Murder in the Caribbean

by Robert Thorogood

‘Very good, Camille,’ Richard said, delighted at his partner’s acuity.

  Before Richard could say any more, they all heard the sound of a car door slamming nearby.

  Richard put his fingers to his lips for silence.

  In the distance, a figure entered the cemetery.

  It was a woman, she seemed to be in a hurry, and she was holding something heavy in her hands.

  As the woman approached, it become possible to see who she was and Camille drew her breath in sharply.

  Richard flashed Camille a glance to be silent.

  As for Fidel, his mouth had parted in slow amazement.

  Richard knew who they’d been waiting for, so he wasn’t so surprised, although he hadn’t been expecting her to be carrying the can of petrol he now saw she was holding.

  Without stopping, the woman stepped up to the Morgan family crypt, and then ripped the ‘Police – Do Not Cross’ tape aside before pulling the remnants of the gate open and going inside.

  ‘Okay, we need to be quick,’ Richard said and pushed the door in front of him open.

  Richard, Camille and Fidel raced out of the crypt, briefly wincing as their eyes adjusted to the sunshine outside, and then they barrelled down the steps and the three of them entered the darkness of the Morgan family tomb.

  Inside, the woman looked up in shock, the petrol can in her hand, the lid already off, and the strong stench of petrol in the air.

  ‘Amy McDiarmid,’ Richard said, ‘I’m arresting you for the murder of Conrad Gardiner, Jimmy Frost, Father Luc Durant and Pierre Charpentier.’

  Amy looked with wild eyes at the Police, and then she threw the can of petrol onto the floor where it glugged out the remainder of its contents, and pulled a handgun from her waistband that she pointed at Richard.

  ‘I don’t think you are,’ she said, her voice tight with anger.

  Amy then pulled a Zippo lighter from a pocket and held it up in her other hand.

  ‘You take even one step towards me, and we all go up.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  None of the Police officers dared move.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ Camille said.

  ‘Why not?’ Amy said darkly.

  ‘Because they’re all dead. You did it. You won. Didn’t you?’

  As Richard marvelled at how quickly Camille had reoriented herself to the reality of who the killer was, he also saw Amy draw herself up a touch taller and raise her chin proudly. She was delighted by Camille’s assessment.

  ‘But what did I do?’ Amy asked. It was clear she wanted to have her brilliance affirmed.

  Camille put up her hands to keep the conversation as calm as possible.

  ‘We don’t need to do this here,’ she said.

  ‘No, I want to know what you know.’

  ‘We’ll tell you back at the Police station.’

  ‘No, you don’t give me orders. Start talking. Now.’

  As Amy spoke, she flipped the lid on the Zippo lighter open with a metallic click.

  Camille, who’d hitherto rated their chances of talking Amy ‘off the ledge’ as quite low, now realised that, since she had no idea how or why Amy was the killer, she was going to have to put her life in the hands of one of the most insensitive men she knew.

  ‘Sir . . .?’ she said to Richard, hoping that he’d understand how high the stakes were.

  ‘I’m not explaining myself to anyone,’ Richard said.

  ‘I think you should,’ Camille said.

  ‘I’m not a performing monkey, Camille.’

  ‘We’re underground, sir,’ Fidel suddenly blurted, ‘in a room that’s full of petrol and a woman’s holding a lighter. Sir, please can you do as she says?’

  Richard could see from the looks that both Camille and Fidel were giving him that they really, really wanted him to explain himself. And it was certainly true that Amy was indeed holding a lighter inside a room that was no doubt filling with petrol fumes.

  Richard sighed.

