Valerie bit back a laugh. 'She didn't tell me that. Did she come on your boat?'
'How could I refuse? I'd have been depicted as the grossest, most unfeeling monster if I had. It was a wonderful performance, but fortunately she insisted on coming alone, apart from her exclusive press girl and photographer. It's a memory I'll treasure. Dear Dodie. She stood there, wailing, her eyes screwed up tight and arms flung wide while they recorded on film a mother's grief. I understand she hadn't seen him for three years, until they met here. If she hammed it up like that on the stage I'm not surprised she had to find a more dependable way of earning a living,' he added with a chuckle. 'I confess I was tempted to push her over the side myself, but it would have been rather foolish with so many cameras trained on us.'
'How long does she means to stay in Funchal?' Emma asked.
'Until the culprit is hanged, drawn and quartered, I gather. She believes there is capital punishment here.'
*
Early the following morning the telephone rang. Valerie picked it up.
'Hello?'
'Valerie? Theo here. Oh, thank goodness you're there. I need your help, and I couldn't think who else to ask.'
'Theo? How can I help?'
'The police are coming to interview Isabella. Someone told them about the remarks Jakes made – on the boat. About – about me and Isabella, and they want to see her. I keep telling them she's ill, has been in her room since the party apart from visiting her grandmother yesterday. We haven't told her. She doesn't yet know that he's dead, and of course that's made them more suspicious.'
'Ill? Poor child. What's the matter with her?'
Theo ignored the questions. 'Will you come and be with her? I don't – don't know how she'll take it.'
'Take what? Never mind, I'm wasting time. Of course I'll come. Right away?'
'If you can. Valerie, you're a brick.'
'Why can't her mother be with her?' Dodie demanded as they took a taxi the short distance to the hotel.
'I don't know. I didn't think to ask. Maybe she's out. But he sounded desperate.'
'Tell me exactly what he said.'
As Valerie did so Dodie was thinking hard. Perhaps when Jake had insulted Isabella at the party it hadn't been just undirected spite. Perhaps there was some reason. It was odd the child had been ill, and even odder she hadn't been told about Jake's death. It had been the talk of Funchal.
Theo was waiting at the door of his hotel when Valerie and Dodie arrived.
'You don't know how grateful I am,' he sighed. 'We have an hour before the police come.'
'Where's Maria? Why isn't she helping you?' Valerie asked as he took her arm and guided her into a small office.
'She's gone to visit her mother today. Again. We all had to traipse over there yesterday. At least she's out of the way.'
Dodie lifted her eyebrows. Why should he be glad the girl's mother wasn't here? He looked distraught, his normally smooth grey hair was rumpled as though his hands had been constantly combing it, and his tie was crooked, his shirt collar rucked up.
'Sit down, both of you, while I explain.' He almost pushed them into chairs while he perched on the edge of the desk. 'She left before the police phoned to make an appointment. The old woman lives in Santana, she came from there originally and went back when Maria's father died.'
Valerie interrupted. He was rambling, and there were so many questions. 'How is Isabella?'
'She's ill, she's been strange ever since that party. She won't eat, won't talk to us, spends all day staring out of her bedroom window.'
'It sounds like some kind of breakdown. Won't she come downstairs?' Dodie asked quickly.
Theo looked embarrassed. 'Well, it started when Maria locked her in, as a punishment, after the party. We took her to Santana yesterday, to see her grandmother, and the moment we reached home she went to bed, but this time she's bolted the door from inside. I can't get in.'
Dodie started to say something and then caught back the words. It would not help to condemn the mother's behaviour, but how could she punish her daughter so and then just leave the child, who was clearly disturbed?
Valerie spoke. 'Can't you get a doctor to say she's too ill to be told about Jake's death? She was at the party, she knew he'd disappeared, but I don't see how she can help or give the police any information.'
'She refuses to see a doctor,' Theo said wearily. 'Short of breaking down the door we can't get in. Valerie, what can I do? The police will insist on seeing her and she'll be terrified.'
'Let me talk to her,' Dodie said. 'That poor child, she must be feeling so alone.'
'There is something else,' Theo said reluctantly.
