A Grave Waiting (25 page)

There be none of Beauty's daughters with a magic like thee.

Such a pity that desire never left, never let you sink gently into that good night. Or so it had been for him. He reached out his hand for the bottle on the table and, as he did, he heard the two ridgebacks making their warning growls. They were trained not to bark full throttle immediately.

“Benz, Mercedes.”

But they did not come to him. They ran past the sitting room and up to the next floor, and he followed them. They were not heading for his bedroom, but for the narrow, foot-long spy hole set in the windowless wall overlooking the lane behind the house, and the sealed door that had at one time led on to the second-floor balcony. Benz was standing on his hind legs, pawing at the wall.

Ross took his old Zeiss binoculars from the hook by the spy hole, where he always kept them, and looked out. Just visible on the lane below was a car, and someone was getting out of it, from the back seat. Which meant that whoever it was had been driven there. With the two dogs snarling beside him, he watched as the passenger started to walk, quite openly, around to the front of the house. He waited a moment, and saw who had driven his unknown visitor. Getting out of the car were the two crew members of the
Just Desserts
.

Ross ran to his bedroom, took a gun out of his bedside table drawer, and slipped it into his pocket. Then, taking the two dogs by their collars, led them back downstairs.

One of the ways Ludo Ross had passed the hours that hung heavy on his hands was training the two ridgebacks for the kind of situation he never, in his saner moments, thought would actually happen. The knowledge that they were what he had made them comforted him in his paranoia. He knew for certain the two crew members were trouble, and that a decoy was going to ring his doorbell at any moment. The advantage he had was that they would also have to come in through the front door, but the disadvantage was he needed the decoy alive, to find out what the hell was going on.

As he reached the hallway, the doorbell rang.

Ross let go of the dogs' collars, bent down, stroked them, and whispered, “Wait. Wait. Wait until I say the word.”

The dogs crouched down beside him.

Pulling the gun out of his pocket, Ross exhaled deeply, threw the door open, and hauled his unknown visitor inside, throwing him to the floor as he wailed, “Don't shoot, don't shoot.”

“Shut up.”

He barely had the words out of his mouth when he saw the two crew members running up the driveway, one of them carrying a gun. As a bullet whistled past him he shouted at the two dogs, just one word: “Kill.”

He watched as they did exactly what he had trained them to do, all those years. Unerringly, flawlessly, they went for the jugular, dropping the two men in their tracks. He heard them screaming as Benz and Mercedes finished their task.

At school Ludo Ross had always loved the short stories of Guy de Maupassant, and the one about the old Sardinian widow avenging the murder of her son was his particular favourite. He had never forgotten it, never thought he would have the opportunity to try out her chosen method against her son's killers. In what strange and unforeseen ways a good education can come in useful. He turned to the whimpering figure on the floor.

“Not a move, not a sound, until I call off my dogs. Then I have a phone call to make, and you and I are going to have a little talk.”

O
ne
advantage Moretti had was that he knew the layout of the yacht and they didn't. Crouched down in the dining area, with its sliding glass door open into the main salon where Garth waited, he knew he had a chance of getting out. A tethered goat is what Garth had called himself, and that is what he was, with about as much chance of escaping. Not that he would be killed immediately. His co-conspirators still needed him, after all. But Peter Walker and Janice Melville had made it clear there were to be no heroics and, once SIS were involved, they were just as likely to finish him off, if he got in the way. Garth's fate meant nothing to them. It was Van der Velde and, above all, Beaufort-Jones they wanted.

But good horn players were hard to find.

All he could do now was wait. The most likely scenario was that they would arrive beyond the harbour limits and transfer to a smaller vessel, and SIS's plans were to pick up the waiting boat as well as Game-Boy and the South African. Chief Officer Hanley had briefed the harbour master, so there would be no unwanted interruptions from harbour security.

In the open dining area he heard them when they arrived, the small boat bumping against the side of the yacht, a muttered curse in an English accent, so probably Beaufort-Jones, the posh talker. They were obviously in very good shape, slithering up on one of the ropes over the side, landing lightly on the deck, close to the doors from the salon. So maybe they knew the yacht's layout, after all. No surprise they had come prepared. Moretti could not see them, but he heard an exclamation from Garth, quickly suppressed.

Moretti strained to hear what they were saying. Both men sounded dangerously edgy. Masterson's dabbling in many pies had exposed them, and this particular high-wire act was not part of their preferred way of doing business. They seemed to want information as to where Garth was planning to buy diamonds, and Moretti knew he had been provided with some names.

Top of the list was a Toronto-based South African who had recently designated himself as head of a mining company by the simple process of removing the names of its directors on a government database and substituting his own. Chances were that Game-Boy and Double V already knew about him, and it would give Garth credibility. Assuming, that is, that the conspirators did not yet know Interpol was on to him. He heard Garth answer, at some length, and then say, “Thank you,” like the well-mannered banker that he was. Presumably they had handed over the cash.

