The Ambiguity of Murder (6 page)

‘You don't, which is why they've got us by the short and curlies.'

‘If we changed our minds as often as they do, we'd be dizzy.'

The front door banged and there was a clatter of feet on the tiled floors. Juan ran into the room, followed by Isabel. ‘What's grub?' he asked loudly, as he came to a stop.

Dolores stepped through the bead curtains. ‘Lunch is almost ready, so you two can lay the table.'

‘That's a girl's job,' Juan said.

‘Boys always help.'

‘Dad and Uncle never do.'

Jaime stared angrily at his son.

‘When men work hard, they need to have time to rest.' She withdrew.

Jaime leaned forward until the table pressed into his stomach. ‘It's weird!'

Alvarez nodded. However, the circumstances being what they were, they should heed the old Mallorquin saying, When the almond crop is heavy, eat all you can because next year there may be none. He drained his glass, refilled it.

*   *   *

Carrer Magallanes was a narrow road on the outskirts of Cardona, and number seventeen was on the eastern side, one of a line of terrace houses that directly fronted the road. From the outside it looked nondescript and, with all shutters closed against the heat, deserted; inside, was a home enjoying many of the luxuries that the success of the tourist trade had brought to the island.

Inés, far more composed than she had been that morning, was dressed in a brightly coloured frock that was sufficiently close fitting to show she was not yet troubled by the excess weight which so often affected the women of the island. ‘I'm in a hurry,' she said with nervous impatience.

‘It won't take a moment for you to answer a couple of questions,' Alvarez answered.

‘Why? I mean, I didn't even know the señor had had an accident until Lorenzo told us.'

‘D'you mind if I sit down? I've had a heavy day and my legs are tired.'

As was so often the case, the front room was for formal occasions and the furniture had been chosen for appearance, not comfort. The wooden chair with a rush seat and an elaborately shaped back dug into him however much he moved around. ‘When I was talking to Dr Sanz, he mentioned the fact that you'd told him you'd seen a car drive away from Son Fuyell last night. Obviously this might be important, so I need to know more about it. What was the time?'

She fidgeted with her fingers.

‘Was it before or after dark?'

She spoke so hurriedly that the words jostled each other. ‘I was all shocked. I mean, first me and Susana thought Lorenzo was joking, then we found he wasn't. And when the doctor came, he started asking questions and it was like he was blaming us … I just didn't know what I was saying.'

‘Are you now suggesting you didn't see a car leaving Son Fuyell last night?'

She looked longingly at the front door.

‘Perhaps you were with a friend?'

She opened her mouth to speak, closed it.

‘If you were, where's the harm?'

‘Mum and Dad don't like him,' she said sullenly.

‘That's far from unusual. Lots of parents dislike their daughters' friends for no good reason.'

‘They won't listen.'

‘Once again, quite normal.'

‘They're so old-fashioned. Expect me to be back home in the evening when everyone else is out having fun.'

‘They worry you might be having the kind of fun that maybe they had when they were young.' In presenting himself as a modern liberal, he ignored the certainty that when her parents had been young, the rules of behaviour might have been lax for a son, but certainly had not been so for a daughter. ‘At a guess, you and your boyfriend found somewhere nice and quiet to be on your own?'

She nodded.

‘Near Son Fuyell?'

She nodded again.

‘Where exactly?'

‘There are some trees just inside the entrance…' She stopped.

‘I remember them; a small copse of pines.'

‘Well … There's a bit of a clearing just inside them which is big enough for a car. Me and Francisco often … sometimes go there to … to listen to the nightingales.'

He managed not to smile.

‘Nothing ever happens.'

‘When you parked amongst the pines, was it dark?'

‘Not really, because of the moon.'

‘But it would have been but for the moon?'

The question puzzled her until he rephrased it. She agreed it had been after dark.

‘How long were you there before you saw this other car?'

‘A bit of time.'

‘You couldn't be more definite?'

She shook her head.

