Relatively Dangerous (9 page)

Alvarez spoke with astonishment. ‘Would I be here, on a day this hot, attending the funeral of a man I never knew, if I were not?’

‘How do I know what anyone on this crazy island will do?’

‘Your papers, please.’

‘Look, I’m here for a funeral. That’s all.’

‘Of course. I would still like to see them.’

Taylor reached across to the locker and brought out of this a heavy-duty plastic envelope which, sullenly, he passed across.

Alvarez briefly checked the insurance papers, yearly licence, and photostat copy of a Spanish driving licence. ‘Your name is Michael Taylor and your address is Calle Llube, number fifteen, Puerto Llueso?’

‘That’s what written down.’

‘Do you know that you should have with you your original licence and not a photostat copy?’

Taylor did not answer.

‘Do you have a residencia?’

‘Yes. And to save the question, it’s at home.’

‘You should carry that with you as well.’

‘Look, if I did everything the law demands, I’d be schizophrenic’

‘Why have you come here this morning?’

‘I’d have thought that was obvious, even to you.’

‘Señor, I can quietly ask questions here, or I can demand that you come to the nearest guardia post where I’ll ask them rather more loudly.’

Belatedly, Taylor realized that his sullenly provocative attitude was hardly a sensible one. ‘I came to the funeral.’

‘You knew Señor Thompson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know him well?’

‘No.’

‘Yet you have come all the way from Puerto Llueso to attend his funeral?’

‘I reckoned there ought to be someone here to see him buried.’

‘Then you knew there would not be anyone else—how?’

Taylor shrugged his shoulders.

‘Was it because you were aware that he was being buried under a false name?’

‘I met him a couple of times and that’s it. I’ve no idea what his private life was about.’

‘When did you last speak to him?’

‘I don’t really remember.’

‘How did you know the funeral was to be today?’

‘Someone said it was.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t remember whom.’

Alvarez stared at the ground for several seconds, then looked up as he stepped back. ‘Thank you for your help, señor.’

Taylor was clearly surprised, and relieved, at this sudden termination of the questioning. He engaged the starter again and this time the engine fired. He drove off, the engine emitting the typical high-pitched scream.

Alvarez returned to the 600. He sat, switched on the fan. Sweet Mary, but it was hot!

Dolores poured out a second cup of coffee for Alvarez, then went over to the doorway and shouted to Juan and Isabel that if they didn’t get a move on, they’d be late for school. Safe from immediate chastisement, Juan replied that he didn’t care.

‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ she grumbled, as she returned to the table. ‘When I was young, I wouldn’t have dreamt of speaking to my mother like that.’

‘When we were young, things were very different.’

She recalled a life so hard that in comparison with the present it seemed as if her memory must be playing her false. Had there really been times when her parents simply could not properly feed the large family; had there been so much fear on the streets that only a fool ever said what was in his mind?

He spoke slowly. ‘If only some of the things which were worthwhile had not been destroyed along with so much that was bad.’ It might be utterly futile, but nothing could prevent his regretting the present lack of inner discipline and inner pride which together had kept a poor man’s head held as high as a rich man’s.

She was unconcerned with these aspects of past and present; not for her the problems which lay outside the family. ‘No matter, I’ve no time to stand about and chatter, like a cluck hen. And you ought to have left for work half an hour ago.’

‘Would you have me kill myself from overwork?’

She laughed scornfully, picked up a duster, left and went through to the dining-room. He drank the coffee and thought about Taylor. It was easy to mistake most emotions, but surely sorrow was difficult to misread. Taylor had been sorrowing. Then the relationship between himself and the dead man had surely been son and father and it had been he who had paid for the funeral . . .

Twenty-five minutes later, he telephoned Cantallops from the office.

‘Where did the money come from?’ said Cantallops. ‘Where the hell d’you think?’

‘Was it paid in cash, by cheque, or by bank draft?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Then go and look.’

Cantallops swore, put the phone down. When he next spoke, he said: ‘It was transferred direct into my account.’

‘From which bank?’

‘I don’t know. You’ve more damn questions than a dog’s got fleas.’

