Sailing to Capri (12 page)

I waved my good-byes and stepped outside to wait for Montana. The cold bit my nose and sneaked down my throat, and I almost turned around and went right back inside, but then Montana swung through the door, buttoning Bob’s jacket. I figured he might as well keep it now, but maybe the expensive black cashmere coat was more his true urban style. Hadn’t he said he was a city guy? I realized I had no idea even in which country he lived. Perhaps he was simply “a man of the world.”

We walked back to the Hall, each lost in our own thoughts. I was wondering how I was going to cope with the scary cruise,
and I assumed Montana was wondering how he was going to find all these people and persuade them to come on that cruise.

“If necessary, you’ll have to do the persuading,” he said.

He’d read my thoughts again. “Me?” I asked in a voice squeaky with nerves.

“You’re the person closest to Bob. You’re also the hostess, the person inviting them on this memorial cruise.”

“The wake,” I said gloomily, sniffing up my runny nose and pulling my woolen ski cap farther over my ears against the icy wind.

“Exactly. They’ll call you, of course, wanting to know more. Tell them it’ll all be very jolly; say that Bob wanted to make them happy after he’d gone. It was his dying wish and he left you a letter asking you to do this for him. Your one final task.”

“Okay.” With the toe of my hot pink Moon Boot I kicked moodily at the snow piled by the Hall’s iron gates. Stanley, the gardener, was outside the gatehouse where he lived with his wife and three black cats, two of whom hurtled at Rats, spitting and snarling. Tail down, Rats made a run for it back to the Hall while the cats, shouted at by Stanley to behave themselves, settled on a patch of ice and preened their whiskers, having won the day’s battle.

“Afternoon, Miss Keane, Mr. Montana.” Stanley touched a hand to his deer hunter’s cap. “Might be a bit more snow later but I heard the plows will be out our way tonight, so there’s a chance you might get out of here, sir.”

“Glad to hear it, Mr. Stanley. And no doubt so is Miss Keane.”

“I’ll keep you posted then, sir,” Stanley said as we walked on.

Rats was already waiting by the back door. We went into the boot room and silently stripped off our coats and tugged off our boots. Montana followed me as I walked in my stocking feet, down the corridor past the kitchen and into the front hall. Rats immediately took up his position in front of the fire, and we went into the library that Bob always used as his office. I showed Montana the three big Rolodexes and left him to search for the suspects’ addresses.

Telling Montana I’d see him at dinner, I left him to it. Rats lifted his head as I went by but he didn’t follow me, and slightly put out, I realized he wanted to stay with Montana.

Back in the safety of my room, I undressed and put on a robe. I rubbed Vaseline into the frost-bitten bits around my red nose then lay on my velvety chaise lounge and covered myself with a soft blanket. Eyes closed, I thought about the events of the last twenty-four hours. My life was suddenly set on a different course, one I had no wish to take. I was afraid, but I could not let Bob Hardwick down.

When I came downstairs that evening, Montana was gone and Rats was sitting next to the hall table with his nose pointing at an envelope with my name on it. I don’t know how the dog knew it was from Montana and whether it said he’d gone out for a while and would soon be back, but personally I was kind of relieved it was a message of good-bye.

“Daisy,”
he’d written,

(remember we agreed I could call you that instead of Miss Keane? Just reminding you so you don’t think I’m being presumptuous!) I heard the roads are clear and if I hurry I can make it back to London before the next storm. Didn’t want to wake you so I’ll say good-bye now. I’ll keep you posted as events unfold, which I expect will be pretty quickly, plus I’ll take care of the invitation with Bob’s lawyers and have them get it off right away by messenger.

It was good meeting you, Daisy Keane, even though, as Bob said, you can be “exasperating and difficult.” Give a guy a break, can’t you? I’m only doing my job. Can’t we be friends?

Meanwhile, better stock up on some cruise wear! I’ll be in touch—soon.

He’d signed it “Harry C. Montana.”

I wondered what the
C
stood for. And what did he mean I was “difficult”? Hadn’t I rescued him from the storm, given him shelter? What more did the man want?

It was dark out but not yet snowing. I went into the kitchen. Mrs. Wainwright had the night off but there was a plate of leftover roast beef and vegetables keeping warm for me. I emptied the last of yesterday’s good Bordeaux into a glass and swallowed a smooth mouthful. I gave Rats his dinner, took my plate, and went and sat at the kitchen table. I sipped my wine, listening to the clock in the shape of the old cartoon character Felix the Cat ticking on the wall. Every room here ticked away the time. It only emphasized the silence and my loneliness.

