Murder on the Island Read online

  Murder on the Island

  Daisy White

  Copyright © 2021 Daisy White

  The right of Daisy White to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2021 by Bloodhound Books.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.bloodhoundbooks.com

  Print ISBN 978-1-913942-27-4

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  A note from the publisher

  Love crime, thriller and mystery books?

  You will also enjoy:

  For Rob, James and Ollie x

  ‘You can go to heaven if you want to. I’d rather stay in Bermuda.’

  Mark Twain (1910)

  1

  As the plane dropped a few feet, the ceiling creaked alarmingly. Chloe fixed her eyes firmly on the back of the seat in front, staring fixedly and slightly manically at the safety card poking out of the blue pocket.

  The jolting and plunging continued for another thirty-five minutes, until they reached a blessedly calm stretch of air, and the seat belt sign pinged off. The captain announced they would be landing in approximately one hour.

  Chloe staggered up the aisle to the toilets, tidying her long blonde hair as best she could in the smeared mirror. Her round, pale, still-slightly-terrified face stared back. In the harsh lighting of the aircraft toilet she looked much older than her fifty years. Wrinkles that she had always laughingly called smile lines had etched deeper in the last few months, and that was definitely a triple chin lurking.

  The big birthday had been celebrated with both divorce and redundancy. Not a great way to start what she had told herself firmly were her middle years. There had been too much sadness, too much loss recently, and the desire to escape had been overwhelming.

  Which was why, although she was desperately sad to hear her grandmother had passed away, the unexpected inheritance felt like a gift from the heavens.

  Although not blood relatives, her grandfather’s second wife, Dre, had raised her on the island of Bermuda until she was seven. Chloe’s mother, Natalia, by then working in London for a multi-national real estate company, had remarried and sent for her daughter. Busy with her career, and a string of lovers as well as a new husband, Natalia had promptly dispatched her only daughter to boarding school.

  Return visits to the island had been few, and by the time Chloe was old enough to travel on her own, she felt awkward about contacting Dre. Her grandfather had moved on to his fourth wife. Too much time seemed to have passed, and they weren’t really even relatives anymore… So she left it at cards on birthdays and Christmas.

  But now it was different. Hair now neatly plaited (the grey strands mingling with the blonde of her younger years), lipstick applied, Chloe returned to her seat and ordered a Bloody Mary. She had made the momentous decision to return to the island. There was nothing for her in the UK. Her mother was herself twice divorced, retired and living in the US. She was still as unmaternal as ever. Chloe had no children of her own. It hadn’t really ever factored into her life. Mark, her ex-husband, hadn’t wanted children, and although Chloe was a godmother three times over, and adored her friends’ babies, she had never felt her own biological clock ticking.

  Her friends, the few that were left after her marriage breakdown, would definitely come and visit. Her godchildren, growing up fast, were delighted she was moving to such an auspicious destination. She loved them dearly, and was amused and pleased that they regarded her new adventure with such enthusiasm.

  She smiled, recalling her best friend, Alexa’s reaction to the news. ‘Hell, Chlo, you try and stop me coming to that paradise island! I might come and live permanently in your spare room.’

  As the plane finally touched down, Chloe felt a surge of excitement override her fears. She was coming home, and she was shocked at how right it suddenly felt. Perhaps this was what had been missing for all these years. Her childhood had set her on a different course, dictated by her mother, then by her career, and later by Mark. But perhaps now she could take control, change her life and start over.

  The other passengers were already searching for their belongings, opening the overhead lockers, and passing heavier bags. The chatter of tourists, business travellers and those returning home, mixed with the wail of a baby.

  After queuing impatiently, Chloe stepped out of the plane and the hot air swirled around her. The deep blue of the sky, the turquoise water beyond the runway, the smells of salt, spice and aircraft fuel stirred her memory. After the faded grey skies and icy rain of London this was incredible. Intoxicating. She almost laughed out loud.

  The small airport wasn’t crowded and Chloe managed to pass through immigration without any problems. It was strange joining the Bermuda resident’s line, rather than going through the tourist channel. She still didn’t feel she had a right to do that, but her papers now stated otherwise.

  She pushed her trolley, loaded with cases, hesitantly out of the glass doors, welcoming another blast of warm air, tasting salt on her lips.

  The taxi driver beamed at her, his hat pushed back on top of his head, face full of wrinkles with shrewd brown eyes that sparkled with interest. ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Beachside Riding Stables? It’s off the South Road, in Warwick?’ She spoke quickly, nervously, but was reassured by his friendly response.

  ‘I know it! That Dre’s old place, and you must be her granddaughter. She used to talk about you a lot. Welcome to Bermuda. I’m Peter.’

