He had actually laughed. His initial reaction was that it was a trick, a mad gag using some stunt model. It was only a moment, but it would haunt him forever that the first time he saw Robert’s dead body, he thought it was a joke. Then he let out a scream as reality hit him like a thunderbolt.
No joke now. His French was non-existent, but at least Groelet spoke English. At last, someone arrived from the American Consulate in Nice, but he too, seemed more concerned with the impact and ramifications of Robert’s death vis-à-vis the press and the Festival than the minor matter of apprehending who did it.
“Do you know this man?” Groelet slid two photos towards Christo. He glanced down. Neither was very clear but enough to suggest a man from the Pacific region or Asia.
“Should I?”
“We believe this man may have information on the death of M’sieur…”
“Murder, not death.”
“Oui, d’accord…” Groelet said impatiently. “Do you recognize this man?”
“Then call it murder.” Christo peered at the image. “This doesn’t look like Riley.”
“We suspect M’sieur Riley is not responsible.”
Inspector Groelet took a gulp of coffee. “We believe this man may have killed M’sieur Riley as well. Eh bien. Again, do you know him?”
Christo was not sure he had heard right. He looked up and was about to dismiss this change of suspect, but the stare of the hooded dark eyes told him this was serious. Christo studied the photos again, this time more closely.
“It’s difficult to tell. I don’t think so. Please… who is he? What do you mean he killed Riley?”
Detective Groelet was brief, information at a minimum. A camera in the building opposite had recorded the first blurred image of this Asian man leaving just as Riley was arriving. Following the subsequent explosion of a speedboat of an acquaintance of Marcus Riley and with Riley on board, enquiries revealed someone matching the description of the suspect had been spotted by a road sweeper near the garbage bins and the boat very early that morning. The police suspect foul play in the boat explosion as well as the death of Monsieur Kelso. Though no bodies had as yet been recovered, they believed both passengers to have perished. Logic would dictate Riley was also a victim, not the culprit. For now though that news was just being played out as a local boating accident, victims as yet unknown. Nothing that unusual and certainly not going to hit the international papers.
The police had spent hours going through all the photos of attendees and no accreditation badge matched the Asian man’s features.
“Because of the sensitive nature of the enquiry and the potential negative effect on the town and Le Festival du Film, I was able to obtain all security camera footage both public and private,” explained Groelet as he sucked hard on the tiny stub of his cigarette. “Grâce à Dieu, thank God, the second photograph placed the same man at Nice airport leaving for London. We alerted Interpol but, malheureusement, sadly by then the plane had landed. The suspect… Disparu, disappeared.”
The relief in his voice was not lost on Christo. It was enough for Cannes to carry on, everyone relieved to know the culprit was not one of their own, certainly not a delegate, and far from Cannes.
He had flown out soon after the murder. Unfortunately, too late to alert London to meet the plane, the man had vanished.
“Look again, are you sure you don’t recognize him?” Groelet repeated pointing at the photo.
“No, I told you. Did you get a name from the airline?”
“The passport and ticket was a Dr. Meeling, most likely fake. Keep the photos in case they jog a memory. This is a matter for Interpol now. The case here is closed.”
Groelet turned to the man from the consulate. “I strongly advise you to get this gentleman out of France.”
* * *
Three hours later, and still with depressingly few details, Christo was packed and on his way home. He flew to Paris and changed planes to fly to San Francisco rather than LA in an effort to avoid the press. He could drive home from the airport as he wanted to make a stop on the journey south.
Sinking into his leather airline seat ready for the long flight home, he popped a couple of sleeping pills and started to drift off. He was worrying where life without Robert would take him, with faces and places of the past few days dropping in and out of his heavy dreaming. At 35,000 feet over Newfoundland he awoke with a jolt and sat up from the first-class bed, knocking the remains of a cranberry juice into his lap.
A flight attendant appeared with a warm napkin to dab away the spilled drink. Christo ignored the fuss. He now knew that he had seen the face in the security photo before.
The man had been wearing a hard hat and carrying a tray of drinks.
36
BELGRAVIA, LONDON
Mary’s palm flashed out and smacked Giles firmly on the wrist as the rusty shears moved to perform the beheading.
“Have you no respect for the dead, Giles?” The chauffeur rubbed his reddening hand.
“I just wanted one for my buttonhole. There are so many flowers and no one to appreciate them.”
Mary gave him a scowl of disapproval and turned to attend to a bouquet of white lilies that was heaped on the antique pine table. She thoroughly disapproved of the chauffeur. He drank, he smoked and in addition, failed to realize she was in charge in this world and The Almighty in the next. They had disliked each other from the day she had arrived at the de Turris mansion.
As the late afternoon sun’s rays burst through the window, the air was bathed in the scent of flowers. She and Giles were seated in the pantry next to the large, rather old-fashioned kitchen, in the garden entry basement of Stefan de Turris’ home. Unlike the elegance upstairs, the room was all mismatched cupboards of aged pine and worn Formica surfaces, harking back to the time when the cooking took place in a room seldom visited by the owner of the house.
