An Artistic Way to Go by Roderic Jeffries

Oliver.’
    Serra stood. ‘The señor’s still missing, then? Bloody good riddance.’ He eased his way out from the table and left, not bothering to say goodbye.
    Alvarez sat. ‘What’s made him more bitter than an unripe persimmon?’
    Amoros peered into his glass.
    â€˜How about another?’
    He pushed his glass across. ‘And tell that bastard behind the bar to pour a proper sized coñac this time.’
    Alvarez went to the bar, returned, passed a glass across, sat. ‘I’ve been up at Ca’n Oliver a couple of times. There can’t be a better garden this side of Palma and maybe not the other side, either.’
    The praise had the desired effect. Amoros’s initial antagonism melted, its final disappearance helped along by another brandy. Alvarez brought Serra back into the conversation.
    â€˜â€™Course, he doesn’t like the señor.’
    â€˜Wouldn’t have thought he’d have much to do with him.’
    â€˜Call yourself a detective? Don’t know much about anything, do you? When the father died, the land was left to the two of ’em. Narcis, being a stupid bastard, gambled his half away and a German bought the land and had a palace built. All the time the building was going on there was no garden, so there wasn’t any need for water apart from mixing the cement and concrete. Eduardo diverted the German’s share down his channel. After the house was finished, he forgot to change things.’ Amoros sniggered.
    â€˜And when the owner moved in?’
    â€˜He was a German, so money meant nothing. When there was no water arriving, he told me to buy. Three lorryloads a week at this time of the summer; fifteen thousand pesetas and he never worried! When God made foreigners, he made ’em dafter’n women.’
    â€˜Then Eduardo continued to enjoy all the water?’
    â€˜And went around boasting how smart he was and how he grew the best fruit and vegetables on the island. Everyone knew it was only because of the extra water. Then the German sold the house and the Englishman bought it.’
    â€˜Things changed?’
    Amoros studied his empty glass. Alvarez took it and his own to the bar and had them refilled.
    â€˜The English señor is different. Rich, but if he’d a flock of sheep, he’d go round plucking the wool off the brambles to make certain he didn’t lose a strand. Like when I plant out bulbs, he counts how many come up to see none have gone missing. Came up one day and asked why I was buying water when the land was entitled to it from the aqueduct. I tried to explain things, but he’s difficult. Called in some smart abogado from Palma who said the land was entitled to the water and if Eduardo didn’t stop pinching it, he’d find himself in court. ’Course, Eduardo said I was to tell the señor I was switching the water, but to continue to let it run through to his estanque. But the señor’s such a suspicious bastard, he checked up and when he found it wasn’t running, made me alter the baffles … So now most times Eduardo only gets the water that’s rightly his. People are laughing.’
    Only a peasant, Alvarez thought, could fully appreciate the measure of humiliation Serra would be suffering. To be outwitted by a foreigner was bad enough; to be jeered at by his fellows was worse. His sense of bitter, angry resentment might well have reached the point where the need to gain revenge far outstripped all sense of proportion or logic. Unexpectedly, a new possibility had opened up … Alvarez changed the subject. ‘I met Señora Cooper yesterday. She’s very lovely.’
    â€˜If you like ’em like that.’
    â€˜You’re dead if you don’t. I heard she’s a bit of a handful?’
    â€˜The likes of you won’t never get the chance to find out.’
    â€˜But some lucky lad did one Sunday?’
    â€˜If he