A Grave Waiting

by Jill Downie

  “Looks like the prow of a boat, doesn’t it. This boat?”

  “Don’t think so. Different shape. Not a Vento Teso.”

  “Is that what this is? Can you read any of it?”

  “‘Dream big — you only live....’ Ironic in the circumstances.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “And there’s something else: ‘Offshore Haven Cred.’”

  There was the sound of sirens outside the large oval windows of the master stateroom, a bustle of activity on the dockside.

  “Here we go,” announced Falla from the window. “The technical boys and the doctor have arrived. Oh, isn’t that nice. It’s the lovely Dr. Watt.”

  “Not a favourite of yours, Falla?”

  “That’s right, Guv.”

  She said no more, but more was not necessary. On an island that measured about twenty-five square miles, a high-profile professional man like Nichol Watt with an ex-wife on the island, another on the mainland, and at least two girlfriends got himself talked about. Moretti found his partner’s love life to be something rich and strange, since her approach managed somehow to be both casual and committed, but as far as he knew it was always off with the old before on with the new. Such niceties didn’t bother Nichol Watt.

  Moretti stood up, pocketing the piece of paper. “Let’s take a look around, Falla, then go and hear what Mr. Rossignol has to say.”

  The master suite in which Bernard Masterson had met his end stretched full beam across the prow of the yacht, and led into the dining room through sliding glass doors. On one side was the aft deck, set up as an outside dining area, and on the other was the kitchen. Beyond the dining room, through more sliding doors, was the main salon that housed a huge, curved bar. There were dirty glasses still on the black-and-white marble countertop, a couple of bottles alongside them, one of Scotch, the other of champagne. The bottle of champagne was empty. Moretti picked up one of the glasses in his gloved hands.

  “Lipstick. Falla, get Jimmy Le Poidevin on your mobile, tell him to come here when he’s finished in the bedroom.”

  As Liz Falla made her call to the forensics chief, Moretti crossed over to the windows that faced Albert Pier. It was May, and the holiday season had not yet started in earnest, but the place was busier than usual. There was much rebuilding in progress. The three great travelling cranes and the one fixed crane on the very end of the pier that faced the Little Russel, the shipping channel that led into the harbour of St. Peter Port, were getting a major overhaul, and a new crane was being erected.

  Not that the area was ever that quiet or deserted, since it housed the passport office, the ships’ registry, the freight office, a bureau de change, a left-luggage office, a bicycle shop, and the offices of the various ferry lines: the Emeraude Lines, the Condor Ferries, and the high-speed catamaran service to France. There were always people about on the pier, so there was a fair chance of finding someone who might have seen or heard something. Hopefully.

  And there was always the chance that someone on a boat might come up with something useful. The ambulance boat, the Harbour Authority boat, and the fisheries vessel were all moored close by, although there were fewer visiting craft than there would be in high summer. That, presumably, was how a yacht this size had found moorings in Victoria Marina itself, and not on a buoy in the outer harbour or up north at the privately owned Beaucette Marina near St. Sampson.

  There was also the Landsend Restaurant not far from the Vento Teso’s moorings. He’d have a word at some point with Gord Collenette, the owner.

  “All set, Guv. Where now?”

  “Upstairs.”

  A set of stairs in the main salon led up to the top deck, on which there was another lounge and a sky deck complete with bar, refrigerator, and another entertainment console with hi-fi, television, and a couple of pinball machines.

  “Talk about over the top,” observed Liz Falla. “How many bars has this thing got?”

  “Three so far. This leads to the pilothouse, I think.”

  Set in a highly polished wood panel, the controls in the pilothouse looked like the dashboard of a very expensive car, with a cushy leather-upholstered swivel chair in front of the wheel. The bow deck was equipped with a Jacuzzi and yet another entertainment console.

  “Everything seems to be in order.” Liz Falla peered down into the empty Jacuzzi.

  “It does. Apart from those glasses and the empty champagne bottle, you’d never know any of this had ever been used. Let’s take a look below decks, where the steerage passengers, the staff that is, live.”

