“I’m glad it’s all coming out,” Angel Torres began. “I’m sick of living like this.”
They heard a shuffling movement coming from outside the door to the hallway. Cotton held up a cautioning finger to silence the sous-chef. Then he crept toward the door and flung it open. Zaki Zafour stumbled into the room.
“I think we’ll have to ask you to leave, sir,” Cotton told him. He pulled up his sleeve and to all appearances spoke into his wrist, instructing a member of his team in the incident room to come retrieve Zaki and escort him to the hotel lobby, where he was to remain for the duration of the interview.
Max, captivated by Cotton’s new foray into high tech, made a mental note to give him grief about the smart watch at a later time.
“You can’t do that,” said Zaki. “I know my rights.”
“Actually, I think you’ll find I know your rights better than you do,” Cotton replied cordially. “It’s my job to know, after all.”
Once Zaki had been extracted from the scene, Cotton returned to his place in front of Angel, who seemed pleased with these developments.
“The man is a bully,” he told them. “It’s nice to see him put in his place.” Angel spoke good English with a soft accent. In answer to Cotton’s opening questions, he told them he was from Barcelona and had attended cooking school in Seville. He named a world-renowned establishment, adding, “They probably saved my life.” Max, via Awena’s knowledge of all things culinary, was well aware of the school’s history and fame. It had been started fifty years before by a priest with the aim of giving children from poor homes marketable skills, to help lift them from poverty and away from drugs. What had begun as a vocational school to employ street kids in low-level kitchen jobs had grown into a world-class establishment, turning out some of the finest gourmet chefs in Europe.
“I’ve heard of the school,” Max told him. “It’s very well-known. Is that how Romero found you?”
“It was actually Zaki who hired me. I think he had in mind someone who was desperate for the job and willing to—what is your expression?—turn a blind eye. He got both things wrong, as it happens. The man is an idiot in addition to being a bully.”
“Your situation was not desperate, or you were not willing to ignore what you saw?” asked Cotton. He was busy taking notes.
“Both,” Angel replied. “You do understand, if I tell you what I suspect—what I know in my heart, to be honest—I am out of a job. And I am only willing to say anything because I was planning to move on, anyway—come what may. Now with the murder … It is just so not worth it to remain.”
“Understandable,” said Max. “Why did you answer, ‘both’?”
“I come from a solid middle-class family. Most of the students these days at La Cocina de Santos come from such a background. It is years since students were recruited from off the streets by Father Mateo. Now people stand on line to get in. I would not be destitute. I would just disappoint my father. But Zaki, he plays the card—am I saying that right?”
“Yes, I understand,” said Max. “Threats and intimidation to keep you in line.”
Angel nodded eagerly. This man understood. He was reminded very much of the priest in his church back home, and for a moment he stopped to wonder why.
“And the other side of ‘both’?” Max prodded.
“I didn’t see anything. You have to understand that. I had suspicions only. But the more I got to know Zaki, the more I watched his manner, the more I understood that he was up to something, and that if something went down, he would try to toss me inside it. The man is a liar, completely without honor. And you can take my word for it or not. He will try to blame it on me—including this murder if it helps him in some way. Especially since that woman went overboard, I’ve been waiting, just waiting for him to try to, how you say, throw me under the bus. At the very least, if I tried to leave, he could give me a terrible reference. I know him. He would try to make it so I never got another job.” He shook his head, angry and frustrated. This weapon had been hanging over his head too long. “He is crazy,” he said with great finality. “A monster. Do not be fooled by the nice manners he puts on for you.”
“And? Go on, please.”
Angel drew a deep sigh, the sigh of a man who had fought the good fight and was giving up. “Just because I grew up in what is called a nice family doesn’t mean I don’t know drug use when I see it. Zaki is using for sure. So many of these guys are. And I also think maybe he does something more.”
“Dealing. Smuggling.”
Angel nodded. “But he had help. From someone else on board.”
“Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m afraid I do. Delphine.”
* * *
Some time later, Max and Cotton walked away from the room Angel had been sharing with Zaki. They decided to talk over coffee in one of the trendy cafés in Monkslip-super-Mare as they waited for the call from the police team searching the ship. This time, the searchers had a better idea exactly where and what to search for.
As Max and Cotton left him, Angel was already busy packing—given leave to depart the premises, with the condition he keep himself available for further questioning.
“I know what Angel means,” said Cotton as he and Max neared the busy quay. “About so many of these guys using. The kitchen of a high-end restaurant is a pressure cooker—no pun intended. A lot of them, taking themselves far too seriously, think they have to get high to get through the night.”
“I know,” said Max. “As if the fate of the world hung on whether the soufflé collapsed or was a ‘masterpiece.’ But to do essentially the same job night after night, with variations … I suppose there is pressure in that. And some boredom.”
A waitress seated them at a window table and took their orders. Next to them a couple sat having coffee. Max soon noticed the woman had a habit of thumping her fingers on the table for emphasis as she talked, like someone playing chords on a piano. She seemed to be angry about something. The body language of the man with her, his head turned away, said clearly that whatever it was about, he didn’t want to listen.
