Mistakenly in Mallorca (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 8

  ‘You’d be surprised. As I’ve always said, you can’t beat human nature for tricks. Someone suggested the gobbins-tiki was Elvina — she could be crazy enough, couldn’t she, Charles?’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Lord Eastmore.

  Cabbott roared with laughter. ‘Got you fair and square in the oogles, has it? Wondering if anyone is denouncing you for all the money you’ve … Jesus!’ he exclaimed as he bent down to rub his ankle where his wife had kicked it even harder than before.

  ‘You’d never ever do such a thing, Mary,’ said Mrs Cabbott, with passionate loyalty. ‘It’s absolutely unthinkable. Freddie, how can you be so stupid? Someone in Charles and Mary’s position would never, ever break the law.’

  The Queen, like Caesar’s wife, was beyond suspicion: else she could not be the queen. They all knew that.

  *

  The rain returned, not the thundery, torrential downpour of several days ago but a steady drizzle that would not have been out of place in Manchester. Tatham drove to the post-office in Llueso and collected the mail, bought a two-litre flagon of red wine and a barra for the picnic and wondered why, in any country, the finest rain-maker was a proposed picnic? Maybe that was what came of arranging a day out with Judy. Yet he couldn’t really believe that, even though he’d just forwarded the proposition.

  He drove slowly back along the main road — the roads were dressed for hot sun, not rain, and became treacherous when wet: every Mallorquin knew that, none heeded the fact — passing a car that had spun off the road into the scrubland to the side, turned on to the Creyola road and soon after that into the narrow lane which led to the dirt-track and Ca’n Manin. Spring was well under way. Fig trees were showing green tips, pomegranate and walnut trees were sprouting, vines were in full bud, tomatoes were planted out, some under ‘greenhouses’ made from homegrown bamboos and plastic sheeting, the first late orange blossom was showing while the trees still bore ripe fruit which, strangely, so often seemed not to be picked, dates which would never ripen were just breaking out of straw-coloured pods … The same kind of reawakening, though earlier, as in England.

  He parked the Fiat under the balcony of Ca’n Manin and went inside the house. Elvina was tidying the sitting-room: for one so untidy in her person, she was strangely fussy about the condition of the house. ‘Two letters for you,’ he said, ‘and one looks suspiciously like the inland revenue.’

  She straightened up. ‘You know what you can do with that!’

  He handed her the two letters.

  ‘Would you like some coffee before you go, John?’

  ‘That’s a great idea.’

  ‘Would you make it, then, and some for me — I haven’t had breakfast yet. Going native, it’s called! By the way, I’ve put all your food on the table.’

  He went into the kitchen and prepared the Espresso coffee pot and put it on the stove, then packed into the freezy-bag cheese, butter, ham, mustard, tomatoes, corkscrew, and glasses.

  When he returned to the sitting-room, Elvina said: ‘Madge has written again. George is very near the end and she’ll send a cable when he dies so that I can return in time for the funeral. You won’t mind being on your own, will you? You can look after yourself, unlike your father who has never learned how a can-opener works.’ She put the letter down. ‘I wonder why it sometimes has to take so long to die?’

  He imagined a very old man, stubborn face leathered with age, lying in a bed and taking a long, long time to die.

  The coffee machine hissed. He asked her if she wanted anything to eat and she said a couple of slices of bread and butter with marmalade. In the kitchen, he poured out two cupfuls of coffee, added sugar and milk, cut the bread and butter, found the pot of marmalade, and carried the tray back into the sitting-room.

  ‘Any idea where you’re going today?’ asked Elvina.

  ‘None at all. I said I’d leave it entirely up to Judy. Maybe with this rain she’ll prefer to cancel.’

  ‘I doubt it. She’s not the kind of girl to worry about a little wet. In any case, it’s fun seeing the island in the rain because it all looks so different. I said that to someone not so long ago and she looked at me as if I was quite insane. Probably didn’t know you could go out when it rained.’ She stirred her coffee. ‘When you’ve got the farm running smoothly and can leave it for a time, come and see me out here, John.’

