Deception On the Danube

by D'arcy Kavanagh

  “Get any results?”

  Burke told his friend what he had discovered.

  “How were you able to find them in any photos or videos?” Claude asked. “Weren’t those huge races with thousands of runners?”

  “Big races like that post finish times for all competitors,” Burke said, sitting up. “It took me just a minute or two to find Felicity Blake’s time. And then when I looked closer, I saw Wilson Talbot’s name right behind hers. They’d finished with the same time. Knowing when they finished, I went to the videos of the start of the race. A lot of big events like these want the runners lined up according to the time they expect to finish in. If the organizers didn’t do that, there’d be all kinds of collisions as fast runners tried to work their way through the ranks of slower ones. To help runners find the right group to race with, the organizers put up big signs indicating expected time of finish. Those signs show up in all the photos of the start. Felicity Blake finished the half marathon in one hour, 35 minutes. So, I searched for the start group which expected to finish in 1:30 to 1:40. And guess what? She was there.”

  “Clever, Paul.”

  “Not really. It’s just a matter of knowing how these events are organized. The websites for the races also had dozens of photos and videos of the finish and it helped that the people shooting those photos and videos always made sure to have a race clock prominently featured. Finding Felicity Blake and Talbot wasn’t difficult.”

  “And you did the same with the London and Manchester races, right?”

  “I figured if my system worked once, it might be successful for London and for Manchester. And it was.”

  “OK, so you believe they were having an affair. But what can you do with that information?”

  “That’s one question which I don’t have an answer for. Another question without an answer is did Bennett Blake know about the affair? If he did know, what did he do? I haven’t a clue, but I’m wondering if it’s possible he found out, lured Talbot to Richard the Lionheart’s castle and killed him. Can I prove anything beyond Felicity and Talbot were having an affair? No. And then I start to wonder if it was someone other than Bennett Blake who killed Talbot.”

  “But you’re still sure Talbot was murdered?”

  “Absolutely. In my mind, there’s no way he went for a twilight run and had a tragic accident. Someone wanted him dead. But I’m lost about what to do next.”

  “What about talking to your police buddy, Karl Paschke?”

  “I think he has a notion that Talbot was murdered, but it doesn’t matter because I think he’s done with me.”

  Claude rubbed his chin. “From everything we know, Paul, it seems unlikely Bennett Blake would have somehow persuaded Talbot to go with him to the top of the climb. I mean, what excuse would Blake have for hiking up there and getting Talbot to join him? Do you want to see the pretty view? How about we discuss office politics while viewing the mighty Danube? Or can we visit the Lionheart’s castle where I’ll punch you in the nose for screwing my wife?”

  “I know, I know. I’m like you, Claude, I don’t see Blake and Talbot going up there together at all. Moreover, if by some miracle, Blake did talk Talbot into climbing to the castle with him, I expect Talbot would have been leery about his boss’s intentions. And when Blake tried to kill him, there would likely have been a scuffle. But the police told me there were no signs of any fight.”

  “So, if Talbot was pushed, he must have been surprised by someone he trusted completely.”

  There was silence. And then Burke provided the only name that came to mind. “Felicity Blake.”

  “Felicity Blake?” Claude said. He paused for a few seconds and then nodded. “You’re right. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

  “But where’s the motive? Why would she want to kill her lover? She seemed genuinely upset when she heard the news,” said Burke, recalling the scene when passengers had been told about Talbot’s death.

  “Maybe she’s a good actor.”

  Burke replayed the conversations he’d had with Felicity Blake. She’d been polite, if a little distant, when they had met at the start of the tour. When they had talked soon after Talbot’s death, she had clearly been unhappy, torn between discussing her unfulfilling marriage and hiding her feelings from someone she didn’t really know. After Blake’s murder, she had seemed shocked and upset, but those feelings had rapidly disappeared and she had returned to her normal routine and her usual calm, polite, slightly distant self.

