Law of Return, page 16
The man on the balcony seemed annoyed. “It’s been vacant for some time, and it’s becoming a nuisance,” he explained. “My caretaker has been complaining about rats. We share a wall, and if the building’s structurally unsound we could be affected. Besides, it’s unsightly. Everyone else has been at least making some attempt to refurbish their houses.” He waved an expansive arm at the row of summerhouses along the street. Most of them did show evidence of recent repair; fresh whitewash, or newly fitted windowpanes to replace shattered ones.
As far as Tejada was concerned, one of the advantages of his job was that it spared him the headaches of home ownership. But faced with an irate property holder, he did his best to be soothing. “Would you wish to be informed if the property is put on the market, Señor?” he asked, recklessly committing his colleagues in San Sebastián to acting as brokers.
“No, that isn’t necessary.” The man was still peeved. “I’ll write to Arroyo myself. But I must say it’s damn inconsiderate of him to not tell us a thing.”
“You’re acquainted with Arroyo?” Tejada asked with interest, taking a few steps closer to the house, and wishing that he did not have to interrogate this unexpected witness while craning his neck upward like an idiot.
“Not well. I was. A little.” The professor’s neighbor knew when to backpedal. “Everyone in this neighborhood has been coming here for years. We all knew each other slightly. But of course we lost touch when the war broke out.” He recollected himself. “I do hope nothing’s happened to Arroyo or his wife, Guardia? I understood they were in Salamanca, so I assumed they’d be safe.”
“Yes, they survived the war,” said Tejada truthfully. After a moment’s thought he added, “But some questions have arisen with regard to their house here, and also a boat. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about that, Señor . . . ?”
“Ruíz. Ruíz Vanegas. Of course, Guardia. When is convenient?”
“Now,” Tejada suggested promptly.
Señor Ruíz assented courteously and withdrew from the balcony, calling to someone inside to open the door for the guardia.
Tejada turned to one of his subordinates. “Take this,” he ordered, holding out the metal box. “Get someone to pry the lock off, and have it ready for me when I get back. This shouldn’t take long.”
“Yes, sir.” The pair of guardias saluted and headed down the street, and Tejada walked up the steps to the door of Señor Ruíz’s house.
Ruíz Vanegas, Tejada found, was courteous, helpful, and (except when the conversation strayed to the problems of owning summer real estate) to the point. He was a banker and a native of Madrid who had passed the war in exile in Lisbon. He had purchased the house in San Sebastián in the spring of 1926 (here the lieutenant was treated to a lengthy analysis of the condition of housing prices relative to the stock market in ’26 and the reasons why the investment had been a good one). The Arroyos had already owned the property next door. They had, until the war, been good neighbors. (Ruíz paused to animadvert about various other supposedly solid citizens who managed their houses with criminal recklessness or violated all-known noise statutes and boundaries of good taste. Tejada felt obliged to agree that leaving sharp roofing tiles where children could run across them was probably slightly worse than anarchism.) Ruíz had known that Arroyo was some sort of lawyer but they had never discussed business. There was no point in dragging your work with you on vacation. Yes, he remembered Arroyo’s yacht quite well. A nice little craft, and Arroyo had been a good sailor. It was probably still rotting in storage at the yacht club if the Reds hadn’t destroyed it. Yes, of course he could give the lieutenant the yacht club’s address. “A real shame,” Ruíz repeated meditatively, as he showed Tejada out. “I remember Arroyo was planning to race that yacht in ’36. He and his wife were delayed for a few weeks that summer—some social function, I think—and then after the uprising they decided not to come.”
Tejada reflected that by the end of 1936 Arroyo had been in imminent danger of arrest, but he kept his thoughts to himself. “Did the boat require a crew?” he asked mildly.
“If you were sailing her, of course.” Ruíz seemed startled by the question. “But she had a little outboard motor as well, and I’ve known Arroyo to take her out alone.”
Damn. Arroyo could have reached France in a couple of hours, if he had the gasoline, thought Tejada. “Thank you very much for your time, Señor Ruíz,” he said. “I will try to make sure that Arroyo’s property is properly cared for.”
