An Artistic Way to Go (20 page)

‘For those sweet words, I'll pour doubles.' He rolled up the canvas, slipped it just inside the doorway of the far room. ‘I mentioned coñac, but if you'd rather, there's gin, vodka, or wine?'

‘Coñac, thank you.'

It was considerably later when Alvarez reluctantly brought the conversation round to the reason for his visit. ‘I'm afraid I have to ask more questions.'

‘No problem. But first, let me refill your glass.'

His drink refreshed, Alvarez said: ‘We now know that the time of Señor Cooper's death was after eleven on Wednesday evening, not earlier. So I have to ask people where they were then, to confirm that they could not have been responsible for his death.'

‘Or to confirm that they could … So where was I? Probably here, watching a film on satellite and wondering why so much money is wasted by so many people on so much bilge … Hang on. Late Wednesday evening? I was with the Calvo family, down the road.'

‘Francisco Calvo?'

‘You know him, then?'

‘His wife, Marta, is a very distant cousin.'

‘A wonderful old boy. Though I shouldn't be calling him old. Sometimes when I hear the English criticizing the Mallorquins, I feel the urge to introduce them to Francisco. Never do, of course. They'd be careful not to recognize that he's worth two of them any day of the week.'

*   *   *

Calvo stood in the doorway of his house. ‘I suppose you want a drink?'

‘I'll not refuse one,' Alvarez replied.

‘And never will, until you're dead. And then, like as not, you'll sit up and open your mouth. You'd best come in.'

Alvarez entered the kitchen. It was the largest room in the house, pebble-floored, and had a vast, cowled fireplace on either side of which were bench seats. The gas cooker was a candidate for a museum, the sink had been carved out of rock, the shelves were made from sandstone; several strings of small sobrasadas hung from the ceiling. A chicken wandered in through the open doorway, then departed in a squawking hurry as it just managed to escape a boot.

Marta was preparing vegetables for the next day's market in Playa Neuva, trimming off excess stalks and leaves. She acknowledged Alvarez with a brief, toothless smile, continued working. He sat at the wooden table, its surface rippled from years of being scrubbed down. Calvo served a smoky, earthy, home-made red wine and they spoke about the crops, the drought, the stupidity of the provincial government and the incompetence of the national one.

Alvarez watched his glass tumbler as it was refilled. ‘There's something you can tell me.'

‘There ain't much I can't.' Calvo refilled his own glass, put down the earthenware jug on the table, turned and said to Marta: ‘Some more olives.'

She slipped a rubber band over the very large lettuce in her hand, dropped the lettuce into a cane basket lined with sacking, stood slowly because her back was paining her more than usual. She crossed to one of the lower shelves beyond the sink and lifted down a jar of olives.

‘D'you remember Wednesday night?' Alvarez asked.

‘What if I do?'

‘Who was here?'

‘Me and her.'

‘No one else?'

‘D'you think we invite the bloody town council?'

Marta, who was ladling olives from the jar on to a dish, said: ‘Carolina was here.'

‘Of course she was.'

‘It was her birthday.'

‘He knows that, doesn't he?'

The foreigners had imported the idea of birthdays to be added to saints' days. An importation welcomed by the young who now tended to receive two sets of presents. ‘Who's Carolina?' Alvarez asked.

‘The granddaughter. Smart as they come!' said Calvo proudly. ‘Last exams, she got sobresaliente in four subjects!'

Alvarez expressed the expected surprise at such brilliance at school. ‘And she was the only other person here?'

‘Elena,' said Marta, as she carried the jar back to the shelf. ‘Her Guillermo didn't come until later on account of having to work. Arrived just before Carlos.'

However long the journey, eventually one arrived. ‘Carlos Field was here?'

‘Didn't I say it was Carolina's birthday?' Calvo was irritated by the other's apparent stupidity.

‘Is he her godfather?'

‘Wasn't on the island when she was born, so he couldn't be. They didn't make you detective because of your brains.'

