Mistakenly in Mallorca (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 15

  ‘Do you still insist on a post-mortem?’ demanded Superior Chief Salas.

  ‘It’s not for me to insist, Señor, but I must recommend it. There are a few odd points to clear up.’

  ‘Odd points! Cleared up! As if the whole matter were simply a case of a handful of pesetas which would not disturb my department’s budget …! Very well,’ he grumbled. ‘Arrange to have the body driven to Palma immediately, together with all the necessary documents. And is it also your request for forwarding to Interpol that has come through from Llueso?’

  ‘Yes, Senor.’

  ‘You seem to be conducting a one-man crusade against crime.’ He slammed down the receiver.

  Alvarez’s thoughts became still gloomier. He’d reminded his superiors that he existed. If he went even farther and uncovered and solved a murder, he might, God knows, even at this late stage be given promotion and be moved from Llueso. The thought so distressed him that he bent down and opened the bottom drawer of the desk, brought out a litre bottle of Fundador, and poured himself out a large drink.

  The telephone rang and after a while he lifted the receiver. Palma said that a report had just been received from England, via Interpol. Señora Woods had very recently made a fresh will which left her estate — except for a few minor bequests — to her great-nephew, John Alexander Tatham. Her lawyers reported that her estate had been small prior to the death of Señor Maitland, her godfather, who had predeceased her by a very short time, the preceding Thursday in fact, but he had willed his estate to her and although the full extent of this would not be known for months, it could not be less than one million pounds sterling.

  He thanked his informant, replaced the receiver, picked up a pencil and wrote down a million. He looked through the day’s newspaper for the current rate of exchange for a pound sterling and found it was around one hundred and thirty-five. A hundred and thirty-five million, he wrote — not realizing that in a democratic country one was democratically forced to pay immense death duties in a proportion beyond the belief of a Spaniard, beyond the comprehension of a Mallorquin. One hundred and thirty-five million. For that sum of money, many men would murder not only a great-aunt but also all their aunts, cousins, sisters, brothers, mother and father as well.

  Señor Maitland had died on Thursday, Señora Woods on Friday night. Rushing it a bit. Wouldn’t a murderer have waited so that the two deaths combined did not have such an obvious significance? But maybe there had been rows and Señora Woods had threatened to change her will. Or Tatham had been so greedy he couldn’t wait? Or he thought his faked accident could never be uncovered? Or he thought the police wouldn’t be interested in what a foreigner got up to? Or he hadn’t thought?

  He brought out a packet of cigars from his pocket and lit one. After arranging for the body to be driven to the Institute in Palma, he must find out whether a maid wras employed at Ca’n Manin and, if so, have a talk with her.

  He’d also like a look round the house, another check on the flower book …

  Sweet Jesus, he thought, life could become so rushed that a man no longer had time to live.

  *

  Tatham was sitting out on the patio under the vine, some of whose shoots were now over two metres long, when the Seat 600 came round the corner. The detective again. To tell him that at long last the burial could go ahead? He lifted his glass and drained it and quite suddenly his hand was shaking and he recognized the extent to which tension had been building up within himself.

  ‘Good morning, Señor,’ said Alvarez. His clothes looked a little less crumpled, as if he’d taken just a little care over his appearance.

  Tatham offered a drink and this was accepted with alacrity. He went through to the larder and poured out a very large brandy and a sweet Cinzano for himself, returned to the patio and sat down opposite the other. Almost at once, their conversation concerned farming in England and soon he was detailing all the things he would have done had he had the money.

  ‘Money always seems to be the problem,’ said Alvarez.

  ‘It certainly is in farming today. You can’t live off a small-holding and that means a minimum of a hundred acres to be economic, which calls for something over a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Then, you won’t get the return on capital you would elsewhere.’

  ‘So if you had a great deal of money, you would not return to a farm?’

  Tatham shook his head. ‘I’d be illogical enough to return to farming as quickly as possible. I’d aim for a hundred and fifty acres …’ Once again he detailed his plans.

  ‘All this modern machinery you talk about is very expensive?’

