The Disappearing Dress (3/3)

I grabbed the wig from Ian and rushed downstairs to find Inspector Montalbano. Luckily, he hadn’t left yet. He’d settled down to have espresso and canolo in the breakfast lounge. Julie was sitting next to him and to my surprise she was flirting with him, speaking Italian. And he was lapping it up, of course. So much for his big rush to get home for lunch…

“Excuse me Mr. Montalbano,” I said. “We have evidence.”

I waved the triumphantly wig at him.

“Oh Susan, well done!” said Julie admiringly.

Montalbano looked at it for a few moments and glanced at Julie. I just knew that he was weighing things up in his mind. One the one hand he disliked me and wanted to do as little as possible work, on the other hand he wanted to show off. Which side would win: laziness or ego? It was a real battle of the Titans.

“It was in the room of the bride?” he asked.

“No! It was in my room.”

He stroked a grizzled cheek.

“Come, show me where you did find it.”

I led up along to my room and pointed.

“And what is this?” he gestured at the paper towels on the floor.

“The dog got in and peed on the floor. The door was open.”

His eyebrows shot up.

“Why was the door open?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I suggest, maybe, you take the dress. You ’ave the jealousy, you decide you are not ’appy. Therefore no one must be happy! You put on a wig, get the dress, put them in ’ere tutti e due, then leave the door open in your ’urry!”

“What? That is absolutely outrageous!” I glared at him.

He shrugged.

“Then ’ow do you explain this?” he bent down and tugged out a tuft of tulle from under the bed.

“Oh my god! Susie, love, it’s the veil!” Julie said, shocked. She was so upset she started coughing.

Montalbano was clearly enjoying my discomfiture. He searched my room thoroughly after that, finally, with reluctance, concluding that the dress was not there. At that point he decided that I must come to the police station so that I would make a statement. He said Julie had to come and act as an ‘interpreter.’

“I didn’t know you spoke Italian,” I muttered to Julie when we were in the back of the police car.

She colored a bit.

“Oh yes, I spent a year as an au pair in Taormina. A few years before I got married and had Tasha. In fact, that’s where I first met Regulus. My Italian’s still a bit rusty to be honest, so I thought I’d try brushing up on it.”

Montalbano was driving at a breakneck pace through a tiny village. Old ladies and cats were scattering before him, scrambling to get out of the way.

“Suzie,” said Julie quietly.

“Mmmm?”

“What do you think of Derek?”

“Hate him,” I grimaced. “Obviously. Why?”

“Well. Do you think he loves Tasha?”

“Yes, as much as I loathe him, I do think he is sound on that front.”

“Well…” she bit her lip. “Don’t tell anyone this, all right? But I think he’s cheating on her.”

“What?” I exclaimed.

“My bedroom is next to one of the triplets. And I heard a man’s voice in there yesterday. And then…well, it sounded as if they were being intimate.”

“Oh my God!” I said, “But what makes you think it’s Derek?”

“I looked out of the window and I saw him leave. I had to make sure, you know, before…” I know what she was going to say: before ruining Tasha’s dreams.

“Do you know what?” I said. “It suddenly all makes sense! Yesterday, Tasha was looking out the window and she went funny. Ever since then she’s been dropping hints about something terrible. I bet that’s what it is! The bastard!”

Julie nodded.

“I don’t dare say anything to her about it,” she said. “Tasha can be very fierce and she’s warned me not to say a word against Derek. So I was wondering if you…” she paused to cough. “If you might have a word with her?”

“Well, I’ll try,” I said dubiously. “The thing is, she’s warned me as well. She already knows I can’t stand him. Do you know which triplet it was?”

Julie shook her head.

“The truth is, I can’t tell them apart.”

I uttered a cry that set Julie off coughing again.

“What is it?” she sputtered.

“I heard Sherry saying smugly that she knew Derek wasn’t a necrophiliac. There was a smug undertone to her voice. I didn’t know why at the time but now…”

“A necrophiliac? What on earth?” Julie coughed again.

“You really ought to get that cough seen to,” I said.

“It’s seasonal. I have to wait it out unfortunately,” she shrugged. “But I have these lozenges.” She took out a green pastille and popped it into her mouth.

