The Killing Of Polly Carter

‘Careful of that sand, sir!’ Camille said with mock seriousness as he awkwardly picked his way across it. ‘It might get into your socks.’

Richard knew that Camille found it incomprehensible that he insisted on wearing a dark woollen suit, polished shoes, a white shirt and a tie in the tropics, but, for him, the matter was a simple one. A policeman wore a dark suit, and Richard didn’t see why he should have to lower his standards just because he’d been posted to the Caribbean.

‘What are you doing here?’ Richard asked.

‘Oh, and a good morning to you, too,’ Camille said, now a lot less jauntily.

‘But it’s your day off,’ Richard said, unable to stop himself from glancing at his wristwatch to make sure his mother hadn’t in fact landed on the island yet.

‘What’s up?’ Camille asked, sharp as a knife, and Richard cursed silently to himself. His subordinate never missed a thing.

‘Oh, nothing,’ he said with what he hoped was insouciance.

‘Why are you looking so guilty?’

‘I’m not looking guilty.’

‘You are.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are.’

There was a long pause while both of them realised that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere.

‘I’m not,’ Richard said.

‘You are.’

‘Look,’ Richard said. ‘Much as I’d love to continue this game of “You are, I’m not”, can you please tell me what on earth you’re doing at my house on your day off?’

Camille’s jaw set in instant irritation, and Richard wondered what he’d done wrong this time. As ever, he found Camille’s inner thoughts impossible to divine. On the one hand this was because she was female, spontaneous, passionate and always wanted to think the best of people, and—on the other hand—it was because she was French, which, Richard felt, was what military analysts would very much call a ‘force multiplier’. So, as Richard stood sweating on the white sand in his Marks & Spencer suit, he genuinely didn’t know how he’d managed to cause offence, and had even less of an idea about how to mend the situation.

‘Okay,’ Camille eventually said. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m doing here, but on the condition you tell me what that book is.’

Camille indicated the book in Richard’s hand. He’d picked it up just before he’d left his shack. It was his intended lunchtime reading.

‘Oh this?’ Richard said, only now realising that the book wouldn’t be that easy to explain. ‘It’s just a … you know, a field guide to the insects of the Caribbean.’

Camille’s eyebrows rose at this news. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I, um, I found it at the station, and I thought it would be fun to learn about the insects of the Caribbean.’

‘You thought it would be fun?’

‘Yes.’

‘Learning about the insects of the Caribbean?’

‘Anyway, I’ve told you what I’m reading. You’ve now got to tell me why you’re here.’

‘Oh,’ Camille said, as though it were of no consequence. ‘There’s been a suspicious death.’

‘What?’ Richard blurted.

Camille grinned, and said, ‘Sorry. Should I have said sooner?’

Richard dashed round to the passenger side of the police jeep, opened the door and climbed in.

‘Yes you bloody well should have said sooner!’ he huffed, belting himself into the passenger seat as fast as he could.

Camille watched her boss make sure that his buckle was properly clicked into its housing, then check there were no twists in the belt itself as it went over his shoulder, before then giving two tugs on the strap to confirm that the auto-lock mechanism was indeed working satisfactorily.

‘Come on,’ he said impatiently. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Camille couldn’t help but smile to herself as she put the jeep into a low gear and drove off across the bumpy sand in the direction of the main road.

As Richard walked into Polly Carter’s house for the first time, he sneezed. This was because it may have been a grand villa in a stunning jungle setting—with orange-painted shutters to the windows, a bright blue front door and a red-tiled roof—but it was as messy as hell on the inside, and everything was covered in dust. Artefacts from Polly’s world travels, random pieces of furniture, local artworks and stacks of old magazines, books and photos were piled pell-mell so that sharp-edged Perspex awards sat next to ancient tribal masks, the antique dining table had modernist chrome chairs arranged around it, and the walls were just as crammed with modern collages as they were with faded oil paintings.

But it was only when Camille showed Richard the garden that he knew the meaning of true horror, because he discovered that the house was built near a cliff, and he was now expected to walk down the stone steps that had been carved into it so he could reach the body on the beach below.

‘But there’s no safety rail!’ he said as he stood looking at the Health and Safety nightmare that lay ahead of him.

