Death In Paradise season 13 episode 3 sees a cookery competition in Saint Marie leaving a deadly taste in the mouth when celebrity chef Stanley Drake (Gordon Kennedy) is fatally poisoned — but as all the chefs ate the food they served to him, how could they possibly have poisoned him without killing themselves in the process?
Meanwhile, Catherine (Élizabeth Bourgine) is stunned when her former best friend makes an unexpected return to the island.
Read on to find out what went down in Death In Paradise season 13 episode 3...
We begin at a cooking competition where celebrity chef Stanley Drake is being interviewed by a pack of journalists — including Commissioner Selwyn Patterson's daughter, Andrina Harper (Genesis Lynea). He explains that the competition will help him find a new head chef for one of his resorts, but everyone who takes part will get a masterclass with him and a potentially career-making amount of exposure. Stanley introduces Mayor Catherine Bordey to Celeste Duvall (Yasmin Mwanza), this year's recipient of the Drake Fund and the next big thing in cooking. But when Stanley also introduces Catherine and Andrina to celebrity chef couple Lucky (Kate Robbins) and Tristan Clayborn (Michael Fenton Stevens), there's a frostiness in the air. Lucky explains that she grew up in Saint Marie and that she and Catherine are old friends — "not exactly," corrects Catherine.
The contestants present their dishes to Stanley and sample them with him before providing honest feedback on the food. Afterwards, Stanley tells them all that they'll need to clear up before he can deliver his verdict, as that's an important part of a chef's work. Andrina goes to interview to Stanley in his office, but he struggles to answer her questions about how he will choose the winner because he's in the middle of a violent coughing fit. He gets up to get some water, but collapses on the floor in front of an alarmed Andrina.
Naomi (Shantol Jackson) fills Neville (Ralf Little) in on Stanley — he's a chef turned hotelier who moved to the Caribbean in the 1990s and owns five Drake Resorts, of which the one in Saint Marie (opening next week) is the newest. He picks his head chefs using this competition, always using the same format: the chefs forage for the raw ingredients the morning of the competition and then critique their dish with him as part of the masterclass. Neville notices Stanley's watch is cracked, and that it stopped at 9 pm the previous day.
Naomi also spots that Stanley was wearing make-up, seemingly to cover a bruise. There's a nasty burn inside his mouth, almost like a chemical burn — this rings alarm bells with Darlene (Ginny Holder), who thinks it could be poison from a local tree called Furium, "the Fury Tree". She and Marlon (Tahj Miles) explain that every part of the tree is poisonous and there is no antidote and that children on the island are taught to keep well away from the tree. Neville wonders if one of the chef foraged furium berries accidentally, but Darlene shows him a picture demonstrating that all trees on the island are clearly marked as being fatally poisonous. In other words, this was no accident.
Apparently Stanley didn't eat anything before the contest in order to keep his stomach empty and his palate clear, suggesting the poison was in one of the competition dishes — but all the chefs were eating their own food, in front of the crowd, so surely whoever cooked that dish should also be dead now. And because Drake made the post-cooking clear-up a part of the competition, there are no leftovers to test for traces of furium poison.
The Commissioner (Don Warrington) — who's now back at work, albeit on light duties, after recovering from being shot — has come to the resort to check on Andrina. She assures him that she's a little bit shocked, but she's tough as nails, just like her dad.
Neville and Naomi interview the chefs, and Celeste explains that although she was this year's recipient of the Drake Fund, she'd never met Stanley before, though she had been a fan for years. Naomi asks to see her recipe, and Celeste gets emotional at the prospect of Stanley being hurt by the poison. After she leaves, Neville notes that nobody has a bad word to say about Stanley. Catherine arrives with some important information she thinks they need to hear: she and Lucky used to be best friends a long time ago, but one day she left Saint Marie suddenly and Catherine never heard from her again. This was the first time Catherine had seen her in 30 years, and during the judging she saw Lucky take something out of Stanley's pocket — his hotel key fob.
While searching Stanley's suite, Darlene found something she finds mildly suspicious: a laptop charger, but no laptop to go with it. Naomi confirms the laptop wasn't in Stanley's office either. They know that Stanley used his laptop to make a video call that morning, so Neville and Naomi go to the Clayborns' apartment to question Lucky, where Neville notices that Tristan has a painful-looking scrape on his hand. Tristan explains it's from the competition, saying that you shouldn't rush when you're working with a barbecue. Tristan explains that his and Lucky's public image is very different from Stanley's — much more down-to-earth and family-orientated. Asked about whether she knew Stanley prior to the competition, Lucky says she met him briefly 30 years ago when she was looking for funding to start a business on Saint Marie. Stanley saw her potential and encouraged her to open her own restaurant in Grenada, but she hadn't seen him since then. She denies taking Stanley's room key, and Tristan correctly guesses it was Catherine who told them about this — he claims that Catherine is still bitter about Lucky leaving Saint Marie all those years ago and would do anything to cause trouble for her.
