Chapter Text
According to the calendar, it was hurricane season in the Caribbean. Richard Poole listened to the wind outside and realised that he didn’t need a calendar any more to pinpoint when it started and when it ended – he had been on Saint Marie for long enough now to know when it was time to run and hide. He had got used to it, like he had got used to so many other things… just because there was no way around it. That didn’t mean that he liked them – or even was happy with them. He had just understood that he couldn’t change them, and so he didn’t waste his precious energy any more on trying to fight them.
For example, he had got used to the rain pelting down on the tin roof of his shack twice a day for 10 minutes – it came down once in the morning and once in the evening. You could pretty much set your clock to the rainfalls.
He had also got used to the nicer things, like the clear skies that enabled him to spend his evenings gazing at the stars, the sound of the waves lapping at the beach that helped him to fall asleep at night, the general quietness and isolated location of the beach where he lived – if you didn’t count the frogs that began to croak before sunrise…
Other things had been harder to get used to. He still wasn’t overly happy with some of the things in the Caribbean – the constant heat alone was hard for him to bear, but the humidity on top of it… that made it all the more difficult for him. He had grown up in a colder climate – the UK wasn’t particularly well-known for its blazing sunshine and hot temperatures – so it had taken him a considerable amount of time to adjust. It hadn’t helped that he had insisted on wearing his usual woollen suits – he felt that he was representing the authority of the local police, and he wanted to dress accordingly. Also, he felt safe in this ‘uniform’ – suits simply had something stable, reliable, reassuring for him – and that was what he needed, more so because the Caribbean made him feel somewhat insecure, particularly over the first year of his stay. He had worn suits in the UK, so he’d wear them here as well. You had to have some standards to hold on to – especially when the world you had always known no longer was part of your everyday life. For the longest time he had refused to let go of this habit, and even now, he still wore his suits for work.
However, once he was back at his shack, he usually changed into something less formal – his Marks and Spencer pyjamas had been his most comfortable and favourite clothing during the first two years of his stay, they were loose and somewhat airy, and they reminded him of ‘home’… but well… they were a little too informal, particularly if someone came round to his place unexpectedly!
Now, in his third year, when he had finally accepted the truth and resigned himself to staying on Saint Marie for longer than just a ‘short stint’ (that had been his boss’s words when he had first been sent to the island! What a liar… he had wanted to get rid of him, Richard was well aware of that…), he had given in and got some more comfortable clothes - slacks and chinos that he could wear either with his dress shirts or looser short sleeved linen shirts and boat shoes. At this point, he was also considering purchasing lightweight suits for work, but he wasn’t entirely sure about that yet. Wouldn’t that look too sloppy? He’d have to make sure before buying…
Actually, he was quite pleased with his more casual trousers and shirts, although – initially - he had been sceptical. At least he was presentable this way. But that was as far as it went – he wouldn’t want to be caught dead or alive in the typical island outfit of shorts and shirts with ghastly patterns – or worse, muscle shirts! Whoever had invented those clearly had had a different body type in mind than the one he had – he neither was tall nor ‘muscular’ (although he didn’t think he was a complete softie, either… he was perhaps not be a great weightlifter, but he exercised a little to maintain a certain level of fitness), and he didn’t have a plethora of tattoos to show off, either – which seemed to be a prerequisite for that sort of fashionable attire…
In fact, he didn’t even have a single one, and he was very happy that way – why would he want anybody to maltreat him with a needle and ink to get a picture applied to his body that would look like a run-over cat in a couple of years, due to sagging skin and other effects of bodily decay… the very thought of a tattoo actually disgusted him. Plus, of course, he was pale, and nothing in the world would change that. He simply didn’t tan. He’d get sunburnt, but not tanned. In other words, muscle shirts looked ridiculous on him. So, there was no way he’d ever wear anything like that. He’d look ludicrous in that sort of garments, and he was thankful for being intelligent enough to be aware of that, not to mention that clothes of that kind lacked all propriety and finesse.
The absence of seasons was something that Richard really didn’t like. Others might think it was fun to have sunshine all year round – he didn’t agree with that at all. There were basically two distinguishable ‘seasons’ – regular and hurricane.
There wasn’t really any difference to speak of. The temperature was pretty much the same year round. During hurricane season, it cooled down a little bit, but it was minimal – like half a degree, maybe - and of course that didn’t really make things any easier – it still was damp and warm, and it felt like in a washhouse – only that it wasn’t so sunny on some days, and the occasional howling wind was adding to the trouble, the rain got heavier and less predictable, and power cuts were even more frequent. Naturally, it wasn’t like that on all days, but overall, the atmosphere was clearly different then, and Richard had realised that hurricane season did funny things to him – he was more moody and ‘under the weather’. He wouldn’t have admitted this to anybody else, but he was aware of it.
