible Señor Sterne had been threatened by a husband and asked if this happened to her knowledge.’

  ‘You expect her to be able to answer were it not in her knowledge?’

  ‘She mentioned that a Park or Parry had come to Ca’n Mortex and had a fierce row with the señor.’

  ‘She cannot say which of the two it was?’

  ‘What two, señor?’

  ‘You have the ability to render Cervantes unintelligible. Which of the two men had the row with Sterne?’

  ‘There was just the one.’

  ‘I find it easier to understand someone speaking Mallorquin, however barbaric a language that is, than to your speaking Castilian. You distinctly named two men.’

  ‘They were alternative names for the same man.’

  ‘So which did this woman choose?’

  ‘She is uncertain which it was.’

  ‘Does her husband corroborate the row?’

  ‘I can’t answer.’

  ‘Because it has not occurred to you to ask him?’

  ‘He had to leave in a hurry to fetch his daughter who was at the health centre. I said I’d return in the morning to talk to him and find out.’

  ‘Would I be surprised to learn you had a reason for not waiting for his return?’

  ‘Marta had no idea when he would be back. If many people are at the health centre, unless it is an emergency, one can wait a long time before one speaks to the doctor.’

  ‘As one waits a long time, emergency or not, to receive a report from one’s inspector.’

  The line was closed.

  SIX

  Alvarez was reluctant to leave the office and return home. Even the prospect of the meal to come failed to invigorate him. Could he not revive his previous idea of asking a cabo to ring home and say he had had to drive to Cala Roig, Festo Valley, Parelona or somewhere far away? But he had to accept Dolores would not readily believe the cabo. Like all women, she automatically doubted what a man told her.

  He made his way downstairs to his car which was in front of a no-parking sign, issued to that house by the town hall for a fee. He sat behind the wheel, lit a cigarette. He could claim illness and the need to retire to bed. It would be a pity falsely to cause her worry – she might have a sharp tongue, but was very concerned by the slightest trouble any of the family suffered. And, she would follow him upstairs to learn the symptoms of his sudden illness; being knowledgeable on what complaint produced what symptom, she would identify his deception.

  Why was he so reluctant to meet Ana? Whatever had happened, they had both been young. Youth was permitted to make mistakes. But from the way in which Dolores was behaving, this had been no mere mistake.

  There were times, thankfully rare, when a man must do what a man had to do. He drove to Carrer Conte Rossi, instinctively parked further from No. 8 than he need have done. He entered the entrada, heard Dolores speak, to be answered by a woman. Ana had not had to cancel her visit. Fate seldom offered support to those who needed it.

  ‘You’re late,’ Dolores said. ‘I began to think you had been held up.’

  Her tone made it clear he had been wise to dismiss the idea of an emergency.

  ‘Hullo, Enrique,’ Ana said.

  He returned the greeting. He had not deliberately tried to picture her – why try, when she was a mystery? – but into his mind had floated the impression that she would be around his age – although looking considerably older – have a round, characterless face with too much padding, lustreless eyes, grey hair, thin mouth, and stubby neck.

  She smiled. ‘Are you so surprised to see me again?’

  However he judged his appearance, he had to accept she looked younger than he. Her features were pleasing; her black hair was carefully styled, her forehead, graceful, her dark brown eyes, lustrous, her mouth, full and even promising, her neck had Grecian grace. Her colourful dress outlined a figure many younger women would envy. Her appearance might cause some relief, but it in no way triggered his memory.

  ‘No kiss of welcome?’

  He crossed to where she sat, brushed her right cheek with his left one in traditional style.

  ‘Time changes everything,’ she said provocatively.

  ‘I suppose . . .’ He wasn’t certain what he supposed.

  ‘Would you like a drink before we eat?’ Dolores asked.

  Surprise delayed his affirmative reply. It was a long time, almost beyond recall, when Dolores had suggested he had a drink.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Jaime said, as he hurriedly came to his feet, an empty glass in his hand.

  ‘Before you worry about anyone else, ask Ana if she would like another sherry,’ Dolores said.

  ‘I won’t have one, thank you,’ Ana said.

  ‘Why not?’ Jaime asked.

  ‘Because she knows her own mind,’ Dolores snapped.

  ‘Two sherries couldn’t harm . . .’ Jaime stopped abruptly as Dolores glared at him.

  ‘Did you know I was married?’ Ana asked Alvarez.

  ‘Dolores told me.’

  ‘But before she did.’

  He was trying to think what to answer, when she continued: ‘I wonder if you would have come to my wedding with Emilio?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You might have felt . . . But then, of course, a woman sometimes thinks differently from a man.’

