The Butcher Beyond (8 page)

‘Yes, I think she would.'

‘So will you come?'

‘I can't promise, just at the moment,' Woodend said. ‘You see, the way it works in my family is that I make the major decisions like whether the government should invade Russia or raise income tax.'

‘Yes?'

‘An' Joan makes the minor ones like where we should go for our holidays, an' whether we should have dinner with my new mate.'

‘Is that a polite way of refusing?' Paco Ruiz asked.

‘No, it's what we Northerners call “knowing who really wears the trousers in our house”,' Woodend said. He smiled. ‘Ask her yourself. I'm sure she'll be delighted.'

J
essica Medwin had decided to use her husband's temporary absence as an opportunity to do all sorts of things she didn't normally have the time for. Thus, she had risen early that morning and put in a solid three hours hard work in her rose garden. That task successfully completed – and feeling amazingly virtuous – she allowed herself the luxury of a long, sudsy soak in a deep bath. Then, smelling sweet and feeling silky, she drove into Lancaster to have lunch with an old friend.

It was at that point that her day started to go wrong.

‘So where exactly has your Peter gone?' Miriam Thoroughgood asked Jessica over the rich and evil whipped egg and cream dessert.

Jessica – who was just raising a spoonful of the delicious concoction to her mouth – froze.

‘He … er … didn't actually say,' she replied cautiously.

‘Didn't say! What do you mean, he didn't say? You surely didn't let him get away with that!'

She hated it when her best friend made her feel like nothing more than a silly little girl, Jessica thought. She was beginning to wish that she'd never arranged this lunch.

‘Goodness knows what he could be up to,' Miriam said.

‘Up to?' Jessica replied, despising the fact that she was merely repeating her friend's words.

‘Well, the pair of you have been married for over twenty years now, haven't you?'

‘Yes, we have. So what?'

‘And haven't you ever considered the possibility that he might have grown just a little bored with you – that he might, perhaps, have gone off somewhere with another woman?'

Jessica laughed. ‘Not my Peter.'

‘You wouldn't be the first woman, by a long chalk, to have ever said something like that and then found out she was completely wrong,' her friend cautioned her.

‘Peter worships me,' Jessica said, and seeing the sceptical look on her friend's face, she continued, ‘Look, he's probably off on some kind of official visit, that's all.'

‘Then why didn't he tell you where he was going?'

Jessica waved her hands helplessly in the air. ‘Oh, I don't know. Perhaps he thought his secretiveness would give him an air of mystery which would make him more attractive to me. As if he needed to do that! He might be a funny-looking little thing, but he's
my
funny-looking little thing, and I adore him just as much as he adores me.'

‘Oh, I admit he doesn't look like much of a catch,' Miriam said airily, ‘but he is quite an important man, you know, Jessica, and there's a certain kind of woman who finds that attractive in itself. At any rate, I certainly wouldn't trust him, if I were in your place.'

Jessica felt the embers of revolt which had been smouldering in her stomach suddenly – and unexpectedly – burst into flame.

‘I know you wouldn't trust him, my dear,' she said sweetly. ‘You didn't trust either of your own husbands, either. Perhaps that's why they're now both your
ex
-husbands.'

Though Don Antonio Durán was not strictly his boss, Captain López was far too much of a political animal to ever cross a mayor – especially a mayor who was soon to be elevated to the post of Provincial Governor. So when, in the early afternoon following the murder, Durán rang to ask if he could see the Captain as soon as possible, López replied that ‘as soon as possible' could be right away.

He drove up to the Mayor's villa, which was located on the edge of town. A servant led him into the west wing of the house, down a corridor laid with thick carpets, and into an office which was lined with pale oak panels.

The
Alcalde
was sitting behind his heavy mahogany desk, in a chair which must have been specially built to take his considerable bulk. Yet he probably hadn't always been a grotesquely fat man, López thought. The small sharp eyes, at least, hinted at the leaner and hungrier man who still lived inside the huge frame.

