Presumption of Guilt Read online

  Presumption of Guilt

  Roderic Jeffries

  © Roderic Jeffries 1984

  Roderic Jeffries has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1985 by Walker Publishing Company Inc.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 1

  Eight years previously, Cala Survas had been described in an illustrated Sunday supplement as the last undiscovered bay on the Costa Brava. The article had not explained how a bay could be both undiscovered and described in such detail, but the succeeding eight years rendered any such explanation superfluous. All the benefits of advanced civilisation arrived in the form of package-tour hotels and apartment blocks, restaurants and cafés, supermarkets and drink stores, shoe and memento shops, and plastic litter. Cala Survas had definitely been discovered.

  The land between the town and the mountains undulated and on many of the more elevated sites luxurious villas had been built. These were occupied by wealthy foreigners who sought the services which fuelled the tourist industry — telephones, central heating, flush lavatories, imported foods, maids who spoke their languages — but who were unwilling to live in close proximity to the tourists. Casa Bellini was one such villa. It lay a kilometre beyond the outskirts of the town and was a strange jumble of roof levels and awkward angles — strangely, this complete lack of symmetry lent a touch of charm, unusual since it had been designed by a Spanish architect.

  Angus Sterne, seated on the fireplace side of the card table, picked up the five cards he’d just been dealt. Three kings, an ace, and a five. Three kings never lost.

  “Let’s be havin’ some cards, then,” said Smedley, their host, northern accent broad. “I’m feeling right lucky.”

  “I’ll have three, please,” said the middle-aged Pascall. Monet dealt him the cards. He picked them up, looked briefly at them, then added them to his other two and put all five face down on the table.

  “And two for me. The little babies I want.” Cánaves, the only Spaniard present, spoke a mixture of English and American. His Zapata moustache added a touch of lawlessness to his swarthy, handsome face. It was his proud boast that he bedded a different tourist — female — every night of the season.

  “One,” said Smedley. When he’d looked at it, he chuckled. “This is going to cost you.”

  “Three,” said Evans.

  Sterne wondered — did he buy two cards or keep a kicker? If he bought two it would signal the likelihood that he had three of a kind; if he bought one it would probably be assumed that he had two pairs or was trying to fill a straight or a flush. “One, please.” He discarded the five and kept the ace. He was dealt another five. Life, he decided, had a warped sense of humour.

  “The dealer, he take two cards,” said Monet. He was a small, precise man, very formal in manner.

  “Well?” said Smedley loudly.

  “Pass,” said Pascall.

  “Five ’undred,” said Cánaves, as always failing to pronounce the ‘h’.

  “Chicken-feed,” sneered Smedley.

  “Or sucker-bait?” suggested Evans.

  Smedley pushed forward five large chips. “Five thousand,” he said challengingly.

  “You’re forgetting the limit’s a thousand a rise,” said Evans.

  “We decided there’d be no limit on the last round.”

  “Did we?”

  “What’s the trouble? Getting too hot for a penny-ante player?”

  Evans increased his stake to two large chips and three one-thousand-peseta notes. “I’m seeing.”

  Smedley, Sterne thought, had been losing steadily and he was a man who couldn’t bear ever to lose. So now he was trying to pile-drive his way back to profit. In front of Sterne were twenty thousand pesetas in notes and chips — he’d been winning quietly but steadily. Apart from his ‘emergency fund’ that was all the money he had. But three kinds never lost. “Make it six thousand.”

  Monet threw in.

  “Chicken!” said Smedley loudly. He wasn’t drunk, but neither was he sober. He’d refilled his own glass more often than his guests’ and during the evening his manner had become belligerent as well as loud.

  “I’m away,” said Pascall, as he threw in his cards. Smedley’s tone became more scornful. “We start playing real poker and everyone quits.” He turned to Cánaves. “Are you running for cover?”

  “Me? I have not the cards for such stakes.”

  “You mean, you fold when the pressure starts to hurt.” Cánaves brushed his moustache with his right forefinger. He had a fierce pride and did not willingly suffer an insult unanswered but, typically Spanish, he would remain silent rather than be rude to his host.

  Smedley fanned out his cards and studied them, then pushed all his chips forward.

  “How much is there?” asked Evans.

  “Hang on, lad. I’ve not finished yet. When I get a good hand I want everyone to know about it.” He chuckled as he reached into the right-hand pocket of his linen trousers and brought out a roll of notes. He counted. “Make it seventy-five thousand.” Despite the air-conditioning, on maximum setting, beads of sweat began to form on his forehead.

  Evans said: “That’s not on, Hugh.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “This is a friendly game. A bet like that stops it being friendly.”

  “Jesus! This is poker, not beggar-my-neighbour.”

  “I’ll see six thousand.”

  “I’ve put it up to seventy-five thousand. Meet that or quit.”

  Evans threw in his cards.

  Smedley turned to Sterne. “Are you chicken?” It was as much a triumphant statement of fact as a question and he reached out to sweep up the money.

