Death Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

got to keep the business afloat. Or are you suggesting I leave you in charge?'”
    Mercedes Moreno's eyes glittered angrily at the rebuke, but she said no more. After a few moments uncomfortable silence, Rafferty asked, “And how did Mr Moon take your, er, your warning, Mrs Moreno?”
    Disdainfully, she told him, “He accused me of, how you say, fixing the pack. He never take me seriously. As if I would do such a thing. I was upset that he should think I might. He thought I made practical joke.” Her voice was shrill with outrage, though whether at Moon's accusation, Astell's rebuke, or his own scepticism, Rafferty couldn't say. “I never joke.”
    Rafferty could believe it. She reminded him of sombre, history-book portraits of long-dead and fanatically devout Spaniards at the time of the Inquisition. As a lapsed Catholic, such obsessive intensity always gave him a shiver of dread.
    Nostrils flaring, she declared, “El Senor Moon and La Senora Campbell seemed to think that because I have none of their pieces of paper that my skills are the second rate sort, fit only for selling trinkets in the shop. Is not true. In my own country I was highly thought of, but here-” She made a noise of disgust.
    Half expecting her to stamp her foot and burst into a flood of incomprehensible Spanish, Rafferty wondered why she hadn't stayed in her own country if they had thought so highly of her? She had made no comment about Astell's opinion of her skills, but it was clear he didn't rate them very highly. If he had, he wouldn't have been so sharp with her.
    She was clearly a highly-excitable woman, fond of dramatizing herself. It was unlikely they'd ever get to the bottom of her outlandish claims, and Rafferty, refusing to let her wrong-foot him, ushered them all into Astell's office and shut the door.
    “Perhaps you would both like to tell me when you last saw Mr Moon?” he suggested. “You first, Mrs Moreno.”
    “I left at 6.10 p m, a little later than usual as I had first to get changed. I went upstairs to say good night to Jaspair. He was in his office.”
    “Was he alone?”
    “Yes. But the cleaner, she was in the kitchen. Jaspair tease me again about my warning. I was upset that he made mock of me and told him so. I went straight from work to Senor and Senora Astell. Senora Astell had invited me over. Yesterday was the anniversary of her beloved father's death,” she explained. “She wanted to mark it properly. English people, I find, have little feeling for such rituals, but not Senora Astell. She has the proper respect for her family, and although she is not Catholic, she knew that in my religion, we show the dead due reverence; we pray for them, light candles for them to lessen the time they must spend in Purgatory. She has a little shrine to her father and she asked me to come to share the evening with her, her husband, and an elderly lady friend of her father's. It was an honour to be asked.”
    “What time did this, er, occasion start and finish?” Rafferty asked Astell.
    “It started about 6.30 p m and ended quite early, about 8.00 p m. Clara Davies, my father-in-law's old friend is quite elderly now, and doesn't enjoy late nights, not that these affairs have ever gone on very late.” Suddenly, as if sorry about his earlier sharpness, he smiled at the Peruvian woman. “Mrs Moreno was concerned that my wife would be anxious and came a little early. She knew my wife planned to serve a light buffet afterwards, and wanted to help.”
    “Is the least I could do,” she told him softly. “I am very fond of Senora Astell and it was an important occasion for her. I offered to help clear up before I left the first time, but Mr Astell would not hear of it.” She smiled a smug smile. “But I got my way in the end. That is why I leave the gloves,” she explained. “So I have an excuse to return. The cleaner had gone home sick and is not right that Mr Astell should have to do women's work.”
    Astell seemed to find her