Читать книгу Daggers and Men's Smiles - Jill Downie - Страница 9

"Good afternoon, sir. I hope everything went as well as could be expected. In the circumstances, I mean. I’m sorry about your loss.”

Her voice took Moretti by surprise. He had forgotten how deep it was for a young woman, with a distinctly bossy timbre.

“Good afternoon, DC Falla. Yes, everything went fine. I really didn’t know my Italian godmother very well. We weren’t close.”

“No.”

Why did she say it like that? he wondered.

“What’s going on at the Manoir Ste. Madeleine? Someone been hurt?”

“Well, it’s weird.” Liz Falla turned on him the large, keen-as-mustard, eager-beaver eyes that swallowed up her small face. “More like vandalism, really.”

The police car, an 1800 cc BMW, swung smoothly around a corner, and Moretti acknowledged that DC Falla was a damn sight better driver than his last partner. Which was good, because he only liked driving behind the wheel of his own Triumph TR 6.

“I don’t get it. Why are plainclothes being called in at this stage?”

“That’s what I wondered, but I think it’s because of the Vannonis.”

Moretti’s eyebrows went up. “Are the family still around? I thought they’d just rented out the place to the film company.”

No wonder Chief Officer Hanley wants me back, thought Moretti. When this branch of the Vannoni family arrived in Guernsey some time after the war, they had made it their business to become socially involved with the top figures in the island power structure — notably the handful of politicians who ran the island, the lieutenant-governor, and the bailiff. The former was now purely a symbolic position, but still influential, the latter was head of the judicial, legislative, and executive arms of government, appointed by the sovereign. The Vannonis spent most of the year on the island, but there was still a branch of the family in Italy somewhere, where they ran their traditional businesses: olive oil and wine.

“No. They’re still on site and the son is an assistant director. I think he’s the reason they’re here in Guernsey in the first place. Or so I’m told. I don’t really understand the set-up, and I’d have to look at my notes to see who else is doing what.”

“Do you know anything about the film company?”

“A little. It’s an American outfit, but it’s not that straightforward. The company itself is called Epicure Films, and the producer is the bloke that matters. He’s an American called Monty Lord. The director is an Italian called Mario Bianchi.”

“Right, I remember. I read an article about him not so long ago. Wunderkind, who’s going to resurrect the Italian film industry single-handedly. Any other major players I should know about? It’s an adaptation of a novel by Gilbert Ensor, isn’t it?”

“You’ve heard of him? What a piece of — sorry, Guv. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself.”

DC Falla braked with a crispness not entirely called for by the terrain.

“He’s hot at the moment — writes about crimes of all kinds. Crimes of greed, crimes of passion, crimes of betrayal. Remind me, which one of his books are they filming?”

“Rastrellamento. I haven’t read it myself. I’m not big on war stories.” DC Falla replied, a note of disapproval in her voice.

“Right. I’ve read it. Set in Tuscany at the very end of the Second World War — escaped British POWs, fascists, communists, partisans. What are they doing over here, I wonder. Money, I suppose.”

“I don’t know about that. But one of the crew told me they wanted to use the remaining structures from the occupation: bunkers, gun emplacements, observation towers. That’s one of the attractions of the Vannonis’ place — that big command bunker in the grounds.”

“Right. One of the principal regimental command bunkers. Isn’t it linked to the house by a tunnel?”

“I wouldn’t know about that. My uncle who belongs to the Occupation Society says they wanted to use the underground military hospital, but you know what that’s like, Guv. Still looks like it must have done when those poor men were slaving down there.”

Yes, he knew what it was like. Clammy and dark, a curved roof hacked out of the rock overhead, with moisture dripping from the fissures, running down the gutters in the passages, an abomination of desolation.

DC Falla shuddered. “Gives me the creeps, it does. Besides, all that mould and mildew gets my eyes itching. What’s the title mean — Rastrellamento? Is it a place?”

“No. Ensor uses it symbolically as well as literally. The raking or searching of an area for escaped prisoners, the examination of the past for ancient evils, the exploration of one’s mind and thoughts for hidden motivations.”