‘I hear there's been a murder,' Durán said, without preamble – and without inviting the Captain to sit down.

‘That's right, Your Excellency. It was—'

‘A middle-aged Englishman who arrived here alone, yesterday.'

‘You are well informed, Your Excellency.'

‘It is my business to be well informed.' The Mayor paused. ‘A murder is bad for the town – especially at the height of the holiday season.'

‘I know that, Your Excellency. That is why I am pursuing my investigation with all the vigour of—'

‘On the other hand,' the Mayor interrupted him, ‘there is a distinct danger that the cure may be even worse than the illness.'

‘I beg your pardon, Your Excellency?'

‘Our visitors, with their pockets full of money, could find a full-scale murder inquiry very unsettling.'

‘Yes, I agree they well might. But since we must face the fact that there
has
been a murder—'

‘I have been imagining two possible conversations our visitors might have with their friends when they return home,' the Mayor cut in, ‘two different conversations prompted by two entirely different police responses to the murder. Are you following me?'

‘Yes,' López said dubiously.

‘The first conversation takes place following a very low-level police investigation. “I hear there was a murder where you were staying,” the friend might say. “That's right,” the visitor would agree. “And did the police catch the killer?” “No, they didn't.” What do you think the friend might say next, Captain López?'

‘That it reflected very badly on Spain, and on the honour of the Guardia Civil?' López hazarded.

‘You see, that is where I think you are you wrong,' the Mayor replied. ‘The way I imagine it, the friend would shrug and say, “Oh well, we have murders in this country, too, and not all of them are solved, either.” But let us now move to the other possible scenario, the one in which the police have done all they could to track down the killer.'

‘And have they caught him, in this scenario?'

‘Perhaps they have, and perhaps they haven't. It really doesn't affect the argument. “What was your holiday like?” the friend asks. “Dreadful,” replies the visitor. “There were police all over the place. I was questioned twice myself, but that wasn't even the worst of it. We couldn't get decent service in the restaurants because all the waiters were continually being interrogated by the law. It was impossible to get a taxi half the time, for much the same reason. There were queues in the shops, and if anything broke down in the hotel you had to wait forever to get it fixed. I certainly won't be going back there again.” And his friend says, “I don't think I'll be going there, either.” In other words, in an attempt to restore our good name, we may be doing no more than blackening it even further.'

‘But—'

‘As I see it, it is all a question of deciding which course of action will damage us the least.'

‘There is a third alternative,' López said tentatively.

‘And what might that be?'

‘I have spent the morning looking through my records, and have found a man who could have committed the murder – or could certainly be made
to look as if
he had committed it.'

‘And who is this man?'

‘He is of no consequence in himself. We suspect that he is a radical. His brother is already in gaol for his anti-state activities. It will not be too difficult to construct a case against him.'

For a moment, Durán looked tempted. Then he shook his huge, fat head. ‘Arresting someone will only keep the case alive in other people's minds,' he said. ‘It would be far better to let it simply fade away.'

‘But we must consider the reputation of the Guardia Civil!' Captain López protested.

Durán raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘The reputation of the Guardia Civil?' he repeated. ‘Or your own
personal
reputation?'

‘They are the same thing.'

‘No, they're not,' the Mayor contradicted him. ‘You are answerable to your Captain-General. As far as you are concerned, he is a giant whose opinion of you can make or break your career. True?'

‘I would not put it quite like that.'

‘Then you're a fool, because that is the way things are. But consider this; while you must gaze up at your Captain-General, there are others who are powerful enough to look him squarely in the eye. A provincial governor is one example which comes immediately to mind. And in a few weeks' time,
I
will be the civil governor of
this
province – which just happens to be the one in which you work.'

There was a knock on the door, and the servant entered.

‘Yes?' Durán said, bad-temperedly.

