One of the white plastic garden chairs lay on its side, on the floor.
Skinner stood in the doorway, frozen, for several seconds.
Suddenly the thought came to him that the hanging man might not be dead yet, and he snapped out of his trance. He rushed over to the body, but as soon as he saw the face he knew that it was too late for any heroic rescue. The man was small and lightly built but, even so, the rope was cutting deep into his neck. His face was blue. His eyes bulged horribly, as if about to pop from their sockets. His tongue, black and swollen, protruded grotesquely between lips and teeth drawn back as if in a last, strangling snarl.
Skinner's stomach turned. He snatched a single deep breath to bring himself under control, and looked away through the garage window, in which was framed the beautiful, jagged, snow-crested skyline of Canigou and the high Pyrenees.
When he had mastered himself, he turned back to the body. He touched a hand. It was still as warm as his own. He looked again at the contorted face. The man had a small black moustache, but otherwise was freshly shaved. His thinning black hair was well groomed. He was smartly dressed in expensive blue slacks and a white, short-sleeved Dior shirt.
`All spruced up and ready for work, Alberni. I can picture the whole scene. The wife thinks it's business as usual. She goes off to her day job, then you step into the garage and jump into eternity. Very nice. Very thoughtful. A real considerate guy, eh. You stupid bastard!'
There was something about the suicides of otherwise healthy people that always angered Skinner. The determin shy;ation and physical courage necessary for the act counted for nothing in his mind against the grief and the hurt that the victims, almost invariably, left behind. It was the sheer selfishness of the deed that enraged him.
He held the body with both hands to still its twisting on the rope, then turned and left the garage, closing the door behind him to hide the sight from any chance passers-by. Outside, he turned off the lawn sprinkler at its tap beside the garage door. Then on impulse he disconnected its hose, fetched over one of the dog's two dishes and filled it with water. The mongrel looked up at him, and Skinner could have sworn that it nodded its thanks.
He returned to the back of the villa, and entered the living area through the open doors. This time he searched without hesitation. He searched first for Senora Alberni, fearful lest her husband had decided — as he had seen others do before — that life for his beloved would be unbearable without him. He moved swiftly from room to room, but all he found were untidy relics of the previous evening, and signs of a rushed breakfast: an uncleared dinner table set for six, the remains of a selection of pastries set out on a dessert trolley, more glasses, more empty bottles, a single breakfast-sized coffee cup smeared with lipstick lying, with a cereal bowl, unwashed in the kitchen sink. In the Albernis' bedroom, the bed had been hastily made. The door of one of two fitted wardrobes lay open, revealing a rail of women's clothing hung inside. On the dressing table, a jar of make-up base lay uncapped.
Skinner, reassured that Senora Alberni was not in the house, returned to the living room. He found a telephone on a dark-wood sideboard, beside a number of framed family photographs. The largest showed a wedding scene. In this picture, the man now hanging in the garage wore a white tuxedo and black evening trousers. He smiled, looking youthful and handsome, and wore the same dark moustache; his hair, not so thin then, was immaculately groomed. The
bride was a striking, dark-haired woman, perhaps a year or two older than her husband. Skinner would have described her as handsome rather than beautiful. Her eyes were her best feature: dark, oval, warm, and inviting trust. Beneath the pair, on the photograph's surround, the names Santiago and Gloria were inscribed in gold leaf.
Skinner picked up the telephone and retrieved the Guardia Civil number from his mental filing cabinet. The call was answered by a gruff-sounding man on the fifth ring. 'Commandante Pujol, por favor. Commandante Skinner, Escocia.'
`Si, Commandante.'
A few seconds later, he was put through. Tiola, Bob.'
`Aye, hello Arturo,' he said, wearily. 'Listen, I'm at Alberni's. Not the office — the villa. You're in on this one, like it or not.'
`Why, won't he speak to you?'
'No. He's having trouble getting the words out, on account of he's hanging from a rope in his garage.'
`What!' Pujol's tone was incredulous. 'Is he dead?'
`If he isn't fucking dead, then he never will be! It looks like he topped himself as soon as his wife went to work.'
`Do you think he learned that you were coming to see him?'
`Could be. Let's see what we can find out. I've had a quick look round, but I can't see anything that looks like a "sorry" note. You and your guys better get up here right now.'
Twenty-seven
‘Arturo wants me to help him?'
`Yes. Apparently his local doctor's off to Barcelona for the weekend, and the nearest alternative in Girona can't get along here for five or six hours. There was some sort of gypsy war there last night apparently. So our friend the commandant asked me to ask you if you, as a properly qualified person, could see your way clear to come up to Alberni's to state, for the medical record, the blindingly obvious: that the man is as dead as a fucking doornail. Because, apparently, until someone does that, the chief of the local police will not allow anyone to take the poor bastard down from his pulley.'
Sarah looked astonished. 'Why doesn't Arturo. .?' `Pull rank on him and tell him to piss off?'
Sarah nodded.
`He's got to live with the guy. Arturo knows he's an idiot, but he's still carrying the badge, and they have to work in harmony. Will you do it?'
`Of course. Will you stay with Jazz?'
`Sure, but I've got to go back up there too, once you've done your bit. I found the stiff, so I'll have to make a formal statement. Arturo wants me to hang around, too. They're going to fetch the widow back from the bank in Figueras where she works, and he'd like me there to explain how the body was found, if necessary. But, before she gets back they have to get him down off that rope.
`Okay. Jazz is in his cot. He's out like a light. I'll be as quick as I can. Just don't go picking him up to talk football, or anything like that.'
Twenty-eight
The garage was full of policemen. Pujol and his Guardia were in immaculately pressed green uniforms. The local police, under the command of their impressively hatted chief, wore shapeless blue tunics which would have been unacceptable, Sarah thought to herself, on a garage forecourt.
Pujol introduced her to the local chief with impressive formality, referring to her as Senora Profesora Skinner. The man's heavy grey eyebrows bristled with scepticism, until she disarmed him by congratulating him in fluent Spanish on the efficiency of his local force.
Sarah never went anywhere, not even on holiday, without the basic tools of her trade. She stepped across to where the body hung, policemen moving aside deferentially as she did. She took hold of Alberni's right hand, which was already cooling. Her fingers moved quickly and expertly to confirm the absence of any pulse. She climbed up on the white plastic chair, which had been righted. She took a small torch from her shoulder bag and shone it in the bulging eyes. Finally she produced a stethoscope and, unfastening the second button of the Dior shirt, held it to the hairy chest.
She jumped down from the chair, and stepped back towards Pujol and the Policia chief. The man is dead,' she said formally, in Spanish, to the grey eyebrows. He nodded emphatically as if to confirm her finding. `I'd say around two hours,' she explained to Pujol in English. She glanced at her watch. 'That would make it nine-thirty: about an hour before Bob found him.'