I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Jesus, he was a real class act. He just unzipped himself and got on the job? What a knight in shining armour. I take it these samples are viable for DNA.’
‘Yes. We’re testing, but where we’ll find a match. . God alone knows that.’
I shuddered. ‘Not with my sample, I promise you that. Does anyone know whether Planas had a lady friend?’
‘That was one of the first questions we asked the people who knew him, including his son, his bank manager, the owner of Hostal Miryam, Justine Michels, and all the other people on the council. They all said the same thing, that he hasn’t been seen with a lady since Angel’s mother died six years ago. One or two of the older ones said that he wasn’t seen with her all that often either. They would go to church together, but it was unusual for them to go anywhere else as a couple. She was a very quiet woman, apparently.’
‘Did you ask Angel about her?’
‘No. There was no reason.’
‘I suppose not. So who do you reckon this woman was? A prostitute, a call girl?’
‘That was Gomez’s first thought. If she is, she won’t be from L’Escala. The old goat would have been more discreet than to pick up a local. Maybe one of the clubs along the road to Figueras has been sending women out on house calls. We’re going to check all of them tomorrow.’
‘Then you’ll be looking for someone who’s gone missing.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Don’t you? This woman, whoever she is, has to be your new prime suspect. Maybe he wouldn’t pay her or tried to short change her. .’
‘That’s our thinking,’ Alex agreed.
‘. . she picked up a rock, or something similar. . maybe she had a cosh in her bag. . and hit him with it. She probably didn’t mean to kill him, but when she realised she had, she did some quick thinking, dragged him to the wall and tossed him over to make it look like a fall. And after doing that, and getting rid of the second wine glass, she hung around? I don’t think so.’
‘I don’t think so either. You have quite an imagination, Primavera; you see it much as we do. In fact the crime scene team found traces of blood on the grass, near the patio, and then again, in several other places, leading towards the wall. But you got the weapon wrong. Perez found something else that our man had missed: fine traces of wood and paint embedded in Planas’s skull, where it was crushed. She says that there was only one blow, and that death was probably instantaneous. We’re going back to the scene tomorrow, early, to see if we can find a match.’
‘Whatever he was hit with, it did the job. Tell me, was there any money in his wallet? I assume that he had one.’
‘Oh yes, he did, and there was four hundred and eight euro in it. He always paid his bills in cash, at Hostal Miryam and everywhere else. He didn’t have any credit cards; no plastic at all.’
‘Doesn’t that argue against the prostitute theory?’ I wondered, aloud.
‘Not necessarily. If she was smart enough to fake the accident scenario, she’d have known that robbing him would have blown it. Besides, for all we know he could have had a thousand on him originally.’
‘True,’ I conceded. ‘In any event, your lady killer is probably long gone from Spain by now.’
‘I fear you may be right,’ he conceded. ‘But that isn’t going to stop us looking for her.’
Twenty-four
Mac was waiting in the garden when I returned; the evening had cooled and he had put on a sweater. ‘What would you like?’ I asked him, as I led the way inside, and sent him up to the first-floor terrace, overlooking the square.
‘A beer will do.’
I fetched a couple of bottles of Coronita from the fridge (they call it Corona in Mexico, where it’s made, and just about everywhere else on the planet; it’s my ‘house’ beer), stuck a wedge of lime in the neck of each and carried them upstairs. Grandpa Blackstone had settled himself into one of the chairs and was gazing down at the rapidly clearing cafés.
‘You’re doing a great job, Primavera,’ he said, as I handed him his nightcap.
‘Uh?’ I grunted, as I lit a mozzy candle.
‘With Tom.’
‘He’s due most of the credit.’
‘Some of it, but you’re setting the example, you’re doing the raising. He’s turning into a fine boy.’ He smiled. ‘I had a look at his teeth once he’d brushed them. He’s got the same kink in his lower incisors that his father had, and his aunt still does. You could have it straightened by an orthodontist, indeed if you were American it would be automatic, but it’s a very small imperfection. I never bothered with Oz or Ellie. It won’t stop him having a killer smile when all his adult set are through.’
‘That’ll be good,’ I murmured, ‘as long as he smiles with his eyes at the same time.’
A frown seemed to settle on Mac’s face in the candlelight. ‘Are you saying that my son didn’t?’
‘He did when I first met him. I’ll die thinking of the first time he smiled at me. Latterly, though, it wasn’t always the case.’
‘What changed him, d’ you think?’
I sighed. ‘Me probably.’
‘Nah. You set him on the road to doing things he’d never dreamed of.’
‘And came between him and Jan.’
‘Sometimes monogamy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’
I had no response to that, and he wasn’t about to elaborate, and so we sat in silence for a while, until he reached across and tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Hey,’ he began, and the grin was back, ‘what about this Gerard then?’
‘What about him?’
‘Tom seems to like him.’
‘Tom’s one of his altar servers.’
‘You’re okay with that?’
‘Absolutely. If you’re looking for a role model for the son of a single mum, who better?’
‘And for the single mother herself?’
I chuckled. ‘Mac, think of him as the bloke next door, because that’s what he is. You’ve been single, you know how these things really are.’
‘Hah! Bad example, lass. In my case, Mary and I were creeping in and out of each other’s houses late at night, until we went legit.’
‘Well, there’s no creeping done here!’
He nodded. ‘Just as well.’ He pointed with his beer bottle, down the square. Alex and Gloria had just left their table and he was steering Marte’s buggy round the corner. ‘That was a long conversation,’ he remarked.
At times, Mac can be as subtle as a flying mallet, but I know that his curiosity isn’t that of the prurient, but that of someone who really cares about me, almost as much as my own father does.
‘See you,’ I said, smiling. ‘His name is Alex, his wife’s called Gloria and I’m the baby’s godmother, unlikely as that may seem. He’s a cop, and he was giving me the lowdown on a case that is currently the talk of the steamie in this part of the world.’
‘What happened? Has somebody been nicking the lead off the church roof?’
‘No, someone’s drawn a line under a prominent citizen. Alex is one of the investigators.’
‘Jesus, homicide?’
I nodded.
‘In a place like this?’
‘We’re not immune. I didn’t mention it earlier, because Tom was around.’
I gave him a full rundown on the events leading up to Planas’s death, and on what had happened afterwards.
‘They thought Matthew did it?’ he gasped.
‘Let’s just say that they entertained the possibility.’
‘Ridiculous. The big fella’s harmless. Plus, on the golf course he couldna’ hit a cow on the arse with a shovel, so I doubt if he’s capable of clubbing anyone over the head, unless the bloke stood very still and told him what to do. What about his stepson, this Ben lad? Surely he had a down on the dead man?’
‘Ben’s problems with him were over by that time, and he never knew about the money. Besides, he told me that Alex had been to see him and asked him where he was. Seems that he wasn’t alone; he isn’t saying who he was with, not to me, anyway, but he’s not in the frame. As for Matthew, he can prove where he was at the time as well.’
‘So the theory is that this righteous pillar of the community bought himself some nookie and then got hit over the head?’