An Enigmatic Disappearance by Roderic Jeffries Page B

insults.’
    â€˜Then you must be bloody deaf. Or you don’t understand English.’
    â€˜That is very likely,’ Alvarez answered equably. ‘Is the señora’s passport here, in the house.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Because she needed it to leave the island?’
    â€˜Because she always carries it in her handbag along with all the other papers we have to have with us all the time.’
    â€˜Would these include her birth and marriage certificates?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜She obviously is very concerned to be able to prove who she is.’
    â€˜Because of the ridiculous rules in this place.’
    Maitland said: ‘Where was she born?’
    â€˜What business of yours is that.’
    â€˜I’ll be very interested to know if she was born in Islington. You know why I’ll be so interested, don’t you?’
    Ogden didn’t answer.
    â€˜Belinda was born in Islington. If we learn Sabrina was likewise, the coincidences really will be piling up. But then I suppose that realistically there’s small chance of that. You’ll have had the foresight to see she has false papers to avoid the excitement of too much astonishment. Still, who knows what such papers will reveal when they’re checked out?’
    â€˜You don’t give a damn my wife is missing or what it’s like for me. All you can do is talk vicious nonsense.’
    â€˜Earlier on, the inspector and I had drinks and a meal in delightful surroundings and I showed him a photograph of Belinda. Guess what he said?’
    â€˜How the hell can I?’
    â€˜It would require very little imagination. He says she looks just like Sabrina.’
    â€˜So what?’
    â€˜Just one more coincidence?’
    â€˜Why d’you think I married Sabrina?’
    â€˜Delicacy prohibits an answer.’
    â€˜Because she looks so like Belinda.’
    â€˜Funnily enough, I said to the inspector that I reckoned that’s what you’d probably claim.’
    â€˜I suppose you think you’re being smart?’
    â€˜My headmaster cured me of ever believing that … Let’s be serious. Sabrina and Belinda are one and the same, aren’t they?’
    â€˜You’re crazy.’
    â€˜It’s quite a clever move for an amateur. But perhaps I wrong you by describing you as an amateur since you used to be a commodity broker, which means you’re an expert at buying what you don’t wish to receive and selling what you don’t possess; a short-sighted pro might be more accurate. Short-sighted because you don’t seem to accept that the law usually shows a measure of leniency to someone who realizes he’s run his course and admits the truth, thereby saving time and money, rather than trying desperately to delay the inevitable.’
    â€˜What truth?’
    â€˜It becomes boring to have to spell out everything.’
    â€˜Bore me.’
    â€˜Back in England you ran so short of money that you and Belinda faked her death in order to claim successfully under her life insurance. You decided to live on this island, satisfied the deception would not come to light. But the money once more started to melt as fast as an icicle in hell and you realized you’d soon need to replenish the coffers. Easy. Your present wife would die in circumstances proven to be profitable. Unfortunately, no one has whispered to you the fact that in the world of crime, success breeds failure. A second wife disappearing with an unknown male, then dying in some foreign field leaving you to claim on a half-million policy? Very difficult to accept.’
    â€˜You tried to say Belinda wasn’t really dead. So what happened? You had to eat your words!’ Ogden said sneeringly. ‘I’m not claiming anything because Sabrina’s not dead.’
    â€˜You admit it?’
    â€˜I don’t know where she is or what’s happened to her, she’s not