As he had expected, the last comment assured him of the banker’s effusive good will, and they parted on a friendly note. When he reached the post, he found Guardia Espinal waiting for him. “We got that strongbox from Arroyo’s open, sir,” Espinal reported. “But there’s nothing much in it.”
Tejada raised his eyebrows. “Nothing much?”
“Well, nothing at all, except an old address book. A miracle it wasn’t burned really, but the metal must have protected it.”
“Any addresses?” Tejada asked, restraining his eagerness.
“I haven’t looked, Lieutenant. I thought you might like to inspect it personally.” The guardia opened a drawer, and drew out the battered metal box. The cover was sitting loosely on top now, and as Tejada lifted it he saw a fat address book, the leather cracked and gray with age, lying against the rusted metal. He picked it up and opened it eagerly. The edges of the paper flaked away in his hand, and he hastily shifted his grip to protect the fragile pages.
The book was only about half-filled, but Tejada quickly saw that inspecting it would take some time. Most of the names and addresses were organized alphabetically, without any indication of whether they were friends, family, or professional acquaintances. Tejada recognized Eduardo Crespo’s name and address, neatly listed under C, along with someone named Alejandro Colón, also in Salamanca. Eleuterio Blanes, identified as Arroyo’s banker, was also listed in the book. There were a long list of Díazes, whom Tejada guessed to be the professor’s maternal connections, and several other names that were unfamiliar to him. Otero Martínez was listed both at his home and work addresses. Most of the addresses were in Salamanca. A few, including Ruíz Vanegas’s, were San Sebastián addresses, all in the immediate vicinity of Arroyo’s house. Sometimes a phone number was jotted down beneath the address and sometimes not. Tejada painstakingly read each entry, looking for a pattern without much hope.
His persistence finally paid off when he got to the letter V. Arturo Velázquez was listed, as was someone named Enrique Villamán, also in Salamanca. And then, in the same precise script: “Vogel, Adolf. 42 Gelt Strasse. Zurich. 09928394038, 27364939921.” Tejada carefully copied the entry, doing his best to control his excitement. It’s not Geneva, he reminded himself. Arroyo had connections in Geneva, not Zurich. But it’s close.
He flipped hastily through the remaining pages of the address book in such a hurry that he almost missed what he was looking for: “Yves, Alain. 18 Avenue de l’Impératrice. Biarritz.” He copied the French address out next to the Swiss one, and for a moment everything looked crystal clear: Arroyo had staged his own death, and had disappeared to the north, taking his yacht to the relative safety of Biarritz, staying there with a friend until he could make the trip to Switzerland—either Geneva to visit old colleagues, or Zurich, where the mysterious Vogel lived.
Then the lieutenant sighed. It was a pretty theory, but it didn’t completely make sense. He looked again at the entries he had copied, wishing that Sergeant Hernández, or someone else whose judgment he trusted, was around to discuss the odd clue. He quickly discounted the idea that Arroyo had used the address book recently to contact Yves or Vogel or anyone else. He was sure that the lawyer had not been near the house in San Sebastián since 1936. If Arroyo had contacted someone in France or Switzerland, he had used a different source for the address. Which is odd, Tejada thought. The point of an address book is to be easily at hand to refer to it. Arroyo might have accidentally left the book behind the last time he was here. But why would he put it in a locked box, and store it at the back of his closet, as if it were something vitally important? Carefully, Tejada inspected the book again. It seemed quite ordinary. The addresses and telephone numbers in it seemed ordinary as well. He could positively identify some of them as friends or family of Arroyo’s, and verify both the addresses and phone numbers from personal experience. It was hardly the sort of thing a man would feel the need to hide.
