“Well, how interesting,” said Max, returning her perky smile with one of his own. “Why do you feel that is true?”
A shrug, accompanied by a little grimace that might, on anyone else, have expressed pity. Max thought she was probably an appalling actress, trying to mimic emotions she clearly did not—perhaps could not—feel. The very definition, he recalled, of a psychopath, someone able to don a cloak of normalcy just long enough to get what he or she wanted from someone else. “She was washed up, done for in the business. She was wasted half the time. And going broke, or so I heard.”
“From whom did you hear that?”
“Oh, I can’t be expected to remember everything, can I? I have enough trouble memorizing my lines.”
Max didn’t doubt that for a moment. She looked down, examining the ankle emerging from the dangling shoe. She had slender calves that he was clearly being invited to admire. He kept his gaze steadfastly on her face. Annoyed by his obstinate refusal to play along, she shoved the foot back in the shoe and placed both her feet firmly on the ground.
“It was just some gossip at a party in Malibu,” she went on sulkily. “Romero was going to cast her in a small part in an upcoming film of his. A pity casting. You know—throwing a dog a bone. The film was all crewed up, ready to go. She turned it down! Got all huffy drama-queenish with him; gave him a bunch of grief that she wasn’t being offered the lead. She said she needed the cash. As if that was ever going to happen—her getting the lead role. The lead was already cast, that’s what CDs are for, anyway—that’s like, casting directors?” she added helpfully. Max nodded to show he was following. “But that was beside the point.” A brief pause here while Tina held out one hand to inspect her blood-red manicure. “Margot was about a hundred thousand years too old for the role. There are Egyptian mummies more qualified.”
“I imagine that’s difficult for a talented actress. The whole age-and-beauty thing. The industry does seem to be skewed in favor of younger women. It’s strange that men don’t seem to face the same barriers.”
Finally he’d arrived at a topic that roused her attention. She leaned forward, one finger tapping her knee for emphasis. “Tell me about it. Robert Redford might be stuffed like a hunting trophy one day and they’ll still cast him in favor of an actress the same age. Half his age, even. I’m lucky I look so young … or so some people say.”
Bat, bat went the eyelashes, the cupid’s-bow lips curling into a simper. This was clearly Max’s cue to exclaim gallantly over her youthful appearance, but he decided to let that opportunity pass. When he said nothing and began searching his pockets for his notebook, she added crossly, “Besides. Whoever said Margot was a talented actress?”
“A seasoned actress might be a better expression,” said Max.
That got a laugh out of her, a shrieking giggle that seemed to ricochet off the sparkling floor-to-ceiling windows of her room. “Seasoned,” she said. “That’s rich. Like a side of marinated beef, yes she was.”
“You didn’t like her, did you?”
“You try liking someone who hates you. I’m not trying out for sainthood here.”
“Hates? What did she have to hate you for?”
“Oh, puh-leeze.” He had earned a “what a doofus” stare. “She and Romero were an item once, but not for long. Nothing ever seemed to last for long with Margot, if the gossip is true. Which it is. Either she’d get bored and move on or they would, the men—in most cases, they would.”
“I don’t follow,” said Max, all guileless wonder. He could guess why, but he wanted to hear her spin things out for him. “Why would she hate you?”
She looked down at herself, at the sheer perfection of her tiny body, as if this explained everything. Since Max didn’t seem to be taking the bait, she said, very slowly and carefully, explaining the ways of the world to a child, “Because she was jeal-ous. Of course she was jealous. We were so happy together, Romero and I. So perfect a couple in every way—way more perfect than Brad and Angelina ever were, with all those freaking kids hanging off them all the time. The world could see that we were so happy. And here was old, worn-out, schlumpy Margot. The old bag who had missed her chance with Romero long ago and was now too old for it, past it all. Bitter and angry. She probably cried herself to sleep at night, wishing she were in my place.”
