Two-Faced Death (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 9

  She had never before heard such hard, vicious anger in his voice.

  He was determined to prolong the scene. He leaned across to take a cigar out of the over-ornate silver cigar box which was on the piecrust table near his chair, clipped the end of the cigar with precise, unhurried movements, then struck a match. He drew on the cigar a couple of times, looked at her with eager vindictiveness, finally said: ‘The news is about your boy-friend.’

  She struggled to retain her composure. ‘My what? Percival, please don’t be silly and start that up all over again. You know it’s terrible nonsense.’

  He rolled the cigar between finger and thumb. ‘Apparently he’s killed himself.’

  She sat very still, feeling as if time had ceased. The words went round and round her head, hurting more and more with every repetition.

  ‘He cut his throat from ear to here.’ It was typical of him to try to joke when he was mentally hurting her so cruelly.

  ‘No,’ she murmured, so quietly that he could not distinguish the words. ‘Oh God, no, it can’t be true!’

  ‘Bit of a shock to hear he’s dead, perhaps? The great love of your life. Requiescat in pace, dear John.’

  She looked up at him. ‘John?’

  ‘Don’t, please, insult my intelligence by expecting me to believe your simulated ignorance.’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘A man who’ll jump into no more beds whilst the husband’s away. John Calvin.’

  She did the one thing he had not been expecting. She began to laugh.

  *

  Helen, lying in bed naked because of the heat, heard the car come down the slip road. For a second she knew an increased tension because she thought she didn’t recognize the engine note, then she heard the rattle caused by the front suspension: it was their Seat. She switched on the bedside light and looked at her watch and saw the time was nearly one o’clock.

  The front door slammed shut. ‘Jim.’ He didn’t answer her. Listening to his footsteps, she judged he was crossing to the chest of drinks: a little later there was the clink of glass against glass to confirm her judgement.

  He came into the bedroom, a half-empty glass in his right hand. She’d pushed the sheet off herself a long time ago, soon after she’d first tried to get to sleep. She noticed that he did not, for once, look at her naked body with his usual sharp desire. ‘Where the hell have you been again?’ she demanded.

  ‘Out and about,’ he replied. He sat down on the rush-bottomed chair in front of the dressing-table.

  ‘You were out last night until God knows when. Have you any idea what the time is?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘When you didn’t come back and didn’t come back, I was sure you’d had an accident.’

  ‘Getting ready to celebrate?’ He drank.

  She bit back the sharp answer which immediately came to mind. ‘Jim, I’m worried sick. What’s been happening? Why are you out so late? Why were you out most of last night?’

  ‘I’ve just been walking around, trying to work out a plot.’

  ‘Walking in the dark?’

  ‘There’s a moon up.’

  ‘For the love of God, stop knocking your brain like this. You can’t go on and on.’

  ‘At the moment, I’ve no option.’

  ‘What’s the desperate rush with the book?’

  ‘I’m behind schedule.’

  ‘Whose schedule?’

  ‘My own.’

  ‘Then scrap it. Let’s clear out for a week and go to England or France where it’s cooler and there’ll be a change of scenery.’

  He drained his glass. ‘My bank balance doesn’t allow any trips to anywhere.’

  ‘But mine does.’

  ‘All right. You go to England or France.’

  ‘How many times have I told you that it’s not my money, it’s ours?’ She spoke appealingly. ‘Jim, why can’t you ease up on your pride and learn to live with and enjoy our money?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘It was all going to be so easy when we got married.’

  ‘Things are notoriously easy then: stardust in the eyes.’

  ‘You were going to pay for the essentials, I was going to pay for the luxuries.’

  ‘Only I was too optimistic. I’d forgotten inflation. Now I can afford to provide either bread or butter, but not both.’

  ‘Then we pool our money and have bread and butter, but no jam.’

  ‘You have your trip to England, I’ll stick with dry bread.’

  ‘God, Jim, you’re difficult!’ she said despondently.

  ‘That’s my middle name.’ He looked at his glass. ‘I’m good for another. What about you?’

