The Ambiguity of Murder Read online

  ‘Had you bothered to differentiate between those facts which were important and those which were not, you would have quickly established that Zavala’s death was murder, not accident, and who was the murderer.’

  ‘Señor, I don’t think that that’s really justified…’

  ‘I have not asked for your opinion. To suppose a man will murder merely because his bills have not been paid suggests a mind which concentrates on trivialities.’

  ‘But the Mallorquin character…’

  ‘Is one that calls into question the theory that the human race is evolving. The history of this investigation is one of incompetence and wasted time.’

  ‘But motive was important and the initial suspects did have motives for killing Señor Zavala…’

  ‘Of no account, since none of them murdered him.’

  ‘But I had to make many inquiries before that could be certain; inquiries which may appear irrelevant now, but did not then.’

  ‘A question of judgement. Yours failed.’ Salas rang off.

  Alvarez sighed. A man could only do his best and if that was not good enough …

  * * *

  The sky remained cloudless and in the last week in August, when normally the first rain fell, the temperature reached forty; those doctors fortunate enough to have tourists amongst their patients began to plan two skiing holidays in the coming winter instead of the usual one.

  Alvarez, very alive to the deadly perils of heat exhaustion, left the post and began to walk very slowly along the shaded side of the road.

  ‘Hey, Machiavelli.’

  He recognized the voice and stopped, turned, and waited for Lockhart to come up to where he stood.

  ‘I went into your cop-shop to be told you’d just left. My God, it’s a furnace today!… There’s something I want to ask you.’

  ‘Yes, señor?’

  ‘Not here. In a bar, over a quenching drink or two. Have you any objections to the idea?’

  ‘None that comes readily to mind.’

  When halfway along the road, they met a crowd of tourists, newly disgorged from a bus, who carelessly pushed past them, at one point all but forcing Lockhart off the pavement on to the road. When the last of them had passed, he said: ‘Belgians or Glaswegians; I didn’t see any of them spitting so probably they were Belgians.’ He resumed walking. ‘When I suffer such an ill-dressed, ill-mannered, vacuous rabble, I see the destruction wrought by the age of the common man. I suppose you see potential burglars, swindlers and rapists?’

  ‘People who have discovered the chance to enjoy life more than their parents could.’

  ‘The reply of an unthinking idealist.’

  ‘Señor, idealism, thoughtless or thoughtful, is surely preferable to misanthropy?’

  ‘Preferable to whom?… Do you dislike me so very much?’

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘Because you refuse to use my Christian name. Or is this merely indicative of your complete ignorance of the finer points of the customs of a civilized society?’

  ‘Probably. But whose society?’

  ‘An absurd question. English society, naturally. Forged when the country was ruled by privilege and therefore supremely civilized. I will explain things to you. Ask someone to call you by your Christian name and he responds by continuing to call you by your surname (or the anonymous “senor”) and you know that he regards you as completely déclassé. Dwell on the subtlety of this. Not a harsh word spoken, not a sneering comment, yet superiority and inferiority definitively established. I have asked you to call me Theodore. You continue to address me as “señor”. I can only think the worst of myself.’

  ‘I doubt you have ever thought badly of yourself, let alone the worst.’

  ‘How right you are! I merely make allowances for your ignorance … Small wonder that wherever I go, I sing the praises of a Mallorquin inspector who cannot quite camouflage his practical intelligence.’

  They reached a bar in one of the side roads, only occasionally invaded by tourists. A ceiling fan provided an impression of coolness. They sat by the window and in due course a waiter came to their table.

  ‘Have you ever drunk a John Collins?’ Lockhart asked.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘I’ve tried to teach them here how to make one, but they seem to find it very difficult to understand that the appeal needs to be to the eyes as well as the tongue. Will you try one?’

  ‘I think I would prefer a coñac.’

  ‘A man for whom custom cannot stale.’ Lockhart gave the order to the waiter, watched him leave. ‘A pleasant man, but lacking emotional response. Most men do. All women respond, of course, but for the wrong reasons … Now, you can answer my question. Does the rumour possess truth or is it the usual expression of spiteful hope?’

  ‘What rumour are you referring to?’

  ‘That Guido was murdered by one of his compatriots.’

  ‘It seems certain that that was so.’

  ‘A pity. I was hoping it would prove to be one of the more bourgeois of the expatriates. So pleasing to see virtue tumbled. Why was he killed?’

  ‘The motive has yet to be confirmed.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that a man of your capabilities hasn’t already confirmed everything? Was it an argument over drugs?’

  ‘Why do you suggest that?’

  The waiter returned and put glasses, already frosting, down on the table, spiked the bill, left.

  Lockhart studied his glass. ‘The cherry has been dropped without any regard to its relationship with the slice of orange. Why do people lack all sense of style?’

  ‘If you had to spend your day serving drinks to people, would you retain any sense of style?’

  ‘I sincerely hope so.’

  Alvarez drank. He put the glass back on the table. ‘Why do you think drugs may have been involved?’

  ‘Guido pursued pleasure relentlessly.’

  ‘How do you know he took drugs?’

