The Ambiguity of Murder (7 page)

Salas rang at a quarter to twelve, his greeting as abrupt as ever. ‘Where's your report on the Zavala case?'

‘I haven't sent it yet because –'

‘Of an inability to display even a basic degree of efficiency. Why did you ask for a PM?'

‘Dr Sanz said that in the circumstances one would be necessary…'

‘What are the facts of the case?'

‘It's difficult to say right now –'

‘Because you are the investigating officer?'

Alvarez tried to explain the problems.

‘You really think that if this was not an accident, the murderer would have stayed until after dark before leaving?'

‘There are two other possibilities which could just about fit the facts.'

‘Name them.'

‘The driver called to see Zavala, found him drowned in the pool and panicked…'

‘Someone drove there that late at night?'

‘That is one problem. Another is, if completely innocent, wouldn't he have alerted someone either immediately, or after his initial panic had subsided?'

‘You talked about two possibilities.'

‘The driver wasn't in a panic, but a rage. He had turned into the track leading up to Son Fuyell believing it gave access to somewhere else – despite the name on each gatepost discovered his error, turned – which he could only have done with considerable difficulty – and returned to the road, furious at the time wasted. Drink may have muddled his mind.'

‘Very likely, if a foreigner. Am I not correct in thinking that despite the ambiguous evidence of this car, you cannot say with any certainty that death was not from accidental drowning?'

‘The doctor thought the blow to the head would not have been sufficient to render Zavala unconscious. And why did he fall on to the chair?'

‘You have never stumbled?'

‘Well, yes, but … If he was dazed, when he fell in he would have struggled not to drown; all he had to do was stand up because opposite the fallen chair the water would only have come up to his waist.'

‘Dazed, might he not have stumbled this way and that and ended up falling in at the deep end?'

‘I suppose so…'

‘And, being a foreigner, it will almost certainly be determined that he was drunk at the time of his death. Drunken men have drowned in puddles. So to return to what I said a moment ago, you can offer no evidence to negate the probability that this was an accidental drowning?'

‘A clever murderer always tries to make death look like an accident.'

‘I am tempted to observe that to try to make an accident look like a murder clearly calls for something less than a clever mind.' He cut the connection.

Alvarez replaced the receiver. For the past minutes, Salas had been virtually suggesting there was no cause for further investigation. He had been arguing that there was. Such a reversal of roles normally held was very confusing.

CHAPTER 8

Alvarez slightly altered the angle of the fan in the hope that this would bring greater relief from the heat, settled back in the chair. In a perfect world, criminals would go on holiday between May and October …

The ringing of the telephone awoke him with a start. He wondered who could be such an insensitive fool as to interrupt his siesta? Then he realized he was in the office and it was still morning …

The caller was an assistant at the Institute of Forensic Anatomy. Zavala had died from drowning in fresh water. The blow to the head had not fractured the skull; it was difficult to be certain to what extent he had been affected by it, but it was possible he had been sufficiently dazed as not to be in full control of his limbs. There was one further point. On his throat was a bruise, not visible on the epidermis; connective tissues had been crushed and capillaries and smaller veins torn.

‘Does that mean a really hard blow?' Alvarez asked.

‘It would have been reasonably forceful. But I can't be more precise than that because different people bruise differently from the same force.'

‘Have you any idea what could have caused it?'

‘The shape of a bruise often can't give any indication of the object responsible and that's the case here.'

‘You wouldn't like to have a guess?'

‘Only a vague one and on condition I'm not quoted. It's more likely to have been something with an irregular surface, like a hand, than a regular one, like a cosh.'

‘You're saying it probably was a blow from a fist?'

‘Give you blokes so much as a hint and you're shouting fact! I'm not saying anything of the sort. It might have been a fist, it might have been a hundred and one other things.'

‘When did he get the bruise?'

‘Close to the time of death. But if you're going to ask how close, the answer is, we can't say. When injuries occur about then, it's usually impossible to be certain.'

‘Can't you be more definite about something?'

