A Meditation on Murder

by Robert Thorogood

After two steps, he stopped stock still, frozen to the spot.

  ‘What is it, sir?’ Fidel asked.

  ‘Shh,’ Richard said rudely.

  Not caring that he risked making himself look ridiculous, Richard picked up his left foot a couple of inches and held it in the air a moment. The floor was tiled and Richard brought his foot down onto it with a gentle slap of leather undersole on ceramic.

  ‘What are you doing, sir?’ Camille hissed.

  ‘I said, shhh,’ Richard responded just as vehemently.

  He lifted his right foot a couple of inches off the ground and held it in the air. He looked at Camille and some sixth sense told him what was about to happen.

  He lowered his right foot to the floor, but it didn’t make a gentle slap this time, the noise it made was a little metallic click.

  Richard smiled and tapped his left foot. Blat.

  He tapped his right foot. Click!

  Left, blat; right, click; blat, click—

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Richard dropped to his knees and started to scrabble at the double knot on his right shoe.

  Camille and Fidel exchanged a glance of amazement. Richard was removing a shoe in public? This was unheralded.

  With a slightly disturbing sucking noise, Richard yanked his right shoe off and stood up proudly, holding it in his hand.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you, Exhibit A.’

  Richard slowly spun his shoe around so the others could see its underside.

  There was a drawing pin stuck into the middle of the sole.

  ‘What is that?’ Rianka asked.

  ‘I think it’s a drawing pin,’ Fidel said, underwhelmed.

  ‘It is indeed, Fidel.’

  Richard got down on his hands and knees and started to inspect the floor underneath the server rack. He couldn’t find any other drawing pins, but the fact that he’d found one at all suggested to Richard that the killer might have been near the WiFi rack. After all, they’d found drawing pins at the scene of the murder, and now they’d found another drawing pin here. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  ‘Very well,’ Richard said to Rianka once he’d got back to his feet, ‘I’d like you to shut the furnace down for us.’

  ‘You do?’ Rianka said. ‘It’ll be very inconvenient for the guests.’

  ‘Even so,’ Richard said. ‘The drawing pin on the floor here suggests to me that the killer maybe came into this room—and that might have been because he or she was burning the incriminating notebook in the furnace. Even if all we find in the ash is the metal spiral that held the notebook together, it would be instructive.’

  Rianka looked at Richard’s intensity and sighed.

  ‘Very well. I’ll shut the furnace down and let the guests know.’

  ‘Thank you. Then, Fidel, this is now a secondary scene of crime.’

  Fidel couldn’t stop himself from an involuntary shudder. ‘No, please, sir—’

  ‘Which means I want you to seal it, search for any further clues that might identify the killer—in particular, any further drawing pins—and then I want you gathering up all the ash from the furnace once it’s cooled down. Put it through a sieve or colander or some such. We’re looking for the metal spiral from a reporter’s notebook in amongst the ash. Or any charred bits of paper that didn’t completely burn.’

  Fidel was defeated before he’d even started. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Richard considered, was that it? He turned and looked at Camille, and that’s when it struck him: the thought he’d been chasing down all this time. What was special about the green lights here—and what he’d subconsciously noticed about Dominic as he passed them in the corridor upstairs.

  ‘Rianka. Where does Dominic live?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Dominic, your handyman. If he was doing his washing in the hotel, that suggests he lives on site.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Rianka said. ‘He’s got the old plantation manager’s cottage. It’s at the end of the garden.’

  ‘In what direction?’

  ‘Well, you go just beyond the Meditation Space,’ she said, ‘and then keep walking.’

  ‘Now isn’t that interesting?’

  Once Richard had got his shoe back on again—not an easy job considering how tight and sweaty his sock still was—and once he’d left Fidel and Rianka behind to shut the hotel’s furnace down, Richard was soon leading Camille out into the blinding sunlight and across the lawn towards the Meditation Space. Following Rianka’s instructions, they passed the wood and paper tea house and carried on walking away from the main hotel, down a slight incline, around a clump of bushes surrounding three palm trees, and then there it was: a small pink-tiled house at the far end of the gardens flanked on either side by rhododendron bushes.

