Murder in the Caribbean

by Robert Thorogood

  As Richard considered what to do next, he was distracted by Dwayne yawning loudly.

  ‘Dwayne, do you mind?’ he said.

  ‘Sorry, Chief. Getting up early to put all those posters up sure’s caught up with me. Although, if I’m honest, it’s not like I’ve been getting many early nights, either.’

  ‘What?’ Richard asked, puzzled.

  ‘I’ve not been getting many early nights, either,’ Dwayne said, and smiled suggestively.

  Understanding came slowly to Richard.

  ‘Are you talking about your girlfriend?’

  ‘Go on,’ Camille said in a way, Richard knew, that was designed to irritate him. ‘Tell us all about her.’

  ‘Tell you about Amy?’ Dwayne asked, already transported by the thought. ‘Well, what do you want to know?’

  As Camille started asking questions – again, just to irritate him, Richard was sure of it – and Dwayne started rhapsodising about how great he and Amy were together, how they liked the same music and food, and how she loved partying just as much as he did, Richard hunkered down behind his monitor. What was it with his team? Why were they so tolerant of this woman coming into their lives and spoiling everything? They still didn’t know who she was, or whether she’d be right for Dwayne – which Richard very seriously doubted – and it was as Richard considered this point that a somewhat wicked thought popped into his head.

  He wouldn’t act on it, though, he knew that much. Or so he told himself, but as Fidel started asking what star sign Amy was, Richard’s irritation flamed, so he turned back to his computer, typed Amy McDiarmid into the search field of the ACRO portal, and saw that there were at least fifty people called Amy McDiarmid who’d been called in for questioning by the Police – or charged – or convicted – in the last thirty years. This pleased Richard very much, as it proved to him that there was indeed a link between people being called Amy McDiarmid and that person being a wrong’un.

  But as Richard idly scanned the list, his Police brain couldn’t help noticing that nearly everyone on the list was the wrong age to be the Amy who was currently going out with Dwayne. Pity, Richard thought to himself. It would perhaps have been good if Dwayne’s new girlfriend were a hardened criminal. But you couldn’t win every time.

  Richard was just about to close down the window when he noticed that fifteen years ago, an Amy McDiarmid had been convicted of dealing drugs and fencing stolen goods, and her birth year seemed to fit with Dwayne’s new girlfriend. What was more, this particular Amy McDiarmid lived in Edinburgh, just as Dwayne’s girlfriend did. Richard considered the name on the screen, and then decided that it was actually no surprise that one of the fifty names seemed to fit the basic biometrics of the Amy that Dwayne was dating. In fact, he decided, with a surname as Scottish as McDiarmid, it would be odd if one of the fifty or so names didn’t appear to have the same birth year and Edinburgh location.

  Richard clicked on the name anyway.

  What he saw made him jump up from his chair like he’d been shot.

  ‘What is it, sir?’ Fidel asked, and Richard could see that his whole team were looking at him.

  ‘What is it?’ Richard parroted back, his mouth trying to buy himself time while his mind tried to comprehend what he’d just seen.

  ‘You look like you’ve had a shock, I’ll tell you that much,’ Dwayne said with a smirk.

  ‘Me?’ Richard said, trying to look insouciant. ‘I’ve not had a shock. Just a spasm. A back spasm. Oh, that’s better. It’s gone.’

  Trying to ignore the puzzled looks from his team, Richard lowered himself back into his chair and dared to look at his monitor again. It was still showing the same criminal record for the woman who’d spent two years in prison for dealing drugs and fencing stolen goods.

  And the mugshot of the prisoner was very clearly a fifteen-year-old photo of Dwayne’s girlfriend.

  Dwayne was dating an ex-con.

  ‘That wasn’t your back, sir,’ Camille said from her desk. ‘You’ve got something, haven’t you? What is it?’

  Richard pulled the power cable from the back of his monitor and it went off with a bang of electricity.

  No-one spoke.

  ‘Sorry,’ Richard eventually said. ‘Didn’t mean to do that. Anyway, don’t you all have work to get on with?’

