Under Suspicion Page 8

  She turned away and limped towards her office. One glance at her rigid back made me wonder if I’d get the chance to organise any more outings. The Donkey Safari had been somewhat of a disaster as far as she had been concerned. And who was going to get the blame? Me. Not Vanheusen who had ordered her to take over. I could imagine her relating the whole sorry tale to my rival, Cousin Ashley – a lady no doubt cast in the same mould as herself.

  Before the door closed behind her she snapped, ‘On a properly organised Outing, Deborah, nothing would have gone wrong.’

  She’d be in a better mood tomorrow when the first of the villa inspection visits would give her the chance to launch into her hard-sell sales pitch describing the site and attributes of the properties available for purchase. Two of the four prospective purchasers had been on today’s softening-up Outing. The other two obviously had no intention of buying. They might give the whole thing a miss, even though that would flout the conditions of the Exclusive holiday offer. Scott, I guessed, would be too occupied trying to track down his missing cash to go through the charade of villa tours. Freckle-faced Millie was more of an unknown quantity. She was a pain, but I didn’t want to see her dead. Might she have thought better of her outburst at police HQ and been warned off – or would she turn up intent on ferreting out secrets, full of questions, and set alarm bells ringing?

  The answer came almost immediately. The phone on my desk buzzed.

  ‘Hi, it’s Millie Prentice here. I’m scheduled for villa visits tomorrow. Are they morning or afternoon?’

  Chapter Nine

  Buzzz from Monique’s office. Vanheusen was ready to see me. It was the summons I had been waiting for. In preparation, I’d stood for quite a time in front of the bathroom mirror cultivating an appropriate look for the role of distraught victim of los vándalos – a subtle blend of anguish and suppressed rage – hand run through hair, moist eyes, judicious use of blusher, that sort of thing.

  Monique was sitting at her desk/table buffing her long fingernails. She seemed to have recovered from the fraught experience of the Donkey Safari and be in a better mood, buoyed up no doubt by the prospect of cash registers ringing from yesterday’s villa inspections.

  Without looking up she said, ‘Do you know, Deborah, I think you overreached yourself organising such a gruelling Outing. Yes, it was a little too fatiguing.’

  When I didn’t reply, she glanced at me curiously. ‘Something wrong?’ She raised a cool eyebrow. ‘If I may say so, you’re looking a soupçon distrait this morning.’

  So, I’d passed the audition.

  ‘It’s my cat. She’s—’ I broke off, as though overwhelmed with emotion.

  ‘Lost, stolen, strayed –’ She spread out her fingers, studying the burgundy nail enamel for almost imperceptible flaws, ‘– dead?’

  ‘Oh no, Monique. Not quite as bad as that. But bad enough.’ I launched into a trial run of my tale. ‘I arrived home yesterday to find—’ Dramatic pause. ‘My cat—’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ she didn’t try to hide a moue of distaste, ‘the creature sicked up all over the bed, went berserk and shredded the curtains and the place stank of cat pee. Messy, destructive beasts, cats.’

  On a par with donkeys, I suppose. ‘Oh no,’ I protested, ‘Persepolis has never done anything like that.’

  Always a first time, her look said.

  ‘Yesterday, Holy Innocents’ Day, practical jokers splashed paint all over my back door. And…and… then they caught Persepolis and cut lumps out of her coat. You should have seen the state they left her in. I’ve got a photo here somewhere.’ I zipped open my shoulder bag and began to rake.

  Stifling a yawn that plainly said, ‘Don’t bother,’ she leant across the spindly table that served her as a desk and switched on the computer. The screen lit up, Enter password. Automatically she began to type it in.

  M-O

  If I stopped talking, she’d sense my interest, be on her guard.

  ‘Of course, it was all my own fault,’ I babbled on. ‘I shouldn’t have left those paint tins on the patio.’

  N-I

  ‘But I don’t want to keep Mr Vanheusen waiting. I’ll tell you about it later.’

  K-A

  Monika.

  I’m amazed how careless people are about security – even those who should know better. The musical note of the boot-up sounded behind me as I made my way across the expanse of carpet to Vanheusen’s office. Would the photo of G in my bag get me off the hook?

  He was standing at the huge plate-glass window overlooking the gardens. He didn’t shift his gaze from the scene outside as he beckoned me over.