  “I’ve not bet yet.”

  There was a sudden sense of tension as they realised that Smedley might not be allowed to bully his way to winning after all.

  “D’you think you’ll make your mind up by bloody tomorrow?” Smedley came to his feet, clumsily pushed back the chair, went over to the mobile cocktail cabinet and refilled his glass with a brandy and soda. The sweat began to roll down his fleshy face as he sat once more.

  Smedley had taken one card, Sterne thought, so he’d had two pairs, three of a kind and had kept a kicker (his style of play suggested he seldom went in for the subtlety of a kicker), four to a straight, flush, or straight flush, or four of a kind. The odds against four of a kind were very high, whether he’d held them originally or the single card had matched the threes he’d had before: buying one to a straight flush happened only in daydreams: so that left two pairs, three of a kind and a kicker, or four to a straight or flush: the last card might have turned two pairs into a full house, but the odds were all against: three of a kind might be aces, but his own discard had been an ace which made it unlikely: the kicker might have been matched for a full house, but that was even more unlikely: buying the fifth card to a flush or straight was always ten times as difficult as the odds said it should be… Smedley had either two pairs or t
hree of a kind, lower than kings. Three kings were never beaten.

  “Well?” demanded Smedley.

  “I’ll see you.”

  Smedley finished the brandy and put his glass down heavily on the small table by his side. “Where’s the colour of your money, then?”

  “There’s twenty thousand here and the rest is at my flat.”

  “I’m not bloody well playing for tick.”

  “Are you saying Angus hasn’t got the money at his flat?” asked Evans contemptuously.

  Smedley backed away from so direct a challenge. “No. I’m just sayin’…”

  “Then turn your cards over.”

  Smedley began to sweat even more freely at the unwelcome thought that he might after all be going to lose. Reluctantly, he showed a low straight.

  “Good enough,” Sterne said.

  Chapter 2

  Sterne woke and stared at the closed shutters of the studio room, picked out by the harsh sunshine beyond. After a while, his thoughts coalesced and he considered the two hundred and fifty pounds he owed Smedley. There wasn’t much more than that in his emergency fund. Certainly, he was going to be left with less than the cost of his ticket back to the UK: his ticket back to a regular, respectable life…

  Had he been tight and was that why he’d seen Smedley’s hand, thereby losing seventy-five thousand pesetas? But he could remember clearly all that had happened, even down to the logic of his thoughts as he’d decided Smedley must have had two pairs or losing threes. So it hadn’t been drink which had egged him on to financial disaster. Then had it been the desire to wipe the smile off Smedley’s face? Bumptious, cocky people like Smedley usually evoked that kind of a reaction. And life, loving a joke, sometimes made certain that the desire turned out to be an expensive one… Bugger that miserable six-high straight! At least it might have been a decent one, say jack high, to make its victory seem more impressive and therefore slightly more palatable.

  He mentally calculated figures and decided that after he’d settled with Smedley he’d have about eighteen thousand pesetas left. A flight home at this time of the year, by a local charter firm, cost around twenty-two thousand. It was virtually impossible to feed and drink — in this heat, water was about as satisfying as dried acorn coffee — on less than twelve hundred pesetas a day. In five days’ time, his next month’s rent would be due in advance. His landlady was a delightful old woman, full of good humour and a dry wit, but when it came to money she could have taught Shylock a thing or two…

  It looked as if he’d have to phone Ralph again and ask for more money. And Ralph would point out, pontifically, that it was only a month now since he’d forwarded a thousand pounds from the trust which had been meant to last at least three months. Three months? Ralph had not met Sonia or he’d never have suggested such an impossibility. Sonia treated money with the contempt it deserved. But then Ralph probably didn’t know such people existed. How could he, sitting at his desk, surrounded by wills, deeds, conveyances, contracts, statutes, pleadings, and opinions, and never the time to look out through the window at far horizons? Sterne laughed at the thought of introducing Sonia to Ralph: and at Angela’s reactions to the introduction…

  The first time he’d met Angela he’d correctly summed her up. Middle class and middle course. Not that he’d disliked her — he’d felt sorry for her. And unfortunately she’d realised this. He could still recall the look she’d given him, on that first meeting, when she’d said that she couldn’t stay long. No visit to Ralph’s bedroom to view the etchings: in an age of permissiveness, she practised chastity. And that look had told him something more. That she knew that if it had been he who had had a girl in for drinks they’d have been studying those etchings as soon as possible, and she despised him, but also envied him, for the gusto with which he drained the cup of life…

  Left to himself, Ralph would forward another and generous cheque, together with a brief, forgettable sermon. Although outwardly he was a sober, hardworking, conventional solicitor, married to a woman whose creed was loyalty before everything, father of a charming, precocious daughter, owner of an Elizabethan farmhouse, generous contributor to Conservative party funds, reader of The Times and Country Life, there was buried deep within his being a yearning to experience just a few of the piquancies of life. And if he could not indulge in them directly, then he welcomed the chance of doing so vicariously, through his younger brother… But Ralph was never left to himself. Angela was his partner in everything. And she would point out that his brother had wasted more than enough time and money so he must send no more money now than was absolutely necessary to make certain Angus returned straight back home and began to work…

