On Honeymoon With Death

34

He wasn’t hard to find. He wasn’t in his office, but his secretary sent us to a bar at the far end of Riells beach; he was there, sitting at the bar, drinking cafe solo and talking to the attractive owner.

‘Hello Sergi,’ I hailed him in Castellano as we walked in. ‘Just the man I want to see. How about buying my friend and me a beer out of your commission on the sale of Casa Nou Camp?’

‘Que?’ he blurted out, then laughed. ‘Ah, you mean Villa Bernabeu.’

‘Not any more. I’m a Barca fan.’

‘Whatever. Sure I will buy you a beer, and your pal.’

‘You know him, do you? If not, let me introduce you to Captain Fortunato, of the Mossos in Girona.’

Sergi’s lantern jaw seemed to tense, but his expression stayed amiable as he shook the policeman’s hand.

‘You were just passing by?’ he asked, as the young man behind the bar poured two beers.

‘Not exactly,’ I admitted. ‘We were looking for you.’

‘Ah,’ the estate agent said slowly. ‘This is about the unfortunate business with the body in the swimming pool. I told the other policemen that I had no idea it was there, and they believed me.’

‘So do we.’

‘Ah, then maybe you want to talk about a discount on the price. I am sorry, but …’

‘No,’ Ramon interjected. ‘Senor Blackstone does not need the money. I want to ask you something, actually: some new questions.’

‘Okay.’

‘During the time when the villa was for sale, did you have other offers?’

Sergi nodded. ‘Yes, several. I had four, in fact. One was even for the full price.’

‘What did you do when each offer was received?’

‘I called the lawyer in Geneva who acts for the company which owned the villa. They said that they would consult Senora Capulet, but each time, they came back and said that she didn’t want to accept.’

‘So why did she accept our offer?’ Fortunato shot me a glance; he was annoyed at my joining in the questioning, but I didn’t give one. This was my line of enquiry we were following.

Sergi hesitated; I guess he was considering whether it was safe to tell the truth to the Mossos. Eventually he decided that it would have been risky not to.

‘The fact is,’ he admitted, ‘that she didn’t. I did.’ The policeman’s eyebrows rose, threateningly, but he went on, quickly.

‘I was annoyed with her. I am not in business for fun; I had been doing my best to sell her house, and four times before I could have done so. So when you offered, I said to myself, “Man, enough is enough”, and so I used the power of attorney which the company had given me at the beginning to complete the transaction.’

He glanced at Fortunato. ‘It was all quite legal, you understand. Ethical? In the circumstances I’d do it again. Silly woman; her brother Rey would not have messed me about like that if he hadn’t gone away.’

‘Sergi,’ I asked, ‘when the house was put up for sale, were all the valuables taken away?’

‘Sure. Lucille sent a man to take them to her.’

‘What was his name?’

‘He called himself Martin Guerre. His French accent was odd, so I guessed he was Swiss.’

‘Have you seen him since?’

‘I think I may have seen him about L’Escala once or twice, but I’m not sure.’

‘How about Lucille Capulet? Have you seen her?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met her in my life.’

The captain would have left it at that, but I tried him with one more. ‘When the valuables were cleared away, what happened to the wine in the cellar?’

Sergi is not a guy who would recognise a trick question, even after he’d tripped over it. ‘What wine?’ he asked. ‘What cellar?’ As if to confirm his innocence, he gave me the biggest shrug I have ever seen. Even Fortunato was convinced by that.

We drank our beers, I bought two more, and a Campari and soda for our friend, and then we went back to the villa to see what progress the technicians were making.