Chapter 19

19

TUESDAY MORNING

Susie Upton arrived looking flustered. Although Oscar managed to bring a smile to her face, I could hear more than a hint of irritation in her voice when she sat down to talk to me.

‘The Carabinieri are back again. They've been asking everybody about this latest murder victim. Surely his killer has to be somebody in the crew, doesn't it? We barely knew the guy.'

I shook my head. ‘Not necessarily. You have to admit that it's quite a coincidence that there have been two murders in three days. I suppose the police have to consider that the two might be linked in some way.' I decided to test her powers of deduction. ‘I've been trying to think of any way they might be linked – can you?'

She paused for thought for a few seconds and I studied her while she was thinking. Today, she was wearing a different bikini with a very loose, white, cotton shawl thing wrapped around her. I'm sure there's a technical term for it, but women's fashion has never been my strong point. As before, she was looking alluring, but today there was also clear concern or annoyance on her face as she ventured a guess.

‘Could it be that this deckhand and whoever it was who killed Jerome were working together? What if they had a falling-out and one killed the other? No honour among thieves and so on.'

‘You might be right, but the question that still needs answering is why Jerome Van der Groot was killed in the first place.' I saw her nod in agreement and I continued. ‘As I'm sure you've heard, the reason I'm here asking questions is because Edgar Beaumont has asked me to investigate what looks like serious embezzlement. Several million pounds, I believe.'

I saw her eyes widen. ‘Millions of pounds gone missing? Wow! Edgar said money had disappeared, but I hadn't realised it was that much.' There was a pause while this registered with her. ‘But I don't think I'll be able to help you. I'm very much at the sharp end, in front of the camera. I don't have access to the accounts and, even if I did, I probably wouldn't be able to make sense of them. I have an accountant who does all my tax returns and things like that. Who do you suspect?'

‘I was going to ask you that. I'm not suggesting that you're involved, but I wonder if you've heard anything that might help me? Maybe somebody with a gambling habit or big debts, or maybe somebody who has a grudge against the company?'

Again, there was a pause while she thought it through. Finally, she produced her answer. ‘I really can't imagine anybody here doing something like that. Certainly it would have to have been somebody with access to the accounts, so that limits it to just a few people. Any of us involved with actually making the programmes wouldn't have had the opportunity. Of those with access, I do know that Edgar's in big trouble with his wife's divorce lawyer trying to take him for everything he's got but, if he called you in, it can't be him. Of course, there's always Martin. He has absolutely no moral compass at all, but I can't see how he could have got access to the accounts.'

‘Talking of Martin Grey, I gather Saturday night's big argument was between him and Jerome Van der Groot. I heard it might have been something to do with industrial espionage. You're sure it had nothing to do with the accounts?' I already knew the answer to this last question but, as I was ostensibly here to investigate the fraud, I did my best to link my question to it.

She answered immediately. ‘It wasn't about the accounts. Call it what you like, but the fact of the matter is that Martin's been selling us out to the competition. I've noticed quite a few times over the last couple of years that just as we're coming up with, say, a new quiz show for teenagers, one of the other channels gets there first. To start off with, I thought it was just coincidence, but more recently, I've been having serious doubts. When I heard that Martin was responsible, it came as no surprise, but I thought it was shameful, even for somebody like him.'

‘What's going to happen to him? Will he lose his job?'

‘Almost certainly. On Saturday night, Jerome told him in no uncertain terms that he wouldn't forgive such a breach of trust, and that he wanted him out. He said he was going to give the host role for Comics on the Run , our headline show, to me and you can probably imagine that that went down like a lead balloon with Martin. He was spitting blood. Obviously, that decision will now have to be ratified by Jerome's replacement as CEO. Short term, I imagine that will be Edgar, and there's no love lost between him and Martin, so I'm pretty sure he'll rubber-stamp it.'

This was very interesting. Suddenly, we had another possible motive for murder. Might Martin Grey have killed Van der Groot as revenge for firing him – particularly as this meant that his job was going to the woman of whom he was secretly jealous? Of course, as Susie had just said, the decision would be up to Van der Groot's successor, who might or might not decide to treat him more kindly, but it certainly did open a completely new possible avenue of investigation. I wondered if Guido Bertoletti had been made aware of this. If not, I fully intended to tell him.

