Blood Will Out (8 page)

“Fade to black. Curtain!”

Raymond Morris closed his script with a flourish and surveyed the group. Rory Gastineau turned to Hugo.

“One thing missing,” he said. There was a slight slur as he spoke. “There is no title page. What's it called?”

Hugo smiled. “I wasn't sure until now,” he said, “but I have settled on the obvious.”

“Which is …?”

“
Blood Play
. That's actually a technical term, as we vampirologists know, but I'll explain later.”

Ginnie Purvis was looking worried. “I'd like to ask Hugo —” she gave an unsure glance at Raymond Morris, who had been on the verge of standing up. He remained standing, and waved an impatient hand at Ginnie to continue. “What are we going to do about this chorus of maidens? Are we going to have them? I mean, there's no one here who …” Her voice trailed off.

It was Raymond who answered. “Of course we're going to have them, Ginnie. Absolutely vital in a play about vampires. And, with Hugo's permission, of course, I see you, Tanya, as their leader!”

Hugo was sure the “permission” was hollow, but he certainly had no problem with inserting Rory's luscious wife into the script.

“Wonderful!” he said, and beside him Tanya wriggled like a happy puppy.

“Oooh — I am going to be the boss maiden!” she squealed.

Across the table, Ginnie Purvis gave a massive snort. “Talk about casting against type,” she said to no one in particular. She stood up and added, wearily, “If anyone would
like
to give me a hand with the refreshments, it
would
be appreciated.”

She left the table, followed by Marla, and Charles Priestley. Beside him, Hugo again felt that movement of recoil Tanya had made earlier, and remembered her comments about this particular Gastineau.

Marie Maxwell looked about to say something, her expression heralding another oncoming storm, but was interrupted by Raymond Morris, script in hand and a placatory smile on his face. A few minutes later, Marie's expression reverted to annoyance as her daughter and Charles Priestley reappeared with the refreshments.

Raymond turned from Marie and addressed Marla. “This is where you will come in useful, Marla. You can recruit some of your friends for us! To play the part of maidens in the play, that is.”

“Good idea!” Hugo decided to avoid witticisms about vampires and virgins, for fear of re-offending Marie. Besides, looking at Marla, sitting there shimmering sexuality next to Charlie, the fallen angel, if her friends resembled her, finding actual virgins might limit the field. “So, Marla, can we rely on you to find us some fresh blood?”

He laughed, Marla laughed, and as everyone else smiled, the lights went out, fading the room into black.

Then Marla started to scream.

Moretti held up the fragile scrap of paper against the light on his desk. It was nearly dark outside, and he could hear the sound of the foghorn in the Little Russel. Attempts to get rid of foghorns, suggesting they were no longer needed, had been strenuously resisted by the harbourmaster, and certainly Moretti would have missed their doleful call through the season of mists and the fogs of winter. He must get back to his Centaur, soon. Some time, he supposed, he must give his boat a name.

“There's a piece of a watermark on it, and I think I can guess what it is. Basildon Bond,” he said. “Long time since they made writing paper quite like this. Not sure if it has any significance, but what book did you find it in?”

Liz Falla smiled. “I wondered about that. It was in a collection of plays by Oscar Wilde —
The Importance of Being Ernest
. I saw it once, and as far as I remember, it was sort of fluffy. Not a great love story or anything.”

Liz groaned, rubbed her eyes, and stretched her legs out in front of her. It had been a long day, with a lot of kneeling and crouching. She had left Al Brown to see to the storage of the books in the station, and come up to report to Moretti. They had divided the hermit's collection into two groups of boxes: books opened and checked, and books yet to be examined. There were many more of the latter.

“We'll have to look into every book, and I'm going to get Al to do that,” said Moretti. “I want you to be free to talk to anyone who comes forward about Gus Dorey. Local people are more likely to open up to you. The paper will carry the story of his death tomorrow, and I want you here at the station to field any calls. Someone is going to come forward, if only to have a chat and a gossip. We need all the information we can get, and gossip may be where the truth lies, in this case.”

“Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words,” said Liz. “Isn't there a song about that?”

Moretti laid the tiny scrap of paper down. “You should know, Falla. Aren't show tunes up your alley?”

She was giving him that look again, and this time he realized what it was about. Of course, he had passed up a chance to hear her sing. Best that way, staying out of each other's private lives.

“Tin Pan Alley's not the alley I'm up, Guv. Closer to your turf, I'd say.” She hesitated, as if about to say something else, then, to Moretti's relief, there was a knock on the door and Al Brown appeared.