  ‘As often as possible. But you promised to come over to England and see the farm for yourself.’

  ‘Of course I shall, once. But not more than once because I get bronchitis so easily these days if the weather’s anything like it usually is over there. But I want to see you much more than once before my time’s up.’ She drank some coffee. ‘Tell me, which part of the country would you like to go to? Shropshire or Cheshire, which I’ve always been told are the dairy counties? Or farther south? How about Devonshire, when you could send a regular supply of clotted cream to me? When I was young, that was the greatest treat life had to offer.’

  She had not been exaggerating, he thought, when she had told him what the farm would mean to her.

  *

  It was just before ten o’clock that night when Tatham drove the Fiat on to the loose-surfaced drive of Ca’n Xema and stopped before the front door. He switched off the headlights, but left the engine running.

  ‘I’ve enjoyed the day, John, and most especially dinner,’ said Judy. ‘It’s been such fun. But you’re surely going to come in and have a nightcap?’

  ‘I don’t think so, thanks a lot. I’m feeling quite tired.’

  ‘You ought to have let me do some of the driving — even if in your heart of hearts you don’t really trust me.’ She laughed as she put her hand lightly on his right arm. ‘Don’t leave it too long before you come and see me again. After all, you’re almost the only male under sixty this side of Palma: the only guaranteed male, that is. Good night.’ She climbed out too quickly for him to try to help her, waved once, crossed to the door and let herself in.

  He switched on the headlights, backed, turned, and drove out. Judy was a strangely difficult person to pinpoint, he thought. Sometimes she was hard and cynical, sometimes much softer in outlook and easily pleased. Always, he sensed a mental strain which, for no particular reason other than a brief and unfinished conversation, he believed had something to do with Lawrence Ingham. ‘He’s usually great fun,’ she’d said, ‘but …’ Then she’d stopped and changed the conversation.

  He went round the S-turn, down the very short straight, and left on to the dirt-track. The headlights picked out fig-trees and the distorted prickly pear cacti, the fruit of both now seldom picked as a direct result of the rising standard of living. He followed round by the wall of the next property — behind this was a pig pen and an electric pump used for irrigation purposes — and up to the estanque. When lie turned right, the headlights picked out the house and patio and he saw a bundle lying by a pillar of the balcony, near one of the garden chairs. It wasn’t until he was about to turn into the garage that he realized the bundle was a body.

  CHAPTER IX

  ELVINA, dressed in blue woollen frock, tights, muddy walking shoes, lay half curled up in an untidy huddle and the top of her head was in a state that made him feel sick, even though he was used to bloody wounds in animals. Underneath her head was a length of bamboo on to which she’d fallen and by her side was a section of the wooden rails of the balcony. He stepped back and looked up. In the lights of the car, he could see where the wooden rails had broken and where a further section hung loose. A small trickle of water dribbled intermittently down from the balcony and this had evidently diluted and washed away the blood, for little remained.

  He stared at the body as he tried to clear his mind sufficiently to decide what to do. Get hold of a doctor? She was beyond any doctor’s help although obviously a doctor must be called. But, knowing no doctor, wasn’t his obvious move to go into Llueso and inform the police so that they could organize everything?

  What a way to die!
Then he revised his thoughts. She would have known only a brief second of panic as she leaned against the wooden railing and felt it give, to fall head first below. Most people were not so lucky.

  He felt he needed something to steady his nerves and quell a rising nausea and in any case an extra five minutes could mean nothing to her. He went into the house and switched on the lights, returned to the car and switched off the headlights, then went through to the larder and poured himself out a very large brandy and swallowed it quickly. He lit a cigarette and gratefully dragged the smoke down into his lungs.

  Which police did he go to? The Municipal police or the Guardia Civil? He didn’t really know what was the difference between them, but he did know where were the offices of the Municipal police. Hopefully, he’d find someone there who could understand English.