‘Come on,’ Camille said. ‘We need to get to the body. And it’s not as bad as it looks.’

Richard looked at the stone steps again and saw that maybe Camille had a point. They were roughly hewn, but they were a good four or five feet wide. What’s more, although there was a vertical drop to almost certain death if you fell over the edge, there was actually a little escarpment of dirt and scrubby bushes and thorns running along the edge of the stairs to give the appearance of safety. And to divide the challenge into more manageable chunks, Richard could see that the whole staircase doubled back on itself four or five times as it wound its way down the cliff face. In fact, Richard realised, even if he fell over the edge, there’d be a chance he’d perhaps have his fall broken by the stone steps on the flight of stairs directly beneath.

In conclusion, Richard decided, it was scary, but he could do it. It helped, of course, that he was wearing such sensible shoes, he kept telling himself in a repeated mantra as, arms wide, he took six or seven minutes to pick his way down to the beach far below.

Once there, Richard could see, with relief, that Sergeant Fidel Best and Police Officer Dwayne Myers were already working the scene. Or rather, he was relieved to see that Fidel was working the scene. Richard’s feelings towards Dwayne were a little more nuanced. This was because, whereas Fidel was young, fresh-faced and lived and breathed correct police procedure, Dwayne had been on the force a number of decades, had refused every offer of promotion in all that time, and felt that following correct procedure was for ‘other people’. For Dwayne, in fact, his work was only partly about catching criminals, because it was also about making sure he knocked off on time so he could take one of his many and apparently concurrent girlfriends out partying every night. And the problem for Richard was, much as he’d like to chastise Dwayne for his lax attitudes, on an island like Saint-Marie, it was often Dwayne who got the results, if only because he drank in the same bars as the island’s dealers, grifters and general ne’er-do-wells. And, more improbably, he was accepted by them, to Richard’s eternal frustration.

Richard saw that there was a churn of footprints in the sand that led from the bottom of the stone steps to the body—and a similar mess of footprints around the body where Fidel and Dwayne were working the scene—but there weren’t any other footprints on the beach leading to or from the body. In fact, Richard could see, there weren’t any footprints anywhere else on the beach. In particular, there weren’t any footprints leading to or from the gently lapping sea in any way.

Having noted this, Richard said his hellos to Dwayne and Fidel and got down on his haunches to inspect the body. There was white sand stuck to the dead woman’s cheek and hair, but he also noticed that, apart from that, her face seemed almost entirely undamaged.

‘Sir,’ Fidel said. ‘You do recognise her, don’t you?’

‘The victim?’ Richard asked.

‘Told you,’ Dwayne said with a deep chuckle.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘Well, sir,’ Fidel said, ‘I know it’s a bit disrespectful, but Dwayne here said he didn’t think you’d recognise the victim, and I said that you would.’

Richard looked at his team and once again marvelled at how often he seemed to operate in an alternate universe to them all.

‘What on earth are you both talking about?’ he asked.

‘You really don’t recognise her?’ Camille asked, just as surprised.

‘No I don’t,’ Richard snapped. ‘Because if I did recognise her, I’d have said that I did, wouldn’t I? But I didn’t, so I didn’t.’

‘It’s Polly Carter,’ Camille said.

‘Right. Good. And who’s she?’

‘You really don’t know who Polly Carter is?’

Richard jutted his jaw out. He didn’t want to have to say it again.

‘Okay,’ Dwayne said, happy to act as peacemaker. ‘She’s one of the most famous supermodels in the world. And you’ve not heard of her?’

Richard looked at the body. He looked up again.

‘Can’t say that I have. Now,’ he said, suddenly wanting to move the conversation on, ‘could someone please tell me what we’ve got so far?’

Dwayne was grinning as Fidel flipped his notebook open.

‘Well, sir, so the victim’s name is Polly Carter. She’s a top model. Or was. She’s British by birth, and she’s in the papers the whole time. She parties hard, gets into fights, and she’s got houses around the world, but lives on Saint-Marie most of the year. There are a number of guests staying with her at the moment, but I’ve only managed to speak to a woman called Sophie Wessel so far. She’s a nurse for Polly’s twin sister.’

