Two-Faced Death (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 12

  ‘They’re a nice even flock.’

  ‘They should be, seein’ as they’ve all been bred by me.’

  ‘Really sound hindquarters.’

  ‘Reckon to know something about ’em?’

  ‘I should do. I was born on a farm.’

  ‘Was you now?’ The shepherd studied Alvarez. ‘I allows I thought you wasn’t the usual daft bugger of a policeman what doesn’t know a ewe from a teg. Not that you aren’t too fat around the guts.’

  ‘Dieting is dangerous at my age.’ Alvarez took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘D’you use these things?’

  The shepherd helped himself and then waited for a light. One of the sheep approached to within half a metre of the road and he clicked his fingers: immediately, the dog ran forward to drive the sheep further back.

  Alvarez struck a match. A car went past at high speed, leaving behind a trail of dust which took a time to settle. ‘Always rushing,’ said the shepherd, with contempt. ‘Them’s rushing here, t’others rushing there. What’s it get ’em?’

  ‘Ulcers.’ Alvarez moved into the shade of an evergreen oak and smoked. Because he was from peasant stock, he could understand another peasant. If he baldly tackled the shepherd about the gun, he would either be told a lie or be refused any answer. If he waited, showing endless patience, he would probably learn the truth.

  The shepherd took off the dirty straw hat he was wearing and fanned his face with it. ‘It’s warming up some.’ He replaced the hat.

  ‘It’s that, all right.’

  ‘Been a dry year, except for that storm.’

  ‘They say the wells are failing. The trouble is, too many people after the water now, with all the tourists.’

  ‘Them! Killed one of me lambs a year or two back. The car didn’t stop and I weren’t able to get its number.’ The shepherd smoked. When the cigarette was finished, he dropped the butt on to the road and carefully stamped it out. ‘Come to ask me something, have you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well I ain’t heard what it is, yet?’

  Alvarez shrugged his shoulders. Then, as if it were a reluctant afterthought, he said: ‘D’you remember the gun?’

  ‘Ain’t likely to forget that.’

  ‘Tell me something. Before I got there with you … Near killed me that climb did! Took me hours to recover.’

  The shepherd laughed shrilly.

  ‘When you first found the stiff, did you pick up the gun and have a feel of it and see what it’d be like for shooting?’

  ‘I told you, didn’t I? I ain’t soft. You could’ve been one of those smart buggers from the Peninsula and if I’d so much as touched it, you’d’ve said I was after pinching it.’

  ‘Fair enough. Looks like, then, I’ve got to take your finger-prints.’

  ‘I said I never touched it and … ’

  ‘There’s no call for worry. I handled it and you had a swing with it and back at the post a Guard touched it. If I take the prints of the three of us and of the dead man and check ’em against the prints on the gun I’ll see if someone else had a go with it.’

  For the first time, the shepherd looked at Alvarez with respect. ‘Just like the telly, that’s what!’

  *

  Alvarez was not very expert at taking fingerprints and by the time he had obtained a reasonable set of the dead man’s, he was freely cursing all modern aids to crime detection. He packed the small plastic case, thanked the undertaker for his help, and returned to the Guard post.

  Up in his office, he painted light aluminium powder over all parts of the gun. There were prints on the firing holds — the fore part of the barrels and the stock below the trigger guard — and one just on its own. Surely Calvin hadn’t carried it by its firing points all the way up to the ledge? Could he have wiped it clean as a symbolic act before shooting himself? Too far-fetched? Or had someone else wiped it clean to try and erase his own prints just in case the staged suicide began to break down?

  He examined and compared the few prints which had not been overlaid and smudged beyond any chance of identification. He found one print of the shepherd’s, two of his own, and one which was not either of theirs, the Guard’s, or the dead man’s.

  CHAPTER XII

  Alvarez telephoned Palma and asked to speak to Superior Chief Salas. A very refined secretary said that Señor Salas was out at a conference. Thank God for small mercies, thought Alvarez. ‘Señorita, will you tell Señor Salas that a case which appeared to be suicide may in fact be a murder and I would like authority for a post mortem?’

