Under Suspicion (27 page)

‘Ah yes. I remember.’ His eyes flicked away.

‘She could have looked after The Prince for you. He’d have felt so much at home in El Sueño. Just the other day she was telling me about the Persians she’s cared for over the years.’ I was bending the truth a little. The only Persians she’d cared for, to be honest, were of the carpet variety. ‘They were just pets, of course. She’s never had any contact with breeders. Such a pity she wasn’t able to purchase the property.’

‘No contact with breeders…El Sueño…’ He looked thoughtful.

I nudged things along a little. ‘When Monique
heard that you’d…er…been taken here, her first thought was to collect Black Prince from the yacht, but for some reason the police wouldn’t let her on board. They told her the cat had been dashing in a panic all over the ship and they’d put him in a
cat-carrier
. He’s here now at HQ. I suppose you could say he’s been arrested.’ The word ‘too’ hung in the air between us.

He stared down at the scratched and scuffed surface of the table, muttering to himself, ‘El Sueño… have to be tonight.’

‘And Persian coats get so tangled, don’t they? It’s so painful for them if they’re not groomed for a couple of days. I asked after him when I arrived here, and it seems,’ I sighed, ‘that The Prince is pining, not taking at all well to the cat-carrier.’ I let that sink in. ‘They’re talking of sending him to an animal sanctuary – only till you’re out and about again, of course.’

I’d played all my cards. I waited. Overhead the fan performed slow gyrations, stirring the hair on the top of my head. In the silence I heard the creak of leather as the police guard shifted position.

‘Let me see…’ He pursed his lips. ‘I believe that the Reservation Contract on El Sueño expired yesterday afternoon. The chap said he’d other commitments now. So it
would
be available.’

I piled on the pressure. ‘What a pity she didn’t know that. On the rebound from her disappointment over El Sueño she’s settled for a villa on the Costa del
Sol. She’s signed the Offer to Buy, and the Reservation Contract and all that. The only consolation, she said, was that she’d be paying £800,000 for that villa instead of £1.5 million for El Sueño.’ I pursed my lips. ‘She’ll be saving such a lot of money that she’ll probably not change her mind.’ A turn of the screw. ‘Especially as there’d be the contract cancellation costs too…’

Another little frown from Ambrose. Had I overplayed my hand?

Just when I thought I’d blown it, he capitulated. ‘If she agreed to take on the care of The Prince, Exclusive could match that price.’

Neither of us commented on the implication that Black Prince’s residence at El Sueño was going to be somewhat protracted.

Tomorrow’s court order would freeze his assets. I’d have to make it easy for him to press me to act tonight. I pushed back my chair. ‘Well, I’ll certainly put that to her on Thursday when I take her to the airport.’

He stood up, sending his chair clattering to the floor. The guard took a couple of steps forward.

‘The Prince means so much to me. He mustn’t suffer a moment longer.’ He gripped the edge of the table. ‘If you’ve a pen and piece of paper handy, I’ll write a note to Monique. That agreement
has
to be signed tonight, Deborah.’

I almost felt sorry for him. ‘I’ll see to it, Ambrose.
I know just how you’re feeling. I’d be the same with Persepolis. Tell you what, if you give me a note for the comandante, I’ll take Black Prince away with me now.’

When I phoned him, Gerry sighed and pulled a few more strings. And ten minutes after that, I was crossing the courtyard car park of
Policía National,
Santa Cruz. In my hand was the cat-carrier and its trembling occupant; in my pocket, Ambrose’s handwritten note, the passport to happiness for Victoria.

I pushed open the door of Jason’s room in the
clinica
and peered in. He was lying propped up on pillows, face pale, dark circles under his eyes. Over the worst, they’d said, but he had a long way to go. In Gerry’s opinion, he needed cheering up, and here I was to do just that.

‘Hi there, Jase,’ I said.

He raised a hand in greeting, his smile a shadow of the much-exercised playboy grin.

I perched on the edge of the bed. ‘Remember that bet we had? I’m here to deliver.’

He frowned. ‘Bet?’

‘I owed you two kisses, remember?’

‘Ready when you are, Debs.’ I caught the gleam in his eye, the first sign of my old Don Juan Jason.

He wasn’t exactly in prime fettle, so I didn’t have to put up with too much of the lingering tongue-in-the-mouth stuff.

At length I broke away. ‘Not bad, Jase, for someone
in a hospital bed.’ I gently removed a wandering hand. ‘And now—’ I went to the door and opened it. ‘There’s another lady outside waiting to meet you.’ I reached into my bag and pressed the remote control.

