Relatively Dangerous (13 page)

Alvarez said: ‘Señor, I am here because what I have learned suggests that your father was poisoned before his death.’

‘Now you’re being bloody crazy.’

‘Why should anyone want to poison him?’ she asked.

‘Because such person had been tricked out of money.’

Taylor ran his fingers through his rebellious mop of hair. He picked up his glass and drained it, abruptly stood, went through to the kitchen, returned with a bottle of brandy, one-third full, and a rubber tray of ice cubes. He sat, refilled his own glass, pushed the bottle across the table, pressed four ice cubes out of the tray into his glass. He drank heavily, then said: ‘You’ve got to understand something. If at the beginning life hadn’t kicked him so hard . . .’ He stopped, slammed his clenched fist down on the table. ‘Who the bloody hell am I trying to flannel? If a man’s honest, he stays honest, however unfairly life treats him.’

‘Can you be so sure of that?’ asked Alvarez.

‘What’s a copper’s philosophy? Call no man honest until he is dead; until then he is at best lucky? . . . Just for once, I’m going to indulge in the painful luxury of seeing things as they really are, not as I’d like them to be. Father was a man who couldn’t see that there’s always a distinction between right and wrong, even if the base for that distinction can shift; for him, right was what he wanted . . . I don’t know what his scheme was, but it was something to do with shares. For a time, he made a lot of money and it was one of our “rich” periods, then things went wrong and he ended up in court on a charge of fraud. They found him guilty.’

She drew in her breath sharply.

He faced her. ‘So now the skeleton’s out of the cupboard and stalking the land and the dirty linen’s flying high. If I were you, I’d start walking.’

‘You damned fool,’ she said, as she reached over and gripped his hand.

He drained his glass and, using his free hand, refilled it.

‘D’you want to learn what hell really is? It’s not the traditional pit of flames, it’s not merely Sartre’s other people, it’s a crowd of little bastards of your own age circling you and shouting that your father’s a thief. D’you want to know what abject, humiliating betrayal is? It’s standing in the middle of that circle and hating your father and wishing to God you could be given the chance of denying him . . .

‘He was sentenced two days after he was found guilty. The judge said he’d needed that time to consider the matter. He decided not to jail Father because he saw in him a sense of real remorse and the desire for redemption . . . I can still remember Father laughing and boasting about how he’d softened up the old fool of a judge with his superb eloquence; laughing, when I’d been suffering hell because of him . . . We left that district, which meant I changed schools. No one ever found out at the new one what had happened and for once some of the boys were friendly to me even though I was a newcomer, arriving in the middle of the term. So life ought to have been a whole lot happier. But every time I looked at Father, I remembered how I’d have denied him if only I’d been given the opportunity . . .

‘Then he met Muriel. As I said, he saw things not as they were, but as he wanted them to be. Before he married her, he saw her as a loving wife whose money would screen him from ever again risking imprisonment. He couldn’t see her as the bitch she really was.

‘There was never any mistaking his background, even though he never tried to impress; even when he stepped out of the dock a convicted, but freed, criminal, he was one of the upper crust. And when they were together, this became even more obvious; as did the fact that her background was totally different. And because she’s an arrant snob, she pretty soon came to hate him for something over which he’d no control. And d’you know how she set out to get her own back? By making him plead with her for every penny she gave him. Then, she could despise him.

‘I couldn’t stand seeing him humiliated, so I cleared out. Just before I went, I told him he’d got to do the same. He laughed and said he would, all in good time. I soon learned what that really meant. He’d worked out a new scheme for making money and was determined to get this going and so become financially independent before he broke away from her. I told him to forget it—look at last time. He said it wasn’t the same and the idea was cast-iron. Soft brass, more like. Things went wrong and the police got on his trail again and it became clear that the moment they’d collected enough evidence, they’d arrest him for fraud. And this time, not even he could be bloody optimistic enough to believe the judge would give him a second chance. It would be jail. And so he thought up a way of escape. And because, with his help, she’d been impersonating the landed gentry—large house and God knows how many acres, cherry brandy-stirrup cup for the hunt—the thought of what people would say if he was publicly branded a convicted criminal was enough to give her hysterics. She agreed to finance his plan.’

