‘I was so worried. And alone with Jessica. I didn’t know what to do. After a few days, I even went to the bars where I knew Pierre drank, and I started asking around. All I learned was, Pierre had vanished as well. Just as I suspected. Whatever Conrad was doing, he was doing it with Pierre. And the days turned into weeks, and I was falling apart. I heard no word from Conrad in all that time.
‘Then, three weeks after he’d gone, Conrad walked back in through that door.’ Natasha pointed at the door behind Camille and Richard. ‘And he was so full of himself, he said he’d struck gold. We were rich. But he wouldn’t tell me what he’d done to get the money. And even so, he said it would take a while to get his full share. I didn’t know what to think. I mean, Conrad had just vanished, and now he’d returned saying he was rich? There was no way what he had done was legal, and this is my shame. Although I tried to say I wouldn’t touch any of his money unless he told me how he’d come by it, my resistance wore down. If I’m honest, I was just so pleased to have him home. And so was Jessica. And the thing is, Conrad really was rich. Within a few weeks, he had all of this money. And it seemed to keep coming. He was throwing parties, wanting everyone to have a good time. It was so exciting, and I turned a blind eye to it all.
‘And a few months later, he bought that old recording studio up behind the old Priest’s house. It didn’t cost him much. You see, it was in a terrible state. But then he spent a lot of money on getting the best equipment shipped in. And signing young talent, as he called it. So he could promote these bands, and also record their music. He was so sure of himself. He was finally going to be a success. But there was still something not right about it all, I could tell. And I knew there was definitely something not right when I asked him if he was still seeing Pierre. You see, since he’d come back with all this money, he’d not mentioned Pierre once. Or gone drinking with him. But when I asked, Conrad just shut down and said he had nothing to do with Pierre any more. But I could see that Conrad was worried about it.
‘Anyway, I tried to stop worrying about what had happened to Pierre and just get on with my life. And there was so much that was good during that time. Jessica was just beautiful, Conrad had his music career going, and I should have been happy. But I kept worrying about Pierre. Where had he got to? What had gone wrong between him and Conrad? So, one day, I got up my courage and went back to one of the beachside bars. It was just a shack, really. When I asked the barman where Pierre was, he told me that he was in a prison in the UK for murder. I was shocked. And I went straight to the library where I did some research on the internet, and that’s when I found out the truth. Pierre had robbed a jewellery shop in London with three other men. He’d then murdered one of the employees in the shop and left his gun behind. And I could see the dates of the robbery matched the time that Conrad had been out of the country.
‘I confronted Conrad that night, and that was the only time he physically hurt me. He grabbed me so tight I had bruises on my arms for days. It was like he was trying to crush me, but Conrad said, if I wanted to live, I had to never mention Pierre’s name again. I didn’t know what to think. What had Conrad done? Or rather, I now suspected what Conrad had done. He’d been one of the other men, hadn’t he? That’s where our money had come from. It had been stolen, and a man had died. Our money was blood money.
‘But what was I supposed to do? Shop my own husband to the Police? And I read all the reports I could on the robbery and the trial, and I could see that the only person who’d used any violence was Pierre. In the end, I decided that the fact that Conrad had been so angry when I’d mentioned Pierre’s name was enough for me. It told me he’d not wanted what had happened to that poor man to happen. And then, I saw that the jewellery shop they’d robbed was part of a chain that had branches all over the world, and they’d even been insured. They’d not lost any money because of the robbery. So that’s what I kept telling myself. What had happened was in the past, and I couldn’t change that. And you know, the years passed, and we had other problems to deal with.’
‘Like what?’ Camille asked.
‘Well, it turned out Conrad wasn’t a very good music producer after all. I mean, he wanted to be. He worked hard. Up to a point. But he slowly slipped into his old ways. Hanging out with the wrong sort of people. And somehow, he seemed broken. By the time he’d spent whatever money he had, he’d lost all his confidence. His swagger. And he was distant from us.’
