Daggers and Men's Smiles (12 page)

It smelled right. It smelled like the
boîtes
on the Left Bank she had loved when she danced with the Paris Opera Ballet, the bistros and clubs of Milan when she guested at La Scala, a blend of smoke from Gitanes and Camel cigarettes, the vinous bouquet of wine and the dark golden aroma of cognac and whisky, the faint but sharp undertone of humanity: a tinge of sweat, threads of perfume. A gust of nostalgia for her lost dancing days engulfed Sydney as she and Giulia Vannoni went down the steps beneath an illuminated sign that read “Le Grand Saracen.” Drifting up from below came the sound of music — bass, drums, but mostly piano. The tune was a standard: Cole Porter's “In the Still of the Night.”

The room they entered was dimly lit, with a cavelike quality suggesting both a return to the womb and something faintly sinister. There was nothing remarkable about the decor, which mostly consisted of a variety of posters from art exhibitions, jazz concerts, and stage shows against dark walls. As they entered, the music ceased, and there was a smattering of applause. The place looked full.

“Well, look who's here! Giulia Vannoni,
la bella donna senza pietà
!”

The speaker was a dark-haired woman about the same height as Giulia, but of a different build, slender to the point of almost emaciation. She was dressed in the de rigeur black of the avant-garde, with a pair of huge earrings not unlike the chandelier in Giulia's
castello
, kohl-rimmed eyes and a slash of carmine on her long, thin mouth.

“
Saluto
, Deb. Meet Sydney.”

The two women shook hands, the dark-haired woman frankly appraising Giulia's companion.

“Oh, yes, now I've got it — you're the wife of —”

“I'm Sydney Tremaine.”

“Okay.” The dark-haired woman smiled, as if she understood the subtext. “I'm Deborah Duchemin. Welcome to the Grand Saracen. Let's find you a table before they start playing again. Giulia drinks red wine — and you?”

“The same.”

Sydney watched Deborah Duchemin leave. “Why did she call you the pitiless beautiful woman?”

“Oh.” Giulia pulled off her heavy jacket, and around them, heads turned.

The clientele was a mix of very young men and women — a tube top, singlet, and jeans crowd — and a fair number of middle-aged couples still clinging in garments and ponytails to their golden hippie age. A couple of men in business suits seemed to have wandered in after a long day at the office. There were other women on their own or in groups, particularly among the younger set, but no one greeted Giulia, or even acknowledged her presence. She may have been recognized, but she clearly was not a local.

“She wants us to be — what do you Americans say? — an item.”

“And you're not interested?”

“Of course. But Deb is a complicated woman —
capricciosa
. She is not for me.”

As Sydney turned round to put the art director's jacket over the back of her chair, she glanced toward the little platform on which the jazz group was reassembling. There was a bass player, percussionist, pianist. Through the mists of cigarette smoke the pianist looked vaguely familiar.

“Is that — ? No, it can't be. Can it?”

“It can. That's the surprise. I recognized him when I saw him this morning. The group is called Les Fénions — which is, so I'm told, island French for do-nothings.
La dolce far niente
, no? Sometimes they have a sax player. The policeman plays piano. Interesting, don't you think? The same man and yet one must be so different from the other.”

Sydney looked again. The policeman was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck. She could see a jacket and tie hanging over his chair, and she wondered if he'd come there straight from work. Bent over the keys, a slight smile on his lips, he seemed absorbed in what he was doing as if he were on his own. On a desert island. At this moment, the drums and bass were listening to him as he set up the melody of another Cole Porter standard, “I've Got You Under My Skin,” with a pure simple sound that gradually began to swing as the other players took up the harmony and rhythm. As the notes became more intricate, the piano player's body moved slightly, his hands flying over the keys swiftly and surely, free and yet in control. The buzz of conversation quietened.

When the piece came to an end, the pianist turned to acknowledge the applause with the other players. For a moment he looked almost startled. Then he grinned and reached up for a glass that stood on top of the piano.

