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‘It was Pierre who threw the rock through the window?’ ‘It was.’
‘Then that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.’
‘It is?’ Fidel asked, surprised.
‘Oh yes, because I think Pierre killed Conrad for a very specific reason and then left that fake ruby behind for the exact same reason.’
As Richard went and sat down at his desk, he told Fidel that a taxi had taken Pierre to his halfway house on the morning he was released from prison.
‘So contact the prison, would you? Find out what taxi firm picks up prisoners, and see if you can talk to the driver who drove Pierre that day. In particular, I want to know what sort of mood Pierre was in on the journey.’
‘Yes, sir.’
As Fidel started making calls, Richard logged on to the Saint-Marie Police Computer Network and called up the case file for Pierre Charpentier’s original crime. And what Richard read held him spellbound. Because, as he’d already guessed, Pierre hadn’t robbed the jewellery shop in London twenty years before alone. He’d been part of a gang of four. The men had driven up to the store on motorbikes just as a consignment of jewellery was being delivered. They’d then smashed up the shop with baseball bats until the manager handed over the delivery. Then, as they were leaving, one of the men pulled a handgun and shot a member of staff dead.
Richard read that the man who was killed that day was called André Morgan. He’d only been with the shop for three months, but what Richard noticed at once was that André was originally from Saint-Marie.
That would have to be followed up.
As for the men in the gang, they’d fled on their motorbikes just before the Police arrived at the scene.
However, the robber who’d fired the gun made one mistake. As he jumped onto the back of his partner’s bike to make his escape, his gun fell from his grasp and he wasn’t able to pick it up before the bike had driven off. This meant that although the bank robbers got away with their loot, the murder weapon was left behind at the scene, and was later retrieved by the Metropolitan Police. They were then able to lift a couple of fingerprints from the barrel of the gun. But the fingerprints didn’t match anyone on the UK Police database. Nor did they match anyone on Interpol’s database. In fact, the Police weren’t able to match the fingerprints with anyone. Even worse, although the motorbikes were later found dumped in a back street, the men had vanished into thin air. And the bikes had been stolen from Brick Lane the night before, so that was a dead end as well.
All told, over two million pounds’ worth of jewels had been stolen that day, and the Police didn’t have a single credible lead.
Then, a week after the jewellery heist, the Police received an anonymous phonecall. The message was left by a woman who, according to the notes Richard was reading, ‘had a thick Caribbean accent’. She told the Duty Officer that the jewel heist had been carried out by men from Saint-Marie. The woman hung up before she could be quizzed any further. The anonymous phonecall was later traced to a phone booth near Willesden Green Tube station, but the Police were never able to identify who the caller had been.
However, the tip-off meant that the Police in London sent copies of the fingerprints they’d retrieved from the murder weapon to the Police in Saint-Marie. It took quite a few days for the answer to come back to London, but it was worth the wait.
The Saint-Marie Police had a match for the fingerprints. They belonged to a well-known local hoodlum called Pierre Charpentier. And, even better than that, their records showed that Pierre had left Saint-Marie three weeks before the jewel heist, and had returned to Saint-Marie two days after it had been carried out.
The Saint-Marie Police swooped on Pierre and charged him with theft and murder. He was then extradited to the UK where he stood trial at the Old Bailey. When he was cross-examined, Pierre claimed that he’d had nothing to do with the jewel heist, and he was being set up for the murder as well. His defence was that he may have been in the UK, but he was nowhere near Bond Street at the time. As for the fingerprints that were found on the murder weapon, Pierre just kept saying that he was being set up.
The jury didn’t believe him, and Pierre was convicted of murder and robbery, and was sent down for twenty-five years. For the first fifteen years, he was incarcerated in Holloway prison, but, as was usual for foreign offenders, he was repatriated to a Saint-Marie prison for the last few years of his sentence. The fact that he’d finally left prison after serving only twenty years suggested that he’d also been given time off for good behaviour.
Richard leant back in his chair to try to process everything he’d learned, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Camille and Dwayne. Dwayne was holding a cardboard box of possessions.
‘What did you get from the halfway house?’ Richard asked.
‘Nothing we hadn’t already seen, Chief,’ Dwayne said. ‘But I’ve got the bottle of beer and glass Pierre was drinking from, so we can check them for fingerprints.’
‘As for me, sir,’ Camille said, plonking herself down onto the chair behind her desk, ‘once she got going, Pierre’s next-door neighbour never stopped talking, but I think I got everything.’
