Blood Will Out (24 page)

M
eadowlands
, the house towards which Moretti and Al Brown were heading in the Triumph, had been the home of the same family since the mid-nineteenth century, and Charles Priestley's uncle, retired Colonel Clarence Priestley, was the last surviving member of that family in residence on the island. As they drove, Moretti filled in some of the background for Al.

“I did some checking beforehand. They are an interesting lot, the Priestleys, but not unique. Guernsey has its aristocratic families — the Gastineaus are one of them — and its old island families with names like Dorey, Mauger and Falla. The Priestleys came here in the early eighteenth century, and they almost certainly were attracted by the money to be made from privateering, according to Lydia Machon at the Priaulx. But in the last hundred years or so are much better known as a military family of some distinction.”

“They came to plunder, and stayed to stretch their pensions and investments further.”

“Something like that.”

Moretti looked out of the window of the Triumph at the stretch of wall to their right, a thing of beauty year-round because of the burgeoning bunches of wildflowers growing in the crevices between brick and stone. In the sunlight of autumn slanting between the trees beyond the wall, they glowed like pink, lilac and white jewels. So much had changed, even in his lifetime, like the road names in this part of St. Peter Port. Mount Durand remained the same, but Queen's Road at the top of the Grange had once been la Petite Marche, and Prince Albert Road, where they were heading, was once the much humbler la Pierre Percée. He didn't know how long ago they were rechristened, but his mother always called them by the old names.

“But I think they fell in love with the island.”

“Why wouldn't they? What's the estate behind that amazing wall?”

“Government House.” Moretti turned the Triumph on to Prince Albert Road. “Here we are.”

Meadowlands was a sizeable house, even by Guernsey standards for substantial houses, but it did not have the elegant, spare lines of the island's eighteenth-century mansions. Built of brick overlaid with ivory stucco, it had a complicated structure of many-levelled roofs with two three-storey wings set either side of a lower crenellated section that held the main door. Beyond one of the three-storey wings was another crenellated section, giving the building the appearance of a fortress, or castle.

“Wow. This is different.”

“Built to order, I'm told.”

Moretti pulled up alongside the front door, and checked his messages before he got out. Nothing yet from Falla, or the other two constables. He was wishing now he had sent Al with McMullin or Le Marchant, particularly since Roddy the Body was an unknown quantity, but he had wanted a show of strength when facing the colonel and his nephew, and Al Brown gave off more powerful vibes of law and order than either of the other two. And he wanted Falla to be the one who interviewed Tanya Gastineau.

Thinking of Falla made him think of non-work-related things, so he stopped thinking of Falla and got out of the car.

The sepulchral sound of the front-door bell clanging through the house beyond the closed door reminded Moretti of a television program about zombies — or the undead — from the seventies, and it was an anticlimax to be greeted by a young woman in a navy-blue dress that looked like a maid's uniform, and not by a ghoulish manservant or a disembodied hand. The maid, if that was what she was, appeared to be chewing gum.

“You're expected,” she said, giving Al a speculative glance. “This way.”

As they followed in the wake of her bobbing ponytail of multi-coloured hair, she blew an impressive pink bubble that subsided just before she knocked on a massive wooden door to one side of the cavernous hall. Moretti wondered how long it had taken to perfect her timing, or whether it was a natural gift.

The room they entered was like a film set out of
Bowani Junction
, or
The Jewel In The Crown,
by a designer who'd taken leave of his senses, and particularly his sense of proportion. The walls were covered with an armoury of weapons ranging from spears to guns, with the odd scimitar and sword in-between. There was even an animal skin on the floor — mercifully not a lion or tiger, its head snarling up at them, but what looked like it had once been an elegant antelope, or something like it. On the subtle taupe and bronze tones of the animal skin were two large feet encased in felt slippers, and attached to the feet was Colonel Clarence Priestley, wearing a plum-coloured velvet smoking jacket, seated in a vast armchair whose upholstery had seen better days. Behind an impressive set of whiskers his mottled face and small porcine eyes seemed annoyed.