  On the lower level there were four crew cabins in the bow, and two guest suites. The guest suites were open and appeared unused, but the doors of the crew cabins were locked.

  “That’s about it, isn’t it?” Liz Falla peered into a pristine guest suite.

  “Almost. On a yacht like this there should be a garage.”

  “Garage?”

  They found it. It contained water scooters, motorcycles, and a stunning silver Porsche. Diving equipment hung on the walls alongside two or three wetsuits. One suit appeared to be slightly damp.

  “How the other half live, eh, Guv?”

  “Other sixteenth maybe. Let’s go and hear what Monsieur Rossignol has to say.”

  “Dear oh dear.”

  Gwen Ferbrache unlocked the front door of her house again, retrieved her shopping bag from the chair in the hall, went back outside, and relocked the door. No point in going into town and not picking up a few things while she was there, however pressing the main reason for her trip might be. Her preoccupation was such that it was fortunate she hadn’t locked herself out, and the sooner she cleared her mind the better off she would be. A problem shared, she told herself as she hurried down the gravel driveway, particularly if you plan to share it with the son of your dear childhood friend, Vera Domaille, who happened to be a detective inspector with the Guernsey Police Force. Eduardo, whom she always called Edward.

  She and Vera had grown up together on the same street, played together, shared secrets, including Vera’s secret love for the Italian prisoner of war she had seen force-marched through the streets, to labour in one of the many underground structures built during the Nazi occupation of the island. Later, after Emidio Moretti had come back and married Vera, she had danced at their wedding, and mourned at their funerals.

  They had not danced at her wedding. Her sweetheart, Ronnie Robilliard, had not been as lucky as Emidio. Enough of that. She had moved on, devoted her life to her teaching career and interests other than home, husband, children of her own. But Edward, with his father’s dark hair and his mother’s fine bone structure, held a special place in her heart. Pity he hadn’t married that girl in England, but she was glad to have him back on the island.

  Outside the twin whitewashed gateposts of her limestone cottage with its name, Clos de Laurier, painted in black on the right-hand post, she turned left past her hollybush hedge and descended the hill that led from Pleinmont Village to the coastal road near Rocquaine Bay on the western shore of the island. A quick glance at her watch assured her she was still in good time to catch the number 7A bus that would take her around the coastal road, inland past the airport, through St. Martin’s, past Fermain Bay, and into the island capital. There were fewer buses at this time of year, outside the holiday season.

  Gwen was well into her seventies, but she could still keep up a brisk pace, thanks to years of walking the twenty miles of cliff paths on the spectacular south coast of the island, and the trainers she always wore on her feet these days. Not normally a lover of contemporary mores and modern inventions, she had quickly taken to the ubiquitous and practical footwear Americans called running shoes.

  The day was clear and warm, and on any other occasion she would have enjoyed the feel of the spring wind blowing off the beach at Rocquaine Bay, sprinkling the surface of her spectacles with flecks of sand. She was briefly diverted by a flock of swallows and martins drifting high in the sky overhead, feeding o
ff a swarm of midges over the tussocks of grass on the roadside. They did not necessarily presage a fine summer, but she was glad to see them. Briefly cheered at the thought of an excursion to see some of the birds who used Lihou Island as a stopover on their way north — flycatchers, wheatears, sedge warblers — she turned the corner past the clipped yew hedges of the Imperial Hotel, and crossed the road to the bus stop.

  The sight of the classical frontage of the one-

  hundred-year-old hotel brought the purpose of her trip bubbling up again in her mind. Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble, she thought. They had stayed there. All so harmless, perfect, so it had seemed at the time. They had met at the Water’s Edge Restaurant in the hotel and she had felt no misgivings. Perhaps she was imagining things.

  Along the curve of the coastal road, Gwen Ferbrache could see the bus passing Fort Grey, once known as Rocquaine Castle, used as a Nazi observation post during the occupation of the island, now a shipwreck museum, monument to the hundreds of lives lost in these inhospitable, rock-strewn waters. The Cup and Saucer, the locals called it, because of its shape, an inverted white mound above a wider grey concrete foundation. As the bus came nearer, she saw the driver waving and grinning. Lonnie Duggan — spring had arrived.