Jesus wept. That would of course be Tina’s view of things but Max was still exasperated to hear this judgment on Margot pronounced like … well, like the gospel truth. Besides, this description of endless bliss was rather at odds with what he’d heard from Romero himself.
Max thought he could almost bring himself to pity Tina in her turn, but that was another opportunity he was going to let go by.
“Tell me about that night, the night she disappeared.”
“Disappeared, is it now? I mean, clearly, she got rat-faced drunk and jumped or fell off the yacht. I don’t see what all the fuss is about. The wonder is she lasted as long as she did—she’d been like that the whole trip. Just draping herself over Romero, trying to make him feel guilty, and drinking like she had a hollow leg. That’s what my daddy used to call it. He’d say someone drank like they had a hollow leg. He was so funny, my daddy. I get my acting chops from him.”
He tried again to break through the impenetrable mass of ego that was Tina Calvert, feeling like a man in need of a battering ram. “Was there anything special about that particular night? Did anything out of the ordinary happen?”
She considered. After a moment she offered, rather grandly, “There was a big fuss coming from the galley. But that wasn’t unusual. The chef is, like, super high maintenance. Carries on when he can’t find his favorite paring knife or something. It’s a small ship, as these things go. I mean, we were in an enclosed space. So we could always hear the tantrums.”
“This was worse than usual?”
“Sort of. Yeah. I guess. Romero had to go have a word with him. Not for the first time. These chef types—they can be so temperamental.”
Like actors? “What exactly could you hear him complaining about?”
“I don’t know, do I?” She laughed. “I don’t speak much French—I never saw the point of foreign languages when the whole world speaks English. But you could tell he was angry. Something about the glasses was wrong.”
“The glasses? The drinking glasses?”
“Uh huh. I guess. Any more questions? I have an appointment for a manicure in an hour.” Catching herself at last, and perhaps realizing this was a frivolous comment to make given the occasion, she added: “Life must go on. I have to look good for the party. The local film premiere? You never know who might be there. See and be seen. You know.” But she ruined even such a lame excuse with that cupid’s-bow smirk.
Max’s one remaining question, he supposed, was what an obviously intelligent and evidently successful man like Romero was doing hanging about with such a nincompoop as Tina. But that was, he conceded, an unchristian and unworthy thought. It was his job as a vicar to find the good in everyone. It was always there, even if in some cases one had to dig a little deeper. He merely thanked her for her time, pretending she had been wonderfully helpful.
Which in fact she had been, as things later turned out, but without intending to be.
* * *
Max found the director lounging by the indoor pool. An opened bottle of champagne was swaddled in a white cloth in a silver cooler at his elbow, alongside a stack of scripts. He was perusing one intently when Max approached.
“The dreck they send me these days,” said Romero. “You wouldn’t believe it. Albino bank robbers. Two of them—twins, no less. Good grief.”
“I thought that had been done already.” Max pulled up a chair and went straight to the point. “When we spoke earlier you indicated you had a fling with Margot in London,” he said. “A fling that didn’t work out because she played the field too much.”
“I said I barely knew her,” Romero shot back. “We dated.”
“I’m not goin
g to parse terms with you. You had a relationship, but Margot was not known for monogamy, except perhaps of the serial kind. Who else was she with, do you know? Who did she leave you for? We’re trying to reconstruct as much of her past as we can.”
Romero shrugged. “If you’re going down the list of paramours, or even husbands, good luck to you.” He rolled his eyes in an upward glance, as if straining to remember the old days. Max had the sense he remembered too well. Indeed, Romero quickly caved in and confirmed that impression, for Romero, unlike some of the people he directed, was a terrible actor.
“Some nob,” he said. “I’ve no idea who it was—she wouldn’t say. But she dropped me pretty quickly when she spotted greener pastures. I was nobody much—then.”
How that must have rankled, thought Max. “So she didn’t play the field so much as simply leave you for someone else.”