At the police station, Naomi checks in with Catherine, who is adamant she saw Lucky take the key fob. Neville dismisses everyone for the night, saying he's off to work on his blog — he's going to be doing a product review of an eco-friendly mosquito repellent, although his first post only got four views. Marlon suggests he knock the blog on the head entirely, but Darlene thinks Neville just needs to personalise it a bit more. Darlene and Naomi are due to go on another double date, which Naomi initially tries to get out of, but reluctantly agrees to attend.
Tristan goes to Catherine's bar to tell her that she was mistaken about Lucky taking Stanley's room key, and should retract her statement. However, we then see that Lucky has indeed got Stanley's laptop and is trying to crack his password.
The next day, Naomi and Darlene arrive at work and it's clear that Naomi did something the night before that she regrets. (To spare you the suspense, we find out at the end of the episode, after much cajoling from Marlon, that she got drunk and sang karaoke — and the episode ends with Naomi reprising her performance for her appreciative colleagues.) The toxicology report confirms that Stanley was poisoned by furium, which causes eye irritation, blistering and swelling of the mouth and throat. The amount of furium found in his system would have killed him within an hour at the most, which would mean he was definitely poisoned during the cooking competition — but there's still no answer as to how the murderer killed Stanley without poisoning themselves. The post-mortem suggests Stanley's bruise happened the night before the cooking competition. The case is looking stagnant until Darlene gets off the phone with her friend at the council: Stanley put in an application to extend the original site of the hotel, and someone made a formal complaint because it would involve the bulldozing of the Phoenix Barbecue House, a very popular restaurant with locals. The chef at the Phoenix is Dionne Bertrand (Shvorne Marks), who was another of the chefs taking part in the competition, who claims Stanley tricked the owners into signing their land over.
At the Phoenix, Neville and Naomi quiz Dionne about her complaint against Stanley. Naomi suggests that Dionne wanted to protect the owners, and Dionne admits that they took a chance on her when nobody else would employ her. She says that working there saved her life, and she wasn't going to let Stanley bulldoze the place — that's why she entered the competition, because she wanted to publicly expose his plan in front of the press. She insists she didn't kill him — and points out that she would have been foolish to, because her complaint against him would make her a prime suspect.
Catherine and Lucky run into each other at the market, where Lucky asks Catherine if she's ever going to forgive her. Catherine reminds her that she needed Lucky 30 years ago, because they were going to buy the bar together — after she disappeared, Catherine had to save for another five years to afford it on her own, all while raising a young child. She doesn't understand what she could have done to make Lucky treat her like that. Lucky snaps that it wasn't about Catherine, and leaves in a hurry.
Darlene has been analysing Andrina's photos from the Drake Resorts event. In a photo taken the day of the competition, before the contest began, Neville spots that Tristan already has the scrape on his hand that he claimed he got during the contest. Neville takes another look at Stanley's watch, and wonders if the bruise on his face was from someone hitting him. What if, after being caught off-guard by the first punch, he raised his hands to defend himself from the second — cracking the face of his watch and leaving a nasty scar on his assailant's hand?
Under questioning at the Clayborns' apartment, Tristan admits to hitting Stanley — because he thought Lucky was having an affair with him. He says that he confronted Stanley after the welcome event the night before the competition, and Stanley confirmed it. Lucky insists they weren't having an affair — it was just one night, after Stanley contacted her to invite them to take part in the competition, and she regrets it. Neville asks why she still took part in the competition under the circumstances, and Lucky shows him Stanley's laptop — he had intimate photos of the two of them together and blackmailed her into taking part, so that her and Tristan's presence at the contest would generate extra publicity. She didn't trust him to give the photos back, so she stole his laptop to ensure they were deleted — but insists she didn't kill Stanley. Tristan admits that he was worried that Lucky was in love with Stanley and planning to run off with him, which would destroy the Clayborn brand. Lucky notes bitterly that the brand is really all that Tristan cares about which, ironically, proves he couldn't have killed Stanley — he wouldn't dare risk the bad PR.
At Catherine's bar, Selwyn is catching up with Andrina and suggesting that when he can get some time off, he could come and visit her in London if she'd like him to. Andrina is a little distracted, and says she's tired — she'd just like to walk home. Selwyn chases her down the beach, much to her alarm because he's supposed to be taking it easy. He tells her that he knows she isn't okay, and he wants her to know that he's here for her, whatever she needs. Andrina asks him how he deals with seeing such horrible things all the time. Selwyn tells her that you get over it, but you should never get used to it — and that being tough isn't about not letting things affect you, but about being honest about your feelings.
Back in his beach hut, Neville has attempted to personalise his blog by posting a photo — and he's got his very first comment from a mysterious reader called Sunset_Chaser.
The next day, Neville has a breakthrough — he was wondering why Dionne couldn't get work anywhere other than the Phoenix when she's clearly a talented chef and she has no criminal record. It turns out there's nothing in her file prior to 2014, when she came to Saint Marie. He checked her date of birth against the records for Martinique and found Emilia Bertrand, who does have a criminal record — she drunkenly took a baseball bat to her boss's car in 2013. And that boss? Stanley Drake.
