Blood Will Out. Jill Downie
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cliff. Even I wouldn’t use those.”
Don had reached the top, and was pointing at barely visible tracks down the sheer cliff face to their left.
“Goat tracks. Used to be all kinds. Goats, I mean. Falla, my partner, has an aunt who still keeps goats somewhere around here.”
They turned left and headed towards Icart Point, with the sea and the cliff face close to the footpath. On the other side was St. Martin’s Common, where sheep had roamed free for generations, but they were long gone, like most of the goats that had used the old tracks. Gone also were the côtils, the terraces where smallholders grew potatoes, or planted bulbs for the once-flourishing flower-growing industry.
There was little colour on the cliffs at this time of year, with the heather and gorse past their prime, but the sky was full of gulls wheeling and shrieking overhead in perpetual motion, and the wind carried the sound of the waves, crashing against the rocks, the familiar soundtrack of the coastline. Even up here, the air was flavoured with salt.
“You know what they say about gorse?” The wind was strong enough for Don to have to shout at Moretti. “When the gorse is not in flower, then kissing is out of fashion.”
“And gorse is always in flower. More or less.”
“So the kissing never has to stop. All one requires is the woman to kiss.”
Moretti looked at Don’s face, but he was not laughing. Was this just idle banter, or something more?
The little Greek restaurant was in a tree-filled valley above Le Gouffre, a small anchorage between towering cliffs. The waitress who served them sounded Australian, but the food was Greek. They ordered a range of appetizers and coffee and sat outside, watching a large marmalade cat luxuriate in the late summer sun in this protected valley.
“Sybarites, cats. They certainly know how to seize the day,” said Don, popping an olive into his mouth and chewing with gusto. He had the voracious appetite of the long-distance runner, without a trace of body fat. “Speaking of which, is this your last day of freedom?”
The coffee was good. Hot, strong and black as — as the colour of his ex-lover’s hair. Although Moretti was not sure you could call someone an ex-lover who had, in effect, been a one-night stand. Not that he’d planned it that way.
“It is, then it’s back to the desk, I imagine. Break-ins and burglaries and little else. But maybe I’ll have more time for the boat.”
“And playing at the club with the Fénions? Means layabouts, doesn’t it? Great name for a bunch of jazz musicians — or an outsider’s perception of jazz musicians. Have you got a replacement for your horn player?”
“Nope. And no hopes of one on the horizon. So it’ll be Dwight on drums, Lonnie on bass and me playing piano. Won’t be quite the same.”
“Still, let me know next time you are playing.”
Moretti felt a damp little cloud of depression settle over him, and fingered the lighter he always carried in his pocket. Why a lighter should be the talisman that helped him keep off the noxious weed, he couldn’t imagine. But it was at moments like this he still longed for a smoke.
Don dipped a dolma in tzatziki and swallowed it whole. “God, I love garlic. Just as well I don’t have a woman in my life at the moment. I’ll stink for twenty-four hours after this lot. How about you, Ed? Any new lady in your life?”
Women again. Moretti looked across the table at the man who knew about as much about his private life as anyone, which was virtually nothing. Idle chatter about women interested him about as much as discussing island politics, or what were now called “relationships.” All three topics were minefields, as dangerous as these cliffs had been after the Germans left the island.
“No new lady, but a new man. Should take up about as much of my time as a new lady, and be far less rewarding. You’ve heard of fast-tracking?”
“Taking in graduates and speeding them to the top? Weren’t you one?”
“Yes. APSG — the Police Accelerated Promotion Scheme for Graduates. I’ve got one arriving tomorrow, and my instructions are to take him under my wing.”
“Don’t see you as the mother-hen type.” Don grinned. “Do you know anything about him?”
“Some. He is a Londoner, mid-twenties, has a science degree of some sort. I’ve spoken to him on the phone. Tells me he didn’t want to be a teacher, so decided to be a policeman.”
“Charming. Anything else he shared with you that’s more endearing? What’s his name?”
Moretti bent down to stroke the cat, who had come over to join them rubbing hopefully around his feet. “An interesting one,” he replied, “Aloisio Brown. Mother’s Portuguese. And no, I cannot think of a single aspect of this that’s the least bit endearing.”
He held out a piece of taramasalata to the cat, who took it from him with great delicacy, and ate it.
Chapter Two
It was coming along well. Hugo Shawcross leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands. Beyond the study window, he could see the chestnut trees on his neighbour’s property growing darker by the minute as the sun set. He must go out soon and call Stoker in, or he’d get into a fight to the death with Mudge, the small and surprisingly aggressive tortoiseshell female that lived two houses away. Fortunately, Stoker’s life was ruled by greed rather than the need to assert his neutered-male superiority, and he could be relied on to leave the fray and return to his tidbit-carrying master.
Hugo saved the last speech he had composed, and contemplated it before turning off his laptop.
You have the dark gift. But this must be our secret. You must tell no one, do you hear me? No one. (Fade to black.)
Good. A strong ending to Act One. He already knew who he wanted to have as his Lilith, and that the difficulty would not be persuading her, but her family. Her mother reminded Hugo of Stoker’s multicoloured bête noire, a small and surprisingly aggressive female whose genteel roots gave her an unshakeable belief in her own importance.
Carey, De Saumarez, Brock, Gastineau. The ancient aristocracy of Guernsey. Les Messux, as they had once been known. Of course, as Noel Coward had so inimitably put it, their stately homes were frequently mortgaged to the hilt, which had rather taken the gilt off the gingerbread. Or they didn’t belong to them anymore, and had become hotels, or were broken up into elegant and desirable flats, which was the case for Mrs. Elton Maxwell, née Marie Gastineau. Island gossip said that Elton Maxwell had wooed and won Marie by making her an offer she couldn’t refuse: the saving of her St. Peter Port family home. They now lived in one of the luxe apartments of the Gastineaus’ former Georgian home on the Grange.
Hugo padded into the hall, removed his slippers and pulled on his boots. It could be quite wet at the back of the garden, and he hoped to find some mushrooms there, as he had before. He looked briefly in the hall mirror at his reflection with a tingle of satisfaction. Not bad for a man of his age, he thought. His occupation was sedentary, but the treadmill in his bedroom took care of that, and his nicely barbered beard conveniently hid the jowls that were beginning to form as he moved through his middle years. He must do something soon about replacing the weights he had left behind in his rather hasty departure from the mainland. His hair was thinning at the front now, but was still thick enough at the back to be worn on the long side, implying an artistic nature. He smiled at himself, then frowned.
“Bloody idiot,” he told his reflection.
He shouldn’t have done it, but he couldn’t resist the temptation. Suggesting to Marie Maxwell that she could be the target of his undead affections had been foolish of him. If indeed he had any vampiric lusts, he would not have wasted his nightly visits on the undelicious Marie, but on her far more delectable daughter, Marla. Besides, from his research it seemed that vampires preferred virgins. Not that Marla Maxwell was the least bit virginal, exuding a sexuality so strong that the few young