‘Including your daughter?’ Camille said, indicating the old photos on the mantelpiece.
Natasha looked at the photos, and a deep sadness overcame her.
‘As she got older, Jessica couldn’t understand why her dad didn’t want to spend any time with her. But I think it was shame that kept him out drinking in the bars or on his boat. That he’d not made anything of his life. You know, Jessica went to university on St Lucia, and Conrad didn’t visit her even once. I went when I could. It’s a good few hours on the boat to St Lucia, but I’d try and see her once a term. When she graduated, she stayed on St Lucia, and we don’t have the sort of money to keep going there, so we don’t see so much of her any more. And she’s not even coming back now. Even with her father . . . dead.’
‘You think he must be dead?’ Richard asked, picking up on the certainty in Natasha’s voice.
‘I do. For the last few months, Conrad had been getting quieter and quieter. Even more withdrawn. And then, a couple of weeks ago, he just told me everything. How my suspicions all those years ago were correct. He’d been in Pierre’s gang and had carried out the robbery. I had no idea why he was finally telling me, but I had the good sense to stay quiet, so he’d continue talking. And tell me he did.’
‘Did he say who the other members of the gang were?’ Richard asked.
‘He just said it had been him, Pierre and two other men from the island.’
‘All of the men were from Saint-Marie?’
‘Yes. But he never knew Pierre was carrying a gun that day. That’s what he wanted me to know. You see, Conrad had been one of the two men who were waiting on bikes outside the jewellery store while the robbery happened inside. He didn’t even see the moment Pierre shot that poor man dead. It all happened inside the store. And he didn’t see a gun in Pierre’s hand when he came out and got onto his bike afterwards, he wanted me to know that as well. The way Conrad told it, he didn’t even know that anyone had fired a gun – or been killed – until much later. But then, he said, he was so terrified as he sat waiting outside on his bike, it was a miracle he didn’t have a heart attack there and then.’
‘Did he really not say who the other two members of the gang were?’
‘I’m sorry. He didn’t. And I didn’t ask. I was too busy trying to work out why Conrad was suddenly telling me all this. But then he explained that Pierre had been moved back to a Saint-Marie prison a few years before. And it was when he told me this that he started crying. I had no idea why, but whatever was causing him so much pain, was hitting him real hard. I just held him, and he cried and cried. Eventually, he calmed down enough to say, “and I’ve got to tell him it’s gone.”
‘I didn’t know what he meant, but he told me in bits. I think Conrad was in charge of Pierre’s share of the money. Or he said he’d look after it. But what I eventually realised was, Conrad had spent it.’
Richard caught Camille’s eye.
‘How had he spent it?’ Camille asked.
‘He’d not meant to, that’s what he kept saying. But when his music business was going under, he was convinced it was a temporary setback, so he borrowed some money from Pierre’s share. That’s how he put it. It was just a short-term loan to tide him over. As cashflow. He was convinced the music business would finally start making money, and he’d be able to return the cash he’d taken. But he lost that money as well, so he took even more. And when he lost that as well, he said he had to take the rest of Pierre’s money. He had no choice. It was the only way of keeping the business alive, and the business was the only way he�
��d ever be able to repay Pierre. But he lost it. He lost it all.’
‘When was this?’
‘He said this all happened something like ten years ago. And I began to realise why Conrad had become increasingly withdrawn since then. He was terrified. All that time. Because he knew Pierre had already killed once. And one day he’d leave prison, and he’d want his share of the money.’
‘So did he tell you why he was suddenly confessing all this?’
‘He said Pierre was about to be released from prison. After serving twenty years of his sentence. And he’d have to tell him and the other members of the gang that he’d been lying all these years when he’d said Pierre’s share of the robbery was safe. He was dreading it, he said. He feared for his life. But then he’d been fearing for his life for years.’
‘The poor man,’ Camille said, and Natasha looked with deep gratitude at her.
