An Enigmatic Disappearance (21 page)

‘How did all that happen from nothing?' Jaime asked plaintively as he stared at his empty glass.

*   *   *

Alvarez adjusted the angle of the fan, wriggled his head into a more comfortable position on the pillow and sighed with pleasure. The gods had been generous when they had given man the siesta.

Infuriatingly, for once sleep eluded him. He heard the distant church clock strike the half hour. Age was said to make sleep increasingly difficult, but surely he was not yet that old? Perhaps he was ill? Panicking, he mentally examined himself from head to toe, but he could find no stabbing pain, no dull agony, that was the harbinger of impending death.

The church clock struck the hour. He swore, with all the crudity that the Mallorquin language so generously offered. Was he from now on to be denied all rest, like some landlocked Flying Dutchman?

Sleep had finally almost claimed him when into his mind slid the memory of Juan's expression of outrage at the injustice of being punished because his planned revenge on Blanca had backfired. In later years, perhaps he would have cause to be grateful that he had been young when he'd learned that the female was indeed more deadly than the male …

Suddenly, he was once more wide awake. In truth, any plan could backfire, more especially when it was fuelled by greed and conceived by a female.

CHAPTER 24

When Alvarez entered the kitchen, Dolores, her face expressing sharp surprise, looked up at the electric clock on the wall. ‘It's not yet five. I've not made the coffee.'

‘That's all right. I don't want anything.'

‘Are you ill?'

‘Just in a hurry.'

Concern gave way to suspicion. ‘Why?'

‘I have to question someone.'

‘A woman, no doubt?'

‘As a matter of fact, yes.'

‘A foreigner?'

‘English.'

‘And so much younger than you that it shreds a respectable woman's heart even to think about it. Aiyee! When a man is born a fool, even the Good Lord cannot restrain his stupidities.'

‘She's very considerably older than me and long since gone to seed. She's also very, very rich.'

Dolores fidgeted with a plastic bowl that was on the table; eventually, she said, her tone now reflective: ‘When the woman is older, she has had more experience of the ridiculous ways of men. And there comes a time when a man, if he has any intelligence at all, realizes that comfortable security is far more important than a beautiful face.'

‘You think she'd make me a good wife?'

‘There must be some foreign women who lead decent lives.'

‘Sadly, she hardly qualifies on that count. Her present indulgence is an Italian lad a third her age.'

She said, with sudden fury: ‘So it amuses you to make fun of me?'

‘It rankles to have you assuming I have only to speak to a foreign woman to start lusting after her.'

‘What else, when experience tells me that that is so?'

He did not pursue the point since she had a good memory.

As he drove to Parelona, he caught the first glimpse of the hotel, the small bay, and the mountains which backed it. There, was great beauty; there, was great ugliness. Did the one always have to shadow the other because life needed both?

He parked behind a green Alfa Romeo in front of Ca Na Ada and climbed out of his car to hear the sounds of splashing water. Beauty came in many guises. He walked towards the front door, came to a stop as he changed his mind, turned to go round the side of the house to the pool. If in luck, he would find Ruffolo on his own. He proved to be in luck.

As Ruffolo looked up from the patio mattress, the sun glinted on his reflective sunglasses; he turned over on to his back and propped himself up on his elbows. ‘The British say a bad penny keeps turning up,' he said sneeringly.

‘And we say, a dead sheep attracts many flies.' Alvarez came to a halt a metre from the mattress. ‘There are some more questions I need to ask you.'

‘I've told you everything I can.'

‘It is what you have not said that now interests me.'

Even though the glasses masked Ruffolo's eyes, it was obvious that the Delphic quality of the comment worried him.

‘It is too hot in the sun, so shall we move into the shade?'

‘I'm staying here.'

‘Then I will have to shout my questions and you will have to shout your answers. I think that will be tiring for both of us.' Alvarez crossed to the shade of the pool complex and sat.

