'I've written a list, with addresses or telephone numbers where I have them. Try David Holmes first. He works for a wine merchant. That's their address, but I don't know where he lives. He may know some of the local gossip, and he was on the boat. He's been going around with Libby. Find out who else she met through him. She, of course, is living here, but I doubt if she'll tell me much. You'll stand a far better chance with her, especially if you get anything from David.'
'I will, don't worry. And I'll rope Tod in, he can do his bit too.'
Dodie smothered a grin. Head girl Jylli to the rescue, she thought. Just like one of those old books she used to love when she was about ten years old and had fantasies about getting away from home, and boarding schools. Well, she'd escaped from home, and fallen into a deeper trap.
She sobered suddenly. This wasn't a game. She meant to discover the truth, to obtain justice for Jake.
'I'll find out when Libby's likely to be going out from here, and you could be ready to walk into town with her. She wants to act, she might be interested in the acting side of your family.'
Jylli laughed. 'But they're all frightfully disreputable.'
'Better still. Tell her a few scandalous stories. She'll love that, she wants so badly to be grown up. You can take it from there.'
'OK. Is that all?'
'No. There's young Isabella Maclean. She works in the hotel but Valerie says she often does the marketing for the family. She was on the boat, with her parents and two brothers. They did the catering and were handing round drinks. The boys are quite a bit older than Isabella, but I don't think either of them is married.'
'So it should be easy for me to get to know them! Gosh, I feel like Mata Hari.'
'You will remember that one of them just might be a murderer? Take care, Jylli. If anything happened to you as well I'd never forgive myself.'
'Do you suspect any of them?' Jylli looked more excited than worried.
Dodie shrugged. 'I don't know. Not really. Not yet, anyway. I can't see any motive. Jake was appallingly rude about both the girls, and I suppose they or their fathers or one of Isabella's brothers might have been mortally offended, but it doesn't seem an adequate reason to me.'
'All the detective books say we have to consider means, motive and opportunity,' Jylli recited, ticking them off on her fingers. 'Everyone had the opportunity, and the means was right there.'
'So that only leaves motive. I have to discover whether anyone had a powerful enough one.'
'From what you told me only that Mrs Neville had a real motive. I think I'd murder anyone who stole those sort of jewels from me. I heard they were worth half a million. Pounds.'
Dodie winced. 'I hope that's an exaggeration. You know what the media's like. Of course you do, you work in it,' she recalled. 'But I'll be talking to her in a few days. And by then we may have uncovered other motives. Now I think you'd better go and get those press releases done, and I'll change. Make sure you're there at the boat well before four.'
*
'My mother wishes us to visit her today,' Maria stated.
'That's out of the question. We have such a lot to do,' Theo protested. He disliked these visits at any time, but he had no desire to renew hostilities on what was to be done about Isabella. He'd made up his mind what he intended to do.
'I would not expect you to pay the same respect to older people as Madeirans do,' Maria snapped, 'but I hope you will not shame me in front of my family by refusing to come.'
Theo sighed. Maria had always been volatile, with a quick explosion of temper whenever she was angry, but normally she recovered her equilibrium just as fast. This time it was a cold, relentless mood, and showed no sign of changing. 'What does she want?' he asked tiredly.
'Can you not guess? It is necessary for someone to decide what is to be done with our daughter and her wickedness.'
'You've kept her locked in her room ever since that damned party. Isn't that enough punishment?'
'She can't stay there for the next six months. We have to send her away. After the child is born and given away we can consider whether she comes home.'
'Whether she's sent away is for me to decide, not your mother. I've always permitted you to discipline Isabella, but I'm beginning to think that this time you've been too harsh. I'm going to change it.'
Maria glared at him. 'We take the advice of older members of the family, especially ones of such a great age as my mother.'
He raised his eyebrows. 'As you did, Maria? You made your own choice when you married me, and I don't believe you've regretted it.'
'Not until this! Now I bitterly regret it, while you will not see reason.'