“You're the fellas who've come to harass Charlie,” he said. His voice rumbled out in a drawl that still managed to sound threatening.

At least the battle lines were clearly drawn.

Moretti pulled out his police identity badge, Al did the same, and the colonel brushed them away with a flick of his hand as if they were a couple of tsetse flies.

“No need for that. What do you want from the boy?”

“His version, Colonel, of what happened at the Lorrimers' party. Mrs. Gastineau says she lost control because she recognized your nephew's voice as the one on her phone, the person who has been harassing
her
over a period of weeks.”

To establish, Colonel Blimp, who might be harassing whom.

At this, the colonel stood up, leaning heavily on both arms of his massive chair.

“Good God, man, this is all pure speculation based on the word of an unbalanced woman of dubious breeding. From what I have heard of her background, this could be an attempt to get money out of us!”

The colonel, it appeared, had done some digging.

But before Moretti could say anything in response, Al Brown had something to say. “That's a very fine sitar, Colonel.” He was pointing at the wall just visible behind the armchair. “Looks like a nineteenth-century
gayaki
-style sitar to me. Teak or
tun
wood, do you know, sir?”

Both Moretti and the colonel looked at Al in surprise, and the colonel's face lit up.

“You know something about sitars?”

“Yes, sir. I play a Portuguese guitar, and I'm interested in all stringed instruments, particularly guitars of any kind. May I take a closer look?”

“Please do, young man.”

The colonel joined Al as he circled the armchair, shuffling with some difficulty across the uncarpeted section of the floor. Moretti stayed where he was and watched the two men. At some point he had to get things back on track and talk to Charles Priestley, but so far so very good. The colonel was no longer facing the enemy across the pampas, or the veldt, or whatever. At least Al was admitted inside the walls.

“Looks like
tun
to me, sir — it's a sort of mahogany — and the bridge, I think, is possibly camel bone. A gourd, of course, for the
kaddu
, the resonating chamber. All those strings! Most of them to supply that drone sound in the
ragas.
Such skill required. Did you ever hear it played, Colonel?”

“Not this one.” The colonel was beaming at Al. “This belonged to my grandfather. He told me stories about the band that played when they played polo in India. ‘Often women,' he said, ‘playin' the sitars. How those natives could ride their horses! Hell for leather, absolutely no fear whatsoever!'”

Just as Moretti was wondering how he was going to get things back from the polo grounds of nineteenth-century colonial India, the colonel turned away and came back across the room. At one point he stumbled, and Al took his arm. The two made their slow way past Moretti, and it looked for a moment as if the colonel was going to show them the door. Instead, he opened it and shouted in a voice that boomed spectacularly into the hall.

“Charlie! Get down here!”

Colonel Priestley turned and beamed at them both.

“Learned to do that in Africa,” he said. “Makin' my voice carry across great distances. Here he is, stupid young fool.”

The stupid young fool was making his way down a fine, curving set of stairs that showcased his spectacular good looks. He walked down as if drifting, floating from step to step, his face pale as ivory. The T-shirt and jeans he was wearing seemed like an anachronism in this house, and on him.

“Get in here,” said his uncle.

Once back in the room, the colonel reached out for Al's arm, and allowed himself to be helped back to his threadbare throne.

“Tell these officers what you told me.”

“It was a joke.” Charles Priestley sounded peevish. “I was put up to it.”

“By whom?” Moretti was watching the boy's face, remembering what Elodie had said about his expression after Tanya's outburst. He had looked scared, she said. Right now he was looking rebelliously at his uncle, who repeated Moretti's question.

“Tell 'em,” he added.

“Marla.”

“
Marla
?”

Both Moretti and Al repeated the name, incredulous.

“Why would Marla Maxwell get you to harass her uncle's wife, Charlie?” Moretti shook his head in disbelief. “It makes no sense, and you realise, don't you, that I shall be asking Miss Gastineau if this is true.”

