“Habit of a lifetime, yes.”
“How about postmen, that sort of thing?”
“It’s the unexpected one looks out for. Though I don’t like it when they change postmen on me.”
What was it the petit salaud had said? Moretti turned his car into the narrow lane that ran above Ludo’s house and braked to allow a startled rabbit in the middle of the road to make a decision. Don’t let down your guard just because you are in the back of bleeding beyond — that’s when they get you.
The rabbit opted for going back the way he came, and Moretti carried on, turning the corner that led to the steep lane down to Ludo Ross’s house. But before that he caught a glimpse of the back of the house beyond an untrimmed hawthorn hedge entangled with blackberry bushes.
There were no windows on this side of the house, which was built against the slope of the cliff that led down steep, winding lanes to the coast. All the windows faced the sea, which could barely be glimpsed from them because of the wild profusion of trees and undergrowth that descended the cliff face. The house itself was curved, rather like a two-tiered cake of ivory plastered stucco. Beneath a steep-sided conical roof of pale grey tiles the upper storey was smaller than the lower, and a semi-circular balcony took up the extra space over the ground floor. No attempt had been made at taming the landscape, apart from a wide, paved courtyard outside the house, and there was no fence, wall, or gate. When Moretti asked why, he was told, “Because the kind of people I had dealings with don’t have any problems with barriers.”
Just before turning into the driveway, Moretti brought the Triumph to a halt, and called Liz Falla on his mobile.
“Anything on the CCTV cameras so far I should know about?”
He listened with pleasure to the low register of her disembodied voice. “Yes, Guv. There’s all kinds of stuff, like people leaving the Landsend Restaurant and so on, but what’s really interesting is the out-of-place person who shows up, if you see what I mean.”
“Who is it?”
“Lady Fellowes, Guv. No mistaking her, is there?”
“None.”
Of all the island residents who could have shown up on the CCTV cameras, none would have been more easily identifiable than Lady Coralie Fellowes. In the late 1930s there were few more recognizable faces, or bodies, than those of Coralie Chancho. She had first caught the eye when given a brief solo moment at the Folies Bergère, stepping out of the chorus line in a velvet cache-sexe and a headdress of ostrich plumes, to shoot at a straw-hatted Maurice Chevalier with a jewelled bow and arrow. The public demanded to see her again, and once they heard the unique voice with the sensual growl that came with the face and the body, Coralie Chancho became a star.
When that star declined, as is the fate of every fair from fair, thanks to the passage of time and nature’s changing course, La Chancho made the career move every prudent woman in her position makes: she married money. How she came to Guernsey, Moretti did not know, but it was probably to do with holding on to that money.
“What was she doing?”
“Teetering along the deck, dressed up to the nines. The CCTV shows the time as one thirteen a.m. And she’s the only woman on her own, anywhere near the yacht between ten o’clock and six-thirty the next morning.”
“I’ve seen her at the Landsend, so perhaps she was there.”
“Want me to check, Guv? I’m just on my way to speak to the customs people.”
“Yes. I was planning to talk to Gord Collenette anyway.”
Moretti finished his call and looked up. Ludo Ross was at the window of the Triumph, and alongside him was one of his Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Benz, his lips drawn back in a snarl.
“Put the window down, Ed, so he can get your scent.”
As Moretti did so, the dog relaxed, and his master took his hand off the collar he was holding. “Park the car by the garage, Ed. Good to see you.”
Ludo Ross was an imposing man, somewhere in his late seventies Moretti thought, who had held on to a fine head of grey hair atop a neatly trimmed white beard. The contrast was startling enough that it looked to Moretti when he first met him as if the undercover agent was still in disguise, with a fake beard hooked over his ears. But in no way did this bearded scholar resemble a jolly Father Christmas, with his hawk-like nose and light, uncommunicative eyes — eyes that now brought to mind the hard-boiled stare of the dead man’s housekeeper to Moretti, as he drove into the paved courtyard.
“Good to see you, Ludo, and apologies for arriving unannounced.”
“I was thinking of phoning you, as a matter of fact, to see if you were playing at the club tonight.”
There were dark circles under Ludo Ross’s eyes, as there often were, the loose skin looking bruised and discoloured. An insomniac who accepted his affliction as incurable and therefore, as he facetiously put it, not worth losing sleep over, he had once or twice persuaded Moretti to share his white nights with him after a session at the club. His record collection was exceptional, as was his wine cellar, but it was not a habit Moretti could indulge too often.
“Not a chance. That’s why I’m here.”
“So this is work related?”
“You could say that.”
The dog ran ahead of them into the house, and was joined by his female companion, who made straight for Moretti.
“Hi, Mercedes. Remember me? I hope.”
The ridgeback sniffed Moretti’s extended hand and wagged her tail, then joined her mate. Together the four of them moved through the entrance hall on the right-hand side of the house, leaving a huge space to the left as a living area. This was covered by a pale blue Kirman carpet that extended the full width of the room. The décor and furniture were in spare, modern lines, the tones neutral, the paintings on the wall abstract. There were no photographs, no mementos of past lives or loves. The only indication of Ludo Ross’s former academic occupation was the built-in mahogany bookcase that lined the walls from floor to ceiling.
Moretti accepted his host’s offer of a beer, and waited until he came back, watched by the two dogs, who seemed relaxed, although they didn’t settle until their master returned.
“So,” said Ross, handing Moretti a glass of the Guernsey Brewery’s Special Creamy Bitter, “what’s up?”
“A body with a bullet in the head on a pricey Vento Teso in Victoria Marina, complete with a very pretty Porsche below decks, and a fortune in Euros in a safe in the bed-head.”
Ludo Ross raised one bushy grey eyebrow. He surveyed Moretti over the top of his glass, took a gulp of beer, put down the glass, and smoothed his beard. “Not your average Guernsey crime. What do you know about the body?”
“Bernard Masterson, a Canadian engaged in international deal making. Big-scale stuff, we’re not talking widgets or ball bearings. According to his housekeeper, he just brokered a deal between Canada and Germany involving armoured personnel carriers.”
There was a pause. Ross’s hand on his beard stopped moving and for a minute Moretti thought he was going to tell him something. Instead, he asked a question. “What was a chap like that doing in Guernsey? Even if he had dirty money tucked away here, he didn’t have to come near it.”
“All the more reason not to come here. We are making enquiries, of course, through Interpol and Scotland Yard, and we may yet have to bring someone in, but I’d just as soon we didn’t.”
“Arms dealing.”
Ludo Ross got up from the seat opposite Moretti and moved toward one of the long windows facing the courtyard. Ludo Ross always seemed to be on the lookout, whether he was standing talking outside the club, or on his own driveway, taking in what was going on around him — an unexpected noise, a passing