An Enigmatic Disappearance (20 page)

‘Why ask me?'

‘Didn't you scout the area around Son Jordi very thoroughly to find somewhere where the accident could supposedly take place?'

‘That's a filthy suggestion.'

‘At Son Brau, you and your wife were received as guests. There, you indulged in the English pleasure of walking the estate. Of course, your wife had no idea that you were searching for somewhere suitable to stage a second, but this time genuine, “accident”.'

‘I never walked around that place. I can't walk as I used to.'

It was time for a lie. ‘Señor Zafortega told me that you both had been guests more than once and you always asked if he minded if you went for a walk.'

‘He's wrong. If anyone went, it was Sabrina on her own. I've just told you, I couldn't.'

‘You both went. She thought it was to be another faked accident, you knew you were going to murder her.'

‘No!' Ogden shouted, his face strained, his lips trembling.

Concha hurried out of the house. ‘What's wrong?' she demanded breathlessly.

‘Nothing,' Alvarez replied shortly.

‘Then why is the señor shouting in pain?'

‘The truth is often painful.'

‘What do you know about truth? You, who ask if he is grieving.'

‘I'm doing my job…'

‘Then if you were even half a man, you would find another job.' She switched to Castilian and spoke very simply and slowly to Ogden. ‘Your food is prepared, señor.' She briefly stared at Alvarez with contempt, turned on her heels and went back into the house.

Alvarez silently swore. The tension, born of guilt and fear, built up until Ogden had been on the point of confessing, had now been dissipated, thanks to Concha's intervention, and it would be very difficult, probably impossible, to regenerate it. Nevertheless, he doggedly continued the questioning. ‘The next coincidence was the fact that the doctor who issued the certificate on Señora Belinda's death retired soon after he had done so, even though well short of retiring age. Clearly, he came into a large sum of money…'

‘You think I killed Sabrina? Why would I kill someone who meant everything to me?' Ogden demanded wildly.

‘For the two reasons that so often lead to murder – jealousy and money. Although you had swindled an insurance company out of a very large sum, your wife had extravagant tastes and you knew that you could not go on spending at the same rate, yet you could be certain that if you did not continue to indulge her, she would leave you for a man who could. The only solution to this problem was to commit a second insurance fraud. But having reached that conclusion, you suddenly learned that she was having an affair, jealousy drove you to decide that this time the insurance claim would be genuine because she would indeed be dead…'

‘Short of money? I know where to invest because I've friends back in the City who'll give the nod on inside information if they're certain it can't ever be traced back and there's something in it for them. I'm richer now than when I left England.'

‘Can you prove that?'

‘How d'you think I could afford to buy the bracelet if I was short?'

‘What bracelet?'

‘The one she saw…' He stopped, swallowed heavily several times, began to blubber. Tears trickled down his cheeks and his mouth worked as if he were chewing something.

After a while, Alvarez asked a second time: ‘What bracelet?'

He regained a measure of self-control and spoke in a flat voice, now devoid of any trace of hysteria. ‘One of the diamonds in the emerald ring was loose. We took it to a jeweller's in Palma to have it reset and they'd a sapphire bracelet on view. She loved sapphires because of her mother…' He became silent.

‘She saw this bracelet,' Alvarez prompted.

‘She kept looking at it and the assistant egged her on, like they always do, and said how someone with real taste would buy it … I made out I didn't realize how much she liked it. But a few days later I bought it for her. I hoped…'

‘What did you hope?'

‘That she'd realize how much I could give her and so would never want to leave me.'

‘When did you buy it?'

‘Just before her birthday. She guessed what it was before she unwrapped the package, but wouldn't open up for a long time in case she was wrong. She looked … She looked…' He began to cry once more.

‘What's the name of the jeweller's?'

‘Joyeria Roldan,' he mumbled.

‘Where's the bracelet now?'

‘In the safe. When she took it out of its case, she told me she was the luckiest woman in the world … Lucky? When she's dead?' His voice suddenly rose. ‘And you can think I killed her?'