In a vase, shaped like the open bud of a giant iris, stood two dozen long stemmed white roses, sent by Hollywood Producer Louis McConnell. One of those buds had been the target of the chauffeur’s attention.
There were a couple of other equally beautiful bouquets and one hideous display of foul-smelling flowers that had arrived with a note that simply read, ‘Haribon Guinto.’ Mary had immediately consigned both note and flowers to the trash.
Mary was puzzled that for a man of such obvious wealth and power more flowers and cards had not arrived. She knew his parents and wife had died and being an only child there was no family other than his daughter, from whom he seemed estranged. But so few friends. Then again, she had only known him since the accident.
Giles knew the answer. His employer had been a self-centered workaholic who, apart from his daughter and wife, only seemed to relate to a few rich business acquaintances. Any social friends had been through Mrs. de Turris and after her death, he had seen none of them. His real passion was his art collection, although Giles suspected Mr. de Turris also had a roving eye; no doubt the reason for the heated exchange between Melinda and her father after her mother’s death. After her mother’s funeral, he had never seen Melinda again. Giles reckoned that his employer’s private funeral service at Holy Trinity Sloane Square would be attended by only himself, Mary, and Mr. Vallings.
“You think Miss Melinda will come?” asked Mary as if reading his mind.
“Doubt it. There’s bad history there,” Giles said, thinking it was none of her business.
Before Mary could reply, the buzzer from the intercom broke her train of thought. Giles got up and walked over to the white entry monitor attached to the wall by the sink.
“Delivery,” said a voice. Giles could see in the screen a large wreath and a man struggling to hold it. He was trying to talk into the intercom and offer a clipboard for signature all at the same time.
“Coming,” said Mary into the speaker, as she wiped her hands on the apron. “You take these upstairs,” she said to Giles nodding towards the flowers she had neatly arranged in the vases on a
large tray. “In the lift, please, so you don’t spill or drop them.”
With that she walked crisply through the door towards the main staircase that led up to the antique-lined reception hall. Giles thought about sneaking a cigarette but decided it would not be worth the lecture he would undoubtedly get from Mary, so instead took a last swig of his tea and wandered over to the service elevator. He pulled it open then carefully carried the tray inside. As there was to be no wake, Mary had decreed that all the flowers were to go in Mr. de Turris’ bedroom as a mark of respect. Giles, put the tray down, closed the metal grill and began to ascend.
As he passed the ground floor, he caught a glimpse through the elevator grill of Mary opening the door, no doubt asking the man either to stay outside while she signed or wipe his feet if he had to come in. Giles saw her cloud of dyed-blond hair bob in conversation as he continued his ride up to the next floor.
A moment longer and he would have seen her left leg twitch then buckle at the knee as she fell slowly backwards onto the mosaic floor. One hand of the delivery man was holding the bib of her apron, the other still holding the wreath. Embedded in the center of her forehead, like a unicorn’s horn, was the steel point of a small architect’s pick hammer.
As she crumpled onto the tiles, Jonathan leaned down, tossing the oval of leaves and flowers onto the body. A pool of blood started to spread like a scarlet halo under the dead nurse’s head, slowly seeping across the ancient stone.
“You need a hand?” called a voice from upstairs.
Jonathan was in no mood to play hide and seek. He pulled the small hammer out of the nurse’s forehead and swung it at the nearest cabinet of treasures, loudly shattering the glass. He calmly hid behind the large pillar at the foot of the main stairway. The noise had the desired effect. Giles came down the stairs and into the entrance hallway. At first, he was puzzled by Mary’s prone figure on the floor. Maybe she’d had a stroke or fallen, he thought. As he approached her, he noticed the blood, but his self-preservation mechanism was too slow. The last thing he was aware of was light footsteps behind him, a gentle rush of air above his head from the descending hammer, and then a flash of pain.
Jonathan stood silently over the two bodies, but no one else came running. He looked down at Giles, then to the pick-hammer in his own blood-spattered hand. He walked over to the full-length curtains, held in place by gilded ties, and casually wiped his hands and weapon on the material.
Jonathan now looked slowly round the room. In the corner he saw sitting in its own alcove, what he hoped he was searching for. It was the life-size sculpture of a placid Chinese head, eyes closed in meditation under a canopy of snail shell–shaped hair curls. A plaque underneath read Buddha Shakyamuni, 17th century, Late Ming Dynasty.
He reached over and ran his fingers over the face, his eyes closed, rather like a blind man trying to assimilate the features but in fact trying to ascertain the weakest point to strike. In a replay of his earlier attack on Mary and the chauffeur, he brought the hammer point down on the crown of the head of the Buddha. Stone chips rained on to the floor. After another couple of blows, he had opened up a jagged hole. He looked inside. Nothing.
He systematically ransacked the house looking for another Buddha head. There was none. After two hours he stood in the hall breathing heavily, stone, glass, and debris littering the mosaic floor down around the two bloodied corpses.
The head he wanted wasn’t there.
37
LAKE COMO, ITALY
“Don’t…close…your…eyes.” Mako’s dark red nails clamped into Marcus’ shoulder as they both hurtled towards another orgasm.
