by Jill Downie
The producer was in his customary black, his shaved pate glowing white in contrast. He was standing up, a sheaf of papers in his hand, all smiles, his irritation apparently over.
“Please forgive my churlish greeting, officers, but we are under the gun — an unfortunate choice of metaphor in the circumstances, I grant you, but that’s how we all feel.” He turned to Bella Alfieri, who threw him a glance of undisguised adoration. “Bella, sweetie, could you tell the marchesa I may be a little late for lunch, and not to wait for me?”
Bella sweetie’s expression now became a complex blend of adoration, eagerness, and unvarnished loathing. “Of course, Monty.”
Monty Lord blew her a kiss and she blushed and giggled like a young girl as she closed the door behind her.
“Sit down, officers. How is the investigation going?”
“Slowly would be a polite way of putting it, Mr. Lord,” said Moretti. “I wanted to ask you a couple of additional questions — about matters that have arisen since the murder of Mr. Albarosa. First of all — has there been a disagreement of any sort, a cooling-off between yourself and the marchesa? I am told there has.”
Rather than being offended or disturbed by the question, Monty Lord looked saddened. “Ah, Detective Inspector, there has, there has. I blame myself entirely, and I’ll be honest with you. After the agreement with Paolo, I had to win Donatella over, and I think I overstepped the mark. I think — how can I say this without sounding conceited? — she became too fond of me. I am reaping my own whirlwind, and I can only hope we can remain civil with each other until the filming is over.”
“So you are saying the marchesa expected more of you romantically and personally than you could give her?”
“Delicately put, if I may say so. Yes.”
Remembering the hopeless devotion on the face of Bella Alfieri, Moretti modified somewhat his first impression of Monty Lord as a decent fellow.
“I see. So the disagreement between you has nothing to do with the changes to the script and to the storyline of Rastrellamento?”
“Good God, no!” Monty Lord looked taken aback at the idea. “I doubt we’ve exchanged more than a couple of sentences about the contents of Rastrellamento, and that would be mostly about the hold-ups in the shooting schedule. But there is a compensatory clause in the contract: we will have to pay the Vannonis more money if we do not adhere to the original plan, so they are not as bothered as we are.”
“I see. As you probably know, we had a meeting with Mario Bianchi and his lawyer a short while ago.”
“Yes. I’ve already spoken to him.”
“Did he tell you anything about the nature of the interview?”
“Some. I gather you were more interested in his father than in his drug problem.”
Monty Lord got up from behind his desk and walked over to one of the windows that overlooked the terrace. He pulled it open, and a breath of cool air blew in from outside. “See? Time is passing, we’re way behind, and the weather could break at any moment. They tell me it can storm like crazy in the fall here.” He turned back to them and asked, “What is all this, Detective Inspector? Why are you examining the past for an answer? Toni was utterly charming and a shit; Gil was hugely talented and a shit. Both fooled about, and it cost them their lives.”
“That’s interesting, sir,” Moretti observed. “When I suggested at the onset of this investigation that philandering might be the answer, you felt it unlikely, given the nature of film sets, film actors, and film crews. Have you changed your mind? And, if so, why?”
Without warning, Monty Lord slammed his hand down hard on a small round table near him. The slap echoed through the room, like a warning shot from a starter’s pistol.
“Christ almighty, guys! I’ve changed my mind because I have to believe that none of this has anything to do with Mario, or his past — or his present, come to that. I have to believe the changes he’s making are based on sound artistic judgment. I have to hope we can keep him going until we call this a wrap. And I must tell you that the one good thing about Gil’s death is I no longer have to play monkey in the middle between the two of them — and if that makes me a prime suspect, so be it!”
Moretti responded calmly, as though the outburst had escaped his attention. “Bear with me a little longer, sir, would you? Let’s suppose for a moment the two murders do indeed have something to do with the plot of Rastrellamento. As a man who deals with storylines, fiction, creations of the imagination — who then would be the most likely suspects, in your opinion?”