  And then Burke recalled Claude’s theory about a person’s eating habits being a barometer for that individual’s personality or emotions. Felicity Blake had barely touched her food in the days after Talbot’s death, but she had regained her appetite not long after Blake had been murdered.

  Burke mentioned that observation to Claude who nodded.

  “Now that you mention it, I noticed that, too,” Claude said. “She certainly didn’t act like the grieving widow for very long. I even saw her out running only two days after Blake was stabbed to death which I thought was odd. How many people keep exercising so close to the loss of a spouse, even one they may not have loved?”

  “OK, let’s go with the theory that she killed him. That brings us to how – and why – she managed to get Talbot to the castle ruins that evening.”

  “If they were lovers, she could have lured him up there for some kind of evening tryst,” Claude said. “Maybe the notion of sex at the very place where Richard the Lionheart spent time might have been a turn-on. A little weird, but people can be unusual with their lovemaking.”

  “But why kill him? Where’s the motive?”

  Claude shrugged, saying, “I’ve got no answers.”

  “Let’s turn it around. What if it was Talbot who got her to go up there with him? What if he wanted to tell her something that he didn’t want overheard elsewhere?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “That he had discovered something, not about them or about her, but about Bennett Blake.”

  “You mean Talbot had somehow learned about Blake’s blackmailing his colleagues?”

  “Maybe, but I think it’s more likely that Talbot was using his boss’s computer one day for work and found something that suggested Blake was a child-porn enthusiast. In truth, Blake probably had visited the websites as part of his blackmail scheme, but Talbot wouldn’t know that. He probably thought his boss was a pervert.”

  “If that was the case, Talbot was handling dynamite.”

  “He probably thought about confronting Blake, but felt that wouldn’t work because his boss could dump all traces of his involvement with the child porn. He might have considered alerting the police, but been afraid he’d be implicated as some kind of accessory. That left one other option: Tell Felicity what he’d discovered and look to her for a decision.”

  “So, he grabs Felicity and goes up to the ruins to tell her about her husband, hoping she’ll dump Blake and go with him and live happily ever after. However, something goes wrong and he ends up dead.”

  There was silence while Burke considered his friend’s theory, one image after another racing through his mind. Then he locked onto an idea.

  “I think Felicity Blake is one of those people who keep their true feelings well hidden,” Burke said. “She wants the world to see her only as she wants them to. She’s smart, in control, attractive and socially successful. That’s her image. That’s what she wants to portray all the time. And she does a good job of it. If you go through various websites and see her at big social functions, she’s always smiling widely, looking glamorous and in total control.”

  “She’s a woman of tremendous pride,” came a new voice.

  Burke and Claude looked at Hélène who was staring back at them. “I’ve been listening to your conversation for some time,” she said. “I kept my eyes shut because I’m still tired and because I wanted to concentrate on what you were discussing.”

  “OK, you m
entioned pride,” her uncle said. “Why?”

  “I’ve been thinking about Felicity Blake as well and the more I’ve thought about her, the more I believe you’re right that she did it, not because she was afraid of losing her lifestyle, but because of the potential shame she’d feel if the world learned her husband’s desires ran to child porn. I think there’s no doubt she despised her husband, but, even more, she hated the idea that his secret would be discovered and she’d be shamed. Talbot was dangerous because he had that information. He had to go, at least in her mind. It was all about protecting her sense of self.”

  “But he wasn’t into child porn,” Claude said.

  “That’s true but she probably didn’t know that when they were together by the castle ruins,” Burke said. “If Talbot told her that he had proof her husband was into child porn, she probably questioned him about it but, in the end, she believed it. And then, standing up there, she had to decide what mattered more, Wilson Talbot or her pride and self-worth. I’m with Hélène and vote for her pride and her self-worth. And when she came to that realization, she knew there was only one way to keep herself safe – kill Wilson Talbot.”