“
Bello,
no?” said Giulia.

“It's an interesting face,” agreed Sydney. “Lean, and just a tad mean. The camera would love him, I think.”

“Deb tells me he has an interest in the club, and the restaurant upstairs. His father owned them.”

“I heard him speaking Italian this morning.”

“His father was Italian, his mother a Guernsey woman. She rescued him or something, I don't know. Something to do with the war.”

“It sounds romantic,” said Sydney. The piano player looked up from his keyboard, and at that moment he saw her.

“I think he's seen me,” she said. “And he's looking more than a tad mean right now. He's coming over.”

Detective Inspector Moretti was heading across the room, briefly sidetracked from time to time by friends and well-wishers at intervening tables.

“Ms. Vannoni — Mrs. Ensor —” Moretti turned to Sydney.

“Tremaine,” said Sydney. “Sydney Tremaine.”

“Ms. Tremaine,” said the piano player. Her correction seemed to have annoyed him further. “Your husband has reported you as missing.”

“I'm off-duty, Detective Inspector. Aren't you? I'm Ms. Tremaine when I'm off-duty, so do I call you Detective Inspector when you're supposedly off-duty?”
I'm already slightly drunk
, Sydney thought.

“It doesn't matter to me. I thought you should know.”

“Thank you. Now I do. He is missing me, but I am not missing him. You can call off the search parties, Detective Inspector Moretti.”

Moretti said nothing more. As he turned to leave, Giulia put a hand on his arm.

“Do you take requests?”

“It depends on the request,” he answered.

“‘Mack the Knife,'” suggested Giulia Vannoni.

Her smile challenged him.

He did not respond, but for a moment Sydney thought the piano player would become the policeman, as his expression moved from annoyed to thunderous. He seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but instead he shrugged off her hand that still held his sleeve, turned away, and went back to the tiny stage. She watched as he said something to the other musicians, sat down at the piano, and started to play.

Why can't you behave — oh why can't you behave?

Opposite her, Giulia started to laugh.

“The policeman has a sense of humour. Is there a message for us, do you think?”

“Perhaps he thinks the message was for him. Or maybe it's just Cole Porter night,” said Sydney.

But Giulia's flippant request disconcerted her. Was there a message for her, let alone for the policeman-piano-player? Was she being a complete fool? Possibly. In her experience, the only way to blind yourself to sense and sensibility was to get drunk, and it seemed she was not yet drunk enough. She reached across the table for the bottle of wine.

* * *

Moretti saw them laughing as they left, arm in arm, and his anger returned. The clear night sky outside the club, the sound of halyards clinking against the masts of the hundreds of boats in the Albert and Victoria marinas, the clean bite of the air usually enhanced the tranquility of mind he found in the smoke-filled, half-lit womb of the jazz club. This time he had taken his preferred escape route, only to find reality there ahead of him.

They stopped to say goodnight to Deb Duchemin at the door, and it looked as if Giulia Vannoni was having to hold her companion up, to keep her on her feet.

He thought of the uncontrollable anger of Gilbert Ensor, of the professional consequences for himself if he walked away — which was what he wanted to do, because he was bloody tired, and the whole point of coming and playing a set with the band was to forget about the case and Sophia Maria Castellani, whoever the hell she was, for an hour or two — and the personal consequences for this silly woman with her luminous good looks and her wasted talents. He followed them into the small, well-lit car park, where Giulia Vannoni had left her pricey Ducati.

“Ms. Vannoni —”

He could see from Giulia Vannoni's eyes she was not sorry to see him.

“You're not seriously thinking of putting her on the back of that machine, are you?”

“I was going to get a taxi for her.”

“This is not New York or Rome. You'd have to wait. And Gilbert Ensor is an explosive man, Ms. Vannoni. It would be best if she checked into another hotel for the rest of the night until she has sobered up. I will let her husband know she is safe — I'll say she was visiting friends.”

“Friends? Here?”

“I'll come up with something.”

