Murder Majorcan Style, page 6
Back in the hall, Susanna crossed in front of him, apparently unaware of his presence. Her expression remained one of bitter sadness. She went through a doorway to the side of the one into the garage. He hesitated, yet experience had taught him that words sometimes assuaged, however temporarily, bitter sadness. He followed her.
She sat at the table in the centre of the well-equipped kitchen. Tears dampened her cheeks. He stood near her. ‘It is sad to see someone so very unhappy. Perhaps I could help?’
She shook her head.
‘When I was your age, which is some time ago, I learned that however terrible things appeared to be, they will get better.’
She did not respond. He had to overcome the probability she resented him as yet one more hypocritical adult who could have no conception of how she suffered from having been spurned by her boyfriend. ‘I was given a puppy, the weedy runt of a litter. We were poor and had little food, but I fed it with some of mine when my mother was not looking. I stole milk for it. Then it died. I still remember the pain when I looked down at its thin body before I buried it. Then, my father spent money he could not afford and came home with another puppy which was round and plump. It was with me wherever I went, hunted rats with me, lay near me in the field when I worked with my parents . . .’
The door opened. ‘Why haven’t you . . .’ Caroline came to an abrupt stop when, far enough into the room, she saw Alvarez. ‘Why are you still here?’
‘Because I have not yet left, señorita.’
‘You don’t seem to realize to whom you are speaking.’
‘That is obvious.’
‘Are you trying to be insolent again?’
‘That is for you to judge.’
‘Leave this house.’
‘When I am ready to do so.’
‘Now!’
‘Only after I have spoken to Susanna.’
Infuriated by his refusal to show respectful subservience, she left, slamming the door behind herself.
‘No one’s ever spoken to her like that,’ Susanna said, with a trace of awe.
‘Then she’s been very lucky.’ His reception of Caroline had momentarily banished Susanna’s sorrow far more successfully than had his fable.
‘She’s a real . . .’
‘Bitch?’
‘I wouldn’t dare say so.’
‘You’d be superhuman not to do so under your breath. I have to ask you some questions, but I won’t bother you now. There’s tomorrow.’
Her brief relaxation ceased. A tear formed on her right eyelid. At her age, desertion by a boyfriend abolished the real world.
Alvarez climbed the stairs, paused to mop the sweat from his face, entered his office and sat. He switched on the fan. It was early July, yet already the heat was as great and energy-draining as if it were the middle of August.
He lit a cigarette. His thoughts were bleak. He could be certain Caroline Sterne would complain. She would vindictively make him seem to have been aggressive and uncouth. Would Salas try to defend a member of his command? Yes, if the name was not Alvarez. Then, probably, Salas would accept all he was told and would promise retribution. As inspector, his was the lowest rank in the Cuerpo so he couldn’t be demoted. But he could be reported to the general who would have long since forgotten how graceless and rude a member of the public could be towards authority. In suitably grandiloquent terms, the general would declaim that there was no room in the Cuerpo for those who forgot that the public came first. Rudeness must be met with politeness, insult with quiet acceptance. Advice an archangel would find it difficult to follow. But as the infamous Don Alfredo had remarked, when told he had shot a man instead of the wild boar: A pity, but what’s done, cannot be undone.
EIGHT
The phone rang as Alvarez was judging how much longer he must remain in the office before he returned home for lunch.
‘The superior chief will speak to you,’ Ángela Torres curtly said.
He reached down to the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk and brought out the bottle of Soberano and a glass.
‘Alvarez, I have just received a phone call from Señorita Sterne,’ Salas said.
He unscrewed the bottle.
‘It was to complain about your manner.’
He poured himself a brandy which was generous even by his standards.
‘The woman addressed me as if I were some subordinate. In the face of such ignorance, I was very tempted . . . Of no concern. She said you had been extremely insolent.’
‘Señor, I may not have been as obsequiously polite as she wished . . .’
‘A member of the Cuerpo is never obsequiously polite, nor is he beholden to a civilian’s expectations.’
‘I did refuse her demand to leave . . .’
‘In robust terms?’
‘She appeared to find them so.’
‘Then you acted in a manner which can not be criticized.’ The call was over.
Bewildered, but content, he drank. He had failed to mention the latest report from Forensic, but was not going to call back and do so. Only a fool kicked a bull when it was peacefully lying down.
He walked through the entrada. The sitting-room was empty; sounds from the kitchen meant Dolores was preparing lunch.
‘Where’s everyone?’ he called out as he sat at the table.
‘The children won’t be back for lunch, Jaime has gone out to buy cigarettes.’
‘It’s a lovely day, not a cloud in the sky.’
‘That is unusual for this time of the year?’
‘Just thinking it’s a great world.’
She parted the bead curtain to look at him. ‘You have stopped at too many bars on your way home?’
‘For the first time I can remember, I have been complimented by the superior chief.’
‘Then has he been drinking unwisely?’
He put a glass and a bottle of Campo Viejo on the table, drew the cork, poured.
