PART ONE

      Stating the Theme

      Chapter One

      Day One

      Death had come tidily to the body on the bed. There was very little mess, apart from a neat hole in the middle of the forehead, and a trickle of dried blood from the mouth, which gaped open as if the end had come as a surprise. The victim appeared to have been shot at some distance, which suggested a marksman, or maybe just lady luck — for the shooter, if not the target.

      The setting cast an illusory patina of glamour over the grisly reality of violent death, as faux as the furry leopard coverlet on the circular bed with the gilt-edged mirror over it, the silk flowers on the desk — although the mahogany of the desk seemed real enough, as did that of the built-in entertainment console. Through an open door, Detective Sergeant Liz Falla could see a sybaritically equipped bathroom, gleaming with gold-flecked marble.

      “Floating palace, eh, DS Falla?” Police Constable Mauger handed her a pair of latex gloves.

      “A frigging marine mansion,” Falla replied. “When did you get here?”

      “About fifteen minutes ago. Chief Officer Hanley sent me straight over and told me to get hold of you.”

      As Falla bent down, the movement of the sleek Italian-designed yacht shifted the body on the bed abruptly. From the low rumbling outside it sounded as if the Condor Ferry was coming in to Guernsey from the south coast of England, cutting its engines as it came closer to its moorings, but still sending out a powerful wake of water.

      Reflected in the mirror above the bed, the dead eyes seem to come briefly to life as the man’s head shifted with the movement.

      “Jesus! That made me — I mean, I thought —” Police Constable Mauger grasped the end of the bed with a latex-gloved hand.

      “He’s going nowhere. Who found him?”

      “The cook. He’s in the galley having conniptions. I’ve only had a brief word.”

      “Go sit with him, PC Mauger, hold his hand. I’ve got a phone call to make.”

      With a last, fascinated look at the body on the bed, PC Mauger reluctantly obeyed orders.

      Liz Falla tried Detective Inspector Ed Moretti’s mobile. She had already done so twice since the report came in, but no luck. Of course his mobile was off; he was on holiday. But this time she got a response. Third time lucky. Just as well, because this looked like a nasty combination of money, guns, and murder.

      The thirty-foot tides of spring left even the lower shoreline exposed. The pungent tang of dulse, furbelows, and carragheen in the coral-weed rock pools assailed Detective Inspector Ed Moretti’s nostrils as he approached Rosière Steps, overnight bag in hand. The first boat from Guernsey to the tiny island of Herm was arriving, a catamaran full of families and young lovers clutching cameras and baskets and bags and each other. After the car-less, crowd-less quiet of a couple of days spent on the island, which measures about a mile and a half across, the babble of human voices en masse — or comparatively en masse — seemed deafening.

      The Massey Ferguson tractor, one of the few motorized vehicles allowed on Herm, was waiting at the dock to carry luggage up to the White House Hotel, so some of the visitors must be staying to swell the regular population of around fifty souls. From now on the crowds would build up until the end of August, but most would be day trippers from Guernsey, only three miles away to the west. Yet even in the height of summer you could walk with only the gulls for company between hedges of purple Hebe and New Zealand flax, buzzing with bumblebees and tortoiseshell butterflies, looking up at elderflower bushes as tall as trees.

      “Back to reality,” he said to his companion.

      “Some reality!” Retired Commander Peter Walker grinned at Ed Moretti. “Little wonder you came back to the islands of the blest. What a rest it is for the old eyes not to look up at billboards and posters on every available space advertising every useless product under the sun. I like pretty women, God knows, but Christ I’m fed up with twenty-foot-tall semi-naked females trying to persuade me to buy mobile phones or motor cars or mascara.”

      “You can save your mascara-free eyes for sightings of rainbow bladderweed or butterfish.”

      “From Scotland Yard to the seashore. You’re surprised.”

      The deceptively placid blue eyes examined the world from beneath a thatch of thick white hair, but the sixty-year-old who now spent most of his spare time studying the flora and fauna of the marine world seemed little different from the man who had changed the direction of Moretti’s life.

      “Not really. You’ve been peering into deep pools most of your adult life, Peter.”

      “And these are a bloody sight more pleasant, as you know.”

      “There’s some pretty vicious infighting from what you tell me.”

      “I’ll still take limpet and dog whelk over the scum I used to deal with.”

      “Fair enough. Phone me when you’ve had enough of marine life and feel like playing pick-up with us,” said Moretti. “I won’t ask for help with the villains, but you might like to sit in with the layabouts.”

      “That’s what Fénions means? Good name for a bunch of musicians. That’s a talented lot you’re with, piano man — gifted sax player, and they’re not easy to find.”

      “Garth Machin? Yes, he’s good, but he chose money over music. He’s a banker.”

      “Security over creativity. Like yourself.”

      “That’s right.”

      Peter Walker looked at Moretti, sensing his withdrawal. Nothing new in that. They had first met in London, years ago, in a Soho jazz club where Walker played guitar when off-duty. He thought back to the first night Ed Moretti walked into the club, a small, dimly lit ground-floor space between a betting shop and an off-licence. One of the regulars had shouted out, “Where’s the piano player?” and Walker had shouted back, “Gone AWOL, again. Is there a piano player in the house?”

      “Yes.”

      A very young, very lanky man near the doorway walked forward. The scarf around his neck marked him out as a London University student, and Walker cursed to himself. What the hell had possessed him, asking such a question? There were few things he loathed more than half-cut women who thought they could sing like Lena Horne or Peggy Lee, and the untalented fringe of the student body who thought they could play jazz piano. It was usually piano, because they didn’t arrive with an instrument.

      “Ed Moretti,” said the young man. Then, without further ado, he sat down and played Gus Kahn’s “My Baby Just Cares for Me.”

      This student could play. It was to be the first of many sessions and the beginning of a friendship that saw Ed Moretti change his career path to police work.

      “Why?” Peter Walker once asked him.

      “Because I never wanted to be a lawyer, but I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do except play piano. Plainclothes policeman instead