“Not my idea of a good night out. But since he writes about violence, maybe there’s a link there. To what happened, I mean. He certainly made me feel violent.”

Something in DC Falla’s tone suggested a personal revulsion rather than a professional observation of character.

“Violence? I thought you said vandalism.”

“Well, I’m not sure you can commit an act of violence on a bunch of dummies — dressmaker’s dummies, that’s to say. Three nights ago someone got into the area at the manor where they’re being stored and slashed at a collection of dummies set up with costumes of various characters in the film.”

“They’re calling us in for an attack on a lineup of dresses?” Moretti’s cloud of depression settled more firmly over him. “Someone’s playing games. They’ll just have to tighten their security. We don’t have the manpower to guard Epicure Films’ wardrobe for them.”

“That’s what I said to Chief Officer Hanley, and the director himself had decided to keep the whole business quiet. But the costume lady was dead set against it from the beginning — there’s a fair bit of damage and she’s out for blood. Then this Gilbert Ensor turns up with his wife and the costume lady confides in her. Seems that the evening before — which was the evening after the incident with the dummies — someone threw a dagger onto the patio of the Ensors’ hotel suite. It didn’t hit anyone. Ensor was out on the patio when it happened, and when you meet him you’ll see why someone might take a potshot at him — but I went out to take a look at it.”

“A dagger? Not just a knife?”

“No. Fancy-looking thing, but sharp enough to do real damage. Mrs. Ensor says it looked medieval to her.” DC Falla turned toward Moretti. The bronze tinge in her dark hair as it caught the light reminded him of the black cat who had been the family pet, Merlo. He hadn’t thought about him in years. “Mrs. Ensor’s like a film star herself, Guv. American. Funny, I had the feeling I’d seen her somewhere.”

“You may well have done. If I remember rightly, Ensor married Sydney Tremaine.” His partner shrugged her shoulders. “Principal dancer with, I think, the American Ballet Theatre. I saw her once, guesting at Covent Garden. You probably saw her in a film. She had a brief screen career and then retired. To marry Gilbert Ensor.”

“Good luck,” said Liz Falla, fervently. “I remember now. It was a film about a Russian dancer — Anna something or other. I didn’t like it that much.”

“Anna Pavlova. I didn’t like it much myself. But you’re right, she’s a looker.”

“I told the Ensors we’d drop by this evening. He wasn’t thrilled at the idea. I get the feeling he just likes being a pain in the backside — as if it’s good for his image, or something. My uncle Vern would say it’s the artistic temperament, so you’ll likely understand him better, you being a piano player.”

“We’ll see.”

In what spare time he had, Ed Moretti played jazz piano with a local group, the Fénions, in a nightclub called the Grand Saracen. Named for a legendary Guernsey pirate, it operated out of the cellar of one of the eighteenth-century houses that faced the old harbour — a vault that had been used to store the wine, spirits, and tea that flooded in and out of the island from all over the world. Not everyone approved of a senior member of the small plainclothes island police force moonlighting in what used to be a smuggler’s den.

“We might as well go there right now. Where are they staying?”

“The Héritage, Guv. St. Martin’s.”

“Did you meet the American producer?”

“No. He’s been away on business in Rome, apparently. Something to do with renting equipment, someone called the location manager told me. He’s Italian, by the way. Albarosa. Toni Albarosa.”

“I’m sorry I had to take time off just as you were — assigned, DC Falla, and I didn’t get everything done, anyway. I need more than a day to deal with Italian red tape and bureaucracy, and God knows when I’ll be able to get back.”

“Is there any way I could help, Guv?”

“I don’t think so, DC Falla, but thanks for offering.” Moretti restrained a smile.

“It’s just that,” — DC Falla’s small, strong hands whipped the wheel in evasive action around a couple of late-summer hikers meandering near the middle of the road — “remember that inspector from the Florence carabinieri who came over here for the symposium about money laundering?”

“Nice bloke, I remember. What was his name?”

“Benedetti. Giorgio Benedetti. We — that is, Guv, we had a bit of a fling, as you might say, before he left. He calls me from time to time.”

