“Nothing simpler: on it. Then as now there were gossip columns spreading all the latest scandal.”
Max, deep in thought, stared unseeing down the hallway. There were windows at each end, draped in velvet and tassels, and held back by gold ropes. There had been no access from outside through those windows, it had already been determined. Sealed shut by layers of paint, they probably had not been opened for years. “Could I have a look at Margot’s autopsy report?”
“Sure. You’re still thinking the poisoning may have been accidental?”
“If you mean an accidental overdose, no,” said Max somberly. “No, I’m not thinking that at all.”
Chapter 28
DEVIL’S BREATH
The following day, Max and Cotton met again with Patrice in the incident room. Once all the technicians and experts released room 202, the three of them did an additional fingertip search.
And for a long while, they came up empty. As Beatrice could have told them, Maurice was a meticulously tidy, organized person. As Patrice put it, in MI5 parlance, “This fellow had all his stuff in the same burn bag.” If he’d been the victim of blackmail or something along those lines, there was nothing in his immediate surroundings to indicate what it could have been about; Cotton had the Hollywood police doing a search of his home there. But as Cotton had joked, “It shouldn’t take long for them to search. If there’s anything in his house, it will be in a folder neatly labeled ‘B’ for ‘Blackmail.’” There was no suicide note or any similar clue, even though the Monkslip-super-Mare police doctor thought the death had been staged rather carelessly to look that way. The heroin had been shot into the back of the right hand, indicating a left-handed user, but Maurice had been right handed. Furthermore, he showed no obvious signs of having been an addict or a habitual user of narcotics.
“And why the back of the hand?” Max asked, looking about him at the meticulously ordered space. Room 202 looked like a page torn from an advertising brochure; even the daffodils in a vase on a table by the window looked freshly arranged. “It may have been staged to look like a suicide, but there is every indication of the killer’s not caring if we believed the setup or not. It’s a sign our killer is unraveling, wouldn’t you agree? If Maurice put up any struggle at all, the hand was an easy target for the needle, and that’s what happened, I believe. Getting him to helpfully roll up his sleeve for an injection into his elbow would be out of the question.”
“By the way,” Cotton said, as they continued turning over every item in the room. “I’ve got some news about that safe room, but we don’t really know what it means. The lab analyzed one of the powders my team found there. It was in a plastic bag inside a mislabeled container, just like all the other drugs. This particular container was a white jar marked ‘cacao’ and the drug was buried inside, sealed in plastic, under the loose cacao powder. They were baffled by it at first, because at a glance it wasn’t cocaine, heroin, or anything else they’d been expecting. The kitchen turned up clean, by the way—nothing in the containers there but what you’d expect.”
“Galley,” corrected Patrice automatically. She began to kneel to examine a low bureau drawer but then thought better of it: standing up again would be too big a challenge. Max saw her dilemma and began searching the drawer himself.
Sorry, she mouthed.
“No worries,” he murmured. “You’d do the same for me.”
That made her laugh, and drew a sharp glance in their direction from Cotton.
“It wasn’t GHB, either.” Cotton paused for effect, making sure he had their attention. “It was scopolamine.”
“You’re joking,” said Max, sitting back on his heels. “Scopolamine? I’ve only ever heard of it; never seen it … but, my God. ‘The Devil’s Breath.’”
“That’s the name, and there was never a name more fitting. The stuff turns the targeted victim into a zombie. There’s been a rash of robberies using it. It’s a hypnotic drug. The criminals blow the powder into the victim’s face and it makes him or her so powerless, so completely lacking in will, that they’ll do whatever is asked—hand over money, jewelry, whatever. There was a gang from China using it with great success not too long ago in London. The Met couldn’t figure out where they were getting it from. It looks like we may have solved that mystery for them.”
“Any chance it was used on Maurice?” Patrice asked.
“We’ll find out,” said Cotton. “But somehow I doubt it. What Max said about rolling up his sleeve would have been easier if he’d been hypnotized with the stuff. He seems to have been able to put up some resistance. How’re you doing over there?” And he went to help her lift a blanket down from a top shelf in the closet.
Max had read an article in one of the broadsheets about scopolamine not long before. He remembered that it was derived from the nightshade family of plants and was produced mainly in South America. It was a scare article, designed to give people something to cluck and worry about over their tea, but it was in fact a frightening drug. A chemical process turned it into a white powder that resembled cocaine. Scopolamine could be used medicinally to treat motion sickness, but in such large amounts, a medicinal use even on board a ship seemed implausible. Besides, why hide it if it were there for innocent reasons?
“This ship has put in to port in South America, am I right?” Max asked.
“Yes,” said Cotton. “It’s all in the ship’s logbook. They were in port in Colombia last year.”
“Of course,” said Max. “It would be Colombia.”
“Colombia was just before I came on board, sailing for two,” said Patrice.
“They didn’t try to call you in at any point?” he asked, meaning MI5.
“They tried but I ignored them. I was fit as a fiddle and so very close to a solve I didn’t want to be taken off the case. It didn’t all become a problem until recent days. I was planning to leave the ship once we got to Weymouth but—well, you know what happened. Margot happened.”
