The Killing Of Polly Carter

‘You were?’ Camille asked.

‘That’s right,’ Max said. ‘I’d just seen Sophie in the downstairs hallway.’ Here, Max turned to address Sophie. ‘And I’m sorry I didn’t say hello back to you when you wished me good morning.’ Max knew that this was an inadequate thing to say, but he turned back to address Camille. ‘But Sophie can confirm that she saw me inside the house just before Polly died.’

Richard was intrigued. Why was Max trying to establish an alibi for the time of death?

‘Is that right?’ Camille asked Sophie.

‘Yes,’ Sophie said, not entirely sure where Max was going with his story. ‘I definitely saw Max head upstairs just before I went out into the garden. And I said hello to him, but he didn’t say hello back.’

‘But the point is,’ Max said, picking up the story, ‘I was looking out of the upstairs landing window at the time of death. I saw Sophie in the middle of the garden. She was looking straight back at me.’

Richard could see that Sophie was frowning.

‘Tell me, Sophie, was it Max you saw at the upstairs window? Or was it Phil?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The sun was shining on the windows. And I can’t remember precisely which upstairs window I was looking at. But I know I only saw one person.’

‘Who must have been me,’ Max said insistently.

‘Rubbish,’ Phil said. ‘It was me Sophie could see.’

Sophie looked in confusion at Richard, hoping for a steer.

‘Either way,’ Richard said, not wanting his witnesses to get bogged down, ‘tell me, Sophie, once you’d looked back at the house and seen someone at the upstairs window, what happened next?’

‘Well, that’s when I heard a scream,’ Sophie said. ‘An awful scream. And then, a few moments later, I heard Claire shout for help.’

‘And did you see any of this?’ Camille asked.

‘Well, no. It was all behind the bed of shrubs. But I heard it.’

‘And did you, Phil, see what was going on at the cliff top?’

‘I didn’t,’ Phil said. ‘Because it’s like Sophie’s saying. You can see the lawn from the house, but you can’t see the cliff top. There’s a bed of shrubs and bushes in the way.’

‘And I couldn’t see anything, either,’ Max said, reminding everyone that he’d also been at an upstairs window at the time.

‘But it doesn’t matter who else saw what,’ Claire said, and Richard could see from the look in her eyes that she’d just worked out that she was the only person who’d witnessed the death—and therefore the police were treating her testimony with suspicion. ‘Because the thing is, I saw what Polly did once we were both at the cliff.’

‘Yes,’ Camille said, kindly. ‘Then could you tell us in your own words what that was?’

Claire blinked back tears before continuing her story.

‘Well, it was like she was possessed just before she jumped. I mean, she was angry with me when we first went into the garden, but by the time we got to the cliff top, she was going crazy. Saying how selfish I was. How I’d let her down. How I’d never understood the pain she was in. That sort of thing. And then she said she was going to kill herself—it was all my fault—and there was nothing I could do to stop her!’

Claire choked back a sob as she finished speaking.

‘Then what happened?’ Camille asked.

‘Well, she … she ran down the steps a little way, and then, once she was around the corner, she screamed as she jumped.’

‘What’s that?’ Richard asked.

‘I’m sorry?’ Claire said, looking at Richard, confused.

‘You said that once Polly was around the corner, it was only then that she screamed and jumped.’

‘That’s right.’

‘So she didn’t jump from the very top of the cliff?’

‘No. She went down the first flight of steps, and it was only when she’d turned around the corner that I heard her scream as she jumped.’

‘So you didn’t actually see the moment it happened?’

Claire seemed surprised by the question.

‘Well, no. I suppose not. If you put it like that. But then, I couldn’t follow her down the steps in my wheelchair, could I? So, no, I didn’t see the exact moment my sister jumped to her death. Thank God for small mercies.’

Richard wrote this fact into his notebook and very carefully underlined it three times.

Richard next turned to Sophie. ‘And you didn’t see what happened, either, did you?’

‘I’m sorry. No.’

‘Which is interesting. Because it means we’ve only got one witness to what happened. You, Claire. And even you didn’t see exactly what happened.’

Claire was quietly affronted. ‘But I didn’t need to see it. My sister said she was going to end her life. She then ran down the steps and I heard her scream as she fell. I didn’t need to see it to know what happened.’

