The Killing Of Polly Carter

The Killing Of Polly Carter
Robert Thorogood

Supermodel Polly Carter was famed for her looks and party-girl lifestyle. Now she's dead, apparently having thrown herself from the clifftop near her home on the island of Saint-Marie. Those who knew her say Polly would never have killed herself…and when he is called in to investigate, DI Richard Poole is inclined to agree there is more to Polly’s death than meets the eye.Already fighting a losing battle against the intense summer heat of the Caribbean, Richard now faces fresh adversaries: a stream of alibis; a host of conflicting motives; and, worst of all, a visit from his mother. A frenzy which would surely allow a murderer to slip away unnoticed…yet Richard is certain that the guilty party is still on the island.As his team closes in on Polly’s household, Richard becomes convinced that the model’s death was an inside job. And he's determined to prove who planned the killing of Polly Carter, and why…

About the Author (#ulink_4e582580-9282-5d7d-9752-a844b4daa1c5)

ROBERT THOROGOOD is the creator of the hit BBC One TV series, Death in Paradise.

He was born in Colchester, Essex, in 1972. When he was 10-years old, he read his first proper novel – Agatha Christie’s Peril at End House – and he’s been in love with the genre ever since.

He now lives in Marlow in Buckinghamshire with his wife, children and an increasingly cranky Bengal cat called Daniel.

ISBN: 978-1-474-03809-6

THE KILLING OF POLLY CARTER

© 2015 Robert Thorogood

Published in Great Britain 2015

by HQ, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

Version: 2018-07-23

For Charlie and James

Table of Contents

Cover (#uc86a8f86-ec34-5644-8bbc-17e7f0199fed)

About the Author (#u17b92af4-5e85-5955-b69b-dbbefdcf573d)

Title Page (#u7300e6ff-8e53-5330-8860-f9c1c7b0d01d)

Copyright (#u3f1ad9e6-e15b-53d6-8666-2d584a706cc0)

Dedication (#ua6661ba1-dd33-50f6-9987-43f5237e8bfa)

Prologue (#uda15fefb-67bb-559d-97f9-98dc35a6fedc)

Chapter 1 (#u5d1d948b-1c7c-58fa-83b2-1ed60ec93487)

Chapter 2 (#u1ffcef4f-3e94-5f53-b10e-33674abb37b4)

Chapter 3 (#uaec29958-723e-5aba-9328-e8495c28e624)

Chapter 4 (#u6d518f00-b94c-50c9-9ace-1156e3012191)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#ulink_3350f5e8-4d85-5338-975e-d51f2e64f1ff)

Detective Inspector Richard Poole sat on the verandah of his beachside shack looking up at the cloudless Caribbean sky in inarticulate outrage.

A passing parrot had just crapped in his cup of tea.

It didn’t seem possible, but Richard had watched the little bugger fly in over the sea and defecate in mid-air, the little ball of released guano flying in a perfect parabola only to land in his English Breakfast Tea with an accuracy, Richard realised, that Barnes Wallis could only have dreamed of.

In a spasm of disgust, Richard sloshed the contents of his china cup over the balustrade and tried to return his attention to the book he’d been reading. It was an old hardback he’d found at the back of the police station called A Field Guide to the Insects of the Caribbean, and he’d been fascinated by what he’d so far been able to learn from it. For example, he’d had no idea that the brightest bioluminescent insect in the world wasn’t in fact the firefly, but was a species of click beetle that lived in the Caribbean called the Fire Beetle.

But it was no good, Richard couldn’t settle back into his book, and instead he found himself glancing nervously back up at the sky every few seconds. After all, what if another parrot came for him out of the sun? Richard sighed heavily to himself. Honestly, when you got down to it, the Caribbean was a bloody nightmare from start to finish.

It didn’t help that he had already been in a bad mood that morning, even before the aerial bombardment. This was because Richard had a secret. A deep and dark secret he’d not even dared mention to his team yet. In fact, as he went through to the little galley kitchen at the back of his shack to wash up his tea things, Richard decided that there surely couldn’t have been another person on the whole island of Saint-Marie who was having as miserable a morning as him.

But he was wrong. There was someone.