Kitabı oku: «The Killing Of Polly Carter», sayfa 5

Chapter 4

The following day, Richard was sitting at his desk trying to focus on work, but his mind kept drifting back to the dinner he’d had with his mother the night before. It’s not that she’d been difficult in any way—if anything, she’d wanted only to talk about Richard’s life on the island—but, as an experienced copper, Richard got the impression that his mother was being evasive somehow. There’d been a reserve in her eyes he couldn’t place. And Richard’s disquiet was stirred further by the way his mother seemed to deflect any questions he asked about his father. ‘Oh you know what he’s like,’ she’d just said brightly, without any real meaning to her words at all.

But perhaps most unsettling of all, Richard had discovered that his mother didn’t have any set plans for her visit, and he’d never known her travel anywhere without detailed notes and pre-planned itineraries. Instead, she told him that there was a lovely boy she’d met on reception called Karl who was putting together an itinerary for her, starting with a tour of a local rum distillery the following morning.

In short, the whole evening had been quite peculiar for Richard, and as he’d pecked his mother on each cheek to bid her goodnight, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been ‘played’ somehow.

However, Richard knew he was supposed to be researching Polly’s life before her death—not thinking about his mother—so he made himself look at the news article he’d got up on the computer monitor. And then he realised what the article said.

‘Good grief!’ he said in amazement.

Camille sighed heavily. ‘What is it this time?’

Richard indicated the webpage on his screen. ‘It says here that, back in 2005, Polly attended an orgy in Cheam.’

‘I told you, sir, they’ll print anything,’ Camille said, not even remotely for the first time.

‘But how do they know?’ Richard asked in awe. ‘Do you think a reporter was actually there?’

There was a warm chuckle from behind Dwayne’s monitor. And then his face appeared, his eyes sparkling. ‘You’d be surprised, Chief.’

‘I certainly would be surprised if I found myself at an orgy in Cheam.’

Richard made a note of this latest impossible-to-believe fact on his ever-expanding list of lies, truths, half-truths and PR puff he’d so far been able to uncover about Polly. He’d learnt that she’d at one time been the highest paid model in the world; that she was patron of a hedgehog sanctuary in Cornwall; that she was a well-known heroin addict who’d spent her life battling addiction; that she’d designed a range of clothes for toddlers; that there was still an active warrant for her arrest in Portugal for assaulting a press photographer; that she’d done the Duke of Edinburgh Outward Bound courses as a teenager and had a Gold Medal; and that she’d dated a famous rock star for many years, even though, as far as Richard could tell, the man in question didn’t look so much like a rock star as a bin man.

The only useful facts Richard had so far been able to glean from the internet were that the previous September Polly had suffered a massive drugs overdose and nearly died. She’d been rushed to hospital, had her stomach pumped and had a blood transfusion, and had only just survived. There were photos all over the web that Richard had been able to find of a stick-thin Polly leaving the hospital on Saint-Marie wearing dark shades and using a walking stick twelve days after she was admitted.

But if she’d nearly died from a drugs overdose in September, he’d also discovered that, after Christmas, just as the witnesses had said in the first interviews, she’d checked herself into a rehab clinic just outside Los Angeles and had spent ten weeks there. Richard knew all this because he’d found a press release online that had been issued by Polly’s manager Max back in March when Polly had got out. In his statement, Max said that Polly had finally won her lifelong battle with addiction and was now eager to return to her work as one of the most in-demand models in the world.

Richard realised that his thoughts kept slipping back to what an orgy in Cheam would look like, so, before he got too confused, he jumped out of his chair and clapped his hands together in a way—far too late—he realised, probably made him look like a newly qualified Geography teacher.

‘Right, then, team,’ he said. ‘What have we got so far?’

‘Well, sir,’ Fidel said, picking up his notes eager to report to his boss. ‘I’ve been looking into Phil Adams, and he’s from quite an impressive family. Before he retired, his dad was a teacher at Eton College, and his mum is a senior civil servant at the Foreign Office. As for siblings, he’s got an older brother and a younger sister. The brother’s a banker who owns his own hedge fund company—so he’s worth a fair bit—and his sister’s the British Ambassador to Slovenia.’

‘I see,’ Richard said, unable to stop himself from being impressed. Phil came from a super-successful family.