“All safely stowed,” he said. “What next, sir?”

Moretti told him and the brainiac appeared delighted.

“A pleasure.”

“A solitary pleasure, Al. You sat in on the interview with Gord Martel, so you heard what he said about a mailbox. We can get it opened, but it would be interesting to see if the key is missing. Tomorrow, Falla is going to be taking any phone calls here in my office. I'm going to take a look at births, marriages and deaths at the Priaulx Library, and PC Mauger will look through the newspaper archives. Gus Dorey wasn't always a hermit. At some point he had a life.”

“Is there any chance of my getting the loan of one of the police Hondas?” Al suggested. “I have a licence, and it would save the use of a car.”

“Good idea. I'll arrange it before I leave tonight.”

Solitary pleasures
, thought Moretti. Dwight and Lonnie won't be there, but I'll go to the club and play a little.

Liz stood up and stretched, yawning. “I'm off to the gym. How about you, Al? Do you want to come?”

Whether out of cussedness or kindness, Moretti heard himself saying, “I'm going to get something to eat at Emidio's and then I'm going to the Grand Saracen. That's the club where I play, Al. If you're interested.”

About twenty minutes later, they were picking up Al Brown's Portuguese guitar and heading for Emidio's, and Moretti was kicking himself for the suggestion.

“H
ey
, Ed, good to see you. Who's your friend?”

Deb Duchemin, co-manager of Emidio's, the restaurant opened by Moretti's father, surveyed Aloisio Brown with interest. She was a striking woman, close to six feet tall, her appearance flamboyant, her hair colour chosen to attract attention. At the moment, it was red, with a broad streak of white near her face. Although she had the demeanour and discretion needed for her position at Emidio's, with her height and large frame, Deb also had strength enough to handle the drunks, drug-dealers and other unattractive types she sometimes had to deal with running the Grand Saracen, which occupied the massive, vaulted cellar of the large eighteenth-century house on St. Peter Port's waterfront, that had belonged to the kind of smuggler and buccaneer for which the club was named.

The Grand Saracen had started life as a bar beneath the restaurant, with a small stage that was rented out to the occasional singer or group, and Moretti still retained a part interest in the business. When he returned to the island, he decided to use the space, and put together his own jazz ensemble. Deb had introduced him to his bass player, Lonnie Duggan, whom she had known in what she called “the bad old days,” without specifying what exactly she meant. Lonnie drove one of the town buses — “occasionally” — was talented, lazy, but energetic enough to play from time to time with the Fénions. Then one day Dwight Ellis had walked in for a drink, and become their drummer. Thus the band came into being.

“Colleague, Deb.” Moretti did the introductions. “What's on the menu tonight?”

Deb indicated the board on the wall. “
Involtini alla Cacciatore
. And, as per usual, osso buco. You play guitar? Man, does Ed need you, Al, since his sax player was arrested!”

She roared with laughter at Moretti's expression, her heavy earrings swinging, and pointed to Al Brown's guitar. “Here, let me take care of that, and you can pick it up on your way downstairs. I'll bring you some wine and leave you to decide. The house red okay?”

Both men agreed and, when Deb left the table carrying the guitar in its case, Al Brown said, “Two questions, sir ...”

“I'll guess the first,” Moretti interrupted. “My sax player was a local financier who got himself in out of his depth with career criminals. He was good with the sax and hopeless at international conspiracies.”

“Pity. Good sax players are hard to come by.”

The wine arrived, brought to the table by Deb's partner in the business and in life, who introduced herself in her husky, damaged voice as she poured the wine.

“I am Ronnie, short for Veronica, Bedini, and I'm glad Ed's got himself someone else for the club. Business is down in the bar since Garth was arrested, so you'd better be good.”

Deb had had a string of relationships since Ed had known her, but Ronnie Bedini appeared to have staying power. Ronnie was not an island girl, but was also not one of the current wave of Latvians, sometimes Hungarians, who waited tables or worked at the hotels. When Moretti was growing up, the wave that washed ashore was Italian, like his father, then came the Austrians and, later, the Portuguese. Many of the girls, chosen for their looks to wait tables, serve drinks and bring in the customers, were also selected as brides by Guernseymen for much the same reason, and stayed on the island.

Ronnie was one of Deb's strays, and she was looking considerably less waiflike since she had kicked her drug habit. She was a tiny brunette, with various body-piercings and highly decorated arms, and she was responsible for some of the abstracts and collages on the walls of the restaurant. They were outside Moretti's field of expertise, so the only opinion he had offered when asked about them by Deb was that they certainly added colour and interest to the room.

