by Susan Lewis
Uppermost in Sarah’s mind as all her other thoughts collided in her head, was the way that both she and Louisa, just the night before, had threatened Danny with a knife. Of course, they both had alibis, she had been at the police station this morning and Louisa had been with Jake. Both of them had returned to Jean-Claude’s, all their movements could be accounted for, but it still didn’t stop the horrible fear that someone might suspect them. But worse, so very much worse, was the memory of their parting words to Danny. How were they ever going to forgive themselves? How were they ever going to live with the guilt?
At last the police left. For the time being the villa opposite was off limits they were told, but they could, if they wished, go over now to collect what they needed. Jean-Claude went for them, knowing that at this point neither Sarah nor Louisa knew anything about the blood in the house and he didn’t want them to see it. Only he had been inside the house and only he had seen Danny’s body when it was dragged from the pool, so he knew how savagely her face had been battered, how her body had been slashed, in the minutes before she had been stabbed in the back and thrown into the pool.
When he had gone, Sarah and Louisa, their hands clinging to each other’s, cried some more. They didn’t know what to say to comfort each other, neither could they offer any solace to Erik who was sitting in a corner, staring blindly at the garden, his face so haggard with grief that neither of them could bear to look.
Didier came quietly into the room. ‘Louisa,’ he said softly.
Louisa looked up, her face was ravaged by the tears she had shed.
‘I must tell you,’ he said in pained, apologetic and broken English, ‘that I ’ave just seen Madame Name-Drop and she tell the police that she see a black car leave the villa.’
Louisa’s eyes dilated as she looked at him. Then as though it was coming at her, thundering towards her, from the end of a long dark tunnel, the memory of what Jake had said that morning suddenly exploded in her head. ‘So Danny’s there all on her ownsome, is she?’ he had said.
‘Oh my God,’ she spluttered, thrusting a hand to her mouth.
Erik and Sarah were staring at him as though unable to take in what he had said. Didier looked back, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. ‘She did not say the car is a Mercedes,’ he said lamely.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Erik suddenly cried, seeming at last to come to his senses. ‘I’ve got to speak to Jake! I’ve got to tell him what’s happened,’ and leaping to his feet he dashed from the room.
While he was gone Louisa tried to make herself tell Sarah what Jake had said that morning, but every time she opened her mouth the terrible fear in her heart seemed to open like a gulf and swallow the words.
Erik wasn’t gone long and when he came back he looked agitated almost to the point of panic. ‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘you’ve got to get Morandi to tell you where he’s hidden all the evidence against Consuela.’
Sarah looked at him with dazed, uncomprehending eyes.
‘Sarah! Did you hear me?’ he barked.
‘Yes. Yes, I heard you,’ she mumbled. ‘Where has Morandi hidden the evidence?’
‘When are you seeing him again?’
‘In the morning.’
Erik didn’t seem to know if this was soon enough and putting a hand to his head he started to pace the room.
‘Where’s Jake now?’ Louisa asked dully.
‘On his way out of the country,’ Erik answered. ‘He was with Morandi at the police station when it happened, but he can’t hang around to answer questions. He has to get to Mexico.’
‘Oh God,’ Louisa choked, closing her eyes as she fell back against the sofa. So many thoughts started racing through her head, but the most important one of all was that whoever’s car it had been over at the villa, it hadn’t been Jake’s. For the moment that was all that mattered, the fact that she would never see him again was something she would deal with later.
Sarah’s heart was thudding horribly as she turned to look at Louisa. Obviously in thinking only of the relief that Jake hadn’t done it, Louisa had forgotten that her only alibi for this morning was at that very moment leaving the country.
‘What do you mean, she’s dead?’ Consuela whispered, turning to Marianne.
‘She’s dead!’ Marianne cried, verging on hysteria. ‘I thought it was all a hoax, I thought we were only staging it …’
‘Marianne!’ Consuela gasped. ‘What are you saying? Are you saying that I … Oh my God!’ she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. ‘Marianne, Danielle called me just before it was due to happen. She told me she didn’t want to go through with it so I called the whole thing off.’
‘Oh God,’ Marianne breathed. ‘Consuela, I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what to think. When I heard … When they told me what had happened … I thought, oh God, I’m sorry.’
‘Sssh, sssh,’ Consuela soothed, taking her in her arms. ‘I don’t blame you for what you thought. It has been very hard for you all this. But Danny, poor Danny, what on earth is this going to do to her parents? Has anyone told them yet, do you know?’
Marianne shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I only heard it from the policeman who wouldn’t let me go up to the villa. And when I saw that he wasn’t one of the actors … I realized … I knew something had gone horribly wrong.’
‘Why were you going to the villa?’ Consuela asked, confused.
‘I was going to get Louisa …’ She stopped as she suddenly realized that she’d betrayed herself.
‘For Jake,’ Consuela finished for her, smiling. ‘It’s all right, I know all about Louisa. Danny told me this morning.
‘I’m sorry I never told you,’ Marianne wept. ‘I thought if I didn’t then maybe he would just disappear with her and leave us alone. I know it was a silly thing to think, but …’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Consuela assured her, patting her hand. ‘But I don’t understand why you were running this errand for Jake when as far as you were aware he was supposed to be at the villa himself.’
