A Meditation on Murder

by Robert Thorogood

  Finally, Richard realised that Dominic’s apparent burglary was almost certainly true. Julia had been going out with Dominic for nearly six months, she could easily have found out from him what would be the best sedative to make people woozy. She could even have learnt how to make the gamma-hydroxybutyric acid herself. Or Dominic had some anyway. But either way, it was clearly how Julia got hold of a source of GHB. She stole it from her boyfriend.

  Then all Julia had to do was wait until Aslan wrote up his list of names on the board and then intervene by going to the board, turning the page over, and writing out a new list of the people she wanted to be with her as her camouflage the following day.

  Richard went over to the whiteboard, almost quivering with anger as he realised how the rest of the murder must have played out.

  Julia must have seen Ann doing the drying the night before in the kitchen and decided that the largest carving knife she’d touched would be the perfect murder weapon. Then—either later that night, or early the next morning—she got the knife with Ann’s fingerprints on, went to the Meditation Space and used drawing pins to fix it in the shadows of the eleventh pillar along.

  She was ready.

  Ever since his days at school, Richard had vowed he’d never allow himself to get pushed around again, but that’s exactly what he’d allowed Julia to do to him. She’d pushed Aslan around; Dominic around; Ben around; the Ponzi victims around; and, finally—impossibly—she’d pushed Richard around with her string of double bluffs.

  After all, murderers don’t make sure they’re locked in the room with the victim. Murderers don’t make sure they’re found standing over the body of the victim. Murderers don’t premeditate a murder and then apparently botch it by screaming. Murderers don’t reveal the real identity of the victim under hypnosis, especially when it reveals that they’ve got a motive to want the victim dead.

  And—finally—left-handed murderers don’t commit murder with a knife right-handed.

  Except for in this case. Julia must have positioned herself to commit murder with her weaker right hand. It wouldn’t have been easy, but then Richard realised—wanting to kick himself for his stupidity—in most knifings, the victim is trying to fight back. In those circumstances, it’s almost impossible to strike properly with your weaker hand, but that wasn’t the case here: Aslan had been sitting quite still, his eyes closed, headphones over his ears. Julia would have been able to take her time as she lined up that first right-handed blow to his neck.

  And, because she was a master of manipulation, Julia no doubt only then went over to the drugged tea. She then drank a decent dose, returned to the body, transferred the knife to her left hand, and only then started screaming.

  ‘Camille, get the jeep,’ Richard said darkly.

  He’d allowed himself to be taken for a fool. But that was about to end. Richard was going to make the arrest himself. He was going to close the case.

  But Richard was wrong. He wasn’t about to make an arrest or close the case, because when they got to Julia’s room, they discovered that Julia wouldn’t be standing trial any time soon.

  Julia Higgins was lying on her bed, stone-cold dead.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Richard and the team had got to the hotel, they’d first bumped into Dominic. He knew the room Julia was staying in and was happy to take the police there. On the way, he’d prattled on about how he’d realised how bad it had looked when the police had found his homebrew lab, so he’d decided that it was time to pack in the search for the perfect legal high. In fact, maybe it was time to move on from The Retreat altogether. After all, he couldn’t be expected to be a handyman his whole life. Richard only half-listened to Dominic—although he couldn’t help but note that Dominic was now the second person who’d told him he was considering returning to the UK.

  As they reached Julia’s room and started knocking, Richard had found himself musing that Julia was at least about to get her wish. She was going to return to the UK; but under police escort.

  Then, when Julia didn’t answer, it was Dominic’s idea that they go in anyway. As the hotel’s handyman, he had a pass key that could get him into any room, and he was happy to open the door.

  And that’s when they’d found Julia sprawled on her bed, her arm outstretched, a drinking glass on the floor, a clear liquid still glistening inside.

