Moorcott squinted at the rain-spattered windscreen and hesitated.
‘Do you really want me to go to the police and the Inland Revenue and tell them my concerns about that fund?’
Moorcott hastily obeyed. But Marvik could see him thinking that he might be able to dart back into the car, start it up and drive away before Marvik could reach him. To counter that, Marvik slid across to the driver’s seat, snatching the car keys from the ignition before climbing out.
‘Let’s take a walk.’
Moorcott looked panic-stricken.
Marvik jerked his head at the footpath that led up through the trees and shrubs to the top of the hill and the fort. The wind and rain ensured they would be alone.
‘I don’t know what you want but this is ridiculous,’ Moorcott said fearfully.
Marvik ignored his protest. ‘Walk, or do I have to make you?’
Moorcott walked. Marvik would have approached this differently if Moorcott had been cooperative, but he had seen almost from the moment he’d set eyes on him that threats would be the only thing to make this slimeball tell the truth. What that was Marvik had yet to discover but he suspected fraud. And murder? Maybe.
They came out into a clearing. Marvik told him to stop.
‘What are you going to do?’ Moorcott asked, his hands twitching. Marvik wondered if the accountant was thinking he could reach for his phone and somehow summon help before Marvik could reach him. He’d be a fool to try.
‘You’re going to tell me exactly what you’ve done with the memorial fund money.’
‘I could have told you that in the car.’
‘Much better to get it out in the open with no one listening or around to see us,’ Marvik smirked.
Moorcott gulped. He wasn’t stupid but it had taken the implied threat to make him realize that he was alone and there was no one to witness any harm that the scarred stranger might do to him.
‘Whose idea was it to set up the fund?’
‘Ian Bradshaw’s,’ Moorcott hastily replied. ‘And Duncan Helmslow was keen to go along with it. Meryl too.’
‘And the other relatives of the crew: Warrendale, Chale and Goodhead? Were they keen?’
Moorcott’s mouth twitched nervously. ‘We couldn’t trace them.’
‘How hard did you try?’
‘I didn’t. That was Bradshaw’s job. He recruited them.’
Did he indeed. His job description seemed pretty expansive – contracts, tenders, accounts and now recruitment. ‘How?’ asked Marvik.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘How did he recruit them?’
‘I don’t know. I guess he must have advertised somewhere.’ Moorcott wiped the rain from his face. ‘I never asked him and he didn’t say,’ he quickly added as Marvik watched him closely.
‘He must have held records giving the name of the next of kin or a contact number in case of emergency.’
‘I suppose so.’ Moorcott looked miserable. ‘I took him at his word when he said there was no one he could find related to them.’
‘I bet you bloody did. So how much did the three, or was it four of you including Duncan Helmslow, split between you?’
Moorcott said nothing. Marvik stepped forward menacingly.
‘Not Duncan, he was dead by then,’ Moorcott gabbled, then mumbled. ‘Three hundred thousand pounds.’
Marvik was taken aback. He’d expected maybe fifty grand at the most. ‘How come it was that much?’
‘The public always like to donate. There were also a few large corporate donations from ship owners and others in the industry.’ Moorcott ran a hand over his hair, which was now as wet as his suit.
‘And did you tell them how the money had been distributed? No, I bet you didn’t, and no one asked until now. So you split it three ways, which made a very tidy sum for each of you.’ And was that why Meryl Landguard had been so twitchy when Gavin had come calling? She believed he’d discover the scam. Was that what her son had overheard when she’d called Bradshaw, when she’d said that he knows about the Mary Jo? Marvik could be looking at Bradshaw’s killer – Gavin’s too – and Meryl Landguard’s abductor, but he could swear that Moorcott didn’t have it in him except he had a very expensive lifestyle to protect.
Moorcott mistook Marvik’s silence. ‘Look, if you’re related to one of the crew we can do a deal.’
Marvik thrust his hand on Moorcott’s chest and pushed him back with such force that he crashed against the trunk of a tree. Marvik thrust his face close to the trembling accountant. ‘So what other scams were the three of you operating?’
