An Enigmatic Disappearance (6 page)

‘Yes?'

He introduced himself and asked if her husband was at home.

‘Are you here again because of Sabrina?'

‘Yes, I am.'

‘There's still no news of her?'

‘I am afraid not.'

‘Oh!' After a moment, she said: ‘I'm so sorry, leaving you standing there, only I was thinking how awful … Please do come in.'

He followed her through the house to the patio. Keane, who had been swimming, stood up halfway along the pool, the water up to his chest. ‘I didn't hear the cock crow, but then my hearing is no doubt less acute than yours.'

‘This is Inspector Alvarez…' she began, flustered by her husband's facetiousness.

‘Introductions are unnecessary.' He ploughed through the water, leaving a trail of eddies, and climbed the steps. He bent down and picked up a towel.

‘Sabrina's still missing,' she said.

He dried his face and neck. ‘So I presumed from this unexpected visit … Inspector, come and sit in the shade and tell me what precisely brings you back here while my wife pours drinks.'

They settled on patio chairs after telling Cora what they would like; she went into the house.

‘When I was here before,' Alvarez said, ‘you mentioned the rumour that Señora Ogden had become very friendly with Señor Ruffolo.'

‘True.'

‘You would not tell me the name of the person who had told you this. Would you do so now, please?'

‘Why?'

‘I want to find out if he originated the rumour.'

‘That's very unlikely. He was a highly successful businessman, which means he has a limited imagination except when it comes to benefiting himself at the expense of others.'

‘Nevertheless, I wish to question him.'

‘You have my assurance that the experience would be far from enlightening.'

‘Will you give me his name?'

‘I think not. He's not a close friend so there'd be small pleasure in betraying him.'

‘I wonder, señor, if you refuse because no such person exists?'

‘Now that's an odd thing to say!'

‘It is difficult to understand why you should not name the person if you do not have a valid reason for not doing so.'

‘I think that could be called a negative suggestion.'

‘A reason you wish to conceal.'

‘Would you care to surmise what that might be?'

‘That it was you who initiated the rumour and you did so as an act of revenge.'

‘Well I'll be damned!'

‘You probably were a long time ago,' Cora said with rare spirit as she came through the doorway, a tray in her hands. She put the tray down on the glass-topped bamboo table, passed one glass to Alvarez, another to her husband, lifted the third and put the tray on the floor, sat.

‘Aren't you curious to know why I'm damned?' Keane asked her.

She didn't answer.

‘The inspector thinks I offered a game of you-show-me-yours-and-I'll-show-you-mine with Sabrina and she flatly refused. That I started the rumour about her and Rino out of pique.'

She said with sudden force: ‘That's utterly ridiculous!' She spoke more calmly to Alvarez. ‘You surely can't seriously believe Clive ever chased after Sabrina?'

‘It is just one of many possibilities I have to consider.'

‘I know I can trust my husband implicitly.'

‘Then you are to be envied, señora.' Alvarez turned to Keane. ‘What surer judgement can there be?… Nevertheless, I still have to ask if you have often met Señora Ogden?'

‘Of course. At parties.'

‘Always in the company of her husband?'

‘Where she goes, there goes he. Whether from pride of possession or fear of the potentials, I've no idea.'

‘Have you ever met her when both of you have been on your own?'

‘Is that possible? If we're both on our own, we surely can't have met?'

‘You know what he means,' Cora said urgently.

‘Yes. My apologies, Inspector. I freely admit to the deadly eighth sin, that of occasionally becoming pedantic. To answer your question more reasonably: I can't remember meeting her in the absence of a companion, but it has to be likely that we've bumped into each other in shops. However, the shelves of a supermarket do not induce a sense of desire in anyone but a glutton.'

‘I wish you wouldn't talk like that,' his wife said.

Alvarez drained his glass, stood.

‘Leaving before you've had the other half?' Keane asked.

‘Regretfully, I must return to work.'

‘More rumours to investigate? What an exasperating life you must lead, pursuing not the uneatable, but the uncatchable.'

Alvarez said goodbye. Keane remained seated, but Cora accompanied him to the front door. ‘You must understand,' she said, speaking very quickly, ‘Clive will say things without thinking how they sound to someone who doesn't know him. It really is impossible that he ever chased after Sabrina. We're far too happy for him to do something like that.'

‘Then you are to be congratulated as well as envied, señora.'

As he settled behind the wheel of his car, he thought that perhaps her insistent manner, so clearly uncharacteristic, had been occasioned by the fear that her husband would find little difficulty and even less reluctance in being unfaithful to her.

*   *   *

Alvarez looked at his watch and with a sense of disbelief saw that only twelve minutes had passed from when he had last checked the time; one hour and eighteen minutes remained before he could leave the office and return home. He slumped back in the chair, all too conscious of a thumping head and a mouth that tasted to be beyond its sell-by date. He should not have refilled his glass quite so often. Yet it would have appeared rude if, as he reminisced with Pedro about the years since they'd last met, he had sat in front of an empty glass.

Ada Heron intrigued him. He was convinced she possessed a sharp intelligence, yet she allowed Ruffolo to reduce her to simpering stupidity. And why did she take so little care over her personal appearance? Was this ignorance or a deliberate one-finger gesture?…

The phone interrupted his wandering thoughts. He dragged himself upright and reached across the desk, lifted the receiver.

‘Traffic. It's been one hell of a job tracking down the registration number.'

What number was the idiot talking about?

‘Are you still there?'

He wasn't going anywhere. ‘Someone came in and needed something in a real hurry and I had to show him where it is.'

‘The jefe's muttering about sending your department a special invoice for the time it's taken.'

‘Is he likely to?'

