Death in Paradise season 14 episode 7 finally brings us closure on the mystery that's been plaguing DI Mervin Wilson (Don Gilet) all season: what happened to his mother, Dorna Bray (Judith Jacob), before he came to Saint Marie?
It's a tough, intensely personal case — made harder by the fact that new boss Sterling Fox (Trieve Blackwood-Cambridge), with his eye primarily on the departmental finances, thinks the investigation is unnecessary and wants to shut it down, so the team is facing a race against time. But luckily an old ally is on hand to keep Sterling at bay for as long as possible...
Here's what happened in Death in Paradise season 14 episode 7...
We begin six months in the past, on what seems like a normal morning for Dorna Bray. She gets up, sweeps the porch, leafs through the post and talks to the urn containing her father's ashes, wondering if it's finally time to scatter him. She checks the weather report and spots that there is a storm forecast, but she thinks they'll be all right. She gets into her car with the urn and drives away.
Some time later, there's a storm in full swing and Dorna makes a panicked phone call to the coastguard, saying that she's out at sea and doesn't know where she is. Later still, after the storm passes, we see Dorna's body being zipped into a body bag at the harbour, as Roy Palmer (Gerard Horan) watches from a distance, before turning and walking away.
At the police station, DI Mervin Wilson sets up an incident board for his mother's murder, while Officers Darlene Curtis (Ginny Holder) and Sebastian Rose (Shaquille Ali-Yebuah) carry out a search of Dorna's house. Given that they currently have no weapons, suspects or any motive for Dorna's killing, Seb wonders what exactly they're looking for, and Darlene admits she doesn't know, but perhaps they'll know when they find it.
Meanwhile, DS Naomi Thomas (Shantol Jackson) is speaking to Dorna's friend and neighbour, Brianna Clemetson (Joy Richardson), who's surprised that Dorna's death is now being treated as a suspected murder, but is happy to answer any questions. Mervin calls Naomi's mobile, and she sends him to voicemail while she's finishing up with Brianna, only for Mervin to then call Darlene and Seb trying to get hold of her. "How is he even doing that?!" Naomi wonders.
The answer: Mervin's at the station, using the landline with one ear and his mobile with the other. He tells Naomi he needs her at the station because he's found something of interest, and hangs up while she's still talking. Naomi returns to the station, where Mervin shows her Dorna's phone records showing a lot of calls and texts to Roy Palmer. Mervin and Naomi recognise him as the owner of the Fishing Net bar they were at the previous night, and Mervin says that he's had transcripts of the text exchanges between Dorna and Roy sent over. The messages suggest that they were friends, but the last message from Dorna to Roy particularly caught his eye: "Thanks for coming by. It was good to talk" - sent two hours before she drowned, meaning Roy's a potential new witness.
Another flashback to six months previously: Roy Palmer is waking up and opening a lot of final demands that came in the mail. He listens to the radio, which warns of the Category 4 storm coming and advising everyone not to go out to sea today. He goes round to Dorna's house, saying that he woke up thinking about her dad and wanted to check in to see how she was doing. Dorna invites him in for iced tea.
Back in the present, Mervin is speaking to Roy about Dorna: Roy says that Dorna's dad Ervin was a regular at his bar, and when Ervin developed dementia, Dorna moved back in with him. He used to check in on Ervin regularly and tried to be there for Dorna too after Ervin's death.
Mervin asks him about the text, and whether Dorna mentioned her intention to scatter her father's ashes that day. Roy says Dorna said that it was playing on her mind that she hadn't done it yet, but that was all. He adds that if he'd known she was planning to do it that day, he'd have warned her against going out to sea with a storm coming.
Mervin clarifies: did Dorna specifically say she was going to scatter her father's ashes at sea? Roy's vague on the details, but assumes she must have. Mervin points out that Dorna applied for a permit to scatter her dad's ashes on the beach two days before she died, so he's wondering at what point she changed her mind. Roy says that now he thinks about it, he suspects it was in that last week. As Mervin gets up to leave, Roy asks why he believes that Dorna going out to sea and drowning in a storm was anything other than a terrible accident. Mervin leaves the bar, clearly suspicious of Roy.
