by Jill Downie
“Very possible, sir.” Moretti couldn’t resist the response, and saw Falla swiftly lower her eyes to her notepad. “So you are saying you know of no connection between the Gastineau family and Augustus Dorey?”
Rory Gastineau had an ungainly bearing, an unattractive manner, and an ill-matched assortment of nose, mouth and oversized eyebrows jutting over slightly protuberant dark eyes, but he had a wonderful voice. It reverberated through the room, reaching every corner.
“That is what I am saying.”
Moretti pressed on.
“There is a newspaper report of a fight between your father and Gus Dorey to which the police were called. This would be before you were born, but it is such an unusual occurrence I wonder if you were ever told anything about why that happened.”
Rory kept his eyes fixed on Moretti’s face, but his wife’s reaction, though slight, was more revealing. The pretty blonde curls bounced as, lips parted, she glanced swiftly at her husband, then back again at Moretti.
“I can only imagine it was something to do with the war. I heard once that the hermit’s father was a collaborator. But no, I wasn’t told about it.” Suddenly, Rory Gastineau went on the attack. “Why in God’s name are we being bothered with all this? The poor old sod killed himself, you said. Suicide, you said, right?”
“Apparent suicide. There are circumstances that need further investigation.”
Words, words, words. Smokescreens sometimes, and sometimes bombshells. He had hidden behind jargon, but had scored a direct hit. Moretti watched Rory Gastineau’s large face turn scarlet, his chest heave.
“God,” he said.
Moretti struck while the iron was hot.
“Then we have the cyber-threats and attacks on your niece, the strange business of the power being turned off during the play-reading, followed shortly after by the attempted murder of Hugo Shawcross. This may all be coincidence, and we may have more than one would-be murderer on this island, sir, but this is a small island and I don’t believe in coincidence.”
At which Tanya Gastineau flung her arms around her husband and started to cry.
“Tell them why you hired Roddy,” she sobbed. “Tell them. You said not to say anything to anyone, but tell them, or I will.”
Above the tousled curls of his wife, who was weeping helplessly against his chest, Rory Gastineau did what he was told, and the story was similar to the one Liz Falla had heard from Marla Gastineau in the change room at Beau Sejour, except that one or more of the messages had been verbal, not texted. This time, however, there was more detail in the telling, and what struck Moretti was the implication that this was about revenge for something that remained unspecified. More disturbingly, whoever was doing this was suggesting the verbal attacks would not remain verbal attacks.
That they intended to go further, and to kill Tanya Gastineau.
Neither Moretti nor Falla interrupted until Rory said, “And that’s the big difference between what this bastard said to Marla and to Tanya. He didn’t threaten to kill Marla. It was more like bullying, the kind of thing young people do to each other. More normal.”
This drew an incredulous response from Liz Falla. “More normal, sir?”
“You know what I mean.”
Moretti leaned towards Tanya. “Mrs. Gastineau, did you get any idea of who this might be? On the phoned-in threats, did you recognize the voice? Your husband said ‘bastard,’ so I am assuming it was a man.”
From the depths of her husband’s Fair Isle sweater, Tanya glanced up at Moretti.
“I’ve no idea,” she said in her little-girl voice.
Rory Gastineau detached himself from his wife and stood up. A long strand of his wife’s fair hair caught on Rory Gastineau’s sweater, curling against a scarlet diamond shape in the Fair Isle design. “I think that’s enough for now,” he said.
Moretti got to his feet, taking a last look at the view. Beyond the windows, the tiny white flowers of the Lady’s Tresses fluttered in the breeze, and Moretti remembered that the lady they were named for was the Virgin Mary.
Tanya had made a quick recovery. She sprinted ahead of them, leading the way, clearly anxious to be rid of them. Liz caught up with her, and Moretti heard her ask, “Did you learn to ride here, Mrs. Gastineau, or in England?”