‘We weren’t.’
‘Another wrong answer.’ Marvik grabbed him by his expensive suit and balled his fist.
‘All right, I’ll tell you. Don’t hurt me, please,’ Moorcott pleaded, putting his hands up.
Marvik could see that Moorcott wasn’t faking his fear. He didn’t believe he had killed but he could have hired a killer. If so, Marvik didn’t hold out much hope for Moorcott living a long and healthy life. With disgust, he released his hold.
Moorcott couldn’t talk quickly enough. ‘Ian Bradshaw was in charge of invoicing. In fact, he had a say in nearly all aspects of the running of Helmsley’s. Duncan was ill and he didn’t have a business brain. He was a plodder, a hands-on man. He’d have been happy enough to provide tugs and workboats around the harbour but Martin Elmsley, his business partner, was keen to expand into marine salvage, and when Tim joined them in September 2000, they did. Six months later, Martin was dead. It hit Duncan hard.’
‘And he was ripe for the plucking by scumbags like you and Bradshaw. You were Helmsley’s accountant – you prepared the company accounts and carried out the audit. You assisted Bradshaw in fraud. He created false invoices and creamed off money from contracts, paying you a percentage.’
Moorcott was looking very bedraggled and dispirited. Perhaps he could see his precious Aston Martin being driven into the sunset.
‘It wasn’t just us. Meryl also took advantage of the situation.’
‘Oh, and that makes it OK,’ Marvik hissed scornfully.
Moorcott winced. ‘She was having an affair with Bradshaw, had been for some time. She and Bradshaw were in it together. She’s clever, knows her way round figures. She was accounts manager for Antara Yacht Brokerage.’
‘The company Bradshaw bought,’ Marvik said, recalling what Stephen Landguard and Strathen had told him.
Moorcott nodded miserably.
Marvik continued. ‘She manipulated Antara’s accounts and extracted money from the company so that, when it was on the verge of collapse, Bradshaw stepped in and bought it for a knockdown price.’
Moorcott’s eyes flicked down to his muddy, sodden shoes.
‘And I bet your firm also handled the accounts for Antara,’ Marvik sneered. ‘And you, Bradshaw and Meryl Landguard repeated the process at Helmsley, running it down after taking what you could from a dying man before selling it to Almbridge on the cheap.’
His head came up. ‘Alec Royden paid a fair price for it.’
Marvik looked doubtful. ‘In whose eyes?’ he scoffed. ‘He probably paid bugger all. Was he in on your nice little scam?’
Moorcott’s expression was simultaneously sly and frightened. ‘I prepared the accounts for the sale to Almbridge and their accountants went over the books.’
‘Which, of course, were all in order,’ Marvik sneered.
In a defensive tone, Moorcott said, ‘Duncan was only too relieved to get the business off his hands for a nominal fee before—’
‘He died, yes, three months later, and who inherited his estate?’
‘There wasn’t much.’
‘Who got it?’ Marvik repeated sharply.
Moorcott started. ‘There were a couple of bequests to the coastguard and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Duncan was widowed years ago – no kids. The house was sold. The majority of the estate was split between Meryl Landguard and the charity, Seagoing.’
Hugh Stapledon’s charity. And, once again, Meryl had benefited. Had she made sure that Duncan named her in his will? Had she used her charm on him? If he could believe Moorcott, and he did, then Meryl Landguard was a scheming woman and a fraudster, in league with Bradshaw. Marvik felt sorry for Stephen Landguard because Marvik was convinced Stephen didn’t know the depths of his mother’s criminality. He knew about the affair, though, and it wasn’t surprising that he had been so emotionally drained knowing that both his mother and his wife had slept with a man he despised. And Marvik was betting that the fraud he was hearing about wasn’t the only one. Bradshaw had recruited that crew. Had he made sure they were insured? Timothy Landguard would have been, and the Mary Jo.
‘Whose idea was it to sabotage the Mary Jo and murder that crew?’
‘Murder! It was an accident.’
‘But Meryl Landguard collected the insurance on her husband’s life.’