  ‘You’re just in time to see the finishing touches being put to the kinetic sculpture I’ve commissioned in honour of Black Prince.’

  Down below in the garden a group of workmen were removing the covering from around a three-metre-high bronze tree. In the fork of the tree crouched a life-sized black cat, paw outstretched. A mini cloud of iridescent metal butterflies shimmered and trembled just out of reach.

  ‘Wonderful!’ I breathed. ‘You’d think that cat was alive.’

  ‘Carved from obsidian. Without flaw. Each measurement exact. Now,’ he turned away from the window, ‘what I’ve been waiting for – that photograph of Persepolis. Did you—?’

  I switched on my previously tested-on-Monique anguished look.

  ‘Oh, Mr Vanheusen, something simply awful’s happened to her.’

  His smile faded.

  ‘Yesterday,’ I rushed on, ‘when I got back from the office, my door was absolutely covered with paint. Then I found,’ I swallowed hard, ‘that – that – someone had cut lumps out of her coat. Holy Innocents’ Day pranksters going too far, I think…’ I trailed off.

  ‘But the cat’s not been injured?’ The concern seemed genuine. It almost made me warm to him.

  ‘No, she’s not injured, but she had such a beautiful coat. So long and silky. Now just look at her.’

  I delved for the photo and thrust it into his hands. There she was, moth-eaten Gorgonzola, sitting in front of her work of art – namely my rainbow-splattered back door. She was staring into the camera, eyes wide with shock-horror. Out of camera shot, I had strategically placed a large basin of soapy water and the hated sponge used on the occasions she had to be subjected to the torture of a bath.

  ‘Christ!’ Vanheusen collapsed onto a sofa as if I had crept up behind him and suddenly kicked him behind the knee. ‘That poor cat’s been traumatised. Outrageous.’ He leapt up, strode over to the side table, and flicked the telephone-intercom. ‘Monique, get me Roberto.’

  A wave of the hand indicated that I should sit down. He propped the photo against the Lucie Rie bowl, the better to study the tortured look that G was so expert at assuming.

  ‘After an experience like that, Persepolis needs urgent treatment. Psychological damage ruins show and breeding potential.’

  A bubble of laughter welled up inside me. I converted it into a long sigh. She certainly had potential. But not in either of those departments. Gorgonzola as Show Champion, Gorgonzola as Mother, no way.

  The intercom buzzed. ‘Roberto on the line for you, Mr Vanheusen.’

  He picked up the photo and studied it as he spoke. ‘Roberto, I’ve a cat that needs your services. Bad case of trauma… No, no, thankfully not Black Prince… Soon as possible. This afternoon would be fine… Not here, familiar surroundings would be better. At…?’ He looked at me enquiringly.

  ‘Calle Rafael Alberti, numero 2, La Caleta.’

  I hid my unease. Was this Roberto a vet – and what treatment would he give a perfectly healthy cat? Treatment there would be, I was sure of it, justification for his no doubt exorbitant private charges.

  ‘Good, that’s arranged then. Adiós.’ He regarded me with satisfaction. ‘Roberto will commence treatment on Persepolis this afternoon. At 3 o’clock.’

  ‘Treatment?’ I panicked. Now I wasn’t acting. ‘Injections? I don’t— She’ll be even more�
�’

  ‘No, no, no. Nothing like that.’ He was grinning. ‘Something much more effective. What Persepolis requires is the healing hands of a Reikimaster. Roberto, I can assure you, is one of the best in the business. Now, if you’ll forgive me…’ He wandered over to the window.

  I left him in silent contemplation of his kinetic Black Prince.

  And so it was that the Reikimaster came to Calle Rafael Alberti, numero 2. When I opened the door to him, I expected to see someone enveloped in an indefinable air of mystery, someone not exactly muffled in black cloak and sombrero, a Zorro-like figure as in the old ad for Sandeman’s Port, but at least someone tall and commanding. Roberto was small, fat and ordinary. Unimpressive. Until he spoke to G.

  ‘Come to me, pequeña gata.’ His voice was deep, soft, velvety, caressing.

  The effect on Gorgonzola was startling. She’d been eyeing this stranger suspiciously from the top of the refrigerator. Now she took a flying leap, landed with a light thump at his feet, and twined herself round his legs, tail erect, purring loudly.