  The moment that Richard realised that the woman who’d agreed to go out for a drink with him was dead, he’d shut down his emotions at the same time as his heart had swelled in panic. But—trying to remain entirely professional—he’d kept his focus on the smaller parts of the picture: no fabric or skin had got caught under the victim’s fingernails. There was no sign of a forced entry to the room. The window was locked from the inside.

  Richard got down on his hands and knees and tried to see what he could make of the liquid in the glass. It was entirely clear, and didn’t seem to smell of anything. He dipped his little finger into the liquid and tasted it. It was tasteless as well. But it couldn’t be just water. Not if it was the last thing that Julia drank before dying.

  Camille came in from the bathroom.

  ‘You should see this,’ she said.

  Richard joined Camille in the white-tiled bathroom next door. She lifted the lid on the metal bathroom bin. There was a little brown glass bottle inside. Reaching in, Richard pulled it out and saw that it was an empty medicine bottle. He then fished out the white plastic screw-top lid that had been lying next to it in the otherwise empty bin.

  He smelled both. There was no odour. And whatever liquid it had contained had been clear.

  Camille had already got two see-through evidence bags ready and Richard slipped the bottle into one, and the lid into the other.

  Was this what had killed Julia? Almost certainly.

  Richard returned to the main room and Fidel said, ‘So what do you think, sir? Julia realised we were closing in on her—were about to arrest her for the murder of Aslan Kennedy—and so took her own life?’

  Richard scanned the room before answering. ‘Could be. But if so, where’s the suicide note?’

  ‘There isn’t one, sir,’ Fidel said. ‘Not that I can see.’

  This gave Richard pause. Suicides usually left a note behind to explain their actions. When the suicide was because of guilt—for example, because they’d killed someone else and were now wanting to end the shame of their life—there was always a note.

  And as much as Richard was trying to keep a lid on his emotions, there was a feeling that was bubbling up inside him. Irrespective of the facts. Irrespective of the clues. He’d gone for a nocturnal walk with Julia, and although he was prepared to admit that maybe she’d been trying to manipulate him—whatever her motives—she hadn’t acted like someone who was about to take her own life. In fact, as Richard ran his mind back over the short time he’d spent with her, and how uncluttered her mind had so obviously been, he realised that she wasn’t someone who’d even remotely been contemplating suicide.

  So: no suicide note. And no indication of a disturbed mind, either.

  And there was something else. How come the notebook had reappeared just before her death? After all, Richard and his team had only arrived at Julia’s room because they’d worked out that the list of names for Aslan’s murder had been written out by her. And they only found the notebook because someone had put it back on its nail on the noticeboard. Was it Julia who’d put the notebook back herself before she took her own life? It was a possibility, Richard supposed, but it didn’t seem very likely. There were surely more direct ways of confessing to your guilt. For example, like writing a suicide note, which Julia had so patently failed to do.

  Richard went over to the window and looked out over the sparkling Caribbean sea, deep in thought—and what he kept coming back to was the fact that he only really considered that Julia was the killer because the notebook had reappeared on its nail on the noticeboard. Didn’t he? And, in the excitement of working out that it was Julia
who’d written out the incriminating list of names, he’d jumped to all sorts of conclusions. That Julia had the wit to plan such an involved murder as Aslan’s; that she’d knife someone to death five times over, using her weaker hand.

  And, as Richard’s thoughts ranged over Julia’s death, he allowed an ice-cold rage to clutch at his heart, because there was one thing he began to realise above all others: he was still being manipulated, wasn’t he?

  Manipulated by the real killer.

  Julia didn’t kill Aslan any more than she’d just killed herself. She was never a likely murderer. But so clever was the real mastermind behind Aslan’s murder that he or she knew that all they’d have to do was return the missing notebook to its nail and the police would soon come to the conclusion that Julia was maybe Aslan’s killer—and, when her body was found dead from an overdose, they’d then no doubt believe that she’d just committed suicide because of the guilt she’d felt since killing Aslan.

  The more Richard considered his theory, the more he realised that he was almost certainly correct. Julia hadn’t killed Aslan. One of Paul, Ann, Saskia or Ben had killed Aslan. And now they’d also killed Julia Higgins.