“I understand.” Gently, Giulia Vannoni dis-entangled herself from Sydney Tremaine. “Perhaps it would be better.”

Moretti thought she had fallen asleep. She sat beside him in the Triumph, her head dropped on his shoulder. He felt her shift on the seat, heard her sigh.

“I'm drunk, aren't I?”

“Yes.”

“What's your name? I mean, your first name. Detective Inspector is too — difficult, when you're pissed.”

“Ed, I'm called. My full name is Eduardo.”

“Oh right, Italian. Did you know, Eduardo, that Giulia says I can only learn to read in Florence if I become a nun?” Her voice was completely serious.

“Ah,” said Moretti.

There didn't seem to be anything else to say.

The Police Station in Hospital Lane had at one time
been the workhouse, although it had never been called that. It was a fine mid-eighteenth-century building, L-shaped around a spacious quadrangle, more reminiscent of an old public school than “La Maison de Charité,” as it had sometimes been known. Hospital Lane itself had once been called Rue des Frères, as the original track had led to the old friary, now Elizabeth College.

The police force had relocated there in the mid-nineties, and Moretti had only worked on the island after the move. As he turned the Triumph into the quadrangle that night, he looked up over the elegant old wrought-iron entrance gate, at the stone bas-relief of a pelican feeding its young with drops of blood from her own breast. The white-painted carving that had in the past given the building its popular nickname, the Pelican, gleamed dimly in his headlights as he went through. In this light, he could not see the drops of blood.

* * *

In Moretti's opinion, one of the few pleasures of working at the Hospital Lane headquarters at night — the
only
pleasure of working at Hospital Lane at night — was the amount of work you could get through. The place was quiet, he could play Peterson or Brubeck or Ellington without interruption on the small stereo he kept at the office, and there were very few distractions, apart from some of his colleagues on night duty who dropped in from time to time to hear what was going on in a murder inquiry that involved the kind of exotica rarely found on the island.

And, on the subject of exotica —

Moretti pushed back the pile of papers, got up from his desk, and stretched, feeling the lack of sleep in his back and his leg muscles as well as his tired eyes. Brubeck and his quartet were playing “Audrey,” the sound of saxophonist Paul Desmond's composition pure and sweet in the stale air of the room. He was caught up now, his reports up to date, ready for Chief Officer Hanley the next day, and he remembered he wanted to take a closer look at the murder weapon. He flicked off the stereo, went down to the duty officer, picked up the key to the incident room, signed for it, and made his way back up the stairs.

Lying there on the tabletop, with its razor-sharp blade exposed, the bevelled centre glinting under the fluorescent light, the dagger looked more lethal than it had buried up to the hilt in the chest of Toni Albarosa. The overall length was marked on the label attached — twelve inches — of which the handle was probably about three inches, intricately carved. Gingerly, Moretti picked it up and took a closer look.

The central part of the hilt was embossed with vines, bearing what looked like grapes, and there was a crown on the pommel. Running across the hilt was either a thick cord, or a branch of some kind, cut in the metal.

“Interesting.”

His voice echoed in the silent room. Near the murder weapon were the two other weapons: the dagger used to slash the costumes, and the dagger thrown onto the hotel patio. They were identical.

Now
, he thought,
I have to decide — does this all mean something, or did the murderer purchase whatever he could get hold of
? He had asked Liz Falla to see if she could track the design, but the possibilities were endless, ranging from the websites that sold similar weapons, to any number of shops and boutiques in Italy or, possibly, France.

“Sleep on it,” he said out loud to himself.

Which was easier said than done, since he would have to sleep in his office. Still, Chief Officer Hanley should be impressed, finding him here as soon as he arrived in the morning, with all his paperwork up to date. Or, at least, he should be impressed, as long as he didn't find out what the chief investigating officer on the case had done with the drunken wife of Gilbert Ensor.

Left her in his bed, sleeping like a baby.

“Evening, Inspector — or should I say morning? What
have
you got there?”