  Richard went up to the old door and knocked once on it before turning back to look at the house and gardens. The Meditation Space was well over a hundred yards away, but it was in a direct line between Dominic’s house and the main hotel. On the morning of the murder, Richard could see it would have been possible for Dominic to walk from his front door all the way up to the back of the Meditation Space without anyone at the hotel seeing.

  Even so, Richard had to concede that even if Dominic could have got that close to the Meditation Space, he still wouldn’t have been able to get inside it without ripping through the paper walls.

  The door opened and Dominic looked at the police.

  ‘Oh. What do you want?’

  ‘Just a quick question. May we come in?’

  Dominic looked at them a moment longer. ‘Alright,’ he said, not exactly enthusiastically.

  Richard pushed past with a fake smile and entered Dominic’s sitting room. It had been painted white and was entirely minimalist. There was a joss stick in a jar on a little table; there were only beanbags to sit on; and on a windowsill there was a tower of wide, flat pebbles that Dominic had stacked in decreasing width so they formed a gentle pyramid. Richard wanted to push them over.

  ‘I don’t have long,’ Dominic said. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Oh, it’s simple. I just wanted to know the exact nature of your relationship with Julia Higgins.’

  Dominic was surprised. But then, so was Camille.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You and Julia. Why don’t you tell us what’s really going on?’

  ‘What is this?’

  Richard could see that Dominic had been unsettled by his question.

  ‘Only, when Julia was in custody, she was wearing a distinctive top. Advertising illegal drugs. But that’s not what’s important about it, because it was also lime green. In fact, pretty much the bright green of the green lights on a load of WiFi routers. And, unfortunately for you, I noticed that precise—and rather distinct—colour in your washing basket.’

  As he’d been speaking, Richard had ghosted over to Dominic’s basket of washing, and now he reached into it and pulled out the very same lime-green hash-promoting T-shirt Julia had been wearing when she’d been in the police cells.

  Dominic looked at the T-shirt and Richard could see that he had no quick answer as to what it was doing in his washing.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Richard said, pretending to be reasonable. ‘We know you can’t be the killer. You were outside the Meditation Space at the time of the murder. But we do need to know the nature of your relationship with Julia Higgins.’

  ‘Alright,’ Dominic said, a little hurt. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide. But you’re right. Julia and I used to be a thing.’

  ‘A “thing”?’ Richard asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And what “thing” would that be?’

  ‘Lovers.’

  Richard looked at Dominic a long moment while he let this fact settle. He then pulled out his notebook and silver pencil. He clicked the pencil and a tiny needle of lead jumped out of the end of it, ready for spiking down onto the page.

  ‘And when did your
relationship start?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Within days of her getting here.’

  Richard started scratching in his notebook. ‘So that’s six months ago.’

  ‘That sounds about right. Six months. Want a drink?’

  ‘No.’ Richard was surprised that Dominic hadn’t yet noticed that he had a new one-man nemesis and his name was Richard Poole. ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘She was interested in my work.’

  ‘As a handyman?’ Richard asked, unable to keep the contempt out of his voice.

  ‘As a hypnotherapist. This was back when Aslan still let me practise. And she was receptive. Man, that woman was so receptive.’

  ‘To hypnotherapy?’ Camille asked.

  Dominic turned back to Camille. ‘There’s an intimacy you develop if you explore someone’s psyche together. It’s inevitable. Look, this has got nothing to do with anything—I don’t even have to answer your questions.’

  ‘I know,’ Richard said, ‘but you will, as a concerned citizen be helping the police with their inquiries.’

  ‘Alright,’ Dominic said, and Richard noticed that he flicked a nervous glance at a door in the corner of the room as he said this.