  ‘In such a case, you should speak to him personally … ’

  ‘If you’d be very kind and get on to the Institute of Forensic Anatomy for me and warn them I’ll be sending a customer along?’ He rang off before she could object.

  He opened his bottom desk drawer and brought out the bottle of brandy. It was empty.

  *

  ‘Let’s go along to the square and have a drink there?’ suggested Meegan.

  Helen looked across the sitting-room, blinking slightly because the shaft of sunlight which came in through the opened french windows was blinding. ‘I’ve a better idea. Let’s stay here and have two drinks.’

  His irritation was immediate. ‘What’s got you so home-loving, all of a sudden? It’s not so long ago when you were hardly ever in the house.’

  She studied his face which clearly portrayed his strong-willed, stubborn character and saw lines of worry. ‘Jim, we’ve been to the square God knows how many times in the last few days. And when we’re there, you seem to be on edge and wanting to get away. People come along to talk and after a bit you’re so rude they wonder why they bothered.’

  ‘I can’t stand the Boars … ’

  ‘They’re not the only ones you’ve been rude to, not by a long chalk. You seem to be wanting to hear something — what? What is it you’re so desperate to know?’

  He spoke sharply. ‘You’re imagining things.’

  ‘I’m quite certain I’m not. Why can’t you tell me what’s the trouble so I can help?’

  ‘I don’t need any help.’

  ‘You need something. You’ve become unapproachable. All right, we’ve had our ups and downs; what married couple don’t? All right, I was a bloody fool to encourage John and then to go to his place. But life was becoming so grim and earnest … ’

  ‘Will it help your conscience if I accept that it was my fault from beginning to end?’

  ‘You’re not going to make me lose my temper just so that I’ll stop bothering you. The hard fact is, it was both our faults, and the fault of this island which breeds situations quicker than mosquitoes. But that’s all over and done with. I want to know what’s worrying you sick now, right at this moment.’

  ‘It’s the same as it was yesterday, last week, last month. I can’t move the book along.’

  She sighed. ‘Your mother always said that if you were really worried you could never help yourself by telling anyone what the trouble was, you just went on and on burning inside.’

  ‘She got in a panic if I didn’t confide everything in her — she was one of those mothers who’re always scared of losing contact with their children. Pretty soon, of course, she did because it was like being mentally smothered.’ He stood up. ‘Are you coming with me?’

  She sighed. ‘All right. But let’s go to the Bar Ebor for a change?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not — you used to prefer it? Is it because the English seldom drink there?’

  He looked quickly at her and wished her intuitive intelligence were not so sharp.

  ‘What are you trying to learn, Jim? It’s something to do with John, isn’t it?’

  ‘I couldn’t give a damn less about him, now he’s dead.’

  She shook her head. ‘I wish to God your mother hadn’t been quite so right,’ she said as she stood up.

  *

  The island became very tristful when there was no sunshine. At dawn on Wednesday,
the sky was completely overcast. Colours were muted, houses looked awkward and almost shabby, the mountains were gloomily threatening, and even the bay was cold. Then the sun rose and the daily sea breeze began to shred the clouds which were soon driven across the interior of the island and out to sea to the north. When the harsh sunshine returned colours were once more flamboyant, houses were picturesque, the mountains were welcomingly attractive, and the bay was beautiful.

  Alvarez, sweating heavily and short of breath, an ache in his right side gloomily reminding him of an article he had read about arthritic hips, slowly climbed the front stairs in the Guardia post. He went along to his room and slumped down in his chair. After a while he looked at the calendar on the wall and saw, with brief pleasure, that soon it would be the day of the Moors and Christians — a fiesta. Only emergencies prevented his taking the day off on a fiesta.

  The telephone rang.

