Читать книгу Moretti and Falla Mysteries 3-Book Bundle - Jill Downie - Страница 12

“Bitch — you bitch.”

“Hypocrite — you hypocrite. Just because you think I slept with Giulia Vannoni, you’re oh so upset!”

“Giulia Vannoni? Christ almighty! Giulia Vannoni! Whose fucking shirt is that then? Hers? I thought you said it belonged to that policeman!”

“It does. But the black tights don’t come from his wardrobe — hadn’t you noticed them? Funny, my legs have always been such a turn-on for you. My strong point, in more ways than one — right, sweetie?”

“Bitch — you bitch!”

“You just said that, darling. Are words failing you? Dear me, I hope not, or why should I stay with you? I’ll go be someone else’s muse.”

“Muse? If you’d taken a minute out from examining your own navel over the past few weeks you might have noticed I haven’t written a bloody word — be it good, bad, or indifferent. You’re no muse, woman, you’re a — a — pestilence, bringing death, disease, famine of the imagination and writer’s block. Damn you to hell!”

Sydney winced. “Don’t scream. Hysteria doesn’t suit you — you sound like a cross between a hyena and a eunuch.”

“Doesn’t suit your hangover, you mean. So the great detective thinks he can screw my wife on the job, does he? I’ll show him! I’m getting on to that prissy-mouthed Chief Officer Hanley and letting him know that one of his officers has compromised a murder investigation!”

Gilbert Ensor crossed to the phone.

“Oh, I’m so scared! Please, Gil, you’ll have to do better than that.”

Sydney Tremaine did not feel as calm as she hoped she sounded. Unable to resist turning the tables on her husband, she had revealed much of the previous night’s events, with some added embroidery that involved much more than merely abandoning Ed Moretti’s suggested version.

As Gil picked up the phone she added, “If you do this, I shall tell them I spent the night with Giulia Vannoni, and your accusation is vindictive and groundless.” Sydney placed herself in front of Gil, hands on hips. “Do you want the whole world to know that the wife of superstud writer Gilbert Ensor is having an affair with one of the highest-profile lesbians in Italy? I’d quite enjoy that, myself.”

“Fucking bitch.”

Gilbert Ensor’s hand fell limply from the phone that crashed back on its cradle. She had him by the proverbial short and curlies and he knew it. Screaming had got him nowhere this time. Usually in their relationship, she screamed back and eventually surrendered one way or another — sexually or emotionally. Gilbert Ensor was a bastard, but he was a highly intelligent bastard, and he knew that something had changed in the balance of power. He decided to try pathos.

“Syd, darling, do you really hate me that much? Do you want revenge so badly you’d go against your nature to make me suffer?”

His unrepentant wife gave a short, sharp laugh laced with sarcasm. “Which nature is that, my darling? My heterosexual one, or my lesbian one? When it comes to navel-gazing, you know nothing about my nature because it has never interested you. Anyway, may I remind you that last night — I did both!”

With a theatrical toss of her auburn hair, Gilbert Ensor’s scarlet woman turned away from him and started unbuttoning the accursed blue shirt that hung loosely over her slim torso. “I’m going to soak in a bath,” she said.

As the shirt fell from her shoulders, Gilbert Ensor saw she was wearing yet another shirt underneath. The slippery fabric gleamed a luminous green in the sun slanting in through the window, making her look like a mermaid washed up on the island’s shore, to hurt him and to haunt him with her bedtime stories.

“Bitch,” he said again, weakly.

“That’s right,” she called back over her shiny green shoulder. “Bitch in heat. That’s me.”

He could hear her humming as she closed the bathroom door; she had a pretty singing voice. He recognized the tune: it was Snow White’s theme song, “Someday My Prince Will Come.”

Gilbert Ensor collapsed into an elegant gilt chair that squawked beneath the sudden arrival of his dead weight. So preoccupied had he been with her disappearance from the manor and her subsequent reappearance at the hotel, smelling of another woman’s perfume and another man’s cigarettes, he had not got around to telling Sydney about Monty Lord’s visit.

This, he thought, has to be one of the worst days of my life. So far. With a promiscuous wife, an unbalanced director, and a nutter on the loose with a knife, who knew what fate might yet have in store for him!

When there had been a rap on the door at about nine o’clock that morning, he had assumed it was Sydney. Rage filled him, accelerating his heartbeat and filling his mouth with spittle and venom.

“Where the fuck have you been, you whore?” he spat through the door.

“Gil?” said a surprised voice. “It’s Monty Lord. Is Sydney not there?”

“Monty?”

Shit, he thought. Now he knows my wife stayed out all night. I’ll be a laughingstock. A second or so later he admitted a concerned-looking Monty Lord.