A sullen shrug, and a “Whatever,” like a sulky teenager. Romero pulled on his upper lip, scrunching up and smoothing his luxuriant mustaches. “What can I say? She had appalling taste in men. Present company excluded, of course.”
“There was some manner of disturbance in the galley the night of the murder,” said Max, taking a different tack. “What was that about?”
“God knows,” said Romero. “I really don’t. The chef is French—Algerian, actually—and even when he’s speaking English I have the devil’s own time understanding him. He is also volatile in a thoroughly Gallic way. A perfectionist. They all are, the good chefs. So I put up with him. And I pay him a small fortune.” The director took a sip of champagne, eyeing over the rim of the glass a young woman in a bikini entering the pool area. “If she’d work on her posture she’d be a stunner,” he said. “She needs to learn to walk more on the balls of her feet.”
“Try to remember,” Max said. “It could be important. It’s the only thing I’ve found so far that was a bit out of order that night—out of the usual. Tina said that whatever the chef was talking about, it had to do with a glass or glasses. Possibly a pair of glasses?”
Romero stared at him, his brow furrowed and his head cocked to one side. “Oh!” he said finally, with a laugh. “That’s right. He was ranting about some dish that had been spoiled. Something to do with the powdered sugar. Something the sous-chef, I guess, put on a pastry or in a pastry. Or something.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Glace,” he said. “Sucre glace, is what she heard. I guess literally the translation would be sugared glaze. But it’s what we Americans call powdered or confectioner’s sugar.”
“And we Brits call icing sugar,” said Max. “Got it.”
Chapter 20
O CAPTAIN!
“Good,” said Cotton, presenting himself at Max’s door early the next morning and casting a glance over his casual wear. “I see you’re ready for another adventure, this time on the open seas. ‘They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters.’”
Max wondered if Cotton realized he was quoting from the Bible. He had been after Cotton for years to attend a service at St. Edwold’s. So far Cotton had made several generous donations to the church, and had helped capture a villain within its venerable old walls, but the DCI had not otherwise put in an appearance. Still, Max was a fisher of men’s souls, and an infinitely patient one.
“‘They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end,’” quoted Max back at him.
“I certainly hope not. Come along, they’ve found a boat tender to take us out to the yacht. The tender is like a bathtub with an awning, but I am told it’s safe as houses. I hope you’ve brought your Omega Seamaster.”
Max smiled at the reference to the exploding Bond gadget. Cotton was a fan of the eternally running series. He rather thought that in Cotton, George Greenhouse was missing a chance at an eager new MI5 recruit.
“The captain’s out there waiting for us,” Cotton continued as the two men headed toward the harbor. “I had Sergeant Essex call ahead to tell him we’re on our way. We’ll have a chat with him, and then we’ll have a look-see at the entire setup, with special attention paid to Margot’s room. Jake and Margot’s cabin, I should say. We’ll see if we can’t quickly bury the head of this rattlesnake.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Murder poisons everything. You have to bury the head of a rattlesnake right after you’ve cut it off,” Cotton explained.
“Really? Have you ever even seen a rattlesnake?”
“Well, no. I meant metaphorically, of course. It’s something Romero told me. If you don’t bury the head another animal might come along and eat the snake head and die. The poison is in the head. So you have to bury it.”
“And what does he know about it?”
“He owns a cattle ranch, somewhere in the California foothills. Do you know what else? He owns a Jeep with B6-level security. You know, protection against high-powered rifles and suicide bombs.”
“I know what B6-level security means, thank you. But does he really need all that?”
Cotton shrugged. “Rich people can be paranoid.”
Max knew from experience how true this was. “Anything else?”
“Cows eat grapes.”
“Again, I beg your pardon.”
“Cows eat grapes, he tells me. Romero also owns a small vineyard. They once had a broken fence out there and the cows got in. They ate the grapevines down to the nub. He had to start over with new plants.”
“It sounds as if you and he had quite the little chat. Did the subject of the murder even come up?”
