A Meditation on Murder

by Robert Thorogood

  Against his better judgement, Richard was impressed with Paul’s logic. What he was saying made sense, if it wasn’t for the fact that Julia wasn’t right-handed and therefore almost certainly hadn’t been the person wielding the knife. They’d just have to wait on the autopsy report to confirm whether the killer struck right-handed or not.

  And there was the small matter of the argument Saskia overheard the night before Aslan was killed. Because if Julia was the killer, how come it had been a man threatening Aslan that he wouldn’t ‘get away with it’?

  Camille returned to the group, putting her phone back into her little leather handbag as she did so.

  ‘Ann Sellars, would you accompany us to the station, please?’

  Panic slammed into Ann’s eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Paul said on his wife’s behalf.

  ‘We’d like your wife to accompany us to the station.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Paul said firmly. ‘If you’ve anything to say to Ann, you can say it to her right here and now. In front of me.’

  Camille looked at Ann, but she was still rooted in panic to the spot. Camille looked at Richard and he raised an eyebrow. It was Camille’s call.

  ‘Okay,’ Camille said. ‘Ann, one of our officers has been able to lift seven fingerprints from the handle of the murder weapon. Four of them belong to Julia Higgins, but they’re prints from her left hand—and we believe the killer was right-handed. Whereas the other three prints we’ve been able to raise from the handle of the murder weapon all belong to you. And they’re all from your right hand.’

  Ann was stunned. Unable to speak.

  ‘What’s more, we already know that the killer held the knife with the blade pointing downwards so he or she could strike down into the victim’s neck and back, and the prints we’ve been able to lift show that you were holding the knife in a way that is consistent with a downwards stabbing motion. Can you even begin to explain to us why this is?’

  Everyone looked at Ann as she slowly crumbled. And Richard noticed an odd look slip into Paul’s eyes. It was almost a look of respect. As if he was reappraising his wife.

  Ann turned in desperation to her husband. ‘Paul, you’ve got to help me.’ Paul continued to look at his wife, fascinated. ‘Paul, don’t look at me like that, you know I didn’t do it! I couldn’t have done it!’

  Ann’s panic was becoming overwhelming, and Richard began to wonder. Was Paul actually enjoying her pain?

  ‘Wait!’ Ann said in a sudden spasm, standing up as she did so. After a few more moments of fevered thinking, she then turned back to Camille. ‘Oh god, it’s so simple! Sorry, it’s just I was so worried—I couldn’t work it out—but I have, I’m sure I have.’

  Richard was more sceptical. ‘You can explain how your fingerprints have just been found on the knife that was used to kill Aslan Kennedy?’

  Ann stood as straight as her plump body would allow.

  ‘I can. And better than that, I can also explain how my fingerprints got on the murder weapon that way round.’ Ann shook out her shoulders as though to prepare herself for an oration and Richard had the sudden revelation that Ann had almost certainly been involved in amateur dramatics at some point in her life. ‘Because I’m not the killer. Of course I’m not!’

  Yup, Richard thought to himself. Ann had got her mojo back.

  ‘But now you mention it,’ she continued, ‘there is a carving knife I’ve held, and it was the night before Aslan was killed. So if it turns out that that’s the knife that was used to kill him, well then that explains why my fingerprints are on it.’

  ‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘So what knife would this be?’

  ‘Well! As you no doubt know, this is a retreat for the spirit as well as the body. And we’re always encouraged to help out with community chores. It says in the blurb that it helps develop tolerance and understanding.’

  ‘It also gives Aslan free labour,’ Paul added.

  Ann ignored her husband. ‘Paul thought it was a disgrace. But I thought we were already having a free holiday, the least I could do was do a couple of things to help out. And you know what? I enjoyed it. It made a difference doing a few chores because I was choosing to do them rather than because I had to,’ Ann said pointedly at her husband. ‘Anyway, the night before Aslan was killed, I helped with the washing up after dinner.’

