A few minutes later, Richard and Camille were in the sitting room of Polly’s house and Richard was trying hard not to cough, because if the rest of the house was dusty, this room seemed to be where all the dust in the rest of the world came to when it wanted to die. The curtains, old sofas, stacks of books and piles of nick-nacks were all covered in a worn-in grime of ancient dirt, and Richard had noticed that when he shut the door, dust had fallen in a great cloud from the filthy crystal chandelier that hung in the centre of the ceiling and which was missing a good third of its pendants.
As Camille made the introductions and explained to the four assembled witnesses that the police had a duty to investigate all suspicious deaths on the island, Richard took the opportunity to give them all a once-over.
He could see that the victim’s sister, Claire Carter, was sitting in her metal-framed wheelchair wearing beige cotton trousers, simple slip-on shoes, and a light blue cotton top. She had a similar slender build to her sister, similar high cheekbones, but Richard could see that they had very different hair styles. While Polly’s hair was dark, long and unruly, Claire’s was similarly dark, but it was cut into a tight and tidy bob that fell just below her ears. As for her demeanour, Richard could see that Claire had turned entirely in on herself, her shoulders hunched in grief, her head bowed as tears rolled down her cheeks that she dashed away with the back of her hands. It was a sight that Richard felt he’d had to see too often in his career. The grief of the family member who was left behind.
As for Claire’s nurse, Sophie Wessel, she was a plump woman who Richard guessed was in her mid-to-late forties. She had a friendly face, wide, trusting eyes, and dark hair streaked with plenty of grey that was tied behind her head in a loose ponytail. She was wearing a long dark green dress, simple leather shoes, and she even had a watch pinned upside down on her dress just below her left shoulder. Richard could see that Sophie was holding one of Claire’s hands while also not seeming to be that engaged with the situation, either. As a person who was paid to care for others, Richard felt he recognised the type. Sophie was caring and uncaring both at the same time. Like ‘Matey’—the matron of Richard’s boarding house at school—he thought to himself. Kind when she had to be, but only because it was her professional duty.
Then there was Max Brandon, Polly’s agent. Richard could see that he was a thin man in his fifties who had an angular face under neatly parted jet-black hair—and he hid his eyes behind yellow-lensed sunglasses. A ratty looking man, Richard thought to himself. But what Richard found most interesting about Max was the way he was using the forefinger on his right hand to pick at the skin around the nail of his thumb. In fact, Richard could see that the skin around both of Max’s thumbnails had been picked raw and Richard found himself wondering what it was that was making Max so tense?
As for Phil Adams, Richard guessed that he was also, like Max, in his fifties, but that’s where all similarities ended. Phil was tall, broad-shouldered, and he looked entirely at ease. His hair was blond and glossy—swept back from his handsome face—and his eyes were crinkled with laughter lines. He wore a collarless white cotton shirt that Richard guessed came from a Jermyn Street tailor, knee-length khaki shorts—that Richard noted, with irritation, Phil was able to make look good—and an old pair of flip-flops.
Once Camille had finished the introductions, Richard said, ‘Thank you all for waiting for us. Detective Sergeant Bordey will be taking your formal statements shortly, but first I just wanted to get a sense of what happened this morning. For example, I understand that you, Claire, were with your twin sister when she died. Is that right?’
Claire looked up at Richard, her eyes red-rimmed with grief.
‘That’s right,’ she eventually said, still disbelieving the words she was having to say.
‘Then perhaps you could take us through what happened?’ Camille asked gently.
Claire thought for a moment and then slowly nodded.
‘Of course. Well … I’d gone to the kitchen for breakfast this morning and Polly was already there.’
‘What time was that?’ Richard asked.
‘I don’t know. Just before ten, I suppose.’
‘Thank you. And was that the first you saw of your sister today?’
‘It was.’
‘And how would you describe her mood when you saw her?’
‘I don’t know. She was her usual self. Somewhat snappy. Slightly irritating. But nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘You didn’t get on with her?’
