Daggers and Men's Smiles (4 page)

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.”

September 16th

The limousine wound its way through the quiet early morning lanes southwest of the capital, St. Peter Port, making its way to the parish of St. Andrew's. Even before Guernsey was divided into parishes, the island was separated into fiefs, holdovers from the ancient feudal system, in which tenants owed allegiance to the local seigneur. Many of the old customs were long gone, as were the ancient fiefdoms, of which the Manoir Ste. Madeleine had been one.

On an island the size of Guernsey the past and present were often juxtaposed with almost jolting speed. The driver made his way past one of the smaller former fiefdoms, the Manor of Ste. Hélène, now in private hands like the Manoir Ste. Madeleine, and on past St. Andrew's Church, carefully restored to its twelfth-century self. Hardly past the squat spire and castellations of the old church, then they were crossing the Candie Road, close to the site of the vast German underground hospital.

“The underground hospital's over in that direction,” said the driver, Tom Dorey, a local assigned to transport the Ensors. Before Sydney could make any response, Gilbert surfaced from a fitful doze for his usual grumble.

“Getting up at this hour is insanity. If they weren't paying me big bucks I wouldn't be doing this, and the way I feel I will never repeat the experience.”

“The way you feel now has nothing to do with the hour. It's the booze, honey.”

“Bullshit. My body and my inspiration purr along beatifically when they're well-oiled with Guinness and Glenfiddich. They grind to a sickening halt when confronted with the fucking light of dawn.”

Impassively, Tom Dorey negotiated the sharp bend that preceded the gates of the manor. He had by now got used to his passenger's tongue, and could restrain the audible intake of breath that had been his original reaction.

“You don't have to do this too often, do you?” observed Sydney. “You only have to be in early today because Monty Lord asked for a script meeting.”

“Jesus
wept
— or he would have done if he was the writer on this movie. It's not as if I were responsible for most of the script — Monty put his Hollywood hotshots onto that — but now he's farting about with the bloody plot line.”

“Well, they do that, movie people, don't they? What is he changing?”

“Don't know the details yet, but it seems he wants to add another strand to the story, which'll completely alter the balance of the plot — and Bianchi's going along with it. He's building up one of the minor characters — the countess.”

“Is the actress who's playing the countess his mistress?”

“Now
that
I could understand. But no. Word is he's got the hots for the Marchesa Vannoni herself. Shoots high, our Monty.”

“My, my,” marvelled Sydney. “She must be all of — what, fifty, fifty-five?”

“She's in good nick — built like a brick olive press. Still, she's not your typical Hollywood producer bait, I grant you. Ah, at bloody last.”

They had arrived at the main entrance to the manor, which stood open. On each of the lofty stone pillars that supported the gate stood the heraldic beast that had once been part of the crest of the old island family who had lived in the house — a greyhound-like creature with impossibly long legs. To the right, a short distance away from the gate, was what looked like the gatekeeper's lodge — a two-storey building of unusual construction, with a pointed roof and an upper storey jutting out over the lower. The car continued up the drive toward the manor, which hove into view, giving the first-time visitor a shock — of pleasure, amusement, or aesthetic anguish, depending on the arrival's sensibilities.

The original structure of the Manoir Ste. Madeleine dated from the seventeenth century, to which had been added an elegant Georgian extension. The crowning eccentricity was the new entrance hall, built around the middle of the eighteenth century by a seigneur who had obviously paid a visit to the châteaux of the Loire valley and come back enamoured of towers and turrets. On each side of the central doorway the turrets hung out over the main walls like stone torpedoes, with a slender tower just visible behind the pointed roof. It was surrounded by well-maintained parkland, presently covered with the trailers of the film people, with a coach house close to the main building.

“Thank God we're here. I've got to take a leak.”

They had come to a halt in the courtyard behind the manor alongside a vintage Mercedes, a Bugatti, and a handful of army vehicles of various kinds dating from the 1940s.

“Where
is
everyone?” wondered Sydney, as she got out of the car. “It's like the
Marie Celeste
.”

The usually busy courtyard was deserted. There was a complete absence of drivers, film people of every stripe, even the security guards who generally milled and shouted around the area, which was not being used for the film.

“Shut up, woman,” enjoined her superstitious husband, hustling for one of the portable toilets set up in a discreet corner of the yard. “They're probably all on the other side of the building. You go on — I'm making a pit stop.”

Sydney made her way around the side of the manor house. To one side of her she could just see the grass-covered hump near the ornamental lake that concealed the entrance to the command bunker. One of the senior German officers had lived in the manor during the occupation, and it was on his orders that work had started on what was intended to be an elaborate complex of underground rooms and tunnels. The only sound was the squawking of the ducks that lived on the lake and the crowing of a rooster somewhere. There was still no sign of life, and the sensation of separation from reality she had experienced since their arrival hit her so powerfully that she felt vertiginous.

Gil had roared with laughter when he first saw the Manoir Ste. Madeleine.

“Dear God, it's pure kitsch — if kitsch can be pure. Any moment now and Sneezy, Grumpy, and Doc will come waddling round that corner, singing their corny little hearts out.”

It was not how she saw it. Pure Castle of Otranto more like. More Transylvania than Ruritania. Any moment now and Nosferatu might come, swooping round the corner.

Perhaps it was the subject matter of Gil's novel that made Sydney so aware of the island's traumatic past — the bunker looming in the midst of the manor's verdant parkland and, scattered throughout the island, the remaining traces of anti-tank walls, gun emplacements, artillery direction-finding towers, restored for the amusement and amazement of tourists.