  ‘You did?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Only for half an hour or so, and I dried lots of different pots and pans—I remember doing those—but I also dried various kitchen knives and put them back into their wooden block. And that’s the thing, the wooden block I put the knives into was on a shelf. The only way you could get the knives in was if you slotted them in with a downwards motion.’

  Richard looked at Ann, amazed. He needed to clarify this.

  ‘You’re saying the murder weapon has your fingerprints on it consistent with a downwards stabbing motion because you dried the murder weapon the night before it was used and put it away in a wooden block such that you used a downward stabbing motion?’

  ‘That’s it exactly!’ Ann said.

  A few minutes later, Ann was leading Richard and Camille into The Retreat’s kitchen, Paul and Saskia following. As it was early afternoon, it was empty as they entered, just a neon blue fly-zapper high on the wall and the hum of refrigeration units. Richard was quietly impressed with what he saw. The cooking ranges were all top-end, there were copper pots and pans arranged on shelves or hanging from neat pegs—and the far wall was dominated by three simply enormous glass-fronted fridges.

  It reminded Richard that he really had to do something about the pocket-sized galley kitchen he had in his shack. And that in turn reminded him that he also had plans to terminate his relationship with his lizard as well—but he had to put all such thoughts to one side for the moment. Instead he turned to Ann.

  ‘So where is this knife block?’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ Ann said, heading over to one of the ranges. ‘Ah, here we are.’

  She indicated a metal shelf to the side of a range that had on it a large wooden block that contained various knives.

  Richard realised that what Ann had said made a kind of sense. Even he—who was much taller than Ann—would have used a stabbing grip to slot the knife down into the carving block on the shelf.

  ‘I knew it!’ she said, turning with triumph to look at Richard. ‘It’s got holes for six knives in it, but there are only five knives in there now, aren’t there? And I bet you won’t be able to find the sixth knife anywhere in this kitchen—or even in this house. And that’s because the knife I washed up is clearly the knife that Julia then used to commit murder.’

  Trying to ignore Ann’s look of triumph, Richard had to conclude that Ann’s explanation of how her fingerprints had ended up on the murder weapon was at least partly plausible. After all, any killer would know that leaving their fingerprints on the handle of the murder weapon would almost certainly be a one-way ticket to prison. By this logic, of course, neither Julia nor Ann were likely to be the murderer as they’d been the only two people foolish enough to get their prints on the murder weapon at all.

  But there was something else Richard had to concede about Ann. Like Julia—although for wildly different reasons—Ann just didn’t feel like a killer. Her personality seemed entirely to be surface. There were no hidden depths. Unlike her husband, Paul, Richard thought to himself. He’d clearly briefly relished the idea that his wife was a killer. But why? Because he didn’t like his wife? Or because he was the real killer and was now trying to get her convicted for a crime she hadn’t committed? Either way, there was no doubting that Paul was a far better ‘fit’ as a killer than poor, dim, ditzy Ann.

  Richard felt a surge of frustration wash over him. One of the five people who’d been in the Meditation Space with Aslan was the killer, but which one of them was it?

  Not for the first time, Richard had a strong feeling that he was missing something about the case. Something fundamental. But it w
as more than that, Richard realised, because he was increasingly of the opinion that there was a shadowy presence on the edges of the case. Someone he couldn’t quite see, but who was still influencing events.

  And this person was the real killer. And they were manipulating him. Manipulating them all. That’s why Julia had ended up confessing to the murder; why Ann’s prints were now on the murder weapon; and why four out of the five people who’d been with Aslan when he was killed had all lost money to him in the past. And once again, Richard found himself thinking back to the Meditation Space. Why on earth had the killer chosen to commit murder in broad daylight, inside a building made of translucent paper, while the door was locked from the inside, and while there were four other witnesses who could have witnessed the moment of murder?

  It was almost as if the killer was throwing down a challenge to Richard. Was he clever enough to work it out?

  The door swung open and Ben Jenkins barrelled into the room, full of bonhomie.

  ‘Aye aye, I wonder what’s going on here …?’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ Camille said, ‘would you leave?’

  ‘And miss whatever you’re up to? No way.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Richard said.

