The Ambiguity of Murder (20 page)

As Alvarez entered the kitchen, Dolores said: ‘I shall never understand how men can be such fools.'

He slumped down on the chair by the table.

‘They drink until they boast what great hidalgos they are, then act like cockroaches when their heads ache and their stomachs revolt.'

‘Do you mind?' he murmured plaintively.

‘I mind very much. You will remember what happened at lunch?'

He struggled to recall the past and failed.

‘Clearly it is nothing to you that I slave all morning to cook the meal! It is not even of passing account that I sacrifice my life trying to please. Being a man – and sometimes, as now, something less than a man – you are only concerned with yourself.'

He struggled to stem the flood. ‘I never stop thinking how wonderful you are. I respect you…'

‘I will remind you how much you respect me. So much that when I serve Bacalla a la Mallorquina – cooked to perfection – you say it looks like yesterday's Ous de Soller and laugh at such wit!'

It was impossible he could have acted so crassly.

‘So! So despite so gross and ignorant an insult, I shall not stop cooking because a woman's life is determined as a burden and she cannot escape her fate. But mark this well, Enrique Alvarez. Never again will I seek a special dish, never again will I work myself into an early grave to cook it, since those who will eat are incapable of appreciating what I have provided. Your chosen pleasure is to swill yourself stupid and to mock.'

‘You can't understand…'

‘It is you who has to understand that I am no longer prepared to be a slave.' Head held high, she crossed to the bead curtain and passed through it.

The coffee was cold. There was no coca, not even a stale slice. His head was thumping like a runaway engine and the taste in his mouth had worsened. The present was bleak enough, but if Dolores held to her threats, the future was going to be unbearable.

*   *   *

The receptionist in the hospital suggested that a doctor with a name like Canal was probably Dr Canellas. Alvarez walked along a couple of corridors and sat down on one of the chairs set outside the consulting room. His thoughts became ever bleaker. Dolores, prone to exaggeration, often threatened trouble, but seldom wrought it. Yet this time, she had sounded like someone determined to carry out what she said. If only women possessed a developed sense of humour …

The nearest door opened and a nurse looked out. ‘Inspector Alvarez.'

He stood, carefully. He entered a room that contained an examination bed, equipment that would have scared him had he looked at it and imagined its uses, and a desk at which a doctor sat. He introduced himself.

‘So what's your trouble?' The doctor visually examined Alvarez with professional interest.

‘There's nothing wrong with me.'

‘No?'

‘I need to know if someone is a patient of yours and if he is, to find out something.'

‘You are asking me to ignore medical confidentiality?'

‘No, of course not. The problem isn't medical. It's whether you can confirm a certain person consulted you?'

‘Who is he?'

‘Señor Jerome Robertson.'

Canellas's manner changed and became more friendly. ‘That name sounds familiar.' He turned to the nurse. ‘That's right, isn't it?'

She giggled.

‘Inspector, without breaking any confidences, I can confirm that he is one of my patients, despite his frequently expressed opinion that I am no more competent than many of my colleagues on the island.'

‘Did you see him on the second of this month?'

‘It is quite probable. He is a frequent visitor.'

‘Would it be possible to check?'

Canellas spoke to the nurse. ‘Check through appointments for the inspector.' He looked at Alvarez. ‘I'm a very busy man.'

Alvarez accepted the curt dismissal and stood. He had hurriedly to reach for the back of the chair for support.

Canellas studied him with renewed interest. ‘Are your hands beginning to shake? Do you find you're having difficulty in balancing?'

‘I just tripped over my own feet.'

‘Because you are unable to lift them?'

‘Nothing like that. Thank you for your help.' Alvarez hurried out of the room. Were his hands beginning to shake from time to time; was he occasionally having difficulty in balancing; had his feet become clumsily heavy? Had the doctor discerned the symptoms of some fatal illness which until then had been hidden from himself? He could have asked. But it would have needed a braver man than he to do so.