“Oh, I’ve loved horses since I was a little girl.” A trill of laughter. “One of the promises Rory made me, when he persuaded me to come and live here, was a beautiful horse, and Rory always keeps his promises — don’t you, Rory?”
Tanya glanced back over her shoulder at her husband, who was walking beside Moretti.
“Yes.”
The look Rory gave his wife was now not so much adoring Caliban as uneasy soothsayer, with an upcoming warning about the Ides of March.
At the top of the steps, Liz extended her hand.
“Thank you, Mrs. Gastineau. So you didn’t meet on the island?”
“Oh no. We met in my hometown, not Rory’s. Bristol,” she added. Then her hand went up to her mouth as she saw her husband’s face.
“Well, well, well. So Rory Gastineau paid a visit to Bristol. Congratulations, Falla.”
“She’s lying, Guv. Not about Bristol, I mean.”
“Not about Bristol, but she’s in on some or all of whatever is going on in that family. And she could well have edited the messages she was getting for her husband’s ears. We’d need a warrant to get Tanya’s phone, I’m sure, and she may well have disposed of it by now.”
“I think she recognized the voice,” said Falla.
“That was my feeling. There’ll be a record of the marriage, and we need to know Tanya’s maiden name. She may have married for money, but there’s money in her past. Horse-riding as a hobby is not cheap, and she looks like an accomplished rider.” Moretti looked at Falla, who was turning the Skoda out of the driveway and onto the road. “There’s something going on she doesn’t want her husband to know about. That was quite a ‘hmmm’ you gave when you saw her and her so-called bodyguard. Did you recognize him?”
“No, but then I don’t hang out with the huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ set. Still, that’s the thing — there’s not many of them on the island. I bet he’s from the mainland, and I wonder if she knew him before. I’ll ask around. What did you think of her, Guv?”
“She’s sharp — I don’t buy the dumb blonde act — and manipulative. She’s a pretty woman used to getting her own way, and I hope she hasn’t overestimated her power. There’s something nasty going on, and someone dangerous behind it. What do you think, Falla?”
“I think I’d like to know what mascara she uses. All that weeping and wailing and not a smudge in sight.”
Moretti laughed. Falla’s insights were always valuable, sometimes in surprising ways.
“Interesting. You don’t plan to do too much weeping and wailing in the near future, I hope.”
Next to him in the car she was smiling, but she didn’t answer. They were now on the Forest road. “Back to the station, Guv?” Liz asked, pausing for directions.
“You hungry, Falla?”
“Starving.”
“Come on, I’ll buy you dinner. Or do you have plans?”
Afterwards, Moretti would recall his partner’s sideways look and her smile.
“Not till later. Thanks, Guv.”
“There’s a nice little pub in Forest, with a great cook. The best crab cakes on the island. Is all forgiven?”
“You got me with the crab cakes, Guv. Lead the way.”
Chapter Sixteen
It had been an interminable day. Al Brown looked at his watch and yawned, then glanced longingly at the police Honda, propped beneath the window, draped in one of the blankets from the hermit’s bed. It had been impossible to conceal it from the view of anyone coming in the door, but at least he had managed to get it inside the roundhouse without anyone seeing him. He was sure of that. It was a tempting thought: he could just skive off right now, and no one would know.
Besides, h
ow often do you get the chance to catch a murderer single-handed? Or maybe a washerwoman.
Outside the window, night was finally falling, and if anything were going to happen, it would be under cover of darkness. The difficult task ahead of him was to stay awake and alert. He drank the last of the coffee in the thermos he had brought with him, ate the last cheese and chutney sandwich, purchased at Marks and Spencer’s on the Esplanade, got out his emergency rations, and put them in his pocket: a packet of chocolate-covered coffee beans. Chocolate-covered coffee beans had the same effect as a shot of nitro for the heart — if what his father said was anything to go by. He had used them before on stakeouts, much to the amusement of his former colleagues, who used other, sometimes riskier, substances. Not to mention illegal. Some relied on alcohol, which was always a temptation.