‘As for Mr Adams himself,’ Fidel continued, ‘he made his name with a string of violent gangster films back in the 1990s, but he’s not made much since then. And the main thing I’ve been able to dig up about him is, he was also in rehab in Los Angeles earlier this year.’

‘He was?’ Richard asked, thrown. ‘Was everyone in Polly’s house in rehab?’

‘No, sir, just Phil Adams and Polly Carter as far as I can tell. But I don’t know what clinic he was booked into, or why he was booked into it. It was just a few references in the gossip columns of a couple of UK newspapers. That following the failure of his latest feature film last year, he’d booked himself into rehab.’

‘So his last film wasn’t successful?’ Richard asked.

‘Apparently not,’ Fidel said.

‘Interesting. Good work, Fidel. Then what about you, Dwayne? What have you got?’

‘Well, Chief,’ Dwayne said, ‘I’ve not been able to get much on Max Brandon. But he was a top agent at a talent agency in London back in the day. He then decided to go it alone when he took on Polly, and she’s been his only client since then. And it’s no surprise he doesn’t represent anyone else. Looking after her career is a full-time job. He spends most of his time trying to stop the press from running stories about her latest sex scandal or drugs bust. It’s even rumoured he tells her who she has to go out with to promote her career. But the thing is, Chief, because Polly’s his only client, Max is unlikely to be our killer. With her dead, he’s now lost his one source of income.’

‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘Good point.’

‘But things get more tasty when we look at Claire’s nurse, Sophie Wessel.’

‘They do?’

‘Sure do,’ Dwayne said. ‘I rang the agency Sophie works for back in the UK. And it turns out she stopped working for them a few months back. But when Claire wanted a nurse to accompany her to Saint-Marie, she asked for Sophie by name because—get this—it turns out Claire came to Saint-Marie last year just before her sister Polly had her massive overdose—and Sophie came with her last time as well.’

‘Really?’ Richard said. ‘And how long was Claire here for last year?’

‘According to Sophie’s agency, it was a five week booking starting at the beginning of last August.’

‘So,’ Richard said, working through the timings, ‘Claire and Sophie were here last year for five weeks just before Polly took an overdose that nearly killed her … and they were both here again this year, and this time Polly did die.’

‘Got it in one, Chief!’ Dwayne said, leaning back in his chair, satisfied.

‘Then good work, Dwayne. We need to look into that. Why did Claire come out here last year? And was it connected in any way with Polly’s overdose?’

Richard turned to Camille. ‘What about you, Camille? How are you getting on with Alain and Juliette Moreau?’ Camille looked at Richard and then shrugged as if to say she had no idea, which was a physical tic that Richard always found puzzling in his subordinate. After all, the stereotype of a French person was that they shrugged the whole time, so—he thought to himself, as he stood sweltering in the midday heat wearing polished brogues, a woollen suit and old school tie—why would she be so foolish as to conform to the national stereotype?

‘Well, sir,’ Camille said, and this was another thing about Camille that got under Richard’s skin: she never called him ‘Chief’ like Dwayne did. Or Fidel did. Or Catherine, for that matter. And now that Richard was thinking about it, even Selwyn Patterson, the island’s Commissioner of Police, would sometimes call him ‘Chief’—even if only ironically. So if all these people were prepared to give him the affectionate soubriquet of ‘Chief’, then why couldn’t Camille call him ‘Chief’? Even once? Frankly, it rankled.

‘Are you even listening to me, sir?’ Camille asked as she shifted her weight onto a hip. Richard realised too late that he hadn’t been.

‘Sorry. Yes. Of course. Go on.’

‘Only, there’s next to nothing on Juliette or Alain—although Alain is Juliette’s third husband. She married her first husband when she was nineteen years old. It lasted two years. She then married her next husband—a Frenchman over here on holiday—when she was twenty-nine. And this time the marriage lasted four years before he left her and returned to France. As for Alain, he and Juliette got married seven years ago—just before they took the job at the house.’

‘I see. Interesting. Thank you, Camille.’

‘And sir,’ Fidel chipped in. ‘I know Alain and Juliette a bit. We go to the same church.’

‘You do?’ Richard said.

‘Although Juliette doesn’t attend as often as Alain.’

‘Then what would you say they were like?’

‘Oh they’re nice enough, I suppose,’ Fidel said. ‘Especially him. He’s one of those people who’s quietly impressive, if you ask me. You don’t really notice him, and then you realise he’s the guy who’s helping out with Sunday school every weekend. Or taking food to some of the older people on the island who are living on their own.’

