Troubled Deaths (12 page)

‘Can you give me the name of the Swiss bank on which the cheques were drawn?’

‘I don’t think so. The cheques go to Madrid and then back to the issuing bank. Since no cheque was ever refused, I have no separate knowledge of which bank it was.’

‘I wonder why he did things this way? It surely would have been easier to have worked entirely through you or his other bank?’

The assistant manager smiled with discreet amusement at such naive questions.

‘Is there anything more about his account you can tell me?’

‘I don’t think so, Inspector.’

‘Then I’ve just one more question. Do you by any chance handle another account for an English señorita by the name of Mabel Cannon?’

‘One moment. I’ll make enquiries.’

The assistant manager left. Alvarez stared at the far wall and wondered whether if he were wealthy, with many millions of pesetas, he would appear less than middle-aged to a young woman with corn-coloured hair and deep blue eyes who lived in a world filled with evil and yet remained untouched by it.

The assistant manager returned. ‘Yes, we do handle her account.’ He tapped two sheets of paper he carried in his left hand. ‘It’s precisely the same pattern. Large sums of money paid in in Swiss francs, smaller sums in cash drawn out at roughly regular intervals. The only real difference is that the señorita has never withdrawn a very large sum since the beginning, when I imagine she bought her house.’

‘How’s that?’

‘The most that’s been paid in is around a hundred thousand and almost all withdrawals are for less than twenty thousand. But the señor paid in and drew out fifteen million.’

Alvarez whistled. ‘When was this?’

‘The middle of April . . . A man can do a lot on fifteen million, can’t he, even in these days of inflation?’

Alvarez pushed aside the empty glass down on the desk and looked at his watch. Surely it was now too late to visit an English señorita who, despite appearances, probably worried about her virginity from the moment it became dark? An unwelcome shaft of honesty made him admit that he was afraid. What if she should be even more emotionally upset than on his previous visit? Would he escape with his life? He poured himself out another brandy and wondered why he couldn’t reconcile himself to being a coward?

He drove from the Guardia post to Casa Elba. There were lights on inside. He sighed, because until now it had always been possible she might have gone out.

He left the car and walked, the uncut bushes brushing him, to the front door. He pressed the illuminated bell push and heard the bell sound.

She opened the door to the extent of the chain and peered out and when she recognized him her expression became bitterly antagonistic. ‘What do you want now?’

‘Señorita, I fear I have returned to ask you further questions.’

She said something he didn’t catch, shut the door until she could release the chain, then opened it. He stepped into the house. There was a smell of cooking, but it was a thin smell, not the kind of rich, full, garlicky smell to which he was accustomed. Thank God he wasn’t eating here! The sitting-room was in an even more untidy condition than previously and the record-player was playing a sugary waltz.

‘If you’ve come to make any more filthy accusations..’ she began aggressively.

‘Señorita,‘he cut in hastily, ‘I am here to make no accusations, merely to ask you about a bank account.’

She stared at him for a few seconds, her head thrust forward, then she whirled round and strode over to a chair and sat.

‘Señorita, you have a bank account with the Credito Balear in Calle Juan Rives in Palma.‘He raised his voice to counter the music.

‘Still spying,‘she said contemptuously.

‘I fear I have to make many enquiries when people do not tell me the full facts.’

‘I’ve told you over and over . . .‘She stopped abruptly and reached up to her throat. She had some difficulty with swallowing and after a while she stood up and clumped past him to go into the kitchen.

Through the open hatchway, between the sitting-room and the kitchen, he watched her fill a glass from the tap and drink. She waited, shook her head as if something were sorely puzzling her, and poured out another half glassful of water.

When she returned, there seemed to be a certain uneasiness to all her movements, as if something had suddenly begun to ache. She stared in front of her and ran her fingers through her mouse-coloured, straggly hair, trying to brush it away from her forehead.

‘Señorita, you pay into your account with the Credito Balear certain sums of money in Swiss francs. Will you please tell me the name of your Swiss bank?’

She made no answer.

‘I am afraid I have the power to make you tell me . . .’ He stopped because she was plainly not listening to him and now there was a look of growing fright on her face as if she could see something of immeasurable evil.

