Murder in the Caribbean

by Robert Thorogood

  ‘Where’s Pierre now?’ Richard asked, his pencil poised above his notepad.

  ‘I said at the start. I don’t know.’

  ‘But you must have some idea. You knew him best.’

  ‘I promise you, I don’t. He’s got no family on the island as far as I know, and I was the only person who ever visited him in prison. And I know he hasn’t got any money, he made that clear when he shouted at us the afternoon he left prison. So you have to believe me, I’ve no idea where he is, that’s why I’m so worried!’

  ‘I think you’d better stay in our cells overnight,’ Richard said.

  ‘What? No!’

  ‘For your safety.’

  ‘I’m not staying in your cells. I’ve got somewhere safe to go.’ Father Luc said, pulling an old iron key from his jacket pocket and holding it up. ‘There’s a small cottage that belongs to the diocese on the other side of the island. It’s a tiny retreat, and almost nobody knows of its existence, but it’s for clergy when they’re having a crisis. So I spoke to the Bishop, and he’s letting me stay there for the next few days. Until you catch Pierre. Not that that’s why I told him I needed to disappear.’

  ‘What’s the address of this place?’

  Father Luc told the Police, and Richard wrote it down.

  ‘That’s where I’m going. And you can believe me. I’m a priest. I’ll be in the retreat. You have my word.’

  ‘I don’t think I can let you go.’

  ‘But I can’t stay in your cells. Have some mercy. And I can’t stay at home, either. It’s not safe there. Pierre knows where I live. And the thing is, someone burgled my house a few weeks ago.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘There was a break-in to my property.’

  ‘When exactly was this?’

  ‘Five weeks ago.’

  ‘You mean, three weeks before Pierre was released?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was connected. You see, nothing was taken.’

  ‘Hold on. Your house was burgled, but nothing was stolen?’

  ‘It was pretty unsettling, I can tell you.’

  ‘Did you report it to the Police at the time?’

  ‘No. Seeing as nothing was taken. I just tried to put it out of my mind. But now Pierre is on the loose, I don’t like the fact that someone’s been in my house recently.’

  ‘But it couldn’t have been Pierre who broke in. Not if it happened before he left prison.’

  ‘I don’t care, I still don’t like it. So I’m going to the retreat. To think, to pray and to decide what I have to do next.’

  ‘You could make a full confession.’

  ‘I’ve told you what I can.’

  ‘But you should make a formal statement.’

  Father Luc looked at Richard, and a rigidity came into his demeanour.

  ‘Give me time. I need to think. And pray. For the minute, just be grateful I was prepared to tell you what I was told in the confessional by one of my parishioners.’

  ‘But Father, you can’t really expect us to believe—’

  ‘It was one of my parishioners who robbed the jewellery store, not me,’ Father Luc said, cutting in on Richard. ‘And if, from time to time, I slipped up and used the word “I” when I meant “he”, then that’s because I’m still so upset. And I can’t ever be expected to break the Seal of the Confessional. I’ve already said too much.’

  ‘Father—’ Camille said, but the old priest scraped back his chair and stood up.

  ‘I’ve told you all I can about Pierre, which is my civic duty. And I’ve told you where I’m staying for the next few days. Which is also my civic duty. But that’s all I can give you for the moment. Please. If you need to speak to me, you know where to find me.’

  Father Luc turned and left the Police station.

  No-one spoke for a few seconds.

  ‘Wow,’ Dwayne finally pronounced.

  ‘Wow indeed,’ Camille agreed.

  Richard was biting his lip. He’d found the whole encounter troubling, if only because he knew that he’d just allowed a self-confessed criminal to walk free from his Police station. He couldn’t work out if this was just sensible policing, or if he was perhaps letting his standards slip. Either way, Richard couldn’t help noticing that although Father Luc had apparently just made a full confession, he’d not given them a single clue that helped identify where Pierre Charpentier was hiding. Was this because Father Luc genuinely didn’t know, or was it because he was protecting Pierre? But why on earth would Father Luc ever want to protect a murderer like Pierre Charpentier?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘Dwayne,’ Richard called across the room, ‘I want you to find out everything you can about Father Luc Durant. What he earns, where he goes, how good he is at his job, I want it all.’

  ‘Yes, Chief.’

  ‘And Camille? Have you worked out where the bleached pea shingle came from?’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘The white pea shingle we found in the tyres of the burnt Citroën. Have you chased up the sales of it over the last six months?’

  Camille realised that Richard was trying to keep her busy so she didn’t talk to him about Dwayne’s girlfriend Amy, so she decided to provoke maximum irritation in her boss by smiling sweetly.

  ‘Of course, sir. I’ll get on to that right now.’

  ‘Please do. We can’t let any of this slip, team.’