  ‘Don’t be. I’ve paid for this holiday—so I reckon I can come into the kitchen of the hotel whenever I like. Unless you have a problem with that?’

  Richard looked at Ben and realised that Ben was right. Not that he could come into the kitchen as and when he chose, but that he had indeed paid for his holiday. Which was interesting, if only because the other four people in the murder room with the victim hadn’t.

  Richard watched Ben go over to a metal bowl that contained a pile of fresh fruit. He plucked himself up a crisp green apple.

  ‘Doesn’t look to me like you’re getting very far with this case, Inspector,’ he said, before taking a bite out of the apple with a crunch.

  Richard decided that enough was enough.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Jenkins,’ he said, entirely politely, ‘what would you say to me if I told you that Aslan’s real name was David Kennedy?’

  Ben wasn’t too fussed as he finished his mouthful.

  ‘I’d say I’m not that surprised. Aslan was never going to be his birth name, was it?’

  ‘But did you know that Aslan was, in reality, David?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of a David Kennedy?’

  Ben seemed to think for a moment, but Richard thought he saw the tiniest flicker of indecision.

  ‘No. Name doesn’t mean anything to me.’

  ‘Then tell me, what do you know about Ponzi schemes in general, Mr Jenkins, and art-lease Ponzi schemes in particular?’

  Ben thought for a moment—but, once again, Richard decided that unless he was very much mistaken, Ben Jenkins was hiding something.

  ‘No idea,’ Ben eventually said. ‘But Ponzi schemes are like those pyramid cons, aren’t they?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Richard remembered what Camille had said after she’d taken his statement.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Jenkins, have you ever had a brush with the law in the past?’

  ‘No,’ Ben said, still chewing on his mouthful of apple.

  As Richard held Ben’s gaze, he had a sudden revelation. If he was looking for someone at the heart of the case who was manipulating them all—the real killer—then what was more surprising? That four out of the five people in the murder room with Aslan all shared the same motive to want Aslan dead, or that the fifth person—Ben Jenkins—didn’t?

  And then there it was: the briefest flicker of fear in Ben’s eyes, and Richard knew in that moment that Ben was lying to him.

  Ben looked away, embarrassed, and Richard’s heart gave a little leap.

  ‘Alright, then,’ Ben said, trying to cover the moment in bluster. ‘As you were.’

  Ben wandered out trying to look nonchalant, but Richard knew the truth now.

  Ben wasn’t an innocent. He was connected to Aslan’s murder somehow.

  Richard just had to work out how.

  Chapter Seven

  The following morning, Richard was brushing his teeth in the tiny en suite shower room of his shack and still musing on Ben’s possible involvement in the murder. He knew the moment Ben had looked away was an admission of guilt—of some sort—and there was still the matter of the man who Saskia heard arguing in Aslan’s office the day before he was killed. What if that had been Ben? But if Ben was the killer, why on earth did he want Aslan dead?

  Richard caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye, and he jumped in fear like a suddenly yanked marionette, biting down on his tongue in the process.

  It was Harry the Lizard scampering down the tree that grew through Richard’s front room.

  As Richard’s heart tried to calm itself and his eyes watered at the screaming pain in his tongue, he struggled to work out what he found more irritating, being hounded by a lizard who wouldn’t leave him alone, or having a tree grow through his front room.

  At a deeper, more honest level, Richard of course knew that it was perhaps him with his china washbasin, toothbrush and smart pyjamas that was encroaching on the tree’s personal space far more than the tree was encroaching on his, but it didn’t change the fundamentals of the situation. There was a tree that grew through his floorboards and disappeared into the roof—and frankly, as far as Richard was concerned, it was an affront to all known standards of decency. Let alone building regs.

  What Richard couldn’t understand was why someone would build a house around a pre-existing tree rather than just chop the bloody thing down and throw it away first. Or, better still, kill two birds with one stone and cut the tree down and use the planks from it to then build the house.

