A Grave Waiting (8 page)

“Good. You know where we're going?”

“I checked. St. Andrew's Parish, near the Chemin du Roi.”

The parish of St. Andrew is south of St. Peter Port. Even before the island was divided up into parishes it was separated into fiefs, holdovers from the ancient feudal system. Tenants owed allegiance to the local seigneur, but were able to rule themselves reasonably democratically through the feudal courts. Most of the ancient customs were, however, long gone.

Moretti and Falla's route took them past one of the smaller fiefdoms, the Manor of Ste. Hélène, now in private hands, and St. Andrew's Church, carefully restored to its twelfth-century self, after eighteenth-century changes had weakened its structure. In an island this size, the past and present were often juxtaposed with jolting speed. Once past the squat spire and constellations of the old church they crossed the Candie Road, close to the site of the vast German Underground Hospital, relic of the Nazi occupation, now a tourist attraction. They then turned into a narrow lane near the borders of the parishes of Forest and St. Martin.

As they jolted along, Moretti thought of his visit to La Veile.

“I went to see Gwen Ferbrache's tenants this morning. There's something, I don't know what, but I don't think the child is in danger, and I don't think Gwen is either. PC Brouard is checking some stuff on the Internet for me.”

“Then you can set Miss Ferbrache's mind at rest — oh, isn't this a pretty place.”

Ahead of them, Lady Fellowes's home was bathed in sunshine. It was a typical two-storey Guernsey farmhouse in ivy-covered granite, a curved stone archway around the front entrance, and an extension built at right angles to the main structure. Ivy, moss, and pennywort covered the crumbling stone wall through which the car passed into a small, cobbled courtyard.

“Lots of upkeep,” observed Liz Falla, bringing the car to a halt, “but lots been done. New windows, new roof. Tiles instead of thatch. But the witches' seat is still up there, near the chimney. Only it's not really a witches' seat, my dad says, it held up the edge of the thatch. I prefer to believe my dad. You know how I feel about the whole witch thing.”

“Right,” Moretti responded.

He knew how Falla felt. She had an aunt who chose to believe the maternal line was descended from one of the premier providers of witches in Guernsey dim and distant past.

“There's a face in the window.”

There was. A pale circle, a flash of something bright, then it was gone. Next to Moretti, Liz Falla suddenly shuddered and sneezed.

Moretti looked at her, eyebrows raised, but she said nothing.

“Anyway, witches or no witches, if your thumbs prick, let me know, because I plan to leave most of the talking to you.”

The front door opened, and Coralie Fellowes stood there.

“I am so glad to see you. Do come in,” she greeted them, the perfect hostess. She was in full maquillage, kohl-rimmed eyes set in a nicotine-raddled face beneath black, close-cropped hair, cheek curls sprayed into position. Her dress was an extraordinary rainbow of colours, salmon pink, orange, scarlet, and powder blue. Had she been expecting them? Was the Guernsey grapevine
that
good? Moretti took out his ID.

“Lady Fellowes, I am Detective Inspector Moretti, and this is Detective Sergeant Falla. We —”

Coralie Fellowes held out a thin, scarlet-taloned hand, burdened with rings, drooping wearily from an insubstantial, skeletal wrist.

“There's always a catch, isn't there? A price to pay for pleasure, don't you think?”

Her voice was still seductive, husky with nicotine and age, the accent beguiling. Moretti took the proffered hand in his. Her skin was cold, cold, cold.

“This is an official visit, if that's what you mean, Lady Fellowes. May we come in?”

“I have already invited you.”

She stood to one side and smiled at Moretti, hardly glancing at his partner.

“Do you live alone, Lady Fellowes?” Liz Falla asked, as she and Moretti squeezed themselves into the narrow entrance hall.

“Yes. If it's any of your business.”

There was no smile for Liz Falla. Coralie Fellowes made no attempt to hide her hostility toward the younger woman, and Moretti saw he might have to change his plan of attack. Clearly, the former star of the Folies Bergère still looked on other women as rivals.

“You invited us in before checking who we were. That's risky.”

“Far more risky things in life than letting a stranger in your door, wouldn't you agree?”

