A Maze of Murders (7 page)

Alvarez searched amongst the sprawl of papers on his desk and found the one he wanted. Lewis had left Sheard's room on the twenty-sixth to move into the Hotel Vista Bella. ‘What is Señor Clough's address?'

‘Son Preda.'

‘That is all?'

‘It is a manorial house a couple of kilometres outside the village and so there is no need for any more. I know that even dirt tracks are being named and signposted these days – will they never cease to find ways of wasting our money? – but I've no idea of the name of the lane Son Preda is on.'

‘Is Señor Clough English?'

‘What other nationality so delights in a language which sunders pronunciation from spelling?'

‘What kind of a man is he?'

‘It is difficult for me to judge since he speaks almost no Spanish and I speak barely any more English and we have to converse through one of my staff. All I can answer is that he is friendly and has a ready sense of humour.'

‘Is he married?'

‘He is.'

‘Any family?'

‘None has been mentioned.'

‘Then that's about it. Thanks for your help.'

‘One moment, Inspector. I should like to ask a favour. Can you indicate whether I might, perhaps, be mistaken when I believe the señor to be a valued client for the bank?'

‘All I know about him is what you've just told me. The only reason I'm asking questions is that, having identified him, he may be able to help me in investigations concerning an Englishman who has disappeared from a boat and is presumed drowned.'

‘An answer that would seem to leave room for considerable ambiguity.'

‘Don't most?'

‘I think I will make a call to head office to confirm that the señor's cheque has been cleared.'

Alvarez rang off, began to doodle on the corner of a sheet of paper. If one were travelling from Port Llueso to Annuig there were two possible routes, one of which went through Torret. Clough had withdrawn a million pesetas the day before Lewis moved into the hotel. Just two more coincidences? The shepherd who found his flock constantly diminishing soon counted the sheep in his neighbours' fields.

*   *   *

Son Preda had been owned by the same family for many generations. It was a large estate which encompassed both rich, fertile land and bleak mountainside. When labour had been cheap, up to thirty men had been employed full time, as many again part time at the busiest periods of the year. It had been almost self-supporting. Pigs, sheep, cattle, mules, goats, chickens, ducks, and pigeons had been reared; oil had been pressed from the ripe olives; figs had been sun-dried for both human and animal consumption; almonds had either been sold and the proceeds used for the few things needed from the outside or turned into turrón for a Xmas treat; cheese had been made with the help of vine leaves; wheat had been milled and the bread baked in ‘Roman' ovens, fired by wood; oranges, lemons, grapefruit, pomegranates, loquats, cherries, pears, apples, tomatoes, peas, beans, cabbages, cauliflowers, lettuces, aubergines, sweet peppers, carrots, radishes, melons, and grapes had been grown; wine had been made; after summer rains, stone walls had been searched for snails; in January or February, shivering men had climbed the tallest mountain and cut out squares of snow which had been stored in the snow house to provide the supreme luxury of cold in the big heat …

Then tourism had arrived. Wages had risen until self-sufficiency ceased to be an admirable objective and became an impossible luxury. The style of government had changed and democratic taxes had been introduced with the declared objective of preventing the rich living off the backs of the poor – as one wag had remarked, before long, the poor were living off the livers of the rich …

But although Son Preda could no longer live in the past, its owner had decided it must survive to live in the future. Fortunate still to be wealthy because he was advised by an expert in identifying tax loopholes, he had invested much money in restoring, altering, and adapting. The land was cultivated by a few men and many machines. The very large, two-hundred-year-old house was carefully modernized and then let to whoever was willing to pay the very high rent …

Alvarez braked to a stop in front of several stone steps leading up to a wooden door patterned with wrought-iron studs and striated by decade after decade of changing weather. As he stepped on to the gravel and looked up at the four-storey building, he was momentarily taken back to his childhood when the owner of such a house possessed an authority little less than God's.