“Dio mio, guys — you want me to do your job for you?” Monty Lord came back to the desk and sat down. The flare-up seemed to have left him exhausted. He ran his hand over his bald head and took a moment before replying.
“Okay, let’s play whodunnit. If your theory is correct — and I still think you’re barking up the wrong tree — then it has to be a member of either the Vannoni or Albarosa families, doesn’t it? The killer is far more likely to be one of them than Mario. And, you know, you asked me if Donatella and I had talked about the changes, and we haven’t. But I know she and Mario have talked about them. Not that I’m saying it’s Donatella, mind you. But she may well have told another member of the family.”
“Such as who?”
Monty Lord got up from his desk and picked up a navy baseball cap from the quilted satin bedcover. It had Epicure Productions printed on the front, and Moretti had seen other crew members wearing them. “Well — knowing them all as I do, my money would be on two of them. Long shots in my opinion, but hey, you asked for my opinion, so here it is, for what it’s worth. Paolo or Gianfranco. Or perhaps both in combination. Gianfranco would do just about anything to get back into his father’s good books. ” He put the cap on his head. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going downstairs for lunch.”
Moretti and Liz Falla followed him downstairs. When they reached the hallway, Moretti could see through the windows that other members of the film crew had started to gather on the terrace. Cosimo del Grano, the art director, was talking animatedly to the cinematographer, Mel Abrams, Betty Chesler and Eddie Christie, and Piero Bonini was sitting with Gianfranco Vannoni, who was drinking a glass of wine and gesticulating languidly with a long ivory cigarette holder. Mario Bianchi was sitting next to Adriana Ferrini.
As they followed Monty Lord out on to the terrace, the producer turned to Moretti and said, “I trust you are not going to say anything about the opinions you elicited from me?”
“No, sir.”
They walked on to the terrace just as the sun came out from behind a cloud and bathed them in light. There was a startled murmur at their appearance, and Moretti realized it looked as if they had Monty Lord under arrest. Obviously, the same thought occurred to the American producer, for he stepped forward from behind his escorts and announced, “Relax, ladies and gentlemen — appearances are deceiving. See — no handcuffs!” He held out his hands in front of him to a ripple of relieved laughter and a babble of comments.
At precisely that moment, Sydney Tremaine came around the far corner of the terrace beyond the cameras and cranes of the film set, walking slowly toward them. She was wearing a long sheath dress in ivory satin with a flared skirt that undulated around her as she moved. There were ruched bands of black chiffon tied around her slender arms and twisted in her hands was a black chiffon stole that trailed on the ground. Her red hair was piled up loosely on top of her head, tendrils falling around her pale face, against which her lipstick looked almost black.
There was a gasp from the assembled company, a group appreciative of dramatic entrances and theatrical gestures. Moretti heard Eddie Christie say, “Ooh, gorgeous. It’s her Christian Lacroix.”
“Yes.” Betty Chesler moved forward. “Gil got it for her in Paris, as a peace offering after one of his sordid little adventures. Hardly the outfit for an al fresco luncheon, but that’s the point I would think. Sydney —”
She started to move toward Sydney, who put out her
hand and stopped her, like a traffic policeman. With a final swirl of her skirt, Sydney came to a halt before her startled audience and began to speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen, here I am, the grieving widow, come to be the spectre at your feast.” Her voice was quite strong enough to carry across the space. “Isn’t it strange to think that, among the group I see in front of me, is the person who killed my husband. I have a message for that person: I know now why Gil died. And I will find you.”
The last two sentences were delivered slowly, clearly, deliberately rather than dramatically.
Standing beside Moretti, Monty Lord started to clap his hands.
“Magnificent! Brava!”
At the table farthest from the self-proclaimed spectre at the feast, Mario Bianchi put his head down on his hands and started to sob uncontrollably.