She wanted the glory, thought Max. That was understandable. And that was Patrice all over, when she was on the case, as he well knew—any case. Like a dog with a bone.
“The rest of the drugs could be coming from anywhere, of course,” said Cotton. “But in the case of the scopolamine, there’s little doubt of the origins. And it’s a good bet Colombia is the source for all of it. The yacht rests there quite often.”
“Anchors,” said Patrice reflectively. “It’s odd how so many drugs look much the same. I started thinking ‘cocaine’ when I saw the chef messing about one evening with something on a pastry board, but it could have been any number of drugs, given what we’re finding. It could even have been flour or cornstarch, as he claimed—he told me he was coating the chicken for dinner or some noise like that. But he was nervous as a cat and besides, you’d need far more flour and cornstarch than what he had on that board for coating chicken. I assumed it was just a chef with a habit—that he was worth keeping an eye on to see where he might lead us, no more than that. My bad—sorry. But what was happening on board that yacht was much bigger than a single user or someone who liked to party with his friends. This was a nice sideline in importing stuff—all manner of deadly stuff.”
“Could it have been GHB you saw then—the drug that was used to subdue Margot?”
“No idea, really. As I say, it all looks much the same or is cut with the same stuff so it looks the same—until you get it under a microscope. If it were neon pink or something it would be easier to spot and more difficult to hide. I have to say, just going on instinct, that Zaki is the kind of guy who’d carry GHB on him—just in case. He always gave me the creeps. I don’t see Romero, for example, going in for that sort of carry-on. Even though he’s the no-boundaries, free-spirit auteur type, who manages to inflict no end of damage on other people’s boundaries. But why he’d use a date rape drug on Margot, who by all accounts was nothing if not willing, or why he would want to do away with her completely, is anyone’s guess. She was a pest, from all we
’ve heard, not a lethal threat to life or liberty.”
“And I’ve no impression Romero has trouble attracting women,” said Max. “He’s not bad looking. Fame and fortune take care of the rest.”
Patrice’s reply was muffled. From deep within the closet she emerged holding a thin book bound in red leather.
“What’s that?” Cotton asked.
She was flipping slowly through the pages. Max moved to look over her shoulder. “It’s a diary,” she said. “I found it tucked beneath the padded cover of the ironing board.”
Cotton, interest piqued, crossed the room rapidly to join them, saying, “Are you sure it’s a diary?”
“It has ‘Diary’ embossed on the front, so, yes. That was a giveaway. Parts of it seem to be written in code.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Most of it is innocuous stuff. Dental appointments and so on. But then there are pages of coded paragraphs.” She pointed to a sample page.
“It looks like a simple substitution code,” said Max. “So Maurice, the soul of discretion, confided only in his diary. That fits. Otherwise, he’d burst with all the secrets he was holding for everyone. The diary was his safety valve.”
“I don’t think we’ll even need GCHQ for this,” said Patrice. “Give me a few hours and I could crack it. You’re right, it’s the kind of code a teenaged girl would use to try to get around her parents, to keep secret where she really was last Saturday night.”
“Bag it and get it dusted right away. Then get it translated. Tell them to put a rush on it,” Cotton said. Patrice opened the door and summoned a waiting constable, relaying the diary and instructions.
Cotton looked around the pristine room and sighed. “So what else have we got?”
“I’d say we’ve got, as a working theory, the possibility that Margot was killed because she stumbled onto the drug smuggling action on this ship,” said Patrice, rejoining them. “Although I don’t like Romero for that. Not because he’s such an upstanding citizen but because he simply doesn’t need the cash. Recreational use, sure, maybe. Whatever’s going, probably snorting the occasional line. But smuggling on a grand scale? You don’t dirty yourself with that lot unless you’re desperate for money. I mean, have you seen the size of that ship?”
“He could be going broke trying to keep that ship afloat, to coin a phrase,” said Max. “But when I think of ‘hard up for cash,’ it’s the baron and baroness who come first to mind. And Delphine comes second. Although in her case, while she may like the money, I think the thrill of outfoxing the authorities may be what attracts her most. As you and I were saying, Cotton, there is such a thing as an excitement junkie.”
Cotton and Patrice turned to look at each other, then returned their gaze to Max. Their expressions said they agreed. There also was a look of companionable intimacy in the exchange, momentary but unmistakable.
Cotton and Patrice? Max wondered. Hmm. It wasn’t impossible to imagine. Max thought he might find a moment to tease Cotton on that subject along with others he was storing up, beginning with that Dick Tracy watch of his, but for now he continued. “Returning to the baron and baroness for a moment: there is something about those two that fascinates me. Drifting as they are around the world, both of them so beautiful and so privileged, so connected. They are granted entrée anywhere they choose to go, to the point where they have no need of a permanent address.”
“Perhaps they are welcome for more than their cachet of glamour, did we ever stop to think?” said Cotton. “For what they bring to the table besides their good looks? Personally, I assumed people just put up with them, like tiresome relatives at the holidays. One can only stand so much of people who swan around and do nothing all day. But maybe they were welcomed because of what they carried with them in their vast luggage.”