Six months earlier, Dorna is pouring some iced tea for Roy and telling him that she doesn't know if she's ready to say a final goodbye to her father. He tells her he felt the same when his mother passed, but when he finally scattered her ashes, it felt like it was a release for both of them. They sip their tea, and then later we see Dorna getting into her car with the urn and driving away, while Roy follows behind, unseen, at a slight distance in his own car. Dorna arrives at the harbor and gets out of the car with Roy watching on, encouraging her to keep going.
In the police station, Mervin is listening to Dorna's distress call again when Darlene returns. He asks her to check the GPS on Dorna's phone to confirm the call did indeed come from where they think it did. Darlene says that she and Seb didn't find anything of relevance to the case, but she found some letters that Dorna wrote not long after giving birth to Mervin, and she thinks they were sent to his father.
Mervin tells her that he reached out to his dad, Charlie Wilson, shortly become coming to Saint Marie, but Charlie didn't want to know. Darlene says it looks like the letters were returned to Dorna unopened, and adds that she started to read them, but realized that they were very personal, so she gives Mervin the letters and leaves. Mervin can't quite bring himself to read them yet.
The next morning, Mervin and Naomi are pulling up to the police station when Naomi spots Sterling approaching. Sterling offers them what would pass for a sunny greeting if not for the fact that he's clearly already forgotten Naomi's name. Mervin's surprised to see Sterling here, as he's only meant to be around on alternate Wednesdays, but Sterling says he's arranged to be there a few more days while he gets up to speed.
He invites Mervin to go for a drink with him and "shoot the breeze" sometime, which Naomi mischievously accepts on Mervin's behalf. Sterling informs the two of them that he's here to pick up some case files as he's reviewing all of their current investigations. As Sterling drives off, Naomi vents that she can't believe they fired Selwyn in favor of... "...that ninny", Mervin helpfully supplies. ("Ninny" is a word we don't hear nearly enough, kudos to Mervin for bringing it back.)
Inside, Darlene and Seb have been doing background on Roy: he bought the bar after moving to Saint Marie from the UK under a bit of a cloud after being made redundant, getting divorced, and picking up a drunk-driving charge. Seb is standing with one hand raised above his shoulder in a sort of gripping formation, and Mervin eventually cracks and asks him what he's doing: Seb explains that he saw a tip online that said if you want to make sure you remember something, pretend you're holding a donut. Sure, why not? Naomi says that the financial checks on Roy Palmer have revealed that he's overstretched on his mortgage and his business isn't bringing in enough to cover his outgoings.
Mervin allows Seb to finally let go of his donut (...that sounds rude in a way we can't quite pin down) and Seb says that Roy Palmer has been to the island once before, in April 1974 — visiting with his parents when he was 16, and staying at the Palm Royal hotel. Mervin notes that April 1974 was nine months before he was born, and Naomi wonders for a second if he suspects Roy of being his father; Mervin confirms that he isn't thinking that, but he does think it's a coincidence. Seb says he asked the immigration people to check out what Dorna was doing in April 1974 and she would also have been in Saint Marie at the time — and that it seems Charlie Wilson was here too. That coincidence just keeps getting bigger, doesn't it?
Roy comes to the station to answer some more questions, and he confirms that he made friends with Charlie when they were both staying at the Palm Royal. They often hung out at the Flying Fish restaurant, which is where Dorna worked at the time. He says that Charlie and Dorna hit it off and had a holiday romance, maybe even falling in love. Mervin asks Roy what brought him back to Saint Marie, and he says he had some redundancy money kicking around and read about the Fishing Net being up for sale, so it just felt right; however, he maintains it's a complete coincidence that he ended up buying the bar where Dorna's father was a regular fixture. He only realised Dorna was Erwin's daughter when she returned to care for him. Mervin asks Roy where he was the day Dorna died, and Ray says he was at the Fishing Net, with some of his regulars.