“Good Lord, DC Falla —” Moretti turned sideways in his seat and looked at his companion. Her profile showed no signs of emotion whatsoever, let alone embarrassment, “— should you be telling me this?”

“I don’t see why not. I was off-duty at the time — well, not when we met, but I went on holiday and he — stayed on for a week. I could ask him to cut some of that red tape for you.”

“Would he do that?”

“For me, yes. Mind you, I’d just as soon this didn’t get around Hospital Lane.”

“Understood. I’ll bear that in mind.”

They had come to a halt outside the Héritage Hotel, one of the island’s top luxury establishments. Behind its elegant Regency facade it offered ensuite facilities with all of its twelve individually decorated bedrooms, and the Ensors were occupying two suites on the ground floor, joined by a connecting door. One of the chief attractions for Gilbert Ensor was its dining room’s international reputation.

“Greetings, Ed.”

They were met at the door by the owner and manager of the Héritage, Don Bertrand, who was an old school friend of Moretti’s. Both of them had attended Elizabeth College, the Guernsey private school for boys, and Moretti’s father had worked for Don Bertrand’s father, when he turned his family home into a hotel after the war. When Moretti senior returned to the island he had first worked in the greenhouses, and then he had moved into the dining room of the Héritage. It was with regret that Bertrand senior had seen Moretti senior leave, to run his own restaurant in St. Peter Port.

“Hi, Don. You can guess why we’re here.”

“Of course. Hello, Constable Falla. Did you have so much fun last time you couldn’t keep away?” Don Bertrand’s bright blue eyes twinkled in his deeply bronzed face — the tan of a sailor, rather than of a sun worshipper.

“Something like that, sir.”

“Hope you can get some sense out of him. He’s three sheets to the wind as usual. Terrific for the bar receipts as long as he doesn’t disturb the other guests.”

“Does that happen?” asked Moretti. “Could this incident be the action of an irritated guest?”

“Could be — who knows. Mind you, things are quieting down now, and I’ve been able to keep the suite next to his vacant for the last week.” Don Bertrand was leading them along the corridor that led from the main foyer to the part of the hotel that overlooked the cliff and the sea.

“You checked, didn’t you, DC Falla, as to whether anyone had heard or seen anything?” Moretti asked.

“Well —” Liz Falla looked sheepish. “I talked to the staff, Guv, but I didn’t see any point in upsetting other guests, when no one had actually been hurt.”

“For which I was bloody grateful,” was Bertrand’s reply. “As you know, Ed, we are a Five Crown hotel, which means we have a porter at the desk at all times, all night. However, we cannot patrol the land beyond the hotel, and I have suggested to Mr. Ensor that he keeps off the patio. It was not — well-received. Here we are.”

They were outside a door with a peephole and a plaque on it that read Garden Suite. At the end of the corridor was another, similar door.

“Is that the empty suite?” Moretti asked.

“No, that’s the door to the suite which the Ensors have also taken — or, rather, the film company have. All arrangements were made by them. We have one of the actors here as well, and two members of the film company — a man and a woman — but they are upstairs. The actor is a German. Nice guy, the German. Well, all of them are.”

Moretti remembered that Don Bertrand senior had been imprisoned somewhere in France or Germany for most of the war.

“I’ll leave you to it. Good luck! See he doesn’t break up the furniture.”

Bertrand departed down the hall. On the other side of the heavy door, voices were raised. Liz Falla looked at her boss and rolled her eyes. Moretti knocked. Then knocked again, loudly.

The door was opened by a tousle-haired man of about forty in striped pajamas, holding a heavy cut-crystal glass containing a clear gold liquid. He was teetering on his bare feet. Clutching the doorpost he called out in an appalling fake American accent, “Honey, it’s the hired help!”

Over his shoulder, Moretti saw Sydney Tremaine, a cloud of red hair loose about her shoulders, her slender figure wrapped in a brilliantly coloured silk kimono.

“Forgive my husband’s bad manners, officers — as you can see, he’s very drunk. Thank you for coming. DC Falla, we met the other night, didn’t we?”

“’Course we did!” slurred her husband. “It’s the cute little gamine from the cop shop — hello again, darling.”