  Elvina had told him only a few days ago that the wooden rails of the balcony were in a very poor state. ‘Like all the other wood in the house,’ she’d said, ‘ravaged by woodworm and rotting from neglect. I first mentioned them to Jose a couple of years back. He promised to get the carpenter right away. Maybe in two years’ time the man will actually turn up. Maybe.’ The carpenter had left his visit too late.

  He would have liked a second brandy, but decided against it. He must have a clear head.

  He left the kitchen and went into the sitting-room, finished his cigarette, stubbed it out, and immediately lit another. It was no good telephoning the police since he didn’t speak Spanish: much better to go in person and … It suddenly occurred to him that it seemed probable no telegram had arrived to announce the death of Geoffrey Maitland.

  Maitland had left Elvina the bulk of his fortune provided only that she did not predecease him. As there had been quite a disparity in their ages, such a possibility must have seemed remote. Yet, against the odds, this had probably happened. (A check to see whether she had packed, a search of her handbag for the telegram, these would show if the news had come through.) So the fortune wouldn’t be coming through her to him. There would be no hundred and fifty acres of lush grass, supporting a hundred and fifty sleek-hided cows …

  A dream had been shattered for all time when she fell from the balcony. He remembered her pleasure at being able to give him pleasure and how she’d told him, speaking lightly and ironically yet not quite able to conceal the fact that she meant what she was saying, that the farm would be her memorial, something to give her life a lasting meaning. With his dream had gone her memorial. He must either return to a rented farm that wouldn’t be big enough or good enough to be properly profitable or work for someone else, and her only memorial would be a tombstone on this island which would be read by no one.

  Perhaps, by some miracle, Geoffrey Maitland had died first? But a telegram surely wouldn’t take long to arrive and Madge had promised to send word as soon as he died. The house had been in darkness so that Elvina must have fallen after Catalina had left, but before dark.

  He was a man who dreamed, yet who could set aside his dreams when there was no chance of their becoming reality. For a few days a farm had been his and in his mind he’d stocked and cultivated it, but now it no longer existed. He was back to the position in which he’d been …

  The idea flashed through his mind and his initial reaction was to dismiss it as a sick fantasy. But the idea remained with him. Suppose Elvina’s death was not immediately disclosed? Geoffrey Maitland must die very soon. Provided only that she appeared to have outlived him, the money would come to her and she had said that she’d made certain her estate was willed through so that the farm could be his whatever happened. Maitland’s relatives would lose their inheritance, but then they were all apparently more than wealthy enough already. So what would the loss mean to them other than forgoing the greedy pleasure the rich man gained when his riches increased?

  What about the indignity Elvina’s body might have to suffer? He seemed to hear her harsh laughter. ‘Indignity? Gobbledegook! A dead body is a hunk fit for nothing but providing spare parts or turning into fertilizer. If my body can be of use, use it. Get that farm and remember me when you’re ploughing the twenty-acre field.’

  But how did one conceal a death, even for twenty-four hours? Because he had dealt with large animals, he knew that the irreversible signs of death came very quickly and could not be missed. If her body was twenty-four hours dead, no doctor could be deceived into believing death had only just taken place. And was it realistic to think in terms of twenty-four hours? Old people often took longer to die than anyone would have believed possible. It might be days and days before Maitland died. And if the weather turned hot …

  There’d been a cow which had aborted at the beginning of the August Bank Holiday weekend when the nearby diagnostic veterinary laboratories had been closed, but he’d needed the foetus tested for contagious abortion. He’d wrapped up the foetus in plastic and put it in an old and no longer used refrigerated milk cooler. The foetus had kept perfectly … There was a very large deep-freeze out in the wash-shed …

  He went through to the larder and poured himself out the second brandy he had denied himself earlier. So few people came to see Elvina that she could be missing for days without comment, except from Catalina who worked five afternoons a week. But Elvina’s absence each afternoon could easily be explained away — picnics. Since he’d arrived Elvina had been out of the house many of the afternoons, driving him around the island. At such times, the only contact Catalina had had with Elvina had been the five hundred pesetas left in an envelope for her each Friday.

