Ibiza Surprise (21 page)

We heaved him on to one foam-padded side bench. I’d forgotten how strong Mummy was, in spite of the stick-insect physique. I found a cloth, wrung it out in the galley, and began to wash the blood out of Clem’s hair.

‘How did it happen?’

‘Search me,’ said Mummy. ‘Use my hankie. That cloth’s got paint on it. We dropped by to see Johnson, and I walked to the front to get a good view of the town while Clem went down below to find someone. Then when he didn’t come back I came down myself, and there he was. Wham.’

‘Alone?’ I said.

‘Alone,’ said Mummy. ‘It seemed mad to me, too. I went up on deck to look for anyone running, but there wasn’t a soul. Then Pepe came along – you know, the man who looks after the quay – and I sent him along to the Club Nautico to fetch Dilling, you know how he goes in there to gossip. I’d just come down here again when you arrived.’

‘You came here in the car?’ I said. ‘With Dilling?’ You could see the neat, white face of the yacht club from where
Dolly
was tied.

Mummy took the holder out of her mouth and said: ‘If that mechanised mating call of yours is in the car park, you must have noticed the Humber.’

‘I didn’t. The Humber isn’t out there.’

There was a lump like a tennis ball and a cut that looked awfully deep to me under Clem’s hair. He showed no sign at all of wakening.

Mummy sighed. ‘Dilling’s on hash again. Sweetie . . .’

‘Listen,’ I said.

‘Drums?’ said Mummy. ‘Those drums give me the creeps.’

‘No, listen. Someone is coming.’ You could hear the footsteps now quite clearly, on the uneven dirt of the quayside, getting nearer.

‘Johnson?’ I said. But I knew that it wasn’t.

Mummy got up, rather gracefully, and took down the aerosol fire extinguisher. Sitting, she appeared surprised at my stare. ‘A woman’s got to think of her future.’ We heard the footsteps slow down, and then become light and hollow as they traversed the gangplank. They arrived on deck and crossed it heavily.

‘Hullo?’ said the capped head of Spry, appearing upside down at the top of the gangway. ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs van Costa. I thought there was no one aboard.’

‘By no means. It’s like the Schweitzer settlement down here,’ Mummy said. ‘Someone’s attacked Mr Sainsbury.’

I wanted to stay. Clem still hadn’t wakened, and he looked awful. But Mummy was adamant.

‘There’s nothing you can do that Mr Spry can’t do better. He knows where to get a doctor, and he knows all the yacht-club men who can help him if need be. Impulse buying is no good in your situation, She-she,’ said my mother gently. ‘Less than twenty-five thousand a year is not truly advisable.’

My cheeks were still burning as I marched back through the harbour beside her.

‘I suppose if Coco had had twenty-five thousand a year, you’d have suggested him for a husband.’

‘Goodness gracious me, no,’ said my mother. ‘You’d have killed his art in a week, and anyway, he was perfectly impotent. I guess you’ll set out to have six children and call a halt about three.’

‘I happen,’ I said, ‘to think children are important.’

‘I know,’ said my mother. ‘That’s why I said three. Forsey always thought you d be fecund. You don’t mind, do you, giving me a lift home?’

I stopped dead. ‘Honestly. I think you’re the most selfish . . .’

‘But you weren’t doing Clem any good,’ said my mother patiently. ‘And I’ve got to get home somehow.’

I glared at her, and then got into the Maserati, letting her get in on her side by herself. As I revved up, she said absently: ‘You know. She-she, I never did have that soul talk with Derek. Where did he go?’

‘To the salt company office, I think,’ I said. ‘At least Gil dropped him by the quay in Ibiza. You were too busy to notice.’

‘Tony Lloyd? He’s rather a pet,’ said my mother. ‘Slow down, darling. If we see Derek, I’d like just a word with him.’

‘He’s got a love nest in Palma that’s the talk of the countryside,’ I said spitefully. ‘With six children in it, for all that I know.’

‘Derek
has?’ said Mummy. It was the first time I’d ever seen her reduced to a bleat.

‘Mr Lloyd has.’ I swerved, to miss beheading a hen. ‘But I bet he’s got more than twenty-five thou a year.’

‘He’ll need it,’ said Mummy. ‘You remember the Vesey-Jacoby court case?’

‘The people you sued for defamation of character?’ It had been going on while I was at Mother Trudi’s.

‘Yup. I won it,’ said Mummy.

I missed another hen by a fraction.

‘You
won
it?’