‘He visits old people?’

‘He does, sir.’

Richard thought for a moment.

‘Yes. Doing Meals on Wheels isn’t exactly the M.O. of your typical killer, is it?’

‘That’s my thinking, sir.’

‘And as for his wife, Juliette?’

Fidel looked briefly uncomfortable. ‘Well, sir, I don’t know her so well, so I wouldn’t like to say.’

Richard exhaled in exasperation.

‘Fidel,’ he said, ‘this is a murder inquiry. If you know anything negative about any of our suspects, that’s very much the territory I want you to be in.’

‘Well, sir, it’s not that I know anything about Juliette that’s definitely negative, it’s just that I don’t think I much like her. You know? She doesn’t come to church that often, and she isn’t that nice when she does. She’s one of those people who seems hard, if you ask me. Hard and cold.’

‘Yes,’ Richard said. ‘And she seemed particularly unmoved when she found out about Polly’s death. So we’ve got a tough woman who’s on her third husband who’s married to a softie? Is that what we’re saying?’

‘That seems to be about it, sir,’ Fidel agreed.

‘Then tell me, Fidel, seeing as Alain said he was at church last Sunday when Polly was killed, you don’t happen to remember seeing him there, do you?’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t at church last Sunday. But I can ask around. See who remembers seeing him.’

‘Thank you. Please do.’

‘Oh,’ Camille said, ‘and I’ve also spoken to my mother and she’s confirmed that Juliette and Alain were at her bar having a coffee at about 10.30am on the morning of the murder. So that’s their alibi.’

‘And yet,’ Richard said, ‘is it that much of an alibi? Because even if Juliette and Alain were having coffee at your mother’s bar by 10.30, it’s still possible that one of them was committing murder back at the cliffs at 10am. Isn’t it?’

As Richard said this, he turned to look at the notes he and Camille had been able to write up on the office whiteboard, and once again he found himself with an almost physical yearning to be back in the UK. Back in the UK there were climate-controlled incident rooms; here, the climate was controlled only in the sense that it was always boiling hot. Back in the UK they had AV suites and wall-mounted touchscreens; here they had an old whiteboard with three bent legs. And there, they had access to a nationwide network of thousands of Law Enforcement officers; whereas on Saint-Marie, Richard always felt that it was just the four of them solving each case on their own. This was mainly because it was just four of them solving each case on their own.

Richard sighed, and made himself look at the meagre facts they’d been able to collect on the whiteboard.

Polly Carter. The victim. A model. One-time heroin addict. Said she’d commit suicide just before she was murdered.

Claire Carter. The twin sister. In a wheelchair. Last to see the deceased alive.

Sophie Wessel. Claire’s nurse. Didn’t see the moment of death, only heard it, but was second to the scene.

Max Brandon. Polly’s agent. Sophie saw him go upstairs before the murder and Claire saw him in the house afterwards as well. At an upstairs window at the time of death?

Phil Adams. Film director. At an upstairs window at time of death?

Juliette Moreau. Was on a 10k run at the time?

Alain Moreau. Was at church at the time?

And, as Richard considered the names, he realised that there was one more name he needed to add at the bottom.

The Man in Yellow?? Was seen going down the cliff steps by Claire just before the murder …?

‘Okay, team,’ Richard said. ‘Whether or not there was a man in a yellow raincoat on the cliff steps before Polly Carter was killed, clearly there was someone waiting there. So who of our witnesses might it have been?’

Camille joined Richard at the whiteboard.

‘Well, sir,’ she said. ‘It can’t have been Claire. If she’s the person who saw the man in yellow.’

‘Agreed,’ Richard said.

‘And Sophie was in the garden at the time,’ Dwayne said, joining Richard and Camille at the board.

‘Indeed. So she couldn’t have also been on the cliff steps at the same time.’

Fidel joined the others at the board. ‘But Sophie did tell us something important, sir, didn’t she? She said that when Polly was killed, she looked back at the house and saw someone looking out of an upstairs window.’

‘That’s right,’ Richard agreed. ‘Even though both Max and Phil say that they were the person she saw.’

‘So one of Max or Phil is lying?’ Dwayne asked.

