An Enigmatic Disappearance (22 page)

Ruffolo spoke to Ada. ‘My angel, we'll have to telephone someone in authority and say we're being bothered by an inspector who's mentally ill.'

Ada stared at Alvarez. ‘So what's your line – imagination or a rich uncle?'

‘Don't encourage him, my sweet…' Ruffolo began.

‘Well, which is it?' Her harshly spoken words cut across his softly spoken ones.

Alvarez answered her. ‘Señorita, the character of a suspect can become a very important arrow.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘It can point to probability.'

‘You're still talking in riddles.'

‘The señor is a man for whom right and wrong are merely the difference between what he does, and what he does not, want. His standards are formed by greed.'

‘Surely you're not going to let him insult me like that?' Ruffolo said aggressively.

She ignored him.

‘When someone has suffered great poverty and then enjoyed the pleasures of plenty,' Alvarez continued, ‘his greed can become so all-consuming it even overwhelms his natural cunning.'

‘I still don't understand,' she said.

‘When a man commits a crime and keeps the evidence of his guilt, he must either be a fool or consumed with greed. The señor is certainly no fool.'

‘What evidence?'

‘When Señora Ogden died, she was stripped of everything that could identify her; included was her sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring, valued at twelve thousand pounds. To someone who has always lived by his wits, it must have been obvious that the ring was valuable; to someone consumed by greed, it would have been impossible to throw the ring away. He will keep it until he can travel to Naples where he knows all the best markets for stolen goods.'

She turned to look at Ruffolo, said fiercely: ‘You've been trying to get me to go to Naples.'

‘My love, you kept saying how tired you felt and I decided you needed a change and it would be fun to visit Italy; I never mentioned Naples.'

‘You told me we'd go there to celebrate our first meeting.'

‘I said we'd celebrate, wherever we were. Because I mentioned our first meeting, you automatically thought of Naples.'

She was trying to remember more clearly because she could not immediately still her doubts, Alvarez thought. How to increase them to the point where they finally forced her to tell the truth? The answer was obvious, but he hesitated before he spoke to Ruffolo because his words could only cause her pain. ‘Señorita Carol will confirm that you told her you were going to Naples for a holiday.' He managed to speak with conviction.

‘I've never told her any –' Ruffolo came to a sudden stop.

‘Who's Carol?' Ada demanded.

‘A friend,' Alvarez answered. ‘A very close friend of his.'

‘I don't know anyone of that name,' Ruffolo protested roughly.

‘She'll be most upset to hear that.' The bolder the lie, the more likely it was to be believed. ‘After all, she told me that you've assured her you intend to leave Señorita Heron to be with her.'

Ada made a sound that was not quite a cry.

‘My very precious,' Ruffolo said urgently, ‘don't listen to him. He's trying to trick you.'

‘Who's Carol?' she asked a second time.

‘I've told you, I don't know anyone of that name.'

‘Perhaps, señorita,' Alvarez said, ‘it will be best if I bring Señorita Carol here so you can judge for yourself what is the truth.'

‘No!' Ruffolo shouted.

‘Why not?'

He tried to speak with greater composure. ‘You'll just teach her to lie.'

‘Then let us all drive to the port now and talk to her before I have a chance to say anything. And afterwards we might speak to Señor Wilms who lives in the flat where she and you made love whenever you could escape from here, unnoticed because the señorita was enjoying a siesta, prolonged by your help.'

‘Another goddamn lie!'

‘No doubt Carlos, Marta, and Inés, will be able to confirm or deny that you often have driven away in the afternoons.'

Ruffolo began to stroke Ada's neck with his fingers. ‘Ada, my only love, we've suffered enough of this stupidity…'

‘Tell the staff to come here.'

‘But…'

‘Now!'

‘Can't you see that asking them will make me look –'

She interrupted him, her voice harsh. ‘You're too bloody scared to do it!' She swung round to face Alvarez. ‘I had a very long siesta on that Sunday and Monday because he made me drink too much. I've no idea where he was.'

Ruffolo spoke pleadingly. ‘How can you be so cruel to someone who loves you more than life itself?'

Alvarez said: ‘Where is the engagement ring Señora Ogden was wearing when she died?'

‘How could I know that, for God's sake?'

‘Then you can have no objection to my searching your possessions.'

‘I'm not letting some peasant rummage through my things.'

‘I regret that you cannot prevent me since I have a search warrant.'

Ruffolo's expression tightened and for a couple of seconds he remained motionless. Then he dropped his hands away from Ada's neck, swung round, and raced towards the house.

Alvarez struggled to his feet and followed as quickly as he could; by the time he reached the outside door, he was short of breath and sweat was trickling down his face and back. Halfway across the sitting-room, he heard a door slam. Marta was in the hall. ‘Where's he gone?' he panted.

She pointed at the doorway on her left.

Beyond this was a short passage which gave access to two rooms: the first, a bathroom, the door of the second proved to be locked. In his impotent anger, Alvarez shook the handle. ‘You can't get away,' he shouted, in between gulping down air into his straining lungs.

He heard a car's engine start and rev fiercely; then the sound died away. He used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face. Salas would call him a fool for not having realized Ruffolo would leave the bedroom through the window, race round to the Alfa Romeo, and drive off. But when things happened so quickly, it took a man time to catch up with events …

He slowly returned to the hall to find Marta was still there. ‘What's the number of the car?'