‘Did she give you anything new in her statement?’
‘Not really. It’s the same as she told us. Pierre turned up three days ago. Three men arrived soon after, argued with him, and left. And then, later that afternoon, one of the men returned, and Pierre left with him in his car.’
‘And he’s been in hiding ever since,’ Richard said, finishing Camille’s story.
‘Got it in one.’
‘But who were the men who met him?’ Fidel asked. ‘And which of them was the one who came back?’
‘Well, Fidel,’ Richard said, ‘I think that’s a very good question indeed.’
Richard explained how he’d just read Pierre Charpentier’s original case file, and how Pierre had been part of a four-man gang who’d robbed a Bond Street shop of over two million pounds’ worth of jewels. And how Pierre had shot a member of staff dead before he made his escape.
‘Then how did they catch him?’ Fidel asked.
‘Pierre left his fingerprints on the gun he used.’
‘He did?’ Dwayne asked, surprised. ‘That’s not too clever.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t too clever.’
‘Did they positively identify him in any other way?’ Camille asked.
‘I don’t believe so.’
‘There wasn’t any CCTV inside the store?’
‘The case notes don’t mention anything about CCTV.’
‘And he never took off his motorbike clothes, gloves or helmet at any time during the robbery?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So no-one was able to place him visually at the scene?’
‘This, I believe was very much the point Pierre’s defence brief tried to make.’
‘So the only thing that actually links Pierre to the murder is a weapon that had his fingerprints on?’
‘Not quite the only thing,’ Richard said. ‘He was from Saint-Marie, and he was in London at the time. Oh, and the man he shot dead was also from Saint-Marie. We’ll have to look into him. His name was André Morgan. But you’re right, Camille. If it was indeed Pierre Charpentier who committed murder that day, he was very foolish leaving his own gun behind at the scene. But that’s not what interests me. What interests me is, where did Conrad get his money from?’
This statement took everyone by surprise.
‘What?’ Dwayne asked.
‘Well, it was you, Dwayne, who said that despite having no real talent, Conrad “came into money” about twenty years ago. And you also said it could have been mob money that funded him. So what I’m wondering is, what if it wasn’t mob money?’
‘Do you think he was maybe one of the robbers?’ Fidel asked, his eyes widening.
‘Well, let’s look at what we know. Pierre was jailed twenty years ago. Not just for murder, but also because of his part in a four-man heist of a jewellery store in London. Even though he always denied he was involved in any way. But then, according to our witness next door to Pierre’s safe house, on the very day he got out of prison he was met by three men.’
‘Oh I see!’ Fidel said. ‘They were the other three members of the gang.’
‘That’s what I’m thinking,’ Richard said. ‘And although our witness’s sight isn’t what it might once have been, her hearing’s good enough, and she said very specifically that these three men were already arguing before they arrived, and then Pierre joined in the argument soon after. And the nub of the matter was the fact that he was demanding they hand over “his share”. In fact, he kept asking, “where is my share?”. Now, what do you think that could refer to?’
‘His share of the jewels!’ Fidel said.
‘Exactly. Despite his protestations of innocence, Pierre was one of the robbers that day. And I think that for the last twenty years, as he rotted in a high security prison, there was only one thing sustaining him. And that was the knowledge that all he had to do was keep quiet and the moment he left prison, he’d finally get his share of money from the heist.’
‘You really think he kept quiet all that time?’ Dwayne asked sceptically.
‘I think anyone with the right incentive would keep schtum. And two million pounds’ worth of jewels is quite the incentive. I imagine that once the rest of the gang had paid their fence and any other intermediaries to re-cut the stones, they’d maybe have cleared as much as a million pounds by the end. So, divided by four people, that’s a quarter of a million pounds each. And in Saint-Marie dollars that’s maybe as much as three to four hundred thousand dollars per gang member.’
‘Yup,’ Dwayne said, now in accord. ‘I’d keep quiet for a lot less. Especially if I was already in jail for murder.’
‘So what are we saying?’ Camille asked. ‘Was the day Pierre got out of prison the day he also found out he wasn’t going to get any of his money?’
‘That’s exactly what I think happened,’ Richard agreed. ‘His share of the cash had been spent. Or mismanaged. We don’t know. But we do know how angry Pierre was to find out that his share was missing. And this was after he’d spent twenty years believing he’d be rich when he left prison. Just imagine what it must have been like if he really did find out his share of the loot no longer existed. It would push anyone over the edge.’