Moretti went up to Sydney Tremaine and, as he took her by the arm, she looked defiantly at him. He could feel her trembling. Anger and exasperation filled him and he controlled his voice with difficulty.
“Ms. Tremaine, it’s best you leave with us.” He felt her resist, start to pull her arm away from his grasp. “Come on, Sydney,” he said gently, “There is nothing more you can do here.”
Nothing was said in the police car. Liz Falla drove in silence, her eyes fixed on the road. Moretti, for his part, was making decisions. The rustle of Sydney Tremaine’s dress and the faint perfume in the air distracted him from time to time. What perfume, he wondered. Certainly not Fracas. There was a haunting sweetness about it, a vulnerability and a sadness.
At the Héritage Hotel he said to his partner, “Stay here, Falla. I’ll escort Ms. Tremaine to her suite.”
She said nothing as they crossed the foyer and went down the corridor, passing a couple of startled hotel guests who stared as the haute couture vision floated by. Sydney gave them her sad, submerged Ophelia smile, and Moretti thought of the armless beauty navel-deep in water lilies in the manor lake.
At the door of the suite he asked her, “Where have you got your key in that getup — or have you?”
“Of course. In my arm band.”
She extracted the door key from one of the ruffled chiffon ties, opened the door, and they went inside.
“Ed, I want to explain why —”
“Explain later. Don’t move from here, don’t open the door. If you are gone when I come back, I’ll put out an all-points bulletin to have you picked up, and I’ll put you in protective custody.”
“I can’t just sit here! I went with Betty to the hospital to identify Gil and I lost it.”
“I’m with you on that. And you won’t just be sitting here. Pack a suitcase with enough clothes for about a week. If you want something to eat, get room service, but don’t tell them you’re leaving.”
“Where am I going?”
“I’ll tell you when I come back to get you.”
Sydney Tremaine flung herself down on a nearby sofa, her skirt rustling expensively around her, giving Moretti a glimpse of the highest and skinniest pair of heels he’d ever seen in his life.
It was a reassuring return from the unreal to the normal to see Liz Falla waiting for him by the police car in her conservative dark blue suit and her sensibly heeled shoes.
“What a scene, eh, Guv! Like something out of a film was what I thought.”
“Contrived, yes, but no less effective — and stupidly dangerous — for all that. Which is why I have to talk to you, Falla, and not at headquarters. I’m going to ask you to use your personal phone for this, so let’s go to the Salerie Inn and get something to eat.”
“Okay, Guv.”
She looked at him questioningly, but said nothing, for which he was grateful.
The coastal area called La Salerie is part of St. Peter Port, but north of the main shopping section of the town, the marinas, and docks. The name describes its old function as a salt manufactory, and the curve of the coastline embraces a wide stretch of bay emptied twice a day by the thirty-foot tides of the island. Echoing the contours of the coast are a row of eighteenth-century houses, some with small front gardens, some built flush along Glategny Esplanade, their walls bending around Salerie Corner, and it was in one of these that Liz Falla had her flat.
They drove down Val des Terres into town, past the Guernsey Brewery and the bus terminus. To the right, beyond Castle Cornet, Moretti saw that the islands of Herm and Jethou were obscured by mist, and the windshield of the car was spotted with moisture. Past the bottom of St. Julian’s Avenue, the hoardings around what had once been the Royal Hotel, one of the places to see and be seen, now a hole in the ground. On past more hoardings and boarded up buildings, all scheduled for renovation. No risk of them remaining as they were, crumbling and becoming ruins and rubble — too much money now on the island, and these would soon be cleaned and painted and prettied up once more, home to some of the businesses associated with the offshore island boom.
Liz Falla manouevred the Mercedes into a narrow parking space outside the Salerie Inn. Moretti glanced across the road at the old careening hard, the exposed area of beach near the jetty where his mother’s ancestors had brought their boats up for cleaning, three or four hundred years ago. The tide was on the turn, and a lone cormorant was fishing out in the bay. Overhead a tern shrieked and dived into the water, then swooped off followed by an irate gull.