The nurse stepped out into the corridor. ‘Señor Robertson had an appointment on the second of the month.'

‘At what time?'

‘Seven-thirty. But I remember that the doctor was held up by a sick patient and he could not see Señor Robertson immediately. The señor complained about that. Even for a foreigner, he is a rude and arrogant man.'

‘How long d'you think he had to wait?'

‘Not nearly as long as he said. Perhaps half an hour.'

‘And he would have been in consultation for maybe another half-hour?'

‘Probably a little less than that.'

So now the only suspect was Algaro.

CHAPTER 22

On Saturday morning, Salas was in an ill-tempered mood. ‘You realize the import of what you're saying?'

‘I think so,' Alvarez replied carefully.

‘You are admitting that in the course of a month you have failed to reach any firm conclusion.'

‘It's not quite as long as that…'

‘You would quibble over a single day?'

Superiors could be pedantic; juniors could not quibble. ‘Señor, the time has not been wasted.'

‘That is a matter of opinion. You are convinced Zavala was murdered and did not drown by accident, but cannot produce a single piece of evidence to substantiate your claim. You name Algaro the murderer, but cannot prove that this is so.'

‘The trouble is that so many of the facts are ambiguous…'

‘Ambiguity resides in untidy minds.'

‘But it's proved impossible to be certain about so many things. What happened to the glass that went missing from the poolhouse? Was it moved because it had fingerprints on it? Or was it previously broken because it had been accidentally dropped, yet Inés did not know this? Is she even correct in saying that it went missing that day? It's easy to be wrong about such things.'

‘Who can be in a better position to remark on that?'

‘Then there is the bruise on the dead man's throat. The medical evidence is that this was occasioned with no great force so it could have been accidental. And there can be no certainty that the wound to the head occurred after the blow to the throat…'

‘Do you intend endlessly to discuss each piece of evidence?'

‘I'm trying to explain why there's so much ambiguity.'

‘Yet despite this, you are prepared to name Algaro the murderer?'

‘If Señor Zavala was murdered.'

Salas sighed heavily: ‘Comisario Hornas once said to me that after speaking to you for only a couple of minutes, he began to lose his grip on reality.'

‘He found great difficulty in understanding Mallorquin customs…'

‘Hardly to be wondered at.'

‘There are many on the Peninsula which seem strange to us…'

‘Kindly refrain from pointless digressions.'

‘Señor, we will know if Señor Zavala was murdered when we question Algaro. There was clearly an unusual relationship between him and Señor Zavala, perhaps explicable only if…'

‘You will not indulge in unwholesome speculation.'

‘Whatever form this relationship took, it continued after Señor Zavala left the diplomatic service and came to live on this island. Whether there were many or few meetings between the two men, we don't know, but we can be certain that there was one at which Señor Zavala, notoriously fiery-tempered, became very angry. A bitter disagreement provides a further motive for murder. Prolonged and detailed investigation – which, as you will know, always takes a great deal of time – has convinced me that none of the three initial suspects murdered Señor Zavala. This leaves only Algaro. When we have questioned him about the relationship and the cause of the row, we will, I am certain, identify his motive. Then, when he cannot provide an alibi, we will know he murdered Señor Zavala.'

‘I don't think I have ever before listened to such a chain of illogical presumptions. You claim that because there was a row, Zavala's death must have been murder; because it was murder, the row was obviously bitter enough to confirm motive.'

‘I don't think that's quite what I was saying, señor. Perhaps if I go over the facts in more detail…'

‘God forbid!' Salas said before he cut the connection.

Alvarez settled back in the chair. There were times when the world was grey merging into black. Supper the previous night had been no more than an apology of a meal, yet Dolores had rubbed salt into their wounds by asking them if they'd enjoyed it. Naturally, they'd replied that it had been delicious – one did not jab a fighting bull in the ribs – at which she had said that that was good and she would cook more meals like it. After she'd cleared the table and was washing up, Jaime had leaned across the table and in a whisper said it was all his fault and just what in the hell was he going to do about the impossible situation? To which, of course, there could be no answer …

He was about to leave to go to the Club Llueso for a much needed merienda when the phone rang. Inexplicably, he answered the call instead of ignoring it.