They were in a large room at the corner of the fourth floor of the Villa d’Este, looking out across the lake. It was furnished with a gilt mirror that took up the entire wall and, in whose reflection, they had both watched their passionate embraces. The bed itself was king size, but all the other fixtures and furnishings, including an 18th century portrait of a smiling young girl with peonies in her hair, were small and delicate. Both French windows were flung open onto the narrow balcony to help them gulp down the night air.
They both knew they were making love not just because of the strong physical attraction but because they had managed to survive a day of unreal tension and stress. The passion was heightened by the danger that was binding them ever tighter together.
Marcus slowly rose from the bed, picking his way through discarded clothing that littered the carpet. He caught a glimpse of his naked six-foot frame and was happy to note that he still looked lean.
He sauntered out onto the balcony and peered over the waist-high solid balustrade at the last of the hotel’s guests who were drinking out on the white-graveled terrace below.
“Saluté,” said an elderly gentleman, raising a glass to Marcus.
He nodded in reply.
“My mother warned me about women like you,” Marcus said over his shoulder as he leaned back into a cool wrought iron chair.
“And after all that time looking, was I the first you found?” teased Mako as she strolled naked onto the balcony to join him, her slim body shimmering with sweat in the moonlight?
She had the remains of a bottle of Prosecco in her hand. She took a swig and collapsed into the chair opposite, gently lifting the bottle above her head. Chilled water from the ice bucket dripped onto her upturned face.
“Beautiful,” she sighed. “I feel much better. All this danger makes for great sex, huh?” Despite her bravado, she was glad he was with her. There was a knock at the door.
“Room service,” said a discreet voice.
Throwing on a robe and grabbing his wallet from the bedside table, Marcus opened the door. He smiled, gave the waiter a healthy tip and theatrically rolled in a trolley himself. A simple salad, some lavarello fish from the lake and a tiramisu.
“If you’re not going to put on any clothes, can you at least dress the salad” asked Marcus as he uncorked another bottle of Prosecco? “It’ll be a novel experience. You have Garance to do things like that,” added Marcus with a little dig.
“Ah, but he doesn’t prepare breakfast in the nude,” she replied with a grin.
As they ate, Mako started asking him more about his business. “So if you’re an Executive Producer, who the hell is the Producer, Line Producer, Associate Producer, Assistant producer, etc, etc, etc?” she said in mock frustration. “Well at least you read the credits.”
“I can’t help it, they run across the screen forever!” she laughed as she took a mouthful of fish.
“Why don’t you ever ask your high paying clients?”
“And look uninformed? Never. Anyway, I suspect half of them don’t know,” Mako grinned back.
“OK. A Producer usually works alone for himself or runs his own Production Company. He initiates the project, raises the money, and hires key personnel.”
“Like he reads a book or comes up with an idea and he hires the people needed to make something,” Mako queried, a forkful of fish in front of her lips?
“You got it. He is the ‘Chief of Staff ’ in all matters, save creative, which is the Director’s role. The Director is responsible for overseeing all the creative aspects of the film, including casting and performance, script, location, soundtrack, editing, and camera positioning,” said Marcus both happy to talk about things he genuinely loved as well as deflecting their thoughts from the day’s events.
“Got it. Next,” she said as she ate her food in big bites realising how hungry she was.
“An Executive Producer was originally just a title to allow senior people at major Hollywood studios to get a credit. Nowadays it’s often the guy who raises the cash. He can mirror much of a Producer’s role, but rarely goes onto a set. Probably been a Producer once. That’s me… or should be. Know-how of actual film making, but now I tend to spend more of my time financing and deal making.”
“You mean you’re a suit?!”
“I’m allergic to wool so don’t own one, but yes. The go
od news is I can be involved in several projects at a time,” replied Marcus between mouthfuls. He was also very hungry.
“If anyone will still touch you,” Mako smirked taking another mouthful of Prosecco as she finished her meal.
“Touché. A Line Producer, which was my role on THE LAST COMPANY, is on the set and responsible for the daily running of a shoot. He only works on one project at a time. A Co-Producer performs either a substantial creative or fund-raising function but is less responsible than a Producer for the completion of a project.
An Associate Producer has a role in either the production or post-production process, which would otherwise have been done by the Producer or Executive Producer. That’s it. Easy.” Marcus stood up and pushed the remains of their meal and the trolley back into the corridor.
“You forgot Assistant Producer,” she called after a beat as she lay on the sofa.
“An Assistant Producer is occasionally hired because she has a great body or he is very handsome,” Marcus replied matter-of-factly as he joined her on the sofa with two glasses.
“What a business! So tell me why are all movies the same” she teased him, poking the toes of her left foot into his groin?
He looked up at her and lifted the now empty green Prosecco bottle at his feet. “Want another?”
She nodded her head and reached over, pulling on the cord of his robe. With a grin on her face she led him back to bed, her interpretation of his question very clear.
“A wise man once said there are only seven stories anyway,” Marcus said as they fell into bed.
“That’s six more than I ever see.”
Leaning on his elbows Marcus gazed down at her upturned face.
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