Troubled Deaths (23 page)

‘I think you are a person who hurts too easily.’

‘I suppose so.’ She sighed. ‘Ted sometimes calls me a naive idealist who doesn’t know how much ideals cost. . . I often wonder where he read that.’ She smiled once more. ‘Now I’m being beastly to him. It’s not my day, is it?’

‘How is he?’ he asked, not giving a damn.

‘The same as ever,’ she said, and there was now a strained note in her voice.

He looked at the kitchen door. ‘Let’s go and see if we can beg a cup of coffee to drive away the rain.’

‘But they’re out.’

‘Of course.’ He was irritated by his own stupidity. But when he looked at her, more beautiful than a field of wheat ready for harvest, he became stupid.

‘I wish he weren’t so terribly stubborn,’ she said, breaking the silence.

She desperately wanted to talk about Anson, he thought. And because every word she spoke would hurt and because he had so many sins to try to expiate, he must listen and suffer. ‘Señorita, will you come and have coffee with me in the village? It would be a very great pleasure for me.’

‘All right. . . I mean, I’d love to.’

If Anson had asked her, she’d have been thrilled. But in the name of reason, why should she be thrilled when a near-pot-bellied, middle-aged detective asked her? He watched her pat the dog and promise that she would be back next Monday, and tried not to think of the depths of affection she would have for the man she loved. He went with her to her car and held the driving door open and the smile of thanks she gave him was like a knife.

In the square there were two empty parking places adjoining and they drew into these. He saw her out of her car and then led the way into the Club Llueso. The bartender looked at Caroline with obvious appreciation, but when Alvarez glared at him he hastily assumed a blank expression. Alvarez showed her to a table and then returned to the bar. ‘Two coffees.’ He hesitated, then added: ‘And two coñacs.’

He sat down opposite her, by a window which looked out on to the steps leading up to the raised section of the square. She opened her small leather handbag and brought out a pack of cigarettes, which she offered. Once her cigarette was alight, she said, a far-away look in her eyes: ‘Teddy’s so stubborn, I could kick him. I’ve argued and argued, but I might as well have saved my breath. And I used to think . . .’

‘You used to think what, señorita?’

‘I used to think he was really modern. But he’s as old-fashioned and stick-in-the-mud as my grandmother’s clock - which never worked.’

The barman brought over the coffees and the brandies.

‘I thought that perhaps you would like a coñac with your coffee?’ said Alvarez.

She nodded, but it was clear that she wasn’t really paying any attention to what he said. ‘I asked him who the hell worries about security these days? There isn’t any for anyone. But he went on and on about how I must be so careful and how we’d have to wait and see what happens. There isn’t the time to wait.’

He poured a brandy into his coffee, added a spoonful of sugar, and stirred.

‘In the end I told him I’d just move in with him.’

A small fire of hate built up in Alvarez’s mind.

‘But he wouldn’t hear of it because we aren’t married. In this day and age! Half my married friends aren’t married.’

He was shocked that she could talk like this.

She fiddled with her cigarette. ‘He won’t marry me because he hasn’t any money and he won’t get any money until he’s a partner and he won’t become a partner because he hasn’t any money. He won’t take what I’ve got and see if Ramon would credit him with the remainder, especially if I went and worked in the office to help with the paperwork. He won’t live with me because he says we’ve got to be married first . . . I could brain the stubborn man.’ She suddenly looked at Alvarez with surprise. ‘I can’t think why I’m talking to you like this, as if you were my favourite uncle.’

At least, he thought, she hadn’t said her father. ‘Sometimes, señorita, it is easier to talk about events that worry you to someone who is a stranger.’

‘But you’re not a stranger, you’re a friend.’

‘Señorita, you are very kind. It is a great honour to be your friend.’

She smiled warmly. ‘I love the way all of you are so emotionally kind. If any islander can help someone who’s in trouble, he will. I know for certain that if I came to you for help you’d give it to me, if you possibly could.’

‘Of course.’

She sighed. ‘If only I could.’

‘Could what, señorita?’

‘Ask you to knock some sense into his thick, thick skull,’ she said fiercely, then laughed. ‘Oh well, that’s more than enough of all my troubles. I never used to bore everyone with them, so I can’t think why I do now.’ She drank, finishing her coffee. ‘I suppose I’d better get moving because I said I’d call in and see Betty. The poor woman’s fallen and broken her hip so she can’t get around anywhere and not very many people are calling in to see her.’