  ‘You know about me? I mean… Sorry, I’m Chloe.’ She belatedly remembered her manners, as he gathered her cases and threw them single-handedly into the boot. In London, taxi drivers didn’t know your name, and nobody hailed you in the street. Even eye contact marked you out as a weirdo. This would take some getting used to, she thought.

  But it fanned the warm spark of happiness that was already burning merrily in her chest. Her caring, busy nature had been flattened over the years; by a disappointing marriage, by lack of direction. Yet here in the warmth, enjoying Peter’s friendly conversation, she found herself responding in kind. ‘How lovely to meet you!’ Her mouth stretched into a grin. Home, she was home. She hadn’t expected to feel quite so emotional. Quite so happy.

  ‘Of course I know about you… I remember you from w
hen you were a kid too, but I bet it’s too far back for you to recognise me. Dre and I have been friends for years. I was sad to see her go.’ His expression changed, and he shrugged. ‘Antoine’s been looking after the place since your grandmother died. He’s a good boy.’

  Chloe slipped into the passenger seat, winding down the window, unable to take her eyes off the tantalising gleam of the sea. There was a slash of white sand curving around the volcanic rock of a little bay. ‘Yes, the lawyers mentioned she had someone working for her.’

  ‘You haven’t been to visit for a while, have you? I remember Dre always said her family was all busy working in London and the US… What are you going to do with the place? You like horses?’ He turned the radio down, and drove slowly across the causeway, joining the queue of vehicles at the roundabout.

  Chloe was so busy absorbing the hit of colour, the smells of dust and spice, she found the conversation hard to follow. ‘I lived here until I was seven, as you know, and I visited a couple of times as a teenager.’ Even as she said the words, regret and a fair bit of guilt wormed up inside her stomach. Her family situation had always been odd, distant even, but she should have come back sooner, should have re-established her relationship with Dre in her later years. She changed the subject quickly. ‘Do you live locally?’

  ‘Seventy-two years I’ve lived on this island, and for almost all of them I’ve had a house in Devonshire Parish.’

  Chloe smiled at him. She remembered that Bermuda was divided into nine parishes, stretching across the island from St George’s in the east, to Sandys right down on the west end.

  As a child she had learned about the history of Bermuda, chanting the names of each parish in a sun-drenched classroom. History had always been a bit of a secret passion in her adult years. She was fascinated by ancient buildings, imagining the people who had built them, fought for them, lived and died in them…

  Alexa loved to tell the tale of how she and Chloe went to a revival festival, where the tea dance was held in a historic building, and halfway through the dancing Chloe went missing. The lure of the ancient cobweb-encrusted rooms meant she had wandered off to explore, oblivious to the free cocktails and the colourful whirl of dancers.

  Chloe grinned to herself. She thought there might be quite a lot of scope to explore this secret passion of hers in Bermuda; an island with a fascinating history and so many ancient buildings.

  The taxi driver continued to fill her in on local gossip, mentioning a diner for breakfast if she got bored of home-cooking, a few pubs, and the upcoming Kite Festival ahead of Easter weekend. ‘…And you’ve got a good market and petrol station within walking distance. Not to mention Stefan’s garden centre. He’s doing some lovely spring freesias at the moment. Dre was a regular. Tell him who you are and he’ll probably give you a discount!’

  Chloe half-listened, allowing his pleasant chat to wash over her, but her attention was now focused on the scenes from her window. She drank them in almost greedily.

  The pastel-coloured houses were set neatly alongside the road, climbing up the terraces. Occasionally she caught a quick glimpse of occupants going about their business, hurrying along the pavements with bags of shopping, or pausing to chat at the roadside. It made Chloe wonder what colour her new home would be. Each building had the obligatory white roof, where rainwater was caught and used for everything from washing to drinking.

  She had never lived at Beachside Stables, having spent her early Bermudian childhood in an apartment in the city of Hamilton. Dre had still been living in Hamilton when Chloe visited at thirteen and fifteen. There had been no photographs exchanged in those Christmas and birthday cards and Dre didn’t do email or social media.

  Each side of the road was now crammed with lush green plants, bell-shaped flowers in dark purple and scarlet, a sky-blue church high on a hill. A field made a splash of brown, with lines of pale green indicating a crop. And everywhere, the vibrant glimpses of that turquoise sea, with strips of white sand gently cupping the water.

  The taxi passed through Paget and entered Warwick Parish. Chloe had caught sight of signs to Elbow Beach and Warwick Long Bay and was almost shivering with excitement and anticipation. She thought Peter might find it weird if she bounced up and down on her seat like a kid on a seaside trip, but that was exactly what she felt like doing.

