Page 41 of Murder in Portofino

‘You’re right. He spends a lot of time in the pool, swimming against that current thing, and when we were over in Sardinia, he swam across the bay and back. That was a good long way.’ He picked up his glass and banged it hard against Billy’s, spilling some of it onto Oscar’s nose, which was currently resting on the big man’s knee. As a result, Oscar spent the next minute or two licking his lips appreciatively. Doug Kingsley sounded euphoric. ‘Cheers, Bill, we’ve nailed him.’

As the idea gradually grew and took hold in my head, I realised that Martin Grey could indeed have committed Saturday night’s murder and swum back to the yacht just as well as Susie Upton. The problem we had was that her fingerprints, not his, were on the knife found sticking into the German deckhand’s body. Unless…

Leaving my beer, I jumped to my feet and ran up three flights of stairs to the rooftop sun deck followed by an excited Oscar. Fortunately, as before, it was empty. I pulled out my phone and called Guido Bertoletti. He answered immediately and I didn’t waste any time. ‘Guido, the partial prints on that steak knife, what does partial mean? Were they smudged or what?’

If he was surprised at the question, his voice didn’t show it. ‘The people at the lab said that they were indeed smudged; discernible but smudged. Why, what are you thinking?’

‘On Saturday night, Martin Grey was quite clearly furious with Jerome Van der Groot, but he was equally furious with Susie Upton because she was taking over his job from him. What about this scenario? Let’s assume he kills Van der Groot, piles the body into the dinghy and heads off into the night, trying to distance himself from the scene of the crime. When he’s far enough away, he jettisons the corpse and the bloodstained dinghy and then swims back to the yacht just like Susie Upton might have done. I’m sure you’ll find that your people who were checking the social-media entries for the suspects will have noticed that Grey was keen on doing triathlons. As such, he could easily have managed to swim seven or eight hundred metres.’

I heard Guido have a brief conversation with somebody his end before he came back on the line. ‘Yes, he definitely did triathlons, so it could have been him, but what about the second victim and the steak knife? Fingerprints are fingerprints.’

‘I’m still trying to work it out, but maybe it went something like this: Grey is seen murdering Van der Groot on Saturday night by Schiller, who subsequently approaches Grey for money in return for keeping quiet. Grey decides to kill the man rather than pay up, but he sees this as the perfect opportunity to get even with the woman who’s usurped his position. What if he helps himself to the knife she’s been using at dinner that evening, picking it up with a napkin or a handkerchief, which would account for the smudging of her prints? Let’s face it, we’ve both been wondering how Schiller’s murderer could have been so careless as to leave the murder weapon behind, instead of just throwing it over the side. Also, although it would have been patently obvious that the German was dead or dying after his throat had been cut, why stab him in the heart? Because, that way, Grey knew he would leave the murder weapon with Susie Upton’s incriminating prints on it and, hopefully, by so doing would be able to rid himself of her just as he’d rid himself of Van der Groot. What do you think?’

‘It’s certainly credible, but just about the only proof we have in this case are Susie Upton’s fingerprints on the murder weapon. How do we pin it on Martin Grey?’

‘You’re right; it isn’t going to be easy. We either need to fool him or to frighten him into confessing. He’s a pretty tough character, so frightening him isn’t going to be easy, but I need to think about how we could fool him into admitting he did it.’

‘Well, one thing’s for sure, I agree that I definitely need to talk to him again. Susie Upton’s now safely locked up, although she hasn’t stopped protesting her innocence. It won’t do her any harm to sit in a cell for a bit before I question her properly. Give me ten minutes to finish the paperwork and I’ll come back out to the Regal Princess where we can have a talk, just the two of us.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll borrow a dinghy and come up to the barracks to talk to you. That way, we know nobody’s listening in. Just make sure the captain doesn’t decide to sail away now that Susie Upton’s been arrested. The more I think about it, the more I believe she isn’t our murderer.’

24

TUESDAY AFTERNOON

On my way to the Carabinieri barracks, I bought myself another of the lovely cheesy focaccia sandwiches from the little bakery by the harbour and shared it with Oscar as I fought my way through the crowds. When I reached Piazza della Libertà, I was pleased and relieved to see my van still there and free from parking tickets.

