An Ibiza Surprise: Dolly and the Cookie Bird; Murder in the Round by Dorothy Dunnett
I stopped dead. ‘Honestly. I think you’re the most selfish . . .’
‘But you weren’t doing Clem any good,’ said my mother patiently. ‘And I’ve got to get home somehow.’
I glared at her, and then got into the Maserati, letting her get in on her side by herself. As I revved up, she said absently: ‘You know. She-she, I never did have that soul talk with Derek. Where did he go?’
‘To the salt company office, I think,’ I said. ‘At least Gil dropped him by the quay in Ibiza. You were too busy to notice.’
‘Tony Lloyd? He’s rather a pet,’ said my mother. ‘Slow down, darling. If we see Derek, I’d like just a word with him.’
‘He’s got a love nest in Palma that’s the talk of the countryside,’ I said spitefully. ‘With six children in it, for all that I know.’
‘Derek has?’ said Mummy. It was the first time I’d ever seen her reduced to a bleat.
‘Mr Lloyd has.’ I swerved, to miss beheading a hen. ‘But I bet he’s got more than twenty-five thou a year.’
‘He’ll need it,’ said Mummy. ‘You remember the Vesey-Jacoby court case?’
‘The people you sued for defamation of character?’ It had been going on while I was at Mother Trudi’s.
‘Yup. I won it,’ said Mummy.
I missed another hen by a fraction.
‘You won it?’
‘Two hundred and forty thousand dollars,’ said Mummy. ‘Am I beautiful in your eyes?’
I put on the brakes hard, and a horn blared behind me, so I put her into gear again and drove on.
‘When I wrote in October, you said . . .’
‘I was damned if I was going to give you forty quid to impress an LSE student at his half sister’s wedding. Check. Have you ever seen that boy since?’
‘No.’
‘Do you want to see him again?’
‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Clem’s sick, Gilmore’s furious with me, Austin’s in Janey’s clutches, and Johnson’s disappeared. I suppose you’d like me to go to parties in tatters?’
‘You will learn,’ said my mother, ‘that lack of clothing never hampered anyone’s style. Whether it attracts the right type is another matter. There’s Derek.’
I drove on right past.
‘There,’ said my mother distinctly, ‘is Derek. Please stop.’
I said nothing. To hell with the Forseys by marriage. We were in the middle of Ibiza. Mummy leaned over and took the ignition key out.
She was out of the car calling him before the engine had petered quite out. The car behind me didn’t like it a bit. All I could do was look sweet and helpless, and finally everyone pulled out and passed. I couldn’t even draw on to the side as she’d taken the ignition key with her. I could hear the New England cadences and the voice of Cambridge approaching and sat, staring stonily ahead, while the car door opened, and they both squashed into the front.
‘He’s coming too,’ Mummy said cheerfully, and put the key back in the slot. I started the car without speaking.
Derek didn’t speak either. He smelt hot, and his expression, when I got out of town and managed a look was exceedingly grim.
Mummy said: ‘He’s been tracking down Rodgers and Hammerstein.’
‘Who?’
‘Jorge and Gregorio,’ said Mummy. She made it sound like a crack circus team. ‘He went back to the salt flats and went down to the anchorage.’
‘Why?’ I said.
‘Because,’ said Derek, ‘no-one answering to their description boarded the Swedish vessel this morning, and nothing but salt has disembarked since she sailed. The trail was a phoney.’
‘They didn’t take a car last night to the anchorage?’
‘No,’ said Derek.
“They didn’t sail from the island?’
‘No,’ Derek repeated.
‘Then they’re still here?’ I said. ‘But where could they be?’
That,’ said Derek, ‘is what I’m going to find out.’
Mummy sighed.
‘Darling boy,’ she said. ‘All those brain cells, groomed by all those trustees. Sometimes you make me feel perfectly stupid. Are you really bent on tracking down those two tedious Spaniards?’
‘Yes,’ said Derek.
