The Ambiguity of Murder (25 page)

Fenella's husband had been dying at the time of the accident and because she and Bailey were two people who held loyalty to be one of the supreme virtues – and with bitter irony, had been driven by forces they could not control into disloyalty – then at all costs her husband had had to be protected from learning about his wife's betrayal. Then this had become impossible – had Fenella been so emotionally shocked by the arrest of her lover that her guard had slipped and her husband had guessed the truth? At his trial, Bailey had lacked the image of an innocent man because his conscience named him guilty, not of the girl's death, but of being responsible for Fenella's husband's suffering the truth before he died.

When it had seemed there were three possible suspects, later to become four, he should not have sought to bring the evidence to bear on one of them. From the beginning, he should have realized that the difference in the times between the murder and the sighting of the car suggested the possibility of a fourth suspect (that was, before Algaro had become the fifth), instead of searching for reasons to explain the difference in terms which fitted the theory. And when he had learned the part Algaro had played, he should not have formed a new theory and fitted the facts to that. The old instructor would have had no hesitation in telling him he'd broken or ignored every precept by which an efficient investigation was conducted … But there was consolation to be found in the fact that Salas had been equally ready to accept Algaro's guilt because it seemed so reasonable to suppose him guilty and the facts could be arranged to show he must be.

Then there was the time he'd visited Ca'n Liodre and Bailey had been perfectly willing to answer questions, which one would expect him to be, but had tried to persuade his wife to leave so that she could not be questioned, which one would not expect him to do …

He braked to a halt by the lean-to garage.

They were sitting on the patio, in the shade of the overhead vine. When the dappled sunlight shimmered across Fenella's face as the slight breeze rippled the vine leaves, Alvarez seemed to see a touch of hardness in her face.

Bailey came across the patio to meet him. ‘An official visit?'

‘Yes, señor.'

They crossed to the table. Fenella smiled as she greeted him.

‘The visit is official, not social,' Bailey said.

‘Which doesn't prevent my making coffee and bringing out some drinks before I leave.'

‘Thank you, señora,' Alvarez said, ‘but please don't bother yourself. And I should prefer you to stay here.'

‘I have an appointment…'

‘I am afraid you will have to cancel it.'

Bailey's tone was hard. ‘You are sounding as if this is a very official visit?'

‘That is so.'

‘Surely,' said Fenella, ‘however official, it will proceed more comfortably if you sit?'

He sat and Bailey did the same. ‘Señora, on the second of last month, Señor Zavala drowned in his swimming pool. You visited him that evening…'

‘She did not!' Bailey said fiercely.

‘Your car was seen on the road leading to the valley.'

There was a long pause. Finally, Bailey said: ‘I was driving it.'

‘Your wife was. She was recognized.'

‘By whom?'

‘Someone who knows her well. And do you not remember that you were able to prove you were here at the time of Señor Zavala's death?'

Bailey stared out across the orange grove, his expression one of bitter pain. ‘You've got to understand … How the hell can you?'

‘I am here to try.'

‘You, a detective?'

‘I always hope that first I am someone who knows and accepts life is uneven.'

‘Uneven? Mountainous. When I met Fenella…' He stopped.

‘Shall I tell him?' she suggested.

He shrugged his shoulders.

She spoke in a voice that only occasionally exposed her feelings. ‘We went to a party, both on our own, given by mutual friends. Harry was married to Anne, I was married to James; Anne was in the middle of one of her affairs, James was already a very sick man and I'd wanted to stay at home, but he insisted that my life mustn't become as narrow as his.

‘We were introduced by our hostess with the traditional inane comment that we'd enjoy each other's company because we'd so much in common. Little did she guess!

‘Love at first sight is an overworked cliché, but that doesn't prevent its happening. We fell in love during that one evening. Harry, bewildered by a wife who betrayed him at every opportunity, didn't resist; I did. James had always tried to be a good husband and it wasn't his fault that he'd failed – it was simply that emotionally we were on different wavelengths. So when he fell ill and cancer was diagnosed, I had the awful, totally illogical feeling that in some way I was to blame. This feeling became far stronger when I met someone whom I immediately knew could give me everything I needed emotionally.

‘I refused to have a physical affair for a long time, but as the bible says, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Sometimes, one is overwhelmed and if an angel appeared and pleaded, one would be deaf. But I made Harry promise that all the time James lived, we'd never do anything that could let him guess I was betraying him, even if that meant we couldn't see nearly as much of each other as we longed to do. We were so careful that not even my closest female friend, with whom I've shared so many secrets, had the slightest inkling of what was happening. Then, one evening…' She stopped, turned away so that Alvarez could no longer see her face.

After a pause, it was Bailey who continued. ‘We were returning from a small flat I'd rented when we were harried by a Jaguar which couldn't stand my keeping within the speed limit. He flashed his headlights, then accelerated past, cut in, braked and skidded slightly, hit the girl. I saw her arching through the air – not that I knew it was a body at first – but there wasn't a thing I could do. Then, God help me, my only thought was to get Fenella away so that she couldn't be involved which would make it certain James would learn we'd been together. It's haunted me ever since and it doesn't make a bloody scrap of difference that from the medical evidence it's clear the girl couldn't have survived even if a doctor had been on the spot.' He abruptly stood. ‘I need a drink. I guess we all do.' He went indoors.

‘Inspector,' she said, ‘Harry's very emotional even though he was brought up not to be. He used to become all twisted up mentally when we … we made love, because as much as he longed to do it, he couldn't stop thinking about James. Emotionally, humans can be an awful disaster area.'

‘I know.'

She looked straight at him, her dark eyes searching his face. ‘You've suffered your own storms, haven't you? So you can understand how it was for us, an impossible mélange of pleasure and pain.'

