Mistakenly in Mallorca (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Read online

  Mistakenly in Mallorca

  Roderic Jeffries

  © Roderic Jeffries 1974

  Roderic Jeffries has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1974 by William Collins Sons and Co Ltd.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  CHAPTER XX

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHAPTER XXII

  CHAPTER XXIII

  CHAPTER XXIV

  CHAPTER XXV

  CHAPTER I

  EIGHT DAYS LATER, John Tatham was to remember the words with bitterness, but at the time they were acceptable. ‘There’s no need to worry, sir. We’ll look after her.’ Of course the police would. That was what part of their job was all about. ‘Thank goodness for that,’ he’d said, and moved on to worry about a cow that was calving to a premium bull and was overdue.

  ‘Lovely-looking herd you’ve got out in the paddock,’ the policeman had said. ‘My father was head cowman to Sir Alfred, so I know.’

  Without any idea who Sir Alfred might be, he’d warmed to the words, but they should have made him suspicious about the value of the assurances he’d just been given. To any expert eye, his herd was uneven — small wonder since he’d not the money to buy top, or even second, quality. Some of the cows gave eight hundred gallons only by straining and were really fit for little but the dog-meat slaughterhouse.

  ‘Well,’ the policeman had said, and he’d slapped his leather gauntlets against his long, dark blue, regulation raincoat, ‘I’ll be on my way. And not to worry: no harm’ll come to her. Mark my words.’

  As a fortune-teller, the policeman rated C3. He’d given a friendly wave that was part informal salute, put on crash helmet, mounted his Noddy bike, and left.

  The cow had calved around midnight, two hours after the vet arrived, and the calf was dead. Just one of those things, the vet had said. But for him it had meant a potential fifty-pound loss when every penny counted.

  Still, he’d been assured that Jennifer would be all right.

  *

  The bank was at the lower end of the high street, sandwiched between a cheapjack furniture shop and a hairdresser. Built in Georgian style, it had been given graceful proportions which were now entirely wasted because developers had, in twelve years, turned the old high street into a concrete and plate glass architectural chamber of horrors. Outside, the wide road had recently been divided into two with the oneway traffic restricted to the outer lane and the near one kept for buses and unloading vans. Inside, the bank had been modernized to the extent of providing bullet-proof glass screens along the top of the long public counter to protect the tellers.

  Invest, said the posters on the walls facing the tellers: unit trusts, deposit accounts, property bonds. As Jennifer paid out and received money day after day, she knew she was not going to invest in anything but cows. In her bank deposit account were seven hundred and sixty-three pounds forty, enough to buy three and a half cows (choose the end where the milk comes from, John had told her) of top breeding which would form the nucleus of a herd that would become famed. Not that she liked cows. They were big, clumsy, stupid, and the one time she’d tried to give a hand milking she’d been splattered with tish. But John thought there was nothing in the world more lovely than a broad-backed, smoothly-bagged Friesian which bettered fifteen hundred gallons every lactation.

  Friday the thirteenth — the superstitious were quick to notice that — began as just another Friday. Report for work, draw the float and sign for it, prepare the till, explain to the chief cashier what the hurriedly written note of the previous day meant, see that the latest list of stolen and stopped cheques was pinned up, that the scales were ready and the weights had not been borrowed by one of the other tellers, listen to a whispered story about a girl she knew vaguely who’d gone to a party and … She didn’t believe it. Then it was nine-thirty and the outer doors were opened to the public.

  ‘What’s it like, handling so much money?’ John had once asked her when he hadn't been thinking about cows. She didn’t regard it as money. It was a commodity of little variety, basically useless, which had to be balanced out at the end of a day. Only occasionally did this sense of detachment cease. The ‘tramp’ had indirectly shattered it. Two days’ growth of beard, reddened eyes, no tie, collarless shirt, badly patched jacket, and a cheque made out to cash for three hundred and fifty pounds. She’d taken the cheque to the chief cashier who’d smiled and said that Mr MacVitie might look to be worth no more than a farthing (the chief cashier was old-fashioned in most things) but if he presented a cheque for a thousand he’d not be draining his account. She’d turned round, to go back to her counter, and she’d faced a man with a sawn-off shotgun.

  The raid was well planned and had the benefit of simplicity. Four men, wearing security guard uniforms, helmets on their heads, goggles over their eyes, entered the bank. Security guards had become such a feature of life that no one took special note of them or stopped to ponder on the coincidence that each of them had a thick, bushy moustache which effectively concealed much of the remaining portion of his face not already concealed by goggles and helmet. Each carried a long, narrow case. Nos. 1 and 2 went to the information desk, No. 3 remained by the door, No. 4 passed Nos. 1 and 2 and swung open the three-foot barrier which gave access to the working part of the bank. The foreign-currency clerk stood up and asked No. 4 if he could help, in a tone of voice which demanded an explanation of why he was doing what he was doing. No. 4 opened his case and pulled out a sawn-off shotgun and the others did the same. No. 1 moved smoothly, using the same swing door as No. 4, to stand amongst the desks to cover the staff, No. 2 remained where he was, and No. 3 remained by the side of the outer door to cover the customers already in the bank and any more who entered. Two of the tellers pressed the panic buttons under the long counter.