  ‘Would you ask a bishop where he found the inspiration for his sermon on the sins of Jezebel?’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me he took them?’

  ‘An even more naive question for an intelligent man to ask. One never sneaks on one’s friends unless there’s profit to be had from doing so. Which, in a way, I suppose, is why…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You must not laugh; a confession has to be taken seriously. Having been born in a country which prides itself on justice and educated to believe that only truth should sit upon the lips, I suffer that most plebeian of burdens, a conscience. And for weeks that has been demanding I tell you something I learned by chance, even though to do so might harm a friend. Fortunately, I have learned to contain my conscience, if not to stifle it, so until your confirmation a moment ago that Guido was murdered by a compatriot, I have managed to keep my lips clenched. Now, since the information cannot be of any consequence, I can release my lips and enjoy the subtle pleasure of a conscience assuaged … I have a very dear friend, a Mallorquin, who lives near Cardona. He is married to someone who views our friendship with that narrow dislike which comes easily to a woman who is intelligent, but lacks a broad understanding. She works for one of the larger shoe manufacturers in Inca and frequently travels to France to sell the firm’s products – she speaks French faultlessly, much to the annoyance of Parisians. Because she resents my presence, I visit my friend only when she is abroad. I was with him on the day that Guido was killed and I chanced to see something that my conscience said should be told to you, yet my heart said had to be kept secret.’

  ‘And your heart won because had you spoken to me, I should have made inquiries and your friend’s wife would almost certainly have learned that you were in her home during her absence.’

  ‘A mean, spiteful suggestion; out of my very genuine respect for you, I’ll put it down to a sudden and unavoidable attack of bile. The motive for my silence was completely honourable. Knowing that, as broad-minded as you undoubtedly are, yo
ur training has led you always to suspect the worst – too much bile – I couldn’t doubt what you’d think if I’d told you I’d seen a particular car near Cardona.’

  ‘The Baileys’ green shooting brake?’

  Lockhart’s smooth, self-consciously amused manner suddenly changed. ‘You knew it was there?’

  ‘I learned about it some time ago.’

  ‘How very clever of you!’

  It was obvious to Alvarez that he had spoilt what was to have been a dramatic scene – noble Lockhart, proving his devotion to the bonds of Platonic friendship by finally confessing the information he had withheld because he could have brought suspicion down on an innocent friend.

  ‘I dislike clever people.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re laughing at me because I’ve suffered for nothing.’

  Alvarez drained his glass. ‘I must go.’ He stood.

  Lockhart looked up and now his tone was plaintive. ‘I only did it out of kindness. I’m not the selfish prick you think me. She’s kind and broad-minded enough not to judge, unlike most of the others.’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’

  Alvarez’s obvious surprise provided some balm for Lockhart’s damaged ego. ‘You’re not omniscient after all? Is disappointment or relief in order?’

  ‘Why did you say “she”?’

  ‘How else does one in polite society refer to women if one is sufficiently fond of dogs not to want to insult them?’

  ‘Señora Bailey was driving the car?’

  ‘I’m very surprised it’s taken a man of your mental prowess so long to work that out.’

  ‘How could you identify her in the dark?’

  ‘Dark? My friend had to leave to go to the airport to fetch his wife long before then.’

  Alvarez sat down.

  CHAPTER 28

  As Alvarez drove up the dirt track to Ca’n Liodre, he recalled the words of one of the instructors at the State Training School. ‘During an investigation, note well even the slightest deviation from character and seek its cause.’ Had he followed that precept; had he at the time taken greater note of and remembered, instead of dismissing as unimportant and forgetting, the half-hearted suggestion in the DC’s report from England that a possible reason for Bailey’s having driven on after the fatal car accident and then later returning could have been because he’d had a passenger in his car whose anonymity had had at all costs to be protected and had he accepted that in view of Bailey’s character it was more likely it had been the passenger he had been trying to defend rather than himself; had he appreciated the significance of Fenella’s admission that only a relatively short time had elapsed between the death of her husband and her second marriage; had he recalled her fierce defence of Bailey when the question of the fatal accident had been introduced; then he would have reached the truth much sooner.

  Fenella’s husband had been dying at the time of the accident and because she and Bailey were two people who held loyalty to be one of the supreme virtues – and with bitter irony, had been driven by forces they could not control into disloyalty – then at all costs her husband had had to be protected from learning about his wife’s betrayal. Then this had become impossible – had Fenella been so emotionally shocked by the arrest of her lover that her guard had slipped and her husband had guessed the truth? At his trial, Bailey had lacked the image of an innocent man because his conscience named him guilty, not of the girl’s death, but of being responsible for Fenella’s husband’s suffering the truth before he died.

  When it had seemed there were three possible suspects, later to become four, he should not have sought to bring the evidence to bear on one of them. From the beginning, he should have realized that the difference in the times between the murder and the sighting of the car suggested the possibility of a fourth suspect (that was, before Algaro had become the fifth), instead of searching for reasons to explain the difference in terms which fitted the theory. And when he had learned the part Algaro had played, he should not have formed a new theory and fitted the facts to that. The old instructor would have had no hesitation in telling him he’d broken or ignored every precept by which an efficient investigation was conducted … But there was consolation to be found in the fact that Salas had been equally ready to accept Algaro’s guilt because it seemed so reasonable to suppose him guilty and the facts could be arranged to show he must be.

