Dying For a Cruise (15 page)

Lucas went white, then grey, then back to white again. He swallowed hard. ‘Yes, I recognize them,’ he croaked.

David Leigh glanced at Lucas, his solicitor’s instincts coming to the fore. His firm was courting Lucas Finch and his accounts assiduously. If he could leap into the breech now and come to the rescue, who could say how grateful Lucas might not be? But before he could open his mouth to reassure Lucas that he needn’t answer any of the inspector’s questions, Rycroft was steaming ahead.

‘Are they accurate?’

Lucas flinched. ‘They’re accurate,’ he agreed. ‘In as far as they go.’

Dorothy Leigh pushed her untouched plate of food away, and gave Lucas a sympathetic look. She touched her husband’s arm, silently urging him to step in.

But David had had time to think things through, and was, as a consequence, somewhat more cautious than he might have been just a few moments earlier. ‘Lucas, if you need legal representation, then you can hire me now, on the spot. At least then you’ll be covered by legal privilege if—’

But Lucas held up his hand. ‘I don’t need a solicitor, thanks, Dave. What the inspector has there are army records of an old court martial. A court martial in which I was cleared of any wrong-doing. Isn’t that so, Inspector?’ Lucas raised his voice, and his chin.

Obviously, Rycroft thought, he intends to bluff it out. But then, what other course was left open to him, he mused, with an ugly sneer.

‘The military court hardly cleared you, Finch,’ Rycroft bit out. ‘It merely had to conclude that there was not enough evidence to convict you.’

Dorothy Leigh gasped, but Tobias Lester, Jenny saw, was not looking at all surprised.

No doubt O’Keefe and he had already read the document. Tobias had been present at the darts match, Jenny instantly surmised, knowing all the time that O’Keefe was searching Olney’s room. She wondered, idly, if maybe O’Keefe and the captain had planned to do a little blackmailing of their own, just to ensure that they kept their cottages, at least. And their jobs, too, if the
Stillwater Swan
had somehow stayed in Lucas’s possession.

Of course, since the court martial was a matter of record, whether or not Olney
had
kept copies was irrelevant. In which case, something more drastic would have to be done. And the obvious solution was to make sure that Olney didn’t live to wrest the boat away from Lucas. It could have happened that way, Jenny mused. Two strong men of action – what chance would Olney have had against the both of them?

But she was getting well into the realms of guesswork now, which was something that she didn’t like to do. It was far too easy to come up with beautifully crafted theories that fizzled out in the light of more solid proofs. Besides, it was far easier to concentrate on one thing at a time.

Which meant Lucas Finch and his court martial.

‘But what was the court martial about?’ she asked out loud, knowing that it was the thought on everyone’s mind.

Lucas gave her an
Et tu Brute
? look and the parrot blew a raspberry.

It was a very good raspberry, and it set Graves’ lips to twitching once more.

‘It appears that our friend Mr Finch here commandeered medical supplies during the Falklands war,’ Rycroft grated. ‘Medical supplies that proved to be very lucrative for certain suppliers of the street drugs trade. It must have made you a lot of money too, Finch,’ he finished disdainfully.

But by now Lucas had had time to rally, and he merely smiled grimly. ‘If you’ve read those documents thoroughly, Inspector, you’ll know that nothing was ever proved.’

‘But it put the wind up you enough to make you agree to sell this boat though, didn’t it …
sir
,’ Graves put in, his voice dripping with disgust. ‘No doubt if your friends in the drugs gangs learned that you and your past dealings with them were about to become public knowledge, they might have got a little worried about your continuing ability to keep your mouth shut, hmm? Is that why you knuckled under? It certainly wasn’t because you cared about your reputation, was it, Mr Finch?’ he sneered.

Lucas returned to a dull grey colour, all but admitting that the sergeant had hit the nail right on the head.

But he said nothing.

Rycroft turned away in disgust. Then he glanced across at the assembled company, who were all being very careful not to look Lucas in the eye.

‘I want everyone to spend the night on board,’ he said heavily, half expecting to be the brunt of the usual grumbling that such an order might be expected to generate. But, somewhat to his surprise, nobody demurred. Obviously they had been expecting such an order, and none of them seemed inclined to rail against it.