After a while, Ruffolo, assuming an attitude of amused resignation, joined Alvarez. ‘Let's get it over quickly,' he said, as he sat.

‘When Señora Sabrina Ogden saw you with Señorita Carol Murdoch, she was very upset, was she not?'

‘I've been though all that before.'

‘And now we'll go through it again.'

‘Like hell. I know nothing about Sabrina's death. Ada's told you enough times for even you to understand, she and me were together all that Sunday and Monday.'

‘Surely the señorita usually enjoys a siesta?'

‘She's explained she didn't have one either afternoon.'

‘Perhaps she said that because you managed to persuade her you had nothing to do with Señora Ogden's disappearance and therefore it would save a lot of annoyance if she told me the little lie?'

‘You can't give one reason for me killing Sabrina.'

‘On the contrary, I can suggest two. First, to prevent her telling Señorita Heron about her affair with you.'

‘Sabrina and me had finished. Hans confirmed I hadn't taken her to his pad in months.'

‘There are many other places for an assignation.'

‘Can you prove we were still together?'

‘No.'

‘Of course you can't, since we weren't. So forget it.'

‘Secondly,' said Alvarez equably, ‘to prevent anyone realizing that you were an accomplice to the intended murder of her husband.'

‘Are you completely crazy?' Ruffolo shouted.

‘You hold a fatal attraction for women – why, is a complete mystery – and when Señora Ogden discovered you were having an affair with another woman, she was desperate to find a way of regaining your sole affection. That you were content to live with Señorita Heron in the circumstances in which you did, showed you would do anything to enjoy a life of idle luxury. This convinced her – although to an onlooker it would seem that your affair with her would suggest otherwise – that if she had enough money, you would be hers and hers alone.

‘When she married, her husband had been a wealthy man. But then he suffered financial problems so severe that he decided to carry out, with her help, an insurance fraud. It was cleverly planned and executed and the company concerned had to accept the claim as genuine and they paid him half a million pounds. This enabled him to recover financially and even, after a short while, to become wealthier than before.

‘When someone experiences a disaster but recovers, if he has any sense he takes great care to try not to suffer a similar disaster again. That was why Señor Ogden, determined they should lead a less profligate life, took every opportunity to persuade her that they had to be much more careful with money – probably even to the extent of saying they were having to spend capital. This convinced her that if things went on as they were – and in her mind, luxurious presents did not logically contradict what he'd told her, they merely confirmed that he was totally besotted with her and would suffer ruin again rather than lose her – it would not be long before all his money was gone and then she'd have lost you for all time. It was this conviction which led her to decide her husband must die.

‘She could be certain you'd never worry how she came into money, so she told you why she'd soon be a wealthy widow. You persuaded her that if it ever became known you and she had had an affair, it must appear that it had long since come to an end in order to prevent any suspicion that she could have a motive for her husband's death.

‘She believed she had found the perfect way of killing her husband. He was much older than she and inevitably not as virile as he would wish: she made him very aware of his inadequacies. It then became easy to persuade him to seek relief in a supposed aphrodisiac – which also happened to be a poison. He was very careful about the amount of cantharides he took, but she found the opportunity to feed him what she hoped was a fatal dose, believing that if the cause of death was established, it would be accepted with many a snigger that he had tried to become too much of a man.

‘He nearly died, but not quite. Suffering the fears that failure raised, she turned to you for the reassurance she so desperately needed. She demanded you leave the señorita and she'd leave her husband and together you'd find happiness. It was not a future to attract you. Give up the luxury and embrace poverty in the name of love? You told her to stay with her husband, hoping the truth would remain hidden, and to call you when he died from natural causes. Shocked by your cynical coldness and made ever more desperate by it, she replied that if you didn't do as she demanded, she'd tell Señorita Heron the truth about your relationships with her and Señorita Murdoch, which must result in your being thrown out of this house.

