Max lingered over an after-meal coffee with Jake. The conversation moved away from the investigation into a wide-ranging discussion of life on a film set. Max didn’t leave for another half hour, by which time the dining room was quite deserted. He came away with a greater understanding of the jealousies and insecurities that fueled the film industry, thinking there must be easier ways to earn a living.
As Max said his good-byes and started to rise from his chair, Jake surprised him by saying, “I’ll miss Margot, you know. I really will. She wasn’t full of gossip and poisonous misinformation like some of these old ducks you see running around, never happier than when they’re describing someone else’s misfortune. She wasn’t like that. Truth be told, her head was mostly full of concern over her new haircut, her wardrobe, things like that. But she wasn’t mean-spirited—I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. She wasn’t mean about people. I liked her for that. It’s rare, especially in actors.”
Max had nodded, agreeing that it was an exceptional quality to find in anyone, anywhere.
He decided it was time for a word with the Baron and Baroness Sieben-Kuchen-Bäcker, the posh nobs on board the night Margot died. He was a bit puzzled by their presence, as they weren’t part of the usual Hollywood crowd. He imagined they’d been included to impart a touch of upper-class polish to the already glamorous proceedings. As he sought out their room in the hotel, he called to mind what he’d gleaned about them from an earlier conversation with Cotton.
“You ran them through the Interpol database, of course,” Max had said.
“Well, there’s no of course about it—the privacy laws are in a constant state of flux. But yes, we managed to pierce the bureaucratic walls of both Interpol and Europol, and the baron and baroness appear to be who they say they are.”
“A dead end?”
“So far, yes.”
“That’s too bad.”
“It’s odd, though,” Cotton continued. “That business of their having no fixed address. The address they gave out for their passports was the home of a friend they were staying with at the time. That’s not really illegal, of course, but strictly speaking it is odd, given who they are, or who they pretend to be. I guess I’m saying, for someone of their class and background, it is unexpected. Don’t all these people have palaces and mansions to retire to, when they aren’t busy frolicking on the open seas?”
“In many cases, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs got hold of the mansions—back taxes, gambling debts, the usual. Then there’s wood rot, legitimate heirs dying out: whatever stream of misfortune befell the families. Often the places were given over to the National Trust or English Heritage when the upkeep got to be too much, throwing tens of butlers out of a job. What address did they give when you interviewed them formally?”
“Another address, another friend.”
“It must be nice to be so well-connected.”
“Looked at another way, they don’t stay in any one place long enough to put the friendship at risk. There’s that. Plus, most of the places they stay are like palaces. It’s not like they’re underfoot all the time in some bedsit, leaving the cooker on and setting the curtains on fire, or letting the cat out and forgetting to buy fresh milk. Half the time I’d be willing to bet their hosts have forgotten they’re camping there with them.”
“It’s not a priority right now, but we may want to look at these friends a little more closely if the investigation warrants. Perhaps they are hostages to fortune, people who are being imposed on because the baron and baroness have some strange and interesting hold over them.”
“Blackmail, you mean?”
“I doubt people like this would use the term. More like ‘calling in a favor,’ or ‘belonging to the same club’—the usual rubbish that keeps the masses baying for blood outside the palace walls.”
It was odd, thought Max, how frequently that concept—blackmail—was coming up in the investigation.
“N.O.K.D. ‘Not our kind, dear.’”
“Precisely that sort of thing,” said Max. “Blackmail might be too strong a term but I have seen the nobs close ranks over one of their own kind, particularly when it’s in their own best interests to do so. Look at what happened with Lord Lucan, or so many think—his own kind helped him escape justice. It’s quite expected, when you think about it.”
Now Max knocked on the door of the baron and baroness’s hotel room and was shortly admitted by the baron himself. He wore a smoking jacket over his shirt and tie—of course he would have a smoking jacket, thought Max—and he carried a cigarette holder in his left hand.
The baron was as tall and elegant as an old-time matinee idol, mustachioed and dark-wavy-haired, and Max thought he must have fit right in after all with the yacht’s party of beautiful people. He gestured Max into the room and saw him seated in a chair near the balcony, the door to which stood slightly ajar, admitting a cool afternoon breeze. This particular room overlooked the hotel’s outdoor pool rather than the ocean—still a delightful view.
