The Riverboat Mystery (Jenny Starling #3)(53)

‘The military court hardly cleared you, Finch,’ Rycroft bit out. ‘It merely had to conclude that there was not enough evidence to convict you.’

Dorothy Leigh gasped, but Tobias Lester, Jenny saw, was not looking at all surprised.

No doubt he and O’Keefe had already read the document. Tobias had been present at the darts match, Jenny instantly surmised, knowing all the time that O’Keefe had been searching Olney’s room. She wondered, idly, if maybe O’Keefe and the captain had planned to do a little blackmailing of their own, just to ensure that they kept their cottages, at least.

Of course, since the court martial was a matter of record, whether or not Olney had kept copies was irrelevant. In which case, something more drastic would have to be done. And the obvious solution was to make sure that Olney didn’t live to wrest the boat away from Lucas. It could have happened that way, Jenny mused. Two strong men of action — what chance would Olney have had against the both of them?

But she was getting well into the realms of guesswork now, which was something that she didn’t like to do. It was far too easy to come up with beautifully crafted theories that fizzled out in the light of more solid proof. Besides, it was far easier to concentrate on one thing at a time.

Which meant Lucas Finch and his court martial.

‘But what was the court martial about?’ she asked out loud, knowing that it was the thought on everyone’s mind.

Lucas gave her an Et tu, Brute? look and the parrot blew a raspberry.

It was a very good raspberry, and it set Graves’ lips to twitching once more.

‘It appears that our friend Mr Finch here commandeered medical supplies during the Falklands War,’ Rycroft grated. ‘Medical supplies that proved to be very lucrative for certain players in the street drugs trade. It must have made you a lot of money too, Finch,’ he finished disdainfully.

But by now Lucas had had time to rally, and he merely smiled grimly. ‘If you’ve read those documents thoroughly, Inspector, you’ll know that nothing was ever proved.’

‘But it put the wind up you enough to make you agree to sell this boat though, didn’t it . . . sir,’ Graves put in, his voice dripping with disgust. ‘No doubt if your friends in the drug trade learned that you and your past dealings with them were about to become public knowledge, they might have got a little worried about your continuing ability to keep your mouth shut, hmm? Is that why you knuckled under? It certainly wasn’t because you cared about your reputation, was it, Mr Finch?’ he sneered.

Lucas returned to a dull grey colour, all but admitting that the sergeant had hit the nail right on the head.

But he said nothing.

Rycroft turned away in disgust. Then he glanced across at the assembled company, who were all being very careful not to look Lucas in the eye.

‘I want everyone to spend the night on board,’ he said heavily, half expecting to be the brunt of the usual grumbling that such an order might be expected to generate. But, somewhat to his surprise, nobody demurred. Obviously they had been expecting such an order, and none of them seemed inclined to rail against it.

It was an odd reaction, Rycroft thought. And their meek acceptance unnerved him somewhat. He even wondered, for a brief, wild, insane moment, whether it was possible that they were all in on it together. Each and every one of them had their own reasons for wanting Gabriel Olney dead.

Was that sort of thing even possible, he wondered, breaking out into a cold sweat. He’d never had to deal with a fairly large-scale conspiracy case before. And they were absolute sods to prove.

Then sanity overtook him again. He’d been at work all day, rushing about in the heat, and getting nowhere. He was just overtired, that was all.

‘Have the lads set up our tents for the night?’ he asked his sergeant, his weariness very apparent now.

Graves nodded.

‘Then I think I’ll turn in.’

‘Don’t you want any dinner, Inspector?’ Jenny said, her voice rife with disapproval. ‘I’ve kept some hot for you. And for you, too, of course, Sergeant Graves,’ the cook added cunningly. ‘I was just about to ask Francis to serve the main course anyway.’

She had not misread her man. Sergeant Graves hadn’t grown up to be such a strapping lad by nibbling on lettuce leaves. His big face lit up and his stomach growled, quite audibly. The parrot cocked his head to one side, the better to hear this intriguing new noise.

Rycroft, admitting defeat, sat down in a vacant chair, a rather amused gleam in his eye as his sergeant quickly did the same. But a scant minute later he was forced to admit that he was glad he had, as an extremely appetizing dinner was put down in front of him. The smell coming off the meat alone had his mouth watering.

Jenny stayed only long enough to watch the sergeant begin to wolf down his dinner, before taking a plateful to the engineer, who, rather wisely, had returned to the boiler room to keep his head down.

She came straight back, however, appeasing Rycroft somewhat. If she’d stayed behind to question the engineer further, he might just have been tempted to order her off the boat and back to Oxford, just to get her out from under his feet.

But he was too good a policeman not to admit that she had proved helpful so far, and might do so again. And as much as he wanted to beat the cook to the punchline, so to speak, he wanted to apprehend the killer more.

Rycroft hated murder. He hated civil disobedience of any kind.