Richard turned from Claire to Sophie.

‘So tell me, Sophie, how soon after you heard Polly’s scream did you arrive at the cliff?’

‘Oh, not long,’ Sophie said. ‘Thirty seconds? Something like that?’

At this, Claire turned her wheelchair around so she was looking directly at Richard, and he saw a look in her eyes he couldn’t quite place. Was it defiance? Or even desperation? Why did she look so on edge so suddenly?

‘But since you’re so interested in what I saw,’ Claire said, ‘you should know that there was someone else on the cliff steps just before Polly went down them.’

This got everyone’s attention.

‘There was?’ Camille asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘And you didn’t think to mention this before now?’ Richard asked.

‘You didn’t ask,’ Claire said.

‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘So who was this person you saw beforehand?’

‘Well, I think it was a man.’

‘You think it was a man?’

‘It might have been a woman. You see, I only caught a glimpse of the person as Polly was pushing me towards the cliff. But as we got to the top of the steps, I saw this flash of yellow as whoever it was went down the steps and disappeared around the first bend.’

‘A flash of yellow?’ Richard asked.

‘That’s right,’ Claire said, finally warming to her theme. ‘Because, whoever it was was wearing a bright yellow raincoat. You know, like a plastic cagoule. And the thing is, they had the hood up over their head so I couldn’t see their face.’

‘So you’re saying that this person—whether it was a man or woman—was wearing a plastic yellow raincoat with the hood up, and was on the cliff steps just before your sister jumped to her death?’

‘That’s right.’

Richard knew what he had to do next.

‘Would anyone here mind if Detective Sergeant Bordey now did a search of all your rooms to look for a yellow raincoat?’ Before anyone could answer, Richard continued, ‘Good. Camille, if you would?’

With a nod to her boss, Camille left the room, but Richard only had eyes for the four witnesses. Did any of them look particularly worried at the prospect of their rooms being searched? He had to admit that they didn’t, so Richard turned back to Claire.

‘You see, it strikes me as odd that someone would be wearing a raincoat with the hood up on a boiling hot day when there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.’

‘Yes, when you put it like that,’ Claire said. ‘It does seem strange. But it’s what I saw.’

‘Then can I ask, if there was a person in a yellow coat on the cliff steps before your sister went down them, who was the next person to go down the steps after Polly?’

‘That was me,’ Sophie said.

‘And how soon afterwards did you follow her?’

‘I don’t know, but it could only have been a minute or two later. When I got to the cliff, Claire was upset, and it was only when we saw the body on the beach that I realised what might have happened.’

‘So you’d already seen Polly’s body on the beach before you went down the cliff?’

‘That’s right. Claire had gone a little way along the cliff’s edge. We were both able to look back at the beach from there.’

‘Then did you see a person in a yellow raincoat anywhere on the beach when you looked down at Polly’s body from the top of the cliff?’

Sophie thought for a moment before answering, ‘I’m sorry, no.’

‘Then perhaps you saw this person in the yellow coat on your way down to the beach?’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see anyone else on the steps. Or on the beach below. In a yellow raincoat or otherwise. When I got down there, there was just Polly’s body. There wasn’t anyone else.’

‘But that’s not possible,’ Claire said. ‘Because I’m telling you I saw a person in a yellow raincoat go down the steps just beforehand, you must have seen them, Sophie! Did you not see a flash of yellow at all? Maybe only after you got down to the beach?’

‘It’s unlikely,’ Richard said. ‘Even by the time my officers arrived at the scene, the only footprints we could find in the sand led from the steps to the body and nowhere else. So, if there was a “Man in Yellow” who went down the steps beforehand, he didn’t go off and hide anywhere else on the beach.’

‘Then perhaps they managed to hide on the steps themselves, Sophie,’ Claire said.

Richard could see that Sophie was briefly conflicted. But only briefly.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Claire. ‘I’m pretty sure there wasn’t anyone hiding on the cliff steps, either. And definitely no one in a yellow coat.’

‘But they must have been,’ Claire said with shrill insistence. ‘I know what I saw!’

Richard made a note that whoever Claire saw on the cliff steps before Polly’s death—assuming, of course, she saw anyone—had somehow managed to vanish into thin air afterwards.

