Dead Clever (13 page)

Juan, a rebellious look on his face, collected up the plates as clumsily as he dared. Isabel jeered at him and he called her a name which made her cry out with rage and then inform her mother of what had just been said. He stoutly denied the allegation before inadvisedly adding that he’d never heard the word before.

Alvarez left the house and drove down to the port; he parked in front of the Regina. The concierge had returned home and only the night receptionist was at the desk. He turned and looked at the numbered boxes. ‘The señorita’s key isn’t here, so she must be in the hotel.’

‘Will you try her room and if you get through say that Inspector Alvarez is here and would like a word with her.’

There was no answer to the call. ‘She’s maybe still in the dining-room or having coffee outside. Shall I find out?’

‘Thanks, but I’ll look for myself.’

The dining-room overlooked the bay and the favoured tables were those next to the windows; she was sitting at the corner one. He began to cross the room, threading his way between the tables, when the head waiter stopped him and demanded to know what he wanted in a tone which reminded him that he had forgotten to change his shirt that morning and it was some time since his trousers had boasted a crease. ‘Cuerpo General de Policia. I want a word with señorita Collins.’

The head waiter’s manner became very correct and courteous. The señorita is over at that table, seated by herself.’ He led the way across.

‘Miss Collins?’ Alvarez asked in English. He introduced himself.

She studied him, then said: ‘We’ve met before, haven’t we? You were at Patrick’s place earlier on.’

He had expected her eyes to be hard, but they were large and brown and all he could see in them was warmth. ‘Yes, I was.’

‘And you want to speak to me now?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

‘But what on earth about?’ She smiled briefly. ‘But you can hardly tell me without speaking, can you? Look, I’ve finished eating so it’s time for coffee. Let’s go outside and have it there.’

Outside the hotel there was a space, covered overhead, of about three metres before the pavement and here tables and chairs had been set out for guests. Two were vacant and she chose the nearer one. Once settled, she said: ‘I love sitting out here at night. I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere more lovely.’

‘And it used to be even more beautiful.’

‘Before all we nasty tourists arrived? Sometimes it must be awful, seeing strangers take over your land and changing it so. But there are some compensations, aren’t there?’

‘A few.’

‘But you’d cheerfully forgo them all if time could be turned back?’

Honesty compelled him to say: ‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s really one of those unanswerable questions, isn’t it, not least because one knows time can’t be turned back . . . How wonderful to be rich and noble in the old days and to have every wish tended to by an army of servants; but that’s to forget the toothache which drove one half-mad and the appendicitis that was a death warrant. As someone once said, happiness is accepting life as it is, not as it was or will be.’

A waiter came up to the table and she said: ‘What would you like?’

‘Allow me, señorita. I will have coffee solo; do you prefer it like that or con leche. And perhaps you will have a coñac?’

‘Coffee with milk, please, but I don’t think I’ll have a brandy.’

He spoke in Mallorquin and ordered two coffees and one brandy. The waiter left. ‘señorita, I . . .’

‘I’ve been told that it’s always Christian names on this island; mine is Serena.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘But you obviously prefer to keep things on a formal footing?’ She studied him, a slight frown on her forehead. ‘Why? Have you decided you don’t like me?’

‘It’s not my position either to like or dislike you.’

‘How boring!’ She rested her elbows on the table and her chin on the upturned palms of her hands. ‘You should know something. I can read people’s true characters, however hard they try to conceal them. That is because my mother came from La Verry, in France. Have you ever heard of the village?’

‘No.’

‘Verry is a corruption of verite. The town was given its original name in the sixteenth century because some of the women claimed to be able to see the truth that lay in men’s hearts. The Church objected to the idea, perhaps on grounds of self-interest, and held that such women were bewitched; several were burned at the stake. But even that dreadful fate couldn’t stop the gifts from being handed down through the generations, albeit for a time they were unwelcome and feared gifts. My mother traced her ancestry back to the sister of one of the poor women burned at the stake in fifteen-sixty-one; that is why I can see people for who they really are and not for who they would like others to think them.’