‘Señorita, what L the matter?’

She spoke croakily.’ My mouth . . . It’s burning.’

‘Let me get you something to drink.’

She jumped to her feet and ran back into the kitchen and by the time he had reached the door she had poured out a third glassful of water. She drank with such desperate eagerness that water spilled over the edge of the glass and down the side of her mouth. Then, with only a split second’s warning, she vomited.

Sweet Mother of Jesus, he thought, as the record ended with a sweep of violins, she’s been poisoned.

The doctor, a small man with wide-apart, gentle eyes which were contradicted by a sharp nose and pugnacious mouth, said: ‘She died at eight-fifteen this morning.’ He looked tired and he spoke with the bitterness of a man who had fought to the extent of his skill and yet still lost.

Alvarez looked across the consulting room. ‘She was poisoned?’

‘I’m sure the answer’s yes, but obviously no one will know for certain until after the post mortem.’

‘Do you think it was a llargsomi?’

The doctor began to tap the desk with his fingers. ‘I doubt it. I am remembering your original description of the way she had difficulty in swallowing and how she kept saying her mouth was burning. These are not the normal symptoms of phalloidine poisoning.’

‘Then can you suggest what it might have been?’

‘No. You’ll have to wait for the reports.’

‘It must have been strong to have acted so quickly?’ ‘Quick is always a relative term, isn’t it? For her, death must have seemed unmercifully tardy,’ His rate of tapping increased. ‘I’ve seldom seen such suffering and been so powerless to ameliorate it.’ Alvarez shivered.

Bertha Jarmine was known as Bertha the Bitch (although it happened only twice a year to a bitch) and because she was so contemptuous of all standards, even those few which pertained around Llueso, she was disliked and feared by other women. She was said to be as hard as nails and in support of this was told the story of how the day after her second husband died she had given a cocktail-party to six of her strongest admirers to decide who among them would keep her bed warm that night. In fact, she had been seeking solace, not sex. What people failed to understand was that she was both wanton and faithful, self-centred and sympathetic, mean and generous. She might have thought of Caroline with the ridicule that the so-called fallen reserve for the so-called chaste and upright, but she honoured genuine goodness in others as much as she dishonoured the goodness in herself.

She drove, in her battered Ford which was on English plates and which she kept without paying the new tax, to Caroline’s flat which was in a block set in an area of the Port which had managed to combine all that was worst in Spanish tourist development.

Caroline opened the front door. ‘Hullo, Bertha. Come on in. What fun to see you . . .’ She stopped because of the expression on Bertha’s face.

Bertha went in. ‘I’m sorry, Carrie,’ she said, her words crisp but her tone sympathetic, ‘but Mabel died this morning.’

Caroline, always affected by death and still more affected by Mabel’s because Mabel had died as awkwardly and ingloriously as she had lived, began to cry. Bertha put her arm around her and led her into the sitting-room where, being a practical woman, she poured out a large brandy for each of them.

‘But . . . but what was it?’ asked Caroline. ‘It was so terribly sudden.’

‘The word’s going round that she was poisoned,’ replied Bertha. Caroline must inevitably hear the rumour before very long, therefore there was no point in trying to shield her from it.

‘No one would poison her. Not Mabel. Why should anyone?’

‘God knows.’ She opened her handbag - typically, it was very large and of superb quality crocodile skin, yet she treated it as if it were plastic - and brought out a slim gold cigarette case. ‘D’you want one?’ When Caroline shook her head, she lit one. ‘Did you see her at all yesterday?’

‘I went to her home with Teddy on Wednesday, but the detective had just been talking to her and he said she was very upset. We didn’t go in because I thought that if she was so upset it was best to keep away for a bit. . . If only I’d gone yesterday as I thought of going.’

‘It wouldn’t have changed anything,’ said Bertha decisively. ‘Did Teddy find her calmed down when he saw her?’

‘But I’ve just told you, Teddy was with me and we didn’t go in.’

‘I’m talking about yesterday.’ Bertha looked at Caroline with a sharp enquiry which was edged with sadness.

‘Teddy didn’t see her yesterday. He and I were going back there today.’

