‘To see what? I’m in the middle of something here.’
‘There’s been another death.’ The constable took a couple of quick breaths. ‘I’ve been going around making sure that all the guests leave their rooms and collect on the terrace and when I got to room ten, I found the occupant inside stone dead.’
Giulia jumped to her feet and glanced at me. ‘Dan, please would you apologise to Miss Graceland and tell her I’ve finished with her for now, but that we’ll pick up this interview later?’
I repeated her message to Alice and then stood up as well and followed the inspector and the constable out of the door. Oscar seemed happy to stay with his new best friend, which was probably just as well if we were going into yet another crime scene, so I left him there with his nose on Alice’s knees. For her part, she didn’t say a word. She just sat there with an expression of intense grief on her face as she absently stroked Oscar’s head.
As we hurried along the line of bedroom doors, I was trying to remember who had been the occupant of room ten, but it escaped me. I didn’t have long to wait until I found out. Another officer was standing guard outside the open door, and I couldn’t miss the bulky, yellow-clad shape lying on the bed. Jack Sloane, casting director and alleged rapist, was dead.
I followed the two police officers inside and stood by the door while Giulia checked that the victim was indeed dead and searched for any clues. I let my eyes roam around the room. The first thing I noticed was that the bed quite obviously hadn’t been slept in, and the body was sprawled across it, face down. A few inches from his outstretched right hand was a copy of Alice Graceland’s autobiography, also face down, and open. I glanced at the young officer beside me.
‘Do you have a spare pair of gloves by any chance, Constable?’
He reached in his side pocket and handed me a pair of surgical gloves. Pulling them on, I went around to the other side of the bed and turned the manuscript over. I bent low and checked the text. It came as no surprise to see that this was the chapter in which Alice had recounted her ordeal at the hands of theheavily overweight character over ten years older than me. Ofcourse, I reminded myself, this might be pure coincidence, but I doubted it. It would appear that Sloane had identified the reference to himself, so might this mean that he had decided to take his own life rather than face humiliation or worse?
Leaving the manuscript there, I walked back around to where Giulia was studying Sloane’s bedside table. The light was still on and a half-empty bottle of single-malt whisky and a glass were resting there. I very carefully picked up the glass and studied it against the light, immediately spotting what looked like tiny specks of dust lying at the bottom of it. I set it back down again and, as I did so, the inspector caught my eye.
‘You’ve seen that as well, have you, Dan? What’s the betting he was poisoned with the same substance that killed the first victim? This is Sloane, isn’t it? I didn’t get a chance to speak to him yesterday but I remember you telling me he was drinking heavily. Whisky on the bedside table is a bit of a giveaway.’
I nodded. ‘Jack Sloane, seventy-five years old, casting director and star-maker, and, from what I’ve seen of him this weekend, a serious alcoholic. If it really is poison in his glass, I wonder if he put it there or whether it was the work of somebody else.’
Giulia straightened up and stepped back from the bed. ‘How’s this for a scenario? Sloane finds out that Alice Graceland is about to reveal him to the world as a rapist, so he decides to take pre-emptive action. The card he receives at the murder mystery party convinces him of Graceland’s intentions, so he poisons what he thinks is her drink or her fruit salad, but, because of the costume swap, Lucy O’Connell is killed instead. Back in his room, plagued by remorse, he uses the last of his poison to take his own life. What do you think? Case closed?’
Considering that similar thoughts had been going through my head, I nodded, but I wasn’t convinced. ‘It’s definitely a possibility, but it throws up a number of questions. Presumably, thismeans that, when Sloane came to the island, he already had the poison in his possession. Apparently, rumours have been spreading around Hollywood that Alice Graceland has been writing a tell-all autobiography, so maybe he came with the express intention of committing murder. I’ve been wondering why such an obviously unhappy man with such clear antipathy towards his hostess should have accepted her invitation. Maybe he came to silence her.’
Constable Piave coughed politely. ‘Could the poison be some medication that he was taking? Sleeping pills, maybe?’
The inspector answered. ‘It’s an interesting thought, Piave, but from the way Lucy O’Connell suddenly collapsed last night, I have a feeling we’re looking for something much more quick-acting, but I’ll get Forensics to check any medication they find here, as well as searching for the container that would have held the poison. But what do we think about the suicide theory? Do we think he took his own life?’