  Legally, he must surely be committing a crime if he did not report the death immediately, but tried to conceal it? Spanish law could not be very different on that point from English law. But what had the law ever done for him? Killed Jennifer. The law had demanded she testify in court, had promised she’d be guarded from any harm, and had seen her murdered. So to hell with what the law demanded from the honest citizen.

  He went from the kitchen into the back garden — a natural rock garden. The washroom was on the right, set out at right angles to the end of the kitchen. In it was an old-fashioned double-tiled sink, a modern washing-machine, and a large deep-freeze with one-piece lid. He lifted the lid — it was lockable, but unlocked — and found the cabinet was about half full of food. That would have to be thrown away, something easily done because there were a hundred and one near-perfect hiding-places out in the scrubland at the back, especially in the area littered with huge boulders up to two metres high.

  He bent down and checked the deep-freeze control, set behind a grill on hinges. He turned the control to its coldest setting. The compressor immediately started working. And it was this humming sound, more than his own thoughts, which convinced him he was going to do the bizarre and macabre thing his mind had visualized.

  He emptied the cabinet, stacking the food on the concrete floor. What to wrap the body in? There were no large sheets of plastic available, so it would have to be some sort of blanket. This would have the advantage of absorbing any blood before the body became frozen.

  He went up to the solar and found the french windows leading out on to the balcony were open and swinging gently to the wind. A little rain had blown in and dampened the concrete floor and one edge of the nearer Ispahan carpet. He remembered, even as he stepped forward, how each day she’d cleaned the carpets by hand. ‘Never use a vacuum cleaner on a decent carpet,’ she’d once told him, as if this were a really heinous offence. He was about to shut the windows when he remembered the broken rails and he switched on the outside light and stepped out.

  Because the concrete floor of the balcony was uneven, water had gathered in a large pool that stretched right across and was too wide for him to step over, yet which wasn’t deep. He crossed to the section of broken railing. The design had been quite elaborate, with carved balusters, but typically the balusters at their bases had been too thin so that the wood had had only to rot to a little depth to become unsafe and the way they had been set in the concrete had ens
ured rain water collected around their bases. One baluster had crashed below, one was leaning over, one section of rails was below and two sections were hanging down but were still just attached. They could, he estimated, all be patched up sufficiently well that nothing would be obvious from down below. He noticed that the exact point at which she’d fallen was marked by a trail in the light dusting of sodden dirt where one of her toe-caps had briefly dragged.

  He returned, tried not to step on any of the carpets because his shoes were now very wet and dirty, but couldn’t avoid doing so, shut the french windows, switched off the light, and went down to the hall.

  In the front downstairs bedroom was a double bed and on this was a multi-coloured cover in rough woven wool that matched the covers on all the other beds and of which he knew there were two spares. He pulled it off the bed and carried it out on to the patio. He laid it out by the side of Elvina’s body and then rolled her on to it. He tried to fold her up, but had considerable difficulty, especially with her arms and trunk which had stiffened. Eventually, he succeeded.

  The bundle was awkward and caused him considerable difficulty, even though she had been a thin, small woman and he was strong with muscles used to heavy loads. He carried the bundle through the house to the washroom, managed to lift the lid of the deep-freeze with the tips of the fingers of his right hand, and lowered it down. It just fitted. He shut the lid, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. He was sweating more heavily than the exercise warranted and he mopped his face and neck with a handkerchief.

  Against the far wall of the washroom was a plastic bucket and broom. He filled the bucket with water and went out to the patio and scrubbed down the pillar and concrete ground, after removing the five-foot-long bamboo, until all traces of blood were gone. He swilled everything down with more water, drawn from the well.

  After returning the bucket and broom to the washroom, he poured himself out a third brandy and lit a cigarette. When he’d finished both drink and cigarette, he thought, he must remove and burn the bamboo and make a sufficiently good repair to the rails of the balcony to conceal until the morning, when a much better repair could be carried out, what had happened.