This was directed at Moretti with what once must have been a coquettish look from under pencilled eyebrows.
Very Clara Bow,
he thought,
thank God I brought Falla with me.

“Such as, Lady Fellowes?”

“I'll tell you when you tell me what you're doing here.”

She waved her hand in their direction and tottered ahead of them toward a room off the narrow hall. A blast of perfume drifted toward them, heavy with musk and rose. She had very long legs.

The room they entered was a symphony of pinks, apricots, and reds, not a cool colour in sight. Paris boudoir with a touch of the
soukh
. Berber carpets underfoot, a cornucopia of tasselled cushions covered in pink and gold silk. English-style armchairs upholstered in what looked like old Persian rugs, a chaise lounge draped in a huge, crimson, fringed shawl. The smell of Sobranies hung heavy in the air.

“Do sit down. A drink? No? Of course, you are on official business.”

“These are — remarkable.” Moretti gestured around him.

Photographs in silver frames, mahogany frames, gilded frames. Paintings and portraits and miniatures. A small bronze statue. Coralie Chancho in silver lamé, Coralie Chancho in black chiffon, Coralie Chancho in countless strings of pearls, Coralie Chancho in ostrich feathers almost as tall as she was. Coralie Chancho in nothing at all.

“But of course. They are me. You like them?”

“They are beautiful,” said Liz Falla, and was rewarded with a smile in her direction.

“I was beautiful.” The pink-shaded lamps that lit the room softened the lines on Coralie Fellowes's face. “But just as important, I played my cards right. Not all of them did, you know.”

Lady Fellowes arranged herself à la Bernhardt on the chaise, and Moretti and Falla sat opposite her on matching gilt chairs. Like an audience.

“I'm sure,” Falla responded.

Moretti added, “Not all of them would have been clever enough.”

This time Coralie Fellowes directed her response toward Liz Falla. “Ah, to tell a beautiful woman she is intelligent! So irresistible.”

“Right.”

Falla smiled and pulled out her notebook in what she hoped was a non-threatening manner, and pressed on. “We are making enquiries, Lady Fellowes, into an incident last night on a yacht in Victoria Marina. The owner, a Mr. Bernard Masterson, was killed some time during the night. We are checking on anyone who was in the area at the time.”

“Killed? Murder? Men fought over me, you know. But that was long ago. Why would a dead man on a yacht be of any interest to me? I live a quiet life, here in my little hideaway.”

Her voice trailed off into a whisper and she turned her face away from them, her long red nails digging into the brocade-covered arm of the chaise.

“But last night, Lady Fellowes, you went to St. Peter Port, and you were at the harbour, late at night.”

“Who told you this?” She seemed shaken, as much as angry, leaning toward Liz Falla as she spoke.

“There is a closed-circuit television camera in the area and you are on it. There is no mistaking you.”

“There wouldn't be, would there?” Suddenly, she was all vivacity, smiling widely, showing a mouth of yellowed teeth.

“Why were you there?”

“What was I wearing?”

Prevarication?
Or is it?
thought Moretti. Leaning close to Falla, she seemed eager to hear the answer.

“A long dress, looked like chiffon to me,” Liz Falla replied. “And a wrap — marabou, was it?”

“You are right. My Poiret, I remember now. I gave myself a night on the town. No crime, I think. So, I was on camera?” Coralie Chancho seemed delighted to hear of her CCTV appearance.

“Yes. Where did you spend the evening?”

“At the
boîte
at the end of the pier. I have been there before.”

“The Landsend Restaurant.”

“My husband used to take me.”

Coralie Fellowes put her hand over the edge of the chaise and picked up a photograph from the table alongside it. A good-looking middle-aged man smiled back at her. Even in the photograph the eyes were warm, loving. She put a finger to her lips, kissed it, and then put it on his face.

“I went for old times' sake.”

“How did you get there?”

“By taxi.”

“And you were not picked up at the restaurant?”

“The camera does not lie, they say.”

She's playing games,
Liz Falla thought. “No, it doesn't,” she agreed. “In that case, what did you throw into the water?”

Coralie Fellowes' hostility returned. “I had a cigarette and I threw an empty packet into the water.”

“You are not smoking on the camera, Lady Fellowes,” Moretti interjected.