‘It seemed you were doomed to a future of hardship whichever alternative you accepted. But you were as determined to continue to enjoy life here as she was to hold on to you. How to silence her? No doubt you promised her your undying love if only she'd wait, but she had gained a more realistic idea of what your promises were worth and so demanded results, not words. It became clear that your only way of escape would be to kill her.

‘She had told you all about the insurance swindle and so you could employ many of the details in your plans for her murder. You knew she and her husband had been several times to Son Brau and that much of the estate was wooded mountainside of no commercial value and rarely, if ever, visited. You went there often, while Señorita Heron had an alcoholic siesta, and eventually found the exact site you wanted. This meant that there was every chance the body would remain undiscovered until it couldn't be identified since you would strip off every means of identification and lay a trail which would make it seem Señora Ogden had returned to England within a day of disappearing. But you were smart enough to recognize that things don't always go according to plan, so you would make certain it would be virtually impossible to tell whether the fall had been an accident or murder. And by choosing a method of murder that exactly matched the faked accident Señora Belinda was supposed to have suffered, if murder were ever suspected, Señor Ogden must be the prime suspect.'

Ruffolo stood and crossed to the refrigerator, brought out a tray of ice and a bottle of tonic, picked up the bottle of gin on the nearby table, poured himself a drink. He returned to his chair. ‘Can you prove she was pushed over the cliff and didn't just trip?'

‘Motive makes murder by far the more likely.'

‘What motive? She and me made waves? That was finished and you've admitted you can't prove otherwise. Who's seen us together in the past months? Did I ever get in touch with her on the mobile? Can you even prove that the old fool didn't take an overdose because he thought it would be more effective?'

‘No, I can't.'

‘Ada says I was here that Sunday and Monday which makes all your ideas just crap. Clear off and leave me in peace.'

‘It's interesting that not once have you expressed any affection for the señora or regrets at her death. A man's attitude sometimes tells much more than he wishes to be told. Yours tells me I am right.'

‘I must have murdered her because I'm not weeping? It's no wonder the law on this island is a joke.'

A door banged and they both looked in the direction of the house to see Ada walk slowly towards them. She wore a brightly coloured, voluminous garment that billowed with every step, making her body appear gross rather than merely fat; the harsh sunlight picked out the blotchy, sagging flesh of her face and in a final act of cruelty, the hairs above her mouth.

Wheezing, she slumped down on a chair. ‘Gawd, I've a head!'

Ruffolo stood and crossed to stand behind her. He stroked her forehead with his fingertips. ‘My poor angel. Let me get you your pills.'

‘I took two and they're bloody useless.'

‘The doctor said you could have up to four.'

‘If I have that many, they give me frightful bellyache.'

‘Why is it that the wonderful people always suffer the worst?'

A whisper of breeze brought them the sounds of children playing on the beach; a chorus of cicadas suddenly started shrilling, as if to a conductor's baton.

‘What's he want?' she demanded, jerking a thumb in the direction of Alvarez.

‘Would you like a good laugh?'

‘Not with my bloody head!'

‘He's accusing me of having murdered Sabrina! It doesn't matter you've told him endless times that I was with you, that he has to admit he can't be certain she didn't fall accidentally, that he's not a whisper of proof that I worked with Sabrina to murder the old fool of a husband of hers…'

‘You what?' she said violently, then grimaced with pain.

Ruffolo quickened the rate at which he stroked her forehead. ‘Could anything be more absurd? Obviously, he's so incompetent that the job's overwhelmed him.'

‘Clear off my property,' she said to Alvarez, her voice harsh and ugly.

‘Señorita, do you still claim the señor was with you throughout the Sunday afternoon on which Señora Ogden disappeared and on the following Monday?'

‘Of course I do.'

‘I am sure you are lying.'

‘Prove it,' jeered Ruffolo.

‘Perhaps I can.'

‘You reckon to do the impossible?'

‘We have a saying, Even the impossible may become possible if one has sufficient imagination or a rich uncle.'