A Question of Motive (16 page)

‘Been wondering if you've been peddling drugs and robbing tourists or dealing in smuggled booze and fags.'

The woman stood. ‘I've got to rush.'

‘Hang on. He's talking horse shit.'

She hurried away.

Alvarez settled on the seat she had vacated.

Adolfo no longer spoke belligerently. ‘Look, I've never touched crack or—'

‘Where were you?'

‘What . . . what day did you say?'

‘Friday the fourth.'

‘I swear I wasn't doing any of what you said.'

‘D'you sometimes work as a casual, doing painting?'

‘Yes, but—'

‘For whom?'

He named four men, the third of whom was Muritano.

‘When and where did you last work for him?'

‘A short time back, doing some apartments down along the front.'

‘What was the work routine?'

‘He gave us the paint, brushes, and rollers . . .'

‘Where did you have lunch that day?'

‘In the apartment we was working in. Always the same with him. Sandwiches and a drink and he's shouting back to work. A bloody slave-driver . . .'

Before he left, Alvarez was tempted to tell Alfonso to be a man and have a haircut.

Alvarez picked a banana out of the earthenware bowl in the centre of the dining-room table. ‘I've had a frustrating time, working hard and getting nowhere.'

‘Her boyfriend turned up?' Jaime suggested.

‘Why would that upset uncle?' Juan asked.

‘Your father,' Dolores said, ‘has a nonsensical tongue after many glasses of wine. You and Isabel have finished your meals, so you can leave.'

‘I want to stay.'

‘You will need to be very much older before you can do as you wish, regardless of other people.'

The children left.

Alvarez peeled the banana. ‘Hours on the telephone, speaking to hundreds of people, and not one of them the person I want.'

‘Who are you trying to get hold of?' Dolores asked.

‘Any young female who can't run faster than him,' Jaime said.

She sighed.

‘Miranda Pearson,' Alvarez answered.

‘Why can't you look her up in the directory?' Jaime asked.

‘What do you think I've been doing?'

‘No knowing where you're concerned.'

‘I've tried all the Pearsons in the book and with mobiles.'

‘Maybe she doesn't live on the island any longer; maybe, she doesn't really exist.'

‘A non-existent isn't left ten thousand pounds in a will.'

‘Ten thousand! No wonder you're in a hurry. Find her before anyone else and you've the chance of a share.'

‘Is she married?' Dolores asked.

‘Almost certainly.'

‘Then you may have her maiden name.'

‘And the will was made before she married? Takes a genius to think of that,' he said admiringly.

‘You must think we've nothing to do all day,' the under-director at the records office said.

He did. But he needed their goodwill. ‘I've been told you're having to work harder than ever with the alteration in the form of residencias.'

‘And does anyone thank us for all the overtime we have to do?'

‘Not if it's like our outfit. Not a moment for a chat and work twenty-four hours a day and you're told you should work longer.'

‘If some of us don't break down from stress, it'll be a miracle.'

‘Get a doctor to say you must have a break.'

‘They won't play until one's a hospital case.'

‘But if one of them has a cold, it's an emergency?'

‘Them and us. The whole outfit is them and us. When my decimo comes up, I'll be out of this office like I was running the hundred metres.'

‘And when mine does, I'll buy fifty hectares of land and grow . . .'

‘Dreams. Keep a man willing to live . . . Did you say you wanted something?'

‘Have you done as I ordered?' Salas asked at 1700 hours.

‘It has all been very difficult,' Alvarez answered.

‘Is there any task simple enough not to cause you trouble?'

‘I tried to identify Miranda Pearson, who is the legatee in Señor Gill's will and has been left . . .'

‘Try to accept that I am conversant with the facts.'

‘I understood you always wanted to be told what and whom a report concerns before that report is made.'

‘It escapes you that such order only concerns reports which require identification?'

‘I don't think I understand the difference.'

‘I lack sufficient time to explain in simple terms. Have you made any progress?'