“Hi, Gil. What’s happened to Sydney?”

“Oh —” Gilbert Ensor made a valiant attempt at nonchalance and failed miserably. “She’ll turn up — she always does. Night on the town, I should think.”

“You knew she left the manor with the marchesa’s niece?”

“The one with the motorbike?”

“Yes. Giulia Vannoni.”

“Oh.” Gil’s relief was palpable. “Girls’ night out — she’ll like that, Syd will.”

Monty Lord looked mildly amused. “Yes,” he said. “So will Giulia.”

A nasty suspicion crossed Gil’s mind, but faded swiftly into insignificance when he heard Monty say, “I didn’t want to do this on the phone, but in person, Gil.”

“Christ almighty, not another rewrite.”

“No, no. In a way, this will interfere less with your original work.”

“This? In what way can any change interfere less? At least, I presume that’s what this is about — another change.”

“No, Gil — you know, and I know, that we’re both fortunate to have Mario Bianchi on board for this project. The man’s a genius, with an instinctive sense of what works on the screen.” Monty Lord gave a little self-deprecating laugh. “When he says ‘jump’ — creatively, that is — I say ‘how high?’”

“Do you? I don’t. And it makes no difference who’s on board, as you put it, if the ship’s the frigging Titanic! We should all be jumping, or looking for bloody lifeboats.”

The tone of saintly patience left Monty Lord’s voice and it became undisguisedly unpleasant. “You can sink a project by talking like this — is that what you really want, Gilbert?”

“I’m beginning to think I do, Monty — I mean, hell, what’s left of my work?”

“Everything. Never doubt it. This is Rastrellamento by the incomparable Gilbert Ensor. But it became clear to Mario when he started shooting the scenes between Clifford and Vittoria that the movie needs another deus ex machina, as it were.”

“As what were? Why doesn’t Mario have the balls to tell me this himself?”

“Look, Gilbert —” Monty Lord took Gil by the elbow and guided him to a nearby sofa. “— I’m going to have to share this with you, I should have done before. In confidence, this is a very fragile man.”

“I’m a very fragile man, for God’s sake!”

“You’re not fighting a serious drug habit and you’re not under the permanent care of a psychiatrist, are you?”

“Is Mario — Jesus Christ!”

Monty Lord sighed. “We’ve both paid the price for my choice, I grant you. But I must tell you I agree with the changes to the script. They have made this a stronger movie without compromising the integrity of your original vision.”

“Bullshit, Monty. And, may I add — bollocks.”

“I don’t think so, Gilbert. I think what we have here is a rare cross between an art-house movie and a blockbuster. I’ve been in this business in Italy and the States for years, and never have I been so excited about the creative and the financial aspects of a project. Need I remind you that you will make ten percent of the gross — besides that humongous fee we paid for the rights to Rastrellamento?”

Greed, thought Monty Lord. Appeal to “what’s in it for me?” and even this so-called creative genius becomes a mere mercenary. Just like me.

“Deus ex machina, you said. Will Tom Byers be rescued by his guardian angel, flown in on wires?”

Monty Lord laughed. “Perhaps in the sequel? No, seriously, Mario has dreamed up another character who will interract with the two principal groups: a schoolteacher, not originally from the village. An outsider who observes the unfolding drama and finds himself drawn into the web of events.”

“Jesus wept! Shambolic — it’s a fucking farce, that’s what it is. An utter shambles!”

In an instant, the mercenary was replaced by the writer, and Monty Lord realized he was in for the all too familiar scene of Gilbert Ensor in a rage. Only this time, Sydney Tremaine was not here to control her husband. All he could do now, as producer, was resort to the use of legal ultimatum. Raising his voice above the noisome stream of continuous obscenities that poured from Gilbert Ensor’s lips he shouted, “Need I remind you, Ensor, that under the terms of the contract I don’t have to get your permission for this kind of change? None of your original characters have been removed, as per our agreement. The teacher is in — get me?”

“You Yankee swine! We’ll see what my lawyer has to say about that! We’ll see what difference it makes to ‘as per our agreement’ when it turns out the director is a junkie and should be in the nuthouse! We’ll see!”

“If you want to waste your time and money, feel free, Gilbert, but directors with a drug problem are a dime a dozen — really good directors with a drug problem are as rare as rubies.”

Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.

The biblical echoes of Monty Lord’s choice of simile reminded Gil of his missing wife. Sydney’s show of independence was new in their relationship — oh, she fought with him, but in the end it was all sound and fury and signified nothing. Her unexplained absence had shaken him, and now Mario Bianchi was at it again.

