Death Trick (18 page)

‘Does she have a motor?’

‘Bound to have, but that’ll be only for docking, emergencies, or charging the batteries. She’ll make better way under sail.’

Again, Alvarez translated.

‘What’s the earliest time at which she could have been stolen?’ Farley asked.

The assistant said that the señor had been aboard, splicing some ropes, until around eight, when he’d returned home. She could have been taken any time after that.

Farley looked at his watch. ‘That gives a maximum of fifteen hours; give her three to four knots and she’s forty-five to sixty miles away—in other words, she can’t have reached the mainland.’

‘Before a search can be ordered,’ said Alvarez, T have to inform my superior chief of what has happened and before I do that I need at least two brandies. So we need to add on a couple of miles, at least.’

Salas was surprisingly calm. He said that in the circumstances Alvarez had done almost as much as a competent officer would have done and agreed it would have been impossible to keep a constant watch on all the yachts in Llueso harbour, even more impossible on those in all the other harbours as well. There was a puzzled look on Alvarez’s face as he replaced the receiver.

The decision had to be made where to search, accepting that the resources available were very limited. The Peninsula offered the nearest coast, but the police there could act immediately and there would be none of the delays— potentially so valuable to Oakley—which could occur once national boundaries were crossed. France was reasonably near, but was the most obvious country. Of those further away and politically possible, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, lay to the east and each, for different reasons, could prove an attractive haven; Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt were to the south and east, and while it might not be so easy to lose oneself in one of them, extradition would be more difficult or impossible. Gibraltar, Portugal, and the Americas, lay to the west . . . Alvarez decided on France, his reasoning being simple. When Oakley stole the yacht (not knowing the owner lived locally), he must have hoped that its disappearance would go unnoticed for a long time —obviously, the empty berth would be remarked, but unless by the owner or friends of his (many boats were owned by people who lived abroad and only came out for holidays) then this would cause no comment. But, being a clever man, he accepted that Sod’s Law was always waiting to strike and the disappearance might well be noticed much sooner than expected, so that the quicker he was ashore in another country, the better . . .

The harbour master and Cassell—belligerent, damning Alvarez for allowing his beloved craft to be stolen—conferred about winds, currents, distances through water as opposed to over the land, ability to sail into the wind, and amount of sail one man would prudently carry, and determined a figure that gave the radius of a circle, centred on Puerto Llueso. The course to Port Vendres was plotted and the point at which this cut the radius of the circle was named as the yacht’s position in one hour’s time.

A seaplane, normally used to ‘bomb’ forest fires with several tonnes of sea water, took off from Llueso Bay and headed eastwards, climbing steadily.

Sometimes, the needle in the haystack is found. At 14.12 hours, the crew sighted a yacht, heading north. They went down and circled her, radioed the number on her mainsail; it was confirmed that she was the yacht they had sought.

They were ordered to remain on station until a fast naval patrol boat reached the scene.

They began the boring task of circling the yacht as she sailed steadily on. It was soon remarked that there was no sign of life aboard.

‘Well?’ said Salas, over the phone.

Alvarez began to tap on the desk with his fingers. ‘The cabin’s been checked for prints and his have been found; Señor Cassell says that at no time has he ever been invited aboard. It must have been he who stole the yacht.’

‘So?’

‘Then on the face of things he must have fallen overboard and by now be presumed drowned. The safety harness had been rigged, but the harness itself was lying on deck. Señor Cassell says that in fine weather, with very little sea, there’s always the temptation to work on deck without wearing a harness. But it’s easy to slip and fall overboard and with the sails set and the self-steering engaged, and no one else aboard to bring it back, there’s absolutely no hope. You just watch it sail out of sight as you wait to drown . . . A horrible thought, isn’t it?’

Salas seldom concerned himself with horrible thoughts. ‘What lifeboats or rafts were there?’

‘One liferaft, kept in a metal container lashed on deck, and one small inflatable. Both were still aboard.’

‘Could he have left the yacht soon after clearing the port, leaving it to sail on unmanned?’

