Murder Begets Murder (8 page)

‘Will you tell me if you liked her?’

Waynton looked curiously at the detective. ‘I suppose I didn’t really think of her in those terms. She was just an acquaintance.’

‘Then I wonder why, if you were not so very friendly with her, you saw her so frequently?’

‘Isn’t all this very immaterial?’

‘It may be of importance, señor.’

‘Why? Because there’s something odd about her death?’

‘I cannot answer you because I do not yet know.’

‘But you suspect or you wouldn’t be asking these questions?’

Alvarez made no comment.

‘You asked me why I saw Betty as often as I did — it’s because she only had to see me in the far distance to rush over and nobble me.’

‘Nobble you?’

Waynton allowed his irritation to surface. ‘I was introduced to her at a party and I said all the conventional, meaningless things one does and very quickly decided that we hadn’t much in common. Usually if one feels like that the other person does as well, so when you meet you just smile and pass on. But she only had to see me to make a beeline over to wherever I was. It got so I became chary of sitting in the square for a drink.’

‘Do you think she had become very attracted to you?’

‘I knew she wasn’t. Or to put it a bit more accurately, I was convinced she wasn’t.’

‘Then why should she have so insisted on meeting you?’

‘God knows!In the end I came to the conclusion that all she really wanted was someone to talk to. She didn’t get on well with most of the other residents and I suppose I gave the impression of listening sympathetically. To tell the truth, I began to feel rather guilty because if I saw her before she saw me I’d duck out of the way.’

‘What would she talk about?’

Waynton shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nothing much — just to add to the confusion. I’d ask her how Bill was, what the doctor had said . . .And she’d sometimes hardly bother to answer. There’d be long, unpregnant silences.’

‘Did she not speak about other residents who live here?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Can you remember who she mentioned?’

Waynton, reluctant to recall memories of a woman who had died so distressingly, finally said: ‘I really can only remember the last time. I was in the square, waiting for Diana who was late, and Betty came to the table. She started asking who I imagined Diana was out with. She suggested two names and these were quite ridiculous because Diana couldn’t stand the sight of either man/

‘Would you be kind enough to give me their names?’

‘But as Diana disliked them both . . .’

‘Please, señor, their names?’

‘Alex Dunton and Gordon Elliott.’

‘And can you tell me where they live?’

Waynton gave their addresses.

Alvarez finished writing on the back of a crumpled envelope and looked up. ‘One more question, señor. Would you believe that Señorita Stevenage was a woman whose emotions would become very involved with another person other than Señor Heron?’

‘I didn’t know her well enough to answer you.’ Alvarez nodded, then stood. ‘Thank you very much for all your help,’ he said, with formal courtesy.

Alvarez parked his car in front of a squarish bungalow set among the maquis scrub. It was an unimaginative, grace­ less bungalow, made no more attractive, since it was so obviously fake, by the steepled well in front of the patio.

Alex Dunton was tall and thin and he had a creased, lean face which held a raffish air that was reinforced by a golf-club secretary’s moustache. He had the kind of laugh most frequently heard in the saloon bar at a favourite local and he dressed with great attention to detail and impeccable bad taste, often in country checks. Diana’s nickname for him, Provincial Percy, was cruel but not inaccurate.

‘Señor,’ said Alvarez, as he sat down in an uncomfortable chair on the patio, ‘I have to ask some questions concerned with Señorita Stevenage’s death.’

‘So it’s true she didn’t die naturally? Well, it’s not much good coming here. I hardly knew the woman.’

‘But I understand that you were friendly with her?’

Dunton laughed contemptuously.
‘De mortuis nil nisi bonus,
and all that, but give me a bit of credit for taste.’

‘Was she not rather beautiful, then?’

‘Depends how you like ‘em, doesn’t it?’

‘And how do you like them, señor?’

‘That’s a good question! With a bit more
je ne sais quoi
than she’d got, that’s for starters.’

‘Did you see her very often?’

‘You’ve got things all wrong. I didn’t see her at all unless I couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough.’

‘When you did see her, where would this be?’