  ‘Ca-r-r-r-issima,’ he purred in return, ‘how much you have suffered. Your so beautiful hair, it has been much despoiled.’

  His voice…so soothing, so tender, so warm…so hypnotic. Any minute now there’d be two besotted females wrapped dreamily round his calves.

  ‘So now we have to relax for the treatment.’ He extricated himself carefully from G’s clutches and made his way over to the table. ‘Señora, please bring the soft blanket or the small fur carpet for her to lie on when I am making the music.’

  It’s hot in Tenerife. Not the sort of place you need thick or furry furnishings, but I did the best I could with a thin blanket from the top shelf of the wardrobe. Roberto nodded approval as I folded it into a Gorgonzola-sized rectangle and laid it on the wood of the table.

  ‘Aaaaah…ee…aaah…’ He let out a long-drawn-out madrelena wail.

  G sprang onto the improvised bed and flopped down, eyes closed.

  ‘Aah…eee…eee…aaaah…’ The sound undulated, soared to the ceiling and ricocheted softly off the walls.

  In madrelena-receiving mode she turned on her back, paws limp.

  ‘So, carissima, you are ready to receive the healing power.’ With a quiet smile of satisfaction, he lightly clasped her face in his chubby hands.

  ‘She doesn’t like—’ I stopped, my warning cut short by a loud rumbling purr. There had been no explosive reaction. No angry spitting and hissing. No frantic squirming from the hated imprisoning grasp.

  From then on I kept my mouth shut, a silent and curious observer. Roberto’s hands moved to her chest, then to her belly. As she lay there emitting a series of gentle ladylike snores, the madrelena faded to a barely audible croon.

  ‘So now she will sleep. She will feel much better.’ He stepped back from the table. ‘The healing energy it was flowing into her. I feel the heat in my hands.’

  ‘It was very good of Mr Vanheusen to send you,’ I said as I prepared to show him out.

  He looked at me gravely. ‘Mr Vanheusen always takes great care of his cats. They are to him like sons and daughters.’

  I gazed down at G’s recumbent form. Mr Vanheusen always takes great care of his cats. I didn’t like the implication one little bit.

  I left Gorgonzola to sleep off the ministrations of the Reikimaster and headed for the Alhambra and the ‘office’ allocated to clientele seeking information or help from Exclusive. In keeping with the exotic ambience, this was no plain desk screened off by potted palms, but a stylish table set in a striped open-sided tent modelled on the pavilions depicted in Moorish manuscripts. As I approached across the foyer, my heart sank. I’d spotted the stringy figure seated bolt upright in the client chair.

  Even before I’d sat down Herbert G Wainwright launched into a long-winded tale about the villas he’d inspected. ‘…class establishments but…too isolated… not my style at all…none of them…’

  I let him drone on. I nodded or tsk tsked at appropriate moments, but I was only half-listening. I was thinking about Millie’s behaviour on her inspection tour of the villas. Had she been wise and adopted a softly-softly approach? Or had she drawn attention to herself by firing a barrage of probing questions that positively shrieked, ‘I’m sussing you out’? She’d probably have watched her step at first, but if she’d sensed she was onto something…

  ‘…that Millie Prentice should…’ The name leapt out of Wainwright’s tedious monologue.

  Damn, what had I missed? I leant forward. ‘I think the point you’re making deserves looking into, Mr Wainwright. Would you go over that again so I can make a note of it?’ I poised my pen invitingly over my notepad.

  ‘Sure I will. She has no interest in buying a villa, told me so herself. So how come that same young lady fixed herself an invite to that classy boat of Vanheusen’s? Yep, she’s pulled a fast one there.’

  Oh Millie, I thought, I really do hope you know what you’re doing.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘That photo – I think we might have turned up something.’

  ‘Photo?’ I said blankly. The only one that sprang to mind was the photo of ‘traumatised’ Gorgonzola that had so wrung Vanheusen’s heart. ‘What? G sitting in front of her artwork door?’

  Gerry shook his head impatiently. ‘No, no.’

  He shoved in front of me the photograph of Monique and Vanheusen clutching champagne glasses at some reception. Truth was, I’d pushed that little foray into Monique’s sanctum to the back of my mind.