It was an odd reaction, Rycroft thought. And their meek acceptance unnerved him somewhat. He even wondered, for a brief, wild, insane moment, whether it was possible that they were
all
in on it together. Each and every one of them had their own reasons for wanting Gabriel Olney dead.

Was that sort of thing even possible, he wondered, breaking out into a cold sweat. He’d never had to deal with a fairly large-scale conspiracy case before. And they were absolute sods to prove.

Then sanity overtook him again. He’d been at work all day, rushing about in the heat, and getting nowhere. He was just overtired, that was all.

‘Have the lads set up our tents for the night?’ he asked his sergeant, his weariness very apparent now.

Graves nodded.

‘Then I think I’ll turn in.’

‘Don’t you want any dinner, Inspector?’ Jenny said, her voice rife with disapproval. ‘I’ve kept some hot for you. And for you, too, of course, Sergeant Graves,’ the cook added cunningly. ‘I was just about to ask Francis to serve the main course anyway.’

Nor had she misread her man. Sergeant Graves hadn’t grown up to be such a strapping lad by nibbling on lettuce leaves. His big face lit up and his stomach growled, quite audibly. The parrot cocked his head to one side, the better to hear this intriguing new noise.

Rycroft, admitting defeat, sat down in a vacant chair, a rather amused gleam in his eye as his sergeant quickly did the same. But a scant minute later he was forced to admit that he was glad he had, as an extremely appetizing dinner was put down in front of him. The smell coming off the meat alone had his mouth watering.

Jenny stayed only long enough to watch the sergeant begin to wolf down his dinner, before taking a plateful to the engineer, who, rather wisely, had returned to the boiler room to keep his head down.

She came straight back, however, appeasing Rycroft somewhat. If she’d stayed behind to question the engineer further, he might just have been tempted to order her off the boat and back to Oxford, just to get her out from under his feet.

But he was too good a policeman not to admit that she had proved helpful so far, and might do so again. And as much as he wanted to beat the cook to the punchline, so to speak, he wanted to apprehend the killer more.

Rycroft hated murder. He hated civil disobedience of any kind.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the rest of the dinner was a quiet affair, and quickly over. Lucas had lost his appetite for his fruit tart, though the parrot had been a gentleman about it, and had helped him to clear his plate, much to Graves’ amusement and Rycroft’s finicky disgust.

Jasmine suggested a game of cards, and cast a look of silent appeal across the table at Dorothy, who, with typical feminine intuition, picked up on it at once and plucked at her husband’s sleeve in gentle persuasion.

All three disappeared into the games room. Lucas said, somewhat grimly, that he wanted a word with O’Keefe, and quickly left. No doubt, over dinner, he’d been figuring out who had removed the papers from Olney’s room, and why. He must have been both astonished and relieved when the police search had failed to turn them up in Olney’s room.

Jenny wouldn’t want to be in the engineer’s shoes at that moment. Not that Lucas could fire him, of course. Not with what O’Keefe now knew. And that led her onto another line of thought.

Had Olney been killed because of what he knew? Lucas was now, in anybody’s book, looking to be the prime suspect. And a man with such a ruthless nature had to be top of Rycroft’s list.

She cleared away the dishes, with the help, of course, of the silent, heavily disapproving Francis. Jenny was glad when the silent servant did his usual disappearing act. There was something very nerve-wracking about Francis. Perhaps it was because she was never sure just what he was thinking.

She even went so far as to watch him leave the
Stillwater Swan
and enter his neat little tent on the riverbank. The thought of him sleeping the afternoon away on her bed gave her the shivers.

If he had slept the afternoon away at all, that is.

She had seen for herself how oddly devoted Francis Grey was to his employer. She’d also noticed, during the revelation about Lucas’s ugly past, that Francis had never so much as winced. That he already knew about Lucas’s evil deeds during the seventies and eighties was, to her mind at least, beyond doubt. And yet still Francis was happy to carry on working for Finch. Finch, a lowly cockney. Finch, the very antithesis of a gentleman.

And yet Francis was so very much a gentleman’s gentleman.

What was going on there?

