Rough Cut (11 page)

   “Jacques, could I go through the programme for the day with you?” she said.

   “Of course.” Jacques smiled and indicated to Eloise that they should leave the saloon. “Let’s go up to the fly bridge,” he suggested as they came out onto the aft deck.

   Sitting beside Eloise, on the luxuriously upholstered L-shaped bench seat at the back of the fly bridge, Jacques outlined the itinerary for the day to her. While he spoke, he examined her closely. He was trying not to be too obvious about this but it was clear that he found her very attractive.

   “That all sounds great. I’m really looking forward to the day,” said Eloise when he had finished. “Oh, one more thing, Jeremy has asked me to invite you and Yvonne to join us for dinner at our hotel afterwards, if you can?”

   Jacques was surprised by the invitation but he hid it well. “Yes, I would like that very much,” he said, “but Yvonne will not be able to come as she will have to return home to close the gallery.”

   “The gallery?”

   “Yvonne runs a gallery in Sainte Pierre, where she lives. It’s a little village up in the mountains. There is a woman, her cousin, who looks after the place when she’s not there but she likes to close up herself and lock the day’s takings away in the evening. But I will be able to accept your invitation.”

   “But…” Eloise paused and Jacques waited for her to go on, “doesn’t Yvonne work for you? Isn’t she your crew?”

   Jacques laughed. “No, no. Yvonne is my sister. She doesn’t work for me. She does this for me as a favour.”

   A flicker of excitement crossed Eloise’s face as she spoke. “Oh, I see. I thought maybe she was your girlfriend.”

   Eloise smiled and gazed into Jacques’ eyes as he gazed into hers. The narrowing space between their faces was alive with unspoken messages, ones they both understood perfectly.

   The spell was broken by Jeremy’s voice as he climbed the steps to the fly bridge. “What are you two doing all alone up here?” he said as his head appeared.

   Jacques and Eloise pulled away from each other sharply and it was Eloise who spoke first, after clearing her throat.

   “We’ve just been going through the plans for the day,” she said, “Everything is fine. It’s going to be a super day.” Eloise and Jacques rose simultaneously from the seat.

   “Good,” said Jeremy, “Our guests should be arriving soon. Could you greet them for me as they come on board?”

   “Yes, of course,” replied Eloise.

   Followed by Jacques, Eloise went down the steps to the aft deck where Yvonne and Anna were talking about the recipes for some of the canapés.

   Before long the guests started to arrive and by a quarter to eleven the Esprit was under way, leaving the harbour of Sainte Maxime behind her. Although there had been nearly a hundred people at the conference the day before, only eleven carefully selected customers and potential customers had been invited on the boat trip. The eleven guests who now milled around on the aft deck were a disparate bunch ranging from a quite attractive and vivacious woman in her early thirties to a grossly overweight middle aged man who would spend most of the trip leering at both Yvonne and Eloise.

   Once clear of the harbour, Jacques opened up the throttles and the Esprit began to plane over the sea at her full cruising speed. Several of the guests made their way up to the fly bridge to make the most of the view, while others remained on the aft deck and a few went into the saloon.

   After two hours of cruising along the French coast and during which the guests and their hosts enjoyed Yvonne’s sumptuous buffet and several bottles of good French wine, the Esprit de Jacques rounded a headland and Monte Carlo came into view. It was a beautiful sight with the palace high up on the promontory and boats of all shapes and sizes moored in the harbour. Behind the boats, skyscrapers rose up, silhouetted against the majestic dark form of the mountains.

   With the assistance of Yvonne, Jacques moored the Esprit on the west side of the harbour, near the pink apartment blocks which line the road at that point. The little party would need to walk halfway round the harbour in order to reach the bars and cafés which overlook the boats and face out towards the harbour entrance.

   As they ambled towards the cafés, following on behind their guests, Jacques and his three clients stopped at the first café they came to and sat at a table under a straw parasol. Jacques made sure that he sat next to Eloise, almost pushing Anna out of the way to achieve his objective.