‘Two hundred and forty thousand dollars,’ said Mummy. ‘Am I beautiful in your eyes?’

I put on the brakes hard, and a horn blared behind me, so I put her into gear again and drove on.

‘When I wrote in October, you said . . .’

‘I was damned if I was going to give you forty quid to impress an LSE student at his half sister’s wedding. Check. Have you ever seen that boy since?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want to see him again?’

‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Clem’s sick, Gilmore’s furious with me, Austin’s in Janey’s clutches, and Johnson’s disappeared. I suppose you’d
like
me to go to parties in tatters?’

‘You will learn,’ said my mother, ‘that lack of clothing never hampered anyone’s style. Whether it attracts the right type is another matter. There’s Derek.’

I drove on right past.

‘There,’ said my mother distinctly, ‘is Derek. Please stop.’

I said nothing. To hell with the Forseys by marriage. We were in the middle of Ibiza. Mummy leaned over and took the ignition key out.

She was out of the car calling him before the engine had petered quite out. The car behind me didn’t like it a bit. All I could do was look sweet and helpless, and finally everyone pulled out and passed. I couldn’t even draw on to the side as she’d taken the ignition key with her. I could hear the New England cadences and the voice of Cambridge approaching and sat, staring stonily ahead, while the car door opened, and they both squashed into the front.

‘He’s coming too,’ Mummy said cheerfully, and put the key back in the slot. I started the car without speaking.

Derek didn’t speak either. He smelt hot, and his expression, when I got out of town and managed a look was exceedingly grim.

Mummy said: ‘He’s been tracking down Rodgers and Hammerstein.’

‘Who?’

‘Jorge and Gregorio,’ said Mummy. She made it sound like a crack circus team. ‘He went back to the salt flats and went down to the anchorage.’

‘Why?’ I said.

‘Because,’ said Derek, ‘no-one answering to their description boarded the Swedish vessel this morning, and nothing but salt has disembarked since she sailed. The trail was a phoney.’

‘They didn’t take a car last night to the anchorage?’

‘No,’ said Derek.

“They didn’t sail from the island?’

‘No,’ Derek repeated.

‘Then they’re still here?’ I said. ‘But where could they be?’

That,’ said Derek, ‘is what I’m going to find out.’

Mummy sighed.

‘Darling boy,’ she said. ‘All those brain cells, groomed by all those trustees. Sometimes you make me feel perfectly stupid. Are you really bent on tracking down those two tedious Spaniards?’

‘Yes,’ said Derek.

She put a long blue arm round his shoulders and tweaked the little curl over his ears, in the way that he hated.

‘Well, you’re in the right place, honey,’ she said. ‘For they’re both at my house.’

I hit the hen that time. By the time I had scraped together my pesetas and got back to the car, you could hear Derek’s voice in Minorca. Mummy was sitting enthroned in her grin, like morning glory in a company window box. I told you she was an actress.

She stayed that way all the way to her house, and sweeping round that drive in daylight, past the lake and the bulrushes, I got pretty quiet myself.

Derek drew a deep breath, and as we came to a halt in front of that familiar portico, he said: ‘You understand, Mother. No matter what our relationship, if there is something criminal going on, I intend to report it.’

Mummy got out uncreased and regarded him with those spiked saucer eyes.

‘You didn’t report it when you knew Forsey was spying,’ she said.

Was spying.
Derek’s colour got less, and I knew he’d noticed it, too.

He said: ‘My father was of poor character, his willpower weakened by drink.’

‘So you felt protective,’ said Mummy. ‘I’ll say She-she and you are a pair. Why I didn’t have the sense years ago to take to a wheelchair, I’ll never know. Come on in. The butler’s just putting the knockout drops into the cocoa.’

The mad thing was that Dilling was there. He opened the door with a bow, and if he was on hash, I didn’t see any sign of it.

Derek said, out of the side of his mouth: ‘Sarah. Does anyone know that you’re here?’

I shook my head. Clem was flat out on
Dolly.
Janey, I supposed, was still with Austin and Mr Lloyd as well, in her own house. Gilmore would have left Louie’s party and be on the way home by now. Johnson had vanished. In about an hour, perhaps, someone would wonder why I wasn’t there to make dinner before they all went on their boring jaunt to the processions. Then when I didn’t turn up, Anne-Marie would take over or Janey would open a tin. We followed Mummy, who took us into the room where the Russians had been and poured us three brandies and soda, with ice.