‘Polly’s got a twin sister?’ Richard asked.

‘That’s right. Her name’s Claire Carter. And her nurse, Sophie, said that Claire and Polly were in the garden together at about ten o’clock this morning when the two sisters started having an argument. Sophie doesn’t know what it was about. But when she heard a scream, she went to find out what was going on and found Claire—upset—at the top of the cliffs, and Polly Carter dead—just here—on the sand below.’

‘Any suggestion that Claire maybe pushed her sister off the cliff?’

‘That’s unlikely,’ Fidel said. ‘Claire’s in a wheelchair. I don’t see how she could overcome an able-bodied person. And, according to Sophie, Claire’s saying Polly had just announced that she was going to commit suicide before she ran down the cliff steps and threw herself to her death.’

‘She did?’

‘Apparently so.’

‘I see,’ Richard said, looking down at the body of Polly Carter as she lay twisted in death on the sand. Richard couldn’t help but notice how at peace her face looked. Almost as if she were only sleeping. Richard looked up at the cliff that loomed above the body and tried to guess at the state of mind someone would have to be in before they could jump to their death like this. Despite the heat, Richard shivered.

‘And were there any other witnesses to this suicide?’

‘I don’t believe any of the other house guests were nearby at the time, sir.’

‘Then can you tell me who the other house guests are?’

‘Of course,’ Fidel said, turning to another page in his notebook. ‘There’s Polly’s twin sister Claire Carter, I’ve mentioned her. Sophie Wessel is her nurse. She’s been hired from an agency in London for the duration of the holiday. Then there’s Max Brandon, Polly’s agent and manager. And the film director, Phil Adams.’

‘Phil Adams?’ Richard had seen a few Phil Adams films before now and hadn’t liked any of them.

‘That’s right, sir. Polly also employs a husband and wife team who live in a cottage in the grounds and look after the house when she’s not here. Name of Juliette and Alain Moreau. But they were off at church this morning and have yet to return.’

‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘So what have we been able to discover about the body?’

‘Well, sir,’ Fidel said, ‘with a death from a height like this, it’s hard to know what injuries were pre- or post-mortem until we get the results back from the autopsy. However, there is something we noticed.’ Fidel got down on his knees and carefully turned Polly’s right arm so that Richard and Camille could see the inside of her forearm.

There was a deep gash running five or six inches along the inside of her forearm—from just below her elbow to just above her wrist. But what got Richard’s attention was the dirty tinge of green that seemed to smear around the edges of the cut.

‘What’s this?’ Richard asked, indicating the green tinge to the wound.

‘She’s got green marks on her hands, as well, Chief,’ Dwayne said.

Fidel opened the fingers on the victim’s right hand and Richard could see similar green smudgy marks on her palm and fingers.

‘Looks like she tried to grab hold of a bush or something on the way down,’ Camille said.

Richard opened the victim’s left hand and saw the same mossy markings on her left hand as well. Maybe Camille was right. The green marks on the victim’s two hands and inside forearm—and the deep cut down her right forearm—were consistent with the victim having tried to grab hold of something woody before she fell.

Richard looked back up the cliff and didn’t immediately see any kind of bush directly above the body that the victim could have clung to on the way down. However, with a cut as deep as that, Richard knew it would be easy to identify whatever it was she’d clung to. It would almost certainly have a good smear of the victim’s blood on it.

‘Fidel,’ Richard said, ‘I want you to work out what on the cliff face the victim grabbed onto before she fell.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Fidel said, seemingly unbothered by the fact that his boss had effectively just asked him to search a vertical cliff face.

For his part, Richard strode off to the base of the cliff, now interested in the horizontal distance the body had fallen on its way down.

Camille stood up from the body as well. ‘So, what are you thinking?’

‘That suicides don’t leap,’ Richard said, but Camille already guessed where her boss was going with this as Richard started to put one foot in front of the other to measure the distance the body had fallen from the cliff. It was a well-known fact that jump suicides tended to drop from whatever height they’d chosen to commit suicide from. They didn’t leap out to their death. Although, Camille found herself thinking, if the victim had announced her suicide in a heated argument, maybe she’d run for the cliff edge and then jumped.

