A Meditation on Murder

by Robert Thorogood

  Having read the report, Richard looked at his team.

  ‘You know what? I’m fed up of playing into the killer’s hands. I think it’s time to push back.’

  ‘You want to release Julia?’ Camille asked.

  ‘We’d have to, anyway,’ Fidel said, and everyone turned and looked at him. ‘We’re coming up to the thirty-six hours we can hold her without charge. So either we charge her with murder, release her, or apply to the Commissioner for an extension to hold her without charge. And I don’t think he’d grant one. Not the way the evidence is stacking up.’

  ‘So how about we send the murderer a message?’ Richard said. Everyone looked at him. ‘Because if we release Julia, the person who actually killed Aslan will realise that we’re widening our nets again. And maybe that will put a bit of pressure onto them.’

  ‘Because when people feel pressure,’ Camille agreed, ‘they make mistakes.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Richard concluded—and he could see that his team agreed with him.

  Half an hour later, Richard was showing a bemused Julia out of the police station onto the verandah outside.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Julia couldn’t have looked more forlorn if she tried. ‘I know what I did.’

  ‘But that’s the thing, Julia, we now know you were drugged on a mind-altering drug at the time. I don’t think you do.’

  ‘I killed him, I know I did.’

  ‘You really must stop saying that,’ Richard said, unable to keep a spike of irritation out of his voice.

  ‘But I must have done.’

  ‘No, Julia, you only think you did. The facts suggest you’re just mistaken.’

  Julia looked at Richard with hope in her blue eyes.

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘You were drugged and confused. You got up and you saw the blood. By the time you knew what was going on, you’d picked up the knife. That’s why you started screaming. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing. You’re not the killer.’

  A fat tear rolled down Julia’s cheek.

  ‘Please, don’t cry.’

  ‘No, I’m not crying. I’m happy. Is it really true?’

  ‘It would appear to be so.’

  ‘Then you’ve saved my life! Thank you!’

  Julia flung her arms around Richard and buried her head into his neck, squeezing tight.

  Richard did his very best impression of a plinth.

  When Julia didn’t let go, Richard raised his arms and sort of touched her slender waist with the cloth of his jacket that encompassed his forearms. And then he realised how it would look, a Detective Inspector hugging a beautiful young woman in a lime-green pro-drugs T-shirt who’d recently been suspected of murder, so he took half a step back.

  ‘There there,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You can go now.’

  Julia looked at her saviour, and smiled.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Seriously. Just doing my job.’

  With a last little smile, Julia turned and left down the stairs that led to the yard. Richard watched her every step until she was lost in the street market outside the station.

  ‘Ahhhhhh,’ Richard heard from behind him and he froze.

  And then he heard a few sniggers. He turned.

  Camille, Dwayne and Fidel were all watching through the open window behind him and had clearly witnessed the whole encounter.

  ‘My relationship with the witness just then was entirely professional.’

  ‘Sure, Chief,’ Dwayne said.

  By way of answer, Richard strode imperiously back into the station. And, ignoring his team’s smirks, he updated the whiteboard. Because with Julia out of the frame, that left only four other people who’d been locked in the Meditation Space with Aslan when he was murdered.

  One of Ann, Paul, Saskia or Ben was their killer, but which one of them was it?

  The Murder

  Five guests go for a swim

  Paul hands out robes

  Aslan prepares the tea

  5 guests + Aslan go into Meditation

  Space

  Aslan locks it down from inside

  Drink tea—all cups turned over

  10–15 minute window for murder, (8.00-8.10/8.15).

  Right-handed killer!

  Investigation / Leads

  WHY KILLED IN PAPER HOUSE? 3 x drawing pins in the Meditation Space. Used to pin the murder weapon to a pillar. No prints on any of them Tea drugged with GHB, a sedative Who was in Aslan’s office the night before @6pm shouting ‘You’re not going to get away with it’?

