Free A Maze of Murders by Roderic Jeffries Page B

for work, yet you just sit there and stare into space.’
    â€˜I’m trying to decide whether the latest case I’m on is connected with drugs.’
    She began to fidget with the wooden spoon that was on the table. ‘Ana’s eldest has been stealing money from the family. When she found this out and asked him why, he told her he was on drugs. Yet no one could have been brought up in a more loving family. Why? Why should he do such a terrible thing?’
    â€˜Home life doesn’t seem to carry the weight it used to. The experts talk about peer pressure, the excitement of taking risks and breaking the law.’
    â€˜Experts are idiots! It’s because the government changed the law and decriminalized drugs.’
    â€˜Governments are bigger idiots than experts.’
    â€˜It was different in General Franco’s time.’
    â€˜Many things were different.’
    â€˜When I hear about Ana’s eldest, I think of Juan and Isabel.’
    â€˜They’ll never take to drugs.’
    â€˜Why not, if a loving home is no guarantee? Why should they listen to us rather than some piece of shit who wants to see them hooked?’ The strength of her fears was evidenced by her language; normally, she never swore.
    â€˜They are sensible.’
    â€˜And that is enough?’
    â€˜With the help of God.’
    â€˜Does He not permit there to be such terrible drugs? Does He not permit the old to tempt the young? So why should He help?’
    â€˜Why not ask the priest?’ he said, ducking an answer.
    â€˜How can he understand the fears of a mother when he does not know what it is to have children?’
    â€˜He’ll have been taught to give advice on matters he cannot experience.’
    â€˜And would you go to a chemist to be told how to build a house?’
    Again, he did not try to answer.
    â€˜You must know who are the local bastards – why don’t you arrest them?’
    â€˜I need evidence and there’s never enough to catch the people who really matter,’ he said sadly. It needed a cleverer man than he to understand why the law allowed itself to be used by criminals to evade justice.
    â€˜There were no drugs before the foreigners came. There was no pornography. You left the house unlocked when you went out. Families stayed together and the young supported the old. The foreigners should never have been allowed here.’
    â€˜Then you would be cooking on charcoal.’
    â€˜A small price to pay.’
    Since her cooking would still be superb, she was probably correct.
    *   *   *
    Alvarez considered the problem. The rules were clear. Any request for information to a foreign police force, normally passed through Interpol, had to be approved by someone of the rank of comisario or higher. To reach the rank of comisario, a man had to have ambition; an ambitious man did not make the mistake of helping a colleague if to do so carried the slightest element of risk. Yet if he didn’t ask one of the comisarios to endorse the request, that left only Salas. And there could be no doubt as to how he would react to the suggestion … Of course, if the request to the English police for information, both formal and informal, concerning Lawrence Clough and Neil Lewis, appeared to have the superior chief’s authority and if it asked that such information be sent direct to Llueso, why should Salas ever have cause to object? A man did not bemoan a lost lamb until he knew he had lost it.
    *   *   *
    He parked, locked the car, walked the short distance to the Hotel Alhambra. In the foyer, suitcases and hold-alls were piled high, men and women were milling about the reception desk, and children were racing, shouting, and screaming. A typical change-over day. The two harassed clerks ignored him until he leaned across the reception desk and announced himself.
    â€˜Can’t it wait?’ asked the older