The baron tucked a cigarette into the ebony holder, lit his cigarette, and drew smoke deep into his lungs. Max, who had never smoked but once or twice when playing a part undercover, still appreciated the scent of expensive tobacco wafting through the well-ventilated room. The baron, he saw, was studying him closely while pretending not to, standing in a sort of dancer’s pose: he cupped one elbow, holding the cigarette away from him and idly watching the smoke unfurl, as if watching smoke unfurl were his entire raison d’être. To Max it was like suddenly finding himself onstage in a Noël Coward play, an impression reinforced as the baroness now drifted in from the bedroom, trailing clouds of perfume. Was it Coco Chanel who had said a woman who didn’t wear perfume had no future? The baroness had taken the advice to heart. She was tall, possibly an illusion created by her heels and her wafer thinness, as blond and fair as her baron was dark, and insubstantial as a dream. The fine bones of her face were beautifully highlighted by her pale pink rouge, and her eyes were tipped in gold at the lashes. She wore a clingy satin dress in a champagne color exactly matching her hair. Max stood politely and shook her hand, which she had languidly held out to him, rather as though expecting him to kiss it.
Were these two for real? Max wondered. So young and beautiful they were. Gatsbyesque, Cotton had called them: “Like Jay Gatsby, no one knows where he’s from, or where his fortune came from. Presumably, he just inherited it. Like you do—or rather, as one does.”
But Max was as strongly reminded of the couple in one film version of Murder on the Orient Express—the elegant count and countess.
“We have to go soon,” the baroness informed her husband, who surely knew that already. “The Hugh-Nesbitts are expecting us at the weekend.”
The baroness now dipped her impeccable blond head in Max’s direction and said, “Mustn’t disappoint, you know.” Despite the triple-barreled German name, her accent was strictly upper-upper British class, as was her husband’s, carrying only a hint—“We haff to go”—of their Germanic ties.
In the pages of background information Patrice had provided him, the baron and baroness were officially squeaky clean, visas and passports all in order. But she had noted that, according to the MI5 grapevine, their arrival on the doorsteps of various of the U.K.’s landed gentry was not greeted with universal rejoicing. And they had left one lord’s house in rather more of a hurry than had been expected.
“I almost wonder if they’re blackmailing some of these nobs,” is how Patrice had put it, in a perfect echo of Max and Cotton’s thoughts. But as Max reminded her, the U.K. is still rich in landed gentry and castles to pick and choose from, and as it appeared the baron and baroness made a point of rotating and spacing out the visits on their royal progress, it was possible their stays weren’t as burdensome in most cases as might be imagined. Max did gather from Patrice that they never offered to pay room and board, and of course it would have been rather tricky for their titled host to suggest they do so. Although now, after a few minutes in their united company, he was willing to bet one or two lords had been tempted.
Although their Christian names were Emma and Axelrod, Max had only heard them referred to by their titles. “I rather gather they insist on it,” Patrice had told him. “And you’ll get much further with them if you play along, is my advice. His father, from whom Axelrod inherited the title, was named Alexis, by the way. He was something in shipping.”
“The only Alexis I ever knew was a girl,” said Max. “I baptized her last year.”
“It’s trendy right now; it’s one of those names that can be masculine or feminine.” She had glanced down at her hand, which rested on her stomach. “I’m thinking of it for the baby, actually. Since I don’t know yet if it’s a boy or a girl—I didn’t want to know—it will save time.”
Now the baroness (“Her people are something in Nottingham”) was playing a variation on the theme of the fleetingness of life—referring if only glancingly to the tragedy that had befallen Margot. Then she got more into the specifics: “She was well-intentioned, I think. In that rather earnest way of some actresses. But really, she was the type to be ruled by her emotions. At the mercy of her emotions. And if she fell off the ship, well, it was simply her destiny. You do see that, of course.”
Before she could get too caught up in some aristo riff on the inevitability of it all, Max said, with studied politeness, “If I could take you back to the events of that evening for a moment, would that be all right?” He had decided already that Patrice had been right: the best approach with these two might be to grovel a bit. They seemed to expect it.
A deep sigh and a great heaving of tiny brocaded bosom from the baroness. She held out her right arm and pointedly consulted her diamond-studded watch. The pair exchanged glances and Max was sure he did not imagine a spot of telepathy at work. (Show him the door? No, he’ll just be more trouble later if we don’t answer his questions now.)
“I suppose. If you must,” said the baroness. “But please do keep in mind we are keeping people waiting.”