She put a long blue arm round his shoulders and tweaked the little curl over his ears, in the way that he hated.
‘Well, you’re in the right place, honey,’ she said. ‘For they’re both at my house.’
I hit the hen that time. By the time I had scraped together my pesetas and got back to the car, you could hear Derek’s voice in Minorca. Mummy was sitting enthroned in her grin, like morning glory in a company window box. I told you she was an actress.
She stayed that way all the way to her house, and sweeping round that drive in daylight, past the lake and the bulrushes, I got pretty quiet myself.
Derek drew a deep breath, and as we came to a halt in front of that familiar portico, he said: ‘You understand, Mother. No matter what our relationship, if there is something criminal going on, I intend to report it.’
Mummy got out uncreased and regarded him with those spiked saucer eyes.
‘You didn’t report it when you knew Forsey was spying,’ she said.
Was spying. Derek’s colour got less, and I knew he’d noticed it, too.
He said: ‘My father was of poor character, his willpower weakened by drink.’
‘So you felt protective,’ said Mummy. ‘I’ll say She-she and you are a pair. Why I didn’t have the sense years ago to take to a wheelchair, I’ll never know. Come on in. The butler’s just putting the knockout drops into the cocoa.’
The mad thing was that Dilling was there. He opened the door with a bow, and if he was on hash, I didn’t see any sign of it.
Derek said, out of the side of his mouth: ‘Sarah. Does anyone know that you’re here?’
I shook my head. Clem was flat out on Dolly. Janey, I supposed, was still with Austin and Mr Lloyd as well, in her own house. Gilmore would have left Louie’s party and be on the way home by now. Johnson had vanished. In about an hour, perhaps, someone would wonder why I wasn’t there to make dinner before they all went on their boring jaunt to the processions. Then when I didn’t turn up, Anne-Marie would take over or Janey would open a tin. We followed Mummy, who took us into the room where the Russians had been and poured us three brandies and soda, with ice.
I didn’t care, I drank it. And so, after a moment, did Derek. Mummy, standing over us in her silver chains and blue suit, smiled sentimentally.
‘Dear children,’ she said. ‘If only Mother had had me taught knitting.’
‘What?’ said Derek, anxiously, hunting data in everything.
‘A crochet hook,’ said my mother, ‘isn’t long enough. Ah. There you are.’
Dilling had opened the door and ushered in Johnson.
His glasses looked just the same, and I suppose the pattern above and below was unaltered: he had his pipe in his hand. He said, mildly, to my mother: ‘You make people feel insecure. Anyway, you’re in the middle of the wrong play. I said leave Sarah and Derek out of this.’
‘I couldn’t,’ said Mummy, quickly. ‘Dilling drove the Humber away. And Derek has found out about Rodgers and Hammerstein. That they didn’t leave Las Salinas, that is. I know Derek. He’s hell unless he gets facts.’
I said: ‘I don’t know, of course, if it matters, but someone has tried to kill Clem. He’s lying on the bench in Dolly’s saloon with his head cut half-open, and Spry looking after him. I think it’s time we knew what’s going on.’
‘Time for one thing,’ said Johnson.
He walked slowly forward, took another brandy from Mummy, and sitting down with it, proceeded to light his foul pipe.
Without loo
‘I didn’t kill him,’ said Derek. ‘As I presume you know, if you’re mixed up in the whole thing yourself. I had the opportunity to kill him and to kill Coco, but I didn’t. I just wanted to find out who did.’
‘I don’t think you did either, Derek,’ Mummy said comfortingly. ‘But you haven’t answered Johnson’s question. What did Forsey say when you accused him?’
My brother looked straight at me.
‘He said, if I left my job, he’d pay me five thousand a year and expenses.’
‘He what?’ I said.
‘I gather Forsey didn’t take an interest in the LSE student’s half sister either,’ said Mummy.
Five thousand a year. I felt betrayed. Utterly, utterly betrayed. I’d taken him a three-pound box of Bendick’s bittermints last time I’d gone to stay with him.