  Sterne climbed out of bed, crossed to the window, opened the shutters and swung them back on to their catches. The sunlight warmed his face as he looked down the road, past a palm tree, and at the travel-poster-blue sea in the bay. He recognised that life could not always be like this, that the dividing line between the man who was sampling life and the drifter could become too thin, but he wasn’t yet ready to submerge himself in the ordered, aseptic world of the trusted, steady wage-earner. He laughed aloud. “Give me chastity and continency, but do not give it yet.” He wanted to meet more Sonias. How many Sonias dare one meet?

  There was a knock on the door and when he called out, Evans entered. Evans said: “With all the merriment, I thought you must have at least one woman in here.”

  “Only in my imagination.”

  “You might lend me your imagination some time.” Evans crossed to a rush-bottomed chair and sat. “I’m sorry you lost that hand last night. I was hoping you’d take that stupid bastard to the cleaners… If it’s not a rude question, what had you?”

  “Three kings.”

  “But three kings never lose.”

  “You know that and I know that, but someone forgot to tell the cards.”

  “Hugh’ll be telling everyone he’s the finest poker-player this side of Houston.”

  “The higher they climb, the further they fall.”

  “And I want to be there to give him a push… He was talking about another game before we left last night. He’ll be so cocky he’ll end up flat on his arse. So how about organising the pleasure?”

  “You’ll have to count me out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Couldn’t be more certain.” Sterne crossed to a second chair and picked up his clothes. “I’m taking a quick shower. You’ll hang on for a drink, won’t you?”

  “Mention liquor and I become immovable.”

  As he showered, Sterne wondered why Evans had called. Surely not just to find out what hand he’d had? Since he’d first met Evans, he’d often tried to place the man and every time had failed. Evans had plenty of money, but never gave the slightest hint where it had come from. He had the easy self-confidence of a man who’d learned to handle any situation, but never made the slightest reference to his past life. To that extent, he was no different from many expatriates to be found around the Mediterranean. But what singled him out was an occasional glimpse of calculating, withdrawn watchfulness: a friendly man who never allowed himself the luxury of a friend.

  Refreshed, dressed in T-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops, Sterne returned to the studio room. “There’s brandy, gin, rum, or beer.”

  “A brandy and soda, please… Are you handing over the rest of the money to Hugh?”

  Sterne, now standing by the side of the heavy Spanish sideboard, turned, a bottle of Soberano in his right hand. “Of course I am.”

  “At the start of the game, we agreed a limit of a thousand a rise and a ten thousand maximum. D’you remember him saying anything about forgetting the limit on the last round?”

  “Can’t say I do.”

  “No more do I.”

  “It’s probably because he serves king-sized drinks.”

  Evans shook his head. “It’s because he never said it. He only claimed he did because he needed to win and without a limit he could use his mone
y like a sledgehammer. There’s no call for you to pay him a peseta more than ten thousand.”

  Sterne turned back, poured out two brandies, added soda and ice, and carried the glasses across. He sat down on the bed.

  “You’ve paid him twenty mil already. Ask for ten back.”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  “Why not? Are you rolling in money?”

  “Far from it.”

  “Then?”

  He tried to conceal his growing irritation at the way in which Evans was pursuing the matter. “As I see things, it doesn’t matter what we agreed at the beginning. Hugh called seventy-five thou and I saw him. By seeing him, I was implicitly agreeing to the change of rules, if there was such a change.”

  “Shall I tell you what I’d do in your place? I’d tell the stupid bastard to go whistle since he twisted the rules to suit himself… You’re too honest.”

  “It’s not like that,” said Sterne, feeling that he was being made to look slightly ridiculous even though he was doing what, by his own lights, was right.

  “Let’s forget it,” said Evans, as if it had not been he who’d introduced the subject. “What are you doing for lunch?”

  Until Ralph sent him some money, lunch was going to have to consist of bread, cheese, and a bottle of vino corriente. “Eating on the beach.”

  “Have it in a restaurant on me.” Evans stood. “Let’s say one o’clock at Mateo’s and over a drink or two we’ll decide where to move on to, to eat.” He left.

  Sterne wondered why the luncheon invitation, from a man who until now had never been more than casually polite. A friendly pick-you-up for someone who’d lost a sizeable sum of money the night before and was obviously now nearly broke? It hardly seemed in character. Evans surely was someone who saw the world as a place in which each man was left to paddle his own canoe, successfully or unsuccessfully. Yet it was difficult to imagine what ulterior motive for the invitation there could be…

  He crossed to the sideboard and poured himself another brandy. He must work out what to say to Ralph, knowing that Angela would be very ready to express her thoughts on the subject.