Of course, it didn’t help that he got soaked more often during hurricane season, and he had to change his clothes even more often. For someone like him who wanted to be dressed correctly, this was a real challenge. But well, he had more or less adjusted to that as well. There was a locker in the police station where he kept two fresh shirts, and more than once he had been grateful for this – it had made a huge difference just to know that in case he had sweated through his stuff or got soaked to the bones that there’d be something dry and crisp waiting for him that he could put on.
He had stocked up on dress shirts during visits on Guadeloupe so he’d have a bigger supply to choose from and stopped doing the washing and ironing on his own – it had been simply impossible to keep on top of things with the climate being the way it was. Back at home, he had never considered giving his shirts to a professional service – he was hard to please, and the only way to make sure that everything was just the way he wanted it was doing things himself.
Here in the Caribbean, he couldn’t possibly keep up his usual sartorial standards, though, if he relied on his own resources and abilities only – so after a while, he had (reluctantly) admitted defeat and found a reliable dry cleaning service. He had even been able to agree on a flat rate with them – he brought in a guaranteed number of shirts per month, and he got a special discount – so his shirts were laundered and ironed for relatively small money, and his life was easier since he only had to take care of easy laundry, like underwear, bed linen and towels. The suits naturally went to the dry cleaner’s, too.
He knew that his team thought he was obsessed with the heat and all its side effects, but he was beyond caring. However, he also knew that they were pleased that his complaints came less frequently these days. His Detective Sergeant had more than once snapped at him when he had ranted about the heat – her comment had been that everyone was hot, but it was just him who was complaining… he had realised that this was the truth, and as he was realistic enough to understand that the Caribbean climate wouldn’t change, he had understood that he had to make adjustments and compromises – if only minimal ones (he wasn’t good with change! At all!).
Richard sighed. It was hot. He had to keep the shutters of his shack closed while he was at work, and it could get rather stuffy inside – and the shack was not very airy to begin with. He usually opened every door and window when he came home, and oftentimes he left them open during the night. But during hurricane season, he couldn’t always do that as there was more rain and wind, and he didn’t want to wake up to a tropical storm raging in his house, so when the weather channel forecast a rainfront, he would close literally every little hole – and his nights became even less comfortable.
Of course, it was also even more humid, and he often woke up bathed in sweat. Alas, there was nothing he could do about it. The electrical wiring in his house would not survive if he connected a fan or an air conditioning system to it. Not to mention that it would likely be useless, anyway, because the shack was constructed in a manner that let air in and out (which sounded like there was a draft – but there really wasn’t… at least it wasn’t the kind of draft that did anything beyond moving the dust bunnies from one side of the room to the other), so the cooling effect would most likely just vanish into thin air – literally.
And he wasn’t willing to move to town where he might have been able to get accommodation with air conditioning.
It seemed contradictory, considering that he saw himself as a city person – but what people didn’t understand was that it was the anonymity of the city that he loved – not the crowds of people. Of course, both aspects were connected – or two sides of the same coin, to be more precise. But what Richard loved about the crowds was that he could simply disappear in them. He didn’t like standing out – other than with his professional skills. He preferred remaining unseen in most everyday situations – it was the heritage of his time in boarding school when standing out meant negative consequences – usually. Even (or was it rather ‘particularly’?) good marks could mean negative consequences – more than once he had been bullied by others because he had written good essays, had received good marks and was presented as an example to his classmates. He had learnt that staying under people’s radar could be a lifesaver.
All his life, he’d been trying to hide himself. That had been one of the reasons why he had applied for positions in the British capital. London obviously had given him the possibility to disappear and melt with the crowd. In the masses, he could hide his insecurities. They still were there, of course, but they got overlooked. He was just one of many individuals, one little speck in the swarm of somberly dressed people. Nobody looked at him.
Honoré, however, where his current police station was situated, wasn’t big enough to provide this anonymity. Even if he had decided to abandon his suits and ties and tried to be a bit more approachable – it still would have been difficult. It wasn’t only because he was clearly not of Caribbean descent – many people from the UK and other European countries had moved to live on Saint Marie, and there also were a couple of American business people, so he really wasn’t the only one who didn’t look Caribbean.
