Although he lay down on his bed he hardly slept at all. Nevertheless he got through his morning’s work with more than usual expedition and drove out to Charley Fortnum’s camp. He had no idea of the kind of situation with which he might have to cope, and he was in a tired, nervous and angry mood, expecting to find a hysterical woman awaiting him. While he lay sleepless in bed he had considered the possibility of disclosing all to the police, but that would be to condemn Léon and Aquino to almost certain death, probably Fortnum as well.
It was a heavy sun-drenched midday when he arrived at the camp and a police jeep stood beside Fortnum’s Pride in the shade of the avocados. He walked into the house without ringing, and in the living room he found the Chief of Police talking to Clara. She was not the hysterical woman he had anticipated but a young girl sitting stiffly on the sofa as though she were receiving orders from a superior. “… all we can,” Colonel Perez was saying.
“What are you doing here?” Doctor Plarr asked.
“I have come to see Seńora Fortnum, doctor, and you?”
“I have come to see the Consul on business.”
“The Consul is not here,” Colonel Perez said.
Clara gave him no greeting. She seemed to be waiting without a will of her own, as she had often waited in the patio of the establishment, for one of many men to lead her away-hustling being forbidden by Mother Sanchez.
“He is not in town,” Doctor Plarr said.
“You have been to his office?”
“No. I telephoned.”
He regretted immediately what he had said, for Colonel Perez was no fool. One ought never to volunteer information to a policeman. Doctor Plarr had watched more than once the cool and efficient way Perez went to work. On one occasion a man had been found stabbed on a raft of logs which had been floated down the Paraná from two thousand kilometres away. In Doctor Benevento’s absence Doctor Plarr was summoned to a bend of the river near the airport where the logs were waiting for transhipment. At the bottom of a little slippery country path, where snakes rustled in the undergrowth, he reached a small wooden jetty-the so-called port for timber.
A family had been living on the raft for a month. Doctor Plarr, stumbling across the logs behind Perez, admired the easy way in which the police officer balanced-he felt himself in constant danger of slipping when the logs sank underfoot and leaped up again. It must, he thought, be a little like standing on a horse as it cantered round a circus ring.
“You spoke to his housekeeper?” Colonel Perez asked.
Doctor Plarr was again annoyed at himself for his rash lies. He was Clara’s doctor. Why had he not simply said that this was a routine medical visit to a pregnant wife? One He in the presence of a policeman seemed to multiply like bacilli. He said, “No. There was no answer.”
Colonel Perez considered his reply through a long silence.
He remembered how rapidly and easily Perez had walked over the heaving trunks as though he were treading a firm city pavement. The logs covered half the width of the river. A group of people, diminished by distance, stood in the very centre of the wide horizontal forest. Perez and he had to jump from one raft to another to reach them, and every time he jumped the doctor feared he would fall into the gap between the rafts, though the gap was usually less than a meter. His shoes became waterlogged as the trunks sank beneath his weight and rose again. “I warn you,” Perez said, “it’s not going to be very pretty. The family have been travelling on the raft for weeks with the body. It would have been much better if they had just pushed it into the water. We would never have known.”
“Why didn’t they?” Doctor Plarr asked, with his arms stretched out as though he were walking a tightrope.
“The murderer,” Perez said, “wanted him to have a Christian burial.”
“He has admitted killing him then?” the doctor asked.
“Oh, he admitted it to me,” Perez replied. “You see-these are all my own people.”
When they reached the group-two men, a woman and a child with two officers-Doctor Plarr noticed that the police had not even bothered to take away the assassin’s knife. He sat cross-legged beside the disagreeable corpse as though it were his job to guard it. He had an expression of sadness more than of guilt.
Colonel Perez said, “I came to tell the Seńora that her husband’s car has been found in the Paraná not far from Posadas. There is no sign of a body, so we hope he may have escaped.”
“An accident? Of course you know-the Seńora won’t mind my saying it-Fortnum is rather a heavy drinker.”
“Yes. But there are other possibilities,” Colonel Perez said.
The doctor would have found it easier to play his part to the police officer or to Clara if he had been alone with either of them. He was afraid when he spoke that one or the other would detect something false in his tone. He asked, “What do you think may have happened?”
“Any incident which occurs so close to the border may be political. We always have to remember that. You remember the doctor who was kidnapped in Posadas?”
“Of course. But why on earth Fortnum? There’s nothing political about him.”
“He is a Consul.”
“Only an Honorary Consul.” Even the Chief of Police seemed unable to understand that distinction.
Colonel Perez spoke to Clara, “We shall let you know, Seńora, as soon as there is any news.” He put his hand on the doctor’s elbow. “There is something I would like to ask you, doctor.” The colonel led Doctor Plarr across the verandah, where the dumbwaiter with its Long John glasses seemed to emphasize the remarkable absence of Charley Fortnum (he would certainly have invited them to take “a spot” before they left), and on into the deep shade of the avocado trees. He picked up one of the fallen fruit, examined it for ripeness with an expert’s eye and put it in the back of the police car, laying it down carefully where the sun wouldn’t strike. “A beauty,” he said. “I like to eat them mashed in a little whisky.”
“What is it you want?” the doctor asked.
“There is one thing which worries me a little.”
“You don’t really believe that Fortnum has been kidnapped?”
“It is one of the possibilities. It has even occurred to me that he might have been the victim of a silly mistake. He was with the American Ambassador, you see, in the ruins. The Ambassador obviously would be a more likely target. If that is the case the men must be strangers-perhaps from Paraguay. You and I would never make a mistake like that, doctor. I only say ‘you’ because you are nearly one of us. Of course there is always the possibility you might be indirectly concerned.”
“I’m not quite the kidnapping type, colonel.”
“I was thinking about your father across the border. You told me once that he was either dead or in prison. You might have a motive. Forgive the way I think aloud, doctor, but I always feel a little at sea when it comes to political crime. In politics crime is often the occupation of a caballero. I am more used to crimes which are committed by criminals-or at least by violent or poor men. For money or lust.”
“Or machismo,” the doctor said, venturing to tease him.
“Oh, everything here is machismo,” Perez said, and he smiled at the doctor’s remark in so friendly a way that Plarr felt a little reassured. “Here machismo is only another word for living. A word for the air we breathe. When there is no machismo a man is dead. Are you coming back to the city, doctor?”
“No. Now that I am here I may as well take a look at Seńora Fortnum. She is expecting a baby.”
“Yes. She told me that.” The Chief of Police had his hand on the door of the car, but at the last moment he turned and said in a low voice as though they were sharing a friendly confidence, “Doctor, why did you tell me you rang up the Consul’s office and that there was no reply? I have had a man stationed there all the morning in case a call came.”