  Then there was the time he’d visited Ca’n Liodre and Bailey had been perfectly willing to answer questions, which one would expect him to be, but had tried to persuade his wife to leave so that she could not be questioned, which one would not expect him to do …

  He braked to a halt by the lean-to garage.

  They were sitting on the patio, in the shade of the overhead vine. When the dappled sunlight shimmered across Fenella’s face as the slight breeze rippled the vine leaves, Alvarez seemed to see a touch of hardness in her face.

  Bailey came across the patio to meet him. ‘An official visit?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  They crossed to the table. Fenella smiled as she greeted him.

  ‘The visit is official, not social,’ Bailey said.

  ‘Which doesn’t prevent my making coffee and bringing out some drinks before I leave.’

  ‘Thank you, señora,’ Alvarez said, ‘but please don’t bother yourself. And I should prefer you to stay here.’

  ‘I have an appointment…’

  ‘I am afraid you will have to cancel it.’

  Bailey’s tone was hard. ‘You are sounding as if this is a very official visit?’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘Surely,’ said Fenella, ‘however official, it will proceed more comfortably if you sit?’

  He sat and Bailey did the same. ‘Señora, on the second of last month, Señor Zavala drowned in his swimming pool. You visited him that evening…’

  ‘She did not!’ Bailey said fiercely.

  ‘Your car was seen on the road leading to the valley.’

  There was a long pause. Finally, Bailey said: ‘I was driving it.’

  ‘Your wife was. She was recognized.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Someone who knows her well. And do you not remember that you were able to prove you were here at the time of Señor Zavala’s death?’

  Bailey stared out across the orange grove, his expression one of bitter pain. ‘You’ve got to understand … How the hell can you?’

  ‘I am here to try.’

  ‘You, a detective?’

  ‘I always hope that first I am someone who knows and accepts life is uneven.’

  ‘Uneven? Mountainous. When I met Fenella…’ He stopped.

  ‘Shall I tell him?’ she suggested.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  She spoke in a voice that only occasionally exposed her feelings. ‘We went to a party, both on our own, given by mutual friends. Harry was married to Anne, I was married to James; Anne was in the middle of one of her affairs, James was already a very sick man and I’d wanted to stay at home, but he insisted that my life mustn’t become as narrow as his.

  ‘We were introduced by our hostess with the traditional inane comment that we’d enjoy each other’s company because we’d so much in common. Little did she guess!

  ‘Love at first sight is an overworked cliché, but that doesn’t prevent its happening. We fell in love during that one evening. Harry, bewildered by a wife who betrayed him at every opportunity, didn’t resist; I did. James had always tried to be a good husband and it wasn’t his fault that he’d failed – it was simply that emotionally we were on different wavelengths. So when he fell ill and cancer was diagnosed, I had the awful, totally illogical feeling that in some way I was to blame. This feeling became far stronger when I met someone whom I immediately knew could give me everything I needed emotionally.

  ‘I refused to have a physical affair for a long time, but as the bible says, “The spirit indeed is willing
, but the flesh is weak.” Sometimes, one is overwhelmed and if an angel appeared and pleaded, one would be deaf. But I made Harry promise that all the time James lived, we’d never do anything that could let him guess I was betraying him, even if that meant we couldn’t see nearly as much of each other as we longed to do. We were so careful that not even my closest female friend, with whom I’ve shared so many secrets, had the slightest inkling of what was happening. Then, one evening…’ She stopped, turned away so that Alvarez could no longer see her face.

  After a pause, it was Bailey who continued. ‘We were returning from a small flat I’d rented when we were harried by a Jaguar which couldn’t stand my keeping within the speed limit. He flashed his headlights, then accelerated past, cut in, braked and skidded slightly, hit the girl. I saw her arching through the air – not that I knew it was a body at first – but there wasn’t a thing I could do. Then, God help me, my only thought was to get Fenella away so that she couldn’t be involved which would make it certain James would learn we’d been together. It’s haunted me ever since and it doesn’t make a bloody scrap of difference that from the medical evidence it’s clear the girl couldn’t have survived even if a doctor had been on the spot.’ He abruptly stood. ‘I need a drink. I guess we all do.’ He went indoors.

  ‘Inspector,’ she said, ‘Harry’s very emotional even though he was brought up not to be. He used to become all twisted up mentally when we … we made love, because as much as he longed to do it, he couldn’t stop thinking about James. Emotionally, humans can be an awful disaster area.’

  ‘I know.’

  She looked straight at him, her dark eyes searching his face. ‘You’ve suffered your own storms, haven’t you? So you can understand how it was for us, an impossible mélange of pleasure and pain.’

  Bailey returned with a tray on which were four bottles, three glasses, and a bowl of ice. He poured out drinks, then sat.

  She said: ‘I’ve explained how things were with us and James. He understands.’