Robert Thorogood - The Killing Of Polly Carter

‘Why?’ Richard asked, puzzled.

‘Because it’s nothing like the rest of the house. It’s tidy and clean.’

‘It is?’

‘You should take a look at it. You’ll like it,’ she said, with a twinkle.

‘Unfortunately, we’ve got a more pressing job on our hands,’ Richard said, and he explained how Juliette and Alain had just returned.

When Richard and Camille stepped out of the house into the blinding Caribbean sunlight, they could see that Juliette and Alain hadn’t gone into their cottage yet and were instead looking at the police jeep that was parked in the driveway.

‘I’ll take this,’ Richard announced, before striding off.

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ Camille said, knowing that her boss wasn’t exactly the most sensitive when it came to breaking bad news.

But it was too late. Richard had called out ‘One moment, if you please!’ in his most hail-fellow-well-met voice and was already approaching the witnesses.

Camille caught up with Richard after he’d already made the introductions.

‘But what are the police doing here?’ Juliette asked bluntly, her hand on her hip.

Richard could see that Juliette was the sort of woman who was used to getting her own way. As for Alain, Richard was unsurprised to see only meek obedience in the man’s eyes.

‘Just before I answer that,’ Richard said, ‘can I ask where you both were this morning at about 10am?’

‘Why on earth do you need to know?’ Juliette said.

‘If you could just answer the question,’ Richard said in his ‘police’ voice, and Camille’s heart sank because, while it was always useful to get someone’s alibi before they knew why they needed one, it was hardly the kindest way of breaking the news that a friend had just died.

‘Well,’ Alain said, stepping into the conversation bravely. ‘At ten this morning, I was at church.’

‘And you, Mrs Moreau?’ Richard asked. ‘Were you also at church?’

‘Dressed like this?’ Juliette said dismissively, indicating her exercise clothes. ‘No, I was in the middle of my run then. I’m training for a triathlon,’ she said proudly. ‘I then met up with Alain after the church service finished at about 10.30 and we went for a coffee together at a place called Catherine’s bar. I’m sure you know it.’

Richard did indeed know it. It was run by Camille’s mother—and his sometime nemesis—Catherine Bordey.

‘But why do you want to know where we were?’ Alain asked, his forehead furrowed with concern.

‘Forgive us for not saying sooner,’ Camille said. ‘But I’m sorry to say that Polly Carter died at about ten o’clock this morning.’

Neither Juliette nor Alain spoke for a moment.

‘What?’ Juliette eventually asked.

‘I’m sorry. She fell from the cliff at the end of the garden. Her death would have been instantaneous.’

Alain’s legs briefly went, and he put his hand out to steady himself against the car.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, still unable to process what he’d just been told. ‘She’s …?’

Richard and Camille steered Alain and Juliette into their cottage so they could recover from the shock in private. It also allowed Richard to check out the Moreaus’ home.

He was pleased to see that Juliette and Alain clearly lived neat and ordered lives. The furniture in the room was simple, the floor was tiled and the walls were white-painted. Little shelves with books on them were arranged by height, a piano sat in the corner with hymn books on—and there were a clutch of colourful pictures of saints on the walls. There were also white cotton curtains that covered French windows looking out over a little yard that contained a washing line, pot plants in a row, and a couple of chairs for sitting out in the sunshine.

It was a modest home, but it was comfortable, Richard decided. Perhaps like its owners.

‘I don’t understand,’ Alain said, still uncomprehending. Polly’s death had hit him hard. ‘You’re saying she jumped ?’

‘It’s what it looks like,’ Richard said, not wanting to explain that he still wasn’t one hundred per cent convinced that Polly’s death had been suicide. After all, her body had been found too far from the cliff for a normal suicide. And there were plenty of aspects to the witnesses’ statements that suggested there was more to Polly’s death than first met the eye—not least the fact that the only witness to her death only heard the sound of her commit suicide, rather than saw it.

‘Does that surprise you?’ Camille asked.

‘Yes. She had everything to live for. Why would she want to kill herself?’

‘Well,’ Richard said, ‘I understand Polly could suffer from mood swings.’

‘You’re damned right about her mood swings,’ Juliette said. ‘She’d be happy one minute and snappy as hell the next. Isn’t that right, Alain?’

Juliette looked at her husband for confirmation, but Richard could see that Alain was a lot less comfortable speaking ill of the dead than his wife.

‘She could also be capable of great kindness,’ he said, wanting to defend his former boss. ‘Like the way she always brought gifts back for us whenever she went abroad. Or still paid you your salary even when you broke your foot the year before last. That was kind of her.’

‘It was the least she could do,’ Juliette said, more for her husband’s benefit than for the police. ‘And all those drugs she took didn’t help with her moods, I can tell you that much.’

‘So you knew about her drugs?’

‘It was impossible not to.’

‘But she’d stopped,’ Alain said, still trying hard to remain loyal. ‘All that was in the past.’

‘And how would you know?’ Camille asked politely.

Alain frowned. ‘Because she never hid her drugs from us. You’d be cleaning the pool, or tidying away after breakfast and she’d just get out her … you know, all that terrible paraphernalia in front of you. The foil, the filthy spoon, the whole thing, it was disgusting.’

‘She’d inject herself in front of you?’

‘She never injected. As far as I know. She used to smoke her heroin. She called it “chasing the dragon”. But that’s the thing. I’d not seen her do any drugs since she got back from rehab a few months ago.’

‘Yes, we understand she was in rehab in the States. Was that right?’

‘That’s right,’ Alain agreed. ‘And when she got back, I’m pretty sure she’d kicked the habit.’

Juliette snorted, and Richard looked at her.

‘A leopard doesn’t change its spots,’ she said. ‘And if we didn’t see Polly taking her heroin, that just means she’d found somewhere secret to do it, if you ask me.’

Richard looked at Juliette and couldn’t work out if he was grateful for her lack of sympathy for the deceased, or if he should consider it deeply suspicious.

‘Then can you help with something else?’ Richard asked. ‘Only, it’s possible that there was someone already on the cliff steps before Polly died. Someone who was wearing a yellow raincoat.’

‘There was?’ Juliette asked, sharply.

‘Apparently so,’ Richard said, trying to keep the interest out of his voice. It was clear that what he’d said had chimed with Juliette.

‘What sort of yellow coat?’ Juliette asked.

‘A bright yellow raincoat.’

‘With a hood?’

‘Do you know someone who owns a coat like that?’

‘I don’t. But a few days ago, I saw someone down at the bottom of the garden—you know, over by the cliff’s edge—wearing a shiny yellow raincoat with a hood, and I couldn’t work out who it was. I just presumed it was someone from the house.’

‘Did you see if this person was a man or a woman?’ Richard asked.