Death Knocks Twice

by Robert Thorogood

  ‘That’s right. Sylvie said you’d gone to visit family.’

  ‘I had. Although it’s not immediate family. I never had the good fortune to marry. And although I had a brother once, he died many years ago now.’ Rosie smiled sadly at the memory. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a cousin on Montserrat I go and stay with for a few days every year.’

  ‘I see. Then can I ask, when did you go to Montserrat?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘And what time ferry did you catch from Saint-Marie?’

  ‘I was on the 11am sailing.’

  Richard made a note.

  ‘And what time did the ferry dock on Montserrat?’

  ‘At about 12.30. And then Hugh rang me just after I’d cleared Customs. He told me about that man being found in the old drying shed, and I just knew I had to return to Saint-Marie at once. The family needed me. But Hugh also said the man might have been murdered, and no-one had been able to identify the body. So that’s why I’m here. To do my civic duty.’

  ‘You’d like to try and identify the victim?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Rosie said, straightening in her chair as she spoke. ‘I know I’m old, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be useful.’

  Richard could see a sparkling intelligence behind Rosie’s eyes, and he realised that she might have looked frail, but her mind was still perfectly sharp.

  ‘Of course,’ Camille said, and then instructed Fidel to choose the least distressing crime scene photos that would nonetheless allow their witness to identify the victim.

  ‘Can I ask,’ Richard said, while Fidel gathered the photos together, ‘how you came to be working for the Beaumonts? They referred to you as Nanny Rosie.’

  ‘That’s right. I first started as a nanny for the family just after Matthew was born. And he was such a kissable little thing. All fat arms, chubby legs and a round belly, you just wanted to scoop him up and squeeze him. Not that I didn’t adore the other two of course. But there was such an age gap. Tom was already four when I joined the family, and even then, he was a young man who always knew his mind. When he wanted his tea. What clothes he wanted to wear. You couldn’t fight him, he had to get his own way. As for Lucy, well she was at that tricky age, you know? Twelve I suppose she was. Not quite a child, but not quite a teenager either. As tall as a beanpole, and clumsy as you like. Always forgetting things. That’s Lucy.’ Rosie sighed in pleasure as she considered her life with the Beaumonts. ‘I love those children as if they were my own.’

  ‘How lucky for you,’ Camille said.

  ‘I know. I’ve had a good life.’

  Fidel came over with three photos of the victim’s face that they’d taken at the scene of crime.

  ‘Just so you know,’ Fidel said to Rosie. ‘You may find these photos distressing. They were taken after the man had been shot.’

  Rosie nodded her head.

  ‘I understand.’

  Fidel handed over the three black and white photos and Rosie looked at the top photo in silence. However, Richard could see that she didn’t recognise the victim’s face. Rosie then very carefully moved on to the second photo – again without any apparent recognition – and then she studied the third. After this, she made sure the stack of photos was squared off neatly before returning them to Fidel and turning to speak to Richard.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t recognise his face.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No. How frustrating.’

  Richard was bitterly disappointed. After all, if the family didn’t recognise the victim – and now Rosie didn’t, either – then who would?

  ‘But while we have you,’ Camille said perching on the edge of Richard’s desk – somewhat proprietorially he found himself thinking – ‘it’s clear you know the Beaumont family well.’

  Rosie smiled. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘You like them?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’ve told us something of what the family were like in the past, but can you tell us something about what they’re like now?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘How do they get on? Are they a happy family?’

  ‘Well, yes. I mean, they have their ups and downs. We all do.’

  ‘For example?’

  Rosie’s brow furrowed as she tried to work out what she should say.

  ‘Anything you tell us will be treated in the strictest of confidence.’

  ‘I understand. Of course. Well, since you’re asking, they are a happy family. It’s just…well, I’m not sure that Sylvie has ever been – what’s the word? – well, maternal, really.’

  ‘She’s not?’

