A Death in Paradise Mystery

CHAPTER THREE

Of the many things that irritated Richard about the tropical island of Saint-Marie, perhaps the one that infuriated him the most was just how small it was. It’s not that he had an objection to its size per se. After all, as he often had occasion to tell his team, he’d holidayed many times on the Isle of Wight as a child, so he knew something about island living. But it was one thing to take a vacation on an island, and quite another to run a Police investigation on one.

For starters there were no forensic or pathology labs on Saint-Marie, so whenever Richard needed to process any kind of physical evidence, it had to be sent ‘off island’ to Guadeloupe. But the island’s size also meant he only had access to two Police vehicles. One of these was a battered old Mark II Land Rover that was painted mustard yellow and had the crest of the Saint-Marie Police Force on the bonnet and sides. For all Richard publicly grumbled about the vehicle, he couldn’t help but feel a grudging affinity with it. Like him it was British, hadn’t even been remotely designed for tropical climes, and yet here it was, chugging along and doing the best it could in very testing circumstances.

But if Richard tolerated the Police Land Rover, the same couldn’t be said for the other Police vehicle, a sputtering Harley Davidson motorbike that had an attached, almost-certainly illegal sidecar. Only Dwayne was qualified to drive the infernal machine, and Richard only travelled in it under sufferance. After all, as he’d tell anyone who asked, if the answer is ever ‘get on a motorbike driven by Dwayne’, you’ve very definitely been asking the wrong question.

However, the most irksome aspect of island living, as far as Richard was concerned, was that the distances were often so small that the quickest way to get somewhere was to walk. And while Richard loved the idea of walking in theory – particularly on a crisp winter’s day, the grass stiff on the ground with frost – it was quite a different matter yomping through the blistering heat of the tropics wearing a thick woollen suit.

Sweating heavily, Richard arrived at Mrs Gardiner’s house, and found Camille inspecting the earth beneath the smashed window. Having updated her that he and Fidel now believed Conrad had been murdered, Richard asked what Camille had so far been able to find.

‘Not much of anything, sir,’ she said. ‘There are no footprints out here. And no cigarette butts or anything else that suggests anyone was here. And the window’s not overlooked by any of the neighbours, so they didn’t see anything, either.’

‘Did they hear the moment the window was smashed?’

‘I’ve asked whoever I can find who was nearby at the time, and no-one saw or heard anything suspicious.’

‘I see,’ Richard said, disappointed. ‘Then what about the window frame?’

Camille explained that she’d just finished inspecting the outside frame, and it was so rough and weather-beaten it wasn’t possible to lift any fingerprints from it.

‘Then what about the break-in? Has Mrs Gardiner got any theories?’

‘None. Although I asked her to have a proper look at everything that was thrown on the floor, and she said she’s not sure, but she thinks nothing’s been stolen.’

‘In which case, the break-in was all about leaving the ruby.’

‘Which is kind of crazy, sir.’

‘I’d agree with you there. Because, why bother?’

‘It’s a message, isn’t it?’

‘That’s what I’m thinking. It’s got no intrinsic value, so it must be symbolic somehow. Or a warning of some kind.’

‘To Natasha?’

‘It’s a possibility. Because it wasn’t a message for Conrad, was it? I mean, with him dead, he’s not going to receive it, is he? Look, let’s talk to Natasha again. We need to tell her the explosion wasn’t an accident, and I want to press her a bit more about this ruby.’

Richard and Camille went into the house, but Natasha was nowhere to be found. However, the French windows were open, and they could see that she was standing on the beach down by the sea.

‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Richard said to himself as he stepped out of the house and onto the bright white sand. He hated walking on beaches in his brogues, and he still couldn’t quite believe that it was an occupational hazard he had to endure on an almost daily basis.

‘Mrs Gardiner?’ Camille asked as they approached, but Natasha didn’t turn round. She just kept staring out at the distant horizon.

Richard cleared his throat to get the woman’s attention.

‘If he’s in the water, he’ll come in here, won’t he?’ Natasha said, almost to herself. ‘I mean, this is the nearest beach.’

‘It is,’ Camille said, kindly. ‘But there have been developments. It looks like maybe your husband’s boat didn’t explode by accident.’