  “And so she pushed Wilson Talbot to his death?” Claude said.

  “He probably didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late,” Burke replied. “I expect she was prepared to do whatever it took to get rid of him. If he landed on the rocks but didn’t die, she probably would have found a stone and finished the job, and then made it look like an accident.”

  “Isn’t all this difficult to prove, chéri?” Hélène said.

  “You’re right, it is,” Burke said, thinking it might be impossible to prove.

  “And after all that, Niklaus Gast goes out and murders Bennett Blake,” Claude said.

  “Which is perfect for Felicity,” Burke said. “She gets rid of a husband whom she despises and gets sympathy from countless people. She also inherits some decent money and retains her social status, at least for a while. An acceptable ending.”

  The three of them sat in silence, letting the minutes tick away. Burke expected they were all thinking the same.

  Now what?

  Chapter 68

  One hour later, after Claude and Hélène had left to work on the final meal of the tour, Burke started to have doubts about one aspect and knew he had to check it out, if only for his own peace of mind. When they had talked about what had happened by the ruins, they had all jumped to the conclusion that Felicity Blake hadn’t known about Talbot’s news until then. But what if that premise was wrong? What if Felicity had known before that fateful evening about her husband’s supposed involvement in child pornography?

  Burke wasn’t sure how to find a definitive answer, but he thought he might get some hints by digging into all the photos that Carmen Moreau had posted on the tour’s website. She had taken hundreds of pictures and dozens of videos, posting them for everyone’s enjoyment. But Burke was interested in her work for only one period – the evening before Wilson Talbot’s body was found.

  It was easy to find Moreau’s photos from that time since she had catalogued her work into morning-afternoon-evening for each day. He studied the photos of the buffet dinner, seeing Bennett Blake, Felicity Blake and Wilson Talbot at the same table. In one picture, Blake looked like he was ready to party, Felicity was frowning and Talbot seemed anxious, maybe even afraid. Burke checked two other photos. The same expressions.

  Then he looked at post-dinner photos. There had been some music and several passengers were dancing. But not the Blakes or Talbot. Another photo showed Bennett Blake holding court in the lounge bar, a grin on his face and his arms spread wide as if he was telling a great story. Burke couldn’t help noticing the glum looks on a few members of his audience – Kendall Young, Gert Vanderkamp and Roger Langford.

  The clock behind Blake showed the time at 8:15.

  No sign of Felicity Blake or Wilson Talbot.

  Burke spotted a different photo from the lounge bar, this one featuring a chess game between Niklaus Gast and Hoshiko Kimura. Burke had no clue who was winning, but the match must have been a good one because there were several keen-eyed observers. In the background was Bennett Blake holding a glass of white wine and sitting beside Eric Chapman. The clock was again visible: 9:40.

  No Felicity Blake or Wilson Talbot.

  But Burke knew their absence didn’t prove anything.

  He wondered if the village had any surveillance cameras for the castle ruins, but put that aside. The police would definitely have checked them if they existed. And if they had found anything, it would be known by now.

  A dead end.

  But Burke still wanted to know if Felicity and Talbot knew about Bennett Blake’s link to the child-porn ring before Dürnstein. Maybe they had been talking about what to do for a couple of days or even longer.

  So he went back into Moreau’s photos and video, searching for anything involving Felicity and Talbot in the days before the young man died. He found a few shots from the day before in Melk, famed for its spectacular Benedictine Abbey that stands overlooking the old part of the town.

  Felicity and Talbot were side by side in the shot, both looking glum despite the magnificent surroundings.

  He went back another day to when they had stayed in Grein, another picturesque community. He needed only seconds to find Felicity and Talbot in a large group shot. Again, they seemed bothered by something.

  He shifted back another day to when the Sunna had docked by Mauthausen. Almost everyone had visited the Second World War concentration camp perched in the hills five kilometres from the town. Moreau’s photos that evening showed a lot of sad faces, an obvious reaction to touring a site where as many as 150,000 people had perished in horrific conditions.

