Relatively Dangerous (17 page)

‘His death in England was faked.’

‘Really?’

‘Did you buy some shares from him?’

‘If I want shares, I get my stockbroker to buy ‘em, not a confidence trickster.’

‘Why do you call him that?’

‘If you’ve an ounce of intelligence, it stuck out a mile.’

‘And you have many ounces of intelligence?’

‘You’ve a quick tongue in your head, haven’t you?’

‘I don’t know; but I doubt it is as quick as yours or the señor’s. I’ve been told several times that his was very quick and very clever.’

‘So?’

‘I believe he persuaded you to buy four hundred thousand shares in an Australian mining company called Yabra Consolidated.’

‘Believe what you bloody like.’

‘You paid five cents when they were probably only worth two cents.’

‘I’d have had to act like a bloody fool to do that.’

‘Or to have listened too hard to his clever tongue . . . And when you’d realized what you’d done, your pride was very badly hurt. Which is why, when he returned and offered to buy back the shares at ten cents each, you immediately sold them without stopping to wonder at the reason for his making such an offer.’

Reading-Smith leaned forward and opened a silver cigarette case, helped himself to a cigarette, lit it.

‘Later, you learned that the shares had increased greatly in value and your holding would have been worth two million Australian dollars.’

‘So bloody what?’ he shouted. He came to his feet and stood square to Alvarez.

The far door opened and a woman, wearing a string bikini, jet black hair falling down to her shoulders, stepped inside.

Reading-Smith swung round. ‘What d’you bloody want?’

‘I thought you called me.’

‘I didn’t. So get lost.’

‘Bob, love, I really did think . . .’

He crossed the floor in five long strides, gripped her shoulders, swung her round, pushed her through the doorway, and slammed the door shut. He turned back. ‘Have you finished?’

Clearly, the interruption—and brief physical action— had enabled him to regain his self-control and there was no longer a chance of needling him into angrily blurting out something he would later regret. Alvarez said: ‘I’ve just one more question, señor.’

‘You sound like my lawyer.’ He returned to the chair.

‘What did Señor Taylor want when he came here for the last time, roughly three weeks ago?’

He stubbed out the cigarette.

‘Was it to sell you more shares?’ Alvarez had been expecting a bitter denial, since otherwise this would have been to admit to having been made a fool a second time, but instead Reading-Smith said softly: ‘That’s right. He talked me into buying another five hundred quids’ worth.’

Alvarez couldn’t make head or tail of so ready an admission. He said goodbye and left.

As he settled behind the wheel of his car, he reflected that Steven Taylor’s golden tongue and lack of any moral principles would surely have taken him right to the top in politics.

Alvarez braked the Seat to a stop on the hard shoulder, checked the dog-eared map of the island, and confirmed that although the straight line distance to Estruig was not very far, much of the journey was in the mountains and therefore would take at least an hour. From Estruig to Llueso, either by the shorter route over the mountains or the longer one returning to the plain, would take another hour which meant that if he visited Señora Swinnerton, he could not be expected to be home until well after eight . . . On the other hand, Comisario Borne was the kind of man who, if he discovered that one of his inspectors could have completed his work in one day, but hadn’t . . . Regretfully, he decided to drive to Estruig.

Although he would not have liked to live up in the mountains—one had to be born among them to want to do that—he loved them, not least because they had not been despoiled in the name of tourism. The address he had was too indeterminate to locate Ca Na Muña unaided, but luckily he came across a man driving a mule cart, who’d been working in one of the fields in the small valley, and was directed along a dirt track which wound its way up an ever increasing slope until it came to a stop in front of a house. He climbed out of the car. What or who had originally driven a man to built his home here, where even a subsistence level of life called for endless toil? How many generations had it taken to build the terrace walls and carry up enough soil from the valley? And what kind of foreigner had chosen to live here, virtually cut off from all other human contact?

He climbed stone steps to the narrow level in front of the house, knocked on the door. There was a shout from further up the mountain and when he crossed to the side of the house and looked up he saw a woman who, laboriously and with an ungainly action, was descending more stone steps.

