Page 30 of Murder in Portofino

I added a few stock phrases about having to ask difficult questions as a matter of routine and then drew him back to the accounts. ‘Do you think it’s possible that Jerome Van der Groot might have discovered the irregularities in the accounts before his death?’

‘Are you saying you think he might have been murdered by the embezzler?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. Anybody convicted of stealing millions of pounds would face a long period in prison. Trying to avoid that would definitely be a motive for murder.’

I waited as he formulated his answer and while I watched his face, I couldn’t help thinking that none of this was coming as a major surprise to him. When he finally replied, his tone was cautious. ‘I suppose it’s possible but unlikely. Jerome was a very busy man and all this week, he’d been dealing with proposals and counter proposals for all our future programming, so I question whether he would have had the time to make an in-depth study of the accounts.’

‘And of course there’s another option: might Jerome Van der Groot have been the embezzler himself?’

‘Jerome?’ I saw him jerk upright in surprise. ‘You think he might have been stealing from the company? No, definitely not. It’s unthinkable. Jerome has been CEO for ten years now and GreyratTV is… was very much his baby. There’s no way he would ever try to steal from it. It would have been like stealing from himself.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Absolutely.’ I had to admit that he looked pretty convinced about what he was saying so I moved on. ‘And what about you, Mr Beaumont? How come it’s taken one of your subordinates to discover something as massive as this? Surely you have overall control of the accounts and this should have been your responsibility?’

He answered almost immediately and the expression on his face looked like one of contrition. ‘You’re right, of course, I am responsible, but only in the same way that the captain of this yacht is responsible for everything that happens on board. If the engineer drops his coffee into an electric engine and it blows up, that can hardly be blamed on the captain.’

He was right, of course, but I prodded him a little more all the same. ‘But we’re not really talking about a cup of coffee, though, are we? We’re talking about a large sum of money going missing. I don’t know much about accountancy and I haven’t had a look at your books, but it occurs to me that whoever did this must have made a very good job of covering his or her tracks. This wasn’t done by an intern playing around on the computer, was it? This brings us back to the four of you. If we assume for the moment that you and Mr Vaughan are in the clear, that only leaves us with two other possibilities: Louise Challenger or Adam Phillips. I know you may find this distasteful and I promise I won’t quote you, but could you tell me in your opinion which of the two would be more likely to have done it?’

I saw his eyes studying the now empty whisky glass in his hand and I rather got the impression that he would have liked another. The thought crossed my mind again that maybe he had a drink problem. If so, this could have been responsible for him neglecting his duties and allowing the embezzler to get away with theft on a massive scale. Of course, somebody who’s very drunk can also make terrible decisions and do awful things – even commit murder.

I had to wait at least half a minute before he replied to my question about the other two suspects.

‘I honestly don’t know. Yes, both of them are good at their jobs and good with figures. Both know the passwords and have access to all areas of the accounts. The fact is, however, that Adam has worked for the company for five or six years now and Louise for three. We’ve never had any trouble with either, so I find it hard to believe that they might have suddenly developed into embezzlers.’

‘And are you aware of any money problems either of them might have had? Maybe a gambling problem? Some other forms of debt?’ He just shook his head so I decided enough was enough for now. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Beaumont. I’d like to speak to Adam Phillips now. Would it be possible to assign me a cabin where I can talk to him in private?’

He stood up immediately. ‘I’ll get onto it right away. But first, I think I need to make a general announcement to everybody, explaining why you’re here.’ He caught my eye for a moment. ‘Would you agree with that course of action?’

I’d been thinking about this already and I decided that there was little to be gained by trying to keep things secret. After all, there were supposedly only two people here apart from him and Vaughan who could possibly have had access to the accounts, and I was about to see the first of them almost immediately. I nodded in agreement.

18

TUESDAY MORNING

I interviewed Adam Phillips in a smaller cabin on the lower deck, and, from the objects lying around, it looked as though it belonged to the ship’s engineer. This was less luxurious than the guest cabins above, but it still gave me ample space to sit down facing my interviewees. Adam Phillips came in wearing a sweat-stained T-shirt advertising the Mr Olympia competition 2021. It looked as though it had had a lot of wear since then. He apologised, saying that he’d been in the gym working out. The fact that this yacht boasted a gym didn’t really come as a surprise. Given that it also had its own pool, it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that it had a casino and a disco on board as well. He sat down opposite me, his arm and shoulder muscles threatening to burst through his clothing but, to my surprise, I saw him visibly trembling. Was this in reaction to the news he’d just been given by the head of Accounts or maybe just a natural reaction of the body after violent exercise?

Alternatively, was it guilt?

I started with the easy stuff. ‘Your name is Adam Phillips?’

‘Yes.’ He had to stop and clear his throat. ‘That’s correct.’

‘And I believe you’ve worked for the company for five or six years.’

‘It’ll be six years in September.’ He was leaning towards me with his elbows on his knees and I could see his fingers twisting and twining nervously.

‘Have you always worked in the accounts department?’

‘Yes, I’m a qualified accountant.’

‘Do you enjoy your job?’

‘Very much…’ I saw him take a deep breath. ‘Is it true what Edgar just said? Have you been hired to investigate missing money?’ He looked worried but somehow not altogether surprised and my suspicions deepened so I didn’t pull my punches.

‘It appears that over two million pounds have been stolen.’

The expression of shock remained on his face but whether this was at the amount of missing money or at the prospect of being uncovered remained to be seen.

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