Death in Paradise season 14 episode 1 recap: who killed Officer Benjamin Brice?

Death in Paradise season 14 is here at last, and the team are left shell-shocked when Officer Benjamin Brice is murdered the same day he's due to start work with Honoré Police. Despite intending to return home to London, DI Mervin Wilson (Don Gilet) decides to stick around long enough to close the case — but the rest of the team are far from happy to be stuck with him after his rude and dismissive attitude at Christmas. Can they put their differences aside long enough to solve the case? Read on to find out...

The Death in Paradise episode begins with narration from Benjamin (Anthony J Abraham): "For as long as I can remember, I never felt like I belonged. My mum was in labor for 30 hours when she had me; she always said I didn't want to come out because I knew what was waiting for me, like I knew I wouldn't fit in. Growing up, I was the kind of kid who would sit in the shade doing puzzles instead of playing out, messing with my brother. After school, my mum would get to know I was more interested in doing homework than helping her. My stepdad was a bit more patient, but not much. As I got older, I started to accept that there was something inside me that was different to them."

We see Benjamin's brother Karlus (Stephen Odubola) finding an unlocked car and hotwiring it, encouraging Benjamin to get in with him despite his protestations. Later, Benjamin calls the police anonymously to report where the stolen car has been dumped. His voiceover continues: "Instead of doing what they did, I realized I wanted to do something positive with my life... I just didn't know what. Then my answer came. I'm not saying it was fate intervening, but it just felt like something was calling me." Benjamin goes to a police recruitment session, led by JP Hooper (Tobi Bakare). In his voiceover, Benjamin admits that the last thing he ever thought he'd be in life was a police officer, but what Sergeant Hooper said to him made sense, and he never felt so proud of himself as when he completed his police training. Benjamin finishes by revealing that in the morning, he has his first shift with the police in Saint Marie, and he can't wait. It turns out that he's recording all of this for a social media post, hoping to encourage other people who are feeling lost to find their purpose in life.

The next day, DS Naomi Thomas (Shantol Jackson) arrives at the police station and greets Officer Darlene Curtis (Ginny Holder), asking if Benjamin is settling in OK. Darlene reveals that Benjamin hasn't arrived yet, which surprises Naomi, who thought he would have got there early. The phone rings, and Darlene goes to answer it. A woman is calling to report a body by the roadside wearing a police uniform — it's Benjamin.

Meanwhile, DI Mervin Wilson (Don Gilet) is in the beach hut, explaining to Harry the lizard that he's doing an online shop, ready to be delivered to his flat when he gets back to London tomorrow. He wonders if such technological advancements might one day make their way to Saint Marie — but he doubts it. A cab driver honks his horn from outside, and Mervin grabs his belongings and heads out. On the way to the airport, Mervin is grousing about the cab's lack of air conditioning as they pass Naomi and Darlene at the crime scene. He gets the cab driver to pull in, and asks Darlene what's going on. Darlene says they've only just arrived, but they found Benjamin's bike with the front tire twisted, so he probably hit a pothole and went flying over the side of the road. Darlene assures Mervin that there's no reason for him to hang around, and that he can go ahead and catch his flight. Mervin gets back into the cab, which drives off... and returns fairly swiftly, because Mervin wants to get something off his chest: he noticed that Benjamin wasn't wearing a helmet, but there was a bicycle clip on the road. He thinks that's odd — surely someone who was sensible enough to wear bicycle clips wouldn't forgo a helmet?

He and Darlene go over to Naomi, who is surprised (and not especially thrilled) to see him. She's just been speaking to the paramedics, who think Benjamin banged his head on a rock. Naomi is assuming Benjamin's death was a tragic accident, but Mervin thinks differently: he notices that the other bicycle clip is on Benjamin's trousers, and there's dirt under his fingernails, but only on one hand. He thinks there's a good chance that Benjamin was wearing a helmet, so there's potentially some evidence missing from the crime scene — and until Naomi can establish what happened to it, this death should be treated as suspicious. He also advises — well, he tells Naomi to get the bike to the lab ASAP, check the GPS on the phone, and do a thorough search of the area. He asks her to keep him updated, and hurries back to the cab. As the car drives away, Naomi remarks sarcastically to Darlene that she's really going to miss Mervin.