  She hesitated, then said: ‘I’ll have a gin and tonic.’

  He left. When he returned, he handed her a glass and she sat up to take it. ‘Come here, on the bed, Jim.’ She patted the bed.

  Almost reluctantly, he sat down beside her.

  ‘Relax.’

  ‘I am relaxing.’

  She leaned against him, making certain her body pressed hard against his. ‘Relax some more.’

  For the first time, the set of his mouth lightened. ‘Are you sure you know what relaxing means?’

  ‘Didn’t you know I’m dead ignorant … Jim, try smiling. It does wonders for your image and makes me want to cuddle you. Forget inflation, publishers, and subscription figures. Laugh and kiss me instead.’

  He kissed her. Her free arm tightened around him. He drew back, forcing her to release him.

  ‘Now what the hell’s the matter?’

  He drank. ‘The bar was still open when I came back through the square.’

  ‘Bully for anyone who was thirsty. Now let’s forget them and … ’

  ‘I saw Vera there.’

  She sighed, moved slightly away from him, and sipped her drink. ‘So you saw Vera. How tight was she?’

  He finished his drink, then looked at the glass as if wondering whether to refill it.

  ‘Have we exhausted the subject of Vera?’

  ‘She told me a rumour that’s going the rounds.’

  ‘Who’s this one slandering?’

  ‘Helen, you … you’re not going to like it. It concerns John. I know what you think of him … ’

  She broke in, speaking fiercely. ‘You don’t know a damn thing because you’ve an imagination ten times too wild. You’ve convinced yourself I’ve had an affair with him.’

  ‘Haven’t you?’ His voice was hoarse. ‘You went to his house.’

  ‘And that’s proof of adultery? Jim — cool your imagination and stop thinking molehills into mountains. You went on and on about him because I’d talked to him at drink parties we’d been to and it didn’t matter how hard I told you he was just someone amusing to talk to, you imagined purple passion. I got bloody sick at you believing I could have an affair just like that. So when he asked me to his place I said yes, out of pique — and also with a bitchy desire to teach him not to count his conquests before he’d bedded them.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I drove to his place and he said how lovely I looked and gave me drinks — enough to make me light-hearted, but not enough to make me careless. Then he served up a meal that would make any cordon bleu jealous.’

  ‘Oysters?’

  She laughed.

  ‘He might have tried that old gag.’

  ‘Someone as self-confident as he? Never waste the money.’

  ‘You seem to find it all rather amusing?’

  ‘Good for the ego.’

  ‘So you discovered he was a good cook. Then what?’

  ‘Coffee, liqueurs, and the yawns routine.’

  ‘What the hell’s that?’

  ‘Yawn, it’s hot, yawn, wouldn’t it be more comfortable upstairs, yawn, where it’s cooler.’

  ‘What did you say to that?’

  ‘Yawn, I was disappointed, yawn, I’d expected a much more sophisticated approach.’

&nb
sp; ‘You actually said that?’

  ‘Criticize a man’s technique and you hit him below the belt. Even Casanova would never have regained the initiative if a lady had told him his kisses were adequate but his tongue-work was poor.’

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘Badly. He’s obviously been spoiled.’

  ‘You didn’t go upstairs?’

  ‘Jim!’ She put her glass down, took his from his hands and placed it next to hers, then pulled him over and kissed him. She said: ‘I suppose I ought to be furious you don’t trust me more, but I’ll confess I’m rather excited by your stupid jealousy. Pistols at dawn and breakfast for one. Would you challenge him to a duel? I’d never let you actually go and fight him, but I love the idea of being fought over. Does that make me a real bitch?’

  He spoke very abruptly. ‘What Vera said was, he’s killed himself.’

  She was silent and motionless for a few seconds, then she said: ‘Vera’s always talking the most terrible nonsense, especially when she’s tight.’

  ‘She swears it’s true. Brenda told her.’

  ‘Anything Brenda says is bound to be wrong.’

