Tidal Rage by David Evans (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

the board that very evening, followed by updates each night as the investigation continued.

Following the discussion with Wright, Stahmer patiently laid out all the evidence on the shed floor, and after instructing Ghislaine in the art of photography, she catalogued the parts to ensure a chain of evidence was completed. Stahmer crept back into the craft again to study the smoke patterns on the areas of the hull which remained intact.

Later that evening, Stahmer had just begun to devour his stuffed mushroom appetizer. Ghislaine, who had opted for the calamari, handed him the mobile phone that had vibrated to life in her small black bag. Stahmer listened intently to what Cutler was telling him, and once the conversation ended, so did his appetite, as he moved his plate aside.

It was clear to Ghislaine that the news was not good, but she had not expected it to be so bad.

During the first months of MIDAS, all the team had gathered and had shared a large riverfront house in Everglade City. They had all trained together, devised the protocols together, and eaten each meal together. Undeniable friendships had been forged within this month, and in one or two cases, even more.

The shock of Hoagie’s demise brought Ghislaine to tears, as she sat at the table, and Stahmer related what little he knew. She shook her head, as the waiter offered to pour her more of the finest of clarets. Stahmer stood and put his arm around her in a fatherly manner and escorted her out quickly from the prying eyes of the other diners.

Drawn from the lack of sleep and fountain of tears for a man she had only just come to know, she tried to figure out why Hoagie’s death had hit her so hard. She felt MIDAS was a family, it was like losing a brother.

By morning, she had shed her last tear, as she joined Stahmer in the Mercedes. They headed with their suitcases to the Classical Canta Libra. They sat in silence on the short journey to the ship, Ghislaine reminiscing about her brother, and Stahmer thinking deeply about his departed, beloved wife.

Once aboard the vessel, they were met by the captain, who had been informed he was to give them every assistance. He introduced Stahmer and Ghislaine to the officers first, and then several mass briefings and introductions to the rest of the crew, hospitality staff, and entertainers.

Sebastian had attended the final briefing of the day and looked up at the stage in the theatre at the investigators. His first thought was not about the net being trawled too close to home, as he was certain he had covered his steps. His mind drifted, he thought how lovely the female investigator’s hair shone so temptingly with the backlight, and how he would dearly love to rip it out, a strand at a time. But it was pure fantasy, he knew; he would have to curtail his desires, at least until he was off this ship. He was also aware that inviting outside investigators onto the ship was a first; it was the general agreement among the crew that someone must have sabotaged the lifeboat.

Sebastian would have to find another cruise line to work, no matter the outcome of the investigation. He was too close to this, and investigations were not good for business.

Jan Bjork, the ship’s Norwegian captain, was as good as his word. He allocated the pair of investigators the unused conference room as their hub for interviews. They sketched out timelines and spider graphs to lay down a basis to start the investigation. All their notes, drawings, speadsheets went back via secure laptops and satellite phones to Fabienne back in Geneva.

Standard procedure for the closed-circuit television revealed that they only recorded in certain areas, and on a twenty-four-hour re-record system. Other cameras were for monitoring in real time, and the captain admitted this was very seldom, as the mainly ex-army security staff had other duties to undertake. The captain did, however, have the foresight to ensure the digital images caught on the CCTV after the lifeboat incident from all recordable cameras was saved to an encrypted file on his computer, which he now gave to Stahmer.

Stahmer copied the images to his laptop and uploaded the unedited file to Fabienne’s master computer in Geneva, for it would be she who analysed the pictures. The time-consuming interviews of crew and officers took days. Each night, Stahmer uploaded the oral recorded statements of the day from the crew. Fabienne had created a programme that would transcribe the interviews in seconds and crossmatch the statements to compare any inconsistencies across everyone’s statements. Stahmer had established that the lifeboat could only have been sabotaged the night before it exploded. It had been used as a tender the previous afternoon, and had been under constant watch the following morning, as the ship’s painters had been plying their trade on balustrades beside the lifeboat station.

Fabienne gave her software programme the name Speedy Gonzales, after a cartoon character she had watched as a child. The software had been adjusted by Fabienne to identify where a person had been the previous evening from the individual’s statements, cross-reference the person’s alibi to others that had been in the same area, and then cross-match to the CCTV, as well as to each and every person’s photograph, as supplied by Basmati at the beginning of the investigation. It took more time at Stahmer’s end to upload the files than it took Speedy Gonzales to work its magic. Speedy was always the fastest person around, hence the name for the software.

Stahmer knew he would not discover who the perpetrator was in that week. His scope for the week was to interview all 1,025 employees and artists. The captain wanted to restrict interviews to ten minutes per person, Stahmer rejected the time restraints. Both he and Ghislaine worked nineteen hours a day, interviewing and