In town, Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (Don Warrington) and Naomi meet up with JP, who says that if they are treating Officer Brice's death as suspicious, they shouldn't rule out his family as possible suspects — they all have criminal records, and they all hated that he had joined the police. JP is clearly upset by what's happened, and Naomi offers her condolences. They go to meet with Benjamin's family — his mother Paulette (Michelle Greenidge) confirms that Benjamin left that morning at 7:30 in his uniform. Naomi asks if he was wearing a cycling helmet, but Paulette didn't see. GPS records show that Benjamin came off his bike 15 minutes later at 7:45am, but Paulette bristles at being asked what she was doing at that time. She tells them that she was having breakfast on her veranda, and she's sure someone would have seen her. Benjamin's stepfather Damon Clarke (Mark Holden) says he was taking a delivery between 7:30 and 8am. Karlus says he was in bed with his girlfriend, who will confirm that their alarm went off at 7:45am when she had to get up for work. Selwyn asks if they have any idea why someone might want to harm Benjamin; Karlus snorts that Benjamin was "a softie" who never upset anybody, so it must have been an accident.

Selwyn's phone rings, it's Darlene, with some bad news: Mervin has come back. Mervin tells her to put the Commissioner on speakerphone, and Darlene — her patience already wearing thin after a matter of minutes — curtly informs him that they might not use words like "please" in London but they absolutely use them in Saint Marie. Mervin very pointedly asks again in the politest manner he can muster, and after Darlene complies, he tells the Commissioner that Benjamin left them a message: he scrawled "AIRAM" in the dirt.

Back at the police station, Mervin points out that "AIRAM" is "Maria" backwards. Darlene says she checked Benjamin's phone and emails, but couldn't find anyone named Maria, and his social media activity didn't come up with anything either. JP tells them that he is heading back to Jamaica, but he'll pop back to the Brices on the way to see if they know who Maria is — not that he's expecting them to cooperate. He asks Mervin to keep them updated, but Mervin is staring intensely at the whiteboard and doesn't answer, so Darlene assures him that she'll keep him posted. Mervin asks tersely if the ceiling fan in the station can't go any faster, and Darlene tells him, equally tetchily, to just leave it, because it's fine as it is. Mervin says that the writing was under Benjamin's body, and he had dirt under his nails, which implies Benjamin wrote it and then rolled on top of it to prevent someone else seeing it — all of which points to Benjamin having been murdered, and the killer staging it to look like an accident. Mervin thinks that if they're going to find out who killed him and why, then somehow Benjamin has already given them the answer. Naomi — no slouch in the observation stakes herself — picks up on his use of the word "we", and Mervin points out that he's missed his flight now, and since he's here anyway, he might as well stay and help to solve the case.

Naomi drops Mervin back to the beach hut in the jeep as he calls the Commissioner to confirm he'll be staying for a few more days. Mervin jokes that he's sure Naomi is delighted he's sticking around, but Naomi surprises him by saying she is actually pleased about it — because she thinks Officer Brice deserves the best minds solving his murder. Mervin agrees that they need to give this everything they have, because it's a fellow officer's death they're talking about. He adds that he's excited to spend a bit more time with Larry — the lizard. Naomi points out that the lizard's name is Harry, and Mervin asks if she doesn't think "Larry" has a better ring to it. Naomi says she thinks "Larry the Lizard" sounds more like a children's character, and says that everyone calls the lizard Harry. Mervin agrees to call him Harry, but walks off muttering that it's a stupid name for a lizard. (Is it wrong that I'm Team Mervin on this one? Larry the Lizard is a better name, 14 years of precedence be damned.)

Later that night, we see someone breaking into the police station. Suspicious!

The following morning, Mervin — who forgot to cancel his online shop — is on the phone with the supermarket, from which we can gather that his people skills don't go over much better in the UK. While explaining the problem to Naomi, he asks her if she knows what online shopping is, and it's to a credit to Naomi's professionalism that she doesn't stick him in the cells for the rest of the day to think about what he just said. She does, however, inform him that his attitude towards Saint Marie in general is extremely condescending, but before the impending argument goes any further, they both realise that there is crime scene tape around the police station.

They go inside and find the place has been ransacked. Darlene says that the pastor noticed torchlight in the station when he was returning to his car after choir practice; he went to check it out and presumably disturbed the intruder in the process. Mervin asks if anything was taken; Darlene says she hasn't noticed anything missing, but whoever did it was definitely looking for something specific. Mervin starts putting the pieces together: potentially someone didn't want Officer Brice to make it to the police station, and whatever they didn't want him to see is still there, which is why somebody broke in last night. Darlene has a brainwave: the intruder was looking through hard copies of the evidence files, and Dwayne mentioned an informant that he used to use — Paulette Brice. She used to give the police information on local criminals, and she got Karlus arrested for selling counterfeit goods.

