A Meditation On Murder

Richard got out his silver retractable pencil and used it to flick the tiny metal disc away from the wall.

‘I don’t believe it.’

It was another drawing pin. But whereas the first pin they’d found had been pristine, this one’s spike had been bent to the side before it ended up over by the paper wall.

Even Camille had to concede that the presence of a second drawing pin at the scene of the crime was beginning to look less coincidental.

‘Okay, Camille, on our hands and knees please, I want every inch of the Meditation Space searched for drawing pins.’

It was a few minutes later that Camille found the third drawing pin. It was pressed into one of the vertical wooden pillars only a few inches up from the floor.

‘Why’s it been pushed into the pillar so near the floor?’ Camille asked.

It was only when Richard looked over at the door to the room that he began to realise what it might have been doing there.

‘You know what? I think this was how the knife was hidden in here beforehand,’ Richard said.

Camille looked at her partner. ‘I find a drawing pin in a wooden beam and you say that’s how the knife was hidden?’

‘But think about it!’ Richard said. ‘Do you think anyone would have been able to smuggle a carving knife in here without any of the others noticing?’

‘Seeing as they were only wearing swim things—and cotton robes that were handed out by Paul Sellars …? I don’t think so.’

‘And nor do I. So—logically—the murder weapon must have been in here before the room was locked down.’

‘Okay. Agreed.’

‘Even though there’s nowhere to hide the knife, is there? Or so it would appear at first.’

Richard explained how there were twelve vertical wooden pillars along the longer sides of the room, and the drawing pin they’d just found was stuck into the eleventh pillar along. And on the side of the pillar that wouldn’t have been visible as the hotel’s guests came in through the door.

‘In fact,’ Richard said with increasing excitement, ‘how wide would you say the murder weapon was at its very widest?’

‘Three inches. Maybe four.’

Richard got down on his knees, pulled out a little metal ruler he always kept in his inside jacket pocket for just such occasions, and measured how far the pillar stuck into the room. ‘And this pillar is a good five inches wide. But you’d have to make sure that any knife hidden here was tight up against the wood, and perfectly vertical, which wouldn’t be easy. So if you wanted to hide a knife in the shadows here, how could you stop it from falling over or being seen?’

Camille looked at Richard. ‘You’d maybe get a few drawing pins and pin the knife blade to the wood so it didn’t fall over.’

‘Exactly! And I think that’s exactly what happened. All it would take is a couple of pins under the handle—or around the blade—to make sure it stayed flush against the beam. And, having pinned your knife behind this pillar—just off the floor a bit—it would have been all-but impossible for witnesses to see as they came into the room.’

‘Unless they came to this end of the room.’

‘But we know they didn’t do that.’ Richard indicated the door in the opposite wall. ‘They all came in through that door and went straight to the centre of the room where they then sat down in a circle and started drinking tea.’ Richard strode to the centre of the room as he continued to explain. ‘All the killer had to do at some point before then—either the night before, or very early that morning—was come in here and pin the knife to the further side of that pillar. And then he or she was at liberty to enter the Meditation Space later on wearing whatever skimpy clothes they wanted. And they didn’t even have to worry about the room being locked down while they were all inside because the murder weapon was already planted in the room.’

‘And while everyone else was meditating—’

‘Wearing eye masks so they couldn’t see—and listening to whale music on headphones so they couldn’t hear—the killer gets up, comes over here, liberates the murder weapon, and, in the process, two of the drawing pins ping off. And the third drawing pin stays pinned into the pillar. But with the knife now freed from its hiding place, the killer approaches Aslan as he sits cross-legged on the floor.’

‘And knifes him in the neck and back.’

‘Knifes him five times.’

Richard sighed.

‘Which is both good and bad news.’

‘It is?’ Camille said.

‘Because what we’re increasingly seeing is a premeditated murder, Camille. A rational murder.’

‘So?’

‘Well, isn’t it obvious?’

‘No, or I wouldn’t have said “so”. So?’