Natasha’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t say anything.

‘It looks like it was set off by an IED,’ Richard said. ‘An improvised explosive device.’

This finally registered with her.

‘I’m, sorry . . .?’

‘Now, I understand this is a terrible shock,’ Camille said before her boss could be any more insensitive, ‘but if someone was behind this terrible event, then every passing hour will make it harder for us to catch them.’

‘You’re saying it wasn’t an accident?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘But why would anyone want to do that to Conrad?’

‘That’s what we’d like to know.’

Natasha took a moment to compose herself, and then she said, ‘No, it’s not possible. It’s monstrous.’

She then headed back to her house. After a quick glance of surprise at each other, Richard and Camille followed her across the sand.

‘You don’t think anyone could have wanted to harm your husband?’ Camille asked.

‘No way.’

‘Even though it looks as though someone did?’

‘But who’d want to harm him?’ Natasha said, turning and looking at the Police officers with what Richard realised was a fair amount of desperation. ‘Everyone likes Conrad, that’s the whole point of him. He’s popular.’

‘Do you mind me asking, what exactly does he do?’

‘Well, it’s like I told you before. He does this and that.’

‘But what sort of "this and that"?’

‘He used to be a record producer. With his own recording studio and everything. He’s always been a champion of island music.’

‘He used to be a record producer?’ Richard asked

‘For many years. But you can’t keep making hit records. Your luck eventually runs out, and that’s how it went with Conrad. He hit a bad patch, and when the money ran out he had to let his studio go.’

‘That must have been hard,’ Camille offered.

‘Not to Conrad. Nothing is ever a problem to him. If we’re rich, and we’ve had plenty of money in the past, he’s happy. If we’re poor, he’s also happy. He’s just happy with everything and everyone.’ This comment really seemed to resonate with Natasha. ‘So it’s just impossible that anyone would do this to him. You must have made a mistake.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so.’

‘Then perhaps you could explain why a ruby was left on a table in your husband’s study?’

There was a flash of surprise in Natasha’s eyes that Richard could see her quell just as soon as it appeared.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Because I think you know what it means.’

‘I don’t.’

‘It’s better if you tell us what you know now,’ Camille said, playing the role of the ‘Good Cop’.

‘But I don’t know anything about why that ruby was put there. Nothing at all. I promise you.’

Natasha said this statement with such finality that Richard was left in no doubt that she meant it. The only problem was, both Richard and Camille knew she was lying. But why would she lie about why a ruby was left in her house?

Just before it was time to finish for the day, Richard gathered his team at the whiteboard in the Police station.

‘Okay, so what have we got so far?’ he asked, popping the lid on a fresh board marker.

‘Well, sir,’ Fidel said, ‘I’ve lifted the prints from the bottle of rum you got from Natasha’s house. And assuming those prints belong to Conrad, I can say that they match the fingerprints we’ve been able to lift from the blood we found on Conrad’s boat.’

‘It was his handprint in the blood?’

‘I’ve got definite matches for his first, second and third fingers on his right hand, and matches for his left thumb and first finger.’

‘So it really was Conrad who was injured in the explosion.’

‘And who then slipped down the side of his boat into the water,’ Dwayne added. ‘Which means he went into the water bleeding.’

Richard shuddered. They all knew how slim the chances were of a heavily bleeding man lasting long before attracting the attention of a nearby shark.

‘And it was a big explosion,’ Dwayne said. ‘Anything that could do that to a boat could do a lot worse to flesh and bone.’

‘Poor man,’ Camille said.

‘Although,’ Richard asked, ‘are we sure he didn’t survive?’

‘I don’t see how he could have done,’ Fidel said. ‘I reckon we were at the scene within twenty minutes. So if he was alive – either on his boat or in the water – we’d have seen him.’

‘Then could he have swum ashore before we got there?’

‘No way. The nearest land was Honoré beach, and that’s where we came from. If he was in any condition to swim to safety, we’d have passed him on our way out. And I was checking the water the whole time, sir. I didn’t see anyone swimming anywhere.’

‘Very well. We’ll need to tell Mrs Gardiner that her husband is missing presumed dead. Camille?’