  Richard looked fiercely at his team and was gratified to see them return to their work, albeit reluctantly.

  But once he knew they weren’t looking at him, he plugged the cable back into his monitor and watched the screen light up again. Then, making sure the monitor was turned away from his team, he started to read the case notes in more detail, a cold sense of dread clutching at his heart as he did so.

  It turned out that when Amy McDiarmid was in her early twenties, she’d been a drug dealer. She mostly dealt to her friends and acquaintances, but the Edinburgh Police were trying a zero-tolerance policy to all drugs dealing, so they raided her flat on South Bridge Street. Inside, they found marijuana, cocaine, speed and ecstasy, and Richard’s heart sank as he saw that the Police also found a small quantity of heroin. Even worse for Amy, the Police then found a book of antique stamps that had been reported stolen weeks before.

  When the Police investigated, it turned out that the book of stamps was worth nearly five thousand pounds.

  In her interview, Amy told the Police that the guy she got her drugs from had asked her to look after the book of stamps, but she refused to give up his identity – if only because, as she said, he really wasn’t a nice man, and she didn’t want to cross him.

  Scrolling through the document, Richard saw that, at her trial, Amy pleaded guilty, and because she had no previous convictions, the judge had been as lenient as he could be, but he still had to impose a custodial sentence.

  Bloody hell, Richard thought to himself. What the hell had Dwayne got himself into? Richard was about to start taking notes from his screen, but he saw Camille head over, so he closed the window at speed.

  Camille looked concerned.

  ‘Sir? Could I have a word?’

  ‘Of course,’ Richard said, worried about the look on his partner’s face. It wasn’t like her to look with sympathy at him.

  ‘In private.’

  ‘Oh, you want a word in private?’ Richard said. ‘Then why didn’t you say?’

  Richard got up from his desk and clacked through a colourful bead curtain to the cells at the back of the office.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Camille asked as soon as they were alone.

  ‘Me, Camille? Why wouldn’t I be alright?’

  ‘Only, I just saw you pull the cable out from your computer.’

  ‘Oh, that?’

  ‘And then you refused to tell us what you were doing.’

  Richard went back to the bead curtain and lifted a few strands so he could look at Dwayne. He was happily working at his desk, so Richard returned to Camille. After all, she had as much of a right to know that Dwayne was consorting with a known criminal as he did.

  ‘Okay, you’re right,’ Richard whispered. ‘I’ve found something out.’

  ‘About the case?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Then what about?’

  ‘Dwayne. Or rather his girlfriend.’

  ‘What?’ Camille hissed.

  ‘No wait, hear me out, because the thing is, I was on the ACRO portal – checking to see if Conrad Gardiner had done anything dodgy in the UK – considering how he and Pierre and the gang were in London all those years ago. You know, it was a long shot, but you know me, Camille, I can’t leave any job undone. You’ve got to dot the “i”s and cross the “t”s. And the interesting thing is, Conrad doesn’t have any kind of a criminal record in the UK. He’s not even listed as someone who was brought in to assist the Police with their enquiries.’

  ‘Why won’t you come to the point?’

  ‘I looked Amy McDiarmid up.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I looked Amy McDiarmid up. Dwayne’s
girlfriend. Just to check. On the off chance. And lucky I did, Camille. Because she’s done time. A two-year stretch. For dealing drugs and fencing a book of antique stamps.’

  Richard was gratified to see that his partner looked suitably outraged.

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I know, and Dwayne’s got no idea, does he?’ Richard said, before he realised that Camille hadn’t quite said what he’d expected her to. ‘Hang on. What did you say?’

  ‘You looked up Dwayne’s girlfriend on the Police Computer Network?’

  ‘You make it sound bad.’

  ‘Sir, it’s insane. Who looks up a colleague’s girlfriend on the Police Computer Network?’

  Now it was Richard’s turn to be shocked.

  ‘She’s a known felon, Camille.’

  ‘But you aren’t supposed to know that.’