‘It was because of my looks … Never have thought you'd have invited a foreigner along.'

‘Are you saying I can't do as I like?'

‘Enrique's not saying anything of the sort.' Marta sat, picked up a fresh lettuce, stripped off the outer leaves.

‘Then what is he on about?'

She didn't answer her husband, but spoke to Alvarez: ‘Don't you know?'

‘What?'

She stared into space. ‘She was here for the day. Loves the animals. To see her playing with a lamb…'

‘I told you she was missing,' Calvo said, with sudden force. ‘I told you.'

‘You said she was playing in the shed.'

‘You old fool, I said nothing of the sort.'

She might not have heard. ‘So I went and looked in the shed and she wasn't there. And I was terrified she'd got lost up amongst the rocks or fallen down in the cave when he was meant to be watching her, but wasn't.' She jerked her thumb in her husband's direction.

‘It was you was meant to be looking after her!' he shouted.

‘She'd gone the other way. Fell into the torrente what was running because of all the heavy rain. She'd've drowned if Carlos hadn't been walking along the road and heard her screaming. She'd not have had a birthday party, but for him.'

‘It was your fault,' Calvo muttered. He lifted his glass and drained it, still frightened by the memory.

She slipped a rubber band around the lettuce in her hand.

Calvo went to refill his tumbler, found the jug was empty. ‘More wine.'

She dropped the lettuce, stood slowly, crossed to the table, picked up the jug and left the kitchen.

Alvarez helped himself to an olive, bitter, peppery, and only a distant relative of the stuffed, tinned olives that shops sold. ‘What time did the señor get here?'

‘Señor? He's no señor, he's one of us.'

Most foreigners would have found that insulting as well as absurd. Alvarez could be certain that Field would understand it to be a tremendous compliment.

‘How do I know when he arrived?' Calvo demanded.

Marta, who had heard the question when still outside the kitchen, entered and put the jug on the table. ‘He was late and much of the food was gone, but I'd kept him some lechona because that's his favourite. Said he was late because he'd been thinking as it was his wife's birthday. Leastwise, it would have been.'

‘What do you call late?'

She looked at her husband; he shrugged his shoulders. ‘There was some salmon left and some of the cake what we'd had made specially.'

When the three of them had been young, Alvarez thought, a fiesta or a saint's day would at best have been marked by some sobrasada and a scrawny chicken. Tourism enriched lives as it destroyed living. ‘You've no idea even roughly what the time was when he arrived?'

She moved one basket away, pulled another closer. ‘Wasn't it just after Elena said she was leaving?' She used a knife to trim back the stalk of the green pepper that was beginning to be shot with red. ‘Carlos turned up and Carolina said she wouldn't leave until she'd given “Uncle” some of her special cake. They didn't go for quite some time. It was after midnight when Guillermo said they had to leave, he was so tired.'

‘The men are women these days,' Calvo said scornfully.

‘Did Carlos leave then?' Alvarez asked.

‘When there was plenty of drink left?'

‘So how much longer did he stay?'

Marta thought it must have been at least an hour. And when they'd finally gone to bed, her husband had snored so loudly that she'd been unable to sleep properly …

‘Always moaning!' Calvo said angrily. ‘The only thing women know how to do.' He emptied the jug into their two glasses. ‘More wine.'

CHAPTER 22

Alvarez settled in the chair behind the desk and used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead. There were times when life was trouble. Just before he'd left home, Dolores had said that she expected him to make Jaime come to his senses and not enter the Moors and Christians. He'd thought of pointing out that it was right to perpetuate a tradition which recorded a famous victory and that no one had been killed for several years and only a few usually suffered broken limbs, but had decided she might not find his words consoling. And what was inescapable fact was that by the evening Jaime would be a legless Moor. She had never understood that a man needed to get really tight every once in a while in order to release the pressures that were occasioned by living with a woman … The road to disaster began at other people's troubles. Jaime would have to work out his own solution and salvation.

