Three and One Make Five by Roderic Jeffries

gardening centre the other day and found ‘em selling nemophila as poppies. And when she pointed that out, damned if the assistant didn’t just shrug his shoulders and say they looked alike so it didn’t matter . . . Here, give me the hose before you smash that up somehow. You want a drink, I suppose?’
    ‘Thank you very much, señor.’ Alvarez handed over the hose.
    ‘Never known one of you chaps to say no.’ His complexion suggested that neither did he say no very often.
    On the south side of the house there was a small patio, with overhead vine, on which were set out a table and four chairs, made from metal and showing signs of rust.
    ‘Grab a seat,’ said Barker. ‘Now, what’ll it be? There’s no whisky because I can’t afford it and gin’s a woman’s drink. So you can have brandy, rum, or beer, or some of that bloody awful sweet vermouth muck my wife has.’
    ‘I would like a coñac, please.’
    ‘You mean a brandy. Cognac comes from Cognac. Ice and soda?’
    ‘Just ice, please.’
    Barker went inside the house and Alvarez tried to find an easier sitting position in a chair whose elaborate wrought-iron back seemed designed for discomfort.
    Barker returned with two tumblers, each three-quarters filled, and handed one across before he sat. ‘The wife’s shopping. She’s always shopping. Women’s disease.’ He drank, put the glass down on the table, brushed his moustache with crooked forefinger. ‘So what d’you want to know about the fella, Short?’
    ‘You may not have heard, but sadly he died last night.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘You do not sound very distressed?’
    ‘I’m not a man to start addressing the angels the moment someone dies. He was a rotter. Always trying to suck up to the wife.’ He snorted. ‘She put him in his place and no mistake!’
    ‘What kind of rotter was he?’
    ‘There aren’t different kinds. One is or one isn’t.’
    ‘Was he wealthy?’
    ‘He paid eight million for the house and that was before prices soared. Bloody fool. Have you seen it?’
    ‘Only from the outside.’
    ‘Like a babu brothel.’
    ‘D’you know when he bought it?’
    Barker thought for a moment. ‘Must be something like three years ago.’
    ‘Did he live there?’
    ‘No, thank God!, or we’d have had him around more often since he was too thick-skinned to understand. He came here on holiday.’
    ‘Then he lived in England?’
    ‘Somewhere on the Continent. Never said where and I’m damned if I ever cared. He’ll have been on the tax fiddle lark—his kind always are.’
    ‘Was he married?’
    ‘How the devil would I know that?’
    ‘He never had his wife here when he was on holiday?’
    ‘Never seen him with a woman. Not that he’ll have been able to keep away from the tarts.’
    ‘Does he employ a maid?’
    ‘There’s a woman who looks after the place all the year round: keeps it clean and aired, that sort of thing.’
    ‘Do you know her name?’
    ‘Don’t know anything about her except she moves around on one of those motorized bikes. Damned dangerous machines . . . Here, what’s the matter?’
    ‘Matter with what, señor?’
    ‘You’re not drinking. Damnit, it’s perfectly good brandy.’
    ‘Indeed, it is. It’s just that I was thinking.’
    ‘Leave that to other people. You’ll lead a happier life that way.’
     
    On his return to the office, Alvarez telephoned home. ‘It’s me,’ he said, when Dolores answered. ‘Do you know who works for Sen or Short, an Englishman who lives in Ca Na Rostra, which is up the Laraix valley?’
    She thought for a moment, then said: ‘I’m not certain, Enrique. I don’t think Ana goes there and Carolina hasn’t any work at the moment. Julia is in the port and so’s Rosalia . . .’
    He interrupted her before she detailed every one of her friends. ‘Can you try and find out?’
    ‘Yes, all right. Why d’you want to know?’
    ‘The señor sadly died last night in an explosion aboard a boat at anchor in the