‘He's dead. I know that for sure because he never said “ouch” when I started slicing.'

Alvarez mentally winced. Medical men had a sense of humour that lacked any consideration for people's susceptibilities.

‘Finally, his blood to alcohol level shows he'd been drinking.'

‘Could that mean he was too far gone to save himself from drowning?'

‘Unless he was unusually responsive to alcohol, no.'

After the call was over, Alvarez very reluctantly came to the conclusion that he would have to phone Palma.

Salas was at his curtest. ‘Yes?'

‘I have just heard from the Institute, re the Zavala case, señor. Death was by drowning in fresh water; the blow to his head did not fracture his skull, but probably left him dazed, adding to the effects of the alcohol.'

‘As I suggested, when he fell into the pool, he lacked the sense to save himself from drowning.'

‘It seems not, señor.'

‘Why not?'

‘He had not been drinking that heavily. So he would surely have acted positively when he fell unless, to quote the Institute, he was peculiarly susceptible to the effects of alcohol.'

‘Was he?'

‘I can't say.'

‘It hadn't occurred to you to find out? Is there anything more?'

‘The postmortem exposed a bruise to the throat. It can't be said with any certainty what caused this, but was more likely to have been something like a fist than a cosh. It's impossible to suggest when the blow was delivered beyond the fact that it would have been close to the time of death.'

‘I cannot remember a previous report in which the investigating officer has been so uncertain of the facts.'

‘That is the Institute's responsibility, not mine. But even as things are, we now have the probability that Zavala received a blow to the throat which caused him to fall and strike his head on the chair. I think we must now definitely treat this case as one of manslaughter or murder…'

‘Which, in view of the evidence, you should have been doing.'

‘Señor, it was you who said earlier –'

Salas cut the connection.

Alvarez altered the direction of the fan yet again. Sweet Mary! if it became any hotter, all life must stop … He settled back in the chair. Had Zavala been murdered or had he died in an accident? The answer, as so often, was probably to be found in a further question – Was there someone who had a motive for killing him?

Could one suspect be the owner of the car Ferriol had seen? He'd identified it as a new Astra shooting brake, dark-coloured. To try to trace it from so broad a description might seem to be as unrewarding a task as to identify a particular grain of sand on a beach. But until recently, shooting brakes had been few because popular regard had associated them with hearses, and even if that no longer held good and they had become more popular, they still could not be called common. If a list of new, dark-coloured Astra shooting brakes was drawn up, it might just be possible to identify an owner who had known Zavala …

Could Karen be the key to motive? An attractive woman who had tried to hide the fact she was married. The English lived strange lives, but it seemed reasonable to suppose that there were husbands who would bitterly resent the fact that they were being cuckolded. Karen was not, as far as he could judge, a very common name so the records of women of that name who held residencias could be searched; photographs could then be shown to Susana …

He congratulated himself. By using logic, he had found how to proceed with the case at no immediate cost of effort to himself. Then he remembered that he had not yet had a word with Lorenzo …

*   *   *

A phone call to Susana at Son Fuyell had determined Lorenzo had not turned up for work that morning, so Alvarez waited until after his siesta before driving to the other's home.

The finca was almost halfway between Cardona and the coast. The unrestored farmhouse – a rarity after the invasion of the foreigners – was surrounded by open farmland. He stepped out of his car and enjoyed the breadth of space, watching a hovering kestrel that suddenly glided away and out of sight, listening to the distant clanging of sheep bells. It obviously was not the best land – the soil was a light grey, stony, and at irregular intervals great slabs of rock reached up out of it – but he would have traded almost all he possessed for the chance to be able to walk into the centre of one of the fields and know it was his …

A man sidled around the corner of the house, his expression vacuous. He was silent. What wasn't said, couldn't harm.

‘Are you Lorenzo Frau?' Alvarez asked.

‘Who wants to know?'

‘I'm Enrique Alvarez, Cuerpo General de Policia.'

Frau cleared his throat.

‘I phoned Son Fuyell and they told me that although you work mornings there, you didn't turn up today.'