“Tell Mario I’ll fight this one — no, I’ll tell him myself,” he said, and burst into noisy sobs.

Not a pretty sight, thought Monty Lord, as he surveyed the blubbering figure beside him on the sofa. He stood up. “I’ll see myself out,” he said.

As the door closed behind him, Monty Lord heard a scream from inside.

“Sydney!”

Like Marlon Brando screaming “Stella!” thought Monty. As theatrical. As desperate.

As he left the hotel, a taxi drew up. Inside he saw the red hair and Dresden profile of Sydney Tremaine, returning home from her night on the town.

“Well, what do you think, Guv?”

“Think?”

Moretti looked up as if he had been miles away, thought Liz Falla. In fact, he had been years away.

He couldn’t go back, either.

Dan Mahy’s words kept running over and over in his head. Drip, drip, drip. That and “Maladetta Maremma.” All he knew about the Maremma was that it was an area in Italy where the marshes had been drained, but more than that he didn’t know.

“Does any of this have anything to do with the death of Toni Albarosa? A place like this sometimes has trouble with prowlers, doesn’t it?”

“True. But two things are interesting about these reports. First, there’s the business with Dan Mahy. I’m not sure I’d have seen that as significant if I’d not just spoken to him. Let’s go over what we have.”

What they had on the table in front of them at the Hospital Lane headquarters were three incidents at the Manoir Ste. Madeleine; two incidents had taken place within a month of each other in April, the third just after the arrival of the film crew. In the first, one of the live-in staff was making sure the fire was out in the marchesa’s sitting room at about eleven o’clock at night, when she saw someone peering through the window at her. She ran screaming from the room and, apart from her lurid description of the prowler’s eyes as “glowing like living coals” — which might well have been inspired by her task and not based on observation at all — she could not even be sure if the prowler was a man or a woman. She assumed it was a man.

In the third incident, the guard dogs in the grounds “set up a racket” at around midnight, according to one of the handlers. When he checked he found skid marks on the ground near the lodge, and thought he heard the sound of a motor in the distance, out on the road. There were signs that one of the locks had been tampered with. The security staff thought the tire tracks were made by a motorbike.

“A Ducati, perhaps?” suggested Liz Falla.

“They don’t say. But why, in this case, did the dogs bark? If it was Giulia Vannoni? They must have been familiar with the sound of her bike, I would think, let alone her presence. She’s a regular.”

“Maybe they always bark at night.”

“Except they didn’t, did they, when Albarosa bought it? Anyway, why would the marchesa’s niece need to creep around at night? She had a perfect right to be there. No need to draw attention to herself — even if she was on her way to kill someone. But it’s the second incident that’s really interesting.”

It appeared from the second report that the local station in St. Andrew had received a phone call from Toni Albarosa himself at about midnight. Sounding somewhat agitated, he’d said that one of the staff thought the prowler was back, and could someone come. The police officer who arrived on the scene made a search of the grounds where the intruder had been spotted, and found Dan Mahy, crouched down against the wall of one of the old stables that now served as a garage. Toni Albarosa identified him, and vetoed the suggestion he should be taken in for questioning. In fact, he now seemed eager to dismiss the whole episode.

“The officers assumed it was because the prowler turned out to be Dan Mahy, who tends to hang around the place. But now I wonder,” said Moretti. “From the report it looks as if the old fellow told the officer he had met someone on the grounds — a friend, who wanted to hear about the old days.”

“The old days,” said Liz. “Keeps coming back to that, doesn’t it? Looks like your feeling about the old days is beginning to hold water, Guv.”

“Doesn’t it, though? And here’s the second thing that’s interesting — why did no one in the family mention any of this? I’m not thrilled this wasn’t brought to our attention by the St. Andrew’s people, but surely it must have occurred to at least one of the family that it might have some bearing on the death of Albarosa?”

“Right. It’s not so much they’re lying as they’re keeping their mouths shut. About something.”

“A conspiracy of silence. I think so. I’m going to take another look at the statements by the marchesa, her niece and her son in particular, because these incidents change the time frame of the investigation. And I have to talk to Gilbert Ensor about his novel — whether Rastrellamento had not only its time period rooted in historical fact, but its storyline.”

At this point they were interrupted by the arrival of a young constable almost hidden behind a mass of paper spat out by the computer about Mario Bianchi. Refusing his offer of help — “Don’t know what we’re looking for ourselves, PC Le Mesurier” — Moretti split the pile in two and handed one half to Liz Falla.

“Anything in Italian, throw it over to me. Unless you feel you can manage?”

Liz Falla smiled. “What are we not looking for then, Guv?”

