A Question of Motive (7 page)

‘I am.'

Would Gill have told her the true situation?

‘Have you any more ridiculous, horrible suggestions?'

He longed to say ‘no'. ‘I'm afraid that if he could never have committed suicide, it's possible he was deliberately killed.'

Her face expressed shock. ‘Christ!' Her voice rose. ‘Isn't it cruel enough that he's dead? Now you come and say someone may have hated him so much, he was murdered. How could anyone hate so horribly?'

‘If it is the truth, I will find out.'

‘Why don't you know the truth?'

‘If I were clever, perhaps I would.'

‘I . . . Please, take me down to the bay again.'

They were seated at a table set out on the sand, a straw south-sea sun cover providing shade. In front of her was an as yet untouched glass of Maquis Murietta rosado, in front of him an empty glass. He checked the time. ‘I'm afraid we should move if you have an early lunch.'

‘Normally, it's at one,' she answered.

‘For us, that is early.'

‘I'm not hungry.'

He was. ‘Will your meal be waiting for you?'

‘No. I said I didn't know what I wanted and would tell them when I decided.'

‘Shall I ring your home and ask them to prepare whatever you choose?'

‘Luisa is away with Pablo; Eva hasn't learned to cook.'

‘That's unusual.' To talk might briefly blanket memories and fears. ‘But probably not so much these days. Cooking is a skill, good cooking, a skill presented by the gods. The young no longer are prepared to take the trouble to learn the art; they do not understand a happy marriage comes with a contented husband. Why bother to cook when one can go into a shop and buy something frozen which merely has to be put into a microwave? That it tastes of nothing does not worry them.'

‘Luisa is a good cook.'

‘A pity you did not suggest what you might like so that she could prepare it.'

‘She and Pablo are away this morning,' she repeated.

‘Of course.'

She drank briefly. ‘Do you like Chinese food?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You mean, you've never eaten it?'

She was not as depressed as she had been when they arrived. The magic of the bay was working once again. ‘I live with my cousin and she regards with uneasiness all foods which aren't traditional to the island or the Peninsula.'

‘Then you have the chance to find out if you do or don't like it. Have a takeaway lunch with me.'

‘Today?'

‘You sound alarmed.'

He was. Recently there had been a programme on television which had shown people eating in a Shanghai restaurant. Live snakes had been brought to the table, the host had chosen which he wanted, and it had been decapitated, skinned and cooked. What else might there be in a Chinese meal? Rats, puppy dogs' tails . . .? ‘Lunch with you would be very pleasant, but unfortunately I have to return to the office quite soon. Perhaps some other day?'

‘I'll hold you to that.'

Alvarez called a waiter and paid the bill. They walked across the sand to the roadway and his parked car.

He opened the front passenger door as, so he had been told, did an English gentleman.

‘Are you sure you have the time to take me home?' she asked.

He smiled. ‘Are you prepared to walk?'

‘I can get a taxi.'

‘Not when I'm here to drive you.'

He braked to a halt in front of Aquila.

‘Thank you for everything, Enrique.'

‘It has been nothing.'

‘Don't be silly. But for you, I'd still be sitting and looking at the television and not knowing what was showing . . . Enrique?'

‘Yes?'

She hesitated. ‘Just friends.' She hurried into the house.

Alvarez sat at the table and poured himself a reviving brandy. ‘D'you reckon lunch is about ready?'

‘She's not here,' Jaime answered.

‘How d'you mean?'

‘Cooking a meal for some old biddy who can't do it for herself.'

‘What about us?'

‘That's what I asked. Got my head bitten off, told I didn't know the meaning of being charitable.'

‘It shouldn't mean having to starve.'

‘Not exactly starve. She's left something warming in the oven for us.'

‘You could have said.' He poured a good measure of Soberano. ‘It's all very well leaving the food warm, but it won't be as good as if it had just been cooked.'

‘You think I don't know that?'

‘Not like her to expect us to eat a poor meal.'