‘Seventeen feet,’ Richard announced as he reached the body, which gave him pause.

‘Much further than you’d expect,’ Camille agreed.

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe it wasn’t suicide?’

‘Indeed,’ Richard said, once again checking his wristwatch. It was still long before his mother was due to arrive on the island. There was every chance he’d be able to finish up here and still have time to meet her at the airport.

‘Fidel, keep working the scene and supervise the removal of the body with the paramedics. Dwayne, I want you to search the victim’s house. See if you can find any kind of suicide note. As for you and me, Camille, I think we need to talk to the witnesses, don’t you?’

A few minutes later, Richard and Camille were in the sitting room of Polly’s house and Richard was trying hard not to cough, because if the rest of the house was dusty, this room seemed to be where all the dust in the rest of the world came to when it wanted to die. The curtains, old sofas, stacks of books and piles of nick-nacks were all covered in a worn-in grime of ancient dirt, and Richard had noticed that when he shut the door, dust had fallen in a great cloud from the filthy crystal chandelier that hung in the centre of the ceiling and which was missing a good third of its pendants.

As Camille made the introductions and explained to the four assembled witnesses that the police had a duty to investigate all suspicious deaths on the island, Richard took the opportunity to give them all a once-over.

He could see that the victim’s sister, Claire Carter, was sitting in her metal-framed wheelchair wearing beige cotton trousers, simple slip-on shoes, and a light blue cotton top. She had a similar slender build to her sister, similar high cheekbones, but Richard could see that they had very different hair styles. While Polly’s hair was dark, long and unruly, Claire’s was similarly dark, but it was cut into a tight and tidy bob that fell just below her ears. As for her demeanour, Richard could see that Claire had turned entirely in on herself, her shoulders hunched in grief, her head bowed as tears rolled down her cheeks that she dashed away with the back of her hands. It was a sight that Richard felt he’d had to see too often in his career. The grief of the family member who was left behind.

As for Claire’s nurse, Sophie Wessel, she was a plump woman who Richard guessed was in her mid-to-late forties. She had a friendly face, wide, trusting eyes, and dark hair streaked with plenty of grey that was tied behind her head in a loose ponytail. She was wearing a long dark green dress, simple leather shoes, and she even had a watch pinned upside down on her dress just below her left shoulder. Richard could see that Sophie was holding one of Claire’s hands while also not seeming to be that engaged with the situation, either. As a person who was paid to care for others, Richard felt he recognised the type. Sophie was caring and uncaring both at the same time. Like ‘Matey’—the matron of Richard’s boarding house at school—he thought to himself. Kind when she had to be, but only because it was her professional duty.

Then there was Max Brandon, Polly’s agent. Richard could see that he was a thin man in his fifties who had an angular face under neatly parted jet-black hair—and he hid his eyes behind yellow-lensed sunglasses. A ratty looking man, Richard thought to himself. But what Richard found most interesting about Max was the way he was using the forefinger on his right hand to pick at the skin around the nail of his thumb. In fact, Richard could see that the skin around both of Max’s thumbnails had been picked raw and Richard found himself wondering what it was that was making Max so tense?

As for Phil Adams, Richard guessed that he was also, like Max, in his fifties, but that’s where all similarities ended. Phil was tall, broad-shouldered, and he looked entirely at ease. His hair was blond and glossy—swept back from his handsome face—and his eyes were crinkled with laughter lines. He wore a collarless white cotton shirt that Richard guessed came from a Jermyn Street tailor, knee-length khaki shorts—that Richard noted, with irritation, Phil was able to make look good—and an old pair of flip-flops.

Once Camille had finished the introductions, Richard said, ‘Thank you all for waiting for us. Detective Sergeant Bordey will be taking your formal statements shortly, but first I just wanted to get a sense of what happened this morning. For example, I understand that you, Claire, were with your twin sister when she died. Is that right?’

Claire looked up at Richard, her eyes red-rimmed with grief.

‘That’s right,’ she eventually said, still disbelieving the words she was having to say.

‘Then perhaps you could take us through what happened?’ Camille asked gently.

Claire thought for a moment and then slowly nodded.