“Anything that might give Mario Bianchi motivation to kill — not just Albarosa, but anyone in the two families. And anything that might link him in any way to events that took place during the war.”

So much of what we do is dull as ditchwater, thought Moretti. As boring as being the accountant, or lawyer, his parents had wanted him to be when he had graduated from university in London. Between his hands lay the life of a star in the creative firmament, and it would have made interesting reading in other circumstances. So far are we from the truth, he thought, that the key word for the search is “anything.”

“What about this, then?”

Liz Falla’s finger stopped suddenly in mid-page. “Fasciti. That’s ‘fascist,’ isn’t it? Read this, Guv.” She passed the sheet over to Moretti.

It was a report from about five years earlier in the Italian newspaper, Nazione, about the career of Mario Bianchi, which went into his background in more depth than the usual piece of journalistic puffery. The writer described what he called “the cultural roots of the Bianchi phenomenon,” attributing the film director’s writing ability and social conscience in large part to his father.

“This is what I was trying to remember, Falla,” said Moretti. “His father was Antonio Bianchi, a famous war correspondent for — here it is — Corriere della Sera. He’s probably best known for a book he wrote in secret, Il Giorni Avanti, which was published in 1944, saying that Hitler was evil and that Mussolini had corrupted the high ideals of fascism. He was shot to death about ten years after the war ended — says here no one was ever sure if it was murder or suicide. And look at this.”

Moretti held out a photograph of Mario Bianchi, apparently taken from some tabloid, with a short article beneath it in gigantic letters, studded with exclamations:

The Pressures of Genius! Young Mega-Director Mario Bianchi Picked Up in Drug Raid! Police Sources Reveal the Award-Winning Director in Possession of Heroin and Cocaine!

The same information, in more restrained print and tone, appeared in the Nazione, and a later excerpt told readers that Bianchi, a first offender, had been given probation, as long as he underwent treatment for his addiction.

“Well, well,” said Liz. “It would certainly make him a likely candidate for blackmail. I wonder if that director, Mr. Lord, knew about it.”

“We’ll ask him. My feeling is that this kind of thing is so common he probably isn’t that concerned as long as Bianchi can do his job. And I suppose we didn’t pick it up here, because he doesn’t have a record.”

Moretti and Liz Falla ran through the rest of the information but, apart from a growing list of movie achievements and awards, and the fact that Bianchi had married quite recently, there was no further mention of drugs, or idealist fascist fathers.

“Interesting,” said Moretti. “If you look at the dates of his films, there appears to be a bit of a drought before Rastrellamento. Perhaps he was just writing, or enjoying his newly married state.”

Before Liz could respond, the telephone on the desk between them rang. Moretti picked it up and gave his name.

“Detective Inspector Moretti, this is the Marchese Paolo Vannoni. I am told you are in charge of the murder inquiry into the death of my son-in-law?”

The voice was cultured, the English heavily accented but fluent, a dry brittle quality to the tone, like sandpaper against wood.

“You are phoning from Florence?”

Moretti scribbled the marchese’s name on a piece of paper and held it out to Liz Falla, who raised her eyebrows and whistled noiselessly.

“Yes.”

“Would you prefer to speak in Italian?”

“It would be better, yes.” They switched languages. “Time is passing, Inspector, and I am told that no one has seen fit to keep the family informed as to how the inquiry is progressing. No explanations, no information as to when we can bury Toni. Nothing. What do you have — anything? A suspect, at least, I hope.”

As the language changed to Italian, the sandpaper changed to steel.

Moretti thought of Giulia Vannoni’s flippant request at the Grand Saracen, Sydney Ensor’s game-playing, the marchesa’s arrogance, both his and his partner’s feeling that something — God knows what — was being withheld. He counterattacked.

“Marchese, you cannot expect me to discuss our inquiries with you over the phone. This is a complicated business, since there is a possibility that your family and the Albarosa family have been targeted for some reason. And, sir, as to being kept informed, there have been incidents involving a prowler at the manor, and not one member of the family has seen fit to tell us about them.”

From the other end of the line came a rusty chuckle, suggesting years of disuse.

“Detective Inspector, forgive me. You should understand I am very much regretting my decision to encourage the making of Rastrellamento at the manor, and I am sure that Toni’s death and the previous events to which you refer are all connected to a wild and dissolute element in that unstable and corrupt world. Why you think the family has been targeted I cannot imagine. Nothing like this had ever happened until I gave permission.”

Let’s be conciliatory, thought Moretti, and see where this is leading — see why this distant, disconnected aristocrat picked up the phone to speak to me.