  Jennifer shrieked.

  No. 4 came out of the manager’s office, forcing the manager ahead of him, and there was a trickle of blood coursing down the right-hand side of the manager’s head. No. 2 joined him and they went down the stairs to the strong-room in the basement below.

  Rigby, a member of the bank’s regional rugby team, acted courageously but recklessly. He threw himself at No. 1 in a tackle and was immediately shot, at such close range that despite the drastically shortened barrels the whole column of shot thudded into his back. He crashed to the floor and his feet kept up a constant drumming until he died. No. 1 reloaded the right-hand barrel immediately, pushing home a fresh cartridge even as the ejected empty one, smoking, arced over his shoulder. In a gesture of nervousness he twisted his head sideways and briefly a small scar, star-shaped, was visible on his neck.

  Nos. 4 and 2 ran up from the strong-room, carrying three khaki canvas sacks in each hand, their guns strung through homemade holsters at their sides. They left the banking area by the swing barrier and No. 1 followed them. No. 3 joined them as they went outside. The gathering crowd parted with a violent surge t
hat left two women on the pavement. The bank robbers ran to the security van parked immediately in front of the bank, two climbed into the cab, two into the rear compartment, and they drove off, crashed the lights, and disappeared. The first police car arrived ninety seconds later.

  ‘Oh God!’ muttered Jennifer, as she stared down at Rigby. She didn’t then know he was dying, but the drumming feet and the bloody, mangled area of his back made her sick.

  *

  ‘I know how you must feel,’ said the detective-constable with sympathetic firmness, ‘but I’ve got to question you whilst it’s all fresh in your mind.’

  She gripped Tatham’s hand more tightly, demanding and getting comfort. ‘I … I’m sorry to be like this, but it’s so … I’d been speaking to Ernest only a few minutes before.’

  ‘I’m afraid this sort of thing always is a terrible shock. I can remember …’ He told the tale well. It somehow usually calmed down a witness to be reminded that his or her tragedy was not unique.

  Tatham looked at his watch, not as surreptitiously as he’d hoped.

  ‘I’ll be all right now, darling,’ she said, understanding that the needs of his animals had to be more important than her fears.

  ‘It’s OK for another half-hour.’

  She longed to tell him what a wonderful help he was being, but the presence of the detective inhibited her. But at least she could look at his rough-hewn face — ‘You’ll never make the central spread of Cosmopolitan’ — and love it for its obvious strength and kindness.

  ‘Now, miss,’ said the detective, ‘just tell me precisely what you did from the time you arrived. Never mind how small the details or that they’re what happen every day. I want to build up the complete picture and that includes all normal routine.’

  She described her arrival, the few minutes in the ladies’ cloakroom, the story about the girl she’d known, the first customer, the ‘tramp’ and why she’d left her seat and gone to speak to the chief cashier who worked in one of the open-style cubicles, the man with the gun. She’d been frightened cold. Ernest had suddenly thrown himself forward in a rugby-style tackle and had been shot. He’d thudded to the ground, his back a bloody mess, his feet drumming. The gunman had reloaded. He’d twisted his head round in what had looked like a nervous gesture and that odd-shaped scar …

  ‘Odd-shaped scar?’ said the detective sharply.

  She was rather bewildered. Until that moment she hadn’t realized she’d seen a scar.

  *

  ‘A star-shaped scar, perhaps an inch across, on the right-hand side of the neck about two inches below the jaw,’ repeated the sergeant in Records. ‘Man about five foot ten or eleven, well built, no other physical features observable. Carrying sawn-off shotgun for a bank raid and shooting without hesitation. OK, I’ve got all that. I’ll do what I can, sir, but it’ll take a bit of time … I know, sir, but with a rather meagre description …’ The sergeant finally replaced the telephone. ‘If he can do it so much better, why the hell doesn’t he come here and show us how?’

  *

  The magistrates’ court, built in 1931, wras pretentious in style and poor in acoustics. The magistrates sat on the dais in high-backed, gilded, velvet-covered chairs.

  The chairman was a solid, formless woman, with a face like old parchment, a voice of baffling superiority, and a double row of genuine pearls around her wattled neck. ‘You say you do not want to give the address of this witness in open court, but wish to write it down and hand it to the bench?’

  ‘Yes, your worship,’ said prosecuting solicitor.

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘The police have reason to believe that friends of the accused may try to intimidate the witness, your worship, should they learn her address.’

  The chairman, together with her three fellow magistrates, looked at Jennifer. They saw a slim, pleasantly attractive but unremarkable woman in her middle twenties, dressed neatly in clothes of no particular elegance, who was nervously fiddling with the thin belt of her dress.

  The chairman was a woman of strong character, but in one respect rather stupid (stupidity had never been a bar to becoming a magistrate in an English court): she believed it far more important rigidly to observe procedure than to worry about the human side of justice. ‘Have any threats actually been made?’