Beside him, Moretti felt his partner stiffen.

“I’m Detective Inspector Moretti, Mrs. Ensor.”

“Come in.”

Sydney Tremaine’s voice was pretty, with a musical resonance and depth, unlike that of many dancers. Apart from her looks, Moretti could understand why she had been plucked from the world of ballet to be in film.

“Perhaps we could go through and take a look first of all at the patio.”

“Of course.”

Ahead of them staggered the rotund figure of Gilbert Ensor, glass in hand, his corpulence comically exaggerated by the thick stripes of his attire.

They emerged on to a flagged area, softly lit, the actual lighting concealed among the various plants that grew in raised beds and containers. The sound of Mozart’s clarinet concerto sang sweetly from a speaker concealed somewhere in the vicinity of a potted palm tree.

“Show me where the dagger landed,” said Moretti to Sydney Tremaine. There seemed little point in sending too many questions in the direction of the tottering Gilbert Ensor.

“Here. I was inside, and I heard Gil scream —”

“I was fucking startled,” Ensor interrupted her. “I yelled. Anyone would’ve.”

“Here, Inspector.” Sydney Tremaine knelt down, indicating a spot close to a chaise longue. “Your partner took the dagger. Have you seen it?”

“Not yet.” Moretti turned to Gilbert Ensor, who sank, groaning with the effort, on to the chaise lounge. “How did you first realize it was there? Did you see it thrown? Or was it the noise as it landed?”

“The noise, I think. Clatter-clatter.” Ensor waved his hand as though it weighed about ten pounds.

“So you don’t know for sure if it came through the gate.”

“Mus’ have done. There wasn’t any assassin hidin’ behind the friggin’ ferns.”

Moretti went over to the gate and looked out. Whoever threw the dagger must have been, even briefly, in full view.

“It wasn’t dark, was it? Did you see anything, anybody?”

“I wasn’t looking, mate. I bloody ducked.” Ensor drank the last of the liquid in the glass he held in an unsteady hand.

“I did,” said his wife. “But it was after the knife landed and after Gil — called out. I opened the gate and took a look outside.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“Only a woman jogger on the lower cliff path.”

“Show me.”

Sydney Tremaine walked ahead of him and opened the gate. Moretti noticed the lock was both efficient and sturdy.

“Over there. I called out after her, but she was too far away. There’s always a wind out here.” She shivered in the light wrap she was wearing, pulling it closer around her.

“Let’s go back. We’ll get a description from you later, and we’ll have to have a written statement.” She walked back ahead of him and Moretti saw that her slender build gave her the illusion of being shorter than she was. For a dancer, she was fairly tall.

“Can you think of anyone who might want to harm you?” he asked the figure slumped amid the cushions of the chaise.

“Look, mate, there’s lots of people out there who find talent and genius a threat, and don’t I know it. That’s besides all the loonies and the crazies. Anyway, this island’s covered with pagan remains, isn’t it? For all I know, it’s some Guernseyman following some ancient ritual. For all I know, youse guys throw daggers at the drop of a neolithic hat.” Gilbert Ensor fumbled for a packet of cigarettes in the breast pocket of his pajamas. He managed to extract one, and bent forward precariously to light it from an ornate lighter on a small wrought-iron table near the chaise, cursing as the breeze extinguished the flame.

“Not normally,” said Moretti, stifling both his growing irritation, and the urge to comment on the crude anachronism, which was deliberate, he knew. This man was too intelligent to have made the comment for any other reason than to annoy. “Here —” He pulled out the lighter he still carried, although he was supposed to have given up smoking, cupped the flame, and held it close to the writer’s wavering cigarette. Best to ingratiate himself, perhaps, if that were at all possible.

“Ah, a fellow sinner.” Gilbert Ensor squinted up at Moretti through a cloud of smoke and intoned, “‘There’s daggers in men’s smiles’ — I tend to believe that, Inspector. Don’t you?”

“No more than I believe in air-drawn daggers, sir,” Moretti replied.

“Ah, so besides looking like Dirk Bogarde you’ve got a brain. The ladies must love you.” Gilbett Ensor leered at his wife. “Eh, Syd, me darlin’?”

