Moretti and Falla Mysteries 3-Book Bundle. Jill Downie
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here.” It was the marchesa.
“Does your room face the terrace?”
“Yes. I imagine your next question will be, did I hear anything, or see anything. I did not. I sleep soundly and well.”
“Signor Vannoni?”
Gianfranco Vannoni replied in Italian. “I was here last night. Does that make me a suspect?” A man used to charming his way through life, thought Moretti. He cannot resist the dangerous question, asked with humour. A charming moue of the lips and a gentle twist of his hands, their tan setting off the gleaming gold bracelet he wore.
“It could,” said Moretti. “Tell me more.”
“I went to bed early — I had to be on set by eight o’clock, and we had a meeting at nine scheduled for myself, Mario, Monty, and Gilbert Ensor. Mario was expecting fireworks.”
“From —?”
At this moment a door on the far side of the room opened, and a middle-aged man wearing a black turtleneck sweater and black pants burst into the room. He rushed across to the marchesa, who stood up, fell into his arms, and started to cry.
“It’s okay, cara, I’m here, I’m here,” he said in Italian to her. They made a somewhat incongruous couple, because the marchesa was taller than her comforter and had to crouch to be consoled. He looked up and saw Moretti.
“Monty Lord,” he said. “Forgive me, but I just got back from Italy. I met Piero in the corridor, and he told me about Toni. This is terrible, terrible.” He sat down, taking the marchesa with him in his arms.
“You are the producer of Rastrellamento?” Moretti asked.
“That is correct.”
Monty Lord was a small man in his fifties, whose shaven head seemed almost too big for his body. The darkness of his clothing brought into prominence a pair of piercing pale eyes set in a tanned face, and Moretti felt as if it were himself and his sergeant who were under examination from the shrewd, searching look to which they were both subjected.
“Mr. Vannoni was just telling me that he, you, and Mario Bianchi had a meeting scheduled for nine o’clock.”
“Right. I was joining them as soon as I got in from the airport.”
“He was saying that you were expecting fireworks and I asked from whom?”
“Gilbert,” Monty Lord replied. “I gather from Piero you already had a preview.”
Before Moretti could respond, Monty Lord went on. “Time is money, Detective Inspector. And the marchesa has had a terrible shock. Can any of this wait?”
“The sooner we get some sort of picture of the victim from those who knew him best — and an idea of the whereabouts of everyone on the set, the sooner we can establish motive, opportunity — and the guilty party.”
“But surely,” said the marchesa, “this is just a random act by some madman? You know, of course, about what happened to the costumes.”
She was interrupted by her niece who turned away from the fireplace to face Ed Moretti and Liz Falla, giving them the benefit of an alluring smile from her beautiful, heavily lipsticked mouth. “— and the attack on Gilbert Ensor. And you didn’t ask me where I slept, Inspector. But it wasn’t here.”
The intervention of Giulia Vannoni seemed to anger Monty Lord. He turned his pale gaze in her direction and exclaimed, “Oh for Christ’s sake, if we all keep interrupting we’ll never get out of here.”
This room reeks of animosity and anxiety, Moretti thought. But I’m not sure who mistrusts whom — or do they all dislike each other? He saw a look of distaste on the face of Gianfranco Vannoni as the American put a hand on his mother’s arm. Her niece, on the other hand, looked mildly amused. “Detective Constable Falla will take statements from each of you, separately. Is there a room close by she can use?”
“She can use my study,” said the marchesa. She added, “The Ensors are in my private sitting room — you will, of course, be talking to them?”
“Of course,” said Moretti. “I expected to find them in here with you.”
Monty Lord snorted. “Donatella did not want to be in the same room as Mr. Ensor after the tasteless accusation he made out there. And the less I have to do with Gil the better — we have to meet from time to time, but I’m happier if I’m not breathing the same air as that literary lout.”
“Were your disagreements limited to the script, Mr. Lord?”
“We didn’t socialize, if that’s what you mean. Gilbert’s problem is that he thinks because he wrote a bestselling novel, and because we bought the movie rights, he can now tell us what to do. He can’t.”
“But as long as you didn’t have to breathe the same air as Mr. Ensor, you were prepared to let him live?”
“Christ, yes! I was in Rome until yesterday at Cinecittà — all kinds of people would be able to confirm that. And I flew back by private plane to be here for our meeting.”
“Thank you, sir. Just give DC Falla the details and any names.” Moretti turned his attention again to Gianfranco Vannoni, speaking to him as before in Italian.
“I understand, sir, that it was on your initiative that Epicure Films came to Guernsey.”
The marchesa’s son looked startled. “No. Not that I remember. Why?”
“I just wondered — why you were all here.”
“Detective Inspector,” it was Monty Lord who intervened, “perhaps I could fill you in?”
“Thank you, sir. If I could speak to you later today.” Moretti turned to his partner. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Signor Moretti,” the marchesa stood up, “my Anna will arrive soon, and we would like to take Toni back home.”
“And home is —?”
“Fiesole — you know it?”
“It’s quite close to Florence, isn’t it?”
“Si.” The marchesa nodded, and reached out for Monty Lord’s hand.
“I regret, Marchesa, that I cannot at this stage give you any definite day or time when we would be able to release the body. There will, of course, have to be a post-mortem, which will be performed at Princess Elizabeth Hospital.”
“Dio mio!”
Whatever else the marchesa might have said was lost in the shoulder of the American producer’s jacket, and Moretti took advantage of her dramatic collapse to make his escape.
As he left the room he could hear the sound of someone whistling. It was Giulia Vannoni. As she passed him she called out, “Don’t worry, Inspector. I have permission to leave, and I have promised to be back.”
She resumed her whistling as she passed him, running lightly and easily, her straight blond hair flopping heavily on her leather-clad shoulders. A long gone and, he had thought, long-forgotten love drifted back into his consciousness on the wings of her perfume. The name of both the woman and her perfume escaped him. The perfume’s name had something to do with chaos, or uproar. Something like that. The tune was more instantly recognizable: “La Donna è Mobile.”
Perhaps there is supposed to be a message in it for me, he thought. Although Valerie would say that in his case it was the man who was fickle. One minute committed, the next running in the opposite direction. Actually, he’d been committed — if not married — for years, but that was how she saw it.
The Ensors were waiting for him in the marchesa’s sitting room, which was also on the ground floor, near the front entrance. It was a small room compared to the others, simply furnished with English chintzes and numerous family photographs in silver frames. Sydney Tremaine sat on one of the