Sailing to Capri (11 page)

I remembered I hadn’t eaten the day before, and now I was starving. I ordered a pork pie as well the plowman’s, which consisted here of Cheddar and the local Wensleydale cheese with a hunk of bread and the spicy dark brown relish I’d become fond of called Branston pickle. Montana decided on the shepherd’s pie and we both ordered pints of Tetley’s draft bitter.

Ginny came in with the sausage for Rats, already cut in pieces. “If I don’t cut it up he’ll just gulp it down,” she explained, giving Montana the eye and a smile. “I remember you from the church yesterday,” she said. “Good to see you again, sir. This is the best place in town, y’know.”

Montana told her it was the
only
place in town and she laughed as she strode away on her spiky-heeled black leather boots, her ample red butt twitching.

Montana looked me straight in the eyes and raised his glass in a toast. “To us, Daisy Keane,” he said. “Because we are going to get to know each other really well.”

I took a sip of the bitter I drank only when I came to the Ram’s Head, staring down at Rats, who had polished off his sausage and stared back at me, hoping for more. I slid my eyes back to Montana. He was still looking at me, waiting for some kind of reaction to his toast I supposed.

I put down the glass. “And why is that, Montana?”

“We’re going on a cruise together, you and I,” he said, with that little half smile playing around his lips.

“What makes you think
you’re
going? I didn’t invite you.”

“No. But Bob did.”

Mutual antipathy flickered between us. I picked up my glass and took a good slug of the beer, wiping the foam off my lips with the back of my hand. I saw him grin but it was too late to be ladylike. Lord knows why Bob had employed him and even worse, why he’d asked him to go with me on this ridiculous cruise. But if anyone knew anything deeply personal about Bob and his life, it was I. I’d bet Montana knew only the business stuff.

Reg came over carrying a steaming mini-casserole of shepherd’s pie. It smelled so good I almost wished I’d ordered it myself, but then Ginny set my pork pie and cheese and bread before me and told me to enjoy it, adding that I looked as though I could use a bit of fattening up. I ate it silently, contemplating my future on a cruise with Montana.

“How do I know Bob invited you?” I asked at last.

Montana put down his fork and took a folded piece of yellow paper from his jeans pocket. He handed it to me then went back to excavating his shepherd’s pie.

It was a letter from Bob.

“Montana,”
it began.

We’ve worked together for almost ten years now and I know I can trust you. I’ve already given you a list of people I was once close with and who I think in some way believe they would benefit from my death. Nothing is written in stone, you understand, but if it proves true and one of them wanted me dead, then only one of the six is guilty. I hope you never have to use this list, but should the occasion arise, I know I’m in your good hands and you will not let me down.

Here’s what I want you to do. You will have Daisy invite each one of them on a Mediterranean cruise to “celebrate my life.” A sort of floating wake, you might say. You’ll need to give them a sweetener—and I’ll bet this will get them where it counts. You will offer each of them one hundred thousand dollars to go on a luxury cruise, all expenses paid. You will also tell them that my will is to be read at the Villa Belkiss in Capri the day the yacht puts in there, and that some of them can expect to benefit. Make no mistake, Montana, each one of these people will think they are mentioned in my will.

Tell them that I personally wanted to invite them and that, had I been alive, I would have joined them as their host. They’ll be
dying
to know what’s in it for them—if you’ll excuse the pun. Anyhow, I always wanted to go on a cruise and never had the time, so I’m thinking why not also invite a few more friends? Fill out the ranks of suspects, so to speak. These sorts of mystery stories always had a few red herrings and we’ll use these other guests as ours. I’ll give you a separate list of names for this, or you can choose some.

Call me an eccentric old bugger if you will, but I always liked those
movies where “the butler did it,” and I thought this would be a good way to find out who my “butler” was.