  ‘All the time,’ Dolores pronounced.

  He tried to identify an Emilio who would help place Ana when young.

  Jaime handed a glass of wine to Alvarez, carefully concealing his own from Dolores’ gaze.

  ‘Dolores tells me you work for the Cuerpo,’ Ana said. ‘That really surprised me. You know why, of course?’

  ‘Not really,’ was his weak answer.

  ‘You used to be so keen on farming. I can remember you telling me the maximum number of orange trees there should be in a hectare, how you would grow avocados because they would become popular – as they have – how almonds would need some form of mechanical harvesting to make them a truly profitable crop. All that enthusiasm and you join the police!’

  ‘Without land, one can only be a labourer, and in those days . . . not so long ago . . . many labourers still had to share their living space with animals.’

  ‘And you’ve never married.’

  ‘Who’d want him?’ Jaime asked.

  ‘Must you judge others by yourself?’ Dolores said sharply.

  ‘I’m married.’

  ‘You would like me to comment on that fact?’

  ‘Would you still like to farm?’ Ana asked.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Alvarez answered. ‘But now one needs many hectares of land, workers demand so much money, a farmer has to have many machines which become ever more expensive. Long gone are the days when owning a hectare of reasonable land, working on it day and night, enabled a man to provide his wife and children with a bare living.’

  ‘Yet perhaps your ambition hasn’t entirely vanished? Dream on and one day maybe you will attain it.’

  At Dolores’ prompting, Alvarez had accompanied Ana to her car, a large Volvo.

  ‘It’s been such fun, Enrique, seeing you again. I wish I’d learned long ago where you lived. I’m going to make certain we meet again soon. Sweet dreams.’ Her lips brushed his.

  He watched her drive away, returned into the house. Dolores was in the kitchen, Jaime was seated at the dining-room table. He passed across the opened bottle of Marqués de Riscal. ‘You’ve landed yourself in the hundred euro seats.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Alvarez emptied the bottle into his glass.

  ‘She obviously likes you as much as when you were young and likely teaching her it wasn’t the storks.’

  ‘You’re talking nonsense.’

  ‘I’ve got eyes and ears.’

  ‘And nothing in-between when you go on like that.’

  The second bottle of wine had not been opened. Since Dolores was washing up, Jaime picked up the corkscrew.

  She stepped through the bead curtain, a drying-up cloth in her hand. ‘Well?’

  Jaime gently replaced the corkscrew on the table.

  ‘She seems quite pleasant,’ Alvarez remarked.

  ‘That is all you have to say?’

  ‘I suppose she’s not bad-looking.’

  ‘Being a man, you dwell on her physical features. You give no heed, not one single thought, to her extraordinary spirit of forgiveness. Had I been her, I would never have wished to meet you again. Were I so unfortunate as to do so, I would have made my feelings quickly known.’

  ‘Yet she showed him so much warmth,’ Jaime began, ‘she was as good as suggesting . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say what you thought I was.’

  She looked at the table. ‘Why is that bottle of wine in front of you? You thought to open it and drink?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then why was the corkscrew in your hand?’

  He could find no answer, so said, pleadingly: ‘We did have only the one bottle during the meal and no coñac.’

  ‘Since Ana drank so little, there was no need for you to disgrace yourself by exhibiting your inability to drink moderately. There is even less need now.’ She returned to the kitchen.

  Jaime spoke quietly, but bitterly. ‘If you go on annoying Dolores because of what you say about Ana, she’ll have us with empty glasses all the time.’

  SEVEN

  The front door of Ca’n Mortex was opened by Susanna. Alvarez greeted her, she muttered a reply. He noted her drawn features and reddened eyes which suggested recent crying. He wished a good morning, asked if her mother were there.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘In the village.’

  Her speech lacked a Galician accent and possessed a Mallorquin rhythm, marking her years lived on the island. ‘May I come in?’

  She stepped to one side, he entered. For someone so artlessly beautiful, he thought, the world should be full of sunshine, not black clouds. Had a boyfriend been severely criticized by her parents or had one deserted her? The young could find life just as cruel as did their elders. He closed the front door to the usual creaks.

  There was a call in English from one of the rooms. ‘Who is it?’

  Susanna did not answer.

  A woman stepped into the hall. She stared at Alvarez. ‘What do you want?’

  Her voice matched her appearance. Tall, thin, a sharply featured face lined with discontent, a voice which proclaimed her inherent superiority. The English might have lost their empire, but foreigners remained lesser beings. ‘I am Inspector Alvarez of the Cuerpo General de Policia, señorita,’ he answered in English. ‘You are Caroline Sterne?’