‘Not always. Although I think it’s fairer to say that it was Polly who didn’t get on with me.’
‘And why was that?’
‘We didn’t have much in common,’ Claire said sadly. ‘Anyway, she said she wanted to take me for a walk in the gardens, so that’s what we did.’
‘And did you and your sister often go for walks together?’
Claire hesitated a moment before answering. ‘Not really.’
‘Had your sister in fact gone for a walk with you before?’
‘Actually, no. We’d been out together of course, but only as part of a group. And always with Sophie in attendance.’
‘Is that right?’ Richard turned to ask Sophie.
‘Yes,’ Sophie said. ‘Agency rules say I should be available to assist my client at all times, but Polly insisted that she go out with Claire this morning on her own.’
Richard and Camille exchanged a glance.
‘In fact,’ Claire said, equally puzzled, ‘Polly was insistent she didn’t want Sophie to come with us.’
‘And do you know why she wanted it to be just you and her on this walk?’ Richard asked Claire.
‘I have no idea,’ Claire said, ‘but almost as soon as we got out into the garden, Polly started shouting at me. I’ve no idea where it came from. She just seemed to explode. Telling me how unhappy she was, and how her unhappiness was all my fault. I was shocked. I had no idea what she was talking about.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘No. You see, we weren’t that close. In fact, I haven’t even seen Polly since last year.’
‘I see.’
Camille turned to Sophie. ‘So, if you were around at the time, did you witness this argument, Sophie?’ she asked.
Sophie nodded. ‘I did. I was about to go upstairs when I heard raised voices coming from the garden. It was Polly shouting at Claire.’
‘Did you hear what was being said?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t. They were too far away. And when I went into the garden to see if I could help—or intervene—that’s when Polly started pushing Claire towards the cliffs.’
‘That’s right,’ Claire agreed. ‘I saw Sophie come out of the house, and that’s when Polly said something like “you’re coming with me”—and she grabbed my chair and started pushing me really fast towards the cliff. And I can tell you, I was frightened. I was shouting at her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen to me.’
‘And I followed a bit,’ Sophie said. ‘You see, I still couldn’t work out if I should intervene or not. And when I lost sight of Claire and Polly, I stopped altogether.’
‘Why did you lose sight of them both?’ Richard asked.
Sophie seemed surprised by the question.
‘Well, there’s a large bed of shrubs across that end of the garden. The steps down the cliff are just beyond it.’
‘I see,’ Richard said, looking at the room, and once again he noticed how Max was looking down at his hands and picking at the skin around his nails.
Phil cleared his throat to announce that he had a contribution to make.
‘I can second all that Sophie and Claire are saying,’ he said, entirely comfortable as he took the floor. ‘You see, I was upstairs in my bedroom at the time. Working on my latest screenplay. And I heard a ruckus coming from the garden, so I went to the window and saw Polly shouting at Claire in the garden. And then, when Polly pushed Claire off to the bottom of the garden and disappeared behind the bushes there,
I saw Sophie follow a little way and then stop in the middle of the lawn.’
‘That’s right,’ Sophie said, remembering. ‘I didn’t know if anyone else was around to help, so I looked back at the house and I saw someone standing at one of the upstairs windows.’
‘Well that’s easy to explain,’ Phil said with a tolerant smile. ‘That was me.’
‘What’s that, Phil?’ Max asked, speaking for the first time.
‘It’s not hard to understand,’ Phil said in a condescending manner. Richard could tell that there was little love lost between Phil and Max.
‘I was looking out of my bedroom window,’ Phil continued, ‘so if Sophie saw someone at an upstairs window, it must have been me.’
‘But hang on,’ Max said, licking his lips before he carried on. ‘That would have been me she saw, because I was at the upstairs landing window and looking down on Sophie when Polly died.’
‘You were?’ Camille asked.