He'd been shaken by her venom, and tried to placate her by accepting the visit. Despite it all he still loved her. He wouldn't have gone, though, he thought later that afternoon, if he'd suspected what it was going to be like. It was worse than he ever dreamed possible. He felt as though he was twenty again, rather than a man in his mid-fifties, a successful businessman and hotel owner, father of three children, and the principal financial supporter of those confronting him. Remembering that helped him to stay firm. None of them had been prosperous when he met Maria. They'd had small farms and small fishing boats and had scraped adequate livings, but now, with his help given freely over the years, the various members of the family had several thriving businesses. It helped, but not much. He stood alone on one side of the table, facing his seated mother-in-law, an indomitable old woman still vigorous in her eighties, flanked by her three grim-faced sons who stood with clenched fists resting on the tabletop, and his wife Maria who sat slightly apart with her own sons, but unmistakably opposed to him. Isabella, though summoned with the rest of the family, had been ordered to wait in the other room.
'She has been foolish, I agree,' he repeated. 'But all girls her age want a little romance. It was her misfortune she met a man without any scruples.'
'She has proved to have none either. When she first tried to jilt Rui you, as head of her family, should have enquired further, discovered what was behind it.'
'She was clearly unhappy about it. She has a right to decide her own future. I would not force her into a hasty marriage which might have made both of them unhappy.'
Maria snorted in disbelief, but Pedro stretched out a hand and rested it on her shoulder, and after a glance at him she subsided.
'She must obey her family,' the older Maria Caritas asserted. 'It is our way, a system you accepted when you chose to live here, and we will not have it otherwise.'
'I hardly chose to spend my life here!' Theo snapped. 'But that is beside the point. Isabella cannot marry Rui now, but she is my daughter, and she will not be forced into anything unwillingly.' He turned to his wife. 'The days are long gone when girls were banished to nunneries against their will.'
'Going to stay with our relatives in Brazil is hardly that. She should be thankful we care enough about her to allow her to escape from her sin, hide her shame,' Carlo growled.
'I won't permit it. She's not a parcel to be sent to strangers at your whim.'
'You will regret it if you try to thwart the family again,' Carlo said softly, but there was no mistaking the menace behind his words. 'You made your bed when you persuaded Maria to run away with you. Your children are Madeiran, not English, and will obey our rules.'
'Don't make threats to me,' Theo said contemptuously. He swung round to the door, but turned with his hand on the knob. 'I might once have given way to you and your knives, but I'm not a youth any more, and I have some influence here if only because of my money. Besides, I don't have to stay here, and neither does Isabella! That is all I have to say to you. I'll thank you to stop interfering in my family affairs.'
The journey home was made in utter silence. At least it was peaceful, Theo thought. He had not been allowed to leave without further furious argument, several of them talking at once, in voices loud enough, he suspected, to be heard all over Santana. When they had finally emerged he'd seen a group of tou
rists turn hastily away. Had they been admiring the traditional steep-roofed houses for which the village was noted, or listening to the tumult within? He found he no longer cared. His mind had finally been made up. He would take Isabella to England, and they would come back only on his terms.
*
Dodie peered from the taxi window. Good, Jylli was there, waiting to escort her to the Silicon Lady. Dodie arranged her deep black mourning clothes, specially bought for the occasion, and was reverently helped from the taxi by an awed driver. She inclined her head, looked round at the small crowd of onlookers who had gathered to see why a dozen or more photographers had appeared, as well as a televison crew, and a posse of men and women waving notebooks and recorders, and rested her hand on Jylli's arm.
They walked slowly along. Dodie silently agreed to pose for the photographers, but refused to answer questions.
'Mrs Fanshaw sincerely hopes she'll be composed enough to give you a few words afterwards,' Jylli announced with due solemnity, though her voice quivered towards the end, and she hastily dragged the black veil she had obtained for herself across her face.
'I hope one of us can see well enough not to fall in and join Jake,' Dodie whispered, and felt Jylli's arm shake.
Fortunately their vision was not much impaired, and Dodie processed in stately but fully sighted fashion towards Howard's boat. He was not visible, having been given strict instructions as to the procedure, but as Dodie reached the gangway of his boat he emerged, trying to look casual, from his cabin.
