A Meditation on Murder

Aslan Kennedy has an idyllic life: leader of a spiritual retreat for wealthy holidaymakers on one of the Caribbean’s most unspoilt islands, Saint-Marie.

Until he’s murdered, that is. The case seems open and shut: when Aslan was killed he was inside a locked room with only five other people, one of whom has already confessed to the murder.

Detective Inspector Richard Poole is hot, bothered and fed up with talking to witnesses who’d rather discuss his ‘aura’ than their whereabouts at the time of the murder. But he also knows that the facts of the case don’t quite stack up. In fact, he’s convinced that the person who’s just confessed to the murder is the one person who couldn’t have done it.

Determined to track down the real killer, DI Poole is soon on the trail and no stone will be left unturned.

ISBN: 978-1-474-00658-3

A MEDITATION ON MURDER

© 2015 Robert Thorogood

Published in Great Britain 2015

by HQ, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

Version: 2018-07-23

ROBERT THOROGOOD is the creator of the hit BBC ONE TV series Death in Paradise.

He was born in Colchester, Essex, in 1972. When he was ten years old, he read his first proper novel—Agatha Christie’s Peril at End House—and he’s been in love with the murder mystery genre ever since.

Since university, he spent many years supporting his writing career in a variety of temping jobs, from being a magician in Hamley’s to being part of the team at Transport for London who introduced the congestion charge; and from working in Men’s Accessories in Harrods to being the person who changed the TV remote control batteries for the Saudi Royal Family. And all the time he had a battered Agatha Christie novel in his back pocket.

He now lives in Marlow in Buckinghamshire with his wife, children and a Bengal cat called Daniel.

Follow Robert on Twitter @robthor

For Katie B

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About the Publisher

Prologue

Aslan Kennedy had no need of an alarm clock. Instead, he found he woke every morning quite naturally as the sun began to peek over the horizon.

In fact, he’d been waking with the sun ever since he’d decided a few years back that he no longer believed in alarm clocks. Any more than he believed in money, the internet, or any kind of ‘one cup’ tea bag. For Aslan—hotel-owner, yoga instructor and self-styled Spiritual Guru—the wristwatch, with its arbitrary division of seconds, minutes and hours, was a potent symbol of enslavement. A manacle mankind wore while they worshipped at the false idol they called progress.

It made making appointments with him a little trying, of course. But that wasn’t Aslan’s problem. Not the way he saw it.

On this particular morning, Aslan lay quietly in bed (mahogany, Belle Epoque) until he felt his chakras align. He then swung his legs out onto the teak floorboards (Thai, imported) and padded over to a floor-length mirror (gilt-framed, Regency) where he inspected his reflection. The man who stared back at him looked much older than his fifty-six years—if only because his flowing white hair, beard and white cotton nightshirt gave him a Jesus/Gandalf vibe. But, as Aslan would be the first to admit, the miracle was that he was alive at all. And, as far as he was concerned, the reason why he’d been able to turn his life around was entirely down to his wonderful wife, Rianka.

Aslan turned back to look at Rianka as she slept twisted in the cotton sheets of their bed. She looked so at peace, Aslan thought to himself. Like a beautiful angel. And, as he’d told himself a thousand times over the last decade and a half, he owed everything that was now good in his life to this woman. It was that simple. And debts like that could never be repaid.

Once Aslan had got dressed, he swept down the mahogany staircase of The Retreat, careful his white cotton robes didn’t knock over any of the artfully arranged ethnic icons or trinkets that variously stood on pedestals or hung from the wall. At the bottom of the stairs, he turned into the hotel’s ultra-modern kitchen and was pleased to see that someone had already laid out a willow pattern teapot and porcelain cups on a tray for him.

Aslan started the kettle boiling and looked out of the window. Manicured lawns stretched down through an avenue of tall palm trees to the hotel’s beach, where the Caribbean sea sparkled emerald green as it lapped against the white sand. With a smile, Aslan saw that the guests for the Sunrise Healing were already on the beach, stretching and taking the air following their early-morning swim.

Mind you, his eyesight wasn’t what it once was, and, as he looked more closely at the five people in their swim things, he found himself frowning. Was that really who was going to be in the Sunrise Healing session with him? In fact, Aslan realised, if that’s who was attending the session, then something had gone seriously wrong.

Aslan’s attention was brought back to the room as the kettle came to the boil with a click. He poured the water into the pot and let the familiar smell of green tea calm him. After all, he had much more in his life to worry about than who was or wasn’t attending one of his therapy sessions. Perhaps this was no more than karma realigning itself?

He couldn’t hide from his past forever, could he?

By the time Aslan took the tray of tea outside, he’d decided that he’d just carry on as normal. He’d lead the guests to the Meditation Space. Just as normal. He’d lock the room down. Just as normal. He’d then share a cup of tea with them all and start the Healing. Just as normal.

‘Good morning!’ Aslan called out to get the attention of the five guests down on the beach. They all turned and looked up at him. A few of them even waved.

Yes, he decided to himself, it was all going to be just fine.

It was half an hour later when the screaming started.

At the time, most of the hotel guests were finishing their breakfast in the outdoor dining area, or were already wearing white cotton robes and heading off to their first treatment of the day. As for Rianka Kennedy, Aslan’s wife, she was sitting out on the hotel’s verandah, a wicker basket of sewing at her feet as she darned one of her husband’s socks.

The scream seemed to be coming from one of the treatment rooms that sat in the middle of The Retreat’s largest lawn: a timber and paper Japanese tea house that Aslan and Rianka had christened the ‘Meditation Space’.

When a second scream joined the first, Rianka found herself running across the grass towards the Meditation Space. It was a good hundred yards away and, when Rianka had covered about half the distance, Dominic De Vere, The Retreat’s tanned and taut handyman, appeared as if by magic from around the side of a clump of bougainvillea. As usual he was wearing only cut-off jeans, flip-flops and a utility belt full of various tools.

‘What’s that racket?’ he asked somewhat redundantly as Rianka flashed past him. After a moment, he turned and trotted after her.

Rianka got to the door of the Meditation Space, and, as there was no handle on the outside of it, tried to jam her fingers into the gap between the door and the frame with no success. It wouldn’t budge—it was locked from the inside.

‘What’s going on?’ she called out over the sound of screams.

Dominic finally flapped over on his flip-flops and caught up with Rianka, if not the situation.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

‘Dominic, get that door open!’

‘I can’t. There’s no door handle.’

‘Use your knife! Just cut through the paper!’

‘Oh! Of course!’

Dominic grabbed the Stanley knife from the pouch at his belt and clicked the triangular blade out. He was about to slash through the paper of the tea house’s wall when they both saw it: a bloody hand pressed up against the inside.

They then heard a man’s voice, thick with fear: ‘Help!’

And then a different female voice: ‘Oh god! Oh god!’

There was a scrabbling while someone wrestled with the lock on the inside of the door. A few moments later, the door was yanked inwards by Ben Jenkins, who then just stood there in lumpen horror.

Ignoring Ben, Rianka stepped into the Meditation Space and saw that Paul Sellars was lying on his back on a prayer mat, having difficulty waking up. Ann, his wife, was kneeling at his side shaking his shoulders. Rianka could see that both of them had spots of blood on their white cotton robes. As for Saskia Filbee, she was standing off to one side, her hands over her mouth, stifling another scream. There was blood on her sleeve as well.

But it was the woman standing in the centre of the room that drew Rianka’s attention. Her name was Julia Higgins. She was in her early twenties, she’d been working at The Retreat for the last six months, and in her left hand she was holding a bloody carving knife.

At Julia’s feet a man was lying quite still, his once white robes, beard and hair now drenched in blood, a number of vicious knife wounds in his back.

Aslan Kennedy—hotel-owner, yoga instructor and self-styled Spiritual Guru—had clearly just been viciously stabbed to death.

‘I killed him,’ Julia said.

And now it was Rianka’s turn to scream.

Chapter One

A few hours before the murder of Aslan Kennedy, Detective Inspector Richard Poole was also awake. This wasn’t because he’d trained himself to turn delicately to each day’s sunrise like a flower; it was because he was hot, bothered, and he’d been awake since a frog had started croaking outside his window—inexplicably—just before 4am.

But then, Richard thought to himself, this was entirely typical, because if he wasn’t being assaulted by frog choruses in the middle of the night, it was torrential downpours like a troupe of Gene Kellys tap-dancing on his tin roof; or it was whole dunes of sand being blown across his floorboards by the hot Caribbean wind. In fact, Richard considered, in all ways and at all times, life on the tropical island of Saint-Marie was a misery.

Admittedly, he’d collected empirical evidence that suggested that Saint-Marie was a popular holiday destination for tens of thousands of other people, but what did other people know? This was an island where it was sunny every second of every single day apart from the ten minutes each morning and night when a tropical storm would appear out of nowhere and rain hard enough to flatten cows. And that wasn’t even counting the three months of the year when it was no longer the hot season because it was now the hurricane season—which, in truth, was just as hot as the hot season, but altogether more hurricaney.

And none of this even included the constant and unrelenting humidity, which—Richard often found himself claiming—was well over one hundred per cent. (Of course, Richard knew that this was scientifically impossible, but he also knew that the one time he’d received a precious box of Walker’s crisps in the post from his mother, the crisps had gone soggy within minutes of him opening any of the packets. It was like some exquisite punishment that had been specifically designed to torture him. The insides of each packet contained perfect crisps right up to but not including the precise moment he opened the packet and tried to eat one, at which point they immediately went stale in the sultry tropical air.)

This and other wild roller coasters of despair looped through Richard’s mind as he lay in bed, wide awake, his bedside alarm clock clicking from 04:18 to 04:19, surely the most miserable minute in the twenty-four hour clock, Richard found himself musing.

A slick of sweat slipped down his neck and into the collar of his Marks and Spencer pyjamas, and before he could stop himself, Richard became a kicking machine, scissoring his legs in a frenzied attack on his sheets until they’d been balled up and dashed to the floor.

He slumped back onto the old mattress and exhaled in exasperation. Why did everything have to be so hard?

There was nothing for it, he might as well get up.

He turned on the lights and padded into the tiny kitchenette and washroom that had somehow been crammed into the inside porch of his shack as if by someone who no doubt felt that the galley kitchens on sailboats were altogether too roomy. Surely there was a way of packing even more cooking and cleaning equipment into even less space?

He went to the metal sink that was squashed in between his fridge and his front door, and discovered that he wasn’t the only person looking for a drink. A bright green lizard was already in the sink catching drops of water as they fell from the tap above.

The lizard was called Harry. Or, rather, Richard had named the lizard Harry when he’d discovered that the shack he’d been assigned to live in already came with a reptilian sitting tenant. And, like every flat-share Richard had ever been involved in, it had been a disaster from the start.

As Harry turned his attention back to catching drops of water with his pink-flashing tongue, Richard found himself thinking—not for the first time—that he should just get rid of the bloody creature.