  ‘Yes. But with us labour’s more expensive in the long run and far less reliable.’

  ‘It is happening even here. Look at that orange grove.’ Alvarez pointed. ‘No crops are being grown under the trees: only weeds. Yet thirty years ago the ground would have been filled. This area is called La Huerta de Llueso. That means it is the market-garden of Llueso. But fewer and fewer crops are grown here even though the soil is rich. The farmers want more money than they can earn by traditional methods, so they move to other tasks.’

  ‘And the mule carts will disappear, there’ll be no donkeys kicking up a racket, no hobbled sheep or hobbled chickens gleaning, and men will have lost all contact with the only thing that really matters, the soil. It’s a tragedy.’

  ‘A tragedy,’ agreed Alvarez. Then he suffered a sharp astonishment. Here was he, agreeing with, and even apparently in sympathy with, an Englishman! An Englishman, moreover, who had probably murdered his own great-aunt. He spoke quickly. ‘I fear I must stop talking, Señor, and return to work.’ He lifted his glass and drained it. ‘But before I leave, would it be too disturbing to show me inside the finca? I’ve always had an interest in old farmhouses and this one seems unusually large. But perhaps that’s because the cattle shed at the end has been drawn into the building?’ Tatham showed him around the house and was interested to be told what the place had probably been like before it was altered and modernized. He failed to notice the interest Alvarez took in the many-coloured, rough-woven bedspreads.

  As they returned outside, Alvarez said: ‘You must need a maid with a place this size?’

  ‘My aunt had one who came every afternoon. Catalina’s wonderful: she copes with everything.’

  ‘She lives nearby, if she comes in the afternoons?’

  ‘Very close. Just two roads away from the Roman bridge. Her husband works for a master builder and she’s two young kids who need a lot of feeding, so she’s very glad to get the extra money.’

  ‘I’m told that one of the things the foreigners like about this country is that they can hire maids cheaply. Of course, soon there will be no cheap maids, just as there will be no peasant farmers.’

  Tatham caught the bitterness in the detective’s voice and looked across, but the other’s face was almost expressionless.

  ‘By the way,’ said Alvarez, ‘I need to know the name of the plant Señora Woods was searching for?’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  Alvarez shrugged his shoulders. ‘You can have no idea how the minds of the officials work. The least detail becomes of the utmost significance. It would, perhaps, be best if you lend me the book that was in the señora’s car on the night when she so unfortunately died and I can copy out everything that’s needed.’

  Tatham went into the house and picked up the book from the long shelf in the hall. He brought it out.

  ‘Thank you very much. It is obviously an expensive book and I will look after it well.’

  Alvarez shook hands before climbing into his Seat. He drove off, noisily because the car squeaked badly as it lurched into potholes on the dirt-track. Tatham watched it until it disappeared round the corner. It had on the surface been a pleasant meeting, with the detective at one stage offering a sympathy of understanding he had not done before … But there’d been no permission to arrange the funeral and not even any reason given for the visit. Tatham felt more a
fraid than he had been.

  *

  The two men from Essen, one tall and thin, one short and fat, so that Ingham thought of them as Laurel and Hardy, were very formal. ‘Thank you, Herr Ingham,’ they said in unison. The tall and thin one added: ‘We have seen everything we wish.’

  ‘And have you found any impending catastrophes, such as a collapsing roof?’ asked Ingham.

  There were no smiles. ‘Naturally, Herr Ingham, you cannot expect me … us … to give you any details of our survey, which are for Herr Naupert’s eyes alone, but I can venture so far as to say that your house is generally in excellent order. A charming gentleman’s residence. May I congratulate you on the taste with which it has been built.’

  ‘Very kind of you,’ murmured Ingham.

  The tall thin man stepped forward, briefcase under his left arm, stretched out his right arm, and shook hands. The short fat man followed suit.

  Ingham watched them drive off, then returned into the hall. ‘Judy,’ he called out. ‘Come on down and have a drink. They’ve gone.’