  ‘Okay,’ he said reluctantly before turning back to Amy. ‘But I should say, I only realised you were a possible suspect yesterday. As well you know, all along we’ve presumed that this case was about Pierre Charpentier wreaking revenge on his old gang members. Just like you wanted us to. And the fact that Conrad spent all of Pierre’s cash while he was in prison was a piece of good fortune for you that made it all the more credible that he had to be behind the murders. After all, Pierre was released from prison on day one, he discovers his cash has vanished, and he threatens to kill the rest of his gang on the same day – and then the gang start getting killed three days later. It’s hard not to draw conclusions. But Pierre’s missing cash had nothing to do with the murders. Not directly. Because I ultimately realised there was another reason why Pierre’s gang started to die after Pierre had been released.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘You had had to wait twenty years until Pierre was released before you could get your revenge. After all, it’s not usually possible to murder someone while they’re inside a maximum-security prison. But once Pierre was out, you enacted your plan, didn’t you? And it’s something of an irony, because while we kept presuming that the murders could only have been planned after Pierre was released from prison, all of the evidence kept pointing to them being premeditated – although we didn’t know that they’d been years in the planning. Because that’s how long you’ve been planning this, haven’t you?’

  ‘But what made you think I was a suspect?’

  ‘Simple logic. After all, it just didn’t make sense that someone as scared as Father Luc would tell anyone where he was going into hiding, least of all someone he already suspected might have wanted him dead. So how did the killer know where Father Luc was hiding? Well, there was one possibility. Because I knew that Father Luc had said the address of his retreat out loud at least once – in front of us in the Police station. So how could the killer have overheard that? It seemed like a long shot, but it occurred to me that there was one way – if the killer had managed to install a listening bug. Was that even possible? And that’s when I remembered that there had been one person other than Father Luc who’d been in the Police station, and who could have installed a listening bug. Natasha Gardiner. And what was more, I remembered how she’d fumbled her handbag to the floor when she’d been with us. So had she installed a bug then?

  ‘As it happened, a cursory sweep of my desk soon proved to me that she’d done no such thing, but I’d started looking for a listening bug so I decided I’d finish the job. I searched the rest of my desk, and even the walls, and that’s when I found the USB plug. And that’s what really flummoxed me. Because, as had been the case with Father Luc, there was no way Natasha had gone anywhere near the wall while she was in the Police station. I was her alibi. Just as I’d been with Father Luc. Neither of them had gone anywhere near that particular wall at any time. I was sure of it.

  ‘But it was very definitely a listening bug, so who could have placed it there? Whoever it was, they must have had access to the station when no-one was looking. And that’s when I remembered that there had been one person who’d been in the station unsupervised during the case. And that was you. Because, just after Camille and I had finished interviewing Natasha Gardiner following the explosion on Conrad’s boat, we returned to the Police station and I saw you and Dwayne leaving it together. And while it seemed impossible to imagine that you were the killer, I had to acknowledge that it would have been a relatively simple matter for you to find a spare wall socket to put the USB charger into while Dwayne wasn’t looking.’

  ‘But why would I do that?’ Amy asked, the challenge clear in her voice.

  ‘Good question. Why would you come to the island, get hold of untraceable mobile phones and a handgun – which, as I said at the time, would have been easy enough for someone who’d spent time in prison. Like you have, Amy. As for the USB bug, I imagine that you’d already sourced that before you even left the UK. Because it was always your intention to come to S
aint-Marie in time for Pierre’s release, and then murder him and his three other gang members. Wasn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t avoid my question. Why would I do all this?’

  ‘Because all along there’s been someone in the case who we’d not taken seriously enough. André Morgan’s girlfriend. Because that was you, wasn’t it?’ As Richard said this, Amy’s grip on the handgun tightened. ‘You were the woman he fell passionately in love with, and I think you fell passionately in love with him. As you told me when we had our chat, you first came on holiday to Saint-Marie when you were nineteen. Which, doing the maths, would have been just over twenty years ago. When André was still alive.

  ‘And it was while you were here that you fell for André Morgan. And started leading him astray, as his parents saw it. I suppose we’ll never know exactly how André met Pierre, but I believe a good boy like André wouldn’t have started hanging out with someone as dangerous as Pierre without someone influencing him. In fact, although I’m not a betting man, I’d wager you were deeply involved in convincing André to hook up with Pierre.