“Yes, I know,” said Max. “Such bad form. But your friends will understand, given the enormity of the tragedy.” This was said in such a way as to graciously if firmly stifle further argument. “Besides, your friends are probably dying to hear all the details.”
She seemed at least to understand this concept of increasing her value by carrying insider news of the scandal to the blue-blooded masses. Max was reminded of Jake’s comment about old ducks who loved nothing better than discussing other people’s troubles, and how Margot had lacked the inclination. It had been, thought Max, a surprisingly perceptive and thoughtful comment on Jake’s part, although Max was absolutely certain Margot would have bridled at being called an old duck.
“There was this little party on board,” the baroness began. “The trouble started there—rather, it came to a head. We—”
But she got no further before she was interrupted by her husband. “Much better to let it pass, don’t you think, old boy?” This was the baron-as-sahib, a creature at large at a time when the sun never set on the British Empire. “Let the fuss die down? I mean, it’s such a tawdry event and it involves such a tawdry person.”
There was, thought Max, a great deal of acting going on here—perhaps even more so than with the professional actors on the list of suspects. He was offended and struggled mightily to smother the retort that came to his lips. Looking at this privileged pair, alight with carefree youth and beauty, he wanted to say: Margot was once like you two. She was young and beautiful. She also worked for a living when and as she could, rather than sponge off her friends as you do. She grew old and she probably had only a future alone to look forward to, and that is no crime.
“Murder is always tawdry,” he said evenly.
“Murder?” they said in unison, exchanging glances.
“Yes. And the process of rooting out the person who is to blame for this crime you will find even more tawdry, Baron Sieben-Kuchen-Bäcker. The police questioning may go on for days, and lead to no end of fuss. Much better, don’t you think, to help clear the air as quickly as possible?”
From his acidic expression, the baron did not take to the idea of being held up for days. But deliberately Max had used the man’s full title, feeling ridiculous as he did so, even as he watched the baron flower under this sprinkling of flattery. To keep his temper with the man, Max wanted to avoid letting the conversation drift in the direction of whether or not Margot might be considered tawdry. He supposed some people would think she was. But she had been in a profession where age and appearance mattered above all, particularly for a woman, and her diminishing future prospects must have been frightening to contemplate.
Then remembering how terrified she’d been of the water, Max felt a particular repugnance for this crime rise up in him. How closed-in her life seemed to have become, and how sad her ending. Still, up until the end, Margot kept up appearances as best she could. She was not one to go down without a fight.
Which returned him to the subject at hand. Had there been a quarrel on the yacht, a fight that had ended in her death? He asked the baron and baroness (the B & B, as Patrice liked to call them) if they had seen any signs of the trouble ahead that night.
“No,” said the baron flatly. “She drank too much at dinner, as she always did, but I saw nothing like an argument with anyone building, if that’s what you mean. Anyone apart from Romero, of course. But to be quite honest, we were used to that. She did keep complaining of the cold. Shivering and carrying on. Finally she left, presumably to find a coat or something to throw around her shoulders.”
“No one offered her a jacket or their own shawl?”
“No. Why on earth would they? She was just complaining to complain. The room wasn’t cold. And besides, she didn’t ask.”
“So, again, you saw nothing out of the ordinary?”
The baron shook his head.
“Oh, but, darling,” said his wife. “Did you not see how her little paramour looked at her? One could tell he felt he was in for rather a long night and he didn’t look as if he enjoyed the prospect, not one bit.”
“No, my dear, I didn’t notice. He is not altogether the sort one does notice.”
“Ya-h-s-s,” she drawled. “A good-looking example of his type, of course, but quite, quite vulgar. May I have one of your ciggies?”
Her husband withdrew a packet, retrieved a cigarette, and handed it to his wife. Max observed them as they went through an elaborate ritual of lighting and puffing and smiling at one another and waving the smoke away, mirroring each other in their graceful postures, their bodies tilted slightly back at the waist. The cigarette was unfiltered and the baroness delicately pinched away a shred of tobacco from her tongue. She was eyeing Max appreciatively now, stretching her swanlike neck for a better view.
“Was there anything else? Of course we’re too, too anxious to help, but we have these people waiting—so awkward. You do see.” How many times was she going to tell him about her waiting friends?
“Was there a particular topic of conversation at that last dinner?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the baroness vaguely. “The weather. Yes, someone—I think it was the captain—started in on the weather. How they’d had these dreadful storms last year and everyone was praying the El Niño or whatever it was that caused it wouldn’t return again. Yes, it was the captain, I do recall now. His entire conversation is taken up with naval topics like knots and velocity and so on and so forth. I can barely understand what the man is saying half the time, can you, darling?”