Blue Boat
is the yacht I’ve chosen. It’s owned by a friend and I suggest you contact her as soon as possible. It’s the Ritz-Carlton of luxury yachts—big, elegant, classy, and with an excellent crew, so my friend tells me. I wish I could come with you but maybe I’ll be watching the proceedings anyway. You never know. Anyhow, I want them all to have a damned good time—except my killer, of course.

You’re a good man at your job, Montana, the best, I’d say, and I know you’ll carry out my last commission in your usual excellent fashion. Your fee, as always, is already taken care of, as will be all expenses. My lawyers, Grady, Marshal, Levin and Frost, whose offices are in Moorgate, London, have been fully apprised of the situation and will carry out your orders.

One more thing. I’m handing my most precious possession over to you for safekeeping. I use the word
possession
in its loosest sense because I never
owned
Daisy Keane. Still, she is my only family. I love her, though I’m sure you know by now she can be as exasperating as any woman you’ve even known and then some. It will be your job, Montana, to keep her safe. With you at her side, I know I’m not putting her at risk, and who knows, you might even enjoy each other’s company.

Good luck on your quest. Then, when it’s all over and done with and the murderer has been apprehended, I will surely be able to rest in peace. Until then, don’t bet on it!

Having written all this, I’m not currently planning on going anywhere and these events may never have to be played out. But if they are, then good luck. Enjoy the cruise.

He signed it
“Sincerely, Bob Hardwick.”

My heart began to thaw. Bob had called me his “family,” he’d also said he loved me. But he’d also said I might be in danger and I’d need Montana’s protection. For the first time I felt a pang of fear.

I glanced at Montana, enjoying his lunch, oblivious to my possible danger. My fate was in his hands. Thanks to Bob, I was to cruise the Mediterranean on a luxury yacht with a man I scarcely knew and certainly didn’t want to know, as well as half a dozen murder suspects, whom I would be expected to entertain under the ploy that it was Bob’s idea of a farewell memorial.

“Okay.” I sighed, resigning myself to my fate. “So where’s the list?”

Montana took another sheet of yellow paper from his pocket. Without looking he handed it over and continued eating.
“Thanks,”
I said, but sarcasm seemed wasted on him.

It was Bob’s handwriting all right and with one exception I knew all of the people on it. The ex-wife, Lady Diane Hardwick, headed up the list.

“I know what Diane’s motive for murder would be,” I said. “Greed. Bob told me that when he married her he was marrying ‘class.’ That’s exactly the way he put it. She’s some kind of French aristocracy, though Bob never met her family. I remember her maiden name though, it was de Valentinois … Diane de Valentinois. Very romantic, I thought.

“Bob met her at the Cannes Film Festival. She was handing out information pamphlets, and he told me she was wearing a sexy red evening dress that showed off her gorgeous body to
perfection. ‘One look and I was a goner,’ he told me. ‘I’d have done anything to make her mine.’

“That was ten years ago. Diane must be about my age now, maybe a little older. I met her once or twice. She would simply descend on us, in Paris or the Riviera, always ready to cause trouble. She’s beautiful though. Red hair, lighter than mine, and emerald green eyes. And she does have fabulous legs. Bob told me he fell for the legs first, then the hair. I sometimes wondered if it was because of nostalgia for Diane and the red hair that he picked me up at that awful London party, though he always swore it wasn’t. Anyhow, their marriage was turbulent; it lasted only a year, but Diane insisted on keeping her title. She made it a condition of the divorce, and now she’s still Lady Hardwick. Bob was generous too; ever the gentleman, he gave her an enormous settlement. ‘After all, she was my wife,’ was what he said.”

“So when Diane ‘descended’ on Bob in Paris or the South of France, she was after more money.”

I nodded. “God knows why she needed it, he’d already given her a fortune, but she’s the kind who always wants more. Anyhow, now she lives in Nice.”

I went to the next name on the list.