  ‘Very well,’ Richard said, now edging over to the door that Dominic had just looked at. ‘To start off with—just for the record—can you tell me a bit more about your relationship with Aslan Kennedy?’

  ‘Well, that’s easy. We didn’t have one.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ Camille asked.

  ‘No. I thought his beliefs were just cuckoo, you know? People aren’t “good”. They aren’t always “growing” and “reaching for the light”—that’s how Aslan thought of everyone. As basically spiritual.’

  ‘Whereas you don’t?’

  ‘Hell no,’ Dominic said. ‘People have secrets that aren’t even known to themselves.’

  ‘Which is why you like hypnotising people.’

  ‘Damned right. It’s only when you access the dark underbelly of someone’s subconscious that you discover what really makes them tick.’

  Richard considered Dominic’s words a moment before continuing.

  ‘We’ve heard that you and Aslan argued,’ Richard said. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Argued? Sure. Why?’

  ‘Because,’ Richard said, ‘apart from you, we can’t find anyone else who Aslan argued with.’

  ‘But that’s not true,’ Dominic said, puzzled. ‘Aslan argued with everyone.’

  ‘He did?’ Richard asked, not believing Dominic for a moment.

  ‘Of course he did. And I’m telling you, he could have a foul temper on him if you pressed the wrong buttons. You just ask Rianka. She had to put up with the worst of it. Because he was stubborn. Man, but Aslan was stubborn. Once he’d got it into his head that he was going to do something, there was no shaking him.’

  ‘For example, his decision to sack you,’ Richard said.

  Dominic frowned. Like a teenager who was being told off by his parents.

  ‘Sure,’ he eventually said. ‘But it wasn’t for the reasons you’re thinking.’

  ‘And what reasons do you think I’m thinking?’ Richard asked.

  ‘That it was a professional disagreement. That maybe he disagreed with how I went about my business.’

  ‘That’s what Julia told us.’

  ‘Of course she did,’ Dominic said with a superior manner. ‘She never got it.’

  ‘Then why don’t you tell us? Why was it?’

  ‘Alright,’ Dominic said, as though he were about to reveal an amazing secret. ‘If you want to know, Aslan sacked me as The Retreat’s hypnotherapist because he was jealous of how I was getting on with all of the guests. There was only one guru allowed here at one time and that had to be him. That’s why he demoted me. He was jealous of how popular I was.’

  Still puzzled, Camille asked, ‘But after he sacked you, you stayed on as the handyman?’

  ‘Sure. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. And I was having too much of a good time with Julia to leave this place. But that was then.’

  Camille picked up on Dominic’s clarification.

  ‘How do you mean, “but that was then”?’ she asked.

  Dominic took a moment before he replied, and then he sighed and said, ‘Okay. So Julia came round this morning and told me it was over. You know. Between us. In fact she said she’d spent her time in your cells thinking. And she said she had to stop running. It was time to go home.’

  ‘And by home …?’

  ‘She meant the UK. That’s why she told me she and I had to break up. She brought back some of my stuff. Including a few of my clothes like that T-shirt.’

  ‘I see. And how did you feel when she dumped you?’ Richard asked.

  ‘She didn’t dump me.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’ Richard read back over his notes. ‘I thought that that is what “it was over” meant.’

  ‘Sure. And it does—but there was no dumping. She told me we were done, that’s all. She was going home.’

  ‘And yet, it was still you she wanted to see when she had to be hypnotised.’

  ‘Of course. That’s my skill. With her at least. But anyway, that’s why I’ve got that T-shirt. And why I washed it today. Is there anything else?’

  ‘Just one more thing. Why do you keep glancing at this door here?’

  It was true. The more Richard had edged closer to the door in the corner of the room, the more Dominic had continued to flick nervous glances in its general direction.

  ‘No reason,’ Dominic said, lying.

  ‘Oh okay.’