Sydney Tremaine was quite calm. Moretti thought, She’s used to this.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Perhaps it would be better if —”

“— We left, yes. There’s nothing more to be done now. The dagger is being checked for fingerprints, and we’ll have a word with the hotel staff and the occupants of any of the rooms that face this direction. Maybe someone saw something, but it seems unlikely. Sir, perhaps it would be best if you went inside?”

“I’ll go inside when I want to go inside, Mr. Plod, and right now I don’t want to go inside.” It was said with an oily, drunken calm, and more clearly articulated than anything Ensor had said during the policemen’s visit. Moretti wondered if the drunk act was precisely that — a performance.

So much for ingratiating oneself, thought Moretti. Without responding, he turned and left the patio, followed by Sydney Tremaine and Liz Falla, leaving Gilbert Ensor puffing at his cigarette.

“I apologize for my husband’s rudeness, Inspector. It’s — nothing personal. It’s the way he is,” said Sydney Tremaine when they reached the door of the suite.

“Sorry to hear that, Mrs. Ensor.” Sydney Tremaine’s green eyes widened, but she made no response. “About this business with the dummies and the costumes — can you think of anything that has happened on the set, during the making of the film, anything at all, that could help us establish a link between that incident and this — or anything at all for that matter?”

Sydney Tremaine threw back her head and laughed. It was a hearty laugh that made the red curls bounce about her lightly freckled shoulders.

“Any number of things happen on a film set, Inspector, that make any number of people want to throttle someone or other — or throw daggers at them. But no, nothing specific, nothing that seems to connect with the attack on Gil — if that’s what it was.”

“A coincidence then — is that what you’re saying?”

“No.” The laughter was gone now. “I think not. I don’t really believe in that kind of coincidence. I wish I did.” A shadow crossed her face, and Moretti had the feeling she had been about to say something else, but had changed her mind.

“Has anything like this happened before? Your husband has a volatile approach to life.”

“How kind of you to put it like that! Fights and fisticuffs, yes. But no, nothing to do with daggers. Not even knives.”

“Well, if you think of anything, let us know immediately.”

Outside in the car, Moretti and Liz Falla sat for a moment without speaking.

“Talk about Beauty and the Beast, eh, Guv? Felt me up when I came before — very slick. I’m sure his wife didn’t see a thing. What a bastard!”

“A talented, successful, and therefore indulged bastard,” said Moretti, deciding not to comment on Ensor’s liberty-taking with his colleague. She seemed more than capable of looking after herself, and he hoped this wasn’t yet another hazard of having a female as his partner. “If it weren’t for the incident at the Manor I’d say it was some idiot teenager messing about out on the cliff path. We could be dealing with a personal problem, whatever his wife says. I had a feeling she nearly told us something else, but changed her mind for some reason.”

“Could be any number of things with that creep.”

“Too true. Let’s go back to the station, Constable. I should put in an appearance to reassure Chief Officer Hanley.”

* * *

The green Triumph negotiated its way out of the police station, bypassing the winding streets of the town, making for St. Julian’s Avenue. Climbing the road past the eighteenth-century elegance of Regency architect John Wilson’s St. James Church — now used as a concert and assembly hall — and the same architect’s less felicitous drab Gothic pile, his own alma mater, Elizabeth College, Ed Moretti drove the familiar route, deep in thought.

His education had been like the curate’s egg — good in parts, and one of the good parts had been an extraordinary English teacher, the other a history teacher with a fondness for Aristotelian logic. A quotation from the Nichomachean ethics had been a favourite of the history teacher, and it had stayed with the pupil: Every art and every investigation, and likewise every practical pursuit and undertaking, seems to aim at some good: hence it has been well said that the Good is that at which all things aim.

Between the three of them — the English teacher, the history teacher, and the philosopher — he had become a policeman. Not what his parents had in mind for him when he won the scholarship, but still. And, in becoming a policeman, he found himself dealing with members of the human species whose behaviour threw Aristotle’s logic on the topic of Good out the window.

