by Jill Downie
“What was Coralie Fellowes’s role in that chaos?” Moretti went over and sat down beside Ludo Ross. There was no advantage to be had now in distancing himself. “It could be important. People have long memories, and some are passed on to the next generation.”
“Which is why I was detailed to get her out of France. Coralie was one of our agents, but to most of her countrymen she was a traitor who slept with the enemy. Which she did. Coralie’s pillow talk with top German officers gave us invaluable information throughout the war, but once it was over she was in danger from her own.”
“You mean to say —?” Liz Falla got up from the chair opposite the two men and walked toward the window that overlooked the courtyard. Below her, crouched on the flagstones, Benz and Mercedes looked back up at her. She could see they were growling, lips drawn back, angry they had been separated from Ludo when he had visitors. Just as well, she thought, with him crying like that they’d tear us limb from limb. “You mean to say that top brass went to all that trouble sparing an agent to smuggle a Folies Bergère showgirl out of Paris? She was no use to them anymore, was she? So why would they do that?”
Ludo Ross sprang up from the chaise with such force he knocked Moretti sideways. He strode over to the window and swung Liz Falla around to face him. In his face she saw the fury that had been there before, when she spoke disparagingly about Coralie Fellowes.
Here we go, she thought. What she wanted, to see this “ladies’ man,” to use Mrs. Evans’s phrase, losing it. Losing control.
“Why? Because her British contact had been Ronnie Fellowes, and he would have given his life to get her out. But, as you said, once her usefulness was over no one would lift a finger. Coralie was in jail in Paris, and the charges against her were serious. Ronnie was terrified she would be shot.”
Moretti interjected. “Why didn’t Ronald Fellowes handle this himself? He would have had more clout, surely, than you.”
Ludo looked at Moretti and smiled. “It didn’t take clout, Ed. It took arm-twisting, bribery, and, above all, it took the kind of ruthlessness you have when you are still a teenager and think you can do the impossible. I was twenty years younger than Ronnie, and I broke every rule in the book. Ronnie knew I had done very well in my — training.”
“You killed to get her out.”
“I killed to get her out.”
“And then you got lucky.”
Liz Falla’s jibe got the response she had expected. Ludo Ross put up his hand as if to hit her face, and Moretti pulled Falla back. The antagonism between them was as palpable as the lightning strike from a Taser. If looks could kill they’d both be lying on the Kirman, thought Moretti. As Falla turned away from Ross to look at him, she raised her eyebrows, almost quizzically, and he saw she meant this to happen.
Moretti raised his voice. “DS Falla, keep this professional, or I’ll drop you from the case. The pair of you are behaving like squabbling six-year-olds.” Moretti released Falla, pushed her in the direction of the chair behind him, and turned his attention back to Ludo Ross. “Sit down, Ludo, answer my questions, or I’ll take you down to the station and we’ll do it there. So you got Coralie Fellowes out. You kept in touch?”
“No.” Ross had regained his usual self-possession, tears and anger gone as if they had never happened. He picked up his pipe and pouch from the table beside the chaise, and the room filled with the delicious aroma of honey and Turkish latakia. Ambrosia. Liz saw Moretti’s hand go into his pocket and touch the lighter he always carried. She smiled. So far his talisman was working well for him.
Ross lit his pipe and continued, his tone measured. “I got out of the service, got on with my other career, and then, years later, saw Ronnie’s obituary in the Times. There was a bit about Coralie in it and, God, the past came flooding back. It also mentioned they lived in Guernsey, and it came at a time when I was thinking of retirement. So, here I am and, because I imagine you are going to ask, it was never again a physical relationship. We could talk about things we could never share with anyone else. Coralie married Ronnie for his money, and then found she loved him.”
Old mortality, the ruins of forgotten times. Moretti watched the smoke from Ross’s pipe float by him on the air, like smoke from a funeral pyre.
“We now know that Masterson cheated Ronald Fellowes, and Lady Fellowes is the only person of interest picked up on the CCTV cameras the night of Masterson’s murder. But the gun retrieved from the harbour, the gun she threw into the water, did not kill him. She was there, Ludo, we know that. And now she is dead, you no longer have to protect her. Was that one of the things you could share, what happened that night?”