  But then, at least the tree was always there—where he expected it to be. It didn’t jump into his eyeline at inopportune moments with its arms and suckers flapping and then, just as suddenly, run off again.

  As Richard rinsed his mouth of menthol froth, Harry the Lizard watched on, his little chest rising and falling with each breath—and a certainty began to form in Richard’s mind. The shack wasn’t big enough for the both of them. So he was going to get rid of his lizard.

  And he was going to get rid of the creature permanently.

  Before he arrived at work, Richard slipped into the local hardware store hoping no one would see him. It wasn’t that he felt embarrassed trying to buy lizard poison, far from it—it was a home-owner’s inalienable right to dispose of vermin in whatever way they saw fit—but, as he flicked through the ancient boxes of various poisons, he also knew he didn’t much want to have to explain exactly what he was up to—as even a cursory glance at the relevant website made clear, Richard’s lizard was a protected species.

  ‘Good morning, Richard,’ a mellifluous voice purred nearby and Richard looked up with a start only to find himself staring into the face of Selwyn Patterson, the island’s Commissioner of Police.

  ‘Oh. Good morning, sir.’

  Selwyn saw that Richard was holding a tatty box emblazoned with ‘RAT ATTACK KILLS ALL RATS (GUARANTEED TO KILL 100% OF ALL RATS)’ across its front.

  ‘Not planning a murder, are you?’ Selwyn asked with a deep chuckle.

  ‘Of course not!’ Richard said, laughing so suddenly that he now knew he looked as though he was indeed planning to commit a murder.

  ‘So what are you up to?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ Richard said with increasing desperation. ‘Just browsing.’

  ‘Browsing in the poisons section of a hardware store?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Just browsing.’ Richard got out his hankie and wiped at the sweat at the back of his neck. ‘Hot isn’t it?’

  ‘Only, I saw you acting furtively over here, and I thought to myself, that man is up to no good.’

  ‘You did, sir? But I’m not being furtive.’

  ‘I think you are, Detective Inspector.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t s
ay that.’

  ‘Then why are you wearing a pair of sunglasses inside?’

  Richard took a moment before he answered.

  ‘Oh, these, sir?’ Richard lifted the dark shades he’d been wearing as if he’d only just noticed they were on his nose.

  ‘Yes. Those.’

  ‘Well, the thing is, when I put them on this morning I thought they were my Reactor shades, sir. You know, the sort that are shades outside in the sun and stop being shades when you go inside, but they’re not those shades, are they? Now I’m looking. They’re the shades that stay shades even when you’re inside.’

  Selwyn gently took the other box Richard was holding from him and read what it was called: ‘COCKROACH KILLER!!!’

  ‘I understand Aslan Kennedy’s been murdered,’ Selwyn said.

  ‘That’s right, sir.’ Richard was acutely aware that he was now having a conversation while he was holding a box of poison called Rat Attack and his Commissioner of Police was holding a box of poison called Cockroach Killer. This was not how Richard had expected the day to develop.

  ‘I always went to The Retreat once a year,’ Selwyn continued. ‘For a detox. I liked both Rianka and Aslan. Him in particular.’

  There was a moment while Selwyn looked at his Detective Inspector.

  ‘Well, don’t let me stop you from your browsing.’

  Richard smiled milkily. ‘Good day, sir.’

  ‘Good day, Inspector.’

  With a smile and a tip of his peaked cap, Selwyn ambled off with all the urgency of a well-fed bear who knew it was hours still until lunch.

  Richard gave his boss a few minutes’ head start, and then he too bustled out into the sunshine and started off for the office, not noticing—because he never noticed—just how beautiful the town of Honoré was.

  It sat nestled in between sweeping mountains and the sparkling sea, and was full of ramshackle houses, bars and shops—all colourfully painted, even if the paint on most of the buildings had peeled and faded from the constant, blistering sunshine. In fact, the only building in the whole place that wasn’t at all run-down was the Catholic church that sat towards the mountain-side of the town, its tall tower and red-tiled roof seemingly looking down on the rest of the town like a benevolent parent watching carefully over a wayward child.