“She'll say no, won't she? She'll say she's just jealous of Tanya, and her having a baby.”

“And displacing her, is that what you're saying?”

“Yes. She hates her.”

It was said melodramatically in Charlie Priestley's melodic voice, and Moretti didn't believe it for a moment. The boy was a terrible liar.

“So you sent threatening messages to Tanya Gastineau on her phone, because Marla Gastineau told you to?”

“Yes.”

“I am assuming you did this because you want to impress Marla, be her boyfriend perhaps?”

“Right.”

Beside his nephew, the colonel shifted suddenly in his chair, and threw a glance at Moretti he found impossible to read. Al continued the conversation.

“That night at the play-reading, when the lights went out and Marla started to scream — I assume that wasn't you, since you two are in cahoots. Or was it a scheme that misfired? Which was it?”

“That wasn't me! I didn't do it! It was someone else's idea of a joke, because of the play being about vampires and the undead! Not me!”

This time Charlie's indignation sounded genuine, and the colonel patted his arm.

“Calm down, Charlie,” he rumbled. “Keep your powder dry.”

Charlie subsided on to the broad arm of his uncle's chair, and Moretti took a step closer to him. He was now looking down into Charlie Priestley's clear amethyst-blue eyes, and the boy flinched and turned away.

“Since you two are close, I imagine Marla told you that someone was sending her threatening text messages? And since you are friends, I guess that wasn't you?”

In the thirty seconds or so it took Moretti to ask his question, Charles Priestley's face flooded slowly with colour, the ivory skin suffused with red. His reply was a shake of the head.

“Is that a no, Charlie?”

“Yes,” said Charlie, “That's a no.”

Moretti and Al exchanged a quick glance to see if each was thinking the same thing. That the negatives and positives in that short statement should be reversed.

No, that's a yes.

“Silly young fool.” Colonel Priestley gave his nephew a shove with his shoulder, knocking him off the arm of the chair. He looked up at Moretti. “Will he be charged?”

“We'll need a statement from him, sir, but my feeling is that Mrs. Gastineau won't press charges. But that's up to her.”

At the thought of the unbalanced woman of dubious breeding, the colonel snorted and stood up slowly.

“That's all then. Go on, Charlie, get out of my sight.”

It was said with affection, more sorrow than anger on his face.

“One last question, Charlie.” Moretti chose his moment to ask as the young man walked past him to the door. “Can you think of anyone else who is involved? The person who is behind all this, frightening Marla Gastineau? If it's not you — who?”

It was then he saw in Charlie Priestley's eyes what Elodie had seen at the party. Fear.

“I don't know,” he said.

The old man watched Charlie Priestley go out of the room and close the door behind him, then turned to Moretti and Al Brown.

“He's lyin', of course,” he said. “Not about who did what, but about the girl.”

“Marla Maxwell?” The colonel's porcine little eyes looked both tender and astute, and Moretti reminded himself that pigs were highly intelligent animals, not to be underestimated. “In what way, sir?”

“That boyfriend poppycock.” The colonel took Al's arm and led him and Moretti over to a series of portraits on one wall not entirely covered in the instruments of war. With one exception they were all of men, most in some kind of uniform. “My ancestors, gentlemen,” he said. “I come from a long line of bachelors. Some were married, or I wouldn't be here, but most were not. I never married, never wanted to. No choice in those days about what I wanted, but there is for Charlie, thank God. Got into a spot of bother about it at school, which is why he's here, to get away from his damn silly parents. This idiocy has nothing to do with that.” He turned to face Al, still holding his arm. “D'you see?”

Moretti left it to Al to reply to the question that gave him the answer to one of Charlie Priestley's lies.

“Yes, Colonel, I see,” Al said.

And, as he answered, Moretti saw what Colonel Clarence Priestley had seen about Aloisio Brown, and he had not.