He vainly wished he could find the words which would hold her, even for just a little longer.

‘Goodbye,’ she said, and stood up. He followed suit. ‘I should have said, Until the next time, shouldn’t I, not goodbye?’ She smiled and left and her manner made it clear she did not want him to accompany her back to her car.

He sat down, looked at his empty cup, then at his smoking cigarette, which he stubbed out. ‘Let’s have the same again,’ he called out to the bartender, ‘but don’t worry about the coffee this time.’

‘One large coñac coming up.’

The barman brought the brandy to the table. ‘A lovely woman . . .’

‘She’s a lady and you’d better not bloody well forget that.’

‘Sure,’ said the barman and, thinking that you could never really trust a policeman, he returned to the bar.

Alvarez drank and very soon his glass was empty. ‘Bring me another,’ he ordered.

‘Are you sure, Enrique? It’s still only the afternoon and the last time you got pissed in the afternoon you asked me never to . . .’

‘I’m not asking, I’m telling you. Bring another large coñac.’

‘One large coñac,’ said the barman morosely.

Alvarez lit another cigarette and was hardly aware of the precise moment when the brandy was brought to the table, although after a while he reached down for the fresh glass and drank the contents. She didn’t belong to the modern, hard, selfish world: she needed an age of soft elegance and wide compassion . . . Yet it had been she who had suggested an affair and Anson who had rejected the idea. How to understand that? How could she love Anson? He might have some qualities which one could eventually learn to admire, but he’d never have the wit or subtlety to appreciate her as completely as he should. Who could ever imagine him buying lamb chops to feed the dog because it was the Blancos’ day off. . .?

Sweet Mary! he suddenly thought.

He looked at his empty glass. Was he drunk, so that his mind was a maze of nonsense? But since when had a mere three brandies affected him?

It was totally impossible! He couldn’t still be wrong. But the dog had barked and howled. Monday was the Blancos’ day off. Matilde had not cooked the supper even though it had been a Thursday . . .

Orozco was dressed in torn sweater, patched trousers, and the cheapest kind of work shoes made from old tyres and canvas uppers. He faced Alvarez across the entrance hall of his house and waited with stolid patience.

‘I thought I’d come and have a word with you,’ said Alvarez.

Orozco continued to stare.

‘Is there somewhere where we can sit?’

They went into the kitchen. There was a stone sink, fed by a single cold water tap, a bread oven fired by wood, a butane cooker, a wooden table, a cupboard, and two chairs. They sat, on opposite sides of the table.

‘You fought in the war,’ said Alvarez finally. ‘You left the island an idealist and like all the other idealists you had your idealism shot away and by the time it was over you’d discovered only four things in life were really worthwhile: a hole to shelter in, water to drink, food to eat, and a friend for his friendship.’

‘That’s right,’ said Orozco.

‘A real man will always fight for what he knows to be essential. So you’d kill for possession of a hole, a filled water-bottle, a hunk of bread, or to protect a friend.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Who is your friend?’

Orozco shrugged his shoulders.

‘He doesn’t have to be someone who fought on the same side, does he? Just someone who fought, who felt death pass close by, who realized that the real cowards in any war are those who started it and keep it going with words. Luis fought for the other side. Maybe you even faced each other across no-man’s-land and shot, hoping to kill. But that didn’t make you enemies, that made you friends.’

Orozco stood up and walked over to the cupboard. He opened the right-hand door and reached inside to bring out a half-filled litre bottle, unlabelled. He put this down on the table. ‘D’you want some?’

‘I’ve drunk too much already this afternoon.’

‘Only a ten-year-old who pisses his pants talks like that.’

‘I’ll never see forty again, so pour me one.’

Orozco went over to the sink and brought back two glasses. He dried them on a dirty cloth, pushed one glass and the bottle across the table. Tour your own.’

Alvarez half-filled his glass. ‘The dog barked that first Thursday night. Barked and went on barking and howling. I reckoned it was kicking up a row because Señorita Cannon was creeping about the place, but she used to fuss it and feed it and if it had seen her it would maybe have barked a couple of times, but no more. So who was it barking at?’

Orozco poured himself out a drink.

‘It was barking at Señor Freeman. He hated the dog and the dog hated him.’

