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‘Did they hear the moment the window was smashed?’
‘I’ve asked whoever I can find who was nearby at the time, and no-one saw or heard anything suspicious.’
‘I see,’ Richard said, disappointed. ‘Then what about the window frame?’
Camille explained that she’d just finished inspecting the outside frame, and it was so rough and weather-beaten it wasn’t possible to lift any fingerprints from it.
‘Then what about the break-in? Has Mrs Gardiner got any theories?’
‘None. Although I asked her to have a proper look at everything that was thrown on the floor, and she said she’s not sure, but she thinks nothing’s been stolen.’
‘In which case, the break-in was all about leaving the ruby.’
‘Which is kind of crazy, sir.’
‘I’d agree with you there. Because, why bother?’
‘It’s a message, isn’t it?’
‘That’s what I’m thinking. It’s got no intrinsic value, so it must be symbolic somehow. Or a warning of some kind.’
‘To Natasha?’
‘It’s a possibility. Because it wasn’t a message for Conrad, was it? I mean, with him dead, he’s not going to receive it, is he? Look, let’s talk to Natasha again. We need to tell her the explosion wasn’t an accident, and I want to press her a bit more about this ruby.’
Richard and Camille went into the house, but Natasha was nowhere to be found. However, the French windows were open, and they could see that she was standing on the beach down by the sea.
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Richard said to himself as he stepped out of the house and onto the bright white sand. He hated walking on beaches in his brogues, and he still couldn’t quite believe that it was an occupational hazard he had to endure on an almost daily basis.
‘Mrs Gardiner?’ Camille asked as they approached, but Natasha didn’t turn round. She just kept staring out at the distant horizon.
Richard cleared his throat to get the woman’s attention.
‘If he’s in the water, he’ll come in here, won’t he?’ Natasha said, almost to herself. ‘I mean, this is the nearest beach.’
‘It is,’ Camille said, kindly. ‘But there have been developments. It looks like maybe your husband’s boat didn’t explode by accident.’
Natasha’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t say anything.
‘It looks like it was set off by an IED,’ Richard said. ‘An improvised explosive device.’
This finally registered with her.
‘I’m, sorry . . .?’
‘Now, I understand this is a terrible shock,’ Camille said before her boss could be any more insensitive, ‘but if someone was behind this terrible event, then every passing hour will make it harder for us to catch them.’
‘You’re saying it wasn’t an accident?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘But why would anyone want to do that to Conrad?’
‘That’s what we’d like to know.’
Natasha took a moment to compose herself, and then she said, ‘No, it’s not possible. It’s monstrous.’
She then headed back to her house. After a quick glance of surprise at each other, Richard and Camille followed her across the sand.
‘You don’t think anyone could have wanted to harm your husband?’ Camille asked.
‘No way.’
‘Even though it looks as though someone did?’
‘But who’d want to harm him?’ Natasha said, turning and looking at the Police officers with what Richard realised was a fair amount of desperation. ‘Everyone likes Conrad, that’s the whole point of him. He’s popular.’
‘Do you mind me asking, what exactly does he do?’
‘Well, it’s like I told you before. He does this and that.’
‘But what sort of “this and that”?’
‘He used to be a record producer. With his own recording studio and everything. He’s always been a champion of island music.’
‘He used to be a record producer?’ Richard asked
‘For many years. But you can’t keep making hit records. Your luck eventually runs out, and that’s how it went with Conrad. He hit a bad patch, and when the money ran out he had to let his studio go.’
‘That must have been hard,’ Camille offered.
‘Not to Conrad. Nothing is ever a problem to him. If we’re rich, and we’ve had plenty of money in the past, he’s happy. If we’re poor, he’s also happy. He’s just happy with everything and everyone.’ This comment really seemed to resonate with Natasha. ‘So it’s just impossible that anyone would do this to him. You must have made a mistake.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know so.’
‘Then perhaps you could explain why a ruby was left on a table in your husband’s study?’
There was a flash of surprise in Natasha’s eyes that Richard could see her quell just as soon as it appeared.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Because I think you know what it means.’
‘I don’t.’
‘It’s better if you tell us what you know now,’ Camille said, playing the role of the ‘Good Cop’.
‘But I don’t know anything about why that ruby was put there. Nothing at all. I promise you.’
Natasha said this statement with such finality that Richard was left in no doubt that she meant it. The only problem was, both Richard and Camille knew she was lying. But why would she lie about why a ruby was left in her house?
Just before it was time to finish for the day, Richard gathered his team at the whiteboard in the Police station.
‘Okay, so what have we got so far?’ he asked, popping the lid on a fresh board marker.
‘Well, sir,’ Fidel said, ‘I’ve lifted the prints from the bottle of rum you got from Natasha’s house. And assuming those prints belong to Conrad, I can say that they match the fingerprints we’ve been able to lift from the blood we found on Conrad’s boat.’
