Chapter 18 #2
‘It’s clear from the book that you and Dirk Foster had a relationship twenty-five years ago, but that it ended acrimoniously.’ Greg Gupta had already told me this, but I saw no point in involving him. ‘I gather the two of you have hardly spoken since then. Can I ask why you invited him?’
‘Like I said, I invited him because he’s in the book, and because I wanted to give him the opportunity to apologise for what he did.
’ She looked me straight in the eye for a couple of seconds, and I read bitter anguish in them.
‘He didn’t only break my heart, Dan; he scarred me for life, mentally and emotionally. ’
‘You don’t mention it in your book, but I read somewhere that you disappeared from circulation for a year after that. Something about a trip to India, if I remember right?’
She shook her head. ‘You don’t want to believe everything you read.
If you want the honest truth, I went back to stay with my mum in Dorset.
I needed to get away from Dirk and I needed to get away from Hollywood.
I buried myself in the middle of the countryside and kept my head down.
’ She looked up at me and her eyes were bright with tears.
‘I look back on that time of my life with mixed emotions. Mum was diagnosed with cancer while I was there, and I stayed with her till the end.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She was looking really down, so I did my best to cheer her up.
‘But then you came back to Hollywood and picked up where you’d left off, and your career went ballistic.
When your book comes out, I’m going to read it carefully, line by line.
You describe some really happy times as well as some grim times.
And, of course, you got married, didn’t you? ’
Her reaction to this was bittersweet. ‘We got married in 2004. Andrew was a wonderful man. He was my rock, but then he was plucked away from me ten years ago, almost to the day.’ She wiped her eyes again. ‘A massive heart attack. One day, he was there; the next, he was gone.’
Any further nostalgia was interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside and I heard somebody tapping at the door, accompanied by a familiar voice. It was Mary. ‘Miss Graceland, are you there? The police have arrived and they want to speak to everybody.’
I got up, opened the door, and let her in. When she saw Alice still wiping the tears away, she hurried over to her side of the desk and stood alongside her. ‘Are you all right, Miss Graceland? Is there anything I can do to help?’ She sounded genuinely concerned.
To my surprise and probably Mary’s, Alice reached over, wrapped her arms around Mary’s waist and buried her head against her side, sobbing quietly while Mary, clearly moved, stroked her boss’s hair, doing her best to comfort her.
At this point, Oscar was looking so concerned, I thought he was about to climb onto the desk to be close to them, so I thought it probably a good idea if he and I headed off and left the two of them alone.
Giulia Trevisan and Sergeant Scarpa were standing under the pergola.
I went over and we shook hands. Formalities completed, I raised an inquisitive eyebrow in the inspector’s direction.
‘So the pathologist says she was poisoned; what sort of poison was it? Presumably, something quick-acting like arsenic?’
She shook her head. ‘The pathologist’s still trying to find out what it was.
There were only very faint residual traces of heroin in the body, so it looks as though the victim really had been trying to kick the habit.
Apparently, cause of death was myocardial infarction, heart attack, provoked by a very toxic poison, but one that’s so uncommon that it may take all day or even several days to identify.
In the meantime, though, what’s clear is that the victim was poisoned so, unless she took it deliberately, that means murder.
What we have to do now is to work out who did it. ’
I nodded in agreement. ‘I spent four hours last night reading the manuscript of Alice Graceland’s autobiography. This raised a number of points. Let me tell you what I found.’
It took me a quarter of an hour to run through what I’d read overnight and heard from Alice and from Dirk Foster this morning.
Both officers listened intently and took notes.
When I finally reached the end of my account, Giulia reached into her pocket and handed me the cards Alice had distributed to the guests at the beginning of last night’s murder mystery.
‘Scarpa and I’ve been able to translate them more or less, but I’d like you to take a look.’
I glanced through them and what I saw perfectly matched what I’d read in the manuscript.
Alice had simply translated the sins of the modern-day guests onto their Renaissance personae.
Jack Sloane was a rapist, Desmond Norman a lecher, who had sought to take advantage of a young woman.
Dirk Foster was a sex cheat and Carlos Rodriguez an offensive liar.
I hadn’t read about Freddie Baker in the manuscript yet, but seeing as he featured in the chapter ‘Falsehoods and Fabrications’, it seemed likely he would also turn out to be a liar.
Maggie McBride was portrayed as a materialistic slut and – particularly of interest in this investigation – maybe even a poisoner.
Only the sins of Alastair Groves, Alice’s former agent, were unspecified.
The words on his card were similar to what I’d read in her book: You know what you did.
What, I wondered, had he done? Somehow, by refusing to specify what he’d done, this made it even worse.
I handed the cards back to Giulia and confirmed that they matched the contents of the manuscript. She took them from me, looked back down at her notebook, and summed up.
‘Unless I’ve left somebody out, it looks as though the main suspects are Norman, Sloane, Foster, Groves, Rodriguez, McBride and probably Baker. That makes seven possibles.’ She looked up at me. ‘Right so far?’
This echoed my conclusions. ‘Yes indeed, all of whom stood to face considerable embarrassment, and some possibly even complete humiliation and disgrace – or even prosecution – if the book were to get published as it is. Of course, they only had sight of the book after the murder had taken place, but the cards are quite unequivocal, so I think we have to assume that the killer is most probably the one with the guiltiest conscience, the one with the most to lose.’
‘I agree, and, from what you’ve told us, Sloane could be facing a charge of rape, while Norman could be accused of a lesser, but still unpalatable, charge relating to his attempt to obtain sexual favours.
Rodriguez could find himself being investigated in relation to the death at his party thirty years ago, although you and I both know that the evidence of a witness who admits to having taken cocaine would be trashed by any good defence lawyer.
McBride faces humiliation if she really was sleeping around, looking for a billionaire, and if the poisoning comment on her card is correct, she could even be looking at a charge of murdering her husband.
Foster more likely faces embarrassment or humiliation, and maybe Baker too, rather than anything more serious, but there has to be a question mark hanging over Groves, her former agent, until we find out exactly what he did – if anything.
What do you think Alice Graceland meant when she wrote, “You know what you did”? ’
I shrugged. ‘I didn’t have time to ask Alice when I was speaking to her just before you arrived. I must admit that I’m looking forward to hearing what she says about Groves and what he has to say for himself.’
The sergeant added a query of his own. ‘What about other people here on the island? What about the wives and boyfriends of the main suspects, the staff here, the actors, or maybe even the owner herself? I wouldn’t rule her out.
At the moment, we’re assuming the victim was murdered by mistake while the real target was Alice Graceland, but what if it’s a clever double bluff, and the murder was committed by the owner, with or without the collaboration of her PA? ’
I’d been thinking along these lines myself.
‘It’s a possibility, Sergeant, but I’m at a loss to know what motive Miss Graceland might have had for murdering the woman for whom she appears to have had considerable affection.
But, you’re right, we need to consider her, and I suppose we also need to bear in mind the staff members and actors just in case, along with the companions of the main suspects.
Again, I can’t see anything that links any of them with the murder, but who knows? ’
The inspector closed her notebook with a snap and looked up.
‘We need to start by interviewing the owner, followed by the principal suspects. Dan, if you’re still available, will you help with interpreting, please?
’ She turned to the sergeant. ‘Scarpa, find us a quiet room where we can conduct our interviews, and make sure everybody’s up and available. We’ll start with Alice Graceland.’