‘What made you notice it?'

‘I thought maybe it was the señor and was kind of worried he might notice us. Only he couldn't have. And anyway, his car's a cabriolet and he always has the top down. Another thing, it was going so fast. Francisco said it was like the driver didn't care what happened to the car. I mean, that track isn't exactly smooth.'

‘Can you say what kind it was?'

‘I don't know one from another, not like Francisco. If he wins the lottery, he's going to buy a BMW and take me everywhere in it.'

‘It seems you were able to see the car pretty clearly, but how's that when you'd driven into the clearing and must have been facing the wrong way?'

There was a long silence during which her face reddened.

‘Perhaps,' he suggested, ‘it was a little cramped in the car, so you moved out of it?'

‘We just sat. Nothing happened.'

He thought it more likely that the nightingales had been singing loudly.

CHAPTER 7

Inés, very reluctantly, had given Alvarez her novio's address, but when he spoke to Francisco's mother, she said that her son had driven off without telling her where he was going and she'd no idea where he might be. Alvarez assured her that although this was a police matter, her son was in no way directly involved and he finally persuaded her to surmise that Francisco might have driven down to Port Llueso to meet his pals and waste his time and money in a bar. Did Francisco favour any particular bar? Her son was like her husband and favoured them all.

Alvarez returned to his car and sat behind the wheel. There were almost as many bars in the port as politicians in hell and tracing Francisco Ferriol could prove to be a very long task. But time was moving on and soon Dolores would start preparing supper. When in a sunny mood, nothing gave her greater pleasure than to give full rein to her genius and it might even be that she would be cooking Bacalao al cava rosado – a mixture of fish, wine, cream, onion, mushrooms, nuts, and black pepper, that in her hands became a culinary masterpiece. But it had to be remembered that it was a dish which needed to be eaten as soon as it was cooked; a portion kept warm for a latecomer would become a shadow of its true self. Clearly, logic demanded that Ferriol be questioned another day. Unfortunately, matters other than logic had to be considered. Since there was to be a PM on Zavala, the superior chief would be advised of that fact, probably already had been. Salas expected everything to be done as soon as the need to do it arose; he invariably treated excuses, even genuine ones, with gross insensitiveness … Regretfully, Alvarez decided he was going to have to risk a spoiled meal.

Material greed had led men to do their best to destroy the charm of Bahia de Llueso, but their best had not yet been good enough. The bay backed by mountains and marshland, the cerulean sea, and the curving beaches of sand, pebbles, or rock, were still beautiful despite the marina, flats, restaurants, and stores selling kitschy goods and the holiday camp which looked as if it had been designed by a French bureaucrat. However depressed, he had only to drive down to the port and stare out at the natural beauty to feel refreshed.

Since a group of young Mallorquin men would be looking for nubile tourists, he first checked the bars along the Parelona road where prices would be less unreasonable than on the front. In Bar Rico, a place of chrome and saucy posters, four men were fooling around, trying to gain the attention of the three young women on barstools who were doing their best to show bored disinterest. He said loudly: ‘Is any of you Francisco Ferriol?'

They stopped their shoving, shouting, and laughing, and stared aggressively at him.

‘What's it to you?' one of them finally demanded.

‘Cuerpo General de Policia.'

They were not frightened, as they would have been in the years when authority was challenged only by a brave man or a fool, but three of them showed a sense of caution by moving slightly away from the fourth.

‘You're Ferriol,' Alvarez said as a statement, not a question. ‘I'd like a word.'

‘What about?'

‘Will you have a drink?'

The question perplexed and worried Ferriol because the last thing he'd expected had been a friendly gesture. He looked to his companions for help; they looked away.

Alvarez crossed to the bar. ‘I'll have a coñac,' he said to the bartender. ‘With ice.'

The three hurriedly said they'd be seeing Ferriol sometime and left. The young women waited long enough to prove their continuing disinterest, then followed.

‘Are you sure you don't want anything?' Alvarez asked.

