Death Trick (14 page)

‘Then it was a wasted effort.’

‘There were bloodstains on the steering-wheel, back seat, and rubber mat on the back floor.’

‘Are you quite sure of that . . . Of course! Just before I set off for the airport, I cut my arm. It didn’t look anything, but I bled like a stuck pig for a while.’

‘How did it happen?’

‘Like most accidents, through carelessness. My suitcase is old and battered and the wire strengthening that runs round the edges has broken through the binding at one or two points. I was manoeuvring the case into the back when my foot slipped and I fell against it; the exposed wire had a nick in it and the edge sliced through my shirt and into my flesh. The cut bled so much I had to go back inside for a plaster. When I saw the mess I’d made on the seat and mat I tried to clear up, but being in a rush obviously made a bad job of things.’

‘Don’t you usually put your luggage in the boot?’

‘Not when the back seat’s empty; it’s a habit of mine that used to annoy my wife. She has a very logical and tidy mind so luggage goes into the boot; my habit of mixing up my socks and my handkerchiefs in the drawer is something else that used to infuriate her.’

‘You are still married?’

‘I’m not certain. We decided some time back that enough was enough and she may have divorced me by now.’

‘Where is your home?’

‘This is my home.’

‘Beatriz says you are seldom here.’

‘Nevertheless, since my marriage broke up, it’s the nearest thing to a permanent one that I have.’

‘Then where do you live when you’re away?’

‘Out of a suitcase.’

‘Where does your wife live?’

‘Frankly, I’ve not the slightest idea, but there is one thing for sure: wherever it is, she’ll be in debt. In twenty years I never managed to teach her that nations could spend beyond their means with impunity, but individuals couldn’t . . . Your glass is empty and I’m being a very poor host. Will you have the same again?’

‘Thank you. But first, do you know what is your blood group?’

‘Off-hand, no, but there’s a note of it in my diary, so I can look it up.’

Oakley carried the glasses into the house. He soon returned, sat. ‘My blood group is O.’

‘Whereabouts did you cut your arm?’

Oakley pulled up the short sleeve of his shirt to show a cut, part of the scab of which had become brushed off. ‘Doesn’t look good for more than a couple of small drops of blood, does it, but at the time there was a moment when I wondered if I was going to have to get a doctor to stitch it.’

He’d an answer for everything, thought Alvarez. Because he was telling the truth or because he’d thought up the questions first? ‘I must ask you for your passport.’

‘Why?’

‘I will hold it until my investigations are complete.’

‘Then although I’ve explained everything, you now see me as a definite suspect?’

‘I would prefer to say, a material witness.’

‘Yes, that does sound much better . . . What do I do if I need to leave the island on business?’

‘Should that situation arise, señor, if you will get in touch with me I will see what arrangements can be made.’

Oakley raised his glass and drank; his expression remained bland, as if he saw nothing more than a passing irritation in what had been said.

Alvarez spoke to Traffic and explained that Oakley would be in Palma that afternoon and it was in order to deliver his car to him. ‘But right now, would you go and check whether both rear lights are working?’

Several minutes later he was informed: ‘The rear right-hand driving one is on the blink.’

Alvarez telephoned the airport and eventually the call was answered; he asked to speak to the cabin staff personnel manager. There was another long wait before he was connected to her office.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said, in her high-pitched and rather arrogant voice.

Patiently, he explained a second time. ‘I need to speak to the cabin staff who were on flight IB 628 on Tuesday, the ninth.’

‘Yes, yes, but why?’

‘To find out if any of them can verify that a certain person was on that flight.’

‘It’s a very unusual request.’

‘It’s a very unusual case, señorita.’

‘Señora,’ she snapped.

Brave man, he thought.

‘You obviously have no idea what it is that you’re asking. The cabin staff do not necessarily stay together and by now the people in question may be working several planes. How am I supposed to arrange to get them all together?’

‘Might they not, perhaps, still all be flying together?’

It was not an admission she was prepared to make.