The yacht shifted suddenly, and there was silence from the salon. Moretti heard Beaufort-Jones say, “What was that?” He sounded jumpy. Garth's reply was unclear, but he gave a laugh so full of terror it seemed to infect his two visitors.

“What's wrong with you?” Van der Velde's voice.

Beaufort-Jones's voice: “We leave first. You wait thirty minutes before you leave.”

Van der Velde spoke again. “How do we know you haven't set us up, Machin? Maybe we should take a look around.”

To his horror, Moretti heard Garth start to stutter.

Christ almighty. Garth's improvisation under stress was a talent limited to his horn-playing. Van der Velde repeated his question, this time accompanied by what sounded like a fist in the face. Garth cried out.

Moretti was unarmed. His choice, but also that of the experts, who wanted to know how recently he had fired a weapon. His answer had confirmed their decision, but now he wished he had one. How long could he crouch there, doing nothing, while Garth got beaten up trying to protect him? As Garth moaned again in pain, Moretti started to get up.

As he did so a hand came out of the darkness across his mouth and, with it, the faintest whisp of a familiar aroma: apricot essence and honey, a touch of Turkish latakia.

A familiar voice muttered in his ear. “No.”

Ludo. Ludo, wet and smooth against his body as a seal, reeking of harbour water.

“Wait.”

He pushed Moretti away and down, and started to move toward the open glass doors, his body flat against the floor. A moment later, it was all over.

“I could do with some of that, Garth. Pass me the bottle.”

Ludo tossed his gun on to the coffee table and started to strip off the wetsuit he was wearing. Garth, hand shaking, held out the bottle to him.

“For God's sake, Ludo,” Moretti protested, “SIS must have heard the shots. They could be here any minute.”

Moretti looked at the two bodies lying on the floor. Beaufort-Jones's face was turned toward him. He looked as if he were grinning.
Joke over, Game-Boy,
thought Moretti,
he had you both in seconds.
What a killer Ludo must have been. Still was.

“Not likely. They'll be waiting for these two SOBs to come to them. Yes, they'll have heard the shots, and they'll be thinking it was Garth dead, or you dead, or both of you. They'll wait a bit before they do anything they haven't planned, which is why I want you both to shut up and let me talk. Okay?”

Moretti shrugged his shoulders, the tension in them making them feel like lead weights. The bump on his head was hurting like hell. “Whatever you want. You're the guy with the gun, and you're the one on the firing line, so to speak. You had the gun under the wetsuit? Risky.”

Ludo took a swig from the whisky bottle. “That's good stuff,” he said, sounding as relaxed as if the three of them were in his sitting room. “Yes, but their wetsuits are superb quality, so I left mine here and took one of theirs on my earlier visit.”

“You
were
here before. I wondered.”

“I know you did. You got some of it right, and some of it wrong.”

Ludo ran a hand through his wet, rumpled hair and over his face. Moretti could not see his own face, but if he looked anything like Garth he had aged a decade. Ludo, on the other hand, looked years younger, the dark shadows under his child-bright eyes erased.

“What did I get wrong?” he asked.

Ludo laughed. “Motivation. All this —” Ross swept his hand around the room, gesturing at the two bodies on the floor “— is not because this gang couldn't shoot straight, or because money is the root of all evil, or —” looking at Garth “— a horn player's greed. All that might well have worked out just fine in the end. These are all by-products of two big mistakes made by Masterson.”

“Coming here would be one of them.”

“Exactly. Nowhere in this world is the back of beyond any more.”

“And his other mistake was to underestimate the power of memory.” Moretti stretched across the table and took the bottle. Drinking good Scotch with Ludo was something they had both enjoyed. “I think I got that right, Ludo. You killed Masterson for Coralie. That looks like a Glock to me.” He indicated the gun on the table between them.

“It is.” Ludo appeared delighted. “Almost, but not quite, Ed. Right about the power of memory, but much too unsatisfying to do it myself. Too easy. It was like the old days, planning to kill him.”

“How the hell did you find out he was coming here? I knew, because I was supposed to collect the money from him, for the diamonds.” Garth's voice was slurred, but he seemed more under control, looking Ludo straight in the face as he spoke, no longer huddled into the corner of his chair.

If anyone looked in the window of the salon, it would look like three chums together, sharing a bottle of Scotch, and a few good stories. If you overlooked the bodies on the floor between them, that is.

“Chance. I was talking to the harbour master — he's a bird watcher, like me — and he happened to mention the
Just Desserts
, and Masterson. I knew who he was, because Coralie had told me about him. When I told her, she said, ‘If this was still the war, I would kill him for killing Ronnie.' So I said, ‘Why not?' I knew how I could get on board without being picked up by the CCTV cameras, but Coralie was the problem. Swimming in a wetsuit was impossible for her, of course.”

“What was all that with the Baby Browning?”

“Her idea. Hiding in plain sight was something she did so well in the bad old days. We planned it to the second, the visit to the Landsend, the area on the dock where she could get on board the yacht outside the camera range. Those cameras focus on the pier, not the gangway.”

“And, within the range of the cameras, she gave one of her finest performances,” said Moretti. “A frail old woman, frightened out of her skin, throwing the wrong gun into the harbour.”

