‘God, you’re hard,’ she whispered.
‘No, dear, just experienced.’
Ben said nothing; he just sat there, looking terrified.
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Do it; and remember to call in at the fruit and veg shop on the way home.’
‘I will,’ she promised, ‘but I don’t have to rush. It’s Monday, so our shop’s closed; Angel’s running my sister to the train station in Girona. She’s off somewhere on council business. She told me where but I can’t remember.’
She kissed Ben lightly, chastely, and left. I thanked him for looking after Charlie . . . Tom was herding the three dogs on Plaça Petita . . . bought some anchovies and a wheel of a very nice sheep’s cheese, then headed for home.
I thought about Elena’s situation. I couldn’t see Angel as a killer, but clearly the guy had been playing away-games. It was interesting that she’d gone to Ben to pour out her misery; I filed that fact away for future attention.
It was gone five thirty when we got home. Normally, Tom could outrun the Duracell bunny, but his morning on the Mediterranean had left him yawning. If I’d told him to go for a snooze, there would have been rebellion, for boys don’t do that during the day, not when they’re nearly nine, so instead I asked if he’d like to lie and read on my terrace, while I fixed my hair. That’s a bit of a treat for him, so he jumped at the offer, and headed out there with his choice of the moment. I make a point of buying him children’s books in all his languages . . . Catalan’s a bit difficult, but the range on offer is improving. His choice that day was
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
, in French. (No offence, JK, but I’m trying to keep him to one book a year, appropriate to his age.) I left him to it; when I checked on him five minutes later he was asleep on the lounger.
I sat in a cane chair beside him, looking at him, and thinking over my day, in particular the meeting with Javier Fumado. I wondered how the guys were getting on with Senora Hernandez . . . they had established that she still lived at that address . . . and whether what she had to tell them would prove so important that it should have been in the file, or so trivial that it wasn’t worth the paper.
I knew that Alex or Hector would tell me either way, when they were good and ready, so I put it out of my mind and forced myself back to the real world, the one filled with ordinary humdrum tasks, like returning your hair to a more acceptable colour than the one you chose when you were on the run from the police. I went into my bathroom, stripped off, got under the shower and went about my task, very carefully since I wanted to make sure that every last chestnut strand was eliminated. It might be difficult for someone who is not a woman to understand that applying a hair tint is a complicated business; but then again, in this day and age, it might not. It took me the best part of an hour, but when I was finished, I was happy. In fact, I was more than happy. The shade was virtually the way I am naturally, without the sun-bleaching, and with the added bonus that I couldn’t see a single one of those silver strands that have been intruding more and more over the last few years.
‘Yes,’ I said aloud, as I finished dressing, ‘you’ll do, girl.’ I decided that I would buy a stock of the stuff; not that I would use it all the time, just to keep for the occasional morale boost and against the day when, God forbid . . . although he rarely does, from what I’ve seen in my lifetime . . . silver would move into the majority.
I picked up the discarded box so that I could make a note of the shade reference number. It was on the back at the foot. I copied it on to the notepad I keep beside the bedroom charger for the cordless phone, and as I did so, I saw something else.
It’s a funny thing, one of L’Escala’s peculiarities, that in the town, we only see the big green cross outside, and we tend not to think of
farmacias
as having names, other than that of the street in which they’re situated, be it Avinguda Riells, or Ave Maria.
I’d bought the dye in the
farmacia
in Avinguda Girona; that’s all it was to me. But when I looked at that box, and saw the stockist’s name stamped on the back, I knew in that single moment exactly where the mayor of L’Escala was going on her business trip, I knew that I’d been away from my original profession for too long, and I knew that, once again, the police had got everything fundamentally wrong.
Worst of all, though, I had a terrible feeling that I knew what Justine Michels had gone to do.
Fifty-three
I
was still staring at that box when Tom called to me from the terrace, book in hand, bright eyed. I hadn’t expected him to sleep for more than fifteen minutes; that does the job for him during the day. ‘The phone rang when you were in the shower, Mum. It was Alex; he asked if you would call him back.’
I was going to call him anyway, but first I went down to the office, went online and made some arrangements. It was only when I was ready that I picked up the phone and keyed in his mobile number.
‘Primavera,’ he answered, sounding on the triumphant side of cheerful, ‘an update for you. Hector and I have interviewed Senora Imelda Hernandez. She was very pleased to see us, as it happened. She did make a statement two years ago, but only after she got fed up waiting for someone to call her and decided to go to Girona herself. She spoke to the public prosecutor, personally, although . . . and this is very important . . . she didn’t know that he was Dolores’s brother. In fact she didn’t know that until we told her.’
He was so excited, I decided that my news could wait. ‘What did she have to say?’ I asked.
‘She told us that on the night Henri died, there was shouting from the house next door, an argument, both of them yelling. Then the door slammed. Imelda Hernandez has a big round living-room window; she can see a lot from it, without being seen herself, and I reckon she looks out frequently. That night she saw Henri leave; she watched him turn into Carrer Pinedes, then round into Manol, and finally into the road that leads to the woods and beyond, to the cliff walk. But before he’d got that far, Dolores had left the house too. She took the same route, but she didn’t go into the woods, not straight away. She waited, until a car pulled up, and a man got out. Imelda was too far away to identify him, but she said that he was not tall, but quite solidly built, with dark hair. Together, this man and Dolores followed Henri into the woods. That was as much as she saw, but it’s what she told Fumado. That’s what’s important to us.’
‘So you’ve got him?’
