Murder Through Mischance

The girl in the bar had been very pretty. And had the sort of body Howarth knew would interfere with his sleeping if he thought about it too much in the night. And once he’d set eyes on her he knew that he was going to think about her a lot in the night, because there had been an unspoken promise in the way she’d looked back at him when she’d caught him watching her surreptitiously, covetously, and he’d felt he had to get to know her better. Howarth was still young enough to have his head turned that quickly by a pretty girl and feel he was able to do something about it. That was why, when he’d heard what the girl had said when she’d spoken, probably deliberately loudly enough for him to hear, that she would be at the fiesta in her village the next day, he decided to go there and try his luck with her. The girl in the bar had been attractive enough for it to be worth the five mile trek he would have to make across the mountain from his village to her village to try. Attractive enough for him not to be able to let the fiesta she’d mentioned pass without him trying his luck with her at least once. That was what he had been hoping to do anyway, but the girl, amongst her own family now, and with a boyfriend in tow, hadn’t appeared half as interesting and inviting. So his long walk to the fiesta had seemed something of a waste of time until he saw the man dancing, and something about him awoke some chord deep in his memory of someone he had known in the past. Howarth moved closer to the pair so he could be sure. And after a moment or two of that closer scrutiny of them was sure enough to take a surreptitious photo or two of them with the mobile phone he always carried with him. Taking care that no one saw him do it, though, because if the man was who he thought he was, it could prove very dangerous for anyone who was seen doing that. And afterwards he took himself off very quickly, without ever trying his luck with the girl who had been his reason for being there. On the spur of the moment he found the number, still in the directory on his phone, which would connect him with his former colleagues and former life in England, and after a moment or two of considering the implications of what he was doing, he pressed the key on the phone which would dial it, put the phone to his ear, and waited. “I’m in Mallorca,” he said without preamble, when the person at the other end of the call eventually answered, and I’ve just been to a village fiesta and seen a couple of folk you might not have expected to be living there. I took a photograph of them with my phone just to be sure.” Howarth spoke in a deliberately matter of fact way. “Did you now?” The voice at the other end of the line replied. “And did anyone see you taking those photos of these interesting folk?” “I shouldn’t think so.” Howarth said, sounding more sure of that than he ought to have been, as it happened. “I was very careful. I’ll send them over to you now if you like.” “Okay.” Chief Inspector Macdonald agreed. “I’m in the office. Send them there. I’ll look out for them.” “Right oh!” They were the last words the two ever exchanged, because, just as Howarth pressed the button to complete the operation which sent the photos rushing off through the ether, someone came up behind him very quietly, and pushed him off the edge of the cliff, onto the rocks below.