The Power of One

by Jane A. Adams

  Contents

  Cover

  Recent titles by Jane A. Adams from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Epilogue

  Recent titles by Jane A. Adams from Severn House

  The Naomi Blake Mysteries

  MOURNING THE LITTLE DEAD

  TOUCHING THE DARK

  HEATWAVE

  KILLING A STRANGER

  LEGACY OF LIES

  The Rina Martin Mysteries

  A REASON TO KILL

  FRAGILE LIVES

  THE POWER OF ONE

  THE POWER OF ONE

  A Rina Martin Mystery

  Jane A. Adams

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in 2009 in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  This eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Ltd.

  Copyright © 2009 by Jane A. Adams.

  The right of Jane A. Adams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Adams, Jane, 1960–

  The power of one

  1. Martin, Rina (Fictitious character) – Fiction

  2. McGregor, Sebastian (Fictitious character) – Fiction

  3. Women private investigators – Fiction

  4. Computer games industry – Employees – Crimes against – Fiction

  5. Murder – Investigation – Fiction

  6. Detective and mystery stories

  I. Title

  823.9’14[F]

  ISBN–13: 978–0–7278–6762–9 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-685-4 (epub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  ONE

  Frantham baked in the August heat. The sea, flat calm and an almost unnatural blue, was dotted with bathers in bright suits and the promenade thronged with families, clattering their buckets and spades and hauling their picnic baskets and plastic coolers down on to an already overcrowded beach.

  The season had started slow, bad weather – and a bit of a crime wave – keeping the tourists away until early July. Then the sun had come out and so had the holidaymakers. The B&Bs in Rina’s street, the owners of which had despaired of survival at the start of the season, were now turning visitors away or cramming them into so-called ‘family rooms’; a couple of single beds forced in beside the double so that the little children could share with mum and dad. Even Rina’s precious Peverill Lodge had been inundated by would-be guests hammering on the door in the hope that the ‘No Vacancies’ sign outside was an oversight and she might be concealing a couple of secret apartments. Rina, as a rule, hung no sign outside of her guest house advertising vacancies or the lack thereof; her guests were family and there until … well until they shuffled off, but this summer, in self-defence, she had been forced to have a little sign made and a second stuck in her window just in case anyone missed the point. It hadn’t worked, Rina reflected as she paced slowly along the promenade. She was still turning away two or three callers a day.

  To be truthful, she preferred Frantham in the off season though she was not so churlish as to begrudge any of the fast-reddening crowd their week or two in the sun. She understood that for many folk this was their one proper break. She did wish though, that they’d learn to wear suncream.

  Rina paused to look out to sea, puzzled by something she had spotted half an hour before when she’d been out shopping and which had now drawn her back on to the promenade. The boat was still out there. Still turning circles, though she fancied it had come closer into shore than when it first caught her notice. A second boat had joined it now, the coastguard launch. So something was wrong then? The coastguard stood off from the other boat as though those on board were trying to figure out what to do and, as Rina watched, the inshore lifeboat joined them, the orange inflatable drawing up alongside the circling vessel. Rina found twenty pence in her purse and fed it into one of the pay-to-view telescopes dotted at intervals along the promenade. She trained it on the activity in the bay. A motor yacht, rather a nice one from what she could make out, was turning increasingly flabby circles and listing slightly. She could see the wheelhouse, but no one steering. The lifeboat crew were trying to get a line attached and the motion of the yacht dragged the little boat with it. Rina wondered how on earth they were going to get a man on board and what had happened to the crew?

  Her time ran out and she didn’t have another twenty pence. Frustrated, she shaded her eyes with a broad hand and tried to make out what was going on. No one on the beach seemed to have noticed anything untoward. Children shrieked and squabbled and parents chided and tried to delay the moment when they’d be forced to accompany their offspring into the still-cold sea, even the hottest of August days being insufficient to warm such a stubbornly chill stretch of ocean.

  ‘Best go and see what’s happening,’ she said to no one in particular. There was a good chance that the coastguard would tow the boat into the newly built marina just beyond the old town. She might just head out there, get herself a nice cool drink and sit under one of those pink stripy umbrellas on the clubhouse terrace and wait to see what came ashore.

  Rina had quite a long wait, but she didn’t mind. Sitting in the shade with her sunglasses on and her sandals off, she observed the action in company with a dozen more who had also noticed it and were exchanging enthusiastic speculation. Rina listened. The crowd at the mari
na was an interesting mix of locals and regular visitors; boat people who ran charters, or fished, or practically lived aboard floating homes that ranged in fit up from ramshackle wooden vessels to luxury surpassing the average upmarket semi. Unlike some marinas further along the coast and dedicated to the pleasures of the summer crowd, Frantham’s boat club was not a particularly snobbish affair and she knew, at least by sight, all of those who presently shared her vantage point.

