I smiled as I hung up, yet I was intrigued, too. Planas wasn’t a whore-monger, but who had been deemed worthy enough to service him?
‘What are we doing this afternoon?’ Mac asked as I came back into the kitchen.
‘What would you like to do? The world is your oyster; or anchovy, or mussel or clam, or whatever sea creature you prefer.’
In the end he settled for a round of golf, not on the big tracks of Pals or Emporda where you’re going to take a minimum four hours to get round, but on the par three course at Gualta, which we could fit into the length of Tom’s school afternoon. I’d have taken Charlie, but as I wasn’t sure he’d be welcomed, I left him with Ben, and his two chums.
Mac still plays tidy golf, and I’m not bad, but for all that we found the little course more difficult than it looked, and each of us contributed a couple of balls to the water hazards before we were done. Afterwards, we had a cool drink in the bar before heading back to St Martí to pick up Charlie and to be in time for Tom getting home from school.
I was on my way up back from Ben’s shop, with the dog trotting ahead of me when I saw a Mossos vehicle parked in front of my house; it hadn’t been there when I’d stepped out of the gate five minutes before. My first guess was that Alex had stopped off to blag a coffee, after a weary day spent chasing whores, until I realised that the car was a saloon, and not the off-roader he usually drove.
Intendant Gomez was waiting in the garden when I let myself in; Mac was with him, but nothing was being said, not least because neither spoke the other’s language to any significant degree. ‘Good afternoon,’ I greeted him, in Catalan. Mac looked bewildered, shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the front door, to indicate that he was going inside.
‘Good afternoon to you, Primavera,’ Gomez replied. I was surprised; he’d never been so familiar before.
‘Yes, it is,’ I continued, ‘but now we’ve got that over with, why the visit?’
‘It’s a courtesy call, no more. I understand that Inspector Guinart let you in on the results of the second autopsy. I don’t mind that at all. In fact, since it seems that you have friends with friends in high places. .’ there was more than a hint of irony in his tone, ‘. . I thought I’d let you know the latest. Alex’s tour of the clubs is over; it’s left him a little disgusted, and us none the wiser. . although we do have some potentially useful information about their client lists. However, we have determined the murder weapon.’
‘Have you indeed? A wooden club, Alex said.’
‘Not quite. It was a chair, from Senor Planas’s patio set. It seems that he and his nocturnal visitor had some sort of a disagreement, he turned his back on her and she picked up the chair and swung it at him.’
‘I see.’ From what I remembered of the furniture in question, it had been solid enough to do the job. ‘Alex also told me that you had DNA samples from Planas’s clothing that would identify the woman. Any luck there?’
‘Not yet. We’ve eliminated someone, though.’ He laughed. ‘Actually we’ve eliminated five people; two of our female officers, Senora Michels, you, of course, and Senor Planas’s housekeeper.’
‘Was she a suspect?’ I asked.
‘Potentially. . and if not her, then her husband, the gardener. The lady was well paid by the dead man, and we wondered whether that might have covered more than the usual domestic services. They were our principal suspects, in fact, even before we knew of the sexual aspect; we’ve been questioning them since Sunday.’
‘But now they’re off the hook?’
‘For the moment, although we haven’t excluded them completely. The son remains suspicious of them; he’s never liked them much.’
‘Angel? That reminds me. Do you know when the funeral will be?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Gomez replied, ‘as he had hoped. It will be a burial. As you may know, cremation is becoming more popular in Spain, but you will appreciate that in the circumstances I couldn’t allow that.’
‘No, I can see why.’
He frowned. His small talk hadn’t fooled me; I knew there was a specific reason for the visit so I wasn’t surprised when he got round to it. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘your friend, the gentleman we pulled in yesterday morning. During the meeting that you didn’t discuss with us earlier, just how angry was he with Senor Planas?’
‘Very, but it didn’t come to anything.’
‘Not then, but. . You see, Primavera, the account of his whereabouts is so meticulous that it’s almost as if it was planned in advance. Now, I have this new time frame that’s been suggested. The thing is, I’ve been told very little about this man; I asked the boss when he called me, but he said that it was none of my business. That makes me imagine lots of things. Now I find that Senor Reid has left town, and that makes me imagine even more. I wonder whether there’s any point in continuing with this investigation. From what you know of him, am I right?’
I thought about it, for a while; yes, Matthew could have gone out again, and yes, Planas might still have been up, sinking a bottle in celebration of having his ashes hauled. But against that, there was the inconsistency of the wine consumption, and there was something else. It would have been easy for me to have agreed with Gomez at that point, and there were times afterwards when I wished I’d done just that. But I didn’t; instead I said, ‘I don’t think you are. From the little I know of his background, I’d be very surprised if he’d have needed to hit the guy with a chair. I reckon if he’d killed Planas, it really would have been written off as an accident.’
The intendant cursed, softly. ‘Ah,’ he murmured, ‘what a pity. I really wish this thing would go away. For we’ve just had something else dumped in our laps.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The mayor, Justine Michels, and her sister Elena, Angel Planas’s wife; they’ve just reported their mother missing.’
Twenty-eight
Justine’s mobile number was on the business card that she had given me on my second visit to the town hall, two days earlier, to pick up the permission for the wine fair. As I dialled it, I recalled that I’d been greeted in reception by a junior clerk, not by Dolores the Dragon herself.
Business hours were over, but wherever the mayor was there was plenty of background noise. ‘It’s Primavera. Are you able to speak?’ I asked her.
‘Yes. I’m at a gathering of our party group to discuss the agenda for this week’s council meeting, but I haven’t called it to order yet; we’re still waiting for someone to turn up.’ Her voice was strained, not that of the confident politician I’d met before.
‘I’ve just heard about your mother. I had a visit from Gomez; he told me. What’s happened?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘How long’s she been missing?’
‘We don’t know that either. On Sunday, after she heard what had happened, she told me that she felt she should be with Elena. Even though things were as they were between Angel and his father, it had still come as a terrible shock. My sister’s always been a little bit fragile. . no, that’s the wrong word. . emotionally susceptible. I told her that was fine with me, and that she could come back to the town hall when she was ready. I thought no more about it. I was very busy on Monday and Tuesday, both days. It was only this afternoon that I got round to calling Elena, to see how she was, and to find out the time of the funeral. I asked her if Mother was still there, and she said, “What are you talking about?” She’d never been near her; she told me she hadn’t seen her since last Friday.’ Spanish people and Catalans always speak faster than Brits. . I guess that’s why I always have trouble following the in-flight English of Spanish cabin crew. . and the further she got into her tale, the more Justine went at it rapid fire.
‘Hey,’ I exclaimed, ‘slow down, calm down. When did you see her last?’