The warmed-over roast beef was still good. I finished the wine, found another bottle, opened it, filled my glass again and slumped back into my chair. I was desperately lonely. I stared at Montana’s note lying on the table.

“Can’t we be friends?” he’d written. Did he really want to be my friend, or was it simply until the “case” was solved and he was no longer on Bob’s payroll? I remembered his lean, hard face, the well-shaped dark head, the narrow gray eyes and that
half smile that made me think uncomfortably he was laughing at me, and despite my better judgment I suddenly wished he was still here, sharing the bottle of wine with me.

“Better stock up on some cruise wear,” he’d written, mockingly. I got up and began to pace the kitchen floor, mulling over my strange situation.

Rats levered himself from the sweater in front of the Aga and began to follow me around, hoping for a walk, but it was too cold. Instead I just let him out the back door and waited, shivering, glass in hand, until he’d finished and we both hurried back inside.

I eyed Montana’s note again. “I’ll be in touch—soon,” he’d said. I put it in my pocket, then rinsed off my plate and glass, put them in the dishwasher and wiped off the table. Rats trotted after me as I walked back upstairs, but instead of going to my own room, I turned left at the top of the stairs and headed to the Red Room. I opened the door and peeked inside. If I was expecting to find any trace of Montana, any lingering vitality, any hint of his hard masculine persona still hanging in the air, I was disappointed.

Are you nuts? I asked myself as I hurried down the hallway to my own room. You meet a guy who’s definitely going to drive you crazy and you act like you miss him? Forget it, baby, he’s being civilized only because it’s his job.

I slammed my door behind me just as the phone rang. I pounced on it. “Hello?” I said.

“Just thought you’d like to know I made it back safely.”

I sucked in my breath, happy to hear Montana’s voice. “I was
worried,” I admitted softly, realizing I meant it. “The roads are so icy.”

“You missing me then?”

“Not a bit.” I made my voice crisp as iceberg lettuce. “It’s simply a natural concern for my fellow men.”

He laughed then, a good, deep sound that made me smile. “Okay, then this fellow man may have some news for you late tomorrow. I’ll call back then.”

“I’m going back to London,” I said, unable to bear the silence at Sneadley any longer. “You have that number?”

“I do. And it’ll be my turn to worry about you on the icy roads.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing.

“I mean it,” he said gently.

“Thank you.”

“Speak to you tomorrow then.”

He rang off, and I sat holding the phone. Suddenly London seemed like a great idea.

I hurried to my closet and picked out a black dress I particularly liked, one suitable for a dinner date, just in case. Then I turned on the TV, flopped onto the chaise lounge, and with Rats on my knee, numbly watched a reality show until I fell asleep. Tomorrow would be another day. And soon those invitations would be arriving at the suspects’ doors.

When she was married to Sir Robert, Diane Hardwick lived in a palatial apartment in one of Monte Carlo’s best buildings, complete with a white-jacketed houseboy, personal maid, chef, and housekeeper, plus an ever-changing staff of day workers who kept the place polished, dusted and germ-free. Diane had a phobia about germs. Even though every door handle, every faucet and every bathroom was cleaned twice a day she still wore gloves in the house, but because she didn’t want people to know of her eccentricity she never wore them when she went out. Instead she surreptitiously dusted things with Handi Wipes before touching them. Except, of course, for the gaming chips at the Casino.

She wouldn’t have been permitted to play the tables in gloves anyway, though how they could suspect a woman of her
stature of cheating was unthinkable. And of course she did
not
cheat. She simply lost. That’s why she was now living alone in a small apartment on the Place Charles-Félix in the old part of Nice, close by the house where Matisse once lived. It was also close to one of Nice’s oldest squares, the Cours Saleya, site of the famous outdoor market.

Since Diane did not enjoy food she was not thrilled to be living close to the market and its lavish displays of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The smells of cooking wafting into her apartment from the booths selling
socca,
the local chickpea pancakes, and the aromas from the many restaurants lining the square made her feel ill. Only the market’s magnificent displays of flowers pleased her. No matter how tight money was, and it was
always
tight, Diane filled her four-room second-floor apartment with the scent of tuberoses and lilac, jasmine and freesia, anything to dispel the odors coming in from the streets.