When I got back from giving my statement at the police station, I made for Tasha’s room intending to tell her the ugly truth—that her fiancé was a cheater—and get the whole thing over with. As I approached, though, I heard voices coming out of the open window. I took a seat on one of the patio chairs and pretended to read a book.

“What’s wrong babe?” I heard Derek ask.

“I need to talk to you.” Tasha’s voice was unusually harsh.

“What’s up?” Derek was trying to sound brash and breezy but there was a note of desperation underneath.

“I saw you with heryesterday.”

There was a long silence then a sigh.

“Oh God. I’m so sorry. Come here--”

“Don’t touch me! How long has it been going on?”

“Not long. It was just an impulse. I got scared. I thought I’d never be able to let myself go like that again. I guess I got…claustrophobic. Please forgive me, baby!”

“Again? You mean…you’ve done it before?”

“Of course. Before I was with you, I did it all the time.”

“All the time?” Tasha squealed. “Don’t you know it’s perverted? You could both go to jail!”

“Well, I know it’s wrong but you don’t go to jail these days, not if there’s consent?”

“Listen Derek,” said Tasha, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really think you need to see a therapist. This is absolutely not normal.”

“OK, I’ll go. Whatever you want.”

“And…Virginia needs to be there too.”

“Mummy? Why?”

“You know why! Does Ian know about it? He should be there too. The whole family.”

“Sugar puff, do we really need to involve the whole family in a private matter?”

“You’ve already involved them!”

“I don’t know what you mean…?”

Tasha sighed.

“Look, it’s pretty clear that there is a lot of work to be done here. You’re in denial. I’m devastated. In fact, I can hardly bear to look at you. But, God help me, I still love you, so I’m still going to walk down the aisle with you tomorrow.”

“You are?”

“Yes—don’t touch me though. I’m willing to put the work in to help you change. It’s not how I envisaged my marriage but we are a family now and we’re all going to work together to fix this. OK? In the meantime, I’m going to get my own room. Just for now, to give me some breathing space.”

I saw the doorknob turn and decided to flee before Tasha saw that I’d been eavesdropping. I raced around the corner and bumped right into Zach, Derek’s best man.

I didn’t know Zach at all really. The only thing I knew was that he was friends with Derek, which was hardly a recommendation. So it was doubly embarrassing when our first instinct on bumping into each other was to stretch our arms out and reach to steady ourselves against the nearest upright object, which was the other person. We executed a sudden, forcible bear hug that knocked the wind out of me so badly that I could hardly see for a second. I think we stood there swaying for a couple of seconds.

Somewhere in the shock of our physical collision, my senses came back and I noticed that he was wearing something that smelled like pine sap. It was nice. His warm hands gripped my arms and his eyes were boring into mine. It had a strange paralyzing effect on me.

Coming to my senses, I felt the urge to get away and mumbled something to that effect.

“Wait!” Zach said. “Do you have a moment?”

“Um, OK,” I said with excessive brightness.

“I was just coming to look for you. It’s about the d-r-e-s-s,” he said, looking around furtively.

“What about it?”

“I think I know who took it,” he whispered in my ear.

“Who?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t notice that his breath in my ear had given me goosebumps.

He looked from right to left and then pointed to a path lined by oleanders. We started strolling with poorly affected nonchalance. In fact, anyone seeing us would have thought we looked extremely suspicious.

“I don’t know if Derek mentioned what I do for a living…” he said.

“Er, no actually. What do you do?”

“I’m a kind of policeman. I investigate organized crime.”

“Really?” I exclaimed. “You’re a mafia hunter?”

“Among other things,” he said darkly. “But mostly I deal with financial crime: money laundering, that sort of thing. Recently I was involved in a big bust of CFSI.”

“What’s that?”

“Counterfeit, fraudulent and suspect items. Particularly high-end fashion goods. Handbags, shoes, watches, luxury fashion things.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I’m trained to know the signs,” he said. “And I think something like that is going on here.”

“In what way?” I asked, confused.

“The dress was a one-off, right? A genuine Giorgo Visconti. Worth hundreds of thousands.”

“What?!”

“Yes, I know,” he said. “It’s crazily expensive. It would be lucrative for a counterfeiter to get it copied, right?”

“But who would do that here?”

“Listen, Susan,” he said, grabbing my elbow, “I think this was an inside job.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Tasha mentioned that you said you found a cufflink on the floor.”

