What scene are they shooting?”
“Oh my God, love — you don’t know?”
“Know what? Gil’s here for the meeting about the rewrite, if that’s what you mean.”
“Some rewrite, darling.”
Over his shoulder, Sydney caught sight of a figure on the ground, slumped in an unnatural position against the parapet of the terrace. A man wearing what looked like a white lab coat was taking photographs of him — stills presumably, for he certainly wasn’t carrying a movie camera.
“Who —?”
As she started her question, the crowd suddenly parted, and Sydney saw the impressive figure of the Marchesa Donatella Vannoni, clutching the arm of Monty Lord’s assistant producer, Piero Bonini. As she came closer, Sydney saw that the figure on the ground had the dark, curly hair and smooth bronze skin of the marchesa’s son-in-law, the location manager, Toni Albarosa. She also saw the handle of the dagger through his chest glistening under the arc light.
Vertigo hit her. She swayed, and Eddie Christy grabbed her and called out, “Someone, anyone, get a chair!”
A chair was provided and the crowd parted again.
“Ms. Tremaine — where’s your husband? Is he with you?”
Above her she saw the detective inspector’s face, his grey eyes urgent.
“He should be — oh God, you don’t think —?”
Was the policeman suggesting whoever this maniac was might still be around, and that Gil might be in danger? As Sydney turned around in her chair to see Piero Bonini and the marchesa walking toward the manor together, from the darkness beyond the floodlit terrace came the unmistakable roar of her husband throwing a tantrum.
Anxiety changed to relief. Gil had come around the corner and seen Monty Lord.
“That’s him,” she said. “Don’t worry — that’s not fear or pain. That’s the cry of the wounded artist, Detective Inspector. Hell hath no fury like a writer scorned.”
Sydney could hear what he was screaming at the producer, who stopped, staggering momentarily under the weight of his noble burden.
“You turd! Couldn’t you wait until I got here to make changes? Or is this your idea of a joke, scaring the fucking daylights out of me with fucking daggers — get Toni off the set and send that rubber fake back to props before I — I —”
Gilbert Ensor was halted in mid-sentence by the sudden arrival of the distraught marchesa against his ample belly, temporarily winding him. She was screaming in Italian, so he had no idea what he had said or done to upset her. Her long red nails scored his face before Piero Bonini managed to restrain her. Through the searing pain he grasped one word, said over and over again.
“Morto — morto — morto!”
Dead?
Ahead of him he saw his wife in a chair, the detective inspector alongside her. Beyond them, two ambulance attendants were covering Toni Albarosa’s body. His jaw dropped. Violent death had rendered Gilbert Ensor speechless.
There followed one of those uncanny moments of silence that sometimes comes on the heels of uproar. Then into the silence came the rumble of a powerful engine. From the half-light around the villa thundered a gleaming Ducati motorcycle, its streamlined scarlet and black body brilliant in the arc light. Sydney Tremaine saw long blond hair flying beneath a winged helmet, powerful leather-clad legs stretched against the sides of the monster as, with a dramatic flick of the wrists, the rider brought her mount to a shrieking halt and pulled off her helmet.
Ed Moretti, looking down at the face of Sydney Tremaine, was intrigued by what he saw.
“You know her?”
“No.”
Sydney got up from the chair and went toward her shell-shocked husband. The Valkyrie ran over to the marchesa, putting her arms around her. Together, they went into the manor, with Piero Bonini behind them.
Other members of the island police force had arrived to help with the dozens of statements that would have to be taken from everybody in the cast and crew. The Ensors and the Vannoni family were waiting in the manor to be interviewed by Moretti and Liz Falla. Finally, some semblance of order had been restored.
Moretti waited until the body was loaded into an ambulance and then turned to the Vannonis’ doctor, a local St. Andrew’s man called Le Pelley.
“So — what can you tell me?”
“Only what I told you before.” Le Pelley, clearly somewhat shaken himself, removed his glasses and put them in his coat pocket. “He was killed, almost instantly. Whether by luck or good management, the point of the blade got him right through the heart.”
“Time of death?”
“We’ll know more after the autopsy — but, what time is it now? Nine-thirty? I’d say about five hours ago.”
“Five hours!” Moretti was taken by surprise. “I thought you’d say midnight — something like that.”
“Definitely not midnight — he’d not been dead long when he was found around five o’clock.”
“Who found him?”
“One of the security guards, apparently. A couple stay around all night to keep an eye on the equipment.”
“Then he probably only just missed being another murder victim.”
Moretti said goodbye to Le Pelley and joined Liz Falla, who was waiting for him with a very worried-looking director, Mario Bianchi, and the reason for his expression soon became clear.
“I’ve already lost about two hours shooting time today, and the Constable tells me I can’t touch what has now become the crime scene for at least another hour. If then.”
Mario Bianchi was almost cadaverously thin. Heavy lines ran down each side of his mouth, which was largely concealed by an unfashionably heavy moustache, and Moretti wondered whether the ponytail and the facial hair were to compensate for the receding hairline above deep-set, anxious eyes. His nails were bitten to the quick, and his hands fiddled constantly with the collar of his open-necked shirt, or stroked his forehead. His command of English seemed good, and Moretti decided not to switch into Italian, if possible. Otherwise, he would have to translate for his partner, which would slow things down considerably, or exclude her completely from the interrogation.
“We’ll do what we can, Mr. Bianchi. Certainly we’re grateful for the light we were able to use. Could you not work on something else while we’re out here?”
“Work on something else,” Bianchi repeated. “You don’t understand, Inspector. We set up the day’s work in advance — the actors and technicians are called for certain times, and the lighting levels have to be decided upon with the cinematographer and the cameramen, depending on the needs of the scene and the weather conditions, and so on. These lights and cranes were in place for the scene we planned to shoot first — and which required the early light of day. That’s gone now. We’ve lost it.”
“What
