A Grave Waiting (12 page)

“You don't believe me, do you?”

“It doesn't matter whether I believe you or not. It's whether Hanley does. But I wonder if you obeyed the rules of procedure, or whether you let something slip.”

“Obeyed the rules of procedure?” Beneath the jagged wisps of her bangs Liz Falla's dark eyes flared into laughter. “Like you did, Guv, when Jimmy Le Poidevin said there was nothing of interest in that magazine rack?” Her laughter disappeared as soon as it had come and, for the first time, she looked contrite. “Sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

“You counterpunched. Fair enough. Let's get out of here.”

“Speaking of magazine racks, did you hear anything yet from the RCMP about Offshore Haven Cred, or whatever it is?”

It was the first words they had exchanged since leaving the office. Standing on the other side of the car in the Hospital Lane courtyard, Liz Falla replied, “No, Guv. I got an email off to them late yesterday, about midday their time. Hopefully there'll be a reply by this afternoon.” She opened the car door. “Where do you want to go? Lady Fellowes?”

“Later. For the time being I've sent PC Le Marchant out there to keep an eye on her. It'll be good for him. She'll flirt and embarrass the hell out of him.” Moretti got into the passenger seat. “I want to have another go at the crew members at the Esplanade Hotel. There was a message from Betty Kerr saying they were having problems with the
petit salaud
. I want to lean on him a little, threaten possible confinement unless we get cooperation.”

“He's got a record.” Liz Falla started the BMW and turned to exit under the high stone arch of the old wall.

“So I gather. Chucked out of the forces, GBH, and other misdemeanours. I'll use that. But he also won awards for marksmanship at Bisley, so Martin Smith is not just a pretty face.”

“You think the little shit did it, Guv?”

“At the moment, I think any of them could have done it, including Masterson's ex, but that doesn't explain why he was here in the first place. And I think someone on the crew knows why Masterson came to Guernsey.”

They were now passing the taxi rank on St. Julian's Avenue, where North Esplanade turns into Glategny Esplanade. To their right lay St. Julian's Pier and White Rock Pier. The rain was clearing, and Moretti could see Herm in the distance. He thought of Peter Walker, paddling about among the rock pools, happy as a clam.

“Taxis, Guv.”

“Taxis, Falla?”

“I forgot, what with those headlines and all. PC Brouard found the taxi driver who drove Lady Fellowes. Pick-up was at nine forty-five, which tallies with the time she arrived at the Landsend.”

“And?”

“That's it, Guv. There's no record of anyone taking her home at or after one fifteen a.m. And
that
pick-up would have to be prearranged. Not many drivers hanging about at that hour of the night, unless she bribed some driver to keep quiet.”

“Unlikely. Word would have got around. I think we can guess who took her home.”

“Champagne Charlie, whoever he was.” Liz Falla suddenly stepped on the brake, jolting them both forward. “Oh, Brutus!”

Confused, Moretti looked in the direction his partner was pointing. A large striped cat was skidding to a halt on the pavement that edged the eighteenth-century terraced houses that curved around Glategny Esplanade across from the seawall.

“He'll do that once too often, he will.”

“Of course, you live here. He's your cat?”

“After a fashion. I think he's his own cat myself. Must have been owned by someone once. He's fixed, and he's well-fed. But he shares my bed from time to time, when the weather's rough — a foul-weather friend, you might say.”

So the ex-flatmate, Len, had been replaced by a tabby. Where did Denny Bras-de-Fer fit in this picture, Moretti wondered. Not his problem, and he didn't want to know.

“Ludo Ross says there's a word for a collection of cats. A clowder. Myself, I don't think Brutus has ever belonged to a clowder.”

“You know Ludo Ross? He said he'd heard you sing.”

Beside him in the driver's seat, Falla chuckled. “Does anyone know that man? Yes, he heard me sing at the Dunes Restaurant at La Fosse, and afterward came up and introduced himself. We met a couple of times after that. I had a drink at his place.”

“That's it?”

