It was a town where people went about their business when they had to, but for the rest of the time were happy to hang out and chat or share a drink. ‘Liming’, the locals called it. And one of the locals’ favourite topics of conversation when they met up was their eccentric and, they believed, quite mad Detective Inspector, Richard Poole.
But ever since Richard had exposed a local policewoman as a double killer, the people of Honoré had taken Richard to their hearts and had been looking out for him. Helping him cross roads when he kept looking for traffic driving on the left; or explaining which local foods on a menu contained unadvertised seafood or spices; or tolerating his tirades when shop owners decided to shut up a few minutes before advertised closing times.
They were entirely forgiving. They even liked him.
And Richard had no idea.
Mind you, as his team might have reflected later that morning, he didn’t make it easy.
‘Come on, you’re supposed to be the island’s brightest and best, what are we missing?’ Richard hectored from the whiteboard.
‘Hey, Chief,’ Dwayne corrected. ‘I never said I was the brightest, and I certainly never said I was the best.’
‘Look,’ Richard said. ‘A man goes into a room constructed of paper and wood that’s otherwise marooned in the middle of a huge lawn—only a few shrubs nearby. Five other people go in with him. There’s no one else inside before they arrive, no one else arrives or leaves while they’re there. And it’s the victim himself who locks the room down from the inside.
‘They then all sit down on prayer mats and drink tea for a few minutes. And then, having drunk the tea, they lie down—apart from Aslan, if Julia’s testimony is to be believed, as he apparently chose to do his “healing” sitting up, cross-legged. But the key point is, the others were all lying down—their eyes hidden behind eye masks, their ears muffled by sounds of the ocean’s deep—for ten or fifteen minutes, which is the brief window of time in which we know Aslan was brutally slain. All facts that prove just how improbable the murder is.’
‘You keep saying that, Chief, but why? It happened,’ Dwayne pointed out.
‘I know, Dwayne, but think about it. If you were going to kill me, how would you go about doing it?’
‘What?’
‘Come on, Dwayne. I know it’s somewhat macabre, but just humour me. If you were going to kill me, how would you go about doing it?’
‘Well, first I’d check out what was playing at the cinema tonight.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You’re asking how I’d kill you.’
‘That’s right. Not that you’ve ever thought about it before of course.’
Dwayne looked at his boss and answered very carefully. ‘Not that I’ve ever thought about it. But—and I’m just plucking this from thin air, you understand—if I had to do it, the first thing I’d do is sort out my alibi for the time of the murder. And that’s where the cinema comes in, because I’d make sure I watched a film today that I knew would also be on tomorrow night at 10pm, say. Then, having already seen the film, the next day I’d go to the cinema and buy a ticket for the 10pm screening and go in to watch it. But here’s the clever part: because if you grew up on the island, you’d know you can still get out of the cinema through the old projectionist’s booth, so I’d slip out of the building during the film and come down to your beach. Now, you’re generally asleep by nine, nine-thirty, aren’t you, Chief?’
Richard was looking increasingly wan. ‘Yes, Dwayne.’
‘And your locks aren’t worth spit—not to someone with my skills. So I reckon I could get into your house unseen and unheard and kill you in your bed before heading back to the cinema where I’d slip back inside, and wait for someone else to discover the body. Because the thing is, if anyone asked where I was at the time of the murder, I’d not only be able to say I was in the cinema, I’d be able to prove it with my detailed knowledge of the film I’d already seen the day before.’
Richard looked at his subordinate a long moment. ‘Not that you’ve ever thought about it.’
Dwayne realised he’d maybe revealed more than he’d meant to. ‘That’s right. Not that I’ve ever thought about it.’
‘But, sir,’ Fidel asked, ‘why do you want to know how Dwayne would kill you?’