I didn’t care, I drank it. And so, after a moment, did Derek. Mummy, standing over us in her silver chains and blue suit, smiled sentimentally.

‘Dear children,’ she said. ‘If only Mother had had me taught knitting.’

‘What?’ said Derek, anxiously, hunting data in everything.

‘A crochet hook,’ said my mother, ‘isn’t long enough. Ah. There you are.’

Dilling had opened the door and ushered in Johnson.

His glasses looked just the same, and I suppose the pattern above and below was unaltered: he had his pipe in his hand. He said, mildly, to my mother: ‘You make people feel insecure. Anyway, you’re in the middle of the wrong play. I said leave Sarah and Derek out of this.’

‘I couldn’t,’ said Mummy, quickly. ‘Dilling drove the Humber away. And Derek has found out about Rodgers and Hammerstein. That they didn’t leave Las Salinas, that is. I know Derek. He’s hell unless he gets facts.’

I said: ‘I don’t know, of course, if it matters, but someone has tried to kill Clem. He’s lying on the bench in
Dolly’s
saloon with his head cut half-open, and Spry looking after him. I think it’s time we knew what’s going on.’

‘Time for one thing,’ said Johnson.

He walked slowly forward, took another brandy from Mummy, and sitting down with it, proceeded to light his foul pipe.

Without looking at anyone, he said: ‘It depends. I don’t see why I should be expected to explain anything unless you turn out your pockets as well. You haven’t told either Sarah or Janey, but I think you’ll have to tell me, Derek. What did your father say, that night you came back to Ibiza and accused him of being a spy?’

‘I didn’t kill him,’ said Derek. ‘As I presume you know, if you’re mixed up in the whole thing yourself. I had the opportunity to kill him and to kill Coco, but I didn’t. I just wanted to find out who did.’

‘I don’t think you did either, Derek,’ Mummy said comfortingly. ‘But you haven’t answered Johnson’s question. What did Forsey say when you accused him?’

My brother looked straight at me.

‘He said, if I left my job, he’d pay me five thousand a year and expenses.’

‘He
what?’
I said.

‘I gather Forsey didn’t take an interest in the LSE student’s half sister either,’ said Mummy.

Five thousand a year. I felt betrayed. Utterly, utterly betrayed. I’d taken him a three-pound box of Bendick’s bittermints last time I’d gone to stay with him.

‘Did
he
win a law suit as well?’

‘He was earning money, I guess,’ said Mummy. ‘Undercover. What happened, Derek?’

‘What do you think happened?’ said Derek, bitterly. ‘It was a bribe, as good as an admission. I knew as well as you do that he’d never had that amount of spare cash in his life, at any rate when
we
were all living with him. And when you think of it, of course, his was the perfect life for picking up secrets. He was on chatting terms with all the intelligent business world and all the peers in public positions, not in the boardroom or during the working day, but on the beach or at the drinks party where the yashmaks got dropped. I said if he didn’t give it up, I’d report him.’

‘And?’ said Johnson.

‘He took my hand and patted it and said: “My dear boy,” and grinned. That Roland Young grin. You know, She-she.’

I knew.

‘Oh, hurry up,’ I said. ‘Did he clip you one?’

‘He said he didn’t really see me going back to Holland and denouncing him, which was true. And that he couldn’t see me either going back and saying he was innocent, which was equally true. So, he said, the only possible course was the one he’d outlined. Living off his technological spin-offs was, I think, how he put it.’

‘Then when you spurned him?’ Johnson said.

‘He asked me to go back to Holland and say nothing and do nothing for four weeks. After that, he promised my job would be safe, and I needn’t worry any more. I was to tell my firm that I wanted four weeks to complete my investigations.’

‘So?’ Johnson’s voice was quite gentle.

‘So when I heard he had cut his throat, I knew I thought I knew that this was what he had meant. And that in a sense I had killed him.’

‘What made you change your mind?’ Johnson asked.

The blood. There wasn’t any,’ said Derek. ‘I saw him, you know. And the winch. And I spoke to old Pepe. The Guardia Civil were so hopeless, and no one seemed to understand, and of course, the last thing I wanted to do was to stir up all the dirt about Father. But I knew he hadn’t cut his own throat: he’d been taken there after it was done. The question was, was it done by his own wish? Or had someone murdered him?’

Johnson said: ‘Why should it matter?’ but I didn’t need to ask, nor I suppose did my mother.

Derek said: ‘You see, if he’d been murdered, in a way it was all right.’