  ‘Not that it matters. The children have always had me. But she thinks too much about herself if you ask me.’

  ‘Even though she does so much charity work?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Her charity work always seems to be about her more than it is about the people she’s trying to help,’ Rosie said.

  ‘Do you think she’s capable of murder?’ Richard asked, and Rosie was shocked.

  ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘Only, it’s possible that one of the Beaumont family is the person who did this.’

  Rosie was shocked.

  ‘Is that a joke?’

  ‘I’m sorry, it isn’t. Which is why we’d like to know if you think any of the family might be capable of murder.’

  ‘Of course not. None of them could do anything so horrible. It’s simply impossible to imagine.’

  Richard saw Rosie frown as a thought occurred to her.

  ‘What’s that?’ Richard asked.

  ‘What’s what?’ Rosie said, but Richard and Camille could see that Rosie was now flustered.

  ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘Oh, it was nothing.’

  ‘It really would help us a lot,’ Camille said, ‘if you told us whatever is on your mind. Even if you think it’s got nothing to do with the case.’

  Rosie took a moment to compose herself. Richard once again noticed the intelligence in the old woman’s eyes, and he got a sudden insight that Rosie was one of those older people who could remember everything from her life.

  ‘Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised it occurred to me. Considering what we’re talking about. Not that it has anything to do with the case. Just like you said.’

  ‘We’d still like to hear it,’ Richard said.

  ‘Well, it was just a memory that popped into my head. You know how that can happen? You just remember something suddenly?’

  ‘Of course,’ Camille said.

  ‘And it was from when the children were much younger. Matthew had just had his fifth birthday, so Tom must have been nine and Lucy was seventeen I think. Anyway. I came across Tom in the garden. As I say, he must have been about nine years old. He was crouching on the ground and looking at something on the grass. As I got nearer, he tried to hide what he was looking at.’

  ‘And what was it?’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry to say that it was a dead bird. I don’t know how it got there. Maybe it had died from natural causes. But Tom was holding a knife in his hand. A pocket knife, I think. But he’d used it to cut the bird open. And I know young boys can be a little wild, but he hadn’t just cut into the poor creature, he’d spread all its… organs… out to the bird’s side. It was like some kind of ritual thing.’ Rosie took a sip of water, and Richard could see that the memory still upset her. ‘Of course, he denied that he’d had anything to do with the dead bird. He said he’d found it on the grass like that. But I sent him to his room at once. I was so angry with what he’d done. It took me a long time to get over that. But then, perhaps the children were more damaged by their past than we gave them credit—’

  Rosie stopped talking mid-sentence as she was struck by a sudden realisation.

  ‘What do you mean, “their past”?’ Richard asked.

  ‘My word, is it possible?’ Rosie said, more to herself than to anyone else, and Richard and Camille could see that her mind was
awhirl as she tried to marshal her thoughts. After a moment longer of indecision, she looked at Richard.

  ‘You’re saying the man who was murdered this morning couldn’t be identified?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Richard said.

  ‘Then can you tell me, did he have any identifying features?’

  Richard and Camille’s interest sharpened.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Was there perhaps a scar on his left hand? On his first finger?’

  ‘There was.’

  ‘Then can I see those photos again? And a photo of the scar if you’ve got it?’

  ‘Fidel, bring over all the crime scene photos.’

  Fidel had already scooped them up and was heading over.

  ‘Ms Lefèvre, you might not like what you see,’ he said, but Rosie had already grabbed the photos and started shuffling through them until she found the photo that Dwayne had taken of the long scar on the forefinger of the victim’s left hand.

  ‘Good heavens,’ she murmured to herself, ‘is it you?’

  She then shuffled through the photos again until she was looking at the first photo she’d been shown of the victim’s face.

  ‘You know what, it could be,’ she said to herself.

  ‘It could be who?’ Richard asked, unable to hide the impatience in his voice.