“You may be right, sir. But can you think why your son-in-law would be the target? I was under the impression that until the making of this film, he had not been part of that unstable and corrupt world, as you call it?”

“Detective Inspector Moretti —” the marchese too was sounding conciliatory, his tone almost confiding, “— Toni’s marriage to Anna was a great mistake, encouraged by my wife, in spite of my misgivings. It has caused a permanent rift between us. My daughter was crazy about him and, in fact, became pregnant by him. The family is a good one, so I gave my permission.”

“Would permission have been necessary in this day and age?”

“If Anna wanted to remain in the family and to receive her share of the property and inheritance, yes.”

“I see. Why, sir, did you give permission for the filming of Rastrellamento?”

“Well — money, of course was one of them. Vannoni Vigneti e Boschetti is doing very well, but our way of life is increasingly expensive to maintain. The other reason was the talent of the director, Mario Bianchi. Which is ironic.”

“Ironic? How?”

“I feel he is a bad influence for my son, Gianfranco, who has no willpower and little backbone, and I regret it deeply if I have opened the wrong door — which I may have done. Mario has brought an unsavoury element along with him.”

This time, Moretti waited.

“Drugs.”

Droghe.

Across the desk, Liz Falla leaned forward in her chair.

“You are saying then, sir, that in your opinion this could be a drug killing?”

“Drug related, yes.”

“Do you have any evidence to support your theory?”

“It is the only one that makes sense. It is your job to find the evidence.”

“Why then use daggers?”

“Detective Inspector, I cannot see into the mind of some hop-headed addict.”

Moretti changed direction. “I understand you are close to your daughter, Anna. Yet you say the marriage distanced you from your wife. You never come here, I believe, and she rarely returns to Italy.”

The marchese was back to sandpaper and steel again. “What any of this has to do with Toni’s death I cannot think. All this is a waste of time, an unnecessary intrusion into people’s lives.”

“Nothing is private, Marchese, in a murder investigation, as I told your wife.”

Moretti expected anger, but now there was a sadness in the marchese’s voice.

“Life has not been kind to my daughter, Detective Inspector.”

“She has health, wealth, a renowned family, and two fine children, she tells me. Many would say she was fortunate.”

“In a world where beauty matters, she has none. In a world where fidelity is dismissed with a shrug, she fell in love and was betrayed. Again, and again, and again. If anyone wanted to see Toni Albarosa dead, it was me. I’m glad he is dead, but I didn’t kill him.”

It was a passionate speech, delivered cold and hard, in the marchese’s sandpaper rasp. Moretti felt chilled.

“I presume you have read Rastrellamento, Marchese?” he asked.

“Yes. It is not my kind of literature, but Mario told me there would be many changes.”

“What do you dislike about it, sir?”

“I am not one for harking back to the past, Detective Inspector. Life goes on. And now, speaking of life going on, I must go.”

“Thank you for getting in touch with us, sir. Of course we will let the family know as soon as we have any solid information.”

“Grazie.”

Before the word was completely out of Paolo Vannoni’s mouth and he had a chance to hang up, Moretti broke in.

“One thing, Marchese. About the manor — it is yours, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“And you live in Florence all year round?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Is there another property in the family? Besides the Albarosa villa, I mean. Another house?”

For a moment, Moretti thought the marchese had hung up on him.

“No. No.”

Then the line went dead.

“There’s a turn-up for the books, Guv. Fancy him calling all the way from Florence. Now why would he do that?”

“Did you pick any of that up?” Moretti asked, scribbling furiously. “I want to get it down before I forget.”

“I caught the word ‘drugs,’ and I think I heard him say something about the director and his son, didn’t I?”

“You did, Falla. You did indeed. One brings an unsavoury element with him and the other has no backbone.”

“Then he hung up on you when you asked him about a house. I don’t get it.”

“Hold on and I’ll tell you what Dan Mahy said.”

Moretti finished writing and filled Liz Falla in on his rambling interview with Dan Mahy, leaving out the comments about his own father and mother.

“I might have thought it was all the ravings of someone gone soft in the head, if the marchese hadn’t reacted to my inquiry as if I’d accused him of murdering his son-in-law himself. Not that he’d have minded, because for that he’s off the hook.”

“Why would he take a powder about another house?”

“Whatever the reason, Paolo Vannoni is prepared to throw the reputation of not only Mario Bianchi, but also his own son, to the wolves. He handed us two suspects on a plate: Gianfranco and Mario. That’s why he phoned, Falla — to divert our attention from the internal affairs of the family itself. But I think we should double-check the two statements, anyway.”

“I’ll pull them, Guv.”