But how to do it, that was the question.

A few hours later, Richard was sitting behind his desk in Honoré Police Station using the internet to research legal and possibly not-so-legal methods of household pest control when Detective Sergeant Camille Bordey swished over to his desk, a gleam in her eye.

‘So tell me … what do you want for lunch?’

Camille was bright, lithe, and one of the most naturally attractive women on the island, but as Richard looked up from his reverie—irked at the interruption—he frowned like a barn owl who’d just received some bad news.

‘Camille, don’t interrupt me when I’m working.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ Camille said, not sorry at all. ‘What are you working on?’

‘Oh, you know. Work,’ he said, suspiciously. ‘What do you want?’

‘Me? I just wanted to take your lunch order.’

Richard finally looked at his partner. She was young, fresh-faced, and threw herself at life with a wondrous abandon that Richard didn’t even remotely understand. In fact, as Richard considered Camille, he found himself once again marvelling at how much his partner was a complete mystery to him. In truth, he knew that he was limited in his understanding of women by the fact that he’d been educated at a single-sex boarding school and hadn’t had any kind of meaningful conversation with a woman who wasn’t either his mother or his House Matron before the age of eighteen, but Camille seemed even more impossible to comprehend than most women.

To begin with, she was French. To end with, she was French. And in between all that, she was French. This meant—to Richard’s mind at least—that she was unreliable, incapable of following orders, and was, all in all, a wild card and loose cannon. In truth, Richard was scared witless of her. Not that he’d ever admitted as much. Even to himself.

‘You know what I want for lunch, Camille,’ he said imperiously, trying to take back control of the conversation. ‘Because I’ve had the same lunch every single day I’ve been on this godforsaken island.’

‘But Maman says she’s got some spiced yams and rice she can plate up for us all. Or there’s curried goat left over from—’

‘Thank you, Camille, but I’d much rather just have my usual.’

Camille looked at her boss, her eyes sparkling as she got out her police notebook and made a big show of writing down his lunch order. ‘One … banana … sandwich.’

‘Thank you, Camille,’ Richard said, somehow aware that he’d been made to look stupid, but not knowing quite how it had happened.

Camille grabbed up her handbag, sashayed out of the room, and Richard waited to see who of Dwayne or Fidel would appear first from behind their computer monitors.

It was Ordinary Police Officer Dwayne Myers. But then, as the elder statesman of the station, this was no real surprise.

Richard tolerated Dwayne—liked him, even—but it was always against his better judgement. Dwayne was in his fifties but looked like he was no older than thirty and, while he wore non-regulation trainers and a bead necklace with his uniform, he was always immaculately turned out. In fact, it was something Richard had always felt he and Dwayne had in common, their sartorial precision. And while Richard knew that Dwayne wasn’t really very interested in being thorough, punctual or following any kind of orders, he was a marvel at digging up information through ‘unofficial’ channels. And on a small tropical island like Saint-Marie, there were a lot of unofficial channels.

‘Seriously, Chief,’ Dwayne said. ‘You can’t have the same lunch day after day.’

‘I went to boarding school for ten years. Watch me.’

And now Sergeant Fidel Best’s head appeared to the side of his monitor, his young and trusting face puzzled. Fidel was a proper copper, Richard felt. He was meticulous, keen, utterly tireless, and, above all else, he knew correct procedure. The only downside to Fidel was that he was overly keen, so he’d sometimes continue with a line of inquiry long after it was sensible to drop it. Like now, Richard found himself thinking, as Fidel said, ‘But, sir, don’t you get bored eating the same meal every day of your life?’

‘Yes. Extremely. But what can I do?’

‘Well, sir, order a different lunch?’

‘No, I think I’ll stick to my banana sandwich, if you don’t mind. You know where you are with a banana sandwich.’

‘I know,’ Dwayne said, almost awestruck by his boss’s dogged determination never to embrace change. ‘Eating a banana sandwich.’

The office phone rang and Richard huffed. ‘No, it’s alright, you two stay where you are, I’ll get it.’

Richard went to the sun-bleached counter and plucked up the ancient phone’s handset.

‘Honoré Police Station, this is Detective Inspector Richard Poole speaking. How can I be of assistance?’

Richard listened a moment before cupping the phone and turning back to his team.

‘Fidel. Phone Camille. Cancel the banana sandwich. There’s been a murder.’

Rianka had set up The Retreat eighteen years ago when she’d bought a derelict sugar plantation for a knock-down price. The main house had been abandoned for nearly fifty years by this time, but it wasn’t its outside that Rianka found herself responding to, it was the inside. Admittedly, the interior wasn’t much less damaged, but what Rianka noticed was how the rooms were still as beautifully proportioned and airy as they’d always been; the rotten ceilings were just as high; the main staircase, while leaf-swept and missing many of its boards, was just as grand. To Rianka, the house was no less than a metaphor for the island itself—shabby on the outside, but full of soul on the inside—and, within the year, she’d restored the main house and grounds to their former glory and opened for business as a luxury hotel called ‘The Plantation’.

When Rianka then got together with Aslan, they’d increasingly started to market the hotel as a high-end health farm, and it wasn’t long before they’d relaunched the whole venture as a luxury spa that was now called ‘The Plantation Spa’.

The business went from strength to strength.

Then, as Aslan got more involved in exploring the spiritual side of life, he started offering holistic treatments and therapies to hotel guests—either led by him, or by other instructors he hired especially—and it wasn’t long before they’d relaunched the hotel for a third and final time as ‘The Retreat’.

For a good few years now, the hotel had been specifically tailored to the internationally wealthy who wanted to heal their minds just as much as they wanted to heal their bodies. Guests could sign up for sessions in healing, be it Crystal, Reiki or Sunrise; or yoga, be it Bikram or Hatha; or meditation, be it Zazen or Transcendental.

Now, as the police drove up the gravel driveway in convoy, their blue lights flashing dimly in the bright Caribbean sunshine, they could see that the main hotel building was the old plantation owner’s house; manicured lawns swept down to a private beach, and there were incongruous quasi-religious buildings dotted here and there around the grounds with hotel guests coming and going from them.

Richard, Camille and Fidel climbed out of the police Land Rover and Dwayne dismounted from the Force’s only other vehicle, a 1950s Harley-Davidson motorbike that had an entirely illegal sidecar attached to it. No one quite knew where this bike-with-sidecar had come from, or how it had got tricked up in the livery of the Saint-Marie Police Force, but legend had it—and records seemed to confirm—that it had joined the Saint-Marie Police Force just after Dwayne did. Not that Dwayne was saying.

Dominic came out of the house—still wearing flip-flops and cut-off shorts, but the gravity of the situation was such that he’d deigned to slip on a vest.

‘Man, I’m glad to see you,’ he said, running a hand through his lustrous hair before shaking his head a little so his mane would settle.

‘Yes,’ Richard said. ‘And who are you?’

‘Dominic De Vere. The Retreat’s handyman.’

Dominic was British and Richard could tell from his drawling accent that he was from a moneyed background. In fact, Richard knew the type well. Posh, dim, wealthy, entitled—and therefore able to waft through life exploring the counter-culture as a hobby. No doubt, if Dominic’s money ever ran out, he’d make a phone call to one of his old school chums, land a high-paid job in the City and then, for the rest of his life, complain that ‘the youth of today’ were feckless layabouts.

It was fair to say that Richard disliked Dominic on sight.

‘If you could just take us to the body,’ he said.

‘Sure thing.’

Richard had no interest in continuing the conversation with someone who wore a shark tooth on a string around his neck, so they all walked on in silence until they reached the corner of the house, which is when Dominic stopped and frowned. Richard looked at him.

‘Sorry, is there a problem?’ Richard asked.

It was clear that there was, but Dominic didn’t know where to start.

‘Go on,’ Camille said altogether more tolerantly.

‘Okay,’ Dominic said. ‘Well, it’s just …’

As Dominic stopped speaking, he started to waft his hands near Richard’s body.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ Richard asked.

‘I’ve never seen this before.’

‘I’m a police officer, would you stop stroking my arms?’

‘But this isn’t possible.’

This got Richard’s attention. ‘What’s not possible?’

Dominic exhaled as if he was about to deliver some very bad news.

‘You don’t have an aura.’

Richard looked at Dominic a long moment.

‘I know I don’t. Auras don’t exist. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to stay exactly where you are while we go and inspect the body.’

‘But your team all have auras.’

‘We do?’ Camille said eagerly, holding up her hand for her boss to wait. She wanted to hear this out.

‘Of course you do,’ Dominic continued, smiling easily for Camille’s benefit. ‘Yours is yellow, golden … it’s like sunlight. Warm. Impetuous. Open. Sexually adventurous.’

Camille seemed delighted by this analysis as Dominic held her gaze much longer than he needed to, and Richard found himself noticing that Dominic wasn’t just tanned, muscly and heroically square-jawed, he was also extremely good-looking. In a slightly obvious way of course, Richard found himself adding as an afterthought in his head.

Dominic next turned his attention to Fidel and considered the air that encompassed him.

‘As for you, you’re blues and greens … of kindness … valour. Hard work. Hey, you’re one of the good guys.’

Fidel blushed. He was clearly just as thrilled with his ‘reading’ as Camille had been with hers.

‘Oh for heaven’s sakes!’ Richard said. ‘Thank you, Mr De Vere, but I can see that people are congregated over there’—Richard pointed at the Meditation Space as it sat some way away on the lawn—’and I want to make this clear: my colleagues and I are going over to the crime scene right now, and you’re going to stay right here.’

‘But what about me?’ Dwayne said, eager as a puppy dog. ‘What’s my aura?’

Richard huffed in indignation as Dominic turned to Dwayne and took his time to consider. But then a knowing smile slipped onto Dominic’s lips.

‘You’re like me. A shape-shifter.’

Dwayne beamed at what he perceived to be the highest of compliments.

‘I knew it.’

Dominic turned back to Richard. ‘But I’m telling you, when I look at you, I don’t see … anything.’

‘Whereas I see a murder scene over there, so thank you very much for your help. Team, you’re with me, but if you try to move even an inch’—Richard said this to Dominic—’I’m going to arrest you for wasting police time.’

Richard strode off across the lawn, his team trying not to catch each other’s eyes as they got into their boss’s slipstream. After all, it wouldn’t do to turn up at a murder scene giggling.

But then, there was no chance of Richard or his team laughing by the time they arrived at the Meditation Space, where they found six shell-shocked Brits sitting or standing on the grass. Five of them were wearing white cotton robes that were variously spattered in drying blood. The sixth of them—Rianka—was sitting on the grass on her own. She was wearing a long Indian-style skirt with little mirrors sewn into the hemline, a light summer blouse, and leather sandals.

‘Okay, my name’s Detective Inspector Richard Poole,’ Richard said. ‘And this is Detective Sergeant Camille Bordey. Can any of you tell me what happened?’