‘Your bitch is about to give birth, Your Excellency. You said you wanted to see it.'

‘Quite right,' the
Alcalde
agreed. ‘We should always take the opportunity to observe the miracles of nature.' With some considerable difficulty, he raised himself from his chair and waddled over to the door. ‘Wait here,' he said to López, almost as an afterthought.

The Captain did not move from the spot on which he was standing until he was sure the Mayor had left the building, but then he stepped quickly over to the desk. The
Alcalde
's papers and official documents were spread across the surface in a haphazard manner, but even so, López had spotted the glossy sheen of the corner of a photograph projecting from under a pile of reports. Making a mental note of exactly where he had first observed it, the Captain pulled the picture free and held it up to the light.

It was a photograph he had seen before – the photograph which the official police photographer had taken of the dead Holloway.

So not only did Durán know the circumstances of the man's arrival in the town, but he had sent for his picture – and had done so in such a way as to make certain that the officer in charge of the case knew nothing about it.

That was not good! Not good
at all
!

López was on the point of returning the picture to the exact spot in which he had found it when he saw that lying beneath it were several other photographs. He strained his ears for the sound of approaching footsteps, then reached for his new discovery.

He laid the photographs on the desk. They were much older – and much less expertly taken – than the picture of the murder victim. And they fell into two distinct groups.

The first set contained shots of a group of men in an olive grove. They were wearing the baggy trousers and shapeless jackets of a much earlier era, and they were all carrying rifles. There was something about the composition of the pictures which suggested to López that the photographer had taken them hurriedly – and perhaps secretly.

The second set was quite different. Each picture contained only one man, and it was plain from the expressions on their faces that they – like Holloway – were dead.

López picked up one picture from each set, and began to compare them.

Were the men in the first set the same men as appeared in the second? he wondered. And if there were, how much time had elapsed between the two sets?

The faces, especially in the olive grove set, were fuzzy. What he needed was a magnifying glass. He wondered if the
Alcalde
kept one somewhere among the chaos of his desk.

There was the sound a door being opened, then he heard heavy footsteps as Durán plodded down the corridor.

López gathered up the photographs, replaced them where he had found them, and took two quick steps backward.

The
Alcalde
returned to his study, breathing heavily from his exertion. ‘A false alarm,' he gasped. ‘The bitch isn't ready yet.' He walked around his desk, and squeezed his huge frame back into his chair. ‘Where were we?' he asked.

‘I need more,' López said.

The
Alcalde
looked puzzled. ‘More of what?'

‘I need to have things clearly spelled out for me.'

‘What has brought about this sudden need of yours for me to be more explicit?'

The photographs! López thought. The bloody photographs which suggest that this matter goes much deeper than you would have me believe!

But aloud, all he said was, ‘When you ask a man to walk through a swamp, you should at least mark out his path clearly for him.'

The
Alcalde
sighed heavily. ‘Very well,' he agreed. ‘Perhaps this will be clear enough for you. I will not hold it against you, Captain López, if you fail to solve this murder.'

‘Good.'

‘More than that – I will understand that your failure to solve it was due to your sensitivity to the needs of this town. That will make you a hero in my eyes – and heroes should be rewarded. If, on the other hand, you do solve the murder – but disrupt the tourist trade – it will be a black mark against you. And the next time I talk to your Captain-General, I will have some very unpleasant things to say to him. Do we understand each other?'

López nodded. ‘Oh yes, Your Excellency. I think we understand each other
very well
indeed.'

Jessica Medwin had intended to shop with Miriam Thoroughgood that afternoon, but the other woman's comments at lunch had left a bad taste in her mouth, and so she told her ‘so-called' best friend that she had a headache, and would go straight home. She hadn't. The shopping expedition had gone ahead, but without the poisonous Miriam by her side, and by the end of the afternoon – having been extremely frivolous and spent much more than she'd intended to – Jessica was feeling much better.