The constable looked unconvinced and, the more I thought about it, the less likely that scenario sounded to me. I did a bit of thinking out loud. ‘Firstly, I don’t see Sloane as the kind of person who would be racked with remorse. Aggressive and vindictive, almost certainly, but I don’t see him as a candidate for suicide. If he was responsible for Lucy O’Connell’s death, I could imagine him having another go at killing Alice, rather than trying to take his own life. He was probably worth a small fortune so if the book were to be published, he would easily have been able to afford to hire a top-notch legal team to fight any allegations in the courts. Another possibility is that somebody killed Lucy O’Connell and then deliberately murdered Sloane, staging the scene here in the hope that we would leap to the conclusion that Sloane killed Lucy and then himself – as you said, case closed.’
I pointed across to the manuscript on the bed. ‘His copy ofAlice Graceland’s book just happens to be open at the pages recounting her experiences at his hands. That strikes me as a bit too obvious. I think we could be looking for a completely ruthless murderer who killed the wrong person and is now trying to cover his or her back, or one who came here determined to kill AliceandSloane.’
Giulia Trevisan nodded in agreement but, before she could reply, her phone started ringing. It was a short conversation, during which she said little more than ‘thank you’ a couple of times. When it ended, she looked across at the two of us with an expression of mystification on her face. ‘That was the lab. They’ve identified the poison that killed Lucy O’Connell, and it’s a new one on me. Have either of you ever heard of the suicide tree?’ We both shook our heads, and she consulted her notebook. ‘It’s native to certain parts of India and its fruit is so highly poisonous that it can stop the heart in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, hence its popularity for suicide – or murder.’
A thought immediately flashed into my head. ‘You said India. There’s actually one guest here who’s of Indian origin. Might Greg Gupta be more than just the innocent partner of Carlos Rodriguez? Have we been too quick to exclude him from our list of main suspects?’
Giulia looked up with interest. ‘We both excluded Gupta because we couldn’t see any possible motive he might have had for murdering either Lucy O’Connell or Alice Graceland but, of course, he might have done it to help his partner, whose dark secret of the man who fell to his death at Rodriguez’s party was revealed to you by Alice Graceland. Maybe Gupta committed the murder, or both murders, in order to protect Carlos Rodriguez or, at the very least, he procured the poison so that Rodriguez could do the killing. Either way, I think this could be highly significant.’
She glanced at her watch and picked up her phone. ‘It’s gonenine-thirty. I need to get Forensics back over here and I need to brief my boss. As I told you, thequestorehimself is “taking a personal interest” in this case – no surprise there – so I’ve been instructed to report anything significant immediately. If you’re happy to continue helping, Dan, why don’t we pick up the interview with Alice Graceland at ten? That’ll give you a bit of time to give Oscar a walk, and it’ll give both of us time to do some serious thinking in the light of this latest death. See you at ten?’
‘Of course.’
20
SUNDAY MORNING
As I walked across the grass towards Alice’s study, I noticed that the door was open. Inside, I found Alice sitting on one of the sofas with a very happy Labrador sprawled across her lap, tongue hanging out, tail wagging. He deigned to look up when I came in but showed no sign of wanting to move ever again. She also looked up, her expression apprehensive.
‘Diego has just looked in. Has there really been another murder, Dan? Who is it this time?’
‘Jack Sloane.’ I read surprise in her eyes, and even what might have been a hint of regret. For now, I didn’t reveal that it had definitely been poison. When to reveal that information was up to the inspector so, for now, I kept it vague. ‘It might be another murder or it might be natural causes; let’s face it, the man was clearly drinking himself into an early grave. Alternatively, it might even have been suicide. The pathologist is on his way.’ I decided that there was no harm in asking a question of my own. ‘Are you surprised?’
It was a while before she replied. ‘Yes, of course I’m surprised that anybody should die in my house, and to have two peopledead in twelve hours is appalling. Am I surprised that it was Jack? Not really.’ She looked up at me. ‘Like you say, his drinking this weekend has been almost self-destructive, so if that was the cause, it doesn’t come as a surprise, but I don’t believe for a moment that he would have taken his own life.’
‘Even though the allegations you level at him in your book could potentially even have led to criminal prosecution?’
She gave a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘That wouldn’t bother him. He would have bought his way out of trouble like he’s always done.’
