Photo-Finish

‘What other business?’ said Alleyn, and managed to keep the weary note out of his voice.

‘Didn’t I tell you? Stupid of me. Yes. There’s a bit of a flap going on in the international Drug Scene: the USA in particular. Interpol picked up a lead somewhere and passed it on to the French who talked to the FBI who’ve been talking to our lot. It seems there’s been some suggestion that the diva might be a big, big girl in the remotest background. Very nebulous it sounded to me but our Great White Chief is slightly excited.’ This was the AC’s habitual manner of alluding to the Commissioner. ‘He’s been talking to the Special Squad. And, by the way, to MI6.’

‘How do they come into it?’

‘Somewhere along the line. Cagey, as usual, I gather,’ said the AC. ‘But they did divulge that there was a leak from an anonymous source to the effect that the Sommita is thought to have operated in the past.’

‘What about Reece?’

‘Clean as a whistle, as far as is known.’

‘Montague Reece,’ Alleyn mused. ‘Almost too good to be true. Like something out of Trilby. Astrakhan coat-collar and glistening beard. Anything about his origin, sir?’

‘Thought to be American-Sicilian.’

During the pause that followed the AC hummed, uncertainly, the habañera from Carmen. ‘Ever heard her in that?’ he said. ‘Startling. Got the range – soprano, mezzo, you name it, got the looks, got the sex. Stick you like a pig for tuppence and make you like it.’ He shot one of his disconcerting glances at Alleyn. ‘Troy’ll have her hands full,’ he said. ‘What?’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn agreed, and with a strong foreboding of what was in store, added: ‘I don’t much fancy her going.’

‘Quite. Going to put your foot down, are you, Rory?’

Alleyn said: ‘As far as Troy’s concerned I haven’t got feet.’

‘Tell that to the Fraud Squad,’ said the AC and gave a slight whinny.

‘Not where her work’s concerned. It’s a must. For both of us.’

‘Ah,’ said the AC. ‘Mustn’t keep you,’ he said, and shifted without further notice into the tone that meant business. ‘It just occurs to me that in the circumstances you might, after all, take this trip. And by the way you know New Zealand, don’t you? Yes?’ And when Alleyn didn’t answer: ‘What I meant when I said “coincidence". The invitation and all that. Drops like a plum into our lap. We’re asked to keep a spot of very inconspicuous observation on this article and here’s the article’s boyfriend asking you to be his guest and Bob, so to speak, is your uncle. Incidentally, you’ll be keeping an eye on Troy and her termagant subject, won’t you? Well?’

Alleyn said: ‘Am I to take it, sir, that this is an order?’

‘I must say,’ dodged the AC, ‘I thought you would be delighted.’

‘I expect I ought to be.’

‘Very well, then,’ said the AC testily. ‘Why the hell aren’t you?’

‘Well, sir, you talked about coincidences. It so happens that by a preposterous series of them Troy has been mixed up to a greater and lesser degree in four of my cases. And – ‘

‘And by all accounts behaved quite splendidly. Hul-lo!’ said the AC. ‘That’s it, is it? You don’t like her getting involved?’

‘On general principles, no, I don’t.’

‘But, my dear man, you’re not going out to the antipodes to involve yourself in an investigation. You’re on observation. There won’t,’ said the AC, ‘as likely as not, be anything to observe. Except, of course, your most attractive wife. You’re not going to catch a murderer. You’re not going to catch anyone. What?’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘All right. It’s an order. You’d better ring your wife and tell her. Morning to you.’

III

In Melbourne all was well. The Sydney season had been a fantastic success artistically, financially and, as far as Isabella Sommita was concerned, personally. ‘Nothing to equal it had been experienced,’ as the press raved, ‘within living memory.’ One reporter laboriously joked that if cars were motivated by real instead of statistical horsepower the quadrupeds would undoubtedly have been unhitched and the diva drawn in triumph and by human propulsion through the seething multitudes.

There had been no further offensive photography.

