The Killing Of Polly Carter

‘Yes. What’s so strange about that?’

Camille clapped her hands together in delight. ‘How long is she over for?’

‘Two weeks.’

‘And she’s here now?’

‘She should be.’

‘But you’ve got to tell us, what’s she like?’

Richard frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know, your mother! I mean, is she like you at all, sir?’

‘Like me?’ Richard was appalled by the question. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then what’s she like?’

Richard didn’t even know where to begin. After a moment of further reflection, he said, ‘Well, for starters, she’s very neat and precise.’

‘Which isn’t like you at all, sir,’ Dwayne said.

‘And on top of that, she’s a terrible worry-wort.’

Dwayne and Camille frowned.

‘A what?’ Camille asked.

‘You know, she worries about everything.’

‘Which is also unlike you, is it, Chief?’ Dwayne eventually asked as diplomatically as he could.

‘And she’s a fusspot.’

‘She’s a worry-wort and a fusspot?’ Camille asked, unable to keep the laugh out of her voice.

‘Yes. That’s what I said.’

As for Dwayne, he also felt as though he needed further clarification from his boss. ‘Again, sir … so you’re saying these are traits that are unlike you?’

‘Of course they’re unlike me!’ Richard exploded. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, I believe everything has a place, and there’s a place for everything—and I definitely believe that there are certain standards you have to keep up—but you have to believe me, I’m nothing compared to my mother.’

‘Wow,’ Dwayne said, summing up both his and Camille’s feelings on the subject.

‘So when do we get to meet her?’ Camille asked.

‘Ah, well that’s the thing,’ Richard said, finally glad to be getting back control of the conversation. ‘While I’m picking her up, I want you, Camille, to get all this evidence logged and into bags. And, Dwayne, I want you to search the house properly from top to bottom. Keep looking for a yellow raincoat, but I also want you to try and find out what this key opens.’ As Richard said this, he went over to the filing cabinet and pulled out the old mortice key. ‘Because it may be connected. But someone killed Polly Carter. I suggest we find out who it was, and why Polly had to die.’

Before either of his subordinates could stop him, Richard made his excuses and drove off in the police jeep, bound for Saint-Marie airport.

Once there—and while he waited for his mother to clear Customs—Richard stood beside a palm tree a little way off from the white-washed building that acted as both the island’s Arrivals and Departures lounge. The building was only small because Saint-Marie didn’t have a runway long enough for international flights, so tourists first had to fly to the neighbouring island of Guadeloupe and then change onto a little propeller plane that the locals called ‘the grasshopper’. Richard had only taken this plane a handful of times, but it was aptly named. By the time it had ascended vertiginously to its cruising height, it immediately fell out of the sky to land on Saint-Marie.

Richard straightened his tie as he waited, and then realised it had come a little loose. But it would be okay, he was sure.

In a sudden loss of sartorial confidence, Richard ducked behind the palm tree, undid the knot of his tie, yanked the whole thing from his neck, flicked the collars up on his sweat-sodden shirt, and made himself tie a better knot at speed. He then flipped the collar of his shirt back down, stepped back out into the sunshine and exhaled in relief. He’d got away with it. His mother still hadn’t emerged.

Richard felt a trickle of hot sweat roll from his cheek, down his neck and into his shirt collar, and suddenly every inch of his skin under his suit seemed to prickle from the blistering heat.

And then there she was.

A slender woman in her late sixties, wearing a pink floral dress and an immaculate straw hat with a hatband in the same pink floral fabric as her dress, Jennifer Poole stepped out into the sunshine, a black suitcase-on-wheels at her side.

Richard took half a step forward and raised his hand in a nearly-but-not-quite wave.

‘Hello, Mother,’ he said.

‘Oh, Richard, what a terrifying journey!’ Jennifer said, as she wheeled her suitcase over to her son. ‘I mean, they call it economy, and they really mean it, don’t they? Before we’d even left London, I was trying to get the dust out of my seat, and do you know what? The woman sitting next to me told me I should just put up with it. Can you imagine? And when I started using my wipes on the fold-down tray in front of me—and on her fold-down tray—she called a flight attendant over and point blank complained. Which made for a frosty silence between her and me for the next eight hours, I can tell you. But by the time we landed at Guadeloupe, she was sneezing, so for all she gave me funny looks whenever I used the antibacterial gel on my hands, I’m not the one who’s going to come down with Legionnaires’ Disease.’

Even Richard was pretty sure that no one caught Legionnaires’ Disease from aeroplane air conditioning systems. But before he could tell his mother this, she was off again.

‘And when we landed in Guadeloupe, I couldn’t believe how hot it was. I mean, I expected the tropics to be hot, but I wasn’t expecting heat like this, and I remember the heatwave of 1976. But I’d decided I’d just have to cope with it when they took us to the plane they told us we were transferring to Saint-Marie on. Well! I could see rust around the rivets on the wings. And you know how your great uncle was in the Fleet Air Arm, and he always said you should never get in a machine that didn’t look as though it was looked after with pride?’

Richard noted the pause, and gave the correct response.

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘Well, I very nearly didn’t get on it, and then—when I did—I discovered that I was sitting next to a man who had a chicken on his lap in a crate. I mean, it was a very fine-looking chicken, but you don’t expect to see a chicken on a commercial flight, do you?’

Again, Richard gave the correct response. ‘No, Mother.’

‘But I’m here now, I suppose, and it really is wonderful to see you.’

Jennifer stopped talking long enough to look at her son.

‘And I must say, you look very smart.’

Richard couldn’t help but feel a little burst of pride at this compliment.

‘So where’s Dad?’ he asked, and recognised the maternal frown at once.

‘Do I need to go everywhere with him? I am my own person, you know,’ she said.

‘No, of course you are,’ Richard quickly agreed. ‘It’s just, I’ve only really got time to drop you off at your hotel, I’m afraid. There’s been a murder.’

Jennifer looked at her son and sighed.

‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘I’ve been putting up with your father’s murders my whole life, I’m sure I can put up with yours.’