Murder by the Sea

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘It could be perfectly innocent, you know, Fran,’ said Libby. ‘Maybe it is just a businessman who reneged on a deal. And Bruce finally managed to buttonhole him.’

  Fran sighed. ‘And we’ve built it up into something it isn’t – again. I’d still like to know where he is, though.’

  When she passed Coastguard Cottage and carried on walking, Libby turned and looked at her. ‘Where are we going?’ she said.

  ‘There’s a new boat,’ said Fran. ‘The other side of the hard.’ She led the way across the hard in front of The Sloop, past the Dolphin and the Sparkler rocking gently at their moorings, and sure enough, tied up on the other side, a sleek dark launch skulked in the shadows.

  ‘How did you know?’ whispered Libby.

  Fran gave her a look, even as she was dialling Ian’s number. For once she got straight through.

  ‘It’s called the Ladana,’ said Fran. ‘Is that enough to check on?’

  Ian obviously asked a few more questions and Fran switched off.

  ‘Is this it, then?’ asked Libby, as they began to walk slowly back to the cars.

  ‘I’m sure that’s the boat Andrei was killed on,’ said Fran. ‘As we left The Swan it just came into my head. If we can check who it belongs to – well, we’ll be a step nearer.’

  Fran’s phone rang.

  ‘Yes, Ian?’ she said. A minute later she switched off and relayed the information to Libby.

  ‘He’d actually checked up on the marina or whatever it is at St Katherine’s Dock and got a list of boats moored there around about the time when Andrei died. When I gave him the name of the Ladana, he looked, and there it was. And –’ she paused for effect ‘– owned by Massimo Berini.’

  ‘Who?’ Libby wrinkled her brow. ‘Do we know him?’

  ‘No, idiot! Berini! Get it?’

  Libby shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Berini is one of the so-called great reformers of Italian politics,’ said Fran.

  ‘Is he? How do you know about him, then?’ asked Libby innocently.

  ‘Oh, come on, Lib. Don’t you ever follow the news?’

  ‘Not often,’ said Libby. ‘Except the local stuff.’

  ‘Berini’s famous, take my word for it. I can’t remember if his name is Massimo, but I bet it’s the same family.’

  ‘It sounds as though it’s quite a common name, though,’ said Libby dubiously. ‘Are we doing another of our well-known leaps of faith – otherwise known as jumping to conclusions?’

  ‘I’m sure not,’ said Fran, sounding quite excited. Libby was surprised.

  ‘So where does old Pietro come into this?’

  ‘Where does Terry come into this?’ countered Fran. ‘If Massimo has brought the boat down here it must be for a reason.’

  ‘Terry’s in hospital,’ reasoned Libby. ‘It can’t be for him.’

  ‘Why not? They could get him out.’

  ‘He’s got a police guard.’

  ‘Come to think of it,’ said Fran, ignoring Libby and retracing her steps towards the hard, ‘it was very risky to bring a boat registered in the family’s name down here, wasn’t it?’

  ‘But they don’t know about all the connections that have been made. They don’t know Andrei has been identified, or that Rosa had told Jane the whole story. Why should they worry?’

  ‘I want to know why it’s here now,’ said Fran, coming to a halt above the Ladana. ‘There’s been someone around apart from Terry for weeks, now, but they haven’t needed the boat.’

  ‘Do you really think it’s Terry?’ said Libby. ‘I don’t want to believe it.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Fran with a sigh. ‘But there’s still someone else around.’

  ‘Yes, signora,’ said a voice behind them, ‘and he’s right here.’

  Before either of them could scream or turn round a hand clamped over both of their mouths. Libby felt her hands being roughly pulled behind her and tied. Through a haze of fear she realised there must be two people, men, because the hand was still over her mouth. Then, to her horror, she was blindfolded.

  ‘Now down the ladder, ladies,’ said a different, more heavily accented voice. ‘We will guide you.’

  She was unceremoniously turned round and felt a hand grab her ankle. Instinctively, she kicked out and was brought to her knees as she was dealt a ringing blow to the head. She heard scuffling, and then realised she was being dragged over the side of hard, lifted and then almost flung into what she hoped was the Ladana. She heard a heavy thud and a yelp and realised Fran had joined her. For a while she lay there, listening to almost perfect silence. Her brain, for the last ten minutes a confused jumble of sensations rather than coherent thought, began to settle down.

