Killing Of Polly Carter

by Robert Thorogood

  Richard steeled himself, even as his arms started to tremble at the effort of keeping himself wedged safely into the tunnel opening. Because if this was a secret smugglers’ route—as he guessed it had to be—it didn’t make sense that the tunnel would open directly out onto thin air halfway up a cliff face.

  Richard knew he had no choice but to go nearer to the edge. And, now he was looking more closely, he could see that the tunnel wall was shorter on the right hand side—which maybe allowed a little path to lead off to the right along the cliff face. Or maybe not. He wouldn’t be able to see for sure unless he took another step towards the edge of the tunnel.

  Richard scooched his left hand six inches nearer the end of the tunnel, and then he did the same with his left foot. And then he shuffled his right hand six inches nearer, and then his right foot.

  After which, he was only six inches nearer the opening and he still couldn’t quite see.

  So he repeated his crablike progress another few inches towards what he increasingly felt was almost certainly going to be a fall to his death: left hand, left foot, right hand, right foot.

  Looking down, Richard gulped to see the sea swelling against the cliff’s edge far below. But looking to his right, he could also see that he’d been correct—there was indeed a wide ledge of rock to the side of the entrance. What was more, it was directly behind a far wider outcrop of rock that had a scrappy sort of shrub on it that was at least as tall as Richard was.

  Richard realised with a start that if he looked through the leaves of the bush, he could see the staircase that was cut into the cliff face on the other side of it.

  The staircase that Polly had been thrown from when she died.

  In fact, Richard knew that if he could ignore the absence of any kind of handrail or safety harness—which he most certainly could not—it would only take a couple of steps to get along the ledge and into the safety of the bush, from where it would be easy to step onto the staircase.

  In excitement, Richard crab-shuffled back into the relative safety of the tunnel, his mind now awhirl. After all, they’d been trying to work out how the killer had managed to push Polly to her death and then vanish from the steps afterwards—well here was the possible answer! The killer was waiting on the steps before Polly came down them, as they’d been saying all along. He or she then hit Polly with the branch, pushed her to her death and then hid the branch in the bush at the next bend down the steps. Again, as they’d been saying all along. But then the killer carried on down the steps until he or she reached the turn that had the bush on it. It would then have been possible for the killer to push through the bush, take one brave step onto the ledge, and then vanish into the old smugglers’ tunnel that led into the chamber.

  And from there, it would have been easy to head along the secret tunnel and get back into the house.

  ‘Sir!’ Richard heard Camille call from back inside the cave. ‘You need to see this.’

  Richard returned to the cave. It took him a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but he saw that Camille was over by the piles of junk that were on the far side of the chamber.

  ‘Okay, what have you got?’ Richard asked her as he approached.

  ‘Well, sir, I reckon this is where Polly came to take her drugs.’

  Richard saw that to the side of one of the chairs there was a filthy trunk that had lost its lid long ago. Inside it there were old fashion magazines, glasses still red-rimmed with evaporated wine, an old tin containing cigarette papers, an old cellophane bag of weed, and various bongs, spoons and lighters.

  ‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘But this must all be historic, seeing as the autopsy found no evidence of any narcotics in her system.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Camille said. ‘But I bet you won’t be able to guess what I’ve just found stuffed behind the trunk.’

  Richard considered how he’d just learnt that it was possible to access the cave directly from the steps on the cliff.

  ‘I don’t know, but I imagine that if you’re saying that I can’t guess what it is, then it must be pretty sensational, and if it’s stuffed behind the trunk, then I also imagine that it’s something that can be crushed up into a small space—’

  ‘You don’t really have to guess,’ Camille interrupted.

  ‘It’s not a yellow raincoat of some sort, is it?’

  Camille looked at her boss.

  ‘How do you do it?’

  ‘Is that right, though? Have you really found the yellow raincoat?’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

  Camille nodded her head to indicate the space behind the trunk, and, when Richard looked, he saw it at once. There was something yellow jammed down behind it. Richard pulled out a fresh pair of latex gloves from his inside jacket pocket, put them on, and scraped the trunk away from the rock wall a few inches.