Richard wasn’t sure he quite agreed with his Detective Sergeant’s assessment. Conrad was a thief, and that was that. And if he’d felt guilt after the fact then that didn’t make what he’d done any better. If anything, it made it worse, because it suggested that there was a moral compass somewhere inside Conrad that he’d chosen to ignore on the day he’d decided to commit robbery.
‘And then, at the beginning of the week,’ Natasha said, ‘he told me that the day had come. Pierre was being released from prison, and he would have to tell him and the others the truth. I was so worried for him. I said he didn’t have to see them, and he just said that the other men were so dangerous, he had no choice.
‘I’ll never forget Conrad leaving that afternoon. It was like he already knew. That something bad was going to happen to him. He was only gone a couple of hours, and when he returned it was as if he’d just seen a ghost. Which, I suppose, in some ways he had. But he wouldn’t tell me what had happened. Not for ages. He just went to his room, poured himself a glass of rum and sat in silence. And I’d seen, when he’d poured his glass, his hand was shaking. After this had gone on for long enough, I said I had to know what had happened, and that’s when he told me. He said the other two gang members had been angry with him for spending all of Pierre’s money, but it was as nothing compared to how Pierre had reacted. He’d been spitting mad. But it was Pierre’s last words to Conrad that had chilled him to the bone.’
‘Why?’ Camille asked. ‘What did Pierre say to your husband that was so bad?’
Natasha looked at Camille with a sense of almost complete loss.
‘Pierre said Conrad was a dead man. He said they were all dead men for what they’d done.’
‘They were all dead men?’ Richard asked.
‘That’s what Conrad told me. And three days later, he was.’
Realisation hit Richard like a depth charge going off deep inside him. This was the reason Pierre had left a ruby behind after Conrad’s murder, wasn’t it? It was a message alright, but it wasn’t for Natasha. It was for the remaining gang members. And the message was really very simple, wasn’t it?
Conrad was only the start.
CHAPTER SIX
Back in the Police station, Richard called his team together.
‘Okay, I think it’s fair to say we’ve got a ticking clock here. Who’s got anywhere with working out where Pierre’s hiding?’
‘Well, Chief,’ Dwayne said. ‘I’ve put the word out on the street that we’re looking for him, but I can tell you, the people I’ve spoken to haven’t heard anything. In fact, I struggled to find anyone who even remembers Pierre Charpentier. As far as I can tell, he’s not been in touch with anyone on the island for the last twenty years.’
‘That fits with what I learned,’ Fidel said, going to his desk and picking up an old buff folder. ‘I spoke to the guards at the Prison, and they all said Pierre was something of a loner. He didn’t mix with people. I’m sorry to say I didn’t get much of anything, but I was able to get his personal file.’
Fidel handed the file over to Richard, and, as he started flicking through it, he could see that it contained Pierre’s record of behaviour, annual reviews, a log of visitors, and so on. He’d need to read it later on.
‘Good work, Fidel. But you got no hint of where Pierre might have gone to next?’
‘Nothing at all,’ Fidel said.
Richard updated Fidel and Dwayne with what he and Camille had just learned from Natasha, in particular, the fact that Conrad had been one of the original members of Pierre’s gang, and that Pierre had apparently threatened to kill them all one by one.
‘If we could work out who the gang were . . .?’ Fidel said.
‘We’d be able to warn them their lives are in danger. But how to identify them after all this time?’
‘What about the original case notes from the murder?’ Camille asked.
‘There’s nothing in there that suggests who the other two people could be. In fact, about the only lead I could find that even remotely suggests a link to Saint-Marie – other than Pierre – is the anonymous tip-off the Met got to check Saint-Marie criminals for the killer.’
‘What’s that?’ Camille asked.
Richard explained how a woman with a thick Caribbean accent had rung the Met Police from a telephone number in Willesden Green tipping them off that they should look for the robbers on Saint-Marie.
‘A woman?’ Dwayne asked. ‘Who could she be?’