Back at the station, Darlene has confirmed Roy's alibi with the punters, and Naomi says that the same regulars were featured in the coroner's report: they were waiting outside the bar for Roy when they saw Dorna in the boat heading out to sea. They tried to attract her attention to stop her from going out with the storm coming, but she didn't hear them — and then Roy arrived to open the bar. Mervin's convinced that something about Roy doesn't add up, and decides he is now officially a suspect rather than a witness. Seb has more info: while Roy was staying at the Palm Royal in 1974, the hotel reported the theft of an expensive ring belonging to a guest. It was never recovered and the thief was never caught, and the ring was insured for $80,000. He has a picture of the ring, which Mervin recognises: he saw Dorna wearing it in the photograph of her that's on display at the Flying Fish.
Seb goes to Dorna's house to check through her photos, and discovers that she's wearing that ring in all of them — which leaves Mervin wondering what happened to it, because she wasn't wearing it when her body was recovered from the sea. At this moment, Sterling arrives in his flash car with some bad news: he's spoken with the Chief Commissioner and he's closing down the Dorna Bray investigation because they don't consider it to be an effective use of time and resources, given that there's no evidence to suggest it's anything other than an accident.
Mervin protests, but Sterling isn't having it and suggests Mervin's personal connection to it is clouding his judgement, saying that he's surprised Commissioner Patterson ever allowed it to go ahead — and that if Mervin has a problem with the decision, they can simply end his contract a week early and he can toddle off back to London now.
Catherine Bordey (Élizabeth Bourgine) turns up at the station, outraged over Sterling's behaviour. She asks how Mervin is coping, and Naomi says he went off on his own — that in itself is not unusual behaviour, but she thinks he's feeling pretty crushed. Indeed, Mervin is standing by the shore, reflecting on his mother's final moments, caught up in a storm and frightened for her life (which Judith Jacob does an excellent job of conveying in the flashbacks).
Catherine goes to see Selwyn, hoping that he can do something given that he is, at least on paper, still the Commissioner of Police for a few more days. Selwyn points out that Sterling is clearly the one in favour with the Chief Commissioner, so nothing he say would have much impact — and that people will need to get used to him not being there to solve their problems any more. Catherine is aghast that he's just planning to walk away from the island and stop caring after 50 years of loyal service, and Selwyn wonders if maybe that's the only way he'll be able to cope with it. Catherine asks if he really wants his last actions in office to be turning his back on everything he once stood for; Selwyn asks her to leave, and on her way out, she reminds Selwyn that Mervin came to Saint Marie looking for answers. If he goes home without finding them, she reasons, then the whole island has let him down.
Clearly Catherine's well-chosen words touched a nerve (no wonder she's the mayor), because the next morning Selwyn gets dressed in his uniform and drives to the police station. He tells Mervin that he is here to get the case re-opened, and Mervin asks how. Right on cue, Sterling arrives in his sports car, and Selwyn informs Sterling that he's going to arrest him for criminal damage, after he scratched the paintwork of Selwyn's car door (remember that, from last week?
Who knew that was going to be so important?). Sterling can't believe what's happening — and in truth, neither can anyone else, although Darlene is particularly enjoying it. Sterling tells Selwyn that he can't do this, and Selwyn informs Sterling that if he doesn't let Seb cuff him, he'll add resisting arrest to the charge sheet. Seb carts an absolutely furious Sterling off to the cells, and Selwyn quietly informs Mervin that he intends to spin this out for the rest of the day, so that's how long he's got to solve the Dorna Bray case. Mervin is simultaneously flabbergasted and impressed. Selwyn then proceeds to "gather evidence from the crime scene", while reminding Sterling that it's been a while since he's taken such an active role in a case so he might be a bit rusty — then he very slowly makes himself a cup of coffee to drink while he works. Tee hee hee.