‘That’s simple,’ said a well-tanned man in his fifties with a Yorkshire accent, a thick gold chain just visible around his neck. Richard also had time to notice a chunky gold watch on the man’s wrist. Clearly he was seriously wealthy.

‘The name’s Ben Jenkins,’ the man said. ‘And you should know, that woman over there, she says her name’s Julia Higgins. And she’s admitted it all. She killed Aslan Kennedy.’

Richard could see that Ben was pointing at a young woman in a bloodied white robe who was standing on her own on the grass. She was in her early twenties, had long blonde hair that was tied up in a ponytail, and she was looking back at Richard with doe eyes, seemingly as dismayed by the accusation as everyone else. But she wasn’t denying it, either, Richard noted.

With a quick nod of his head, Richard indicated that Dwayne should ghost over to Julia and make sure she didn’t make a run for it. As Dwayne started to move, Richard turned back to Ben.

‘And where’s the body?’

‘In there.’ Ben pointed at the Meditation Space.

Richard turned to the group. ‘Then if you’d all just wait here, please. The Detective Sergeant and I will only be a moment. Camille?’

Richard headed over to the Meditation Space, Camille coming over to join him, but Richard found himself stopping at the threshold to the building.

‘One moment,’ Richard said as he held his hand up for Camille to pause, because it was only now as Richard approached that he saw that the walls to the building were made of paper. In fact, as he looked closer, he could see that the paper was waxy, clearly very strong, and was even somewhat translucent. Richard put his hand on the other side of the door and noticed that he could still dimly see his hand’s shape through the paper.

‘What are you doing?’ Camille asked.

Richard ignored Camille as he took a moment to inspect the door to the building. He saw that there was no handle on the outside, but there was a Yale-style latch lock on the inside of the door that was screwed deep into the wooden frame—and that there was a corresponding housing on the door frame that it slotted into when the room was locked.

But without a keyhole on the outside, it appeared as though the door could only be locked and unlocked from the inside. Richard filed this information away for later consideration.

Stepping into the room, Richard immediately understood why the walls and roof were made of translucent paper, because every inch of the walls glowed with brilliant sunshine. And not only was it brighter inside the room than it was outside, it was significantly hotter too, like being at the heart of a supernova. Which was just bloody typical, Richard thought to himself.

Camille joined Richard inside and looked at her boss as he prickled in his suit.

‘Hot, isn’t it?’ she said, helpfully.

Richard decided to ignore his partner and instead, squinting against the light, saw that the body of a man lay sticky with blood in the middle of the floor. His hair, beard and white robes were now thick with blood. And there was a bloody knife on the floor by the body.

Richard gave the room a quick once-over, but there wasn’t much to see. The floor was polished hardwood planks; there were six woven prayer mats arranged in a circle around a tray of tea things. Six pairs of fabric eye masks and six wireless headphones were also lying here and there, but other than that the room was empty. No furniture—no cupboards, tables, chairs, statues or other ornaments—to hide behind or conceal murder weapons in.

To all intents and purposes the room was entirely bare.

Richard bent down and picked up one of the wireless headsets. He put it to his ear and frowned.

‘What is it?’ Camille asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Richard said, listening, but unable to work out what the noise was.

It was a strange keening.

He listened a bit longer, but, as far as he could tell, it was just more of the same yawling noise. And then dread filled his heart as he realised what it was.

With a shudder, he said, ‘It’s whales singing.’

Richard lowered the headphones, sharpish, and put them back down on the floor, before he joined Camille at the centre of the room to inspect the victim.

Crouching down, Richard could see that the murder weapon to the side of the body was a carving knife of some sort. Utterly vicious. The blade was covered in blood, although the handle seemed to be clean.

‘We’re going to need to get this bagged and tested for prints,’ Richard said.

Camille was inspecting the body.

‘There are no signs of a struggle … no fabric or skin caught under the victim’s fingernails … and no cuts to the hands, wrists or arms. It doesn’t look like he tried to defend himself from the attack.’

Richard looked at the tray of tea things on the floor by the pool of blood that had spread from the body. The teapot was willow pattern and there were six bone china cups that had all been turned upside down on the floor, one cup in front of each prayer mat. Richard tried to work out what had happened.

If the mats and cups were to be believed, there’d been six people in here. They’d all been sitting on the prayer mats around the tray of tea things. They’d all then had a cup of tea and turned their cup over and placed it down on the floor in front of them to show that they’d finished their drink.

But how did the eye masks and headphones fit into this? And how exactly had the victim been killed?

Camille inspected the stab wounds in the victim’s back.

‘There appear to be five separate sharp force injuries in the victim’s neck, shoulder and back,’ she said. ‘Two wounds on the right side of the neck, and three wounds on the right side of his shoulder and back. I’d say the assailant was standing behind the victim—and was almost certainly right-handed.’

Richard came over and could see the sense of what Camille was saying. The pattern of wounds suggested that the victim could only have been killed by someone who was standing behind him and striking into his neck and back holding a knife right-handed.

Richard made himself look at the face of Aslan as it lay in a pool of blood on the floor. Who was this man? What had he done to warrant such a violent death?

Richard exhaled. This was his job. To start with the end of the story: the body; the murder. And then he had to uncover the evidence that would allow him to wind time back until he could prove—categorically prove—who’d been standing above the body when the victim was killed; who it was that had wielded the knife.

Richard always made a silent promise to the victims of murder, and he made it once again now: he’d catch their killer. Whatever it took. He wouldn’t rest until the killer was behind bars.

A flash of light caught Richard’s eye in the far corner of the room. He turned back to look, but the little flash of light had gone as soon as it appeared. So he moved his head a fraction. No, still nothing. He moved his head back. There it was again.

There was something shiny on the floorboards he hadn’t noticed before.

‘What are you doing?’ Camille asked as Richard went over to the wall at the end of the room and got down on his hands and knees to inspect the floor.

‘What’s this doing here?’ he asked.

‘What is it?’ Camille asked as she came over to join her boss.

Richard found himself looking at a shiny drawing pin. It was just sitting there loose on the floorboards.

‘It’s a drawing pin.’

‘And why’s that of interest?’

‘Didn’t you see all of the witnesses out there?’ Richard said.

‘Of course. What about them?’

Richard turned to his partner as though he was a magician about to reveal the end of a particularly impressive trick. ‘Because, I’m sure you noticed, Camille, that most of the witnesses were barefoot.’

Camille was utterly unimpressed. ‘So?’

‘So who would leave a drawing pin like this loose in a room where people were going about barefoot?’

Camille waited a moment before answering. ‘That’s it?’

‘What do you mean, “that’s it”?’ Richard asked, irritated.

‘Your big revelation? That there’s a drawing pin at the scene of crime?’

‘No, Camille, that’s not what I said.’

‘But it is. I just heard you.’

‘No you didn’t. You heard me say that it’s loose on the floor. That’s what’s interesting. For example,’ he said, standing up and indicating the rough-hewn wooden pillars and beams that made up the internal structure of the paper house, ‘if I found a drawing pin in one of these wooden pillars, that would be less interesting. It would just mean that someone had pinned something to a pillar. But here?’ Richard pointed at the drawing pin as it sat blamelessly on the polished hardwood floor. ‘How did it get there? Who dropped it?’

‘You’re right,’ Camille said, deadpan. ‘We’ve got a dead body over there that’s covered in knife wounds, so let’s concentrate on a tiny piece of metal we’ve found on the floor over here. In fact, I think you’re right! What if the carving knife we found by the body is a double bluff and the killer used this tiny drawing pin to stab the victim to death?’

Richard decided to ignore his subordinate entirely. Without another word, he went outside again, pulling his hankie as he went and mopping his brow. Really, he thought to himself, his life on Saint-Marie was blighted by bloody sunshine. His shirt collar chafed at his neck; the dark wool of his suit trousers stretched hot and tight across his thighs; and his suit jacket pressed heavy and scorching against his shoulders and back. Wearing a suit in the Caribbean was like living inside a bloody Corby trouser press. But what could he do? He had to wear a woollen suit. He was a Detective Inspector. And Detective Inspectors wore dark woollen suits, that’s just how it was.

Richard saw that an ambulance had arrived over by the main house and paramedics were getting out a gurney.

‘Very well, Camille,’ he said. ‘While I talk to our apparent murderer, I want you to take the remaining witnesses off. And I want you to get the paramedics to take samples of the witnesses’ blood and urine.’

‘You think the tea they were all drinking was maybe drugged?’

‘I don’t know, but that was a pretty frenzied attack, I’d be interested to know if anyone was under the influence of anything.’

Richard next turned to the youngest member of the team. ‘Fidel, I want you working the scene—but be sure to bag the drawing pin that’s loose on the floor by the far wall.’

Fidel looked at his boss. ‘You want me to bag a drawing pin, sir?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s on the floor by the far wall?’

‘That’s right,’ Richard said again.

Before Fidel could ask why his boss wanted a drawing pin bagged for analysis, Richard turned and started heading for Julia, who was still being guarded by Dwayne.

As he approached, Richard pulled a little notebook and silver retractable pencil from an inside pocket. He clicked the lead out and said, ‘Hello. My name’s Detective Inspector Richard Poole. I’m investigating the murder of the man we’ve just found in that paper and wood structure just there.’

Richard indicated the tea house and Julia nodded slowly. She understood. Richard looked at Dwayne and he shrugged as if to say that Richard was right, the witness was indeed this slow.

Richard was at his most gentle and coaxing as he tried to find out who the woman was and what had happened. In truth, Richard didn’t really have a ‘gentle’ or ‘coaxing’ side—his idea of doing either was to leave slightly longer pauses in between each of his questions—but he found his manner softened anyway as Julia was so naturally beautiful. It brought out Richard’s paternal side. Or that’s what he told himself. As she talked, he was able to notice how sparkling and blue her eyes were; and how her skin was bronzed by a golden tan; and how her blonde hair seemed to capture the Caribbean sunlight and radiate it back out in golden strands of light.

It turned out that the young woman’s name was Julia Higgins. She was twenty-three years old and had graduated from Bournemouth University the year before having completed a degree in alternative medicine. Since then, she’d been working and travelling, but at the beginning of the year she’d come out to The Retreat for a holiday. She’d loved the experience so much—and had got on so well with the owners, Rianka and Aslan—that she’d asked if she could stay on.

Julia was surprised when they said yes, but, apparently, her timing couldn’t have been better. Rianka and Aslan had been looking for help in the office for some time, so they offered Julia free lodging, a small wage—but, most importantly, free access to all of the treatments and therapies—and in return all Julia had to do was a few hours of secretarial support each day. It was an arrangement that had suited both parties and Julia had been happily working at The Retreat for the last six months.

As Julia told her story, Richard tried to work out what he found so puzzling about her. After a while, he realised what it was. Julia was clearly still numbed from the shock of what she’d done—of course she was—but she was also acting as though she was just as keen as Richard to identify the murderer. Which was odd, considering that she was the apparent murderer.