And perhaps it was even earlier presences. For Sydney, the island was indeed full of strange noises: the ancient witches' colony at L'Erée, the fairies emerging from caverns like Creux ès Faies to dance at Le Mont Saint or le Catioroc on the western coastline. At first she had been intrigued by the stories told by the tour guide who had taken members of the film company round the island, but all they did after a few days was feed her depression — which, she knew, had nothing to do with Guernsey, past or present. She felt a shiver of apprehension.

“I shall turn around this corner,” she thought, “and everything will change. The world I knew will be gone forever.”

She came around the corner into a blaze of light, so strong after the half-light of dawn that she was dazzled for a moment. As her vision cleared, she saw that the broad terrace that ran the length of the manor was floodlit by one of the arc lamps used on the movie, perched high on one of the huge Sky King cranes brought in from Rome. In the half-shadows around the periphery were gathered all the people she had expected to see in the courtyard: electricians, extras, grips. But there was hardly a sound.

“They must be shooting,” she thought.

Sydney looked around for the director, Mario Bianchi, and caught a glimpse of his dark ponytail and tall, slender figure under the lights, huddled with another tall man she didn't immediately recognize. The man turned, and she saw it was the detective inspector with the interesting face who had come to the hotel the night before.

Of course, the business with the costumes. Betty Chesler, the costume designer, must have insisted. As Sydney approached the outskirts of the crowd, one of the men turned and saw her.

“Sydney! Where's Gil?”

It was Betty's assistant, Eddie Christy, minus his usual cheeky chappy expression. He looked haggard and nervous.

“Using the facilities. What scene are they shooting?”

“Oh my God, love — you don't know?”

“Know what? Gil's here for the meeting about the rewrite, if that's what you mean.”

“Some rewrite, darling.”

Over his shoulder, Sydney caught sight of a figure on the ground, slumped in an unnatural position against the parapet of the terrace. A man wearing what looked like a white lab coat was taking photographs of him — stills presumably, for he certainly wasn't carrying a movie camera.

“Who —?”

As she started her question, the crowd suddenly parted, and Sydney saw the impressive figure of the Marchesa Donatella Vannoni, clutching the arm of Monty Lord's assistant producer, Piero Bonini. As she came closer, Sydney saw that the figure on the ground had the dark, curly hair and smooth bronze skin of the marchesa's son-in-law, the location manager, Toni Albarosa. She also saw the handle of the dagger through his chest glistening under the arc light.

Vertigo hit her. She swayed, and Eddie Christy grabbed her and called out, “Someone, anyone, get a chair!”

A chair was provided and the crowd parted again.

“Ms. Tremaine — where's your husband? Is he with you?”

Above her she saw the detective inspector's face, his grey eyes urgent.

“He should be — oh God, you don't think —?”

Was the policeman suggesting whoever this maniac was might still be around, and that Gil might be in danger? As Sydney turned around in her chair to see Piero Bonini and the marchesa walking toward the manor together, from the darkness beyond the floodlit terrace came the unmistakable roar of her husband throwing a tantrum.

Anxiety changed to relief. Gil had come around the corner and seen Monty Lord.

“That's him,” she said. “Don't worry — that's not fear or pain. That's the cry of the wounded artist, Detective Inspector. Hell hath no fury like a writer scorned.”

Sydney could hear what he was screaming at the producer, who stopped, staggering momentarily under the weight of his noble burden.

“You turd! Couldn't you wait until I got here to make changes? Or is this your idea of a joke, scaring the fucking daylights out of me with fucking daggers — get Toni off the set and send that rubber fake back to props before I — I —”

Gilbert Ensor was halted in mid-sentence by the sudden arrival of the distraught marchesa against his ample belly, temporarily winding him. She was screaming in Italian, so he had no idea what he had said or done to upset her. Her long red nails scored his face before Piero Bonini managed to restrain her. Through the searing pain he grasped one word, said over and over again.

“
Morto — morto — morto
!”

Dead?

Ahead of him he saw his wife in a chair, the detective inspector alongside her. Beyond them, two ambulance attendants were covering Toni Albarosa's body. His jaw dropped. Violent death had rendered Gilbert Ensor speechless.

There followed one of those uncanny moments of silence that sometimes comes on the heels of uproar. Then into the silence came the rumble of a powerful engine. From the half-light around the villa thundered a gleaming Ducati motorcycle, its streamlined scarlet and black body brilliant in the arc light. Sydney Tremaine saw long blond hair flying beneath a winged helmet, powerful leather-clad legs stretched against the sides of the monster as, with a dramatic flick of the wrists, the rider brought her mount to a shrieking halt and pulled off her helmet.

Ed Moretti, looking down at the face of Sydney Tremaine, was intrigued by what he saw.

“You know her?”

“No.”

Sydney got up from the chair and went toward her shell-shocked husband. The Valkyrie ran over to the marchesa, putting her arms around her. Together, they went into the manor, with Piero Bonini behind them.

Other members of the island police force had arrived to help with the dozens of statements that would have to be taken from everybody in the cast and crew. The Ensors and the Vannoni family were waiting in the manor to be interviewed by Moretti and Liz Falla. Finally, some semblance of order had been restored.

Moretti waited until the body was loaded into an ambulance and then turned to the Vannonis' doctor, a local St. Andrew's man called Le Pelley.

“So — what can you tell me?”

“Only what I told you before.” Le Pelley, clearly somewhat shaken himself, removed his glasses and put them in his coat pocket. “He was killed, almost instantly. Whether by luck or good management, the point of the blade got him right through the heart.”

“Time of death?”

“We'll know more after the autopsy — but, what time is it now? Nine-thirty? I'd say about five hours ago.”