Southern Seas Read Free Page B

about that?’
    ‘Yes I am, a little. I got fed up with the whole business. More than once I told him: “Stop talking about it. If you’re going to go, then go!” He was suffocated by his money, you know.’
    ‘Mima …’
    Viladecans tried to cut her short.
    ‘Everyone round here feels suffocated. Everyone except me. When he went, I was finally able to breathe properly. I’ve worked hard. I’ve done his work as well as he ever did it. Better, in fact. Because I’ve done it without complaining all the time.’
    ‘May I remind you, Mima, that we’re here for a very special purpose.’
    But Carvalho and the widow were looking each other up and down, as if to gauge each other’s capacity for aggression.
    ‘In other words, you have a certain attachment to the job.’
    ‘Laugh if you like. A certain attachment, yes. But not a very great attachment. This business has shown me that no one is indispensable. But then we are all usurpers in the positions we hold.’
    Carvalho was troubled by the dark passion emanating from those black eyes, from the two lines that curved round a mature and knowing mouth.
    ‘What exactly do you want to know?’
    ‘What exactly did my husband do during that year? A year when we all thought that he was in the South Seas, but when he was God knows where, doing God knows what. I have an eldest son who’s turned out like his father—and, what is worse, who is going to inherit even more money. Another two are probablyat this minute doing motorbike trials on one of the hills around here. I have a daughter whose nerves have never recovered since her father’s body was found. And a young son whom the Jesuits have expelled from school. I have a great many things that I need to keep an eye on.’
    ‘What do you know so far?’
    Viladecans and the widow looked at each other. It was the lawyer who replied.
    ‘The same as you.’
    ‘Wasn’t there anything on the dead man that might give us a lead?’
    ‘They’d emptied his pockets.’
    ‘This is all they found.’
    The widow took from her bag a crumpled page from a diary. Someone had written on it with a felt-tip pen:
più nessuno mi porterà nel sud
.

    ‘I don’t even know you.’
    He had short hair and was wearing a brown suit and no tie. A pair of very dark sunglasses threw into even sharper relief the gleaming pallor of an adolescent face. Despite the lightness of his figure, there was something oily in his manner, as if his joints had been greased.
    ‘If they find out that I’m giving you this information, they’ll run me out of the force.’
    ‘Señor Viladecans is a very influential person.’
    ‘All his influence wouldn’t save me. Besides, they’ve got their eye on me. For political reasons. This place is full of hypocrites. Everyone talks about how terrible things are, but they won’t doanything. They’re all too worried about promotion and not losing their cushy jobs.’
    ‘Are you a socialist?’
    ‘No way! I’m a patriotic policeman.’
    ‘I see. Were you involved on the Stuart Pedrell case? Tell me everything you know.’
    ‘There’s not much to tell. At first we thought it had something to do with queers. It’s not very often that a rich guy disappears and turns up stabbed, a year later. It looked like a clear case of buggery. But then the forensic people told us that he had a virgin arse, and none of the male prostitutes had heard of him. Then there were the clothes. They weren’t his own. He’d been dressed in a set of shabby old clothes, second or third hand. Obviously they didn’t want to leave any clues.’
    ‘But why did they leave that note?’
    ‘To keep us chasing around, I guess. Do you understand it?’
    ‘No more will anyone carry me south.’
    ‘Yes. We found that much out. But what was he trying to say?’
    ‘He’d been planning a trip to the South Seas, to some place in the Pacific.’
    ‘But look at the note carefully. No more … will anyone … carry