Mervin and Naomi go to interview Paulette, who explains that she informed on Karlus because he was stepping on her toes as far as her quote-unquote "retail" work was concerned. Naomi asks if she was afraid of Karlus finding out that she was responsible for him going to jail, but Paulette snorts that she's not scared of him. She admits that Karlus doesn't know it was her who told the police about him and she would prefer it to stay that way, but she wouldn't have killed Benji over it. Mervin points out that it's not just Benjamin and Karlus she has to worry about: if word got out that Paulette was a grass, there would be an awful lot of quite dodgy people who'd probably want to ensure her silence.

Naomi takes a call from Darlene informing her that all three suspects' alibis have checked out. Mervin, meanwhile, is writing "AIRAM" and "MARIA" on the window of a dirty car; he's wondering if this is tied to an old case involving someone named Maria, and Benjamin was killed to stop him from finding out about it.

Back at the station, Darlene has been going through the archives and found 13 case files involving women named Maria. Mervin declines Naomi's offer of help, as he isn't really sure what he's looking for, so she and Darlene leave for the night. Before she goes, Darlene informs him that Catherine is organising a vigil tomorrow outside the station for the local community to remember Benjamin. Mervin starts going through the files, and the one on top startles him: it's an investigation into the death of Dorna Bray. He calls the Commissioner and asks him why he's looking at a case file with his mother's name on it.

The Commissioner meets him on the seafront and admits his surprise that Mervin hadn't looked up what happened to his mother earlier. Mervin says he had just assumed it was ill health — but finding a case file with her name on it suggests something untoward happened to her. Selwyn tells him that Dorna's death was an accident about four months ago: she had been caring for Mervin's father, who had dementia, for a while. Following his death, she decided to scatter his ashes at sea, but a storm came in unexpectedly while she was out on a small fishing boat, and she didn't stand a chance. Selwyn asks Mervin if he's OK, and Mervin says it just feels strange to hear someone talk about his mum — it makes her feel real. Mervin asks what he will find in the file, and Selwyn says that it contains the coroner's report, police statement, post-mortem — the coroner in this case was called Maria, and that's why it came up when Darlene searched. Mervin asks if there are any photographs of Dorna in there, and Selwyn says there aren't. Mervin thanks him, a little awkwardly, and says he will leave Selwyn to his evening.

Back at the beach hut, Mervin puts Dorna's case file in the desk drawer. Larry — sorry, Harry the lizard comes out to join Mervin while he reads through the case files.

The next morning, a delivery driver brings Mervin breakfast as Naomi and Darlene come to see him. Mervin has ordered a bacon sandwich, but he quickly complains that the local bacon doesn't taste right. (Darlene to Naomi, under her breath: "Do you want to chuck that breakfast in his face, or shall I?") Mervin abandons the sandwich, and Naomi tells him she remembered something from when Benjamin visited the station the day before he was due to start work: he put some papers in his desk drawer. One of them shows an address with times of the day, and the other shows the ground plans of a property — Benjamin had discovered that a robbery had taken place a year ago, in which jewellery, cash and a handbag was stolen by a man named Clendon Sealey. The handbag was recovered with nothing in it, but the cash and jewellery were never found — and the homeowner in question, Eudora James, died of a heart attack that same night, so the handbag has been in the police evidence store ever since. Darlene tells Mervin that when they originally investigated, it was believed that Clendon committed the burglary on behalf of a third party, and Naomi says that the papers had another set of fingerprints on them besides Benjamin's: Damon Clarke's.

Naomi and Mervin go to see Damon about the burglary, and he's quick to scoff at the idea that he killed Benjamin to stop him reporting it. He says that he and Benjamin always got on well, and he's never been accused of being involved in the burglary before now. Naomi admits they aren't planning to arrest him over it right now, and Damon gently points out that if they don't have enough evidence to arrest him, it's definitely not something worth killing over. Mervin tells him that they are going to keep digging into the robbery, and he's sure they will find more evidence, because they always do — and Damon should be worried when they do. After they leave, Damon places a call to someone and tells him that he thinks the police will be heading their way very soon.