‘No idea,’ Richard said, ‘and I don’t know how we’re going to find out two decades later. But we need to keep our eyes peeled for a woman who could turn out to be our mystery informant.’
As Richard said this, he wrote ‘Anonymous Tip-Off Woman???’ on the whiteboard.
‘But we need to focus on what we do know, and that’s basically that Pierre went to his halfway house that morning. He had a sense of purpose according to his taxi driver. But then he threatened the other gang members with murder, according to Natasha. And then, according to his half-blind neighbour, one of the gang members came back later on, Pierre got in his car, and that’s when the trail goes cold. So I suggest the four of us return to the halfway house. There’s got to have been other people around that day who maybe saw something.’
Fidel made photocopies of Pierre’s mugshot from prison – and also copies of a recent photo of Conrad – and they all returned to the halfway house to make enquiries door-to-door. It was sweltering work in the afternoon sunshine, and the task wasn’t made easier for Richard when a chicken bonded with him and decided to follow him wherever he went.
The team – plus their new chicken recruit – met up an hour later under the shade of a massive banyan tree.
‘Okay, what have you got?’ Richard asked, using his hankie to wipe the sweat from his brow, face and neck.
‘I didn’t get much, sir,’ Fidel said, ‘but a direct neighbour to the halfway house said he recognised Pierre’s face when I showed him a photo. He said he saw him arrive in a maroon taxi that morning. He didn’t know the time, but he said it could have been 11am.’
‘Which would fit with what we’d already learned. Just ignore the chicken,’ Richard added as the chicken started pecking at his left shoe. ‘What else have we got?’
‘Well, sir, I’ve maybe got something,’ Camille said. ‘But don’t get your hopes up too much. There’s a guy in that house over there.’ As Camille said this, she pointed at a lean-to on the furthest edge of the clearing.
‘I’d call that more of a dwelling than a house,’ Richard corrected.
‘And you’ve not even met the man who lives in there. He was pretty wild-looking. And had a white beard and crazy hair. You know the sort.’
As Fidel and Dwayne smiled, Richard realised that he didn’t know the sort at all, thank heavens.
‘But I bet you charmed him,’ Dwayne said with a grin.
‘It’s funny you should say that, Dwayne. Before too long, he told me he recognised Pierre’s photograph, and he also remembered Pierre arriving in a taxi that Monday morning.’
‘Okay,’ Richard said. ‘S
o that’s three neighbours who all place Pierre arriving here on Monday morning.’
‘And he also remembers seeing an old black car arriving soon after, and three men getting out.’
‘Did he identify Conrad being one of those men?’
‘When I showed the photo of Conrad to him, he said he wasn’t sure. He might have been one of the men, but he said he was out on his stoop gutting some fish he’d caught for his lunch. He wasn’t paying much attention. He said he only noticed the three guys at all because they started arguing. When that happened, he didn’t stay around to find out what it was about. He said the less you know around here the better. So he took his fish inside and thought no more of it. And then, about an hour later, he came out again to feed his dog, and he saw that the black car was gone, and the men with it. But there was now a grey car parked outside the halfway house.’
‘A grey car?’ Richard asked. ‘Not a black one?’
‘That’s what he said. It was a grey Citroën.’
‘He could tell that?’
‘He said, in a former life, he’d been a mechanic. He recognised the model, it was a Citroën CX. A real beauty of a car, he said, but it’s an old model, and this one wasn’t in good shape.’
‘Okay,’ Richard said, pulling out his notebook and making a note. ‘So who was driving it?’
‘He didn’t see.’
‘He didn’t?’
‘He said he wasn’t paying attention, it was only the car he really noticed – because it was such a classic. He didn’t see who was driving.’
‘Then how do we know which gang member it was?’
‘Well, there we have a bit more luck. He said he started to walk to the car to give it a quick once over when he saw a man in a blue jacket leave the halfway house and get into the car.’
Murder in the Caribbean Page 7