They exchanged the rehearsed speeches. Howard nodded, and came across to help Dodie clamber into his boat. Dodie winked broadly at him.
'Just Jylli and Tod on the boat, please,' she said, and managed to inject a tearful tremble into her voice which made the thrusting photographers pause sufficiently for Howard to move in and block the gangway.
*
An hour later Dodie was back home, wearing her usual clothes, and having tea with Alex, who had called to see if Libby wanted to walk into town with him. Discovering that his daughter was still out, he'd gladly accepted Dodie's invitation, but after the first few polite remarks he sat gripping his cup in both hands, his expression sombre.
'How well did you know my son?' Dodie asked as she rescued his cup and poured some more tea. She glanced up quickly to see him frown and then smooth his face into blandness. The expression had been so fleeting she almost missed it.
'We were almost never in the same things,' Alex prevaricated. 'We were the same type, in looks. We'd have been too confusing. Luckily they never wanted us as twins. Oh, dear, I didn't mean that as it sounded,' he added apologetically, and gave her a rueful smile. It was so like Jake's own smile when he was caught out in some lie that Dodie was immediately on her guard. It was natural that in the intensely competitive world of theatre and television there would be fierce rivalries, even jealousy, yet Alex had usually been the successful one. Whenever he and Jake had been auditioned for the same part Alex had won. Would one failure cause him to be so bitter? Could it provoke murder? Might the insult to Libby have so aggravated his resentment he'd killed because of it?
She tried not to let her thoughts show. 'Yes, you did. Don't apologize, Alex. I know the worst about poor Jake, and I'd rather you told me the truth. Did you see him much here?'
'Hardly at all. I was spending as much time with Libby as she'd let me. But young girls don't want their elderly fathers cramping their style.'
Dodie chuckled. 'Your studio opens directly onto the lane at the back, doesn't it. Like the one Jake was supposed to be staying in. You must have run across him occasionally.'
Alex shook his head. 'The studio's below the garage. You know how steep the hillside is there. I have to go up some steps in the garden and through the gate. The lane's very quiet, and I've no doubt Jake used the front entrance most of the time. I never saw him out there, at any rate. The front's quite a bit nearer the town centre, as the lane curves round back up the hill. We – that is Bill and Valerie, tend to go out that way only in the car.'
'And you? Which way do you use?'
'Depends where I'm going. The front mainly, I think.'
'Libby uses the front too. So I suppose you didn't see Bruce being mugged. I wonder who did it? That happened in this lane, didn't it?'
'Did it? Yes, I think it did. You know, Dodie, I have my suspicions about that mugging. I don't think it was as bad as Bruce made out. It's difficult to believe, Funchal is normally so peaceful.'
'It is, isn't it.' So were these two events connected, Dodie wondered. At the moment she couldn't see how. Just possibly Jake had hit Bruce, or quarrelled with him, and Bruce had taken his own revenge. She must find out more about this mugging. But something else, a particular tone in Alex's voice, nagged her.
'I didn't see anything, anyway,' Alex added, bringing her wandering thoughts back.
'Were you surprised to see him and Emma here?'
'Of course. Emma and I parted reasonably amicably, but we don't keep in touch a great deal.'
'Who asked for the divorce?'
'It was mutual. She'd met Bruce, of course, but I had – other interests, shall we say – too.'
'But you haven't married again.' Dodie wondered whether he was telling the truth. Was that why he sounded rather constrained when Emma's name was mentioned. Had he wanted to divorce her? Perhaps not. He could have been jealous of Bruce. If he was competitive over his work might he not be over his women? Dodie recalled the sight of Emma sunbathing. She was a very attractive woman.
'Twice is enough for me.' He grinned at her as he put down his cup. 'I don't know how you have the stamina for four marriages.'
'Incurable optimism, and never learning from my mistakes,' Dodie laughed. 'Libby seems to get on well with Emma.'