  ‘The police called at Brenda’s place and showed her the note John left in the typewriter. Steve Adamson agrees that happened.’

  ‘Oh!’ She held him a shade tighter. ‘I … I still hope it isn’t right. Not because there was ever anything between me and John, but because I can’t bear to think of anyone killing himself. Anyway, John loves himself much too much to do such a thing.’

  ‘Poor John,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Why d’you say that in that tone of voice?’

  ‘He’d probably no idea how far you saw through him.’ She kissed him. Then she ran a fingertip along his cheek. ‘Jim, where did you get that bruise?’

  ‘I walked into a branch in the dark.’

  ‘Take a torch next time … Are you satisfied now that I was only a little stupid and didn’t do more than play with fire for a short enough time not to get burned?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yawn, I’m tired. Yawn, wouldn’t you be more comfortable lying down?’

  ‘Your technique may be good, but your approach is lousy,’ he said, as he undid his shirt and pulled it off.

  CHAPTER IX

  Alvarez leaned across the desk in his airless office and dragged the Out tray nearer to himself: from it, he took a glass. He pulled open the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk and brought out a bottle of 103 brandy. The bottle was almost empty and he uncharitably wondered if someone had been sneaking in and helping himself, but then decided that that was unlikely. He sighed. He must have drunk more than he’d thought. He poured himself out a large tot.

  As he drank, he thought about the finca he’d heard was for sale. Up in the mountains, with a well that was said not to run dry even in the dryest summer; the house was in need of some repair. The terraced land grew olives and a few walnuts. All this for 700,000 pesetas because it was too far away from the coast for any foreigner to be interested in buying it. If he’d had 700,000 pesetas, he’d have bought it the moment he’d heard about it. Modern youth shrank away from the very hard work of harvesting olives, but he knew a deep satisfaction in expertly wielding a seven-metre bamboo to knock olives out of the silver-grey trees, some of which were a thousand years old and looked every one of them.

  The telephone rang. He stared at it with dislike as he drank more brandy, but it refused to become silent. Sighing, he lifted the receiver. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Is that Inspector Alvarez? This is Brenda Calvin. Steve said I really must phone you. What I want to know is, is he, or isn’t he?’

  He scratched his nose with the edge of the glass. ‘Is Mr Adamson what?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Señora Calvin, aren’t you asking me something about Señor Adamson?’

  ‘Of course not. Why on earth should I? … What I’m asking is, have you found John? It’s a whole week now since you came and told me he’d committed suicide …

  ‘I told you only that he had written a note which said he had, señora.’

  ‘That’s just the point, isn’t it?’

  Alvarez began to feel a little out of his depth. ‘Señora, do you want to know if I have discovered any proof that Señor Calvin definitely has committed suicide?’

  ‘Thank goodness you’ve at last understood me.’

  ‘I have to answer, no, señora. I have discovered no such proof.’

  ‘But why not?’

  ‘We have made a second and much wider search, with no result, I have spoken to the bank and no money has been drawn out of his account since a week ago on Monday, I have spoken to friends, none of whom has seen him in the past week. It seems he has vanished, but there is no proof he is dead.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Nancy Ormond?’

  ‘Señora Ormond?’ he repeated, speaking as if the name were new to him.

  ‘She was one of his latest. If he hasn’t seen her, he’s almost certainly dead. Unless, of course, he’s found someone else. But I haven’t heard any names and people usually rush to tell me. Look, I must know. There’s the estate, isn’t there?’

  If Calvin were provably dead and his will was good — lawyers were checking it now — she inherited the finca and that was worth at least four million pesetas without the contents. Even if she weren’t desperately eager to know whether it was legally hers, Adamson would be.

  She confirmed his thoughts. ‘Steve says you ought to know for sure, one way or the other, by now.’

  ‘Perhaps he would care to suggest what further steps we might take?’

  There was a loud, cheerful laugh. ‘All he’s any good at is criticizing. Isn’t it just like him to leave everything up in the air? I’ll bet he’s laughing his head off, wherever he is.’