She had spoken quickly and almost recklessly, as if careless about the quality of her words; he thought that this was because she was so eager to distract him from the reason which had brought him to the hotel.

She continued: ‘So I can be certain that far from the stern, hard-faced man you wish to present, in truth you are warm-hearted, compassionate, and friendly. Admit it—am I not right?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘You’re embarrassed to have your good points exposed? You’d rather be vilified as someone ice-cold and heartless?’

He had to smile.

‘That’s better! I’ll tell you something more about yourself. You should smile much more often; although, of course, it’s a complete give-away. When you smile, no widow will ever believe she’s about to be turned out from hearth and home.’

‘Señorita . . .’

‘Again? Despite all I’ve said?’

‘I’m afraid that my visit is an official one so it is necessary to be formal.’

Her expression changed and she looked past him, as if vainly seeking a way of escape.

‘I must ask you certain questions.’

‘About what?’

‘Señor Green.’

She nibbled her lower lip. ‘I . . . I can’t tell you anything about what happened.’

‘I believe that you can.’

She opened her handbag, with some urgency, brought out a silver cigarette case and lighter, and lit a cigarette. Only then did she think to offer him one by pushing the case into the middle of the table. She stared out across the road at the beach.

‘Whereabouts on the island is Señor Green now?’ he asked quietly.

‘He’s dead.’

‘He is not dead and you know that he is not.’

‘Oh God! . . . I’m not nearly as clever as I thought. If you can talk like that, I couldn’t begin to see the truth in you. Warm-hearted, compassionate, friendly? You’re beastly cruel.’

She stood and left so suddenly that by the time he had come to his feet she was well clear of the table. He watched her go into the hotel, then sat once more. It had been a very difficult part to play and she had not been quite good enough an actress to play it successfully; at the beginning she had been too determinedly carefree, at the end unable to shed tears when these were called for.

The waiter brought the coffee and the brandy. Alvarez slit open both packets of sugar and poured the contents into one cup. He sipped the brandy. He wished that he weren’t such an emotional fool that now he felt guilty because he’d forced her to realize that the attempt to fake Green’s death had failed. He wondered how much more guilty he would feel if—or was it really when?—he had to convince her that Green had murdered in order to try to preserve the fraud?

Dolores looked across the kitchen. ‘What’s the matter, Enrique?’

He jerked his attention back to the present and the bowl of hot chocolate and the large slice of coca in front of himself. He crumbled some of the coca and dropped the pieces into the chocolate. ‘Nothing.’

‘But you’ve not spoken for ages and have been staring into space.’

‘I was thinking.’

‘About what?’

‘Nothing, really.’

‘About a woman?’

‘No. At least, not in the way you’re thinking.’

‘Does a man think of a woman in any other way?’

‘My problem is, how do women think about men?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘But it is. How would you react if I told you that Jaime had either found or paid a woman to dress in a garter belt, black stockings, and long black boots, and to whip him?’

Her expression was shocked. ‘Not Jaime,’ she whispered.

Belatedly, he realized that she had misunderstood him. ‘Good God, I’m not suggesting that Jaime could ever do anything like that.’

Her shock turned to relief, her relief to anger. ‘How dare you mention such disgusting things! If you were Juan, I’d scrub your mouth out with bleach.’

‘If I were Juan, I wouldn’t yet know enough to ask such a question . . . But this sort of thing goes on.’

‘Perhaps. But I don’t wish to hear about it.’

‘In my job, unfortunately I can’t get rid of something by simply refusing to hear about it . . . Please help me. I’m asking you because you’re so normal and nice.’

At this compliment, her expression of angry distaste lessened slightly.

‘If I had said that Jaime had asked a woman to do that, would you believe me?’

‘Never!’

‘Yet when I first mentioned it, you immediately thought . . .’