  ‘Someone I’ve not seen in twenty years. That’s why I didn’t recognise him. I just haven’t thought about him for decades…’ Rosie trailed off as she seemed to look inside herself, and Richard saw that she was coming to a decision.

  ‘Please!’ Richard implored. ‘If you could just tell us who it is!’

  Rosie looked from Richard to Camille. And then she looked from Camille back to Richard again, and Richard had to use all of his self-control not to shout at the woman to just bloody well tell him who the man was.

  ‘Very well,’ Rosie said. ‘I think the man in the photos is Freddie Beaumont.’

  ‘And who’s he?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Lucy, Tom and Matthew’s father.’

  This wasn’t quite what Richard and Camille had expected to hear.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I think the man who was shot dead this morning is Lucy, Tom and Matthew’s father.’

  ‘But we’ve met their father,’ Richard said, confused. ‘His name’s Hugh. Hugh and Sylvie are the children’s parents.’

  ‘Ah,’ Rosie said, and Richard could see how uncomfortable the old woman was discussing such private matters. ‘That’s not quite true. Hugh and Sylvie are actually the children’s uncle and aunt. It’s Hugh’s brother Freddie who’s their biological father. And he was the most terrible drunk. A desperate and violent drunk. That’s why Hugh and Sylvie ended up adopting his children.’

  Rosie held up the photo of the victim’s face.

  ‘But that’s who I think this dead man is. It’s Freddie Beaumont. The children’s real father.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Richard and Camille returned to the Beaumont Plantation with Rosie. As the three of them approached the manor house, Lucy came out and greeted Rosie with a big hug.

  ‘Are you alright?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Rosie replied. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’ ‘Thank you so much for bringing Rosie back,’ Lucy said to Richard.

  Richard explained how their visit wasn’t entirely social, and a few minutes later, he’d once again gathered the whole family in the sitting room. But this time, Richard noticed that Rosie placed herself in between Lucy and Matthew as they sat together on the sofa. She was holding their hands tightly.

  But just as interesting as Rosie’s solidarity with Lucy and Matthew was the fact that Tom was once again sitting in the window seat on his own. Richard could see that Tom maybe didn’t quite ‘fit in’ with his two other siblings. But then, Tom was the middle child of the three siblings, and Richard knew that it was typical for oldest and youngest siblings to form a bond that excluded the middle child.

  Richard found himself wondering, were Tom’s studied attempts to appear ‘different’ – be it his island accent, or his stoner attitude – really just his way of finessing the fact that his other two siblings didn’t want to spend their time with him anyway? As Richard was considering this, he remembered the story that Rosie had told of Tom ritually slaughtering a bird when he was nine years old. Yes, Richard thought to himself. He wanted to find out more about Tom.

  ‘So why did you want to talk to us?’ Sylvie asked from her position on the sofa, and Richard turned and smiled at her.

  ‘First, can I just check something? Are you really saying that none of you recognise the man who was murdered in your shower room this morning?’ he asked.

  As he spoke, Camille laid out photographs of the victim on the coffee table for them all to see.

  The family looked again, but shook their heads.

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ Hugh said, taking his gold-rimmed spectacles off as he looked at Richard. ‘We really don’t know who that man is or, I promise you, we’d have told you this morning.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Richard said. ‘Because we now believe that the man who was murdered was Freddie Beaumont.’

  Richard saw Rosie squeeze Matthew and Lucy’s hands even tighter as if she was trying to keep them from running away.

  ‘It was Freddie?’ Hugh said, unable to process what Richard had just said.

  ‘We’re sorry to tell you so bluntly,’ Camille said, throwing a dismayed look in her boss’s direction, ‘but it does seem strange that the only person who recognised him was Rosie, when she’s the only person here who’s not actually related to him.’

  Hugh picked up one of the photos again and looked at it for a long while.

  ‘Is this really what he looks like now?’ he asked Rosie, almost like a little boy lost.