‘Yes, beyond any doubt, because there’s more. I’ve seen the original autopsy report. While it says that Henri suffered a heart attack, it adds that there’s no way of determining that it was the cause of his fall. As you said at the very start, it could have happened when he was on his way down to the rocks. That qualification has been removed from the report that’s on the file. In addition to that we know that Dolores Fumado called her brother at home at nine fifteen, not after ten as he said. My bet is that she told him straight out that she and Henri had had a fight and that when he was out walking, she’d shoved him off a cliff, and then said, “What are you going to do about it, Javier?” Yes, he’s well sewn up. You’re a clever lady, Primavera.’
‘What happens now?’
‘Tomorrow, we’re going to see Chico at Restaurant Rhodas, to take a formal statement from him. Once that’s done we go to the senior public prosecutor, and lay what we’ve got before him. Fumado’s going to jail; we picked him up as he was leaving his office. Hector says thanks; we owe you one.’
I contradicted him. ‘You owe me several, and I’m going to collect. First, you should go back to Imelda and ask her if she’s told her story to anyone else. If so, when and to whom? Second, I want you to pull every string you’ve got to check all of Justine Michels’ communications over the last few days . . .’
‘Justine?’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes . . . from her home, from her mobile and from the town hall; all the calls she’s made and received, texts sent and received, everything you can trace. If you can get into her personal email, that would be even better. Third, can Gomez do all the rest of the stuff on his own, and can Gloria look after Tom? I am going somewhere tomorrow, with or without you, but I really would like you to come.’
He whistled. ‘Are you sure that’s all? Christ, Primavera . . . what’s this for, who’s this for?’
‘It’s for Gerard,’ I told him, ‘and it may be about saving two lives.’
Fifty-four
I
picked him up very early next morning and dropped Tom off; all three of us had an overnight bag. There wasn’t much said as I drove south; Alex seemed to be still half asleep, and I never have anything to say to anyone before eight, save my son . . . not that I have anyone else looking for conversation. I had the radio on, for traffic information, but eventually Alex broke the silence.
‘Imelda Hernandez grew impatient waiting for something to happen,’ he announced. ‘Prosecution can take a long time in this country. She knows that, but nearly two years after the event, she began to suspect the truth, that her evidence had been ignored. She tried to contact Javier Fumado, several times, but she was ignored. Eventually, she was so frustrated that she went to someone else. She went to see the mayor.’
‘Yesss,’ I hissed, ‘that fits absolutely. To stir the family pot, no doubt.’
‘No. Thing is, Senora Hernandez isn’t from L’Escala. She moved here five years ago from Valladolid, after her husband died. She lives up on the hill and she hardly ever goes into the old town. She doesn’t know who’s who, so when she told Justine her story, that her neighbour and a mystery man had pushed her husband off a cliff, she had no idea that she was talking to Henri’s daughter.’
‘Indeed,’ I whispered. ‘When did this happen?’
‘About six weeks ago.’
‘And after that she followed them; she established their patterns, the time of their meetings, and when she was ready she acted.’ I frowned, as a thought occurred to me.
I wonder if she had her suspicions. Was that why she kept Dolores close, in the town hall?
‘The London CSI team found Justine’s DNA at the scene, I bet.’
‘Sure, and discounted it, because I’d taken her there, on Hector’s orders.’ He twisted in his seat to look at me. ‘Primavera, what are you saying?’ he asked.
‘You know what I’m saying: that Dolores wasn’t an innocent victim; she was as much a target as Planas.’
‘You’re telling me that Justine Michels murdered her own mother?’
‘Exactly. She took revenge for her father; killed Planas, kidnapped Dolores . . . she even covered herself by saying that they’d spoken on the following Sunday . . . starved her for a week, and when the moment was right, she throttled her.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ he whispered.
‘Yet you believed that I did it. Don’t deny it, you did, or you were prepared to, on the evidence.’ My mind flashed back to that Sunday, re-ran the movie. ‘She must have seen me,’ I said. ‘She must have seen me slip and grab that chair. She saw me leave a palm print on it, on the thing that she knew was the murder weapon. And then there was my shawl,’ I exclaimed.
‘What about it?’
‘When you drove us to Planas’s house, I sat in the back. I remember now; I was wearing it then. Alex, you’ve got a cop’s memory. Was I wearing it in the garden?’
He closed his eyes as he thought back. ‘I don’t recall that you were,’ he said, eventually.
‘I don’t think I could have been, or when I slipped it would have fallen off, and I’d have noticed it. I reckon it must have dropped off my shoulders in your car. But when you took us back to the village, I sat in the front and Justine went in the back. That’s when she took it, for sure.’
Alex threw his head back, and let out a deep breath. ‘And do you know what? She had me keep her informed of every step of the investigation. I told her the lot, including the fact that we’d found your DNA on the chair, and that we were going to have to talk to you about it, probably on the following Monday. But I told her also that we weren’t taking it seriously, that not even Hector at his most zealous could see you as a killer, not over a sum of money that would hardly buy new tyres for your Jeep.’
‘When did you tell her this?’
‘At Planas’s funeral, outside in the square.’
‘That figures. My assumption was that she might have decided to get rid of Dolores on the spur of the moment, because her car had been found, but now I can see that she was already planning it when she came to the reception in Meson.’
‘Maybe, but putting the body into your store, that was a huge risk, was it not?’
‘Not after Justine drugged me. She put something in my wine glass, Alex, when I wasn’t looking. All of a sudden I was out of it; I left not long after you and Gomez, and I remember virtually bugger all after that till next morning, when Charlie got spooked and I found the body.’
‘You did? Not Tom’s grandfather?’
‘Mac never saw the body, or knew it was there, until after Gerard and I had both gone. No, I found it, like an idiot I panicked, and Gerard got me out of there. Justine must really have thought she had me stitched up. She was right too, for a few days.’
‘Justine and Gerard,’ he murmured. ‘Now he’s taking the fall for her. She must have seduced him.’