  Within the hour, Dwayne was able to report back.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, always happy to take centre stage, ‘so this is what I’ve found. Luc Durant entered the St Michael Seminary twenty years ago. I spoke to the registrar there, and he said he remembered Father Luc being a troubled man when he arrived, but he found happiness with each passing month. He was “a good man and servant of Christ” by the time he left.’

  ‘Then what about his apparent donation to the Seminary just before he arrived?’

  ‘I got the registrar to check. It took him a bit of time to dig it out, but it looks like Father Luc was telling the truth about that as well. In the same month that he joined, there was an anonymous donation of three hundred thousand dollars.’

  Richard remembered how this was the same sum of money that Jimmy and Conrad had received – and which Conrad had also spent in cash over the years as he embezzled Pierre’s share of the heist.

  ‘As for Father Luc’s character since then,’ Dwayne said, ‘I’ve just had a long chat with a guy who’s the Chaplain to the Bishop, and he told me that Father Luc is one of the most popular priests on the island. He’s honest, hard-working, conscientious, and he “lives entirely for the benefit of others” – those were his exact words.’

  ‘So he’s the perfect parish priest?’

  ‘That’s it in a nutshell. In fact, according to my source, he’s tipped to replace the current Bishop when he retires.’

  ‘Which is hardly the typical profile of a murderer, is it?’

  Richard was frustrated that Dwayne hadn’t been able to dig up anything of use on Father Luc. But then, he thought to himself, he’d been frustrated since the very first murder. How did you catch a killer when you didn’t know where he was?

  However, Richard had to concede that in Father Luc they’d finally developed an active lead, and as it was now after 10pm, he told his team that they were finally allowed to go home.

  ‘Oh Chief,’ Dwayne said, as he shut his computer down, ‘before Father Luc came in, you wanted to say something to me?’

  ‘I did?’ Richard said, before remembering the bombshell he’d learned about Amy.

  Richard looked over at Camille and saw her staring fiercely at him. It was clear she expected him to drop the subject.

  As Richard considered what he should do, Camille shook her head.

  ‘What is it?’ Dwayne asked, now looking somewhat worried.

  ‘Nothing,’ Camille said with finality.

  Richard sighed. Maybe Camille was right? After all, she tended to be right when it came to human-to-h
uman interactions.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Richard said. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Dwayne said breezily, happy to move on. He finished tidying his desk, put his Police cap on and started to stroll out of the station.

  ‘Your girlfriend’s a convicted felon,’ Richard said.

  Richard couldn’t help himself. He didn’t mean to – although he did, really. It was just, having let Father Luc walk out of the office without his situation being resolved, Richard had suddenly realised that he couldn’t let Dwayne do the same.

  Dwayne stopped in the doorway, his back to the office.

  ‘What?’ he said without turning around.

  ‘Oh, okay, I’m leaving,’ Camille said. ‘And you’re coming with me, Fidel.’

  ‘Why?’ Fidel asked, but Camille was already bundling him out of the office. As she went, she passed Richard and said, ‘Well, good luck with this, sir. I’ll see you tomorrow. Or what’s left of you after Dwayne’s torn you limb from limb.’

  As for Dwayne, he turned slowly to face his boss.

  ‘Did I hear that right?’

  ‘You did,’ Richard said. ‘I mean, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we can’t hide from the truth. Even if it’s uncomfortable. And in this instance, the truth is that your current girlfriend has done time.’

  ‘Okay,’ Dwayne said in a voice so calm that Richard realised he was suddenly very scared. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Well, Dwayne,’ Richard said, noticing how hot it had become in the station, ‘I looked Amy McDiarmid up on the Police Computer Network.’

  Dwayne took one step towards his boss. His boss took one step back.

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I looked her up on the computer. And discovered she had a record. I’m very sorry, but you should know. She’s a convicted drug dealer who spent two years in prison.’

  ‘You found that out, did you?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then what about the stamps?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Wasn’t she also put inside for fencing a book of stolen stamps?’

  Now it was Richard’s turn to be surprised.

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Yes. I know she spent two years in prison. Assuming that she’s been telling me the truth. I didn’t check up on her.’

  ‘She told you about her record?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why on earth are you going out with her?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Then how can you go out with her?’

  ‘Chief, have you any idea how relationships work?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Look, when we started going out with each other, she didn’t tell me about her past. Not at first. And anyway, it’s none of my business.’

  ‘But you’re a Police officer.’

  ‘I was talking.’

  There was a tone to Dwayne’s voice that brooked no disagreement.

  ‘Sorry. You were saying.’

  ‘So she didn’t tell me about her secret. Not at first. But after a few weeks, we both realised that what we had was pretty special. And that’s when she got a bit worried. I could tell. I even had to think if it was me who’d done something wrong, crazy though that sounds. But there was no doubting it. She had something on her mind. And then she told me. If we were to date, she said, considering what I did for a living, she’d have to tell me about her past. So she did. The whole thing. About how she came from this posh background. How her parents expected her to be perfect, and put all this pressure on her to pass exams and do everything right. But she flunked her exams. She said it was her only way of taking control of her life. Then she fell in with a bad crowd after she left school. And got into drugs. And dealing them. It was how she could afford to move out of her parents’ home. And then she was asked by her dealer to look after an old book of stamps. She had no idea what they were worth, or that they were stolen, but that’s what the Police found when they broke into her flat.’