Naomi and Mervin return to the station, where Darlene has had a breakthrough: Clendon Sealey and Karlus Brice were in prison at the same time, and it turns out that (deep breath) the boyfriend of the daughter of the sister of the woman who does Darlene's nails is a prison officer, so Darlene called him and discovered that Karlus befriended Clendon in prison. At this moment, Karlus walks into the station and informs them that there's a lot of misinformation circulating in that prison, and he's here to give him the official story.

Karlus tells them he didn't deliberately seek out Clendon's friendship in prison. Darlene says her contact is reliable, and told her that Clendon had some information to share with Karlus — but Karlus denies this. Naomi asks him if it's a coincidence that they have evidence linking Karlus's stepfather to the robbery Clendon was arrested for. Karlus says that's a matter for them to take up with his stepfather, and reiterates that he and Clendon got acquainted in prison, but that's as deep as it got. Mervin doesn't believe Karlus is being 100% honest with them, but thinks they aren't going to get anything more out of him and tells him to leave. Afterwards, the team theorise that the information had to do with the location of the missing cash and jewellery from the robbery, but it doesn't explain why the police station was robbed, because they aren't there. Darlene and Naomi get ready to head outside for the vigil, while Mervin — still complaining about the heat — asks Darlene what they know about the robbery victim, Eudora James. Darlene says she's a wealthy widow, who was a bit lonely. Mervin asks for the key to the evidence store so he can have a look at Eudora's handbag.

Outside, Selwyn is leading the vigil and talking about Benjamin, saying that he was only at the start of his career, but that he would have made a fine officer. In the station, Mervin has retrieved Eudora's handbag but — still struggling with the heat — moves over to turn the ceiling fan control to its maximum setting. Outside, Selwyn asks everyone to stand in a moment of silence for the deceased — but they can hear a creaking sound coming from inside the station. Darlene: "He's turned the fan up to full, hasn't he?" Mervin turns the fan off, but it's too late — there's a loud crash from inside the station as the fan falls down, narrowly missing Mervin. Darlene reports that she thinks it's taken all of the electrics out with it.

Later, Selwyn informs Mervin that the repairman can't get there for a couple of days, so he's invoicing Mervin for the expense, courtesy of the Metropolitan Police. Mervin protests that it's not his fault that they only have "some antique ceiling fan from the 1920s" instead of proper air conditioning, and Selwyn finally snaps, telling him to shut up. Catherine (Élizabeth Bourgine), who has been helping them with the clear-up, asks if the murder case involves Eudora James, as she knew her a little bit — they were near-neighbours, and Catherine kept an eye on Eudora because she was elderly. Catherine was at the hospital with Eudora when she passed, and says that she was very confused about something, but kept asking where Maria was; Catherine didn't know what she meant, because there's no one named Maria in Eudora's family. Mervin is convinced that the answer to all of this must be inside Eudora's handbag; he clears it out, but it all seems fairly standard: some knitting, a pill box, an old envelope with a shopping list on it. The Commissioner wonders why on earth someone would break into a police station — or indeed commit murder — to get their hands on any of that.

The next day, JP returns and takes a moment at the shrine for Benjamin outside the station. He has some meetings on Saint Marie, and wanted to check in to see if there was any news on Benjamin's killer. He also needs to talk to the Commissioner about something. Darlene notices that Mervin is missing, so Naomi calls him to find out where he is.

As it happens, they find him on the beach. He's frustrated, because all three suspects have alibis, so they have no idea how the killer murdered Benjamin, if indeed it is any of those three. They also don't know what they were trying to steal from the station, or why Benjamin wrote "MARIA" backwards before he died. He looks out to see and inspiration strikes him: boats have names. He realises that the boat they were looking to steal was inside the station all along — and, thinking about how the UK is in a different time zone to Saint Marie (which is partly why he forgot to cancel his online shop in time), he realises how the killer managed to be in two places at once. He tells Naomi that she needs to get some fingerprints checked, while he places a call to an old colleague in Kentish Town. Naomi and Darlene are perplexed, particularly by the existence of "Kentish Town".

Once again, Mervin has been forced to gather all the suspects together for the big j'accuse moment, even though he'd rather simply file the paperwork and have done with it. Mervin tells the suspects that Benjamin would have excelled as a police officer; he knows this, because Benjamin was smart and able to keep his cool even in the direst of circumstances. He left the police a message by writing "Maria" backwards in the mud, and although it took the police a while to work it out, they found the answer in Eudora James's handbag: her shopping list was written on the back of an envelope. Attached to that envelope was an old Saint Marie stamp from the 1930s (as verified by Mervin's pal in the fabled Kentish Town) — and the image of the boat in the centre of the stamp is upside down. It's a rare misprint, of which there are only five in existence — the last one that went up for sale at auction went for close to $1m, and the stamp is called "the Inverted Maria". That's why Benjamin wrote "AIRAM" in the mud — he knew that it wouldn't make sense at first, but that the fine minds of the Honoré Police would be able to decode it in time.