Neville and Naomi find Dionne at the Phoenix, having a heated conversation with Celeste in the kitchen. As Celeste is leaving, she stumbles into the doorframe. Dionne claims not to have known Celeste prior to meeting at the competition, but says she came to see her because she was upset about Stanley. Neville confronts Dionne/Emilia about her past altercation with Stanley's car, which Dionne claims was because she cracked under the pressure of working in an elite kitchen. She lost her scholarship as a result, but says she didn't hold a grudge against Stanley — it was the Drake Foundation that pressed charges against her, while Stanley himself gave her a character reference which kept her out of prison.
Back at the police station, Neville wonders why Celeste would have gone to Dionne, of all people, for support, given that they were relative strangers. He also can't fathom why Celeste is so upset about Stanley, given that she didn't know him that well either. Neville checks back over the symptoms of furium poisoning and has a thought: what if Celeste wasn't upset, but suffering the effects of poisoning? The team rush to her house and find Celeste there, unconscious.
Back at the police station, Neville tells the others that Celeste's doctor has confirmed that she was poisoned with furium, but it wasn't a fatal dose and she is responding well to treatment. Darlene has been checking Celeste's phone, and noted that there were a lot of excited messages between Celeste and her mum about the prospect of meeting Stanley prior to the competition — but after she met him, Celeste's messages were a lot more muted.
After a drunken Tristan turns up at Catherine's bar and tells her about Lucky's affair, Catherine goes looking for Lucky, convinced that her friend wouldn't do something like that. She finds Lucky sitting on the beach and the two have a heart-to-heart — Catherine admits she was hurt when she read Lucky's rather brief note saying that she was leaving, but she never wondered why Lucky didn't tell her to her face. She thinks Lucky must have had a really good reason — something happened that made her want to get as far away from Saint Marie as possible, and she's pretty sure it was something that Stanley did.
As the team review Andrina's photos of the cooking competition, they notice that on the evening's welcome drinks, Celeste is standing close to Stanley for the group shot — and in the shot taken the following day, she's right on the edge of the picture, a long way from him. Neville reviews Stanley's notes from the cooking competition, just as Catherine arrives to say that she's worried about Lucky. Neville thinks he knows who killed Drake — but he wishes he didn't.
Neville and Naomi call Celeste, Dionne and Lucky to the police station — but not Tristan, as they don't feel it's appropriate for him to be there. Neville tells them they know how Stanley Drake was killed, and they know why. He was killed by all three of them: they all put a small amount of poison in their dishes, an amount small enough that it wouldn't kill them individually, but would be fatal taken cumulatively. Naomi points out that Stanley's notes show that all three of them made fairly rookie mistakes in their dishes — unlikely behaviour for expert chefs, unless they were covering something up, like the taste of a small dose of furium.
Naomi also notices that Lucky is wearing a much darker shade of lipstick than she's shown wearing on the cover of her cookbook — this colour isn't 'on brand' for her, but it's covering up the burn from ingesting a small amount of furium. Similarly, when they interviewed Dionne, they thought she was just fidgeting her fingers out of nerves — but in fact, her hands were blistered from putting the poison in her dish. Neville adds that Celeste put a higher amount in her dish, and that's why she became more ill than the others.
Dionne and Celeste insist that the evidence is circumstantial and they were all strangers before the competition, but Neville thinks they all have something in common. He offers them all the chance to set the record straight and finally be heard. An emotional Lucky speaks first, saying that she approached Stanley 30 years ago asking him to invest in the bar, and he wanted to meet her in his hotel room. She tried to put what happened out of her mind, but when he contacted her about being in the competition and she had to see him again, she froze — and he did it again, this time taking photographs.
Dionne adds that she was 19 when it happened, and she knew that nobody would believe her because he was the powerful Stanley Drake and she was nobody. He gave her a character reference in exchange for her silence. She thought she was the only one this had happened to, until the night before the competition, when Stanley threatened to ruin Celeste's career if she didn't sleep with him. A deeply distressed Celeste ran into Dionne and Lucky in the toilets and they ended up comparing stories. They had no evidence to go to the police with, so they decided to stop Stanley Drake another way — they put a small amount of furium in each of their dishes to kill him, and they'd do it again if they had to.
Afterwards, Catherine asks Neville what will happen to Celeste, Dionne and Lucky. Neville says that they will go to court, and hopefully they will get a lenient judge, but there is no guarantee of that — but perhaps more victims will come forward. Catherine is sure he must have done it to so many other women, and says they deserve to tell their story. Lucky comes out of the police station, and Catherine promises her that she will do everything she can to ensure Stanley's crimes come to light, and will do everything in her power to push for a lenient sentence for the three women.
Selwyn and Andrina meet for drinks at Catherine's bar again, and Andrina tells him that it meant a lot that he was there for her. She says that when she gets back to London, she is going to write an exposé on Stanley Drake to reach as many of his victims as possible, and with Catherine's support they can set up a helpline for any of them who need support. She shows Selwyn a work in progress version of her article — showing that she has changed her name to Andrina Harper Patterson. Selwyn is deeply touched.