‘So that’s why he killed Conrad,’ Camille said. ‘And why he then broke into Conrad’s house immediately afterwards and left that fake ruby. It was a message. Just like you said.’
‘But who was the message for?’ Dwayne asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Richard said darkly. ‘And that’s what’s worrying me.’
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_d9e441ad-3043-5b1f-a2b1-000b32354b4b)
‘Okay,’ Richard said to his team, ‘imagine you’re Pierre Charpentier. If you wanted somewhere secret to hide on the island, where would you go?’
Fidel, Camille and Dwayne were full of ideas. It was possible Pierre was hiding in a nearby boarding house or hotel, or was staying in the local homeless shelter, or maybe just living rough in the jungle. Really, he could be anywhere. And as the suggestions arrived thick and fast, Richard made a list of them on the whiteboard. Having done so, he then divided the list up among himself and his team. But first, Fidel was to go to the Prison and speak to the guards and whoever else he could find to discover who Pierre was friends with, Camille was to try to discover what kind of digital footprint Pierre was leaving now that he was out of prison, and Dwayne was to go and tap up whatever contacts or informants he could find, to see if Pierre’s return to civilian life had caused any ripples on the island.
As Dwayne put his Police cap on and left, Richard ghosted out after him and stopped him on the veranda.
‘And Dwayne?’ he said. ‘About the whole spying thing . . .’ Dwayne smiled easily.
‘You want to apologise?’
‘Apologise?’ Richard said, confused. ‘No, I just wanted to say that I may not be able to keep tabs on you while you’re visiting every dodgy bar on the island, but if I find out you’ve actually sloped off and hooked up with Amy McDiarmid again, there’ll be trouble, I can tell you.’
‘Hang on. You’re not apologising to me?’
‘What is there to apologise for?’
‘You ran an observation on my house.’
‘You make it sound like a bad thing.’
‘It was.’
‘Anyway, it wasn’t anything so formal as an observation. I just hid in a bush.’
‘You hid in a bush?’
‘But you were with your girlfriend when you should have been working on your sergeant’s exam.’
‘So?’
‘So?’
‘I can revise any time, Chief. But I only met Amy a few weeks ago. What we’ve got’s really special. And you know, we’re still at that stage of our relationship.’
‘And what stage would that be?’
Dwayne looked at his boss, trying to work out if he was pulling his leg. ‘“What stage”?’
‘That’s right. I said, “what stage”?’
‘You honestly don’t know what I’m talking about?’
‘All I know is, you were with your girlfriend when you should have been revising. And you even let her visit you at the Police station.’
‘But she only came here to see you.’
‘I don’t want to meet your girlfriends, Dwayne. I’m trying to solve a murder case. And so are you, I’d like to add.’
Dwayne cocked his head to one side as he considered his boss. He knew that Richard was English, and uptight and repressed, but was he really this English, uptight and repressed?
‘Good,’ Richard said, misreading Dwayne’s silence as agreement. ‘I’m glad we’ve finally sorted that out.’
And with that, Richard tried to return to the main office, but he found that Camille was standing in the doorway holding a printout, and, seeing the look of disapproval on her face, he realised she’d been standing there for some time.
‘What?’ he asked defensively.
‘Oh, nothing, sir,’ Camille said, ‘I just wanted to let you know what I’d got on Pierre so far.’
Richard grabbed the piece of paper from Camille’s hand and headed back into the office. After a sympathetic glance at Dwayne, Camille followed.
Richard read the printout as he sat down behind his desk.
‘So, Pierre Charpentier is fifty-four years old. He’s got no siblings. No wife. No children. And his parents died when he was fifteen. So that pretty much rules out his family as the people who could be providing a refuge for him. And as for his record, I see that before he committed murder, we’d had him in for questioning on seventeen separate occasions. For acting as a fence, aggravated assault, burglary – this is quite the rap sheet, Camille.’
Richard didn’t look up from the printout, because he could sense that Camille was standing in front of his desk, a hand on her hip and an eyebrow raised. And once again Richard was getting the distinct impression that he was ‘in the wrong’, but he refused to give in to it.
‘Yes, quite the rap sheet,’ Richard repeated, in the hope that Camille would perhaps get bored and wander off.
She didn’t, so Richard eventually lifted his eyes from the paper.
‘What was that?’ Camille asked.
‘What was what?’
‘You have to apologise to him.’
‘To whom?’