They drank.

‘Why didn’t Matilde cook supper that night as it was a Thursday? Her day off was Monday. So why wasn’t she there to cook the señor his esclatasangs after she’d checked them to make certain there wasn’t a Uargsomi among them?’

Orozco had already emptied his glass. He refilled it.

‘Who knew she wasn’t going to be there, so that a llargsomi could be put in among the esclatasangs and wouldn’t be noticed since the Englishman would be doing his own cooking and he didn’t know one from t’other? Señorita Cannon couldn’t have known Matilde wasn’t there and so she could never have believed she could poison the señor with a llargsomi.’

They were silent for a while. The room was beginning to darken so that Orozco’s face, which was against the light, was no longer sharply featured.

‘You had a row with the señor that Thursday. What was it about?’

‘Seeds.’

‘Don’t be so bloody silly,’ said Alvarez, as he gave himself a second drink. ‘The Englishman had laid on a big seduction scene so that Señorita Cannon would walk in in the middle of it and be so shocked and disgusted that no one would be at all surprised when she committed suicide. It all worked out to begin with. Señorita Cannon was shocked and disgusted and did rush off in a hell of a state. But the other woman was also in a state and he hadn’t reckoned on that. Veronica demanded to be taken back to her hotel, which left him very frustrated . . . I suppose he’d had his dirty eyes on Matilde for quite a time?’

Orozco muttered something.

‘He was the kind of man who thought that just because he was rich and she was poor, she was fair game. So since Veronica had left him high and dry, he’d make do with her . . . She told you that afternoon that she’d had to fight him off, didn’t she? And you promised her you’d deal with the trouble?’

‘Luis had asked me to look after her,’ said Orozco in a harsh voice.

‘So how did you go about dealing with the situation?’

‘I spoke to the señor in the garden. Understand this, I was polite, even though he had behaved like a dog which has scented a bitch. “Please,” I said, “do not try to be friends with Matilde. She is married to Luis and is a good wife and it upsets her very much to be treated as a whore.” He shouted and swore at me. Said it was no business of mine and to keep my dirty nose out of it if I wanted to keep my job.’ He slammed his clenched fist down on the table. ‘He spoke to me as if I were not fit to be spat on.’

‘What happened next?’

‘I saw Matilde and I told her I had spoken to the señor. I did not tell her how he had answered, but truly I thought he would now keep away from her because no man could act so shamefully as not to.’ He slammed his fist down on the table again and the glasses rattled. ‘I was here, eating, when Catalina from the store on the corner of the road came and said there was a telephone call for me from a woman who sounded very upset. I knew then what had happened. I ran to the shop and Matilde told me he had come again to the kitchen and had tried to kiss her and his hands began to tear at her dress. She cried to him to leave her alone and prayed to the Virgin Mary and when he became so busy pulling off her dress she escaped and ran up to her bedroom and locked herself in. I told her I would go to the house and take her to her cousin’s. When I went with her to her cousin’s, I told her it would never happen again.’

‘Because you were going to kill him?’

‘I did not tell her that,’ he said simply.

‘Why did you not just get in touch with Luis? Then he could have taken her away from the house and there would have been no need to kill.’

‘Listen. Luis is much older than her and she is beautiful so always he keeps his eyes open in case a young man comes visiting. Hasn’t it always been so with old husbands?

Suppose she had said, “The señor chased me twice and the second time he tore off my dress before I could escape”? Luis would have asked himself, why did the Englishman chase her once? And why did he return a second time even though she says she fought him off the first time? Did she perhaps not fight hard enough? Has she smiled at him because he is rich and young and her blood is hot? Is the truth this, that they have spat on my bed?’

‘He wouldn’t have begun to think like that if he really loved her.’

Orozco spoke with angry sarcasm. ‘So how big a fool can a policeman be? Do you think an old husband with a young and beautiful wife doesn’t look at each young man who comes near her and wonder? If Matilde had told Luis everything, he would have listened and believed today. But tomorrow there would have been a little worry in his mind, and the next day that little worry would have become a big one. And he would accuse her and she would swear by the Holy Mother that she had never smiled at the Englishman and he would believe her and all would be all right. Until the next day when there would be a little worry in his mind and as he stroked her breasts he would wonder if the Englishman had stroked them with warmer hands . . . Luis is my friend. I cannot let him suffer this.’