Daggers and Men's Smiles by Jill Downie

him get a taste of his own medicine.’”
    â€œMeaning?”
    â€œMeaning that Ensor plays the field — boys and girls, if you get me.”
    â€œWhat a charmer.”
    â€œI got the address of Giulia Vannoni from the art director, who’s a friend of hers. Seems she has a place here she uses from time to time — somewhere out near Icart Point. She’s close to her aunt, so he says.”
    â€œInteresting. Let’s get back into town. I’ll have to report to Chief Officer Hanley before too long.”
    As they returned along the winding lanes that led to St. Peter Port, Moretti found himself thinking about love. About the marchese and the marchesa, still married, who lived coldly apart. About the tears of a young girl for whom kind words were as precious as the passion she felt for her risky choice of lover. About a redhead and a blonde on a scarlet and black Ducati, with the salt wind of the island blowing through their hair.
    Fracas .
    That was it. The name of the perfume. Uproar. Chaos.
    He still couldn’t remember the name of the girl. But he knew it hadn’t been Valerie.

Her heart was beating hard enough to burst the thin cotton of her shirt — as hard as the blows she would have liked to have given him, to wipe the taunting smile off her husband’s face. When Sydney Tremaine found herself in the corridor outside the marchesa’s sitting room, she was shaking with suppressed rage, the humiliation of being insulted in front of the civilized and quiet-spoken detective inspector. If they had been on their own, she would have picked up the nearest blunt object — anything that would have served as a missile — and thrown it at Gil.
    What should she do now? Wait meekly around until the interview was over, babysit Gil for the remainder of the day, as she usually did, and then return to their hotel suite to scream and shout and rant at each other? Or to drink too much, have sex if Gil was not too drunk, and go to bed?
    The prospect was appalling. Sydney leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.
    When she opened them again, she saw a figure at the end of the corridor. It was the woman who had arrived on the motorbike, the woman she had seen running along the cliff path — and whom she had told the detective inspector she didn’t know.
    â€œWait!” Sydney started to run toward her.
    The woman stood and waited, her hands on her hips. As Sydney got closer, she saw she was smiling.
    â€œYou are Sydney Tremaine, the ballerina.”
    â€œEx-ballerina. You are the jogger I saw on the cliff path near the Héritage Hotel.”
    One finely pencilled eyebrow was raised. “I don’t jog. I run. Yes. Giulia Vannoni.”
    â€œYou didn’t hear me call out?”
    â€œI hear nothing with my iPod. Not the birds, not the sea, nothing.”
    She extended her hand and Sydney took it.
    â€œSomeone threw a dagger at my husband at about the same time.”
    â€œSo they tell me. And missed. If it had been me, cara , you would be wearing black right now.”
    Sydney saw that Giulia Vannoni had green eyes but, unlike her own, they were long and slightly slanted, and they were looking challengingly at her.
    â€œWhy were you standing outside my aunt’s study?” she asked. “Are you looking for her?”
    â€œNo. The detective inspector is questioning my husband. I — left. I didn’t tell him that I saw you. I’m not sure why.”
    â€œAh? Perhaps you hope I will hit my target next time?”
    The pent-up anger of the past few minutes — of the past few days, weeks, months — burst from Sydney Tremaine in a flood of tears. “Christ! No. Yes. I don’t know!”
    â€œHey!”
    Giulia Vannoni did not put her arms about her, pat her on the shoulder, talk in soothing tones. She took Sydney by the elbow and steered her toward the foyer that led out on to the terrace. “I’ve got to move