Quintin Jardine - A Coffin For Two

‘When Ronnie was here, did he get to know anyone else that you were aware of?’

A crease appeared between her eyebrows as she considered my question. ‘No,’ she began, ‘but there was one time. Once on a Sunday afternoon when I was closed, and Ronnie wasn’t painting, we went along to the bar in Pubol. While we were there a man walked past the doorway, looked in and said hello to Ronnie, in English. Ronnie waved back, then the man walked on. When I asked who he was, he said only that it was someone that he had met there before.’

‘Can you describe him, after all this time?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Reis Sonas. ‘I could still draw you his picture. He was Catalan, obviously, with olive skin, and he was wiry. He moved like a little cat, except he was not all that small. He looked ancient, yet not old, if you can understand me. And he had a patch over one eye.’

Beside me, I heard Primavera’s quiet gulp.

‘Have you seen him since, this man?’ I asked. She shook her head.

‘Reis, I don’t think Ronnie was lying to you.’ I took Starr’s watch from my pocket and showed it to her. She went chalk white. ‘I believe that Ronnie’s dead, and I expect that pretty soon there will be proof of that.’ I could almost hear her heart hammering, though she was on the other side of the room. As I looked at her, her eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head slowly, as if in denial of the truth.

‘If I can give you some advice,’ I said, ‘if I were you I would raise a court action in Wales to have Felipe recognised legally as Ronnie’s son. He could be in line for quite a legacy. I reckon his father would want him to have it, rather than the government, don’t you?’

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, briefly, then nodded. ‘If we can help,’ I said. For the first time I felt the need of a business card. Instead I picked up a pen and paper from the fireside and wrote down our names and our telephone number. I handed it to her. ‘If you need to contact us.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, as she took it.

She stood up and showed us to the door, past Ronnie Starr’s son, who was beginning to stir in his cot.

As soon as we were out in the street Prim’s breath exploded in a loud gasp. ‘Davidoff,’ she burst out. ‘He knew Ronnie Starr. And he didn’t tell us.’

I took her arm. ‘Hold on. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. They were on talking terms, yes, but there’s no proof it was any more than that. Starr didn’t mention his name to Reis; maybe he didn’t know it. Maybe Davidoff didn’t know Starr’s name either.’

‘What?’ she said. ‘The most nationalistically biased man in Spain forms a nodding acquaintance with a foreigner, without finding out his name.’ Still, she had cooled down.

‘We’ll ask him, okay?’

She frowned at me. ‘Too bloody right we will!’

Our opportunity to confront Davidoff arose next day just after noon. We didn’t have to go in search of it. We were on the terrace completing responses to two instant enquiries from our third advertisement, which had appeared in the press that same morning, when the door buzzer rang.

Assuming that the caller would be Miguel or his son, I pressed the button to release the lock without lifting the handset, left the door ajar and went back to Prim on the terrace. A minute later a theatrical cough sounded in the doorway.

‘Good afternoon, my friends. Pardon this disturbance, but I have come for two reasons. The first is simply to see you both again … especially you, my dear,’ he added, beaming at Prim and advancing towards us. ‘The second is to invite you to dine with Davidoff on Sunday evening, in Shirley’s summerhouse.

‘My friend Adrian will be leaving on Saturday, and the unpleasant John will arrive on Monday. I never visit his mother when he is there. I always feel in the way, and also, I don’t like the asshole. But on Sunday, Shirley will be free and I can cook my special paella for her as I do every year, to thank her for putting up with me. I hope that you will be able to join us.’

Davidoff’s visit had set us both on the back foot. We hadn’t discussed how we were going to confront him with the previous day’s discovery.

I played it by ear. ‘We’d love to come. About eight o’clock?’ He nodded.

I drew up a chair for him, at the terrace table. There was hot coffee in a jug on the floor, and so Prim automatically went to the kitchen to fetch him a mug.

As she poured, I came straight to the point. ‘Davidoff, you devious old bugger, you might have told us you knew Ronnie Starr?’

His face was a study of pure bewilderment. His eye widened, his eyebrow rose, furrowing his brow, and his jaw dropped, slightly. ‘I?’ he said. ‘I knew him? Whatever makes you think that?’

‘Yesterday,’ I said, ‘we met his girlfriend, by accident, really. She owns the bodega in La Pera. She told us she was with him in Pubol once, and you said hello to him.’

‘I did?’ he said, archly. ‘When was this?’

‘Summer of last year. If it refreshes your memory he was tall, fair-haired, in his thirties and British.’

The astonishment left his face and was replaced by a sorrowful look. ‘That was Ronnie Starr, was it? What a sad coincidence. Yes, I met the young man in the bar at Pubol a couple of times. He bought me a drink, I bought him a drink and that was it. He was a pleasant fellow, but I never did learn his name. He said he was a painter, and that turned me off. I had hoped he would be more interesting than that; a doctor, say, or a lawyer. Over in Pubol, everyone you meet thinks he is a painter.’

He paused. ‘So they were his poor sad bones that you and Senor Minana dragged across L’Escala. My God, and I knew him; that makes it even worse.

I nodded. ‘There’s more. Starr left his mark on La Pera, and no mistake. The girl who saw you with him had his baby a few months ago. A fine wee boy called Felipe; fair-haired, from what we could see of him in his cot.’

‘Tsshhh!’ sighed Davidoff, shaking his head. ‘Appalling. Poor woman; poor child. To be left so.’

Prim took him by the arm. If she had been doubtful of him the day before, there was no sign of it now. ‘Don’t worry too much about them,’ she said. ‘The mother seems a very resourceful woman, and the baby stands to inherit Ronnie Starr’s estate.’

‘Ah, my darling,’ he said, mournfully. ‘All the estate in the world cannot make up for the lack of a father. But enough.’ It was as if he had willed himself to brighten up. ‘This affair will not spoil our evening on Sunday.’

He looked around at me. ‘You found Starr’s woman and child. Have you yet found Trevor Eames?’

‘No, with one thing and another, we haven’t had a chance to look for him lately. We were going to do that this evening, then go to Ventallo tomorrow night to see what we could find out there. You said to us that you knew where Eames lives. Can you show us?’

He shook his head. ‘Someone told me once that he has an apartment in one of the old blocks up in Riells de D’Alt, but I don’t know where. You could find out from the town hall.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘That might draw attention to us, and we don’t want that. We’ll try the boat again.’

Davidoff patted my hand. ‘Yes. That is probably the most sensible thing to do.’ He stood up. ‘Until Sunday then.’ Prim walked to the door with him, taking his arm again. In the doorway he kissed her goodbye. She was barefoot, and so he stood a few inches taller than she was. As I watched them, I thought of Reis Sonas. ‘Ancient, yet not old,’ she had said.

Yes, I understood exactly what she meant.

We stopped in for coffee in the Trattoria that evening, and booked a table for dinner, although it was quiet and at that time in the season a reservation was probably unnecessary.