He climbed the steps. On the door was a huge wrought-iron knocker in the shape of a ring hanging from a bull's nose, while set in the stonework to the side was an electric bell push. Ever the traditionalist, he chose the knocker. The sound it made against the wood was the beat of past centuries.

The door, hinges squealing, was swung back and he faced a woman in maid's uniform, who looked as if she didn't need to call for a man if a heavy weight needed lifting. ‘Is Señor Clough here?'

She studied him. ‘And if he is?' she finally demanded.

‘I want to talk to him. Inspector Alvarez, Cuerpo General de Policia.'

‘I suppose you'd better come in, then,' she said bad-temperedly.

He entered a very large hall, somewhat sparsely furnished. She led the way into the room immediately on the left.

He looked around. The furniture was modern, better quality Mallorquin. Above the carved mantelpiece was a painting of a couple in traditional dress, the man playing Mallorquin bagpipes; ranged along the wall on either side were flintlock rifles. In a mahogany bookcase – almost certainly foreign – were a large number of uniformly bound volumes that had the dusty look of books respected but seldom read. On the tiled floor was a large carpet that to judge from the crude patterns and colours had been made in the local factory before it had been forced to close many years before because of the cheaper and more sophisticatedly patterned carpets which had come in from the Peninsula.

He heard a sound and turned to see a man enter. ‘Señor Clough? I'm sorry to bother you, but I wish to ask some questions.'

‘You speak English! A necessary prerequisite to my understanding the questions, let alone answering them.' He was tall, well shouldered, and had a trim waist; his dark hair was thick and neatly trimmed; his face was oval, his eyebrows marked, his nose aquiline, his mouth full and firm, his jaw square; he had a moustache, not so small as to look an affectation, not so overgrown as to be ridiculous. He wore an open-neck shirt and fawn flannels which possessed the quality, which only money could buy, of being both casual and smart.

A man who could be as sharp as he was pleasant, was Alvarez's immediate assumption. Also one who was showing the touch of condescension that so many English did. This caused him no resentment. The man who condescended often failed to look where he was treading. ‘I will try to be as brief as possible, señor.'

‘There's no call to rush. Sit down and let me get you something to drink before you tell me what the problem is. What would you like?'

‘May I have a coñac, please, with just ice.'

Clough left the room, to return with a tray on which were two glasses. He handed one to Alvarez, lifted up the second, put the tray down on a stool, sat. ‘Your good health.'

‘And yours, señor.'

Clough drank. ‘Do you smoke?'

‘Occasionally, despite the doctor's advice.'

‘Ignore that. Doctors spend their lives wrestling with other people's problems so they lead a miserable life and their only relief is to try to make everyone else's life equally miserable. There are cigarettes in the box by your side.'

Alvarez opened the chased silver box, brought out a cigarette, lit this with the small silver lighter to the side of the box.

‘Tell me, Inspector, have I inadvertently broken one of the many thousands of rules and regulations?'

‘Nothing like that, señor. I just need to discover if you have been acquainted with two people.'

‘Their names?'

‘Neil Lewis is the first.'

‘I knew a Mark Lewis, but that was back in England ten years ago and, after he and his wife split up, I don't think I ever saw him again. My wife was very fond of Angela and inevitably during the break-up started seeing things from her point of view, which naturally upset Mark. It's a sad fact that it's virtually impossible to stay friendly with both sides. But then there isn't much room for neutrality anywhere, is there?… All of which has absolutely nothing to do with your Neil Lewis. No, we have not knowingly met anyone by that name, although I can't say for certain because at parties one is never quite sure whom one has met.'

‘He was on holiday in Port Llueso and on Thursday night disappeared from a boat anchored in the bay. There's been no sight of him since, so it has to be presumed that he drowned.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that. Couldn't swim, I suppose. It really is quite extraordinary how many presumably intelligent people set sail on boats without a second thought when they can't swim a stroke.'

‘I understand he was a strong swimmer.'

‘Then why did he drown?'