She reached the level. ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting like this,’ she said breathlessly. She suddenly flinched.

‘Is something wrong, señora?’

‘It’s just my leg. The beastly gout keeps plucking at me.’

He wondered why, if she suffered from gout, she had ever climbed up the terracing? He explained who he was.

‘Do come on in and have a drink; it’s such fun having someone to talk to! I’m afraid I’ve only wine, but at least there’s plenty of that. And in case you’re thinking that if I suffer from gout, I shouldn’t drink, I’m happy to say that that myth was exploded some time ago!’ She led the way to the front door. ‘Mind how you go because the doorways are all so low; although you obviously don’t have to be as careful as my husband did, but then he was tall and would walk around with his mind fixed on something else.’

The room they entered was both entrance hall and sitting-room. ‘Which do you prefer, red or white?’

‘I would like some red, please, señora.’

After she had gone through an arched doorway, he looked round the room. There was no missing the shabbiness. The covers of the two armchairs were frayed, the oblong carpet was faded and part threadbare, one of the two small wooden tables had a leg propped up by a wedge of newspaper, one curtain was missing, several floor tiles were cracked, and the walls and ceiling needed redecorating. Yet nowhere was there any sign of dirt or dust. It was the shabbiness of financial strain, not of sluttishness.

She returned with two glass tumblers and a litre bottle of wine. She filled the glasses and handed him one. ‘David used to say that the vino corriente here was death to educated palates, but it didn’t really matter because these days only expense-account businessmen and head waiters could afford to have one. I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion, but his tastes certainly changed. After we’d been living here for a couple of years, he bought himself a special birthday treat of a very expensive bottle of Chateau Latour. He didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as he’d expected and was quite happy to return to the usual Soldepenas . . . But I’m quite certain you haven’t come here to hear me go on and on rambling away, have you?’

‘Señora, I am investigating the death of Señor Steven Taylor.’

‘So you mentioned earlier, but I’m certain I’ve never met anyone with that name so I don’t really see how I can help.’

‘About three years ago he changed his name to Steven Thompson.’

‘D’you mean the man who was killed in a car crash on the island? Good heavens! I was so sorry to read about that. So often the nicest people die before their time . . . He whom the gods favour dies young. So true and so sad . . . Now, what about Mr Thompson; or Mr Taylor, as you say his name really was?’

‘Three years ago he was about to be arrested for fraud by the English police and so he faked his own death to escape —which was why he changed his name.’

‘This island really does attract the most extraordinary people! David always said that the interesting foreigners who came to live here all had something to hide; being rather outspoken to me, he added that the uninteresting ones were far too boring ever to have done anything. I’d certainly never have guessed that Mr Taylor could have been like that because he was so friendly and amusing. Living on one’s own, humour is one of the things one misses most. It’s almost impossible to be funny with oneself.’

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘At a cocktail-party.’ She chuckled as she looked down at the faded and patched print dress she was wearing. I know I hardly look like cocktail-party material at the moment, but I promise you that I can smarten up!’

‘Did he sell you some shares?’

‘How on earth did you know that 0 ‘ She laughed again. ‘Perhaps one ought to say that I persuaded him to sell them to me. You see. he’d stayed on after the party because he had a sudden attack of migraine and was hoping it would go before he needed to drive back and I’d staved on because the Galbraiths had invited me to supper. He started talking to them about some shares which were absolutely bound to increase in value. He was very enthusiastic and obviously hoping the Galbraiths would buy some, but they’re very rich and so they’ll never do anything that isn’t their idea in the first place. Anyway, I was thrilled because of the chance to make a little money and towards the end of the evening I buttonholed him and told him he must sell me some of the shares.’

‘Forty thousand, I think 0 ’

‘Now tell me, how in the wide world did you discover that as well?’

‘I had to search through his private papers and I found a note of the number of shares two or three people had bought.’