'What?'
'I hoped to keep her secret. But Maria discovered it and the family know. That's why she's in disgrace with them. Isabella is expecting Jake's child.'
Dodie gripped her hands tightly together, and Valerie stared at him, aghast. 'Oh no! Oh, the poor girl, she must be frantic! Was she hoping he'd marry her?'
'She managed to see him and told him. He said he'd meet her again, with plans for leaving. She suggested the church, she knew she'd be permitted out to go to confession. Instead he sent a callous note finishing with her. I'm sorry, Dodie, but it's true.'
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. This was worse than anything else. But it provided a very strong motive. 'Don't try to spare me. I know better than anyone else what a devil he was.'
'He laughed at her, denied the child was his. I could have killed him. I didn't, Dodie, don't be afraid you're talking to your son's murderer. I was too cowardly. But you can see how good a motive that gives all her family, and both my sons were on the boat too.'
'What can we tell her? Theo, the police can't question her. It would be inhuman!'
'They insist, Valerie. I called you because I was distraught, I didn't know what to do.'
'Let me think. Why her? Have the police interviewed the rest of the family yet?' Dodie asked.
'No. I assume someone must have seen her and Jake together. You know how easily gossip spreads.'
'If people know she went out with him, we can't hope to keep that quiet. But surely none of the family would tell the police she is pregnant? They will see how dangerous it could be for them.'
'What are we going to do about poor Isabella?' Valerie asked.
'We must tell her he's dead,' Dodie decided, 'and try to persuade her not to say she's pregnant. What were you going to do? Have you had time to make plans?'
'We'll send her away. Maria cannot endure the shame. They – the family – want her to go to some cousins in Brazil, but I mean to take her to England and stay with her.'
'The police may not let you,' Valerie said worriedly.
Theo looked appalled, and then recovered. 'This death, or murder, will surely be solved before she needs to go.'
'Then the sooner we see her the more time she'll have to get over the shock. Take us to her room, Theo.'
*
At first Isabella would not reply to their entreaties to open the door, but when Theo intervened to tell her that her mother was not in the hotel and not expected back for many hours, Isabella drew the bolts and allowed them to enter the room.
Dodie tried not to show the shock she felt. The pretty girl she'd seen on the boat was pale, gaunt, and hollow-eyed. She had clearly neither washed nor brushed her hair. The window was closed, the air fetid. An almost full chamber pot sat in one corner.
'We can't talk in here,' Theo said immediately. 'There's an empty guestroom just along the passage. Come, Isabella, you cannot expect others to endure this.'
She did not seem to understand, but looked blankly from one to another. When Valerie took her hand she permitted herself to be led out of the room and along the corridor. In the more spacious guest room Valerie made her sit on the bed, then sat beside her.
'I'll order some tea,' Theo said briefly, and went to use a house telephone set in a small alcove in the corridor. When he rejoined them
he found Dodie talking gently to Isabella, asking her questions about Funchal, and smoothing back the tangled hair which had formerly been so springy and vibrant.
A maid brought a tray with tea and sandwiches, and some bolo de mel. Theo met her at the door and took the tray from her. Between them Dodie and Valerie persuaded Isabella to eat a few sandwiches and drink some tea, and then to wash her hands and face in the adjoining bathroom. Already the girl was looking better, and Dodie had difficulty in suppressing her fury that Maria could have allowed her daughter, however much she was in disgrace, to get into such a state. And Theo, she added silently. How could he have been so weak as to have permitted it?
'Will you have some of the cake?' she asked when Isabella was seated once more on the bed.
Isabella shook her head. 'Thank you, but I am not hungry,' she whispered.
Valerie took her hand. 'Isabella, you must be very brave. I have some bad news for you.'
Isabella looked at her, her eyes devoid of any feeling, either curiosity or apprehension. Valerie took a deep breath and forced herself to continue.
'It's about Jake,' she said gently, and winced as Isabella tensed and clutched at her, ragged nails cutting into her own hand.
'Jake? They found him? Is he coming for me? I knew he would!' Isabella said breathlessly. 'I knew he didn't mean what he said. I must get ready, he'll be in a hurry to take me away. Where is he?'