Mervin goes back to see Roy, who has just twigged that Mervin must be Dorna and Charlie's son. While searching through Roy's home, Mervin finds a five-year sobriety chip, and Roy admits that another reason he moved here was that things had gotten rather out of control and he needed to sort himself out. (By...buying a bar? That's quite the gamble.) Getting a little chippy, Roy tells Mervin that Dorna never mentioned him in the time they knew each other, and perhaps she'd chosen to put all that behind her: "out of sight, out of mind".
Naomi walks in with Roy's laptop, where she's found emails to a jeweler in the US asking for a valuation on Dorna's ring — which now appears to be worth $2m. This doesn't faze Roy at all: he claims that after they got chatting, Dorna showed him the promise ring that Charlie gave her before he went back to England. He'd wondered how teenage Charlie could afford such a ring, and then he remembered the report of the theft from the hotel. Dorna didn't believe him when he said it was valuable, hence the emails to the jeweler. He claims to have told Dorna to hand it into the police so it could be returned to its rightful owner, but she refused. Mervin doesn't believe him, and Roy shoots back that Mervin never met Dorna, so he has no idea what she was really like. Naomi asks him where the ring is now, and Roy breezily tells them he doesn't know where it is.
Meanwhile, Darlene is next door speaking to Brianna, who says she recognizes Roy from out and about but didn't know much about him other than he was friends with Dorna's father — she does, however, say she never really took to him. Naomi hears from Seb that he's searched Roy's bar, and the ring isn't there either. Mervin is getting frustrated: he's pretty sure Roy killed Dorna, and he thinks he knows why, but he can't figure out how he got her to go out to sea when she knew there was a storm coming. He's convinced that something is holding him back from being able to solve it, and tells Naomi and Darlene that he needs to go and do something he should have done earlier.
At the police station, Mervin is taking Dorna's letters to Charlie out of the drawer when Selwyn walks in. Mervin thinks the letters will hold the answers, but he can't bring himself to read them. Selwyn offers to read the letters for him, and Mervin hands them to him. A little while later, at Selwyn's house, he gives Mervin the summary: the letters were written just after he was born, and sent from Saint Marie. In them, Dorna talks about returning to the island after spending some time in London with Charlie and his parents when Mervin was born. She seems to have cared a lot for Charlie, but his parents weren't happy about him getting a girl pregnant when they were both so young — it was Charlie's parents who insisted that Dorna and Charlie gave Mervin up.
The letters go on to suggest that giving Mervin up caused Dorna a lot of pain, that she would "never be the same person" after this, and in one of them Dorna tells Charlie that she will never take the ring off, and whenever she looks at it, she will think of their little boy.
This is clearly a lot for Mervin to take in, and he goes out to the balcony to take a moment. It's here where suddenly he realizes what happened, as Dorna's words about "not being the same person" reverberate in his head. He asks Selwyn if he happens to know where the local AA meetings take place, and Selwyn says he does: his local church hosts them. Mervin says they need to get Roy Palmer to the station, because he thinks he's solved the case.
At the police station, Sterling has been released from the cells and is about to go straight to the Chief Commissioner to inform him exactly what's been going on in Saint Marie today, but Selwyn instructs him to sit down and watch what's about to happen — which Sterling does, albeit reluctantly. Roy arrives, and Mervin tells him that he's about to arrest him for the murder of Dorna Bray. Roy chortles that he's curious to see how Mervin came to that conclusion, and Mervin tells him to take a seat.
Mervin tells him that the motive wasn't difficult: Roy was drowning in debt and needed money. Then Dorna Bray came into his life after years apart, and she had a $2m ring on her finger. Unfortunately, Dorna never took the ring off, which meant that it was very difficult for Roy to get his hands on it — in fact, he was going to have to kill her. Naomi picks up the story, saying that Roy realised he needed to make Dorna's death look like an accident, so when she mentioned scattering her father's ashes, he started to form a plan.