Jaime came through from the entrada, stared at the table. ‘Can’t be bothered to think of anyone else?’
‘I didn’t put out another glass because I’ve been told you’ve forsworn alcohol.’
‘You’re going soft in the head.’ He went over to the sideboard, brought out a glass, sat. He started to fill the glass, stopped when it was only half filled and replaced the bottle on the table as Dolores came through the bead curtain.
‘On Saturday evening,’ she said, ‘you will both be respectfully dressed.’
Jaime chuckled. ‘We’re to wear trousers?’
‘Your humour comes from the bars you frequent.’
‘What’s it all about?’
‘We are going out to supper.’
‘Where?’
‘Son Cascall.’
‘So what’s the menu? Roasted opium on toast?’
‘You cannot avoid stupidity?’
‘The name means the place grew opium poppies.’
‘And you have to be reminded such poppies only produce a mild white juice which was watered down and used to soothe toothache?’
‘Why are we going there?’
‘We have been invited.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Ana has met you only the once.’
‘She’s only just been here.’
‘Evidence of a growing friendship.’
‘Or something.’
‘Being a woman who considers others and is generous enough to accept their unwelcome habits, she will offer you more than one drink before the meal, more than one glass of wine with it, perhaps more than one coñac afterwards. You will refuse every second drink.’
‘Would you prefer us to ask for milk?’
She returned to the kitchen.
Jaime spoke to Alvarez. ‘The sooner she sees you tied up, the sooner we can return to living normally.’
Alvarez turned into the drive of Ca’n Mortex. A man and Susanna were standing by one of the flower beds. As he braked to a halt and opened the car door, she hurried to the house.
‘José Marcial?’ Alvarez asked.
‘So they tell me,’ he replied in Mallorquin.
‘I’m Inspector Alvarez.’
‘She told me.’
Alvarez watched Susanna disappear around the side of the house. ‘It’s sad to see someone so distressed. I tried to cheer her up and didn’t have any luck. Boyfriend trouble I suppose?’
‘Like as not.’
‘The lad who’s upset her must be a sod.’
‘Weren’t you a sod when you was young and got the chance?’
He was about to deny the possibility, remembered that it was possible Ana, despite her forgiveness, would agree.
Marcial knelt on a pad of thick foam, began to weed with a hand fork.
‘You don’t see many doing it like that,’ Alvarez observed.
‘I told the señor it was daft and would take for ever; I’d get the job done in a quarter of the time with a mattock. Told me then there wouldn’t be a flower left at the end of the week. Wonder he didn’t make me use this bloody thing at the back.’
‘The back?’
‘The vegetable garden.’
‘Unusual for a foreigner to grow vegetables.’
‘So you said before.’
‘Knew what he wanted and was ready to pay for it.’
‘And unlike me, didn’t have to work for it.’
‘Thinking of the women? I’ve been told a lot of them used to come here at different times.’
‘He kept busy.’
‘And some were married.’
‘What’s so odd about that?’
‘Do you know any of them?’
‘You think the likes of them would bother with me?’
‘They might have had a chat about the garden.’
‘Didn’t come to talk cabbages.’
‘How did you get on with the señor?’
‘Did what he said even when he was talking balls.’
‘Was he a friendly man?’
Marcial dug out a newly emerged wild olive shoot, growing from a seed borne by the wind from a distant tree.
‘Did you like him?’
‘Do you like the man who gives the orders?’
Not a question he was prepared to answer. ‘You’ve been told he didn’t die in the car; that someone put him in it to make it seem he committed suicide?’
‘Evaristo said. Talking shit.’
‘Fact. And whoever moved him was most likely responsible for his murder.’
‘Can’t think who’d want to do him in.’
‘There’ll be a husband or two.’
Marcial, the hand fork looking doll-size in his large, thick hand, stood.
‘Going home since the señor isn’t around to watch the time?’
‘Easy to know what kind of a worker you are. Irrigating.’
‘These beds?’
‘The vegetables.’
‘I’d like to see them, so I’ll come with you.’
‘Don’t remember asking you to.’
They walked up to the house and around it on the right-hand side. Alvarez was amused, not annoyed by the other’s curt rudeness. Marcial worked for a foreigner yet had lost none of his independence or contempt for authority.
Behind the house was a large kitchen garden and beyond that a larger area in which grew orange, lemon, apricot and almond trees. A unique sight so close to the port.
Marcial went in to a garden shed; a moment later, half of the kitchen garden was sprayed with water from free-standing pipes. Alvarez remembered working with his parents in their small area of land, the produce of which had to shield them from the degradation of poverty. He had weeded with a mattock, heat evaporating sweat, arms and back aching; repaired the sides of the many irrigation channels drawn through the soil, which constantly threatened to crumble from the flow of water; controlling the flow from the deposito to each channel until that was full, opening the next channel and plugging the previous one with a clod of earth.
‘Walking in the clouds?’
He started, not having heard Marcial approach. ‘I was remembering how it used to be.’
