by Jill Downie
Not his mother. She had died when he was fifteen, and he and his father had lived with her ghost a very long time.
The thought of the unaltered interior of his place reminded him of Lady Fellowes’s sitting room. He grinned as he brought the Triumph to a halt on the cobblestones outside his front door, mentally comparing Coralie Chancho’s lush and louche chaise lounge with the clean, hard lines of Ludo Ross’s Italian-designed chaise with its sweep of matte red fabric and steel. And yet, he thought, I’d lay money on la Chancho being as tough as Ludo.
La vie en rose, my eye. I think she sees life exactly as it is.
PART TWO
Improvised Counterpoint
Chapter Five
Day Three
The incident room was crowded for the early morning meeting. A handful of officers stood around looking at the information Liz Falla had started to put up on the incident board when she arrived that morning, and another group were listening to PC Le Marchant describe for the umpteenth time the discovery of the Browning Baby. Moretti and Chief Officer Hanley arrived outside the door at the same moment.
“DI Moretti, a quick word with you before we go in.”
The head of the Guernsey Police Force was not an islander. He had been brought in a few years earlier to help with the reorganization and expansion of the force due to the burgeoning offshore business and a tightening up of regulations. He was a man of lugubrious countenance and mournful disposition — Buster Keaton without the laughs — who always expected the worst and, in his line of work, was rarely disappointed. He had quickly learned about the various power bases on the island — local, international, and financial — and had been distressingly swift, in Moretti’s opinion, in trimming his professional sails to the prevailing winds.
“Good morning, sir.” Moretti waited. He had an idea of what the quick word might be.
“Lady Fellowes. I gather you paid her a visit yesterday.”
Got it in one. “Yes, sir.”
“Was it necessary? I mean, as far as I can see, she was only one of many on the CCTV cameras, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, sir, but she was the only one throwing a gun into the harbour.”
“Good God!”
“Precisely. After you, sir.”
The excited buzz in the room died down as the two men came in. Moretti stood back and allowed Chief Officer Hanley to take centre stage, from where he swept the room with a look that spoke of the loneliness of command.
“This is a serious matter, I need hardly say. Murder, an uncommon crime on Guernsey, using a gun, an uncommon weapon on the island. Have we got the gun yet, DI Moretti?”
“Not the murder weapon, sir. But we have a gun.”
Briefly, Moretti described the Browning Baby. Looking at his superior officer he added, “For the moment I want to leave the circumstances surrounding that particular gun and concentrate on the gun that was the likely murder weapon, and most probably the victim’s gun. Give us what you’ve found, PC Brouard.”
PC Brouard stood up. A gullible giant in his twenties, he had once allowed himself to be misled by trusting one of Moretti’s suspects, and had redeemed himself with his knowledge of computers and his ability to keep his mouth shut.
“The gun owned by the victim is a Glock 17. In one piece it looks like this —” he turned and pointed at one of the photographs on the board “— but you can do this to it.” He pointed to another image that showed the frame detached from the barrel, with two other pieces lying beside it. “It’s made of plastic — at least, most of it is. Makes it lighter, cheaper, and easier to fire, because the plastic absorbs most of the recoil. The trigger and the magazine are also made of plastic, but the guide rails are steel. The barrel, the frame, the recoil spring, and the guide rail all come apart.”
“Is it American?” Hanley asked.
“No, Austrian, sir. Used by the Austrian army.”
“So you see the problem.” Moretti pointed at the pieces of the gun. “It could have been disposed of all over the island, or in the harbour, or out at sea.”
Next to him, Chief Officer Hanley shifted and sighed. Things were turning out just as badly as he expected.
“However,” Moretti continued, “if it was disassembled, whoever did it knew how. It’s unlikely they’d stand around checking the manual. Let’s move on.” He turned to Liz Falla. “DS Falla has the information that just came in from the Mounties. Go ahead, DS Falla.”
“The RCMP know the murder victim well.”
Moretti thought Falla sounded good, even reading out this stuff.
