Dead Clever (18 page)

‘You cannot defraud without hurting.’

‘To a company that is worth billions, what Tim set out to get was no more than petty cash. Enrique, you’re arguing because you feel you ought to, not because you believe what you’re saying.’

Was she right? He didn’t know. If he believed a crime like fraud branded a man as rotten, what was he since he was trying to find a way of proving Green had murdered Carlos without exposing Miguel’s smuggling activities? Why, when he knew she had been an accomplice to fraud, had he warned her about Green and so betrayed his work?

‘I’m feeling all cold inside; perhaps I’ve taken off too many layers of internal protection. Do you mind if we go back to the hotel?’

‘Please remember all I’ve told you and don’t see him again.’

She stood, waited until he was on his feet and then came forward to kiss him gently on the lips, once more breaking free before he could respond. ‘If it won’t embarrass you too much, I’ll tell you a secret. You’re a rather wonderful person.’

They left the beach and returned to the hotel and she came to a stop by the side of the first of the outside tables. ‘I’m going to go straight up to my room and have an early night. Maybe the world will look brighter when I wake up.’

‘May I see you tomorrow?’

‘I don’t know. I’d really like to, but . . . Stripping isn’t ever as much fun for the stripper as for the audience.’

‘I haven’t enjoyed—’

‘That wasn’t what I was trying to say . . . Good night, sweet prince.’ She stared at him for a second, her deep brown eyes filled with emotion, then turned and walked quickly into the hotel.

He returned to his car. He had had to make her understand and accept what kind of a man Green really was. But did anyone ever thank the person who stripped away one’s illusions?

Alvarez stepped into the entrada of Cristina’s house and called out. Her mother came through from the room beyond and screwed up her eyes, since she should have been wearing glasses, as she stared at him. ‘Enrique! I haven’t seen you for a time; not since Julio Gomila’s christening.’

‘That was a spread and a half!’

‘Had you seen the like of it before? I told Caty, when she has a christening, she can’t expect anything like that. They say it cost the family over three hundred thousand pesetas. Where could they have got that sort of money?’

‘I reckon it’s probably better not to ask.’

She laughed, showing a wide gap in her front teeth.

‘How’s your back now—Cristina said it’s not been too good?’

‘That it hasn’t and the doctors don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. Just give me pills and tell me I’ve got to expect that sort of thing as I get older. Doesn’t need a doctor to tell me that . . . But come on through and have something to drink.’

He followed her into the next room and sat in a very comfortable armchair as she poured him out a brandy. She asked him how his family was and then told him at considerable length how hers was. Only when she’d poured him out a second drink and handed him the glass was he able to bring the conversation round to Cristina.

‘You’re not saying she’s in trouble?’

‘Good Lord, no. It’s just I want a word with her.’

‘You had me worried . . . She won’t be back until later.’

‘I expect she told you I didn’t recognize her at first because she’d grown so beautiful?’

‘Aye, she did. And it’s that that makes me worry. With her looks, the men keep after her. I said, they’ll offer all the gold in the world if only she’ll open her legs to ‘em, but if she does all she’ll ever see will be sneers.’ She was another woman who had been brought up on a farm and spoke about sexual matters in a direct manner. ‘You’ll have seen all the little bastards there are around the village these days and the mothers as bold as brass. When we were young, if a woman had a bastard she kept right out of sight. Times have changed.’

‘That’s true enough.’

‘And I’m too old for all the changes.’

‘Can’t say I’m happy with most of them . . . So about when d’you expect Cristina back from work?’

‘She never leaves the house before six and sometimes not even then because the señor tells her to do something more. When he does, there’s never any more money for her. You’d think with all he’s got, he’d pay her something extra.’

‘He obviously wants to stay rich.’ He drained his glass. ‘I’ll be back later on, then: and tell her it’s only to ask a couple of questions about a car and to show her a photo.’

He returned just after seven, parked his car, and walked along the pavement, past a couple of gossiping women who sat out on chairs. The last time he had seen Cristina she had been wearing a navy blue and white maid’s dress, notable only for its decorous utility; the colourful frock she now had on appeared to him to have but one object and that was to reveal by suggestion all that it hid. If he were young, he’d be one of the young men offering her a fortune in gold . . .