‘I just assumed, when he called me and asked me to go there, that you had called everything off. But then, when I got there … Oh, Consuela, who could have killed her? Who would have done it if it wasn’t Jake? And it couldn’t have been Jake, he was in Nice with Morandi at the police station.’
‘How do you know that?’ Consuela asked curiously.
‘Because he called me just now in the car. He told me Danny was dead, but I already knew. He said … He said that I was to tell you that burning Morandi’s office wasn’t going to save you, because the records weren’t there. And then he said, he told me, that you had killed Aphrodite and you had killed Danny and he could prove it.’
‘But how can he when I’ve never left this house,’ Consuela cried, agitatedly. ‘The boys are all here to bear me …’ Her eyes came back to Marianne’s. ‘Why was Jake giving you messages to give to me? I thought he knew nothing about us.’
‘So did I. But he must have found out.’
‘Oh dear, this is all so terrible,’ Consuela said wringing her hands as she turned away. ‘I never dreamt he was so clever as to do all this to me. I must speak to my lawyers, I must warn them what’s happening. Where is Jake now, do you know?’
‘No. All he said was that he was going to Mexico, but earlier now than he’d planned.’
‘Then you must get onto the police and warn them,’ Consuela said urgently. ‘He mustn’t be allowed out of the country. Not now.’
‘But if he didn’t do it,’ Marianne protested.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Consuela said firmly. ‘The police will still want to speak to him. Oh heavens!’ she gasped, throwing an unsteady hand to her head. ‘His father. I must speak to his father and tell him what has happened. Oh, this will be so awful for David, such a terrible blow. He’s on the yacht over in Cannes. I must call him right away and tell him to come.’
‘You mean that really is Jake’s father?’ Marianne said shocked.
‘Of course it is,’
Consuela answered, seeming shocked that Marianne hadn’t realized. ‘I haven’t been lying to you all this time, Marianne. It’s Jake who’s been lying, remember?’
Marianne nodded dumbly. ‘But if he didn’t kill Danny, Consuela, then who on earth did?’
Consuela was shaking her head mystified and once again showing signs of despair. ‘I don’t know, Marianne,’ she answered. ‘I truly don’t know.’ Then she looked up, a sudden thoughtful and suspicious frown creasing her brow. ‘Tell me, who found the body? Did Jake say?’
‘Yes. It was Erik.’
As Consuela’s eyes dropped she turned to the window and looked out. ‘Erik,’ she repeated under her breath. ‘Of course, Erik.’
24
THREE DAYS HAD passed since Danny’s murder. The press had congregated at the end of the lane, held at bay by the police, but many of them had found their way into the trees surrounding Jean-Claude’s house. The second any of them stepped outside the sound of cameras drowned the incessant croak of the cicadas and if either of them left by car it was a horrible and gruelling business trying to get through the urgent clamourings at the end of the lane. So on the whole they stayed indoors.
Jake had contacted Erik to tell him that he had managed to get out of France and was now en route to Mexico, but where he had called from, or when he would call again, Erik had no idea. It was hard for Louisa to imagine what might be happening to him now, but with so much going on around her she could hardly bear to think about it. One of the worst parts of these three days had been having to face Danny’s father. Her mother was still in London, under sedation, so David Spencer had flown down with Danny’s aunt Rebecca who owned the villa, to collect Danny’s belongings and drive her car back to England. The body was flown back the same day.
Faced with David’s despair both Sarah and Louisa had wanted only to escape. Their guilt at the way they had treated Danny these past few weeks, snapping at her, ostracizing her, that last dreadful evening was too much to bear. It was Erik who had spent the most time with David, offering what comfort he could and listening for hours as David put himself through the heartbreak of remembering his daughter.
Now David and Rebecca had gone and with their passports in police custody Sarah and Louisa could only sit waiting at Jean-Claude’s for the next interminable visit from the detectives investigating the case. The fact that Louisa had no alibi for that morning was causing them some concern and since neither she nor Erik knew how to get hold of Jake there was nothing she could say to put their minds at rest. It wasn’t that they suspected her of the murder, but she wished Jake was there to corroborate where she has been that morning.
Louisa’s main concern now was to help Sarah and Erik sort through Morandi’s paintings, for the evidence of all the blackmail had been secreted in the backs. It hadn’t been easy to persuade the concierge to let them into Morandi’s flat, especially when the police had declared it out of bounds, but Erik had taken care of that with an excessively generous bribe, just as he was going to take care of handing the evidence over to the lawyer, who in turn would take it to the police.
It was during the early evening of the fourth day, after Erik had returned from the lawyer, having been there since ten o’clock that morning, that news reached them through Marianne that Consuela’s passport had been seized. It wasn’t quite as much as they’d hoped for, but they cracked open a bottle of champagne nevertheless. They all needed something to lift their spirits, even if it was going to be shortlived.
Knowing now of Marianne’s association with Consuela none of them could be sure whether or not to trust her; on the one hand she was giving them information about Consuela, but on the other she was refusing to leave the house on the Cap d’Antibes and come and stay at Jean-Claude’s. However, Erik considered that she was probably of more use to them if she remained at Consuela’s, they just had to be careful about how much they told her.