Ludo sat with his head tilted back. Moretti could not see his expression, but he doubted there was much to see, not now.
“No,” he replied. “It was not.” He leaned forward, his tone confidential. “But I’ll tell you this, if she’d got there first, he would be dead, so my feeling is he was dead already, and she got out of there.”
Liz Falla looked up from her notebook. “Then why throw the gun away? There was no need to do that, was there?”
“Disposing of anything incriminating had been drummed into her during those war years. Habit, I imagine.”
“But she slipped up,” said Moretti. “She left lipstick on a champagne glass.”
“Might not have been Coralie. Masterson liked his babes.” Ludo Ross looked over at Liz and smiled, no antagonism now in his expression. “Don’t we all.”
Falla smiled back at him, sweetly, then turned to Moretti. “I forgot to tell you, Guv, but the analysis came back. The lipstick is a discontinued brand. Helena Rubenstein. With that blast from the past we really don’t need a DNA match, do we?”
Ludo Ross sighed deeply, and put down his pipe. “Oh, my dear Coralie,” he said. “Almost certainly shocking pink. Her favourite colour. She loved to shock. Nothing more to be said, is there? She must have been there, and that’s why she died.”
“That’s why she was murdered, yes. And you, Ludo, are the main beneficiary in her will.”
Moretti expected anger, but Ross started to laugh. “Look around you, Ed,” he said. “You’ve spent enough time with me to know I don’t need to murder a frail old lady, who was my friend, for her money. And now —” he picked up the tobacco pouch again, fiddling with the clasp, his eyes hidden “— I think we should talk about Garth Machin, don’t you? Before someone else is killed.”
The three photographs lay on the table between them. Moretti watched Garth’s face.
“Leo Van der Velde, Patrice Adaheli, Norman Beaufort-Jones. Double V, Sol, and Game-Boy. The trio who were going to make your fortune, and theirs. More importantly, theirs. I doubt you would have survived to play your trumpet for very long.”
Garth Machin swore, tried to bite another chunk off his non-existent thumbnail. “Fucking Ludo,” he said. His office was cool, but he was perspiring, and the smell of his sweat reached across the desk to Liz Falla.
He stank of fear. He was in over his head and he knew it. Liz thought back to the interview with Ludo, and his apparent breakdown.
She didn’t buy it. It was all calculated, a performance. The only genuine emotion came when she’d ridiculed La Chancho and he lost it. On their way to interview Machin she and Moretti had discussed Nichol Watt’s collapse, which seemed to put him back in the frame for the murders. Which she was all for, and she was only too happy to send Brouard to remove the doctor’s passport. But there was more, much more, to be said about Ludo.
“Fucking Ludo, indeed,” replied Moretti. “If he hadn’t behaved like a priest in the confessional, we might have these three under lock and key by now. Or, certainly, their accomplices. The silence that was supposed to keep you and your wife safe has put you both in danger.”
Anguished, Garth Machin looked at Moretti. “Where is Melissa? I can’t reach her.”
“No, you can’t. She is safe.”
Liz looked up from her notebook. “Doctor Watt’s ex-wife told
me about the MRI machines. You told DI Moretti that your disagreement in the club was about his behaviour toward Mrs. Machin and, given Dr. Watt’s reputation, that made sense. But was it about Masterson?”
“Yes. Nichol can knock it back, drinks like a fish. In a drunken moment he told me about Masterson and how he was duped. Swore he’d get him. Maybe he did. That’s what I wanted to talk to him about.”
“So the idea for how to make big money —”
“— really big money, fuck-off money, get out of this jail money —”
“— came to you after you heard about Masterson?”
Garth Machin looked surprised. “No. They approached me, those three in your holiday snaps. Perfectly legit, it seemed, through our website. They wanted to discuss financing the development of oil in a small African country. They needed a lot of cash, and they offered me a humungous payback. That’s when they had me, of course, because much of the money would line my pockets and not those of Northland. I met them first in London, not here.”