   When Jeremy had finished his first glass of wine, he summoned a passing waiter and was about to order another round when Jacques suddenly stood up.

   “I think I might go for a walk round the town,” he said, rising from his seat, “Does anyone want to come with me?”

   Eloise rose from her seat quickly, almost too quickly. “Yes, I’d like to do that,” she said and Jacques smiled as Jeremy and Anna looked on. “You two don’t mind, do you, if Jacques and I leave you to it?”

   Jeremy and Anna were not given the opportunity to object as Jacques and Eloise walked off quickly together. As they went, Anna waved them cheerily on their way and smiled knowingly at her husband.

    Jacques and Eloise strolled towards the ‘centre ville’ and soon came to a quiet café, away from the main tourist areas. Jacques suggested they stop for a coffee and Eloise readily agreed. They found a table near the back and sat opposite each other. After the waiter had brought them their coffee, Jacques opened the conversation.

   “So, tell me, why does a beautiful English girl like you have a French name?” he asked.

   Eloise smiled a shy smile before responding. “Simple. My mother is French.”

   “No! Which part of France is she from?”

   “You won’t believe this,” said Eloise, still smiling at him as she took a sip from her coffee. Jacques narrowed his eyes and stared intently at her as he waited for her to continue. “My mother grew up in Sainte Maxime. But her father, my grandfather, now lives in Port Grimaud.”

   Jacques was surprised at this revelation and he eyed Eloise carefully as he drank from his cup before responding. “So, who is he then, your grandfather? Maybe I know him.”

   “I expect you do. He’s quite well known, a prominent citizen, you might say.”

   Jacques was intrigued. Leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table, he cupped his chin in his hands and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Eloise sipped her coffee again and looked coquettishly over her cup at him, the expression on her face tantalising and teasing him.

   “His name is Philippe Lacoste,” she said eventually. “Have you heard of him?”

   Jacques’ face dropped. He sat back in his chair and rested his hands on the table in front of him as he spoke. “Of course. Everyone has heard of Monsieur Lacoste,” he said a little disappointedly.

   “Is that a problem for you?” she said quietly, her smile fading slightly as she noticed the change in his attitude but he soon recovered his good spirits. 

   “No!” he said emphatically, “Definitely not! Philippe Lacoste is just the richest and most powerful man in Port Grimaud. Why should that be a problem? I just need to be careful what I say to you, that’s all.” Jacques reached into his pocket and slapped some coins on the table before jumping up from his seat.

   “Come on, little rich girl! Let me show you the sights of Monte Carlo.”

   He grabbed her hand and led her out of the café. She giggled as she followed him out into the street, almost falling as she caught her foot on the threshold and tripped.

   As they walked along the street, Eloise squeezed Jacques’ hand. He smiled and squeezed hers back as she turned her head towards him and looked at him admiringly.

   “Your English is very good,” she said. “Where did you learn to speak such good English?”

   “I have lived all my life in a tourist resort which, in the summer, is full of Americans and English people. It just happened.”

   “Maybe. But I think you must have a special talent for languages as well.”

    Jacques let go of her hand and put his arm round her shoulders. She responded by putting her arm round his waist and leaning towards him, resting her head on his shoulder.

   Half an hour later, they were still arm in arm as they approached Casino Square. Jacques looked at his watch and then turned to look at Eloise.

   “We should be getting back,” he said

   Eloise looked at her watch. “Wow, is that the time!” she said, “We’ll be late.”

   “Don’t worry, nobody is going anywhere without me.”

   They both laughed at this and when they arrived back at the Esprit, everyone else was already on board. Jacques walked briskly along the quay, over the gangway and up the steps to the fly bridge to start the engines, leaving Eloise trailing along behind him. When the engines were running and the boat was ready to leave, Yvonne untied the mooring warps and ran back onto the boat with them, coiling them quickly and expertly.

   An hour after leaving the harbour in Monte Carlo, the Esprit slowed and Jacques took her into the harbour at Cannes. This time it was Jacques’ turn to mind the boat while Yvonne went ashore with Eloise.