‘Then tell me,’ Richard finally asked, knowing it couldn’t be put off any longer, ‘did you kill the man we found in there?’

Julia blinked back tears as she looked deep into Richard’s eyes and said, ‘His name’s Aslan Kennedy. And I think so.’

‘You think so?’

Julia gulped. She then decided that maybe Richard was right to want this point clarified. ‘I know so.’

‘You know so?’

Julia nodded slowly, frowning.

‘Then can you tell me what happened?’

‘That’s what I don’t get. I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know how you killed him?’ Richard exchanged a quick glance with Dwayne. What was this?

Julia explained how she’d been looking forward to the Sunrise Healing, it was the only therapy Aslan still had time to lead himself.

‘So we all went into the Meditation Space,’ she continued.

‘Meditation Space?’ Richard asked.

Julia indicated the Japanese tea house. ‘It’s what Aslan and Rianka call that building there.’

‘And who went inside with you?’

Julia thought for a moment. ‘Well, Aslan … and four other hotel guests. Their names are Saskia, Paul, Ann and Ben.’

‘So there were only six people in total in there?’

‘That’s right,’ Julia said. ‘The five of us plus Aslan when he locked us inside.’

Richard caught Dwayne’s eye, both thinking the same thing.

‘I’m sorry,’ Richard said. ‘He locked you in?’

‘That’s right,’ Julia said, puzzled. ‘It’s a Yale lock. You know, one of those latches that closes itself. And Aslan locked it before we all sat down. He said he didn’t want us to be disturbed.’

‘I see,’ Richard said making a note in his book. ‘And then what happened?’

‘Well,’ Julia said, ‘we then all sat on our prayer mats and shared a cup of tea. It’s a way of relaxing before the session starts. And then we put on our eyemasks and headphones and lay down on our prayer mats. Although Aslan tends to stay sitting up, cross-legged. He’s far more advanced in reaching an autogenic state than the rest of us.’

‘I see,’ Richard said, not really seeing anything at all. ‘And what’s an autogenic state?’

‘It’s a state of perfect relaxation, and it’s what the Sunrise Healing’s all about. You lie down, put on some headphones and an eye mask and the idea is to let your mind wander as the sounds of nature and the rays of sunlight overwhelm you. It’s like being plugged into a recharging station. You wake up half an hour later full of energy. But this time, the next thing I knew, I was standing over Aslan’s body holding a knife … I killed him.’

As Julia was saying this, she lifted her bloodied hand and looked at it as if she couldn’t understand how it was attached to her body.

Richard noticed that Julia was holding up her left hand.

‘Tell me,’ he said, as though it wasn’t of much consequence, ‘are you left-handed?’

‘That’s right,’ Julia said, puzzled by the question. ‘Why?’

Richard smiled blandly. ‘No reason.’

‘It was like an out of body experience. I could see myself with the knife … but if I’m honest, I don’t actually remember the moment. You know … I was just standing there, the knife in my hand. And that poor man was at my feet … not moving …!’

Julia was overwhelmed by her memories and started to weep. Richard flashed a panicked look at Dwayne. What was he supposed to do now?

Dwayne stepped in.

‘Hey. We don’t have to do this now. We can take you in, get you a lawyer. Take your statement later.’

Julia turned to Dwayne with a look of gratitude, and she wiped her tears from her cheek.

‘No,’ Julia said, after a moment’s thought. ‘You have to know what happened. I owe that to Aslan.’

Richard was frankly baffled. Since when did self-confessed killers feel they owed anything to the corpse they’d just created? Dwayne looked over at his boss and shrugged that maybe they should carry on.

‘Okay,’ Richard said. ‘But don’t worry. Only a couple of questions, then we’ll be done.’

In short order, Richard got the remaining details. Julia was able to explain how she had no particular grudge against Aslan. In fact she liked him. Which was why she was stunned to discover that she’d just killed him. What’s more, she not only hated knives, she had no idea where the knife came from that she’d just used to kill Aslan, or how she’d managed to smuggle it into the Meditation Space.

In fact, Richard had to conclude, Julia seemed no less baffled by the murder than he was.

‘So, to sum up,’ Richard said checking over the notes he’d taken. ‘You say you have no motive—you have no idea where the knife came from—you don’t know how you got it into the Meditation Space with you—you have no clear memory of actually killing the victim—but you’d noneth-less like to confess to his murder?’

Julia looked at Richard.

‘But I have to. It was me. I killed him.’

Richard looked at Dwayne. Dwayne looked at Richard. Oh well, a confession was a confession. Dwayne got out his handcuffs and started to bind them to Julia’s wrists. As he did this, he cautioned her.

‘Julia Higgins, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

‘But before you go, can I ask you one last question?’ Richard said.

‘Of course.’

‘Do you know why there’s a drawing pin on the floor of the Meditation Space?’

Julia didn’t really understand the question.

‘What drawing pin?’

So that was the end of that.

As Dwayne led Julia off, Richard took a moment to look about himself. The old plantation owner’s house that was now the main hotel building sat in a sea of manicured lawns, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It was all wrought-iron balconies and horizontal planks of white-painted wood. But Richard also noted the other structures that were dotted around the hotel’s grounds. There was what looked like a red and gold Shinto shrine off in one clearing; a colonnade of vine-entwined Corinthian pillars straight out of Ancient Greece in another; and, up on a bluff that overlooked the sparkling sea, there appeared to be a Thai temple, with sharply sloped roofs in copper green.

It was all very strange and incongruous to Richard’s mind. As for the hotel’s guests, Richard could see that they’d apparently all vanished into thin air, although—now he was looking—he could see a clump of them down on the beach looking back at him.

Camille came over from the house and Richard went to meet her.

‘Okay,’ Camille said. ‘I’ve sent Rianka—the wife—to her room and I’ve said I’ll go to her as soon as I can. As for the other witnesses, they’re off getting changed into their normal clothes. I’ve then told them to meet by the ambulance so we can take samples.’

‘Good work. Thank you.’

‘But what did Julia say? Is she the murderer?’

‘Oh yes. She’s made a full confession.’

Camille looked at Richard and shifted her weight onto one hip, a suspicious look slipping into her eyes.

‘And yet …?’

‘I don’t know, it’s just she didn’t really make a very good fist at explaining the murder.’

‘She didn’t?’

‘No. For example, she didn’t say she had any reason to want to kill the deceased. In fact, she said how much she liked him. And she claimed she not only hadn’t seen the knife before that she used to kill him, but she had no idea where it even came from.’

‘But she’s the murderer, of course she’d say that. She’s lying.’

‘I know. But seeing as she’s already confessed to killing him, why bother to lie that she doesn’t know what her motive was, what her means were or what her opportunity was?’

Camille could see the logic of what Richard was saying.

‘And she’s also left-handed,’ Richard said.

‘She is?’

‘Or so she says.’

‘Maybe she’s trying to trick you.’

‘Maybe.’

Camille knew her boss well. ‘You don’t think she did it, do you?’

‘I don’t know what I think—but it’s definitely not stacking up. Not yet. Not if she can’t provide us with a decent means, motive and opportunity. And there’s something else as well.’ Richard paused a moment, and then turned back to face the Japanese tea house. ‘It’s this tea house. Because Julia also said Aslan locked her and the others inside it before they started their meditation.’

‘So?’

Richard looked at his partner. ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’

Camille refused to be drawn, so Richard explained for her.

‘Because who in their right mind would allow themselves to be locked inside a room with four other potential witnesses before committing murder?’

Camille considered this a moment and then said, ‘Oh. I see what you mean.’

‘Precisely. Why not kill him in the dead of night? Or when he’s on his own?’

Richard looked over at the Meditation Space again.

‘If you ask me, there’s something about that tea house that’s important. Something we haven’t realised yet. Either because of how it’s made—or where it’s located—but the victim had to be killed inside it in broad daylight in front of a load of other potential witnesses. Why?’

Chapter Two

While Fidel processed the scene, Camille oversaw the paramedics taking the blood samples from the four remaining witnesses, and Richard watched all the activity from the shade of a nearby palm tree. This, in fact, meant standing nowhere near the palm tree in question that was actually shading him, but Richard had long ago learnt that a palm tree’s vertical trunk was too narrow to offer any shade from the blistering tropical sunshine. Instead, his technique was to follow the shade of the thin trunk along the ground until he found the much larger clump of shade that was thrown by the bush of fronds at the top of the tree.

Which is why, at this precise moment, if anyone had been looking, they’d have seen Richard standing in the middle of an entirely sun-bleached lawn apparently in his own personal shaft of darkness. But he wanted to take a moment to watch the four remaining witnesses interact with Camille. After all, they’d just been locked inside a room where a vicious murder had been carried out. How were they bearing up?

To this end, Richard had already got the witnesses’ check-in details from The Retreat’s receptionist.

He could see that Camille was currently talking to a woman he now knew was called Saskia Filbee. The photocopy of her passport had her down as forty-two years old. And according to the hotel’s registration card she lived in Walthamstow and worked as a temporary secretary in London. Like the other witnesses, she’d now changed back into her normal clothes and Richard could see that she’d chosen to put on a sensible A-line dress in dark blue. And he could also see from the way that Saskia listened to Camille with her head cocked slightly to one side that this was someone who was happy being told what to do.

He saw Saskia nod her head and go over to one of the paramedics. Yes, Richard thought to himself, Saskia was a sensible secretary. And she would of course volunteer to give her blood sample to the paramedics first.

Richard shuffled the registration forms in his hand and came up with Paul Sellars and Ann Sellars next. According to their passports, Ann was forty-five years old and had been born in Birmingham. Her registration said she was a housewife and, now that she’d changed into her normal clothes, Richard could see that while she was somewhat plump, she seemed to fizz with the energy of a middle-aged woman who, rather than despair at how she’d ‘let herself go’, had instead decided to embrace this fact.

Gold flashed at the thick necklace around Ann’s neck, her wrists were similarly festooned with glitz, and she seemed to be wearing electric-blue trousers and gold slippers straight out of an Arabian nightmare, a violently fuchsia blouse, and the whole ensemble was finished off with a silk shawl that she wore draped over her shoulders and which seemed to have been constructed from every colour in the world that didn’t actually occur in nature. On it, neon swirls of blue fought with psychedelic greens; and both lost out to attacks of fluorescent yellow.

Richard could see from the way that Ann was now talking to Camille—with almost windmill gesticulations as she pointed from the house to the Meditation Space and back again at the paramedics—that Ann clearly had a personality as colourful and slapdash as her clothes.

He watched as a man wearing tan chinos, brown deck shoes and a white short-sleeved shirt joined Ann. Richard could see from the papers in his hand that this was Paul Sellars, Ann’s fifty-two-year-old husband. He was a pharmacist at an independent chemist’s in Nottingham, where he and Ann lived. And as Paul calmed Ann down, Richard could see that everything Ann was, her husband wasn’t.