‘It’s possible,’ Richard said. ‘Or perhaps they were both looking out, but Sophie wasn’t looking back at the house that carefully. Either way, seeing as Sophie said she definitely saw Max in the house before she’d even gone into the garden—and Claire saw Max in the house immediately afterwards—it’s hard to see how Max could have got past Sophie and Claire to be on the steps before Polly got there. Or got back to the house afterwards without being seen as well.’

‘So maybe it was Max who Sophie saw at the upstairs window,’ Dwayne said. ‘Which would mean that Phil doesn’t have an alibi for the time of the murder. He could have been on the cliff steps before Polly got there.’

‘Yes,’ Richard agreed. ‘And I definitely think it’s a touch suspicious that Phil says he saw an argument between Claire and Polly from his bedroom window and then calmly went back to work for half an hour or so before he—rather conveniently—emerged from his bedroom only long after the murder had taken place. Although he’s not the only one without a watertight alibi for the time of the murder, because Juliette and Alain don’t have one, either.’

‘Then what if Juliette’s our killer?’ Camille said.

‘Okay. What makes you say that?’

‘Well, it’s just, she says she was out running—which she may have been, of course—but it occurs to me, don’t runners sometimes wear high visibility running tops?’

‘Why’s that important?’ Fidel asked.

‘High visibility yellow running tops,’ she clarified. ‘Because, remember, Claire couldn’t categorically say whether the person she saw go down the cliff steps beforehand was a man or a woman. Could she? So what if it wasn’t a raincoat at all but was actually a high-vis running top that Juliette was wearing?’

‘But it was Juliette who told us she’d also seen a man in yellow in the garden a few days before,’ Richard said.

‘Maybe she was trying to throw us off the scent,’ Camille countered. ‘After all, if she tells us about there being someone else in the garden a few days before, we’re not going to be looking too closely at her, are we?’

Richard could see the logic of what Camille was suggesting, but he also remembered the old smugglers’ path that led through the jungle to the cliff where Polly was thrown to her death. It was still possible that there was someone else out there—not directly from the house—who was their killer.

‘That’s true,’ Richard said. ‘But even if Phil, Juliette and Alain don’t have decent alibis, we also can’t rule out the killer being someone else entirely who went up to the house via the old smugglers’ path from Honoré. So, Dwayne, I’d like you to walk the old smugglers’ path from Polly’s house back to Honoré, making sure you inspect the path as much as possible. See if you can find any cigarette butts, old Coke cans—anything that might have been left by our killer on his or her journey up to Polly’s house.’ Dwayne’s eyes widened.

‘You want me checking the path all the way from Polly’s house back to Honoré?’

‘That’s right. I just said.’

‘Oh okay,’ Dwayne suggested in his most hopeful voice, ‘although how about I just check the first fifty yards of path? Something like that?’

‘No, I’d like as close as possible to a fingertip search of the whole path from Polly’s house down to Honoré, please.’ Dwayne thought for a moment, and then he clicked his fingers together as he had an idea.

‘I know! I mean, Chief, it’s a great idea—we need to search that path, that goes without saying—but what if I miss a crucial clue? After all, my eyes aren’t what they once were. So what I’m thinking is, what if we maybe get a younger pair of eyes for the job?’

Dwayne looked at Fidel as he said this.

‘Very well,’ Richard said. ‘Fidel, can you search the path? Dwayne, I’ll give you the job I was going to give to Fidel.’ Dwayne beamed, happy to have dodged the bullet.

‘So, Dwayne,’ Richard said, ‘Juliette says she went on a ten-kilometre training run on Sunday morning. Can you get the route from her, run it yourself, and stop at every house you pass to see if you can find a witness who will alibi her for the time of death.’

‘What?’

‘It wasn’t that hard to understand, was it?’

‘You want me to run a 10k?’ Dwayne said, dismayed. ‘With my knees?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Fidel said, jumping in, ever the peacemaker. ‘I’ll do the 10k. You can do the cliff path, Dwayne.’

Dwayne exhaled in relief.

‘Thanks, partner,’ he said, and offered up a fist bump for Fidel.

‘Good, glad that’s all sorted,’ Richard said. ‘But from this moment on, I want us to all keep thinking. If we’re ever going to discover who killed Polly Carter, we first need to uncover the how and the why of it. Just how did the killer push Polly to her death and then vanish into thin air afterwards? And why did Polly have to die in the first place? Who benefits from her murder?’

‘I think I might have an idea,’ a woman’s voice said from the doorway.

