The Yacht Party Read online

  The Yacht Party

  Tasmina Perry

  Sunflower & Co

  Copyright © 2021 Tasmina Perry

  Kindle Edition

  This edition published by Sunflower & Co 2021

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or places and organisations is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-911297-29-1

  Also available by Tasmina Perry

  Daddy’s Girls

  Gold Diggers

  Guilty Pleasures

  Original Sin

  Kiss Heaven Goodbye

  Private Lives

  Perfect Strangers

  The Proposal

  Deep Blue Sea

  The Last Kiss Goodbye

  The House on Sunset Lake

  The Pool House

  Friend of the Family

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  The Yacht Party

  The thrilling first book in a brand new glamorous mystery series

  What happens onboard, stays onboard

  Investigative reporter Lara Stone is offered a new start when her oldest friend Sandrine invites her to join the Collective, a network of investigative journalists, funded by crusading media tycoon Eduardo Ortega.

  But when Sandrine is found dead in tragic circumstances, Lara believes her death is linked to a story she was writing about Jonathon Meyer, a secretive financier known for hosting glamorous networking parties on his Monte Carlo yacht ‘Pandora’.

  Two weeks earlier Meyer was also found dead, the victim of a violent mugging, but Lara believes Sandrine and Jonathon were both murdered and that the key to the motive lies onboard Pandora.

  What secrets are hidden onboard Meyer’s yacht? What deals were brokered that are worth killing for? And can Lara get to the truth before she herself becomes just another inconvenient guest at the party?

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also available by Tasmina Perry

  About the Book

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  About The Last Supper

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The sea stretched out for miles in every direction, nothing but blue and green and glints of gold. Privacy. That’s what money bought you. The ocean was empty save for one solitary superyacht, her long white hull reflecting in the water; it might as well have been floating in space.

  BOOM!

  The walnut stock jerked against his shoulder.

  BOOM!

  ‘Another two there, I think,’ he said, breaking the shotgun and watching the shells spin away into the water far below. The two men standing on the upper deck smiled as there was a sudden burst of applause from the cocktail lounge to the rear of the yacht.

  ‘You’re too kind!’ called the grey haired man as three beautiful women in bikinis raised their cocktail glasses and whooped their approval.

  ‘Sycophants,’ he muttered to his companion.

  ‘They merely appreciate a master at work,’ smiled the younger man, raising his own gun. ‘Pull!’

  A uniformed crew member released the clays, arcing up over the starboard side of the yacht.

  BOOM!

  One clay shattered.

  BOOM!

  The other span across the horizon and dropped into the sea.

  ‘Oh, bad luck.’

  Except of course it wasn’t. He’d missed the second clay deliberately. It was all part of the game. Let your opponent win, or at least think they have.

  He looked down at the other guests watching this one-sided duel. The women in sarongs and sunglasses, the men all impeccably dressed in tailored shorts and shirts, despite the heat. Jermyn Street. Nantucket reds. Something discreet like a Breitling or a Chopard. Preppy, they called it in the States, but it was a uniform, a rigid dress code that spoke of history and privilege, a costume that declared their allegiance to capitalism and wealth. And above all, to continuity. Which was the real reason they were here. Not just shooting off guns for the fun of it.

  He pulled two shells from a crystal bowl and slid them into the breech, cocking the gun with a satisfying click. When a gun cost more than a brand new Rolls Royce, you expected it to function perfectly and of course it did, just like everything else in this life. Almost everything.

  ‘So your problem is sorted now?’ he said, looking across to the grey haired man who nodded.

  ‘Pull!’

  The clays flew in a perfect parabola.

  BOOM! – pause – BOOM!

  ‘Yes, your man Schmitt was very good, as you promised. You always do know the best people.’

  ‘I’m here to help,’ the younger man said graciously, swinging his gun up in an arc. ‘Any problems and you can always come to me.’

  ‘BOOM! BOOM!’

  ‘You know I am grateful for our friendship.’

  He put his gun down, ready to make his move. Outwardly he was calm, but inside, he knew how high the stakes were.

  ‘Speaking of which, there is something you can do for me.’

  He spoke smoothly, but this was a break with protocol. He never asked for help. He was the man who fixed other people’s problems. But Schmitt couldn’t sort this one. In fact the only man who could was standing right next to him. There was a moment’s pause, then the grey-haired man raised a regal hand, signalling to yacht staff. The bloodsport was over, for now at least.

  ‘I think this calls for a drink, don’t you?’

  Chapter 1

  Lara had expected the press, but she hadn’t expected the crowds. She could hear them even before they got to the entrance, chanting some slogan she couldn’t quite make out.

  ‘Looks like the fan club has turned out, hmm?’ said Gerald Rawles, the Chronicle’s barrister, as he led them through the high lobby of the law courts.

