The Corpse with the Silver Tongue (13 page)

I wasn't as interested in wine cellars as I was in the idea of Alistair hunting down the necklace.

“Beni, you say that Alistair believed he had found this Druidic necklace, but didn't he tell you
how
he had found it?”

“No, he would not tell me. He promised he would tell the whole story at the birthday party, when he gave it to Tamsin.”

So, that was a dead end.

“Maybe he told Chuck?” added Beni casually. I perked up.

“Why? Were they close?” It seemed an improbable partnership.

“Ah,
this
I know!” Beni seemed excited that he could finally contribute something he felt was concrete. “Chuck wanted very much to own an apartment at the Palais. He is very interested in the Nazis and the Gestapo. The Palais was headquarters for the Gestapo here in Nice during the Vichy years . . .”

I let him carry on—I didn't have the heart to tell him that Chuck had given me a very detailed insight into the Gestapo life at the Palais at dinner the night before. “It is difficult to buy an apartment at the Palais: the Syndic—or the residents' management group—controls who can buy. They hold interviews; they have to accept the buyer. It can be problematic for those who are selling—but selling does not happen often. It is a very desirable building. Alistair knew Madame Schiafino, through some friends in Cannes, and she spoke for him when he purchased his apartment. She was a famous lawyer for many years and can be very persuasive. He had the best apartment, you know: it is the only one with so large a balcony. I have spent many evenings there with Alistair and Tamsin admiring the view. It is very good, as you saw. So Alistair had his apartment, and immediately became involved with the Syndic himself. So he spoke on behalf of Chuck when he wanted to buy
his
apartment.”

“How did Alistair know Chuck?”

Beni replied, “I am sorry, but this I do not know for sure. But Chuck is famous, and Alistair liked to know famous people. They could have met at any one of the events to which rich and famous people are invited. Since Chuck moved to the Palais, he and Alistair have worked on the Syndic together. Chuck and Alistair disagree about the swimming pool. It is strange: usually Chuck agrees with everything that Alistair says, but on this they do not agree. Me? I think that a pool will increase the value of the apartments even more: people like to have a pool these days. Though I do not think that everyone who lives at the Palais really cares about the value of their apartment, some like to see their investment grow. Others hate the idea of a pool. They believe it will change the character of the building because it will change the use of the gardens, which are very peaceful. Chuck, Gerard, and Madelaine are against the pool. Alistair and Tamsin were for it. I believe that the Syndic had agreed to a vote by the residents. But you must get this information from Chuck. If you think it is relevant.”

I wasn't sure about the relevance of the pool. Of course, if someone hated the idea of it enough, they might kill Alistair, its main champion, to try to halt the project. It seemed a bit far-fetched, though. Besides, who was to say it wouldn't go ahead without him? Beni might not think that many people were interested in the potential resale value of their apartments, but, in my experience, greed can be a great motivating force. There might be a resident counting on that extra value for some reason. I'd once worked on a case with Bud in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver where one man killed another over five dollars. Sometimes the amount of money isn't important—it's what it means to the person who needs it that matters. I chose not to answer Beni, but decided I'd grill Chuck about the pool issue as soon as I had a chance.

In terms of suspects, all I had to go on was the fact that Beni had made no bones about wanting the necklace, and not liking Alistair. I hadn't really got very far with what Bud had encouraged me to think of as “my investigation.” At this rate I'd never be leaving Nice, and I didn't like the idea of that at all!

Beni concentrated on swearing in Italian at every driver on the road. I watched the wonderful Belle Epoque architecture crawl by as we descended toward the Old Town, and I tried to come up with a plan of action.

We were going to collect Tamsin. Somehow I had to try to find out how she really felt about her dead husband, and work out if she might have killed him, though I couldn't think of any reason why she'd want to steal a necklace she was about to be given as a gift in any case. After that, I'd try to get to see Chuck Damcott: maybe he could enlighten me about the pool, and any enemies that Alistair might have made on that front . . . though, again, how the swimming pool might be connected to the theft of the necklace left me puzzled. I could try to pin down Madelaine, to find out all I could about Alistair, and the mutual friends they had in Cannes: maybe there'd be some clues there about whether Alistair might have been up to his old tricks. What about Gerard? Might he know something about Alistair that would help me?

