Dolly And The Cookie Bird - Dorothy Dunnett - Johnson Johnson 03 (17 page)

They all knew Mr. Lloyd. One of the really good-looking boys, who was already engaged to a Portuguese heiress, lay down beside me for some courtesy snogging over the doughnuts and said, “Janey’s a nice girl, but her old man keeps her wrapped in cotton wool, doesn’t he?”

“
Janey
?” I said. Anyone less needing to be wrapped in anything but maybe asbestos I have never met in the whole of my life.

“Well…” said the nice boy, offering me a pack of sugar almonds like curling stones. He had had four gins and half a bottle of Sauterne, but you really would hardly notice it. He said, “I dunno why he doesn’t tell Janey. Janey’s broad-minded. Would Janey mind?”

“Mind about what?” I said, stroking his biceps. He had a beautiful tan. “Go on. Gil isn’t listening.” I wasn’t sure if he was out of earshot, but I didn’t care.

The nice boy rolled over and began to experiment, in the same mannerly way, with my bikini.

“Oh, you know. The love nest in Palma,” he said. “Why not bring the woman back home and be done with it? I can’t see why Janey should mind.”

Palma. Where Janey’s father had actually gone on the night of my father’s death, although claiming to be in Barcelona…

A shadow fell over us both, and Gilmore Lloyd, bending down, cuffed the nice boy in a cursory way off my back. “It’s hooked on the other side,” he said calmly. “And despite what She-she may fancy, her trustees, I’m sure, would prefer it to stay hooked.” Then he jerked me to my feet with a snap that nearly knocked the fillings out of all my back molars and returned with me to Louie. “We’d better be going. Johnson’s expecting you, isn’t he, She-she? And Father’s making up a party to watch the high jinks tonight.”

I wrenched open my teeth, and said to Louie, “It was super of you to let me gate-crash, and it’s nearly my last day: so sad. Could we have a meal maybe back in London? Gil can give me your number.”

Louie, who was a heavenly brunette, linked her arm in mine and Gil’s and made all the right noises, much more sweetly than mine, right back up to the road. She was going to San Francisco after Easter. I remembered an aunt of mine who used to stay in San Francisco and gave her the address. She left us by the cars.

“Goodbye,” said Gilmore.

There were a lot of things I had been going to say, but at the look in his eye, I didn’t say one. “Goodbye,” I said. “Thank you for having me.”

It might, I thought, sting him into a little action tonight. After all, I’m not really a prude. It’s simply my code of ethics needed a little revamping to meet changed conditions. Such as having four steadies and going back to London with none.

Driving back through the corniche road south, I had time to think of a great many things, alone in the car. Until Gilmore mentioned it, I had forgotten that tonight was the big Easter procession in Ibiza, the Procession of Silence, when the floats would be carried down from the Cathedral by the faithful and all round the town.

Today was Good Friday. Someone had said Coco’s party would offend the natives. It hadn’t, because Mummy’s house happened to be secluded and her staff were discreet. The beach party I’d just been to was innocent enough, too, compared with some barbecues we’d all attended back home. We could all look after ourselves: we’d been brought up to it. But there was a shocking difference, one could see, between that and the people one passed in the Maserati, dressed in their best black lace and silk shawls, going with worn faces and knotted hands to and from Mass.

The odd thing was, I felt at home somehow with both. I mean, one has to meet the right sort of people, and no one can say it isn’t fun playing footsy in snorkels or whatever. But I could enjoy chaffing the children that morning in the Salinas buildings, and the teasing I got in the market. Come to that, there was more life in the fishwives than in Louie’s lot, never mind poor Coco and his sad paper bags. But that was their life, and this was mine. I’d seen the English girls in stained anoraks and torn jute-soled shoes, bargaining in guttural Spanish in the market. The market women didn’t like
them
. You couldn’t go native. You just went into a limbo between their nationality and your own.

I noticed Janey was different. At home, Janey treats every shopgirl like dirt, and she did the same here. The funny thing was, they didn’t seem to resent it.

Driving along, I ran my mind over the others. Austin condescended to his inferiors. Very politely, but a complacent self-centeredness was certainly there. Mr. Lloyd was plain and brisk and rather impatient. Maybe his staff didn’t love him, in any of his lucrative businesses, but they’d respect him, I thought. Gilmore was exactly like Janey. The only two who treated everybody the same, high and low, were Johnson and his mate Clement Sainsbury. And Mummy, I suppose. But she could hold forth by the hour about Bartok to a hopped-up Chinese waiter in Soho and come away firmly in the belief that she’d had a useful and intelligent chat.

I suddenly wanted to see Johnson. I passed the turning to the Casa Veñets and ran right on into Ibiza, where I parked the car on the right, opposite the boatyard. Then I crossed to the Club Náutico and walked quickly inside the gates and along the quayside to where
Dolly
was berthed.

