In Search of Murder--An Inspector Alvarez Mallorcan Mystery (12 page)

The stone-built, adjoined house was in appearance similar to all others in the road with the exception of the shutters which had been painted, not oiled. Alvarez rang the bell. The door was opened by a sixtyish man whose shirt was white, light-brown shorts held a crease, and sandals were newly polished. Such elegance reminded Alvarez he should have changed his shirt that morning. ‘Señor Crane?' He introduced himself.

‘Deuced glad you speak English or we'd have to resort to hand signals. The only Spanish I know is
vino tinto
,
rosado
, and
blanco
. Don't need any more to live well.' He laughed.

The braying of a donkey was Alvarez's judgment. An Englishman who viewed the islanders with condescension since they did so many things in a different way which marked their inferiority.

‘Come on in, inspector. Rather primitive, I'm afraid, but it's rented and only a pied-a-terre, if you know what that means.'

‘There's no ground floor?'

‘But you're standing …? Having a bit of a laugh? You've obviously a sense of humour. Must have some English blood in you, what? But you mustn't just stand there to say whatever it is you want to say, enter our humble abode.'

They went into a small sitting room, once the entrada. A middle-aged woman on the settee was knitting. She placed needles, wool, and several inches of knitting into a canvas bag.

‘A visiting detective,' Señor Crane announced, ‘here to find out if we robbed the local Sa Nostra bank.'

She was not the vivacious woman Alvarez had expected – before meeting her husband, that was. ‘I apologise for this interruption, señora, but as I have explained to your husband, I am asking people who knew Señor Picare if they can help me.'

‘He was one snooty sod!' Crane remarked. ‘Didn't want to know anyone who never had a five-hundred-euro note in his pocket. They say he may have committed suicide or something. Did us all a good deed, I say.'

‘Please don't talk like that, Ivor,' she said sharply.

‘Because he'll think I didn't like the man and will go to hell for saying such a thing?'

‘Please sit, inspector,' she said. ‘And can we offer you a drink?'

‘That would be kind of you.' She understood what constituted good manners.

‘What would you like?'

‘Coñac with just ice, please.'

‘Ivor, would you like to pour the inspector a brandy, with ice, and me a sherry.'

‘At once, my love.' He stood. ‘One brandy, one sherry, and for me? A glass of Krug, a measure of Hine's V.S.O.P.? That's very special old pale, inspector.'

‘It is kind of you to translate.'

‘One can never know enough. A thirst for knowledge is the elixir of wisdom. The man who said that obviously wasn't from this island.'

‘Would you get the drinks, Ivor,' she said.

‘On my skates.' He left the room.

‘I hope …'

He said nothing.

‘You musn't think …'

Unwilling from a sense of loyalty to apologise for her husband's manner? He spoke quickly, hoping to disperse any embarrassment she might suffer. ‘You haven't lived on the island for very long, señora?'

‘Is that so very obvious?'

‘Only because I understood from your husband that you would remain in this house until you found somewhere you like. Where would you hope that to be?'

‘Anywhere but in a town. There's … there's so much noise. Late at night, people in the road shout at each other; mobylettes with the exhausts removed make a hideous racket. I've never been a sound sleeper and now I spend much of the night awake despite the earplugs I always wear at night. A friend suggested air-conditioning in order to be able to keep the windows shut but—'

Her husband interrupted her as he hurried into the room. ‘You never got the brandy this morning.'

‘It wasn't on the shopping list.'

‘Yes it was. I wrote it down.'

Alvarez said, ‘Señor, I should be very happy with a San Miguel.'

‘Couldn't think of offering that, old man, much too plebian. There's a place just around the corner, so you won't be kept from sustenance for long, provided the place isn't filled with jabbering women careless of anyone else.' He left.

‘Señora,' Alvarez said, as the front door was shut, ‘I have to ask you a few questions and the absence of your husband makes that easier, but he may not be away for long which makes it necessary for me to speak more bluntly than I would wish. There is the possibility Señor Picare's death was not an accident. I need to understand, as far as that is possible, what kind of a man he was, so I am asking those who knew him what they can tell me.'

It was some time before she said, ‘A friend rang up to tell us the rumour that was going around. She said it was probably suicide.'

‘It was not.'

‘If it wasn't an accident … You're saying he may have been deliberately killed?'

‘That is what we must determine and why I am talking to señoras who visited his home.'

‘I went there from time to time so you think I may know what really happened?'

‘No, señora. But you may know something which will enable me to discover that. Did you go there on several occasions?'

‘Roughly, once a month.'

‘You were friendly with him?'

She spoke forcefully. ‘If you want the truth, I thought him contemptible. That surprises you?'

‘I must admit to some extent, señora.'

‘Who told you I visited him? One of the staff?'

‘Yes.'

‘Who thought, as you seem to, that that means I joined his harem? Let me get one thing straight. When I married, it was for ever, despite all difficulties, however antique that seems today. You think he would have bothered me, a forty-two-year-old with nothing to single me out from other women unless my morals were on a par with his? I went there to try to make him honour his promise to pay a reasonable sum each month towards the upkeep of the small, local sanctuary which cares for injured and stray dogs and cats about which no one else bothers.'

‘The sanctuary is where?'

‘Almost on the Llueso boundary in the direction of Inca. When I first came here, one so frequently saw cats and dogs by the side of the road, injured, dying. The sight so distressed me, I started the sanctuary and found local people willing to give time to help or money to pay the costs. Neil, when asked, immediately said he'd pay a generous monthly contribution.