M
oretti
had gathered his Op VS troops around the largest table in the incident room and ordered in sandwiches and coffee. The air was almost festive as he waited until decisions had been made between ham, cheese, and egg salad on brown or white bread, pickles or no pickles, and black or white coffee. Frowning in the direction of Le Marchant and McMullin as they opened their obtrusively fizzing cans of pop, he took out the notes he had begun compiling in the small hours when sleep eluded him, and began.

“Time for a case review, so let's look at what we've got. A murder, an attempted murder, and threats against two women: Marla Gastineau, and Tanya Gastineau. We have two men who seem scared of something or somebody: Charles Priestley and Roddy Bull. One of those two, Priestley, claims he was put up to harassing one woman, Tanya, by the other, Marla. Al and I are sure he is lying about that, just as his uncle is sure he is lying about doing it to impress Marla and be her boyfriend. From what the colonel said this afternoon, there are contacts between the two families, so whoever put Priestley up to this is a Gastineau. I'd put money on that. And, although he denied it, I think he also was sending the threatening texts to Marla. So —” Moretti looked around the table at his MI team, “what do those two women have in common?”

“Their sex.”

Over the edge of his ham sandwich, Rick Le Marchant gave a lip-curling laugh at his fatuous comment.

“Exactly,” said Moretti. “Well done, Rick.” Most of the MI Team looked astonished, even Rick looked surprised, and Moretti added, “They are both young women of child-bearing age. For Marie and Elton, Tanya is the enemy. For Ginnie, they are both the enemy.”

“But she isn't married.” An emboldened Rick added another pearl of wisdom.

With the patience of a kindergarten teacher dealing with a particularly slow pre-schooler, Moretti said, “Not yet. But I gather she has hopes, or so I'm told on good authority. And she is older than Marie, so that puts her second in line, since they are both female. And being older also makes her in a hurry.”

On the other side of the table, Falla was watching her Guvnor with interest.

“If it were that simple, we could go in, apply pressure, and extort some truth from weaker suspects like the golden boy, but it isn't. I am now convinced there are two motives here, two strands to what is going on, and how and why one is linked to the other, I cannot quite see yet.”

“But why not put more pressure on Priestley?” Bob McMullin asked.

“Because whoever is doing this is more frightening than we are, Bob. I understand you now have a schedule, and start rehearsals this weekend. See what you can do, okay? He might like a shoulder to cry on.”

Bob nodded, and Moretti stopped to eat some of his sandwich, and drank some coffee. Liz Falla smoothed out her paper napkin on the table with elaborate care and asked, “Does your good authority have any more to say about Shawcross's role in all this?”

“No.” Moretti met his partner's eyes, expecting speculation, and saw instead anxiety. “But I have been rethinking his place in this nasty little drama, and my first priority is to question him again, now that he's able to speak. We know he was fleeing a father's wrath, but why Guernsey? Was that random, or did he have another reason for being here? I may be wrong in assuming the attack on him was to draw our attention away from the real danger to others — that exists, for sure, but maybe Hugo isn't just a red herring.”

“If that's the case, sir, doesn't it mean that Ms. Ashton is a target?” Al gave a quick glance at Liz, and went on, “I looked at her statement, and she says she saw no one, but the attacker doesn't know that.”

“Yes.” Moretti also looked at Liz. “I imagine that's why you asked about Shawcross. See if you can persuade her to move away from the house, move in with you, with her sister, whatever. You may succeed where I have failed, Falla.”

Without waiting for her to respond, Moretti continued.

“Loose ends,” he said, “let's tie up some loose ends. PC Perkins checked Gus Dorey's mailbox in town and it is empty. We had to get it opened, because the key has disappeared, and the staff has no recollection of anyone coming in and opening it. However, they can't see the box from the front desk, so that proves nothing. I'm thinking of talking to the postman again. Now he's over the shock, he may remember more details of his almost daily chats with Gus Dorey.

“For the night of the attack on Shawcross no one in the Island Players has an alibi worth a damn. I'm not going to check alibis for the death of Gus Dorey, because at the moment it is not a murder, and I want it to stay that way. For the moment.”