For starters, he was rake thin. And almost entirely bald. But it was more than that. It was his manner that was so different. Richard could see that Paul was smooth, conciliatory. In charge. Just a few words into whatever he was saying, Ann quietened down and looked at her husband as though waiting for instruction. And instruction was clearly what he was giving her because, as he pointed off to the paramedics, Ann seemed finally to understand what was expected of her and she went over to give her samples meekly.

Richard saw Camille thank Paul for his timely intervention and Richard then saw him smile briefly and nod once. Paul was clearly a quietly capable person.

Which left only one witness, Ben Jenkins, who Richard had briefly spoken to when he’d first arrived at the murder scene. He could see from Ben’s photocopied passport that he was fifty, had been born in Leeds, but he now listed his home address as Vilamoura, Portugal.

As Richard looked up, it took him a moment to find Ben, but then he saw him standing off to one side in the shade of the ambulance. He wasn’t that tall, and now that he’d been allowed to get back into his normal clothes, Richard could see that Ben wore what looked like white leather shoes, stone-washed blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt in vertical pink and blue stripes that was tucked tightly into a thin belt that cinched him tight at the waist.

Richard thought he recognised the type. Ben had done extremely well in life and was now trying to use expensive clothes and accessories to draw attention away from his increasing girth and decreasing attraction. Looking down at the forms again, Richard saw that Ben had listed his occupation on the hotel form as ‘Property Developer’.

Richard found it interesting how Ben was off to one side. Alone. In fact, as Richard watched him, he found himself noting that Ben seemed to be watching Camille and the others, just as Richard was watching Ben.

Richard made a mental note to keep an eye on Ben Jenkins.

Once the witnesses had finished with the paramedics, Camille moved them to the shade of the verandah and Richard joined them all—but not before he’d sent Camille off to check up on the victim’s wife, Rianka.

‘Thank you for all agreeing to talk to me,’ Richard said to the four witnesses. ‘I know this must have been a very trying time for you all.’

‘That poor man!’ Ann said, throwing her hand to her heaving chest. ‘What do you think he’d done to that girl to make her do that to him? Is she deranged? That’s all I can think. Mentally deficient somehow!’

‘For god’s sake,’ Paul drawled in a patrician manner, ‘be quiet, woman.’

‘Of course, Paul. Sorry.’

Ann pulled her mouth into a contrite mou as if to demonstrate how she wouldn’t be saying another word—not another peep!—and Richard took a moment to look at Paul. There was so little to him, really. His face was almost skeletally thin, his skin was sallow, what hair he did have was grey and wispy and combed over his bald pate, and yet he seemed to have complete mastery of his otherwise far more punchy wife.

But there was something else Richard could sense between husband and wife, and that was a look of subservience in Ann’s eyes. Why should such a larger-than-life woman like Ann be intimidated by a skeletal squit like Paul? But then, Richard reminded himself, all relationships between men and women were essentially a mystery to him.

He put these thoughts to one side. It was time to get on.

‘I’d first like to thank you all for your help so far. But before we take your formal statements, can I just try and establish the order of events? What happened this morning?’

‘Be happy to,’ Paul purred, comfortable to take centre stage. ‘It was a terrible business, wasn’t it? Just terrible. But I’ve been thinking it over, and I think I’ve got it.’

Paul looked to the other witnesses for their assent. Saskia was looking too quiet and withdrawn to mind who told their story—but Richard could see that Ben was twinkling, clearly amused at how Paul thought he was master of the situation.

‘If you would?’ Richard said.

So Paul told Richard how they’d all had to get up at sunrise, which was why it was called the Sunrise Healing. But before they got to the Meditation Space, they’d been expected to stretch on the beach and swim in the sea as a way of preparing their bodies for the treatment, which was hardly a chore, because, as Paul put it, when someone tells you to go for a swim in a sea that’s warm as a bath and teeming with tropical fish, you don’t really need a second invitation.

Richard quietly shuddered at the thought. Didn’t Paul know that thousands of people around the world drowned from swimming in the sea every year?

Paul went on to say that Aslan then came out of the house with a tray of tea things, and called them over. That’s when they put on their white robes.

This detail got Richard’s attention. ‘How do you mean, your robes?’

‘The robes we were wearing when you first met us. We’d been swimming before, so all we had on was our swim things.’

‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘And where did you get your robes from?’

Paul explained that there were little huts all over The Retreat that contained tightly wrapped rolls of fresh cotton robes, and they got their robes that morning from the hut on the beach.

‘Then tell me, did anyone see Julia put her robe on?’ Richard asked.

Ben chortled. ‘Are you trying to work out how she got the murder weapon into the room?’

Richard met Ben’s eyes properly for the first time, and felt a spike of recognition. Closer up, Richard could see that Ben had a chubby face, dark hair—and, with his plum-my northern accent, he gave off the impression of being a jolly farmer. Even if this jolly farmer clearly bought all of his clothes from Harrods. But for all of Ben’s apparent bonhomie, Richard knew you could measure a man by his eyes. How watchful they were. And Ben’s eyes were very watchful.

‘That’s right,’ Richard said. ‘So did any of you see her carrying a knife at all this morning?’

‘There’s no way she had a knife on her,’ Ben said, ‘because I’m telling you, when that girl got out of the sea this morning, all she was wearing was a bikini—and it was barely three pieces of string. There’s no way she had a fifty pence piece hidden about her person, let alone a bloody great carving knife.’

‘He’s right, you know,’ Paul added. ‘You see, it was me who handed out the robes to everyone this morning. You know, after our swim. And there certainly wasn’t anything like a knife wrapped inside the robe I gave to Julia. And seeing as she put it on then and there—and then stayed with us while we all walked to the Meditation Space together—I don’t see where she could have got a knife from.’

‘Then maybe she’d already hidden a knife in the Meditation Space before you arrived?’ Richard asked.

‘I don’t think that’s possible,’ Paul said.

‘Are you sure?’ Richard asked.

‘You’ve been in that room. It’s just an empty box made of paper and wood. And I can guarantee, the only things it contained when we arrived were six prayer mats, six pairs of headphones and some eye masks.’

Richard was puzzled. ‘So you’re all saying that there was no way Julia could have been carrying the knife about her person before she got into the Meditation Space—and there was also nowhere inside the room for her to have hidden the knife before you all arrived?’

The witnesses all agreed that this was indeed exactly what they were saying.

‘In which case,’ Richard asked, ‘just how do you think Julia got the murder weapon into the Meditation Space?’

The witnesses had no idea, and Richard could see their confusion. After all, if Julia came out of the sea in her swimming costume and put on her cotton robe in front of everyone else, it was hard to see how she could have hidden a knife as large as the murder weapon on her person. And Richard had seen the Meditation Space for himself. It was indeed an empty box. Any carving knife hidden inside it beforehand would almost certainly have been noticed by someone. Wouldn’t it?

Richard made a note in his notebook and moved the conversation on. What happened after they’d all got into the Meditation Space?

Paul explained that once they were all inside, Aslan placed the tray of tea in the centre of the floor before inviting everyone to take up a position on their prayer mats in a circle around the tea. Then, once everyone was sitting comfortably, Aslan went and locked the door. Apparently, he had been interrupted a few months before during one of his healing sessions and had asked The Retreat’s handyman to fix a Yale lock to the door.

Richard noted this detail and once again considered how odd it was. After all, he’d investigated many murders before, but he’d never heard of a murder where the killer allowed himself to be locked inside a room with possible witnesses before carrying out the murder. It didn’t make any sense.

Paul explained how, once he’d locked the door, Aslan rejoined the group, sat on his mat and poured everyone a cup of tea. Aslan then told them they all had to drink their cup of tea at the same time.

‘At the same time?’ Richard jumped in.

‘That’s right,’ Paul said, before explaining that it was apparently an old Japanese ritual that dated back to the days of the shoguns. Everyone had to drink their tea at the same time and then turn their cups over to show that they’d finished.

‘Very well,’ Richard said. ‘So you all drank your tea and turned your cups over. What happened next?’

‘Well, then we all put on our eye masks and wireless headphones,’ Paul said. ‘Aslan told us that we then had to lie down, close our eyes, open our minds, and listen to the whale music. This was how we were going to heal ourselves.’

‘Whale music was going to heal you?’

‘It was about losing ourselves in the immensity of the deep. And I was as sceptical as you to start off with. But it’s an odd one, because when you’re lying there—and you can feel all that sunlight on your skin—and you’ve got your eyes closed, and you’re listening to distant whale song, you do start to drift off.’

‘It’s so true!’ Ann said. ‘You go all dreamy.’

‘Dreamy?’ Richard asked a little too keenly, and he saw understanding slip into Ben’s eyes.

‘You think we were all drugged, don’t you?’ Ben said. ‘That’s why you wanted us to give samples to the paramedics.’

The witnesses looked at Richard and he realised he had an explanation to give. ‘It’s a possibility I’m not ruling out. After all, it’s somewhat unusual that a murderer would have the confidence to strike in a confined space in front of so many witnesses. One explanation might be that you were all drugged and the killer wasn’t.’

‘I definitely felt woozy when I woke up,’ Ann said. ‘And so did Paul. He had difficulty waking up in fact. I had to shake him by the shoulders.’

Paul looked at his wife with quiet disdain. Clearly, while he was happy to talk on the behalf of others, he wasn’t so happy when his wife talked on his.

‘So did I,’ Ben said.

‘And me, too,’ Saskia said, speaking for the first time. ‘I couldn’t wake up to start off with, and my head was throbbing. Although I soon forgot about all that when I saw what had happened while I’d been wearing my eye mask.’

‘Of course,’ Richard said, making a note. ‘And what exactly did you see when you took it off?’

Saskia looked at Richard a moment, clearly reliving her horrifying experience and unable to put what she’d seen into words.

‘That woman,’ Paul said. ‘Julia. Whoever she is. Standing over the body. That’s what we all saw. Screaming her head off and holding a carving knife in her hand. It was covered in blood.’

‘And is that the same for all of you?’

The witnesses all agreed that the first they’d known that anything was wrong was when they’d heard a woman’s scream. Then, at different times, they’d all taken their headphones and eye masks off and seen Julia Higgins standing over Aslan’s body, screaming and holding a bloody carving knife.

‘I see,’ Richard said, making a note of this fact. ‘But did any of you see Julia stab the victim?’

The witnesses hadn’t.

‘So you all agree,’ Richard wanted to clarify. ‘The first you saw of Julia, she was standing over the dead body holding a knife, but none of you saw her stab the victim at any time?’ Richard asked.

‘That’s right,’ Paul said for them all.

‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘Then can I ask, are you all sure you were the only people in the room before you put on your eye masks and headphones?’

‘Of course,’ Ben said a touch dismissively. ‘There’s nowhere to hide in that box. I’m telling you, it was just the five of us in there when Aslan locked the door and we all sat down.’