“But Zaki had a nice cushy little job, if you ask me,” said Cotton. “He got to travel the world, and he never had more than—what, a dozen people to prepare his gourmet meals for? I’m sure the crew ate whatever leftovers he told them they would eat on any given night.”
“If anything, boredom might be the bigger issue.”
“What? Unlike most of the crew, he had a private cabin, as well. I could try doing that for a living, if only for a while.”
“That’s what I mean. It’s not for everyone. The same routine day after day, at least until the ship pulls into the next port. Maybe that’s why…”
“Why he got into drugs? Perhaps. Or he just got hooked from the get-go. Some addictions are like that. And that would explain why—”
He broke off as his phone vibrated. “That was fast,” he said. He answered, then looked over at Max and said, “Essex.” He listened closely, asking only a well-aimed question or two. Just before ringing off, he added, “And put a rush on those financials, would you?”
Tucking the mobile back inside his jacket, he told Max, “Angel’s hunch was right.” He put a five-pound note on the table and led the way outside to where they couldn’t be overheard. There he said, “The safe room is stuffed to the ceiling with drugs. They’re estimating so far about fifty kilograms of cocaine alone.”
“Some of it in the tins of icing sugar,” said Max. “I did wonder why there was so much sugar in a safe room … It got me to thinking: they’d all have been bouncing off the walls like toddlers if they’d been stuck in there in a real emergency.”
“Yes. We’re quite sure it was a hunch, are we? That Angel didn’t just know all about it because he put the stuff there himself?”
“I believed him,” Max said simply.
“So did I.”
“It was either a preemptive double-bluff, telling us about the drugs before we got suspicious of him, or he was what he appeared to be—a man caught in a net not of his own making. With Zaki for a boss, Angel could see for a long time where this was leading. Zaki would throw him in the soup, if you’ll pardon the expression, at the first sign of trouble. And how could he ever prove his innocence?”
“So, what do we have now?” Cotton stood with his back to the harbor, the breeze blowing his hair into a halo framing his face. Passersby were taken with the sight of two striking men, one fair, one dark. They might have been mistaken for tourists but for Cotton’s immaculate suit. Perhaps they were actors connected with that director’s yacht in the harbor? Several people smoothed their hair and adjusted their clothing on the off-chance a film camera was in range. “The night of the murder we know there was a disturbance of some sort. Angel, running out of the icing sugar he needed for the pastry, had gone to the safe room; he knew Zaki kept the combination written on a card in his chef’s jacket, which was hanging on a nearby hook. Zaki had actually left for the night, knowing everything was in capable hands. He seems to have done very little of the actual cooking and baking. Anyway, Angel retrieved the ‘sugar’ from the safe room and used it to make icing for that night’s pudding. Angel didn’t taste or test it—why would he? But Zaki came in to do a last-minute check and saw the tin of ‘sugar’ sitting on the counter. He saw the misidentifying label, and realized what must have happened. He was angry not just because Angel had gone into the safe room—he’d been told not to do so—but, of course, because his mistake could have got them both in serious trouble. The passengers might have been taken deathly ill when they ingested the drug, but at a minimum, they were going to notice the weird taste of what should have been sugar. And that would affect Zaki’s reputation for creating nonstop masterpieces. He ordered Angel to throw the pudding away. The guests had tinned apricots that night instead.”
“That might be the part that sent him off the edge right there. The master chef sending such a poor excuse for a pudding out of his galley.”
“But where does it get us?” Cotton asked. “Did Margot get caught up in this scene somehow? She went storming out of the party, remember. Did she see something? Did she suspect drug use and drug smuggling were going on? Was Zaki dealing to the passengers? Did she use drugs herself? I suppose once you allow in drugs as a factor there are all manner of ways she could innocently have put herself in harm’s way.”
“Yes. If she found out about the drugs, if she caught Zaki red-handed somehow, would she be allowed to live to tell the tale?”
“I doubt that very much,” said Cotton.
“So do I,” said Max.
Cotton sighed. “What we need is a confession.”
“That would be most helpful. But whoever did this is looking at charges of murder, perverting the course of justice, preventing the burial of a corpse—just for starters,” said Max. “The chances anyone will break down and confess given the gravity of the situation are small.”
“Actually, it has to be premeditated murder, given the drugs. She didn’t dope herself with all that lot. There was nothing spur-of-the-moment about any of this.”
* * *
Much later that same day, Cotton and Max shared an after-dinner drink in the situation room.
“The guesstimate was about right,” Cotton told Max, ringing off another conversation on his mobile phone. “So far my team has found more than fifty kilograms of cocaine—well over a hundred pounds. It’s not a huge bust, not what they’re used to in London.”
“But it’s quite a nice haul for Monkslip-super-Mare,” said Max. “That’ll be many millions in street value if it’s high grade. You’re sure to be mentioned in dispatches.”
Cotton looked pleased at the idea, and Max was amused to see a faint blush spread across his friend’s face. At the least there would be an official commendation added to his file. It would all help when his super’s job fell open. “The question is, did the captain know? Did Romero?”