  ‘I didn’t recognise his face, either,’ she said kindly. ‘It was the scar on his left finger. That’s what made me realise.’

  ‘What scar?’ Hugh asked.

  Richard was surprised. How on earth did a nanny know about a scar on Freddie’s hand, when his own brother didn’t?

  ‘I think it’s time you told us about your brother,’ he said to Hugh.

  Hugh exhaled, overwhelmed by the task he’d been set.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But where to begin?’

  ‘At the beginning?’ Camille offered.

  ‘No. I’ll start at the end if you don’t mind. But are you saying the man was Freddie?’

  ‘Do you really not recognise him?’

  ‘If I’m being honest, now you say it’s him, I can perhaps see it could be. But you have to understand, I’ve not seen him in over twenty years. None of us have. And I would never have imagined he could end up looking so…’ Here, Hugh looked at the photo again and groped around until he found the right word. ‘Ravaged,’ he eventually said. ‘That’s what he looks like. Like he’s been ravaged by time.’

  Hugh handed the photo to his wife, but she only had eyes for her husband.

  ‘He’s dead?’ Sylvie said, as though it was only now striking her.

  Hugh looked back at the Police.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just a bit of a shock to realise that this is how it ended for him. You see, if you’ve got someone in your family like Freddie, you’re always wondering how it’s going to end. Because you know it’s not going to end well for him. He was so destructive…’

  Hugh trailed off, and then Richard saw him focus on what he had to do.

  ‘Alright,’ Hugh said. ‘Let me tell you about my brother, Freddie. He was my only sibling. He was four years older than me, and I don’t remember a day of my life when he wasn’t in trouble. He was always breaking things. Or stealing things. Or having tantrums. It’s like he didn’t have a moral compass, or a shred of compassion about how his actions affected others. And he never cared about consequences. He used to drive Mother and Father crazy.’

  ‘This would be your father, William?�
� Richard asked.

  ‘That’s right. And my mother, Jean. She died when Freddie was seventeen. I was thirteen. But I genuinely think that raising Freddie was what put her in an early grave. And I know that Father never really recovered after Mother’s death, either. For the next twenty or so years – until he died – Father just seemed to get more and more cranky and withdrawn.’ Hugh sighed as he recollected this two-decade sweep of time. ‘Anyway, when I was growing up, Freddie was nasty as hell to me. He bullied me. Mind you, he bullied everyone. Screaming and shouting until he’d get his way. Then there was a brief respite when he was sent off to boarding school.’

  ‘In the UK?’

  ‘That’s right. All the men of the family have been educated at Eton for the last 300 years, so that’s where Freddie went when he was thirteen. But while things settled down while he was away, he was still back here during the holidays. And he didn’t get any better as he became a teenager. He became so much worse. I know he’d been smoking – on and off – since he was about ten years old, but he now started drinking as well. He’d get workers on the plantation to buy him bottles of spirits that he’d drink on his own before going out with a gun to shoot the local wildlife. And he’d shoot anything. Parrots. Lizards. Anything that moved. He was obsessed with guns. But we didn’t know the half of it.

  ‘When he was seventeen, he beat up another boy at Eton and put him in hospital. This was soon after Mother died, so perhaps there were mitigating circumstances, but the school had had enough of him and he was expelled. I’d only just started at Eton myself. And it wasn’t easy for me when I arrived, I can tell you. Freddie was so roundly reviled that I was also cast as a trouble-maker from the start. It took me years to convince the school that I wasn’t.

  ‘Anyway, after he was expelled, everyone expected Freddie to return to Saint-Marie and get on with his life here, but he never even got on the plane. You see, we used to own a small house just off the Fulham Road in London, and he went there instead. He holed up and refused to come back. God knows what he got up to, but it was 1980, and London was a rough place back then. The country was falling apart, the steelworkers were striking, and as far as we could tell, Freddie fell in with a pretty hateful group of rich kids in Chelsea.