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doubted he’d been knocked unconscious, but he might have been dazed and staggered across the patio to tumble into the pool. But on a level with the chair, the water was no deeper than one metre twenty. However dazed, surely an instinctive self-preservation would have made certain he stood up?
    *   *   *
    Two men bundled the dead man into a body bag. The younger looked up the gently sloping land. ‘We ought to have brought the van down here.’
    â€˜Take life more quietly at night and you’d have some energy for the morning,’ said the elder man. ‘Come on, get moving.’
    They picked up the bag and left. Alvarez envied them their lack of reverential fear for death.
    He made his way up to the front door and arrived in time to see the van drive off. The front door was unlocked and he opened it, stepped into the hall, and called out. Susana, a middle-aged woman, came through the doorway to the right. Initially, her manner was constrained – she had a typical islander’s distrust of authority – but Alvarez’s easy, friendly manner, and the fact that his accent marked him as a local, quickly gained her confidence.
    â€˜You’d best come into the kitchen so as I can make some coffee.’
    He followed her through a doorway, along a short passage, and into a kitchen, notable for its size and wealth of domestic machines. He sat in the small eating area and, as she prepared the coffee machine, listened with the endless patience of a peasant as she repeatedly told him how shocked she and Inés had been when Lorenzo had rushed into the house and told them the señor was at the bottom of the swimming pool. At first, they’d thought he was joking. He had a cruel sense of humour. There was the time he’d told Inés he’d taken a photo of her and sent it to a magazine. Why was that cruel? The señor had been away, the day had been hotter than ever and Inés had decided to go for a swim. Being of the younger generation, lacking both a sense of shame and a costume, she’d stripped off and swum naked. Lorenzo, who never missed a thing, had seen her when he’d returned from the other end of the property where he was mending a fence. He was certain the magazine would pay heavily for such delightful snaps. Inés had called him many names before he finally admitted he was joking and said he hadn’t realized she wasn’t just swimming topless like so many did. But one had only to have seen the gleam in his eyes to know that he’d seen more than he was now admitting …
    Susana opened a tin and put some biscuits on a plate, carried the plate over to where Alvarez sat. ‘I made these yesterday for the señor, but he won’t be eating them now, God rest his soul.’
    The coffee machine hissed and she lifted it off the stove, poured the contents into two mugs. After putting milk and sugar on the table, she sat opposite him.
    He asked her why it was that neither she nor Inés had been surprised not to have seen Zavala in the morning, since it was quite late before his body had been discovered.
    â€˜It’s like this. I live in the staff house that’s out of sight on the other side of the hill – I reckon it was built there so as no one could tell what was going on here. Inés is with her parents in the village and Lorenzo has his own finca. So I’m around early in the morning, but the señor used to get up at all times and he might want breakfast, he might not. We never knew when to expect to see him. Didn’t think anything when there was no sign of him. And to think he was at the bottom of the pool!’ She sucked in her breath in a gesture of shocked surprise.
    â€˜What kind of a man was he to work for?’
    â€˜Same as most,’ she answered carefully.
    He smiled. ‘Difficult?’
    â€˜I’ve never met one that wasn’t some of the time. But I suppose he wasn’t too bad