‘Which, I can assure you, are no less irritating. Will you give me your authorization to find out from your bank where the money came from?’

‘If I have to.’

Calle Llube had, twenty years before, been the last road in Puerto Llueso; now there stretched beyond it one large urbanization, completed, and a second one under construction. It was a road of one-floor buildings, all with simple,

bleak exteriors in which the only hint of beauty was in the window-boxes filled with flowers. However, behind their road fronts there was considerably more space and comfort than a casual observer would have thought; some had enclosed patios in which grew flowers and, occasionally, orange trees.

Alvarez stepped through the bead curtain of No. 15 and called out. A short, fat woman with an ugly but humorous face came into the room. He asked to speak to Taylor.

‘He’ll be at the restaurant.’

‘But he does live here?’

‘Rents the two rooms at the back.’ She indicated with a quick wave of her pudgy hand the far side of the patio. ‘Lives there with his woman.’ She spoke with open disapproval. Had he been a Spaniard, let alone a Mallorquin, she would never have let him stay in her house with a woman who was not his wife.

‘Where’s the restaurant?’

‘D’you know Las Cinco Palmeras?’

‘Along the bay road?’

‘That’s it. Bought it and spent a fortune on it, by all accounts, but it’s still not open.’

‘Has he been with you for long?’

‘Since last summer. Look, is something the matter?’

‘It’s only a question of papers.’

She was relieved—everyone had trouble with papers— since she liked the two of them, even though they weren’t married.

He left, drove down to the front and then round the bay to the restaurant. He parked by the side of the patio and climbed out. Behind the buildings were marshland and farmland, some of it incredibly under the Philistine threat of development, which stretched to the encircling mountains; in front was the bay. The perfect site.

A few chairs and tables were stacked to one side of the nearest palm tree; the main door of the restaurant was shut and there was a notice in English and Spanish which stated that the restaurant would be opening at the end of the month. He walked round to the back. The battered Citroen van that he’d seen at the cemetery was parked near a shed. A woman was hanging up chequered tablecloths on a long line and when she saw him she dropped a tablecloth into the bucket and came across. ‘Are you from the builders?’ she asked in inaccurate, but understandable, Spanish.

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Blast!’ Exasperation forced her into speaking English. ‘I suppose that was much too much to ask for since it’s only this morning they promised once again to come immediately.’

He said in English: ‘We have a saying. A man waits for death and the builders and only death knows which will arrive first.’

‘Oh, you understand! Then it’s a good job I kept to ladylike language . . . Your saying suggests it’s not only the foreigners who suffer.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I know it shouldn’t, but that cheers me up a bit . . . If you’re not the builder, who are you and how can I help?’

He told her.

She said curiously: ‘Mike should be back any moment. He just nipped into the port to buy some paint . . . Is something wrong?’

‘I need to ask him a few questions.’

She was about to say something more when they heard the puttering of an approaching Vespino. ‘That must be him now.’

Taylor entered the yard and braked the Vespino to a halt, cut the engine, drew the bike back up on its stand, picked out of the wire basket a four-litre tin of paint. It wasn’t until he was a third of the way across that he recognized Alvarez; when he did, he came to a stop. Noting his expression, Helen’s curiosity and perplexity changed to sharp concern.

‘Good morning, señor.’

‘What d’you want?’ Taylor asked belligerently. To see my driving licence because the law says a photostat copy isn’t good enough even though I couldn’t have one if I didn’t have the original?’

‘To ask you some questions concerning two hundred and fifty thousand pesetas.’

He hunched his shoulders, as he might have done if expecting to have to ward off a blow.

‘Mike . . .’ began Helen.

‘Look, love, suppose you take the van and find the builders and use all your charm to jerk them into some action?’

‘But surely you phoned them only an hour ago . . .’

‘Just go, eh?’

‘No, I won’t.’ She walked forward until she could grip his free hand in hers. She had no idea what was wrong, but whatever was the trouble, she was going to share it.

‘Perhaps it would be more pleasant if we sat down?’ suggested Alvarez.