“DC Brown's a colleague,” Moretti repeated.

This assumption that Al Brown would be a regular player was disturbing. From what he had overheard of the conversation between Falla and the brainiac, much of the music played by Portuguese guitarists was of the gypsy jazz or
fado
variety, which was not his style. The last thing he needed was to lose his bass player and drummer in a fit of pique about a
manouche
player imported into the Fénions.

“So what's it to be?” Ronnie held her pad at the ready.

“That,” said Al Brown, “was going to be my second question. What is
involtini alla cacciatore
?”

“Veal scallops stuffed with chicken livers and prosciuttto, rolled up and cooked with Marsala. Out of this world,” Ronnie replied.

Both men ordered the veal scallops, Ronnie departed, and Al Brown raised his glass.

“Here's to magical thinking, and freedom of self-expression,” he said.

“Don't you Met-trained guys believe in structure?” asked Moretti. “That's what Chief Officer Hanley believes. He's hoping you'll teach me about MI Teams and Action Managers.”

“Shit,” said Aloisio Brown.

“The lights came back on and the screaming stopped.”

Elodie sat on the edge of the sofa in her sitting room, hands clasped, leaning forward towards Liz. It was about ten o'clock when Liz received Elodie's text, and she had been on her way home from Beau Sejour. If she had not had her recent conversation with Marla Maxwell in the change room, she would probably just have talked it over with Elodie on the phone.

“Screaming? Just Marla, or anyone else?”

Elodie shrugged her shoulders. “Someone else did, but by the time the lights came on he or she had stopped. Could have been a man or a woman. Just a high-pitched sound, so I don't know. But thanks for dropping by.”

“You seemed worried, and I was at Beau Sejour. Besides, wine with risotto sounded good.” Liz took another mouthful of
risotto frutti di mare.
“And it is.”

“I should come with you some time,” said Elodie. “I'll admit, it was scary, particularly after reading Gandalf's play, but it was what Marla was howling that really bothered me.”

“Which was …?”

“‘Leave me alone! Stop trying to frighten me! What have I done to you?' — That kind of thing. It sounded like it was not the first time something disturbing had happened, and I started to worry about what I had done.”

“Putting the cat among the theatrical pigeons, you said. What did you do?”

Elodie shrugged her shoulders. “I rang Marie and told her that Shawcross saw her as an evil seductress. I laid it on with a trowel and she was thrilled. Then this happens, and I wonder whether I opened some can of worms with my trowel, although I don't see why or how.”

Liz put her plate down on the table beside her, and picked up her glass of wine. “Neither do I, but it's a coincidence of a kind, and my Guvnor doesn't believe in coincidences.” She hesitated, and then continued. “I told you about Mrs. Maxwell's complaint, and I don't suppose it matters if I tell you about my encounter with Marla at Beau Sejour, since she refused to make it official. She says someone is pestering her with what she called ‘weird text messages,' but she doesn't want her parents to know. I haven't looked into it yet, but can you make a text message anonymous? I think you can, but I'm going to double-check.”

“You can.” Elodie got up from her chair, went over to the sideboard and brought back the bottle of wine to the table. Her face was sombre. “If the texter has an unlisted number, it would not come up on the display, and it would be very hard to trace. And you cannot return a message left from a private caller, not surprisingly.”

Liz looked at Elodie. She had poured herself another glass of wine, then curled up in her chair, the position suggesting vulnerability, fragility. Not her usual body language at all, and Liz remembered her mother's cryptic response to her observation about her aunt's divorce.

“It'll be interesting to see if Mrs. Maxwell gets on to us about this tomorrow. Did you see anyone enter or leave the room around about the time the lights went off?”

“I've been thinking about that. There was quite a bit of coming and going, because of the refreshments. There were twelve of us in the room —” Elodie stopped. “Hold on, there were thirteen of us, because of the late arrival.”

“Late arrival?”

“Yes, a friend of Marla's. A young chap. Charlie, she called him. Charles Priestley. Central casting for a beautiful — is there such a thing as an
homme fatale
? From Hugo's face, I think he'll be doing a rewrite, and we'll find a new character added. I thought Marie was going to blow a gasket, but she held on.”

“She said something to me about someone she didn't want her parents to know about. Maybe it's this feller. Was this before or after the lights went off?”

“Well before.”

“Did the late arrival just walk in? Or did he have to be let in?”