‘Before you just pressed a button? Money makes light of everything. It used to be the peasants doing the work, now it’s machines.’
Alvarez pointed. ‘I’ve not seen yellow tomatoes before.’
‘Who had, until I was told to grow ’em and given the English seed.’
‘Are they any good?’
‘Eat one of them and you’ll remember what tomatoes used to taste like.’
He waited for the offer, but it did not come.
‘It’s the same with most everything. Before it gets so hot, the peas are like you’ve never eaten ’em before.’
‘An incomparable view to the front of the house, vegetable perfection to the rear. I’d call this Valhalla.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A place of bliss for the souls of slain heroes. I learned about it from a Swedish lady.’
‘Who slew who?’
‘We’ll forget her. Where were you midday Monday?’
‘Having a chat with the King.’
‘You want me to start wondering why you don’t answer?’
‘I was working. Same as I’ll do now if you’ll stop talking.’
‘Gardening here or in the front?’
‘Bit of both, likely.’
‘You can be in two places at once?’
‘Need to tell you I’m saying I don’t remember exactly where I was?’
‘Did you see the señor leave the house when you were working in the front?’
‘No.’
‘Did anyone else leave?’
‘Them two.’
‘The son and daughter? When was that?’
‘Don’t have a watch.’
‘You’ll know when it’s time to stop work for your meal.’
‘Me belly tells me that.’
‘Did anyone arrive in the morning?’
‘Them two came back.’
‘When?’
‘Not long after they’d gone.’
‘Give me a time.’
‘Midday.’
‘No one else was around?’
‘Only the car when I was leaving what came so bloody fast, I fell off the Mobylette trying to keep clear.’
‘Who was driving?’
‘You think they stopped and apologized?’
‘A man or a woman?’
‘Man, unless women want to be a bit more equal and have started growing moustaches.’
‘Who else was in it?’
‘Weren’t no one.’
‘You talked as if there was.’
‘You don’t listen straight.’
‘And you didn’t recognize the driver?’
‘When I was tangled up with the Mobylette?’
‘Did you recognize the car?’
‘No.’
‘Did you note the number?’
‘You ain’t been listening. You think I gave a shit what its number was?’
‘What was its colour?’
‘Black.’
‘Saloon?’
‘Hatchback.’
‘Make?’
‘Citröen.’
‘Is there anything more you can tell me about it?’
‘No . . . Hang on, there was one of them dangling things.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘You lot can’t understand anything that ain’t simple enough for a child. People hang up tiny figures on cord and they dangle around when the car’s moving.’
‘What was the figure?’
‘Looked like a skeleton. Which is what the driver will be collecting if he goes on driving stupid.’
‘How do you get on with the son and daughter in the house?’
Marcial shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t have anything much to do with them. But she’s a real cow.’
‘That’s it, but I’ll likely want a further word with you.’
‘You get paid for wasting time?’
Alvarez discussed with himself whether to question those in the house. He decided that since they were foreigners, they would already be eating their meal. Much better not to interrupt that.
Dolores was standing by the side of the chair in which Jaime was seated; the television was on.
She looked round as Alvarez entered. ‘You’re back in good time.’
‘I didn’t want to upset things by arriving late.’
‘Wouldn’t matter so much.’
He sat. The programme was about maintaining health; eat carefully, drink frugally, give up smoking. A recipe for a hermit’s life. She had said the meal would not have been harmed by a delay. That did not augur well unless the dish did not need much preparation or cooking. Heuvos au gratin? Eggs, spinach, béchamel sauce, salt, lemon, grated cheese, ham, olive oil, butter and tartaletas de hojaldre.
‘You both understand?’ she asked, as the programme finished and the credits rolled. ‘To make certain you’re fitter, from now on you’ll have very little cream, butter and fat, no rich sauces and you’ll eat only as much as you need, not as much as you want.’
‘The woman looked like she’s never had a decent meal in her life,’ Jaime protested. ‘So what does she know?’
‘Much more than you, since she is an expert dietitian.’
‘And also a sadist who wants people to suffer from anorexia,’ Alvarez added.
‘Typical! As Ana remarked, when mentioning that you carry extra weight, men cannot control their appetites.’
‘Better a little extra weight than to be so skinny, ribs rest on the backbone.’
‘That woman on the telly will lead a much better life since she will be the weight laid down in the table for a woman of her age, height and sex.’
‘How much should I weigh for better . . .’ Jaime stopped.
‘You were going to ask?’ she snapped.
‘To have a better life expectancy.’
A weak answer, yet Alvarez was surprised Jaime had been able to provide any answer quickly.
‘I will start preparing the meal.’ She stood. ‘Enrique, you will not have forgotten we are having supper with Ana on Saturday.’
‘I’m not being given the chance to forget.’
‘Aiyee! My dear mother was so right. A man is uneasy in the face of goodness.’ Head held high, she walked into the kitchen.
Jaime drained his glass, heard sounds of movement from the kitchen, refilled it. ‘What d’you reckon it’ll be like?’ he asked.