From the corridor came a long-drawn-out
mi-aa-oow.

Framed in the doorway were the stumpy ears and grotesque square head of Robocat.

‘Brunhilda!’

I squeezed another button on the remote control. The beast emitted a deep rolling
purrrr
and bounded forward.

The look on Jason’s face more than compensated for that rather large sum of money I’d had to fork out to repair G’s handiwork.

I spent the rest of the day cleaning Calle Rafael Alberti, numero 2 and disposing of perishables to Jesús and the rubbish bin.

A few more items and I’d have finished the packing. I held up a pair of faded jeans, a parting gift from Charlie. Slashed with horizontal slits all the way down the legs, I just couldn’t see myself wearing them.

‘They’re the cutting-edge of fashion. Time you entered the twenty-first century, Debs,’ she’d giggled.

Maybe I
should
give them a try. I placed them in the case and closed down the lid.

It was almost time to go. I hauled out the
cat-carrier
from where I’d stowed it in the wardrobe, out of sight, out of the feline mind.

‘You’re not going to like this, G,’ I muttered, ‘but there’s one more bit of packing to do. And it’s you.’

A well-established routine of Cajolery, Pleading and Bribery would be needed to persuade her into the cat-carrier. All three stages were a prerequisite. I’d asked Jesús to soften her up with the long-drawn-out quavering notes of his
madrelena
, and now, ready to cajole, cat-carrier in hand, I stepped out onto the patio.

Eeeee…aa…eee… Aaaah…aa…eeee
… The undulating wails of the
madrelena
fretted the wall and zigzagged away into the night sky.

I’d miss Jesús, but not that droning off-key dirge. G would, though. She was lying on the bench under the papery bracts of the bougainvillea, paws limp, eyes half-closed. Smiling ingratiatingly, I put the
cat-carrier
down beside her.

She lazily stretched a leg and flexed her claws.

Eeeee…aa…eee… Aaaah…aa…eeee…
Jesús was in fine voice tonight.

I unlatched the carrier. ‘Lovely soft blanket in here, G,’ I coaxed. ‘In you get.’

She yawned sleepily and made no move to obey. To hell with all this craven buttering-up, I made a grab.

I was fast, but she was faster. A ginger blur arrowed
its way to the top beam of the pergola. There, out of reach, she dug in her claws, literally and figuratively.

Impasse.

I flounced back indoors and unearthed her working collar from the suitcase.

‘Collar, G.’ I dangled it hopefully in front of the carrier, then cooed with false heartiness, ‘Du-ty.’

Her tail twitched as if in painful remembrance of The Snatching of the Hairs. She’d been caught that way before. Her back arched, her claws dug in more firmly.

This could take hours.

Behind me Jesús said, ‘I sing the
madrelena
and I hold the box. Then she come, señora.
No problema.
’

And there wasn’t.

I secured the carrier door. ‘
Muchas, muchas grac—’

I stared at Jesús. His lips weren’t moving, but the
Eeeee…aa…eee… Aaaah…aa…eeee…
Notes of the
madrelena
were still spiralling up from his pots of geraniums like audible wisps of smoke.

‘I make a
cinta
, a cassetta,’ he confessed with a gummy grin. ‘When you go home, the cat every night she will hear the
madrelena
and she be happy.’

I planted a kiss on each leathery cheek. ‘Jesús, you are a genius.’

Number one priority, the purchase
prontissimo
of a set of heavy-duty earplugs.

If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy the first book in the DJ Smith and Gorgonzola series.

Read on to find out more…

THE MULGRAY TWINS

No Suspicious Circumstances

It can be tough working undercover for HM Revenue & Customs, but DJ Smith has more than a little help from her trained sniffer cat, Gorgonzola, a
moth-eaten
Persian with gourmet tastes and a mind of her own.

In this first case DJ Smith and Gorgonzola are on the trail of a drug smuggling ring operating in and around Edinburgh. Beneath the innocent surface of the White Heather hotel eddies a sinister undercurrent. One death follows another. Who among the cast of formidable and flamboyant guests specialises in making murder look like accident? As sea mists gather, a deadly game of cat and mouse is played as the killer awaits a chance to strike…

From the moment that, as premature twins, they were born in an Edinburgh nursing home, H
ELEN
A
ND
M
ORNA
M
ULGRAY
have lived together in Edinburgh. Identical twins, they have pursued an identical career path teaching English in Midlothian for thirty years. After retiring from teaching, they now live and write together. When they are not writing DJ Smith mysteries at home in Edinburgh, their favoured pastimes are gardening, walking and travel.