She had been met at the airport by a tall, skinny girl in black ski-pants and a scarlet sweater under a black leather jacket speckled with snow, who took her case from her and hustled her out to a waiting launch. ‘I’m Carmen, assistant director on the film.’ Then she made a face. ‘Sounds good, but there are five of us! There are three units working out here. Sorry to rush you, but I have to shoot a street scene once I’ve dropped you back at the house.’
Laura had felt sick throughout the flight, partly because of turbulence over the Alps, but also from a foreboding that kept her nerves jangling.
The chilly, snow-laden wind outside the airport was another shock to the system. It had been quite mild in London. Keeping her head down, Laura dived into the launch and collapsed on to the seat in the tiny cabin. Carmen joined her and the engine started a second later.
Pulling a walkie-talkie out of her pocket, Carmen said into it, ‘Hallo, Mama San? Carmen here. Carmen. Can you hear me? You’re breaking up a bit. Oh, that’s better. Okay, I found her. We’re just starting back.’
Pocketing the walkie-talkie, she subsided with a sigh. ‘I never seem to stop running. My feet are twice their normal size, I swear it.’
‘But you like the job?’
Carmen glowed. ‘Oh, yes! It’s so exciting, especially working for Sebastian Ferrese. He’s wonderful, I’ve been very lucky.’ Then she gave Laura a funny sideways look, and flushed, as if remembering something. Laura could guess what.
‘Isn’t it cold?’ Laura changed the subject. ‘I was here in August and we had a heatwave then.’
‘The weather’s been bitter ever since I got here. I’m beginning to feel like a polar bear.’
‘You don’t bite like one, I hope!’ Huddled inside her tweed jacket Laura pulled up over her head the thick wool scarf she had been wearing around her neck: she didn’t want her hair blown to hell when she got out of the boat. ‘It was almost spring-like in London when I left, but snow was on the way there too. You said you were shooting a scene today? I didn’t think production had started yet. How many other actors are here?’
‘You’re the first. We aren’t expecting anyone else for a few days. We’re using local extras to dress up the scenes, but that means finding dozens of costumes. Wardrobe and Props have been having nightmares.’
‘They always do!’ Laura stared out of the window, which was glazed with snow and white spray. Grey sky, grey sea. The launch bounced over high waves, flinging her about. ‘Lovely weather for filming!’
Carmen laughed. ‘The director of photography’s mad as hell about the weather. We have to have umbrellas over the cameras to keep them dry, and that casts a shadow, but if we get snow inside one we’ll lose that camera while it’s being dried out and maybe even a day’s shooting.’
‘Sidney’s a perfectionist.’
The odd look came again. ‘Of course, you know him.’
‘We worked together before.’ Laura avoided the girl’s curious stare. This was going to be even more difficult than she had expected. It was hard enough to be working with Sebastian again, but it looked as though she was going to meet avid curiosity from everyone else on the production. It would be a nightmare. Even without the added fear of knowing that, somewhere out there, somebody dangerous was watching her and planning … what?
She wished she knew. Acid flooded into her throat, the bile of terror and dread.
‘Tell me what you did before you got this job,’ she asked Carmen, to give herself something less worrying to think about.
It always worked: people loved nothing better than to talk about themselves, and Carmen was no exception. During the rough boat-ride she took Laura through her training at film school, the dozens of letters she had written in search of work, her amazing luck in finally getting a job with Sebastian as a runner on a film he made eighteen months ago.
‘They paid me peanuts and I was on my feet eighteen hours a day most days, but I learnt a lot and worked like a dog, which is why Sebastian gave me this chance as an assistant director. I’m the lowest of the low. All the others are more experienced than me, but it’s pure luck to get a chance to show what I can do.’
Laura smiled. ‘He took a big chance on me in my first film – I knew absolutely nothing about acting or making films. Everything I know I learnt from him.’
Carmen went pink, and averted her head. That look again.
Laura had had a vivid picture of the palazzo in her mind ever since she had first seen it, in August, but as she stepped on to the landing-stage and looked up she found that the reality was even more powerful than she remembered it, although the great archangels were now robed in folds of snow, the little cherubs half obliterated by it.
‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’ But Carmen was in a hurry to get inside, out of the blizzard, and urged her towards the entrance.
Face stinging with cold, lashes wet with snow, Laura stumbled inside the empty ground floor, and climbed the great marble stairs into the upper hall – to be met by a scene of utter chaos, which was comfortingly familiar.
Then she saw Sebastian in the middle of it all, talking to Sidney. He was too preoccupied to notice her, but Valerie Hyde, standing close to him, making notes on everything he said, lifted her head and glanced sharply towards Laura, nose beaky, eyes fierce, as if warned of her presence by the instinct with which an owl, hunting in the dark, picks up the invisible fieldmouse hiding in deep grass.
She really hates me, thought Laura. And loves him. Does he know? Jealousy stung in her throat like heartburn, a physical pain, as if she was going to be sick.
Carmen touched her arm. ‘You kn
ow you’re staying here? Will you mind? It isn’t exactly the Hilton, although it’s so grand. No central heating, but they’ve had an electric heater in your room for hours. The bathroom’s a frozen waste, I’m afraid. Oh, a magnificent tub with gold feet and bronze fittings – it should be in a museum – but without heating it must be like Siberia. You’ll have to warm the room before you can take your clothes off, I expect. We’re picking up the tab on their electricity while we’re here, so keep your heater on as long as you like. Sebastian told me to make sure you were comfortable. I’ll take you up to see your room now. It’s very beautiful – it could be a set for one of those Hollywood epics about the Borgias or whatever.’ She laughed, and Laura pretended to laugh, too.
‘It will be an experience, anyway.’