‘Damaged me leg last night.' Frau hurriedly massaged his right thigh. ‘Otherwise I'd have been up there, doing the garden, even if there's no saying who'll be paying.'

A dog appeared, long tail held low because it was uncertain how it would be received. It hesitated, then barked at Alvarez.

‘Shut up,' Frau shouted, glad to be able to vent his uneasiness.

The dog backed away and began to pant.

Silence returned. Frau, realizing he was faced by someone as stubborn as he, became more uneasy by the second. Finally, he said hoarsely: ‘What are you after?'

Even now, after he'd forced the other off balance, Alvarez knew that to approach the reason for his visit too abruptly would be to learn nothing. ‘You've a nice place here.'

‘The land's so poor it ain't worth a peseta a hectare.'

‘There's many a German would pay you much more than one peseta.'

‘I ain't selling.'

‘How many hectares are there?'

The question raised in Frau's mind the frightening possibility that he was about to be questioned over the amount of income he declared to the tax authorities. ‘I don't know.'

‘So many you've never found the energy to count them?'

‘There's just under seven, that's all.' Only after speaking did he realize he'd been tricked into making nonsense of his previous denial. Momentarily, his expression of blank stupidity faltered.

Satisfied he'd gained the psychological high ground, Alvarez said: ‘It's too hot out here in the sun. Suppose we move before you tell me what I want to hear?'

‘I don't know nothing about anything,' was Frau's weak riposte. Very reluctantly, he led the way into the house.

The front room had no glass in the window – only a wooden shutter – and the floor was hard-packed earth. Hanging on the walls were several faded, framed photographs of stern-faced men and women wearing Sunday suits and traditional dresses; against the walls were half a dozen chairs, no two of which were of the same pattern; in the centre was a polished brass cauldron in which was a large aspidistra. The lack of any comfort or grace could have been taken as a sign of poverty; Alvarez knew it identified Frau as someone who remembered that to live richly was to die poor.

Frau struggled to work out whether he'd anything to gain by offering hospitality. He came to the conclusion he'd nothing to lose. ‘Juana,' he shouted.

A woman, dressed in nondescript, heavily worn, but very clean clothes, her skin darkened and leathered by the hours spent in the fields, came through the inner doorway. ‘Get some wine,' he ordered. She turned and left.

The dog appeared in the outside doorway, then vanished when Frau cursed it and made as if to throw something. They waited, letting time slide past.

The woman returned with an earthenware jug of wine and two glasses which she put down on the ground by Frau's chair, left, again without speaking.

‘Have you been working long at Son Fuyell?' Alvarez asked.

‘Can't remember.'

‘Were you there when the previous owner was alive?'

‘Couldn't say.'

‘It'll be easy enough to find out.'

Frau said hoarsely: ‘Why are you asking?'

‘To find out if you've known Señor Zavala long enough to tell me what kind of man he was.'

Frau worked on his lower lip with his four remaining front teeth. ‘Is that what you're after? Because of him dying in the pool?'

‘Why else would I be here?'

That was a question he certainly was not going to answer. But his relief was made clear by the alacrity with which he filled the two glasses and even stood to pass one to Alvarez.

The wine was very rough, had an earthy taste, and would have made a connoisseur spit immediately. Alvarez drank it with pleasure because it reminded him of the past when his parents had been alive and life had been so hard that even a glass of wine had been counted a luxury. ‘What did you think of the señor?'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘What kind of man did you think him?'

Frau was very willing to list someone else's faults, even if he found it difficult to put into words exactly what he wanted to say. Zavala had been arrogant, rude, and incredibly ill-mannered; a gypsy from Andalucia would have behaved with more dignity. He'd been stupid – thought he spoke good Castilian when it was South American argot. He'd treated the staff as if they were slaves, demanding they work themselves into their graves for a mere pittance. When he'd been asked for a new hedge-cutter to replace the one that was always breaking down, he'd said that he couldn't afford it. ‘They're all the same, the richer, the meaner.'