‘Did he win a law suit as well?’
‘He was earning money, I guess,’ said Mummy. ‘Undercover. What happened, Derek?’
‘What do you think happened?’ said Derek, bitterly. ‘It was a bribe, as good as an admission. I knew as well as you do that he’d never had that amount of spare cash in his life, at any rate when we were all living with him. And when you think of it, of course, his was the perfect life for picking up secrets. He was on chatting terms with all the intelligent business world and all the peers in public positions, not in the boardroom or during the working day, but on the beach or at the drinks party where the yashmaks got dropped. I said if he didn’t give it up, I’d report him.’
‘And?’ said Johnson.
‘He took my hand and patted it and said: “My dear boy,” and grinned. That Roland Young grin. You know, She-she.’
I knew.
‘Oh, hurry up,’ I said. ‘Did he clip you one?’
‘He said he didn’t really see me going back to Holland and denouncing him, which was true. And that he couldn’t see me either going back and saying he was innocent, which was equally true. So, he said, the only possible course was the one he’d outlined. Living off his technological spin-offs was, I think, how he put it.’
‘Then when you spurned him?’ Johnson said.
‘He asked me to go back to Holland and say nothing and do nothing for four weeks. After that, he promised my job would be safe, and I needn’t worry any more. I was to tell my firm that I wanted four weeks to complete my investigations.’
‘So?’ Johnson’s voice was quite gentle.
‘So when I heard he had cut his throat, I knew I thought I knew that this was what he had meant. And that in a sense I had killed him.’
‘What made you change your mind?’ Johnson asked.
The blood. There wasn’t any,’ said Derek. ‘I saw him, you know. And the winch. And I spoke to old Pepe. The Guardia Civil were so hopeless, and no one seemed to understand, and of course, the last thing I wanted to do was to stir up all the dirt about Father. But I knew he hadn’t cut his own throat: he’d been taken there after it was done. The question was, was it done by his own wish? Or had someone murdered him?’
Johnson said: ‘Why should it matter?’ but I didn’t need to ask, nor I suppose did my mother.
Derek said: ‘You see, if he’d been murdered, in a way it was all right.’
‘Well, you can relax now,’ said Johnson, and put the pipe in his mouth. ‘He was murdered.’
There was a little silence. No stanza of poor Coco’s poetry could have been more concrete or more chilling than that.
I didn’t want any more brandy and soda.
‘Who killed him?’ I said.
‘He was killed,’ said Johnson, ‘over some rubies. Derek’s instinct was right. It seemed too much of a coincidence that there should be some nonsense going on over rubies and that a man should be killed at the same time. My guess would be that your father got to know, somehow, about the proposed theft of the rubies and that he was killed to keep him quiet.’
‘By Jorge and Gregorio,’ said Derek. Colour had come back into his face.
‘No. By someone else,’ Johnson said. ‘Someone who also killed Coco, because Coco watched your father when he came here by night to visit Mrs van Costa and because on that one vital night, Coco must have seen where he went. I don’t suppose Coco had any motive other than jealousy, coupled with malice, when he sensed that he would soon be asked to go. He must have followed Lord Forsey hoping to uncover some dirt or some trouble. And he certainly found it.’
‘Who, then?’ said Derek. My mother hadn’t uttered a word.
‘We don’t know yet,’ said Johnson. ‘But we shall. We have a very good opportunity, later tonight. Jorge and Gregorio are not the most cooperative of prisoners, and the old man is half dead with fright. Since I couldn’t use force, Lady Forsey, I took the liberty of bugging your cellar. I don’t know who killed your husband, I suspect they don’t know either. But I did find out one thing. There were two copies made of the Saint Hubert rubies.’
Mummy was first off the mark.
‘Huh? There’s another replica? Aside from the one that was smashed?’
‘Check,’ said Johnson. ‘The first one, the one we saw, didn’t pass muster. It was pretty clumsy, as Sarah will remember. A second copy was made.’