“Right,” said Patrice. “How likely were these two swans to face tough scrutiny from customs agents?”
“Not too likely. But then how did it all end up with Zaki in the kitchen?” asked Cotton.
“Galley,” said Max and Patrice together.
“If I had to guess, the chef was more a customer than a dealer,” said Patrice. “Although it’s a line easily crossed. He may have been recruited by someone with more brains than he has.”
“I’ll send Sergeant Essex to ask him again,” said Cotton. “In fact, I’ll go with her. The chef was softening up nicely, the last I heard. And we need to have a look into the baroness’s collection of luggage. And his, of course.”
“That may be trickier without a warrant to search for drugs,” said Patrice.
“Perhaps,” said Cotton, “once we’re through talking with the chef, we may have every reasonable cause to search—as part of an ongoing murder investigation.”
“You’re right about one thing,” said Patrice. “We can’t ignore the possibility Margot somehow knew too much—that she saw something she shouldn’t have seen, like drugs and money changing hands. Something that could put a few people behind bars.”
Max nodded, his mood somber. He hated drugs, having seen at first hand the destruction they inevitably caused. The families and relationships ruined, to say nothing of careers, hopes, and ambitions. People always thought they could handle small amounts without the need escalating, and people were generally wrong. And a dealer? A dealer was close to being a murderer in his mind.
“Yes,” Max said to Cotton. “Let us know what you find out. Clearly, we have to pursue all avenues. But speaking of the baron and baroness, I recall now something she said that struck me at the time as odd. She was admiring Addy’s work ethic, you see. I thought that was rich coming from her. But when you think about it, what those two have going for them is a very cushy job, but one that they have to work hard to maintain. What, you have to ask yourself, would they do to preserve their status—their job, if you like?”
Again, Cotton and Patrice exchanged glances, this time with mutual shrugs.
“I’d like to see a trace of their movements in, say, the three or four months leading up to their joining the ship. We need to do that with everyone who wasn’t already on board, I suppose. But I’m particularly interested to know what those two were up to.”
“Getting someone else to peel them a grape, probably,” said Patrice.
“Someone else’s grape,” agreed Cotton. “From someone else’s private vineyard. But I’m sure we’ve collected that information already.” Never far from his laptop, Cotton now opened a file or two, and said, “Yes, they were staying for several months with a German couple. The von Rother-Magnums.”
“Find out what was talked about, will you?”
“Oh. That’s rather a tall order. This is a priority is it?”
“I think it is.”
“I’ll get someone on it.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Patrice.
“Oh, and by the way,” said Max. “There was never a King of Denmark named Claudius. Or one named Hamlet, for that matter.”
Cotton, on his way toward the door with Patrice, said something that might have been, “Hmph?” Followed by, “I’m aware of that. Shakespeare took some liberties. We’ve been fine with it for centuries. What are you talking about, Max?”
“Never mind,” Max replied. “But do let me know what more you hear about the drug dealing, and about the visit to Germany of the baron and baroness. And then I think we might also need to learn more about where Margot Browne came from.”
Chapter 29
WE ARE FAMILY
Cotton and Patrice joined Max in Camp X to announce that the chef was being held at the station for the allowable twenty-four-hour period.
“Sergeant Essex told me she was afraid he’d vanish otherwise. Of course, if we get evidence linking him to the murder, we can hold him up to ninety-six hours,” said Cotton.
Max nodded abstractedly, saying, “I rather wish we knew if the timing of Margot’s death—or rather, the exact time she went in the water—were deliberate or accidental. Whoever did this
might not have known about the tides.”
“Does it matter?”
“If someone is hoping a body will be swept out to sea and disappear, might there be something about the condition of that body the killer doesn’t want discovered? On the other hand, if someone does want the body found, might they try to time the disposal of the body so it is swept in on the tide? It is either a small matter or a significant one.”
“Well, that certainly covers all the possibilities,” said Patrice. “So who, apart from the captain, would know about the tides, and be able to take advantage of following the tide table?”
Max shook his head: Not sure. “The baron comes from a shipping family. It’s not enough to either take him off the list or put him there. He may not have known these waters. The same goes for Romero. He just owns the yacht. That doesn’t make him an expert on tides. Did tides tables show up in a search of their rooms?”
Patrice said, “No. But they all have laptops or mobiles—and Addy seems positively attached at the hip to that laptop of his. We’d need a stronger suspicion of one particular person than we have to warrant a search of his or her computer. But even then—what would finding a tides table in their browser history prove? They could claim they were following the tides as a sort of naff hobby. And if we found truly incriminating evidence in the search for one particular thing, that could bollocks everything up for the prosecution later on.”
Max nodded. Evidence of a search of date rape drugs might be more to the point. But the safeguards that protected the innocent also went a long way toward protecting the guilty. It was a delicate balance, always, and a source of keen frustration for investigators. And, of course, for the families of the victims, who so often were denied justice because someone had fouled the case with a clumsy or careless investigation.
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