The next day, to everyone’s horror, the finger of suspicion was suddenly pointed at Erik. He had changed his flight from Paris to an earlier one on the morning of the murder and they had only his word as to how long it had taken him to drive from Nice airport to the villa. The time of the murder had been placed at around thirty minutes after the plane touched down. It was possible, providing there had been no hold-ups at the airport or on the autoroute to get to the villa in that time. Erik insisted that the drive had taken him closer to forty-five minutes, but he had no way of proving it. When asked if he could produce an autoroute ticket to prove that he had passed through a péage on that day he couldn’t do that either. But since few people kept the tickets the police weren’t particularly suspicious of that and, though it wasn’t actually impossible, the likelihood was so remote that anyone could have done that drive and committed a murder – which the experts assured them would have had a timespan of no less than five minutes and probably not more than eight – Erik was ordered to surrender his passport and was then released from his interrogation and told to stay on the Côte d’Azur until further notice.
‘I just don’t understand,’ Louisa said to Erik as the two of them, having managed to escape the press, strolled along the edge of the sea at La Napoule just before dawn one morning, ‘why Consuela hasn’t been charged yet. With all the evidence we handed over you’d have thought they’d have gone straight round there and arrested her.’
‘I’m sure they did go round there,’ Erik answered, still looking drained after his ordeal the day before and the sleepless night that had followed. ‘But Consuela will have some pretty powerful lawyers working for her, make no mistake about that.’
‘But there are sworn statements from the victims,’ Louisa interrupted. ‘No one can refute that.’
‘True. But they’ll have to contact everyone who made those statements to make sure they weren’t coerced into making them. And now Aphrodite’s and Danny’s murders have been linked it’ll be that the police are most interested in.’
‘Of course,’ Louisa sighed. Then stopping and scuffing her feet in the sand she said, ‘If only they could come up with some proof that Consuela was behind the murders.’
‘They will,’ Erik assured her.
‘Will they?’ Louisa sighed. ‘I’d feel more confident about that if they’d only let Morandi go. Why are they still holding him?’
‘Because he still doesn’t have an alibi for that afternoon. At least he does, but Consuela is still swearing he wasn’t there.’
‘Oh God, it’s all got so complicated,’ Louisa groaned, feeling vulnerable and confused and horribly low after her own sleepless night. And as the wretched tears started again she said, ‘It’s all gone so wrong. Nothing was meant to turn out like this and I wish Danny was here so that I could tell her I’m sorry. I wish we were all back in London. I wish we’d never come here, if we hadn’t she’d still be alive. And we only came because of me. Because she thought I needed cheering up after Simon and the baby and everything. Oh, Erik, why is it we only really appreciate someone when they’re not here any more?’
‘Hey come on,’ Erik said, pulling her into his arms as his own voice filled with tears. ‘I know it’s hard for you, it’s hard for all of us, but please don’t regret coming here. If you do that then you’ll regret Danny and I meeting and you’ll regret ever knowing Jake. You don’t regret that, do you?’ he said, tilting her face to look at her.
‘No,’ she said tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Or maybe yes. I don’t know. It hurts so much and I want to see him again so badly.
As much as he might have liked to tell her she would Erik wasn’t going to lie to her, so he pulled her head back to his shoulder and held her as she cried.
‘I’m sorry, I’m being so selfish when you’ve just lost Danny the way you have,’ she said, hugging him.
‘So did you,’ he reminded her. His tears were flowing freely now and they laughed at each other for the spectacle they must be making of themselves.
‘You really did love her, didn’t you?’ Louisa said.
‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘I really did. ‘She was …’ He laughed and summing up all the things he wanted to say about her he said, ‘She was unique.’
Louisa nodded. ‘Yes, she was. I wish we could go to her funeral, but unless some miracle happens and the police give us back our passports …’
‘Why don’t we sit for a while?’ Erik said, pulling her down onto the sand. ‘It’s so peaceful here with so few people around.’
They sat for some time, hugging their knees and watching the tide froth and lap around their feet.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at the sea again without thinking of Jake,’ Louisa said sadly. She let several minutes tick by then said, ‘Have you heard from him at all, Erik? I know I asked you not to tell me if you did, but I want to know now.’
‘Yes, I’ve spoken to him,’ Erik answered. ‘He’s getting his statement flown over to say you were with him the morning Danny died.’
Louisa swallowed hard. ‘How is he?’ she said. ‘Has he found Martina yet?’
‘Not yet. It takes time to do this sort of deal and the people who are holding her will want to make sure that everything is going according to their plans before they hand her over.’
‘Poor Jake, it must be terrible for him, being so close and yet still not being able to see her. Do you think he’s afraid to see her? I know I would be if I were him.’
‘Yes, he’s afraid. He’s afraid of what Consuela will do if she discovers that Martina’s kidnappers are negotiating her release. He’s afraid of how Martina might have been treated, of what damage it might have done to her mind and to his little girl’s. It’ll be a long time before they’ll be able to put the trauma of all this behind them.’
