by Jill Downie
“That’s just it. I don’t know, and I want you to stay open to anything, even the apparently inconsequential.” The coffee is excellent, almost as good as my own, thought Moretti. “Now, about those two women. Apart from your feeling the marchesa can’t stand her husband, was there anything else that struck you?”
His partner inspected a large prawn impaled on the tines of her fork as though it pleased her mightily.
“Yes, but it’s difficult to put into words — ones that make much sense, that is. There’s something going on, but I have the feeling that neither of those ladies are entirely sure themselves what it is — see,” said Liz Falla, examining the crustacean as though it had the answer to the mystery, “I got the weirdest feeling from them — that they both know something, but they’re neither of them sure if the something they know is the something that caused the murder and the other stuff, and they’re darned if they’re going to say anything in case they let slip something that may have nothing to do with the murder but they don’t want to be public knowledge.”
Moretti watched her silently for a moment as she demolished her plateful of prawns.
“Believe it or not, DC Falla, I understood every word you said.”
Her laughter startled a nearby sparrow, waiting hopefully on the back of an empty chair.
“Thanks, Guv. And thanks for asking my opinion. I never said, but I’m really grateful for the chance to work with you. I’ve felt at a bit of a loss up to now, but your asking me my impressions really helped.”
“Good.” I’m feeling less at a loss myself, thought Moretti — about the partnership at least, if not the case.
A drop of rain splattered on to the umbrella above the table.
“One other thing, Guv.” DC Falla speared a last piece of radicchio. “I get to call you ‘Guv,’ but you have this mouthful to say every time. DC Falla, or Detective Constable Falla —”
“I can’t say your first name,” said Moretti. Had a small joke and a moment of laughter led to distressing personal requests, unprofessional familiarity? She was giving him that look of hers again.
“And I wouldn’t dream of it, Guv. That’s all we need, gossip among the lads.”
“What then, DC Falla?”
“How about just ‘Falla,’ Guv.”
“Very well, if that’s what you’d like.”
“I would. And I’ll tell you something else I’d like —” His partner stood up and attracted the attention of the waitress. “If we’ve got the time, I’d like a piece of their Dobos Torte. I’ll burn it off in the pool at the Beau Sejour Centre tonight before I have my rehearsal.”
“Rehearsal?” Moretti didn’t know why he should feel surprised. After all, he knew nothing about Detective Constable Liz Falla. “Are you a member of the Island Players like your uncle?”
“God, no!” Falla seemed to find this funny. “I’m a member of a group. We call ourselves ‘Jenemie.’ A Guernsey word, but don’t ask me what it means. We just liked the sound of it.”
“Group? You mean you’re a musician, Falla?”
“Not like you, Guv. I play some guitar — acoustic — but mostly I’m a singer.”
“I didn’t know.”
There was the old-fashioned look again. “Why would you, Guv? I don’t go around Hospital Lane singing my little folkie heart out.”
“So you’re a folk singer.”
“More like — do you know Enya’s music? A New Age folkie singer. Sort of like that. My real heroine’s a Canadian called Loreena McKennit.”
“Interesting,” said Moretti. It was his favourite fallback word. This time he meant it, although whenever anyone said “New Age” he usually ran fast in the opposite direction. “I think I will go to Torteval after all, have a word with Dan Mahy. Oh, and Falla, next time you’re in touch with Benedetti, perhaps you could ask him to see what he can find out about this person. No rush.” Taking out his notepad, Moretti wrote down the name “Sophia Maria Catellani,” added a couple of details, tore out the page, and handed it to Liz Falla.
“Okay, Guv.” His partner looked at the paper, but she asked no questions. He liked that.
“Rain’s starting,” said Moretti, standing up and putting the notebook back in his pocket. “They said it would by afternoon. You enjoy your cake, and I’ll see you at the manor.”
No need to tell Liz Falla he was making a stop on the way to see if his overnight guest had left his bed.
Rastrellamento. It’s all in there somewhere, Moretti thought. I’ve got to talk to Gilbert Ensor again. Rain was now pattering steadily against the windshield of the Triumph.