“Sir.” A tentative Bob McMullin spoke up. “What are we doing about the Bristol connection?”

“Absolutely nothing, but it is crucial to this investigation, because that is where the truth lies about whoever killed the hermit, and whoever attacked Shawcross. We now know that Bristol is where Rory Gastineau met his wife, and I suspect he was trying to find out about Gus Dorey and Lucy Gastineau. Not so much a piece of the puzzle that's missing, but a piece that doesn't fit. Yet.”

“I don't quite get it, Guv.” Bernie Mauger put down the pickle on which he had been crunching, the last vestiges of his meal. “Are you saying that all this vampire stuff is just window dressing? That it's really about Gus Dorey having a kid with a Gastineau?”

“That's just what I'm saying, Bernie. Whoever heard of a vampire biting the
back
of someone's neck? There's something else going on, but it's really all about the hermit. And what
I
don't get is why he was killed when he was. What was the trigger? Because this was not just an act of madness, but a cold, calculated killing. So why then?”

“There are others in danger, Guv — Tanya, for instance.” Liz Falla took out her notepad, and flipped through the pages. “Something she said after Bob said he thought Roddy Bull couldn't wait to get out of there.” She quelled Rick Le Marchant's attempt to interrupt her with a look. “Here it is. ‘Someone to talk to,' she said. Perhaps we should have another chat with Roddy the Body, Guv.”

“Good idea. I agree, Tanya's vulnerable, but she has a bodyguard far more effective than Roddy the Body, one who'd give his life for her. Her husband.”

“You've left a leading player out of the cast of characters, sir,” Al looked ruefully at Moretti, “and she's a slippery character. Meg the gypsy.”

Moretti smiled. “I was saving her for last. Meg is the wild card in all this, the most elusive, and the one most at risk.”

“More than Ms. Ashton or Mrs. Gastineau?” Bernie Mauger asked.

“Yes.” Moretti's face was grim as he looked around the table. “Meg is the only one of this cast of characters who knows who ‘the other one' is.”

“The ‘other one,' sir?”

Rick Le Marchant's enquiry was devoid of levity. The festive air in the incident room was gone, and even PC Le Marchant had divined that much.

“Meg knows who killed her friend, Gus Dorey.” Moretti stood up and, as the chairs began to scrape against the floor as the team followed suit, he added, “Unless there are further developments, we meet here again on Monday morning, and I'll assign interviews at that time. But keep your mobiles on, or check them regularly.”

As the group began to file out of the room, Moretti called out to Liz Falla.

“Falla, a moment.”

She turned and came back, waiting until the last person had left before speaking. She was looking at his face and smiling.

“Why do I have the feeling you are going to spoil my weekend, Guv?”

“Because I am.”

It was a relief to be laughing with Falla again, although the laughter only lasted as long as the brief sentence in which he told her what he wanted. She looked at him in disbelief.

“You're joking, Guv,” she protested, “You're not serious?”

“I am. Serious, not joking. Come on, let's get out of here.”

Liz Falla had been in Moretti's house before. She knew it had been his family home, that the piano had been his mother's, and that most of the furniture and the prints on the walls had been put there by his parents. On her first visit, the only contribution she had seen that he had made to his surroundings was his really antiquated vintage quad sound system, whose smooth, sweet sound was, in his opinion, unequalled. The first thing she noticed on this visit was a new and up-to-date system, which she knew he had been planning to install, to play the music collection he had acquired in much the same way as she had her Parisian couture.

Liz hung her coat on the ancient coat-stand by the door and said, “Am I right in thinking that, because I'm here, this conversation did not happen?'

“Right.” Moretti did not laugh. “We are officially off-duty, Falla, so would you like a beer? I would. How those young men can drink that poison in a can is beyond me, but the sound of those cans opening set me thinking about a decent beer, not necessarily from a can.”

“Thanks. I'd love a decent beer. Dark, if you have it.”

“I have.”