  But when he spotted Talbot and Felicity, they didn’t look as distressed as they did the next day. They weren’t smiling, but they didn’t look nearly as unhappy as most of the others.

  Burke went back another day. In two photos and one video, both Talbot and Felicity were smiling.

  So, he thought, they had learned about Bennett Blake’s child-porn connections two days before Talbot died, sometime after the visit to the Mauthausen concentration camp and before the group photo taken in Grein.

  If it was Felicity who lured Talbot to the castle ruins in Dürnstein, why did she pick there? Then Burke recalled she had been to the village a few years before on a vacation. She knew its layout and presumably knew about the castle ruins. Maybe she thought it was the best place for a quiet evening meeting.

  But how had she persuaded him to go with her to the castle when darkness was setting in? Maybe with a promise of sex. Or by suggesting it would be a romantic place to watch the sunset. And then Burke pondered what might have happened just before she had pushed him to his death. Had they kissed or touched? If they had, that meant DNA. So, had the crime-scene technicians looked for anyone else’s DNA on Wilson Talbot? Burke didn’t know, but he thought it was worth a phone call to try to find out.

  He punched in Karl Plaschke’s number but only got his voice mail. He switched to a text, asking if the flic knew if DNA tests had been conducted on Wilson Talbot. And if there had been, he asked if there was anything that connected to Felicity Blake.

  Not sure if and when Plaschke might respond, Burke dressed quickly and headed for the dining room where breakfast would be fully underway.

  The room was half full. The people there weren’t smiling, just grabbing coffee and food, exchanging a few remarks with shipmates and anticipating when they’d be gone from the Sunna and from the nightmare that had taken over the ship.

  He didn’t see Felicity Blake.

  Burke went to the kitchen and asked Hélène if she had seen Blake. She shook her head. “I haven’t, but I’ve been too busy in here to keep much of a lookout.”

  Burke returned to the dining room and spotted Carmen Moreau. He grabbed her before she went to the buffet tables. “N
o photos today to mark the occasion?” he said.

  “It wouldn’t be a good idea,” she said with a tired smile.

  He asked if she had seen Felicity Blake during the morning.

  “I was on the top deck before coming here and I saw her going down the gangplank about a half hour ago. She was dressed in a track suit and carried a shoulder bag.”

  “She must have been off to her half marathon,” said Burke. He decided to change topics. “What will you do after today?”

  “I have to be at work in Nice in three days. When we’re back home, Monsieur Delisle and I will be busy providing a detailed report about everything that’s happened this last week.”

  “What happens after you’ve finished your report?”

  “Starting in another week, Monsieur Delisle and I will be working with a group conducting a four-day training session in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence which will be good because my home town is just down the road in Cavaillon.”

  “I love that area,” said Burke, meaning it. “It’s one of my favourite areas in all of France.”

  “Mine, too. After that, I’m on vacation for two weeks. My boyfriend and I will be going to Catalonia in Spain. We’re going to spend our time in Barcelona, Girona and on the beaches.”

  “That’ll be a nice break after what’s happened on the Sunna.”

  Burke asked if she knew what Renata Hable was planning and Moreau said the Dutch woman was taking a few weeks off work. “I’m not sure if she’s struggling with everything that’s happened on board or has something else going on. She’s been a little secretive. What about you, Paul? What’ll you do?”

  “Hélène, Claude and I will go home tomorrow. We’re going to try to get back into our regular routines as fast as possible. For me, that means more blogs, columns and the TV show I’m a panellist on.”

  “I’ve never told you this, but my boyfriend likes to watch that sports show you’re on,” Moreau said with a shy smile. “He thinks you’re the best panelist. In fact, I think he’s got a bit of a man crush on you. He’s asked me a couple of times if we could get together for dinner when we get back.”