  But of the four remaining witnesses, who was their killer?

  Richard turned to his team and said, ‘This is a murder scene. And I don’t care how you do it, but I want you to work out how Julia was killed.’

  Ten minutes later, Ben Jenkins, Saskia Filbee and Paul and Ann Sellars were waiting for Richard on the hotel’s verandah. As Richard approached with Camille at his side, he tried to gauge the suspects’ mood.

  Ben was looking tanned, relaxed and wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and cheap flip-flops. Saskia was looking entirely demure in a plain cream top and simple olive-green skirt, but she looked worried. Nervous, even. As for Paul, he wasn’t sitting near his wife, and was instead on his own with his smartphone in his lap, his typically impeccable combover, polo shirt, slacks, and deck shoes all correctly in place. And that left only Ann, who had come to the interview dressed in a typically flamboyant kaftan, but Richard once again noticed how she was looking a lot more sombre than she used to. More watchful, even.

  Mind you, considering the circumstances, it was perhaps understandable.

  ‘Is it true?’ Saskia asked as Richard approached.

  ‘Is what true?’ Richard dead-batted back.

  ‘That that poor girl … Julia. Dominic’s saying she committed suicide …?’

  Richard now understood why Saskia was looking so nervous. ‘At the moment, we’re trying to establish the cause of death, but we’re not ruling anything out.’

  Ann stood up, her hand going to her heaving breast. ‘You mean, it might have been murder!?’

  ‘I think it was.’

  Richard was watching as carefully as he could, but all of the witnesses seemed equally shocked by this news.

  Paul recovered first. ‘But it has to be suicide.’

  ‘And why do you say that?’

  ‘Because it’s obvious. Julia killed Aslan. Well, that’s no surprise. We all saw her with the knife standing over his body. And, come on, man, she even confessed to the murder. And now, wracked with guilt—’

  ‘She’s taken an overdose of drugs,’ Richard finished the sentence for Paul and was pleased to see the colour drain from his face.

  ‘You know what sort of drugs?’ Paul asked after a moment.

  ‘Not yet,’ Richard said. ‘But you’re a pharmacist, Paul. What do you think it could be if the liquid that killed her was odourless, colourless and tasteless?’

  Paul looked at the police like a landed fish. ‘You’re not suggesting I had anything to do with this, are you?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything, Paul. But when Aslan was killed, we know the witnesses were all drugged with gamma-hydroxybutyric acid—the very same drug you’ve been stealing from your pharmacy in the form of Xyrax. And now here’s another drug turning up in the context of another death.’

  ‘It’s a coincidence. It must be,’ Ben said.

  ‘And that’s where I’m pretty sure you’re wrong,’ Richard said. ‘Because, in my experience, when it comes to murder, there’s no such thing as coincidence.’

  ‘But it has to be a suicide,’ Ben said again, even more insistently.

  ‘And what makes you say that?’ Camille asked.

  ‘Because if Julia’s been murdered, then that kind of suggests that she wasn’t the person who killed Aslan.’

  ‘Ah,’ Richard said, ‘I see that you now understand.’

  ‘And that means that one of us four must have killed Aslan. And has now killed Julia.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ Richard said.

  ‘But that’s not possible,’ Ben said. ‘Because I can imagine one of us four wanting to kill Aslan. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think any of us did it. But maybe I’m wrong and one of us did. But Julia? What did any of us have against her? We didn’t even know her.’

  Richard looked at Ben—and noticed how he seemed to have taken over as spokesperson for the group. Paul was looking like a little lost boy, Saskia was looking introverted and worried, and Ann was trying to look bland, but Richard knew better. She was watching like a hawk, but staying silent.

  The police had already discovered that Julia was last seen at breakfast that morning at 8am, after which time she apparently went back to her room upstairs and hadn’t been seen since. Not until her body had been found. So Richard asked the four witnesses if they’d seen Julia at any time that morning. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they all said that they hadn’t.