‘That’s right,’ Max said. ‘I’d just seen Sophie in the downstairs hallway.’ Here, Max turned to address Sophie. ‘And I’m sorry I didn’t say hello back to you when you wished me good morning.’ Max knew that this was an inadequate thing to say, but he turned back to address Camille. ‘But Sophie can confirm that she saw me inside the house just before Polly died.’
Richard was intrigued. Why was Max trying to establish an alibi for the time of death?
‘Is that right?’ Camille asked Sophie.
‘Yes,’ Sophie said, not entirely sure where Max was going with his story. ‘I definitely saw Max head upstairs just before I went out into the garden. And I said hello to him, but he didn’t say hello back.’
‘But the point is,’ Max said, picking up the story, ‘I was looking out of the upstairs landing window at the time of death. I saw Sophie in the middle of the garden. She was looking straight back at me.’
Richard could see that Sophie was frowning.
‘Tell me, Sophie, was it Max you saw at the upstairs window? Or was it Phil?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The sun was shining on the windows. And I can’t remember precisely which upstairs window I was looking at. But I know I only saw one person.’
‘Who must have been me,’ Max said insistently.
‘Rubbish,’ Phil said. ‘It was me Sophie could see.’
Sophie looked in confusion at Richard, hoping for a steer.
‘Either way,’ Richard said, not wanting his witnesses to get bogged down, ‘tell me, Sophie, once you’d looked back at the house and seen someone at the upstairs window, what happened next?’
‘Well, that’s when I heard a scream,’ Sophie said. ‘An awful scream. And then, a few moments later, I heard Claire shout for help.’
‘And did you see any of this?’ Camille asked.
‘Well, no. It was all behind the bed of shrubs. But I heard it.’
‘And did you, Phil, see what was going on at the cliff top?’
‘I didn’t,’ Phil said. ‘Because it’s like Sophie’s saying. You can see the lawn from the house, but you can’t see the cliff top. There’s a bed of shrubs and bushes in the way.’
‘And I couldn’t see anything, either,’ Max said, reminding everyone that he’d also been at an upstairs window at the time.
‘But it doesn’t matter who else saw what,’ Claire said, and Richard could see from the look in her eyes that she’d just worked out that she was the only person who’d witnessed the death—and therefore the police were treating her testimony with suspicion. ‘Because the thing is, I saw what Polly did once we were both at the cliff.’
‘Yes,’ Camille said, kindly. ‘Then could you tell us in your own words what that was?’
Claire blinked back tears before continuing her story.
‘Well, it was like she was possessed just before she jumped. I mean, she was angry with me when we first went into the garden, but by the time we got to the cliff top, she was going crazy. Saying how selfish I was. How I’d let her down. How I’d never understood the pain she was in. That sort of thing. And then she said she was going to kill herself—it was all my fault—and there was nothing I could do to stop her!’
Claire choked back a sob as she finished speaking.
‘Then what happened?’ Camille asked.
‘Well, she … she ran down the steps a little way, and then, once she was around the corner, she screamed as she jumped.’
‘What’s that?’ Richard asked.
‘I’m sorry?’ Claire said, looking at Richard, confused.
‘You said that once Polly was around the corner, it was only then that she screamed and jumped.’
‘That’s right.’
‘So she didn’t jump from the very top of the cliff?’
‘No. She went down the first flight of steps, and it was only when she’d turned around the corner that I heard her scream as she jumped.’
‘So you didn’t actually see the moment it happened?’
Claire seemed surprised by the question.
‘Well, no. I suppose not. If you put it like that. But then, I couldn’t follow her down the steps in my wheelchair, could I? So, no, I didn’t see the exact moment my sister jumped to her death. Thank God for small mercies.’
Richard wrote this fact into his notebook and very carefully underlined it three times.
Richard next turned to Sophie. ‘And you didn’t see what happened, either, did you?’
‘I’m sorry. No.’
‘Which is interesting. Because it means we’ve only got one witness to what happened. You, Claire. And even you didn’t see exactly what happened.’