  The reappearance of Lonnie Duggan in the driver’s seat was as sure a harbinger of spring as the arrival of the first cuckoo. How he supported himself during the winter she did not know, but he was also a bass player with the Fénions, Edward’s jazz group. The name meant do-nothings, layabouts and, although that didn’t apply to Edward, it was an apt one for Lonnie, with his habit of semi-hibernation and air of cheerful lethargy. It was difficult to imagine him as a musician, even of an art form she found impenetrable, but Edward told her he was good. “Nimble fingered” was the unlikely adjective used.

  “Hey there, Miss Ferbrache! Hop aboard!”

  “Good day, Mr. Duggan.”

  Stifling mild irritation at being told to hop anywhere, Gwen Ferbrache climbed on board. About twenty minutes later, she and two other passengers were at the southern end of the Esplanade, trundling past the old dray outside the Guernsey Brewery, painted in the brewery colours of red and gold.

  The bus terminus was a site, rather than a building, opposite Albert Marina. There was a kiosk for tickets, a public convenience, and a line of bus stops beneath a canopy of trees that included some sixty-foot-high turkey oaks that were under the threat of the chainsaw to make room for more parking, the subject of heated debate.

  Picking up her handbag and her shopping bag, Gwen said goodbye to Lonnie, got off the bus, and headed toward the northern end of the town. As she passed the town church she noticed that there were two or three police cars and an ambulance leaving Albert Pier, sirens wailing. An incident on the cross-channel ferry perhaps, she told herself. A fight, someone taken ill, a drug seizure.

  How the world had changed in her lifetime, and not always for the better. On Liberation Day, May the ninth, 1945, she had thought nothing could ever be that bad, go that wrong again. She sighed, waited for the light to change at the foot of Market Hill, and continued on her way to the police headquarters on Hospital Lane.

  The morning sunlight shone blindingly off the stainless- steel appliances in the galley, lighting up in unflinching detail the bloated face and bloodshot eyes of Jean-Louis Rossignol. Hard to tell how much was caused by past excesses, or the shock of finding his employer’s body. He was seated at a small, marble-topped table opposite Police Constable Mauger, his large hands clasping a mug of tea.

  “Are you in charge?” he asked querulously, as Moretti and Falla came through the door. “Where ’ave you been? I sit ’ere and I am shocked, so shocked. Mon dieu, c’est un cauchemar! Did you see —?”

  From the gust of liquor-laden breath that reached Moretti, the mug of tea contained something more than Orange Pekoe.

  “Yes, I did see, Mr. Rossignol, and that’s why you had to wait. There’s not much space in here so, PC Mauger, could you wait outside?”

  Moretti waited until the burly figure of PC Mauger squeezed past the three of them into the passage outside the galley, then turned back to the chef.

  “Why don’t you start by telling us how you came to be here, working for Mr. Masterson.”

  With a little whimper and a gulp of his toddy, the cook obliged. “I am cooking in Geneva, and I see an — ad, you say? — in April for someone to cook on a luxury yacht for the summer. Time, I think, for a change. So I apply, ’e ’ire me, and off we go, cruising to every port on the Riviera. I like it, always the change, and oh, the people I cook for!”

  “Such as?” Moretti interjected.

  “Big businessmen from Germany, Italy, France, America. Even sheiks — oh, the parties! And the women! Always pretty women from Mr. Masterson. Then suddenly ’e say we’re going to the Iles Anglo-Normandes.”

  “So this was unexpected?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he just say ‘Iles Anglo-Normandes,’ or did he specify Guernsey?”

  “Let me think — no, ’e say Guernsey, then ’e say where that is. Why ’ere? we all wonder, but the money’s right, and ’e’s the boss.”

  “Then what? Take us through yesterday and today. Were there visitors to the yacht when you arrived?”

  “No. I think maybe tomorrow we ’ave company. Then Mr. Masterson say you all go ashore. Enjoy, ’e say. And for me to be first in the morning for ’is breakfast. Mr. Masterson is — was — Canadian. ’E ate a big breakfast in the morning.”

  “Did he speak French?”