  He watched her descend the curving staircase, one hand on the elegant wrought-iron banisters he had patterned on some he’d seen in a manor house in Seville. She was — when she wasn’t sulking — very attractive, he thought, mainly — and if this wasn’t becoming too Irish — because she was not particularly beautiful: her attraction was one of intelligent character, not physical perfection. Which was odd, because her mother was very beautiful and quite unintelligent.

  When she reached the floor, she said: ‘Who was the mysterious second man, the fat one, who didn’t know what to do?’

  She’d picked out the fraud immediately, even after the briefest of introductions. Just occasionally, he thought, she was too intelligent.

  She studied his face, her dark brown eyes intent, then she crossed the hall, her heels clacking slightly on the beautiful hand-painted tiles, and went into the sitting-room. She stood in front of the Renoir and when he followed her in, she said: ‘Larry, I don’t know what’s happening, but does it have to?’

  ‘Nothing’s happening,’ he answered.

  ‘Don’t keep treating me like a fool.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘I know things are very tight, financially. And that’s why you’ve gone all out to persuade Naupert to buy this house at more than it’s worth. But he’s a hard businessman who, to judge by the only time I’ve seen him, has never paid more than it’s worth for anything. So how have you tempted him?’

  He was about to start another total denial of her implied accusation when he realized that that would be stupid. Instead, he said: ‘If he buys this house, I’ll have done nothing illegal. The most I’ll have done is dangle a piece of bait in front of him which a truly honest man wouldn’t take. He’ll be able to blame no one but himself if he snaps hard and finds himself hooked and landed.’

  ‘Would a truly honest man dangle the bait in the first instance?’

  ‘What was the name of the angel who promised to make a saint of the first truly honest man he met, but returned to Heaven wiser, tired, and with the halo still in his hand?’

  ‘You so often refuse to answer a question directly, don’t you? Larry, I’m worried. I don’t want to see you in the most terrible trouble.’

  He smiled, his face creasing so that the lines of dissolution momentarily became lines of good humour. ‘People like me never really land in trouble. We always manage just to skirt it.’

  *

  ‘Mary,’ said Mrs Cabbott, ‘you keep the best table I’ve ever known. And that wine! It was like liquid velvet.’

  Lady Eastmore pressed the bell-push under the table to summon the butler and the maid.

  ‘Freddie, wasn’t that just the most delicious wine you’ve ever drunk?’ asked Mrs Cabbott.

  ‘Not a bad bit of plonk,’ answered Cabbott. ‘Speaking for myself, though, I prefer a good jorum of foaming ale. Wine for the gentlemen, beer for the officers, what!’

  ‘Freddie,’ said Mrs Cabbott furiously, ‘stop blathering. You know perfectly well you simply adore a superb wine like the one we’ve just had.’

  He guffawed. ‘Put my big foot in it, have I? Reminds me of old Colonel Sparrow. More like a bloody great vulture, he was. “Wine,” he’d shout, when the mess waiter tried to pour him some, “that stuff’s only fit for women and the effete aristocracy” …’

  ‘Oh, God!’ moaned Mrs Cabbott.

  Miguel and the maid came into the room and Fru-Fru trotted in after them. The maid cleared the dirty plates and glasses, watched morosely by Miguel who lusted after her, but was making no progress.

  ‘Do you prefer cheese before or after the dessert?’ asked Lady Eastmore, as she fed Fru-Fru a morsel of meat she’d saved on her side plate.

  ‘Whichever you like,’ replied Mrs Cabbott. ‘I’m very easy.’

  ‘As the actress remarked to the bishop as she slipped off her stays,’ said her husband.

  Mrs Cabbott closed her eyes.

  ‘Cheese afterwards,’ pronounced Lady Eastmore.

  Cabbott turned to Lord Eastmore. ‘Remember me telling you about that imshi from the Bank of England who was chasing out dirty money? Got old Morley in his obscene clutches?’

  ‘I vaguely remember something,’ replied Lord Eastmore.

  ‘Well the news is good now. He’s buggered off the island.’

  ‘Freddie!’ shrieked his wife.

  Miguel, recognizing one of the few words he knew in English, looked down his nose.