‘Thanks for that. I've almost finished with the questions now. Can you think of anybody in your group who might have known the crewman who was murdered – Rick Schiller?'

She shook her head. ‘No idea, I'm afraid. If he was the one I think he was – tall with blond hair – he was a good-looking guy. He wasn't really my type, but maybe he was carrying on with one of the female crewmembers and it all turned nasty? Some internal jealousy perhaps?'

‘Who knows? Anyway, thanks. The last question relates to Jerome Van der Groot. I imagine you knew him fairly well. In your opinion, do you think he might have been the person responsible for stealing the millions?'

She had to stop and think. ‘I really don't know. I suppose anybody can fall into temptation, but I can't see him as a thief. He was a funny guy; not funny ha-ha, often rude and more than a bit creepy, but that doesn't make him an embezzler.'

‘But I gather that you were always by his side. Was there anything going on between the two of you?'

Her expression changed to one of clear annoyance. ‘The lieutenant was asking the same question. It's all because Martin's always slagging me off, spreading malicious rumours, isn't it?' She looked me straight in the eye. ‘The idea of having sex with Jerome makes me feel physically sick. I couldn't care less whether you and the lieutenant believe me or not, but that's the truth. As for Martin, if I had to list the number of times I've been groped, mauled and propositioned by him, we'd still be here talking tomorrow.'

There was a real edge to her voice now and I felt convinced that she was telling the truth. Interestingly, although she'd told me she found the idea of sleeping with her boss abhorrent, she hadn't actually denied it. Now that he was dead, of course, this would no longer be a problem for her. Could it be she had taken direct action to remove him from her life? I tried changing tack.

‘As far as the dead crewman's concerned, can you think of any connection between him and any of your group? Has he ever been seen sneaking around the guest cabins?'

She shook her head. ‘Not that I'm aware of. I don't think he was involved with any of our group. I normally keep my ear pretty close to the ground but I haven't heard anything like that.' She looked up at me. ‘I can ask around if you like, although I'm not sure what connection there might be to the missing money.'

‘Thanks for the offer. Please do. I've no idea what the connection might be either, but I'm trying to investigate all possible leads.'

She produced a smile, but that might just have been because Oscar had stretched out with his head on her foot. ‘Leave it to me. I'll see what I can dig up. I'm sorry I haven't been more helpful.'

‘But you have been, thank you very much.'

Much to Oscar's chagrin, she stood up. ‘Good luck finding out who's been stealing the money.'

‘Thanks, I have a feeling I'm going to need it.'

After she'd left, I pulled out my phone and checked out the man whose name kept cropping up. A search for Martin Grey on the Internet revealed numerous pages of items about him, and his social-media feeds were full of glossy photos of him doing charity skydives and triathlons, and a load of showbiz hype, indicating that he had no scruples about gratuitous self-promotion. In every photo, he was looking at his very best and I had a sneaky suspicion that Photoshop might have been involved in a number of these. There were a few photos of him at sporting events and on the beach and I had to agree that he had clearly been looking after his body. Mind you, most people involved with the media do that these days.

I couldn't see any mention of him touting for jobs with other companies, but there were several articles from the tabloids underlining what I'd already learned here on the yacht. Martin Grey had wandering hands and a number of women had accused him of getting far too up close and personal, although there was no mention of prosecutions. I was particularly struck by a photo of him with his wife at some evening gala and – although maybe I was just already predisposed to feeling suspicious – I had a feeling that the smile on his wife's face was decidedly forced. All in all, nothing new and certainly not a great character reference for the man.

I was still scrolling through various articles when there was a tap at the door and Guido Bertoletti peered into the cabin. I beckoned to him to come in and sit down and he closed the door carefully behind him first. Oscar jumped to his feet, delighted to see his new friend, and positioned himself alongside Guido as soon as he had sat down.

‘ Ciao , Dan, how's it going?' He scratched Oscar's head as he spoke to me.

‘I've picked up a few more bits of information, but not an enormous amount. As far as the stolen money's concerned, my gut feeling is that it has to have been either Edgar Beaumont or the first victim.'