The only anomalies were the Swiss and French entries. But why would he hide that in ’35, Tejada wondered. He couldn’t have foreseen the business with Unamuno, and the war, and everything. Why would he care? The string of numbers below the Swiss address caught his attention. Idly, he counted the digits, and tried to see patterns in them. None appeared. But presumably they were not merely random. Tejada was no cryptographer, and he felt reasonably sure that if the numbers were a code they were a code that would defeat him. But there was no reason to suppose that Arroyo was a cryptographer either. He looked through the rest of the address book again, confirming what he already knew: the Swiss entry was the only one with a long list of digits below it. They were too long for phone numbers. Perhaps, Tejada speculated, they were the number of some kind of identity card. The Swiss did everything by numbers, didn’t they? Even bank accounts. . . . Another piece of the puzzle clicked. Bank accounts! Tejada thought. That’s where his money went. And I’ll bet that’s what Otero meant when he said, “It’s only since the war that he started—” Arroyo wasn’t withdrawing money from his accounts in Spain to accumulate cash. He was illegally transferring it abroad. And that’s why he hid the address book. It had his account numbers in it. My God! Two hundred thousand pesetas moved into Switzerland in the last year alone. And who knows how much before the war! And Otero knew about it! But did he know Arroyo was planning to flee?
The lieutenant closed the address book with a snap, and rose quickly. He paused to ask Guardia Espinal for directions, and then headed for the San Sebastián yacht club almost at a run. It was imperative to know whether Manuel Arroyo’s boat was still “rotting in storage.”
It was just before five when he reached the club. Siesta had just ended and the few members, festively dressed in blue and white, cast curious glances at Tejada’s uniform as he presented himself to the secretary at the main desk. The secretary was courteous. Yes, the club kept membership records, and yes, naturally there were records of whose boats remained in the marina, and in dry dock. Yes, the war had disrupted the usual activities somewhat, although this year the members were coming back. Yes, a few boats had been left in storage since before the war. The club had continued their upkeep, assuming that their owners remained members in good standing. Yes, it would be possible to check the club’s records for a specific ship. Did the Señor Guardia know her name? The name of the owner, then? Tejada gave Arroyo Díaz’s name with barely controlled impatience, and waited eagerly for the reply.
The secretary seemed to be taking her time among the records. A quarter of an hour passed before she returned. “Yes, Señor Guardia, you’re correct. Manuel Arroyo Díaz is listed as the owner of the Santa Justicia. She’s a yacht, put in dry dock on August 28, 1935.”
“And?” Tejada demanded.
The secretary looked puzzled. “And what?”
“When was she taken out of dry dock?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. We have no record that she was.”
For a moment Tejada was struck dumb. Then his need to verify information reasserted itself. “In that case I’d like to inspect the Santa Justicia,” he said firmly.
The secretary looked nervous. “Under normal circumstances—” she began.
“I’d like to make sure that the Santa Justicia is in fact in dry dock,” Tejada interrupted bluntly. “I’m investigating a felony, and I will consider any individual or organization—including this yacht club—which hinders my investigation as an accessory to subversion.”
The secretary blinked. “I’ll speak to Señor Montero,” she managed. “He’s the only one who can approve your request.”
“Good,” Tejada said grimly, and settled down to wait.
Señor Montero, when he appeared, was inclined to demur. But Tejada was insistent and Montero finally became aware that antagonizing the Guardia was stupid. Somewhat nervously, he led Tejada past the marina to a large hangar, where boats of various sizes and shapes sat propped on huge blocks, covered by canvas tarpaulins. “Here,” Montero said, reluctantly gesturing to a canvas-draped shape. “This is the Justicia.”
He made an unhappy noise as Tejada stepped forward and lifted the tarp. The lieutenant ignored him. “Santa Justicia, San Sebastián,” read the lettering on the boat’s prow.
Damn, thought the lieutenant. Damn, damn, damn. Why can’t anything be simple?
Tejada returned to the post discouraged. Gold-edged clouds were floating across the sky, as if echoing the stately promenade of the tourists enjoying the rain-scented evening breeze. Why is it, he thought with disgust, that as soon as I’ve figured out one thing in this case, something else turns up to contradict it? At the moment I don’t even know whether Arroyo’s alive. I suppose he could have slipped across the border some other way, especially if he was known at the yacht club and wanted to avoid attention. And he must have realized that we’d find out about the boat. But why stage his own death, if not to gain time? And who did he stage it with? Did he murder someone else whose family haven’t bothered to report him missing yet? Or is he actually lying in the morgue in Salamanca, and I’m on a wild-goose chase!
When he reached the post, the guardia on duty told him that Captain Alfanador wanted to see him.
“Was your search productive, Lieutenant?” the captain asked courteously, when Tejada reported to him.
