A Grave Waiting. Jill Downie
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Liz Falla write the word in her notebook, saw his partner’s eyebrows disappear under the jagged line of her bangs.
“Can you give me an example?”
Falla’s eyebrows revealed more than the housekeeper’s eyes, fixed on him with apparent candour as she replied. “He was a middleman, putting together people who wanted to do business with certain goods in certain parts of the world. For instance, he just brokered a deal between Canada and Germany involving armoured personnel carriers.”
“Impressive.” Moretti pulled out the scrap of paper he had found in the magazine rack. “Would this have been one of Masterson’s ventures?”
Adèle Letourneau glanced at the fragment and again her eyes met Moretti’s, unblinking and candid.
“Oh, I don’t think so. Bernard had moved far beyond this sort of business deal. But I know he was thinking of buying another yacht. This boat was proving a bit small.”
Liz Falla put her pad away, and sat down opposite the housekeeper. “Did he have any family? Would you like to contact anyone?”
“There’s only an ex-wife, no children. He inherited his first business from his father, and as far as I know he was an only child.”
The housekeeper stubbed out her cigarette in a small metal ashtray on the table, and finished the last of the brandy in her glass. Moretti watched as the two women made eye contact, the housekeeper with that frank, straight look that revealed nothing. But maybe Falla could read her better than he could.
As he was mulling over whether to ask about guns at this point, or to wait until he spoke to Nichol Watt, Liz Falla asked another question. “Your chef says this trip to Guernsey was unexpected, Ms. Letourneau. You were more in Mr. Masterson’s confidence than others. Do you know why he came here?”
Adèle Letourneau’s gaze left Liz Falla’s face and traversed the small galley as if in search of something neutral on which to settle.
“I have no idea,” she replied.
As she looked at Moretti over the top of the housekeeper’s shiny bronze cap of hair, DS Falla’s brown eyes were far more expressive than those of the dead man’s ex-lover.
Chapter Two
“Did you ever see anything like it, Guv?”
“Not in a bed-head I haven’t.”
“How much do you think was in that safe?”
“Depending on the current rate of the Euro, there had to be close to a million pounds, give or take a fiver.”
“And she didn’t even blink, did she?”
“She’s good at that, not blinking. But I’d say Ms. Letourneau has undoubtedly seen many a million in cold, hard cash before today.”
Liz Falla swung the police BMW through the gateway into the courtyard outside the police headquarters on Hospital Lane. In 1993 the Guernsey police force had moved its operations into the fine eighteenth-century building that had at one time been the workhouse. Popularly known as the Pelican, after the plaque high on the courtyard wall showing a pelican feeding its young on drops of blood from its own breast, it still carried the original name set in the brickwork: Hôpital de St. Pierre Port, 1749. In Guernsey, the past often serves the present in practical ways.
As they went into the building, the desk sergeant called out to Moretti, “Ed, there’s someone waiting for you.”
“Dr. Watt?”
“He phoned and left a message — here’s his extension at the hospital. It’s an elderly lady who says she’s your aunt and needs to talk to you. Gwen Ferbrache.”
“Gwen?” Moretti took the piece of paper handed to him. “What in the —?”
Liz watched this with interest. Her boss was not a man to reveal private emotions and personal feelings, and she once wondered if he had any. She knew better than that by now, having worked with him for a year, but she also knew he liked to keep his mask of cool detachment firmly in place. But he was looking anxious now, even startled.
“Seems a bit upset, so I put her in your office. Okay?”
“Your aunt, Guv?” enquired Liz Falla as they went swiftly up the stairs. “Do you want me to take care of her while you talk to Dr. Watt?”
“No, Falla, I’ll talk to her. She’s not really a relative, but she’s the closest friend my mother ever had. This isn’t like her, unless there’s something really wrong. Normally she’d try to reach me at home, but I haven’t been there for the past few days.”
“That might explain it. My great-aunt Mabel gets agitated about the silliest things. She’ll go on at my mother for days about getting a new dishcloth when she’s got no need of another dishcloth.”
Moretti did not bother to explain. This woman would not pester him about dishcloths, because she was more than capable of getting one for herself.
“But I do want to hear what Nichol Watt has to say, first, without an audience.”
They went into another office near Moretti’s that was temporarily empty, and Moretti made the call. At the sound of Watt’s voice echoing down the line with its characteristic drawl, Liz Falla grimaced and silently fake vomited.
“Hi there, Moretti. Want to know something about the high-priced cadaver?”
“Time of death if possible, and something about the bullet that killed him.”
“I’ll know more after the autopsy, of course, but I estimate time of death to be somewhere between eleven and twelve o’clock, of a single gunshot wound to the head. Interesting bullet from what I can see, and I think they’ll find it’s a hollow-point. Everything looked neat and tidy on the outside, but it’ll have done a hell of a lot of damage on the inside. I did part of my forensic training in the States, and saw some of these. Not the kind of missile I’d expect to find in the average British huntsman’s gun cabinet, let alone on Guernsey. I think it should be sent straight to Chepstow. I wouldn’t even waste my time sending it to the Jersey crime lab. We don’t see many hollow-points around these parts.”
Both of the islands had scene-of-the-crime labs, well equipped to identify drugs, analyze fingerprints, develop photographs, and take care of most of the basic needs of the island CID, but for some procedures the evidence was sent to the forensic labs in Chepstow, Surrey.
“Agreed. One other thing — he’d peed his pants. Before, or after death?”
“Before, in my opinion. I’ll be able to tell you more tomorrow.”
There was a click as Nichol Watt hung up the phone.
“I tell you, Falla,” said Moretti, “he may be a shit with women, but Dr. Watt’s great with corpses. You heard that?”
“He’s never bothered me, Guv, but one of his harem is my stupid idiot cousin.”
“Does she know about the others?” Moretti held the door for his partner and closed it behind them.
“Oh, yes, but it doesn’t make one bit of difference. She thinks she can reform him. The love of a good woman and all that crap.”
“Didn’t read you as a cynic, Falla. You don’t think the right woman can turn a man around?”
“No, I don’t. Besides, I like the bad boys too. That’s my problem.”
Moretti was saved from any response by the appearance of Gwen Ferbrache in the doorway of his office.
“I heard your voice, Edward. I’m so sorry to bother you. I tried to reach you at home, kept getting your answer phone, and you didn’t get back to me.” She was smiling, but Moretti could hear the anxiety in her voice.
“It’d been a busy week, Gwen, and then I took a few days off.