The Invitation

by Lucy Foley

  ‘Stella,’ he says, urgently, ‘thank God. I have to tell you something. I think we should leave tonight …’

  ‘Hal,’ she cuts him off. ‘I’ve already told you. We must wait …’

  ‘But he knows. He did this, to my face.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He knows, Stella. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We don’t have time. We have to go immediately. We could get on one of the boats back to the harbour.’

  ‘And be seen by everyone? How long do you think that would last?’ And then, before he can reply, ‘No, Hal, we need to play our parts for one more night. He hasn’t said anything. If anything, he’s being more affectionate. I think …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something he said … I think he believes that you are infatuated with me. But he doesn’t know anything more, thank God. He saw you looking at me. You have to stop, Hal. I think it would be better if you went downstairs for a while. It’s too obvious.’

  ‘I’m worried for you.’

  ‘We can’t be seen talking like this. For tonight, I’m going to stay by his side, be the dutiful wife. It’s all the more important that we play our parts now.

  ‘Here,’ she thrusts one of the glasses of champagne at him. ‘I brought you a drink.’ She passes him the glass. ‘Have that, and calm down.’

  He drinks it as she walks away. It tastes bitter to him – tainted, no doubt, by his unease. Truss isn’t in sight, but he sees another man step in to talk to her. He is standing too close, this man, and his hand comes up briefly to touch the bare white curve of her shoulder. The audacity of it. Hal feels rage bloom, and forces himself to swallow it, to take another sip of the drink, to look away.

  Darkness falls, and the evening becomes a series of increasingly surreal and distinct experiences, strung together like the bright beads of a necklace. There is the game of skittles, played with empty champagne bottles, at the bow – with either Cary Grant or a man who might as well be his double managing a full strike on almost every go. There is the wild dancing. Giulietta and Brigitte Bardot – or possibly a girl who has styled herself as her doppelgänger – compete with one another to be the most provocative. But at the epicentre of the party, the true source of its energies, is the Contessa. She seems almost to be everywhere at once, and always where the laughter is loudest.

  Hal had not meant to get drunk, but somehow he is. Or not so much drunk as very tired, as though he were trying to wade through syrup. The three glasses of champagne must have affected him more than he thought – the lack of food, perhaps. At one point he stumbles over what he thinks at first is a rope, and then realizes is a man’s leg, protruding from beneath a folded piece of sailcloth. There is a stifled yelp and then the top half of the man appears. It is a rather famous English actor.

  ‘Hello, old chap,’ he says, with a drowsy smile, ‘having a little nap under here. Has everyone gone?’

  ‘No – there are still plenty of people here.’

  ‘Oh, great. I must make sure to get another dance in.’ And with that he heaves himself up and lurches away in the direction of the noise.

  At midnight a group of acrobats begin to perform, to gasps of fear and delight from the guests. There are men who climb the rigging with roses in their teeth, leaping and somersaulting between the masts. There is the woman who shrugs off her gown to reveal a silver bathing suit, snaps on a pair of goggles, and executes a perfect arcing dive off the bow of the yacht, spilling a silver wake of phosphorescence as she enters the dark water.

  The yacht is a chaos of noise, of sensation. Some of the guests have departed on their assigned craft with the lanterns now lit at their prows, motoring back across the water toward Cannes in a moving chain of light. But by some strange trick there appear more people on board than ever. The bathing-suited woman is now seated at the piano and is playing a nimble-fingered jazz number, her goggles pushed up on her brow. One of the crew is sweeping up the remains of the champagne-bottle skittles match.

  He is no longer wading through the evening, he is floating upon the very meniscus of it, never breaking the surface. The people around him blink on and off like so many fireflies.

  Every so often, he catches sight of Stella. She is the only one who seems real. Her light is different, he thinks, it burns brighter. Clearly, others see this too. He catches the glances that linger, that follow, and again, and forces himself to swallow his jealousy. It is something new, this – brought on, no doubt, by all that is at stake. It is like a kind of temporary madness. Or perhaps it is the alcohol. He tries to think clearly. When they have escaped, when everything is safe and certain, then it will be different.