  ‘Anyway, André’s parents never knew the identity of their son’s girlfriend, but they made one simple mistake. They presumed that she was an islander rather than someone from abroad who was here on holiday. That’s why André’s dad Stefan told me that André’s girlfriend was still somewhere on Saint-Marie. But he was wrong. The girlfriend who’d led André astray had never been from Saint-Marie. She was a Brit. And that’s the real reason why no-one’s seen her since. When André went to the UK, she went with him. Of course she did. She was going home. With her new boyfriend. Although she didn’t return to her home town of Edinburgh. She went to London and set up a life with André as he started his new job at the Bond Street jewellers.

  ‘I think you realised that André was “the one” for you, didn’t you? And with him at your side, you’d be able to put your suffocating family and low-scale drug dealing behind you. With the money André was about to make from his share of the robbery, you’d be able to settle down with him forever. But Pierre was far more dangerous than anyone knew. Even his own gang members. And, knowing that if the Police ever worked out that André had been involved, he’d be able to offer up Pierre’s identity, Pierre shot him dead.’

  ‘And it was all your fault,’ Camille said.

  Everyone turned and looked at Camille, surprised by her intervention.

  ‘You’re to blame for all of this,’ she continued. ‘If you hadn’t introduced André to Pierre, he’d still be alive.’

  ‘It’s not true,’ Amy said, but the Police could see that she didn’t quite believe it.

  ‘Either way,’ Richard said, wanting to take back control of the conversation, ‘after André was murdered, it was you who went to a phone box, called the Police, and tipped them off that the robbers were from Saint-Marie, wasn’t it? You put on a Caribbean accent to hide your identity, but you’d been living with André for months, I can’t imagine it would have been hard for you to adopt his accent for the phonecall.

  ‘And, thanks to that tip-off, the Police started looking on Saint-Marie and Pierre went to prison. But none of the jewels were recovered, and none of the other gang members went to prison. I can’t imagine how frustrating that must have been for you. You’d lost the love of your life, and also his share of the heist, and three of the four gang members had got away scot free – not forgetting the fact that they’d all got to share the cash from the two-million-pound heist. Whereas you had nothing. Less than nothing. So then what?

  ‘We know you returned to Edinburgh, and I think this is when your drug dealing stepped up a level. When you started selling heroin and fencing stolen goods for your criminal friends. You were a full-blown criminal, and I think you were driven almost entirely by anger at André’s murder.’

  Amy’s jaw tightened, and Richard realised his words were hitting home.

  ‘And then, in the blink of an eye, you were serving a prison sentence yourself. A young woman from a respectable part of Edinburgh, I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt. How being rejected by your own mother and sisters must have hurt. And I think you blamed Pierre and his gang for this as much as you blamed them for André’s murder.

  ‘And things didn’t improve after you left prison. You’d been ostracised by your family, and you couldn’t make headway in your life. You were on benefits. You struggled with debt. And, again, I think that when you considered the life of happiness and riches Pierre had deprived you of, you put the blame for your failings squarely on Pierre. I can imagine why. It can’t have been easy, a bright woman in her thirties unable to get a proper job because of her criminal record. And it was during this time that whatever fantasies you had about exacting revenge on Pierre became more concrete.

  ‘That’s why the murders were so elaborate. You’ve been planning them for years. Because, in your fantasy version of all this, it wasn’t enough just to kill them, was it? You also wanted the Police humiliated. After all, they’d failed you twenty years ago when they weren’t able to arrest three quarters of the gang, or recover any of the money. That’s why I think you left rubies at the scene. You wanted to create a famous case where the Police were utterly humiliated. That was also part of your revenge. And how you must have laughed when you met a real life Policeman in a bar. And not just any old Policeman, but one as easy-going as Dwayne. Because you realised, all you had to do was woo him, and then he could be your man on the inside while you went on your killing spree.