‘If you would be kind enough to arrange things; it is important.’

‘Is there anything more?’

He ignored her sarcasm and thanked her for her cooperation.

He made a second call to England and asked to speak to Inspector Mallinson.

There was a short wait before a cheerful voice said: ‘Good morning. Rather, it would be here if it weren’t raining quite so hard. I suppose it’s sunny with you?’

‘Too sunny.’

‘That is quite impossible . . . Well, how can I help?’

‘You will remember why I’ve been in touch with your department before?’

‘Of course; the now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t case.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Sorry, just a little nonsense,’ said Mallinson hastily, realizing that his listener might not share the sense of humour. ‘As a matter of fact, I was going to call you a bit later on, but let’s hear what you have to say first.’

‘I’ve questioned Oakley and he’s evasive when it comes to details of his past life and I’m wondering—as I believe someone your side did—whether there’s any significance in this. As I now have his passport, I thought the number might help to trace out his background?’

‘Undoubtedly. But it might give some information more quickly and directly. As you’ve probably seen, at the back there are two spaces for names and addresses, to be entered by the holder, of relatives or friends in case of emergencies. Does he give anything away there?’

‘Only one of the two spaces has been filled up and that’s had a slip of paper pasted over it, as directed in case of change of address, and all that is now listed is his address here. Naturally, I intend to have the laboratory remove the slip and discover what was written originally, but I was hoping you’d start what inquiries you can at your end before that’s done?’

‘Of course . . . So if you’ll give me the number?’

Alvarez read it out.

‘Right. Now, I’ve a request. As soon as we heard from you that Oakley was very much alive, we alerted the Fraud Squad. They’re greatly interested and want to know if you can keep him on the island until someone from them can get over to question him?’

‘That is no problem. As I have said, I have his passport and I have already warned ports and the airport not to allow him passage out.’

‘Couldn’t be better . . . It appears that inquiries into the insider dealing case have virtually come to a full stop through lack of any proof; there’s just not a tittle of evidence to show the suspect’s reaping any benefits he shouldn’t and the circumstances being what they are, that’s a key necessity. Oakley may well prove to be the missing link.’

‘You have not been able to discover anything out about Ashley Developments?’

‘Our lawyers have tried all they can and got nowhere. Insider trading is not a criminal offence in the Caymans, so despite all the treaties recently signed between them and us, in this case company and banking secrecy remains inviolate . . . If ever you need to squirrel away a load of money, I recommend there.’

‘Unfortunately, I don’t think I shall ever have the need.’

Mallinson chuckled. ‘It’s doubly unjust when you aren’t even given the chance of deciding to enjoy the wages of sin, isn’t it?’

After the call was finished, Alvarez leaned back in the chair and rested his feet on the desk. Surely the picture was slowly becoming clear? A man in London decided to use inside information to make a fortune on the Stock Exchange. But if he bought shares heavily either in his own name or that of anyone close to him, an investigation would surely disclose what he had done. So he had to create an impenetrable barrier between the information and the reward. In other words, Ashley Developments, owned in whole or part by him, registered in the Cayman Islands, a possession which, lacking any criminal content there, would never be traced to him. Ashley Developments had invested the money in at least one development, perhaps in more—what good was money if not used to make more money? Obviously, such a scheme supposed one potentially dangerous disadvantage: that whoever had actual control of Ashley Developments might abscond with its assets because he knew that no action would ever be brought against him by the man in England since to do so would be for the latter to expose himself to criminal action. This meant that the man in England had to be able to trust absolutely the man abroad—quite a requirement, since in financial matters the degree of honesty shown was usually in inverse proportion to the amount at stake.

Ashley Developments had formed Andreu y Soler in order to develop La Portaña. Property development was a high risk enterprise, but there were still very good profits to be made if one could identify a market that would appeal to new buyers. La Portaña was one such. Unfortunately, success had been slow in coming and the banks, who’d loaned large sums of money, were threatening to foreclose; and their interests seemed to lie in carrying out their threats since another property company was willing to buy the urbanization from them at a price which would give them a handsome profit.