‘I suppose she must have done but I don’t know the terms of the policy.’
‘And the insurance on the Mary Jo went into the company, which the three of you then helped yourselves to.’ Marvik didn’t need Moorcott to reply – he saw the answer in his shifting eye contact. ‘Were the crew insured? Was Bradshaw named as the beneficiary?’
Moorcott shook his head.
‘Who got the crew’s wages?’
Moorcott looked blankly at him.
‘Come on, you know what I’m talking about, but let me explain,’ Marvik said menacingly. ‘All the crew were working for Helmsley, and in the case of a workplace death they’d have been entitled to their salary up until the day they were declared dead. So who got their paycheques?’
‘I don’t know.’
Marvik stepped forward.
‘They were casual staff, taken on for that one job on a pay-on-completion basis.’
‘Did Duncan Helmslow know that?’
‘I guess so. There was nothing unusual about taking on crew for a specific job.’
Bradshaw had chosen his casual staff very carefully. The whole set-up was rife with corruption. Had the crew been killed for money?
‘So the three of you were doing very nicely, thank you, until Gavin Yardly came along and started asking questions. He discovered the fraud. You, Bradshaw and Meryl Landguard decided to kill him but, unbeknown to Bradshaw, you were having an affair with Meryl and the two of you decided to kill Bradshaw and frame Gavin Yardly for Bradshaw’s murder.’ Moorcott was studying him in horrified bewilderment. ‘Did you then decide that Meryl had too much over you so she also had to die?’
‘I haven’t killed anyone,’ Moorcott protested, rubbing a shaking hand over his sodden face.
‘If you haven’t then I’d start to get very worried, because it means there is a killer out there and you could be next on the list.’
Moorcott’s eyes widened, petrified as it dawned on him that Marvik could be the killer.
‘I swear to you, I know nothing about what else was going on at Helmsley or about the disappearance of the Mary Jo,’ he gabbled. ‘I don’t know who killed Ian or that man Gavin Yardly and I haven’t seen Meryl for weeks.’
‘But she phoned you to warn you about Gavin Yardly?’
Moorcott looked about to deny it but changed his mind.
‘She called me the Saturday before last.’
The day after Stephen Landguard said he’d seen Gavin Yardly talking to his mother and after her meeting with Bradshaw that night on his boat.
‘And?’
‘She said that someone had come asking her about the Mary Jo and to keep quiet about the fund. She said that Ian had agreed to get rid of Yardly. By that I thought she meant evict him and sack him because Yardly was working for Ian and renting one of his flats. I had no idea they intended to kill him.’
‘So who killed Bradshaw?’
‘Not me. Maybe Meryl did. You said she’s been abducted but perhaps she’s gone on the run.’
Without her clothes or her belongings? It was possible and, even if her passport was in the safe, she might have another one with a false identity. But there was a flaw in that theory.
‘Why would she leave you behind to blab to the first person who comes along?’
‘Maybe she got scared and isn’t thinking right.’
‘Or perhaps she had nothing to do with killing Bradshaw and Bradshaw didn’t kill Yardly, and if you’re as innocent of that as you claim then I’d be very careful crossing the road and driving your expensive car. Accidents do happen.’
Moorcott went so pale that even his lips went white.
‘Did Gavin Yardly come to see you?’
‘No. I swear he didn’t. No one’s been to see me about the Mary Jo except you.’
And if Gavin hadn’t then that meant he hadn’t followed the lead about the fund. Did it mean he was unaware of it or had he thought it irrelevant? Marvik swiftly recalled his conversation with Stapledon. He’d said that the man who had come to see him, posing as Landguard, hadn’t been interested in the fund. It was the crew that Yardly had been primarily interested in.
‘You handle the financial accounts of Meryl Landguard and of Bradshaw’s company.’
Moorcott nodded.
‘Let’s go and get a copy of them.’
‘I can’t—’
Marvik balled his fist.
‘OK.’
‘And while you’re at it, I want a list of all the donors to that memorial fund.’