*   *   *

Back in the office, Alvarez phoned Joyeria Roldan. He spoke to a superior woman who passed him on to an even more superior man.

‘It is not our policy to discuss our clients' business with third parties.'

‘The police have the powers to change policies,' Alvarez said shortly.

‘What was the name?'

‘Ogden.' He had to spell it out.

There was a pause, then: ‘Señor Ogden purchased a sapphire bracelet on the twenty-third of June.'

‘How much did it cost?'

‘Four million five hundred thousand pesetas.'

‘Has Señor Ogden recently asked you to repurchase it?'

‘Of course not.' The tone made it clear that Joyeria Roldan took care not to do business with that kind of customer.

After ringing off, Alvarez settled back in the chair. Would a man spend four and a half million pesetas buying jewellery for his wife when he intended to kill her within days? Unlikely. Unless, of course, he was sufficiently sharp-witted to realize that to do so would be to underpin his apparent innocence. Could any amateur summon up the acting skills to simulate the raw grief which had seemingly overwhelmed Ogden?

Where lay the truth?

Some facts were certain. With the help of Belinda/Sabrina, Ogden had carried out an insurance fraud. In Mallorca, the two of them had led an extravagant life, but it seemed his wealth could sustain that. But she had not learned that the gods never fulfilled all wishes, or humans might become gods and so instead of being content with what she had, she had yearned for more – the passion of youth.

Some facts seemed certain. Sabrina's death could have been accident or murder and motive would determine which. The motive? She had discovered Ruffolo was also having an affair with Carol and, maddened by jealousy, had threatened to betray him to Ada unless he threw Carol aside. But evidence said her affair with Ruffolo had ended amicably long before her death. Ogden, having planned to defraud a second insurance company, had learned of Sabrina's infidelity and determined to gain revenge as well as a further half million pounds. But he had bought her a very expensive bracelet which was hardly the act of a man intending to murder. And his grief seemed genuine.

Some facts were very uncertain. Keane was at an age when a man might seek the favours of a younger woman not simply for the physical pleasure, but also for the psychological reassurance to be gained from proving he could still attract. Initially, he had appeared to be reluctant to repeat the rumour concerning the liaison between Sabrina and Ruffolo, yet after very little persuasion he had done so. Had he initiated the rumour – and in truth was happy to spread it – because he had tried to have an affair with Sabrina, but had been rejected? His wife's behaviour could suggest she thought this possible, even while she struggled to deny the possibility. Yet such behaviour could simply signify no more than the attempt, which any loyal wife would make, to defend her husband from a baseless charge. Was he using his warped and hurtful humour to conceal the corroding bitterness which came from learning that he could no longer attract? Could such bitterness, however corroding, ever lead to murder? That seemed doubtful, even if there were times when motive bore little relation to the crime it spawned.

Some facts were mere conjectures. Sabrina had betrayed her husband once, so she had done so many times. When she and Ruffolo had ended their affair, she had sought another man to provide the passion that her husband could not. And because this new lover had had to conceal their affair as carefully as she, they had chosen to meet in the mountains behind Son Brau because there the odds of being discovered were virtually nil. Their passion, perversely heightened and sharpened because of its illicitness, had left them with little regard to the world beyond themselves. She had fallen over the rock face. Terrified by the consequences should he report the death, he had stripped her of all means of identification and made it appear she had left the island … Yet in a community where malicious gossip was a staple, it seemed there had been no whisper of yet another man in her life …

There surely was a logical conclusion to be drawn? Alvarez settled more comfortably in the chair, rested his feet on the desk and closed his eyes. Since there was no sustainable motive for murder, whatever the actual circumstances surrounding Sabrina's death, it had been an accident …

CHAPTER 23

On Wednesday, life was peaceful until Isabel returned home for lunch. She entered the dining-room in a rush that brought her hard up against one of the armchairs. ‘Guess what?' She began to giggle.