They were winching up a sardine boat. The big, powerful horse plodded steadily round the dirt circle, in his straw hat and worn leather harness, the round woven pads like reedy bifocals, fixed over each eye, as the chains inched slowly up. I didn’t look at it much: you had to watch out for the hose pipes and the bollards. Johnson said it took twelve hours to fill
Dolly’s
water tanks for a bath, and looking at the bore of the pipe, I could believe it. I ran up the gangplank and stood on deck, calling his name.

There was a movement inside the cockpit, and my mother climbed out, wafting the odor of cheroot smoke before her. “Hello, honey,” she said. “Johnson’s clean out of ice. Be a darling and run along to the store. You know where it is?”

I did, as a matter of fact. It was just along the main road. But I kept on coming and said, “Mummy, I just don’t care who you’ve got in the cabin. I just want to see Johnson.”

“He isn’t here,” Mummy said. “I don’t know where he is. The skipper isn’t here either.”

“Then who do you want the ice for?” I asked. I was getting fed up, calling on Johnson.

“Oh, that’s for Clem. You know,” said my mother, “he’s lying on the floor right in there, and I think that he’s dead.”

THERE WAS A SMELL of paint in the saloon, of good food and alcohol. The table hadn’t been let down after lunch, although Spry had cleared it. Under it, folded upon the floor, was the solid person of my suitor, Clem, still wearing the blue levis and crumpled shirt he’d had on up the lavender hill. His hair was too short to be ruffled, but his fresh skin was very pale, and he didn’t move when I got down fast beside him.

“I never could take pulses” said Mummy, looking over my shoulder. “Either he’s alive and I’m dead, or the other way round.”

“I think you’re both alive,” I said, letting his wrist go. The banging inside my chest settled down to a steady jog trot. “He’s been hit on the head.” The deck was sticky with blood. “Look, if you take that arm…”

We heaved him onto one foam-padded side bench. I’d forgotten how strong Mummy was, in spite of the stick-insect physique. I found a cloth, wrung it out in the galley, and began to wash the blood out of Clem’s hair. “How did it happen?”

“Search me,” said Mummy. “Use my hankie. That cloth’s got paint on it. We dropped by to see Johnson, and I walked to the front to get a good view of the town while Clem went down below to find someone. Then when he didn’t come back I came down myself, and there he was. Wham.”

“Alone?” I said.

“Alone,” said Mummy. “It seemed mad to me, too. I went up on deck to look for anyone running, but there wasn’t a soul. Then Pepe came along— you know, the man who looks after the quay—and I sent him along to the Club Náutico to fetch Dilling: you know how he goes in there to gossip. I’d just come down here again when you arrived.”

“You came here in the car?” I said. “With Dilling?” You could see the neat, white face of the yacht club from where
Dolly
was tied.

Mummy took the holder out of her mouth and said, “If that mechanized mating call of yours is in the car park, you must have noticed the Humber.”

“I didn’t. The Humber isn’t out there.” There was a lump like a tennis ball and a cut that looked awfully deep to me under Clem’s hair. He showed no sign at all of wakening.

Mummy sighed. “Dilling’s on hash again. Sweetie…”

“Listen,” I said.

“Drums?” said Mummy. “Those drums give me the creeps.”

“No, listen. Someone is coming.” You could hear the footsteps now quite clearly, on the uneven dirt of the quayside, getting nearer.

“Johnson?” I said. But I knew that it wasn’t.

Mummy got up, rather gracefully, and took down the aerosol fire extinguisher. Sitting, she appeared surprised at my stare. “A woman’s got to think of her future.” We heard the footsteps slow down, and then become light and hollow as they traversed the gangplank. They arrived on deck and crossed it, heavily.

“Hullo?” said the capped head of Spry, appearing upside down at the top of the gangway. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. van Costa. I thought there was no one aboard.”

“By no means. It’s like the Schweitzer settlement down here,” Mummy said. “Someone’s attacked Mr. Sainsbury.”

I wanted to stay. Clem still hadn’t wakened, and he looked awful. But Mummy was adamant. “There’s nothing you can do that Mr. Spry can’t do better. He knows where to get a doctor, and he knows all the yacht-club men who can help him if need be. Impulse buying is no good in your situation, She-she,” said my mother gently. “Less than twenty-five thousand a year is not truly advisable.”

My cheeks were still burning as I marched back through the harbor beside her. “I suppose if Coco had had twenty-five thousand a year, you’d have suggested him for a husband.”

“Goodness gracious me, no,” said my mother. “You’d have killed his art in a week, and anyway, he was perfectly impotent. I guess you’ll set out to have six children and call a halt about three.”

“I happen,” I said, “to think children are important.”

“I know,” said my mother. “That’s why I said three. Forsey always thought you’d be fecund. You don’t mind, do you, giving me a lift home?”