No, Jenny didn’t appreciate having Francis around, but that didn’t necessarily mean he would commit murder, just on his employer’s say-so. When all was said and done, Francis had no real motive for killing Gabriel. His position as valet was safe, whether the
Swan
was sold or not.

Besides, Jenny couldn’t help thinking that now she knew
how
the murder had been committed, she should know
who
had committed it.

In the back of her mind, she knew that she had seen something important that afternoon. Something very important. And somebody, much earlier on, had said something that kept haunting the fringes of her memory, but refused to surface. And, like a bad sense of déjà vu, there was something else that somebody had said still later on that kept niggling at her. Something Jasmine Olney had said.

But what?

Jenny sighed and checked her food supplies for possible breakfast dishes. She made up a short mental menu for tomorrow morning then decided to take a slow stroll around the decks to clear her head.

She, like Rycroft, was beginning to get overtired. A good night’s rest and who knew what the morning might bring?

She stepped through the French doors onto the starboard deck.

The night was beautiful. There was a full moon and the first few twinklings of evening stars. The sky was just turning that lovely soft sapphire shade before full darkness descended.

She folded up and put her favourite chair back against the deck wall, and did the same with a second one, frowning a little as she did so. Two chairs? Then her puzzlement cleared. Of course – the Leighs had been sitting out here earlier. She must be even more tired than she thought, to have forgotten that.

She continued on to the end of the side deck, glanced at the equipment box and the round, red and white inflated life ring that was hung above it, then turned down the corridor to the rear deck.

She glanced at the boiler room, her ears pricked. It was quiet, however, so presumably Lucas Finch had given the engineer his rollicking and left. Nevertheless, she didn’t go in. She’d seen all she needed to see in there.

She took her time strolling along the port deck but when she got to the front of the boat, the decking was now dry. The rope and boot were gone – obviously with the forensics team.

That boot had been clever. Very clever.

She sighed and stepped into the games room.

Jasmine had apparently just lost her game of gin rummy, for she tossed down her cards with a softly muttered ‘damn’ and stood up. ‘I need a drink,’ she added, and walked over to the drinks cabinet.

Lucas, sat on a sofa and ostensibly reading a book, glanced up when Jenny entered, but said nothing.

Even to Jasmine, he could see that he was
persona non grata
.

Jenny wondered how long it would take for fresh rumours to start circulating about Lucas around the village of Buscot, and supposed it wouldn’t take long. This time, however, the rumours would have rather more substance to them.

She found it hard to feel sorry for him. But at least he had his faithful bird for company.

The parrot, as if in agreement, proceeded to preen itself and cast tiny, scarlet feathers all over his master’s shirt.

Dorothy stood up slowly but shooed her husband back into his seat as he rose to join her. ‘Miss Starling, do you think I might have a milky drink to take to bed with me?’ she asked, and Jenny instantly beamed approval.

‘Of course you can. Would cocoa be all right?’

Dorothy nodded. ‘I haven’t had cocoa in years,’ she said wistfully and followed her through into the main salon to stand, hovering by the galley door as the cook quickly set about making her the hot drink.

Hearing a rustle behind her, Dorothy half turned in surprise as Inspector Rycroft, who’d gone unnoticed on a large sofa, suddenly rose.

This time he was going to hit the sack. He only hoped that Graves didn’t snore. As if on cue, the burly sergeant also rose from the depths of a shadow, where he’d been putting his feet up on a recliner chair in one corner.

Dorothy quickly glanced through the door to the games room, and gently coughed.

Jenny heard it first, and walked to the door. ‘Inspector,’ Jenny said quietly yet firmly.

Rycroft rounded on her. ‘What is it now?’

Jenny, however, didn’t take offence. Instead she merely nodded to the woman stood beside her.

‘I think Mrs Leigh has something to say to you,’ she hazarded gently.

Dorothy Leigh gave her a rather surprised look, then quickly glanced at the inspector, then once more cast the games room a rather anxious look.

Graves and Rycroft stiffened like dogs picking up a scent.

‘Yes, Mrs Leigh?’ Rycroft said softly, instinctively moving away from the games room and closer to the pretty, fair-haired woman who chewed her lower lip in a becoming, if indecisive, manner.