‘Suggesting that it could only have been one of you five who killed him.’

This got all of the witnesses’ attention.

Paul was the first to recover.

‘Yeah, but that’s okay. That other woman. Julia—or whatever her name is. She’s already confessed to the murder. Hasn’t she?’

Richard decided this was a question that did not need answering.

‘Then can you tell me,’ he continued, ‘how long were you all lying down and listening to the sounds of the deep before you started coming round?’

‘Ten minutes,’ Ben said. ‘Fifteen at the most.’

‘Really? That’s quite a precise figure.’

‘I checked my watch when we went into the room. It was a quarter to eight. I reckon we all drank tea for about ten minutes, so that means we lay down and put the headphones on some time before eight. And when we started coming round, I looked at my watch and it wasn’t much past 8.10am.’

‘So you were all wearing eye masks and listening to music on headphones the whole time you were lying down?’

The witnesses all agreed, and Richard took a moment to look at them all again.

Saskia had only spoken once, but Richard could see that she was meeting his gaze evenly, her hands folded neatly on her lap, her back straight. She looked worried—upset, even—but these were quite natural reactions; she didn’t look like she was hiding anything.

As for Ann, she’d followed what she could of the conversation like someone watching a tennis match for the first time—and without any idea of what the rules were. If she was guilty of anything, Richard mused to himself, it wasn’t going to be of having a razor-sharp intellect.

And then there was Paul. Richard still couldn’t quite work out how someone so drab—so ‘middle management’—could have such an apparent hold over his wife. After all, the way Richard saw it, Paul was just one toothbrush moustache away from being the spit of Roger Hargreaves’s Mr Fussy.

Which left only Ben, and Richard continued to be quietly puzzled by him. Why was his manner so off-hand?

This made Richard remember what he had to ask next.

‘Can I ask,’ he said, ‘who here is left-handed?’

The witnesses looked at Richard, surprised, but they were all happy to tell him that they were all right-handed.

Richard took a moment to consider the significance of this fact. After all, it already looked as though the wounds in the victim’s neck and back had to have been inflicted by someone who’d been wielding the knife right-handed. So how come the only person who’d confessed to the murder was the only person in the room who was left-handed?

‘Then one last question, if you don’t mind. Can any of you imagine why Julia—or anyone else for that matter—would have wanted to harm Aslan Kennedy?’

The witnesses said that they had no idea. After all, as they put it, none of them had ever been to Saint-Marie before, they barely knew Aslan.

‘And I only arrived on the island last night,’ Saskia said. ‘The first time I even met Aslan was this morning.’

‘Really?’ Richard said.

‘That’s right,’ she said, but Richard noticed that Saskia had something else on her mind. Something was troubling her.

‘And?’ he asked.

Saskia looked at Richard, unsure, and Richard decided that the dutiful secretary needed to be told what to do.

‘If you have any information that may have a bearing on the case, you’re obliged to mention it.’

‘No, of course,’ she said, suitably chastened. ‘And it may be nothing, but yesterday, after I arrived, I got a bit lost in the hotel and I found myself outside Aslan’s office. Although the door was closed, I could hear voices inside. Raised voices.’

‘What time was this?’

‘About 6pm I think,’ Saskia said.

‘And you’re sure it was Aslan’s office?’

‘Oh yes. But the thing is, the voice I heard belonged to a man, but I don’t think it was Aslan. Anyway, I heard this man say “You’re not going to get away with it!”‘

‘You did?’

‘That’s right. And he was angry. But I heard it quite distinctly. “You’re not going to get away with it!” he said. And a few moments later, the door opened and I saw Aslan flee. He looked seriously distressed.’

‘You didn’t see who he left behind in the office?’

‘No. The whole thing was so strange, I didn’t hang about to find out who the man was who’d been shouting at Aslan.’

Richard considered what Saskia had said before turning to look at Ben and Paul.

‘I don’t suppose either of you were in Aslan’s office yesterday shouting at him at 6pm, were you?’

Paul looked affronted.

‘Certainly not.’

‘So can you tell me? Where were you at 6pm yesterday?’

Paul had to think for a moment before he answered. ‘I was down at the beach. Wasn’t I, darling?’

Ann looked at her husband, uncomprehending. ‘You were?’

‘Of course I was!’ Paul said, exasperated. ‘I was with you.’

It took Ann a moment to register this fact. ‘Oh, of course!’ she eventually said. ‘That’s right. We were both down on the beach, weren’t we?’

Richard found himself briefly wondering why it took Ann so long to remember that she and Paul had been on the beach together. Had she really forgotten?

Richard turned to Ben and waited for his answer.

‘Alright,’ Ben said, ‘I was in my room. On my own.’

‘So you’re saying that no one can alibi you for about 6pm yesterday evening?’

Ben looked at Richard with the first hint of irritation.

‘That’s right. I went to my room at about five for a bit of a lie down. I’d had too much sun. I then didn’t leave my room until seven when I came down for dinner. But I don’t need an alibi, I didn’t kill Aslan Kennedy.’

‘I see,’ Richard said, making a note of this fact.

Richard decided he’d got enough from the witnesses for the moment. At the very least, he needed to corroborate what they’d so far said with Aslan’s wife, so he thanked the witnesses for their time, told them that an officer would be asking them to write out their formal statements later on, and then he went off to find Camille.

She was upstairs comforting the grieving widow in her bedroom.

Richard felt himself relax as soon as he entered Rianka and Aslan’s bedroom. The shuttered windows let in only the thinnest stripes of sunlight, the dark floorboards were polished and cool, and a ceiling fan ticked lazily overhead. There was even an aspidistra in a pot in the corner of the room, Richard noted with a sigh of quiet approval.

Camille and Rianka looked up as he entered.

‘Mrs Kennedy?’ Richard asked.

‘Please … it’s Rianka.’

Richard took a moment to consider Rianka. She was slender, her hands were elegant and long-fingered, her grey hair was fixed behind her head with two chopsticks, and while her clothes were colourful and ethnic, she herself appeared quiet and demure. Prim, even. Even so, it was easy to see the beautiful young woman who had turned into this beautiful sixty-something-year-old woman.

A woman who was now experiencing the shock of sudden grief, her cheeks tear-stained, her eyes wet with pain.

‘I’m sorry to intrude, but I do have a few questions.’

‘No … of course.’

‘I’ll be as brief as I can.’

Rianka nodded.

‘Starting maybe with last night. You see, we’ve got a witness who says that she heard a man arguing with your husband in his office yesterday at about 6pm. Do you happen to know anything about that?’

‘An argument?’

‘Apparently so. At about 6pm.’

Rianka had a good think, sorting through her confused thoughts. ‘I’m sorry. I was in the kitchens then, I don’t know anything about that.’

‘Then perhaps your husband mentioned an argument to you later on?’

‘No. Aslan didn’t argue with people. He wasn’t like that. And he definitely didn’t mention any kind of argument to me yesterday.’

Now that was interesting, Richard thought to himself. Saskia said she overheard Aslan having an argument. So why hadn’t he mentioned this fact to his wife later on?

‘Then can I ask,’ Richard continued, ‘whether or not there was a man in your husband’s study shouting at him yesterday, did anyone have any grievances against him?’

‘No, of course not. Aslan was wonderful. Everyone loved him …’

Rianka trailed off and Richard could see that something was on her mind.

‘Although?’ he prompted.

‘Well, it’s maybe nothing, but he and Dominic haven’t been getting on for a while.’

‘And who’s Dominic?’

‘The handyman. It was Dominic who brought you to the Meditation Space.’

‘Oh, him?’ Richard said, surprised.

‘Although Dominic was outside the Meditation Space when it was opened up, so I don’t see how he could be involved.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Richard said. ‘We’ll look into it. But if we come on to the events of this morning. Can I just start by asking, when did your husband get up?’

‘At sunrise. That’s when he gets up.’

‘I see. And you?’

‘I lay in bed for half an hour or so longer and then I got up as well. I had some breakfast, and then I remembered there was some sewing I could be getting on with. So I went out onto the verandah to do it.’ Rianka gathered her courage as she forced herself to remember. ‘I saw Aslan and the others go into the Meditation Space. They closed the door. And that was the last time I saw him …’

‘And do you know what time this was?’

‘I have no idea. Not really. Maybe half past seven? Or just after?’

‘Then can I ask, did you stay on the verandah the whole time your husband and the other guests were inside the Meditation Space?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you perhaps see anyone enter or leave the Meditation Space during that time?’

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘Are you sure?’

Rianka seemed to piece together her memories as she spoke. ‘I could see the whole lawn. The Meditation Space is in the middle of it. The only people I saw go inside it the whole time I was on the verandah were Aslan and the five guests. And once the door was shut, it didn’t open again. Not until later on, after I heard a woman scream. And that’s when I ran …’ Rianka trailed off as the pain of her memories overwhelmed her.

‘Thank you,’ Camille said. ‘We won’t be asking anything else.’

‘Just one more question, though, if that’s alright,’ Richard said.

Camille flashed a look at Richard that might have killed a lesser man, but Richard was impervious. He had a killer to catch. And Camille should have known by now that he wouldn’t be wasting Rianka’s time unless it was important.

‘Do you have any idea how a drawing pin ended up on the floor of the Meditation Space?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Richard was surprised to see that Rianka had apparently said this without moving her mouth. And then he realised it had been his partner who’d spoken.

Ignoring the look of fire in Camille’s eyes, Richard turned back to Rianka.

‘You see, we found a drawing pin on the floor of the Meditation Space, and it could be important. After all, why would there be something as dangerous as a drawing pin left on a floor where people are walking around barefoot?’

‘I don’t understand. Are you asking me how a drawing pin got into the Meditation Space?’

‘Yes I am.’

‘Then I’m sorry. I don’t know.’

‘Very well then, thank you very much for your time.’ Richard turned to his partner. ‘Camille, if Rianka’s up to it, I’d like you to take her formal statement—and then I’d like you to take the statements of the other witnesses who were in the Meditation Space.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Camille said.

Richard could tell that Camille was irritated that he’d asked the grieving widow about a drawing pin, but he refused to apologise for what he felt was a valid line of inquiry, and that was that.

Outside again in the glaring sunlight, Richard tried to make sense of what he’d learnt so far, but it was hard to get a handle on everything. After all, they’d already arrested the self-confessed killer. Surely that made it an open and shut case?

But Richard wasn’t so sure. There was a long and ignoble history of weak-minded people admitting to murders they hadn’t committed. And there was no getting away from it, Julia hadn’t behaved like any kind of murderer he’d ever met before. After all, who’d confess to a murder and then be unable to explain to the police why they did it, how they did it or where the murder weapon came from? It also didn’t help her case that the wounds to the right side of the victim’s neck and back strongly suggested that the killer had been right-handed, and Julia said she was left-handed.

