Max looked so haunted by the question that both Richard and Camille knew the answer before Max had even given it.
‘That’s right,’ he eventually said, his voice hoarse with shame. ‘But I was always going to pay her back.’
‘But why seventeen?’ Richard asked. ‘Seeing as you said you only owed fifteen.’
‘Because,’ Max said, now in the depths of his own personal hell, ‘I was convinced that when I’d paid off my debts, I’d be able to turn the two thousand I had left over into enough of a windfall to keep me going in the short term. Remember, Polly was still in rehab, she’d deprived me of my income, I had to live on something!’
‘But you lost that as well,’ Richard said.
‘In one crazy weekend. It’s like a type of frenzy when you go rogue like I did that weekend. By Sunday morning, I was up twenty-seven thousand pounds, but by the Monday morning, I’d managed to turn that into a loss of twenty thousand pounds.’
‘You racked up a gambling debt again?’ Richard was amazed.
‘I know,’ Max said.
‘So, you then stole twenty-three thousand dollars to cover that debt as well.’
Max didn’t deny it this time.
‘And what have you been living on since then?’
‘Thin air. And promises. It’s not been easy.’
‘But tell me, how long was it before Polly realised you’d cleaned her out? Because we know Polly never opened her bank statements or looked at her financial affairs, so it was probably some time later, wasn’t it? Although we know she’d found out before she died, because Phil Adams told us how Polly said she was so skint that she was going to have to put her house up for sale.’
‘I …’ Max said, before subsiding. ‘You’re right. A few weeks before she died, Polly rang me. She said she’d finally tried to sort out her financial affairs. She’d discovered she had no money because I’d taken fifty grand from her back in February. I got on a plane the moment she told me she knew. I was so ashamed. And I threw myself at her mercy, saying I’d find a way to pay her back.’
‘So what did she say to that?’
‘That’s the bit I don’t understand. Because I wasn’t lying when I said Polly was in a good mood before she died. She actually laughed when I told her I’d stolen from her. And better than that, once I’d explained how it had been my gambling addiction that had got me into this mess, she said she’d be happy to wait until I could afford to pay her back.’
‘She said that, did she?’
‘Yes.’
Richard exchanged a glance with Camille.
‘I find that very hard to believe,’ he said.
‘But you have to believe me! I mean, no one was more surprised than me when she said she was happy to consider the debt a loan, but that’s what she said. She was happy.’ Richard looked at Max, sizing him up.
‘And once again I find myself asking, did she draw up any papers to formalise this loan?’
‘No. That’s not how she worked.’
‘Which is convenient for you, isn’t it? Because I think you’ve kept your story close to the truth, but it’s not the whole truth, is it? For example, I think you were right when you told us you were angry when Polly stopped working after she got out of hospital last year. And I think that anger soon turned into hate, which is why it’s been you who’s been sending Polly all those anonymous threatening letters.’
Max reeled, and then shook his head in denial, and Richard decided to pounce.
‘It was you!’
‘No!’ Max just as quickly shot back. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry, I’m just on edge. What letters?’
‘Polly’s been receiving anonymous letters,’ Camille said. ‘Saying she deserves to die.’
‘Which,’ Richard continued, ‘rather fits with how you described your feelings towards her when she stopped working. She was all but destroying your career, wasn’t she? And that’s when I think you decided she deserved to be destroyed. Psychologically, at first. That’s why you sent the letters.’
‘Look, I don’t know what letters you mean.’
‘But then,’ Richard continued, refusing to be sidetracked by Max’s denials, ‘by the time Polly checked in to rehab after Christmas, you were so desperate that you had to go beyond psychological bullying, didn’t you? Now you felt you should just directly take the money you felt she owed you. And I can almost see the warped logic of it. After all, Polly should have been working. She should have been giving you that money.’
‘No, that’s not how it was,’ Max stammered. ‘And I don’t know what you mean about any anonymous letters. Although, if she’s been receiving hate mail, that sometimes happens if you’re famous like Polly was. Nutbags out there will send all sorts of rubbish to her.’
‘Nice try,’ Richard said. ‘But what I’d like to know is, how did you get that last ten thousand dollars out of her?’
‘What?’
‘The ten thousand dollars in cash she gave you three days before she died.’
‘She didn’t give me any money!’ Max said. ‘Why would she give me more money? She’d already agreed to let me off my debts!’
‘Then can you explain why Polly took ten thousand dollars out of her bank account—in cash—three days before she was murdered?’
Max pulled his hankie from his pocket and mopped his brow.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about any ten thousand dollars in cash.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not! I’m telling you the truth!’
‘She got out that cash for you, but why?’
‘She didn’t!’ Max all but shouted back at Richard, and it was as though Max had finally revealed his true nature. He wasn’t a bon vivant from the sophisticated world of fashion, he was a street fighter, that’s what Richard and Camille could now see in Max’s eyes. And Max knew that he’d revealed himself, but was beyond caring.