“It’s getting late, but I want to return to the manor and ask the marchesa why she said nothing about the prowler. Perhaps she will be a little more forthcoming — and I want to see her reaction to her husband’s comments.”

This time Donatella Vannoni was graciousness itself. She offered coffee, tea — even a beer — and made sympathetic noises about the length of their day. Gone was the defensive, hostile woman of the morning. As soon as Moretti saw her face, he knew the marchese had phoned her, and that any element of surprise he might have hoped for was gone. The enmity between husband and wife was not going to play into his hands, as he had hoped. The marchesa was even prepared to agree that her encouragement of the relationship between Toni Albarosa and her daughter had been “a terrible mistake.”

“And as to the prowler, Detective Inspector, why would I tell you? The housemaid in question is unreliable, given to hysterics — she probably imagined the whole thing.”

“And Dan Mahy?”

“Who? Oh, that poor man — senile, I’m told. Lives in squalor, I believe, on the coast somewhere — his wife was on staff here. You knew that? He still hangs around the place, and we do what we can for him.”

Outside the door of the marchesa’s private sitting room, Moretti and Liz Falla stood and looked at each other.

“Nothing like a threat to the dysfunctional family to make all its members suddenly remember they are in complete accord about everything,” observed Moretti. There was a faint smell of expensive cigar in the passage, and he was longing for a cigarette.

“That was the most frustrating —” began Liz Falla.

“Signor! Signorina! A moment of your time?”

A figure was approaching them down the long stretch of corridor with the bravura and élan of a luxury ocean liner, the floating skirt of her gown creating an ivory wake around her.

“Wow! Adriana Ferrini!” breathed Liz Falla, star-struck.

“Yes! That’s me!”

Ferrini’s rich laugh preceded her. She was dressed as if for a garden party in a floor-length chiffon and satin creation, her sumptuous mouth, flashing eyes, and almond skin perfectly made-up, her bronze-tinted hair arranged in carefully casual disarray around her internationally celebrated face. Where the marchesa wore gold so heavy it still bore the appearance of the nugget from which it came, Adriana Ferrini’s choice of ornamentation was diamonds, sparkling imposingly in her ears and against the luminous satin of her gown.

The door of the marchesa’s sitting room opened.

“Adriana. I was just about to ring for —”

“Donatella darling, I must speak to these two officers. Later.”

Moretti’s sixth sense, numbed by the previous half-hour’s stonewalling, sprang to life. Standing between the two women, he could almost feel the animosity vibrating in the air as they exchanged their apparently innocuous banalities.

“My suite is on the next floor, officers — we could talk there.”

Adriana Ferrini occupied a splendid set of rooms that faced the front and one side of the villa. The windows of her sitting room overlooked the far end of the long terrace, well away from the scene of Toni Albarosa’s murder, and the noise, bustle, and lights of the film set. Motioning them toward two brocade-covered gilt chairs by a low marble table, she sat down on a matching sofa opposite.

“Would you prefer to speak in Italian?” Moretti asked.

“Of course, I heard you were fluent. No, no. I’ve spent much time in America. It would be better for the signorina, I think?”

The marchesa and the actress were built on the same scale — imposing women, with strong bones, long legs, and generous breasts. But there the resemblance ended. Where the marchesa’s dark eyes suggested banked fires kept rigidly under control, only to erupt in anger when she felt threatened, Adriana Ferrini’s emotions constantly bubbled to the surface during the course of the interview, her body moving to the rhythm of her mood, her hands constantly in motion. If ever, thought Moretti, one wanted to show Chief Officer Hanley the difference between a Neopolitan and a Florentine, one would only have to place the two women side by side.

“So,” she began, “is it a compliment or an insult that neither of you have interviewed me yourselves?”

Before either Moretti or Liz Falla could respond, she threw her head back and roared with laughter, tossing her meticulously tousled mane of bronze hair. Even the lobes of her ears were magnificent.

“Am I not a suspect?”

“In a murder investigation,” Moretti replied, “everyone without an alibi is suspect. But you are certainly not at the top of our list. We have, of course, read your statement. You asked to speak to us — is that because you wish to add to that statement?”

The amusement left Adriana Ferrini’s face as swiftly as it had appeared, to be replaced by what looked like apprehension. “Do police officers give any importance to feelings, forebodings — what I can only call atmosphere? I cannot add any facts to my statement, but I need to give you my impressions.”

Liz Falla thought of Moretti’s instructions to her that morning and her own chilly frisson in the manor lodge, smothered as swiftly as it had been born.

“Impressions, Signora, can be crucial to an investigation. In my experience, women are particularly good at picking up the clues that lie in a smile, a frown, the way someone looks at someone else,” Moretti replied.

