Robert Thorogood - The Killing Of Polly Carter

‘Yes. That’s true as well,’ Richard said, unable to stop a hint of irritation from slipping into his voice. This was supposed to be his revelation, not Camille’s.

‘But that’s exactly what happened, isn’t it?’ Camille continued. ‘Polly grabbed hold of the branch and cut her arm on it just before she fell.’

‘Yes, very good,’ Richard said, finally interrupting Camille’s flow before she could steal all of his thunder. ‘Because, in any tussle to the death, our killer wouldn’t necessarily have noticed that Polly had cut herself just before she went over the edge. And he or she would then have hidden the piece of driftwood in the bush perhaps without realising that it was now covered in Polly’s blood.’

‘But if the killer didn’t notice the blood on the branch,’ Fidel said, ‘then that suggests that he or she was in a serious rush after the murder.’

‘But that’s not surprising,’ Camille said. ‘The killer must have guessed that someone would have heard the scream as Polly fell to her death. And would come to investigate.’

‘Precisely,’ Richard agreed. ‘Which is exactly what happened, isn’t it? Sophie came down these steps only a minute or so later. Which is why we have a problem. Or rather, four problems. Because, firstly, if there was someone already on the steps here—whether it was our man in yellow or someone else—then how on earth did he or she know that Polly would come down these steps at that precise moment? And secondly, what are the chances that Polly would announce that she was going to commit suicide at the precise moment that the killer was planning to commit murder? The whole thing is the most incredible coincidence, don’t you think? And thirdly, and even more impossibly, seeing as we know our killer was on these steps beforehand, how on earth did this man in yellow—or whoever-it-was—then manage to vanish from the cliffs before Sophie got here only a minute or so later?’

Richard looked at Fidel and Camille and knew that they agreed with him. It didn’t seem possible.

‘But, sir, that was only three things,’ Fidel said.

‘I know,’ Richard said, delighted that one of his team had fallen into his trap. ‘Because the last question I’d ask is: why on earth did we find Claire’s phone in a chandelier back at the house?’

There was a moment before either Fidel or Camille responded.

‘You’d ask that as your fourth question, would you, sir?’ Fidel asked tentatively.

‘Of course!’ Camille told him in well-worn exasperation. ‘We’ve got a killer committing murder here, but let’s make sure we work out how a phone got into a light fitting.’

‘Indeed,’ Richard said, entirely delighted. ‘I’m telling you, it doesn’t make sense, and I don’t like things that don’t make sense.’

There was a clattering of footsteps from above them and Dwayne appeared around the corner of the stone steps.

‘Oh okay, Chief,’ he said, once he’d regathered his breath. ‘I think this could be murder.’

‘You do?’ Richard said. ‘How gratifying. We’ve just come to the same conclusion. But what have you found?’

Dwayne wanted to show them, so Richard and Camille followed Dwayne back to the house and into a room that Dwayne explained was Polly’s study.

On entering the room, Richard could see that it was identical in shape and size to the sitting room they’d interviewed the witnesses in, with exactly the same floor-to-ceiling windows and curtains overlooking the garden and sea beyond. And with a similarly dusty chandelier in the centre of the ceiling. In fact, the only architectural difference between the two rooms as far as Richard could tell was the fact that one wall of this room had a floor-to-ceiling bookcase running down its side that was stuffed with old books, junk and Polly’s mementoes in pretty much any order.

But seeing as it was Polly’s study, there was also an old metal filing cabinet, a desk made from what looked like an old door balanced on trestle tables, a battered old laptop sitting on it among a slew of old bills and unopened post, and various odds and sods of furniture sitting any old way around the room.

‘Okay, so you should know,’ Dwayne told Richard and Camille, ‘I’ve had a good look through the rest of the study, and I can’t find any kind of suicide note anywhere.’

‘Have you looked on her laptop?’ Camille asked.

‘Just quickly,’ Dwayne said. ‘And there’s no emails in her sent folder, or recently written documents at all.’

‘So what makes you think it was murder?’ Richard asked.

Dwayne indicated the battered filing cabinet, and Richard could see that there was a metal clasp attached to the top drawer, with a combination padlock keeping it shut. Or rather, the lock would have been keeping the drawer locked, but somebody had jemmied the whole clasp from the drawer, and now it hung limply.

‘Someone’s broken into her filing cabinet!’ Richard said.

‘Yeah,’ Dwayne said before coughing a couple of times. ‘That was me.’

‘What?’ Richard said, incredulous.

‘Hey,’ Dwayne said defensively. ‘We’ve got a dead body. I wanted to see what was worth keeping behind lock and key.’

‘But that’s criminal damage!’

Camille wanted to get on, so interrupted. ‘What did you find?’

With a grateful smile to Camille, Dwayne opened the top drawer.

‘Well, for starters, this is where Polly once kept her stash of drugs.’

Richard and Camille were both hit by a pungent smell as they looked inside the drawer and saw a tiny set of brass scales, old spoons that had been blackened from heroin use, cigarette papers, smoke-discoloured bongs, a mirrored tile, and crumbs of hash, brown heroin and white powder dusted everywhere. In a flash of recognition, Richard realised that the mess and fetid stink of the drawer reminded him of his Great Uncle Harold’s pipe cupboard, with its various bits of paraphernalia—from pipe cleaners, to penknives, to old broken pipes and boxes of Swan Vestas matches—but then, it occurred to him, both pipe smoking and heroin abuse were essentially the same thing: drug addiction. It’s just that one of the addictions required considerably more wearing of slippers than the other.

Richard also saw a rusty mortice key sitting on top of a pile of old papers. He fished the key out and saw that it was about as long as his forefinger, had three worn teeth, and was obviously quite old.

‘Now this is interesting,’ Richard said. ‘Who keeps a key locked inside a locked drawer?’

‘Someone who wants to keep a key inside a locked drawer,’ Camille offered, a lot less impressed with the find than her boss.

Before Richard sidetracked them with the key, Dwayne pulled out the pile of papers that were at the bottom of the drawer.

‘But this is what makes me think somebody wanted Polly Carter dead, Chief.’

Dwayne took the papers to the desk and laid them out one by one.

They were each A4 in size and there were six of them. And on each of them was a message that had been made from cutting individual letters out of a newspaper headline and then gluing them to the sheet of A4.

The first patchwork message of cut-out newspaper letters read:

The three police officers looked at each other. Dwayne was right. Someone out there had wanted Polly Carter dead. And now she was.