Taylor looked as if he were obstinately going to refuse to move, then suddenly changed his mind. After releasing his hand, he led the way into the restaurant which was reasonably cool, thanks to the open windows and the slight sea breeze. The tables and chairs had been stacked to one side, leaving three walls clear for painting, and after putting the can down, using more force than was necessary because violent action was one way in which he could release a little of his bitter anger, he moved out one table and three chairs. He sat, deliberately not waiting for them.

Helen, in an attempt to neutralize his all-too-evident antagonism, said to Alvarez: ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Thank you, I would very much. Do you have a coñac?’

She went through to the kitchen, to return with a tray on which were three glasses, one with a drink in it, a bottle of 103, and a soda siphon. She put the tray on the table, turned to Alvarez. ‘I’m sorry, but we haven’t any ice at the moment —the wiring of the kitchen is one of the things we’re waiting to have done so neither of the refrigerators is working. It makes me wonder what on earth people did with food in the heat in the old days.’

‘There was an ice factory in Llueso and each morning two mule carts brought ice down to the port for the iceboxes.’

‘You’ve lived here a long time?’

‘Long enough to remember the ice-carts, señora, but I wasn’t born at this end of the island.’

‘When you first came to the port, it must have been quite small?’

‘There were the few big houses on the front which belonged to the rich in Palma, one hotel, two or three shops, and many fishermen’s cottages.’

‘But no memento shops, or tourist bars, or discos . . . It must have been so lovely.’

‘Lovely for the rich,’ said Taylor. ‘While the poor could always feast on the scenery.’

‘Mike,’ she said, worried.

‘What you suggest is true, señor,’ said Alvarez pacifically. ‘There was much for the few, little for the many; now that has changed, but so has the life. Who can say which is the better?’

‘The poor sods who didn’t have anything then, but do now.’

‘I suppose you are right. And yet . . .’

‘Spiritually, so much has been lost?’ she suggested.

‘Crap!’ Taylor said crudely.

‘Mike, how can you be so certain that it’s always better if the many benefit at the expense not only of the few, but also of the quality of life?’

‘Because I’ve no time for an elitist society unless I’m one of the elite.’ He finally poured out two brandies. ‘Soda?’ he asked Alvarez curtly.

‘No, thank you.’

He added soda to his own drink. ‘All right, we’ve sorted out the problems of the world; now let’s sort out yours. What’s bugging you if it’s not my bloody driving licence?’

‘Did you pay two hundred and fifty thousand pesetas to Señor Cantallops for the funeral of Señor Thompson?’

Helen exclaimed: ‘So that’s why . . .’ Abruptly, she stopped.

‘No,’ said Taylor loudly, I didn’t.’

‘Perhaps I should explain that I have spoken with the manager of the Banco de Bilbao in Fogufol and with the manager of the Caja de Ahorros y Monte Piedad de Las Baleares here, in the port.’

‘Then why in the hell ask?’

‘Why did you pay for the funeral?’

Ts there any law to say I can’t?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then it’s my business.’

‘Señor Thompson was travelling on a false passport when he died. Now, I have to find out his true identity. Was he your father?’

Taylor drained his glass, poured himself another, and larger brandy, added soda, drank.

Alvarez produced a pack of cigarettes and offered it; Helen shook her head, Taylor ignored him. He lit a cigarette and waited with the timeless patience that marked his peasant background.

After a while, Taylor said: ‘All right, he was my father. Steven Arthur Taylor. One of the Taylors of Chelton Cross, not that you’d get any of the present bunch willingly to acknowledge the fact.’

‘Will you tell me about him?’

‘Why not? It’s amusing in a banana-skin kind of way and it can’t hurt him any more.’

His family had been county, large landowners for generations; conscious of their position, yet equally conscious of the obligations this raised. It had become smart to sneer both at the squire and the subservient tenant, but when the system had been in the hands of honourable people it had worked well for both sides; better to touch a forelock than to starve in a town stew. (Taylor’s tone expressed the dichotomy of emotions he felt; he admired the squires for what they’d done, held them in contempt for what they’d been.) But time had, as always, demanded change. When Steven Taylor was born, the land remained but the respect had to be earned and did not come as a by-product of the acres.