He turned his mind to other matters. It was Saturday and work stopped at lunch time, provided no urgent matters arose before then. The simplest way of making sure none did was to find a legitimate reason, in itself of no complicated consequence, for being out of the office. The Cooper case could provide one such.

There were five suspects. Field had no motive and an unshakeable alibi. If White had a motive, it had so far proved impossible to uncover what it was, but in any case, he also had an unshakeable alibi. Serra had motive and whether or not he had an alibi for the revised time of death had yet to be ascertained, but it was virtually impossible to believe he possessed the degree of cunning needed to have forged the time of death. So Rachael, who had everything to gain from her husband's death, and Burns, who must hope he had everything to gain from her widowhood, were left as the prime suspects. Burns claimed they had an alibi; she had supported this. It had to be false …

*   *   *

Lady Janlin perplexed him. Her title suggested tiaras and banquets of peacocks; reality was sloppy clothes and the faint, lingering smell of plebeian cooking. Only her manner was sufficiently rude to be aristocratic.

‘Of course I mind answering damn-fool questions.' She studied him. ‘You don't look like a detective to me.'

‘Perhaps I should leave and find a magnifying glass and a bloodhound?'

‘A local with a sense of honest British humour! What'll you drink?'

‘If I might have a coñac, with just ice?'

‘Over there.' She pointed.

He walked around a ragged pile of newspapers and magazines on the floor, and a stool lying on its side, to reach a heavily stained cocktail cabinet. Inside was a jumble of bottles and glasses. ‘What may I give you?'

‘Brandy and ginger; and don't drown the brandy.'

He found two clean glasses amongst the dirty ones, a bottle of Soberano, and two ginger ales. ‘Do you have some ice?'

‘In the kitchen.'

He found his way to the kitchen, which was not in the state of disarray he had expected. He emptied several ice cubes from the refrigerator into a plastic bowl.

Back in the sitting-room, he handed her a glass. She drank eagerly, then said: ‘Well, what does Señor Nosy Parker want?'

He sat on the settee. ‘You are friendly with Señora Cooper, I understand?'

‘Your understanding is correct,' she said mockingly.

‘When did you last see her?'

‘Damned if I can remember.'

‘I am investigating the murder of Señor Cooper.'

‘So?'

‘I need to know where the señora was on Wednesday night.'

‘You think she might have killed Oliver? What if she did? Justifiable homicide.'

‘The law must hold otherwise.'

‘I've known too many lawyers to have any respect for the law.'

‘It's not always that one can afford such a luxury.'

‘The world's not made for small people.' She drained her glass. ‘I'll have another; and less ginger.'

He wondered, as he put his own glass down on the corner of an occasional table, whether her vocabulary included the word ‘please'? He refilled her glass and handed it back. ‘I have to know where the señora was.'

‘Here.'

‘On her own?'

‘With that man she's seeing. God knows why. Slumming can be amusing, but never for very long. He may be a hunk of testosterone, but that's the limit of his attractions.'

‘Neil Burns was here with the señora on Wednesday night?'

‘Do I need to repeat everything I say if you're ever to understand?'

‘When did they arrive?'

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘You cannot give even an estimate of the time?'

‘I choose to live on this island in order to forget time.'

‘Was it dark?'

‘God knows.'

‘Then it could have been after eleven?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘They were here when I rang my bastard husband and I had to wait until ten thirty to get hold of him because he was doing good works somewhere. When he dies, God will have to move over.'

‘When did Señor Burns leave here?'

‘When he went.'

‘Could it have been before midnight?'

‘When there's free booze around, his bum goes numb.'

‘I'm not certain I understand what that means.'

‘Then it's a pity you never learned English.'

‘Or that you learned Spanish.'

She laughed. ‘I'm beginning to like you! Not at all the plump little erk you look.'

He was sorry that Spanish manners precluded him from pointing out that when it came to size, she had the advantage in many areas. ‘Roughly, when did Señor Burns leave here?'

‘One o'clock; two o'clock; three o'clock, knock.'