Her mother, knitting, was in the second room and she greeted him, then told Cristina to pour him out a brandy. Once again, he first spoke about family matters, observing good manners, before questioning Cristina. ‘I expect your mother told you that I’d like a chat about how things are up at Ca’n Feut?’

She nodded. Her eyes were bright with curiosity.

‘You told me Juana Esteva is the cook?’

That’s right.’

‘Yet the first time I went up there, she opened the door.’

‘When it’s my day off, she has to do that sort of thing and a bit of housework as well; the señor wants things dusted every day.’

‘Then you seem to have the best of the bargain since you don’t have to do the cooking when it’s her day off.’

Her mother said: ‘She’s too lazy to learn. Yet as I keep telling her, how will she ever make a good wife until she can cook.’

‘Perhaps I don’t want to be a good wife.’

Her mother’s lips tightened. Alvarez quickly changed the subject. ‘So what happened yesterday? When I went up, the señor opened the door himself. Was it your day off?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then Juana was ill?’

‘No. The señor gave her the day off’

‘Does he often do that?’

‘Well, I . . .’ She looked surprised, as if she hadn’t considered the question before. ‘I suppose that’s the first time since I’ve been working up there.’

‘Did he give Juana any reason?’

‘She’s not said that he did.’

‘Has he had any guests recently?’

‘There was one last night.’

‘Male or female?’

‘I wouldn’t know. They’d gone before I’d arrived and there wasn’t anything said.’

‘How do you know there was someone?’

‘The señor said to tidy the main guest-room. I stripped the bed and vacuumed the carpet and took the towels from the bathroom for washing; all the usual.’

‘Have a look at this, will you?’ He passed her the photograph of Green. ‘Have you ever seen him at the señor’s?’

She shook her head as she returned the photograph. ‘Never.’

‘There was a hire-car parked outside the front door yesterday—a white Ford Fiesta. Was that there when you arrived this morning?’

‘Didn’t see any car.’

‘Have you seen a white Fiesta up there recently?’

‘Well, there’s the señorita’s, but no one else’s.’

‘That’s it, then; thanks for helping.’

‘So what’s it all about?’

‘Just something that needs checking up.’ He finished his drink. ‘I’d better be moving on, but before I do, will you tell me where Juana lives?’

Calle Aragon, one of the narrowest of streets in the village, was on the north-east side. Esteva was a carpenter and his workshop took up the whole of the ground floor of his house; throughout a working day the sounds of wood being sawn, planed, and hammered, echoed along the road.

Alvarez climbed the stairs to the family’s accommodation, on the first and second floors, and Juana answered his call. She said she was busy preparing supper, but if he liked to talk while she got on with the work, that would be all right. They went through a room in which two young boys were watching television and into a well-equipped kitchen.

‘I can’t say why the señor gave me the day off,’ she said, as she stopped peeling an onion and used the back of her hand to brush the tears from her eyes. ‘These things make me weep!’

‘Dolores always has a good cry when she peels an onion . . . He didn’t give you any sort of a reason?’

‘Just phoned me to tell me not to bother to turn up. I wasn’t going to argue with him!’

‘Cristina says there was a guest staying last night. Have you any idea who it was?’

‘None at all . . . Give me that saucepan by your elbow.’

He passed it across. She began to chop up the onion and to sweep the pieces into the saucepan.

‘Have you seen a white Ford Fiesta parked up at the house recently; not the one used by the señorita.’

She shook her head as a tear trickled down each cheek.

He showed her the photograph of Green and she reluctantly stopped work long enough to look at it. ‘Never seen him.’

He thanked her and was surprised that she showed no curiosity about the reasons for his questions. She said that she supposed he could find his own way out and as he left she finished chopping up the onion and reached for a couple of carrots.