Like whatever it was I sensed between you and your hostess, he thought to himself.

“I’m glad you feel like that. Because, even before Toni was killed, I had the feeling something was going to happen. Behind all this, someone is pulling the strings — only I don’t know why.”

“Pulling the strings — are you talking about the changes in the screenplay?”

“Among other things. When we first arrived here, everything was sweetness and light, but that has changed. I really don’t know what Mario is up to, or why. Movie scripts get rewritten all the time, as I know only too well, but there is a feeling of — oh, I don’t know — a hidden agenda to these changes. Mario and I were good friends, then he hit a bad patch, and now he’s pulled out of it. Or so I thought. His wife is a lovely person, and he had everything going for him again.”

“Have you asked him about the changes?”

“Yes. He talks about creative freedom and so on and so forth.”

“Perhaps that’s what it’s all about.”

“Look, Signor.” Adriana Ferrini leaned forward, hands on her knees. “I’m not a member of any artistic elite. I’m not a contessa or a principessa or a marchesa. I come from peasant stock, and I came up the hard way. Now I have diamonds and furs, and homes in three countries, but I also have my sound peasant common sense. I know soft soap when I hear it, and bullshit when I smell it.”

“So,” said Moretti. “Give us your theory, Signora. Use that sound peasant common sense of yours. What, in your opinion, is the hidden agenda?”

“Family.” It was said firmly, without hesitation. “Mario is under pressure from someone in the Vannoni-Albarosa family to make changes to the script — and now you’re going to ask me why, aren’t you? Well, I don’t know. But if I had to put my money on anyone, it would be on Donatella. She spends a great deal of time with Mario and Monty Lord, apart from general get-togethers at mealtimes and cocktails and so on. She is manipulative and cold — a combination I detest.”

“Then why are you staying here?”

“Because I can get more privacy. Not that anyone on your island has bothered me, but a few paparazzi appeared on the hotel doorsteps and were disappointed. Besides, the atmosphere has changed since I arrived.”

“Then who do you think murdered Toni Albarosa — and why?”

“Why is easier. He was two-timing a member of the Vannoni family, right here at the manor. Who? Donatella? Gianfranco? Giulia?”

“Signora —” Liz Falla’s tone was tentative, until Adriana Ferrini turned and smiled at her. “We were under the impression the marchesa was unaware of her son-in-law’s affair.”

Adriana Ferrini snorted and tossed her head. “Monty is such a romantic — he told you that, didn’t he? Donatella has the poor naive man believing she is in need of protection from the wicked world, when it is Monty who should watch out for his virtue, and his heart.”

“In your opinion,” Moretti asked, “has the film been compromised? Is it in jeopardy? Is someone trying to stop it being made?”

“Are either of you married?”

Adriana Ferrini’s unexpected response had both Moretti and Falla speechless for a moment and then they answered in unison.

“No.”

La Ferrini gave one of her celebrated, throaty laughs. “Che peccato! The reason I ask is not to embarrass you, but because there is often a time in a marriage when the husband or wife says one to the other, ‘I don’t know what it is, but something is not right, I am not happy — and I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s not your fault, darling.’ That’s how I feel about all this, and I have even wondered if Toni’s death has absolutely nothing to do with Mario’s games with the script. I told you I could only give you impressions.”

“This has been very useful, Signora, and we are grateful you have given us the time.” Moretti stood up, and Liz Falla followed his lead.

“Oh, by the way — have any members of the family ever spoken about another house, apart from the manor?”

“Another house?” Adriana Ferrini thought a moment, and then shook her head. “No, not another house. But I know the Vannonis are not originally from Florence or Fiesole — one of my maids told me that when she heard about Rastrellamento. There’s Anna’s house in Fiesole, the marchese’s apartment in Florence, and this place. I wouldn’t know about Gianfranco — not my favourite character. Perhaps they had a place that was destroyed during the war — have you asked them? Is it important?”

“Possibly not. They say there is no other house.”

“Ah.” Adriana Ferrini stayed seated on the couch and extended her hand. “I hope I have not wasted your time.”

“Far from it.”

“They tell me you are a pianist, Signor Moretti. A jazz pianist. I must come and hear you play sometime.”

“It would be an honour, Signora.”

Moretti and Liz Falla were at the door when the actress called after them.

“Officers — if what my maid told me is true, you are not dealing with Florentines here. It might be useful to remember that.”

Outside the manor, night had fallen.

“What did she mean about them not being Florentines, Guv?”

“I think, Falla, she was talking about passion.”

“You don’t just mean sex, do you?”

“No.”

Inside the police car, the phone started to ring. Liz Falla got in and answered it.

