A Maze of Murders (9 page)

She turned her head away, but not before he had seen the look of shock that distorted her features. After a while, she said in a small voice: ‘It was going to be a wonderful holiday. We were going to have such fun. But … Why does it happen?'

‘No one knows.'

After a while, she turned back, eyes reddened, cheeks damp. ‘I've been wondering why he didn't come and tell us what was happening; we haven't seen him since Sunday. I just thought it must be because he was so shocked. I mean, him and Neil were pals … Could it be because he was so upset that he had the accident? It happens like that, doesn't it?'

‘I'm sure it does. But, señorita, at the moment there is no certainty that it was an accident.'

‘How d'you mean? Here, you're surely not saying it was deliberate?'

‘I am trying to find out what were the circumstances.'

‘You mean, it could've been? Oh, God, it's a curse, like the one when they opened that tomb in Egypt. First Neil, then Bert. Next…'

‘I can assure you that neither Señorita Fenn nor you have any need for fear.'

She began to pluck at a fold in the bedspread.

‘I am here to find out if you can help me discover the truth.'

‘But how can I?'

‘You did not know the señors for long, but during the time you did, they must have spoken about many things and they may have said something that will help me. Was there ever any mention of drugs?'

‘Are you saying they was into that?'

‘It is one of the many possibilities I have to explore. Did they, perhaps, offer you a reefer when you were on the boat?'

‘No. And if they had, I'd have told them what to do with it … Look, we was having fun, but nothing like that. Dope is different. I've friends what are really hooked and if I was like them I'd want to cut my throat. They never suggested reefers, coke, E, happies, anything.'

He judged her to be telling the truth. ‘Did Señor Lewis or Señor Sheard ever mention the name Lawrence Clough?'

She shook her head. Then she said: ‘Hang on.' She thought back, her forehead creased. ‘Larry's short for Lawrence and I think I remember someone mentioning Larry … That's it. We'd anchored and was having the first drink. Neil was fooling around with Cara and was talking like men do when they're trying to get you to agree – know what I mean?'

Did she really judge him to be so ancient he did not?

‘Neil was busy with his hands and she was trying to stop him going too fast and he said he'd fallen for her so heavy that he'd give her anything she wanted. She said he could take her for a holiday in Bali. Last year she read about how wonderful the place is and hasn't stopped telling everyone she wants to go there. But as I said to her before we came here, Port Llueso's the nearest she's ever going to get to Bali. She told Neil this and he got a bit narked because I'd kind of made him look stupid and he said I didn't begin to know my way around the world. All he had to do was have a word with Larry and he'd be able to take Cara to Bali, Hawaii, Hollywood, and New York.'

‘Did he explain how Larry could help him do all these things?'

She shook her head.

He stood. ‘Thank you, señorita.'

‘I told you I don't know anything.'

‘On the contrary, what you've just said may help me considerably.'

‘It may?'

Unless he was seeing a flock of goats where there was not even a kid, Lewis had unthinkingly confirmed the fact that Lawrence Clough had been bankrolling him.

CHAPTER 11

Traffic reported late on Wednesday morning.

‘The Vespa's an interesting little puzzle. There are no hard scrapes, no smears of foreign paint, as there normally are when two vehicles collide; the damage to the front mudguard and left-hand foot rest and the impacted earth are consistent with the Vespa sliding along the road, off on to the verge, and down the slope. The tyres, especially the front one, are badly worn and with very little tread. There's a dent in the rear mudguard, but apparently of little consequence. So the picture seems to be of a bike that's not looked after and a driver who loses control and skids. But the road was bone dry and the marks on it say the bike wasn't moving fast. So why should the rider suddenly lose control?