  ‘This is Professor Romero’s office,’ said a plummy-voiced woman. ‘Am I speaking to Inspector Alvarez?’

  ‘Yes, señora.’

  ‘Señorita, please … The Professor has asked me to speak to you as unfortunately he has not the time himself. The preliminary report on the post mortem carried out on Señor Calvin shows that he died about twenty days previously, but this estimate is not to be taken as exact. The cause of death was asphyxia … ’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It is quite certain. He died from asphyxia. All the classic signs were present — cyanosis, petechial haemorrhages, vomit. On top of that, he’d suffered a fracture of the cornu — roughly speaking, the voice-box — and there were bruises caused by fingertips immediately beneath the skin of the neck. He was throttled by manual pressure to his neck.’

  Alvarez silently swore.

  ‘As you will know, Inspector, when a man is manually throttled and unless he is incapacitated for any particular reason — the deceased had had no alcohol prior to death — he fights back as violently as he can and usually claws at the other person’s hands to try to drag them away from his throat. When he does this, his nails frequently scrape up skin. Under one of the nails of the deceased, the Professor found a very small piece of human flesh — too small for any worthwhile tests to be made on it. Because of the siting of this piece of flesh and because all the other nails were exceptionally clean, the Professor is reasonably certain that the murderer cleaned out the deceased’s nails — obviously knowing that any skin under them would point to murder.

  ‘Finally, the extensive wound caused by the shot was inflicted after death.’

  ‘That’s quite certain?’

  ‘Quite certain, Inspector … Not what you expected, I suppose?’

  ‘You can say that again and again.’

  ‘I hope it hasn’t given you too much of a headache. Ring back if there are any points you wish to discuss. I can always put them to the Professor when he has a moment to spare.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘I’ll see the full written report is in the post inside the next three days … Goodbye.’ She cut the connection.

  Sweet Jesus! he thought with gloomy resentment. You wondered why a gun didn’t eject a fired cartridge and ended up with a man who’d been killed by throttling, not shooting.

  *

  Alvarez drove down to the Port, stopping when he reached the supermarket. There was a kiosk outside and he bought himself a double cornet, with one scoop of vanilla ice-cream and one of chocolate. For him, ice-cream was one of the luxuries of the world because when he’d been young there’d been little of it for sale and in any case he couldn’t begin to afford it.

  He left his car parked where it was and walked past the corner garage and down Calle Bunyola to Collom’s house. He stepped through the bead curtain into the entrance room and called out. An elderly woman, dressed in black, came from the back room.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, ‘I’m Inspector Alvarez from the Cuerpo de Policia.’

  She nodded nervously, then turned and hurried up the stairs.

  He stared at the framed painting above the colour television set and thought how nice it was to be able to recognize what he was looking at: there was no need for a visual dictionary with this painting of olive trees and sheep.

  From above came the tread of heavy feet, then he heard Collom come down the stairs. Collom was bleary-eyed and his hair had been only roughly combed: a couple of drops of water on his right cheek, just above his beard, showed that he had freshened his face. ‘What the hell is it now? I’ve been out all night looking for fish which seem to have bloody vanished, get back and put my head down, and then you turn up just when I’m dreaming I’m hauling in so many fish the boat near sinks.’

  ‘Maybe you’re lucky I interrupted you before it foundered.’

  ‘Sarky bastard, aren’t you! Now you’re here, I suppose you’re thirsty?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Collom laughed. ‘You’re a man after my own heart, know that? I’ve an idea. You throw up your job — leave it to the people from the Peninsula, they’ve no pride — and join me fishing.’

  ‘When there aren’t enough fish to catch?’

  Collom tapped the side of his nose with a thick forefinger. ‘Two of us in a bigger boat would find new fish to catch.’

  ‘I reckon I’m too old. In any case, I get sea-sick even when it’s calm.’

  Collom shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t say you were never offered a respectable job … But now you want a large cognac? And after that, you’ll want another?’

  ‘You’re reading my thoughts.’