“No, my dear, I cannot.”
“If I’m honest, the only one I can even stand is that little writer with the topknot. Addison. He’s promised to take a look at mummy’s memoirs. He thinks there might be a market for that sort of thing. He says he’ll speak to his agent about it.”
“I thought he was a scriptwriter,” said her husband.
“Playwright, scriptwriter, I don’t know, what’s the difference? It’s all writing—all make-believe, as with all these show-business types we’re surround by at the moment. They are make-believers with no work ethic whatsoever. Addy at least does try very hard. Every time you see him, he’s got the Moleskine out—scribble, scribble. Or he’s banging away at that laptop. At the moment he’s writing a novel, I think. Or maybe it’s a biography.”
“Oh, ye gods, yes. I’d forgotten. A book about The Margot, is it not?”
“Yes, darling. The mind simply reels.”
“If we could turn our minds for the moment to the night in question,” put in Max.
“I say—Mr. Tudor, is it?—I wonder when we’ll be allowed to go back onto the yacht to retrieve some more things?” the baron wanted to know. “We’re running low on proper clothing, particularly evening wear.”
“I even left behind the necklace I always wear with this frock,” the baroness added.
Max stifled a splutter of annoyance and willed his expression into even, steady lines, like a man watching a mildly amusing video on the Internet. He had the distinct impression the baron was somehow mistaking him for a member of the hotel staff, or perhaps a constable sent by DCI Cotton to fill them both in on matters of routine. It was again taking an effort for Max to keep his composure around the B & B. Margot was barely pulled out of the water and onto a slab in the morgue and these two were worried whether they had the right shoes and jewelry to go with their evening costumes.
The baroness had dropped one clue, however, for what it was worth: anyone who had lived through the past winter’s savage cold weather wouldn’t soon forget it or dismiss it so lightly. Max imagined the couple had not been in the area, no doubt having found themselves a nice warm spot in which to ride out the bad times. There was a fading tan line at the baroness’s neckline that confirmed his guess that she had lolled about a tropical resort in the not-too-distant past. Possibly one of their many put-upon friends wintered in the Bahamas.
“How did you happen to be invited aboard the yacht?” Max asked.
“We met Romero in Monte, wasn’t it, darling?”
The baron looked to his wife for confirmation, and she nodded, adding, “He was quite insistent we come aboard as his guests. It seemed a pleasant way to travel back to England. Little did we know! If we’d known Margot was in his entourage we would probably have refused the invitation.”
“We would most certainly have refused,” put in her husband. “A famous film director is one thing. That woman was—well, she was trouble from the start. And now look what it’s all come to.”
“It was purely an accidental meeting, then? You didn’t know Romero, or Margot, from before?”
“Really,” said the baron, “do we look like we would know people in show business?”
Max had to admit they did not.
“If we do see a film it’s a private screening in someone’s home,” the baroness put in. “I mean, really.”
Sorry I asked. “So, the only topic that evening was the weather?”
“I think Romero was going on about his moo-vie.” Here, from the baron, an exaggeration of Romero’s American accent—complete with a surprisingly adept imitation of his macho mannerisms. “His film, you know. And Margot started banging on about how she’d be perfect for the part. You could tell, he just did not want to have that conversation, not for a moment, but nothing was going to stop The Margot from getting what she wanted. Or from trying until he threw her overb— Oh, wait. I didn’t mean that literally, of course. She just fell off the side, of course. We all know that. Murder? Preposterous.”
“Did you see her at any time after the dinner? On deck or anywhere else?”
The baron hesitated, shrugged, then seemed to realize there was nothing to be gained by a lie.
“We decided at some point to pop up on deck for some fresh air. We saw her there. Weaving about. She collapsed into a deck chair. We pretended not to see her and walked away. It was just embarrassing, you know. For us. I don’t think Margot had enough sense to be embarrassed by the state she was always in.”
“What time was this?”
They exchanged glances, and the baron said, “Around midnight?” A look passed between him and his baroness that Max could not read. It was done in the sort of shorthand adopted by a long-term couple.
“That’s right,” she said. “Maybe before?”
“And that was all?” Max asked. “Think hard, please. It could be important.”
They looked at each other, and then they both looked at him.
“That was all,” they said in unison.