LITMIR.BIZ

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let me put it this way, I don’t think the matriarch of Beaumont Manor who we met this morning spoke in quite the same plummy accent when she was a holiday rep from Maldon in Essex.’

      ‘And you should know,’ Camille added, ‘that she seems to be in the newspapers every month. She’s chair of this charity, sits on the board of that marine preserve, you know? She’s a do-gooder.’

      ‘A do-gooder who’s vain enough to want everyone to see just how much do-gooding she’s up to. Very interesting. Good work, Camille. Then what of their children? In particular, can you explain why everyone speaks with a British accent except for Tom?’

      ‘Well, that’s easy to explain, sir. Tom speaks with a Saint-Marie accent because he went to Notre Dame School here on Saint-Marie.’

      ‘And Lucy and Matthew didn’t?’

      ‘Lucy also went to Notre Dame, but obviously decided not to pick up an island accent. As for Matthew, he was sent to boarding school in the UK. But going back to Tom, he left school with excellent grades, and has just finished an undergraduate course studying Agriculture at the University of Miami.’

      ‘Which is hardly the impression he gave to me this morning.’

      ‘You mean with his cannabis T-shirt and island attitude?’

      ‘Exactly. So why is a bright young man with academic qualifications pretending to be a counter-culture stoner, do you think?’

      A silence descended on the room as Richard’s team all stopped what they were doing and looked at him.

      Eventually, Dwayne spoke.

      ‘Did you just say “counter-culture stoner”, Chief?’

      ‘Yes,’ Richard said, somewhat irked. ‘I’m not entirely out of touch with street argot, you know.’

      ‘No, sir,’ Camille said, trying to stifle a laugh.

      ‘What’s that, Camille?’

      ‘Oh, nothing sir. Just caught something in my throat.’

      Fidel stepped into the breach.

      ‘And sir,’ he said. ‘You should know. I rang a cousin of mine when we got back to the station. I reckoned Tom would have been at Notre Dame at the same time as him. Anyway, my cousin said that Tom was one of the most popular kids in his year. He was clever, but he didn’t make a big deal about it. He played football, but he didn’t join any of the teams. He did his own thing. Oh, and he liked to party, and party hard. That was the other thing my cousin said.’

      ‘So he wasn’t tainted by the family name?’

      ‘He was a “good guy”. That’s what my cousin called him.’

      ‘Okay. Thanks for that. Then what about the other two siblings?’ Richard said, turning back to face Camille.

      ‘Well, sir,’ Camille said, returning to her notes. ‘Matthew’s the youngest. By some distance. He’s eighteen – Tom is twenty-two, and Lucy is twenty-eight – and he came back to the island this summer having left boarding school in the UK.’

      ‘Do you know which boarding school it was?’

      ‘Eton College.’

      ‘He went to Eton, did he?’ Richard said, Matthew’s easeful manner clicking into place for him. This was because Richard had come across quite a number of Old Etonians while he’d been at Cambridge, and, to his abiding irritation, every single one of them had been entirely and effortlessly charming. Not that that excused or justified their background of privilege, Richard felt. And nor did it mean that Richard could ever bring himself to trust or like someone who came from such a wealthy background. To his mind, it was simply wrong that so much should be given to so few, and he couldn’t help but resent the opportunities that were afforded to this wealthy minority – no matter how charming they always were when you met them in the flesh. As far as Richard was concerned, if private boarding schools like the one Richard had been sent to were ‘wrong’ – and Richard knew that they were very wrong – then schools like Eton were wrong to the power of ten.

      ‘Hang on, though,’ Richard said, suddenly realising something. ‘You’re saying that Matthew – the youngest sibling – was sent to Eton, but Tom – his older brother – went to the local comprehensive school on Saint-Marie?’

      ‘That’s right,’ Camille said, already knowing where Richard was going with this. ‘As was Lucy.’

      ‘There’s a story there,’ Richard said.

      ‘You could be right, sir,’ Camille agreed.

      ‘Then what have we got on Lucy?’ Richard asked. ‘What do we know about her?’

      ‘Well, sir, she’s pretty interesting,’ Camille said, picking up another set of notes. ‘Because she left Notre Dame school when she was seventeen years old without finishing formal education, and since then she doesn’t seem to have done much of anything. She doesn’t have a job at the plantation as far as I can tell, she doesn’t file tax returns – even though she’s twenty-eight years old. But better than that, I found two hits for her on the Police computer.’

      ‘You did?’

      ‘First, she was pulled in for shoplifting when she was twenty years old. She’d been caught stealing a dress from the market in Honoré, but was let off with a caution.’

      ‘And the second time?’

      ‘It was shoplifting again. When she was twenty-three. This time, it was a silver necklace that she was caught stealing from the Caribbean Sands hotel.’

      ‘And was she charged?’

      ‘That’s the thing, sir. She wasn’t.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘I’ve no idea. Seeing as it was her second offence. But you should know, sir, Charlie Hulme was the arresting officer.’

      Charlie Hulme had been the corrupt Detective Inspector who’d preceded Richard’s arrival on the island, and Richard could well imagine how the Beaumont family might have leant on him to make sure he didn’t press charges.

      ‘Ah, I see,’ Richard said. ‘But there’s a streak of criminality in her, is that what we’re saying?’

      ‘That’s what it seems like to me.’

      ‘Now that is interesting,’ Richard agreed, going to look at the names that he’d written up on the whiteboard that acted as the focus for all of his investigations.

      ‘So, in summary,’ he said, ‘we’ve got Hugh Beaumont running the family plantation with a gentle hand on the tiller. He’s married to the one-time holiday rep Sylvie, who now thinks herself something of a grand dame of the island. And as for their three children, we’ve got something of an enigma in Lucy, although we know she’s been light-fingered in the past; a popular party animal in Tom who just happens to have a heap of qualifications including an Agricultural degree; and the eighteen-year old Matthew, who’s only just returned to the island having been educated at one of the most privileged schools in the world. Something of a mixed bag, then.’

      ‘And none of them has a clear alibi for the time of the murder,’ Camille added.

      ‘Not so,’ Richard corrected. ‘None of them has a clear alibi for the time of the murder apart from Lucy. Because, no matter how criminal her past might have been, you and I were with her when the two gunshots were fired, so she’s the only member of the family who can’t be our killer.’

      ‘And we still don’t even know the identity of our victim,’ Camille added.

      ‘Or how the killer then escaped from a locked room afterwards,’ Richard agreed. ‘Or whether the three-wheeled vehicle that was up at the plantation before it rained was part of the murder or not. So we’re going to

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