She merely stared at him.

‘The registration number of the Alfa Romeo – what is it?'

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘How would I know?'

He used the phone to call Traffic. As he waited for the connection to be made, he wondered if panic would make Ruffolo forget that there was only the one road from Parelona to Port Llueso? When Traffic answered, he asked for an immediate roadblock to be set up just outside the port and to stop a green Alfa Romeo, and if the driver was Rino Ruffolo, to search him and the car for a sapphire-and-diamond ring. No, he did not know the registration number of the car. Yes, he did realize there were many Alfas on the road … He cut the connection, dialled Guardia Operations in Palma and asked them to issue a stop order on Rino Ruffolo effective at all ports and airports. As he replaced the receiver, he despondently accepted that if Ruffolo reached the port before the roadblock could be set up, he'd probably overcome his panic sufficiently to realize that by far his best bet was not to try to escape the island immediately, but to lie low for several weeks. No watch remained sharp for very long.

‘What's up?' Marta asked. ‘Done something, has he? Pinched one of the señorita's rings?'

‘Nothing belonging to her.'

‘Oh!' She was disappointed. ‘But it doesn't sound like he'll be coming back in a hurry.'

‘I very much doubt he'll do that.'

‘My horoscope said it would be a good day.'

He returned to the pool patio. Ada, looking far less careworn, was silent until he sat, then said, her voice high: ‘Well? Did you find a ring?'

‘He locked the bedroom door, left through the window, and drove off.'

‘So he's made a bloody fool of you?'

‘That's easily done.'

‘And you don't know if he did have the ring?'

‘Would he have run if he hadn't?'

Alvarez sat and stared at the pool and watched the reflected sunlight shimmer as the water moved to the slightest of breezes.

‘Was he screwing Sabrina?' she asked suddenly.

‘Yes.'

‘And Carol?'

‘Yes.'

‘Any more?'

‘I don't know of any.'

There was a long silence which ended when Marta came out from the house and across to where they sat, a cordless phone in her hand. ‘It's for you,' she said to Alvarez in Mallorquin.

‘Who is it?' Ada asked in English.

‘Probably one of my colleagues,' Alvarez said. As Marta returned to the house, he answered the call, which was brief. At the conclusion, he switched off the phone, placed it on the table. ‘They stopped the car and searched him; he had a sapphire-and-diamond ring. It will have to be identified, of course, but there's no doubt it was Sabrina's.' He heard a throaty sound and turned to look at Ada. Her face was contorted and tears were rolling down her cheeks. Remorse gripped him. However futile the attempt must be, he tried to find words that would ease her agony. ‘Señorita, he will have a fair trial. And there is now no death penalty in Spain so that…'

She said fiercely: ‘They'll laugh at me; they'll jeer at me; they'll do everything to humiliate me.'

He realized he had completely misjudged the cause of her distress. She was concerned only with herself. Such monumental selfishness was ugly. Yet to offset this ugliness, she had in the past shown the courage to face hostility and not to succumb to hypocrisy.

She wiped her cheeks with her hand. ‘I'll sell up and move.'

He tried to help her regain that courage. ‘You'll meekly let them drive you away?'

‘You think I can stay here with everyone knowing he was making a complete fool of me by screwing half the population when I wasn't looking?'

‘Meet them head on, as you've always done. They'll expect you to feel humiliated, so laugh at what's happened; tell them it's fine by you because you were becoming very bored with him and this has saved the expense of getting rid of him; give the most extravagant party in honour of your newfound freedom. Leave them bewildered and more envious than ever.'

She went to speak, checked the words. She fiddled with the top button of the dress that so ill-suited her. ‘I suppose, after all that, you want a drink?'

‘I'll not refuse one.'

‘For my money, you wouldn't bloody well know how to. There's champagne in the refrigerator and probably some gin somewhere. If you want brandy, use the cordless to tell 'em in the house to bring some.'

He identified which button on the phone to press and when the call was answered, asked Marta for a bottle of Hors d'Age. There were times when a man did not dishonour himself by asking for the best.

About the Author

Roderic Jeffries
was born in London in 1926 and was educated at Southampton's School of Navigation. In 1943 he went to sea with the New Zealand Shipping Company and returned to England in 1949 where he was subsequently called to the Bar. He practiced law for a brief period before starting to write full time. His books have been published in many different countries and have been adapted for film, television, and radio. He and his wife live in Mallorca, and have two children. You can sign up for email updates
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A
LSO BY
R
ODERIC
J
EFFRIES

A Maze of Murders

An Artistic Way to Go

An Arcadian Death

Death Takes Time

Murder Confounded

Murder's Long Memory

A Fatal Fleece

Too Clever by Half

Dead Clever

Death Trick

Relatively Dangerous

Almost Murder

Layers of Deceit

Three and One Make Five

Deadly Petard

Unseemly End

Just Deserts

Murder Begets Murder

Troubled Deaths

Two-Faced Death

Mistakenly in Mallorca

Dead Man's Bluff

A Traitor's Crime

A Deadly Marriage

Death in the Coverts

Dead Against the Lawyers

An Embarrassing Death

The Benefits of Death

Exhibit No. Thirteen

Evidence of the Accused

 

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