Shifting gears, Moretti headed up the Grange past Doyle Road, named for an earlier lieutenant-governor. Up here, he was in the Regency and early Victorian suburbs into which St. Peter Port had expanded from its narrow sea-edged site, with spacious homes built from the profits of smuggling and privateering, surrounded by gardens verdant and beflowered with subtropical plants and trees like camellia and palm that flourished in the island’s temperate climate.

Just after passing the Guernsey Academy for Girls, the distaff equivalent of Elizabeth College, the Triumph swung left into a narrow lane between two sizeable houses, finally coming to a halt outside a high stone wall. Moretti slowly negotiated his way between the stone pillars of what had once been a gateway and was now merely a gap in the wall.

Facing him was the cottage left to him by his father — a two-storey dwelling built of rough-hewn granite that had once been the stable and coachman’s quarters for the grand home through whose gateway he had just passed. A solid wooden doorway of faded grey, set in the traditional curved stone archway of the Guernsey cottage, a window on each side and three above, were all of them framed by a deep-pink climbing rose, long ago left to its own devices. On each side of the property, fuchsia, honeysuckle, and ivy covered the old walls with a tapestry of crimson, cream, and dark green that, in the island’s mild climate, lasted most of the year round. What had been the stables to one side of the structure served as his garage. But the manor house was long gone, and all that remained of the fine estate was Ed Moretti’s inheritance.

He loved the place. One of the disadvantages of leaving the island, as he had done earlier in his career, was that the property laws were so strict that inheritance was not always enough to hold on to such a possession. But Moretti had been lucky, because he had returned to the island to work and thus qualified for the house when his father died. It was the source of much ill feeling among expatriate islanders that the rich might buy their way in to avoid supertax, but a poor native might sometimes not be able to return to his, or her, roots.

He had made few changes to the decor and furnishings of the house, and it had taken a while to get over the feeling of waking in the morning and expecting to find his parents downstairs. The most significant addition was the sound system he had installed, to carry the music that was so important to his sense of well-being — a vintage quad system that drove a set of ESL speakers. The large speaker panel gave an incredibly smooth, sweet sound that had not, in Moretti’s opinion, been bettered in over forty years.

He had not had to add a piano. His own love of music came from his mother, and one of his earliest memories was of listening to her playing “Roses of Picardy,” singing the words in her soft, crooning voice. A very early memory. She had been gone a long time.

“Going back to the womb, you are.” That was one of Valerie’s cuts, just before he walked out the door. “Grow up, Ed, and face the music,” she admonished him in one of their final fights. An unfortunate image in the circumstances, since she was of the opinion that it was the musician who was “a bloody Peter Pan,” and the policeman who was the grown-up. Not so simple. Having watched his father dwindle and diminish after his mother’s death, he wondered if he’d ever risk an emotional involvement that brought so much pain.

You’re terrified of commitment, shit-scared of it, aren’t you?

The first thing he did when he went into the cottage was put a disk on the record player. Oscar Peterson.

How did the man do it? The marvellous internal rhythm that could sing without benefit of percussion or bass, creating melody and miracles of harmony, fireworks and lyricism and tenderness. Like the perfect love affair. Only, unlike love affairs, the mood created was constant, the same perfection when played for the umpteenth time. Now, that was commitment. And it was a commitment devoutly to be wished, of which he was not afraid.

Oh lady, be good to me.

The music continued to play in his head, long after he had gone to bed. Finally, sleep came.

* * *

It was barely light when Moretti was awakened by the persistent ringing of his bedside phone. It was the desk-sergeant from Hospital Lane.

“Sorry to wake you at this hour sir —”

“What hour is it?” Moretti surfaced groggily through the layers of sleep.

“Six-thirty. But it’s the film people out at Ste. Madeleine Manor and you’re down on my sheet as the one to call. There’s been some sort of accident. Nasty business.”

“Was it a human target this time?”

“Oh yes.” Moretti could hear the surprise in the officer’s voice. “It’s the location manager. Albarosa. Italian.” And, feeling it necessary to make the message even clearer to Moretti’s sleep-addled brain, he added, “He’s dead, Guv.”