  When she passes by, he steps toward her.

  ‘Come,’ he says, landing a hand on her wrist. His words come thickly, as though he is trying to speak through cotton wool. ‘Dance with me.’

  ‘No,’ she snatches her arm back. And then, in a whisper, so that they cannot be overheard, ‘Hal, you’re drunk. Go and sleep it off downstairs. Or you will make things worse for both of us.’

  When he sees the fear in her expression he is chastised. He is drunk. And he knows that she is right. If Truss believes the thing to be one-sided it is for the best. They are only in danger if he makes a further connection.

  He retreats below deck, understanding now that to remove himself from the scene is the only way to prevent himself from making some sort of scene. He heads for the library, takes one of the armchairs, and shuts his eyes, willing himself sober. He is sober enough to realize the irony of it. All those sleepless nights and only now, now that it is important to stay alert, is sleep trying to claim him.

  39

  ‘Hal. Hal, wake up. Wake up, Hal.’

  His eyes feel glued shut. He has to force them open. He is not in his cabin, he realizes, blinking around himself at his unfamiliar surroundings. He is in the library, still in the armchair. His back aches and his mind is a hot blur of pain. He must have drunk far more than he had meant to. The English actor is curled in the chair like a sleeping babe, an empty tumbler clutched against his chest.

  Then Hal becomes aware of someone saying his name.

  Gaspari stands before him, looking small and tired and much older, somehow. Hal can see immediately that something is the matter. He is about to ask, but Gaspari speaks first.

  ‘Have you seen Mrs Truss? Stella?’

  His instinctive reaction is guilty, defensive. ‘No. Why should I have?’

  Gaspari makes a helpless motion with his hands. ‘No one has.’

  Through the fuzz in Hal’s brain comes the same, insistent message. Something is wrong.

  ‘What do you mean,’ he says, carefully, ‘no one has?’

  ‘She isn’t on the boat.’

  He sits up, suddenly charged with awareness. He looks down at himself, and realizes that he is still wearing Aubrey Boyd’s tuxedo. But there isn’t time to change, he decides. He must find Stella.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Five. It is getting light.’

  ‘But … where else could she be?’

  ‘They thought, perhaps … they wondered if she might have taken one of the boats back to the shore. But no one saw her leave. The crew were manning them, and they would have recognized her. But she is not on the boat.’ He coughs.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Hal says. He realizes that he is looking at Gaspari as though expecting him to provide a solution.

  ‘None of us do,’ Gaspari says. ‘The police are here now, talking to Truss.’

  ‘The police? Why the police?’

  ‘They think,’ Gaspari covers his face, muffling his voice, ‘they think she went in the water.’

  ‘Went swimming?’ Hal thinks of the acrobat woman in the silver bathing costume, diving a perfect arc into the inky water; a falling star.

  ‘No,’ Gaspari says. ‘Not that.’

  The next few hours pass in a kind of shifting fog. In a Cannes police station Hal is interviewed by the sole police officer wh
o speaks any English, who receives his questions from his superior, so that there is a strange time lag for every one, even the shortest and most banal of enquiries.

  ‘What was the last time you saw Mrs Truss?’ the man asks.

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘When would that have been?’

  ‘Ah—’ Hal thinks, hard. It is important to be certain, he realizes, it will aid the men in their work. But his thoughts are clouded by fear. In his gut is a rising nausea. ‘About nine o’clock, I think.’

  ‘Was she alone?’

  ‘No – she was with her husband, Mr Truss.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hal isn’t sure he likes the man’s tone.

  ‘Because he said that he was certain he saw you with her, later in the evening.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, I did.’ Of course – now he recalls that brief, strained conversation he had had with her – when she had pleaded with him to leave her be. How could he have forgotten? His mind doesn’t seem to be working properly. Too many other thoughts are crowding in.