Everyone turned and saw a nice-looking Englishwoman in her late sixties standing at the entrance to the police station wearing a floral summer frock and a cream cardigan.

‘Can we help you?’ Fidel asked, a touch confused.

‘It’s just that I think I might know who benefits from Polly Carter’s death.’

Fidel, Dwayne and Camille looked at Richard, expecting him to get rid of this strange Englishwoman, but, instead, they saw that their boss was standing in silent mortification.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’ the woman said to her son.

‘Are you …?’ Camille managed to get out as Richard mumbled, ‘Everyone, this is my mother. Jennifer Poole.’ There was a moment while his team looked at mother and son as they stood side by side. So different, of course. And yet, so similar. Camille was the first to recover.

‘How wonderful to meet you, Jennifer! I’m Camille, and welcome to Saint-Marie!’

Camille went up to Jennifer and kissed her on each cheek—which initially made Jennifer recoil like a startled bird—but she was just about able to hide her confusion as Camille then introduced her to Dwayne and Fidel. And within moments, Richard’s team were telling Jennifer all the must-see tourist sights she had to visit while she was on Saint-Marie. Unfortunately, as Jennifer kept having to point out, everything the team were suggesting either involved a considerable increase in her chance of catching dengue fever, or getting seasick—which she was a martyr to—or eating spicy food, and she really didn’t like spicy food, she was afraid—but she was ever so grateful for their every suggestion. So, after a few minutes, they all agreed that perhaps Jennifer should just spend the morning wandering around the shops and harbour of Honoré.

And during the whole conversation, Richard stood a little way off in his dark suit, sweating. The truth was, seeing his mother talking to his team, Richard found that he was frozen to the spot. Every now and again, he’d begin to lift his arms up from his side as though he was about to join in with the conversation, but he found he had nothing to say, so his arms would drift back to his side again.

‘Good morning, Mother,’ Richard eventually managed to blurt, which hadn’t been what he’d meant to say at all, but the words had seemed to rise unbidden to his mouth, as though his entire existence as an Englishman was no more than Pavlovian conditioning, which—perhaps—it was.

Jennifer looked at her son, puzzled by his awkwardness.

‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘The whole island’s abuzz with Polly Carter’s death, but are you really saying it was murder?’

‘It was,’ Dwayne said, as though he could personally take credit for this deduction.

‘And is it really true that the film director Phil Adams was staying with her when she died?’

‘He was,’ Dwayne said, once again as though he were personally responsible for this breakthrough in the case.

Richard despaired. It was no wonder people had found out about the case when his own team were so happy to talk about it.

‘Then, if you’re asking who benefits from Polly Carter’s death,’ Jennifer said, ‘I suggest you focus your investigation on Phil Adams.’

This got Richard’s attention.

‘Really?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Jennifer said. ‘Because I’m pretty sure Phil Adams benefits from Polly Carter’s death.’

‘But how does he benefit?’ Camille asked.

‘Well! I was at the hairdresser’s a few years ago, and I remember reading in a magazine that Phil Adams and Polly Carter had gone to Las Vegas. For a holiday. But anyway, I remember this article saying that Phil and Polly had gone out partying in Vegas, and ended the evening in the Chapel of Love getting married. So, what I’m thinking is, now she’s dead, Phil Adams would inherit all her money. Wouldn’t he? Seeing as he’s her husband.’

‘You know all that?’ Richard asked, amazed.

‘But if you’re saying she was murdered, then you should start with the husband. After all, in relationships, it’s always the man who’s to blame.’

Jennifer said this brightly enough, but everyone—even Richard—noticed that it was a somewhat cryptic statement to make. Before his mother could say any more, though, Richard made sure that he stepped into the breach.

‘Very good, Mother. Thank you. But I suppose the question is, is Phil Adams really married to Polly Carter?’

‘Apparently, he is,’ Fidel said, having spent the last few moments back at his desk checking his computer. ‘Because I’m getting loads of hits for Phil Adams and Polly Carter getting married seven years ago in Las Vegas.’

Jennifer clapped her hands together in delight, but, as Camille looked at her boss, she could see that, for some reason, Richard was the only person in the room who didn’t seem impressed with his mother’s contribution. In fact, Camille could see that Richard was now in a glowering funk, and she decided that she’d make sure she used the car journey to interview Phil Adams to discover all she could about Richard’s relationship with his mother.