‘Suppose it wasn't an accident. The easiest way to ensure a powered bike crashes is to come up behind in a car and push hard against the rear mudguard at an angle. Get it right and the driver hasn't a hope in hell. But with that scenario, there's crushed and powdered paintwork on the bike and usually the mudguard is pushed hard into the tyre. The Vespa has no crushed paintwork, no scrapes down to the metal, and only a small dent in the mudguard. Which calls to mind the old dodge of lashing an old outer tyre on to the car's front bumper. Then, if the driver is careful, there's little or no crushing and powdering, no scraping, and only slight denting. Afterwards, the tyre is burned and so there are no traces on the car to identify it … We used special techniques to examine the mudguard and although it was very faint, we think we found a small piece of a tread pattern.'

‘You only think?'

‘I'm afraid we can't be more definite.'

After the call was over, Alvarez settled back in the chair. If there had been a reason to murder Sheard, it was a hundred to one he had been murdered; but until that was established, there was no certainty that there was a reason.

He phoned the Laboratory of Forensic Sciences and asked if they had the results of their analyses of the whisky and the residues in the two glasses he had sent them. Their reply was to be expected. Did he think they had nothing to do but the work he sent them? Did he think they worked twenty-four hours a day? Did he believe …

Exhausted by their aggressive hostility, so clearly aimed at concealing their indolence, he leaned over and pulled open the right-hand bottom drawer of the desk and brought out a bottle of brandy and a glass.

*   *   *

One possible lead was to discover if there were any rumours on the streets of an English intrusion into the drug market. Alvarez drove down to the port and went into one of the backstreet bars. He was in luck. Capella sat at one of the tables, playing a game of draughts.

Capella was a small man, not quite as old as he looked; his pointed face and sharp, beady eyes had given him his nickname, Ferret. His right arm hung uselessly at his side. Thirty years before he had suffered a bad fall, but had been unable to seek medical help because the Guardia had ordered all doctors and hospitals to advise them if they treated a man of his description with an injured arm.

As Alvarez approached, both players looked up briefly; Capella muttered a greeting, Obrador merely nodded. They played on, but after three more moves, Obrador swore, accepted defeat, pushed a five-hundred-peseta coin across the table, and left.

‘He seemed to lose his concentration,' Alvarez said.

‘What d'you expect, turning up and staring at him?'

‘Then how about recognizing my assistance by giving me half your winnings?'

Capella hurriedly pocketed the coin.

‘What are you drinking?'

‘Nothing.'

Alvarez picked up the glass in front of Capella, crossed to the bar and ordered two brandies. Filled glasses in his hands, he returned, sat. ‘So what's he into these days? Cigarettes? I hear things have become very difficult, with supplies from Tangiers and Ceuta drying up and the authorities becoming sharper. Not like the old days, when you could make enough in one good run to build yourself a house and another for your daughter.'

‘The money was left me by an uncle.'

‘Tio Andrés? He never left anyone anything but curses.'

‘What gives you the right to slander the dead?'

‘His curses.' Alvarez offered the other a cigarette, lit a match for both of them. ‘Tell me all about the drug scene here in the port.'

‘You think I have anything to do with that?'

‘No. But you'll know what's going on because you still keep your ear so close to the ground you have perpetual earache. Have there been any changes just recently?'

Capella drained his glass, put it down on the table with more force than was necessary. Alvarez carried both glasses to the bar and had them refilled. He returned. ‘Well?'

‘What d'you mean, changes?'

‘Are the English moving in?'

‘You think the lads would let 'em?'

‘Not without causing trouble.'

‘There ain't been any.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘'Course I'm sure,' Capella retorted, ignoring the fact that only a moment ago he'd claimed not to know what was happening.

‘You don't think they could be working so quietly they're even using their own boat?'

‘The day after it sailed, it'd be at the bottom and them in it.'

Capella had spoken with a perverse pride in the ruthlessness of the local mafia. He was, Alvarez thought, justified. Mallorca might be the Island of Calm, but those on the wrong side of the law could be every bit as vicious as anyone from the toughest of inner cities. Further, the community was relatively small and tightly knit and its members enjoyed the peasant's ability to notice events so apparently insignificant that another would miss them, while even those who were completely law abiding – Mallorquin style – suffered from xenophobia which had merely been put on hold by tourist money.

