Death In Paradise season 13 episode 7 saw a social media influencer and her pals under investigation for the death of a former school friend, and reminded us that you definitely shouldn't believe everything you see online. (Except here, of course!.) DS Florence Cassell (Joséphine Jobert) got a chance to flex her crime-solving muscles once again and reunited with DI Neville Parker (Ralf Little) — albeit remaining at least one island apart at all times. And as for Neville, well he showed us how much he's grown since arriving in Saint Marie as he made the boldest decision of his life so far.
Here's what happened in Death In Paradise season 13 episode 7...
We open with a livestream from influencer Cressida Dempsey (Van Der Valk's Django Chan-Reeves) on the island of Saint Auguste (no, not Saint Marie, and that will be important later). In the background, her friend Amelia Templeton (Starstruck's Emma Sidi) is grousing that she worked hard to get through law school and become a partner at her firm, only for Cressida to earn twice as much as her just from babbling vapidly on the internet. Her friend Hugo Kingsley (Small Axe's Tyrone Huntley) tells Cressida that it's going to get tedious if she's doing that all the time, and Cressida tartly points out that her social media presence is the reason they're there at all. In the background, their other friend Barney Keats (Dreaming Whilst Black's Will Hislop) is video-calling his kids — which Hugo finds equally irritating.
The quartet head to their posh hotel and accept complimentary drinks (apart from Hugo, who is presumably above that sort of thing). As they're all leaving, Barney literally bumps into Abigail Warner (Carnival Row's Eve Ponsonby), who's also just checking in.
At dinner later, Abigail is sitting on her own, on the table next to the foursome. Barney feels sorry for her and — against the wishes of the others — asks if she would like to join them. Abigail politely declines, because she's planning an early night so she can get up for a swim. The gang think nothing more of it and order lots of drinks. The following morning at breakfast, they're all deeply hungover. Amelia decides to go for a swim to clear her head, and Cressida goes along with her. But Abigail is already in the hotel pool — face down, dead.
One hour earlier, Florence is jogging on the beach just as a woman is emerging from the ocean from a swim, and nods a hello to her. A little later, Florence is back at her accommodation, on the phone to her mother and saying how excited she is to see her family again. As she's leaving her hut, she stops in surprise as she spots Officer Dwayne Myers (Danny John-Jules) and Officer Darlene Curtis (Ginny Holder) on the beach, where Dwayne is chattering excitedly about the prospect of an all-expenses-paid overnight stay on the island if the job takes long enough, though Darlene doesn't find this a particularly enticing concept. (It's the "being stuck there with Dwayne" part that seems to lack appeal for her.) Florence approaches them, and Dwayne worries about her being seen talking to them, because she's in witness protection after her undercover sting on criminal Miranda Priestly, but Florence has good news for him: she's out of witness protection now and free to live her normal life. Darlene explains that she and Dwayne are here because an accidental death has been reported on Saint Auguste, and since the island has no police force, Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (Don Warrington) sent her and Dwayne over to inspect the crime scene. Florence asks if she can come along.
At the hotel pool, Florence removes Abigail's smartwatch and bags it, then looks through Abigail's bag, finding a book, a water bottle and her phone — with the home screen showing a selfie that Abigail took at the pool after arriving. Dwayne comes over and tells her that Abigail checked into the hotel yesterday, a last-minute booking, and the local doctor is pretty sure she drowned, most likely from banging her head on the bottom of the pool when she dived in. Dwayne adds that the smartwatch has given them an exact time of death, since the app measuring her heart rate had stopped recording by 8:15am. Florence thinks something doesn't add up though, because Abigail is the woman she saw when she was out running earlier at 7:30am, when Abigail had just been for a swim in the sea — so it's rather odd that she would go for a dip in the ocean and then immediately head to the hotel pool for another swim. Dwayne just chalks this up to the eccentricity of English holidaymakers.
Darlene has been speaking to Amelia and Cressida, who found the body, dragged her out of the pool and went for help. According to their statements, they didn't know Abi, apart from having been sat near her at dinner the night before. Florence is convinced that something about this is suspicious, but Darlene can't see why anyone here would have killed Abigail since nobody else at the hotel knew her. Florence asks Darlene to do some background research on the victim, and places a call to the Commissioner.
Over on Saint Marie, Neville is packing to go travelling when the Commissioner drops by to tell him about the suspicious death on Saint Auguste. Neville offers to go over and investigate, but Selwyn tells him that Florence is already there, explaining that Florence's protected witness status was officially terminated (poor choice of words if you ask us) this morning, since Miranda Priestly is in prison for life and her criminal network has been shut down, meaning the threat to Florence's life has significantly downgraded. Neville's shocked, but pleased. The Commissioner suggests that Florence leads the investigation on the ground in Saint Auguste, while Neville and DS Naomi Thomas (Shantol Jackson) co-ordinate from Saint Marie.