Young Rupert Bartholomew had found himself pitchforked into a milieu that he neither understood nor criticized but in which he floundered in a state of complicated bliss and bewilderment. Isabella Sommita had caused him to play his one-act opera. She had listened with an approval that ripened quickly with the realization that the soprano role was, to put it coarsely, so large that the rest of the cast existed only as trimmings. The opera was about Ruth and the title was The Alien Corn. (’Corn,’ muttered Ben Ruby to Monty Reece, but not in the Sommita’s hearing, ‘is dead right.’) There were moments when the pink clouds amid which Rupert floated thinned and a small, ice-cold pellet ran down his spine and he wondered if his opera was any good. He told himself that to doubt it was to doubt the greatest soprano of the age and the pink clouds quickly reformed. But the shadow of unease did not absolutely leave him.

Mr Reece was not musical. Mr Ruby, in his own untutored way, was. Both accepted the advisability of consulting an expert and such was the pitch of the Sommita’s mounting determination to stage this piece that they treated the matter as one of top urgency. Mr Ruby, under pretence of wanting to study the work, borrowed it from the Sommita. He approached the doyen of Australian music critics, and begged him, for old times’ sake, to give his strictly private opinion on the opera. He did so and said that it stank.

‘Menotti-and-water,’ he said. ‘Don’t let her touch it.’

‘Will you tell her so?’ Mr Ruby pleaded.

‘Not on your Nelly,’ said the great man, and as an afterthought, ‘What’s the matter with her? Has she fallen in love with the composer?’

‘Boy,’ said Mr Ruby deeply, ‘you said it.’

It was true. After her somewhat tigerish fashion the Sommita was in love. Rupert’s Byronic appearance, his melting glance, and his undiluted adoration had combined to do the trick. At this point she had a flaring row with her Australian secretary who stood up to her and when she sacked him said she had taken the words out of his mouth. She then asked Rupert if he could type and when he said yes promptly offered him the job. He accepted, cancelled all pending appointments, and found himself booked in at the same astronomically expensive hotel as his employer. He not only dealt with her correspondence. He was one of her escorts to the theatre and was permitted to accompany her at her practices. He supped with her after the show and stayed longer than any of the other guests. He was in Heaven.

On a night when this routine had been observed and Mr Reece had retired early, in digestive discomfort, the Sommita asked Rupert to stay while she changed into something comfortable. This turned out to be a ruby silken negligée which may indeed have been comfortable for the wearer but which caused the beholder to shudder in an agony of excitement.

He hadn’t a hope. She had scarcely embarked upon the preliminary phases of her formidable techniques when she was in his arms, or more strictly, he in hers.

An hour later he floated down the long passage to his room, insanely inclined to sing at the top of his voice.

‘My first!’ he exulted. ‘My very first. And, incredibly – Isabella Sommita.’

He was, poor boy, as pleased as Punch with himself.

IV

As far as his nearest associates could discover Mr Reece was not profoundly disturbed by his mistress’s goings-on. Indeed he appeared to ignore them but, really, it was impossible to tell, he was so remarkably uncommunicative. Much of his time, most of it, in fact, was spent with a secretary, manipulating, it was widely conjectured, the Stock Markets and receiving long-distance telephone calls. His manner towards Rupert Bartholomew was precisely the same as his manner towards the rest of the Sommita’s following: so neutral that it could scarcely be called a manner at all. Occasionally when Rupert thought of Mr Reece he was troubled by stabs of uncomfortable speculation, but he was too far gone in incredulous rapture to be greatly concerned.

It was at this juncture that Mr Reece flew to New Zealand to inspect his island lodge, now completed.

On his return, three days later, to Melbourne, he found the Alleyns’ letters of acceptance and the Sommita in a high state of excitement.

‘Dar-leeng,’ she said, ‘you will show me everything. You have photographs, of course? Am I going to be pleased? Because I must tell you I have great plans. But such plans!’ cried the Sommita and made mysterious gestures. ‘You will never guess.’

‘What are they?’ he asked in his flat-voiced way.

‘Ah-ah!’ she teased. ‘You must be patient. First the pictures which Rupert, too, must see. Quick, quick, the pictures.’

She opened the bedroom door into the sitting room and in two glorious notes sang, ‘Rupert!’

Rupert had been coping with her fan mail. When he came in he found that Mr Reece had laid out a number of glossy coloured photographs on the bed. They were all of the island lodge.

The Sommita was enchanted. She exclaimed, purred, exulted. Several times she burst into laughter. Ben Ruby arrived and the photographs were re-exhibited. She embraced all three men severally and more or less together.