DEATH ON THE NILE...ERR. WAVENY
On Thursday 21st July during an evening cruise to celebrate both the 50th Birthday of Sandy Hardman, the wealthy owner of a security company, and his 21st wedding anniversary, his wife Roberta, known to her friends as Bobby, was killed after falling overboard. We believe that foul play is involved in her death. We have narrowed our list of suspects to the following five people:
Sandy Hardman, the grieving widower
Damien Fisher, an employee of Sandy
Shona Rivers, Sandy’s personal assistant
Rebecca Flood, Damien’s girlfriend
And Alison Waters, Bobby’s younger sister.
The deceased, Roberta Hardman was 43 years old and had been married to Sandy for almost 21 years, their actual wedding anniversary was on the 25th but they were celebrating it at the same time as Sandy’s birthday. Like most marriages, they had had some problems over the years but currently seemed quite settled. Roberta was rather eccentric and passionate about ducks. She had for the last 4 years run “bobbin bills duck sanctuary “on 5 acres of marshland near Burgh St Peter, bought for her by Sandy. It is ironic that Sandy should pay for a duck sanctuary when, apart from golf, his main hobby is shooting.
We know that Sandy owns Hardman’s security, which provides mobile and static security patrols for small and medium sized businesses around the Waveney valley. We believe that he uses some “heavy selling” tactics involving paid thugs to help drum up customers but so far have not found anyone prepared to talk to us about the protection money they are paying.
Damien has worked for Sandy for the last three years. He does have a criminal record, having been sentenced to 3 months for burglary 5 years ago. He also has convictions for assault and criminal damage.
We know very little about Alison other than that she is the younger sister of Roberta. It seems that there are no other siblings and the girls were orphaned at a young age after their parents died in a car crash. Alison seems to have a comfortable lifestyle though she doesn’t work so we are interested in where her money comes from.
Shona is Sandy’s personal assistant. She is a single mother of 8 year old twins. Actually, she is technically married; her husband however is a long term missing person having disappeared nearly 7 years ago. He used to work for Sandy with Shona being a stay at home mum but after his disappearance she needed a job and Sandy offered her a position as his PA. Shona has one previous conviction for possession of cocaine; she received a suspended prison sentence for this.
Rebecca is another largely unknown person. She is the girlfriend of Damien. She has no previous convictions; she has come to police notice previously after allegedly assaulting a girl who was chatting up a previous boyfriend but the case was discontinued. She has been described as jealous and possessive