“Filomena Algardi was Bob’s ex-mistress. A modern-day Italian Brigitte Bardot: the pout, the blond ponytail, the bikini—sexy as all get-out. Bob had an on-and-off relationship with her for years, but she was greedy, and in the end he couldn’t take her demands, or the tantrums when she didn’t get what she wanted. It’s easy to find motives for her. How about jealousy
and
greed?

“I never told Bob this,” I added softly, “but I felt sorry for him. He wanted so badly to believe Filomena loved him,
really loved
him, for the man he was and not just his money. So many times I wanted to say, ‘She doesn’t, don’t do it, Bob, get rid of her, you’re worth a million times more than she is’—and I wasn’t just talking money. I wanted to tell him he was looking for love in all the wrong places and with the wrong sorts of women. There were nice women right here in the Yorkshire countryside, attractive women, women he’d understand because basically they were the same kind of people. I invited one or two to dinner parties but Bob was always a sucker for the glitz and the glamour girls. ‘I wanted to flaunt Filomena on my arm,’ he told me one night after too much after-dinner port. ‘I wanted ’em all to know that ugly old Bob Hardwick was good as they were.’” I sighed, remembering. “So you see, despite Bob’s success and his wealth, at heart he was still the poor homely lad from the wrong side of the tracks.

“I only met Filomena once,” I added. “She came charging into Bob’s London offices screaming he was a cheap bastard and that she’d get back at him, just you wait. Security took care of her but it was an ugly scene. She’d wanted to embarrass Bob and bring him to heel. I always felt that with Filomena anything might happen, and too often it did.”

I took a long draft of my Tetley’s bitter before I read out the next name.

“Davis Farrell. American. I never met him, he was before my time, but he and Bob were partners in a project for several years. I don’t know what it was but I know it wasn’t successful. I guess Farrell just moved on.”

The next on the list was Charles Clement. I said, “In his fifties, flashy in a smooth British kind of way. I remember he spent a couple of weekends at Sneadley. They’d play golf and tennis and he was there for the August grouse shoot on the moors. They were very much ‘guy’ weekends—no women, lots of booze and food and man-talk over port after dinner. They certainly didn’t want me there; I’d make sure everything was organized then head back down to London, out of their way.”

“You have friends in London?”

“Sure, one or two; career women like myself, tied to their bosses’ whims and lives and travels. It doesn’t leave much time for a private life, but we get together occasionally—lunch, shopping, that sort of thing.”

“No special friend then?”

“Bob was my special friend. And Bordelaise, of course.”

Montana raised his brows at her ridiculous name so I told him the story of how she got it.

He laughed. “And is Bordelaise
saucy
then?”

“As all get-out. She’ll charm you in half a minute. You’ll fall in love with her. Everyone does.”

“She’s alone and fancy-free?”

“Two husbands down and one on his way out. She gets bored easily.”

Montana leaned closer, elbows on his knees, hands held loosely in front of him. His eyes had an intensity that I found disturbing and I went quickly on to the next name.

“Marius Dopplemann.” I glanced up again. Obviously Montana knew the name, everyone did. Dopplemann was a genius, a German national who’d taken American citizenship and
become famous and influential, first in the space program, then in other top-secret projects. “The German scientist?” I said. “I never met him and Bob never talked about him except once to say he admired his work. I’ve no idea of a possible motive.”

“And the last name?”

“Rosalia Alonzo Ybarra. The first I heard of her was in his letter to me. She’s his long-lost first love.”

Montana said, “There’s no address for her, or for Dopplemann. Nor for Clement and Farrell.”

I shrugged. “They might be on Bob’s personal Rolodexes.”

It was time to go. Montana helped me on with my jacket; he lifted my hair off my neck and settled the collar snugly. I felt myself go warm all over and turned my face away so he wouldn’t see that I was blushing. It was silly to react this way simply at the touch of a man’s hands. I decided I really must get out in the world more.

Montana walked over to the bar to pay, stopping to chat with Ginny and Reg while I collected Rats from his chosen spot in front of the fire.