‘Of course. Well … I’d gone to the kitchen for breakfast this morning and Polly was already there.’

‘What time was that?’ Richard asked.

‘I don’t know. Just before ten, I suppose.’

‘Thank you. And was that the first you saw of your sister today?’

‘It was.’

‘And how would you describe her mood when you saw her?’

‘I don’t know. She was her usual self. Somewhat snappy. Slightly irritating. But nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘You didn’t get on with her?’

‘Not always. Although I think it’s fairer to say that it was Polly who didn’t get on with me.’

‘And why was that?’

‘We didn’t have much in common,’ Claire said sadly. ‘Anyway, she said she wanted to take me for a walk in the gardens, so that’s what we did.’

‘And did you and your sister often go for walks together?’

Claire hesitated a moment before answering. ‘Not really.’

‘Had your sister in fact gone for a walk with you before?’

‘Actually, no. We’d been out together of course, but only as part of a group. And always with Sophie in attendance.’

‘Is that right?’ Richard turned to ask Sophie.

‘Yes,’ Sophie said. ‘Agency rules say I should be available to assist my client at all times, but Polly insisted that she go out with Claire this morning on her own.’

Richard and Camille exchanged a glance.

‘In fact,’ Claire said, equally puzzled, ‘Polly was insistent she didn’t want Sophie to come with us.’

‘And do you know why she wanted it to be just you and her on this walk?’ Richard asked Claire.

‘I have no idea,’ Claire said, ‘but almost as soon as we got out into the garden, Polly started shouting at me. I’ve no idea where it came from. She just seemed to explode. Telling me how unhappy she was, and how her unhappiness was all my fault. I was shocked. I had no idea what she was talking about.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘No. You see, we weren’t that close. In fact, I haven’t even seen Polly since last year.’

‘I see.’

Camille turned to Sophie. ‘So, if you were around at the time, did you witness this argument, Sophie?’ she asked.

Sophie nodded. ‘I did. I was about to go upstairs when I heard raised voices coming from the garden. It was Polly shouting at Claire.’

‘Did you hear what was being said?’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t. They were too far away. And when I went into the garden to see if I could help—or intervene—that’s when Polly started pushing Claire towards the cliffs.’

‘That’s right,’ Claire agreed. ‘I saw Sophie come out of the house, and that’s when Polly said something like “you’re coming with me”—and she grabbed my chair and started pushing me really fast towards the cliff. And I can tell you, I was frightened. I was shouting at her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen to me.’

‘And I followed a bit,’ Sophie said. ‘You see, I still couldn’t work out if I should intervene or not. And when I lost sight of Claire and Polly, I stopped altogether.’

‘Why did you lose sight of them both?’ Richard asked.

Sophie seemed surprised by the question.

‘Well, there’s a large bed of shrubs across that end of the garden. The steps down the cliff are just beyond it.’

‘I see,’ Richard said, looking at the room, and once again he noticed how Max was looking down at his hands and picking at the skin around his nails.

Phil cleared his throat to announce that he had a contribution to make.

‘I can second all that Sophie and Claire are saying,’ he said, entirely comfortable as he took the floor. ‘You see, I was upstairs in my bedroom at the time. Working on my latest screenplay. And I heard a ruckus coming from the garden, so I went to the window and saw Polly shouting at Claire in the garden. And then, when Polly pushed Claire off to the bottom of the garden and disappeared behind the bushes there, I saw Sophie follow a little way and then stop in the middle of the lawn.’

‘That’s right,’ Sophie said, remembering. ‘I didn’t know if anyone else was around to help, so I looked back at the house and I saw someone standing at one of the upstairs windows.’

‘Well that’s easy to explain,’ Phil said with a tolerant smile. ‘That was me.’

‘What’s that, Phil?’ Max asked, speaking for the first time.

‘It’s not hard to understand,’ Phil said in a condescending manner. Richard could tell that there was little love lost between Phil and Max.

‘I was looking out of my bedroom window,’ Phil continued, ‘so if Sophie saw someone at an upstairs window, it must have been me.’

‘But hang on,’ Max said, licking his lips before he carried on. ‘That would have been me she saw, because I was at the upstairs landing window and looking down on Sophie when Polly died.’