The Killing Of Polly Carter. Robert Thorogood

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СКАЧАТЬ right. Her name’s Claire Carter. And her nurse, Sophie, said that Claire and Polly were in the garden together at about ten o’clock this morning when the two sisters started having an argument. Sophie doesn’t know what it was about. But when she heard a scream, she went to find out what was going on and found Claire—upset—at the top of the cliffs, and Polly Carter dead—just here—on the sand below.’

      ‘Any suggestion that Claire maybe pushed her sister off the cliff?’

      ‘That’s unlikely,’ Fidel said. ‘Claire’s in a wheelchair. I don’t see how she could overcome an able-bodied person. And, according to Sophie, Claire’s saying Polly had just announced that she was going to commit suicide before she ran down the cliff steps and threw herself to her death.’

      ‘She did?’

      ‘Apparently so.’

      ‘I see,’ Richard said, looking down at the body of Polly Carter as she lay twisted in death on the sand. Richard couldn’t help but notice how at peace her face looked. Almost as if she were only sleeping. Richard looked up at the cliff that loomed above the body and tried to guess at the state of mind someone would have to be in before they could jump to their death like this. Despite the heat, Richard shivered.

      ‘And were there any other witnesses to this suicide?’

      ‘I don’t believe any of the other house guests were nearby at the time, sir.’

      ‘Then can you tell me who the other house guests are?’

      ‘Of course,’ Fidel said, turning to another page in his notebook. ‘There’s Polly’s twin sister Claire Carter, I’ve mentioned her. Sophie Wessel is her nurse. She’s been hired from an agency in London for the duration of the holiday. Then there’s Max Brandon, Polly’s agent and manager. And the film director, Phil Adams.’

      ‘Phil Adams?’ Richard had seen a few Phil Adams films before now and hadn’t liked any of them.

      ‘That’s right, sir. Polly also employs a husband and wife team who live in a cottage in the grounds and look after the house when she’s not here. Name of Juliette and Alain Moreau. But they were off at church this morning and have yet to return.’

      ‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘So what have we been able to discover about the body?’

      ‘Well, sir,’ Fidel said, ‘with a death from a height like this, it’s hard to know what injuries were pre- or post-mortem until we get the results back from the autopsy. However, there is something we noticed.’ Fidel got down on his knees and carefully turned Polly’s right arm so that Richard and Camille could see the inside of her forearm.

      There was a deep gash running five or six inches along the inside of her forearm—from just below her elbow to just above her wrist. But what got Richard’s attention was the dirty tinge of green that seemed to smear around the edges of the cut.

      ‘What’s this?’ Richard asked, indicating the green tinge to the wound.

      ‘She’s got green marks on her hands, as well, Chief,’ Dwayne said.

      Fidel opened the fingers on the victim’s right hand and Richard could see similar green smudgy marks on her palm and fingers.

      ‘Looks like she tried to grab hold of a bush or something on the way down,’ Camille said.

      Richard opened the victim’s left hand and saw the same mossy markings on her left hand as well. Maybe Camille was right. The green marks on the victim’s two hands and inside forearm—and the deep cut down her right forearm—were consistent with the victim having tried to grab hold of something woody before she fell.

      Richard looked back up the cliff and didn’t immediately see any kind of bush directly above the body that the victim could have clung to on the way down. However, with a cut as deep as that, Richard knew it would be easy to identify whatever it was she’d clung to. It would almost certainly have a good smear of the victim’s blood on it.

      ‘Fidel,’ Richard said, ‘I want you to work out what on the cliff face the victim grabbed onto before she fell.’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ Fidel said, seemingly unbothered by the fact that his boss had effectively just asked him to search a vertical cliff face.

      For his part, Richard strode off to the base of the cliff, now interested in the horizontal distance the body had fallen on its way down.

      Camille stood up from the body as well. ‘So, what are you thinking?’

      ‘That suicides don’t leap,’ Richard said, but Camille already guessed where her boss was going with this as Richard started to put one foot in front of the other to measure the distance the body had fallen from the cliff. It was a well-known fact that jump suicides tended to drop from whatever height they’d chosen to commit suicide from. They didn’t leap out to their death. Although, Camille found herself thinking, if the victim had announced her suicide in a heated argument, maybe she’d run for the cliff edge and then jumped.

      ‘Seventeen feet,’ Richard announced as he reached the body, which gave him pause.

      ‘Much further than you’d expect,’ Camille agreed.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Maybe it wasn’t suicide?’

      ‘Indeed,’ Richard said, once again checking his wristwatch. It was still long before his mother was due to arrive on the island. There was every chance he’d be able to finish up here and still have time to meet her at the airport.

      ‘Fidel, keep working the scene and supervise the removal of the body with the paramedics. Dwayne, I want you to search the victim’s house. See if you can find any kind of suicide note. As for you and me, Camille, I think we need to talk to the witnesses, don’t you?’

      A few minutes later, Richard and Camille were in the sitting room of Polly’s house and Richard was trying hard not to cough, because if the rest of the house was dusty, this room seemed to be where all the dust in the rest of the world came to when it wanted to die. The curtains, old sofas, stacks of books and piles of nick-nacks were all covered in a worn-in grime of ancient dirt, and Richard had noticed that when he shut the door, dust had fallen in a great cloud from the filthy crystal chandelier that hung in the centre of the ceiling and which was missing a good third of its pendants.

      As Camille made the introductions and explained to the four assembled witnesses that the police had a duty to investigate all suspicious deaths on the island, Richard took the opportunity to give them all a once-over.

      He could see that the victim’s sister, Claire Carter, was sitting in her metal-framed wheelchair wearing beige cotton trousers, simple slip-on shoes, and a light blue cotton top. She had a similar slender build to her sister, similar high cheekbones, but Richard could see that they had very different hair styles. While Polly’s hair was dark, long and unruly, Claire’s was similarly dark, but it was cut into a tight and tidy bob that fell just below her ears. As for her demeanour, Richard could see that Claire had turned entirely in on herself, her shoulders hunched in grief, her head bowed as tears rolled down her cheeks that she dashed away with the back of her hands. It was a sight that Richard felt he’d had to see too often in his career. The grief of the family member who was left behind.

      As for Claire’s СКАЧАТЬ