  ‘It’s just along this track,’ the taxi driver announced at last, bumping over potholes and up a steep hill.

  Chloe leaned forward eagerly, excitement making her feel distinctly nauseous, and nerves jangling at the first sight of her new home. A large white-painted sign announced Beachside Stables, and as they rounded a corner a tangerine-coloured house appeared behind the shrubs.

  She climbed awkwardly out of the taxi, breathing in great lungfuls of sea air, and nearly fell over a cockerel that strutted out of the hedge. It gave a squawk of annoyance, and rushed off up the dusty path.

  Peter unloaded her cases, and pressed his business card into her hand. ‘Don’t forget, you call me if you need any help. One of my boys runs a delivery service so if you need any help when your bigger stuff gets shipped out, he can bring it down to you.’ He beamed at Chloe again. ‘And welcome home to Bermuda.’

  2

  After a couple of days of complete confusion, Chloe began to settle into her new home. Although the outside was neat, with the orange paint fresh on the walls, and the white roof clean and free from lichens, the inside had been a shock; sad and dusty with a few dead houseplants decorating the window ledges.

  Chloe began to get used to shooing a few hens and the ever-present cockerel from the path before she could get into her front door, and to waking up to blue skies and a stiff Atlantic breeze. She woke up with the birds, instead of jerking into consciousness at the bleep of her alarm clock, and went to sleep when the velvety darkness crept across the sea.

  One of her new neighbours, she thought it was Ailsa, but she was having trouble keeping track of all their names, had left her a parcel of home-made Bermudian fishcakes yesterday, a delicacy she remembered from childhood.

  The kindness and welcome had reduced her to tears on a number of occasions but she was careful to keep her sadness indoors. Having not seen Dre for years, it was strange and lovely to find her everywhere in this neglected, dusty house. In those first few days, Chloe spent time with her grandmother, allowing her childhood memories to swirl around her mind, finally acknowledging the wonderful days as a carefree kid on the island.

  There was still a lot of guilt that she hadn’t managed to come back whilst Dre was still alive, ailing and possibly in need of family, but her father had discouraged any contact, and her mother, Natalia, didn’t like to be reminded of her ex-spouse’s ‘other family members’ as she called them disdainfully.

  Chloe thought, with hindsight, that although her mother had never displayed any affection towards her daughter, she had always been jealous of anyone else who did. She had come to terms with this long ago, but that didn’t mean it didn’t still sting occasionally.

  Tucked away, but niggling at her conscience, was the thought that she should visit her grandmother’s grave, to pay her respects, but something in her shied away from this. She didn’t want to see a gravestone on a hill, she wanted to keep Dre with her in this house and garden. Her grandmother had no other family on the island, so there would be nobody to offend if she didn’t take this, to her mind, very final step.

  In a box under the dressing table, Chloe discovered Dre’s old perfume bottles, a collection of antique wooden tobacco boxes she remembered from the Hamilton apartment, and a precious book of handwritten recipes. She cleaned the whole house, leaving beautiful framed prints of Bermuda, but carefully packing away delicate china ornaments that weren’t to her taste.

  One wonderful find was a complete set of Bermuda postage stamps featuring the nine parishes and their coats of arms. The set was dated 1985, and slipped inside a plastic wallet. Chloe, lost in the beauty of the artwork, spent a long time studying th
em, and finally decided to frame the whole set and hang the result in her kitchen.

  Now, four days after she had arrived, sparkling white blinds, and white cotton curtains framed the shining window glass, and the furniture was cleared down to Chloe’s preferred minimalistic state. Heirlooms such as the spectacular cedarwood chest, the shell collection nestling on the bathroom window ledge, a large scrubbed kitchen table, and an ornate wrought-iron bed in the spare room, would fit beautifully with her own treasured pieces from London.

  Chloe had so far only explored the immediate perimeter of her land, and was slightly overwhelmed. In fact, she secretly wondered how on earth she was going to manage. It was like acquiring a whole new family, she thought. Outdoors, the efficient and stunningly-attractive Antoine, kept an immaculate stable yard. It was home to six horses, a couple of goats and a whole load more chickens.

  There was a small, untidy square of back garden, two steeply sloping green paddocks for the animals, a big storage shed and the tack room, not to mention a patch of scrubby grass outside her front door which was littered with fragments of broken flowerpots.

  It was a shocking contrast to her small London flat, where the only greenery had been several pot plants on the balcony. After the initial burst of energy, the colours and heat made her want to laze around, and do nothing but walk from her little garden to the beach and back, so Chloe indulged herself as she hadn’t done for years.