With the who and the why taken care of, all that remains is the how, and Mervin has figured it out: Roy wasn't acting alone. At that moment, Darlene calls, saying she has found Dorna's ring... in Brianna Clemetson's house. Mervin says that Roy's life was based all around the harbour, as that's where his bar and his friends were, so he needed an accomplice who wasn't part of that world, who wouldn't be recognised there.
The only thing that Roy ever did which wasn't centred around the harbour were his weekly AA meetings, held at the same church that Brianna Clemetson attends. Naomi spoke to the pastor, who confirmed that he'd seen Roy and Brianna together on several occasions. Brianna, meanwhile, is tearfully telling Darlene that she thought the money might finally bring her some happiness — she's got no friends or family, and all she wanted was a life. Sadly, she's more likely to be looking at a life sentence now, as Darlene arrests Brianna for her part in Dorna's murder.
So here's how it all played out: Roy went to visit Dorna the morning she died, having heard on the radio about the storm. He convinced her that she needed to scatter her father's ashes that very day, and then slipped a sedative into her iced tea when she was distracted. Having checked the weather report earlier that day, Dorna set out to scatter her father's ashes on the beach as she'd planned, thinking that if she went in the morning she would miss the bad weather. However, the sedative started to kick in while she was driving, so she pulled over — and once she was unconscious, Roy drove her back to her house. Behind the closed gate in the drive, Roy pocketed the ring and Brianna changed into Dorna's clothes, then Roy went back to recover his own car, drove it back to Dorna's house and put her body into it. He then went to a quiet section of the beach, took Dorna out to sea in his boat and left her there, returning to shore in a dinghy.
When he was back on land, Brianna — still dressed as Dorna — drove to the harbour in Dorna's car, took the ashes and got into Erwin's fishing boat. Although the harbour was almost empty due to the storm forecast, Roy knew that his regulars would be outside the bar waiting for him to open up, and would see Brianna going out in the boat. Since Brianna was a similar height and build to Dorna, the witnesses would assume that was who they'd seen once Dorna's body was discovered later on. Brianna took Erwin's fishing boat all the way out to where Roy had left his boat, dressed the still-unconscious Dorna back up in her own clothes, moved Dorna's body into Erwin's boat, and then returned to shore in Roy's boat, leaving Dorna out there just as the storm was about to hit.
However, there was a small snag in the plan: the sedative wore on, and Dorna woke up. She managed to get her mobile phone from her handbag and called the harbourmaster — but because the signal was so poor, the line cut out before she could reveal anything that would incriminate Roy or Brianna, and she drowned without managing to contact anyone else. Darlene arrives with Brianna and the ring, which Brianna was looking after while Roy was trying to find the right buyer for such a rare and valuable piece. Mervin arrests Roy for Dorna's murder.
Outside the police station, Sterling tells Mervin that even though he's now caught Dorna's murderer, it doesn't excuse everything that happened today, and he'll be telling the Chief Commissioner everything as soon as he gets back to Jamaica. Mervin plays his trump card, pointing out that if they'd done things Sterling's way, then a murderer would still be walking free, which would look bad for both Sterling and the Chief Commissioner. He tells Sterling that the best way to fix this is by going back to his boss and reinstating Selwyn to avoid any future messes like this. Thoroughly chastened, Sterling leaves. Selwyn tells Mervin that he didn't need to do that, but Mervin says he did: none of this would have happened without Selwyn.
Mervin returns to the Flying Fish and takes a beer down to the beach, where he reads one of Dorna's letters. We see one final flashback of Dorna waking up in the morning, looking at the ring on her hand and smiling gently to herself.
Well, that certainly sounds like it's wrapped up everything as far as Mervin's concerned. But there's one more episode left in this season — and since it's Comic Relief 2025 next Friday, we'll have to wait two weeks to see if he decides to return to London, or whether anyone in Saint Marie gives him a reason to stay...
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