Why hadn't Ludo mentioned this? After his earlier conversation with Don Taylor, this sudden revelation that Ludo had not just seen and heard her, but had invited Liz Falla into his home, struck Moretti like a mini-bombshell.

His partner turned sharply toward him, then looked back at the road. “Don't know what you mean by ‘that's it,' Guv, but I went and had a drink at his place in St. Martin's. I guessed he was your expert in million-dollar deals, but I didn't think I needed to say I'd been there. You know him better than I do.”

“Do I?”

Christ, what was the matter with him, rabbiting on like this. Ludo couldn't have been trying to get information, because this meeting took place before the murder investigation, and certainly nothing too earth-shattering in the way of crimes had been committed in the winter. Break-ins and domestics were hardly in Ludo's line.

Liz Falla had brought the BMW to a halt in front of the main entrance to the hotel. The sun had come out. It gleamed wetly on the leaves of the hydrangeas and fuchsias and dripped off the sword-shaped leaves of the cabbage palms. A wet palm tree, Moretti decided, is a depressing sight.

“You're right there, Guv — does
anyone
know Ludo Ross. There's someone who's never been part of a clowder either, I'd say. We talked about music mostly, so we talked about you and your music. He says you're in the wrong profession, but that most people are.”

Liz Falla didn't look at him, and Moretti felt she was not so much avoiding his eyes as revisiting another scene. “What's comic is I went to his house because he was old enough to be my grandfather. Don't get me wrong, he was a perfect gentleman and there you have it. There you have it,” she repeated. Moretti wondered what exactly she was saying, but certainly a perfect gentleman of breeding, even though of advanced years, was a damn sight more appealing than the Lens and Dennys of this world, not to mention neutered tabbies.

“How do we know the crew will be here, Guv?”

Falla had moved on to other things. Truth was, she was feeling muddled about Ludo Ross and preferred not to explore her confusion. Here she was, worrying that her attraction to this septuagenarian meant that she was in need of some serious therapy. Normally you didn't have to examine whether you wanted to sleep with a man. Normally. You knew or, at least, she did.

“Because I told Betty Kerr to let them know this morning we might be returning their passports.”

“Not seriously?”

“Not seriously.”

Betty Kerr was hovering in the lobby, and she positively sprinted to greet them. “DI Moretti, thank goodness you're here. We have an emergency on our hands.”

Betty Kerr held her hands out in front of her, as if urging them to visualize the weight of the crisis.

“In the next few weeks I am fully booked, and I cannot possibly keep these people in four of my best rooms. They will have to go.”

“I thought,” said Moretti, “the emergency was to do with Mr. Smith's behaviour.”

“Well, it's quietened down in the past little while.”

As she spoke, Moretti saw Adèle Letourneau appear at the far end of the carpeted corridor that led out of the lobby. She was flanked by the two Germans, with the chef bobbing along behind them, and they advanced in measured fashion toward the lobby as if taking part in some formal procession. Watching them, Moretti had the feeling of watching something rehearsed, lacking in spontaneity.

“Inspector, thank God you're here.” The housekeeper's opening speech was delivered
sotto voce
. She rested her hands on the arms of her escorts and gave a ragged sob.

“Why is Mr. Smith not with you?” Moretti asked.

It was Hans Ulbricht who answered. “Because he has disappeared, Inspector. We have not seen him for hours.”

“No wonder he's quietened down,” said Berry Kerr, no irony intended. “We've had a terrible time with him. These two gentlemen got him settled down finally.”

“How long has he been missing?”

“It's difficult to say,” Adèle Letourneau responded.

Masterson's housekeeper's emotions were not under perfect control, but her appearance was. She was dressed in a black and white striped sweater and black pants, hair and makeup immaculate.

“What happened was he came in to see me, and he'd already been drinking.”

“That early?” asked Liz Falla. “Was that unusual?”

“No.” The four answered in unison, and Werner Baumgarten took up the story. He had had the least to say of all the crew members since the murder, and Moretti was interested to see how the others turned to him, as if he were their leader in some way.