‘Where? What a damned funny question. Where d’you think? In the street, at the post office collecting the mail on the odd occasion I found the place open . . .’ He shrugged his shoulders.

‘Tell me, did you ever visit the señorita at Ca’n Ibore ?’

‘Now you’re joking! Don’t you understand, I couldn’t stand the woman. Look, all this is a load of cod’s, so let’s have an end to it, right?’

‘As this is a police matter, señor, regretfully you must continue to answer my questions.’

Dunton looked scornfully at Alvarez, wanting to show his contempt for the muddling stupidity of foreigners, but as always he could not prevent himself feeling uneasy in the face of authority.

‘I wonder,’ said Alvarez with quiet curiosity, almost as if he were really putting the question to himself, ‘whether it is not the truth that you knew the señorita a little better than you wish to say?’

‘For Pete’s sake! I hardly knew her, I didn’t like her, and I’m sorry she’s dead but I’m not going to start wearing black because of it.’

‘Then if all that is true, why should she have been so interested in what you were doing?’

‘This is becoming even more bloody daft. She wouldn’t have given a damn if I’d been living it up with a mermaid.’

‘It seems that she did worry, señor. For instance, there was the day when she was very keen to know if you were seeing Señora Carrington.’

‘Like hell.’

‘I assure you, it was so. She became quite excited.’

‘Who have you been listening to? Some of the people out here have got bloody twisted senses of humour.’

‘In this case I think the person was quite serious. Do you know Señora Carrington ?’

‘What if I do?’

‘Perhaps you are friendly with her?’

‘What are you getting at now?’

‘I wish only to discover the truth.’

‘Well, the truth about her doesn’t take much discovering. She’s one highly stuck-up bitch. Thinks herself no end of a
creme de la creme,
but I’m telling you she’s no smarter than the next bit of bint and she’s twice as scratchy.’

‘Señor, are you married?’

‘What’s that to do with anybody else if I am?’

‘And the señora lives here, with you?’

‘Where the hell d’you think my wife’s going to live?’ He stood up. ‘Señor, as you are English that is a question impossible to answer.’

Gordon Elliott lived on the north side of Llueso, in a modernized finca on a hill: from the garden, one could see both Llueso and Playa Neuva bays. He was tall and too thin for his height, so that he looked bean-poley. He might have been considered good-looking but for the signs of weakness in his face, which made him appear perpetually apologetic. By contrast his wife, who was large if not exactly fat, looked as if she hadn’t ever apologized in the whole of her life.

Alvarez, as he stood in the entrance room which was also the sitting-room, explained the reason for his visit.

‘A very nasty business,’ said Avis, in her deep, masculine voice. ‘Of course we can see why you have to check up. So ask away. And do sit down — there’s no extra charge for using the chairs.’

He sat. ‘Señora, I regret, but the questions are for your husband.’

‘I realize that.’

‘Then I think it would be best if I spoke to him on his own.’

Her manner became frosty.

‘Avis, don’t you think it might be best if you left,’ said Elliott nervously.

‘There’s nothing,’ she snapped, ‘which you can possibly say which cannot be said in front of me.’ She stood in the centre of the room, hands on hips. Alvarez smiled patiently.

‘Very well! It’s the kind of thing one expects from this country. I’ll go into the village and do the shopping.’ She left, trailing her sharp annoyance behind her.

Elliott waited until they heard a car door slam before saying: ‘I’m afraid my wife gets a little impatient at times.’

‘It is a woman’s prerogative, señor. . . Now, if we may discuss Señorita Stevenage. She was a friend of yours?’

‘Oh no, not a friend. That is, if you mean someone we knew well and liked to see a lot of.’

‘But you did know her?’

They heard the car drive off. Elliott took a coloured handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead.

‘We knew her to speak to, of course. But nothing more than that. She didn’t go out much and anyway . . . Well, my wife didn’t like her. You must know what it’s like when the ladies take a dislike to someone. You just can’t talk them into being charitable.’

‘Was it, then, necessary to become charitable?’

‘I suppose that’s being very unkind. But Betty was. . .

Well, she was what I’d call gauche. And she did seem to resent so much and she was always being clumsily rude, if you know what I mean.’

