This time, as I looked at the body lying face-down. . a technical description; it didn’t have a face any more. . I was one hundred per cent certain that I’d found Reynard Capulet, the maestro. I didn’t have to prod him to find out whether he was dead or not, and I didn’t have to be an ace pathologist to know what had killed him either. The big kitchen cleaver that had done the job was still lodged in the back of his skull.
‘Don’t you move, now,’ I warned him. ‘Not till the ambulance gets here.’
Then I went back upstairs and found Captain Fortunato’s card, the one with his mobile number on it, the number that Prim must have known a couple of years before.
I almost dialled it until I thought to myself, Fuck it; might as well know one way or another.
So instead I called the Husa Princesa and asked for Prim’s room.
‘Did you decide to stay in this afternoon?’ I asked her, unnecessarily, as she picked up.
‘Yes,’ she replied. This time she sounded hesitant, not drowsy.
‘Fine. Listen, if you’re alone, I apologise. If you’re not, put him on.’
There was a silence, broken eventually by Fortunato’s voice. ‘Yes?’ He sounded a hell of a lot more hesitant than had Prim.
‘Tea-break’s over, Ramon,’ I told him. ‘Time you went back to work. I want to see you here, at the house, inside an hour and a half. You’re a copper; you can go lights and sirens if you have to.’
‘What’s this about, Oz?’ he asked.
I had to laugh at him. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, that might be regarded as a fucking stupid question in the circumstances. But as it happens, it isn’t about you. You’ll see when you get here. Now just do what I tell you.
‘Oh yes, and come alone. But from what I hear, you always do anyway.’
33
I regretted that last, thoughtless, crack as soon as I had said it, but I was fairly sure that Ramon would link it to Prim, not Vero. . if his English was that good.
He certainly didn’t mention it when he arrived, an hour and twenty-three minutes later. Allowing him four or five minutes to get dressed, he had made pretty good time.
As he walked up the drive, in his crisp uniform, everything about the policeman’s body language suggested that he expected me to take a swing at him as soon as he came within range. I had spent most of the time since we had spoken in my gym, pressing weights, and punching the bag, so I probably looked ready for it, too.
Instead, I clapped him on the back, almost sympathetically: from the way he flinched I could tell that it had thrown him.
‘Come on in, lover boy,’ I said. ‘I hope you haven’t eaten recently.’
He gave me a bewildered look. ‘Oz,’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Fuck all would just about cover it. I’m sure that Prim’s told you everything that happened between us, so the best that you and I can do is put a lid on it. If you insist on talking about it, I’d probably start behaving unreasonably, like a stupid jealous husband, and we don’t want that.’
‘So what is all this about?’ he asked. We were still standing in the doorway, so he couldn’t see the mess at the side of the stairs.
‘Are you any good at carpentry?’ I asked.
He gave me a stare that hovered between paranoia and idiocy. ‘What?’ he croaked.
‘You heard.’
‘Hombre, I can’t even hang a picture straight.’
‘How about bricklaying? Are you any good at that?’
‘I’ve never laid a brick in my life.’
I studied his eyes as he answered me; they’re a better guide than any truth drug. He didn’t know what I was talking about.
‘You’ve laid just about everything else, though,’ I said, with a light laugh which made him wince.
‘Come on. Let me show you what I’m talking about,’ I led him into the house.
‘I got the deed for this place back from the notary a couple of days ago. I didn’t look at it closely when we completed the purchase, so I decided that I might as well read it. When I did, I found a reference to a cellar, accessed by a door in the side of the stairs.
‘But there was no door, only wood panelling.’ I pointed to the pine sections, which leant against the wall. ‘It had been bricked up, then covered over. For a bloody good reason too, as you’ll see when we go down there.’
His face had gone pale. He started for the revealed doorway, but I put a hand on his sleeve to stop him; just to make certain. ‘Listen, before you do anything that might have consequences, I want to tell you something. I know about Veronique, and the Frenchman.
‘If you want me to block that door up again, and to replace that panelling, I’ll do it, and it’ll stay there for good. I worked on building sites when I was a student, so I’ll make a passable job of it.’
He frowned at me. ‘I honestly do not understand what you are saying to me, Oz,’ he murmured.
‘Okay,’ I told him, ‘if you don’t, that’s good enough for me. Go on down.’
I followed him down into the cellar. I was right behind him when he saw the body, and I put a hand on his shoulder to stop him as he jumped back, involuntarily.
‘Mother of Christ!’ he gasped, in Spanish.
‘I shouldn’t think so for a minute. Reynard Capulet, I’d say; beyond a shadow of a doubt this time.’ I pointed to the left wrist, and the heavy gold, diamond-set watch which hung loosely round it. ‘That’s a pimp’s Rolex if ever I saw one.’
Fortunato had recovered his composure, enough to let him lean over the body. ‘We should be able to trace its ownership, certainly; with a bit of luck we’ll still be able to lift some prints too. It’s very dry down here.’
He turned. ‘Come on, let’s get upstairs before we contaminate the scene any further.’
I led the way this time; we went round the stairway and into the kitchen, from where the policeman phoned his office to call out detectives and technicians, while I took a couple of beers from the fridge.
He looked me in the eye, as he took his first slug. ‘Sayeed in the pool, now Capulet in the cellar. What do you think, Oz? You’re a sharp guy. Any ideas?’
‘Bloody obvious, isn’t it? The Moroccan was killed and planted in the pool to make it look as if Capulet had shot him after a quarrel, then run off. At first I thought that the Frenchman might have killed him to fake his own death. . until I found that thing downstairs.’
Fortunato nodded. ‘I agree with that. I guess we’d better contact Interpol, and round up his known associates.’
‘I guess you’d better,’ I agreed, ‘only that can’t be the whole story.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Clearly, the sister has to have been in on it; Lucille, the one who’s gone missing. With her brother dead, she took the decision to sell all his property, the three places in Paris, Florida and here, that were owned technically by the company she controlled.
‘Maybe one of his Mafia pals was involved in it, but she had to be too.’
He scratched his chin. He must have shaved very quickly, for blood began to run from a fresh nick just above his jaw, on the left side.
‘I suppose so,’ he conceded. ‘I don’t imagine Interpol have been looking for her. . not too hard at any rate. They’d better start now.’
‘So should you,’ I said. ‘I don’t think she’s gone far away.’
His look wasn’t just a question. It was a whole cross-examination in itself.
I answered it by telling him all the stuff he didn’t know about Susie’s visit, about her dangerous fall down the stairs in the middle of the night, and about my certainty that her drink had been drugged earlier in the evening, by the same guy who had sent her flying, to try and incriminate me and get me out of the house.
I told him about the envelope which Prim had received, the one which had put me in deep shit and him back in her bed, and I told him about the missing mug. Finally, I told him about the trap I had laid for the intruder, the one which hadn’t been sprung.