“He got rough with Madame Letourneau and I heard her call out. When I went in he was tearing at her clothing. Madame was fighting tooth and nail, but he's very strong, as you know. I pulled him off, I hit him, Hans came in, and then Miss Kerr. We got him to his room, and we locked him in, and took the key.”

The German gave his account coolly, in even tones, without any overt emotion crossing the strong planes of his face.

Betty Kerr added, “I thought of contacting you, but we've had enough police in this hotel, and these gentlemen said they could manage him.”

“So how,” Moretti asked, “did he get out of a locked room? Is it on the ground floor?”

“No. He broke the lock.” Betty Kerr looked thunderous. “One of our waiters, Shane Durand, saw him leave by the door in the dining room. Shane says he was laughing. He said to Shane, ‘I'm going to see a man about a yacht.'”

“The waiter's sure that's what he said?”

“Perfectly.”

“What time would this be?” Liz Falla asked.

“Shane isn't sure.”

“If Shane Durand saw him leave,” Liz Falla asked, “why is it difficult to say when he left?”

Moretti looked at the hotel manager. Her face was flushed and she avoided his eyes.

“DS Falla, get on to Hospital Lane about Mr. Smith, will you, and then continue this with Ms. Kerr in her office.” Moretti indicated the empty hotel lounge to one side of the lobby. “We'll use this, Ms. Letourneau. I have some more questions I need answered. And gentlemen —” he looked at the two Germans “— if you could stay in the hotel for the time being?” The tone of voice made it clear this was not a request.

The hotel lounge was a small room at the front of the hotel, filled with flowery chintzes and flower paintings. There were no games and no television, just a small writing desk and a telephone. Moretti pulled out an upright chair from the desk, and turned one of the armchairs around to face it.

“Bear with me, Ms. Letourneau.” He smiled at the housekeeper.

Adèle Letourneau said nothing. She leaned back in the chair, hands resting on the padded arms, face expressionless.
Equilibrium regained,
Moretti thought.
Let's see what we can do about that
.

He took out his mobile. “PC Brouard? That report come in? Good. Give me the gist.” He listened to the constable's voice, watched the housekeeper's face. Her eyes met his, cool and unflinching.

“Thanks. Have you had any joy with that password? Great. And —?”

At “password” the merest flicker of something moved through those disconcertingly pale eyes.

He put his mobile away. “So, Ms. Letourneau, the Mounties believe you are the brains of the business — for sake of a more accurate word to describe whatever it was that you and Mr. Masterson did.”

“Cochons.”
Her anger seemed to Moretti to be displaced, directed against something other than her true concern. “Shouldn't you be doing something about Martin Smith? Doesn't it look as if the little bastard may be the one you want? We've only his word for it he didn't get the gun back from Bernard, right?”

“Right. And since he's an expert on firearms, the likelihood is that he's scattered it, if not to the four corners of the island, then possibly to the four corners of the bottom of the harbour. So, Ms. Letourneau, tell me this — if you're the brains, why did your deceased boss download virtually everything he could find about the
hawala
financial system on the net?”

“Hawala?”
The housekeeper's brow knotted in apparent confusion. “You've lost me, Inspector.”

“I doubt that. I'm sure you know it's a way of moving money from one country to another based on trust, used for centuries in countries like Pakistan, India, and the Middle East.”

“Oh.” The knotted brows now unfurrowed. “Bernard was an international entrepreneur. What could be more natural than an interest in how others managed their money? What is so surprising about that?”

“His area of interest. Much of the information he was looking at dealt with the uncovering of illegally obtained funds from racketeering of various kinds, transferred by
hawala
. Cigarette smuggling, credit card forgery, cheque fraud.”

Adèle Letourneau looked earnest. “You have to be so careful in Bernard's line of work, not to get caught in such schemes. He always made sure he had up-to-date information about such things.”

I'll bet,
thought Moretti.

He continued. “There were also a series of numbers on one of his files. Just numbers. Might they be bank accounts?”

“I don't think so.” Adèle Letourneau looked amused now. “Bernard was not a whiz on the computer, but even he knew about hackers, that the Internet is not entirely safe. He loved to gamble, and often used the same combination of numbers. Perhaps that is what they are.”