  Who knew where they were, first. Well, Ben knew she was in Nethergate. Guy knew they were going to The Swan. Mike knew they’d been in The Swan. But nobody knew about the Ladana. Her heart lurched. Except Ian.

  She tried to move and finally succeeded in locating what she hoped was a part of Fran. A muffled squeak assured her it was.

  ‘Fran!’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is anyone else on here with us?’

  ‘I don’t know – I can’t see.’

  ‘Ian knows about the boat – do you think he’ll investigate –’

  ‘Ladies, ladies!’ The heavily accented voice called down. ‘No conversation, or we might have to gag you, too.’

  ‘Bugger,’ whispered Libby. ‘But hey, Fran. It can’t be Terry.’

  ‘No.’ Fran’s answer was a mere breath.

  The unmistakeable sound of boots on metal rungs indicated the arrival of one of their captors.

  ‘Now,’ said the more English of the two voices, ‘we’re going to have to take you for a little ride. You need to be out of the way for a while, and we have no wish to kill two such nice ladies, so just keep quiet and you’ll come to no harm.’

  Libby was so full of fear she couldn’t speak. She heard, and felt, the engine starting and bit down hard on her lip.

  Suddenly light flared across her blindfolded eyes and someone shouted. The boat lurched and crashed against the hard. Libby was flung sideways and ended up almost on top of Fran.

  More shouting. Someone landed heavily on the deck and then a voice, a voice Libby recognised.

  ‘They’re here!’ called Constable Maiden. And then, blessed relief, the blindfold was ripped off and through blurred eyes Libby saw him doing the same to Fran. She wriggled upright as he started on her hands and looked up.

  And there, held firmly by two policemen, stood Mike Charteris.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  ‘WHAT I WANT TO know,’ said Harry, pouring champagne into flutes, in what had become a traditional post-case celebration, although Ben preferred to call it post-chaos, ‘what I want to know is, was her name really Rosa?’

  Jane, tucked into a corner of The Pink Geranium’s big sofa with her Terry, nodded.

  ‘Oh, yes. Rosa Berini. And Mike is her brother.’

  ‘And what exactly did he plan to do with you two?’ asked Guy, who was holding on to Fran’s arm as though he was afraid if he let go she would float up to the ceiling.

  ‘As far as Ian can make out,’ said Libby, holding on to Ben in much the same manner, ‘they were going to take us somewhere and dump us while they ransacked Peel House. We were blindfolded so we couldn’t see it was Mike. And he’d disguised his voice.’

  ‘Who was the other guy – I mean, bloke?’ asked Terry, with an apologetic nod to Guy.

  ‘Not Pietro,’ laughed Fran. ‘We really did run ahead of ourselves there. It was the chap who owned the flat in Lansdowne Square. He’s a Berini cousin.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Harry, ‘who’s Pietro?’

  Libby and Fran explained.

  ‘And he was being paid by Mike – or Massimo, as I suppose we should call him,’ said Jane. ‘But only to employ Rosa to get close to me.’

  ‘And the reason behind this miscellany of misundersta
ndings?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Get him,’ said Libby, reaching across to poke his arm.

  ‘The reason,’ said Fran, ‘was some documents allegedly concealed somewhere in Peel House by Jane’s Aunt Jessica’s lover, Simon Madderling. They revealed, as we have now found out, from the Italian communists after the story was covered in Italy, that Giacomo Berini was a supporter of Mussolini and subsequently Hitler throughout the war and responsible for some of the nastier war crimes. All the time being seen to be holier-than-thou.’

  ‘Which his family have continued to be.’ Jane took up the story. ‘Any revelations would mean the Berinis would lose all power, and great grandfather Giacomo, now 92, would go on trial. They also have a healthy underground organisation aiding illegal immigrants from the non-European states.’

  ‘Lena and Andrei?’ said Libby.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So was Mike the vanishing Italian businessman?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Yes. He was investigating where Lena had worked, which was near Bruce’s firm, so came up with a cover story which was easy with all his family’s connections.’ Fran sighed. ‘And poor old Bruce was found unconscious in the car park by the police. He’d approached Mike – Massimo – and accused him of reneging on the deal with his company, and Mike realised his persona was at risk of being exposed. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill Bruce.’