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘A little later. Perhaps – midnight. After the acrobats. Look,’ he says, ‘there must have been some sort of mistake. She can’t simply have disappeared. What efforts are being made to find her?’

  The man looks at Hal for a few seconds, as though deciding whether or not to humour him by answering. ‘We have a team of divers on their way.’

  ‘Divers?’

  The man nods.

  The meaning of this now forces itself on him. He had dismissed Gaspari’s implication; it had been too horrible to contemplate. ‘But that is presuming that she is …’ He won’t say the word, cannot entertain the possibility of it. ‘She can’t be … Is that what you think?’

  ‘Mr Jacobs,’ the man says, following a gruff prompt from his supervisor, ‘I am here to ask the questions of you.’ The supervisor says something, now, and he translates: ‘We have been informed that you appeared to be particularly … shall I say, preoccupied by Mrs Truss.’

  ‘Preoccupied?’

  ‘That you – ah – watched her a great deal. Mr Truss has told us that he felt you had inappropriate feelings with regard to Mrs Truss – feelings that were not reciprocated. There is an implication that you had an unhealthy interest in Stella Truss. What do you say to that?’

  If only they knew . . .

  Hal is dimly aware that he may be in some sort of trouble. But he finds that he does not care. His only concern is to find Stella. Perhaps, he thinks, she decided she had to leave early. Perhaps Truss had threatened her – as he had that time before. She could have taken one of the boats …

  He turns to the man. ‘Are you certain that she did not leave on one of the boats?’

  The man waves away his question, as though heading off an errant insect. ‘We know how to do our jobs, monsieur.’ The monsieur stressed, sarcastic. And then he leans forward, ready with his question. ‘So. Do you have an – ah – “unhealthy interest” in Mrs Truss?’

  ‘No.’ Hal thinks … if he tells them the truth, might it help them in some way? Certainly, it might help to banish this pointless line of questioning. But then he would be jeopardizing all of the plans that he and Stella have made. And yet perhaps they are already – and irrevocably – jeopardized.

  Hal tries to remember anything from the night before that might be of help, but finds himself groping through a champagne-filtered fug of useless sensation and impression. Nothing solid, nothing that might absolutely be relied upon. Why did he allow himself to get so drunk? ‘Look,’ he sits forward. ‘What makes you think that Mrs Truss has—’ he stops, unable to say drowned, ‘has come to harm?’

  The two officers look toward one another, as though deciding upon something. The superior gives the other a little nod.

  ‘There is some blood, at the back of the boat. Quite a quantity. It is being looked at by an expert now, but it looks as though there may have been some sort of struggle.’

  For a moment, Hal feels as though he may vomit. He thinks of the terrible pressure of Truss’ hands about his neck, the impassive expression the man had worn throughout.

  ‘It can’t be,’ he whispers.

  ‘Excuse me?’ the younger officer leans closer, cupping his ear in an exaggerated gesture.

  ‘I said …’ Hal looks up at the men, thinking. He wouldn’t kill her, would he? But he thinks again of that coldness, and shudders. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Mr Truss … I think he may have wanted to hurt her.’ As he speaks he thinks of Truss’ hand on her arm, steering her through the crowd, the visible pressure of the grip.

  ‘There may not be much time.’ Perhaps she is merely wounded, somewhere. If they can only find her … The men are watching him warily. He realizes that his tone is wrong, heckling. He attempts to control it. ‘It is very important that you listen to me.’

  Hal tells them the whole story. He knows that his only recourse now is to be honest. He tells them of the plan, of Truss’ attack of the previous evening. He pulls down his collar to show them the marks. ‘This,’ he says, ‘is what he did to me a few hours before the party.’

  They inspect his neck, with reluctant curiosity. The senior policeman says something in French. The other translates. ‘My superior thinks it looks like a shaving rash,’ he says, with an unmistakable smirk. ‘And the redness in your eyes – that could be merely the effect of too much drink, non?’

  Hal is thrown. He had been certain that if he were to tell them the truth, they would take him seriously.