  When Lara had first walked into the Royal Courts of Justice two weeks previously, she had been awed by its magnificence: the high Gothic exterior, the polished marble floor, statues and carved archways pressing in on either side, it was all designed to drown you in grandeur, to put you in your place. The great cathedrals worked on the same principle, to remind you that whatever your troubles, there were greater forces at work – God and the law. And in this building, they were one and the same. Or they had been.

  Lara looked back at th
e grand staircase to her left, towards Court number three. Today the law had let Lara down, it had let them all down. Despite having evidence, despite knowing that they were absolutely right, her newspaper had lost their libel case against Felix Tait, a stronger, better connected opponent. And now this great open lobby felt claustrophobic and a little grubby.

  As they reached the huge arched doors, the noise outside began to swell and suddenly a cheer went up.

  ‘At least someone’s having fun,’ muttered Nicholas Avery, the Chairman of the Chronicle. He was a tall, aristocratic man, the kind for whom a Savile Row suit seemed part of his being rather than a style choice, a throwback to the old days of the ‘inkies’ when newspaper owners were Lords and journalism was a gentleman’s career, but even Nicholas’s upright bearing had sagged a little during the libel case. Not that the judgement against the paper had been a surprise – not really. In hindsight, who would have bet on the Chronicle beating a libel case against Felix Tait, one of the most wealthy and powerful men in the world? Yes, the Chronicle was a respected title with an international reputation for breaking news, but Felix Tait was, well, Felix Tait. If he didn’t own something, he could just buy it up and shut it down. But now he didn’t need to: he had crippled them.

  ‘Sorry it didn’t go our way,’ said Gerald. ‘But we did have rotten luck all the way through.’

  Lara almost laughed at the understatement. Rotten luck didn’t even begin to cover it.

  The Chronicle’s investigations team had caught tech tycoon Felix Tait visiting a high-class prostitute. They had sworn testimonies, photographs and phone records: they could prove it. But Tait had something up his sleeve. He had an alibi, dramatically entered into evidence at the last minute. It was flimsy to say the least, but the Judge had accepted it – and that had been it.

  ‘Who needs bad luck when you have Judge Winters?’ said Alex Ford, the deputy editor of the Chronicle and technically Lara’s boss, not that he ever played that card. They were friends first, colleagues after. Gerald looked across, his expression sympathetic.

  ‘The judge didn’t help, I’ll grant you that. But sometimes the game just doesn’t go your way.’

  ‘I’m not sure now is the time for blaming the system,’ said Darius Allen, the Chronicle’s editor-in-chief. ‘Instead, we need a full debrief on what went wrong. This has been a disaster for the paper and for the press as a whole.’

  Lara glanced at him. A disaster for you, she thought. Darius had been bullish from the start, clearly imagining his speeches of personal victory on the evening news. As the trial had gone on and it had become obvious that The Chronicle might lose, Darius’s rhetoric shifted to presenting himself as a crusader for free speech, crushed by judicial injustice when in fact, Felix Tait had simply out-played them.

  As Gerald withdrew, Lara peered out through the doors of the court. There was an actual crowd out there, pushing against waist-high barriers; it was more like a One Direction reunion than a libel trial. Alex held up his phone and nodded towards the exit. ‘Our car’s here. Head straight for it.’

  A roar went up as the doors opened and Lara flinched at the glare of the flashbulbs. The roar became a cheer as the assembled crowd recognised the Chronicle team. At least someone appreciated what they’d been doing.

  ‘You were robbed!’ shouted a man in a waistcoat. ‘It’s a bloody shame!’

  ‘Vultures!’ cried a woman, holding up a home-made banner with that same word scrawled across the middle. It wasn’t clear who she thought the vultures were.

  ‘Lara, this way,’ shouted Alex, grabbing her hand. Two policemen were holding back a line of photographers and journalists, the car waiting at the far end.

  ‘Lara! Lara, over here!’ shouted a voice as they passed.

  She looked up. Lara should have been used to this, of course, but her natural place was on the other side of the barriers.

  ‘How do you feel about the verdict, Lara?’

  Lara recognised the woman with the Dictaphone thrust out in front of her. Deborah Simmons from the Examiner, a sour smile on her face. Simmons was a mean girl writ large, using her column inches to bully and belittle. Lara stopped and leaned towards Deborah’s tape machine.

  ‘The verdict is bullshit,’ she said sweetly. Lara took a moment to enjoy the look of shock on the woman’s face, then added. ‘You can quote me on that.’

  She would have said more, but Alex was pulling on her arm, yanking her into the car then slamming the door shut behind them.

  Lara slumped into the black leather seat trying to draw breath. The quiet purr of the engine was a shock after the cacophony on the street.