‘Very well,’ Richard said. ‘Then can you tell me, Claire, did Polly have a cut in her forearm at all before she went down the cliff steps?’

The question threw Claire. ‘A cut?’

‘That’s right. A deep cut about six inches long, running from the inside of her elbow down to just above her wrist,’ Richard clarified, indicating on the sleeve of his right arm. ‘It would have been bleeding quite heavily.’

‘No,’ Claire said. ‘She wasn’t bleeding at all. And her dress was sleeveless, I’m sure I’d have seen if she’d cut herself in any way.’

‘Then what about you, Sophie?’ Richard asked, turning to the nurse. ‘You must have seen the cut on Polly’s forearm when you found her on the beach?’

Sophie thought for a moment before answering. ‘No … I’m sorry. I didn’t notice any cut on her arm, either.’

Richard made a note. So there was no independent corroboration that the cut on Polly’s arm had been inflicted before she fell. So when exactly had she cut herself? It couldn’t have been post-mortem, could it?

Richard looked back at Sophie. ‘Okay, so once you’d gone to Polly on the beach, what did you do next?’

‘I established that there was no pulse in Polly’s neck and then I called back up to Claire to phone for an ambulance.’

‘That’s right,’ Claire said, ‘but I didn’t have my mobile phone on me, so I had to go back to the house.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Richard said, surprised.

‘I … I didn’t have my mobile on me, so I pushed myself back to the house and used the landline to call for an ambulance. That’s when I saw Max coming down from upstairs and I told him what had happened.’

‘That’s right,’ Max agreed eagerly. ‘I saw Claire heading back across the garden, so I went down to meet her in the hallway. After she’d explained to me what had happened and was phoning for an ambulance, I went down to the beach and waited with Sophie until the ambulance arrived.’

‘Then how about you, Phil?’ Richard asked. ‘When did you discover that Polly had died?’

‘Well that’s the thing,’ Phil said. ‘After I saw the argument in the garden, I went back to my work. I didn’t want whatever was going on between Claire and Polly to distract me. And I carried on working in my room until I saw an ambulance arrive at the front of the house about half an hour later. That’s when I came downstairs and finally heard the terrible news.’

‘I see,’ Richard said, realising that, putting aside which of the two men Sophie saw at the window when she looked back at the house, Max now had a definite alibi for just before the time of death—when he was seen going up the stairs by Sophie—and just afterwards as well—when he was seen coming down the stairs by Claire. As for Phil, seeing as Sophie’s view of the person at the window just beforehand had been so vague, he didn’t seem to have a definite alibi for before the time of death, or for the minutes immediately afterwards.

‘But I don’t understand why you’re asking where we all were,’ Max said nervously. ‘Or wondering who this man in the yellow coat was. None of it’s relevant, because we know what happened. Polly said she’d end her life, she went down the steps and then she threw herself to her death.’

‘Indeed,’ Richard said. ‘And you raise an important point, so can I ask, how surprised are you all that Polly would end her life like this?’

Richard could see the witnesses exchange glances. He’d struck a nerve.

‘If someone could answer the question,’ Richard asked again.

‘Well maybe I should take this,’ Max said. ‘As her agent. Because, if we’re being honest, Polly’s been depressed for some time. So one minute she was up, up, up, and the next, everything had crashed around her and she’d get destructive. She’d want to hurt you until she felt better.’

‘That’s what I meant when I said it was more that she didn’t get on with me,’ Claire said. ‘She was difficult and wilful at the best of times.’

‘But she didn’t do herself any favours, either,’ Max said. ‘Because you should know, Polly was also a recovering drug addict, and that caused terrible mood swings as well.’

‘And when you say drugs?’ Richard asked.

‘Heroin,’ Claire said. ‘She’d been using for years.’

‘Your sister was a heroin addict?’

‘But she checked herself into rehab earlier this year,’ Phil said loyally. ‘She’s been clean since then.’

‘And when was she in rehab?’

‘It was six months ago,’ Max said. ‘Just after Christmas. She spent three months in a clinic in Los Angeles. And since she came out, she’s been clean. I’m sure we’d have known if she wasn’t.’

Max looked around the room, and no one disagreed with him.