It had been discovered by Oakley that the primary cause of the company’s financial problems wasn’t simply faulty estimates and poor sales, it was that the company had systematically been swindled by Roig. A truly honest man —which Oakley had to be since he’d been entrusted with the running of Ashley Developments—valued his honesty as perceived in the eyes of others at far above rubies. Yet if Andreu y Soler collapsed and all the money which had been poured into the urbanization was lost because of the swindle, it might well look to the man in England—since nothing tainted a judgement more quickly than losing a fortune— that Oakley had stolen the money and his attempts to blame someone else marked him out as a coward as well as a swindler. So, knowing that his reputation for honesty was at risk, Oakley had hated Roig; hated him so much that he’d lost control of himself and killed the man who was about to strip him of what he most prized . . .

Julia was in the middle of the field to the side of her casita, bent double, picking beans for the market at Moldia the next morning; in front of the casita, Adolfo Monserrat, her son, sat drinking. He watched Alvarez approach, then said in a surly tone: ‘Something you want?’

‘I’d like to speak to your mother.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll explain to her, not you.’

‘Who the bleeding hell d’you think you are, coming here and talking like that?’

‘Cuerpo general de policia,’ replied Alvarez. He walked from the dirt-floored patio to the field. She turned her head and saw him approach, but did not straighten up until she had finished picking the beans off a plant. There were lines of tiredness in her face, highlighted by the shadow thrown by the broad-rimmed raffia hat she wore. People in towns were forever moaning about the price of vegetables, he thought, but put them to work producing them and then no price would be high enough.

‘Good afternoon, señora. I need a word, but there’s no hurry; I don’t want to interrupt your work.’

‘I’ve nearly finished.’

‘Let me help.’

The offer flustered her. She said that perhaps she’d enough already, since the bean crop was peaking and so would everyone else’s be and maybe not all the ones she had already picked would be sold . . .

He began to pick the beans. The sun drew the sweat out of him and in no time at all his back and legs ached and his belly seemed to grow, making it a major obstacle to his continued bending. But the discomforts were as nothing to the pleasure of harvesting. Provided, he thought ruefully, that it didn’t go on for too long . . .

When they reached the end of the row, he held the half-filled sack open and she tipped the beans from the two buckets into it. Then, despite her protests, he carried the sack to the casita where he put it down near the table; Monserrat watched him with sneering dislike.

‘You’ll have a drink?’ she asked.

‘That’s a great idea.’

‘Adolfo, would you . . .’ She stopped, realizing the futility of asking her son to do anything. She went into the casita.

Alvarez thankfully sat. He looked out at the field and thought with grateful pride that just for a short time he had been allowed to remind himself of what life was really about.

When she returned, she carried a battered tin tray on which were three glasses of red wine. She offered the tray to Alvarez, who took a glass, then to her son.

‘I don’t want that muck.’

‘But you know that’s all there is.’

‘Then I’ll go and get something that’s drinkable.’ Monserrat stood, stamped off.

She said, very uneasy: ‘It’s true it’s only homemade wine, señor. Perhaps you would rather not have it?’

‘I would prefer it to anything else you could offer.’

She was both relieved and gratified.

He drank. The wine was raw and a connoisseur would no doubt have suddenly remembered a very pressing engagement, but he savoured every mouthful. It returned him to the days when he’d been sent along to the bodega with a jar that was filled with wine at a few centavos a litre.

After a while he said: ‘Señora, while you’ve been working at Casa Gran in the past few weeks, have there been many visitors apart from the women?’

‘Not really.’

‘If I mentioned thugs, would you be able to picture what sort of person I was talking about?’

‘I . . . Well, I think so.’

‘It’s the kind of man you take one look at and reckon you’d best not start an argument with. He doesn’t have to be all muscle, just vicious.’

She nodded her head to show that now she fully understood.