  ‘Heart attack. I betcha,’ someone said. ‘Owner went out on his own and popped his clogs.’

  ‘Steering problem? I know it doesn’t seem likely. Boat of that class shouldn’t go wrong but …’

  ‘Got a man aboard. Finally!’

  Rina sipped her drink and nodded thoughtfully. A heart attack seemed like a possible explanation, she thought, or at least a partial one. It didn’t explain why the boat was sailing in circles. Well she was quite comfortable here and had nothing pressing this afternoon, so she would just have to wait and see. She borrowed a pair of binoculars and took a closer look at the activity on board. A second man had joined the first and the boat, no longer under power, bobbed gently in the calm water and Rina could get a good view of men gesticulating, one coming back to the rail to shout something to the coastguard.

  Something very wrong, Rina thought. Something very wrong indeed.

  She handed the binoculars back to their owner with a word of thanks.

  ‘Bit of excitement on a summer afternoon,’ the man said with a smile.

  ‘Certainly is,’ Rina agreed and settled more comfortably in her chair to enjoy the rest of the show.

  ‘You look cool and relaxed.’

  Rina smiled at the familiar voice. ‘Oh I am,’ she said. ‘Pull up a seat and I’ll order you a drink.’

  Mac laughed and sat down. He was in his shirtsleeves this afternoon, his jacket dangling from one finger. A new jacket, Rina noted. Linen and rather expensive-looking. She guessed Miriam must have chosen it for him and nodded approval. Miriam had been very good for DI McGregor and he was taking much more care of himself, remembering to shave most days and actually visiting the barber on a regular basis instead of making do with a pair of nail scissors and the bathroom mirror. He looked less exhausted too, the blue-grey eyes no longer so deeply shadowed. Rina was very gratified, knowing that while Miriam had worked her magic, his recovery from the effects of grief, followed by massive consumption of alcohol, was also due to Rina and her mad little household and the very real affection in which Mac was held and which, in full measure, he returned.

  A waiter appeared magically at her shoulder and she ordered Mac a Pimms and a second for herself.

  Mac raised an eyebrow. ‘I am on duty, you know.’

  Rina waved airily. ‘Pimms has too much fruit in it to count as alcoholic,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it’s not as if you’ve got to drive anywhere. Nowhere in Frantham is more than a ten-minute walk.’

  He laughed. ‘Too true,’ he agreed, ‘and if I do have to follow the body back to the mortuary, Andy can drive me, he should be here in a minute or so.’

  Rina sat bolt upright. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘From the boat?’

  ‘From the boat,’ Mac agreed. He smiled at her. ‘I might have known you’d be here. I don’t think anything can happen in Frantham without Rina Martin knowing about it first.’

  Mockingly, she tapped the side of her nose. ‘I like to keep my hand in,’ she agreed, then said more seriously, ‘Do they know what happened?’

  Mac shook his head. ‘I’ve no more details yet, Rina.’ He accepted the drink that had just arrived and then squinted out across the water. ‘Looks like they’ve got her under tow,’ he added. He sat back, made himself comfortable and sipped appreciatively. ‘This is nice, the drink, the umbrellas, the company. Pity it’s likely to end badly. Death on a beautiful summer day like this doesn’t seem quite right.’

  ‘Chances are it was just a heart attack or something,’ Rina suggested. ‘You’ll get off early.’

  Mac laughed at the seemingly innocent supposition. ‘Come on Rina, if the coastguard thought that then they’d have simply called an ambulance and yours truly would have continued with his quiet afternoon catching up on paperwork.’

  ‘So …?’

  Mac leaned forward to deposit his glass back on the table. ‘The coastguard seem to think there’s been a shooting,’ he said quietly. ‘And they don’t seem to figure it for suicide.’

  TWO

  It was close on another hour before the yacht was brought into the marina. Andy Nevins, the young probationary officer based at Frantham, had arrived by then. His bright-red hair flamed in the afternoon sun and his freckled skin displayed signs of disliking such exposure. He waved away Rina’s offer of suncream with an attempt at dignity. ‘I’ll be fine, thank you, Mrs Martin. I don’t think I can really stand here in uniform smearing meself with goo, can I?’