‘The superior chief,' said the superior chief's secretary in her plum-laden voice, ‘has asked me to inform you that a communication has been received from the Bolivian embassy in London. I shall fax this to you as soon as this call is over. When you have read the information, you are to ring the superior chief, before midday since he has to leave the office to attend an important conference. Is that clear?'

‘Yes, señorita.'

He did not have time to say goodbye before she rang off. Life was ever unfair. When you were a superior chief, you could stop work early in order to enjoy an extra round of golf; when you were a mere inspector, you had to work all hours even on a Saturday.

He went downstairs and collected the fax, did not bother to read it before leaving the building and making his way to the club, where, at the sight of him, the barman poured out a large brandy and set a scoop of coffee in the machine.

He sat at an empty table. Saturday lunch was usually a feast, but today it might be no more than they had had the previous evening; it was conceivable that it might even be worse …

‘Cheer up,' said the barman as he put a cup of coffee on the table, ‘you may be dead by tomorrow and then all your troubles will be over.'

He drank most of the brandy and tipped what remained into the coffee, took the glass to the bar for a refill. ‘Drowning your sorrows?' said the barman.

‘Eating them.'

He returned to the table and drank the second brandy, and a little of the greyness lightened. He remembered the fax and brought the creased sheet of paper out of his pocket. Rojas Algaro had ceased to work at the embassy and had returned to Bolivia. Records showed he was unmarried and his last known address was in Sucre.

The next paragraph had been headed ‘Confidential' and the word had been underlined twice.

There had never been any suggestion of a homosexual relationship between Zavala and Algaro and the former's reputation was as a ladies' man. However, Zavala had granted Algaro diplomatic immunity when the latter had seemingly been involved in a serious traffic offence in Halfchurch. Questioned about his action, Zavala had stated that Algaro had come to him and sworn that he knew nothing about the fatal accident and that the other driver was lying; had appealed for his help in escaping what would be a terrible miscarriage of justice. Believing Algaro to be truthful, Zavala had decided to do what he could, which had been to act beyond his authority. When his action had become known, the matter had been referred to the ambassador who had held that in the circumstances, publicly to admit that a senior member of the embassy had lied in order to protect an employee from criminal action would reflect such dishonour on the embassy, and therefore the nation, that this could not be allowed. No denial of diplomatic immunity would be issued. The ambassador's ruling had caused considerable disagreement, but had had to be accepted. He had ordered both men to hand in their resignations.

Some months later, two women on a flight from La Paz were stopped at Heathrow airport and searched; each was found to be carrying cocaine internally. When questioned, both had refused to name any of their contacts. Later, however, in the hopes of obtaining a lighter sentence, one of them had claimed that until recently their contact had been an employee at the Bolivian embassy. When the embassy was notified of this allegation, they had issued a very strong denial. However, one of the chauffeurs, reprimanded for insolence to a Peruvian visitor, said that Algaro had been engaged in the drug trade. No proof of this assertion had been uncovered.

Drugs. The key that unlocked the puzzle. And how right he'd been to suggest that Zavala had been murdered by Algaro, following the row at Son Fuyell! He emptied his glass, stood, crossed to the bar and asked for a refill.

‘It's lucky we're not suffering a crime wave,' said the bartender.

*   *   *

Alvarez drummed on the desk with the fingers of his right hand as he waited, receiver to his left ear. How did he play the scene? Arrogantly, pointing out that in the face of so much doubt, he had been right to persevere? Tactfully, accepting that because there had been lack of hard proof, it had been right not to agree that the possible was probable? Delicately, offering the view that when circumstances seemed to paint one picture …