At the police station, Naomi has been looking into Abigail's background and discovered she attended an exclusive private school in west London called Hardens — which happens to be the same school that Cressida and her pals all went to, and they were all in the same year.
Florence and Darlene gather the foursome for another round of questioning, where Cressida reluctantly admits that they didn't recognise Abi at first, but after Barney spoke with her, they started to realise she'd been at school with them. Hugo wants to clarify, however, that they were not friends at school — they barely knew her back then. Florence asks if any of them spoke to her after they realised who she was, and Cressida says that she went to see Abigail in her room this morning just before Abi went for her swim, and asked what she was doing there. Abi told her it wasn't what she thought, and asked Cressida to leave her alone — at which point Cressida lost her temper somewhat, as witnessed by the maid nearby. Darlene, having interviewed the maid earlier, confirms this story, and says that the maid said this all happened around 8am — so they know that Abi returned to her room after swimming in the ocean. Florence asks what Cressida did after that, and the gang confirm they all met for breakfast and were together until Cressida and Amelia went to the pool and found Abi's body.
At the police station, Naomi sets up a video call between herself, Neville, Selwyn and Florence. Neville has been in touch with the police in London to notify Abi's mother of her death — Abi's mother was able to fill in a few details for them, such as the fact that Abi lived just outside London, was single, and worked for an accountancy firm. Florence has checked with reception, and discovered that Abi made the booking not long after Cressida announced the trip on her socials. And over in Saint Auguste, Hugo is ominously telling the others that they are "really, properly screwed".
At Catherine's Bar, Catherine (Élizabeth Bourgine) is asking Naomi if she thinks Florence will get back to Saint Marie before Neville leaves. Naomi — who was still pretty new to the team when Florence left last time, don't forget — asks Catherine what went down between Neville and Florence, and Catherine tells her that Neville wanted more than friendship, but Florence didn't. Catherine thinks Neville still cares about Florence, but she's not sure if he's admitted that to himself. Meanwhile, Florence returns to her lonely accommodation in Saint Auguste, where she gets a text from Neville saying "good to see you today. We've missed you." She sends a reply: "Good to see you too. X"
The next day, Darlene and Dwayne are sent to examine Abi's room again, while Dwayne regales Darlene with the extensive list of everything he ordered from room service the night before. (We're assuming that the taxes in Saint Marie are quite high and the police force is operating with a significant financial surplus if this sort of thing is going on regularly.) Meanwhile, Florence is back at the pool, where she notices an outbuilding nearby — she checks inside it and finds a deflated pool bed, a beach ball, a can of paint — nothing overtly suspicious. Nearby in the bushes, she finds an overturned sign saying "pool closed for cleaning".
Neville and Naomi video-call with an update: Hugo is an aspiring politician who's been allocated a constituency for the next election, and he's been lying about his history with Abi. Selwyn spoke to Abi's mum again this morning, and it turns out Abi was at Hardens on a scholarship and had a terrible time there — she was bullied by the rich kids, and Hugo was apparently the ringleader.
Darlene and Florence question Hugo again, and he admits that he "behaved a little ungraciously" back in the day, which Darlene thinks is an understatement. Hugo claims he was dealing with pressures of his own — his father's very high expectations. He vented his frustrations by picking on Abi, who was an easy target as "the scholarship girl" with bad hair and cheap clothes. Florence suggests that Abi threatening to out him as a bully would be very bad for his chances of getting elected, but Hugo thinks he wouldn't have been top of Abi's hit list — others did worse than he did.
Florence and Darlene move on to speaking to Barney, who can't believe Hugo has just thrown him under the bus. (We're not sure why he's so surprised, Hugo seems like the sort of person who'd push you into the Thames just to get a slightly better view at the Boat Race.) Barney admits that he and Abi got together when he was 16, and he hadn't been with a girl before. He thought she was nice, if a little bit shy and awkward, and he thought that losing his virginity would get him some kudos from the other boys — but instead they mocked him for sleeping with the girl from the council estate. (What a lovely school this must have been.) Barney started to resent Abi — and got her to send him naked pictures of herself, which he then circulated to his friends. Florence informs him that this is a crime, and one that Abi could still have pressed charges for in the present day. Barney says he's got two little girls at home, and he couldn't bear the thought of losing them by going to jail for murder — it wasn't him who killed Abi, he insists. Afterwards, Barney goes to read the riot act to Hugo, who claims he was doing him a favour by getting this out in the open sooner rather than later.
Back in Saint Marie, Neville's heard from the UK police, who found Abi's journal in her flat with references to all four suspects. Naomi, meanwhile, has spoken to Abi's GP and learned that she has been in therapy intermittently for a long time. The post-mortem and toxicology reports have confirmed that Abi died from drowning at 8:15am, and there were traces of sleeping pills in her system. Neville wonders if maybe Abi's death was an accident after all, but Naomi reports that the pathologist found abrasions on her upper arms and shoulders consistent with someone holding her under the water. This leaves the police with a problem: how could one of the four suspects hold Abi underwater long enough for her to drown when they were all spotted together at breakfast?