His partner glanced at her notes and continued. “He first came to their attention five years ago over problems with a business he’d inherited from his father, Bernard Le Maître — possible Guernsey connection here. The father was legit, in the fur business in Montreal, and passed on a going concern to his son, and the son used the money from the business to buy up other businesses on the fritz and turn them around. So far so good, on the surface. But the RCMP suspected Masterson was using his various businesses to launder money for criminal organizations, specifically the Italian and Russian mafias. They seem to have stumbled on to him by accident, when they were carrying out a major sting operation, trying to trace the movement of money between Montreal, the Caribbean, and Europe. They had him in for questioning and, since then, the trail has gone cold. They think he’s moved in another direction.”
“Do they know which direction?” Hanley asked.
“Not exactly,” Liz Falla replied, confirming yet again her superior’s belief in the worst of all possible worlds. “But they believe his above-board role as an intermediary in arms sales is a cover for a dirtier business as a mover of cash for underworld arms dealers who supply, for instance, Russian arms to countries like Iran.”
“So,” Hanley asked, searching for a bright spot in the midst of gloom, “this murder may have nothing at all to do with Guernsey?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Liz Falla replied. “The Mounties are very interested in the fact that it happened here, but have no idea why. It could mean we have a new criminal element moving in on the island, according to them,” she added, thus spreading further gloom and instantly dissipating any chance of bright spots.
“Let’s move on,” said Moretti, forestalling the prolonged and unfocussed discussions that made him impatient. He turned to Jimmy Le Poidevin, head of SOCO. Jimmy Le Poidevin, full of pomp and circumference, also made him impatient. “Jimmy, could you go over what you and your team found on the yacht, if anything.”
“If anything?” The head of SOCO gave a short, sharp laugh. “Even nothing can be something, Moretti, as you know.”
The expression on Chief Officer Hanley’s face suggested he would not appreciate further philosophical observations and the usual verbal sparring, and Le Poidevin pressed on. “The yacht is a big bugger, and we still have a team on board. We have taken fingerprints from the crew, and will continue to match them with the ones we have already found. The two items of interest so far are a tipped-over magazine rack in the main bedroom, and a lipstick-stained glass in the main stateroom. Neither has produced anything of interest. The rack has only two sets of prints, those of the victim and the housekeeper, and the glass has none. But we are sending a sample from the lipstick to the mainland for DNA testing, and also to see if the lipstick can be identified.”
“Entry?” Hanley enquired. “How did the killer get on board?”
“There are no signs of a break-in, sir,” Le Poidevin replied.
“So he or she was known to the victim.”
Moretti interjected. “Perhaps. There is also the possibility that Masterson was set up, left the yacht unsecured because he was expecting one person, and found himself facing another.”
“Such as who? Do we have any evidence to support this?” Hanley asked.
Jimmy Le Poidevin’s lip curled and he crossed his arms over the convenient shelf of his belly.
“None, but we have little evidence o
f anything at this stage,” Moretti replied. “However, according to his housekeeper, he — I quote — ‘liked his babes.’”
There was a burst of laughter in the room.
“Did the CCTV cameras show any babes getting on the yacht?” someone asked.
Liz Falla responded. “I have a list of names I’m going to hand out to be checked. They are all people identified from the cameras. Find out why they were there. Most of them probably came from the party at the Landsend, and we can cross-check them from the booking list, but not everyone is named on it. The restaurant just needed the numbers.”
Jimmy Le Poidevin continued. “As to the murder itself, Dr. Watt says it occurred between about eleven p.m. and midnight, probably closer to midnight, death was instant, and the bullet was a hollow-point.”
At this point in the proceedings, Moretti was grateful for Hanley’s presence. Otherwise, Jimmy would be spewing theories like an out-of-control slot machine, and Moretti would have moved from impatience to outright and outspoken irritation. “That’s all for now,” he said. “DS Falla will hand out the names to be checked. Any questions?”
