Moretti and Falla Mysteries 3-Book Bundle. Jill Downie
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an art-house movie and a blockbuster. I’ve been in this business in Italy and the States for years, and never have I been so excited about the creative and the financial aspects of a project. Need I remind you that you will make ten percent of the gross — besides that humongous fee we paid for the rights to Rastrellamento?”
Greed, thought Monty Lord. Appeal to “what’s in it for me?” and even this so-called creative genius becomes a mere mercenary. Just like me.
“Deus ex machina, you said. Will Tom Byers be rescued by his guardian angel, flown in on wires?”
Monty Lord laughed. “Perhaps in the sequel? No, seriously, Mario has dreamed up another character who will interract with the two principal groups: a schoolteacher, not originally from the village. An outsider who observes the unfolding drama and finds himself drawn into the web of events.”
“Jesus wept! Shambolic — it’s a fucking farce, that’s what it is. An utter shambles!”
In an instant, the mercenary was replaced by the writer, and Monty Lord realized he was in for the all too familiar scene of Gilbert Ensor in a rage. Only this time, Sydney Tremaine was not here to control her husband. All he could do now, as producer, was resort to the use of legal ultimatum. Raising his voice above the noisome stream of continuous obscenities that poured from Gilbert Ensor’s lips he shouted, “Need I remind you, Ensor, that under the terms of the contract I don’t have to get your permission for this kind of change? None of your original characters have been removed, as per our agreement. The teacher is in — get me?”
“You Yankee swine! We’ll see what my lawyer has to say about that! We’ll see what difference it makes to ‘as per our agreement’ when it turns out the director is a junkie and should be in the nuthouse! We’ll see!”
“If you want to waste your time and money, feel free, Gilbert, but directors with a drug problem are a dime a dozen — really good directors with a drug problem are as rare as rubies.”
Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.
The biblical echoes of Monty Lord’s choice of simile reminded Gil of his missing wife. Sydney’s show of independence was new in their relationship — oh, she fought with him, but in the end it was all sound and fury and signified nothing. Her unexplained absence had shaken him, and now Mario Bianchi was at it again.
“Tell Mario I’ll fight this one — no, I’ll tell him myself,” he said, and burst into noisy sobs.
Not a pretty sight, thought Monty Lord, as he surveyed the blubbering figure beside him on the sofa. He stood up. “I’ll see myself out,” he said.
As the door closed behind him, Monty Lord heard a scream from inside.
“Sydney!”
Like Marlon Brando screaming “Stella!” thought Monty. As theatrical. As desperate.
As he left the hotel, a taxi drew up. Inside he saw the red hair and Dresden profile of Sydney Tremaine, returning home from her night on the town.
“Well, what do you think, Guv?”
“Think?”
Moretti looked up as if he had been miles away, thought Liz Falla. In fact, he had been years away.
He couldn’t go back, either.
Dan Mahy’s words kept running over and over in his head. Drip, drip, drip. That and “Maladetta Maremma.” All he knew about the Maremma was that it was an area in Italy where the marshes had been drained, but more than that he didn’t know.
“Does any of this have anything to do with the death of Toni Albarosa? A place like this sometimes has trouble with prowlers, doesn’t it?”
“True. But two things are interesting about these reports. First, there’s the business with Dan Mahy. I’m not sure I’d have seen that as significant if I’d not just spoken to him. Let’s go over what we have.”
What they had on the table in front of them at the Hospital Lane headquarters were three incidents at the Manoir Ste. Madeleine; two incidents had taken place within a month of each other in April, the third just after the arrival of the film crew. In the first, one of the live-in staff was making sure the fire was out in the marchesa’s sitting room at about eleven o’clock at night, when she saw someone peering through the window at her. She ran screaming from the room and, apart from her lurid description of the prowler’s eyes as “glowing like living coals” — which might well have been inspired by her task and not based on observation at all — she could not even be sure if the prowler was a man or a woman. She assumed it was a man.
In the third incident, the guard dogs in the grounds “set up a racket” at around midnight, according to one of the handlers. When he checked he found skid marks on the ground near the lodge, and thought he heard the sound of a motor in the distance, out on the road. There were signs that one of the locks had been tampered with. The security staff thought the tire tracks were made by a motorbike.
“A Ducati, perhaps?” suggested Liz Falla.
“They don’t say. But why, in this case, did the dogs bark? If it was Giulia Vannoni? They must have been familiar with the sound of her bike, I would think, let alone her presence. She’s a regular.”
“Maybe they always bark at night.”
“Except they didn’t, did they, when Albarosa bought it? Anyway, why would the marchesa’s niece need to creep around at night? She had a perfect right to be there. No need to draw attention to herself — even if she was on her way to kill someone. But it’s the second incident that’s really interesting.”
It appeared from the second report that the local station in St. Andrew had received a phone call from Toni Albarosa himself at about midnight. Sounding somewhat agitated, he’d said that one of the staff thought the prowler was back, and could someone come. The police officer who arrived on the scene made a search of the grounds where the intruder had been spotted, and found Dan Mahy, crouched down against the wall of one of the old stables that now served as a garage. Toni Albarosa identified him, and vetoed the suggestion he should be taken in for questioning. In fact, he now seemed eager to dismiss the whole episode.
“The officers assumed it was because the prowler turned out to be Dan Mahy, who tends to hang around the place. But now I wonder,” said Moretti. “From the report it looks as if the old fellow told the officer he had met someone on the grounds — a friend, who wanted to hear about the old days.”
“The old days,” said Liz. “Keeps coming back to that, doesn’t it? Looks like your feeling about the old days is beginning to hold water, Guv.”
“Doesn’t it, though? And here’s the second thing that’s interesting — why did no one in the family mention any of this? I’m not thrilled this wasn’t brought to our attention by the St. Andrew’s people, but surely it must have occurred to at least one of the family that it might have some bearing on the death of Albarosa?”
“Right. It’s not so much they’re lying as they’re keeping their mouths shut. About something.”
“A conspiracy of silence. I think so. I’m going to take another look at the statements by the marchesa, her niece and her son in particular, because these incidents change the time frame of the investigation. And I have to talk to Gilbert Ensor about his novel — whether Rastrellamento had not only its time period rooted in historical fact, but its storyline.”
At this point they were interrupted by the arrival of a young constable almost hidden behind a mass of paper spat out by the computer about Mario Bianchi. Refusing his offer of help — “Don’t know what we’re looking for ourselves, PC Le Mesurier” — Moretti split the pile in two and handed one half to Liz Falla.
“Anything in Italian, throw it over to me. Unless you feel you can manage?”
Liz Falla smiled. “What are we not looking for then, Guv?”
“Anything