There was a long silence, which Alvarez broke. ‘Thank you for telling me all that.’

Taylor shrugged his broad shoulders.

‘Where has your father been living in the past three years?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You really do not have any idea?’

‘Look, I cleared out because I couldn’t stand what was going on. It was a complete break.’

‘When you saw him here, he didn’t mention anywhere?’

‘Not specifically. But on one occasion he talked about getting the train into Barcelona, so I suppose if he had a place, it was near there.’

‘How near?’

‘I’ve told you all he ever said; and if he’d ever said any more, I bloody wouldn’t pass it on.’

‘Why not?’

‘Haven’t you understood what I’ve been saying?’

‘Yes, señor, I have. But have you, for your part, understood that if he was murdered, it is necessary to find the murderer? Can you tell me whether he was carrying out some business on this island?’

‘No, I can’t.’ He poured himself a third drink. ‘All right, you’d have to be stupid not to be able to guess. He’d some scheme or other going on.’

‘A scheme that was connected with shares?’

‘What d’you think?’ Taylor stared into space. ‘And you know something really comic? He’d finally hit the jackpot. He told me that when he gave us the money to buy this place. He’d made so much that he was going to retire and imitate an honest man. He’d made it, just in time to die . . . according to you, to be murdered.’

He’d been murdered, thought Alvarez, because he had been about to retire a dishonest man, not an honest one.

Alvarez stared at the list of figures which the meteorological office in Palma had just provided over the telephone. On May 14 Steven Taylor had flown in to Mallorca and that day the weather had, along the Mediterranean coast, been sharply layered as it often was at that time of the year. From the French border to just south of Barcelona, there had been strong winds and the temperature had been cool (relatively speaking); from just south of Barcelona to Alicante, the winds had been light and the temperature warm; further south still, there had been virtually no wind and the temperature had been hot. These conditions had been holding for several days. Taylor had told the man in Worldwide Car Hire, at Palma airport, that he had just come from somewhere noticeably colder; he had told the porter at Hotel Verde that recently there had been too much wind for him to sail his boat; he had told his son that he had caught a train to Barcelona. Put those facts together and there was good reason for saying that he had been living on the coast between Barcelona and the French border.

It was going to be necessary to telephone Salas. Alvarez sighed, leaned over and opened the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk. He brought out the bottle of brandy and a glass.

The moving walkway carried Alvarez from the airport to the station, from which a train left within five minutes. On arrival at Sants, the more westerly of Barcelona’s stations, he inquired when the next train for Figueras left, and from which station, and was told that the Talgo would be departing from there in twenty minutes.

He enjoyed train travel. One didn’t take off and land, so that there was no need to shut one’s eyes and pray, believing, yet very conscious that there were times when the Almighty slipped up. He stared out at the green, rolling, and in parts wooded countryside, and thought that here one could buy very many more hectares of fertile land for the same money as on the island. Perhaps after he’d retired, he could move to the Peninsula and buy the finca he had always longed to own, could till the land, plant the seed, harvest the crop . . . But he knew he was deceiving himself. He would never be truly happy away from the island.

The train drew into Figueras and he alighted. He’d been promised that someone from the municipal police would meet him, but there was not a uniform in sight so he crossed to a seat, near a board which showed the make-up of the next train to Barcelona, and let the drowsy warmth engulf him . . .

inspector Alvarez?’

He awoke with a jerk, stood, and shook hands with a man much younger than himself who spoke in Catalan, yet seemed to have some difficulty in understanding his Mallorquin. They walked down the platform and left by one of the unmanned exits, crossed to a car which was parked under the shade of a tree. They drove to the police HQ, an old four-storey building not far from the Dali museum. There, he spoke to a man who had checked with the town hall and the Ministry of the Interior. ‘Sorry, but there’s no house been purchased by a Steven Arthur Thompson and no one of that name’s taken out a residencia or permanencia.’