  Outside the Meditation Space

  Rianka Kennedy

  Wife

  Has no idea who’d want Aslan dead

  Married to Aslan when he was

  David—but left him when he was convicted

  Took Aslan back 15 yrs ago when he came to the island

  Dominic De Vere

  Ex-hypnotherapist. Now handyman

  Sacked by Aslan

  Argued with Aslan

  Caught returning to Scene of Crime

  Inside the Meditation Space

  Aslan Kennedy

  Victim

  Everyone says he’s nice

  Real name is David Kennedy

  Ex-conman—ran art-lease Ponzi scheme, stole £2m

  Went to prison 20 years ago, served

  5 yrs

  Julia Higgins

  Worked at The Retreat last 6 months Confessed to murder—but GHB in blood—and lack of real motive—and LEFT-HANDED … she’s innocent

  Ann Sellars

  Housewife

  Married to Paul

  Arrived on island 7 days before murder

  Lost £20k in Ponzi scheme

  Her fingerprints are on the murder weapon—but she washed the knife the night before

  Paul Sellars

  Arrived on island 7 days before murder

  Handed out the white robes Pharmacist

  Wife alibis him for argument, at 6pm

  Wife Ann lost money in Ponzi scheme

  Saskia Filbee

  Single, 45 yrs old

  Here on her own. Says she arrived night before

  Heard argument in office night before—at about 6pm—a man, but couldn’t identify him

  Lost £50k in Ponzi scheme

  Ben Jenkins

  Property developer. Portugal. Brush with authorities before?

  Arrived on island 4 days before murder

  No alibi for time of argument at 6pm

  No connection with Aslan / David / Ponzi scheme … so far

  For the next couple of days, Richard was unbearably grumpy. He tried to move the case on, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Fidel was unable to find any incriminating emails on Aslan’s computer, and definitely nothing that suggested that any of their suspects had been in touch with him in the preceding months. As for the telephone records for the four remaining suspects, when they came in they didn’t show any suspicious activity either. Both Saskia and Ann had said that they’d rung The Retreat six weeks before when they’d first got the literature telling them they’d won a free holiday, and both of these phone calls were listed on their records. As far as the police could work out, none of Ann, Paul, Ben or Saskia had phoned Aslan or The Retreat at any other time, before or since.

  And yet, Richard was sure, the killer must have been in touch with Aslan. Somehow. Nothing else could explain the sudden arrival of so many Ponzi victims in the Caribbean all at the same time. And the fact that they’d all been lined up in the Meditation Space at the precise moment that Aslan was killed.

  As for Richard’s hunch that Ben was more involved than he was letting on, that didn’t seem to go anywhere, either. Dwayne had been digging into Ben’s life in Portugal and discovered that he’d moved there in 1999. He worked those first few years as a plumber, and then, in 2002, he bought his first property, a holiday rental in a village called Guia. By 2004 he owned four other such holiday villas, and by 2007 he’d got fourteen and had
packed in the plumbing business entirely.

  ‘At current count,’ Dwayne said as he summed up the situation for his boss, ‘he owns thirty different properties across southern Portugal, he lives on his own in a residence on the first hole of the championship golf course at Vilamoura. And I’m telling you, Chief, in all that time he’s had no brushes with the law, the tax authorities, or anyone else I can find. In short, his credit history’s clean, his company checks out, he’s lived at the same address for the last eight years, there are no gaps in his employment history. He’s cleaner than clean.’

  This had just irritated Richard. He was convinced he’d seen a flash of fear in Ben’s eyes, so maybe they’d been looking in the wrong place? Richard instructed Dwayne to go back to the 1990s and even earlier if he could—to when Ben was living in the UK—and see what he could dig up.

  And it wasn’t just the murder case that was infuriating Richard. Because he’d finally plucked up the courage to buy some rat poison and smuggle it back to his shack, but the question was, could he now really act as judge, jury and executioner on Harry the Lizard? After all, as a policeman, Richard’s job had only ever been to identify behaviour worthy of punishment. He’d never had to hand out a sentence before. Let alone a sentence of death.