“Walked in. I don't know who else was in the house, but Elton Maxwell didn't make an appearance and no explanation was given. But we all know he is not a fan of the theatre. Marie just left the front door unlocked and we let ourselves in.”

“After Charlie Priestley arrived, did anyone leave?”

“No, I am sure no one left during the reading. We didn't break, but went straight through.”

“So someone else came in and switched off the lights — unless it was a power failure. But that would be another coincidence.” Liz got up and carried her plate through to the kitchen. She called back, “So how was the vampire's play? Any good?”

There was silence from the other room. Then Elodie replied, so quietly Liz could hardly hear her words.

“Yes, unfortunately,” she said.

When Liz came back from the kitchen, Elodie was pouring herself another glass of wine. Next to her on the sofa lay her copy of the play, and she picked it up and put it on the table between them. Liz pulled it towards her.

“Isn't there usually a title page? This looks like the cast of characters.”

“Yes. I think Gandalf had a rush job on his hands last night, and he gave us the title in the meeting.
Blood Play
.”

“Bit obvious, isn't it?”

“It is, as he said, a technical term. There are actually organized groups who get together and cut themselves and others, and drink each other's blood.”

“Revolting!” Liz put down her glass of red wine with a shudder.

“That's the whole point, really, that it is taboo, and that heightens the mythical quality of blood. Sadomasochism, pleasure and pain, but supposedly performed by consenting adults on each other.”

“So when you said ‘unfortunately,' you meant what I said. Revolting.”

“I wish I did. I cope better with disgusting than — desolate. Gandalf's creation took me by surprise, I'll admit.”

Elodie kicked off her slippers and put her feet up in the chair. In profile, away from the table lamp, her face and her expressions were hidden from Liz.

“Apart from Lilith, what do you know, Liz, about vampire legends and the present craze for them in film and on TV?”

“Not much. Not my thing, fangs and open graves and dead people walking. In my job I see too much blood to find it sexy — and that's what it's all about, isn't it? Oh, and death, I suppose. Sex and death.”

“Primal fears in a nutshell, these days usually sugar-coated with sweet young things falling for glamorous male figures who are mad, bad and dangerous to know; dead as doornails, but immortal, with immortality achieved by drinking the blood of virgins.”

“Yuk, in my opinion. How can you call that sugar-coated, El?”

“Because on TV and in books and movies they have corrupted corruption. They dodge the issue of death, turn what is terrifying into highjinks in the dorm, scary pyjama parties, that kind of dreck.”

“And Gandalf didn't.”

“No. In his play, he returns again and again to the most terrifying theme of all. Loneliness. Right up there with death, in my opinion.” Elodie swung around, facing Liz. “I cannot believe I am saying this, but I felt sorry for the vampire.”

Liz decided to lighten the moment. “And which of our island farceurs is going to play the bad guy? Do I know him?”

“You know both the person who will probably play him, and the man who should. Raymond, with his usual unerring lack of vision and backbone, will choose the wrong one. He should choose Rory Gastineau, and he will choose Jim Landers.”

“That's a surprise. Doesn't it take guts to turn down a Gastineau?”

“Not this one. Rory's boozing has never stopped him learning lines, and there was such angst when he read. Jim is all intellect and not a shred of true emotion. But there is no love lost between Marie and her big brother, and Raymond knows it.”

“Angst? Didn't he recently marry gorgeous Tanya — whoever she was before she met Rory?”

“After shilly-shallying around for years, Rory found himself one beautiful brood mare. Or, rather, she found him. She came here to find herself an offshore millionaire, so they say, and found herself island royalty instead. But there you have the problem for Marie, Liz. If Rory and Tanya have a boy, Marla no longer is the heiress apparent. And Ginnie will never be a threat, as long as all she wants for Christmas is the bookshop owner. Jim just isn't interested.”

“Is he gay?”

Elodie laughed. “Not if his behaviour towards me is anything to go by. I went out to dinner with him a couple of times. I enjoyed his company, because the conversation was interesting. But he wanted more, and I don't want anyone in my life, just at the moment.”

“I've never really met Jim Landers, but he doesn't strike me as the type to have much small talk. What did he talk about?”

“Books, of course!” Elodie laughed. “His passion. But I learned something about his background, which was army. He spent most of his childhood on the move in places like Kenya and Zanzibar, with spells at boarding school, depending on how dangerous his father's postings were. Seems to have seen little of his mother, and was not very fond of his father, from what I gathered. But he's not one to express emotion. It was more what wasn't said than what was.”