“The results are in from the post-mortem, Guv. No surprises. Estimated time of death about four o’clock in the morning, a single stab wound to the heart, massive internal bleeding, and little external bleeding. No signs that Albarosa put up a fight, no cuts to his arms or hands. Oh, and the blow was upward, suggesting the attacker was shorter than his victim.”

“Or her victim,” said Moretti. “It could have been a woman — a woman he knew from the sound of it.”

“It doesn’t rule out too many people, because Albarosa was tall. What now, Guv?”

“Home, Falla. No need to go back to the station. We’ll drop off at your place first and I’ll take the car on home. Do you live with your parents?”

“That would cramp my style, Guv,” said Liz Falla cheerily, putting on the headlights and heading out of the courtyard. “I’ve got a flat out at La Salerie, on St. George’s Esplanade by the old harbour. Used to share it with a feller, but I ditched him and kept the flat.”

His partner’s unself-conscious insouciance about her love life was light years away from the sturm und drang Moretti had gone through with Valerie. Maybe it was a generational thing — she certainly made him feel like Methuselah.

“Nice pub out there — watch out.”

A dog appeared in the headlights, his eyes glowing red.

“Ooh, very Hound of the Baskervilles,” said Liz Falla, hitting the brakes. “And there’s his handler.”

A uniformed figure emerged from the shadows, and Moretti rolled the window down and identified himself. The man called the dog to heel and waved them on. In the wing mirror, Moretti saw him watching them until they were out of sight.

Instead of heading out to the coast and taking Val des Terres back onto the Esplanade skirting the harbour, they came back into St. Peter Port by La Charotterie and Le Bordage, down the steep slope of Fountain Street, with the town church on their left. As they turned the corner onto the North Esplanade, Moretti said, idly, his thoughts elsewhere, “You brought us back in along La Valée de Misère, Falla. The Vale of Suffering.”

His wandering mind snapped briskly back into the present as, beside him, his partner shuddered violently.

“Don’t say that.” Her voice was ragged, and she sounded angry.

“I’m sorry.” Surprised, Moretti turned to look at her, but all he could see was her profile against the window of the car, the lights along the harbour wall flashing as they passed. “This was a nasty part of the town, but it was a long time ago, Falla. Four hundred years or more. Is that what’s bothering you?”

“Yes, Guv. Sorry I spoke to you like that. Blame my grandmother, Guv, and her stories.”

“Did she give you nightmares when you were a child?”

“Yes. More than that, she says we are descended from the Becquet family — you know the ones.”

“Becquet? Weren’t a few of them executed in the sixteenth century as witches?”

“More than a few. The family died out, but my grandmother insists that’s who we are. My dad says there’s no proof whatsoever, and she just likes to dramatize everything.”

“Like your uncle Vern.”

“Right.” At least he had made her laugh. “Why anyone would want to claim that lot as ancestors beats me.”

“Perhaps she needs them for some reason.”

“Perhaps. Here we are.”

Liz Falla brought the car to a halt alongside the sea wall on St. George’s Esplanade. Moretti opened the car door and was assailed by the pungent smell of salt and seaweed from the bay beyond. The moon was almost full and he could just see on the horizon the dark humps of the islands of Herm and Jethou. He got out, walked across the pavement, and leaned over the sea wall. The tide was on its way out, leaving behind rock pools edged with acorn barnacles, dog whelk, and coralweed, quivering with the hidden lives of lugworm and shore crabs, long strands of thongweed floating in them like hair. He heard Liz Falla shut the door of the car, then the click of her heels as she walked around to join him.

“I live just across the road,” she said. “I like it here. It’s not spectacular, or postcard-pretty, mind you, but that’s what I like. It looks, feels, and smells real.”

“It’s pleasant,” Moretti agreed. “Why did you want to be in the police, Falla?”

“Me?” She sounded surprised at the question. “I didn’t want to sit at a desk in Lloyds Bank or the Crédit Suisse. I needed excitement, but I wanted to find my excitement in the here and now, not in claptrap about four-hundred-year-old satanists.” She shivered, but this time it was with mock fear. “How about you, Guv?”

How to encapsulate in a few words, as she had done, the twisting path that had brought him to Hospital Lane? That would mean disclosure, exposure, confidences. His fault, he had asked the first question.

“Much the same reason as you. I’m not a desk person.”

She must have sensed his withdrawal, because she immediately turned away from him.

“Goodnight, Guv. The keys are in the car.”

Moretti watched her run lightly across the road and waited until she had unlocked the door of one of the terraced houses that curved along St. George’s Esplanade. In the night silence he could hear the clack of the door closing, shutting off the light in the passage beyond.