I stopped dead. “Honestly. I think you’re the most selfish…”

“But you weren’t doing Clem any good,” said my mother patiently. “And I’ve got to get home somehow.”

I glared at her, and then got into the Maserati, letting her get in on her side by herself. As I revved up, she said absently, “You know, She-she: I never did have that soul talk with Derek. Where did he go?”

“To the salt company office, I think,” I said. “At least Gil dropped him by the quay in Ibiza. You were too busy to notice.”

“Tony Lloyd? He’s rather a pet,” said my mother. “Slow down, darling. If we see Derek, I’d like just a word with him.”

“He’s got a love nest in Palma that’s the talk of the countryside,” I said spitefully. “With six children in it, for all that I know.”

“
Derek
has?” said Mummy. It was the first time I’d ever seen her reduced to a bleat.

“Mr. Lloyd has.” I swerved, to miss beheading a hen. “But I bet he’s got more than twenty-five thou a year.”

“He’ll need it,” said Mummy. “You remember the Vesey-Jacoby court case?”

“The people you sued for defamation of character?” It had been going on while I was at Mother Trudi’s.

“Yup. I won it,” said Mummy.

I missed another hen by a fraction. “You
won
it?”

“Two hundred and forty thousand dollars,” said Mummy. “Am I beautiful in your eyes?”

I put on the brakes hard, and a horn blared behind me, so I put her into gear again and drove on. “When I wrote in October, you said—”

“I was damned if I was going to give you forty quid to impress an LSE student at his half sister’s wedding. Check. Have you ever seen that boy since?”

“No.”

“Do you want to see him again?”

“Yes!” I said. “Clem’s sick, Gilmore’s furious with me, Austin’s in Janey’s clutches, and Johnson’s disappeared. I suppose you’d
like
me to go to parties in tatters?”

“You will learn,” said my mother, “that lack of clothing never hampered anyone’s style. Whether it attracts the right type is another matter. There’s Derek.”

I drove on right past.

“There,” said my mother distinctly, “is Derek. Please stop.”

I said nothing. To hell with the Forseys by marriage. We were in the middle of Ibiza. Mummy leaned over and took the ignition key out.

She was out of the car calling him before the engine had petered quite out. The car behind me didn’t like it a bit. All I could do was look sweet and helpless, and finally everyone pulled out and passed. I couldn’t even draw onto the side as she’d taken the ignition key with her. I could hear the New England cadences and the voice of Cambridge approaching and sat, staring stonily ahead, while the car door opened, and they both squashed into the front. “He’s coming too,” Mummy said cheerfully, and put the key back in the slot. I started the car without speaking.

Derek didn’t speak either. He smelt hot, and his expression, when I got out of town and managed a look, was exceedingly grim. Mummy said, “He’s been tracking down Rodgers and Hammerstein.”

“Who?”

“Jorge and Gregorio,” said Mummy. She made it sound like a crack circus team. “He went back to the salt flats and went down to the anchorage.”

“Why?” I said.

“Because,” said Derek, “no one answering to their description boarded the Swedish vessel this morning, and nothing but salt has disembarked since she sailed. The trail was a phoney.”

“They didn’t take a car last night to the anchorage?”

“No,” said Derek.

“They didn’t sail from the island?”

“No,” Derek repeated.

“Then they’re still here?” I said. “But where could they be?”

“That,” said Derek, “is what I’m going to find out.”

Mummy sighed. “Darling boy,” she said. “All those brain cells, groomed by all those trustees. Sometimes you make me feel perfectly stupid. Are you really bent on tracking down those two tedious Spaniards?”

“Yes,” said Derek.

She put a long blue arm round his shoulders and tweaked the little curl over his ears, in the way that he hated. “Well, you’re in the right place, honey,” she said. “For they’re both at my house.”

I hit the hen that time. By the time I had scraped together my pesetas and got back to the car, you could hear Derek’s voice in Minorca. Mummy was sitting enthroned in her grin, like morning glory in a company window box. I told you she was an actress.

She stayed that way all the way to her house, and sweeping round that drive in daylight, past the lake and the bullrushes, I got pretty quiet myself. Derek drew a deep breath, and as we came to a halt in front of that familiar portico, he said, “You understand, Mother. No matter what our relationship, if there is something criminal going on, I intend to report it.”

Mummy got out uncreased and regarded him with those spiked saucer eyes. “You didn’t report it when you knew Forsey was spying,” she said.

Was spying
. Derek’s color got less, and I knew he’d noticed it, too. He said, “My father was of poor character, his will power weakened by drink…”

“So you felt protective,” said Mummy. “I’ll say She-she and you are a pair. Why I didn’t have the sense years ago to take to a wheel chair, I’ll never know. Come on in. The butler’s just putting the knockout drops into the cocoa.”