Claire was quietly affronted. ‘But I didn’t need to see it. My sister said she was going to end her life. She then ran down the steps and I heard her scream as she fell. I didn’t need to see it to know what happened.’
Richard turned from Claire to Sophie.
‘So tell me, Sophie, how soon after you heard Polly’s scream did you arrive at the cliff?’
‘Oh, not long,’ Sophie said. ‘Thirty seconds? Something like that?’
At this, Claire turned her wheelchair around so she was looking directly at Richard, and he saw a look in her eyes he couldn’t quite place. Was it defiance? Or even desperation? Why did she look so on edge so suddenly?
‘But since you’re so interested in what I saw,’ Claire said, ‘you should know that there was someone else on the cliff steps just before Polly went down them.’
This got everyone’s attention.
‘There was?’ Camille asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘And you didn’t think to mention this before now?’ Richard asked.
‘You didn’t ask,’ Claire said.
‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘So who was this person you saw beforehand?’
‘Well, I think it was a man.’
‘You think it was a man?’
‘It might have been a woman. You see, I only caught a glimpse of the person as Polly was pushing me towards the cliff. But as we got to the top of the steps, I saw this flash of yellow as whoever it was went down the steps and disappeared around the first bend.’
‘A flash of yellow?’ Richard asked.
‘That’s right,’ Claire said, finally warming to her theme. ‘Because, whoever it was was wearing a bright yellow raincoat. You know, like a plastic cagoule. And the thing is, they had the hood up over their head so I couldn’t see their face.’
‘So you’re saying that this person—whether it was a man or woman—was wearing a plastic yellow raincoat with the hood up, and was on the cliff steps just before your sister jumped to her death?’
‘That’s right.’
Richard knew what he had to do next.
‘Would anyone here mind if Detective Sergeant Bordey now did a search of all your rooms to look for a yellow raincoat?’ Before anyone could answer, Richard continued, ‘Good. Camille, if you would?’
With a nod to her boss, Camille left the room, but Richard o
nly had eyes for the four witnesses. Did any of them look particularly worried at the prospect of their rooms being searched? He had to admit that they didn’t, so Richard turned back to Claire.
‘You see, it strikes me as odd that someone would be wearing a raincoat with the hood up on a boiling hot day when there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.’
‘Yes, when you put it like that,’ Claire said. ‘It does seem strange. But it’s what I saw.’
‘Then can I ask, if there was a person in a yellow coat on the cliff steps before your sister went down them, who was the next person to go down the steps after Polly?’
‘That was me,’ Sophie said.
‘And how soon afterwards did you follow her?’
‘I don’t know, but it could only have been a minute or two later. When I got to the cliff, Claire was upset, and it was only when we saw the body on the beach that I realised what might have happened.’
‘So you’d already seen Polly’s body on the beach before you went down the cliff?’
‘That’s right. Claire had gone a little way along the cliff’s edge. We were both able to look back at the beach from there.’
‘Then did you see a person in a yellow raincoat anywhere on the beach when you looked down at Polly’s body from the top of the cliff?’
Sophie thought for a moment before answering, ‘I’m sorry, no.’
‘Then perhaps you saw this person in the yellow coat on your way down to the beach?’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see anyone else on the steps. Or on the beach below. In a yellow raincoat or otherwise. When I got down there, there was just Polly’s body. There wasn’t anyone else.’
‘But that’s not possible,’ Claire said. ‘Because I’m telling you I saw a person in a yellow raincoat go down the steps just beforehand, you must have seen them, Sophie! Did you not see a flash of yellow at all? Maybe only after you got down to the beach?’
‘It’s unlikely,’ Richard said. ‘Even by the time my officers arrived at the scene, the only footprints we could find in the sand led from the steps to the body and nowhere else. So, if there was a “Man in Yellow” who went down the steps beforehand, he didn’t go off and hide anywhere else on the beach.’
Killing Of Polly Carter Page 3