  “Yes, but not like me. Sometimes I ’ave the problem to understand. Adèle also, they speak French often together.”

  “Adèle?”

  “Adèle Letourneau, the ’ousekeeper. Nice lady, never interferes with my kitchen.”

  “So, you came back this morning at —?”

  “Nine, as ’e ask. I ’ave a key to the salon door, but that was strange. It was not locked.”

  “So everything would normally be locked up?”

  “Yes. Mr. Masterson was so particular about that.”

  “Do you know who had keys?”

  “Me, Adèle, and I think maybe that petit salaud, Smith.”

  “That would be who?”

  “Valet to Mr. Masterson.”

  “You didn’t get on, I gather.”

  “No one get on with that one. ’E once call me the friggin’ fly in the fuckin’ hointment.”

  A low burbling sound emanated from DS Falla, quickly suppressed as she bent over her notebook.

  “I see. Now, what happened after you went into the salon. Describe what you saw.”

  “Dirty glasses I saw.”

  “You didn’t move them?”

  “I am chef, not valet. So I go through to the kitchen and there is no note. Always ’e leave a note for what ’e wants for breakfast. Often eggs and bacon, sometimes crêpes — ’e eat them with the sausage and the syrup.” Rossignol gave a little shudder and continued. “At first I think maybe it is a trick by the petit salaud, but no, ’e is on shore, so I go to Mr. Masterson’s cabin.”

  “Slowly now. Was the door unlocked?”

  “A little open, that is also strange. It is always locked when ’e is in there, and for that cabin I don’t ’ave keys. Then I see the legs. ‘Mr. Masterson,’ I say, and again I say it. Then I open the door and see — ah, oh, oh!”

  Moretti pushed the mug toward the chef, who drank the last of its contents. Down the corridor outside the kitchen came the sound of a woman’s voice, followed by that of PC Mauger.

  “Jean-Louis! Jean-Louis!”

  “Just a minute, ma’am. You can’t go in there.”

  “Adèle!” The chef broke into a fresh burst of sobbing.

  Moretti went out into the corridor. “It’s okay, Constable. She can come in.”

  Adèle Letourneau looked nothing like any housekeeper Moretti had ever seen. Her lightly tanned features were expertly made up, framed by one of those deceptively simple
hairstyles of heavy bangs and swinging, thick swags of bronze-highlighted hair that did not come courtesy of the little hairdresser around the corner. She wore jeans and a heavy navy sweater with a cowl neck. In one hand she carried a small overnight bag, and in the other she held a key.

  “I didn’t need this,” she said, waving the key in front of her. “There’s a policeman at the end of the gangway, ambulance, police cars — what the hell is going on?”

  The housekeeper’s voice was smoky with nicotine, her English accented. Close up, Moretti saw she was probably well into her forties and not her thirties, as he had first supposed. Before he could say anything, Jean-Louis Rossignol wailed, “Oh Adèle, Mr. Masterson is dead! Shot!”

  “Dear God.”

  There was a thud as the overnight bag hit the ground, followed by the key, and then, almost, by the housekeeper. She swayed, and Liz Falla caught her.

  “Here, sit down. We’ll get you a glass of water.”

  The chef filled a glass with mineral water out of the fridge, and handed it to the housekeeper, who needed help from Liz Falla getting it to her lips.

  “Sorry. This is a shock.”

  “Of course.” Moretti gave her a moment, then turned to Jean-Louis Rossignol, who was whimpering softly on the other side of the table. “PC Mauger will see you to your cabin, sir, and I must ask you to stay there while forensics checks over the yacht. We will have an officer on duty at the foot of the gangway round the clock.”

  As the two men disappeared in the direction of the dining area, Moretti turned back toward Adèle Letourneau. The housekeeper was the colour of parchment, and her hand was still shaking as she took another sip of water.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Mr. Rossignol came in this morning, found no instructions for breakfast, went through to the master suite, and found your employer on the bed, shot through the head. Have you any idea why this might have happened, or who might be involved?”

  “No, not as to who might be involved. But Bernard is — was — a wealthy man. I suppose theft was the motive. Was anything taken?”