Back in his car, he did not immediately start the engine and drive off, but stared blankly through the windscreen, drumming his fingers on the wheel. It seemed fairly obvious what had been the sequence of events. Green’s attempt to fake his own death had run into serious trouble which could only be overcome by the deaths of the Navarro brothers. He’d thought he had executed their murders so perfectly that no one would ever suspect they’d been murdered, but then had learned that one of them had survived. So now, if it were shown that he was definitely alive, the Spanish police had a direct interest in finding him, which they had not had before. The island had ceased to be a safe hiding-place, but had become a very dangerous one from which he had to escape as soon as possible. But in the height of the season it could be very difficult to get a flight at a moment’s notice and any of the ferries now running would land him in Spain, which was the last place where he wanted to be. Criminals so often panicked when the law seemed to be closing in on them; he’d decided that in the intervening time before he managed to make his escape, he must force Bennett to shelter him (prior to this he’d obviously not been staying at Ca’n Feut, as had seemed possible, although he might well have been a frequent visitor after the staff had left). Bennett, all too aware that his part in events was known, recognizing the risk but unable to persuade Green to keep as far away as possible, had done what he could to limit the dangers. Luckily it was Cristina’s day off, so he had told Juana not to turn up either and in that way had made certain the staff would not see Green. But he’d made two mistakes—what criminal didn’t make mistakes? He had let the hire-car remain in sight outside the house, never thinking it would arouse any interest—which, in fact, it wouldn’t have done if it hadn’t been seen by someone who knew it was like the car Serena had hired and had reason to wonder if, in fact, it was hers. And he had not tidied up the guest-room but had told Cristina to do that; perhaps it had been work that it was beneath his dignity to do . . .

Green must have discovered the danger he was in from Serena. Why had she told him everything she had learned? Not, Alvarez was certain, because she still loved him. She had finally accepted what kind of a man he really was and it was surely not in her character to love a weak, lying pervert. No, she had warned him because she was a woman for whom the ties of loyalty even outlasted those of love . . .

There was one way in which to check that his surmises were correct. He finally started the engine and drove home. Once there, he telephoned Motos Bon Viatge.

‘What d’you want now?’ demanded the owner sourly.

‘Has señor Galloway returned the car he hired?’

‘Left it at the airport and someone’s just gone in to collect it.’

As Alvarez replaced the receiver, the unwelcome thought occurred to him that unless he could think up some way of quietly altering one or two of the facts, he was going to have to confess to Salas that Green had been hiding at Ca’n Feut when he’d called there.

Dolores spoke across the dining-room table to Alvarez. ‘I met Elena this afternoon. She says that Miguel is nearly well enough to return home.’

There was a silence.

‘Well?’

‘Things aren’t that easy. He can’t go back yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because if he appears in public I’ll have to start asking him questions and that means naming him a witness in respect of Carlos’s murder. If I do that, inevitably he’ll be exposed as a smuggler and there’ll be nothing I can do to prevent him being in serious trouble.’

‘Then you do not make him a witness.’

‘But don’t you understand, he’s got to be if Carlos’s murderer is to be caught and punished.’

She thought about that for a moment, her brow furrowed. ‘It’s ridiculous. Why make such a fuss about a little smuggling?’

‘It’s the law.’

‘And you prefer the law to your own flesh and blood?’

‘In fact, they are really only very distant relations of yours . . .’

‘Which makes them relations of yours. But to you that means less than nothing? You do not understand the ties of kinship?’ She stood with one swift, graceful movement. ‘Pass the dishes along.’

‘Hey!’ said Jaime hurriedly, ‘I want some more.’

‘You’re becoming fat and are going on to a diet. You’ll have nothing more to eat or drink this meal.’ She carried two of the dishes through to the kitchen.

Jaime stared angrily at Alvarez. ‘Look what you’ve done, you bloody fool.’

Alvarez was outraged by the injustice of that. He reached for the bottle of brandy.

‘And you,’ said Dolores from the doorway, ‘have also had more than enough to drink already.’

There were times when life really was not worth living.

Rain, the first for weeks, fell during Thursday night, but it was only light and by nine on Friday morning the sky was once more cloudless; but for a while there was a hint of freshness in the air.