  He then picked up the crushed piece of plastic and opened it out.

  It was a bright yellow raincoat. Just as Claire had said she’d seen being worn by someone moments before Polly was pushed to her death.

  ‘This almost certainly belongs to the killer,’ Richard said.

  So who in the house knew about the secret tunnel and had been using it to hide their yellow raincoat?

  There was an easy way to find out, and, a few hours later, Richard was back in the police station hovering over the yellow raincoat as Fidel dusted it for prints. A visual inspection hadn’t revealed any obvious spots of blood on the raincoat, but Richard knew that didn’t mean it hadn’t been worn by the killer—especially considering how they already knew the killer attacked Polly while holding a long branch so that he or she could keep their distance during the murder.

  ‘I just want to see how it’s going,’ Richard said for the hundredth time.

  ‘I’m getting there, sir,’ Fidel said for the hundred-and-first time.

  So far, Fidel had been able to lift seven clean prints from near the front buttons of the raincoat and Dwayne was trying to match these prints against the exclusion prints they’d taken from Sophie, Claire, Max, Phil, Juliette and Alain—and Polly herself, of course.

  But none of the seven prints they’d so far been able to lift belonged to anyone from Polly’s household. So was the killer, then, someone else entirely? It didn’t seem possible, but Camille scanned and uploaded the prints to the central police database that covered the whole of the Caribbean. Maybe there’d be a match somewhere on the system?

  However, as the afternoon wore on and Fidel ran out of clean prints to lift from the raincoat, Dwayne confirmed that none of the prints matched anyone from the house, and the main police computer remained just as unforthcoming.

  Richard was therefore in a particularly grumpy mood when a courier arrived just as they were about to pack up for the day. And what the courier delivered didn’t improve Richard’s mood, either, because it turned out that he was returning the threatening letters now they’d been processed by the labs in Guadeloupe.

  For want of anything better to do, Richard laid out the six pieces of A4 on his desk and once again tried to work out what sort of warped mind would want to send them to Polly.

  In particular, Richard tried to imagine who of Polly’s house guests might have sent them. He remembered how guilty Max had looked when he was challenged about the letters, but that could have just been his surprise on hearing they existed at all.

  Richard packed the letters into his brown leather briefcase, deciding that he’d have another look at them at home that night. Even though the labs had drawn a blank, he wasn’t going to give up on the letters just yet.

  ‘Chief?’

  Richard looked up to see that Dwayne had sidled over to his desk.

  ‘Yes, Dwayne?’

  ‘Could I have a word?’

  ‘Of course. Any time.’

  Dwayne looked at his boss a long moment.

  ‘I mean, now,’ Dwayne said in a stage whisper.

  ‘Yes, well, now’s a good time for me, too,’ Richard said
, not remotely understanding why Dwayne was being so clandestine.

  Dwayne coughed once, hoping that Richard would understand that he wanted their conversation to be in private.

  His hopes were in vain.

  ‘Do you want a glass of water for that cough?’ Richard asked.

  Dwayne looked at his boss, speechless.

  ‘Really, Dwayne, you come over here and say you want a word and then you won’t speak,’ Richard said, deeply frustrated.

  Camille leaned over from her desk. ‘I think Dwayne wants a word in private, sir,’ she said.

  Richard threw up his hands in exasperation.

  ‘Then why didn’t you say so?’ he said.

  Dwayne’s shoulders slumped. ‘I’ll be in the cells,’ he told his boss, before traipsing through the bead curtain that demarcated the ‘front’ of the station from the ‘back’. Richard shook his head in wonder as he followed. Really, there was no understanding his staff sometimes.

  The back rooms of the police station contained two iron-barred holding cells, but were otherwise the general dumping ground for the office, so they also contained old fax machines, files, broken crime equipment and any old bits of furniture too decrepit to be of use.