‘Because, Fidel, Dwayne’s right—if a little too specific for comfort—because if you’re planning to commit a murder, the first thing you do is sort out an alibi. If you can. And yet with Aslan’s death,’ Richard said, going to the board, ‘we’ve clearly got a premeditated murder—the knife pinned to the pillar in the corner of the room proves this—but the killer doesn’t bother to sort themselves out with an alibi. In fact, they not only fail to make it look like they were elsewhere at the time of the murder, they actually make sure they’re locked inside the room with the victim and a load of other witnesses when it happens. It just doesn’t make sense. Why would you premeditate to commit murder in front of a load of potential witnesses?’
This hung in the air a moment.
‘And why was Aslan killed inside a paper house set in the middle of a lawn? Because, of all of the places to choose to kill someone, why there? What are we missing?’ Richard looked at his team’s blank faces and sighed. ‘Come on, we’ve got to be making better progress than this! Fidel, how are you getting on with the kitchen knives?’
The day before, Camille and Richard had put the knives and knife block they’d retrieved from The Retreat’s kitchen into evidence bags, and Fidel had been lifting prints from them ever since.
‘Well, sir, the murder weapon that was used to kill Aslan is the same brand and design as the rest of the knives here. It’s also the right size to fit the sixth slot.’
‘So you’re saying that the murder weapon came from that block of knives?’
‘Yes, sir. But I’ve also been able to lift a number of fingerprints from all of the knives that were still in the kitchen, and they’ve only been touched by one person.’
‘Let me guess,’ Richard said. ‘Ann Sellars.’
‘That’s right, sir. Which is consistent with her drying the knives with a tea towel and then putting them away.’
‘And how do the fingerprints on the handle suggest she was holding the knife handles?’ Richard asked.
‘It’s consistent with her stabbing the knife down into the slots of the wood block. But there’s more, sir, because I also rang Rianka and she confirmed that she’d seen Ann doing the washing up the night before her husband was murdered.’
‘So that’s a dead end,’ Richard said as he updated the whiteboard. ‘Ann can explain how her fingerprints were on the murder weapon after all.’
Camille came and stood by her boss.
‘What do you think?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but I’ll tell you what I keep coming back to. Why on earth did Aslan invite four Ponzi victims out to Saint-Marie at the same time?’
‘I know what you mean,’ Camille said. ‘It’s pretty risky.’
‘So either Aslan wilfully set up the circumstances of his own murder—which I find unlikely,’ Richard said, ‘or someone convinced him to change his policy and start inviting more than one Ponzi victim at a time. So the question is, who on the island knew about Aslan’s “You Have Won a Prize” scheme and the fact that he was really David Kennedy?’
‘Well, that’s easy, sir. It’s Rianka and no one else.’
‘And yet,’ Richard said, ‘I can’t imagine why she’d risk having a load of Ponzi victims all out at The Retreat at the same time. If word got out that Aslan was an ex-criminal, it could be the end of the business.’
‘Unless it was Rianka who killed Aslan,’ Dwayne offered.
‘Of course,’ Richard agreed as he looked at the board, ‘but I just don’t see how she benefits from her husband’s death. And, remember, she was outside the Meditation Space when it was locked down. Only one of Saskia, Julia, Paul, Ann or Ben can possibly be our killer. It’s
one of them who must have known that Aslan was really David Kennedy. And one of them who somehow nobbled him so he ended up inviting all of the Ponzi victims out to the Caribbean at the same time.’
‘Then it has to be Julia Higgins,’ Fidel said. ‘Of those five, she’s the only one who’s been here long enough to have found out Aslan’s real identity.’
‘I know,’ Richard said. ‘Paul Sellars had the same theory. That only Julia could have discovered who Aslan was in time to implement a plan to kill him. But somehow I think that’s too easy.’
‘Too easy?’ Camille asked.
‘Because can’t you feel it?’ Richard asked. ‘There’s someone behind the scenes here. Someone who’s so devious we can only infer their existence from the shadow that’s cast by their actions, but I’m telling you this much: I don’t think Julia’s our killer. She’s too young, too … what’s the word?’
‘Beautiful?’ Camille offered, an eyebrow raised.