  ‘Señorita Sterne. What is it this time?’

  ‘I am here to speak to you.’

  ‘I am far too upset to talk to anyone.’

  ‘Naturally, and I regret having to explain that unless you can tell me where are the keys to the safe in the library, I shall have to ask a locksmith to open it.’

  ‘You will do no such thing.’

  ‘I need to examine the contents of the safe.’

  ‘You will not meddle with my father’s private papers.’

  ‘As I have tried to explain . . .’

  ‘You will not touch the safe.’

  ‘I need to explain that your father did not die in his car.’

  ‘Have you the slightest idea what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, señorita.’

  ‘Then it is your English which is ridiculous.’

  ‘Neither did he die from exhaust fumes. The cause of his unfortunate death was not monoxide poisoning.’

  ‘How dare you come here and talk arrant nonsense, making a mockery of our tragedy.’

  ‘Had the cause of death been monoxide poisoning, his skin would have been coloured a bluish pink. It was not. Forensic evidence also shows that for a while after death, he lay on the ground before he was placed in the car.’

  There was a shout from upstairs. ‘Who’s the visitor, sis?’ A slightly built man came in sight at the head of the stairs. His long hair was groomed, reluctant moustache newly clipped; he wore a white shirt, overlong white shorts, knee-length white socks – he might have resembled a sahib of yore, had his features not been so weak.

  She answered. ‘He’s a policeman of some sort.’

  ‘Looks more like a local rag-and-bone merchant.’ He chuckled at his own ‘wit’. He began to descend.

  Alvarez said, continuing in English: ‘I am Inspector Alvarez, of the Cuerpo.’

  Alec Sterne came to a sharp stop, his expression that of a man who had thought to pat a chihuahua and found himself facing a snarling Rottweiler. ‘My God! You . . . you speak English.’

  ‘I try to.’

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t . . . I was joking when I said . . .’

  ‘A joke I might have enjoyed had I understood that is what it was.’

  ‘Sis, I often make that kind of a joke, don’t I?’

  She ignored the question. ‘He’s saying the most ridiculous things, like father didn’t die from car fumes or even in the car.’

  ‘But he was in the car and the engine had been on.’

  ‘You are Alec Sterne?’ Alvarez asked.

  ‘Señor Alec Sterne,’ she snapped.

  He remained nine stairs up, holding on to the banister as if for support.

  ‘Your sister has explained what I have reluctantly had to tell her,’ Alvarez said.

  ‘But it can’t be right.’

  ‘The facts are as I have said. I am afraid both of you must understand the consequences of those facts. When your father died, he was lying on a flat, dirty surface. The probability is, this was the garage floor. Before rigor prevented this, your father was picked up and set behind the wheel of the car with the engine running. No doubt to simulate suicide.’

  ‘What . . . What’s it all mean?’ Alec Sterne asked plaintively.

  She answered. ‘He’s trying to say father was killed.’

  ‘But that’s . . . Can’t he understand . . .’

  ‘He finds it difficult to understand anything, so there is no point in telling him he’s talking nonsense. All we can do is speak to someone who’s reasonably intelligent.’

  ‘Señorita,’ Alvarez said, ‘the facts will not change however hard you try to reject them.’

  ‘Your ridiculous interpretation of them will.’

  ‘As I mentioned earlier, I need to examine the contents of the safe. Would you please tell me if you know where the keys are?’

  ‘No.’

  He spoke to Alec. ‘Can you tell me?’

  ‘My brother will not do so,’ she said loudly.

  ‘Then I will have to ask a locksmith to force the safe.’

  ‘I want the name of your superior so I can voice my bitter objection to this and to your attitude. Who is he?’

  ‘I think I should explain . . .’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘It is unusual for a member of the general public . . .’

  ‘I am not a member of the general public.’

  ‘That would seem to be so.’

  ‘You are insinuating?’

  ‘I am agreeing.’

  ‘If I thought you were trying to be insolent, I’d make damned certain you regretted it.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that.’

  ‘Will you tell me who your superior is.’

  ‘Superior Chief Salas.’

  ‘His phone number.’

  He gave it.

  ‘I shall make it clear what I think of your attitude and your attempt to insert yourself into family matters.’

  She made her way upstairs, followed by her brother.

  Alvarez went into the garage, opened the outer doors to gain advantage of the sharp sunshine. The Jaguar was still in Palma, for a forensic examination of the interior, so he had a clear view of the floor. A careful visual search showed it was impossible to determine any impression of a body. He scraped up dust and dirt from the floor and put this in a plastic exhibit bag for forensic comparison with the dirt on the dead man’s clothing.

 

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