  ‘Don’t engage with them,’ said Alex firmly. He was angry, but Lara knew he was right. Alex was always right. He had been a close friend since their days as students on a postgraduate journalism course, and he had been a rock throughout the whole trial; as deputy editor he wasn’t even named on the writ, but he had been there at the High Court whenever his schedule had allowed it, just to support her.

  ‘Remember the day we graduated?’ he said with a half-smile.

  Despite herself, Lara gave a soft good-natured snort. They had raised a glass of cheap wine and had toasted ‘our future adventures’.

  ‘Not exactly what I had in mind,’ said Lara, with a grim smile.

  The driver was about to pull away when the front door opened and Nicholas slid into the passenger seat.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ he said. Not a question.

  ‘I thought you were doing the press conference,’ said Lara.

  Nicholas turned round to fix her with his disapproving gaze.

  ‘Darius is making a short statement. The company will put out a press release later. We’ll make sure it’s more considered than your interchange with Deborah Simmons back there. ‘Bullshit’ indeed.’

  ‘But it is bullshit!’ snapped Lara, her patience finally giving way. ‘If she had any sense Deborah Simmons would see that what’s good for Felix Tait is bad for all the press.’

  Nicholas tutted, the schoolmaster disappointed with his pupil.

  ‘All Deborah Simmons cares about is tomorrow’s headline. Something we could all learn from.’

  Lara was about to snap back a reply, but felt an urgent squeeze of her hand from Alex.

  ‘At least everyone knows what kind of man Tait is now, Lar,’ said Alex.

  ‘A noble sentiment,’ said Nicholas. ‘But it’s not enough to know something. You also have to be able to prove it in court.’

  That felt bit rich, coming from Nicholas Avery, a man who had made a fortune from splashing sensational headlines across the Chronicle’s front pages, relying on the supposition that most people wouldn’t take it to court. But Felix Tait wasn’t ‘most people’. He had money and the hide of a rhino and despite the fact his alibi stank – his personal chef had sworn under oath that Tait had been with her at the time, discussing his nutritional requirements, and she had convinced the judge. And in the end, that was all that mattered.

  She turned and looked out of the window as London slid past, petrol-grey and stagnant. A city on pause.

  The Chronicle offices were in Victoria, but the car was creeping up through the streets of Mayfair. Nicholas leaned over to the driver. ‘Could you drop us here, Michael?’ The car slid to the kerb right outside Scott’s, one of Nicholas’s favourite lunch-spots.

  ‘Alex, you head back to the office. Lara and I have things to discuss. I’ll see you later for a post-mortem.’

  Alex glanced at Lara, then nodded. Nicholas was his boss too.

  Lara was sorry to see her one ally go, but she knew she had to face this alone, just as she had as a teenager, summoned to Nicholas’ study to discuss some transgression. While Nicholas Avery was Lara’s boss, he was also her uncle. When her parents had died when Lara was eleven, she had been sent to live with Nicholas, his wife Olivia and her cousin Charlie. Nicholas had done his best to be a father figure, but he had still been a remote presence in her life, his ambi
tion to make the Chronicle an even bigger media player taking up all his time and energy. They had never been the sort of family who played Monopoly. The only time she ever really spoke to him was when she was in trouble – just like now.

  ‘So where does this leave us?’ asked Lara when they were settled at the table.

  ‘It leaves us screwed,’ said Nicholas. ‘Which was why Felix Tait sued us in the first place.’

  ‘Tait has political ambitions. I thought he sued us to protect his precious reputation,’ said Lara.

  Nicholas snorted.

  ‘Felix Tait is far more strategic than that. He knew that if he won the libel judgement, we’d back away from anything else he did or said. And not just the Chronicle, but every paper in the country. He can do what he likes now.’

  Lara disagreed. ‘Surely not. Everyone’s going to be looking at him all the more closely now.’

  ‘Really?’ said Nicholas. ‘I think everyone’s going to be looking at us. At you, in fact.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You were the lead writer, Lara,’ said Nicholas patiently. ‘You’re also a shareholder in the Chronicle. Our detractors are going to make a point of that.’

  His comment stung. Lara had inherited the shares from her father – Nicholas’s brother – when he had passed away. She had never wanted or asked for a part of the company and had deliberately taken her mother’s surname as a by-line to avoid accusations of nepotism.

  Nicholas folded his arms in front of him, a look of weary disapproval on his face.

  ‘I think you should take some time off,’ he said.

  ‘Time off?’ said Lara, her heart beginning to race.

  ‘I don’t think we can have your by-line on anything for a while. Think of it as a sabbatical; time to consider what you want to do next.’

  The full implication of what he was saying was beginning to sink in.

  ‘Wait a minute. You’re firing me?’

  ‘Lara, you will always have a place at this company. But right now you don’t have a position.’