  ‘I’m a Police officer, I think you’ll find it’s my job to know who’s got a criminal record and who hasn’t.’

  ‘Yes, when you’re investigating a case, sir, but not in your real life outside that. And you know what? And I’m amazed you’re making me say this, sir, but it’s unethical to use the Police database for your own personal use.’

  Richard was outraged.

  But he also knew he had to make sure Dwayne didn’t hear him, so he hissed back at Camille, ‘Oh, well, that’s rich coming from you.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I don’t need lectures on ethics from someone who doesn’t fill in her weekly time sheets even remotely on time. Yes, that’s right, Camille. I know you backdate them.’

  Camille’s mouth opened, but she couldn’t quite form a sentence.

  ‘Exactly. I’ve known about that scam for a long time. And as far as I’m concerned, if Amy is a criminal, then we have to tell Dwayne at once.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Dwayne asked, as he pushed aside the bead curtain with a clatter and stuck his head into the room.

  ‘Nothing, Dwayne,’ Camille said quickly.

  ‘That’s not true, Camille,’ Richard said, cross that she’d attempted to change the subject. ‘It’s to do with you, Dwayne. And I think you and I need to have a bit of a chat.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, Chief,’ Dwayne said. ‘But all this will have to wait. There’s someone here to see you. And I think you’ll want to see him right now.’

  ‘Why? Who is it?’

  ‘You’d better come through.’

  Richard and Camille shared a glance – what was this about? – but they followed Dwayne through the bead curtain. Who was it who wanted to see them?

  As Richard entered the main office, he saw Father Luc Durant standing in the middle of the room. He was holding a copy of the Saint-Marie Times in his hands. It was that morning’s edition that announced that Pierre Charpentier was on the loose and was suspected of killing his old gang members one by one.

  ‘Father, can we help you?’ Camille asked kindly.

  ‘I don’t know, but I came here to tell you . . . I think I know who Pierre Charpentier’s going to kill next.’

  ‘And how do you know that?’

  ‘Because I know who the fourth member of his gang is.’

  Richard could see that Father Luc was looking deeply distressed.

  ‘Then I think you’d better pull up a chair, and tell us everything.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘You must understand, I’m in a difficult position,’ Father Luc said, once Camille had settled him in a chair in front of Richard’s desk. ‘You see, the fourth member of Pierre’s gang is a criminal, isn’t he?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Richard said.

  ‘Well, he robbed a jewellery store.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But that means that once you find out who that fourth member is, you’ll arrest him for robbery, won’t you? Even though his crime was committed all those years ago.’

  ‘Of course. A crime is still a crime.’

  As Richard said this, all the life seemed to go out of Father Luc. It was as if he were at the doctor’s, had been fearing bad news, and had indeed just received a terminal diagnosis.

  ‘You know,’ he said, a tear forming in his eye that he wiped away with the back of his hand. ‘You live in hope of redemption. You hope and pray that a life devoted solely to the service of others will be enough to wipe the slate clean. But He has other plans, doesn’t He?’

  As Father Luc spoke, Richard and Camille both realised the same thing at the same time. Father Luc was the fourth member of the gang, wasn’t he? That’s why, when they’d last talked to him, he’d not questioned the link between Conrad’s death and Pierre’s release from prison. He’d known they were linked right from the start. But this realisation, exciting though it was, also put Richard on his guard. After all, Father Luc had been prepared to lie to them before. How would they know if he was lying to them now?

  ‘Father Luc,’ Camille said, ‘can I ask you a question? You weren’t always a priest, were you?’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘And maybe you had different . . . values before you trained as a Priest?’

  Father Luc nodded.

  ‘But perhaps something very specific happened in your life that made you decide to train as a priest?’

  ‘That’s it exactly. Something happened.’

  ‘And did this thing happen twenty years ago?’

  Father Luc made eye contact with Camille and they both knew the subtext of the question she was asking him.

  ‘It did. And I was so ashamed of what I did that I joined a seminary three weeks later. The guilt I felt. What I’d seen. And done.’