  A little more in tune with her way of thought, Alvarez was able to judge that the subject of the last two sentences was Calvin, not Adamson.

  ‘Do try and find out for sure. I hate to keep thinking of him in limbo. And apart from anything else, I’m beginning to wonder what I can use for money. My bank manager is really rather a dear, but he just won’t let me run up an overdraft, whatever I say. I don’t think bank managers out here are as nice as they are in England: I never had any trouble at home getting money. He says it’s because out here anyone who lends money is thought a fool for being so weak.’

  ‘Señor Adamson says that?’

  ‘John.’

  You couldn’t be right every time.

  ‘Do have another look round. If he is waiting to be found, he must be feeling most terribly neglected.’ She said goodbye and rang off.

  Alvarez finished his drink, then emptied the bottle into the glass. Poor Señor Calvin, so very neglected: like a baritone who’d launched himself into his big aria only to find his audience had cleared off and gone home.

  *

  After a few days, the disappearance and possible suicide of John Calvin ceased to be the major topic of conversation amongst the English community. From time to time he was still remembered, but mostly people forgot him and discussed the more important things in life, such as the incompetence of the local builders, the deviousness of the local lawyers, the rapaciousness of the local landlords, and the iniquitous way in which gin had gone up to ninety pesetas a litre for a brand that was safe to drink.

  Nancy Ormond, however, still mourned him. In fact, she became so listless that her husband took her along to the doctor, who prescribed vitamin pills. These failed to work immediately, so he made her join him on a three-day boat trip to Valencia and back. She was sea-sick throughout the journey and on her return home she retired to bed, totally exhausted.

  *

  The telephone rang at seven-thirty-three in the morning. Alvarez opened his eyes, stared at the telephone which was dimly visible in the very subdued light, and gloomily wondered why things were always happening on a Sunday. He reached out and lifted up the receiver. ‘What is it?’

 
; ‘This is the Guardia post, Inspector. Earlier this morning, at seven-twenty-five, we received an important communication.’

  Sweet Mary! thought Alvarez. Who could be making this text-book report? ‘All right. Now let’s hear what the earth-shattering communication is all about.’

  ‘The body of a deceased man has been discovered on the upper slopes of Puig Pamir.’

  ‘And where in the hell’s Puig Pamir?’

  ‘It is to the west of the Llueso/Laraix road, Inspector Alvarez, and it attains a height of nine hundred and sixty-two metres.’

  ‘Fascinating! And what has the body attained?’

  ‘A somewhat damaged condition, according to the report.’

  ‘Who found it?’

  ‘A shepherd, searching for a sheep missing from his flock … ’

  ‘Where will I find the shepherd?’

  ‘At Ca’n Pequeño. We have ascertained where that is and it is very close to Ca’n Adeane, which is the house belonging to the missing Englishman. Clearly one should not speculate at this juncture … ’

  ‘You speculate all you like. I’ll get along there.’

  He washed and shaved, dressed, and went along to the kitchen. His nephew (the relationship was more distant, but by tradition he was called Uncle) was rooting about in the refrigerator. ‘Is there anything good to eat?’ asked Alvarez.

  ‘There’s some negro, but Mummy said I mustn’t have any now. Would you like some? It smells delicious. I’m sure you’d like it.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ he replied, knowing perfectly well what were his nephew’s true motives. In his estimation, all children were natural criminals at heart and education consisted in suppressing those criminal instincts in so far as this was possible.

  ‘There’s nothing else worth eating,’ said his nephew, in tones of disgust. ‘Only some mucky soup.’

  ‘Just what I wanted. A bowlful inside me and maybe I’ll feel slightly more human.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you feel better if you didn’t drink so much cognac? Why do you drink so much, Uncle?’

  ‘You are being impossibly rude. In any case, I don’t know the answer.’

  The boy laughed, then brought out from the refrigerator a plastic jar half full of soup. He asked Alvarez how much he wanted, poured some of the soup into a saucepan and put this on the gas.