‘You can give us a whisky if you want,' Ferriol muttered.

His manners matched his appearance, Alvarez decided. Why did modern youth enjoy hairstyles which made them look as if they were suffering from alopecia? The barman put two glasses in front of him. ‘How much?' he asked. The barman hesitated, decided discretion before profit and charged less than he would normally have done.

He carried the glasses over to one of the tables, sat. Ferriol, trying to project a sense of challenge, waited before joining him. ‘What is it, then?' he asked as he sat.

‘Why do I want to talk? I'm interested in last night when you were with your novia.'

‘She's not my novia.'

‘She seems to think she is.'

‘Can't help what she thinks.'

Alvarez's dislike for the other grew. Perhaps it would be kind to let Inés know that the relationship was much less firm than she obviously thought? The idea had only to be considered to know it was ridiculous. The man who stood in the middle of a herd was liable to be struck on both sides. ‘Last night, you were with Inés and you drove up to Son Fuyell and parked amongst the pine trees just inside the gates.'

‘Who says?'

‘She does.'

‘Silly bitch!'

‘I'm very old-fashioned,' Alvarez said quietly, ‘so when I hear a man call a young lady a bitch, I suffer the urge to drag him along to somewhere quiet and teach him some manners.'

‘You and who else?'

‘A couple of friends who enjoy body-building and weightlifting.'

Ferriol said sullenly: ‘She shouldn't have told you.'

‘Why not?'

‘When I'm out with her, her dad thinks we're with friends.'

Alvarez would have condemned such deceit had he not been able to remember how Juana-María had, without actually lying, allowed her parents to assume she and he had been at one of her friends' homes … Not that in those days deceit had covered up anything more than a few kisses, sweeter than honey for having been stolen …

Ferriol said, less belligerently than intended: ‘Why are you going on about this?'

Alvarez jerked his mind back to the present. ‘While you were there, did anything unusual happen?'

‘No.'

‘You didn't see a car being driven very quickly on the track down from the house?'

‘You meant … Yeah, there was a car.'

‘Tell me about it.'

‘There ain't nothing to tell except the driver was crazy or it was a hire car and he didn't care what happened to it.'

‘Are you saying that you could see the driver was a man?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Would you recognize him?'

‘Wouldn't reckon so.'

‘But you are sure it was a man?'

‘Ain't I just said?'

‘Can you identify what make and type of car it was?'

‘One of the new Astras – a shooting brake.'

‘You seem very certain.'

‘I work in a garage, don't I? I know my cars.'

‘Have you any idea of its colour?'

‘It was dark. Can't say no more.'

‘When it reached the road, it turned left?'

‘It wasn't going to turn right when that don't lead to anywhere.'

‘What time was this?'

‘I wasn't looking at my watch.'

‘You'll know near enough.'

Ferriol finished his drink. ‘Must've been around eleven. We was back at her place by midnight because if she's any later, her dad makes a bloody stupid fuss.'

Dr Sanz estimated the time of death at between seven and nine, Susana's evidence strongly suggested that Zavala had died between seven-thirty and eight. If the car was leaving the property at eleven, it seemed unlikely – from the point of view of time – to have been in any way directly connected with the death. Yet the fact that it was being driven recklessly suggested a sense of panic. Had the driver waited until well after dark to leave in the expectation of doing so unobserved and the waiting had unnerved him?

*   *   *

On the drive to his office, Alvarez decided to phone on his arrival. In his office, it occurred to him that if Salas were late to work that morning, he would not be best pleased to have this fact exposed; better to leave the call until later. He left it until after merienda, at which point he could think of no valid reason for further delay.

The secretary with the plum-filled voice curtly told him the superior chief was at an important meeting that could not be interrupted. Typically, she cut the connection without bothering to say goodbye.

Alvarez lit a cigarette, then remembered it was only a couple of days since he'd promised himself to cut right back on smoking and drinking. He blamed his memory, not his willpower.