And then there was the mystery of the drawing pin. Richard didn’t care that Camille thought it was irrelevant. He’d learnt long ago that the most important object at a crime scene was sometimes something entirely humdrum that wouldn’t be of interest except for the fact that it was in the wrong place. And a drawing pin that was loose on the floor in a room where people went around barefoot was definitely a humdrum object in the wrong place.

He also couldn’t shake the feeling that the location of the murder itself was important. Aslan was killed inside a locked room that was only made of paper—and in front of a load of potential witnesses—but why was he killed there?

Richard looked through a heat haze at the Meditation Space as it sat shimmering in the middle of the lawn.

What had happened in there while it was locked down?

Richard considered that maybe Julia was their killer. Maybe she wasn’t. But if she wasn’t, then that meant that one of Saskia Filbee, Paul Sellars, Ann Sellars or Ben Jenkins had in fact done it.

But why on earth would any of them want to get a carving knife and viciously slay the owner of a hotel none of them had ever visited before?

Chapter Three

‘Right then,’ Richard said when he and Camille had rejoined Dwayne back in the police station. ‘We have a killer to catch. Let’s get this up on the board.’

Richard dragged the ancient whiteboard on its juddering legs across to the centre of the room and took a moment to marvel—not for the first time—at how rudimentary the Honoré Police Station was.

There were four wooden desks for each of the station’s police officers—each with a computer on—and that was about it. Everything else that was piled around, and there was a lot of everything else, was generally broken or defunct somehow. The office noticeboard carried rotas for officers who’d long since left the station; the Wanted poster on the wall was for a man who’d apparently long since died; and there were ancient metal filing cabinets propped up around the walls like drunks at a party, their files spilling out of their drawers. And under all the mess of paperwork that littered everywhere, there were whole sedimentary layers of ancient office equipment that hadn’t been discontinued so much as abandoned in place.

Richard had come to the island of Saint-Marie just over a year ago when he’d been sent out to solve the murder of the incumbent Detective Inspector, a man called Charlie Hulme. Richard had hated the tropics from the moment he’d stepped off the plane, but he’d consoled himself at the time with the knowledge that he’d be able to go home just as soon as he’d solved the case.

But Richard hadn’t been counting on the political manoeuvrings of the island’s Commissioner of Police, Selwyn Hamilton, and by the time that Charlie Hulme’s killer had been caught, Richard was astounded to learn that he’d been invited to stay on as the island’s Detective Inspector.

Richard had been horrified, not least because it finally confirmed a suspicion he’d held for many years that his Superintendent back in Croydon had been trying to get rid of him. But now that Richard had had this fact confirmed, he decided that he was too proud to ask for his old job back. As far as Richard was concerned, no one should ever be made to beg to go back to Croydon. So, instead, he accepted the job on Saint-Marie as a stop-gap and spent every subsequent spare moment he had applying for jobs that would allow him to go back to a different station in the UK.

But a strange thing happened as the months passed, not that Richard was anything more than dimly aware of it. Because, separated from a Metropolitan Police hierarchy that he’d never quite fitted into—and now surrounded by a talented team who seemed to forgive him his idiosyncrasies while championing his strengths—Richard had finally started to find the sort of success that had proved so elusive in the UK.

He still hated the tropics of course: the climate, the spicy food, the shack he had to live in—the sand that got everywhere—and the fact that even though Saint-Marie was larger even than the Isle of Wight, it wasn’t possible to get a decent pint of beer anywhere. But while Richard told himself that he was still hell-bent on getting posted back to the UK, he hadn’t noticed—although his team had—that he hadn’t actually applied for any jobs back in the UK for the last few months.

This didn’t mean that he was happy, of course. Someone like Richard could never be happy—but his levels of unhappiness had perhaps bottomed out.

On this occasion, though, Richard was having a typically frustrating time trying to find even a single whiteboard marker with enough ink in it to work. Once he’d finally found one that would just about do, he turned to face his team.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Five guests at a fancy health-spa-cum-hotel get up at dawn and go for a morning swim. Saskia Filbee, Ann Sellars, Paul Sellars, Ben Jenkins and Julia Higgins.’ Richard wrote the names on the board, leaving plenty of space between the names so they could later annotate the board with evidence as they collected it.

Richard carried on making notes on the board as he recounted how the witnesses all went swimming that morning, and how one of their number—Paul Sellars—handed out fresh cotton robes to them all, Julia Higgins included, before they all went with Aslan to the Mediation Space, and how all of the witnesses agreed that Julia couldn’t have hidden a knife about her person before the room was locked down.

He then went on to explain that once inside, it was Aslan who locked the door from the inside. All five guests and Aslan then drank from the same pot of tea and all turned their cups over. They then all put on their wireless headphones and eye masks and lay down on their prayer mats.

And then there was a ten to fifteen minute window in which Aslan was brutally slain, somehow without any of the witnesses hearing or seeing anything until Julia started screaming, which was when everyone inside the Meditation Space woke up and saw Julia standing over the body holding a carving knife in her left hand.

‘Even though the wounds in the victim’s neck and back look like they were delivered by a right-handed person,’ Camille said.

‘Precisely.’

‘And you should know,’ Camille said, ‘when I watched Julia write out her witness statement, she used her left hand to do the whole thing.’

‘So what do we think? Is she really our killer?’

‘She’s confessed to the murder,’ Dwayne pointed out.

‘I know, but I don’t want us to rule anything in or out for the moment. Not until we know more about what we’re dealing with. And you should know, all the witnesses said they felt groggy when they woke up. Camille, did we manage to get samples of the tea they were drinking off to the labs in Guadeloupe?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And samples of the witnesses’ blood and urine?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Richard looked at the board and realised something.

‘Because there’s something you should all know,’ Richard said. ‘Paul Sellars’s registration card for the hotel had his profession down as a pharmacist. If the tea was doctored in any way, he’s the person on this list who’d have had the easiest access to any kind of mind-altering drug.’

Richard recorded this fact by Paul’s name on the whiteboard.

‘And two more things,’ Richard said. ‘Firstly, why was Aslan killed inside a house made of paper and wood? It’s such a strange place to commit murder. Don’t you think? And secondly—and just as important—why did we find a drawing pin loose at the scene?’

As Richard finished writing his notes up, it was fortunate that he couldn’t see the sceptical looks that passed between Dwayne and Camille behind his back.

‘Very good,’ Richard finally said, looking at the board. ‘Yes. That’s a start. Have you got the witness statements?’ he asked Camille.

‘Of course, sir,’ she said.

As Camille hunted for the statements among the slick of other casework on her desk, Richard marvelled once again at how he managed to work so effectively with a partner who was so very disorganised. Her desk alone was enough to send him into conniptions with its mess of paperwork, files, bits of old orange peel and desiccated tubs of make-up that she’d leave the lids off and then lose interest in entirely. Richard’s desk, on the other hand, was of course neat and tidy; his in tray empty, his out tray just as empty. There was no pending tray. As far as Richard was concerned, pending trays were for wimps.

‘Got them!’

Camille triumphantly held up a manila folder containing the witness statements.

‘Yes. Well done, Camille.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Camille asked, picking up on her boss’s tone.

‘Only that it shouldn’t be such an achievement to find the witness statements to a murder case.’

‘I knew where they were.’

‘Self-evidently you didn’t.’

Camille pointedly opened the buff folder by way of a reply, and, as she gave her verbal report, Richard wrote up his version of what Camille was saying on the whiteboard.

‘Okay … as for witnesses, first we’ve got Rianka Kennedy of course. And it’s basically what she’d already told us: she sat down on the verandah to do some sewing at about 7.30am, and no one other than Aslan and the five known witnesses went into the Meditation Space before 8am. She then saw no one else enter or leave the building, and the only person who was even remotely nearby was Dominic De Vere, the handyman. But Rianka said that although Dominic had a history of arguments with the deceased, he was definitely outside the Meditation Space when the screaming started.’

Dwayne said, ‘And if he was outside, he can’t be our killer.’

‘Quite so,’ Richard agreed. ‘Then what about our actual suspects? The people who were inside the locked room with the victim. What did you make of them all, Camille?’

Camille fanned out the witness statements so she could see them all. ‘So first we’ve got Saskia Filbee,’ she said. ‘I thought she was the classic innocent bystander. Shocked, but willing to help.’

‘I’d agree. That’s what I thought of her, too.’

‘And then we’ve got the husband and wife, Paul and Ann Sellars. And they’re an odd couple, aren’t they?’

‘Go on,’ Richard said.

‘Because she’s kind of crazy. I had an aunt like that. You know, larger than life. Talked too much. But it was because she never married and she had to keep noisy or she’d notice there wasn’t much going on in her life.’

‘You think Ann’s unhappy?’ Dwayne asked.

‘I don’t know. But she definitely talked too much. You know?’

‘Maybe she’s feeling guilty?’ Dwayne offered.

‘Maybe,’ Camille conceded, though she wasn’t too sure.

‘Then what about Paul?’ Richard asked.

‘He’s so sure of himself. And in control. Isn’t he?’ Camille said, and Richard couldn’t help but smile as this tallied with his impression of Paul as well. ‘And patronising. I got the distinct impression he didn’t take me seriously because I was a woman.’

‘Then what of Ben Jenkins?’

‘I don’t know,’ Camille said. ‘He was happy to give his statement, but there was something about him I couldn’t quite pin down.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He was helpful enough, but I felt he was being careful. Like he’d had a brush with the law in the past.’

‘That’s exactly it!’ Richard said, delighted. He’d been unable to place Ben’s manner himself, but Camille was right. When Richard talked to Ben it was as though Ben knew he had to be guarded around policemen.

Richard turned to Dwayne.

‘Dwayne? According to his registration document, Ben Jenkins lives in Portugal. When you do your background checks, see if he’s ever had a run-in with the authorities, would you? Not necessarily criminal. He’s a property developer there, it could be financial. Or legal. Or maybe he was investigated by the tax office. Or by the government’s Planning Department. But Camille’s right, the man was too canny for someone giving evidence for the first time.’

Dwayne looked puzzled.

‘Problem?’ Richard asked.

‘Sure. I’ll do all that, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Chief, but we’ve got the killer in our cells. She’s already confessed to the murder.’

‘I know, Dwayne, but it doesn’t mean we should believe her.’

Dwayne looked at his boss. ‘You don’t think we should believe criminals when they confess to their crimes?’

Before Richard could answer, there was the thump of footsteps on the verandah and everyone turned to see Fidel enter the station, his hands holding a manila file full of statements.

He was hot and he was very, very bothered.

‘Ah, Fidel. How were the other hotel guests?’

Fidel dumped the notes onto his desk before responding.

‘Confused. Panicked. Shocked. And all I got from them was a whole heap of nothing.’

‘Well, let’s see about that.’