“Besides being paid through the back door, when did you first realize everything in the oil patch was not hunky-dory?”
“After the first payment, when they had proof of my involvement. When I discovered the oil development would involve the overthrow of the legitimate government of Maoundi. Assassination. They were going to run a puppet president, a buddy of Adaheli, now living in exile in Paris, pocket the profits. And, you know, at first, they had me persuaded it was no big deal, that one African president is much like another. Greed made me as unprincipled, as racist, as those bastards.” Garth jabbed a finger on the face of Double V.
“When did greed change into cold feet?”
“When they came close to home, and arrived in St. Peter Port. When they told me they wanted me to carry a lot of cash for them that was arriving with Masterson. When they told me Masterson had fucked up, and was going to be eliminated. Their word. Eliminated.”
“Why Guernsey? Because you were here?” Liz looked up from her pad and flexed her right wrist.
“Only in part. It was Masterson’s idea. He has island roots and had, apparently, run a successful operation of some sort from here before. ‘At the back of beyond,’ he said to them. ‘No one will recognize you there.’”
“What were you to do with the cash?” Moretti asked.
“Deposit it in our bank, all above board, because I would be doing it, and I am above suspicion.” Garth gave a hollow laugh. “God, I could do with a drink,” he said, taking out a handkerchief and mopping his brow and upper lip.
“Then the money would buy arms? Helicopters? Mercenaries?”
Garth shook his head. “Not directly. Even Beaufort-Jones was nervous about that, and he has major protection. MI6 and the FBI have got good at following the money trail.”
Moretti and Falla looked at each other. Liz was thinking about Masterson’s research into hawala; Moretti was remembering Jan Melville’s observations about post office boxes.
“Diamonds,” he said. “Because you are above suspicion, you were to buy diamonds for them.”
Both Falla and Machin looked at him, surprised.
Garth gave another of his vacant laughs. “Got it in one, piano player. Me, a stupid, jazz-playing banker in that world of sharks. I’d have lasted five minutes, and I knew it. More to the point, so did they. I wasn’t made for international skulduggery, Ed. They would have got what they wanted out of me, and then I would have been — eliminated. Just like Masterson.”
Moretti stood up, suppressing a groan. He really must take up Don Taylor’s invitation to join him on his runs across the island before he fell apart physically. But that would have to be put off, again.
“Set up a meeting,” he said. “Say whatever it takes to get them over here. Can you do that? Tell them it’s urgent. Tell them agents of theirs are about to be picked up by the police, and are to be flown out for questioning by MI6.”
Garth Machin leaned back in his chair. There was a damp patch on the leather seat back. “Easy. Van der Velde and Beaufort-Jones contacted me last night on my private email here. Adaheli is in Harare. Since you lot found the stash on the yacht, they are on their way with more. All they need is a safe place, because they know my house is under surveillance since that bodyguard had to be — yes, that word again — eliminated. They’ll be coming in by private plane.”
Moretti thought fast. A little more time would be nice, but he didn’t have that luxury. “There really is only one place, and they may need convincing. You’ll have to play the dumb-copper-in-the-back-of-beyond card and hope they buy it. Tell them we have a small police force of limited skills. Tell them that the yacht is unguarded since we took Masterson’s housekeeper into custody, and that the harbour is not well policed at night. They may be able to use their meeting place as their getaway vehicle. Ulbricht said it could almost run itself.”
“But how do I explain how I got on the yacht?”
“Difficult,” said Moretti, “but this might work. Tell them you will take the dinghy from that beloved wooden boat of yours over to the yacht. Tell them you noticed that the divers looking for the gun had left a ladder down that side of the yacht, and you’ll break the glass door to the main salon and get in that way.”
“I’ve done that,” said Garth eagerly. “Had to break in through our patio door once —”
Moretti interrupted him. “Don’t embroider, Garth. Say as little as possible. As you said, you’re a stupid jazz-playing banker in a world of sharks, and they might pick something up.” He was scribbling on a piece of paper as he talked. “Here is my mobile number. When the meeting is set up, give me the details, and dispose of this.”