  She saw Mac stifle a smile and tucked the tube of ‘goo’ back into her capacious summer bag, a welcome present from her young friend, Ursula, a thirteen-year-old with a very distinctive sense of style. Fuchsia-pink candy stripes were not really Rina’s usual choice, but she had to admit that the bag brightened up her usual pastel outfits and did make her question the received wisdom that older women should stick to lilacs, creams and lavenders. The long skirt she was wearing today was a further result of Ursula’s influence and Rina had to admit that she loved the indigo linen and the way the bias cut encouraged it to swish around her ankles. It made her feel positively girlish, though for Rina it was more than fifty years since she had matched Ursula’s age.

  ‘Looks like this is us,’ Mac said. ‘Andy, you hang on here for a while, if I need you, I’ll shout.’

  ‘Right you are, boss.’

  The police medic had arrived and Rina and Andy watched as he and Mac were taken aboard and the coastguard directed them aft. Andy took the seat Mac had just vacated.

  ‘Who has jurisdiction here?’ Rina mused. Usually at a crime scene the first uniformed officer on scene became, by default, the crime scene manager and secured the scene, kept it pristine until the CSI had done their thing and only then were the detectives allowed free rein.

  ‘Coastguard,’ Andy said. ‘Then they’ll sign off to uniform. I guess they just want to get the doc to confirm death and get the boss down there just to tell them what to do next.’

  Rina nodded, then frowned. A vague feeling of familiarity had been growing as she had seen the yacht brought in. She knew this boat. At first she had just assumed that the familiarity stemmed from long pleasurable hours spent watching the comings and goings in the marina, but now as she caught sight of the name painted on the bow the vague feeling solidified into certainty.

  She grabbed Andy’s arm, much to the young man’s discomfiture. ‘You OK, Mrs Martin?’

  She nodded. ‘Andy, I know whose boat this is. It’s The Greek Girl, it’s Paul’s boat. Paul de Freitas’ boat.’

  ‘What, as in the people who bought the airfield? Those de Freitas’s?’

  Rina nodded. She released her hold on his arm and patted him instead. ‘Tell Mac,’ she instructed. ‘I’d better be going, Andy. I won’t be the only one who recognises that boat.’

  Andy stared at her, open-mouthed, then he glanced back towards the vessel, looking to see if Mac was returning yet. By the time it occurred to him that maybe the police should be the ones to deliver the news of possible murder and not the redoubtable Mrs Martin, Rina was long gone.

  THREE

  ‘Registered owner is Mr Paul de Freitas,’ the coastguard told Mac. ‘We found him down in the aft cabin. The other man isn’t known to us and we’ve not checked for identification. No one wanted to move the body until CSI had been down.’

  ‘And you’re sure it’s de Freitas?’

  The coastguard nodded. ‘I know the man,’ he said. ‘Or rather, I knew him. Practically lived aboard his boat. Mind you, if I owned something like this, so would I.’

  Mac glanced around. They were sta
nding in the main cabin. Well-upholstered seats surrounded a cherry wood table on which was a scatter of marine-related magazines. A small, but well-equipped galley kitchen could be glimpsed through a half-open sliding door. It was not the most luxurious yacht that Mac had ever seen, but it looked comfortable and, from the variety of personal items carefully stowed on shelves and racks, obviously well loved and well used. Other doors hinted at berths and heads and, although The Greek Girl was not new, Mac could see that the finish and quality had been high when she was and had stood the test of time.

  ‘Very pleasant,’ he agreed. Or would have been. He studied the body of the unknown man lying face down just below the steps leading down into the cabin. Through the open door, Mac glimpsed the second body in the aft cabin. He had not gone in. The coastguard had confirmed death – the large bullet wound in de Freitas’ head making that an easy task; the second, similar wound in the stranger’s body also easy to identify. Once he had realized this was a crime scene, the coastguard had then backtracked on to the deck, taking care to mark his route, improvising with a pack of tissues he happened to have had in his pocket.

  Miriam would be proud, Mac thought. She had recently conducted a seminar for the coastguard and lifeboat crews about the handling of crime scenes. Familiar voices drifting down from the deck told him that the local doctor who served on the police rota and who had now confirmed the coastguard’s judgement of death was chatting to the SOCO team. He listened, but did not hear Miriam’s voice, just that of the crime scene manager, Philip Olds, and Kieran Bates, one of his newer recruits. Mac waited for them to come down.

  ‘I like the tissues,’ Philip commented with a laugh. ‘Nice bit of lateral thinking. Kieran, lay the plates on top, will you. Afternoon, Mac, how are you today?’

  ‘I’m good, thanks. I’ll leave you to it, then. Not a lot more I can do here so I’d best get on and see the family.’

  Philip nodded. ‘You’ve got an ID, then?’

  Mac pointed. ‘The man in there is Paul de Freitas. As yet, we don’t have a clue about his friend.’