‘Okay. You reckon she gave me a load of cash before she died? Prove it. Because you’ve searched my room here, and you didn’t find any cash, did you? And don’t forget, I was inside this house—upstairs on the landing—when Polly was killed! That’s what Sophie said, remember? She saw me go upstairs just before the murder! She then saw me standing at the upstairs window at the precise time of the murder! So even if I admit I had a motive to want Polly dead—and I’ll tell you what, I could admit it, how would you like that? Polly ruined my life when she stopped working, the stupid cow. But the problem you’ve got is, I’ve got a witness who said I was nowhere near at the time of her death, so what are you going to do about that?’
Max looked wild as he finished speaking and Richard leaned back in his chair as though he were considering what Max had said very carefully. Which, of course, he was. After all, Max had just all-but confessed that he wanted Polly dead. But he was right about his alibi as well, because, although Sophie wasn’t sure who she saw at the upstairs window at the time of the murder, she said she’d definitely seen Max go up the stairs before she went out into the garden, so how could Max have got past her and Claire and onto the steps of the cliff without being seen?
It was as Richard idly looked up at the chandelier in the ceiling that he realised what had been unsettling him about the room.
The chandelier wasn’t precisely in the centre of the ceiling as it was in the other downstairs reception room.
Richard frowned.
That’s right. This room was identical in shape to the other sitting room, so how come the chandelier wasn’t in the same spot in the middle of the ceiling?
Ignoring Max and Camille entirely, Richard stood up from his chair and slowly turned on the spot. Yes, the room was the same—apart from the floor-to-ceiling bookcase that ran along the side wall. And once again, Richard realised his instinct was making him look at the bookcase.
‘Sir?’ Camille asked, puzzled.
‘One moment,’ Richard said.
Richard went over to the bookcase
. He pulled down a few books and Camille went over to see what he was doing.
‘Sir,’ she hissed. ‘What are you doing?’
‘How deep do you think this bookcase is?’
Richard reached into the shelf and could see that it was about a foot deep. As would be expected with any bookcase.
‘Can you clear the way?’
Richard turned so his back was to the bookcase and started to put one polished shoe in front of the other so he could measure the width of the room in Richard-sized feet.
‘You see,’ he said as though he was making perfect sense. ‘I’ve not been able to settle in this room. And I think it’s because it’s not the same size as the sitting room next door.’
‘It isn’t?’ Max asked, confused by Richard’s behaviour.
‘Even though everything else about this room is identical. Look at the chandelier in the ceiling. It’s in the centre of the room lengthwise—measured from the door to the bay windows—but it’s not central if measured widthways.’
Camille and Max could see that what Richard was saying was true. The dusty old crystal chandelier was much nearer the wall with the bookcase on it than it was to the opposite wall.
‘So everyone remember, thirty-eight feet,’ Richard finally proclaimed as he finished traversing the width of the room.
And with that, he left the room.
Camille and Max followed Richard only to see him disappearing into the sitting room next door to the study. And when they entered that room, Richard was holding up his finger for silence while repeating his experiment of measuring the width of the room in his footsteps.
While he did this, Camille looked up and saw that Richard was right. The dusty chandelier was much more obviously in the centre of this room than it was in the other.
‘Forty-three feet!’ Richard called out as he hit the further wall. ‘This room is five feet wider than the other room!’
‘But that’s not surprising,’ Max said, still baffled. ‘This room doesn’t have a floor-to-ceiling bookcase along the side wall.’
‘I know, but we just measured the bookcase, didn’t we? And it was only about a foot deep. So that still leaves something like four feet of width in that room unaccounted for.’
As Richard said this, he suddenly froze.
Camille realised that Richard was having one of his ‘moments’.
‘Good grief! You know what this house once was?’ Richard said, before striding out of the room again.
Camille turned to Max, an apologetic smile on her face.
‘I’m so sorry. He does this.’
Once again, Camille and Max went out of the room together and returned to Polly’s study only to find Richard yanking books from the bookshelf in a shimmer of dust.
‘Sir …?’ Camille asked as carefully as she could.
‘Not now, Camille!’ Richard called back as he pulled another handful of books from the shelf and dumped them on a nearby armchair.
Camille was doubly puzzled when she realised that it wasn’t the books that Richard seemed to be interested in, it was the shelves he was revealing behind them.
It was on the third stack along that Richard finally stopped.
‘Got you!’
‘Got what, sir?’
‘Remember what Juliette said this house used to be? And above all else, remember how I said that any key that itself was kept under lock and key was important?’
As Richard said this, he fished into his pocket and pulled out the old iron key they’d found in Polly’s locked filing cabinet.
‘Because I reckon I now know what this key opens.’
Richard pointed at the inside of the shelf he’d just cleared.
Camille went over and joined her boss. She could see that on the left hand side of that section of bookcase—where Richard was pointing—there was a little hole that had previously been hidden by the books that were lined up by it.
But it wasn’t just any little hole, Camille could see.
It was a keyhole.
‘What have you found?’ Max asked, desperately wanting to see but also knowing he should keep his distance.
‘The reason,’ Richard said, ‘why this room isn’t quite as wide as its twin room next door.’
Richard slipped the key into the keyhole.
