The Killing Of Polly Carter. Robert Thorogood
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is interesting. Because it means we’ve only got one witness to what happened. You, Claire. And even you didn’t see exactly what happened.’
Claire was quietly affronted. ‘But I didn’t need to see it. My sister said she was going to end her life. She then ran down the steps and I heard her scream as she fell. I didn’t need to see it to know what happened.’
Richard turned from Claire to Sophie.
‘So tell me, Sophie, how soon after you heard Polly’s scream did you arrive at the cliff?’
‘Oh, not long,’ Sophie said. ‘Thirty seconds? Something like that?’
At this, Claire turned her wheelchair around so she was looking directly at Richard, and he saw a look in her eyes he couldn’t quite place. Was it defiance? Or even desperation? Why did she look so on edge so suddenly?
‘But since you’re so interested in what I saw,’ Claire said, ‘you should know that there was someone else on the cliff steps just before Polly went down them.’
This got everyone’s attention.
‘There was?’ Camille asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘And you didn’t think to mention this before now?’ Richard asked.
‘You didn’t ask,’ Claire said.
‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘So who was this person you saw beforehand?’
‘Well, I think it was a man.’
‘You think it was a man?’
‘It might have been a woman. You see, I only caught a glimpse of the person as Polly was pushing me towards the cliff. But as we got to the top of the steps, I saw this flash of yellow as whoever it was went down the steps and disappeared around the first bend.’
‘A flash of yellow?’ Richard asked.
‘That’s right,’ Claire said, finally warming to her theme. ‘Because, whoever it was was wearing a bright yellow raincoat. You know, like a plastic cagoule. And the thing is, they had the hood up over their head so I couldn’t see their face.’
‘So you’re saying that this person—whether it was a man or woman—was wearing a plastic yellow raincoat with the hood up, and was on the cliff steps just before your sister jumped to her death?’
‘That’s right.’
Richard knew what he had to do next.
‘Would anyone here mind if Detective Sergeant Bordey now did a search of all your rooms to look for a yellow raincoat?’ Before anyone could answer, Richard continued, ‘Good. Camille, if you would?’
With a nod to her boss, Camille left the room, but Richard only had eyes for the four witnesses. Did any of them look particularly worried at the prospect of their rooms being searched? He had to admit that they didn’t, so Richard turned back to Claire.
‘You see, it strikes me as odd that someone would be wearing a raincoat with the hood up on a boiling hot day when there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.’
‘Yes, when you put it like that,’ Claire said. ‘It does seem strange. But it’s what I saw.’
‘Then can I ask, if there was a person in a yellow coat on the cliff steps before your sister went down them, who was the next person to go down the steps after Polly?’
‘That was me,’ Sophie said.
‘And how soon afterwards did you follow her?’
‘I don’t know, but it could only have been a minute or two later. When I got to the cliff, Claire was upset, and it was only when we saw the body on the beach that I realised what might have happened.’
‘So you’d already seen Polly’s body on the beach before you went down the cliff?’
‘That’s right. Claire had gone a little way along the cliff’s edge. We were both able to look back at the beach from there.’
‘Then did you see a person in a yellow raincoat anywhere on the beach when you looked down at Polly’s body from the top of the cliff?’
Sophie thought for a moment before answering, ‘I’m sorry, no.’
‘Then perhaps you saw this person in the yellow coat on your way down to the beach?’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see anyone else on the steps. Or on the beach below. In a yellow raincoat or otherwise. When I got down there, there was just Polly’s body. There wasn’t anyone else.’
‘But that’s not possible,’ Claire said. ‘Because I’m telling you I saw a person in a yellow raincoat go down the steps just beforehand, you must have seen them, Sophie! Did you not see a flash of yellow at all? Maybe only after you got down to the beach?’
‘It’s unlikely,’ Richard said. ‘Even by the time my officers arrived at the scene, the only footprints we could find in the sand led from the steps to the body and nowhere else. So, if there was a “Man in Yellow” who went down the steps beforehand, he didn’t go off and hide anywhere else on the beach.’
‘Then perhaps they managed to hide on the steps themselves, Sophie,’ Claire said.
Richard could see that Sophie was briefly conflicted. But only briefly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Claire. ‘I’m pretty sure there wasn’t anyone hiding on the cliff steps, either. And definitely no one in a yellow coat.’
‘But they must have been,’ Claire said with shrill insistence. ‘I know what I saw!’
Richard made a note that whoever Claire saw on the cliff steps before Polly’s death—assuming, of course, she saw anyone—had somehow managed to vanish into thin air afterwards.
‘Very well,’ Richard said. ‘Then can you tell me, Claire, did Polly have a cut in her forearm at all before she went down the cliff steps?’
The question threw Claire. ‘A cut?’
‘That’s right. A deep cut about six inches long, running from the inside of her elbow down to just above her wrist,’ Richard clarified, indicating on the sleeve of his right arm. ‘It would have been bleeding quite heavily.’
‘No,’ Claire said. ‘She wasn’t bleeding at all. And her dress was sleeveless, I’m sure I’d have seen if she’d cut herself in any way.’
‘Then what about you, Sophie?’ Richard asked, turning to the nurse. ‘You must have seen the cut on Polly’s forearm when you found her on the beach?’
Sophie thought for a moment before answering. ‘No … I’m sorry. I didn’t notice any cut on her arm, either.’
Richard made a note. So there was no independent corroboration that the cut on Polly’s arm had been inflicted before she fell. So when exactly had she cut herself? It couldn’t have been post-mortem, could it?
Richard looked back at Sophie. ‘Okay, so once you’d gone to Polly on the beach, what did you do next?’
‘I established that there was no pulse in Polly’s neck and then I called back up to Claire to phone for an ambulance.’
‘That’s right,’ Claire said, ‘but I didn’t have my mobile phone on me, so I had to go back to the house.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Richard said, surprised.
‘I … I didn’t have my mobile on me, so I pushed myself back to the house and used the landline to call for an ambulance. That’s when I saw Max coming down from upstairs and I told him what had happened.’
‘That’s right,’ Max agreed eagerly. ‘I saw Claire heading back across the garden, so I went down to meet her in the hallway.