‘We didn’t find it?’ I said.
‘No. They took no chances with that one,’ said Johnson. ‘It was already removed from the workshop by person or persons unknown. All ready to be swapped for the original on the one night in the year when the original is within reach of the public, passing through the old city by drumbeat, at night.’
I put my hands over my mouth, and Derek half got up.
‘Tonight?’ he said. ‘During the Procession of Silence tonight? The people who killed my father are going to steal those rubies tonight?’
Johnson took his pipe over to a table, laid it down, and had a swig of his brandy.
‘I looked up Capricorn, She-she,’ he said. ‘It says pension matters are overdue for serious consideration and that you will sparkle tonight.’
‘Never mind my pension,’ I said. ‘Let’s get the police.’
‘Now’ said my mother and Derek simultaneously.
‘Now nothing,’ I said. ‘The heroines I’ve seen come to a sticky end because, while the murderer’s still running around, no one calls in the police. You’ve evidence of two murders and a forthcoming robbery. For crying out loud, dial nueve, nueve, nueve. Policia, Guardia Civil, and Bomberos.’
‘Someone has, dearie,’ said Johnson. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘Meet,’ said my mother, ‘the Man from the Prudential.’
‘You meet him,’ I said. ‘I’m going home. I don’t want to go the same way as Clement and Austin and Daddy and Coco.’
‘You go on home, honey,’ said Mummy.
I stayed.
I suppose I would have thought more about Johnson’s work if he hadn’t had glasses. I mean, what special agent on films ever had glasses? Bifocals, anyway. I did wonder in passing why he carried a gun and found safecracking so easy, but he simply said he’d been on special-branch work in the war, and once done, never forgotten. And that when you’d spent a few years on the waterfront, you learned the best way to take care of yourself and your boat. If an internationally famous portrait painter told you that, you believed him. Despite anything Derek upbraided me with afterwards, I am definitely not naive.
It was Derek who went on and on when Johnson was trying to swear us to silence. I knew what Derek was thinking. He thought Janey should know. And he resented Johnson anyway for a perfectly o
He gave his word, in the end, because Mummy browbeat him into it. Johnson let her. Johnson was a man of unusual talents. Then he took us, very slowly and clearly, several times over his plan for that night.
Spry phoned, before it was over, to tell Johnson that Clem had now wakened but wasn’t up to much. He suspected concussion. They couldn’t lay hands on a doctor. We heard Johnson hesitate.
He said to Spry: ‘I want you to take over guard duty at Mrs van Costa’s within the next hour. Could you leave Clem? Or isn’t it safe?’
Johnson’s face, as he laid down the receiver, bore perceptible signs of concern.
‘He’s going. He thinks Clem will sleep,’ he said. ‘It’s rotten luck, but we really can’t do anything else, with Austin laid up as well. She-she, where is Mr Lloyd planning to stand? At the Monument? In the Vera de Rey?’
All the processions in Ibiza arrived at the boulevard and took a turn round the Monument.
‘He said something about the Monument,’ I said. ‘Janey and Gil and I should be with him. He was joining friends there.’
‘But the four of you, and possibly Derek, will be the only guests for dinner tonight?’
‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘I’ve only ordered enough food for four.’ I paused and said: ‘Johnson, why should someone cosh Clem?’
Johnson’s black eyebrows rose, but his voice remained perfectly calm.
‘Are you sure it was Clem whom they wanted to cosh?’
The ash broke from Mummy’s cheroot as she sat suddenly upright.
‘Me? It was an attempt to hurt me?’
‘I should think so,’ said Johnson. ‘It’s perfectly easy to hide in the fo’c’s’le and escape up through the hatch later, when the fuss has died down. You’ve got short hair. In the half-light he might easily have mistaken his victim.’
‘Clem is a dear boy,’ said my mother, wide-eyed. ‘But I must say I am not flattered. What is more, I don’t get it. If Coco had imparted to me any of his vital secrets, surely by now I’ve had time to pass them on?’