Camille sighed, but knew it made sense that the task fall to her. After all, she was the only detective at the station who wasn’t Richard Poole, and that was reason enough for her to handle all of the conversations that required any kind of sympathy.

‘Okay,’ she said, and went to her desk to get ready to leave.

‘Then, Dwayne,’ Richard said, ‘what did you get from going door-to-door at the harbour?’

‘Well, Chief, I spoke to whoever I could find, and three witnesses all said that they saw Conrad get onto his boat on his own this morning.’

‘No-one else was with him?’

‘That’s what they’re saying. And the harbour master, Philippe, said he talked to Conrad this morning and was sure he was on his own. In fact, Conrad asked Philippe to help load his scuba kit onto the boat because there was no-one else around to help.’

‘He took scuba diving kit out with him?’ Richard asked.

‘That’s what Philippe said. But the important thing is, Philippe’s ninety-nine per cent sure that no-one else was on the boat with Conrad. Unless they were hiding in the cabin.’

‘I see,’ Richard said, already feeling frustrated that the explosion had ruined their primary crime scene. How could they run forensics or test any of their theories when half the boat had sunk to the bottom of the sea?

‘Then did you speak to the Saint-Marie Dive School?’

‘I did. And tomorrow they’re putting together a team to scour the seabed under where the boat went down.’

‘Oh, Camille,’ Richard said to his partner as she headed for the door, ‘were there any fingerprints on the ruby that was left at the scene?’

‘No, sir. There wasn’t a single fingerprint on it.’

‘Now, that is interesting, isn’t it?’

‘You’re right, sir. Whoever put it there made sure there was no way of tracing it back to them,’ Camille said, and then she headed off.

‘And yet, it must have been bought from somewhere on the island. Dwayne, can you ring all the shops where you think it would be possible to buy a fake ruby. I want to know where it came from.’

‘Okay.’

‘Which brings me to you, Fidel. What have you been able to glean from the mobile phone detonator you recovered from the boat?’

‘Well, sir,’ Fidel said, leading them over to his desk where he’d separated the mobile phone from the wires, and had also removed its back cover and battery. ‘I dusted the tape and outer casing for fingerprints. There aren’t any.’

‘Like the ruby,’ Richard said. ‘Which, again, makes sense. Our killer’s got to be careful.’

‘But I also removed the battery and casing and dusted them all over as well. You know, just on the off chance I could find a fingerprint or trapped hair or something.’

‘Of course. But nothing?’

‘Got it in one, sir. Nothing. Or so I thought. Because I then decided to dust the SIM card before I tried to work out what the number was and where it had been bought from.’

Richard was impressed.

‘You dusted the SIM card for prints?’

‘You’ve got to be thorough, sir,’ Fidel said, believing that Richard was chastising him. ‘And I found a partial fingerprint on the contact side of the SIM card.’

‘You did?’

‘Better than that, I was able to lift it. And the thing is, it doesn’t match any of the exclusion prints we took for Conrad Gardiner. Or his wife, for that matter.’

‘The print from the SIM card belongs to some unknown third party?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Have you uploaded the print to the CPCN?’ Richard asked eagerly.

The Caribbean Police Computer Network was one of the few saving graces of working on Saint-Marie as far as Richard was concerned. It was a database of information that unified all of the Police forces in the Caribbean, and also linked to data held by the FBI and Europol.

‘I uploaded it as soon as I could,’ Fidel said, ‘and I’ve set it looking for a match.’

‘Very good work. Very good work indeed. Although, did you by any chance learn anything from the information on the SIM card?’

‘Nothing that I think will help us. Because it’s got its IME number, so I ran it through the computer. It’s a Saint-Marie number, but it’s a prepaid phone that was sold just over a year ago.’

‘Has the shop that sold it kept any details?’

‘They haven’t. In fact, it’s that dodgy phone shop down by the harbour. Just by the booth where you buy tickets for the glass-bottomed boat.’

‘And they won’t tell us who they sold it to?’

‘No way.’

‘Can’t we get a warrant and force them?’

‘When I spoke to them, they said they’ve lost their records. And anyway, the phone was sold for cash, there’d be no way of tracing who they sold it to.’