Moretti had started off by taking Sydney Tremaine to one of the hotels closest to the Grand Saracen. It was a five-star establishment, comparable to the Héritage, which meant that it would be at Sydney Tremaine's level of comfort, and that it would still be open, with someone on duty all night at the front desk. Not only would he be able to book her in for the night, but Moretti wanted to be sure that no one got near her — whether it was her husband, or whoever the dagger thrower was. Whoever had killed Toni Albarosa, Moretti believed, had probably been on their way to kill someone else. Oh, the arbitrary quality of life — you're on your way to carry on your extramarital affair, and you get murdered! But you're
not
the intended target.

Or are you? Was this indeed all about sex, as Liz Falla surmised? Were the daggers merely exotic red herrings, after all? The weapon that came to hand? Somehow, Moretti didn't think so. Anyway, he had taken on the responsibility for Gilbert Ensor's wife, and now his port of call in a storm was turning out to be anything but.

Les Le Cheminant, the night manager at the St. Andrew's Hotel, had been there as far back as Moretti could remember, which was another reason he had chosen this particular resting place for his burden. If he could have counted on anyone to take Sydney Tremaine in her present state, no questions asked, it should have been Les Le Cheminant. But the position of night manager involved dealings with drunken arrivals in the small hours more times than Les cared to think about and, as he explained to Moretti, “I get the blame for them waking up the other guests and heaving up their guts all over the new carpets or doing unmentionables wherever takes their fancy — no, not even for you, Inspector. She's not even a registered guest and she's in a bad way — why don't you just put her in one of your cells for the night? Isn't that what you usually do?”

“Yes, but —”

“Not a local, is she?” The night manager gave Moretti a conspiratorial look and a knowing smile as he glanced across at Sydney, whom Moretti had deposited in one of the armchairs in the hotel lobby. With sinking heart, Moretti realized the impossibility of his task, and faced the inevitable.

“Come on, Ms. Tremaine.”

He pulled Gilbert Ensor's wife up from the upholstered depths of the chair. She didn't resist, but leaned against him, featherlight, half-asleep, as he half-carried her back to his car.

The streets were by now deserted, and he could be fairly sure that no one would see them together in his car. There would be no all-night staff at his cottage, but she should be safe enough there on her own. He could not guess how Sydney Tremaine would react on discovering where she had spent the night, and Moretti decided he would be well advised to cover himself by signing in at Hospital Lane and staying until daylight.

Particularly if Gilbert Ensor found out.

He pulled the Triumph up in the small cobbled courtyard outside his home, thanking the gods he had no neighbours close by, extracted his by now sleeping companion and, grateful that she was a lightweight, got her up the stairs to his room. As he opened the door, Sydney Tremaine's shirt slipped away from one shoulder, and he saw a key on the twisted gold chain she wore around her neck.

To what
? he wondered. It didn't look like any hotel key he'd ever seen, and it looked too solid for a key to a suitcase, or a safety deposit box. But these were not the clothes she had worn that morning, so presumably she had borrowed them from Giulia Vannoni — hadn't someone said she had a place of her own? On the interview sheets, she had given the hotel as her address.

He carried Sydney Tremaine over to the bed, where he laid her down, her backless gold mules falling off her feet.
She is the most exotic creature this room has ever seen
, he thought, looking at her spectacular hair spread across the blues and yellows of the bedspread quilted by his mother. Beneath the black spandex tights he could see the long, strong muscles of her calves and thighs, reminding him that her appearance of physical fragility was deceptive. In her own way, she was as fit as her Amazonian escort for the evening.

Why can't you behave
?

He thought he knew the answer to that.

Moretti closed the door quietly behind him — although by now it would have taken a major earthquake to awaken her — and went through to the bathroom, where he took a clean blue shirt down off the shower rail. Then he went back downstairs, took a sheet of paper from his desk, and wrote:

“Ms. Tremaine: you are in my house. Your husband will be told you were invited to spend the night with friends in town — I leave you to work out which friends. I strongly suggest you stick to that story. I have left you a shirt to use in the morning, if you wish. The phone number of a reliable taxi service is on a list over the phone in the kitchen.” He hesitated a moment, and then signed it, “Ed Moretti.”