“Yes and no, sir,” Tejada said. Seeing that the captain looked quizzical, he added, “Well, it was productive, sir, but not exactly enlightening.”
“Ahh.” Alfanador made a sympathetic noise. “Well, I’m sorry to add my mite to your frustration, but there’s been a development that I thought you might be interested in. Perhaps it will clarify things.”
“Sir?” Tejada could not imagine anything, short of a positive identification of Manuel Arroyo, which would simplify his life.
“The manager of the Hotel María Cristina reported a guest missing this afternoon,” the captain said. “He said she was a young lady, traveling without family. She stayed for two nights and then walked out yesterday evening and didn’t return. Her bed hadn’t been slept in. I thought you might be interested, because she was a recent arrival from Salamanca.” He picked up a piece of paper on his desk and held it out. “Here’s the report filed. The woman’s name is Fernández. Elena Fernández.”
Tejada felt a knot in his stomach. A frustrating day had just gotten dramatically worse. “Is he . . . worried about the young lady’s safety, sir?” Tejada asked, although his lips did not appear to be working too well.
The captain laughed. “Actually, Tejada, I suspect he’s worried about getting paid. She left without settling her bill. But her things are all still in the hotel, so it’s possible that she simply ran into friends and has decided to stay with them for a few days. As I said, I wouldn’t have mentioned it if she hadn’t come from Salamanca. Does the name ring a bell?”
“I doubt that she has anything to do with the Arroyo case,” Tejada lied. (I gave her permission to travel. Rodríguez is going to have my head on a plate. Damnit, how could she be so stupid?) He took a deep breath. “But I do think it’s possible that Arroyo may have crossed into France from here, sir. With your permission I’d like to make some inquiries across the border.”
“You’re not under my command,” Alfanador pointed out. “And I assume your own captain trusts your discretion enough to let you make whatever inquiries you think necessary.”
Tejada did not challenge this assumption. “I’d like to borrow a truck, sir,” he said. “I’ll try to return it within forty-eight hours.”
Alfanador responded readily enough. “I’ll see what we can do tomorrow, Tejada. The problem is really the gasoline. The war in France hasn’t made getting supplies any easier.”
Tejada considered the prospect of a sleepless night, turning over the day’s various revelations. Arroyo probably had a week’s start already. But Elena had only left the previous evening. Time was of the essence in catching up to her if she was going to meet Arroyo in France. “Tonight, sir,” he said, as firmly as possible. “I don’t want to waste any more time than necessary.”
“If Arroyo’s already in France, he’s out of our jurisdiction, Tejada,” the captain pointed out mildly.
“I know, sir.” Tejada swallowed. “I give you my word, I won’t make a scene, sir. But I’d like to go as quickly as possible.”
The captain considered for a moment. “It’s probably a wild-goose chase, you know,” he said.
“I know, sir.”
Alfanador tapped the report of Elena Fernández’s disappearance thoughtfully against his desk. “All right,” he said finally. “We can spare a truck and a tank of gasoline, I suppose. And I can phone the border and let them know you’re coming, so they don’t make a fuss over visas. Give me an hour.”
For a moment Tejada was wildly relieved. Then he remembered the dual purpose of his errand, and his stomach clenched again. “Thank you, sir,” he said quietly. “I’ll go and get my things together.”
Chapter 15
Like San Sebastián and most other summer resorts, Biarritz took its life from the crowds of transients who descended on it in the summertime. The town gained color from the bright clothing of the strolling tourists, and gained prosperity from the money they spent on ice creams, parasols, and all the protection against the sun and heat that they had forgotten to bring from home. It was easy to be a stranger in Biarritz.
This year most of the summer visitors had worn uniforms, but the town was beginning to return to normal. The flood of desperate refugees had slowed to a trickle, and those few who still came had the decency to attempt to blend in. Of course, even among the tourists, there were eccentrics. No sane tourist, for instance, would wear a heavy wool suit in July, or read incomprehensible Greek texts on vacation. But the gentleman with reading glasses and a white mustache, sitting alone at a table overlooking the sea on the terrace of the Café Lyon, was wearing a musty gray worsted suit and had buried his nose in a book whose title Louis, his waiter, could not make out.