Of course, he stuck out because of his attire – people in suits were clearly not the rule on the island. But it was also because he was very private and reserved, and that was something that the island people found extremely puzzling.
Everyone was curious about what their neighbours did – and what the neighbours’ neighbours did. The island grapevine was a very effective resource for solving crimes, but other than that, it didn’t hold any fascination for Richard who hated people who wanted to meddle and tried to stick their nose into his business. He had always been a very private person, and the way everything seemed to be a public affair in Honoré irritated him immensely.
The tourists and part time residents from other countries who came here for their holidays or extended stays had no idea – they stayed in big resorts, with other tourists, or they had a large, airy mansion – if they could afford it. But that was not the same like living with the locals all year round. Also, many of the permanent residents who came from abroad usually lived in specific areas – Richard hesitated to call them ghettos, but to a certain extent that was what they were. They were recently built bungalows that were bought by wealthier people, some were used as holiday villas, and as a matter of fact, you hardly found anyone living there who actually had been born and raised on Saint Marie.
So, he still lived in the same beach shack that he had taken over from his predecessor… who had been killed by one of his police officers. Not a great omen, Richard mused as he was turning over in his bed. Lily, the police officer that had been found guilty of murdering Charlie Hulme, had actually been a rather pleasant person… and another example of how perfectly nice people could develop a considerable measure of criminal energy and turn into murderers eventually.
Not for the first time, Richard thought that the general public’s idea that killers had to be insane and somehow “out of the norm” was a profound misconception. The truth was that killers weren’t “out of the norm” – unless they were psychopaths, and those fortunately weren’t as common as people seemed to think.
In his experience, literally anybody could turn into a killer – murder usually was connected to relationships and the accompanying circumstances. If you put enough pressure on people, hardly anyone would resist and not kill their tormentor if given the opportunity and the means to do so, and if you made people feel inferior and worthless for long enough, they would look for a way out – and if there seemed to be no way they could get away from the situation, they’d either take their own lives or kill the person they held responsible for their agony.
Well, whatever. Hurricane season also meant that it was a little more quiet at the station as it was when considerably fewer tourists came to the island. Of course, there were still people who couldn’t be put off, but the majority of tourists came during the rest of the year, when it was winter in Europe and North America, and that meant there were fewer crimes altogether – fewer accidents as well – simply because there were fewer people around, plus tourists often were victims of theft or pick-pocketing, they got into fights and brawls at the clubs regularly, and there were more murders, too, during tourist season. Now, during hurricane season, a lot of the clubs had shorter opening hours, so that meant fewer opportunities to get into a fix.
It also meant less income for the locals, but they were used to that, so most of them got by somehow, despite the fact that life in the Caribbean – opposite to general opinion – was not particularly cheap since so many convenience goods had to get imported. But the locals didn’t complain. It was all part of their rhythm of life. Overall, they were rather relaxed, anyway, even if they were extremely busy during tourist season. They always had time for cracking a joke, cuddling a child or feeding a stray cat.
Richard marvelled at people’s ability to just adapt to life and its obstacles and challenges so easily – well, he was cautious when it came to generalisations, but overall, the people here seemed to take things a lot easier than in the UK. He wondered if it was maybe genetic. Or it could be that it just was the result of being born and growing up in this climate!
The rich people in their residences who pretended to be all relaxed and carefree while they stayed on the island of Saint Marie actually could be rather uptight and expected things to go their way – they just adapted to island life on the surface. He had observed that during his stay here – several times, he had encountered people who claimed they’d enjoy the Caribbean rhythm of life and all that, but they got all upset and annoyed when they had to wait forever in restaurants or found that the soap in their room hadn’t been refilled by noon because the maid hadn’t managed to come round yet because she had had to chat to the gardener or the cleaner who was a cousin or a friend or a friend’s cousin, or a cousin’s friend.
He also was intrigued by their readiness to believe in things like voodoo and all sorts of supernatural phenomena – it seemed completely illogical to him, but then again, each to their own. He rather believed in scientific proof, logic and common sense. Sometimes, however, he thought that his life would be a lot easier if he could just loosen up a little. He knew that he often was too pedantic, too meticulous, too accurate – if there was such a thing as being too accurate! By the same token… that were the qualities he needed for his job, and they were part of his personality, anyway – he couldn’t deny that. So, wasn’t it pointless wishing to be different?
Six o’clock. Time to get up. Well, not really, but he’d have to get up in half an hour, anyway, so why bother and spend another half hour sweating in bed… Richard yawned, sat up and took a deep breath. Let’s see what the day would bring.