‘I phoned dozens, perhaps hundreds of Pearsons listed in the directory. None of them knew, or had met, Señor Gill. I asked mobile to give me a list of all the Pearsons on their books. The result was similar.'

‘You have failed your task? Not unusual.'

‘I realized the will might have been written before she was married and Señor Gill had not known her name had changed, or had not thought to alter his will.'

‘A probability which should have occurred to you far sooner.'

‘I asked records to carry out a search of maiden names since a foreign woman has to give that when applying for a residencia.'

‘Are you about to inform me that a week has seven days and there are sixty minutes in an hour?'

‘Why would I do that?'

‘Because you seem determined to waste my time by informing me of facts of which I am fully cognisant.'

‘Señor and Señora Morton-Smith live in Raix. Her maiden name was Pearson, Miranda Harriet Pearson. So I will speak to her as soon as possible.'

‘Which is immediately. You do not think it necessary to tell me where Raix is?'

‘I thought you would know, so did not wish to waste your time.'

‘It is difficult to decide whether you lack any common sense or are once more trying to be insolent.'

There was a pause.

‘One thing is significant,' Alvarez said.

‘What?'

‘That she is married.'

‘Since marriage is a normal occurrence amongst reputable people, the significance escapes me.'

‘Señor Gill's bequest has to suggest, as I pointed out previously, there was adultery.'

‘Only to someone who relentlessly seeks immorality.'

‘I will question her to learn what was the relationship between her, her husband, and Señor Gill.'

‘Are you now suggesting there was a very close relationship.'

‘A ménage à trois? I rather doubt that. I'm surprised, señor, you should refer to such an event.'

‘I was doing no such thing. Only a disturbed mind could presume I was.'

‘What I meant was, whether the husband had any suspicion of his wife's affair.'

‘One day, you might learn to say what you mean. You will interview her this evening and report to me tomorrow morning.'

‘But . . .'

‘You are about to tell me she has flown to India?'

‘It is already seven thirty.'

‘Time is of no account to those who wish to carry out their tasks efficiently.'

‘It will take well over an hour to get there because one has to drive slowly over the mountains and the road often has no guard and there can be a fall of ten, twenty metres . . .'

‘You are still unable to control your irrational fears? You will go there in the early morning and report to me the moment you return.'

‘Yes, señor.'

If he arrived too early, he would interrupt their breakfast.

Relatively few tourists drove from Llueso to Laraix and along the Tremontana. What the many missed were the bleak, often dramatic mountains, weathered and striated by wind and rain, occasional narrow valleys which were once farmed but now were abandoned by those no longer willing to accept such harsh surroundings, and the wildlife – amongst which, the prince was the black vulture, the king, the golden eagle.

Alvarez reached the Laraix monastery, founded to honour the small figure of the Virgin Mary which had been observed when a miraculous light had been seen under a bush. After so nerve-racking a drive, he needed to relax and a coñac at one of the cafés helped him. Fifteen minutes slid by before he drove past the monastery and continued up to Raix.

The bungalow was at the highest point of the small village and provided a dramatic view of the mountains which both humbled a man and enhanced their majesty. Three concrete steps gave access to a rising path of stone chippings which bisected a garden in which some of the plants seen at sea level could not be grown because of winter cold and snow. He knocked on the front door. It was opened by a slightly younger man than he, who held keys in his right hand. ‘What do you want?' he asked in mangled Spanish as he looked at his watch.

‘Señor Morton-Smith?'

‘Yes?'

‘Inspector Alvarez of the Cuerpo General de Policia.'

He began to speak in poor Spanish but stuttered to a halt.

‘Would you like to speak English, señor?' Alvarez said in that language.

‘Thank God for that! Is something wrong?'

‘I am here merely to ask a few questions.'

‘I'm in one hell of a rush; late already to get to the airport and pick up friends. Could I possibly see you when I get back?'

‘Is your wife here?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then I need not detain you. She can probably tell me what I need to know. And if she can't, I will speak to you another time.'

