“Indeed he does.”
“What is a certificate of identity and origin?” Sara asked.
“It’s used in conjunction with the ship’s registry,” Kehoe explained as she handed the paper to Sara, “to ensure yacht owners have free movement throughout the European Union. It may be helpful, especially if Mr. McGuire is at sea, as it contains his ship’s radio call sign and his registered sail number.”
Aside from what Kehoe had noted, the one-page form contained a trove of new information. It required Spalding, aka McGuire, to list his nationality, place and date of birth, passport number with the date and place of issue, and home address, along with specific details about his boat, right down to the builder, the model, the engine number, tonnage, the date and place of sale, and where the boat had been built.
According to the document McGuire was an Irish national born in Boston who’d been issued his passport in Dublin over a year ago. He’d bought Sapphire from a dealer in Northern Ireland soon after that.
Sara gave the form to Fitzmaurice, who scanned it eagerly. “When did McGuire take his yachtmaster courses?” she asked.
Kehoe paged back through the documents. “He finished his coastal courses eleven months ago and his offshore training this past July.”
“He lists a home address in Galway,” Sara said.
“Yes,” Kehoe replied, “but the information is outdated.”
“How do you know that?” Fitzmaurice asked.
“Mr. McGuire came by several weeks ago to let me know he would be moving to Dun Laoghaire in the next few months and until then would be living on his motor yacht.”
“Do you recall anything else he said to you?” Sara asked.
Kehoe nodded. “He was planning a voyage around Ireland after he completed his shore-based yachtmaster ocean-training scheme.”
“Where would he take such training?” Fitzmaurice asked.
“There are any number of certified training centres,” Kehoe said, looking at Fitzmaurice over her reading glasses. “Of the commercial centres the closest course offering is in Bray.”
Fitzmaurice fished out Spalding’s photograph and slid it across the desk to Kehoe. “Just to confirm, this is Mr. McGuire?”
Kehoe picked up the photograph and adjusted her glasses. “Indeed it is. Charming man. I hope his family troubles won’t be devastating to him.”
“His father died,” Sara replied, “and his presence is needed to help settle complex issues regarding the estate.”
“How sad.”
Sara nodded solemnly in agreement.
“May we have a copy of your records?” Fitzmaurice asked.
“Yes, of course,” Kehoe replied.
“Also, if you could furnish us with a list of the organizations who offer the yachtmaster training schemes, that would be lovely.”
After Kehoe left to make copies and gather the information, Fitzmaurice turned to Sara. “Apparently, our George is well on his way to establishing himself as a charming and agreeable member of the Dun Laoghaire yachting set.”
“If he has put out to sea on a cruise around Ireland,” Sara said, “what are our chances of finding him?”
“Hit or miss would be my guess. I’ll ring up the Coast Guard and ask them to start looking.” Fitzmaurice glanced at his wristwatch. “If we’re going to keep vigil while Paquette meets with the builder at the villa, we need to leave straightaway.”
On the drive to the villa Fitzmaurice kept one hand on the wheel as he called the Irish Coast Guard to get a search under way for Spalding’s yacht, and then made another call to the passport office in Dublin. He was still on the phone when he parked the car down the street from the villa.
When he finished the conversation, he turned to Sara and said, “Passport records show that Spalding, either under the name of Bruneau or McGuire, has spent seven of the last twelve months in Ireland.”
“Did you get the exact dates?” Sara asked.
Fitzmaurice rattled them off from memory as Sara wrote them down.
“Interesting,” Sara said, scanning the paperwork Kehoe had provided. “From what Kehoe gave us, soon after Spalding bought Sapphire, he started coming back to Ireland to take the coastal and offshore land-and sea-based training classes. To qualify he spent almost four months in class or at sea. To get his ocean certificate he needs to log another six-hundred-mile, nonstop trip. I bet that’s what his voyage around Ireland is all about.”
“There’s no need to be checking marinas and yacht clubs for him if he’s at sea,” Fitzmaurice said.
“We don’t know that.”
“You’re right, of course,” Fitzmaurice said.
“How far are we from Bray?”
“A few kilometers.”
“Telephone this number.” Sara read it off. “It’s for a company called Celtic Sailing. They offer the yachtmaster ocean certificate course.”
Fitzmaurice punched in the numbers, put the phone to his ear, listened, and shook his head. “Closed for the day. No matter, I’ll have an officer find the owner and arrange for us to interview him.”
He made the call, put the phone on the dashboard, and said, “It may interest you to know that Spalding paid for his passport application with a cheque from a Galway bank. Quite possibly he’s moved his assets there. I’ll query the bank in the morning. With any luck we may be able to trace his current movements through his cheque and credit-card transactions.”
Fitzmaurice stopped talking when a builder’s van rolled to a stop in front of the villa, and a stocky man with gray hair, holding a roll of blueprints, got out and waited by the side of his vehicle. He wore work boots, blue jeans, a plaid shirt, and had a bit of a potbelly. Josephine Paquette arrived shortly afterward in her hired car, accompanied by her driver. While the driver waited, Paquette talked briefly to the man at the front of the van, who quickly unrolled the blueprints on the bonnet of his vehicle and pointed to something that made Paquette nod in approval. The builder smiled, rolled up the blueprints, and followed Paquette into the house.
A half hour passed before they came out, Paquette talking and gesturing with her hands while the builder scribbled notes on a clipboard. Finally she waved a good-bye, got into the waiting car, and left.
The man walked to his van, sat in the driver’s seat with the door open, and continued to make notes.
“Here we go, then,” Fitzmaurice said as he got out of the vehicle.
Together they approached the man, who looked up from the clipboard to find Fitzmaurice’s Garda credentials under his nose.
“A few moments of your time, if you please,” Fitzmaurice said with a smile.
A brief conversation with the builder, a man named Brendan McCarrick, confirmed Sara’s theory that Spalding could not possibly have left the renovation of his villa solely in Paquette’s hands. Twice over the course of the previous week Spalding and Paquette, posing as an unmarried couple, had met McCarrick and an architect to discuss in detail the interior changes and improvements they wanted, which had to be made in accordance with the Protected Structures Act.
Once it had become clear to Spalding that McCarrick wouldn’t be able to start work on the refurbishments until the local planning council had approved the architect’s plans, Spalding had left Paquette in charge of seeing to the final details.
That afternoon McCarrick and Paquette had done a last walk-through to finalize all the construction specifications, before he sought permission from the planning council to proceed.
Without being specific Fitzmaurice advised McCarrick not to count on the project going forward. As they drove away from the disheartened builder, Sara asked Fitzmaurice about the Protected Structures Act.
“It’s a fairly new law,” Fitzmaurice replied as he pulled into the visitors’ car park at the Dun Laoghaire Marina, “that requires planning permission to make any substantial change to either the exterior or interior of buildings deemed to be worthy of architectural conservation. My semidetached suburban home, which I hope you may soon see, hardly qualifies. It is both a mercy and a pity. We can do what we like with it, but protected status does rather boost the value,” he ended with a chuckle.