I reached Pubol twenty minutes early, and parked in the big, flat, red-ash area which was as far as cars could venture, tucking the Frontera out of sight as best I could. The night was moonless and the stars stood out more vividly than they normally did in the southern sky, as I walked quietly into the hamlet.
The bar and restaurant were closed and shuttered. Nothing stirred as I slipped across the narrow street, and up the steps which led to Gala’s castle. The gate was locked, but I climbed it, quickly and noiselessly. As I had been told, I hurried round the corner, my left hand on the wall in the darkness, and cursing myself for my stupidity in not bringing a torch.
I had never noticed the side door in all my earlier visits, but it wasn’t difficult to find. Three metres along from the locked garage doors, behind a bush which deepened the darkness, my searching hand found a sudden break in the wall, and felt the touch of wood. There was a handle on the right. I turned it, opened the door and stepped inside. At first the blackness was complete. I stretched my hands out on both sides and realised that I was in a short corridor. Slowly, I inched along it, until my foot encountered something solid: another door. It opened easily too. Suddenly, the night was less dark, as the starlight shone down into the castle’s open courtyard. I stood there, like a nervous burglar, listening for a footfall upstairs, until my eyes could make out the cellar door, and the light which shone under it.
I crossed to it in four long steps and slipped inside, opening and closing it as quickly as I could. Blinking at the sudden brightness, I tiptoed down the curving stone way, my heart thumping.
I knew he would be waiting for me in the Delma, beneath the castle. He was, but not where I had expected.
The second great stone slab, on the left of Gala’s tomb, had been slewed round, through an angle of around sixty degrees. The area of surrounding stone over which it had passed was white with French chalk, used, I guessed, as a lubricant to ease its movement. As I stared at it, I saw that the stone was, in fact, a gateway. The stairway which it concealed was narrow, and very steep, as steep in fact as that on Trevor Eames’ boat. But it went down much further, around eighteen feet, I guessed, as I looked into it. Light spilled up from a chamber, a catacomb, a hidden apartment below the Delma.
I guess I should have been scared shitless as I made my way down, bracing my hands against the stone on either side of the steps. But I wasn’t. It never occurred to me that I should be scared of a friend.
The main chamber was big; thirty feet square, I guessed, and it had been cut out of rock. The air should have been stale, but it wasn’t. A ventilator shaft had been cut in the far wall, leading, I guessed, to an outlet way beyond the garden. Beside the stair, to my left, there was a wooden door, leading perhaps to other rooms.
The secret apartment was as brightly lit as the cellar above. At first my mind was blown. I had to force myself, but eventually I regained some kind of self-control and looked around. The stairway had opened out not quite into the centre of the room. It was furnished with a dining table without chairs, an old red leather chaise longue with mahogany legs, and an ornate, hand-carved bed, set away in the corner to my left. Around the walls, pictures were hanging. Magnificent, explosive paintings, full of life, full of colour, full of warmth; full, I could tell, of love. At another time, I would have stared at them for hours, but I couldn’t because right there and then, my attention was drawn to the other things in the room.
There was a large television set, with a video recorder below, both plugged into a socket in the wall, and both switched on. The pause button on the video had been hit, and a face was frozen on the screen: a terrified face, that of Adrian Ford.
Beyond the appliances there were three easels, each supporting a picture covered by a sheet. They were all around three feet by four; the one in the centre was landscape format, while those on the outside were portrait.
Finally, on trestles, beside the far wall, there was an open coffin, a fine affair, a work of art, carved in dark wood, and highly polished. Beside it, on the floor, a dining chair lay, on its side. As I looked at it, I saw in its shadow a small brown plastic bottle, without a lid.
My eyes were on the floor as I stepped towards the bier. I knew what it was I would find, but I didn’t want to see it. But finally I stood beside it, put my hand on its edge and lifted my gaze.
Davidoff didn’t look old at all now. All of the lines had gone from his face, and from the hands which lay crossed over his chest. He was wearing his black satin outfit, his hair was sleek, and his skin was oiled, still with that olive tinge, only a little waxy.
I knew, all right, but I put my hand on his forehead just to make sure. It was the first time I had ever touched a dead person. He was still warm, but it was leaving him, as his life had ebbed away an hour or so earlier, on a tide of sleeping pills from the empty bottle on the floor, taken after he had used the chair to climb into his own coffin.
I looked at him, lying there. He’d won all the way, and I’ll swear he was smiling.
I knew what he wanted me to do next. I picked up the chair, set it down in front of the television, then, when I had made myself as comfortable as the hard seat would allow, reached down and pressed the play button of the VCR.
‘All right, all right,’ said Adrian Ford, fear making his voice harsh and shrill. As the picture began to move, I could see that he was standing with his back to the gaping mouth of the Cadillac’s open trunk. ‘I’ll do it, but come on, what for?What’s all this about?’
‘In good time.’ Davidoff’s voice came from off camera. ‘First oblige me, and shave off that unspeakable fucking beard.’
‘Dav, this is crazy. If I’d known you’d flipped at last I’d never have agreed to meet you.’
‘Of course you would. You couldn’t say no to your friend Davidoff, the guy who made you all that money. Now shave!’
On screen, Ford began to do as he was told. His beard was tough and tangled, but he hacked away at it with the trimmer of the Philishave, and smoothed it with the triple foil head. It took him ten minutes, but at last his chin and jaw were clean and white, and he had become the man in Shirley’s photo.
‘Satisfied?’ he said eventually looking not at the camera, but behind it.
‘Sure.’ I heard Davidoff reply. ‘Now you look like you did when you killed my young friend Ronnie.’
‘What!’ It was a shriek.
‘You heard me. I know about it. You killed Ronnie Starr, up at St Marti, and you buried his body. Then a few months later, you sold his pictures. The picture of Cadaques, you had Trevor Eames sell to your nephew to give to your sister. The other one, the one which Ronnie did not paint, the one with the authentic signature of Dali, you sold in June, at a phoney auction for four hundred thousand US dollars; a quarter of a million sterling; fifty million pesetas. That’s a good enough reason to kill someone; a good enough reason for you anyway. You going to admit it for my camera, or will I just shoot you like a dog?’ Ford threw up his hands, as if to ward someone off. ‘Okay, okay, I sold the pictures, but I didn’t kill Starr. Trevor did that. We arranged to meet him up at St Marti, one night. After we’d eaten, and everyone was gone, we walked round to the headland. I suggested the auction idea to Ronnie. I said that Trevor and I would fix up the sale of the Dali, and that we’d split the profits. He’d get half andTrevor and I would split the rest. Ronnie said no, no way. I’d have left it at that. But Trevor picked up a rock behind his back and smashed his head in. He’s a violent man, is Trevor.’
‘Was,’ said Davidoff’s voice.
Confusion mingled with the fear on Ford’s face.
‘Ah, you hadn’t heard about Trevor, then. It’s too bad. Somebody went on board his boat and killed him. Tragic.’ Ford’s right eye began to twitch, uncontrollably. ‘Don’t tell me such shit, Adrian,’ said the off-screen voice, sighing contemptuously. ‘Trevor Eames was no leader. He was a deckhand, not a captain. If he killed Ronnie, it was because you told him to. But I don’t think that. I think you did. You have to be real greedy to kill someone. Trevor wasn’t that greedy. You are.’