Read Online An Artistic Way to Go by Roderic Jeffries - Free Book Online Page B

forty-eight hours he will reappear, unharmed.’ Salas cut the connection.

CHAPTER 9
    â€˜You’re late,’ Dolores snapped.
    â€˜I’m very sorry,’ Alvarez replied humbly.
    â€˜The meal is probably ruined.’
    â€˜Never, with you doing the cooking.’
    â€˜Only a man could say something so foolish.’ But the implied compliment was sufficient to prevent any further complaints. She returned into the kitchen.
    Alvarez sat at the dining-table, picked up one of the tumblers. ‘Shove the coñac over.’
    Jaime turned sideways to look at the kitchen doorway.
    Alvarez leaned across and picked up the bottle. ‘Is this all that’s left?’ he asked, as he stared at the few centimetres of brandy.
    Jaime turned back, reached under the table and brought up a second bottle of Soberano, three parts full.
    â€˜What the hell’s going on?’
    â€˜She’s on again about drinking.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Watching television and some bloody fool doctor says that half the family problems are caused by people who drink. Doesn’t add that the other half are caused by people who don’t drink. That’s started a donkey galloping about in her brain. Told me that from now on I’m not having more than one drink before a meal. So I leave the nearly empty bottle on the table and every time she looks in to see what’s what, there’s the same amount left.’ He winked. ‘There’s always a way if you’re smart enough to find it,’ he said boastfully.
    Alvarez poured himself a large brandy, passed the bottle back. Jaime hid it under the table.
    â€˜Have you really been busy or was that just to shut her up?’ Jaime asked, as he straightened up.
    â€˜A husband’s gone missing and I’ve been trying to find out what’s happened to him.’
    â€˜A foreigner, I suppose? None of us would ever get away with it.’
    Alvarez dropped three ice cubes into the tumbler. ‘A rich Englishman.’
    â€˜Then he’s found himself someone young and willing and forgotten how time flies when one’s enjoying oneself.’
    â€˜With a wife like his, that seems unlikely.’
    â€˜What’s so special about her?’
    â€˜Ever imagined yourself in a Ferrari?’
    Jaime, his perplexity obvious, stared at him. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
    â€˜How d’you feel when you realize you’ll never drive around in anything but a Fiesta?’
    â€˜You’ve not been working late, you’ve been drinking early.’
    â€˜She’s the woman of your dreams.’
    â€˜You don’t know my dreams.’
    â€˜Swims in the nude.’
    â€˜You’re telling me you’ve seen her?’
    â€˜Jorge Amoros, who does their garden, has.’
    Jaime shed his air of sophisticated indifference. ‘What’s he ever done to be so bloody lucky?’ he said bitterly.
    *   *   *
    Alvarez had not been sufficiently long in the office to prepare himself for work when the phone rang. The green BMW owned by Señor Cooper had been found two kilometres west of Contaix, at a point where the coast road ran within metres of the cliff face. The car had been searched. On the front passenger seat was a copy of The Times, open at page four. One of the two men in the patrol car was reasonably fluent in English and he said that the article in the middle of the page reported the suicide of a businessman who had thrown himself off a cliff in Wales after learning that his small engineering company had been bankrupted by the fraudulent actions of a trusted employee. In the glove box was a gold signet ring and a wallet containing just over forty thousand pesetas in notes, several credit cards, and an English driving licence. In the rear well was an empty bottle of Teacher’s Highland Cream whisky and three exhausted foil strips, of the