‘Tell her so yourself.'

‘You're in a sharp mood.'

‘Got reason, haven't I? Ignoring what I want.'

‘Wives never worry about that.'

‘How would you know?'

‘Seen it happen often enough.'

‘Well, it doesn't happen in this house.'

Alvarez wondered if Jaime, considering what went on his house, was joking. It seemed he was not. ‘It's been an annoying morning,' Alvarez said.

‘Never anything else for you.'

‘I've been asked to identify a man who no one's seen.'

‘So he's invisible.'

‘Santos – he's the gardener at Aquila—'

‘Think I don't know that?'

‘Trying to sound like the superior chief? Santos was up on Barca and heard a fierce row going on below. One bloke was the señor, the other a Mallorquin. I've been ordered to identify him. Since Santos never saw him and couldn't tell who it was from the voice, how the hell am I supposed to do that?'

‘Wouldn't know.'

‘According to Santos, the argument was about birds. The señor had said that someone was after them on his land, and it seems likely that's who he was cursing for poaching. But how am I supposed to find out who was after the thrushes?'

‘Thrushes?'

‘That's right.'

‘How d'you know that?'

‘I don't, but that's what the señor said to Santos. I suppose the señor saw a net or maybe a load of feathers.'

‘So how would he know they came from thrushes?'

‘There are a lot of people who can tell the make of a bird from its feathers.'

‘Not difficult if it's a peacock. Catching thrushes is illegal these days.'

‘Quite.'

‘I like 'em. Can't understand why they were made illegal. No one says you can't catch sparrows.'

‘Ever heard of anyone wanting to eat one?'

‘No.'

‘Then it'll be because they taste lousy.' Alvarez drank. ‘How can I be expected to identify an unknown man with no description, nothing to single him out from a thousand and one other men?'

Jaime spoke reminiscently. ‘Thrushes weren't in danger of becoming extinct. It was the EU made 'em illegal. I'd make the EU illegal. I bought three thrushes a while back. Cost the earth. Brought 'em back and said she could cook 'em for supper. You know what? I had to wait until you was out for supper, and so they weren't real fresh.'

‘Why did I have to be away?'

‘Since they were illegal, you couldn't eat one.'

‘I'd have said it was a delicious partridge.'

‘You can't keep quiet and would have said as how you hadn't enjoyed thrush for a long time. You'd know I'd broken the law and might have reported me.'

‘She said that?'

‘Yes.'

‘Women can't think straight.' Alvarez had enjoyed thrushes when they could appear on the menu. He sadly remembered how Dolores had cooked them to perfection and made a memorable sauce to go with them. He could almost conjure up the exquisite taste in his mouth, but since he couldn't succeed, he suffered frustration. How could she have let them forgo the pleasure of such a meal in the stupid belief he would report anyone? Irritated incomprehension then gave way to curiosity. ‘You bought them? From whom?'

‘Why d'you want to know?'

‘Because he might be the man who was netting in Barca and had a furious row with Señor Gill.'

‘What if it was?'

‘He might be able to help me.'

‘You think he'd want to?'

‘I won't be arresting him or anything stupid like that. I just want to know who it was so I can ask him about the señor. I'd make it clear all I sought was information.'

‘Can't remember who it was.'

‘Try harder.'

Jaime drained his glass. ‘I'm telling you, I can't remember.'

‘You're a poor liar.'

‘You think I'm going to rat on him?'

‘I've explained . . .'

‘Didn't hear.'

‘Becoming deaf as you grow older?'

‘That's right.'

‘But not disinterested.'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘I saw you in the square a week ago.'

‘What if you did?'

‘You were having a friendly chat with someone.'

‘If you mean . . . I was at school with her. We just met by chance and were chatting about the old days.'

‘And the old days were fun for her and you? I suppose you mentioned meeting her to Dolores?'

Jaime didn't answer.

‘I suppose that, even if it was just good friendship, it's better if she doesn't know and get the wrong idea. By the way, have you remembered the name of the seller of the thrushes?'