‘Maybe it wasn’t him who went to her place, then. You know how people out here always get everything mixed up and twisted round.’

‘He can’t have gone there. Why are people so beastly. . .’

‘Look, Carrie, I know you carry his banner high. But you’ve got to realize he’s not everyone’s cup of tea. And if he did see her yesterday, you can’t expect people . . .’

‘I expect them to say the worst they can because they don’t like him. And you know why? They know he was born the wrong side of the railway tracks. Why the hell don’t they start realizing that the time’s now, not fifty years ago? They’d have to change their attitudes fast enough if they went back to England.’

‘You’re not becoming over-fond of him, are you?’

‘What’s that to do with anyone else?’

‘It’s everything to do with you. He could hurt you pretty hard: he’s that kind of a person.’

‘If you can say that, you don’t know anything about him.’

‘I know his type well enough. What he wants, he grabs, and to hell with the consequences. I’d hate to see you get hurt.’

‘I can look after myself.’

Bertha shook her head.

Alvarez looked at the telephone on his desk for several minutes before he finally lifted the receiver, dialled HQ, Palma, and asked to speak to Superior Chief Salas. The secretary with the very refined voice said he’d have to wait because Senor Salas was very busy. While he waited, Alvarez pulled open the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk.

‘Well?’ said Salas rudely, not bothering with any preliminary greeting. ‘Have you at last uncovered the true identity of the dead man?’

‘No, señor. What’s more, there has been a further small complication.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You may remember I previously mentioned the name of Señorita Cannon, an English lady?’

‘Of course. You told me you had every reason to believe she was responsible for poisoning the dead man. Have you arrested her?’

‘No, señor.’

‘Why not?’

‘She has just died. I fear she had almost certainly been poisoned.’

There was a short pause before Superior Chief Salas spoke. ‘Inspector, I must congratulate you! Although I had imagined that experience had left me incapable of being truly surprised by the course of any investigation undertaken by you, you have just managed to astonish me. Would it be too much to ask . . .’

Alvarez reached down for the bottle of brandy.

Alvarez put the key into the front door of Casa Elba and turned it. He pushed open the door and stepped inside. In the gloom, the ghost of the dead señorita chilled him and his ears were assailed by phantom shrieks . . . Sweet Jesus, he prayed, when death comes for me, let it come in kinder guise.

He crossed to the windows, opened them, and pushed back the shutters. The daylight, although not very strong because it was a cloudy day, banished the ghost. He went over to the desk and pulled down the flap. Because she had been so careless about appearances, he had expected to find the interior of the desk in total disorder, but instead there were folders neatly stacked, several bills clipped together, and an account book right up to date. The files were carefully labelled, in copper-plate writing: ‘Current Mail’, ‘Copies’, ‘Bank Statements’, ‘Will’

‘House’, ‘Car’, ‘Spanish Documents’, ‘English Documents’.

The will, in Spanish, had been drawn up by a local solicitor. Originally, everything she owned was left to Geoffrey Freeman. Then a codicil divided her estate between Caroline Durrel and Geoffrey Freeman, with the survivor taking everything. And separate from the will was a copy document, in French, which covered most of a large sheet of paper and at the bottom of which was provision for three signatures although there was no indication of whose these were to be. He tried, but failed, to make out what this was about.

He wondered what her estate was? There presumably was the house and its contents, but how much capital? He opened the folder marked ‘Bank Statement’. Where the statements were not up-to-date, she had noted down all deposits and withdrawals and had kept running totals. There were 46,370 pesetas in the Banco de Credito Balear and 18,116 in the local bank. And on a plain sheet of paper, in her handwriting, she had noted the fact that there were 919,220 Swiss francs now standing to her credit in the Banque de Foch, in Zurich.

Nine hundred and nineteen thousand! How many pesetas to the Swiss franc? There were several papers strewn over the settee and he checked through them and found the local paper in English which gave the rate of exchange as just over twenty-seven . . . Over twenty-four million! He looked round at the untidy room with its tatty furniture and visualized the dead woman in her badly fitting clothes. Who in his wildest dreams would ever have imagined that she was worth over twenty-four million . . .?