Marvik wasn’t sure what the accounts would tell him because Moorcott was bound to have hidden the extent of his and his clients’ fraud, but a forensic accountant would have fun picking through them and Marvik would be happy to hand them over to Crowder. Marvik didn’t think it was the result Crowder was looking for – not unless the fraud went deeper and to the top of the political tree, or led them to someone in a position of power and social influence, someone who had benefited either financially, politically or internationally or all three from the disappearance of the Mary Jo and its crew. Did Moorcott know who that person was? Marvik wondered as they headed back to his office. If so, then he would end up the same way as Bradshaw and Gavin Yardly and probably Meryl Landguard.
Had Stephen Landguard heard from his mother? Stephen hadn’t called him to say he had but then maybe he wouldn’t. Landguard probably believed he was mixed up in the murders. What did Karen Landguard think of her mother-in-law’s vanishing act? Had Stephen confronted his wife over her affair with Bradshaw? He recalled Karen Landguard saying that the accountant had told her to continue trading and that accountant was sitting next to him in the driving seat. Marvik wondered if Moorcott was also a director of Bradshaw’s company as well as accountant to it. Strathen hadn’t said, so he probably wasn’t. The accounts might not tell him much about Bradshaw, his contacts and his past, but Karen might be able to, and she might also be able to tell him more about Gavin Yardly. Marvik decided that, after getting the accounts and donor list from Moorcott, he’d return to Eastbourne and ask her.
TWELVE
The rain had stopped but the sky was still grey and turbulent with the threat of more to come when Marvik pushed open the door of Medlowes in Eastbourne.
Moorcott had given Marvik what he had asked for on a USB stick. His bedraggled appearance and that of his companion had drawn shocked expressions from the staff. Marvik had expected one of them to call the police, but Moorcott had given implicit instructions to his manager that he was not to be disturbed and had closed the door and the blinds to his office while he backed up the information. Marvik had watched him carefully but he couldn’t be certain that Moorcott wasn’t skipping vital information. A forensic accountant would discover if he had.
He’d glanced at the photographs on the wall while he had waited and one in particular had caught his attention. It was a large, expensive motor cruiser, although not of the same make as either Colbourne’s or Marwell’s. Moorcott told him he kept it in Newhaven Marina. Maybe Moorcott would take off on it, afraid he was going to
be the next target of the killer or to escape being investigated for fraud.
Karen Landguard looked up from her desk as Marvik entered. Her eyes held their usual hostility but there was also anxiety and she looked even more tired than on the previous occasion he’d seen her, which wasn’t surprising given that her life was in turmoil. He wondered if Stephen had finally confronted her last night on his late return home.
‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ she snapped, darting a nervous glance at Danny.
‘How’s Stephen?’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘With what? I just asked how your husband was, especially given the fact his mother seems to have vanished.’
Her startled reaction told him that Stephen had omitted to mention being with him last night. ‘What do you know about that?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘I know a great deal. For example, Meryl Landguard had an affair with Ian Bradshaw some years ago and was probably still having an on-off relationship with him while you were also—’
‘We can’t talk here. Danny, I’ll be five minutes.’ She leapt up and stormed out, expecting Marvik to follow. He did. Outside, she rounded on him. ‘I don’t know what you want but can’t you leave me alone?’
‘I will after we’ve had a chat.’
Her lips tightened and her eyes narrowed. Then she spun round and headed towards the promenade, saying, ‘OK, let’s get this over with as quickly as possible. What do you want to know?’
‘How long have you worked for Ian Bradshaw?’
‘Why should I tell you that?’
Wearily, Marvik said, ‘Karen, we can get this over much quicker if you just answer me. I’m not trying to cause you trouble; in fact, I’m trying to make sure both you and Stephen stay out of it. Your mother-in-law is missing. Ian Bradshaw and Gavin Yardly are dead. I’m trying to discover why they were killed in order to prevent any more deaths.’
‘Gavin Yardly committed suicide after killing Ian,’ she snapped, her long legs striding out.
‘Did he?’ Marvik stared at her quizzically.
‘That’s what the media are saying.’
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