‘The point is,’ Phil said, speaking for all of them, ‘we can all imagine that if Polly wanted to end her life, this is the sort of crazy mad-arse way she might go about doing it. She always loved melodrama.’

Richard looked at the witnesses and realised he’d probably got enough from them for the moment. Although there was one loose end he needed to tie up before he could leave.

‘Then thank you all for your time,’ he said to the room, closing down the topic of Polly’s drug addiction for the moment. ‘But one last question. If you don’t mind? Claire, are you really saying you didn’t have your mobile on you when your sister died?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Claire said.

‘Only, in my experience, people who have issues with mobility always have their mobile phones on them. Or some other form of emergency communication or panic button.’

‘Well … that’s true,’ she conceded. ‘I do normally have my mobile with me. I keep it in here.’

Claire indicated a fabric pouch that hung from the armrest of her wheelchair.

‘But your phone wasn’t in your pouch this morning?’

‘I thought it was,’ Claire said, increasingly confused that Richard was following this line of questioning. ‘But when I looked for it on the cliff top, it wasn’t there. It’s why I had to go back to the house to phone for an ambulance. Like I said.’

‘Can you tell me, where is your mobile phone right now?’

‘Really?’

‘If you could just answer the question?’

Claire huffed. ‘Well, as it happens, I’ve not been able to find my mobile since then. To be honest, it’s not been a top priority.’

‘You’re saying it’s still missing?’ Richard asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

‘That’s right. I can’t find it.’

‘Then could someone phone Claire’s phone at once,’ Richard asked the room urgently. ‘Then, if we can hear it ringing in the house, I want to locate exactly where it is.’

No one could quite see why this was important to Richard, but Phil pulled his smartphone from his pocket with a sigh.

‘Very well,’ he said sceptically, as he scrolled through his list of contacts. ‘I’ll ring it.’ After pressing the screen, he waited a few seconds, and he then said, ‘Right, then. It’s connecting.’

After a moment, everyone could hear a phone ringing.

It was somewhere in the room.

And then, they all realised where the noise was coming from and looked up at the ceiling.

The chandelier in the middle of the ceiling was ringing.

Claire’s phone was hidden in the chandelier above their heads.

What the hell was it doing there?

Chapter 2

It took a few minutes to liberate Claire’s mobile from the chandelier. In the end, it involved Richard scraping a coffee table over to the middle of the room so that he could stand on it and fish into the chandelier with one hand, his other hand clamping his hankie over his nose against the clouds of dust he was creating in the process.

Once he had Claire’s phone in his hand, Richard asked the assembled witnesses if they knew how it had got into the chandelier, but they were just as flummoxed as he was. It didn’t even begin to make sense.

As Richard put the phone into an evidence bag for processing back at the station, he saw an old Citroën estate car pull up in the driveway with a crunch of wheels on gravel. He then saw a man and a woman get out.

‘Who’s that?’ he asked the room.

‘That’s Juliette and Alain,’ Phil replied. ‘Polly’s staff. I think they’ve been at church.’

Going to the windows, Richard could see that Alain was perhaps in his forties, was of average height, and had short-cropped hair. He was wearing khaki trousers, smart black shoes, a long-sleeved white shirt—and, as he carefully closed the door to his car, Richard got the impression that he was a man who liked everything to be precise and neat. As for Juliette, Richard could see that she was of a similar age to her husband, had a cascade of dark hair that was constrained by a pink bandana, and she was wearing figure-hugging grey Lycra running clothes with bright lime green flashes down the side. It was pretty clear that if Alain had just returned from church, Juliette had been out doing exercise of some sort.

Richard told the witnesses that Camille would take their formal statements in due course, but first he had to break the sad news of Polly’s death to Mr and Mrs Moreau. If they hadn’t already heard.

Once in the hallway, Richard bumped into Camille as she was coming down the main staircase. She told her boss she hadn’t been able to find a yellow plastic coat in any of the bedrooms upstairs, or anywhere else obvious she’d been able to look. What was more, she hadn’t found anything else of note, either. Although they’d have to do a proper search of the house later on.

‘But you should see Polly’s bedroom,’ she said.

‘Why?’ Richard asked, puzzled.

‘Because it’s nothing like the rest of the house. It’s tidy and clean.’