'No, darling, he's not coming for you, it's bad news. Jake had an accident.'
A glimmer of fear crossed Isabella's face and Theo, who had been standing behind them, near the window, moved swiftly to her side.
'You must be brave, my darling,' he said huskily. 'Jake can't come for you.'
'He can! He will! It's you keeping him away, making him say such horrid things to me, making him go away. He loves me, I know he does, and he'd come for me if you let him.'
'Isabella, dear, stop it,' Valerie said urgently. 'Jake can't come, he had an accident. He fell off the boat at the party. No one knows how. Darling, I'm so sorry, but Jake died. He was drowned.'
Isabella stared at her, apparently uncomprehending, and Valerie wondered whether she would have the strength to repeat the dreadful news. Then Isabella gulped, opened her mouth, and began to scream hysterically as she tore herself from Valerie's hold and threw herself down with complete abandon onto the floor.
***
Chapter 8
Two hours later, Dodie sat in the little office with Theo, sipping brandy. Valerie had gone home, Isabella was in bed, sedated, and the police had just left.
'At least they couldn't question her,' Theo said at last.
When Isabella's hysteria had shown no signs of abating, Theo had called the doctor. While they waited, trying to calm Isabella, he and Dodie consulted swiftly. Isabella, they realized, was beyond understanding what they said.
'If we tell them she and Jake planned to marry and she is distraught because he is dead, they may leave her alone,' Theo suggested optimistically. 'He can't deny it.'
'And that was what he clearly made her believe,' Dodie agreed angrily.
'But they'll think she might know who he was looking for.'
'Have you realized that if they discover about the baby they may get suspicious, and think it gives you all a reason for wanting revenge on Jake? That would be dangerous for you.'
'But how else can we explain her frenzy?'
It had proved easier than they expected, even to deflect questions about Jake's reason for going to the yacht.
'Isabella had been unwell the previous few days and stayed at home.' That was true enough, Theo reflected, she'd hardly stirred out of the house since she'd received that shattering note before Christmas. 'She hadn't seen him, so she couldn't have known.'
They had asked him many questions, but seemed satisfied, accepting the doctor's refusal to allow them to question Isabella for several days.
'We should have the case solved by then, so there will be no need to trouble her,' they said as they departed.
'I must make sure Maria and the boys tell the same story,' Theo said worriedly.
'What are you going to do? Have you relatives you can go to in England?'
He turned and faced her. 'I'll take her to my sister, and stay with her while she has the baby. Then I'll decide what to do. I don't know if I can ever come back.'
'Poor Theo, I'm so sorry.' There seemed nothing else to say. He certainly had cause to kill Jake, but Dodie found it difficult to believe he might have done so. The rest of the family, though, even Maria from how implacable she sounded, could be guilty.
'Dodie, it was your son killed, yet you've helped me enormously today, you and Valerie. I couldn't have carried it off alone.'
'Who knows about Isabella's baby?' Dodie asked slowly.
'The entire family, but so far no one else, I hope.'
Dodie nodded. She couldn't believe that Theo, the gentle, concerned father, would have killed Jake, whatever anger he felt towards him. Maria was a different matter, she was fiery and impulsive. She'd have been strong enough to tip a drunken, comatose Jake overboard. Dodie recalled Maria's grim expression at the party, and if they were like their mother it sounded as though Isabella's brothers would have been quite capable of disposing of Jake. The entire family had a strong motive, and revenging family dishonour meant far more to the Latins than to the British. At least this was a more credible motive than Jake's rudeness about Libby and Emma.
*
The next morning Dodie took a taxi to Emma's house. She and Bruce were waiting for her, having just finished breakfast.
'Coffee?' Emma asked, leading the way into the big kitchen. The day was overcast, cooler than she'd become used to, but the kitchen glowed with copper utensils, wicker chairs from Camacha, and bowls heaped with varieties of fruit and vegetables. 'Do you mind it in here? How can we help?'
'I've been trying to reconstruct the party on the boat,' she told them. 'We've worked out the order things happened in, we think, but I wanted to have someone else's recollections too. I hoped that, as you were still feeling groggy, Bruce, and I think were sitting down a lot of the time, you might have been watching more than most of the others.'
