Daggers and Men's Smiles. Jill Downie
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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