Read Online A Question of Motive by Roderic Jeffries - Free Book Online Page A

thrushes?’
    â€˜Are you saying that if I don’t tell you . . .’ Jaime’s sense of outrage became so great that he could not finish the sentence.
    Alvarez shrugged his shoulders.
    Jaime refilled his glass. ‘Now I know why Santiago said you could be a real bastard.’ He drank, put the glass down on the table. ‘Lorenzo Velaquez. And I hope he tells you to go to hell!’
    Isabel, followed by Juan, hurried into the room. She went to switch on the television.
    â€˜Let it be,’ Jaime said.
    â€˜It’s my favourite programme,’ she protested.
    â€˜They all are.’
    Juan switched on the television.
    â€˜Didn’t you hear?’ Jaime demanded.
    â€˜It was her you told, not me.’
    â€˜Trying to be a smart little—’ He stopped abruptly as Dolores came in from the entrada.
    She faced him. ‘What were you about to call our son?’
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜You think him to be nothing? I bore nothing, nurtured nothing, have to defend nothing from a father who can think only of himself?’
    â€˜You don’t understand.’
    â€˜My misfortune is that I do.’ She stared at the table. ‘You have both eaten?’
    â€˜Not yet.’
    â€˜Because you have not finished drinking?’ She went through to the kitchen, soon reappeared. ‘The meal is ready. Since you have already drunk too much to judge what you eat, it is Albóndigas de patata y carne.’ She returned to the kitchen.
    â€˜Why won’t she understand?’ Jaime moaned.
    And why can’t you realize, Alvarez thought, that a wise man never argues with a woman, he lets her go on talking nonsense.
    There was a call from the kitchen. ‘You can come through and collect things.’
    No one moved.
    She came out of the kitchen, a filled plate, knife and fork in her hands. She sat at the table.
    â€˜What about us?’ Jaime asked.
    â€˜You will eventually decide whether or not to eat.’
    â€˜But . . . You always put everything on the table.’
    â€˜That I have not done so now proves you wrong.’
    Alvarez reluctantly went into the kitchen. She had not even put out plates and cutlery for them. Something very serious had disturbed her. Jaime’s unspoken description of Juan seemed too insignificant to warrant going on strike.
    He carried his plate to the dining table, refilled his glass with wine and ate. The meatballs were admittedly tasty, but they would surely have been tastier had she taken the trouble to cook them and serve them immediately.
    Dolores addressed Juan and Isabel. ‘Like your father, you consider me to be the maid?’
    Unlike their father, they had learned to read the danger signs. They hastily went into the kitchen.
    â€˜I met Julia in the village,’ she said when she had finished her meal.
    â€˜Because you couldn’t disappear quickly enough?’ Jaime suggested.
    â€˜You are careless that she is a friend?’
    â€˜The last time you mentioned her, you called her a stupid cow.’
    â€˜I never descend, as do you, to the language of the gutter.’
    Juan and Isabel returned with their meals.
    Dolores spoke to Alvarez. ‘She mentioned she saw you earlier today.’
    â€˜Fortunately, I didn’t see her.’
    â€˜She asked if you’d lost your job.’
    â€˜As rudely curious as ever.’
    â€˜She could not understand why you were sitting at one of the tables on the beach when you should have been working.’
    â€˜I was.’
    â€˜Then it was not you who was drinking with a young woman with auburn hair and an unfortunate injury to her face?’
    Jaime smiled broadly, happy to see Alvarez suffer as he had done.
    Juan said, ‘Was she one of uncle’s . . . What does daddy call them? Buns?’
    â€˜It is time for you and Isabel to go up for an afternoon’s rest,’ Dolores said.
    â€˜I remember now.’
    â€˜You did not hear