It was all so very confusing. Nothing seemed
connected.
Well, the thefts of the archive and the necklace were certainly connected, but were they connected to Alistair's death? Was the swimming pool involved? Or Alistair's propensity for blackmail?

WHAT I REALLY NEEDED TO
do first was sit and get this all on paper. It really helps me to
see
something, to work out relationships between things when they are there in front of me in black and white. That wasn't going to be possible for some time, though, because we'd just arrived at the hospital. Tamsin stood in the middle of the drive, gesturing frantically at Beni to pull right up to her. An oncoming ambulance didn't look as though it was about to stop, and she leapt up onto the pavement just in time to avoid being run down. She hovered there as we pulled forward. Without waiting for Beni to get out of the car, she opened the back door and jumped in.

“Beni, take me home, now, before they change their minds and drag me back to that horrible little room again,” she whined as she flopped across the rear seat.

At least you had a room, not a corridor, like me,
I thought. “How are you, Tamsin? You must be exhausted,” I said. I strained around in my seat to make sure that she hadn't gone sliding onto the floor as Beni slammed his foot on the gas and we took off into traffic. Do all Italians drive like that? If they do, remind me I never want to drive in Italy . . . I wouldn't last five minutes.

Tamsin's response was to wail and cry. She sobbed for a few minutes into paper tissues she tore out of a surprisingly large box she produced from her handbag. Eventually, she blew her nose and managed to say, “He's gone, my Ally is gone . . . What will I do?” And she was off again. She was posing a rhetorical question; no one could be heard above the din of her distress.

Beni's driving, as we made our way back up toward Cimiez, was a lot worse than it had been on the way down. The traffic seemed to have dispersed, so he was able to put his foot down and swerve from lane to lane, which resulted in Tamsin's tiny body slithering across the wide expanse of leather in the back of the car. She stopped crying and began to look rather alarmed instead. She even tried to strap herself in with a seatbelt, steadying herself against one of the doors. By the time she'd found the buckle for the strap, Beni was asking if she had her remote control to open the gates to the Palais.

“I don't know. I don't think so. I was in an ambulance,” came Tamsin's weak reply. “I'll look,” she added, and she started scrabbling about in her handbag again. Until that point I'd always thought that mine was bad—but hers was huge, and a total mess. She dumped all its contents onto the back seat and started sorting through them. I cast my eyes across the collection and announced, almost immediately, that there was no remote control.

“It might be here, somewhere . . . You never know,” replied Tamsin.

“Tamsin, you have five lipsticks, all the same color; six wads of used paper tissues; a dozen pens and pencils, most bearing restaurant or hotel logos; two notebooks—both small, one ragged, one new-looking; a very large, overstuffed Chanel purse; a Louis Vuitton credit card wallet that has seen better days, and obviously a great deal of use; two sets of keys, one a duplicate of the other except that it has an extra key; a bottle of water, given to you by the hospital when they discharged you—” I had one the same, “and what looks like a handkerchief tied at one end to form a little bag with some lumpy contents.
No
remote control.”

Tamsin and Beni both looked at me open-mouthed. I could have kicked myself. It's all a little bit
Rain Man
-ish, but it's one of the things I can do—I can
see
things, really fast. It's another thing I don't really understand about myself, and something I try to keep quiet. Sometimes it gets the better of me and I just do it, but the reaction is always predictable. Beni and Tamsin both chorused the same thing. “How did you do
that
?”

“Oh, it's nothing,” I said, trying to brush it off, “it's just a thing I can do. Nothing special . . .” I hoped they'd let it go at that.

As she began to gather all the bits and pieces together, stuffing them back into her bag, Tamsin muttered, “Ally said you were weird,” under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear. Then, louder, she said, somewhat imperiously, “Buzz for Gerard, Beni—he'll let us in. He always lets me in when I forget my remote.”