  ‘What is it?’ Richard asked, once he’d joined Dwayne.

  ‘You can’t blame me, I didn’t know it would come to this.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘You just have to believe me, Chief. It’s not my fault.’

  Richard didn’t have time for this. ‘Just tell me what you’ve done and we can apportion blame afterwards.’

  ‘It might be easier if I show you,’ Dwayne said, fishing out his mobile phone.

  Richard was none the wiser as Dwayne showed him a text message that he’d received a few minutes earlier.

  It said: U know any good spots for dinner and a dance? x J

  Richard looked at Dwayne.

  ‘Why are you showing me this message?’

  ‘It’s from your mother.’

  Richard looked at Dwayne, confused.

  ‘Sorry?’ he eventually managed to squeak.

  ‘It’s not me, you’ve got to believe me,’ Dwayne said. ‘It’s just … you know how your mother asked me about the glass-bottomed boat? Well, after that, she asked to meet for a coffee to discuss what she should do next, and so I met her for a coffee and we had a drink and I told her where to go next, and the thing is … I think she’s got a thing for me.’

  ‘She’s got “a thing” for you?’

  ‘Hey, you can’t blame me if women find me attractive.’

  ‘I can’t blame you?’

  ‘It’s animal magnetism. I was born this way.’

  ‘Look, Dwayne, there’s only one type of magnetism, it was discovered by an Englishman called William Gilbert in the sixteenth century, and I can tell you right now it has nothing to do with animals.’

  ‘Chief, you’re babbling.’

  ‘Of course I’m babbling!’ Richard exploded before lowering his voice to a desperate whisper. ‘I’m hearing how one of my officers thinks he’s inadvertently pulled my mother!’

  ‘Not because I tried to,’ Dwayne said. ‘that’s the point I’m trying to make.’

  Richard realised that if he didn’t foreclose on the conversation—and fast—he would possibly tip over into insanity. So, thanking Dwayne for the information, he strode out of the police station without another word—and through the life-sapping sunshine without stopping to think—until he’d reached Catherine’s bar, where he hoped he might be able to find his mother.

  However, as Richard scanned the little tables outside, his mother was nowhere to be seen. Admittedly, there were a couple of tourists sitting at some of the tables, but his mother wasn’t one of them. Or rather, that had been Richard’s first impression. When he looked a little closer, he saw a male tourist in his fifties—all blue blazer, sailing cap and deck shoes—talking to a laughing woman in a bright orange dress as she knocked back a shot of rum.

  The woman was his mother.

  Richard strode over to his mother’s table, but—at the last moment—he bottled it and found himself hovering merely nearby.

  ‘Richard!’ Jennifer said, finally noticing her son before patting the chair next to her. ‘Come and join us. This is Major Rupert Fitzgerald. He’s on a round-the-world cruise and is currently holed up on Saint-Marie, awaiting repairs.’

  ‘You are, are you?’ Richard said with a glint in his eye as he sat down.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Rupert said in a patrician drawl.

  ‘And I suppose,’ Richard said, ‘you only need a bit more money to finish your repairs.’

  Jennifer looked at her son in surprise. ‘How did you know that?’

  But Richard only had eyes for Rupert.

  ‘And I bet this world cruise means so much to you, Major, doesn’t it? But tell me, is it your wife who’s died or is it an elderly relative?’

  Richard pulled his police warrant and put it down on the table.

  ‘Detective Inspector Richard Poole of the Saint-Marie Police Force, I think you’ll find the repairs have been done to your boat and you’ll be leaving the island by sunset tonight.’

  Rupert cleared his throat, opened his mouth like a landed fish, and then turned to Jennifer, trying to appear as though he hadn’t just been busted by the local Old Bill.

  ‘You know what? I’m sure I can get the boat repaired for free and I’ll be onto my next port of call. Nice meeting you, Jennifer.’ As Rupert said this, he rose and backed a few paces away from his chair before turning to face Richard. ‘Detective Inspector.’