  And the more Richard dithered about delivering the coup de grâce, the more he felt the very tangible presence of the box of poison in his house. He’d be surfing UK news sites on his laptop—or doing the crossword in his chair—and he’d suddenly remember the box of death that he’d hidden behind the J-cloths under the sink in his kitchenette.

  It must have been how killers felt before they’d disposed of the body, Richard found himself thinking. The only difference between him and a proper killer being that he was managing to wind himself up into paroxysms of guilt before he’d even committed a crime. Not that it was a crime, he had to keep reminding himself. Only he paid the rates on the shack—he wasn’t obliged to share it with anyone.

  On the third day, Harry scampered into the shower with Richard and he was finally stung into action. Grabbing up a towel, the soap still in his hair, Richard thudded across to his kitchenette—too irritated to remove the sand that was by now sticking to his wet feet—and he grabbed up the packet of poison.

  This was it. The lizard was going to die. And Richard had the means of despatch in his hand. He was Ozymandias. He was the Bringer of Death. But then he noticed a caption on the side of the packet: ‘MOST VERMIN DIE OUTDOORS’, and it briefly troubled him.

  No one should have to die on their own. Not outdoors.

  Not even a lizard.

  Richard found his resolve evaporating as quickly as it had arrived. He put the box back under his sink and washed his hands but, as he did so, he started to berate himself. He was such a wimp. He didn’t want the lizard in his shack, but if he couldn’t get rid of it, how could he even begin to achieve anything else in his life?

  ‘You alright, Chief?’ Dwayne asked later on that morning when Richard was at work.

  ‘Sorry?’ Richard looked up from his desk, distracted.

  ‘You seem quiet. You alright, there?’

  Richard realised he hadn’t been paying attention, and he looked at the concern on Dwayne, Camille and Fidel’s faces.

  ‘Of course I’m alright,’ he said, irritably. ‘Why are you all looking at me like that?’

  ‘Because I said the Metropolitan Police’s case files on Aslan’s original conviction have just arrived and you didn’t seem to hear me.’

  Richard jumped to his feet, delighted finally to be able to learn more about Aslan Kennedy’s original multimillion pound con from the past.

  Unwrapping the package, Richard and his team discovered a thick green hanging file stuffed full of paperwork that had yellowed around the edges from old age. Here was Aslan’s photo—or David, as he was back then—his original statement, the notes of the arresting officers, the case against him—and witness statements by the dozen. Richard pulled out three pages of typed notes at the end of the document.

  ‘Now this is exactly what we’ve been looking for.’

  ‘What is it?’ Camille asked.

  ‘A list of all of the people who invested in the Ponzi scheme—and how much money they invested. Fidel, would you check the witnesses’ names off on this list? In particular, just double check that Ben Jenkins’s name isn’t there. Or a Jenkins of any sort.’

  Fidel quickly scanned the list. ‘I don’t see a Jenkins here,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘But that’s hardly a surprise, is it, sir? After all, Aslan put asterisks next to the name of everyone who was here as part of the “You Have Won a Prize” competition. And there wasn’t an asterisk next to Ben Jenkins’s name.’

  ‘I know,’ Richard said, ‘but what if it was a relative of his who invested? Because if everyone else in the Meditation Space lost money in the Ponzi scheme, then what’s Ben’s connection?’

  ‘Okay, sir. But you should know, the list’s organised by surname and there aren’t any surnames here that begin with the letter “J” at all. There’s a Daniel Higgins—I’d imagine that was Julia’s dad. It says here he invested £47,000 in April 1994; and £85,000 in September; and £100,000 in February 1995. That’s a lot of cash.’

  ‘Nearly a quarter of a million pounds. No wonder he was desperate,’ Camille agreed. ‘Poor man. Are the other witnesses there?’

  Fidel soon discovered that Ann Sellars lost £20,000 in January 1995—just as she’d told them—and that Paul Sellars wasn’t listed at all. Again, just as he’d said. But it was when Fidel looked up Saskia’s name that he got a shock.