“Did we check with customs and the Harbour Authority?” PC Le Marchant’s tone of voice suggested otherwise.
Liz smiled. Being part of the investigation was making PC Le Marchant uppity, it appeared. Uppitiness was something she was used to, particularly since her promotion to sergeant.
“We checked. The harbour master checked. There was nothing out of the ordinary in their arrival, which was around five p.m. They filled in all the forms, answered all the questions. The only thing of interest was that they were keen to get moorings here and not at Beaucette Marina.”
“What about the crew, Moretti?” Hanley asked. “I understand they’re under guard at the Esplanade Hotel, but how about suspects among them? Any joy there?”
Joy would reign unconfined, Moretti knew, if he could nail a non-islander for the murder.
“Some, sir. Not one of them has an alibi that would stand up to scrutiny. We’re checking if any of them has a record, and I think it’s possible we’ll find Masterson’s bodyguard has one.”
“Good God, the bodyguard!”
“Yes, sir. He says he handed over the gun to Masterson, but there’s no proof he did so. I’ve interviewed the crew, and we’re getting written statements from all of them.”
“Anything else?” Chief Officer Hanley threw the question to the room. Liz Falla took another look at the fax sheet she had in her hand.
“There is something else, something that came from the RCMP. Masterson had a nickname, and so did his father. Masterson senior was known in Montreal as ‘Boule à mite.’”
This got a mixed reaction, depending on who spoke French and who did not. Most didn’t.
“Mothball. The French for mothball. Came from the fur business. Masterson senior always smelled of mothballs, and the victim was known as ‘Bébé boule à mite.’”
“Baby Mothball?” Laughter.
Hanley quelled the hilarity with a look and turned to leave. “You will, of course, keep me informed, DI Moretti.”
“Of course, sir.”
Moretti waited until the chief officer had left the room and beckoned to PC Brouard. “Got that other stuff for me? Okay, we’ll go to my office. You too, Falla.”
Once in his office, the door closed, Moretti turned to his partner. “PC Brouard was checking some background for me on the La Veile tenants. Go ahead, Brouard, let’s hear what you’ve got.”
PC Brouard lowered his husky frame into a chair, and pulled out a sizeable wedge of papers from his jacket pocket. “That panther jersey first, Guv. It’s not football or basketball. It’s an ice-hockey uniform. They sell all kinds of stuff with the logo, besides the sweater. The colours change depending on whether the team is home or away — well, it becomes more red or more white, but the logo stays the same. The team’s called the Florida Panthers.” He handed one of the sheets of paper to Moretti. “Here’s a picture of it. Is that the one?”
“Yes,” said Moretti. “What about the woodchucks?”
“Big sellers as far as I can see, got their own webpage. Titles like Warren and Wilma See Their Shadow, Warren and Wilma’s Babies, Warren and Wilma and their Porcupine Pal. Really interesting, Guv, the woodchuck. Also called a groundhog. Great fighter, but not a great mover, mostly they get away by diving into burrows. There’s one book called Warren and Wilma Move Burrows. Amazing, really, the burrow’s set up so there’s a separate toilet — well, not an actual toilet, but —” PC Brouard was warming to his topic.
“Thanks.” Moretti was reminded of the small child’s book report: “This book told me more about penguins than I wanted to know.”
“What about the author and the illustrator? Anything about them?”
“Quite a bit about the author, Sandra Goldstein. Degree from Yale, that kind of thing. Lives in Florida. Explains the sweater, doesn’t it. Her local team.”
“Right.” Moretti and Falla looked at each other. “What about the illustrator?”
“Not as much about her, something about her art training. And the name’s different.”
“Not Julia King?”
“Julia’s the same. But the last name is Meraldo. Julia Meraldo.”
“Meraldo.” Moretti thought of the child’s colouring and Gwen’s comment. “Great, Brouard, good work. And I’ve got another job for you.”
PC Brouard beamed and sat up straighter in his chair, like a friendly Labrador puppy, eager to cooperate.