‘That's jolly kind. Do come in.'

As he entered, Alvarez reflected that luck was with him. He could question her without her husband's being present. A short passage gave access to the sitting room which was large, probably at the expense of other rooms. Picture windows offered the same sweeping view he had enjoyed when by the car.

‘Miranda, this is Inspector Alvarez. He speaks perfect English and wants to know something, but has kindly said I can continue on to the airport. If you can't answer his questions, he'll come back another time.'

She said hullo to him, and he replied.

‘I'll be off, then,' Morton-Smith said hurriedly. ‘Again, many thanks, Inspector.' He left in a rush.

‘Please sit,' she said.

She was in early middle age, attractive but certainly not beautiful. Light-brown hair, round face with dark-brown eyes, a pleasant mouth, a graceful neck.

‘May I offer you a drink, Inspector?'

‘That would be very welcome. We call this the thirsty month.'

‘With reason. What would you like?'

‘A coñac with just ice, if I may.'

He watched her leave. Not a woman he would have expected to cuckold her husband. But then women were masters of deception.

She returned, handed him a glass and sat. ‘Your health.'

‘And yours, señora.' He drank.

‘How may I be able to help you?'

‘I am glad you are on your own, señora.'

‘Why?'

‘I have to ask you about a matter that is very personal.'

‘Then it's me you want to speak to, not Alex?'

‘That is correct.'

‘Why should you be glad I'm on my own?'

‘Have you learned that Señor Gill, who lived near Llueso, very unfortunately recently died in a fall?'

‘Oh, my God!' She stared through the window.

‘You knew him?'

It was a time before she answered. ‘Yes.'

‘Very well?'

‘No, I can't say that; not recently, anyway. Unfortunately, he and Alex never got on well together, so after we moved here, we only saw him occasionally.'

‘Was there any reason for this lack of friendship?'

‘Just a case of two people who are polite to each other, but have no wish to become genuinely friendly. Ask them why and they probably couldn't answer.'

‘Your husband may not have said so, but was he worried about your past friendship with Señor Gill?'

‘Good heavens, no. It was a case of “I do not like thee, Doctor Fell”, and not “I hate thee Doctor Fell”.'

‘Might he not have been worried about the degree of that friendship?'

‘Inspector, I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're getting at.'

‘Señor Gill has left you a legacy of ten thousand pounds in his will.'

‘Poor Robin,' was her delayed reaction.

‘Yet none of his staff could tell me who you were.'

‘Hardly surprising since we saw Robin so seldom and when we did, we had lunch in a restaurant. The only time we went to his house was for a large party and his staff wouldn't have known who we were.'

‘Can you suggest why he left you a legacy?'

‘Friendship.'

‘It could be said to be unusual for friendship to be so generously rewarded.'

‘What an odd and rather nasty thing to say!' She waited for him to comment, but he remained silent. ‘You're not . . . You don't think I might have had an affair with him?'

‘Yes, señora.'

‘I'll be damned! You see me clothed in scarlet?'

‘It is not true?'

‘Couldn't be further from the truth. I'm a boring, old-fashioned wife who likes to remain faithful to her husband.'

‘Señor Gill did not get on with your husband, you did not see him often, yet he left you several thousands of pounds.'

‘You don't believe me when I tell you we had no affair?'

‘My job demands I believe no one unless I have good reason to do so.'

‘That must make your life difficult and miserable.'

‘It certainly does not make for cheerfulness, señora.'

‘I will try to lighten your misery. My father and Robin were great friends. Robin was an inventor and thought up something in the early electronic days which he was convinced would be very successful. He hadn't much money, so he asked the bank to fund him, but they weren't convinced and refused. My father offered Robin his savings to go ahead. Robin was highly successful and soon repaid the debt. He never forgot my father's kindness and I imagine this legacy is because of that. You say you're conditioned to disbelieve me, so you'd better read the letter he wrote to my father when he repaid the money and which I've kept for sentimental reasons.'