‘I’ve checked on that point. Until not long before the yacht was sighted, the wind was more westerly. I don’t understand all the reasoning, but Señor Cassell and the harbour master insist that the fact that the yacht was found where she was shows she was under command until a short time before she was sighted; say a couple of hours. That’s borne out by the meal. There was always some tinned food aboard and some baked beans had been opened and heated; these were cold, but they had not begun to dry out on the surface.’

‘Then the suggestion has to be that he’d started to eat, something happened up on deck which alerted him, he went up, and in dealing with the trouble he fell overboard because he hadn’t bothered to don the safety harness?’

‘Indeed, señor. And it is fact that a boat-hook was loose and rolling about because a lashing had frayed.’

‘But you don’t agree with so logical a conclusion?’

‘I can’t help thinking that it would be very convenient for him if he could persuade us that he was dead.’

‘I thought you’d just assured me that he must have sailed the boat out of port and until something like two hours before it was sighted?’

‘Yes, but might he not have set the scene to make us think that he’d fallen overboard whereas in reality he was picked up by a fast powerboat and whisked away? . . . Eventually, of course, the truth will probably be discoverable through studying the business dealings of Ashley Developments; although it’s very doubtful that we shall ever gain permission . . .’

Salas shouted: ‘I know exactly what you’re trying to do. Didn’t I warn you at the beginning of the case?’

‘About what, señor?’

‘About complicating every bloody thing in sight. You’ve buried and resurrected this Englishman so many times I’ve lost count and now, goddamn it, you want to do both at the same time.’ He slammed down the receiver.

For a time it had seemed that Salas was becoming a patient man, ready to listen to reason; the last few moments had proved this not to be so. Alvarez was relieved. Change so often presaged trouble.

An assistant from the forensic laboratory rang on Saturday morning. ‘We’ve examined the passport. We lifted off the paper without any trouble, but the original entry had been carefully erased and bringing that up proved a bit more difficult. The name is Mrs Stephanie Oakley and the address is Flat 64, 58 Via Santa Lucia, San Remo, Italy. There’s no telephone number.’

‘You what?’ demanded Salas, in tones of disbelief.

‘I’d like to go to Italy, señor,’ replied Alvarez.

‘And so would I. Regrettably, I don’t find it nearly so easy to ignore the demands of my work.’

‘If the señora is still living there, she needs to be questioned.’

‘That is obvious. What is far less obvious is why you don’t propose to ask the Italian police to find out whether she’s still at that address.’

‘That wouldn’t be nearly so satisfactory.’

‘To you?’

‘To finding out the facts. I might be able to tell if she’s speaking the truth, but if the Italian police question her they cannot judge because they will not know all the background; and if they do question her first and in consequence of what they report, we then decide I must question her as well, she will be forewarned.’

‘It doesn’t occur to you that in view of what Oakley said about his marriage, it’s extremely unlikely she will be able to help and therefore the questioning of her is purely a formality, capable of being carried out by anyone?’

‘But if he is still alive, might he not have lied about the state of his marriage, as he has about so many other things?’

‘Why the devil should he have done?’

‘I don’t know, señor.’

‘And nor, goddamnit, does anyone else.’

Varessi, who’d pompously introduced himself at the airport as an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Carabinieri, did not, on the car journey, try to hide his belief that Mallorca was a very distant land; he asked whether television had yet reached the island and was surprised to discover that it had, years before. He was a reckless driver, even by Italian standards, and Alvarez, at times himself inclined to ignore other road users, frequently called silently but fervently on St Christopher.

They raced into San Remo, swooped down and up the undulating road, and then climbed towards the back of the town as if engaged on a mountain race. They cut across a van to enter Via Santa Lucia and drew up with a screech of tyres.
‘A very beautiful building,’ said Varessi, as he looked up through the window. ‘I doubt you have anything like this in Mallorca.’

The tall, ugly block of flats would not have been out of place in El Arenal, but Alvarez made no comment. In the first place, correcting Varessi was a long and difficult task; secondly, although he could understand Italian reasonably well, he found it difficult to speak; Varessi spoke neither English nor French.

