Scott Mariani - The Armada Legacy

Butler’s study was at the other end of the ground floor. The walls were covered with framed pictures, nearly all of them blown-up prints of scenes from various marine salvage expeditions. One showed the Neptune Marine Exploration flagship Trident taken from the air; nearby Ben noticed three others of Butler himself, photographed on deck with Roger Forsyte, the two of them surrounded by NME crew members and all grinning like schoolkids over a barnacled hunk of unrecognisable marine salvage that was obviously some fantastically valuable artefact they’d just dredged up from the sea bed.

The Simon Butler in the photos was a far cry from the defeated, pale, shrunken man who threw himself down in a chair by the desk. ‘All right. What do you want?’

‘I came here to talk about the briefcase that your employer had cuffed to his wrist the night he was kidnapped,’ Ben said, sitting on the arm of a couch opposite. ‘Nobody seems to know what was inside. I thought maybe you might. And we’ll get to that, but now I’m here I see there’s more to all this. Isn’t there, Butler? Better start talking fast, because I’m not in a patient mood.’

‘I … I …’

‘What was it, the horses? Cards? Or just drugs and women?’

Butler just stared. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

‘That’s fine,’ Ben said. ‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn what kind of sordid little vice it is that you need your head examined for and almost had to sell your house over. I’m more interested in knowing where all the money came from all of a sudden to pull you up out of the shit.’

‘It’s … an inheritance,’ Butler stammered. ‘From a wealthy uncle.’

‘People normally celebrate a windfall like that with a bottle of champagne,’ Ben said. ‘You went for vodka and sleeping pills instead. Some people might find that odd.’

‘Who the hell do you think you are, coming into my home and prying into my affairs?’ Butler rose up out of his chair and started marching towards the door. ‘You’re going to have to leave now.’

Before he’d made it halfway, Ben stood up and blocked him, grasping a fistful of his shirt collar and propelling him back into his chair. ‘Why don’t we get Mrs Butler and the twins in here and talk more about this wealthy uncle of yours?’

Butler gaped up at him from the chair.

‘The truth,’ Ben said. ‘All of it, and fast. Or when you leave this room, it’ll be another ambulance trip. One way only.’

Butler’s face suddenly contorted and he began to weep miserably. ‘It wasn’t meant to happen like this!’ he wailed.

‘What way was it meant to happen, Butler? Speak to me.’

Butler did, and Ben sat and listened as it all came out: the usual squalid tale, and with it all the usual excuses. The urge was stronger than him. Nothing, no form of therapy ever invented, not even the terror of total ruin and social and professional disgrace, could rein it in. It had started years ago with a few innocent flutters on the fruit machines, and steadily grown from there into a full-blown addiction to anything and everything that could be gambled on, at the expense of the family’s savings and, very nearly, his marriage. Losing the house would have been the last straw.

‘You’ve no idea how deep I was in,’ Butler sobbed. ‘There was no way out. I was on the verge of losing everything. I had to think of my family. It’s what any husband or father would have done. I swear, I didn’t know anyone would get hurt. It was just business. Why was I so weak? Oh Christ, why did I … ?’

‘I’m going to break your neck in the next minute if you don’t tell me exactly what happened,’ Ben said quietly.

‘All right, all right, I’ll tell you. Let me start at the beginning.’ Butler wiped away tears and looked pitifully up at him. ‘It wasn’t all my fault,’ he sniffed. ‘I mean, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t tried to buy it from Roger, fair and square. I knew how pig-headed he could be. They said he’d turned them down flat, wouldn’t budge no matter how much they offered him for it.’

‘Offered him for what?’

‘What he was carrying in the case,’ Butler said. ‘I’m certain it was what he found inside that casket.’

‘Forty seconds,’ Ben said.

‘Let me explain,’ Butler pleaded. ‘You see, back in early December, we were pulling up so much stuff from the Santa Teresa that the whole staff, including Roger, were mucking in to help bring it aboard Trident , clean it up, categorise it and store it. It wasn’t usual for Roger to get his hands dirty like that. It was as if he knew in advance that the casket would be there. It was just this iron-bound strongbox with a kind of seal on the lid, not like any of the others, and nothing much to look at compared to some of the incredible pieces we were finding. The moment the crane brought it up, Roger took it away to his office and spent a long time alone with it before locking it up in his private safe.’

‘So you’ve no idea what it was?’

‘When I asked him about it, he was evasive. He only told me that it was something incredibly hot. He was acting as if it was worth more than the rest of the stuff put together, would hardly let it out of his sight. Said he didn’t want to make it public until he knew more, and then it was going to cause a massive sensation. The morning after the media event he was due to fly down to Spain to talk to this historical consultant about it. That’s all I know, I swear.’

‘Who are they ?’ Ben demanded. ‘These people who approached you?’

‘Not long after Roger had got the casket,’ Butler explained, ‘I got a call from a man who said his name was Smith. I couldn’t tell where he was from, but he didn’t sound British. Told me he was coming to me because I’d been with the company so long and knew Roger the best. Now I know it was because they must have checked up on my background, had me followed or something, and knew about my … my problem.’

Butler heaved a deep sigh, staring into the middle distance as he talked. ‘At first I wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t take him seriously. But he seemed to know so much, about the casket, and about NME’s business. And when they wired a down payment of fifty grand into my bank account, I knew they were serious. I called the bank and tried to find out where the money had come from. It was from some numbered offshore account that couldn’t be traced to anyone. Smith told me there was another half a million in it if—’

‘If you helped them to kidnap and murder your friend Roger Forsyte.’

‘On my kids’ lives, I promise you that it wasn’t like that. They told me they only wanted what was in the case. I knew he’d have it with him when he went back to the manor from the country club that night. My job was to call Smith and tell him when the car was setting off. Once Smith’s people had the case, they were meant to take Roger and the others to a safe place, unharmed, and call the cops to come and get them. No guns, no violence. That was agreed.’

Ben looked at him in disgust. His hands were shaking with the urge to slam Butler’s head against the desk. Hard. Repeatedly. ‘And you believed all that.’

‘You can’t make me feel any worse than I already do,’ Butler said in a flat, empty voice. ‘I know I don’t deserve a penny of that money. I don’t even deserve to live. It wasn’t just Roger. Wally and Sam are dead too, thanks to me. And your friend … I’m just so very sorry. I don’t know what to say.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘Rachel hates me, you know. My kids hate me. They’re right to hate me. I wish I was dead.’

Ben’s face hardened even more. ‘You said Forsyte had planned to meet up with a history expert about whatever was inside the case.’