  ‘Then can you tell us about the money?’ Richard said, somewhat spoiling the confessional mood.

  ‘The money?’

  ‘This event you’re talking about, I think it resulted in you getting your hands on a considerable amount of money, didn’t it? So I was just wondering, if you really were repentant, what did you do with all of the cash you got?’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly comment on whether I came into any money that year, but I trained at St Michael’s Seminary on Martinique. If you check their records, I think you’ll find they received an anonymous donation of some considerable size the day before I joined.’

  ‘I see,’ Richard said, making a mental note to follow up on this, but he also realised he was reappraising Father Luc. He was still the same roly-poly man he’d been when first they’d met, of course, but, as he sat in front of the Police, his hands folded in his lap, Richard could see how weary he was.

  ‘So what would you like to tell us?’

  ‘The truth,’ Father Luc said. ‘But I can’t. Because the fourth member of Pierre’s gang is frightened of what a prison sentence would do to him.’

  ‘If you helped with our enquiries—’ Camille said, but Father Luc interrupted her.

  ‘There’s no statute of limitations on armed robbery. I’ve looked into it. Especially when the money’s not recovered. So I can’t ever tell you the name of this fourth person. You can draw your own conclusions, but I won’t ever tell you who it is I’m talking about.’

  ‘You may have to in a court of law,’ Richard said, not entirely kindly.

  ‘But what if I told you this fourth member of the gang told me his story in the Confessional? Because I can’t break the Seal of the Confessional, even if you put me in a court of law.’

  Richard realised how cleverly Father Luc had finessed the situation.

  ‘So you’re saying this fourth member of the gang is some person other than you? A member of your congregation, in fact. And you’ll tell us what he told you, but you won’t tell us his name.’

  ‘That’s the deal I’m offering.’

  ‘Then we accept it,’ Camille said before her boss could disagree. ‘Because all we really want to know – in the short term, at least – is where Pierre Charpentier is hiding.’

  ‘I’m sorry to say, I really don’t know where he is. Or rather,’ Father Luc said, hastily correctin
g himself, ‘I don’t think the fourth member of the gang knows where Pierre’s hiding.’

  Camille inclined her head, acknowledging and accepting the obfuscation.

  ‘But you must have some idea,’ Richard said.

  ‘I really don’t, but you can imagine that I’m keen for you to find him before . . . well, before Pierre finds the fourth member of the gang.’

  As Father Luc said this, he put the Saint-Marie Times on the desk, with the page turned over to the article that said that the murders of Conrad Gardiner and Jimmy Frost were carried out by the same person, and they wished to talk to the ex-convict Pierre Charpentier in relation to their enquiries.

  ‘Very well,’ Richard said. ‘Then can you tell us, was Jimmy Frost one of Pierre Charpentier’s gang who robbed the jewellery store twenty years ago?’

  Father Luc took a moment to steady himself. It was obvious to Richard and Camille that he understood that what he was about to say next could start a chain of events that could land him in prison.

  Father Luc came to his decision.

  ‘He was,’ he said. ‘The original gang was put together by Pierre Charpentier, and it consisted of Conrad Gardiner, Jimmy Frost and this fourth other person whose name I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Understood,’ Richard said in a rush of excitement as he realised that he was finally going to get a first-hand testimony about Pierre’s past. ‘But you can tell us about the original robbery, can’t you? Why was it in London? Why not just steal some jewels from a shop on Saint-Marie?’

  ‘That had been the plan,’ Father Luc said. ‘Originally. You see, there was a young man Pierre had come to know called André Morgan, and he was going to help.’

  ‘André knew Pierre?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you’re saying it was an inside job? André told Pierre about when and how the jewels were going to be delivered to the store?’

  Father Luc nodded, and Richard felt a thrill as he realised that this chimed with the facts that André’s father Stefan had told them. André had become insolent in the last few months he’d been on the island. But while Stefan had associated this change in behaviour with André getting a new girlfriend, it was clear that it was at least partly because André had fallen under the spell of Pierre Charpentier.