Deceit. [COMPLETED.]

Chapter 72

"Turning the tide."

After my rebuke we travelled for the rest of the journey in a rather tense silence arriving safely at the airport around late morning.

Geoff made the necessary arrangements. We would go by helicopter. We could have gone by plane but this way was less conspicuous. I didn't ask how much it would cost either or whether Geoff had given another one of his bribes.

While we waited we went for a bite to eat. It gave us the time needed to mull over our next move.

We started by looking for any accomplices.

Patrick was dismissed straight away. There was nothing out of the ordinary in what he had done and as for my crew I dismissed them too which left Richard our superintendent.

'Sometimes,' said Geoff, 'in my profession; when someone says that they don't like a person it means the exact opposite.'

He was of course referring to Max and how she viewed Richard.

He of all the people was the most suitably placed to have made up a lot of the misdirection that had everyone tied up in knots.

'He filed the reports on the whereabouts of the Jupiter,' acknowledged Geoff. 'And so he could have easily lied about her position from the start.'

It was a valid point. I said that Cheryl had her suspicions of Richard and received  a smile in return.

'Woman's intuition,' said Geoff taking a sip from a cup of Luke warm coffee. 'Ignore it at your peril.'

He said that he would put a tail on him.

'If Mr O'Donnel has done anything out of the ordinary then my friend in London will find out and for good measure I'll get him to check out your man's bank account to see if he has been receiving any extra payments.'

We moved quickly on to Germany and then to Paris and it was here that I found myself hesitating.

Until now, Geoff had assumed I had been the innocent victim incapable of acts of violence and disclosing now about what I had done to the man in the street could have serious consequences on the trust that was now developing between us.

He read my hesitation.

'All or nothing,' he pointed out. 'You leave one thing out because of something which embarrasses you and we could miss that one vital piece of evidence that helps us find Danny.'

So I told him, warts and all and waited for his judgement.

He sighed and leant back in his chair. He took another sip of his coffee. He offered nothing for a while and then having given it some thought simply asked whether I was sure I had killed him.

'Of course I am,' I cried. 'What the hell do you think I did? He went down, there was blood - of course I killed him. I have been living with that fact ever since it happened. That's what led us to the South of France and her daddy's yacht, to get away from the police.'

He smiled that deep smile of a man who was in the know and I immediately understood what he was saying.

'So you think she planned that as well do you?'

He nodded.

'What better way to get you away from your ship and prepare you for her next instalment.'

But what of the note and the number to the safe I asked.

'Easy,' explained Geoff. 'It's an old magic trick. She plants a piece of paper inside every photo or behind every picture in the room. She waits patiently and then when one of the pieces are found she acts so surprised it causes you forget about everything else. You then leave the room with the next seed of doubt planted well in truly inside that very fragile head of yours.'