‘I hope I'm not being too catty to describe his act as the great man showing the public how generous he was. That didn't matter, his money was good, until the financial hurricane swept over the country. He stopped paying; I suspect not because he had to, as did so many others. The sanctuary's finances became critical, so I swallowed my pride, told him we would like to rename it the Picare Refuge and suggested the local English weekly paper would praise his generosity. It took several visits and much verbal boot-licking before he finally agreed to renew payments and for a larger amount. The sanctuary was saved.'

‘Señora, will you accept my admiration?'

She smiled, providing her face with a measure of charm. ‘I'd prefer a contribution.'

‘You will have one. Sadly, I have to ask more questions.'

‘Fire away.'

‘Does your husband object to all the work you do for the refuge?'

‘To some extent. It uses up so much of my time.'

‘There is no other reason?'

‘Are you still wondering, as I'm sure you were, whether the attraction was him, not what he could do for the sanctuary? I can best answer you by saying that had the cost of maintaining the refuge been my sleeping with him, I could not have brought myself to pay it.'

‘Then your husband had no reason to hate Señor Picare.'

‘Had he had, he would never have considered taking a single step to express his hatred. His character …' She hesitated, then spoke in a rush of words. ‘It's so weak. It's not his fault. His mother never wanted children and blamed him for all the changes in her life. His father seldom spoke to him. When I met him, he was so shy and self-conscious that …'

Alvarez waited, then said, ‘You knew you could provide him with a strong refuge from the world.'

‘I suppose you could put it like that. But … but I loved him and still do.'

Because he allowed her to provide the strength which he needed. ‘I have to ask you this. Did your husband fear that your explanation of your visits to Vista Bonita was no more than an attempt to disguise the fact you were having an affair with the señor?'

‘If he'd believed that, his only thought would have been how to gain from the relationship.'

The front door opened, was shut with unnecessary force. Crane entered the room and held up a bottle. ‘In honour of our visitor, the best brandy on their shelves.'

Alvarez recognised the label. Cheap and not on many shelves.

‘S
eñor,' Alvarez said over the phone, ‘we can strike out Ivor Crane from the list of possibles.'

‘There is reason or are you relying on instinct despite its proven failures on several previous occasions?'

‘He can best be called a complete twit.'

‘You find yourself unable to offer a more informative description?'

‘All bluster. Tried to make out he and his wife only lived in a pokey Mestara house until they found a bigger property. Obviously, they couldn't afford to live anywhere else. Then he served a coñac which could only be described as the dregs.'

‘The taste is immaterial. What is of concern is that you were drinking when on duty. Something only very recently you have assured me you would never do.'

‘He offered me a drink and I naturally refused, señor. He continued to try to persuade me to have one and it became obvious that, being English, he had that strange reluctance to drink on his own. Not wishing to increase his embarrassment, I finally accepted.'

‘Why should he suffer any embarrassment from your refusal?'

‘It could seem to him that I had judged him to be so hard up that his offer had been made only to conform with tradition.'

‘Your avowed sympathy for his feelings became too strong?'

‘He continued to press me and finally brought a bottle of coñac in to the room. In the circumstances, I decided that to continue to refuse would increase his embarrassment and that would cause resentment on his part. As you have said many times, when questioning someone, take every opportunity to keep him at ease.'

‘In my authority, I listen to many excuses. Some are acceptable, some are possessed of a grain of truth, most are sufficiently unbelievable to question the speaker's intelligence. You have just shown you denigrate my intelligence.'

‘I have never had the slightest reason to do such a thing, señor.'

‘It can be said to be both our misfortunes that I cannot return the denial. I have yet to learn why you consider Crane incapable of causing Picare's death.'

‘His character. His wife scorns him, much of what he says is an attempt to make out he's sharp and successful when it is obvious he is weak and a failure. If Picare was dragged under the water in his pool, the person concerned must have a strong character. Crane's wife suggested he could never do anything which would put him within a hundred metres of danger.'

‘You did not consider she might have been lying?'

‘Señor, she scorns him.'

‘Her emotion was not an act?'

‘Because of the tone with which she spoke, because in the short time during which I was there, I understood she had every reason to scorn him.'

‘For the moment, it is necessary to rely on your judgment. Your report of Giselle Dunkling?'

‘I have not spoken to her yet.'

‘The Lynette woman?'

‘I have not had the time to question her. I have been working day and night—'

The line became dead.

He looked at his wristwatch. Questioning a possible suspect should not be rushed so he would speak to one or both of the other women the following morning.

He left the post and was walking across the old square when a woman said, ‘Hullo'. He came to a stop, half turned. The face was familiar.

‘You look very busy, inspector.' Carolina Pellisa, the daily at Vista Bonita.

‘I am having to work harder than ever.'

‘Do you know yet what … what happened?'

‘I still have to make certain.'

‘Then maybe …' She looked away.

‘You have something to tell me?'

She looked back at him. ‘I think so, but …'

‘I should like to hear what it is. Let's find somewhere to sit. Club Llueso is just over there. You might like a coffee?'

‘I should, but if I have one I'll be late at work.'

‘You go by bus?'

‘There isn't one which would get me there on time, so I cycle.'

‘Up that mountain?'

She smiled. ‘I call it a hill, so it's easier and the exercise is good for me.'

That was a general misconception. ‘Tell them you've been delayed by a puncture. Better still, that I stopped you and asked questions.'

‘I'd rather not. I don't want Rosalía to know. She says we mustn't talk about what happened because that could become disloyal to them who pay our wages.'

An unusual attitude in this day and age. ‘Very well, no coffee. But we can't talk here with tourists everywhere. We'll go to the post.'

‘Oh!'

‘You'd rather not?'

‘I was just thinking … Anyone who knows me might think I was in trouble.' She paused briefly. ‘It'll give them something to talk about!'

They left the square, walked the short distance to the post. He said they had to go upstairs and she went first, had to wait for him to join her. He showed her into his room and set a chair by the side of the desk.