“I doubt the captain knew exactly what was going on,” Max replied. “Romero—maybe he knew, maybe not. But there’s no earthly reason for him to be involved, that we’re aware. He certainly didn’t need the cash; your team looking into his finances seems to feel the lavish lifestyle was well funded. He might overreach his limits one day but so far, so good. Still … some people get into this kind of thing solely because they think it’s a lark. They’re in it for the thrill of pulling one off against the authorities. For those addicted to excitement, the thrill is all.”
“I’ve met the type before,” said Cotton. “Nothing they do makes sense, on the surface.” He paused, thinking, then said, “The captain at least had to have suspected something, don’t you agree? Still, lack of clear knowledge is no defense against guilt.”
“There’s a legal concept I’ve always had trouble grasping—how do you condemn someone who had no clue? All right, he was in charge of the ship, but even so…”
“The buck has to stop somewhere,” said Cotton.
Max smiled at him. “These Americanisms. That was Truman, wasn’t it? Anyway, I wonder how long it’s been going on, the smuggling.”
“It’s hard to say. The safe room was built into the ship a year ago, replacing the small gym that had been there before. So at least we know the time frame of when the safe room could have been used to conceal the drugs. The regular storage areas may have been in use before that time for the same purpose, of course, but it’s a dicey proposition. What if the sous-chef went to bread the chicken with flour and accidentally used cocaine? He could have wiped out everyone on board. With the safe room, it was a safer bet, so to speak. So long as only the chef and captain knew the combination. And the captain had no need to go in there as a matter of routine.”
“And then one night the sous-chef ran out of the icing sugar he needed to decorate his pastries. And unknowingly, he used cocaine powder from the stores in the safe room.”
“Right.”
“No doubt, as Angel said, it helped the chef to have someone like Delphine Beechum flitting about, acting as go-between. We noted before her usefulness in bridging the crew and the guests. Her ability to penetrate those social barriers at will. And it helps explain that blue hotel pen found in her cabin, the one with the fish logo. There are other explanations for her having it, of course—it’s not conclusive. But if she is lying about having been at the hotel before, perhaps passing drugs to and from the ship, we have a good indicator she’s lying about other things. She’s a memorable person and someone on the staff here will remember seeing her—”
“She was dealing,” said Cotton. “Had to be. I wonder how big a part she played. As a courier, or in procuring the stuff in the first place. She will need a good explanation for the large amounts of money we’re finding in her numerous savings accounts, which can’t be accounted for by her paychecks alone.”
“I think we can rely on what Angel told us—he suspected from the first she was the conduit. She and the chef had too many hushed conversations for there not to have been something going on. What earthly use is a cruise director on such a small yacht? The chef will spill the beans soon enough—sorry, what an appalling play on words. But remember, his style is to cast the blame, and with Angel out of the picture I doubt he’ll hesitate to implicate his actual accomplice. If you’re asking for the most likely scenario, she found buyers, passed the stuff along, and took a cut for doing so. Her financials don’t add up otherwise; there isn’t that much money in teaching yoga.”
“But there’s certainly better karma there than in drug smuggling.”
A pause, as Max sat thinking back over what they had learned. He watched the play of light in the amber liquid of his drink. “Tina,” he said, musingly. “What was her given first name again?”
Cotton rustled through some papers. “I think it’s short for—yes, here we go. It’s short for Christina.”
“It’s also a street name for crystal meth, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“Are you thinking there’s a connection?” Cotton asked.
“Not really. What’s in a name, after all?”
“Quite a lot,” said Cotton. “There is quite a lot to a name.”
Max looked at him. He had never before asked. It simply had not come up in all the time he’d known Cotton. “Do you have a first name?”
Cotton looked at the ceiling, at the floor, out the window—everywhere but at Max before saying, “It’s Prospero. Yes, you heard right. Prospero Cotton. I was presumably named after the character played by my father. Whoever that was.”
“Oh, sorry, man. That’s tough. I mean it must have been hard. In school and everything. Prospero, eh?”
Cotton shrugged. “Most people were pretty decent about it.”
Max had to wonder. Life couldn’t have been easy for a boy named Prospero. It certainly helped explain why Cotton was so well read up on the plays of Shakespeare. But Max wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t an unusual choice of name for a baby.
“I think my mother was crazy, actually,” Cotton said. “Or she thought I’d have a career in the theater. Which was never going to happen, after my having seen the life they all led. Chaos was reserved for the good days. The rest of the time it was pure ruddy mayhem.”
“If nothing else,” said Max mildly, “it’s helped give you the advantage in this case. I think you see the psychology of many of the suspects quite well.” It might assist him in other ways, too, Max thought. Perhaps the ability to tell when a suspect was lying was enhanced by a childhood of being surrounded by people playacting a part.
Or did it hinder? Could Cotton always spot the truth, given that background?
But Max was still grappling with “Prospero.” On reports, he’d only seen Cotton use his initials: P. C. Cotton. No wonder. He was afraid to ask him what C stood for. Probably Caliban.
Max made a deliberate attempt to excise the knowledge from his mind, to tuck it away in a little cabinet marked “Unimportant Information.” Cotton would always be just plain Cotton to him.