  Under further probing, though, Richard was able to establish that none of the four witnesses had a watertight alibi from eight that morning until the time Julia’s body had been found. Ann had been on the beach on her own during that time, or so she said. Paul had been on the balcony of his room reading a book. Or so he said. Saskia said she’d been by the spa pool, and Ben had gone for a long walk along the coast.

  None of the four could categorically prove that they hadn’t slipped up to Julia’s room at some time after breakfast and offered her a drink laced with poison.

  As for the missing notebook that had suddenly reappeared on the noticeboard, the witnesses denied all knowledge. They said they hadn’t noticed it, and they had no idea who might have put it back up on the board.

  Richard tried to put his frustration at their answers to one side, but without any properly incriminating evidence against any of the witnesses—and no proof yet that Julia had categorically been murdered—he had no choice but to release them and let them get on with their day.

  He and Camille stood in the shade as they watched the witnesses leave. Saskia, Ben and Paul all went off together, talking—united by their recent experiences—whereas Ann made her excuses and went into the main body of the hotel on her own. Was she shunning the other three? Or were they perhaps shunning her?

  Once the police were back at the station, Camille picked up on Richard’s mood.

  ‘You alright, there, sir?’

  Richard had been sitting at his desk not doing anything for the last few minutes.

  ‘Sorry?’ he said, returning his attention to the room.

  ‘You seem quiet.’

  The last time in his life that Richard had talked about his true feelings was when he had been seven years old. It was just after his mum had explained to him what a boarding school was and that he was about to be sent to one. So Richard wasn’t going to start talking about his feelings now.

  ‘The murderer’s struck again, Camille. What are you expecting from me? A song and dance routine?’

  Camille put her hand on her hip, irritated. She knew Richard had feelings for Julia, why couldn’t he admit it? It would have been wrong if they didn’t get upset when someone they’d come to know got murdered.

  Richard barked from his desk, ‘Come on, team, I want the evidence processed—fingerprints taken off the glass Julia was drinking from—and off the bottle we found in her bin. I want to kn
ow, if this was murder, just how was it done?’

  Richard was standing at the whiteboard mopping his neck with his hankie when Fidel announced he’d finished dusting the medicine bottle from the bin and the glass Julia had been holding.

  ‘And the only prints I’ve been able to raise so far from the glass Julia was holding belong to Julia.’

  ‘I see,’ Richard said.

  ‘But as for the medicine bottle from the bin, I’ve been able to raise four clear prints from it and none of them belong to Julia.’

  ‘They don’t?’ Richard asked.

  ‘No, sir—and none of them match any of the witnesses, either.’

  This gave everyone pause.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘None of the prints on the medicine bottle match the prints of any of the people who were in the Meditation Space when Aslan was killed.’

  ‘Then who put the bottle in the bin?’ Dwayne asked.

  Richard looked back at the whiteboard a long moment before he realised.

  ‘Fidel. We’ve never taken Dominic’s exclusion prints, have we?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then give Dominic a ring, would you? I want him in here and I want his fingerprints checked against the prints you’re finding on the medicine bottle.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  An hour later, and wearing an old vest, torn shorts and ancient leather sandals, Dominic flapped into the station, hot and bothered. He was uncooperative—like a teenager—as Dwayne took his exclusion prints, but then, Richard supposed, Dominic had discovered his ex-girlfriend’s dead body only that morning; it would take the wind out of anyone’s sails.

  ‘Is that all?’ Dominic asked once Fidel had his prints on the regulation card.

  ‘Maybe,’ Richard said. ‘But can you tell me where you were this morning from about 8am until the time we found Julia’s body?’

  ‘What is this?’ Dominic asked in a grump.

  ‘Just answer the question.’

  ‘I was on the beach. Okay?’

  ‘With anyone?’

  ‘Sure. There were hotel guests around the whole time.’