  ‘Sir … you should see this,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’

  Fidel looked at the rest of the team. ‘Saskia told us she lost fifty thousand pounds to Aslan, didn’t she?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Richard said. ‘Giving her a pretty big motive to want Aslan dead if you ask me.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Fidel said. ‘But it was a bit more than fifty thousand pounds she lost.’

  ‘It was?’ Camille asked.

  ‘According to the case file here, she lost ten times that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Saskia Filbee lost five hundred thousand pounds to Aslan—but told us it was significantly less.’

  Richard looked at Fidel, a jolt of excitement running through him.

  Why on earth had Saskia lied to them?

  Chapter Eight

  While Richard and Camille waited in the grand hallway of the hotel for Saskia to come down from her upstairs bedroom, Richard found himself checking over the cork noticeboard that was by the main entrance.

  It was covered in handwritten notes, schedules and adverts for courses, seminars and various therapies guests could sign up for—including Pilates, Yoga, Massage, Water Aerobics, and Aromatherapy. It all reminded Richard a little too much of the college noticeboards he used to look at when he was at University. Back then, he’d stand in front of the mess of papers pinned to the board and marvel at the busy lives everyone else seemed to be enjoying. He’d wanted to join in with this social whirl of clubs and hobbies, but he didn’t know how to—the notices always seemed to be written in a private language he didn’t understand. To this day he still didn’t know what Korfball was.

  ‘You wanted to see me?’

  Saskia clipped down the main staircase and Richard once again found himself noticing how sensibly dressed she was. Today, she was in a pair of white cotton trousers, a tan-coloured top and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Fresh-faced, clean and simple—that’s how Richard found himself categorising Saskia as she approached.

  ‘Yes,’ Richard said. ‘We just wanted to follow up on our interview with you the other day.’

  ‘Of course,’ Saskia said, and indicated a clutch of wicker chairs that stood by the main door. ‘Shall we sit down?’

  As they went to the chairs, Richard remembered that Saskia was a career secretary. She was proba
bly used to coping in lots of different social situations. So what was the best approach? Softly-softly?

  Camille smiled kindly for Saskia’s benefit and said, ‘Can you tell us how you ended up investing in Aslan’s art-lease scheme?’

  ‘Of course,’ Saskia said.

  ‘No,’ Richard said. ‘Just tell us why you lied to us.’

  Saskia looked surprised.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Because you lost half a million pounds to Aslan—or David Kennedy back then—but you lied to us that it was only fifty thousand.’ Richard leant forward a little so his next point would carry suitable emphasis. ‘So either you start telling us the truth, Saskia, or we can carry on this conversation down at the police station.’

  All of the colour had drained from Saskia’s face, but Richard refused to break eye contact. He knew it was mean, giving anyone other than a career criminal both barrels, but this was a murder inquiry, it was no time for needless niceties.

  ‘I …’ Saskia said, frantically trying to find the thread of her thoughts. ‘Well … Look, I didn’t mean to lie to you. And it’s not really lying anyway.’

  ‘It isn’t?’ Camille asked kindly.

  ‘Well, it is a lie. It’s just it’s one I tell myself—and I’ve been saying it to myself so long …’

  Camille touched Saskia’s knee and smiled sympathetically as though she understood everything Saskia was about to say already. For his part, Richard tutted—Saskia was still a suspect in a murder inquiry, no one should be touching her knee—but, luckily for Richard, he made sure he only tutted silently in his head so he didn’t get any looks from his partner. He’d learnt that lesson long ago.

  ‘Why don’t you tell us everything?’ Camille offered.

  Saskia looked at Camille and knew that that’s what she’d have to do.

  ‘Well, the thing is, I’m from London,’ Saskia said. ‘North London. A place called Barnsbury Park. And I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. My mum was a housewife, but Dad worked on the railways and was a union man. You know? It’s why we lived in Barnsbury, it was near Dad’s train depot on the Caledonian Road. It was a brilliant childhood. I had my school and my friends, and these great big hulking men covered in dirt would come and visit in their filthy fluorescent jackets and sit in the garden smoking their roll-ups and talking politics with Dad.’