‘That is a question I am trying to answer.'

‘I'm sorry, but I can't help you … What made you think I might have known him?'

‘He arrived in the port in the middle of last month and had very little money, yet eight days later booked in at one of the more expensive hotels and chartered a motor boat.'

‘The Midas touch.'

‘On the twenty-fifth of last month, you paid a large sterling cheque into your bank. On the same day, you withdrew a million pesetas in cash.'

‘The cost of living is like the arrow of time, it has only one direction.' His tone sharpened. ‘Am I allowed to know how you became cognizant of these facts?'

‘When we can show this to be necessary to a major investigation, we have the right to ask a bank to breach the rules on customer secrecy. Surely the police have a similar right in your country?'

‘Of course. But how could there be such a necessity when, as I've just said, I have never knowingly met the unfortunate man? In any case, since when has an accidental drowning been rated a major crime?'

‘As I have suggested, there is the possibility that the señor's death was not the result of an accident. Until all the surrounding facts are known, it will not be possible to be certain.'

Clough said: ‘It seems we have something of a Catch-22 situation. You are required to show that a crime has been committed in order to gain permission for the disclosure of bank account details; you demand the details of an account in order to establish there has been a crime.'

‘What did you do with the million pesetas?'

‘What does one normally do with money?'

‘Even today, such a large amount…' He stopped as the door opened and a woman entered.

She came to a halt just inside the room. ‘Julía said we had a visitor from the police…' She became silent.

Clough rose. ‘Inspector Alvarez. Inspector, my wife.'

Belatedly, Alvarez remembered that the English had the strange habit of coming to their feet when a woman first entered the room and he hastily stood. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you, señora.' Since experience suggested that the richer the husband, the younger and more glamorous the current wife, he was surprised by the fact that she was roughly Clough's age, far from glamorous, and dressed for comfort, not effect.

‘Do sit,' Clough said. ‘Standing raises one nearer heaven, but can be hell on the legs … Vera, the inspector is asking if we know a Neil Lewis. I've told him, the only Lewis we've ever known is Mark and it's years since we last had contact.'

She settled on the settee. ‘Why … What's happened?'

‘This Lewis has fallen from a boat and has to be presumed drowned.'

‘Oh, no!'

Alvarez was surprised by the degree of her distress.

Clough, his tone one of ironic resignation, said: ‘As you can judge, Inspector, every man's death certainly diminishes my wife! In fact, she suffers other people's misfortunes more than her own.'

Her manner had seemed to suggest a more than general concern over a tragedy that had overtaken a stranger; Clough had been very quick to explain away her reaction. ‘Señora, I have to try and find out how and why it happened.'

‘Of course,' she murmured.

‘Perhaps you won't mind helping me?'

‘I'm curious,' Clough said. ‘How can my wife begin to help you when she has never met the unfortunate man, hasn't been on our boat in the past fortnight, and was last in Llueso several days ago?'

‘Sometimes, señor, a negative can be useful.'

‘Then you'll undoubtedly find what she has to say very useful indeed!'

Alvarez turned to face Vera. ‘Your husband has told me that he does not know anyone by the name of Neil Lewis…'

Clough interrupted him. ‘I said,
we
do not.'

‘You are quite right, señor. However, I should be grateful if the señora would confirm that she has never met anyone of that name.'

After a moment, she said, in a low voice: ‘No, I haven't.'

‘Have you ever met a man called Albert Sheard?'

‘No.'

It had been a much stronger denial.

‘Who is Sheard?' Clough asked. ‘Was he also aboard the boat and has disappeared, to be presumed drowned?'

‘Last night he was riding a Vespa when he was knocked down by a car and died from his injuries.'

‘Very soon, you'll have my wife inconsolable!'

‘It's all so terrible,' she said.

Her words had lacked emotion; it was as if they had been spoken to her husband's cue. ‘Señor, did you know Albert Sheard?'

‘No. Have you the slightest reason for thinking either of us might have done?'