‘God alone knows what he'll do and maybe even He isn't smart enough to guess … Are you ready?'

He wrote down the registration number he was given, thanked the caller, said goodbye, replaced the receiver. Only then did he finally remember why he had requested the number.

He slumped back in the chair. Until now he had not bothered to make a report because there were so few facts and little angered the superior chief so much as uncertainty. But if there was the possibility, however remote, of Traffic's submitting a bill for extra work, it behoved him to inform the superior chief of what was happening before the other gained an incorrect view of events.

He dialled Palma. The plum-voiced secretary told him to wait. He waited.

Salas's manner was as aggressively curt as ever. ‘What is it?'

‘Inspector Alvarez, señor, from Llueso…'

‘Good God, man, do you think I don't know where you are based?'

‘I have to report that an Englishwoman, Señora Ogden, has disappeared…'

‘When?'

‘She was last seen by her husband on Sunday after lunch…'

‘It has taken you two days to inform me of the fact?'

‘I wanted to be able to make a full and accurate report before I advised you.'

‘An admirable ambition, but one that if followed would ensure I never heard from you again.'

‘Clearly, it has been essential first to determine whether she disappeared of her own volition or has met some form of trouble. It does seem that her disappearance may be voluntary.'

‘On what grounds?'

‘Early in the year, she may have been having an affair.'

‘It really is extraordinary how keenly you dredge up even the slightest suggestion of salacious behaviour. Have you ever consulted a psychiatrist?'

‘Señor, I can only detail the facts as they present themselves.'

‘Then present them to me with as few unsavoury details as possible.'

He did so.

‘You have learned nothing to confirm the suggestion that the relationship between the señora and Ruffolo is an unnatural one?'

‘There's been no suggestion of that.'

‘It's only a moment ago you were saying they had committed adultery.'

‘Oh! I thought you meant…' He came to a stop, certain that it would be a great mistake to explain exactly what he had thought. ‘It's true there is no definite proof of an affair, but I did find Señor Ogden's reactions to his wife's failure to return home to be rather unusual. If time were passing and your wife still hadn't turned up, wouldn't you telephone friends to find out if she had stopped off to see them, rather than just getting drunk…'

‘I am not in the habit of getting drunk,' Salas said angrily.

‘Of course not, señor. I was merely trying to explain why his reactions seemed sufficiently unusual to suggest they were significant.'

‘What possible significance can there be in a foreigner's becoming drunk? For most of them, that is a natural state.'

‘But in his case, I wonder if it points to the fact that he was afraid that she wasn't returning home because she had gone off with another man; that he didn't phone friends because to do so would seem to confirm rumours and expose him to ridicule, whereas if he remained silent it might be that his fears would turn out to be groundless and she'd return. His drinking was to help him hold on to hope and keep his fears at bay.'

‘Was the Italian telling the truth when he said he hadn't seen the señora for some time and then only at parties?'

‘I'm not certain. I'm sure he's an accomplished liar, but in this instance he may be telling the truth because Señorita Heron would make certain it was very difficult for him to play around.'

‘In such a context, the use of the word “play” reveals a deplorable attitude.'

There was a short silence.

‘Why was Señor Ogden in hospital?'

‘He was suffering from severe food poisoning.'

‘But his wife was not?'

‘That is so.'

‘Did they previously eat in a restaurant and have different dishes or did they eat at home and have different food?'

‘I'm afraid I don't know.'

‘Why not?'

‘I didn't think the question could have any bearing on the señora's disappearance and I…'

‘An efficient detective is one who understands that until a case is solved it is impossible to be certain what is truly germane and therefore establishes every fact connected with it; a clever detective is one who recognizes that the unexpected, the illogical, the anomaly, the break in routine, the change of character, however apparently inconsequential, perhaps marks the path to the truth. The incompetent detective, on the other hand, is blind to everything but the obvious and is content to accept that without question.'

Alvarez had no doubt into which category he was placed.

‘Find out why Señor Ogden suffered food poisoning and Señora Ogden did not.'

‘Yes, señor.'

‘Have you asked the airlines and ferry companies to check their passenger lists to see if Señora Ogden is known to have left the island?'

‘No, señor.'

‘Do I have to instruct you in even the most basic steps of an investigation?'

‘The trouble is, they always complain so bitterly when we ask them to do something like this. It seemed best to wait until we can be more certain of the señora's probable movements…'

‘In other words, to pander to their inefficiency is more important than to do your job properly?'

‘Of course not…'

‘Then you will very soon be in a position to tell me whether or not the señora is known to have left the island in the past two days. Do you understand, very soon?'

Since it seemed Salas might be about to ring off abruptly, Alvarez said hurriedly: ‘As I mentioned earlier, Señora Ogden drove off in her car. Its present location could well suggest where she might be.'

‘Are you looking for congratulation for having finally shown a spark of constructive thought?'

‘Unfortunately, Señor Ogden couldn't remember the registration number and he said there were no papers in the house that would give it. So I asked Traffic to trace the number, using his name and address. It seems this took a long time because their computer is geared to do things the other way round and they're complaining about that and threatening to send us an invoice. But as you've just pointed out, however long the search took, the cost cannot be considered because every fact has to be followed up.'

‘How much are they threatening to charge?'

‘They haven't said.'

‘Did you first repeatedly try to make Señor Ogden remember the number, at times using the proven method of introducing the question suddenly and even violently to jog his memory? Did you order him to search every possible space in his house?'

‘I didn't like to trouble him too hard at such an anxious time for him…'

‘Since when have you considered it right to consider someone's feelings at the department's expense? If Traffic do forward an invoice, I shall personally hold you responsible for meeting it on the grounds of your inability to do your job efficiently.' Salas cut the connection.