Garth took it. “You’re tethering me like a sacrificial goat, aren’t you?”
Moretti stood up. “Yes. Climbing up rope ladders in the dark is not my idea of a good time, and I, fool that I am, will be tethered with you.”
He turned to Liz Falla. “Just Desserts. Perhaps it will finally have a chance to live up to its name.”
It had started to rain hard while they were at the Northlands offices. In the confined space of the Triumph, Moretti heard Liz Falla humming under her breath.
“‘Plaisir D’Amour.’ You’re thinking of Ross and La Chancho.”
“No. I’m thinking of Melissa Machin.” But she did not elaborate. After a moment, she said, “Did you buy Ludo Ross’s act?”
“Not entirely. The grief over Coralie Fellowes was genuine enough, but he used it as a shield against revealing himself further.”
“Do you think he could have used what Garth told him to get involved? Not for the money so much as the thrill, the kicks?”
“Once a player, always a player, you mean. I hope you’re wrong, Falla, but I was reminded of something today I should have realized before. Ludo Ross is charming, personable, brilliant, became an academic but, before that, was just as much a killer as Ulbricht or Baumgarten. What I don’t know is whether he still is.”
They made the rest of the drive in silence. As the car passed through the old gateway, Moretti said to Liz Falla, “We don’t have much time before this all gets underway, because they are going to have to improvise, and the fact that Adaheli is in Harare suggests they were hoping to move soon, or they wouldn’t risk showing their hand too far in advance.”
“What’s our next move, Guv?” Liz got out of the Triumph and stood on the doorstep. Moretti appeared to be taking a look around the courtyard.
“I’m going to leave a message for Hanley, the harbour authorities, and — some other people. Then I’m going to crash. We could be short of sleep over the next little while. I’ll get someone to pick you up. Come in.”
Inside, Moretti saw Falla’s glance take in the two wineglasses. Her eyebrows shot up in that look of surprise that made them disappear under her bangs. A drop of rain shivered like an exclamation mark on the slick of dark hair that curved around her left ear. He removed the glasses from table and took them into the kitchen.
&nb
sp; “You know where the phone is,” he called out.
“It’s okay, Guv,” was her reply. “I’ll use my mobile.” There was a slight pause and then she appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was holding the lasagna in its foil package.
“Has this been out all night, unrefrigerated?” she enquired. “In that case, you shouldn’t risk eating it. You’ll have to throw it away.” She was smiling.
Moretti took the lasagna from her, depressed the foot pedal of the bin with unnecessary force, and threw it away.
Chapter Sixteen
Day Nine
The sound of the water lapping against the Just Desserts was soothing, even under these circumstances. Moretti could hear in it the rhythm of Dwight’s drums, the wizardry of Gene Krupa, the brilliance of Benny Goodman’s clarinet. Slap, slap, slap. Sing, sing, sing.
“I feel sick. Why did we have to come so early?”
Garth sat on a sofa opposite Moretti, drinking Masterson’s excellent Scotch. In the dim light from a table lamp Moretti could see the tremor in Machin’s hands, the tic in one eyelid. The only change he was aware of in his own body was the acceleration of his heartbeat, disconcertingly out of sync with the sound of the water.
“You’re lucky I didn’t make you swim. Of course we came early, soon as it was dark. We still don’t know where the two sham Germans are. Hopefully not around, but something tells me they will be around somewhere. Let’s go over this again. What did they tell you, and who did you speak to?”
“Game-Boy. He thinks we speak the same language, glad to have me on board because I talk posh. He actually said that, laughed. He sounds a bit of a wacko to me. They agreed without much persuading about the yacht, and I think they’ve had to cut corners because of Masterson, so they’re pushing it. ‘Not how we usually operate,’ is what Game-Boy said. I am to leave all doors unlocked, and to expect them when I see them. I said I’d come by water and wait in the main salon, as you suggested. They are bringing the cash, instructions as to how to buy the diamonds, and where they are to be deposited.” Garth looked at Moretti. “I have it all on tape — isn’t that enough?”