‘No, Camille. Facile. She believes in hypnotherapy, she’s a hippy dippy loon. I don’t think she’s sharp enough to pull off a murder this meticulous. Just as Ann wears her heart on her sleeve—and then covers it in diamanté jewels. She’s so big and blowsy, I can’t imagine she’d carry out a murder like this any more than Julia would. What we’re looking for here is a spider. Someone who spins a web and then waits in the shadows for the victim to be caught. And if I were guessing, I’d say that could only be one of Ben, Paul, or Saskia … but which one is it?’
Fidel joined Richard at the board. ‘So you’re saying you don’t think that either Ann or Julia is our likely killer.’
‘I don’t think so. Neither of them has the right temperament for a murder this manipulative. And remember: Julia’s left-handed. In fact, why haven’t we had the autopsy report on Aslan’s body yet?’
It still irked Richard that he’d been posted to an island in the Caribbean so small that it didn’t have a single forensics lab on it. They had to do all of the forensics work themselves or send anything more complicated ‘off island’ for the labs on neighbouring Guadeloupe to get back to them. It was no way to run a case, but Richard knew there was nothing he could do about it. It was a bit like life itself. You just had to soldier on.
‘I rang them first thing this morning,’ Fidel said. ‘They’ve not booked it in yet.’
‘Very well,’ Richard said with a sigh. ‘Dwayne, if Julia’s innocent, then I think that Paul’s theory is correct, our killer must have worked out Aslan’s real identity long before they arrived on the island. There wouldn’t have been time to plan and carry out a murder like this otherwise. So I want you to get on to the various phone companies both here and in the UK. I think we’ll find that one of the people in the Meditation Space has been in touch with Aslan—or The Retreat—a number of times over the last few months. Someone’s been planning this a long time. Maybe we’ll find the answer in the suspects’ phone records.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Dwayne said.
‘And, Fidel, I want you to do the same with Aslan’s laptop. Maybe our killer’s been in touch with him via email.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Fidel said.
‘As for you, Camille, can you please get on to the labs on Guadeloupe. I want to know why they haven’t carried out Aslan’s autopsy yet.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Camille said.
After a couple of phone calls, Camille reported back that she’d been able to reschedule the autopsy for later that afternoon—and she also made sure the pathologist knew that he was to call them with a preliminary report the moment it was completed. But in chasing the lab on Guadeloupe, she’d managed to get hold of the toxicology tests that had been carried out on the suspects’ blood and urine samples, and on the residues of tea that they’d all been drinking that morning.
‘Really?’ Richard said, eagerly.
‘And you’re going to like it,’ Camille said, handing over the report fresh from the office printer.
Richard scanned through the document at speed, gathering the salient details.
‘You’re right about that, Camille,’ he said. ‘According to this, the tea they were drinking was drugged.’
‘It was, sir?’ Fidel asked.
‘They found traces of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid in it.’
‘But what’s that?’ Dwayne asked.
‘I’ll look it up,’ Camille said, returning to her computer.
Richard carried on reading and, turning the page, saw the results of the blood and urine tests the paramedics had carried out on the witnesses.
‘And better than that, not only was there gamma-hydroxybutyric acid found in the tea the witnesses drank, trace elements of it were also found in all of the witnesses’ blood. That’s Paul Sellars, Ann Sellars, Saskia Filbee, Ben Jenkins … and also Julia Higgins.’
Richard looked up from the report, puzzled.
‘But that’s good news, isn’t it?’ Dwayne asked.
Richard looked at the board, his brow furrowing. He’d always half hoped that the tea had been drugged, and so was delighted to discover that his hunch was right. After all, they’d all said they’d felt groggy when they’d heard Julia start screaming, and it helped explain why the killer had been confident enough to commit murder in front of so many potential witnesses: the others were under the influence of drugs at the time. But it didn’t make sense that Julia had also been drugged. Did it? Not if she was the killer. Richard wasn’t able to finish off his train of thought, as Camille called over from her desk.