It was a perfect fit.
Richard then took hold of the key and turned it carefully to the right. The lock mechanism inside the shelf clicked. It was clearly well oiled from regular use.
‘Juliette said this was an old smuggler’s house,’ Camille said.
Richard looked at Camille.
‘Indeed. Shall we?’ he asked.
Together they grabbed the empty shelf and pulled.
The whole bookstack swung smoothly open on its hinges just like the secret floor-to-ceiling door it was.
And beyond the section of bookcase they’d just swung open, Richard and Camille saw ancient wooden steps leading down into a subterranean passageway of some sort.
Richard and Camille had just uncovered a secret tunnel.
Chapter 9
‘You knew that would be there?’ Max said, pointing at the passageway behind the bookcase.
‘I guessed that something might be behind here, but the real question is, did you know about it?’
Max was shocked by the question. ‘I don’t even know what it is that you’ve found.’
‘It’s a tunnel. An old smugglers’ tunnel, I’d imagine, that leads from the house.’
‘It is?’ Max said. ‘Then if it is, it’s the first I’ve heard of it.’ With Max continuing to protest his surprise, Richard ushered him from the room, and Camille went to the police jeep to fetch a couple of torches. It was only during Camille’s absence that Richard realised the implications of what he was now obliged to do, which was, to wit, to go down into a secret underground tunnel. A secret underground tunnel that clearly hadn’t been signed off as being safe by any kind of structural engineer, and which was no doubt full of poisonous snakes. And poisonous spiders.
By the time Camille returned, Richard had whipped himself up into a frenzy of panic that he was barely able to conceal.
‘You okay, sir?’ Camille asked.
‘Nnnggg,’ Richard said.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll go first.’
Camille stepped into the gap behind the open section of bookcase and found herself looking at a set of rickety wooden steps that led almost vertically downwards.
‘Hold on, there’s got to be a light or something,’ she said, jabbing her torch beam around the cobwebby darkness until it illuminated an old Bakelite switch that was attached to the adjacent bookcase. She flicked it on and light flooded up from the tunnel below.
‘Okay, we’re good to go,’ she said.
Richard stepped up to his subordinate and looked over her shoulder at the eight or nine steps that led down into the tunnel.
Camille descended to the bottom and Richard took a deep breath. Well, then. Here goes. He trod down onto the first step and it gave a protesting groan. Richard froze. And then he realised that if the ancient step had groaned as though it were about to snap, then it was probably wise to get off it fast, so he descended quickly to the bottom, each step giving a pantomime groan until he found himself standing in a narrow tunnel hewn directly out of the rock.
Richard could see that the tunnel went off in a roughly straight line, but sloped downwards. There were lightbulbs strung along the wall every ten feet or so, but the slope meant that it was hard to see beyond forty or fifty feet. Richard could smell something in the air and it took him a moment to realise that it was the smell of the sea.
Camille looked back at her boss.
‘Shall we see where this leads?’ she asked.
Before Richard could answer, Camille strode off—much faster than Richard would have liked. But as much as he was frightened of following Camille, he was far more frightened of being left behind on his own, so he soon caught up with her.
Th
e tunnel was only a few feet taller than him, a foot or so wider, and Richard struggled to keep a lid on his mounting sense of claustrophobia as he imagined the tonnes of rock that were above him and ready—at any moment—to collapse in on his head and crush him to death. To keep a lid on his panic, he counted the lightbulbs as they passed them, and he soon realised that they’d gone a good 150 feet when the tunnel bent to the right and Richard could finally see that there was natural light at the end of the tunnel about a hundred feet away.
‘You can speed up now,’ Richard said, wiping the sweat from his brow.
At the end of this next section of tunnel, Richard and Camille stepped into a well-lit subterranean cave. The floor, walls and roof of the cave were all rough—it was clearly a natural cave formation—but it was a wide and roomy space, and although there were still lightbulbs shining in a string around the side walls, holes had been punched directly into the rocks high up so shafts of sunlight shone down onto the floor from above.
Richard realised that if there was light coming in through the far wall, then they were almost certainly right up against the cliff edge. And the even stronger smell of sea air in the cave seemed only to confirm this.
Off to one side, Richard saw that there were old boxes, ratty deckchairs and wine and beer bottles piled up in a mess. But as Camille went to check them out, Richard noticed something else. In the far corner of the cave opposite where they’d come in, there was a bright glow of sunlight where a second tunnel led out of the cave.
Richard went up to this second tunnel and could immediately feel the freshness in the air as he stepped into it. In fact, the breeze was now whipping at his hair as he took a few steps around a little jink, and then Richard froze, both hands instinctively shooting out to jam himself firmly into the narrow width of the tunnel.
Richard took a few calming breaths to steady himself, because what he’d just discovered was that immediately around the tight bend, the tunnel opened out onto thin air and a precipitous drop down to the sea a good fifty feet below. All Richard could see—from horizon to horizon—was the sparkling blue Caribbean Sea and bright blue sky. One step further and he’d have fallen fifty feet down into the sea.
Killing Of Polly Carter Page 14