An Artistic Way to Go by Roderic Jeffries Page A

didn’t, he must be slower than a blind mule.’
    â€˜What exactly did you see?’
    â€˜She was showing her tits. Then she climbed out of the pool and showed all the rest.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜She and the bloke lay down on towels and sunbathed.’
    â€˜Have you any idea who he is?’
    â€˜Can’t name him, but I’ve seen him around.’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜Down in the port, working on boats.’
    â€˜Did you mention what you saw to the señor?’
    â€˜Take me for that much of a bloody fool? He’d have asked her if it was true and she’d have said I was a dirty-minded liar and he’d have believed her, not me, because it’s her what’s got him by the short and curlies. I’d have been sacked. In any case, what them lot get up to, doesn’t concern me.’
    â€˜I reckon that’s fair enough.’ Alvarez drained his glass.
    â€˜D’you know what’s happened to the señor?’
    â€˜Right now, it looks like he may have committed suicide.’
    â€˜Why’d he want to be that daft?’
    â€˜That’s what I’m trying to find out. D’you think he could have discovered the señora was planting horns on his head?’
    â€˜He’s the great hidalgo. His kind take out their troubles on someone else, not themselves. Maybe his disappearing is something to do with the other man?’
    â€˜What other man?’
    â€˜The one what was watching the house through binoculars.’
    â€˜How long ago?’
    â€˜Something short of a week.’
    â€˜You saw him?’
    â€˜Wouldn’t know about him if I hadn’t, would I?’
    â€˜What did you do?’
    â€˜Didn’t do nothing. He saw me looking at him and started moving the binoculars around as if he was one of those barmy foreigners what spend their time looking at birds. Like the one what asked me if I’d seen a black vulture recently and I told him I’d seen four that very afternoon.’ Amoros stared into the past. ‘That cheered him up so much he gave me a couple of coñacs from a bottle in his rucksack. If I’d’ve known four vultures would have got him that excited, I’d have made it a dozen.’
    â€˜Perhaps this man you saw really was looking for birds?’
    â€˜Until he saw me, he was looking at the house.’
    â€˜Can you describe him?’
    â€˜Taller than you and not nearly so fat.’
    â€˜I am not fat,’ Alvarez said sharply. ‘What about colour of hair and eyes, shape of ears and nose?’
    â€˜He was wearing some kind of a hat with a wide brim, and so what with the binoculars up to his eyes as well, I couldn’t see nothing but the scar.’
    â€˜Where was that?’
    â€˜On his cheek.’
    â€˜Right or left?’
    Amoros intently studied his empty glass.
    Alvarez decided that it was not worth the cost of another brandy to discover that Amoros probably couldn’t remember on which cheek the scar was.
    *   *   *
    He phoned Traffic from the office.
    â€˜The car’s owned by Garaje Xima, in Cala Xima. And there’s a message from my jefe. The next time you submit the request on the proper form, countersigned, or you won’t get the information.’
    Alvarez settled back in the chair. Cala Xima. A place to be avoided whenever possible.
    He looked at his watch. Dolores would have started cooking supper. Small point, then, in starting anything fresh.

CHAPTER 12
    In the brilliant sunshine, the bay was at its most beautiful, the water a dramatic blue, the mountains looking benign. It was Alvarez’s hope that when St Peter opened the gates and he walked through, he would find himself on the shores of Llueso Bay once more. (With all tourists having been consigned to the other place, of course.)
    The harbour had changed as greatly as had Port Llueso (the campaign to rename every place on the island with its