Maresciallo Veronese was back in his usual spot on the terrace and he gave me a big smile. ‘You might be amused to hear that we received a call from a Sergeant Rossi of the Rapallo police this morning telling us about a visit he’d received from a random Englishman on Sunday, claiming to know the identity of the one-eyed man we found floating in the sea. He said the man sounded very vague. Nice of him to let us know, wasn’t it?’

I smiled back at him. ‘And only forty-eight hours late. Is that fairly standard?’

‘For Pietro Rossi, yes. I was at school with him and let’s just say that he wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box. Anyway, come on in. The lieutenant’s waiting.’

He led me inside and I found the lieutenant in his office, finishing writing something by hand. He waved me into a seat opposite him.

‘Ciao, Dan, any bright ideas?’

I had spent the last fifteen minutes thinking hard. ‘Like I said on the phone, I think our only options are to frighten him or to fool him, and Grey doesn’t strike me as the sort of guy who’s going to be easy to frighten.’

‘My feelings entirely. As far as trying to fool him is concerned, I reckon he’s also a pretty smart character, so that isn’t going to be easy either. If we go in saying that we’ve discovered CCTV footage, or a witness has come forward claiming to have seen him on Saturday night or last night, he’s going to ask for proof and, of course, we don’t have any.’

These same thoughts had been going through my head as well. I racked my brains and dredged up a memory from the past. ‘There’s something I remember that worked about ten years ago. Whether it still works today remains to be seen. I had a similar situation where I strongly suspected a known drug dealer of being responsible for the death of a young woman with some dodgy cocaine mixed with a very nasty drug called levasimole, but I didn’t have anything concrete on him. In desperation, I found a little plastic bag, filled it with washing powder, and waved it in front of him, saying we’d found it in his house. In fact we’d turned his house upside down without finding anything, but he took one look at the bag and immediately admitted the whole thing.’ I looked across at Guido. ‘That time, I got very lucky. It’s unlikely it’ll work twice but I can’t think of anything better.’

‘But a bag of washing powder isn’t going to cut it this time.’

‘No, but…’ A sudden thought came to me. ‘My involvement in this case all started because of a conversation I overheard in the gents’ toilet in a restaurant in Lucca. I’m pretty sure Beaumont was one of the voices, but I haven’t been able to pin down the identity of the other, in spite of listening to all the men in the GreyratTV group on the yacht. It’s just occurred to me that there’s one other voice that I haven’t checked.’ I saw the quizzical expression on Guido’s face and explained. ‘It’s the voice of the first murder victim himself, Jerome Van der Groot. Maybe Beaumont was talking to Van der Groot back there in Lucca, and the man they were talking about was Martin Grey. I wonder…’

I pulled out my phone and started searching the Internet. In fact, it didn’t take me more than a minute to locate an interview with Jerome Van der Groot on YouTube. I switched to speaker mode, turned up the volume and the voice that filled the lieutenant’s office was unmistakably the voice of the second man I’d heard in Lucca. I gave it a few more seconds but there could be no doubt about it so I turned off the recording and looked across at Guido.

‘There’s no doubt about it: the two voices I heard belonged to Beaumont and Van der Groot, and I’m sure they must have been talking about Martin Grey. Presumably, evidence of his passing on secrets to their rivals had only just emerged.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ve got that sorted, although I fear it won’t help us much with trying to squeeze a confession out of Grey.’

‘Or will it?’ I was thinking hard. ‘The situation we have at the moment with Edgar Beaumont is that I imagine he’s sitting on the yacht wondering whether he’s going to be arrested and thrown into an Italian jail for embezzlement. Assuming he’s already paid well over half the money back, you know and I know that he’d be unlikely to face anything other than a civil lawsuit if – and it’s a big if – anybody in the company decides to press charges against him, but he maybe doesn’t know that yet. If you speak nicely to him, I have a feeling he might be prepared to do you a favour in return for you leaving the affair of the missing monies in the hands of Neil Vaughan and the company.’

‘What sort of favour? We can’t just start making up phoney evidence. That would be entrapment.’

I nodded. ‘Of course, but with Beaumont’s help, you might be able to rattle Grey. How about getting Beaumont to recreate the conversation that I heard, for Grey’s benefit? Everybody agrees that Grey’s a narcissist and if we get Beaumont to repeat and maybe slightly embellish some of the insulting things that Jerome Van der Groot said about him and his treachery, maybe it might push him over the edge.’ I caught his eye for a moment. ‘It’s flimsy, but that’s all I’ve got. What about you? Can you think of any better way?’

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