'You did sit down pretty soon after we got there,' Emma said to Bruce. 'I wish you hadn't gone at all,' she added, stretching out and stroking his face.
'Can't miss New Year in Funchal, can we? It's probably the only time we'll be here,' he said, capturing her hand and holding it against his cheek. 'Darling Emma, you are too good for me.'
She laughed, gave Dodie an embarrassed glance, and pulled her hand away.
'I was OK, just a sore head,' Bruce went on, turning to Dodie. 'Yep, I'd had enough of standing about, I did sit down soon after we got there. Let me think. Would it help if I drew a sort of plan of where I think everyone was?'
'Why don't we do what they do in detective stories, and make a list?' Emma suggested. 'Better still, we could use things, pepper mills and so on, to represent people and move them about.' She began to clear the table of all but their coffee cups.
Bruce grinned. 'We'd get horribly confused. We'll use bits of paper with names on.'
For half an hour they argued, moving around the scraps of paper Emma produced, and by the end Dodie had a clearer idea of where some of the main people had been. 'You sat down almost at once, after speaking to a few people. That was fairly near the gangplank?'
'Yes, so when Jake pushed his way onto the boat we got up, partly to get out of his way. Then there was that fracas,' Bruce said. 'Dodie, I've wanted an opportunity to apologize, that I wanted to hit Jake.'
'You weren't the only one,' Emma cut in.
'And after what he said to you, I'm not at all surprised Bruce felt like that,' Dodie said. 'Why on earth did he say such a thing?'
'Search me. I knew who he was, of course, but I don't think I set eyes on him until that night, when I saw him up at Valerie's,' Emma said. 'Had you seen him before, Bruce?'
'No, and I didn't e
ven recognize him. I never watched the soaps he was in.'
'He was drunk, sounding off at everyone who got in his way, and I was there.' Emma sighed. 'And the exertion made you feel ill again, darling, so you sat down further along until the fireworks started.'
They could not remember much else. Once the fireworks started they had moved to stand with the rest of the crowd, and been so enchanted with the display they hadn't paid any attention to any of the guests.
'And we left soon afterwards. I wanted to get Bruce home. Howard was talking about looking for him, but we didn't hear until the next day that he'd been missing.'
Dodie had a great deal to think about as she went home. Emma seemed to care very much about Bruce. She'd been very suspicious, when they'd found Emma employing binoculars and clearly upset, that she was jealous of Bruce. Perhaps she found his fame, greater than Alex's, difficult to cope with. Whatever the trouble had been Emma seemed secure enough now. Yet was their demonstrative affection a trifle overdone? She couldn't decide. And they claimed they hadn't known Jake before the party. If they had, she could understand why they needed to lie, but it could have been pure undirected spite that made Jake lash out at her.
*
'I've arranged the bridge party for tomorrow night,' Valerie said at lunch.
'Do I have to be there?' Libby pouted. 'I hate bridge.'
'Of course you don't. Weren't you going to meet David this afternoon?' Valerie asked.
'OK, you want to be rid of me so that you can play Miss Marple,' Libby grinned at them. 'I'll sunbathe for half an hour, I don't need to go yet.'
Dodie glanced at her. There was something she had to do. Libby. Walking into town. Then she remembered, and excused herself. She blessed Valerie's provision of telephone extensions in every bedroom, and was soon talking to Jylli.
'I'll be there in ten minutes,' Jylli promised. 'Do I come in, or try to get into conversation outside?'
'Come in, and you can be introduced.'
'Right, boss.'
Dodie smiled faintly and went back to the drawing room where Bill and Valerie were drinking coffee. Valerie handed her a cup, and she sipped in silence. She'd almost forgotten Gloria Neville in her absorption with Isabella. It was just remotely possible that Jake wasn't the father and Isabella, afraid, thought to protect a lover they knew nothing about by casting the blame on a dead man. But no, that didn't wash. She'd told Theo when Jake was alive. And her distress on hearing of his death was genuine. She must have loved the man. Poor deluded kid.
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