“I live quite close, Guv. Do you want to use my phone now?”
“Let’s eat first.”
The inn was painted blue, not navy or marine blue, but the blue of the sea below the cliffs over Saints Bay on a summer day. There were hanging baskets and window boxes of petunias and geraniums the length of the building and through the broad glass windows Moretti caught a glimpse of the splendid brass fittings of the inn’s old lamps. He had once asked how old they were and was told “old.”
The section on the right of the door was quiet, and they sat down at one of the round polished wood tables beneath the patterned Lincrusta ceiling. A collection of blue and white plates sat on a rack just below ceiling level near the dartboard, where they were safe from random darts. Nobody was using the dartboard, and there was only one other couple at a table across the room — not locals, because they were studying the ubiquitous tourists’ friend, Perry’s Pathfinder, the route map and town plan of the island, with the zeal of military leaders planning a campaign.
“Been thinking about it ever since we passed the brewery — I could use one of their Special Creamy Bitters. What can I get you, Falla?”
Liz Falla stuck to coffee — “they do good cappuccino here”— and they both decided on fish and chips. Moretti gave their order at the bar, which boasted more of the “old” brass fittings with fine horses’ heads on them, and returned to the table. Liz Falla’s usual expression of sunny insouciance was gone, he noticed.
“What I’m asking you to do is — irregular, Falla, so you are free to refuse. I’m going to ask you to cover for me.”
“And what will you be doing, Guv?” She was cool; he liked that.
“Leaving the island.”
At that moment their meal arrived, and Liz Falla waited until the server had gone.
“You’ll be somewhere between Grosseto and Siena, right?”
“Right.” Moretti took a long draught of his beer.
“I’m supposing you have a plan for this, so why don’t you tell me what it is first.”
Actually, he didn’t really have a plan. Yet. And what he did have depended on the co-operation of DC Liz Falla. “I’m leaving Sydney Tremaine at my place and you are the only one who is to know that. That’s the first thing. After we’ve done what we have to do here, I shall pick up some supplies, go back to the hotel, and pick up Ms. Tremaine. We will leave by the patio exit and meet you out on the road. Okay so far?”
“Okay so far.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence, but I do believe that, just occasionally, you get lucky. And our biggest break is that Chief Officer Hanley is going on vacation. I know
he won’t cancel it.”
“How do you know that, Guv?” Any misgivings she might have were not affecting his partner’s appetite, Moretti noticed.
“Because I shall shortly be making a phone call to reassure him with news of a major break in the investigation. It will not be a lie, because that’s exactly what has happened.”
“Okay so far, Guv. But how am I going to cover for you? You’re not going to be available for — how long?”
“Don’t know. About a week, maybe less if I get lucky. It’ll have to be something to do with the case, and I’m more concerned about any civilians finding out than I am about Hospital Lane finding out. But if you could avoid saying anything at all about Italy, I’d be happier.”
“I’ve got an idea.” Liz Falla drank some of her cappuccino. “You’ve got a roomful of officers back at headquarters thinking this may have something to do with the Occupation, right? Well, how about me saying you’re on Alderney.”
“Alderney?”
On a clear day you could just see Alderney, lying beyond Herm and Jethou. It was the third largest of the Channel Islands, lying only about six miles off the coast of Normandy.
“What would I be doing on Alderney? Taking a break?”
“Looking for clues, Guv. Remember, there were some really bad things happened on Alderney during the war?”
Liz Falla was right. If the story of Guernsey’s occupation was one of hardship, deprivation, and moments of sheer terror, Alderney’s war years were unremittingly hideous. The whole population had been evacuated in 1940, leaving the island to be used as a self-contained concentration camp in the hands of sadists, and the true horror of those years was a story that had never been fully told.
“I could say something about certain leads pointing to Alderney and you having to go there.”