A shrug of the shoulders, a little moue of the mouth. “My memory is not what it was. Why — what did it look like?”

The kohl-rimmed eyes challenged Moretti, all seduction gone from them. Physically frail she may be, but she's tough as old boots, he told himself.

“A gun, Lady Fellowes.”

She did not flinch, or avoid his gaze, and he was reminded of Masterson's housekeeper.

“I think not, Inspector,” she said.

“We have divers searching the area. You wouldn't like to reconsider your reply?”

“I would not.” A fringe of heavily mascaraed eyelashes now hid her eyes from Moretti. “If a gun killed this man, then you may find one,
n'est-ce pas?
Proves nothing, does it?
Mon dieu, que vous êtes beau
.”

The sudden switch was as disconcerting as she intended it to be. Moretti recoiled as if she had touched him physically. Liz Falla blinked, looked at Moretti, and hastily back at her notebook. Coralie Fellowes laughed.

“Handsome is as handsome does, say you English, and I always preferred the handsome ones doing it, Inspector.”

She laughed again, raucously. Scratch the surface and there she was, the streetwise chorine, the tough little girl who had survived and prospered to become a tough old woman, capable of killing. No doubt about that. But why?

Moretti got to his feet. “That will do for now, Lady Fellowes, but we shall have to ask you to come to the station, and I suggest you get in touch with your lawyer first. If you think of anything else, here is the number to call.” He took out one of his cards and handed it to her.

“Long time since a man gave me his number. But I never phoned them, you know. They always phoned me.” She peered at the card, her eyes disappearing from view between heavy black fringes. “Moretti, I think? Not an island name.”

“No.”

“The dress —” Liz Falla put her notebook away “— you said the one on camera was a Poiret. What about the one you are wearing now?”

“Ah, my coat of many colours.” Coralie Chancho's voice took on a crooning sound as she stroked the fabric. “Sonia Delaunay. Delicious.” The crooning sound became a quavering, faltering singing, and the song was “La Vie en Rose.”

Quand il me prend dans ses bras, qu'il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose
.

In the pink-lit museum of her past life, Coralie Chancho was back performing on some long-gone stage. Gently, quietly, Liz Falla started to sing with her.

Il me dit des mots d'amour, des mots de tous les jours, et ça me fait quelque chose
.

It was the first time Moretti had heard his partner sing. It was surreal
.
The setting and the song blended, and the liquid flow of Liz Falla's voice against the cracked-bell sound of Coralie Chancho's smoke-shattered vocal chords shivered through his veins and the length of his spine.

“Pretty, isn't it? Look at that engraving on the barrel, all those leaves and scrolls and whatever. Never thought you could say that about a gun, but this one's like an ornament, right?”

Liz Falla shivered and pulled her raincoat collar up around her neck.

A chilly wind blew across the marina, and a light rain had started to fall. A small group consisting of Moretti, Falla, the harbour master, two divers, and a constable from the uniformed branch were gathered around the tiny object on a tarpaulin spread on the ground. Nearby stood a melancholy group of seagulls, hoping for a chance at any leftovers that might remain. The diver who had brought up the gun touched the handle, which still gleamed through the sludge from the bottom of the harbour.

“Looks like mother-of-pearl. My granny had some cutlery with this stuff on it.”

“It is,” said Moretti. “And the trigger's gold-plated from the look of it. It's a Browning Baby — lady pistol, pocket pistol, various names. Some versions of it became the American Saturday-Night Special.”

Moretti looked down at the constable, who was still crouched over the small pistol. “Le Marchant, I'm leaving this with you. Get it to the SOC lab.”

Le Marchant eased the tiny object into a plastic bag.

“So that's the murder weapon,” said the harbour master, who'd come along for the ride, murder not being a common occurrence in his fiefdom.

“No,” said Moretti. “That's not what killed him. There's no way that gun shot the bullet that was in Masterson's head. No way.”

“You mean there are
two
guns?”

The diver stood up and swore, unzipping the front of his wetsuit. “Shit! I thought we'd got the weapon sewn up with this baby. If you don't mind me saying, Ed, isn't that unlikely? With the yacht moored right here, and the fact we don't get that many guns laying around — hell, this isn't New York.”