‘It is?’

‘You should take a look at it. You’ll like it,’ she said, with a twinkle.

‘Unfortunately, we’ve got a more pressing job on our hands,’ Richard said, and he explained how Juliette and Alain had just returned.

When Richard and Camille stepped out of the house into the blinding Caribbean sunlight, they could see that Juliette and Alain hadn’t gone into their cottage yet and were instead looking at the police jeep that was parked in the driveway.

‘I’ll take this,’ Richard announced, before striding off.

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ Camille said, knowing that her boss wasn’t exactly the most sensitive when it came to breaking bad news.

But it was too late. Richard had called out ‘One moment, if you please!’ in his most hail-fellow-well-met voice and was already approaching the witnesses.

Camille caught up with Richard after he’d already made the introductions.

‘But what are the police doing here?’ Juliette asked bluntly, her hand on her hip.

Richard could see that Juliette was the sort of woman who was used to getting her own way. As for Alain, Richard was unsurprised to see only meek obedience in the man’s eyes.

‘Just before I answer that,’ Richard said, ‘can I ask where you both were this morning at about 10am?’

‘Why on earth do you need to know?’ Juliette said.

‘If you could just answer the question,’ Richard said in his ‘police’ voice, and Camille’s heart sank because, while it was always useful to get someone’s alibi before they knew why they needed one, it was hardly the kindest way of breaking the news that a friend had just died.

‘Well,’ Alain said, stepping into the conversation bravely. ‘At ten this morning, I was at church.’

‘And you, Mrs Moreau?’ Richard asked. ‘Were you also at church?’

‘Dressed like this?’ Juliette said dismissively, indicating her exercise clothes. ‘No, I was in the middle of my run then. I’m training for a triathlon,’ she said proudly. ‘I then met up with Alain after the church service finished at about 10.30 and we went for a coffee together at a place called Catherine’s bar. I’m sure you know it.’

Richard did indeed know it. It was run by Camille’s mother—and his sometime nemesis—Catherine Bordey.

‘But why do you want to know where we were?’ Alain asked, his forehead furrowed with concern.

‘Forgive us for not saying sooner,’ Camille said. ‘But I’m sorry to say that Polly Carter died at about ten o’clock this morning.’

Neither Juliette nor Alain spoke for a moment.

‘What?’ Juliette eventually asked.

‘I’m sorry. She fell from the cliff at the end of the garden. Her death would have been instantaneous.’

Alain’s legs briefly went, and he put his hand out to steady himself against the car.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, still unable to process what he’d just been told. ‘She’s …?’

Richard and Camille steered Alain and Juliette into their cottage so they could recover from the shock in private. It also allowed Richard to check out the Moreaus’ home.

He was pleased to see that Juliette and Alain clearly lived neat and ordered lives. The furniture in the room was simple, the floor was tiled and the walls were white-painted. Little shelves with books on them were arranged by height, a piano sat in the corner with hymn books on—and there were a clutch of colourful pictures of saints on the walls. There were also white cotton curtains that covered French windows looking out over a little yard that contained a washing line, pot plants in a row, and a couple of chairs for sitting out in the sunshine.

It was a modest home, but it was comfortable, Richard decided. Perhaps like its owners.

‘I don’t understand,’ Alain said, still uncomprehending. Polly’s death had hit him hard. ‘You’re saying she jumped?’

‘It’s what it looks like,’ Richard said, not wanting to explain that he still wasn’t one hundred per cent convinced that Polly’s death had been suicide. After all, her body had been found too far from the cliff for a normal suicide. And there were plenty of aspects to the witnesses’ statements that suggested there was more to Polly’s death than first met the eye—not least the fact that the only witness to her death only heard the sound of her commit suicide, rather than saw it.

‘Does that surprise you?’ Camille asked.

‘Yes. She had everything to live for. Why would she want to kill herself?’

‘Well,’ Richard said, ‘I understand Polly could suffer from mood swings.’

‘You’re damned right about her mood swings,’ Juliette said. ‘She’d be happy one minute and snappy as hell the next. Isn’t that right, Alain?’

Juliette looked at her husband for confirmation, but Richard could see that Alain was a lot less comfortable speaking ill of the dead than his wife.