‘Okay, I’ve got it here,’ she said, indicating her monitor. The team crowded around Camille’s desk to see. ‘Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid is better known as GHB.’
‘And what’s GHB?’ Fidel asked.
‘Of course!’ Richard said without having to refer to the screen. ‘It’s like Rohypnol. Or ketamine. It’s a date-rape drug popular on the club scene. It causes wooziness and compliance.’
‘You know all this?’ Dwayne asked, sceptically.
‘You walk the mean streets of Croydon long enough, you come across pretty much everything, Dwayne. But GHB is perfect for slipping into a pot of tea if you wanted people’s deep sleep to be deeper than normal. And better than that, if my memory is correct, GHB is odourless, colourless and tasteless. Really it’s the perfect drug to have put in the tea.’
Camille had been following everything Richard said on the fact sheet she was reading on her computer.
‘That’s about right, sir,’ she said. ‘It says here, GHB can produce drowsiness, disorientation, and reduced consciousness.’
‘And that’s what I don’t understand,’ Richard said.
‘What’s that, Chief?’
‘Because how come Julia also had GHB in her system?’
Richard’s team looked at him, nonplussed, so he harrumphed—irked that he’d have to explain it to them. ‘Because if she’s our killer, I don’t think she’d have wanted to drink a dose of a sedative just before taking a knife to Aslan Kennedy.’
‘Oh,’ Dwayne said. ‘I see.’
‘And there’s something else,’ Richard continued. ‘Because, look at all the effort our killer’s gone to. Getting hold of a sedative well in advance. Getting hold of a knife that already had Ann’s fingerprints on. Setting it in the Meditation Space before it was needed. Working out the angles in the murder room so that the perfect pillar was chosen to hide the knife behind; and then pinning the knife to the wooden pillar with drawing pins that the killer made damned sure didn’t have any of his or her fingerprints on. So, after all this incredible preparation, are we really saying that Julia then risked everything by taking a good glug of sedative before committing murder—wielding the knife five times apparently with her “wrong” hand, remember—and all before deciding to scream her head off in a way that guaranteed she wouldn’t get away with her crime?’
Richard was pleased to see that his team could see the logic of what he was saying.
‘But this I do buy,’ he said, wanting to ram his point home. ‘We ha
ve our real killer. It’s one of Ann, Paul, Saskia or Ben. And it was him or her who pinned the knife to the pillar beforehand. Him or her who drugged the tea in the pot. And it was him or her who made sure that while everyone else was taking a sip of drugged tea, they left their tea well alone. For the moment, at least. And this person isn’t our tie-dyed Julia. This person is organised, ruthless, and supremely clever. And then when everyone else is woozy as hell and lying down with their headphones and eye masks on, the real killer gets up, gets the knife from the hiding place, kills Aslan, returns to their prayer mat and only now do they drink down their cup of drugged tea. They then put on their headphones and eye mask again and wait for someone else to discover the body, a process that’s made altogether simpler for the killer because Julia not only discovers the body first, but in her hopped-up confusion, she thinks that she’s the killer.’
Everyone looked at Richard.
‘Hopped-up?’ Camille asked, amused.
‘Yes, Camille,’ Richard said, going back to his desk. ‘Hopped-up. You know, high on drugs.’
Despite his team’s obvious amusement at his expense, Richard was pleased he’d got his point across so effectively and, later that afternoon, when the report finally came in from Aslan’s autopsy, it seemed to confirm everything he’d said.
The victim was killed by five ‘sharp force injuries’—which is how the autopsy referred to the knife wounds in Aslan’s neck and back. The first two wounds went into the right side of the neck, the second strike of which severed the carotid artery. Then, the next three strikes travelled down the victim’s shoulder and into his back as the body toppled forward.
The report was unequivocal. To carry out all five injuries—and considering the angles of the wounds in Aslan’s neck and back—the killer was standing behind the victim and wielding the knife right-handed.
A Meditation on Murder Page 12