Richard looked at his subordinate a moment. ‘So, why on earth would an otherwise rational killer plan to kill someone inside a locked room which also contained a load of other potential witnesses? And, if Julia is indeed our killer, why would she commit this carefully premeditated murder only to start screaming the moment she’d done it so that the witnesses who had previously had their eyes closed now took their masks off and saw her standing over the body with the murder weapon in her hands? It doesn’t make sense.’

Richard let this settle for a moment.

‘But that’s the bad news.’

‘Okay,’ Camille said. ‘Then what’s the good news?’

‘I was right about that first drawing pin we found, wasn’t I? It was important.’

Camille considered Richard a moment and realised that, yes, he was indeed the most infuriating person she’d ever met in her life.

‘But who’s our killer?’ Richard continued. ‘Saskia Filbee, our meek secretary from Walthamstow? Paul Sellars, our self-regarding pharmacist? His flamboyant wife, Ann? Our property developer Ben who we both think has maybe had a brush with the law in the past?’

‘Or is it,’ Camille finished, stealing Richard’s climax, ‘Julia Higgins, the woman who’s actually confessed to the murder?’

Richard was about to reply to Camille’s interruption when he saw a shadow fall onto the wall of the Meditation Space. He held up his finger for Camille to be silent and together they watched the shadow of a person move furtively along the side of the paper. Clearly, whoever was out there had no idea that they could be seen by Richard and Camille from the inside.

Richard pulled out a little penknife from his pocket. It was ivory-bodied, steel-bladed, and it had been given to him by his Great Uncle Harold to mark the occasion of his first day at boarding school. Richard had been eight years old at the time and Uncle Harold’s rambling rhapsody on the wonders of boarding school had left the eight-year-old Richard with the distinct impression that, from now on, he’d have to be hunting for all of his food. Which wasn’t far from the truth, of course, and Richard had kept the knife close ever since. You never knew when you’d need a pocket knife. Like now.

In five long steps, Richard strode across the room, stabbed the penknife high into the wall and slashed down through the paper. It wasn’t easy—the paper was thick and waxy—but the knife was whetstone sharp and Richard soon had a slit down to the floor.

Stepping through the rip in the wall, Richard found himself on the outside of the building and face to face with a very shocked Dominic De Vere.

‘What the hell are you playing at!’ Dominic all but shouted, looking at the tiny but vicious knife in Richard’s hand.

Camille appeared around the side of the building—but she also kept her distance a little. If Dominic tried to bolt, she’d have him covered.

‘I could ask you the same question,’ Richard said, increasingly irritated that Dominic had once again appeared in the middle of their investigation.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘What are you doing here?’

Dominic thought for a moment, collecting his thoughts. ‘But it’s obvious what I’m doing here.’

‘Then perhaps you’d like to explain.’

‘It’s simple. I saw, like, shadows inside the Meditation Space and it freaked me out. Because—you know—it’s, like, a crime scene. Then I remembered! What if it was the killer and he’d come back to revisit the scene? You know, like killers are supposed to do. They return to the scene of their crime. So I thought to myself: if it was the killer inside the Meditation Space, maybe I could unmask him!’

Richard didn’t believe a word of Dominic’s explanation and he risked a glance at Camille. It was clear that she was just as sceptical.

‘I didn’t know you were the police, did I?’ Dominic continued. ‘I just didn’t want to be seen before I made my citizen’s arrest.’ Dominic indicated the long rip that Richard had cut into the paper. ‘And now I’m going to have to repair this wall, aren’t I?’

‘Oh?’ Richard said.

‘You know, where you’ve ripped it,’ Dominic said, indicating the long slit in the wall.

‘Yes, can I ask about that?’ Richard said. ‘Because we’ve been wondering: what happens if one of these walls gets damaged?’

‘You mean like when someone cuts through it with a knife?’ Dominic said in a feeble attempt at sarcasm.

‘Or they get damaged in a hurricane.’

‘Well, we’ve got spare rolls of paper in the basement under the hotel. But we’ve not had to replace any of the paper walls for nearly a year. Since the end of the last hurricane season, in fact. But I’ll have to mend this wall now.’