  ‘It is all very interesting,’ the younger policeman says, after a prompt from the other. ‘Your theory.’

  Hal looks between them. ‘You have to question him—’

  The man interrupts. ‘We have already spoken to Mr Truss.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He has been extremely helpful. We are quite satisfied that he is in no way responsible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He has an alibi.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘We cannot reveal that.’

  Hal stares at the man, trying to understand. And then he thinks he might be able to guess. He looks at the man’s cheap watch, the elderly, scuffed shoes. But he cannot voice his suspicion outright: to do so would be to turn them absolutely against him.

  ‘I think you need,’ he says, carefully, ‘to question him again. The last time I saw her, she was with him …’

  ‘We do not feel we have any need to speak to Mr Truss again.’

  ‘Look,’ Hal says, ‘I don’t know what he’s said to you. I don’t know what he has done to … persuade you.’

  He has got it wrong, he knows, the second that the words leave his mouth. The policeman’s face colours ominously.

  ‘The only thing,’ the man says, slowly, dangerously, ‘that will persuade me, that will convince us of anything, is evidence. And there is nothing to suggest that Mr Truss has anything to do with the disappearance of his wife.’

  ‘I’ve shown you the evidence!’ Hal realizes vaguely that he is shouting, but he is beyond trying to reason with them. He pulls the collar of his shirt down again to reveal the marks. ‘I’ve told you that she was planning to leave – with me.’

  ‘There is no proof of that, either,’ the man says, ‘only your own words.’ He spreads his hands, and says, in a reasonable tone, ‘Another way of seeing it, of course, would be as the work of a jealous imagination. You are lucky that you yourself have an alibi, in the form of Mr Morgan, otherwise we would be asking a different set of questions.’

  Hal is standing up. ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘Mr Jacobs,’ the man says, ‘sit down.’

  ‘No,’ Hal says, ‘this is absurd. I’m going to find him myself. I’m going to make him talk to me.’ He has visions of taking Truss by the neck in retaliation: forcing the confession from him.

  But the policeman is standing too. And when Hal turns, he sees that two further men have entered the room behind him.

  ‘Mr Jacob
s,’ the man says, ‘I’m afraid I am going to have to arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Stella Truss.’

  He paces the cell. He knows the guard is watching him, and that his agitation is the reason. He is aware that the important thing is to try and stay calm: that shouting and raging won’t help him get out faster; won’t enable him to help her. He has to believe that he will be able to help her.

  Eventually, he lies down on the hard cot, in an attempt to clear his head. Something bruises itself against his hip and he reaches into his pocket to find the journal and compass. Incredible, that they didn’t take them when they had searched him. He finds himself opening the journal, as though he hopes to find some clue there.

  PART FIVE

  40

  IF HE CANNOT have her … well, he will not let anyone else do so.

  He comes for her in the night. The housekeeper meets him at the door, bleary-eyed. When he tells her that he has come to take the girl, she makes to protest – and stops herself. He follows her thoughts as clearly as if she had spoken them aloud. She cannot afford to forget her position.

  He makes his way quickly up to Luna’s chamber. She looks at him in confusion when he enters, blinking away sleep.

  He tells her that he has come to take her somewhere. She is in her nightshirt, and asks if she may get dressed, but he shakes his head. ‘It won’t be necessary.’

  He thinks he sees a faint shiver of fear pass through her at this, but then she sheds or conceals it. She climbs from the bed and walks towards him. He tries not to notice how her body is revealed by the thin fabric. She cannot have any power over him now – he cannot let his mind be turned from what he must do. She is taking her robe from her seat, and he lets her do it. It will be cold, after all. Before they pass out into the street he catches the looks that pass between her and the housekeeper. From her: entreaty. From the other woman: apology, sympathy … dread. He takes her arm and pulls her on, out into the waiting carriage. They move through the sleeping streets, pressed close together in the dark confines. The night outside is blue, not black. The moon is almost full, and he has planned it like this. He will need the light to guide him.