Free Deadly Petard by Roderic Jeffries Page A

the dirt track to the metalled road. A mule cart, with squealing axle, driven by a man who was slumped in half sleep, came along. He shouted through the opened car window: ‘D’you know where Ca’n Noyeta is?’
    The cart stopped. The driver remained slumped, his face hidden by a wide-brimmed raffia hat.
    ‘Where’s Ca’n Noyeta?’ Alvarez shouted still louder.
    The man slowly lifted his head until his heavily stubbled chin and toothless mouth became visible. He considered the question for a long time before saying: ‘Is that the house of the Englishman who . . .’
    ‘Who what?’
    The man hawked and spat. ‘Up the road, first track on the left and keep going until you see the house of the Englishman who . . .’
    ‘In the name of the devil, who what?’
    The man grinned: it was the grin of a satyr. Then he shouted at the mule to continue and lowered his head.
    The dirt track wandered through the countryside: a hundred years previously, a traveller would have seen exactly the same scene as now. That Caraitx bastard, thought Alvarez, sending him into the blue for a laugh . . .
    Finally, after a sharp left-hand bend, a house came in sight. Initially, he was certain that this couldn’t be Ca’n Noyeta: in a bad state of repair, without electricity, telephone, garden, or swimming pool, it was inconceivable that an Englishman could be living in it. Yet as he drew nearer, he saw a nameboard which, in very artistic lettering, identified it as the house he sought.
    He parked behind a Renault 6 which looked as if it had escaped from a breaker’s yard. He crossed to the front door, knocked, and after a while heard a woman’s footsteps approaching. He pictured a dispirited, middle-aged wife who with her husband had come to the island when the cost of living was so much less and it had been possible to enjoy life on a small income . . .
    Liza opened the door. She was wearing a bikini, but only just. He realized he was gawking at her, but it was not often one actually met the centrefold from Playboy.
    ‘What do you want?’ she asked in thickly accented Spanish.
    He pulled himself together. ‘I am from the Cuerpo General de Policia, señora,’ he replied, in English. ‘Is your husband inside?’
    She giggled. ‘I sure hope not! The last time I heard anything about him, he was in Manchester . . . You mean Bruno. Sure, he’s in. Come on through.’
    As he followed her through the house, he tried not to concentrate on the delightful way in which her largely visible buttocks moved as she walked.
    Bruno and Norah were sunbathing on rugs set out on the ground at the back of the house. He was wearing very brief trunks, she the bottom half of a bikini that somehow managed to be even briefer. They sat up. Norah flashed Alvarez a dazzling smile, said ‘Hi!’, picked up a glass and drained it. Only then, as an afterthought, did she bother to find the top half of the bikini and slip this on.
    Alvarez said, with great formality. ‘Good afternoon, señora Meade.’
    Norah giggled. ‘Grab that, Bruno! señora Meade!’
    It was obvious that she was not señora Meade. Alvarez began to feel as if he were caught up in an erotic dream. ‘Señor, I understand you’ve been speaking to the police in Caraitx about the death of señorita Dean?’
    Bruno came to his feet with athletic ease. He scratched his bronzed, hairy chest. ‘I don’t give a bugger what anyone says, the old girl didn’t commit suicide.’
    ‘Señor, I was in the house of the unfortunate señorita this morning and all the evidence suggests that she did tragically kill herself.’
    ‘Stuff the evidence . . . Here, let’s go on inside and find something to drink.’
    In the sitting-room, Alvarez sat on one of the decrepit armchairs, apprehensive that it might collapse under him. He stared at the paintings on the walls and wondered what, if anything, they were meant to represent.
    Liza came into the room with a battered papier-mache tray on which were glass