‘Did you ever visit her at Ca’n Ibore?’

‘We never went there, no.’

‘I mean you on your own, señor.’

‘Are you quite certain?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Yet one day Señorita Stevenage was very concerned because she thought you might be out with Señora Carrington.’

‘That . . . that’s impossible.’

‘It seems not. Can you say why Señorita Stevenage should have been concerned if she and you were not close friends?’

‘But that’s a terrible inference to make. I hardly knew her and yet you’re trying to suggest . . . ’ He swallowed heavily.

‘Do you know Señora Carrington ?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘How well do you know her?’

‘You’re not going to start inferring anything more, surely to God?’ He stared at the front door again. ‘We just knew her to speak to, that’s all. Avis never wanted to get too friendly because she says Diana’s too fast. After all, she is divorced and she’s always going round with different men.’ He didn’t realize it, but there was now a trace of wistfulness in his voice.

Alvarez was silent for a few seconds, then he said: ‘Thank you for your help, señor.’

Just before Alvarez left, Elliott said urgently:‘You must believe me. I’ve never been out with either of the ladies. In fact, I’ve . . . I’ve never been out with anyone else but Avis since we were married.’

As Alvarez drove slowly down the narrow lane which wound round the side of the hill, he thought about the two men. Dunton was the eternal womanizer. A lot of women would be attracted by his raffish, slap-and-tickle character and he wouldn’t think twice about betraying his wife.

Elliott would think a hundred and ·one times about actually betraying his wife and even to look lustfully at another woman would fill him with worry for fear his wife might find out. But his weakness could provide a challenge to some women and if the challenge were strong enough, Elliott would surely succumb to their blandishments?

Down in the Port, Diana drove along the front to a parking space, then left her car and walked along what had now become a path, closed to traffic, until she came to the jetty from which ski boats were allowed to take off. She saw Waynton in the water beyond the pier giving instructions to a young man. She sat on a bollard and when an ice-cream tricycle came along and stopped she bought a strawberry cone.

The ski boat’s engine started and settled down into a regular rhythm. Waynton gave the signal and the helmsman took up the slack in the ski lines and then knifed the boat through the water. The two skiers came upright and for a short while cut parallel lines through the water. Then the tyro began to lose his balance, tried frantically to regain it but inevitably was flipped over in a flurry of spray. Waynton released his tow bar and sank gracefully down into the water. The ski boat, revs down, circled round.

After a short while the skiers tried again. Waynton was at ease, the other man was clumsy but gaining confidence as he managed to stay upright. They raced across the bay towards the distant shore, fuzzy because of the heat haze.

She finished the cone, pushing some of the ice-cream down with her tongue as she had done ever since a child, so that the last mouthful was not solely one of biscuit. She lit a cigarette. She could, she thought, so easily have said ‘Yes’ in Cala Tellai. What more did she need to know about Harry’s feelings for her, or her feelings for him? To put the question was to know the answer. The memory of Evan and the sad bitterness of a marriage which had started, as all marriages should, in a cloud of excitement and had then deteriorated into dull unhappiness. Evan, she’d discovered only after their marriage, needed to be dominated, not physically but mentally. The facile explanation for this would probably be that it was because his father had died when he’d been very young and his mother had brought him up far more strictly than could possibly have been necessary: but Diana was fairly certain he’d have wanted to be dominated however he’d been brought up.

She’d been amused when, on their honeymoon, he’d kept deferring to her wishes and her opinions and apologizing for his own. That was love. But then she’d discovered, as time lengthened, that it wasn’t love, it was an emotional masochism (for want of a more accurate description) and she had sadly come to despise him be­ cause in her eyes he had become less than a man. And because she had to respect to love, she had ceased to love him: to cease to love him meant she could no longer live with him. He had begged and begged her to stay. She suspected that the marriage had become even more precious to him when he knew that she no longer loved but despised him. In the end, realizing that she would never alter her decision, he had characteristically insisted on settling a large capital sum on her and making this settle­ment irrevocable. The grand gesture of an honourable, if weak, man? Or a masochistic gesture?