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‘That’s Amy,’ Dwayne said with a delighted smile. ‘She’s something, isn’t she?’
‘I’m sure we can all agree she’s something, but she shouldn’t be walking around in a towel on Police time.’
‘But she’s not on Police time. She’s on holiday.’
‘I don’t care what she’s doing on the island,’ Richard interrupted, ‘it’s what you’re doing on the island that bothers me. Because you’re supposed to be using Thursday mornings for personal study time.’
‘Why do you keep saying that?’
‘Because it’s supposed to be what you’re doing!’
This statement seemed to take Dwayne by surprise.
‘But you never really meant that, did you?’
‘Of course I meant it!’
Richard took a deep breath to steady his rising blood pressure. Dwayne was a good copper in many respects, but it was safe to say that his and Richard’s approach to work weren’t entirely universe-adjacent.
‘Oh right,’ Dwayne said, understanding finally coming to him. ‘You actually want me to be doing personal study on my mornings off.’
‘They’re not mornings off, they’re study periods!’
‘Okay okay,’ Dwayne said, holding up his hands, ‘you’ve made your point. I’ll make sure I work every Thursday from now. But don’t worry, no harm done. I mean, it’s not like there’s much going on on the island at the moment.’
Before Richard could reply that it really wasn’t for Dwayne to decide what was or wasn’t ‘going on’ on the island, they both saw a flash of light from the direction of Honoré harbour that was followed a few seconds later by the crack and boom of a massive explosion.
‘What the hell was that?’ Richard said as a thick cloud of black smoke started to blossom from about half a kilometre out to sea.
‘I don’t know about you, Chief, but that looked to me like an explosion.’
Richard turned back to his subordinate and dead-eyed him.
‘Dwayne. Get dressed. Personal study’s over.’
By the time Richard and Dwayne arrived at the harbour, the smoke from the explosion had long since cleared, and they found Detective Sergeant Camille Bordey and Police Officer Fidel Best securing the Police launch, which was really no more than an old wooden skiff that had a pair of massive engines strapped onto the back and the words ‘Saint-Marie Police’ written in white down the side.
‘Did you see that, sir?’ Fidel asked, as he pulled the old tarpaulin off the steering position.
‘Of course I did, or what do you think I’m doing here?’
‘Anyone know what it was?’ Dwayne asked.
‘I was on the veranda of the station when it happened,’ Camille said, ‘and I saw a ball of fire out in the harbour. I think a boat went up.’
‘Then we need to get out there,’ Richard said as he boarded the boat and sat down on the bench that ran down one of the sides.
‘Yes, sir,’ Camille said, joining him as Dwayne cast off. Camille started the twin engines, Dwayne stepped onto the boat and it started to move off.
‘Not too fast!’ Richard yelped as Camille opened the throttle and the boat started to surge through the water.
‘What’s that, sir?’ Camille asked over the roar of the engines.
‘Not too fast!’
‘Can’t hear you, sir,’ Camille shouted as Richard’s old school tie freed itself from his suit jacket and started flapping wildly behind him. It was perhaps a sign of how seriously Richard was holding on for dear life that he didn’t make any attempts to grab it and force it back down the front of his suit jacket so that sartorial decorum could be restored.
As Camille drove the boat in a wide arc around the clutch of yachts that were at anchor, she, Dwayne and Fidel shared grins, knowing how much their boss hated any kind of physical danger, real or imagined.
They came across their first piece of debris from the explosion less than a minute later and Camille cut the engines, the launch slowing to a slooshy stop almost immediately.
Looking about themselves, the Police could see that it was one of those days in the tropics of almost perfect stillness. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the sea seemed to be breathing as it gently rose and fell, and there were sparkling diamonds of reflected light all around them on the water. But there were also what looked like thousands of different-sized pieces of ripped-up wood floating on the surface of the water.
‘Look, over there!’ Fidel said, and they all saw that there was something much larger floating in the water just off their port bow.
With a quick squirt of power, Camille steered the launch towards the object, and it revealed itself to be the back end of an old boat. The prow should have been pointing vertically downwards towards the sea bed, but Richard could see that the front half of the boat was missing from where the explosion had split it in two.
The section of the stern that was still just above the water line had the boat’s name written in white letters. It was called Soundman.
‘Anyone know who owns the boat?’ Richard asked, before he realised that his team was looking at an area of the hull just above the painted name. As Richard looked for himself, he could see why. There was a bright smear of what looked like blood. In fact, the way the smear ran down the wood, it was easy to imagine that someone who was heavily bleeding had briefly clung to the side of the boat before subsiding and slipping into the sea. There even appeared to be a rather macabre handprint in blood just to the side of the smear.
‘I’ll call the coastguard,’ Dwayne said, pulling out his phone. ‘They can maybe winch the boat out of the water and help us get it back to shore. And in answer to your question, Chief, Soundman belongs to a guy called Conrad Gardiner. He lives in a house on the beach to the side of the harbour.’
‘And what do you think happened here?’
Richard’s subordinates looked at each other, nonplussed.
‘It exploded,’ Fidel eventually said.
‘I can see it exploded,’ Richard said in exasperation. ‘But how did it explode? Do boats normally explode?’
This time it was Dwayne’s turn to answer.
‘No, Chief.’
Richard pulled a hankie from his jacket pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow, his face, and then the back and front of his neck.
‘Very well,’ he said, ‘we need to keep this bit of boat above water. And we also need to keep our eyes peeled for any survivors.’