Bailey returned with a tray on which were four bottles, three glasses, and a bowl of ice. He poured out drinks, then sat.

She said: ‘I've explained how things were with us and James. He understands.'

‘Then he's lucky. Most of the time, I can't. How does one explain my running away?'

‘It wasn't like that.'

‘It was precisely that. And that's why I was found guilty.'

‘It was because you made it seem you didn't believe what you were saying.' She turned to Alvarez. ‘He wasn't blaming himself for the girl's death, but for the fact that James had learned about our relationship and was suffering the pain of that knowledge. He maybe subconsciously – I still don't know – wanted to be found guilty and to be imprisoned because his own suffering would then in part atone for James's.'

How accurately he had judged! Alvarez thought. But only long after an intelligent person would have done so.

Bailey emptied his glass, proved his mind was in turmoil when he refilled it without asking either of the other two if they'd like another drink.

‘What happened when you came to this island?' Alvarez asked.

‘We found true happiness,' she answered.

‘But only for a time,' Bailey said bitterly. ‘We'd forgotten that life's always waiting for the chance to kick one in the crutch … It just didn't occur to either of us to connect Guido with the Zavala who'd granted the driver of the Jaguar diplomatic immunity until he started boasting how important he'd been in the Bolivian embassy in London. When we realized who he was –'

She broke in. ‘I couldn't stay there, knowing I was looking at the man who'd made certain my husband died in mental pain as well as physical; had condemned Harry to prison. We came back here. He managed to calm down, because that's the kind of person he is, but I'm not. I said that we had to go and see the bastard and force him to admit what he'd done and why, so that Harry could try to get a pardon and clear his name. Harry wouldn't; for him, the past was the past. I called him a coward, and lots of other names I wish I could forget. In the end, I told him that if he was going to sit down, I wasn't. I drove off, over the limit on emotion, not alcohol.

‘When I arrived at Son Fuyell, no one answered the door, so I went round the side of the house and saw Zavala down by the pool. As I approached, he went into the poolhouse and came back out with a glass which he held up and said, “Diana is reborn out of the foam. What nectar does she crave?” He put the glass down. It was so absurd, so corny, that I just stood there, wondering if this fool really could be the man who had so callously condemned Harry to jail. He'd obviously been drinking enough to think my hesitation was a woman's subtle come-on, that I'd been so smitten by his charms earlier that day, I was hoping he'd now do me the honour of bedding me. He came forward and fondled my arm. The feel was like … Worse than a snake's, and God, how I hate them! I lashed out, not meaning to do anything more than push him away, but caught him on the throat. He lost his balance and fell backwards, cracked his head on the chair, rolled over into the pool.' She became silent.

‘And then, señora?'

‘I grabbed the skimming net and tried to keep his head above water and drag him along to the shallow end, but he was very confused and struggled with the net until he jerked it out of my hands. By the time I could get hold of it again, it was obviously too late. He'd drowned. I panicked. I rushed back here.'

‘You did not try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?'

‘I've just said, I panicked.'

Alvarez turned. ‘And you, señor, waited until it was dark and drove to Son Fuyell, knowing that if he'd been discovered, your arrival wouldn't be seen to be significant, if he hadn't, you'd have the chance to remove anything that might hint your wife had been there?'

‘Yes,' Bailey answered.

‘You brought a glass away?'

‘I thought then it wouldn't be obvious someone else had been present; it would seem he had slipped, hit his head, fallen in the pool, and drowned accidentally. And Fenella couldn't remember whether she'd touched the glass before he put it down prior to touching her; if she had, her prints would have been on it.'

‘Since there were two glasses, how did you know which one to take?'

‘One was clean. Fenella didn't try to hurt him when she hit him, that was a purely instinctive reaction. When he was in the pool, she tried to save him.'

‘I understand.'

‘What happens now?'

‘The law demands I make a full report of all you both have told me and this must mean a further investigation into the death of Señor Zavala. Unfortunately, it must become known that you suffered a criminal conviction in England and prior to that that you and the señora had an affair when both of you were married to other partners. This evidence, because humans haven't learned to enjoy a god's dispassion, may so influence authority that they decide the drowning was no accident…'

‘It was!' Bailey shouted.

‘Please let me finish. Regrettably, there is always a potential for conflict between justice and the law because there is always someone for whom the law will be unjust. Justice demands that the señora is not punished for something she has not done. Yet, as I have just said, one cannot be certain that a court will discard prejudice, that a judge will possess sufficient soul to understand that the confusion in her mind explains her actions when these perhaps seem inconsistent.'

‘You're saying she'll be held guilty?'

‘I am saying that if there is to be justice, there must not be two injustices. You were unjustly held responsible for the girl's death in England. Señor Zavala is dead, it seems very probable that Algaro also is and therefore there is no one left to testify to the truth. Yet you have paid a heavy price. How can that price begin to be repaid except by making certain that no second injustice arises? Only four people know that the señora was on the road to Cardona Valley in the earlier part of that night. You and the señora, the eyewitness whose lips are sealed because a friendship which he values very highly rests on their being so, and me. I have already forgotten what you have been telling me.'

They stared at him, bewildered, knowing a growing hope.

*   *   *

Alvarez drove slowly down the dirt track. Dolores had shown – assuming it had been she who had reduced two tough Bolivian hit men to trembling wrecks – that when a woman was fighting on behalf of those she loved, there were no limits to the methods she would use. So was it not likely that it would be a similar situation when the fight concerned the past rather than the future?

Could Fenella have been telling the truth up until the moment Zavala had fallen into the pool? Then she had picked up the skimming net and used it not to try to save him, but to hold his head under the water until, too dazed by the blow to his head to struggle effectively, he had drowned?… He would never be certain because he did not wish to be.