‘I’m telling you, sir, I spoke to thirty-seven different guests and they’re all saying the same thing. Aslan was kind, quiet—a “man of peace” a few of them said.’ Fidel spread out his notes on his desk and read out a few choice quotations. ‘‘‘He was the person I aspire to be.” “He’s the reason I come to this Retreat year after year.” “He had a soul of pure gold.” I’m telling you, sir, they all think he was some kind of a saint.’

‘Then how come he ended up getting knifed to death?’

‘Not one of them has the first idea. But a couple of people did say something interesting.’

‘Oh?’

‘They said the only person at The Retreat who didn’t seem to like Aslan was Dominic, the handyman. Dominic would apparently make comments. He thought Aslan didn’t live in the real world.’

‘Which would be interesting,’ Richard said, ‘except for the fact that he wasn’t in the Meditation Space when the murder was carried out, so I don’t think we can consider him a suspect. Did you get anything that suggested that anyone inside the locked room with the victim at the time of the murder had a grievance with him at all?’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I got nothing like that.’

‘Then what about the argument? Did any of the guests hear a man shouting at Aslan in his office at 6pm the night before?’

‘And nor could I find anyone who heard any kind of argument at 6pm yesterday—either in Aslan’s office or anywhere else.’

‘And is that likely?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘That the only person in the whole hotel who heard a man shouting “You’re not going to get away with it” to Aslan was Saskia Filbee?’

Fidel thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know. It was pretty hot yesterday, most people would have been outside at that sort of time, I reckon.’

Richard considered this a moment before continuing. ‘Then what did the hotel guests have to say about Julia Higgins?’

Fidel started checking through his notes again as he said, ‘And that’s just as much of a dead end, sir. I couldn’t find anyone who had a bad word to say about her. She helps out in the office and she’s always polite. Cheerful, that’s a word a few people used. As for her relationship with Aslan, everyone said she hero-worshipped him. I couldn’t find a single person who believed for a second that she could be our killer.’

Not for the first time, Richard felt as though he were looking at the case the wrong way round. After all, why would a woman no one had a bad word to say about, kill someone who, by all accounts, she adored? And why would she do it inside a house made of paper? And in broad daylight? In front of four other potential witnesses? And, having killed a man everyone said she hero-worshipped, why would she then confess to the murder—but then fail to provide the police with any of her means, motive or opportunity?

Well, Richard mused to himself, there was one way to find out. Julia was currently in their police cells. He could ask her.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Dwayne and Fidel, I want you to finish processing the evidence. And Fidel, I want you dusting the murder weapon for fingerprints, of course, but first I want you to lift whatever prints you can find on the drawing pin I asked you to bag at the scene.’

Fidel looked at his boss. ‘You want me to lift whatever prints I can find on the drawing pin I found on the floor of the Meditation Space?’

‘That’s right,’ Richard said, a little irked. Hadn’t he made himself clear? ‘Whatever prints you can lift from the drawing pin.’

‘And you want me to do that before I start processing the actual weapon that was used to kill the victim?’

‘Yes. I said. As for you and me, Camille, I want to have another chat with our killer. And this time I want her to tell us why she killed Aslan Kennedy and how she smuggled a knife into the murder room without anyone seeing.’

Richard led through the bead curtain into the cells at the back of the station. This was his least favourite place on the whole island—which, whenever Richard thought about it, was really saying something. There were just two steelbarred rooms, an iron bed in each, a high strip of window above them both, and ancient paint that was peeling from the wall, exposing the crumbling bricks underneath.

Richard and Camille found Julia with her eyes closed and sitting in a lotus position on the floor of the first cell. Richard could see that she was now far more sensibly dressed—although he found himself musing that he’d personally not choose to go to prison wearing cut-off jeans and a tight T-shirt in bright lime green promoting hashish, but he supposed it was each to his own.

Julia opened her eyes as the police approached.

‘What have I done?’ she asked, so grief-stricken that neither Richard nor Camille said anything for a moment.

‘You know,’ Julia said, ‘I’ve been trying to put myself into a trance and go back in time.’

‘You have?’ Richard asked, already pre-emptively weary. This was what he found so tiresome about the New Age movement: they seemed to use the most cumbersome methods to reveal things that were actually already known. Like trying to go into a trance when a normal person would just use their memory. Or inventing ley lines to explain the mystery of Glastonbury Tor, when really it was just a hill in a surprising place. As for Stonehenge, Richard had always felt that the guy who’d commissioned it had probably only wanted a nice side table, but had made the mistake of asking a bunch of druids with too much time on their hands to do it.

Correctly interpreting her boss’s dismissive look, Camille tried to move the conversation on. She asked Julia, ‘And have you been able to access your memories?’

Julia looked at the police. ‘Not consciously.’

‘Not consciously?’ Richard asked, exasperated.

‘But I could access them subconsciously, I’m sure of it. If I could just get Dominic’s help.’

Richard’s antennae twitched. For a man who wasn’t a suspect, Dominic’s name was appearing a little too often in the investigation for his liking.

‘You mean The Retreat’s handyman?’

‘That’s right. He’s a wonder.’

‘Well, we can both agree about that, he’s certainly a wonder. But this case is peculiar enough as it is without bringing in a handyman to extract a confession.’

Julia smiled slowly. ‘But he’s not a handyman. He’s a Seer.’

‘A Seer?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Please could you tell me what a Seer is.’

‘He can see things.’

Richard took a deep breath and waited for the surge of irritation to wash away.

It didn’t, so Camille stepped in. ‘And what sorts of things can he see?’ she asked.

‘The future of course. But he can also see the past.’

‘And how does he do that?’

‘Well, in this case, he’d put me into a trance state. You see, he used to be The Retreat’s hypnotherapist.’

‘Used to be?’ Camille asked.

‘That’s right. He stopped doing that just after I arrived.’

Richard and Camille shared a glance.

‘Is that why Dominic and Aslan have been arguing?’

Julia was puzzled. ‘You know about that?’

‘Why don’t you tell us?’ Richard said, probing.

Julia smiled sadly. ‘It’s hard to talk about without making it sound worse than it is, but they weren’t ever going to get on. You see, Dominic’s a Capricorn and Aslan’s a Libran,’ Julia said as if that explained everything. ‘And I think Aslan felt that Dominic was taking advantage of the guests in his hypnotherapy sessions. Not that he was. Dominic’s hypnotised me often enough. So I know how gentle and supportive he is. He doesn’t take advantage of anyone. But Aslan told Dominic he didn’t want him offering any more hypnotherapy sessions. Dominic was furious, but there wasn’t much he could do. The hotel belongs to Aslan and Rianka. But here’s the thing, Aslan said Dominic could stay on as the hotel’s handyman. That’s the sort of guy Aslan was. He still offered Dominic a job even though they’d argued so badly.’

‘And Dominic took it?’ Richard said, surprised.

‘It allowed him to stay on the island,’ Julia said.

‘I see,’ Richard said, even though he couldn’t.

‘But the thing is, you have to believe me, Dominic is amazing at getting people to remember memories they’ve buried because they find them too upsetting. And if you let him hypnotise me, I bet I’ll be able to tell you how I got the knife into the Meditation Space. And why I … did what I did,’ Julia finished with a gulp.

‘Unfortunately,’ Richard said, ‘that would be totally unethical. So why don’t we just leave you here for a bit longer, and when you remember anything that might help us, you just call out. We’re only next door.’

Sensing that Camille was disappointed with this ruling, Richard returned to the main office, calling out to Fidel as he entered through the bead curtains.

‘So have you dusted the drawing pin?’

Fidel looked up from his desk in surprise.

‘Yes, sir, I have.’

‘And what did you find?’

‘Well, sir, I was only able to dust the flat bit you press down on with your thumb.’

‘Of course. But is there a fingerprint there?’

‘No, sir. There’s no print on it, it’s entirely clear.’

‘Now that is interesting,’ Richard said, excitedly.

‘Yes, sir,’ Fidel said, baffled by his boss’s sudden enthusiasm.

‘But doesn’t that just mean it’s never been used?’ Dwayne asked.

‘And that’s where you’d be wrong,’ Richard said as he started writing on the board.

‘I would?’ Dwayne asked, puzzled.

‘Yes, because I think that drawing pin was part of the killer’s plans—and they then wiped it clean of prints once it was used.’

Richard wrote up this latest development on the whiteboard, and then he took a step back to look at his handiwork.

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 How did the knife get into the room? Was the tea drugged? WHY KILL IN PAPER HOUSE? WHY A DRAWING PIN? Who wiped it of prints? Who was in Aslan’s office @6pm the night before 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 | Dominic De Vere Ex-hypnotherapist. Now handyman Sacked by Aslan Argued with Aslan
Inside the Meditation Space
Aslan Kennedy Victim Everyone says he’s nice | Julia Higgins Worked at The Retreat last 6 months Confessed to murder But NO MEANS: where did she get the knife from? NO OPPORTUNITY: how did she get the knife to the room? NO MOTIVE: why kill Aslan? PLUS: left-handed, but the killer was right-handed?
Ann Sellars Housewife Married to Paul | Paul Sellars Handed out the white robes Pharmacist
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 | Ben Jenkins Property Developer. Portugal. Brush with authorities before?

‘Okay, Dwayne,’ Richard eventually said. ‘I want background checks on our suspects. One of the five people locked inside the Meditation Space with Aslan Kennedy killed him. Who was it? And why?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘As for you, Fidel, I want you trying to lift whatever fingerprints you can from the murder weapon. And if you can’t get any admissible prints from the handle, at least see if you can tell if it was wielded left-handed or right-handed.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Which leaves you and me, sir,’ Camille said, ‘and I think we should go back to The Retreat.’

‘You do?’ Richard asked, already suspicious of his subordinate’s motives. ‘And why exactly is that?’

‘Well, sir,’ Camille said, her eyes shining with innocence, ‘you said it yourself. There’s something about the Meditation Space that meant Aslan had to be killed in there and nowhere else. I think we need to inspect it again.’

Richard took a step towards Camille and drew himself up to his full height.

‘And this has got nothing to do with finding Dominic so we can ask him to put Julia into a hypnotic trance, has it?’

Camille was shocked by the suggestion. ‘Of course not, sir. You’ve already said that would be unethical. But there’s also the matter of the murder weapon to consider. Because if Julia didn’t have the carving knife about her person when she went into the room, it must have already been hidden in the Meditation Space beforehand. I think we need to work out how Julia got the carving knife into the murder room.’

Richard looked at Camille a very long moment.

‘And you promise that this has got nothing to do with asking Dominic to put Julia into a trance?’

‘Of course not, sir,’ Camille said, shocked by the suggestion.

‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Then I think you’re right. We should go back to The Retreat.’

Satisfied that he’d clipped Camille’s wings for once, Richard went off to get his briefcase. But what he didn’t see was the sly grin and slow wink that Camille gave Dwayne and Fidel the moment her boss’s back was turned.

Getting Dominic to put Julia into a trance was precisely why Camille wanted to go to The Retreat.

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