Even as Richard said this, he could see that there was no-one in the water near the debris, either alive or dead.
Within half an hour, the coastguard’s bright yellow rescue boat had arrived and was starting to winch the rear end of the boat onto its deck. This allowed Richard to order Fidel and Dwayne to stay with the coastguard and coordinate the safe return of the boat while he and Camille drove the Police launch in wide circles through the expanding spread of floating debris. All they found were various pieces of detritus – from plastic jerry cans to kitchen implements and even an old white plastic chair – but they couldn’t find anything that seemed to shed any light on exactly what had happened.
Once it became apparent that there was nothing left to find on the surface of the water, Richard ordered Camille to drive them back to harbour. When they arrived, Richard saw a small crowd of locals gathered on the quayside. Richard couldn’t imagine why. After all, the explosion had happened hundreds of metres away, there was nothing much for the crowd to see, but then he noticed that everyone seemed to be clustered around one woman in particular.
While Camille tied the boat up, Richard saw the crowd jostle the middle-aged woman forward, and he went to find out what was happening.
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you all to move on,’ he announced as he came within earshot. ‘There’s nothing to see here.’
‘But is it true?’ the woman at the front asked.
‘Is what true?’
‘That it was Conrad’s boat?’
‘It’s still early in the investigation.’
‘But was it Conrad’s boat?’ she said again, almost begging.
Before Richard could reply that he couldn’t possibly comment, Camille pushed past him and took the woman’s hands in hers.
‘Natasha,’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry. It was Conrad’s boat.’
‘Detective Sergeant?’ Richard said, irked that Camille had so effortlessly taken control of the situation.
‘Yes, sir?’ Camille replied.
‘You know each other?’
Richard indicated the woman. He could see that she was perhaps in her late forties, and was dressed somewhat dowdily, with a simple skirt, blouse and cardigan.
‘This is Natasha Gardiner,’ Camille said. ‘Conrad Gardiner’s wife.’
‘Oh,’ Richard said. ‘I see.’
‘But it was definitely his boat . . .?’ Natasha asked, her eyes desperate with worry.
‘I’m sorry,’ Camille said. ‘It was.’
‘Then where is he?’
‘We don’t know. But we didn’t see him in the water, so maybe he got away before it happened.’
Richard decided that enough was enough. If it was unprofessional that they should be talking about the incident before they’d even finished their first survey of the scene, it was doubly bad that they’d be doing so in front of a crowd.
‘Perhaps we could have this conversation somewhere a little more private?’ he asked Camille.
‘Good idea,’ Camille agreed. ‘Natasha and Conrad live only a couple of houses away, we can talk there.’
Natasha’s house was precisely the last place on earth Richard wanted to visit, but he couldn’t see a diplomatic way of explaining this to his partner, so he just harrumphed by way of an answer.
‘Good!’ Camille said, and then started to lead Natasha off, telling her how she shouldn’t prejudge the situation, there were a million things that may have happened, and maybe they’d find a very damp and embarrassed Conrad already waiting for them back at her house. This seemed to settle Natasha a little, but it did nothing to improve Richard’s mood as he followed behind.
Natasha’s house was a one-storey bungalow that led directly onto the little beach of Honoré. It had a green and white striped awning out front, and a couple of hanging baskets of flame-red flowers either side of the front door. The inside of the house was just as quaint, with simple furniture, and sea shells arranged on shelves.
‘Now, why don’t I get us all a glass of water,’ Camille said, heading to the sink. ‘And maybe you could tell us a bit about where Conrad was going this morning.’
‘Well, I don’t know. Not exactly. Only that Conrad always goes out fishing every morning.’
‘He’s a fisherman?’ Richard asked.
‘Oh no, he’s a music producer. Or he was for a time.’
‘So what does he do now?’
‘Well . . . you know. This and that. I mean, we don’t need so much money to get by, now we’re older.’
‘But he goes fishing every morning?’
‘Not every morning. Sometimes he doesn’t get up in time. But most days.’
‘And do you ever go out with him?’
‘Me? Oh no, I’m not welcome. You see, Conrad never catches anything much. For him, it’s more about getting away, I think. You know what men are like.’
Natasha addressed this last comment to Camille as she came over with two glasses of water.
‘Here you go,’ Camille said.
‘Thank you,’ Natasha said gratefully as she took her glass. ‘And you think he maybe wasn’t on the boat when it went up like that?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ Camille said.
‘But we can’t really talk about specifics this early in the investigation,’ Richard said. ‘Although you should perhaps know that we found a smear of blood on the one remaining part of the hull we could find.’
‘Oh,’ Natasha said as this information sank in.
‘It may not be blood,’ Camille said with a warning glance at her boss to soften his approach. ‘And even if it is, it’s possible it belongs to someone other than your husband, of course.’
‘But he always goes out on his own. No-one else would have been with him. If you found blood . . .?’
Richard could see tears forming in Natasha’s eyes.
‘Can I ask,’ he said, ‘was your husband’s boat safe?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, are you surprised he had this accident?’
And with that, the tears came.
Richard looked at Camille, partly in helplessness, and partly in irritation. As far as he was concerned, it was entirely his partner’s fault that they now found themselves in this situation. This was far too soon to be talking to a key witness.
For her part, Camille ignored her boss’s disapproval and went and knelt by Natasha.
‘You mustn’t worry. We still don’t know what happened.’
‘But where is he?’