Jaime refilled his glass. ‘What are you going on about?'

‘You've got to guess.'

‘You've found the winning lottery ticket in the gutter?'

‘Of course I haven't.'

‘Inés has invited you to a party?'

‘I wouldn't go if she did. You're not trying. Uncle, you guess.'

Alvarez said: ‘Juan's in trouble.'

Her disappointment was immediate. ‘Someone told you.'

‘No.'

‘They must have done.'

‘Hand on heart, fingers straight, no one's said anything.'

‘Then how do you know?'

Before he could explain that her satisfaction had been too obvious, Dolores came through the bead curtain. She looked beyond Isabel. ‘Where's Juan?'

‘Guess.'

‘I'm too busy for ridiculosities. Nothing's happened to him, has it?' Her imagination began to move into overdrive.

‘Something has.'

‘Oh, my God! He's been hit by a car because he will run across the road even though I had told him time and again to walk. Is he badly hurt?' She swung round to face Jaime. ‘Stop drinking yourself stupid and get ready to drive into Palma.'

‘Hang on…'

‘Can you not hurry yourself even for your own son who may be bleeding to death?'

‘She hasn't said he's even been hurt.'

Dolores turned back. ‘Has he?'

Frightened by the emotional furore she had raised, Isabel looked down at her shoes.

‘Will you tell me,' cried Dolores, accepting her daughter's response as evidence that in some way or another, her worst fears were about to be justified. ‘How seriously is he injured?'

‘He isn't,' she mumbled.

Dolores's voice rose. ‘You frighten me until my heart stops and then tell me he is unhurt? You are going to learn…' She stopped as they heard the front door slam shut.

Juan entered the dining-room to come to an abrupt stop as he found himself the centre of sharp interest. He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

‘Well?' said Dolores, in her most magisterial tones.

Juan looked quickly at his sister, but she kept her gaze fixed firmly on her shoes.

‘Have you had an accident?'

He shook his head.

‘Are you in some sort of trouble?'

‘Not really.'

‘Either you are or you aren't.'

‘It's beastly Old Long Nose. He never listens to me and just blows me up when it's not my fault…'

‘What has happened?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Don't be stupid. If your teacher has been criticizing you then it is because you have misbehaved in rapaso.'

‘It was…'

‘Yes?'

‘Her copying me.'

‘You have again been guilty of copying?'

‘I keep telling you, I didn't,' he cried, equal measures of fear and outrage at life's iniquities raising the pitch of his voice. ‘It was Spanish grammar and I knew Blanca would copy from me so I deliberately made some mistakes. When Old Long Nose checked our books and saw the same mistakes, he said I'd copied her. But it wasn't me, it was her.'

‘You admit that you intended deliberately to get Blanca into trouble?'

‘That's what she did to me with arithmetic.'

‘Two wrongs do not make a right.'

‘But they make one feel a sight better,' murmured Jaime.

Dolores had very keen hearing. She whirled round. ‘Small wonder our son behaves as he does when his father believes it right to seek satisfaction from another's misfortune!'

‘Who's doing that? All I was saying was…'

‘What you have to say is of very small account except when it encourages others into trouble.' She turned back. ‘Juan, your lunch will be bread, oil, and tomato and you will eat it in your room so that you can think about your wickedness.'

‘But I keep telling you, it wasn't me…'

‘Go upstairs.'

He hesitated, then ran across to the stairs and up them.

She spoke to Isabel. ‘And you also will eat lunch in your room.'

‘Why me?'

‘So that you can think how cruel you were to frighten your mother into an early grave.'

‘I didn't. It was you who went on about him being hurt…'

‘Go upstairs.'

She crossed to the stairs, eyes glinting with tears, and climbed them very slowly.

Dolores reached across the table to pick up the bottle of brandy. ‘For once we will have a meal when you two have not drunk yourselves stupid.' She marched back into the kitchen.