Yet to assume that Clough was not in drugs was to promote unwanted questions. Why had Lewis come to the island unless to collect money from Clough? Why had Clough given him – assuming he had – a million pesetas? How had Sheard, who had not previously known Lewis, quickly become so involved in whatever was going on that he had had to be murdered?… Or were all these questions false because the supposition on which each was based was fallacious?

Capella again banged his empty glass down on the table. Another small brandy might just help him to sort out his own muddled mind, Alvarez decided.

*   *   *

Thursday was hotter and more airless than ever. Although it was early, the thought of an iced drink before the meal was an irresistible one. Alvarez left the office. The old square was filled with tourists who had nothing better to do than idle their day away. He looked at them with the resentment of envy, unlocked his car to find the interior was an oven because he had forgotten to leave the windows slightly open. Some became martyrs to their duty.

As he stepped into the house, the phone began to ring. He lifted the receiver.

‘It's the lab here. I tried to phone you at your office, but there was no answer; they said you might be at home and gave me your number. We have the results of the analyses and I thought you'd like to hear them. Negative.'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘Pure Scotch in the one bottle, the hint of pure Scotch in the other bottle and the glasses.'

‘But … but that's impossible!'

‘The impossible happens with regular monotony here.'

‘I was certain there was some sort of narcotic in the whisky.'

‘You could drink the bottle and not suffer anything but the usual hangover.'

He thanked the caller for ringing, stared unseeingly at a framed print of a stylized Mallorquin country setting. If one built a house of paper, one should not be surprised if it was blown down. If Lewis had not been drugged, the probability had to be that he had not been murdered, but
had
been so tight when he fell over the side he'd been unable to swim; Clough's wife
had
spent a million pesetas on two dresses; Lewis
had
tapped a source of money that had nothing to do with Clough; it
was
one more coincidence that Lewis had mentioned the name ‘Larry' to Cara; it
was
yet another coincidence that Sheard had been on one of the two routes to Annuig when he'd died in a fatal crash and Traffic's theory of events was wrong … Like disasters, coincidences often did not come singly …

He wandered through to the dining/sitting-room. Isabel and Juan were arguing and Jaime was seated at the table, bottle and glass in front of him.

Isabel looked up. ‘Uncle, where's Valparaiso?'

‘Argentina, silly,' said Juan, with condescending superiority.

‘It isn't.'

‘You don't know anything.'

‘I know more than you.'

Dolores pushed her way through the bead curtain. ‘What's all the noise about?'

Knowing how sharp she could be, they were silent, each waiting for the other to answer and thereby suffer the brunt of her annoyance.

‘Well?'

Isabel's indignation overcame her sense of caution. ‘He says Valparaiso is in Argentina.'

‘It's in Chile. Juan, you should know your geography better than that.'

‘I was just pulling her leg.'

‘Then do it more peacefully.' She returned to the kitchen.

Jaime leaned across the table and spoke to Alvarez in a low voice. ‘Instead of giving them hell, she just asks them to be more peaceful; she saw the bottle of brandy, but didn't have a go at me for drinking too much – I tell you, it's worrying me sick, her being so reasonable.' He picked up the bottle and refilled his glass.

Alvarez had too many troubles of his own to give much thought to Jaime's.

*   *   *

He parked, walked along to the Hotel Alhambra. The younger receptionist said that Señorita Glass had left – obviously for the beach – roughly an hour before.

Alvarez returned to his car, drove to the front and searched for a parking space; since the local council had reduced the number of them for reasons which escaped anyone who relied on common sense, he ended by parking on a yellow line. He walked along until level with the point at which Kirsty would have reached the beach had she made directly for it and stepped on to the sand. As he searched for her amongst the dozens of sunbathers, he could not escape the bitter truth: age condemned. The young could display their bodies with happy conclusions, the older with only unhappy self-delusions.