him. You say you posted it on the day of the suicide. That letter didn’t come until ten days later, the day before I left to come here.’
‘Spanish correos,’ said Janey succinctly. We were going up the marble stairs.
‘All right. And he was sloshed,’ I said bitterly. ‘But that doesn’t explain why he wrote me a letter starting, My dear She-she. He never called me She-she in his life.’
‘So?’ said Janey. Wisps of red hair coiled about under the pile on her head.
‘So I think he was murdered,’ I said.
I didn’t exactly expect the Confederates’ Rebel Yell, but Janey simply leaned on her door handle and said: ‘I thought maybe that was why you came. But who’d want to kill him?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Well, why not find out?’ said Janey. ‘I know what I’d do.’
On the way into Mandleberg’s workshop we did it. We sent a cable saying Come at once. Sarah, to Derek.
FOUR
Austin Mandleberg’s gallery was in the Dalt Vila, the walled bit of the town on the hill. I’d seen the main gateway, flanked with broken statues at the edge of the fruit market, but I hadn’t been into it yet.
Physically, there’s no break between the old bit of Ibiza and the new, except for this whopping great wall built around the base of the hill. Actually, it’s about a thousand years’ difference. Janey edged the Maserati through the raging turmoil of the Mercado and up this long, narrow ramp to the portals, and the moment we crawled in under it, we were in quiet and shadow. An old woman in black, and two girls with long hair and brown boots flattened against the grey, peach-mortared stone of the buttresses, and then we were turning sharp right into a tall, shadowy room, half-arcaded, and roofless to the blue sky, at the other end of which was the only exit: another arched portal giving on to the sunlit cobbled plaza of the old Moorish town of Ibiza, under the lee of the tall white houses lodged in a cliff of dazzling masonry on our left.
I hardly had time to take it in: the round glassy cobbles, the kids playing, the pump, the washing hanging high in the sun, a grocer’s, a little, dark wine shop, a cafe with tables out in the sun, a lot of songbirds in cages. Then Janey swung left in a hairpin bend that rolled me on to her shoulder, and we were going up a perpendicular alley about six inches wide, with the wall of the roofless entry room on our left, and on our right, small shops ̶ I caught a glimpse of antiques ̶ broken by stretches of wall. Suddenly the passage widened, and the cobbles gave way to tarmac, and we were in a small square between more little antique shops and bars, with stepped lanes and paths leading up on the right, and a stony slope on the left which seemed to go up to the ramparts. From the square led a broad, garden-lined avenue, still rising steeply, labelled Avenida General Franco Beyond the strip of park on our right, you could see a low-level dirt road, lined with crowded four-storey houses and bars, with small, low, broken doors and children crying, and flights of steep steps overhung with low trees and bougainvillea and cacti. Strings for washing draped every wall, with plastic clothes-pegs in bunches, like lovebirds. The two roads joined with steps at another hairpin bend, and I lurched to the right as Janey fluted the Maserati’s horn and spun the wheel coolly, her dark glasses flashing. She had been here before. She had been to Austin Mandleberg’s gallery before, often, but hadn’t bothered to mention it until a minute ago.
It wasn’t much further. The tarmac road went on, with a pavement, past a patch of garden and a green-shuttered church and up to a flat place facing some broad, grassy steps. There, Janey changed gear and swung right. I had a glimpse behind us of a wide, modern square with a lot of trees and a long white building with arches, and even of a sudden flash of blue sea at the end; then the Maserati swung its back to the view and went on
‘Spanish correos,’ said Janey succinctly. We were going up the marble stairs.
‘All right. And he was sloshed,’ I said bitterly. ‘But that doesn’t explain why he wrote me a letter starting, My dear She-she. He never called me She-she in his life.’
‘So?’ said Janey. Wisps of red hair coiled about under the pile on her head.
‘So I think he was murdered,’ I said.
I didn’t exactly expect the Confederates’ Rebel Yell, but Janey simply leaned on her door handle and said: ‘I thought maybe that was why you came. But who’d want to kill him?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Well, why not find out?’ said Janey. ‘I know what I’d do.’
On the way into Mandleberg’s workshop we did it. We sent a cable saying Come at once. Sarah, to Derek.
FOUR
Austin Mandleberg’s gallery was in the Dalt Vila, the walled bit of the town on the hill. I’d seen the main gateway, flanked with broken statues at the edge of the fruit market, but I hadn’t been into it yet.
Physically, there’s no break between the old bit of Ibiza and the new, except for this whopping great wall built around the base of the hill. Actually, it’s about a thousand years’ difference. Janey edged the Maserati through the raging turmoil of the Mercado and up this long, narrow ramp to the portals, and the moment we crawled in under it, we were in quiet and shadow. An old woman in black, and two girls with long hair and brown boots flattened against the grey, peach-mortared stone of the buttresses, and then we were turning sharp right into a tall, shadowy room, half-arcaded, and roofless to the blue sky, at the other end of which was the only exit: another arched portal giving on to the sunlit cobbled plaza of the old Moorish town of Ibiza, under the lee of the tall white houses lodged in a cliff of dazzling masonry on our left.
I hardly had time to take it in: the round glassy cobbles, the kids playing, the pump, the washing hanging high in the sun, a grocer’s, a little, dark wine shop, a cafe with tables out in the sun, a lot of songbirds in cages. Then Janey swung left in a hairpin bend that rolled me on to her shoulder, and we were going up a perpendicular alley about six inches wide, with the wall of the roofless entry room on our left, and on our right, small shops ̶ I caught a glimpse of antiques ̶ broken by stretches of wall. Suddenly the passage widened, and the cobbles gave way to tarmac, and we were in a small square between more little antique shops and bars, with stepped lanes and paths leading up on the right, and a stony slope on the left which seemed to go up to the ramparts. From the square led a broad, garden-lined avenue, still rising steeply, labelled Avenida General Franco Beyond the strip of park on our right, you could see a low-level dirt road, lined with crowded four-storey houses and bars, with small, low, broken doors and children crying, and flights of steep steps overhung with low trees and bougainvillea and cacti. Strings for washing draped every wall, with plastic clothes-pegs in bunches, like lovebirds. The two roads joined with steps at another hairpin bend, and I lurched to the right as Janey fluted the Maserati’s horn and spun the wheel coolly, her dark glasses flashing. She had been here before. She had been to Austin Mandleberg’s gallery before, often, but hadn’t bothered to mention it until a minute ago.
It wasn’t much further. The tarmac road went on, with a pavement, past a patch of garden and a green-shuttered church and up to a flat place facing some broad, grassy steps. There, Janey changed gear and swung right. I had a glimpse behind us of a wide, modern square with a lot of trees and a long white building with arches, and even of a sudden flash of blue sea at the end; then the Maserati swung its back to the view and went on
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