Moretti disappeared into the kitchen and Liz took the opportunity to take another look at the room. The other new acquisition was a small, exquisitely detailed watercolour of island flora, alongside the only other print she knew was not part of his parents' collection. She smiled, thinking of the print's likely connection to an earlier case, and the new painting. Some murderers kept mementos of their terrible crimes; it looked as if detective inspectors kept souvenirs of lost loves. At least, this one did. In his own way, this Guvnor of hers was a hermit also, possibly still in the thrall of a lost wife on the mainland. But whether he was trapped by love, as the hermit of Pleinmont seemed to have been, or by that equally sticky snare, the once bit, twice shy trap, she couldn't guess.

“Here we are.” Moretti handed her a tall, foaming glass of something dark and delicious. “Cheers.”

They sat opposite each other, an old brass-bound chest that served as a table between them, and Liz raised her glass.

“Cheers. You know how I feel about things that go bump in the night — has all this vampire hogwash got to you? Sorry to sound out of line, Guv, but I'd be a lot more cheery if you have a really good reason for me to be doing what you're asking me to do.”

“A really good reason from a really reliable source.” Moretti drank some more of his beer, and put down the glass.

“Elodie,” he said.

Moretti rethought the events of the previous night, selecting what was essential, filtering out the personal, and a moment best forgotten.

“Where do we go from here?”

She had asked the question once they were back in the car, and Moretti had no intention of enquiring whether she was being literal or figurative. Elodie shivered as she spoke, and Moretti started the engine, turned on the heat, then turned it off.

“I'll have to leave it a bit, but it won't take long. You dropped something.”

He pointed to the tiny shape, just visible in a puddle outside the car window.

“A rose. Or it
was
a rose, from Aaron Gaskell. Not important.”

“I see.”

He doesn't
, she thought. But the withered remains of that boutonnière might come in useful. From the tone of his voice when he answered her question, it had.

“I'm taking you home, then coming in to check around and then I'll try again to persuade you to get out of there.”

As she swung around in her seat, he put the Triumph into gear and she jolted against him. Perhaps because of the rose lying on the wet pavement, he felt nothing this time. But the brush of her wet hair against this face reminded him to put on the heater.

“Ed, on an island this size I cannot run very far, I certainly can't hide, and I have no intention of leaving Guernsey.”

The rest of the drive was in silence. It had started to rain and, as it spattered lightly on the car window, in his head Moretti heard his former sax player, Garth Machin, playing a riff on “It Takes Two to Tango.”

Get out of my head, Garth, and stop being so bloody unsubtle
, he thought.

The music changed to another tango and another musician, Lonnie playing “Mi Buenos Aires Querido” on his bass, and this time Moretti listened.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Huxley was right. They drove to Elodie's house in silence, and Moretti listened to Lonnie.

As they pulled into Elodie's driveway and got out of the car, Elodie said, “Yes, I still need you to check around and no, I don't want you to do any arm-twisting.”

Moretti looked at her over the top of the Triumph.

“Then you can convince me why you are the last person to involve yourself with anything to do with blood play or the undead.”

She didn't reply, but walked ahead of him, let them both into the house, then said, “I'm going to get a towel and dry my hair and change into a sweater. I've no clothing to offer you, so why don't you get us both a Scotch. In the cupboard next to the fridge. Glasses on the sideboard in the sitting room.”

Elodie disappeared upstairs and Moretti did as he was told, switching on a small lamp by the sofa in the sitting room. A few minutes later she was back, barefoot, in a voluminous black sweater, rubbing her hair with a white towel. He handed her the Scotch, waited for her to sit down on the sofa on which he had first seen her, and sat down opposite her. She wrapped the towel into a turban around her head and raised her glass.

“
Salut
. Okay, so now I'll tell you. It's a long, complicated, dirty piece of personal laundry that I have never shared with anyone — not even Liz, and I don't want her to know. I am probably crazy to be telling it to a policeman, and if you took it any further I would deny every word.”