  ‘Pierre was first, wasn’t he? He had to be if your plan was to work. You hotwired an old Citroën CX from the car park by Honoré harbour, using techniques you’d picked up when you were jailed twenty years ago. And I imagine you followed the taxi that picked Pierre up. It wouldn’t have been hard. Pierre was focused on meeting the rest of his gang and getting his share of the loot. But I don’t imagine you expected the rest of his gang to arrive so soon after he got to his house, so I think you were forced to wait until you knew they’d definitely cleared off and Pierre was left alone. But this was a stroke of good fortune for you. Because there was now a witness who’d partly seen three men with Caribbean accents and dark-coloured skin visit Pierre that morning. When your car turned up later on, it’s no surprise the partially sighted witness presumed that it was one of the same men. Just as we did. But it wasn’t, because on this occasion it was a woman with a Scottish accent and fair-coloured skin.

  ‘That’s why our witness overheard Pierre saying “I thought I’d never see you again” to this person. It always was an odd thing to say to someone he’d seen only an hour or so before, but it makes far more sense when you realise he was speaking to someone he hadn’t seen for twenty years. But now you’d arrived, I think you spun Pierre some lie. Maybe about where his share of the money was. Either way, you convinced Pierre to leave with you, not that he thought he’d be gone for long. That’s why he left his cigarettes and money behind in his house. But you had other plans for him.

  ‘You drove Pierre straight to the cemetery, where you parked on some bleached pea shingle gravel that the cemetery had recently bought – meaning it got in the tread of the car you’d stolen. Not that you realised it at the time. You then took Pierre into the cemetery, and I can’t imagine how he must have felt as you approached the Morgan family crypt. After all, he knew he’d murdered André, and you’d been André’s girlfriend at the time. He must have realised you were up to something once you reached it.

  ‘And here’s the next clue that shows that only you could be the killer. You see, the door to the crypt wasn’t forced in any way. It was opened with a key. So, seeing as Stefan didn’t use his copy, how was the crypt opened? Well, there is one other copy in existence. It was made by André twenty years ago. And seeing as he’s no longer alive, the only person who’d likely have that key is the person who he used to come here with. His girlfriend.

  ‘And killing Pierre in a crypt was so clever, really. After all, where better to hide a dead body than
among other dead bodies? But it was also poetic justice for you, wasn’t it? You wanted to kill André’s killer in the same room as where André had been laid to rest. And then, the genius of your plan was, once Pierre was dead, you could use his dead body to create a false trail for us to follow. You took his hand and pressed a fingertip onto a SIM card that you then put in the phone that you used to blow up Conrad’s boat. And if the phone sank to the bottom of the sea – meaning we never found his fingerprint – you made sure we’d get the message that Pierre was behind the murders by also putting one of Pierre’s fingerprints on a chunk of concrete that you then used to smash in the window of Conrad’s study.

  ‘But you were even cleverer than that. Because, having secretly killed Pierre, it was time to announce your arrival on the island with a big, explosive bang. And for that, you were able to exploit the fact that you had a Policeman as a boyfriend. That’s why Conrad was murdered on a Thursday morning. It was all planned for a time when you knew Dwayne would be at home “studying” with you. When I knocked on the door, you must have been delighted to realise you were now getting two Police alibis for the price of one. And, although you were only wearing a towel at the time, when you left me on the doorstep talking to Dwayne, it would have been a simple matter to go to your burner phone, ring the mobile you’d previously set on Conrad’s boat, and set the explosion off.

  ‘Then, once Dwayne and I went down to the harbour, you got dressed, went down to Conrad and Natasha’s house and waited. Then, once Natasha learned that it was Conrad’s boat that had blown up and left in a hurry, you smashed in the window with the incriminating bit of concrete, climbed in to Conrad’s study, trashed the place and then placed a ruby on the desk.

  ‘And here, you made your only mistake. Not that it would be revealed as a mistake until much later on. Those rubies you left at the scene to show the Police up were ultimately going to be your downfall. Because, as you guessed, we’d fail to find a single shop on the whole island of Saint-Marie that sold them. But, when we were trying to work out where they’d come from, our Commissioner of Police suggested that maybe Father Luc had got them from a clerical haberdashery shop, and that rang a bell with me. Although I couldn’t work out what it was, and I only got there once I’d realised that only you had been in the Police station – essentially unsupervised – since Conrad’s murder.