“Yes,” I said, “But…”

“Giorgio’s cufflink.”

“You think Giorgio stole his own dress?”

“Why not? He was in the room wasn’t he?”

“But why would he steal it just so someone else could make money off the fakes?”

“Think about it,” he said. “This way he gets money from the original, but also makes a packet off of the fakes.”

“He makes his own fakes?” I said, frowning.

He nodded.

“A criminal mastermind.”

“But I heard him talking about the cufflink going missing at breakfast. Surely, if he’d taken it he would have been more careful. He would have realized that it might have come off when he nicked it.”

“Maybe,” Zach said, sceptically. “Personally, I think he has an accomplice. And I intend to find out who it is. Ah, speak of the devil,” he murmured. He’d seen Giorgio coming, bustling as fast as he could towards me.

“Lady!” he said to me, “Lady, I need to talk to you. Good evening,” he added to Zach as an afterthought. Zach raised an eyebrow, looked significantly at me and departed.

“Yes, what is it Giorgio?” I asked.

“I ’eard you ’ave my cufflink?”

“Not anymore. It was in Tasha’s room this morning. I gave it to the Inspector.”

“Agghg!” he clutched his head. “But why did you do that?”

“Why? What’s the problem?”

“I need it. It is—how you say?—a portafortuna. If I do not ’ave it, then all is lost.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get it back,” I said. “Once the investigation is over.”

“For ’ow long will that be? I need to ’ave it for Milan Fashion Week.” He walked off muttering and roughing up the hair on his head.

The next maniac to come roving into my ken was Tasha.

“Hello Susan,” she said glumly.

“Hi Tasha! I just got back from the police station,” I lied. “Inspector Montalbano seems pretty sharp. I’m sure he’ll find that dress for you.”

“Hmmm,” she said, distrait.

“Anything the matter?” I asked.

“I’ve found something terrible out about Derek,” she said.

“Oh, I wanted to talk to you about that, actually,” said Susan.

“You mean, you know?” she asked, wide eyed.

“I’m sorry. I saw him coming out of her room. I didn’t know whether to tell you or not.”

“Last night?! But I saw him come out of her room when I showed you the dress. They’re…insatiable. It’s sick!”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“We’re going to therapy, all four of us.”

“Four?”

“Yes. His mother has some explaining to do, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well…I don’t know that you can blame her for his infidelity.”

She stared at me.

“I think I can! It’s not normal Susan.”

“I don’t know, I think it is pretty normal. Not good, but depressingly normal.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You think it’s normal for men to sleep with their mothers?”

“Pardon me?”

“I saw Derek coming out of his mother’s room, then French kissing her in the doorway.”

“Virginia?”

“Yes. I saw her face very clearly. I thought you saw the same thing!”

“No! I saw him leaving Sherry’sroom.”

“What?” She stared at me, wide eyed. “If only! If only that were true.”

We were both suddenly thoughtful.

“There’s only one thing to do,” I decided.

“What’s that?”

“Tell Derek that you and I are going out to a bar tonight, pre-wedding drinks sort of thing. Then one of us will hide in Sherry’s room, the other in Virginia’s. That way one of us will find out the truth.”

“Well, I’m not going to hide in Virginia’s,” said Tasha. “I’ve already been through enough grief.”

“That’s true,” I said. “OK, I’ll hide in Virginia’s closet and you go into Sherry’s.”

“Please be Sherry, please be Sherry, please be Sherry,” I heard her mutter as she walked away.

It was all getting a bit much for me so I decided to head to my room to think things over. I grabbed the hotel notepad and a biro and scribbled three questions:

1) When did the dress go missing exactly?

2) Who had the opportunity to take it?

3) Who had a reason to take it?

I had to admit that I didn’t know when the dress had gone missing. The first I knew about it was when Tasha screamed. The last time I’d seen the dress was the previous day at about eleven o’clock in the morning, when she showed it to me. This brought up an uncomfortable revelation: The person with the best opportunity and the best motive for taking the dress was Tasha herself.

The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. After all, she’d just seen her future husband tangling tongues with his own mother…that would give anyone pause! Had she hidden the dress as a stalling tactic because she didn’t want to face the Oedipal soup in which she found herself plunged?

As neat as it was, though, it just didn’t fit. I’d just practically this minute overheard her tell Derek that she was going ahead with the wedding! So why would she hide the dress?

