Authors: Roderic Jeffries
‘Why d’you keep chasing me?’
‘Because I need to confirm the reason why you murdered Roig.’
‘Here . . . That’s not bloody funny.’
‘Señorita Garcia is pregnant, isn’t she?’
‘Why ask me?’
‘With her father dead and no closer male relative, you’re head of the family, aren’t you, and therefore its honour lies in your hands? Down your way, you’re great people for family honour.’
‘We’ve a sight more of it than you have on this island.’
‘True. These days, we have far too little; but is that more reprehensible than having too much? . . . Do you remember telling me about mujeriegos and how they had to be dealt with brutally in order to restore a family’s honour; but you’d never treat Roig as one because no one in the family, either in Bodon or Posuna, would ever learn about your cousin’s affair? But when you’d discovered she was pregnant, you knew that no longer could anything be hidden; the family must learn the truth and when they did they’d be disgraced unless you, as was your duty, acted.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I understand. What I don’t do, is sympathize.’
‘Then you don’t understand.’
‘All right, have it your way and now make me understand. Tell me how it was. When you went there on the Monday night, what were you intending to do?’
‘I didn’t go . . .’ Vidal said loudly, then stopped as he saw the expression on Alvarez’s face.
‘I know you went there. I’ve found someone who saw you on your Vespa,’ Alvarez bluffed.
There was a long silence. Eventually, Vidal said in a low, strained voice: ‘I wanted to make him agree to divorce his wife and marry Eulalia.’
‘How did he react to the suggestion?’
‘First, he was surprised, then he laughed.’
‘Which shows what a very stupid man he was when it came to human relationships. One should never laugh at a man of real honour, should one?’
‘Stop sneering or I’ll . . .’
‘Stick a knife into me as you stuck one into him?’
Vidal’s expression crumpled. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘The cry of every murderer after he’s caught.’
‘I swear I didn’t.’
‘The knife just slipped as you went to castrate him and thereby regain your family’s honour?’
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘Well?’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘Going to what?’
‘Castrate him?’
‘Why not? You’d named him mujeriego.’
‘Can’t you see?’
‘Probably. But you’re going to tell me.’
‘I . . . I couldn’t do it.’
‘You couldn’t act like a man of honour?’
His shame was obvious.
‘So what did you do?’
‘I threatened him. I told him what would happen to him if he lived in Bodon. But he realized I. . . I couldn’t actually do it. He began to jeer at me. He said I was all bluster. And then he said he was going to throw me out and started coming at me.’
‘And you were scared?’
‘I wasn’t scared, but . . . I pulled my knife. He went to knock it out of my hand and slipped and . . . Oh God, it slid into his guts and he clawed at it and then collapsed on to the chair . . .’ He covered his face with his hands.
‘Very dramatic, but all a lie.’
‘I tell you, it’s what happened.’
‘The truth is, you went into the kitchen and chose a knife, knowing exactly what you were going to do and that was to murder with malice aforethought.’
‘I didn’t go near the kitchen. I don’t even know where it is.’
Alvarez visualized the route from the sitting-room to the kitchen which involved going down two fairly long passages; a route that could never be called obvious. ‘You talked about “pulling your knife—” were you carrying one on you?’
‘In my village, every man does because . . .’
‘The less I know about your village, the better. Describe your knife.’
It in no way resembled the kitchen knife found in Roig’s body.
Julia was picking peppers; both large, cone-shaped ones which had turned a bright red and also very much smaller ones, thin and elongated, that were a dusky red and which contained the fires of hell.
‘Have you time for a word?’ Alvarez asked.
She straightened up slowly and reached round to the small of her back and pressed down with clenched fist to ease the pain.
He picked up the two cane baskets and carried them to the patio, where he sat while she went into the house. She returned with two glasses and an earthenware jug of wine which she put down on the rough wooden table. He filled the two glasses and passed her one. ‘I’ve learned several things since I last saw you.’ He drank. ‘The señorita is pregnant, isn’t she?’
‘Poor girl.’
‘Why does she not have an abortion?’
‘Because her religion forbids it, of course.’
Had it not also forbidden her fornication? ‘Will she have the baby adopted here, on the island?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But she’ll never dare return to her village with it?’
‘Of course not. There, women don’t flaunt their little bastards for all the world to see their shame.’
‘So what’s going to happen to her?’
‘How should I know?’ she said tiredly. ‘Perhaps Carlos will marry her.’
‘In spite of all that’s happened and the fact that he’s her cousin?’
‘A distant enough cousin. And I’ve seen him look at her with desire.’
‘Is she fond of him?’
‘When a woman’s with another man’s child and no sight of marriage to him, how can she afford to worry about love?’
‘Was it to save Vidal that you pulled out the knife that was in the body and which you recognized as his and replaced it with a kitchen knife?’
She spoke scornfully. ‘Of course not.’
‘Then it was to try and save the señorita’s reputation?’
She nodded.
He’d correctly deduced Oakley’s innocence, but on a totally false premise; he thought Oakley would appreciate the irony of that.
She spoke stolidly, as if the answer was of small moment. ‘Will I have to go to prison?’
‘That’s up to the courts, not me.’
‘If I do, who’ll look after Adolfo?’
‘It would do him good to have to look after himself.’
She shook her head as she pushed the jug across the table. ‘Fill up. There’s more inside if that’s not enough.’
When he returned to the office, he was finally going to have to nerve himself up to telephoning Salas to say that, yet again, Oakley had returned to life. So the longer his return could be delayed, the better. He refilled his glass to the brim.
THE
END