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Authors: Roderic Jeffries
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own.’
‘On my own, so you can cool your imagination.’
‘I have to ask the question, to learn if there is someone who will corroborate that you were here.’
‘Well, there isn’t, so you’ll just have to . . . Hang on. A friend did phone me during the film and as it was boring, we had a bit of a chat.’
‘Would you give me his or her name?’
‘Hers.’
He wrote down the name, telephone number, and address. He finished his drink, thanked her for her help, said goodbye, and left.
There was a pay-telephone in Bistro Deux and after giving his order—which called for a great deal of thought because the menu was full and promising and he did not want to regret his choice later—he telephoned the woman whose name he’d been given. She confirmed the telephone conversation and was able to place the time at around eleven.
Back in his seat, he poured himself out a glass of wine, sprinkled olive oil and salt on a slice of bread, and ate and drank as he thought. Two things were clear: assuming the friend was not an accomplice, Raquel had a reasonably good alibi; and when Julia had railed against Roig for destroying innocence, she had not had Raquel in mind.
Roig’s town house in Palma had been built a couple of centuries before for an ancient, and near noble, Madrileño family who, in much state, had visited the island for holidays. The rooms, all large and with lofty ceilings, were built around an inner courtyard; with the heavy, studded outside doors shut, this courtyard had, before it had been paved to provide parking space, offered a touch of the countryside in the middle of the town.
Despite the heat, Elena Roig was dressed in full mourning, as had been customary until recently. She accepted Alvarez’s condolences and his apologies for worrying her at such a time and then cleared away any hurdle of embarrassment by saying: ‘I knew my husband owned this house in the country and that he entertained women there. But I don’t think he ever realized that I knew.’ She briefly touched a large mole on her right cheek. Age had softened her ugliness, and for that she was grateful, but it could not hide it; and for her, that unsightly mole had always epitomized her unfortunate appearance.
‘Did you by any chance meet any of these women, señora?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘So you obviously cannot give me any of their names?’
‘I cannot.’
‘Did you often meet his friends?’
‘If now you are referring to his male friends, only when he hoped they’d be able to persuade me.’
‘In what way?’
‘When I was very much younger, I inherited considerable land and some property. Part of that I immediately put in his hands as a sign of trust—one can be very naive when one is young—the rest I retained in my own name. The land especially has appreciated greatly in value and he was forever trying to make me agree to let him have some or all of it to sell. His friends, who were always in the business of developing, were introduced to me in order to lend weight to his pleas. My response was always the same and it always angered him.’ She spoke with such detachment that he might have been no more than the most casual of acquaintances. ‘The trouble was that he could never understand why I should turn down the chance of such enormous profits. But if I have enough money to live on, why should I allow even more land to be destroyed merely in order to become unnecessarily richer?’
‘I would that more people had thought like you over the past years, señora.’ As he finished speaking, she turned and looked directly at him and in the subdued light—the house still retained the original small windows—her large brown eyes were lustrous and he was suddenly struck by how beautiful they were and how at variance with the rest of her face.
‘You’re about the same age as me. Then you can also remember the island before the foreigners came. Everything was so beautiful then,’ she said sadly.
Indeed, the
‘On my own, so you can cool your imagination.’
‘I have to ask the question, to learn if there is someone who will corroborate that you were here.’
‘Well, there isn’t, so you’ll just have to . . . Hang on. A friend did phone me during the film and as it was boring, we had a bit of a chat.’
‘Would you give me his or her name?’
‘Hers.’
He wrote down the name, telephone number, and address. He finished his drink, thanked her for her help, said goodbye, and left.
There was a pay-telephone in Bistro Deux and after giving his order—which called for a great deal of thought because the menu was full and promising and he did not want to regret his choice later—he telephoned the woman whose name he’d been given. She confirmed the telephone conversation and was able to place the time at around eleven.
Back in his seat, he poured himself out a glass of wine, sprinkled olive oil and salt on a slice of bread, and ate and drank as he thought. Two things were clear: assuming the friend was not an accomplice, Raquel had a reasonably good alibi; and when Julia had railed against Roig for destroying innocence, she had not had Raquel in mind.
Roig’s town house in Palma had been built a couple of centuries before for an ancient, and near noble, Madrileño family who, in much state, had visited the island for holidays. The rooms, all large and with lofty ceilings, were built around an inner courtyard; with the heavy, studded outside doors shut, this courtyard had, before it had been paved to provide parking space, offered a touch of the countryside in the middle of the town.
Despite the heat, Elena Roig was dressed in full mourning, as had been customary until recently. She accepted Alvarez’s condolences and his apologies for worrying her at such a time and then cleared away any hurdle of embarrassment by saying: ‘I knew my husband owned this house in the country and that he entertained women there. But I don’t think he ever realized that I knew.’ She briefly touched a large mole on her right cheek. Age had softened her ugliness, and for that she was grateful, but it could not hide it; and for her, that unsightly mole had always epitomized her unfortunate appearance.
‘Did you by any chance meet any of these women, señora?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘So you obviously cannot give me any of their names?’
‘I cannot.’
‘Did you often meet his friends?’
‘If now you are referring to his male friends, only when he hoped they’d be able to persuade me.’
‘In what way?’
‘When I was very much younger, I inherited considerable land and some property. Part of that I immediately put in his hands as a sign of trust—one can be very naive when one is young—the rest I retained in my own name. The land especially has appreciated greatly in value and he was forever trying to make me agree to let him have some or all of it to sell. His friends, who were always in the business of developing, were introduced to me in order to lend weight to his pleas. My response was always the same and it always angered him.’ She spoke with such detachment that he might have been no more than the most casual of acquaintances. ‘The trouble was that he could never understand why I should turn down the chance of such enormous profits. But if I have enough money to live on, why should I allow even more land to be destroyed merely in order to become unnecessarily richer?’
‘I would that more people had thought like you over the past years, señora.’ As he finished speaking, she turned and looked directly at him and in the subdued light—the house still retained the original small windows—her large brown eyes were lustrous and he was suddenly struck by how beautiful they were and how at variance with the rest of her face.
‘You’re about the same age as me. Then you can also remember the island before the foreigners came. Everything was so beautiful then,’ she said sadly.
Indeed, the
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