Moretti and Falla Mysteries 3-Book Bundle. Jill Downie
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car — please, Ms. Tremaine,” Moretti added, as she started to open the door. “Lock yourself in and wait for me here. I’m going to climb over the gate.”
Sydney watched as Moretti straddled the gate and jumped over. Through the bars she saw the door of the Martello tower open. She saw Moretti walking up the path, and then she saw Giulia Vannoni coming down to meet him. A moment later, Giulia was running toward the car, with Moretti behind her.
“Sydney! Idiota! Che stupidità!”
There were various other epithets, but those she understood. She got out of the car and waited for Giulia to open the gate. She expected to be hugged, but instead Giulia took her by the shoulders and shook her.
“You — you —! Do you really think I’d do that to you? Dio mio!”
“Well, then.” Moretti’s quiet voice broke into Giulia’s angry outcry. “Ms. Vannoni is on her own and has been all night. It would seem your husband was trying to get back at you. Both of you.”
At that moment, Moretti’s mobile rang.
“Okay, Falla. We’ll be right over.”
He put the phone back in his pocket and took Sydney by the arm.
“It may be nothing, but the dogs have picked something up.”
“Dogs?” Sydney asked, bewildered.
“The dogs with the security firm — they know your husband’s scent, of course.” Moretti decided not to tell her that Liz Falla had picked up a piece of clothing from the hotel suite and taken it to the manor. “They are waiting for me. I suggest you stay here with Ms. Vannoni until I contact you.”
“No. I’ll come with you.”
“I’ll follow,” said Giulia. She locked the gate again and left them, running back up the path with her powerful stride.
There was quite a crowd gathered around the entrance to the bunker. Monty Lord, Gianfranco Vannoni, Piero Bonini, and two of the actors. Moretti recognized Gunter Sachs, talking to a younger man whom he presumed was Clifford Wesley. There were also a couple of security guards and an excited dog, the only member of the gathering showing any animation. Liz Falla was by the door, and she left the group as soon as she saw Moretti. She looked warily at Sydney Tremaine.
“Mrs. Ensor, perhaps it would be better if —”
“What have you found?” Now beyond weeping or hysteria, there was a stillness about Gilbert Ensor’s wife.
“Nothing — that is, the dog is indicating there is — something — in the bunker. We were waiting for you, Guv,” said Liz Falla, turning to Moretti.
“Okay. Let’s get this crowd away from here,” Moretti said to one of the security guards, “and get hold of some lights — torches, flashlights, lamps, whatever.” The guard spoke into his mobile and started marshalling the onlookers in the direction of the terrace. It was with relief that Moretti heard the arrival of the Ducati from the direction of the road, and watched Giulia Vannoni rounding the corner of the manor. He took Sydney Tremaine by the arm and led her away from the entrance.
“You stay with Ms. Vannoni for now — that’s an order.”
“I hear,” said Giulia, pulling off her helmet. “We can stay here, Sydney, until signor pianista comes to get us.”
Moretti was aware of two pairs of green eyes — one hostile, one haunted — watching him walk toward the dog handler.
“Tell me what happened.”
The handler held out the linen jacket he was holding. “I took the dog round the grounds first — nothing. But when we got to the top of the path —” he waved in the direction of the two waiting women, “— he led me straight down here, and he’s been at this door ever since. Mr. Lord gave me a key, but the officer said to wait for you.”
“Here they come with the lamps,” said Liz Falla.
The darkness behind the steel door was palpable, thick as the smell of mould and decay in the airless space. The pressure in Moretti’s chest eased as he saw the steady beams of light splitting the blackness ahead of them, motes of dust and moisture hanging in the air.
“You go ahead,” he said to the handler, who held the jacket to the dog’s nose. The animal whimpered excitedly, and pulled at his lead, heading for the nearest entrance, his paws slipping on the greasy stone.
“The command room,” said Moretti. “I saw this with Mr. Lord.”
Moretti, Liz Falla, and one of the security officers came around the corner after handler and dog and, at first sight, nothing appeared to be out of order. The retriever padded around the desk, followed by his master, and started to worry at something on the floor, whimpering and yapping.
“It’s a shoe, sir,” the man called. “A slip-on type. And the phone’s been pulled down off the desk.”
Before the rest of the search party could enter the room, the dog moved past them, pulling the handler along with him, heading farther along the corridor away from the entrance.
The ground sloped beneath their feet, taking them even farther down below the surface. The rays of light from their torches illuminated entrances and alcoves in the walls, the remnants of wires, cables, and pipes hanging on to the concrete. Rivulets ran in the gutters hollowed out of the concrete floor, humidity dripped from the curved brick ceiling overhead. The air was foul, and Moretti remembered stories he’d been told of how the Organisation Todt had sent down prisoners overnight as guinea pigs, canaries in these concrete pits, to see if they could breathe. Sometimes they died.
He was beginning to think they would have to break off the search until they could get some kind of breathing apparatus, when the handler called out, “There’s an air shaft here.”
They stood beneath it, gratefully inhaling the fresher air, but the dog was restive, pulling away from the group, anxious to move on.
“What do you want to do, sir?” his handler asked.
“Continue as long as we can.”
Beside him, Liz Falla sneezed and rubbed her eyes.
With the dog leading the way, they stumbled along the narrow passage, which was suddenly intersected by another, wider passage, with the remnants of a light railroad track running down the middle. They all stopped abruptly at this point, as the dog hesitated a moment, and then turned to the right, accelerating rapidly.
Ahead of them and above them was a huge shaft. A glimmer of daylight shimmered down, faint but unmistakable. Leading up to the surface was an iron ladder fastened to the wall, its rungs rusted to the colour of lichen-covered rock. And at the foot of the ladder lay what looked like a heap of abandoned rags, but which they all knew was the body of Gilbert Ensor. The retriever sniffed at him and lay down beside him, his task completed.
He was dressed to kill, in a suit of navy wool and cashmere, a pale blue silk shirt with gold cufflinks in the sleeves, a gold tie clasp holding a paisley-patterned tie against his bloodied chest. He was curled up on one side, face hidden, the shirt buttons across his corpulent belly pulled open, revealing blood-soaked body hair, and he was wearing one shoe over one dark blue sock. The other sock lay close by.
And as he looked at the body curled up on the floor, all Moretti could think of at that moment was the memorial in the Underground Hospital: “This memorial is dedicated to the slaveworkers who died in Guernsey for Hitler’s Organisation Todt.” Gilbert Ensor was only the last of many hundreds who had lain dying on that floor, and other similar floors.
Just beyond the body something glinted in the diffuse light from the shaft. Treading warily around the edges of the space, Moretti picked his way around the body and bent down to see what it was.
It was a dagger — another dagger, but this one was not medieval. He had seen others like it in the display cases at La Valette, alongside the numbered arm bands worn by