He smiled, again the sort of charming smile Jake employed when he wanted to divert attention. 'You know, that was probably the worst aspect of our split. Sally was around then, still in England, but it's a lot easier for a girl Libby's age to talk to someone who isn't her mother. I think Libby resented Sally's getting married again, more than she did my remarriage.'
'She's older now. And as Greg is working in Australia, she'll see less of her mother. She still needs a confidante.' And she might have told Emma something useful. Dodie noted down the fact in her mental list of questions to ask.
'Maybe that's it.'
'Who do you think killed Jake?' Dodie asked abruptly.
'I truly hope it was an accident. I didn't like him. We've been rivals for too many parts to be friends, and as you know, he wasn't easy to get on with. Women liked him, though. He could turn on the charm when he wanted to.'
'He got the part you auditioned for, when you went to England, I think?'
Alex looked quickly at her, then shrugged. 'Yes, but perhaps it was his turn. I'd usually been the winner. Poor devil, just as his luck was beginning to turn, this has to happen.'
*
That evening all except Dodie, who had begged to be excused, and Libby who regarded the suggestion with horror, were going to a 'British Night' organized by one of the expatriate groups, held in a room at Reids Hotel.
Valerie, Bill and Howard knew most of the guests, but they hadn't reckoned on the presence and persistence of the ladies and gentlemen of the press. There seemed to be dozens of them hovering in the large foyer, and several had in some mysterious way obtained tickets for the dinner. They were instantly recognizable, Valerie discovered, by their darting, roving eyes as they searched for victims, and intent, almost hypnotic gaze once they had cornered one.
She saw Emma, clearly uneasy, talking to a slim, dark woman in a clinging electric blue gown. Further away Howard was hemmed against a pillar by a tall, weedy looking man and two large ladies, one of them talking eagerly and waving her arms as she did so.
When the aperitifs had been drunk they made their way to the tables. The three of them, with Alex, Bruce and Emma, were to sit together.
Howard was still delayed, and when
the dark woman Emma had been talking to, her soignée image marred only by the surprisingly large handbag she carried, and which Valerie cynically assumed to be hiding a tape recorder, smilingly approached, she promptly tipped the chair between herself and Emma up against the table.
'This one's taken, I'm afraid,' she said firmly, and gasped as the woman, with an understanding smile, calmly reached out, took hold of the chair back, and set it upright again.
'Don't let's stand on ceremony,' the journalist said easily, pulling out the chair preparatory to sitting down. 'You're Mrs Thorn, I believe? And Mrs Fanshaw is an old friend and is staying with you? I'm dying to know if what I've been told is true.'
'Then I'm afraid you'll have to ask it some other time,' Howard cut in, and to Valerie's relief and amusement, the normally reticent and ultra-polite Howard slipped in front of the woman and sat firmly in the chair she was holding. 'There are plenty of spaces over there,' he said, pointing to the far side of the room.
The woman, after an angry glance at him, backed away.
'What did they want with you?' Emma asked Howard.
'Mainly what happened when Jake stormed the party, but also any dirt from beforehand,' he added quietly. 'And you?'
'The same. Did I know him, how well, who had he been seen with, who had he quarrelled with. They just wouldn't accept that I'd never even met him, before the party.' She laughed shrilly. 'I'm thankful I didn't.'
'They're hoping it was murder, it makes a better story,' Howard concluded.
'I thought the police had almost decided it was an accident.'
'According to Bill they would prefer that, but Dodie began stirring it up. Wouldn't you try to placate her in their place?'
'She's convinced it was murder, and is hoping to find out who did it herself,' Valerie put in. 'I can't decide which would be better for her in the long run, but it must be agony not knowing.'
Howard grinned. 'She's bearing up wonderfully. She made a sort of royal progress to the Marina this afternoon, dressed in what looked amazingly like the mourning robes of Queen Victoria, accompanied by about ten journalists and twice as many photographers. She wished, in her words, to commune with the briny where her precious son had spent his last moments. She maintained the ether would tell her what had happened to him, and I think she rather expected a ghostly hand to rise out of the harbour and point an accusing finger at his murderer.'
Fatal Slip Page 11
