The police spoke to the two yachtsmen who were both smoking and looking shaken. Then there was a flurry of activity as the police used their mobile phones and pushed the onlookers further away. Another car arrived with plainclothes detectives and the chequered tape came out indicating that this was a crime scene. The detectives began taking names and addresses and I drifted away to the edge of the growing crowd. Eventually, I was able to walk away with others whose interest had been satisfied.

I bought a coffee at a stall outside the marina and drank it leaning against my car in the sunshine. More official vehicles arrived-SOC people, water police with, at a guess, a frogman, and there was probably a pathologist in the mix. A television camera crew swept in.

Shit happens, as they say, and there was no necessary connection between Nordlung's death and my visit. For all I knew he could've had a hundred enemies, but it seemed more than likely there was a connection. The question then was, who knew of my intention? Standish, but not the precise time. Nordlung's wife. The other possibility was that Nordlung's phone was tapped and that can never be ruled out with the surveillance equipment around now. That idea opened up other questions. If Malouf had faked his death, someone had died to provide the body. And now Nordlung. They must be playing for higher stakes here than just ripping off some middle-range investors.

Thinking hard, I drove back to the city to a car park near the building where Prospero Sabatini worked. He wrote for a weekly called The Investor, which prided itself on its investigative journalism. I'd Googled him and got the essential details-aged thirty-two, ex-army with service in Timor and the Solomon Islands, master's degree in economics, keen rock climber. He'd published two books-one on corporate fraud, one on rock climbing. I phoned Sabatini and he agreed to meet me for lunch in a pub close by.