   Finally, with all the guests gathered back on board, Jacques took the Esprit back out to sea and sped along the coast at full speed for forty minutes before easing the throttles back as Sainte Maxime came into sight.

   The Esprit continued slowly towards the harbour and once she was securely moored and the guests had left, Jacques saw Jeremy, Anna and Eloise off the boat. On the quay, he turned to Jeremy.

   “I will meet you for dinner tonight at eight? Yes?”

   Jeremy nodded and the two men shook hands before Jacques returned to the boat where he found Yvonne sitting in the saloon, relaxing. He threw up his arms and sat down beside her.

   “Well, it’s done. My first charter completed,” he declared.

   “And I think you have found yourself a girlfriend, maybe?”           She looked at him knowingly but he just looked back at her non-committally, pretending not to know what she was talking about.

   “Oh, come on! I saw the way you looked at her,” she challenged and Jacques smiled and looked down at his hands.

   “Yes, well, maybe,” he said before looking up at Yvonne, a smile lighting up his face. “She has invited me to have dinner with them tonight.”

_________________________

   As Carter parked his car in the car park of the North Yorkshire Police headquarters and walked towards the building, a police car drove past him and stopped in front of the entrance. Two policemen in uniform got out of the car and went into the building. Carter followed them in.

   Carter was hoping that Harris would have some information to share with him and that he would be willing to do so. He was still convinced that there must be a connection between the two murders but he wanted some proof of it and that could only come from the police.

   As Carter waited for Harris in the reception area, he smiled to himself. Meeting up with Nicole had been special. It had confirmed to him that what he had once felt for her was still there, that it had not faded with time. As he ruminated on the events of the last week during which he had seen Nicole on no fewer than five occasions, a policeman in uniform approached him. A few minutes later, he was sitting in Harris’s office on the third floor of the building discussing the results from the forensic examination of the murder scene under the bridge.

   “Did they come up with anything?” asked Carter, upon which Harris turned the open file in front of him round so that it was the right way up for Carter.

   “Nothing that helps. See for yourself,” he said as he pushed the file across the desk towards Carter. Carter started looking at the file, leafing through the papers as Harris continued. “There’s a profile of the bullet of course but it doesn’t match anything on our files.”

   “What about Interpol?” asked Carter, looking up from the file.

   “We could try them I suppose but we don’t have any reason to suspect foreign involvement, do we?”

   Carter shrugged and returned to looking through the file. Then he spotted something and looked intently at it, his face moving a little closer to the file.

   “It says here that there was some blood on his trousers,” said Carter, looking up at Harris as he continued, “Not his own. Have you been able to identify whose it is?”

   “Not yet.”

   “May I offer a suggestion?” The two men stared at each other for a few moments before Harris spoke, they both knew what Carter was saying.

   "I’ll arrange for a comparison of the samples,” said Harris as he picked up the phone on his desk and pressed a button.

_________________________

   Later that day, Carter was standing at the entrance to his hotel as a taxi pulled up. Conrad, a man of medium height in his thirties, got out of the taxi and the two men approached each other. They shook hands vigorously before going into the hotel and making their way to the bar. When they had chosen a table, they ordered themselves a beer each.

   The two men had worked together on several previous occasions and they had a healthy respect for each other although it was always understood that Carter was in charge. The cases they had worked on together for the FIDT had taken them all over the world, to places both exotic and drab, but they had always enjoyed the process of solving what were usually complex and interesting cases.

   As Carter was filling Conrad in on the latest developments with the current case, his phone rang. He removed it from his pocket, pressed the receive call button and put it to his ear. He listened to what the caller was saying but said very little himself.

   “Thanks for letting me know. Goodbye,” said Carter as he ended the call. Deep in thought, he put his phone down on the table before looking at Conrad.

   “That was Inspector Harris from the local police,” he said. “The blood on Spicer’s trousers was Rob’s.”

   Carter looked into the distance for a few moments before speaking again. He had been convinced that there was a connection between the two murders and now he knew for sure.