I thought about you.
Miles Davis’s version of the Johnny Mercer standard played in his head. In his mind’s eye Moretti saw the auburn hair of Sydney Tremaine burning against his pillow, her backless gold mules slipping off her feet.
She was gone, as he had expected. On the note he had left she had written, “Thank you. I took the shirt.”
He felt a pang of something that felt disconcertingly like regret, got back in the Triumph and set out to Torteval.
People have long memories.
But was it a long memory that Dan Mahy had? Or none at all? Was everything he said the product of delusion?
Torteval, on the south coast of the island, was a parish divided by another parish, St. Pierre du Bois. Dan Mahy lived in the western portion in one of the cottages once used by the families of the Hanois lighthouse-keepers, that had been his parents’ home. The cottages had fallen into disrepair during the German occupation, as every piece of timber had gradually been removed from the homes and used for fuel, and after the war there had been plans to rebuild them and make them fit for use again. This had not yet happened, and probably never would, but Dan Mahy had refused to leave.
Moretti’s route took him past the airport. As he drove past the Happy Landings Hotel a small private plane was coming in to land, and he made a mental note to himself to get someone to check the comings and goings of private planes over the past two or three days. He thought about his next move when he returned to the manor to meet Liz Falla. Should he see the marchesa and her son again, push a little harder. Dig a little deeper into the past?
No, he thought, leave them alone. Don’t tip your hand, not yet. He had little enough to go on, and at this stage he’d prefer the family to have no idea he suspected some past secret quite as much as some present indiscretion for the murder.
But if Toni Albarosa was not the intended victim, then who was? For it seemed much more likely that the murderer, knife in hand, was en route to a preplanned target rather than merely lurking about the manor on the off chance of finding someone to stick a dagger in. The most likely candidates were the marchesa or her son — if his theory about the murder were correct, that is.
And the most likely perpetrator? Well, if you took the usual elements of investigation into account — motive and opportunity — the list would include most family members, and some of the crew. Moretti felt reasonably safe at this stage ruling out the cast: they were chosen by the producer and the director, and thus were not proactive participants. Family motives would include jealousy and revenge — and it might still be a crime of passion in the usually accepted sense, after all. He must beware of getting too clever about the whole business. As for the crew, director Mario Bianchi was a prime suspect; he was responsible for the rewrites and he was Italian. And, for the moment, the most likely candidate was Italian. Which would be a great relief to Chief Officer Hanley.
If, that is, he was right about the war and past events being the motive for murder. As Sydney Tremaine had pointed out, there was a lot of volatility on a movie set. It could be that the art director, Piero Bonini, and the co-designer, Eddie Christy, hated Betty Chesler’s guts, and decided to sabotage the project. It could be that anyone hated Gilbert Ensor’s guts and decided to sabotage the project.
Ahead of him, shrouded in a misty grey drizzle, Moretti could see what remained of the Hanois cottages.
The lighthouse itself could not be seen from this point, because of the towering granite slab around which the coastal road wound itself, but on that rocky platform, in the days before radio and telephone, the lighthouse keepers’ wives used to send messages to their husbands with flags. Now, the summit was empty, and only traces remained of the massive shelter and the tank traps erected by the occupation forces.
He brought the Triumph to a halt and got out. Because of the miserable weather, the place was deserted and silent, except for the sound of the sea on the rocks below the point. Gulls wheeled overhead, their cries suddenly climaxing in a raucous cacophony, and Moretti could hear the piping shriek of an oystercatcher somewhere, looking for the winkles and barnacles exposed by the low tide. He experienced a moment of suspension in time, as a past embracing all those hundreds of ships lost on the Hanway rocks, the earthworks thrown up and the great guns and powder magazines mounted to fend off Buonaparte on this vulnerable coastline, the debris left behind by a more recent enemy, hung in the swirling fog, tangible as the pebbles beneath his feet. Which past, indeed, did Betty Chesler mean?
“Wharro! Lookin’ for me?”