He went back upstairs, cautiously opened the door, put the shirt on a chair, and the note on the bedside table.

Chief Officer Hanley was not a Guernseyman. He had been brought in to head the police force after a major reassessment of the island's financial regulations and, not surprisingly, his appointment had been viewed as demonstrating a lack of faith in the local talent, a judgment not tempered by his uncommunicative and lugubrious disposition. Which was probably why he had gone overboard in his congratulatory remarks toward Liz Falla, overcompensating and thus further antagonizing a section of his subordinates. Moretti himself had less of a problem with Hanley's temperament than some of his colleagues, since he preferred withdrawal over warmth in his superiors. Warmth, in his experience, could be more misleading than reserve.

However, Moretti knew that distrust and hurt egos made the chief tread very warily around certain issues and certain personalities. And members of certain classes — such as the one to which the Marchesa Vannoni belonged.

Chief Officer Hanley looked up from his desk with his habitual lack of bonhomie. He had a face perfectly suited to melancholy, long and thin, with heavy shadows under his eyes and a downturned mouth framed by two heavily etched lines.

“Good morning, Morettti. I see you have your reports with you.”

“Yes, sir, good morning. Just wanted to let you know where we stand — the details are all in here.”

Briefly, Moretti outlined the events of the past three days.

“Would it be fair to say that we have so far got nowhere?”

“Well, I —” Through a haze of sleeplessness, Moretti finally absorbed that what he had originally taken as Hanley's usual lack of affect was something more abrasive. Like actual, seething, irritation.

“Since I arrived here this morning — which is only about half an hour ago — I have personally been bombarded — well, there have been three calls from a Mr. Gilbert Ensor, and I have to tell you, Moretti, you could have stripped paint with the man's language. I gather he thinks his wife is missing and could be in danger, that he informed you of this yesterday, and that you have done nothing. Is this true?”

“It is true, sir, that he told me yesterday Mrs. Ensor was missing. But she is alive and well, and safer where she is for the moment than with her husband. She will be returning to the hotel today, so I am informed.”

Oh please God may she,
Moretti prayed silently,
and please may she have the sense to keep her silly mouth shut.

“Are you saying he is a suspect in this killing?”

“He has no alibi — but then, most of them don't, sir, not for the small hours of the morning. Which is why progress is slow at this stage.”

“I see. My prime concern, of course, is with our residents who are caught up in all this — the Marchesa Vannoni, for instance. I trust I will not be receiving calls from her of a similar nature to the literary gentleman's.”

“I hope not, sir. In fact, there's no love lost between the marchesa and Gilbert Ensor.” Moretti described to Chief Officer Hanley the marchesa's attack on “the literary gentleman.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed the chief officer. “The marchesa has always struck me as a very self-contained sort of person — quite unlike the usual idea of the hot Latin temperament.”

“I think she's from Florence, sir. They tend to be very different from a Neapolitan or a Sicilian.”

“Oh, right — you're half Italian, aren't you?” said Hanley, as if something was suddenly explained to him.
Possibly the piano playing
, thought Moretti.

“Do you think piano playing in such an environment advisable, Moretti?” he had once asked, and Moretti had replied, “I wouldn't do it if I didn't, sir.” And had taken his superior's confusion and half-completed sentence — “Well then” — as a go-ahead.

“What are your immediate plans?”

“DC Falla and I are going back to the manor this morning, sir. Anna Albarosa, the marchesa's daughter — the widow — is due to arrive today. I want to speak to her as soon as possible. Given Mr. Albarosa's reputation, it is perhaps fortunate for Mrs. Albarosa that she was not on the island. But I will not be taking that for granted.”

“Good. So he was a lady's man, the murder victim? Could this be a crime of passion, you think?”