  ‘Not yet, your worship, and it is to avoid the possibility …’

  ‘The whole matter, then, is supposition and not fact?’

  Surely even she could realize the two men in the dock — their two companions on the bank raid were still unidentified — were right villains, eager to take any steps to escape conviction? thought the prosecuting solicitor. When the evidence was closely studied by the defence lawyers, it would be only too clear how important a part of the prosecution’s case was this witness’s evidence.

  ‘Justice should be carried out under the harsh light of full disclosure of facts,’ said the chairman. She turned and briefly murmured to her fellow magistrates on either side of her, then addressed the prosecuting solicitor again: ‘The witness will give her address in open court. The police are quite capable of dealing with anyone malicious or stupid enough to try in any way to intimidate the witness.’

  ‘But your worship …’

  ‘We will not hear any further argument on that score.’

  *

  ‘There’s no need to worry,’ said the uniformed constable, wearing long blue regulation mackintosh because although the early October day was fine, the wind was cold, especially when riding a motor-bike.

  Tatham had been worrying a great deal, but this policeman, bluff, cheerful, had assured him that he was worrying unecessarily. ‘Thank goodness for that.’ One worry was replaced by another. The cow was getting weaker and looked as if she might go down. If the calf didn’t start soon, he’d have to call in the vet.

  *

  Jennifer could not have known she was going to die until the last second.

  On Friday, some shops stayed open late and she usually did the weekend shopping for herself and her widowed mother after tea. She parked her Mini not far from Sains-bury’s new supermarket and walked to the high street and then up to a draper’s to get some needles and wool for her mother. On her way back to the supermarket, she bought a woman’s magazine because it had a long article on preparing to be a bride. Not that she wasn’t prepared. John was the one who hesitated, because he still couldn’t be certain he’d make the farm yield up a living and she couldn’t persuade him that she didn’t give a twopenny damn about an obvious lack of security.

  When she left the supermarket, with a small piece of meat, some beans, a bottle of chutney, two apple yoghurts, a packet of Cheddar cheese, a treacle tart, and a jar of instant coffee, she turned left by the lights and started down the four hundred yards to the car park.

  At the music shop she stopped briefly to stare at the hi-fi set in the centre display. If she won the pools or the premium bonds, she’d buy that set and dozens and dozens of records. If. She walked on until opposite the car park, then started to cross the road.

  There was a roar of unleashed power and a car, previously parked on the solid yellow lines, accelerated away from the pavement with smoking tyres. She turned and saw it coming straight at her and hesitated, shocked by such appalling driving. Then, at the last second, she realized the truth.

  The car hit her, jerked her feet from under her so that her head smashed back into the bonnet, flung her sideways into a concrete light standard. She was dead by the time she was admitted to hospital.

  CHAPTER II

  JOHN TATHAM had inherited the ability to dream great dreams from his father and the staying power to try to turn those dreams into reality from his mother. No one could even guess from whom he’d inherited his love of farming since he came from generations of city dwellers.

  ‘Only millionaires and fools go into farming today,’ had said his uncle. Uncle Harold was on the commodity market, very successful, very wealthy, and like all successful
, wealthy men certain of his own infallibility. He was also ashamed of having as a brother a not very successful painter who seldom wore a tie, owned only one suit, and laughed at many of the things which really mattered in life: safe capital, the right friends, clever accountants, tailored pension schemes.

  ‘So you’d better join my firm,’ Uncle Harold had continued, ‘and earn a respectable living.’ When his offer had been refused, with thanks, he had been bitter because the rich do not like to be denied the chance of gaining merit in the eyes of the world.

  John Tatham spent three years in an agricultural college where he learned, amongst other things, that Uncle Harold had been partially right because without a great deal of capital it was now virtually impossible to farm on one’s own account. Land cost a thousand pounds an acre, yet the return from farming was so low that it wasn’t worth more than a couple of hundred pounds an acre to someone trying to make a living from it. In any case, borrowing large sums of money had become ridiculously expensive. There were still farms to let, though they were becoming fewer and fewer, but the large ones called for a great deal of equipment and years of practical experience and the small ones were, generally speaking, either too small to be economic or else of very poor quality.

  His inherited determination and staying power supported him while he worked on as a farm labourer and in his spare time searched the country for a small farm to rent. Eventually, he found Sadacre Farm, owned by a local council, up for renting by tender. The farm was all a farm shouldn’t be: too small, useless buildings, unsuited to modern dairy farming, heavy clay undrained and lacking any humus or fertility and fit only for growing Yorkshire Fog. But his father’s powers of dreaming set to work and he saw modern buildings, hedges cut, land drained, tons of muck per acre turning the yellow clay friable, rye grass thick … He tendered a high rent and became the tenant.

  Sadacre Farm had been well named, no doubt by one of the embittered men who’d once tried to farm it and failed. He worked all hours God made, adapted and modernized buildings — in so far as this was possible — built a side-by-side milking parlour, cow kennels, and a Dutch barn from telegraph poles and second-hand corrugated iron, bought cows and machinery on the HP, and milked three times a day to get the last possible extra pound of milk.