‘Blast!’

‘Don’t forget, despite the amnesty, there are still one hell of a lot of foreigners living in the area who ought to have papers, but don’t.’

‘You wouldn’t have a list of’em?’

The man laughed. ‘I don’t know exactly what you had in mind . . .?’

He looked at his watch. ‘A drink and then lunch.’

Along the coast, a number of developments specifically aimed at yachtsmen had been built and of these, Corleon, set around canals, was perhaps the best. Spain’s answer to Port Grimaud. Unfortunately, its initial success had proved to be far in excess of expectations, with predictable results. More canals were dredged, the density of housing was increased and finally, on the outskirts of the urbanization, dozens of rabbit hutches were built, specifically aimed at the French holiday market, while large and ugly blocks of appartments began to line the beach.

Alvarez parked the borrowed car and climbed out. The sun shone out of a cloudless sky, but a sea breeze prevented the heat from building up. He looked across the raised pavement at the estate agent and sighed. When he’d said that he intended questioning all the estate agents in Corleon to find out if any one of them had sold a house to Steven Thompson, which for some reason had not been registered, he had been regarded with amusement. Having gained a rough idea of the number of estate agents there were, he understood the reason for that amusement.

Two hours later, he used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead and neck; it might not be as hot as on the island, but it was still too warm to spend the day walking from one office to another, asking the same questions, receiving the same answers . . . And if he failed to find any trace of Steven Thompson here, there were many more developments up and down the coast . . . Across the wide road was a cafe, with tables and chairs set outside under the shade of an awning. He waited for a French registered Mercedes to drive past at twice the speed that was reasonable, crossed and gratefully sat. He ordered a coffee and coñac.

Had he made too many assumptions, he wondered, as he drank and watched with appreciation the scantily clad women go by—it was difficult to remember that there’d been a time when even men in bathing trunks had been supposed to wear guards over their knees. When told that Steven Taylor enjoyed sailing and owned a boat, he’d assumed this to be a sailing boat which probably required a berth; but ‘sailing’ could mean a power boat, which could be moved by trailer so that Taylor might well live inland. He’d assumed . . . A young lady, wearing a see-through blouse and no brassiere, went past and the sharp sunlight picked out the curves of her flesh. He watched her cross to the far side of the road and enter a large supermarket. That gave him an idea.

He finished the coffee and coñac, paid the bill, which was high enough to make it clear that few locals ever drank there, left and crossed the road to the supermarket. He asked the cashier at the one till which was operating if the owner was around and she answered that if Agueda wasn’t downstairs, she’d be upstairs, in tones which suggested that Agueda kept a suspicious eye on everything at all times.

Agueda was checking through a display of beach accessories.

‘From Llueso? My mother was born not ten kilometres from there and many’s the time I’ve been there before I was married! Tell me, how much has it changed?’ She was a large, heavily-boned woman who deliberately dressed to emphasize her size rather than to conceal it. She used a great deal of make-up and her mouth was a most unusual colour. She wore so much jewellery that most people assumed it to be imitation, but in fact it was all genuine.

They went down to the ground floor and through to the office which lay behind the bread counter. She offered him a drink. ‘Well, what is it you want exactly?’ she asked, as she handed him two glasses and a bottle.

‘I’m trying to find out more about a foreigner who died on the island recently; I don’t have an address, but there’s reason to believe he lived here.’

‘You must have asked at the town hall in Figueras?’

‘I have, but no luck; and the same goes for the estate agents. So I’m wondering if he rents a place, in which case it could prove difficult to track him down. But I reckoned there’s just the chance you could have come across him.’

‘Most of the foreigners come here to shop,’ she agreed complacently, fingering one of her rings as she spoke. ‘What’s the name?’

‘Steven Thompson.’

She repeated the names, her heavy accent distorting them. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know anyone by that name.’