A small gnome-like creature materialized through the mist in front of Moretti.
“Dan Mahy?”
“Don’t look so surprised, lad. I got second sight, me, but I also got a phone!”
The gnome cackled.
“Can we have a word?”
“Why you came, innit?”
On closer inspection, the gnome was not so small after all. His back was nearly bent double, and his broad-featured face was the colour of mahogany. The weathering of time and climate made it difficult to judge his age, but he appeared to be in his eighties. He took Moretti’s arrival with the calm of one who had faced enough of life’s calamities and contretemps not to find anything extraordinary.
“Mr. Le Page says you’re the one to talk to about the Vannonis at the Manoir Ste. Madeleine.”
“Did he now? That would be because of my missus, God rest her soul.”
“That’s right. She worked there.”
“So she did. Became very friendly with that poor old lady they brought with them.”
“What poor old lady?”
“Patrizia, she was called. Italian, of course, like them. Oh how she wanted to go back again, that one! Didn’t speak much English, but she used to cry about it to my missus, she did. Died here, poor woman. Never got back. Mind you, she told Aggie they could never.”
“Did she say why? I thought they did go back from time to time.”
“Oh, not to Italy, she didn’t mean. She meant to the house and the place where she was born. I know what that’s like.” Dan Mahy looked around him. “Always want to be here, me, and now I got a little windfall, I have.” The old man chuckled and rubbed his hands together with a sound like the rasp of sandpaper. “Put it away in my pied-du-cauche.”
“That’s nice,” said Moretti. “Wouldn’t it be safer in the bank than in the toe of your sock?”
“Huh!” Dan Mahy snorted and spat. “Not for me, and no St. Peter Port, or St. Andrew, no thanks. Social Services keep at me, to get me out. Here, where I was born, this is where I’ll die.”
“So,” said Moretti, gasping hold of the direction of the conversation and wrenching it back to the matter in hand, “Patrizia said they had to leave a house? A place?”
“Right. You’re Emidio and Vera’s boy, aren’t you?” Dan Mahy suddenly said, looking at Moretti as if he had seen him for the first time.
“I am. Now, about the Vannonis and the old lady —”
“But you should know, lad. Your father now — he couldn’t go back, neither, could he?”
“My father?”
Moretti felt as if he had trodden on one of the old fortifications and uncovered a rusty mine beneath the surface. It still happened, from time to time.
“Just like Patrizia used to say about the Vannonis. That she couldn’t talk to anyone about her old home because of the bad things. No one talked about it, the house.”
“What house?” Scramble through it, thought Moretti. Stick with his train of thought, or we’ll both get lost. And at the moment, he seems to know what he’s saying, though God knows what he’s saying.
“She said she always had to remember the bad things didn’t happen. Like they told her.”
“Did she ever tell your wife where this place was in Italy?”
“Don’t remember — like I said, she didn’t speak much English. But Aggie brought old Patrizia out here to visit many times, that I do remember. She’d sit and look at the sea and say the same thing, over and over again. Then one day my missus told them back at the manor. Told them what the old lady had said, asked them what it meant. She never came no more.”
“What was it she said — do you remember?”
Dan Mahy screwed up his eyes and mouth. After a moment he said, “Pretty it was. Stuck in my mind, it did. Let me think — ah, got it. Said she could smell the sea again, that it did her good. Bury the past, she said. Then she said, ‘Maledetta Maremma, maledetta Maremma.’ Chanting, she was, like it was a prayer, over and over.”
“Maledetta Maremma, maledetta Maremma?”
Dan Mahy cackled appreciatively. “That was just like her saying it, ma fé! Just like your dad, you.”
Moretti decided to risk changing direction. “Why, Dan, should I know how Patrizia felt? You say my father could not return to Italy. But he did, from time to time.”
Not often, thought Moretti.
“Well, mon viow, it was more the running away for him, eh? Mind you, lad, there was many of us as would’ve run a mile or two for your mother. Nobody blamed him.”
“Blamed him?”