All three suspects knew this very valuable stamp was in the police station's evidence locker, and the police have now found Paulette's prints on the envelope. They don't know how or when she found out about it, but Naomi — taking up the story — supposes that Paulette found a way of ingratiating herself with Eudora, knowing that she was old and lonely, and sensing an impending payday. Eudora must have confided in Paulette about the stamp, at which point Paulette and Damon concocted a plan that involved recruiting Clendon Sealey to steal the handbag. Unfortunately, the plan went awry when Eudora woke up during the robbery and called the police, and Clendon was arrested. That's why Paulette turned informant on Karlus — so that he could go to prison and put pressure on Clendon to reveal where the handbag with the valuable stamp on it ended up.

JP picks up the narrative, and says that the family ended up with an inside man after Benjamin got the job with the police, working in the same station where the stamp was stashed. They asked him to go into the evidence store and retrieve the envelope, but much to their surprise, Benjamin refused to do it. Benjamin felt compelled to report what he now knew about his family to the police, and his family knew they were on the verge of being arrested for conspiracy to commit burglary, as well as perverting the course of justice.

Mervin deduces that only one of them, however, was prepared to murder Benjamin to ensure his silence: Karlus. He'd spent six months in prison just to find the stamp, and now that was going to be in vain if he was going right back to jail. Karlus reminds Mervin that he was with his girlfriend when Benjamin died, but Mervin worked out that Karlus's alibi was the only one that could be faked. He adjusted his girlfriend's alarm clock, putting it back 15 minutes while she was asleep, and got up to intercept Benjamin on his way to work and kill him, before going back to his girlfriend's flat, climbing into bed ready for the alarm to go off — and although the clock said 7:45am, it was actually 8am. Then while his girlfriend was showering, Karlus put the clock back to the correct time, leaving her unaware that she's lost 15 minutes — but given him enough of a window to kill his brother.

Karlus — not unreasonably, it has to be said — points out that this is all a load of supposition and no actual proof. However, the police have an ace up their sleeve: Mervin points out that the first thing that bothered him about this case was Benjamin not wearing a helmet while he cycled to work. They've just been to Karlus's girlfriend's flat and found a bike helmet in the rubbish, and Mervin is sure they will find Karlus's fingerprints on it. He lays out the story: Karlus stopped Benjamin on his way to work to prevent him from reporting his own family, as well as explaining the true value of the stamp in the evidence locker. But Benjamin was determined to go ahead, so Karlus whacked him on the head with a rock — and took the helmet to make it look like he'd died in a cycling accident. Paulette is overcome with grief and launches herself at Karlus as she's being arrested, and Mervin gives JP the honour of personally arresting Karlus for Benjamin's murder.

Outside the police station, Mervin is checking flights back to London and planning to return home tomorrow afternoon. Naomi invites him to join her and Darlene for a farewell beer at Catherine's Bar, but Mervin tells her he has stuff to do. Mervin asks if she'll be putting her name down to be the new DI when he's gone. Naomi says it's something she's looking to do at some point, but not yet: she knows there are still some things she needs to learn. Mervin is impressed by this, and says there are a few DSes back in London that could learn from her approach. Naomi remarks drily that they've finally found something that Saint Marie does better than London.

Mervin calls up to book the ticket on the plane back to London, and heads back to the beach hut where he retrieves Dorna's case file from the drawer. He sits at the table on the veranda and looks through it.

At Catherine's Bar, Selwyn is enjoying a drink. Catherine tells him she's pleased that the police got justice for both Benjamin and Eudora, but Selwyn says it doesn't make the whole thing any less sad. As Catherine attends to her customers, JP stops by to speak to Selwyn: he has found out some things at Police HQ in Jamaica, and wants to quietly tip Selwyn off that they are planning some cutbacks in Saint Marie — particularly that Selwyn's position as the island's Commissioner is set to be dissolved. Selwyn is startled, but thanks JP for giving him an early warning. JP leaves to catch his plane, and Selwyn takes a call — from Mervin, who has been looking through his mother's file, and he doesn't think her death was an accident after all. Looks like that's yet another plane ticket he won't be using — hope he booked a refundable fare...