“Interesting guy,” Cotton went on, ignoring him. “It has to be said, most murderers are just boring. People who just want the attention, basically. The families of victims are often struck by how dull killers can be. They’re expecting Satan himself to walk into the courtroom and what they see instead is just some doltish, underachieving jackass with tattoos and bad skin who wants to be evil, perhaps, but doesn’t have the brains for it.”
“One of Satan’s many disguises is ignorance. But we can’t discount Romero because he’s an interesting overachiever.”
“Of course not. It’s just very difficult to see a man like Romero stooping to murder, particularly a murder like this one. There would have to be rather a good motive.”
“On that we can agree.”
The two men walked the paved promenade toward the harbor to find the little craft that would convey them the short distance to the yacht. Patrice had reiterated her determination to stay behind. (“I’ve lived through the sea-sickness and morning-sickness combo enough for one lifetime. How women on the way to the new world managed it I’ve no idea.”)
It was a sunny, brisk day, the sort of day that stirred the blood, lifted the heart, and made a person think the world was spinning along exactly as it should. Max thought he might bring Awena and Owen out for a day at the shore as soon as the temperature warmed. This day he wore a woolen scarf tightly knotted round his neck, and he was wishing he’d thought to bring gloves.
He anticipated what Owen’s first encounter with a large body of water might be like, knowing the child would love the shore as much as his parents did. Right now Owen’s only experience was with the River Puddmill wending its ponderous way through Nether Monkslip. Max thought he might also look into swimming lessons for Owen, even though it would mean weekly drives to the pool in Staincross Minster.
He and Cotton hurried on, heads down against the cold. Monkslip-super-Mare’s harbor, just deep enough for small fishing boats, was wedged between Dorset and Devon, in an area where the Jurassic cliffs briefly paused before resuming their dramatic sweep up the coast. The village sat majestic and assured, its useful harbor and the voluptuous beauty of its surrounding hills guaranteeing its continued existence. Baffled archeologists could only guess at a time line for its origins. The winding streets had retained their medieval bones, and some relics remained of the area’s importance as a gathering place in olden times of chieftains and kings.
The gentle overlay of centuries allowed the visitor the illusion that if he stood very still and listened intently, all the sounds and voices from long ago would come rushing past his ears. The scent of clematis was carried on the wind, borne down from hills thick with greenery; hidden by trees were ancient holloways which had carved themselves into the landscape over centuries. Some of these trails cut inland for miles, secret and enticing, never quite deserted by mankind, never deserted by wildlife.
Despite its popularity, the resort had been spared over-development and the worst sorts of seaside entertainment: the shops selling plastic spades and buckets and refrigerator magnets with British flags had been consigned to a single meandering side street; the newest large buildings were the Victorian hotels sunning themselves above the promenade.
Max had taken advantage of the concealing holloways just the night before, stealing away to ring George Greenhouse from within the enfolding, twisting darkness of the ancient path nearest the hotel. It had been a quick call to say only that they had no solid leads, but hoped a closer examination of the ship might yield some clues. The rules of an MI5 engagement were that the operative was on his own with little or no contact with higher-ups, but Max had taken extraordinary measures not to be seen or overheard. Anyone entering the holloway automatically set off nature’s alarm system, sending woodland creatures scurrying.
Max and Cotton located the boat tender and boarded with care: the sea this day was choppy, and water sloshed against the little boats at harbor, washing them in a sudsy white foam. The sky seemed to melt into the water ahead of them; in the distance the yacht wobbled like a ghost ship. They were being ferried to the yacht by a weathered man with a neglected beard who looked like an abandoned DIY project, all jutting angles and missing fastens.
“The couples, married or otherwise, pretty much alibi each other,” Cotton was saying a few minutes later, shouting to be heard over the noise of the motor. “For what it’s worth,” he added, “which is not a lot, the baron claims to have been sound asleep on the boat in the arms of his baroness. You’ve talked with them by now. Your impressions?”
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