  ‘Let’s move into the other room. The bottles are in there and it’s less distance to keep walking backwards and forwards.’

  The room, shaped like a rectangle which had been pushed over several degrees, was lightly furnished, but what furniture there was was of high quality. Collom noticed Alvarez looking at the settee. ‘I had a wonderful catch one day, so I bought that suite for the old lady. She’s getting on and needs some comfort.’

  ‘Very filial. It’s a great pity that fish have become so much scarcer you can’t go on helping her as you’d like.’

  Collom laughed again, louder than before. He went over to a small table on which stood several bottles and four glasses, poured out two very large brandies, and handed one glass to Alvarez. ‘Sit down, drink up, and tell me what’s got you all excited.’

  Alvarez sat and drank. Only when his glass was three parts empty did he say: ‘I suppose you know that the Englishman, Calvin, was found dead on Sunday?’

  ‘Yeah. Someone said something about it.’

  ‘But you weren’t interested enough to listen properly?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘It’s lucky you’re a better fisherman than liar.’

  Collom’s expression altered and he glared at Alvarez.

  ‘How did you see his death? As bad luck because that was the end of your banker, or good luck because you were scared I was asking too many questions and he might have named you?’

  ‘I didn’t give a tinker’s piss.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at your hands.’

  ‘What the hell for?’

  Alvarez stood up and crossed to the chair in which Collom sat. ‘Come on, don’t be shy.’

  Collom very slowly put his glass down on a small table, then even more slowly held out his hands, palms upwards: they were callused, bore numerous small cuts and scars, and were a mahogany colour.

  ‘Turn ’em over.’

  On the backs of his hands were more cuts and scars, including a four-centimetre long graze which was partially healed. Alvarez tapped the graze with his forefinger. ‘How d’you do that?’

  Collom shrugged his shoulders again. ‘How in hell would I know? In a boat one’s always chopping the hands. What’s so bloody special about it?’

  Alvarez returned to his chair, picked up his glass, and drank. ‘Let’s hear where you were on the twenty-first of last month.’

  ‘How in God’s name w
ould I know that? D’you think I keep a social diary? I was out fishing, or boozing, or making the widow in the next street.’

  ‘It was a Wednesday.’

  ‘It was a Wednesday! D’you think now I can remember exactly where I was because each Wednesday I go and fish one particular bit of sea? Or I don’t go out at all? Listen — the fish don’t care what day of the week it is.’

  ‘It wasn’t very long after I’d talked to you about smuggling.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So it’ll pay you to remember. Like as not, the Englishman was murdered that day.’

  ‘Murdered?’ Collom spoke with loud surprise. ‘What are you on about now? He blew his head off with a gun and good riddance.’

  ‘He was throttled. Someone grabbed him by the neck and squeezed and then took his body up into the mountains and used the gun to make like he’d shot himself. Whoever throttled him got clawed before he’d finished the job.’

  ‘And you reckon … ’ Collom stared down at his hands. ‘You bloody reckon it was me?’

  ‘I reckon you’ll soon be able to remember what you were doing on that Wednesday.’

  ‘If I wanted to do a bloke in, I’d take him out to sea and sink him with an iron bar round his neck and that’d be the end of it. No one wouldn’t ever find him.’

  ‘Sure. You’re the kind of bloke who does a thing in the quickest and most straightforward way.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Only you’re no fool. So perhaps you killed him like he was killed to make it seem it couldn’t be you … Anyway, it’s not all that easy to take a body out to sea and dump it. You’ve got to get it to the harbour, carry it to the boat, and sail out. Tell me when there’s a single moment at the harbour when there’s not someone looking all ways and seeing what goes on?’

  Collom stood up. ‘Give us your glass.’

  As Alvarez handed his glass over, he said: ‘Have you remembered where you were?’

  ‘Fishing, boozing, or making the widow in the next street.’ Collom took the two glasses over to the table and refilled them.

  ‘How much did you owe Calvin when he died?’