  ‘He’s gone back to England, and that’s what I said, isn’t it? No one’s told him any more tales, I suppose, so he has to call the rest of us honest. Does that make you feel more cheerful, Charles?’

  Lord Eastmore smiled briefly.

  *

  Mayans arrived at Ca’n Manin with his brother-in-law, a pleasant, middle-aged, round-faced, soft-spoken man with five front gold teeth which gave him a sparkling smile.

  ‘My brother-in-law,’ said the brother-in-law, ‘wishes to express his deep sorrow at the death of the senõra.’

  No one, thought Tatham, had ever looked less sorrowful. ‘That’s very kind of him. Won’t you both sit down?’

  The brother-in-law spoke in Mallorquin to Mayans and they sat down. Mayans looked around the sitting-room with a proprietary stare.

  ‘My brother-in-law wishes to say he is very sorry to have to say what he has come to say.’

  Tatham put off the sad moment for a while and offered them a drink and they both chose brandy. He poured them out large drinks, but had nothing himself.

  ‘My brother-in-law has to say that the lease of this house is now at an end. He wishes to know what you will be doing and the rent will be fifteen thousand pesetas a month.’

  ‘How did my aunt pay the rent?’ asked Tatham. There was a short conference. ‘The señora paid each month, on the tenth.’

  ‘Then there are still several days to go on the present month’s rent before the lease expires.’

  ‘My brother-in-law says no, the lease ended when she died. If you wish to stay in this house …’

  ‘I’m certainly staying until I’ve arranged the funeral and cleared up my aunt’s estate.’

  There was a much longer conference, during which the pitch of Mayans’s voice rose considerably.

  ‘My brother-in-law is pleased if you stay, but it will be necessary to pay a bigger rent.’

  ‘If the rent is paid until the tenth of next month, I’m surely entitled to stay here until then without paying anything even though my aunt has died? If there’s going to be an argument, though, we’d better have it through lawyers.’ Another consultation. ‘My brother-in-law says that lawyers are very expensive in this country.’

  ‘They usually are in any country.’

  ‘Perhaps it would be best if you stay here until the tenth. But after that, the rent is fifteen thousand. My brother-in-law is sorry, but property is expensive today.’

  ‘Very expensive,’ agreed Tatham drily.

  They finished the
ir drinks and stood up. The brother-in-law half bowed, then shook hands as he flashed his golden teeth. ‘It is a very good pleasure to meet you.’

  Mayans expressed no such sentiment.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  ALVAREZ STEPPED inside the opened doorway of the house, which brought him into the impeccably clean and tidy sitting-room, and called out: ‘Señora Calbo?’

  An old woman, face wrinkled like a prune, dressed in black, came through from the kitchen, which lay beyond the sitting-room.

  ‘Is Señora Calbo in?’ he asked. ‘I’m from the Cuerpo General de Policia.’

  Her expression became frightened and she turned and hurried up the stairs, which led off to the right. He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin and looked at the framed certificate awarded to Juan Calbo for his work over the year at school in grade 4. People with kids didn’t know how lucky they were: they left behind them something of themselves when they died. Juana-Marie had been able to leave nothing but memories and a few fading photographs.

  Catalina came down the stairs and Alvarez’s admiration was immediate and respectful. Dressed very neatly, her jet-black hair drawn tightly back into a bun, she moved with natural grace. He introduced himself, quickly put her at her ease, and began to question her.

  ‘How did the señora get on with the señor?’ she said, as she sat down on a rush-seated chair and motioned him to sit on a second one. ‘But very well. What else would you expect?’

  ‘I’m not in a position to expect anything, Señora, which is why I’m asking. There were no rows between them?’

  ‘Rows? But the señora was very fond of him.’

  ‘And he of her?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  ‘And you didn’t notice any change in his attitude towards her during the last week?’

  ‘The last week?’ She thought back. ‘During the last week before she died, I didn’t see them.’

  ‘Neither of them?’

  ‘They were out on picnics. The car was gone, the key of the house was behind the outside door, and I knew what to do. On the Friday, my money was in an envelope stuck to the window of the kitchen, as it always was when the señora was out for the day.’