Then there was Giorgio. I’d found his cufflink in Tasha’s room. Was Zach right? Was he staging a burglary in order to steal his own dress for counterfeiting purposes? It seemed far-fetched but it might just be possible. He was certainly distraught about the cuff-link; was that because he realized it was so incriminating that his crime would be discovered and his reputation destroyed?

What about Derek? He had as much opportunity as Tasha to take the dress—it was his room too. He was not exactly in a wedding-day frame of mind if he was simultaneously shagging Sherry and—my mind reeled--his own mother! Was it all an extreme case of cold feet? In a rare moment of compassion for the human woodlouse, it occurred to me that Viriginia had been pushing him around a lot—I even wondered if she was the main reason that he’d proposed to Tasha in the first place. Virginia was ambitious for her son, she was clearly angling for Regulus to hire Derek…was this Derek’s desperate attempt to escape the maternal straight-jacket, to stand up for himself?

Who else could have done it? Technically I suppose anyone of us might have, including the staff. After all, the cleaners had keys to all our rooms.

As for the triplets…Sherry possibly had a motive. It was possible she was in love with Derek herself and wanted to sabotage the ceremony? Regulus had complained about how much he’d had to pay for the dress. Maybe if it disappeared he’d get a pay out? Julie didn’t like Derek…but I couldn’t see her trying to spoil Tasha’s big day. Then there was Ian Harris but I couldn’t see any reason for him to take the dress. Unless that little beast of a dog had peed on it and he was too embarrassed to admit it.

“Ughh!” I said and threw myself on the bed.

The mattress felt uncomfortable, as if the mattress were uneven. I stood up and lifted it up. Sure enough, there was the dress!

Whoever had taken the dress had come straight into my room, thrown the wig on my floor, hidden the dress under my mattress and escaped quickly. An idea formed in my mind.

I went to find Tasha.

She was sitting in the hotel bar nursing a martini.

“Hey! I said.

She jumped.

“You nearly effing killed me.”

“Sorry. It’s nearly time. You ready?”

She nodded morosely.

“Before we go, I just have one question for you,” I said, “About this morning.”

“What?”

“You know when you came down to breakfast…was the dress still in the wardrobe when you left.”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, absolutely. I took a last look at it before I left.”

“OK. So, when you left, was there anyone outside your room?”

“No. Well, just the maid. She wanted to get in and clean it.”

“Do you remember what she looked like? Was she the really short blonde woman?”

“No. She had brown hair.”

“Tasha! That was the thief.”

“What, the maid?”

“No, someone disguised as the maid. They were wearing the wig and the uniform and everything. That’s how they got into the room without you noticing.”

“You’re right!” she slapped her forehead. “I actually held the door open for her!”

“So it was a woman. That’s something concrete. We’re getting closer. By the way, I found the dress. Someone hid it under my mattress.”

“Really?!”

“Yes. So after we’ve ambush your husband in flagrantewe can figure out who stole it.”

“I’ve been thinking about that ambush. How are we supposed to get into their rooms?”

“Easy. There’s a connecting door between my room and Sherry’s. I’ll let you in through that.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll think of something,” I said.

I let Tasha into Sherry’s room then walked over to Virginia and Ian’s suite. It was dark and everyone else was at dinner so I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t be seen. I noticed the window was open a touch so (first making sure no one was watching) I pulled it open as wide as I could and wriggled in. It wasn’t pretty or easy but I managed it, swearing a lot. I then located the wardrobe, jumped inside and pulled the door shut.

“We meet again,” said a voice in the darkness. A male voice.

I would have screamed but I was so horrified that my vocal chords wouldn’t work.

“I see you came to the same conclusion I did,” said the voice. I smelled pine sap.

“Zach!” I whisper-gurgled.

“No other. The door was unlocked, by the way. You didn’t have to come through the window.”

“What, er, conclusion?” I whispered, uncomfortably aware that we were squashed up against one another. He didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Giorio needed an accomplice. It’s Virginia, obviously. She’s his aunt, she has connections in the fashion business. I overheard her making a phone call telling him to meet her in her room. He’s going hand the dress over to her. I’m going to make a recording.”

“You are?” I squeaked.

“That’s why you’re here too, right?”

“Uh huh,” I said. “Shhh! Someone’s coming.”