  ‘She told you all that?’

  ‘And that she’d done her time. She’d learned her lesson. Although she said she’d understand if I wanted to end the relationship now I knew. Considering how I was a Police officer. But I said that as long as her time in prison was over, it didn’t matter what her past was. Anyway, we’ve all got a past, so I told her a bit about mine and we were back on track – but more so, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘You’ve got a past?’

  ‘It’s like I said. Everyone’s got a past, Chief.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Well, everyone normal.’

  ‘No, I don’t believe this,’ Richard said, still confused. ‘Are you telling me I’ve been worrying about telling you about your girlfriend’s Police record, and you’ve known about it for some time?’

  ‘I just said, didn’t I? And seriously, Chief, you need to get over your obsession with my girlfriend.’

  ‘I’m not obsessed with her.’

  ‘You reckon? First you were caught spying on her with binoculars, and now you’re stalking her online.’

  ‘I’m not stalking anyone. And I wasn’t spying on her.’

  ‘Are you jealous, is that it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I get it. I’m the older guy here, and I’ve got a girl who’s clever and hot, and you’ve got no-one. You’re jealous.’

  ‘I’m not jealous.’

  ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense.’

  Richard had no idea how he’d so completely lost control of the conversation so quickly.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Dwayne said, an idea occurring to him, ‘how about you meet her? Because I reckon, if you met her properly, and talked, then maybe you’d get over your fixation with her. You’d see how normal she is. And how she’s not on the market. She and me, we’re an item.’

  ‘Please stop saying I’m obsessed with your girlfriend.’

  ‘No, this is a good idea. She can tell you how into me she is. And I know she will, because she really is.’

  ‘Please, Dwayne, you have to believe me. I really don’t want to spend any time with one of your girlfriends telling me how great you are.’

  ‘No, I think this is the only way we’re going to cure you.’

  ‘I don’t need curing!’

  ‘And you know what? Now I’m thinking about it, I reckon you’ll just have to do as I say. Because you wouldn’t want the Commissioner finding out you’d used Police resources for your own personal research, would you?’

  ‘Are you blackmailing me?’

  ‘Blackmail?’ Dwayne said in mock outrage. ‘Who said anything about blackmail? But here’s what I’m thinking. I think it’s time you had a good long chat with Amy. And then you’ll be able to move on.’

  ‘But I don’t want to talk to her.’

  ‘I’ll be honest, Chief. I don’t reckon Amy will want to spend any time with you either. But here’s the thing. Talk to her. Ask her about herself. And listen to her answers. Maybe you’ll realise she’s more than her criminal record.’

  Richard racked his brain and realised how precarious his situation was. Because Dwayne was right. He’d used Police resources for his own personal use. And if the Commissioner ever found out, he’d be in hot water.

  With a sinking heart, Richard realised there was only one thing he could say.

  ‘Okay.’

  And with that, Dwayne’s face broke into a broad grin.

  ‘That’s the spirit, Chief. I’ll set it up. And I’m telling you, you’ll like her once you get to know her. Everyone likes Amy.’

  Richard smiled as best he could, but he already had the deepest suspicion that if everyone liked Amy, he’d be the exception that proved the rule.

  The next morning, Richard arrived at the Police station and found a package already waiting for him on his desk. It was about the size of a shoe box, it was wrapped in brown paper, and Richard’s name and address were laser printed onto a la
bel that was stuck to the outside.

  ‘When did this get here?’ Richard asked.

  ‘A courier brought it just before you got here,’ Fidel said.

  ‘Any indication who sent it?’ Richard asked, picking the parcel up and looking to see if the sender’s name was anywhere to be found. It wasn’t. So he got a pair of scissors from his desk drawer and sliced through the brown wrapping paper. As it fell away, he discovered that the reason the parcel had been the shape and size of a shoe box was because it was a shoe box. But it didn’t contain shoes. It was too light for that. Richard popped the lid and looked inside.

  The box was full of documents and photos.

  He picked up a photo and saw that it showed Blaise standing by a boat in Honoré harbour. There was a tattooed man taking a small package from her, and from the way that he was looking about himself, it was a clandestine transaction of some sort. But then, as Richard picked up some more photos of the same event, Richard could tell that the whole thing was clandestine, as the photos had been taken with a telephoto lens from quite a distance.

  So who was the man, and what was in the package that Blaise was giving to him?

  As Camille joined her boss at his desk, Richard started picking through the other documents. They were legal contracts of some sort. They looked like shell companies that were being used to move money into an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. But what united each contract were the signatures at the bottom of each document. They all belonged to Blaise Frost.