Suddenly, the old man became a child. “I’m tired. I want my dinner. Fiche le camp, Emidio.”
“Eduardo.”
But Dan Mahy’s moment of sanity — if that indeed was what it had been — was over. He turned on his heel and walked away from Moretti back to the home of his childhood, his oversize boots dragging on the wet road.
“Your eyes betray you, Contessa — I know them so well by now. Tell me where he is. Do not go on with this dangerous game, I beg of you!”
Before the Panavision cameras in the principal reception room of the Manor Ste. Madeleine, Gunter Sachs was sweating heavily, and regretting the self-indulgences of a month in the south of France that had added body fat to burn beneath the great arc-lights that lit the set. Although it was still early in the afternoon, it had already been a long day. Outside, the sun shone on a rain-soaked landscape, but in the manor it was night, blinds and curtains closed over the windows set in the gold-brocaded walls. Mario Bianchi had decided against using available light and had opted to set one of the pivotal dramatic scenes of the book and the movie on a hot July night in 1944 so he could use the magnificent candelabra and chandeliers in the room.
After much discussion in two languages about light levels and other technical details between the cinematographer, an American called Mel Abrams, who often collaborated with Monty Lord, the art director, Cosimo del Grano, the director, Mario Bianchi, and the head cameraman, the actual shooting of the scene finally got underway.
“Ah, Ricardo, mio. This is no game we play.”
Behind the cameras and lights, in the dark recesses of the great room, Monty Lord and Mario Bianchi smiled at one another. In one sentence, with one inflection of that magnificent voice, Adriana Ferrini reminded both men why they had paid a king’s ransom to get her for Rastrellamento. Later, the rushes would give them further proof, if they needed it, of the soundness of their decision.
Adriana Ferrini was a legend in the world of cinema — not just in Italy, but anywhere there was a movie house and people saw film. From her poverty-stricken roots, through her rise to screen goddess, to her present incarnation as model mother, faithful wife, and generous colleague, she had moved into the realm of icon. Good genes, good habits, and great cosmetic surgery had maintained the beauty of
her youth into her fifties. To watch an Adriana Ferrini close-up was to see the cliché, “the camera loves her,” become reality.
Gunter Sachs, perspiring in his German com-mandant’s uniform, was only too aware of her charisma. His role was a gift, a chance to portray a character usually shown as a bumblehead or a bully — or worse — as a sensitive, cultivated man caught in a moment of history not of his making. Gilbert Ensor’s creation of Commandant Reinhardt Ritter was one of the most admired and praised elements of the original book, and the integrity of the character had been maintained through the various rewrites of the script. Although the other actors grumbled that this made his task easier, what they overlooked was the effect that the changes in character of those around him had on the delivery of a line.
Take, for instance, the complete turnaround in the character of the housekeeper, who now stood in the shadows beyond the lights, waiting for her scene. Hers was not a big role, but many of his own scenes began with some sort of conversation between the two of them — in a sense, she was the go-between in the love affair of the commandant and the contessa. It made one hell of a difference to even “Good evening, Anna,” when he was greeted by the steely glare of a gaunt, black-clad harpy instead of the conspiratorial giggle of the rosy-cheeked rotund actress with whom he had originally exchanged such pleasantries.
Then there was the priest, with whom he had some major scenes. Overnight, the cadaverous skeleton of an actor who had been the very epitome of a brooding, Macchiavellian hound of God had disappeared to be replaced by a jolly, plump leprechaun of a man who played the role as a kind of cute, comic Friar Tuck.
At least Clifford Wesley’s head hasn’t rolled — yet — he thought, thankful for small mercies. The British actor was a studious, reserved type — what his countrymen called “a decent bloke” — and his acting talents came from some intellectual and intestinal Gordian knot deep inside him. He was the one sympathetic personality in the group, in Gunter Sachs’s opinion; he had even read Goethe, which was more than could be said of most Germans these days. The scenes the commandant had with the British prisoner of war, Tom Byers, were now mostly “in the can,” and they would be spared reshooting them all.