  ‘That would have been another reason to get us out of the way,’ said Libby. ‘Once he’d been into Peel House and got away, it wouldn’t have mattered if Bruce had reported to us. We still wouldn’t have connected his Italian to Mike.’

  ‘But if he’d come round and reported to the police –’ interrupted Ben.

  ‘He was hit at least as hard as Terry was,’ said Fran, ‘and didn’t come round in hospital for ages. Chrissie was there by then. Blaming me, of course.’

  ‘So Mike would have been long gone by that time,’ said Guy. ‘He was a real chancer, wasn’t he?’

  Fran nodded. ‘He had luck on his side a lot of the way.’

  ‘And he saw the ad I persuaded Jane to put in the paper,’ groaned Libby.

  ‘And met Terry, who he realised was a real threat,’ said Fran. Terry tried to look modest.

  ‘So was it Mike who attacked Terry?’ asked Guy. ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘The first time, he hit Terry as he was coming in, took his keys to search his flat, then heard Mrs Finch taking her bin out. So he waited until she’d gone back in, dragged Terry on to the step, and pretended to discover him there,’ explained Libby. ‘Apparently.’

  ‘And the second time?’ asked Harry.

  ‘He had been to The Swan and the Carlton, as he said, but then left and realising we were both out, took the opportunity to search my flat. He turned out the lights and hit Terry when he went up the stairs, then rushed down past me,’ said Fran with a shudder, ‘then arranged himself neatly on the lower landing as though he’d been there a long time.’

  ‘But how did he fool the ambulance people if he hadn’t really been knocked out?’ asked Peter.

  ‘He deliberately banged his head on the bannisters,’ said Fran. ‘It didn’t knock him out, but gave him a convincing bump.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Harry. ‘There’s dedication to the cause.’

  ‘He’d already killed, remember, or the family had at least,’ said Libby. ‘The body on the island which started it all.’

  ‘Hang on again,’ said Harry, topping up with champagne. ‘You’ve lost me re the body.’

  ‘Andrei,’ said Jane, Libby and Fran together.

  ‘I know who he was, but why did they kill him and why did they put him on the island?’

  ‘They killed him because he knew too much,’ said Fran.

  ‘And they put him on the island as a warning to anyone in their organisation who didn’t toe the line,’ said Jane. ‘Not to warn me.’

  ‘How would people from their organisation know what it meant?’ asked Guy.

  ‘Most of the migrant workers would recognise one of their own, even if they didn’t know him personally,’ said Libby. ‘It was a general warning. And of course, none of the migrant workers would have volunteered any information, so they were safe.’

  ‘It was even their organisation that supplied the evil Budgen farmer,’ said Fran, ‘so all my strange floating visions linked up in the end.’

  ‘Except Terry,’ said Jane with a grin.

  ‘He wasn’t a vision,’ said Libby. ‘He was just bad adding up.’

  The others looked at her in perplexity. She sighed. ‘Putting two and two together?’ she said.

  ‘And making five. I see,’ said Harry. ‘More bubbles anyone?’

  ‘And what about Rosa?’ asked Libby later, when the last refried beans had been scraped off a plate.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jane. ‘I hope she’s all right. She was a good person at heart.’

  ‘Not like the rest of her family,’ said Terry.

  ‘And is there a document?’ asked Peter. ‘Or was it all for nothing?’

  ‘Aunt Jess said there wasn’t. If there is, I doubt if we’ll ever find it,’ said Jane.

  ‘And I would far rather Libby and Fran didn’t go looking for it,’ said Ben amid laughter.

  ‘I’ve still got the bruises,’ said Libby, ‘so I won’t be doing anything for a long, long time.’

  ‘We were lucky Ian turned up when he did,’ said Guy. ‘I hate to think what would have happened if he hadn’t.’

  ‘Once I’d told him about the Ladana and he realised where it had come from and who it belonged to he thought he’d better take a look,’ said Fran. ‘It was lucky he didn’t go on his own, though.’

  ‘So what are you going to be doing to keep out of mischief?’ Harry asked her.

  ‘I’m going to a creative writing class,’ said Fran. ‘I thought I might try to write a novel. Nothing much can happen to me there, can it?’