  As Richard said this, he pushed the door open and went into the room next door before Dominic could stop him. And what Richard found in there was everything he’d felt was absent from Dominic’s pristine room next door. There was a mess of old plates of food, old bottles of beer, overflowing ashtrays—but, best of all, the place was littered with test tubes, beakers and a Bunsen burner attached to a gas bottle; retort stands and rubber pipes; and various brightly coloured bottles of household cleaner, many of them cut open and entirely empty.

  Although it was a complete mess, it was also quite clearly a functioning chemistry lab for the brewing of exotic drugs and mind-altering substances. Richard was rather pleased with himself when he recognised a rig for fractional distillation.

  ‘Everything here is legal,’ Dominic was quick to say as he followed Richard in. ‘It’s all bought over the counter—or grown organically.’

  Richard picked up a bottle of bleach. ‘What do you do with this?’

  ‘Very little. It’s hydrogen peroxide. To be used sparingly. Look, I’m interested in the mind—about accessing memories, feelings, emotions we suppress. Nothing I brew in my home is illegal. This is just about creating potions that give you legal highs—or loosen your grip on reality.’

  ‘Is this really why Aslan sacked you?’ Richard asked, picking up some dirty test tubes that were lying on a table and smelling their crusted contents. ‘Because you were drugging the hotel guests?’

  ‘No way,’ Dominic said. ‘All this is for personal consumption only. When I hypnotised the guests, I did it naturally. Like you saw me do with Julia.’

  ‘Is that really so?’ Camille asked. ‘Have you never used any of these mind-altering chemicals on her?’

  ‘No way,’ Dominic said, affronted. ‘You just ask her for yourself. But then, Julia never needed any help going into a trance, she could pretty much regress at will. Like you saw her do in the police station.’

  Richard said, ‘And you reckon that all of the ingredients you’ve got here are legal?’

  ‘One hundred per cent. I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Then can you tell me what you know about GHB?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘GHB.’ Richard clarified, ‘Gamma-hydroxybutyrate.’

  Dominic thought for a moment.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know that one.’

  ‘Really?’

 
‘Sorry. No idea.’

  Richard looked at Dominic and decided that he was almost certainly lying. After all, it was hardly credible to believe that someone who created homemade mind-altering drugs didn’t. Either way, it was his duty as a serving police officer to make sure that all of the ingredients in Dominic’s lab were legal.

  ‘I’d like to make a list of all of your ingredients here.’

  Dominic was shocked. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t worry, it won’t take long. We can photograph all of the evidence in situ with our phones.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  Richard looked at Dominic. ‘To make sure you’ve not been breaking the law.’

  There wasn’t much Dominic could say to that. His shoulders slumped.

  ‘Alright. Take photos of whatever you like. But you should know. I think I was burgled last week.’

  This got the police’s attention. ‘You were?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Yeah. It’s not normally this messy. Seriously. But last week, I came back from work and I could tell someone had been searching through my lab.’

  ‘Do you know if they took anything?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell.’

  ‘You couldn’t?’

  ‘No. I don’t really keep a proper list of what I’ve got here, but it was just a feeling. Someone had been through everything and maybe had taken some stuff.’

  Richard and Camille exchanged a glance, not believing a word that Dominic was saying.

  ‘Did you report this burglary to the police at the time?’ Camille asked.

  Dominic had the good grace to look bashful as he explained that seeing as he didn’t know what—if anything—had been taken, he hadn’t bothered to go to the police.

  It was in that moment that Richard decided that Dominic had almost certainly been making GHB in his home lab—had just guessed that it related somehow to Aslan’s murder—and he was now trying to cover for himself by inventing a burglary so that if any of his GHB turned up as part of the investigation later on he’d be able to blame the phantom burglar.

  But that meant that Dominic was perhaps a bit more quick-witted than Richard had previously given him credit for. Either way, Richard knew that his next step should be to inventory all of the chemicals they could find here and see if Dominic had the ingredients to make doses of GHB.