‘It was his handprint in the blood?’
‘I’ve got definite matches for his first, second and third fingers on his right hand, and matches for his left thumb and first finger.’
‘So it really was Conrad who was injured in the explosion.’
‘And who then slipped down the side of his boat into the water,’ Dwayne added. ‘Which means he went into the water bleeding.’
Richard shuddered. They all knew how slim the chances were of a heavily bleeding man lasting long before attracting the attention of a nearby shark.
‘And it was a big explosion,’ Dwayne said. ‘Anything that could do that to a boat could do a lot worse to flesh and bone.’
‘Poor man,’ Camille said.
‘Although,’ Richard asked, ‘are we sure he didn’t survive?’
‘I don’t see how he could have done,’ Fidel said. ‘I reckon we were at the scene within twenty minutes. So if he was alive – either on his boat or in the water – we’d have seen him.’
‘Then could he have swum ashore before we got there?’
‘No way. The nearest land was Honoré beach, and that’s where we came from. If he was in any condition to swim to safety, we’d have passed him on our way out. And I was checking the water the whole time, sir. I didn’t see anyone swimming anywhere.’
‘Very well. We’ll need to tell Mrs Gardiner that her husband is missing presumed dead. Camille?’
Camille sighed, but knew it made sense that the task fall to her. After all, she was the only detective at the station who wasn’t Richard Poole, and that was reason enough for her to handle all of the conversations that required any kind of sympathy.
‘Okay,’ she said, and went to her desk to get ready to leave.
‘Then, Dwayne,’ Richard said, ‘what did you get from going door-to-door at the harbour?’
‘Well, Chief, I spoke to whoever I could find, and three witnesses all said that they saw Conrad get onto his boat on his own this morning.’
‘No-one else was with him?’
‘That’s what they’re saying. And the harbour master, Philippe, said he talked to Conrad this morning and was sure he was on his own. In fact, Conrad asked Philippe to help load his scuba kit onto the boat because there was no-one else around to help.’
‘He took scuba diving kit out with him?’ Richard asked.
‘That’s what Philippe said. But the important thing is, Philippe’s ninety-nine per cent sure that no-one else was on the boat with Conrad. Unless they were hiding in the cabin.’
‘I see,’ Richard said, already feeling frustrated that the explosion had ruined their primary crime scene. How could they run forensics or test any of their theories when half the boat had sunk to the bottom of the sea?
‘Then did you speak to the Saint-Marie Dive School?’
‘I did. And tomorrow they’re putting together a team to scour the seabed under where the boat went down.’
‘Oh, Camille,’ Richard said to his partner as she headed for the door, ‘were there any fingerprints on the ruby that was left at the scene?’
‘No, sir. There wasn’t a single fingerprint on it.’
‘Now, that is interesting, isn’t it?’
‘You’re right, sir. Whoever put it there made sure there was no way of tracing it back to them,’ Camille said, and then she headed off.
‘And yet, it must have been bought from somewhere on the island. Dwayne, can you ring all the shops where you think it would be possible to buy a fake ruby. I want to know where it came from.’
‘Okay.’
‘Which brings me to you, Fidel. What have you been able to glean from the mobile phone detonator you recovered from the boat?’
‘Well, sir,’ Fidel said, leading them over to his desk where he’d separated the mobile phone from the wires, and had also removed its back cover and battery. ‘I dusted the tape and outer casing for fingerprints. There aren’t any.’
‘Like the ruby,’ Richard said. ‘Which, again, makes sense. Our killer’s got to be careful.’
‘But I also removed the battery and casing and dusted them all over as well. You know, just on the off chance I could find a fingerprint or trapped hair or something.’
‘Of course. But nothing?’
‘Got it in one, sir. Nothing. Or so I thought. Because I then decided to dust the SIM card before I tried to work out what the number was and where it had been bought from.’
Richard was impressed.
‘You dusted the SIM card for prints?’
‘You’ve got to be thorough, sir,’ Fidel said, believing that Richard was chastising him. ‘And I found a partial fingerprint on the contact side of the SIM card.’
‘You did?’
‘Better than that, I was able to lift it. And the thing is, it doesn’t match any of the exclusion prints we took for Conrad Gardiner. Or his wife, for that matter.’
‘The print from the SIM card belongs to some unknown third party?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Have you uploaded the print to the CPCN?’ Richard asked eagerly.
The Caribbean Police Computer Network was one of the few saving graces of working on Saint-Marie as far as Richard was concerned. It was a database of information that unified all of the Police forces in the Caribbean, and also linked to data held by the FBI and Europol.
‘I uploaded it as soon as I could,’ Fidel said, ‘and I’ve set it looking for a match.’
