The Yacht Party (Lara Stone)

‘Is she a friend of Jonathon’s?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

He smiled.

‘I don’t think it will be long before you do.’

Lara was grateful for the confidence. For a moment, she felt as if she had someone on her side, even if it was a solicitor in leafy Surrey. As she rose to leave, Simon leaned forward and scribbled a number on the back of a business card.

‘You might want to speak to Tom Ramsay,’ he said, handing it over. ‘Tom is man who runs the Pandora.’

‘Jonathon’s yacht?’ she said in surprise.

‘You want to know about Jon’s life and are wondering where to start? That’s the place. Go and see the Pandora. Because everything starts with the yacht.’

Chapter 11

Lara sank back into the seat as the taxi swung along the Nice-Monaco coast road, past the blue shimmer of the Baie de Laurent to their right and the elegant houses and palm trees of Saint Antoine on the left. The sun glinted off the passing traffic – high end lime-green street machines hub-to-hub with rust-patched Citroens – and the bougainvillea shone pink against the bleached stone walls: everything was lurid like neon, even in the middle of the day.

Lara had flown into Nice and grabbed the first cab she had seen outside the terminal. Arriving in town with nothing but an overnight bag, she felt a little of the old energy flowing back through her, even if this was an unofficial visit, given she no longer worked for the Chronicle. Maybe she should start calling herself a freelancer, she mused, as she looked out of the window. That sounded better than unemployed. Or ‘private investigator’ – even more glamorous. But she was back on the hunt and that was what Lara Stone was good at. Sandrine had been right: it was what made her feel alive, especially when she was in her favourite corner of France.

Lara remembered her first trip to the Côte d’Azur, on a mini-break holiday with a long-gone boyfriend, Carl. All six-pack and no brains. How old had she been? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Carl had moaned; he had wanted to go to Ibiza, but Lara had loved the sights and smells of the Riviera, swinging through Juan Les Pins, blagging their way onto the terrace at Belles Rives hotel, drinking a bank-breaking martini where Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald had sat, then back to some flea-bitten pension up near the train station. Carl hadn’t seen the romance in it. In fact, he’d sulked so much, he had refused to go into the Picasso museum and when Lara had come out, she’d found Carl chatting up a couple of pretty Spanish tourists. She smiled to herself, shaking her head. Carl, Carl… he had been good-looking though.

‘Madame? Nous sommes ici. Le port.’

Lara sat up as a tangle of masts appeared through the window. Yachts, crammed together in orderly lines, millions, possibly billions of Euros just bobbing gently side by side in the afternoon sun.

This was Cap d’Ail, the smaller, slightly less glamorous cousin to Monaco’s Port Hercules, just around the headland, perhaps ten minutes by speedboat, but it still glittered with summer magic.

She got out of the car and walked towards the port, along the boardwalk, passing the smaller sailing boats, sleek and wind-powered crafts that sacrificed living space for speed and sea-worthiness. Not cheap by any means, but they had an adventurous air about them that Lara loved; they reminded her of her father who had loved boats and the sea. Sailors with frayed shorts and bare feet moved across their narrow decks. They wore designer sunglasses, sure, but at least these guys knew a few knots.

But as she looked further on, out to where the big yachts were moored, it was a different world entirely. Exclusive in the purest sense: only open to the very select few and excluding everyone else. What was it John Cleese put in his advert for Fawlty Towers? ‘No riff-raff’? That sign might well have been posted at the entrance to the marina.

A noise from inside her bag made her stop. She scrabbled her phone from her bag, the ringing sounding unnaturally loud out here on the wharf. Two or three faces on the boats had turned to look at her curiously.

‘Stella,’ said Lara, picking up the call.

‘Boss, where are you?’ asked her assistant.

‘Cap d’Ail, the port. I think you’d appreciate the view,’ she said, as one of the more handsome sailors smiled at her.

‘I’m glad you’re having a lovely time,’ said Stella, her voice tinny down the line. ‘I’m outside a greasy spoon talking to cabbies.’

Lara had asked Stella to stay in London and try to untangle the timeline of Sandrine’s movements leading up to her death. They simply didn’t know what Sandrine had been doing, where she had been, or crucially, who she had spoken to in the days before she had gone to The Engineer to meet Lara.

‘I found the driver who took Sandrine home that night,’ said Stella. ‘He remembered her being… hang on.’

Lara pictured Stella flipping open her notebook. ‘…Like one of those Victoria’s Secret models. All long hair and legs.’

Lara gave a soft snort. ‘She’d have liked that.’

‘More importantly, the driver said she was in good spirits, joking with him about the French football team. Apparently she said they’re not as good-looking as they once were. She definitely didn’t sound suicidal.’

‘Good stuff. Any luck with the neighbours?’

‘Not so much, no. I spoke to everyone in the building and an old girl across the road. The tenants in the basement flat found Sandrine’s body when they were coming home from a night out. But other than that, no one saw or heard anything before the police showed up and no one had even noticed Sandrine beforehand either. No real surprise to be honest, it’s an Airbnb rental with a separate entrance on a side street.’

Lara nodded to herself. She’d guessed as much. As Ian Fox had said, this was Central London. Not exactly an engaged community.