  More titles in the Libby Sarjeant Series

  First Chapter of Murder Imperfect

  THE PANTOMIME COW COLLAPSED on top of the fairy at the very time Adam stepped off the ha-ha.

  ‘He’s moved back in again,’ Libby told her friend Fran on the phone. ‘I can’t keep trailing backwards and forwards to the flat to look after him, and Harry certainly can’t keep running up and down stairs.’

  ‘What did he do?’ asked Fran.

  ‘He wasn’t looking where he was going and walked straight off the edge.’

  ‘Isn’t it fenced?’

  ‘Ha-has aren’t fenced,’ scoffed Libby. ‘Don’t you know that?’

  ‘All right, all right. I’m not up on gardening terms. What does Ben say?’

  ‘He’s being very long-suffering about it,’ said Libby. ‘Lots of sighs.’

  ‘Oh dear. Still, it won’t be for long, will it?’

  ‘No, thank goodness. Meanwhile, Ben keeps taking himself off to Steeple Farm to do strange things with beams and floorboards, and I’ve got to take over the fairy as well as directing, which means we can both keep out of Ad’s way in the evenings.’

  ‘Poor Adam!’ laughed Fran.

  ‘He is a bit grumpy,’ conceded Libby, ‘but with a bit of luck he’ll get fed up and go back to his own flat.’

  ‘I thought you said he needed looking after?’

  ‘He did, for the first couple of days, but he could move around the flat now, especially as it’s all on one level. Here he has to come downstairs to the sitting room and kitchen. He demanded a television in his room the first few days. Cheek.’

  ‘So he’s putting it on a bit?’

  ‘Of course. Just like a man.’ Libby sighed. ‘Not like our poor fairy.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘I told you, the cow fell on her. Broke her leg. She’s furious.’

  ‘Won’t she better in time for the run?’

  Libby sighed again. ‘Plaster for at least six weeks, the hospital said. And as we open on the first Monday in January she’ll have missed all
the rehearsals.’

  ‘You’ve played the fairy before,’ consoled Fran. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’m too old,’ said Libby gloomily. ‘I’d rather be the witch.’

  She put the phone down and stared out of the window. December had started dripping wet. The tiny green opposite the house was almost a lake, and Romeo the Renault looked in imminent danger of sinking.

  ‘Mu-um!’

  Closing her eyes and breathing out heavily, Libby turned towards the stairs.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Any chance of some tea?’

  ‘If you came down here you could get it yourself.’

  ‘Mum! I can’t keep going up and down on my leg.’ Adam sounded indignant.

  ‘You can get about on the level, though,’ said Libby. ‘All right. In a moment.’

  Muttering to herself, she went into the kitchen. Sidney, on the cane sofa in front of the unlit fire, put his ears back as she passed. The heavy kettle was already on the edge of the Rayburn waiting to be brought to a full boil, so she moved it and fetched the old brown teapot. Might as well make a proper pot and have one herself, she thought. It was mid-afternoon.

  The tea made, she carried a mug up to Adam, who was lying on the bed in the spare room playing games on his laptop.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ He grinned disarmingly. ‘You know you love me really.’

  ‘Don’t bet on it.’ Libby sat on the side of the bed. ‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in Harry’s flat now? You’d be all on one level there.’

  Adam’s face took on a pained expression. ‘I can’t stand for long, Mum. What about meals?’

  Libby sighed. ‘OK, OK, I know. But I can’t keep running up and down like this, you know.’

  ‘Ben will be here, though, won’t he?’ said Adam hopefully.

  ‘Not much,’ said Libby. ‘He’s going to Steeple Farm to get it all finished off. They want to let it after Christmas.’

  ‘Good Christmas house, that,’ commented Adam. ‘You could have all of us there with no problem.’

  Libby looked at him with dislike. ‘I’m going downstairs,’ she said.

  Of course, Adam was right. Steeple Farm was a large thatched farmhouse belonging to a member of Ben’s family. Ben, her mostly significant other, was restoring it and had hoped to persuade Libby to move into it from her small cottage in the village, but Libby loved her cottage, she loved Allhallow’s Lane and she loved being in the centre of Steeple Martin. So, for the moment, they were both squashed into Number 17, with the addition, currently, of Adam. Libby peered once more out of the window at the darkening sky and turned to the fireplace.