  ‘I’m sure we won’t meet again,’ Richard said.

  With a tight nod of agreement, Rupert turned and slipped out of the bar, Jennifer watching him go, a confused look on her face.

  ‘Mother!’ Richard hissed at his mother once the coast was clear.

  ‘What?’ Jennifer said, now affronted.

  ‘He was a conman! You have got to be careful.’

  ‘Did it not occur to you that I already knew that?’ Jennifer said. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday. But, just so you know, I was enjoying talking to him, testing out his background story and seeing how consistent he was. Not that I’m not grateful for you standing up for me, but I am a grown-up. I wish you’d treat me as one.’

  ‘But I don’t understand what you’re doing here,’ Richard said.

  Jennifer looked at her son. ‘You know what? For the first time in my life, nor do I, and it’s liberating. I’m sick of doing as I’m told, being well-behaved, the perfect housewife and mother. That’s all I’ve ever been. While I’ve been out here, I’ve realised, no one knows me, I can be who I want to be.’

  ‘But this isn’t where you want to be,’ Richard said before he could stop himself. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are lots of people who come here on holiday—God knows why—but this place is a deathtrap! You can’t go into the sea without an anemone sticking in your foot, a lion fish poisoning you, or a shark actually eating you alive. And on land, it’s even more dangerous. There’s sand that gets everywhere, a volcano in the middle of the island that could blow at any moment, and if you’re not attacked by creatures that fly and sting you to death, there’s always the creepy crawlies that walk and bite you to death to contend with. I mean, just before you got out here I was assaulted in my shower by a lizard.’

  ‘Richard?’ Jennifer asked, startled by her son’s sudden passion.

  ‘And don’t even get me started on the weather! I mean, can you imagine living somewhere where it’s hot every day of the year, except for the summer, when it’s actually just hotter?’

  ‘It would be lovely.’

  ‘No, you say that, Mother, but think about what that actually means. Did you even know, we don’t have seasons out here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There aren’t seasons in the tropics like there are in the UK. So that’s no daffodils coming up in the spring t
o look forward to—no early season new potatoes, no two-week window for cherries, no harvesting of the wheat fields in September, and no autumn leaves. Ever.’

  Jennifer looked suitably taken aback by this news, and Richard pressed home his advantage.

  ‘So for all your excitement with Saint-Marie, don’t think for a moment that it’s better than what you left behind. Because I know that back home it’s grey at times—and rainy—but where we’re from is who we are, and this island isn’t who you are.’

  Jennifer looked at her son, doubt showing in her eyes for the first time. But before she could say anything, Catherine swished over in a blood-red dress, her hair tied up in a purple silk scarf.

  ‘So what did Major Rupert say to you?’ she asked conspiratorially as she joined mother and son at the table.

  ‘Well, Catherine,’ Jennifer said, ‘he was giving me his set-up—just like you said he would—when Richard arrived and got rid of him.’

  Catherine looked at Richard, disappointed. ‘Oh, Richard.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Richard said defensively. ‘But I didn’t realise you both knew he was a conman.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Catherine said, already moving on. ‘Guess what your mother and I are up to tonight? We’re going clubbing!’

  ‘You are?’ Richard said, as though he’d just had a stiletto knife stuck into his heart.

  ‘Can you imagine?!’ Catherine said, delightedly.

  ‘No, I can’t. I really can’t.’

  Before anyone could say anything more, Fidel headed over from the bar, a printout in his hand.

  ‘Sir! Sir!’ he called as he approached, clearly excited.

  ‘What is it, Fidel?’

  ‘We’ve found a match to the fingerprints on the yellow raincoat!’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘We have!’

  ‘But who is it,’ Richard asked, rudely grabbing the printout from Fidel’s hands. ‘Is it one of the house guests?’

  ‘That’s the thing, sir. It isn’t. The fingerprints on the coat belong to a man called Luc Pichou.’

  Richard could see that Fidel had handed him the police record for a man called Luc Pichou.

  He looked back up at Fidel.