Robert Thorogood - Death Knocks Twice

‘Great Great Grandfather, the Honourable Thomas Beaumont, the youngest son of Baron Halstead. His older brother inherited the family estate and title, but Thomas, as the younger son, had no role in life, so he did what a lot of younger sons did at the time and decamped to the colonies to seek his fortune. He came to Saint-Marie in 1777, and built the coffee plantation up from scratch.’

‘Wow,’ Camille said – and Richard again picked up the sarcasm in her voice.

‘I know,’ Hugh said, having once again taken Camille’s comment at face value. ‘If you’re interested in the history of this place you should talk to Matthew, he’s our resident genealogy buff. Anyway, I’m sure you don’t have time for all this, let me take you through.’

As he spoke, Hugh escorted Richard and Camille from the gloom of the main hall into a long, sunny corridor, and from there into a large, airy sitting room that was stuffed full of old furniture, family photos in silver frames, and rather startling abstract paintings on the walls in various clashing colours.

Furnishing aside, the immediate impression that Richard got as he entered the room was that the family members had been in the middle of a conversation, and they’d cut it short the moment the Police had walked in. Perhaps it was understandable, Richard thought to himself. After all, a dead body had just been found in one of their outhouses.

Before he addressed the family, Richard noticed that Sylvie was standing with her back to a rather grand marble fireplace – as though she’d been the focus of whatever conversation had been going on – and Matthew and Lucy were sitting next to each other on a sofa. As for Tom, he was sitting in a window seat on his own.

‘Thank you all for waiting for us,’ Richard said as he and Camille crossed the room to join the family, and Sylvie went to join Hugh as he sat down on an old chesterfield sofa.

‘Now, I just have a few questions, it shouldn’t take too long.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Hugh said on behalf of his family. ‘We’ll do whatever we can to help.’

‘Thank you. But just to be sure, are you really sure none of you recognised the body of the man we found in your shower room just now?’

‘It’s all we’ve been talking about,’ Sylvie said. ‘And I’m rather relieved to say, we can’t even begin to place him.’

‘Are you positive?’

‘We are,’ Sylvie said in a tone that made it clear that she now considered the subject closed.

‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘Then I need to ask where you all were at eleven o’clock this morning.’

‘You do?’ Hugh asked.

‘That’s right. Where were you all when the man died?’

‘Why does it matter?’

‘If you could just answer the question.’

‘Okay,’ Hugh said. ‘I was upstairs in my bedroom. With my laptop. Doing emails and checking up on the world.’

‘Was anyone with you?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Do you have an alibi?’

This hit home.

‘I don’t know,’ Hugh said. ‘Maybe not. I was on my own. Until Lucy came in and told me someone had just shot themselves in the old drying shed.’

‘That’s what you call your shower room?’ Richard asked. ‘The old drying shed?’

‘Not any more,’ Sylvie said, reminding her husband where the power lay in their relationship. ‘I converted it into a shower room a few years ago. Mainly because I was so fed up with the family coming back from the fields covered in filth and mud.’

‘Sylvie’s right,’ Hugh said. ‘But since you’re asking, I don’t think I can prove where I was when that man shot himself. Not categorically.’

‘Thank you,’ Richard said. ‘Then what about the rest of you?’

‘Well, that’s easy enough,’ Sylvie said. ‘I was in the kitchen preparing lunch.’

‘And can anyone alibi you?’

‘Normally Nanny Rosie would be with me, but she’s off visiting family on Montserrat for a couple of days.’

‘Who’s Nanny Rosie?’ Camille asked.

‘She was the children’s nanny when they were growing up, but she’s stayed on as our housekeeper since then. Anyway, she’s not here, so I was on my own in the kitchen.’

‘As for me,’ Matthew said, ‘I was upstairs in my room at eleven o’clock.’

‘Was anyone with you?’

‘No. I’m sorry. And like father, I didn’t come downstairs until Lucy arrived saying she’d just found a dead body in the shower room.’

‘Very well,’ Richard said, and turned to Tom.

‘What?’ he said, as though he’d only at that moment realised the Police were asking him a question.

‘Where were you when the gunshots were fired?’

‘I was in the coffee fields.’

‘On your own?’

‘Sure. I check them every morning regular as clockwork. Me and our crops, eleven o’clock every day. Or thereabouts.’

‘Then can you tell me why you didn’t return to the main house?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I assume you heard the gunshots? Seeing as you were in the coffee fields?’

‘I didn’t hear nothing.’

Richard tried not to shudder. What was it with youngsters and their slapdash approach to language? He’d already had to endure Tom using the word ‘sick’ in a way that made no actual sense, but this was going too far. After all, while it was theoretically possible for someone to hear nothing – or to not hear something, of course – it seemed logically impossible for someone to “not hear nothing”.

‘You didn’t hear anything?’ Camille said, guessing why her boss now looked as though he’d just sucked on a lemon, and wanting to make sure that the conversation kept moving.

‘No way,’ Tom said. ‘The first I knew anything was up was when Lucy rang me on my mobile. And she told me what had happened. That’s when I came back from the fields.’

‘I see. Thank you.’

‘But I don’t understand why you’re wasting our time,’ Sylvie said. ‘That man shot himself, didn’t he? So what does it matter where we all were?’

‘But that’s the thing,’ Richard said. ‘He didn’t shoot himself. He was murdered.’

There was a gasp from Lucy, and Richard could see that the rest of the family were just as shocked.

Sylvie recovered first.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said.

‘Which leads me to my next question,’ Richard said, deciding that it was time to steamroller Sylvie. ‘Because, according to Lucy, the murder victim has been hanging around the plantation for the last couple of weeks. And we’ve found some kind of hideout in the jungle that seems to back up her statement. So I need to know, have any of you been aware of a stalker spying on the plantation recently?’

Hugh answered on behalf of the family, but Richard could see how rattled he was.

‘I’m sorry, we haven’t. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s like I said to you in the shower room. Lucy mentioned to us that she’d seen someone lurking about, but none of the rest of us have seen anyone.’

‘So, to be clear,’ Richard said to the family, ‘not only can none of you identify the murder victim, you’re also saying that it was only Lucy who’d even seen him about over the last few weeks?’

Richard looked at the family, and could see that they all agreed with his statement. Very well. Time to move on.

‘Then can I ask, do any of you own a handgun?’

There was a sharp intake of breath from Sylvie.

‘ What ?’

‘It’s a simple enough question,’ Richard said. ‘Do any of you own a handgun?’

‘No, of course we don’t,’ she snapped. ‘Why would any of us own a gun?’

It seemed a fair enough answer, but before Richard could ask any follow-up questions, the door opened and Fidel entered the room.