A Coffin For Two

51

I didn’t believe it was Reis either, not for an instant. I knew who did it from the moment I saw the photograph in Shirley’s kitchen. When I looked into the trunk of that Caddy, I knew I would see Adrian there, and in my blood, I knew who had executed him.

Fortunato held the girl for a couple of days, then let her go, as convinced finally of her innocence as I was.

He came to see us on the following Thursday, the day after we had seen Shirley and John off from Girona Airport, with Adrian’s body in their chartered aircraft. We met him for lunch at one of the few tables which was still set up outside Casa Minana, with the dying of the season.

‘There’s nothing you’re holding out on me?’ he asked. Behind him, in the doorway, Miguel watched us, nervously.

‘No. What we know for certain, you know for certain,’ I replied, truthfully. ‘Have you developed a theory yet?’

Fortunato shook his head. ‘It wasn’t the girl; I accept that now. And like you said, I squeezed that man Foy until he sweated blood. He’s a fool, and a bad friend to have, but no more than that.

‘I did think that it might have been your Mr Scott, getting even for being conned. The Scottish police interviewed him yesterday, and reported that he can prove that he was nowhere near Spain at the time of either murder. Then of course there was you two. You were in the thick of it, but I realised pretty quickly that you couldn’t have killed Adrian Ford.’

‘Thanks for that,’ said Primavera. ‘What made you see that?’

‘Simple. At the time he was being shot, you were in Ventallo, helping to discover Starr’s remains.’

‘I suppose you could have killed Trevor Eames, though. You didn’t, did you?’

‘Afraid not,’ I said.

‘That’s all right, then.’

‘So where do you go from here?’ Prim asked.

‘Back to my office, to sit and wait for something to turn up that I haven’t thought of. Only, Senor Oz and Senora Prim, I don’t think that it will. Of all the people who knew Starr well, only his girlfriend is left alive. I have spoken to everyone in La Pera, and in Pubol.

‘Some of them remember him, but none well. Most never even knew his name. I know that the picture which your Mr Scott bought is the key. If I could discover who painted that, or who gave it to Starr, the mystery might be solved. But I don’t see how I ever will find that out.’

‘What about Scott,’ I asked him, ‘and the way he bought the picture? Will there be any comeback on that?’

Fortunato laughed. ‘I’m no fucking tax man,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a shit about Scott, or the goddamn picture. Spain is not so cruel, Senor, that if a man is stupid enough to pay four hundred thousand dollars for a phoney Dali, she would expect him to pay tax on it as well. If he has a problem, it is in Britain.’

He finished his Cortado and stood up. ‘Thanks for lunch, and thanks for your help, when you finally got round to giving it. I got to go now.’

‘What’ll happen to Starr’s body?’ asked Prim.

‘Senora Sonas has claimed it. She is having him buried next Monday; properly, with respect, in La Pera.’