‘And here was I beginning to think you must be clairvoyant!’ She refilled her glass, passed the bottle across to him. ‘You shouldn’t have explained. Wasn’t it Sherlock Holmes who said something to the effect that the brilliance of a deduction could never survive an explanation?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know; I have never read any of the stories, only seen them on the television.’

‘Not the same thing at all. The subtlety is lost. Especially. I imagine, in translation.’

‘Señora, about two months later, you sold the shares back to him, didn’t you?’

‘That’s correct. He turned up here and asked me if I’d like to sell them. He explained how the shares had risen in value and he wanted me to enjoy the profit. It was so kind of him.’

‘And he bought them back at ten cents?’

‘Indeed, and didn’t charge any commission so that it was all profit. In two months, I more than doubled my money. It made me feel very guilty that originally, after I’d given him my cheque, I began to worry in case he wasn’t quite honest. You see, I’d never met him before that night and if I’d lost all the money . . . It would have been quite terrible.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Señora, I’m sorry, but I think you have to understand that when he sold you those shares they were probably really only worth two cents each.’

‘He had to make a little money for all his trouble, didn’t he? And he knew they were going to increase in value.’

‘At the time he sold them to you, he did not expect them ever to increase in value.’

‘Isn’t that rather a nasty thing to say?’

‘I’m afraid it’s the truth. He was a swindler who was intent on swindling you.’

‘How can you possibly say that when he more than doubled my money for me?’

‘That only happened because unexpectedly the shares shot right up in value. And when he bought them back from you, he should have paid you five dollars a share, not ten cents.’

She was silent for a while, then she said quite firmly: ‘I don’t care, I shall remember him as someone who made me laugh and who helped me make some money.’

The contrast between her attitude towards events and those of Muriel Taylor, Wheeldon, and Reading-Smith, could hardly have been greater. He knew a sense of warm thankfulness that not everyone put money before all else. ‘Señora, I wish there were more people who think like you,’ he said impulsively.

‘That’s very kind of you. You really are the nicest possible detective!’

He felt slightly embarrassed and said hurriedly: ‘I am afraid I have to ask you one more thing.’

‘Don’t worry. Talking with you is a real pleasure.’

‘Did Señor Taylor come here about three weeks ago?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes, he did.’

‘That was to persuade you to buy some more shares?’

‘It’s funny you should say that because I told him I wanted to, but he wouldn’t let me. No, he came to give me another thousand pounds.’

‘He gave you money?’

‘You sound surprised? I tell you, whatever his past is, he was a nice man. He said that when he’d sold the shares they’d done even better than he’d expected and he felt he owed me the extra.’

He now understood why she had repeatedly said that her money had been more than doubled. He thought he also understood the sequence of events. Taylor had originally met her at a cocktail-party given by very wealthy people and so he had imagined her to be, at the very least, reasonably well off; that she had not been expensively dressed would not have counted for much because a certain kind of rich woman was often eccentric in some matters. But when he had first visited her in her house he had immediately realized that far from being wealthy, she was poor. So he had later given her the money he had just swindled out of Wheeldon and Reading-Smith (the third act of swindling, by which he had proved to himself that he really was the best), enjoying to the full the role of Robin Hood . . .

A quarter of an hour and another glass of wine later, he said he must leave. She hoped he’d come again and he replied that he certainly would if he could think of an excuse that would fool his superior chief.

He was outside, about to go down the stone steps to his car, when she said: ‘I wish you had come here a few years ago.’

‘Why, señora?’

‘Because then we were both alive and well and the whole of the garden was a mass of colour. David used to say that one of the few things created by man that was truly beautiful was the garden. He wrote a lovely poem about that.’

‘There is still a lot of colour.’

She looked up, shading her eyes from the sun with her hand. ‘But it’s not like it used to be. And my gardener’s finally left so now the weeds will grow unchecked and the only flowers which will survive will be those which don’t need watering and don’t mind being crowded . . . But I shouldn’t really talk like that. David loved a cultivated garden, but he believed that a natural one, even with all its weeds, was still beautiful.’ She tilted her head back as she looked even higher. ‘Do you know why I shall remember Mr Taylor for the nice things he did, not the nasty?’