Beni jumped from the car, pressed some buttons on the keypad, spoke into the little microphone, and the gates began to open. We crunched along to the front door, where Beni parked. I got out, but Tamsin waited until Beni opened her door, when she swooned just enough so that Beni had to support her.

As Beni helped Tamsin toward the front door, and I collected the purse she'd just let fall to the ground, Gerard came though the front door and down the steps to greet us. I thought he looked a lot paler than he had at dinner the night before, but, I told myself, he was a relatively old man who had probably had as good a night's sleep as I had. He just needed some rest.

His voice croaked as he said, “Ah Tamsin, 'ow are you? You look weak! Ah, it is terrible. Terrible. We all miss him so much already!”

“Yes, I am weak, oh Gerard, they took so much of my blood, and they didn't let me sleep at all. I have cried and cried all night. I'm so tired. I can't cope! How will I cope?” squeaked Tamsin, in that annoyingly high-pitched whine of hers.

“Come inside,” said Gerard, reaching to take the arm that Beni wasn't supporting. “It will be better when you are in your own apartment.”

“I need to shower. I need to take a bath. I stink of the hospital,” she wailed back.

“Ah yes, you will feel better when you are clean and warm,” replied the old man. “I will make tea,” he added, as we all made our way up the steps toward the front door.

“Oh God, no, I need something stronger than that,” replied Tamsin. “I'll drink some champagne in the bath—that'll help,” she added. It seemed a strange thing for a newly widowed person to want to do, but merely the thought of it seemed to infuse her with more energy to climb the steps unaided, as she pushed both Beni and Gerard away and launched herself though the doorway.

That's a pretty quick recovery
, I thought to myself. “Careful now,” I said aloud, “you don't want to tire yourself!” Everyone was ahead of me so I was sure they couldn't see the look on my face.

When we were all inside the apartment, we clustered in the little entry-way. None of us seemed to want to go farther. I have to admit it was eerie, and, frankly, more than a bit of a mess. Gone was the casual elegance that had greeted me at the same door the evening before—now the place looked as though a small nuclear device had detonated at its center.

I've seen a lot of crime scenes in my time, and this wasn't much different. The police, the paramedics, and the forensics people don't actually clean up after themselves—that's not their job. They get there, do what they have to do, make as much of a mess as they need to, then they leave. It can be a bit of a shock.

“Oh my God!” wailed Tamsin, holding her little face in horror. To be fair, the mess entitled her to some dramatics. “What have they done to my home? It's terrible!
I
can't clean this up! Who's going to do it? They can't leave it like this! Daphne doesn't come until Monday. I'll have to get her in for an extra day.”

I surmised Daphne must be the cleaner.
Of course
Tamsin had a cleaner. I mean, why
wouldn't
a woman who didn't work, married to a man who was retired, need a cleaner? I assumed they must both be far too busy relaxing all day to actually do any housework. Perhaps Alistair and Tamsin both had very time-consuming hobbies I knew nothing about or spent all day working with the city's homeless. I could feel my judgemental streak getting wider by the second. I decided to step up and take control. Whatever! I spoke with as much enthusiastic vigour as I could muster.

“Oh, come on, it's not as bad as it looks. Here's what I suggest: Tamsin, why don't you go and have that bath you've been promising yourself, but first tell us where all your cleaning stuff is, will you?”

Tamsin looked blank for a moment, then squeaked, “It's all somewhere in the kitchen—under the sink, I think. The brushes and things may be in the cupboard under the stairs.”

I sighed inwardly. God, I
hate
pathetic women!

“Okay—I'm sure we'll find everything we need. We'll clean up down here, so that it's good to go by the time you're done. Okay Beni? Gerard?” The two men nodded. “Go on now, enjoy your bath,” and I waved at her, just to make sure she knew that she should leave. She took her cue and disappeared upstairs. Shortly thereafter, we heard water running and, I'm pretty sure, a champagne cork popping.