The mad thing was that Dilling was there. He opened the door with a bow, and if he was on hash, I didn’t see any sign of it. Derek said, out of the side of his mouth, “Sarah. Does anyone know that you’re here?”

I shook my head. Clem was flat out on
Dolly
. Janey, I supposed, was still with Austin and Mr. Lloyd as well, in her own house. Gilmore would have left Louie’s party and be on the way home by now. Johnson had vanished. In about an hour, perhaps, someone would wonder why I wasn’t there to make dinner before they all went on their boring jaunt to the processions. Then when I didn’t turn up, Anne-Marie would take over or Janey would open a tin. We followed Mummy, who took us into the room where the Russians had been and poured us three brandies and soda, with ice.

I didn’t care, I drank it. And so, after a moment, did Derek. Mummy, standing over us in her silver chains and blue suit, smiled sentimentally. “Dear children,” she said. “If only Mother had had me taught knitting.”

“What?” said Derek, anxiously, hunting data in everything.

“A crochet hook,” said my mother, “isn’t long enough. Ah. There you are.”

Dilling had opened the door and ushered in Johnson.

His glasses looked just the same, and I suppose the pattern above and below was unaltered: he had his pipe in his hand. He said, mildly, to my mother, “You make people feel insecure. Anyway, you’re in the middle of the wrong play. I said leave Sarah and Derek out of this.”

“I couldn’t,” said Mummy quickly. “Dilling drove the Humber away. And Derek has found out about Rodgers and Hammerstein. That they didn’t leave Las Sadinas, that is. I know Derek. He’s hell unless he gets facts.”

I said, “I don’t know, of course, if it matters, but someone has tried to kill Clem. He’s lying on the bench in
Dolly’s
saloon with his head cut half-open, and Spry looking after him. I think it’s time we knew what’s going on.”

“Time, for one thing,” said Johnson. He walked slowly forward, took another brandy from Mummy, and sitting down with it, proceeded to light his foul pipe. Without looking at anyone, he said, “It depends. I don’t see why I should be expected to explain anything unless you turn out your pockets as well. You haven’t told either Sarah or Janey, but I think you’ll have to tell me, Derek. What did your father say, that night you came back to Ibiza and accused him of being a spy?”

“I didn’t kill him,” said Derek. “As I presume you know, if you’re mixed up in the whole thing yourself. I had the opportunity to kill him and to kill Coco, but I didn’t. I just wanted to find out who did.”

“I don’t think you did either, Derek,” Mummy said comfortingly. “But you haven’t answered Johnson’s question. What did Forsey say when you accused him?”

My brother looked straight at me. “He said, if I left my job, he’d pay me five thousand a year and expenses.”

“He
what
?” I said.

“I gather Forsey didn’t take an interest in the LSE student’s half sister either,” said Mummy.

Five thousand a year. I felt betrayed. Utterly, utterly betrayed… I’d taken him a three-pound box of Bendick’s bittermints last time I’d gone to stay with him, “Did
he
win a law suit as well?”

“He was earning money, I guess,” said Mummy. “Undercover. What happened, Derek?”

“What do you think happened?” said Derek bitterly. “It was a bribe: as good as an admission. I knew as well as you do that he’d never had that amount of spare cash in his life, at any rate when
we
were all living with him. And when you think of it, of course, his was the perfect life for picking up secrets. He was on chatting terms with all the intelligent business world and all the peers in public positions—not in the boardroom or during the working day, but on the beach or at the drinks party where the yashmaks got dropped… I said if he didn’t give it up, I’d report him.”

“And?” said Johnson.

“He took my hand and patted it and said, ‘My dear boy,’ and grinned. That Roland Young grin. You know, She-she.”

I knew. “Oh, hurry up,” I said. “Did he clip you one?”

“He said he didn’t really see me going back to Holland and denouncing him, which was true. And that he couldn’t see me either going back and saying he was innocent, which was equally true. So, he said, the only possible course was the one he’d outlined. Living off his technological spin-offs was, I think, how he put it.”

“Then when you spurned him?” Johnson said.

“He asked me to go back to Holland and say nothing and do nothing for four weeks. After that, he promised my job would be safe, and I needn’t worry any more. I was to tell my firm that I wanted four weeks to complete my investigations.”

“So?” Johnson’s voice was quite gentle.

“So when I heard he had cut his throat, I knew— I thought I knew—that this was what he had meant. And that in a sense I had killed him.”

“What made you change your mind?” Johnson asked.

“The blood. There wasn’t any,” said Derek. “I saw him, you know. And the winch. And I spoke to old Pepe. The Guardia Civil were so hopeless, and no one seemed to understand, and of course the last thing I wanted to do was to stir up all the dirt about Father. But I knew he hadn’t cut his own throat: he’d been taken there after it was done. The question was, was it done by his own wish? Or had someone murdered him?”