“I’ve been waiting for this all day,” purred a woman before letting out a sigh. Virginia. This was going to get embarrassing fast.

“You have no idea,” said a man’s voice. It wasn’t Derek. It wasn’t Ian. It wasn’t Giorgio either.

“Regulus.” she said, “Pleasure me!”

I noticed Zach become suddenly tense.

“Do that thing we did before,” Regulus said. “Where I’m a Cockney stable boy and you’re the Lady of the Manor.”

“Here boy!” said the same commanding voice. “Why haven’t you mucked out these stables?”

“They was too mucky m’laidy.”

“Wicked boy. Fetch me my riding crop!”

“Ooo be gentle wi’ me m’laidy.”

So that was it! I realized then that Tasha had seen Virginia’s face but had only glimpsed her lover from the back. Derek was wearing the same clothes and hairstyle as Regulus, succeeding so well that she’d thought he really was him.

I put my hands over my ears at this point and hoped it would all be over soon. Next to me, I could sense that Zach was frozen in horror. I felt sorry for the poor guy and would have patted him on the leg but my ears needed my hands for protection.

Even my hands were no match for the pandemonium that broke in the next moment, though. First there was a loud yappy barking, then a roar, then a scream. By this time I’d taken my hands off my ears.

“Get that dog off me!” Regulus yelled.

“Give me that whip, Virginia!” Ian growled.

“Ow!” said Regulus.

“Stop it!” Virginia cried.

“Oh my God,” I murmured.

Then the barking came closer and wouldn’t stop.

“There’s someone in that closet,” Virginia said.

At that moment, I felt Zach move and pull me over to him. “Let’s kiss—we need a pretext.” There was a wet squishy feeling on my mouth. The door flew open and I heard a collective gasp.

“What the--?” said Ian.

There was a moment in which everyone stared at us in deep confusion. Except for Sextus, who kept yapping. Virginia picked him up, then I stood and wiped my mouth on the back of my sleeve.

“Excuse me,” I murmured, and walked out of the room as quickly as I could.

As I entered the courtyard, I saw Tasha and Derek in the garden, embracing. Sherry was standing nearby looking irritated.

“Susan!” Tasha cried joyfully. “It’s all right! It wasSherry he was shagging after all! I’m so happy.”

“Great!” I beamed, still shell-shocked by what had just happened.

“I told Derek we found the dress. So everything’s all right after all!”

Julie came into the garden, together with Montalbano. They were holding hands. She was sucking a lozenge.

“Julie!” I said, “I found the dress. And everything’s turned out well.”

“Oh,” she said, momentarily startled. I caught a whiff of eucalyptus and remembered smelling it in my room when I found the wig. A cough lozenge…

“It was you!” I cried. “You took the dress! But why?”

She looked momentarily as if she’d been struck. But then she looked at Tasha.

“It was Derek. He’d started looking and acting so much like Regulus…It scared me. I didn’t want Tasha to repeat my mistake. I planned it when I was still back in the UK. I even brushed up on my Italian so I could pass as a maid more easily. I just wanted my daughter to be happy. Can you forgive me, Tasha?”

Tasha smiled, so relieved that her future husband wasn’t engaging in incest that nothing could bother her.

“Of course!” she said and hugged her mother tight.

“Aha!” said Montalbano. “So it was you!” he said to Julie. “I see it all now. You wore the wig, you played the maid. I ’ave discovered the truth!”

“We literally just told you what happened though,” I said.

“I am a genius,” said Montalbano, “But I am a complicated genius. It is my job to catch criminals but…this criminal…what can I say? My fatal weakness is a beautiful woman. Today, I will not arrest you after all. Would you like to go to dinner? I know a little place by the seaside…”

They were just about to head off when Giorgio appeared. He looked terrible. There were bags under his eyes, his hair was a mess. His shirt was untucked. He was murmuring to himself. Then he saw Montalbano. He approached him then fell on his knees, begging and crying.

They talked for about five minutes and Giorgio ended up embracing the policeman.

Julie winked at me.

“Before we go to dinner we’re going to pick up Giorgio’s cufflink.”

“These Milanese,” said Montalbano, “They are troppoemotional.”

As for the wedding itself, I hardly remember it. I may have had too much limoncello. Zach and I started dating and we’re probably going to get married next year. Not in Sicily though.