‘So the phone is a dead end?’

‘Not necessarily, sir. Seeing as it was used to set off the bomb, it must have received a phonecall at 10am this morning. I’ve put in a request with the phone company. They’re going to let me know what calls were made to or from that SIM card as soon as they can.’

‘Good stuff, Fidel,’ Richard said. ‘Then what do we know about Conrad Gardiner? His wife Natasha said he was a record producer or something back in the day.’

Dwayne laughed.

‘"Or something" more like, Chief.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, he played at being a hotshot record producer, but he had no taste. So he’d scout whatever talent he could find. You know, a young band, or a guy who did his own thing and reckoned he needed a great producer to take him to the next level. Anyway, Conrad would convince these people to sign to his label. He’d then cut a record in a studio he had built, and then he’d announce the band by throwing a party. And they were great parties, I can tell you. But the bands were always the worst, and the records never sold.’

‘Then what made him go into producing?’

‘No idea.’

‘And how did he carry on if he was so unsuccessful?’

‘You mean, building a studio, and then launching band after band and never making any money?’

‘It doesn’t seem like a very sustainable business model.’

‘It wasn’t. But then, the rumour was he used mob money to set up his studio.’

‘He had links to gangsters?’

‘That’s what people used to say. That the money he had wasn’t clean. And I can tell you, Conrad used to hang out with some pretty shady people back in the day.’

‘He was a gangster himself?’

‘I don’t know I’d go that far. But his friends were. No doubt about it. He was the sort of guy who, when he builds a studio, you don’t ask where he got the money from.’

‘So what’s he been doing since he gave up record producing?’

‘He’s like a lot of men on the island. He does what he can to get by. You know, seasonal work when the tourists are around, and who knows what the rest of the time.’

‘But he’s dodgy?’

‘He was dodgy. I don’t know about recently. I’ve not heard anything.’

‘But if he’s got that sort of background, it could explain why someone wanted him dead.’

‘It could, although he was never a big fish. So whatever he’s been up to, it’s been pretty low grade stuff for a number of years.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘Sure. Enough to say hello to, anyway. I liked him.’

Richard was slightly wrongfooted.

‘Despite him being a criminal, Dwayne?’

‘Of course,’ Dwayne said easily. ‘But there are worse crimes than being a criminal.’

At this pronouncement, Richard threw his hands up in the air and returned to inspect the information on the whiteboard.

‘Then what of the wife, Natasha?’ he called back to the room. ‘Anyone have anything on her?’

‘Not me,’ Dwayne said.

‘She said she went to church, didn’t she? Fidel, do you know Natasha Gardiner?’

Fidel, as a good family man, attended Sunday services at Honoré church every week.

‘I don’t think so, sir,’ Fidel said. ‘If she goes to church, it’s not the church here in Honoré.’

‘That’s interesting. She goes to church, but not to her local church.’

Richard went to his desk to check his notes. He found what he was looking for almost at once.

‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘She told us she goes to Father Luc Durant’s church. Anyone know where that is?’

Richard’s team didn’t, so Richard decided to do some digging for himself. It didn’t take him long to discover that Father Luc was a Catholic priest who ran a church on the south side of the island, but there didn’t seem to be anything else of note about him or Natasha’s role in his church. So Richard tried to see what he could dig up on Natasha on the Police Computer Network, but didn’t get anywhere. She had no presence as far as he could tell, and he couldn’t find any specific references to her on any of the government databases or on the local newspaper website, either.

She seemed to be entirely without interest.

And yet, Richard knew that she hadn’t told them the whole truth about the ruby.

In lieu of having any character references for Natasha, Richard decided to ring her church and spoke to a woman who explained that she was Father Luc’s secretary. When pressed, she was able to reveal that Natasha came to church every week, she was heavily involved in all of their charity endeavours, and there was no way at all that she would participate in anything ‘dodgy’. She was an upstanding member of the community.

This wasn’t exactly what Richard wanted to hear, so next he got the number for Morgane Pichou at the tourist office, seeing as she’d been the person to tell Natasha that there’d been an explosion in the harbour. Unfortunately for Richard, when he spoke to Morgane, she made it clear that there was no way Natasha could ever have been mixed up in her husband’s disappearance. According to Morgane, although Conrad was a bit of a layabout, Natasha loved him deeply and had done so ever since they’d met decades before.