It was dark in the roundhouse now, and the flashlight he had with him was for emergency use only. He put the book he had brought back in the carrier on the Honda without too much regret. He was trying to read a Portuguese Nobel Prize winner in Portuguese, and was finding it heavy going, requiring his total concentration. It was a poor choice for a stakeout. Particularly one where you were on your own.
Al took a look through the window, with its sad little lineup of coloured shards on the narrow sill. They caught the last, faint gleam of the setting sun beyond the outline of the German Naval Observation Tower, its futuristic shape looming against the darkening sky. When he had some time to himself, he would explore this other island reality that was not only present in the structures left behind, but also in the island psyche. At least, so it seemed to him, although he had been here no time at all. Then he sat down in the rickety armchair, which he had pulled against the wall close to the window, away from the door, and waited.
One hour, two hours. There was no longer the sound of even the occasional car on the unpaved road that crossed the Common close to the roundhouse. In the silence, he could hear the waves crashing far below on the rocks and, now and then, the cry of some seabird overhead. Al was aware of his breathing changing, felt his eyelids closing.
Chocolate coffee bean time.
He was taking the packet of coffee beans out of his pocket when there was a sound from the direction of the window, almost above his head. Then a narrow beam of light cut through the darkness of the room.
Thank God he had moved the chair, he thought, crouching lower in the seat. The way his heart was beating, it was as well he hadn’t got to the coffee beans, or he would have needed defibrillation, and he doubted whoever was outside the window holding a flashlight would have obliged.
The light circled the room for a minute, illuminating the rose-pink ceiling, then disappeared. Al shot up out of the chair, crept across the room, and stationed himself behind the door just before it started opening, very slowly. A gloved hand appeared, holding the edge of the door and Al grabbed it. The strength of the intruder’s response took him by surprise, as whoever it was — certainly male — fought him off, attempting to slam the door between them. Al wrenched the door open, only to have it shut on his hand. He gave a yell of rage and pain.
“You son of a bitch!”
The hinges on the door finally gave in to the pressure and succumbed, leaving the door half-hanging in his damaged hand. He thrust it away from him and started off down the path, but the intruder was fleet of foot as well as strong, and was now nowhere in sight, swallowed up in the darkness. Reminding himself that whoever it was would know the unlit Common better than he did, Al started back towards the roundhouse, pulling out his mobile.
As he did so, there was a slight movement to his right near some gorse bushes on the edge of what he assumed had been the original boundaries of the Dorey property.
When he had first arrived, he had taken a look around, and discovered the remains of what once must have been a wall around the property, now just rubble. He wasn’t good at identifying plants, being a city boy, but it looked as if the Doreys had grown quite a kitchen garden there. There were brambles that looked like old raspberry bushes, and mint everywhere, the scent rising as he crushed the leaves beneath his trainers.
So the bastard hadn’t taken off, but had gone to ground. Al crept in the direction the noise had come from, hoping his throbbing hand would be able to hold on to the creep who had damaged it. Christ, hoping his throbbing hand would be able to hold on to his guitar again. Play it again.
As he did so, there was another sound, the sound of someone crashing through the undergrowth, risking exposure and making a bid for escape. Anger and pain gave him wings, an adrenalin rush that propelled him from the path into the abandoned kitchen garden. Ahead of him there was a cry as the would-be intruder tripped over one of the tangled canes, and Al was upon him.
“Got you, you bastard.”
Only whoever it was crushed beneath him was neither bastard nor son of a bitch, but a woman. An elderly woman, from the face that looked up at him, terrified.
“What the hell —”
Al pulled himself up off a skinny body that clearly had not been attached to the hand that slammed the door on him, then pulled her up, wincing as he did so.
“This is a police investigation area — see the tapes? What are you doing here?”
“You’ve hurt your hand.”