‘Be quiet. You’ve no idea what I thought.’

‘All right, I’ll accept that. But try and believe it was possible. Would you then do what you could to understand why it had happened?’

‘Never!’

‘Would you forgive him?’

‘Never!’

‘If it were not repeated, would you forget?’

‘Never!’ she exclaimed for the fourth time, even more forcefully than before.

‘Not if it wasn’t his fault because his desires were so great they were beyond his control?’

‘No man’s desires are beyond his control. If he acts like a beast, it’s because he wishes to be a beast.’

‘Just for the moment, I won’t argue over that . . .’

‘There is no argument.’

‘Then suppose a woman can’t hide the truth from herself and so she has to accept the fact that her man has got another woman to whip him; but she can forgive and forget. How would you describe such a woman?’

‘As one without shame.’

‘And perhaps as a woman who might prove to be not all that adverse to administering a whipping?’

‘Enrique, how can you say such filthy things in this house?’

‘Because I need to be able to judge whether she is deliberately blind, extraordinarily forgiving, or as perverted as he.’

‘I know nothing about any of that. I only know that your superior chief should be told that he has no right to ask you to handle so disgusting a case.’

He nodded, as if agreeing with her, spooned some of the sodden coca out of the chocolate and ate it. He accepted that she had expressed her feelings exactly and was grateful for her help. But he recognized that she had lived all her life in a small, narrow-minded community to which outside ideas had only recently reached and her reactions were those of someone to whom moral right and wrong had been sharply defined by background and upbringing. It could be different for someone who came from a sophisticated milieu and had been conditioned since birth to accept that there were occasions or circumstances when for some, yet not for others, moral right and wrong could have different boundaries or even none to separate them, that judgements had to be partially objective and not wholly subjective.

He left the house ten minutes later and drove to the bottom of Calle Juan Rives, turned right, and almost immediately right again which brought him to one of the bridges across the torrente which, at this time of the year, was dry and a handy dumping ground for rubbish. Beyond the bridge was the Laraix road which led into the main Llueso/Puerto Llueso road.

He reached the Navarros’ finca and as he braked to a halt he saw a figure working in the field. He shielded his eyes with his hand and recognized Elena. In that case, Miguel must either be out of danger or dead.

He left the car and walked between rows of French beans, then staked tomatoes—although still growing bush varieties, more and more people were staking them—to where she was using a mattock to plug and unplug the irrigation channels. ‘Everything’s looking even better than before.’

‘It’ll do,’ she answered, using words which tradition decreed since they did not offend the gods, either through presumption or ingratitude.

‘Does your being back here mean that Miguel is better?’

She was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat; she turned her head until she could look up at him and her expression was worried because she could not decide how best to answer the question.

He said: ‘Watch the water.’

The main irrigation channel was wide and it allowed a flow of water strong enough to flood a side channel in a short time; because she had briefly not watched what she was doing, the water was now beginning to spill over the banks. Hurriedly she unplugged the next side channel and plugged up that one; to waste water in the middle of the summer was unforgivable.

‘So how is he now?’

This time she did not look up and because of the brim of her hat he could see nothing of her face. Nevertheless, he was quite certain that her expression was now one of grim and dogged determination. He watched her dam and undam two more channels as she laboured with an economy of movement and energy that came only with years of toil and he remembered how his mother had worked in exactly the same way. ‘Elena, I’m not going to harm him. If that were what I intended, I’d have told the guardia to search the island and sooner or later they would find him. Then, he’d never be able to convince them of the truth. I haven’t even reported the tragic death of Carlos because if that is to be done without arousing suspicion, it can only be done by Miguel when he is fit enough and can say there has been a tragedy at sea . . . What I need to do right now is to talk to him and to hear from him that he and Carlos were not running drugs.’

‘No Navarro would ever touch drugs.’

‘But I have to hear that from him.’

She looked along the rows to see how many more channels needed water, then said: ‘Turn off.’