  ‘We’ve run the faces in the background through the computer and come up with a match on one of them.’ He pulled off his glasses and gnawed at an earpiece. ‘A bit fuzzy, a difficult job. The lab boys had to do some enlarging and enhancing. But it’s him, no mistake.’ He reinstalled the glasses on his nose.

  ‘Well, just who is Mr X, then?’ I said. Gerry could be so exasperating.

  ‘Didn’t I say? Thought I had.’ He leant back in his chair, knowing that little fib would irritate me even more. ‘It’s John Sinclair. Owner of The Saucy Nancy.’

  The Saucy Nancy was perhaps one of the biggest, and undoubtedly the fastest, of the game-fishing boats based in Puerto Colon, Las Américas’s expensive marina. I don’t take much interest in that kind of thing, preferring the power and beauty of living tuna and marlin to dead bones and skin.

  Gerry rummaged in the pile of papers on his desk, pulled out last month’s copy of the Tenerife News, and shoved the paper across the desk in my direction.

  A grainy black and white pic showed a proud angler standing beside a very dead marlin suspended by its tail from a gantry at the stern of a game-fishing boat. The caption read, The Old Man and the Fish! Eighty-year-old hooks a big ’un on The Saucy Nancy.

  Gerry stabbed a finger down on the skipper, a stocky man in jeans and a tartan shirt. ‘That’s Sinclair.’

  ‘So, apart from being at the same party as Vanheusen,’ I said, ‘what have we got on him?’

  Gerry dumped a folder on top of the newspaper. ‘Plenty. Back in the UK he ran a used-car dealership that specialised in hiring out camper vans. Nothing luxurious, just a cooker, mini-fridge, seats convertible into bunks. Throw in a tent and you’ve got the perfect cheap family holiday. Tour the Continent, drive down to the south of France or Spain, hop over to Morocco for a couple of days. Nice little earner.’

  I thumbed idly through the folder. ‘Not much of a profit in that, by the time you take wear and tear on tyres and engine into account. Unless, of course,’ I looked up, ‘they brought back a holiday souvenir or two?’

  ‘Getting close.’ He pushed back his chair and went over to the coffee machine. ‘Try looking at page 24.’

  ‘Oh come on, Gerry.’ I took the cup he was holding out. ‘Life’s too short. Just tell me.’

  That was another of his annoying habits. He’d feed you dribs and drabs of information to see if you could forward-guess what he was about to reveal. He called it exercising the brain. ‘A brain
workout is just as important as a body workout,’ he’d say piously when his victim griped about it.

  He sighed in surrender. He really hated it when cheated out of the full question–answer routine. ‘Souvenir in the form of white powder, Class A type. The punters were dupes. They really thought they were getting a bargain holiday, especially when he offered an extra few days in Morocco as a freebie, see round the kasbah etc. And while they were busy haggling in the souk, the local boys would be busy stashing the dope in secret compartments in the van.’

  I sipped at the coffee. Not enough milk. ‘Nobody ever ask awkward questions?’

  ‘Why should they?’ He perched on the corner of his desk. Off came the glasses, twirl, twirl. ‘None so blind as those who don’t want to see.’

  I took another sip and gave up on the coffee. Time to earn a few Brownie points. ‘Let me guess. We knew about this pretty soon – couldn’t miss a stream of camper vans going from A to B. We let it run, though. All masterly inactivity to catch Mr Big.’

  ‘Right.’ Another twirl of the long-suffering glasses. ‘But last year he suddenly ups sticks and comes over here. Whether he got wind that we were breathing down his neck, or somebody made him an offer he couldn’t refuse…Now he’s doing pretty well, too well. Big boat, big car, big house, big spender. So what – or who – is bankrolling him?’

  He hitched himself off the corner of the desk and slid into his seat. He peered over the bridge of his fingers, elbows planted on desk, fingers interlocked, chin supported on thumbs. Oh, oh, bad sign. I recognised the ritual. An unpleasant assignment was coming up and heading in my direction.

  ‘That photo was taken last New Year in Vanheusen’s house at a private party. So why did Sinclair get an invite? That’s where—’ He shot me a probing glance.

  ‘—where I come in.’ I finished the sentence for him.