Varessi led the way into the building and the lift, which took them up to the sixth floor and Flat 64. He rang the bell and when the door was opened, announced in peremptory tones who he was and the reason for his visit.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Stephanie, slowly and carefully, ‘but could you say that again?’

‘Señora,’ said Alvarez in English, ‘I have just arrived from Mallorca and would be grateful if you would answer some questions.’

‘Mallorca?’ She put her hand up to her face in an instinctive gesture of worry.

‘May we come in?’

They entered. His immediate impression of her was that she was a warm woman; not young, not beautiful, and clearly not fashionable—her clothes were obviously chosen for comfort, not appearance—but the kind of woman a wise man hoped to marry, as opposed to the women he visualized in his more erotic moments.

She led the way through the small hall into the sitting/ dining-room, which was dark and oppressive despite the sun outside, suggesting to Alvarez that the flat had been rented since he was convinced that she would have chosen furniture and furnishings much lighter in texture and colour. Through the large picture window there was a view over the town to the sea.

She came to a halt in the middle of the room. ‘Are you here because Gerry’s in some sort of trouble?’

Varessi, his expression bored, sat.

Alvarez did not answer her directly. ‘When was the last time you saw him, señora?’

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘Recently?’

‘No.’

‘Could you say approximately?’

‘I suppose it must be about a year ago now. It was when Jacqueline . . .’ She stopped. She then said sharply: ‘What’s happened to him?’

Her tone had not been anguished; more resentful. Then it seemed Oakley had been telling the truth about the state of their marriage. Alvarez was glad. News of his death might shock, but it would not tear her emotions apart. ‘Señora, we have reason to think . . .’ Briefly, he told her what had happened.

While he spoke, she had settled on the settee. Her expression remained composed, but the way in which she continually fiddled with one of the buttons on her frock suggested she was under considerable tension. When he’d finished speaking, there was a short pause, then she said: ‘He fell overboard, even though the weather was fine?’

‘It seems so.’

‘Then he’d have had to watch the yacht sail on?’

He nodded.

‘What a ghastly way to finish!’

He was not surprised that this thought horrified her—it had horrified him. One always hoped death would come quickly and unexpectedly . . . It already seemed clear that she would tell him nothing to confirm the possibility that Oakley had faked his death.

‘I always used to think that he was someone who’d die in a way that would . . . To be thoroughly Irish, it would be larger than life. But then for years I saw him as larger than life. Jill, my sister, was always telling me I was a complete fool where he was concerned and I suppose she was right. I . . .’ She stood, hurried from the room.

Varessi said: ‘What the matter with her?’

‘She’s upset,’ replied Alvarez shortly.

‘Why?’

‘I’ve just had to explain that her husband is dead.’

‘But you told me they parted some time ago, so why’s she in such a state?’

‘It still comes as a shock.’

She returned, red-eyed, a few moments later. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as she sat.

‘Señora, it is I who am sorry to have to bring such sad news.’

‘It’s not because I’m completely shattered—after all, things hadn’t gone right between us for a long time before we separated. But suddenly learning he’s dead . . . If only things had been different . . . One day, Jill asked me point-blank if he was having an affair with Twinks. I was furious with her for daring to suggest such a thing. But a couple of weeks afterwards, I discovered he was. And Twinks was only one . . . I’m terribly old-fashioned when it comes to marriage. I’ve never believed one could go in for wife-swapping and that sort of thing and have any real marriage. Jill used to say I came straight out of the Ark. But in the end things went wrong for her and Bill and she were terribly unhappy.’

‘When you left Bromley, señora, your marriage was already strained?’

‘It was dead, only I just wouldn’t admit it. I kept telling myself Gerry was merely fighting the seven-year itch and when he came to terms with getting older he’d stop chasing other women—but he didn’t. We lived in Paris for a while and he was after women who were only half presentable, as if he was trying to make the city live up to its reputation. It was ridiculous and embarrassing, as well as painful.’