“Didn't she though!” Ludo stood up suddenly, and startled his audience by picking up his gun and starting to pace about the salon. “She even planned her wardrobe carefully. ‘My Poiret,' she said. ‘There's no mistaking a Poiret.' She already had the Baby Browning, a gift from Ronnie before he died.” Ludo laughed, and waved the gun with cheerful abandon. Garth shrunk back again into the corner of his chair.

“Did she just turn up at the yacht?”

“No. She had a note hand-delivered, with her phone number. Masterson called her back, tried to warn her off, then agreed to see her that night. I assume the meeting with these boyos —” indicating the two men on the ground “— was much later on, and she threatened to screw everything up. I imagine he hadn't planned to stick around after the meeting. He was already in their bad books from what he said to her before I came on the scene.”

“Then you handed over the gun to her. I guessed that.”

“You guessed right, Ed — and, guess again whose gun this is?”

Ludo did not give Moretti time to reply. He was pacing around the salon, reliving the moment when he and Coralie Fellowes had orchestrated the final act of Masterson's life. “I arrived in here, much as I did just now. Masterson was spinning his Glock around as if he were Clint Eastwood. ‘Silly old bitch,' I heard him saying. Such a pleasure to see his face when I caught the gun in mid-flip and handed it over to Coralie.” Ludo chuckled. “Candy from a baby, Ed. Candy from a baby mothball.”

“How did you get him to the bedroom, and why?”

Ludo laughed and sat down again, resting his hands on his knees, cradling the gun. “Simple. She backed him up into his bedroom, the old lecher, and shot him there. Always loved to add her own original twist, did Coralie, and bedrooms were her battleground, where she fought the enemy, in the old days. She asked me to say some last words over him, as he lay there begging for his life. So I did.”

“What did you say, Ludo?” Garth reached out for the bottle again, and drank the last drop. He seemed genuinely interested, drunk enough now to be calm.

“The grave's a fine and private place. But none, I think, do there embrace.”
Ludo laughed again. “Coralie loved it. ‘Perfect,' she said. Then she shot him, clean as a whistle. I was amazed she could still hit the target from that distance.”

“Then you came back in here and drank champagne,” Moretti said. “Wasn't there the danger his visitors would turn up?”“

“Yes.” Ludo smiled. “It added to the moment, for both of us. Then I watched her leave to do her performance for you all, swam back to where I had left my car, drove it to our prearranged rendezvous, and took her home.” He was reliving the moment, the adrenalin rush. “She was tired, but happy — God, it was such
fun
!”

“The lipstick stain was deliberate, I assume.”

“Yes. She wore gloves, but the lipstick was a nice touch. ‘Coralie was here, Ronnie,' she said when she pressed her lips against the glass. ‘Coralie was here.'”

“What happened to her gloves and her bag?”

Ludo's smile was tender. “A gift for me, a memento. A souvenir.”

A souvenir. A blank space on a small table, a photograph of a glorious, naked Coralie, a faded inscription.

“It
was
you.” Moretti stood up. In the distance he could hear an approaching craft of some kind. “You took the photo off the table.”

“Yes. She wanted me to take it, after I did what she asked me to do. It was one of Ronnie's favourites. She was very tired, very sleepy when she phoned me.” Ludo was still smiling, stroking the gun as he answered.

“You loved her, Ludo. How could you?”

“How could I not, Ed? I could never refuse her anything.”

Ludo also seemed to become aware of sounds outside. He put his hand into an inside pocket of the zippered jacket he was wearing under the wetsuit and pulled out an envelope. “This is for Liz. Give it to her, would you? Not much time left, but she knows what happened at my place and can fill you in, and that there's a young idiot there, locked in my very secure bathroom. There's a key in the envelope, and a safe combination. And something I want her to do.”

Moretti took it, put it in his pocket. Garth began to sob, and Ludo went over and knelt down in front of him. Speaking gently, as if to a child, he said, “Not to worry, Garth. Being a decoy for MI6 can be used in your defence, a good lawyer will see to that. And I have saved them the problem of disposing of these two, without a public enquiry. But that still makes me a triple murderer.”

“Ludo —” Moretti looked at the two bodies lying between them “— no need to say you killed Coralie Fellowes. We have two likely suspects who cannot answer.”

“No.” Ludo sounded angry. “I don't want that. Don't ask me to explain.”

“You don't have to. It was her last wish, what she wanted from you. You could never refuse her anything, and it would be a betrayal. Here —” Moretti held out his hand “— give me the gun. You don't need that anymore. Best not to be holding that when SIS arrive.”

Ludo hesitated, then handed the gun to Moretti. “I thought of ending it all myself, the final, grand gesture, but I am not as brave as Coralie. I think I'd rather face the music, Ed.” He grinned. “Should be fun, and fun is in short supply in my life.”

Moretti took the gun from him, checked it, removed the remaining bullet. “I know who the idiot in your bathroom is, but how do we get past your hounds? What are the secret commands you use with them? We'll need to know.”