“The computers from the yacht, are they still with us?”
“Yes, Guv. I was told not to touch them.”
“That’s what I want you to do. Tell Jimmy I said so. The problem will be the password.”
“Yes, and if they’ve been erased. Not that it’s that easy to delete anything from the hard drive.”
“Then we may have to send them away, but give it a try.”
PC Brouard beamed again. “Any suggestions for the password, Guv?”
“Nicknames are important to people. Personal. Start off with variations on Boule à mite.” Moretti picked up a scrap of paper and wrote out a few versions of the name. “I wouldn’t worry about the accent, and I’d try combining the words into one. And you might add this to the combination.”
“Two letter Bs?” PC Brouard peered doubtfully at what Moretti had written
“In French, the letter B in the alphabet is pronounced exactly the same way as bébé. Baby. Babe.”
“I get it!”
Liz Falla watched an elated PC Brouard leave the room. “Connecticut’s nowhere near Florida, is it, Guv?”
“Nowhere near. Interesting that there was so little on the website about Julia King-Meraldo. I’d guess the information was there originally, and then removed.”
“So it’s the child and the mother who are probably in hiding — at least, that is what it looks like. That they’re hiding out from something or somebody.”
“Most likely a husband or ex. To someone from Florida, Guernsey must seem like the ends of the earth.”
“Safe as houses.” Liz Falla looked at her boss, who appeared to be doodling a woodchuck on one of the sheets of paper. “What are you going to do, Guv?”
“I’ll see Gwen and tell her what we think the situation is, and then I’m going to leave them alone.”
“Want me to check on whether there’s a warrant out?”
“Not right now, we’ve too much on our plate.” He pulled a tiny fragment of paper from his pocket. “I want you to get on to the RCMP, and see if they have anything about this Offshore Haven business. Nothing came through on our initial enquiry?”
“No, but I didn’t specifically ask. Did you get anything from your contact about guns, wheeler dealers, and million-dollar deals?”
“General stuff, but this was pointed out to me —” Moretti handed over the scrap of paper to Liz Falla. “Limited partnership. He thinks this is about something different from just selling so
meone a yacht. I’m going to get hold of a friend in the financial business to see if we can dig anything up about Masterson. He didn’t just turn up here to visit his money. He was here to see someone about something, and that something got him murdered.”
“By the way,” Liz Falla stood up and closed her notebook, “Gord Collenette says he seems to remember something about Lady Fellowes’s husband — ‘being taken’ was the expression he used. But either he couldn’t or wouldn’t be specific. You might ask Don Taylor about that while you’re at it.” She grinned at Moretti and turned to leave.
“You’re one sharp cookie, Falla.”
Moretti’s voice was sombre and she wondered for a moment if she’d overstepped some boundary. Then he added, “You’ve just given me another reason to worry about Coralie Fellowes.”
“Lady Fellowes, Guv?”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you with whom she might have had that glass of champagne?”
By the pricking of my thumbs. Liz Falla remembered the visit to Lady Fellowes, the witches’ seat, shuddering, sneezing. At the time she had hoped, or had chosen to believe, that it was an allergic reaction to her aunt’s superstitious beliefs rather than a manifestation of what her aunt called “the gift.”
“The murderer. Whoever killed Bernard Masterson had champagne with Lady Fellowes.”
“As I said, you’re a smart cookie, Falla.”
Money is the root of all evil. Of course, the aphorism was always quoted incorrectly. The love of money is the root of all evil, according to Saint Paul, a converted bad boy who saw many human emotions as sinful.
Money. Moretti was reasonably sure that the money boys in the Commercial Branch and the Financial Investigations Unit wouldn’t move in unless there appeared to be some real connection between Masterson’s death and his financial dealings. And that was fine by him. The body on the boat was by far the most interesting island crime in a long while, and he hoped to be left to investigate it, but he needed some specialized help. Which was why he was putting in a call to Don Taylor, his contact on the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, known simply as The Commission.