‘Are you saying that if I don't tell you . . .' Jaime's sense of outrage became so great that he could not finish the sentence.

Alvarez shrugged his shoulders.

Jaime refilled his glass. ‘Now I know why Santiago said you could be a real bastard.' He drank, put the glass down on the table. ‘Lorenzo Velaquez. And I hope he tells you to go to hell!'

Isabel, followed by Juan, hurried into the room. She went to switch on the television.

‘Let it be,' Jaime said.

‘It's my favourite programme,' she protested.

‘They all are.'

Juan switched on the television.

‘Didn't you hear?' Jaime demanded.

‘It was her you told, not me.'

‘Trying to be a smart little—' He stopped abruptly as Dolores came in from the entrada.

She faced him. ‘What were you about to call our son?'

‘Nothing.'

‘You think him to be nothing? I bore nothing, nurtured nothing, have to defend nothing from a father who can think only of himself?'

‘You don't understand.'

‘My misfortune is that I do.' She stared at the table. ‘You have both eaten?'

‘Not yet.'

‘Because you have not finished drinking?' She went through to the kitchen, soon reappeared. ‘The meal is ready. Since you have already drunk too much to judge what you eat, it is Albóndigas de patata y carne.' She returned to the kitchen.

‘Why won't she understand?' Jaime moaned.

And why can't you realize, Alvarez thought, that a wise man never argues with a woman, he lets her go on talking nonsense.

There was a call from the kitchen. ‘You can come through and collect things.'

No one moved.

She came out of the kitchen, a filled plate, knife and fork in her hands. She sat at the table.

‘What about us?' Jaime asked.

‘You will eventually decide whether or not to eat.'

‘But . . . You always put everything on the table.'

‘That I have not done so now proves you wrong.'

Alvarez reluctantly went into the kitchen. She had not even put out plates and cutlery for them. Something very serious had disturbed her. Jaime's unspoken description of Juan seemed too insignificant to warrant going on strike.

He carried his plate to the dining table, refilled his glass with wine and ate. The meatballs were admittedly tasty, but they would surely have been tastier had she taken the trouble to cook them and serve them immediately.

Dolores addressed Juan and Isabel. ‘Like your father, you consider me to be the maid?'

Unlike their father, they had learned to read the danger signs. They hastily went into the kitchen.

‘I met Julia in the village,' she said when she had finished her meal.

‘Because you couldn't disappear quickly enough?' Jaime suggested.

‘You are careless that she is a friend?'

‘The last time you mentioned her, you called her a stupid cow.'

‘I never descend, as do you, to the language of the gutter.'

Juan and Isabel returned with their meals.

Dolores spoke to Alvarez. ‘She mentioned she saw you earlier today.'

‘Fortunately, I didn't see her.'

‘She asked if you'd lost your job.'

‘As rudely curious as ever.'

‘She could not understand why you were sitting at one of the tables on the beach when you should have been working.'

‘I was.'

‘Then it was not you who was drinking with a young woman with auburn hair and an unfortunate injury to her face?'

Jaime smiled broadly, happy to see Alvarez suffer as he had done.

Juan said, ‘Was she one of uncle's . . . What does daddy call them? Buns?'

‘It is time for you and Isabel to go up for an afternoon's rest,' Dolores said.

‘I remember now.'

‘You did not hear me?'

Juan stood. ‘One of uncle's tarts.'

‘You are making me very angry.'

Juan, followed by Isabel, hurried upstairs.

Jaime said: ‘Now I know why Enrique was working on the beach. She was very difficult to persuade.'

‘You find it necessary to expose your crudity?' Dolores asked.

‘That was being amusing.'

‘As my mother used to say, a man finds his amusement where a lady will not tread.' She turned to Alvarez. ‘This woman is a foreigner?'

‘English.'

‘Younger than you?'

‘By several years.'

‘It appeals to your vanity that she should drink with you?'

‘I wouldn't say that.'