The face framed by a mass of wild grey hair was striking, regaining some of its long-lost beauty in the moonlight, the high cheekbones accentuated by the loss of youthful flesh, the eyes that looked up at him dark as sloes in a maze of wrinkles. She took his hand in hers, gently, her roughened skin rubbing against the swelling, making him wince again.
“I need to ask you some questions. Someone else was here.”
“Yes. He hurt you. He got away.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yes. And no. Come.”
She was leading him to the pump that stood close by the kitchen garden, and he allowed himself to be led, marvelling at her swift recovery from the shock of being tackled and thrown to the ground. And at himself, docilely following her. On the way, she bent down and picked a large leaf of some kind from one of the tangle of plants around them, and tucked it into her thick frieze of grey hair.
The water from the pump was ice-cold against the swelling, and his captive, become benefactor, turned his hand this way and that beneath the flow. Then she picked up a corner of her long woollen skirt, dried his hand, and pulled out the leaf from her hair.
“Hold this around your hand. Tight. Long as you can.”
Al did as he was told. Of necessity he had let go of her, and so far she was making no attempt to get away.
“You know who I am?” he asked her.
“Police. If you let me go back into there,” she pointed at the roundhouse, “I’ll talk to you.”
“Okay. You lead the way.”
“Stay close,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you, but the other one.”
“Other one?”
She did not reply, but walked ahead of him, glancing around as she did so. Al pulled the damaged door to one side with his left hand, taking care to stay clear of the section held by the intruder, and she walked in ahead of him.
“You moved things.” She sounded angry.
“You know this place well? You knew Gus Dorey?”
“You’re not Guernsey,” was her answer.
“No.”
Al repeated his question. She was smiling now, stroking the chair in which he had held vigil.
“He’s dead,” she said. “I’m going to sit in his chair. He used to let me.”
She sat down, and Al took out his small flashlight, transferred it to his left hand and shone it in her direction, avoiding her face. She was slender, thin as a wraith in her smoke-grey dress. The most substantial thing about her was her footwear, a pair of heavy boots.
“I think I know who you are. You’re his laundry lady, aren’t you?”
“His laundry lady.” She seemed delighted by this. “That’s me.”
“Did he pay you?�
�
She gave this some thought, then replied. “He gave me money for my teeth.”
At this, she whipped out a set of false teeth, waved them at Al, gave him a toothless grin, then put them back in her mouth.
“You helped him, he helped you.”
“The Golden Rule. Isn’t it. His mother called it that. I read stuff for him when his eyes got bad.”
“Books?”
“Not books. He said not to say.”
Gently now, he thought. Gently.
“But he’s gone now. Someone hurt him. The man who hurt me. No Golden Rule for him, the one you’re afraid of. What — stuff?”
“Papers.” Suddenly, she changed direction, and whether it was adroitness or dementia Al couldn’t tell. “What’s your name?”
“Aloisio Brown. You can call me Al. What’s yours?”
“Meg. You can call me Meg. That’s what Gus called me.” Then she burst into alarmingly vigorous and tuneless song.
“Old Meg, she was a gypsy and lived upon the moors. Her bed it was the brown heath turf, her house was out of doors.”
Unlikely, Al thought, for a laundry lady.
“Keats,” he said. “Was he one of Gus’s favourite poets?”
A shrug of her thin shoulders. Poetry again, but this time thankfully not set to music.
“Footsteps echo in the memory, down the passage which we did not take, towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden.”
“T.S. Eliot.” Al looked at her, trying to estimate the age gap between Gus Dorey and Meg the gypsy. Gus Dorey was eighty when he died and, in spite of her unkempt appearance and weather-worn skin, this woman seemed younger. “Did you know Gus a long time?”
“A long time.” She got up from the chair, and Al, who was sitting on the edge of the truckle bed, got up and followed her to the window.
“See that?” She was pointing into the darkness at the outline of the observation tower, silhouetted against the night sky. “He found me there one day, when it was all over. When the bad guys were gone.”