It was all hugely frustrating for Richard, and his mood didn’t improve when Camille returned.

‘Sir,’ she said as she sat down at her desk, ‘I’m convinced there’s something Mrs Gardiner’s not telling us.’

‘Go on,’ Richard said.

‘I mean, she was hit hard when I told her that we now think her husband was missing presumed dead. She was distraught. And I believed her. But I got the feeling that she was also guilty somehow. Or maybe that’s too strong. But something was gnawing at her.’

‘You think she could be involved in his death?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Because the two people I’ve spoken to say she couldn’t have been. So why’s she acting so strange?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

Fidel called over from his desk.

‘Oh okay, sir, I think you need to see this. The computer’s got a match for the fingerprint I lifted from the SIM card.’

‘It has?’ Richard said as he headed over to Fidel’s desk.

‘It sure has. The fingerprint belongs to a man called Pierre Charpentier.’

‘And who’s he when he’s at home?’

‘Well, this is where it gets interesting. His prints are on the system because, twenty years ago, he committed murder during a robbery in London. So he’s been serving a life sentence. First in Holloway prison in London. And then, five years ago, he was transferred to the Central Prison on Saint-Marie.’

‘Hang on,’ Richard said, trying to process what Fidel had just said. ‘You’re saying that the print on the SIM card you found on Conrad’s boat belongs to a man who’s in prison for murder?’

‘What’s more, he committed his murder all those years ago while he and his gang were robbing a jewellery store in London.’

This got the team’s attention, and now it was Camille and Dwayne’s turn to head over to Fidel’s desk.

‘He knocked off a jewellery store?’ Dwayne asked.

‘He sure did. And now we find his fingerprint on the detonator of a bomb, and a big fat fake jewel left at the victim’s house. It’s all connected, isn’t it?’

‘But hold on,’ Richard said. ‘How could Pierre whoever-he-is have killed Conrad at all, seeing as he’s currently in prison?’

‘That’s the thing, sir. He isn’t in prison.’

‘But you just said he was.’

‘That’s the whole point. He’s been in prison for the last twenty years. But he was released three days ago.’

The team looked at each other, absolutely stunned.

Richard was the first to recover.

‘Then I suggest we find this Pierre Charpentier as a matter of some urgency,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’

It’s amazing what you learn in prison. Who knew you could make an improvised bomb out of an old phone and a few wires? And it was so easy to set up. Conrad had no security on his boat. The hatch to his engine compartment wasn’t even locked. It was simple. Under cover of night, I taped the phone inside, and then it was just a case of working out which tube was the fuel line that led from the petrol tanks. A quick slice with a knife, and the job was done. It was amazing. The rush I felt knowing I now had his life in my hands. After two decades of waiting. One call, that’s all it would take. And that’s all it took. I dialled the number when his boat was out in the harbour where everyone could see it. I then waited a few seconds for the call to connect, and then the boat went up. Just like that. Boom. Then, when everyone rushed to the bay, I went to his house and smashed in the back window. Wrecking his study wasn’t part of the plan, but I couldn’t help myself. I felt alive. Finally alive. And then I left the ruby. That had always been the plan. To leave the ruby. Because it wasn’t enough to kill Conrad. I wanted to make a statement. To let the whole world know. I was back.

CHAPTER FOUR

It took a quick phonecall to the administration department of the Central Prison to find out that Pierre Charpentier had indeed left prison three days before, and his registered address was a halfway house a few miles away.

When Richard told his team Pierre’s address, Dwayne offered to come along.

‘Why?’ Richard asked.

‘Let me put it this way,’ Dwayne said. ‘It’s not the sort of place someone like you wants to get lost in.’

As the Police jeep arrived, Richard found himself agreeing with Dwayne’s analysis. For the last few minutes they’d travelled down a narrow dirt road that cut through a field of sugar cane, the thick stalks pressing in on either side. Then, once the field ended, the track opened up into a dirt clearing that contained half a dozen clapboard houses that were nestling in scrubland right next to the sea.