‘I don’t think you will,’ Camille said.

‘Oh?’

‘Because this is a crime scene. You can’t go near it.’

‘That’s very much been the thrust of what we’ve been saying,’ Richard added.

‘Oh,’ Dominic said. ‘Right. I see.’

‘But there’s another reason we don’t want you fixing walls here,’ Camille continued. ‘And that’s because we’d like you to accompany us to the police station so you can put Julia into a hypnotic trance.’

Dominic was amazed by the suggestion.

But not as amazed as Richard was. Looking at his partner, he had to resist the urge to stamp his foot like a middle-aged Rumpelstiltskin in a suit. Camille had promised him she wouldn’t do this!

For her part, Camille was avoiding her boss’s stare as she waited for Dominic’s response.

‘And you’re okay with that?’ Dominic asked, surprised.

‘Sure,’ Camille said. ‘Julia’s asked for you specifically. She says she’ll be able to remember the murder if you hypnotise her.’

Richard was desperate to stop the madness, but he knew he couldn’t countermand Camille’s offer. Not now that she’d made it. This was because, of the very many self-imposed rules and regulations by which Richard led his life, the commandment that you never disagreed with your partner in front of a witness was one of the most unbreakable.

So it was through gritted teeth that Richard allowed Camille to lead Dominic over to the police jeep. Once Dominic was in the back seat, Richard caught up with Camille before she got into the driver’s side.

‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ he hissed.

‘I promise you, sir,’ Camille lied, ‘I had no intention of getting him into the station when we set out here, but seeing as how Dominic was clearly eavesdropping on us—and is the only person who anyone says ever disagreed with Aslan—I suddenly realised we should maybe bring him in, see how he is with Julia. After all, it’s interesting that she asked for him, don’t you think?’

Richard knew that what Camille was suggesting was totally unprofessional, and yet she was right about one thing. Here was Dominic again, turning up like a bad penny. And although nothing Julia said under hypnosis would ever be admissible in court, they could maybe use whatever she said as a jumping off point for their investigation.

Once back at the station, Richard was interested to see that while Dominic was pleased to see Julia, she was a touch awkward with him—which was odd considering that it was her who’d asked for Dominic’s help. But then, Richard considered, from Julia’s point of view she was about to go into a trance to try to remember the precise moment she’d committed a murder; it was perhaps unsurprising she was on edge.

As for Dominic, as far as Richard was concerned, he was his usual preening peacock self, even going so far as to warn the police that he might inadvertently put one of them into a trance, such were his powers. By this point, Julia was lying on the old mattress in her cell, Dominic sitting in a chair to her side, talking gently to her—and Richard, Camille and Dwayne were all crammed in behind. Fidel had also wanted to attend the hypnosis session, but Richard had insisted he stop trying to lift prints from the murder weapon so he could lift whatever prints he could from the two extra drawing pins Richard and Camille had just found at the murder scene. As a matter of urgency.

‘You can feel a heavy, relaxed feeling coming over you,’ Dominic murmured to Julia as she lay on the bed, her eyes closed. ‘And as I continue to talk, that heavy relaxed feeling will only get stronger and stronger. And the deeper you go, the deeper you are able to go. And the deeper you go, the deeper you want to go, and the more enjoyable the experience becomes. Now you are resting comfortably in a deep, peaceful state of sleep.’

Dominic looked up at Richard.

Clearly it was done. Julia was ready.

‘We want to know what happened in the Meditation Space,’ Richard whispered as quietly as he could.

‘Shh!’ Camille said.

Richard was a little hurt. He’d never been able to whisper quietly, and he was sensitive to this unacknowledged failing.

But Dominic didn’t seem too bothered by Richard’s inability to whisper as he turned back to Julia.

‘Okay, I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you’re going to answer because you feel so safe, so secure … starting with, what is your name?’

‘Julia Higgins,’ Julia said.

‘And where have you been staying?’

‘At The Retreat … happy.’

Julia spoke in a quiet sing-song voice, almost like a child’s. And Richard once again found himself thinking that if this was an act, it was a very convincing one.

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