‘Jerome Van der Groot embezzled his own money?'

‘Except that it wasn't his. He was just the CEO and he would have been on a salary like the others. I'm not saying it was definitely him, but I reckon it was one of the two unless there's some other person that had access to the accounts. What about you? Any progress on the death of Heinrich Schiller?'

‘Not very much, I'm afraid. It was his night off and he'd been into Portofino for a few drinks with one of the other crewmembers.' He consulted his notebook. ‘Jeanne Toulousain, French national. They took one of the rubber dinghies and came back around eleven-thirty. The Frenchwoman claims she then went off to bed on her own and he went off in the other direction. She looked quite upset about his death but that doesn't prove anything. As far as I can gather from the other crewmembers, Schiller had a bit of a reputation with the ladies and the captain had already spoken to him twice about not getting involved with women on the yacht.'

I gave that a bit of thought. ‘I suppose one of the female guests or crew might have had a little fling with him and that might have led to one of the others killing him out of jealousy, but it's flimsy at best. One bit of information I did pick up is that the big argument immediately before Jerome Van der Groot's death was indeed with Martin Grey, but it wasn't so much an argument as almost certainly the end of Grey's career in the company. Apparently, he'd been passing on company secrets to some of their competitors and, by the sound of it, Van der Groot was livid and sacked him. That might provide a motive for murder. A bit excessive, I agree, but everybody says that the two men were very drunk and very angry.'

‘That could well be significant. I'd better have a serious talk to Mr Grey.'

At that moment, my phone started ringing and I was mildly surprised to see that it was Heather Greensleeves.

‘Hi, Heather. All well?'

‘Hi, Dan. Yes, everything's fine, thanks. I wonder if you could get a message to the Carabinieri lieutenant for me.'

‘I can do better than that. He's sitting right opposite me now. I'll pass you over.'

It wasn't a long conversation but I could tell from what I heard and from the expression on Guido's face that it was the news he'd been hoping to hear. When the call ended, he handed the phone back to me with a broad smile on his face.

‘Heather Greensleeves sends you her love but, more important than that, she's just remembered the name of the other boat she saw on Saturday night. She was watching a programme on ancient Greek mythology and it suddenly came to her: Poseidon .'

I produced a satisfied smile. ‘The god of the seas – with a bellyful of contraband arms. That's excellent news. The next question is where it is now. It's been, what, two and a half days since it came up alongside Mario Fortunato's boat, so I suppose it might be anywhere by now.'

As I spoke, Guido was calling his office with the news. I was amazed to find that they were able to call back barely five minutes later having already traced the vessel. He listened intently before ordering his people to come and collect him. At the end of the call, he told me what he'd just heard.

‘At last, a stroke of luck. Under normal circumstances, we would've been struggling to locate a vessel that size. Apparently, it's something called a Beneteau Swift, a fifteen-metre motor yacht, and only vessels over thirty metres in length need to have marine trackers on board by law. As it happens, a quick search has revealed that it's currently at a boatyard in Lavagna, only half an hour along the coast from here, waiting for a replacement rudder after running onto rocks while sailing too close to the cliffs in the dark. Ironically, it was one of our own Coastguard vessels from Lavagna that towed it into port. I'm going over there now. What are your plans?'

‘I need to do a bit of thinking and then I suppose I'd better report back to the Head of Accounts, although I'm going to have to be very careful what I say. At the moment, Edgar Beaumont is just about my number-one suspect for the stolen millions.'

‘Could I ask a favour of you?' I nodded and Guido continued. ‘Would you have time to sit down and speak to Martin Grey for me? From what you've been saying, it's unlikely he could have got his hands on the access codes to allow him to be involved with embezzling the money, but you might be able to get him to shed more light on exactly what happened on Saturday night. Ask him about his state of mind, now that it looks as though he might have lost his job. That way, when I get back, it should speed things up for me a bit. Is that too much bother for you?'

In fact, I was delighted to be asked. I'd been trying to think of ways in which I could grill Martin Grey without stepping on the lieutenant's toes. ‘No problem. I'll enjoy doing it.'