In Abi's room, Dwayne is reviewing Cressida's social media videos — and it's safe to say he's not a fan. However, Abi's internet browser history shows she had been watching a lot of them prior to her death, as well as looking up the other suspects, but had not been in phone or email contact with them. He's also found a digital camera and a cable, plus a plastic case for a memory card — but no sign of the card itself.
Later, Florence goes for a drink with Darlene and opens up about her time in witness protection: she was told to keep to herself for her own safety, and wasn't able to make any friends during her time on Saint Auguste. Florence says she coped fairly well by developing routines, but every so often she'd think about her family and friends, and how everyone else's life was moving on without her. Darlene assures Florence that everyone missed her, particularly Neville. Florence admits that she missed Neville too — a lot more than she expected she would. She tells Darlene that being on her own for so long made her realise who really mattered to her. Darlene asks if she's planning to tell Neville when she gets back, and Florence says she might. Dwayne then arrives to completely ruin the moment, bless him.
Florence is going through Abi's laptop and finds something curious: lots of photos of her and Cressida playing together as children. She goes to speak to Cressida, who admits they were good friends for a while — she didn't mention it, because it was a secret friendship. She says that Abi was like a different person when she was away from Hardens, but when they turned 16, things got more complicated — cliques started to form, and she had to pick a side. Cressida admits that she was a coward, and couldn't explain to her other friends why she was hanging around with Abi, so she cut her loose. Florence asks why Cressida went to speak to Abi in the hotel, and Cressida says that one of them had to, and she thought Abi would open up more to her than the others. Florence points out they only have Cressida's word for what happened when she went to talk to Abi — and Cressida has already lied to the police twice. Cressida says that it's a bit much to assume she would have killed Abi just so that no one would find out they used to be friends, but Florence ventures the theory that if Cressida's followers found out that she was horrible to her best friend when she was at school, it wouldn't be good for her brand. Cressida admits she's not proud of how she behaved, but it's certainly not something worth committing murder over.
Florence catches up with Darlene, who feels obliged to tell her that Neville is leaving Saint Marie tomorrow to go travelling. Florence is understandably surprised by this piece of news, and Darlene gently points out that she hasn't got long to tell Neville how she feels, if that's what she wants to do.
Naomi goes to visit Neville at home, and discovers that he's behind on his packing and pre-travel plans because he got caught up in the case last night. He's been reading Abi's journal, and discovered that an incident of bullying in her workplace (where she wasn't the victim, but did help the person who was) brought a lot of bad memories to the surface — specifically one night, March 5 2010. Neville has done a bit of cross-checking, and discovered Amelia Templeton was in a road traffic accident on that date, and Abi was in the car too.
Florence goes to speak to Amelia, who explains that she was driving to a party at a friend's house when she saw Abi walking in the other direction, crying. Amelia pulled over to check she was okay, and realised she couldn't leave her like that, so they both got in the car and drove around for a bit and talked. Amelia tried to convince Abi to focus on the fact that their time at Hardens would be over in a few months, and she should just focus on passing her exams and going on to somewhere better — but she got the impression from Abi that even a few months was too much to bear. While driving, Amelia was so concerned about Abi that she stopped concentrating on the road, and that's how the accident happened. So she and Abi struck a deal: Abi gave Amelia a cover story so that Amelia wouldn't get in trouble with her dad for the accident, and Amelia didn't tell anyone that she'd found Abi crying. Florence asks why Amelia has stayed friends with the others, knowing how they treated Abi at school, and Amelia says that they hardly see each other any more, except for at things like this — but she's seen what they can do if you don't play along, so it's safer to be on the inside.
Florence checks in with Selwyn and Neville, and since neither Florence nor Neville has yet worked out how the killer drowned Abi, it means Florence, Darlene and Dwayne will have to stay another night on Saint Auguste. Florence says she hopes this won't stop her from getting home before Neville leaves to go travelling. Neville tells her he's having a last drink at Catherine's Bar at 3pm, and he hopes she'll make it back by then. Florence says she hopes so too. Squee!
Naomi arrives at the police station the next day and is surprised to see Neville there — she assumed he would be finishing off his packing. Neville says that he wanted to find something to help Florence solve the case, but hasn't had any luck. Naomi admits she had an ulterior motive for getting in early — she wanted to decorate the place for Neville's big send-off.
Back on Saint Auguste, Florence is beginning to give up hope in her search for the memory card when she notices a scrunchie wrapped around the leaves of a tree. She remembers seeing Abigail the morning that she died, removing her scrunchie as she stepped out of the ocean, and when Florence takes a closer look at the scrunchie, lo and behold, the memory card is inside. Meanwhile, in Honoré Police Station, Naomi is blowing up balloons for Neville's goodbye party, and as Neville slowly deflates one of them, he has a brainwave — just as Florence is putting all the pieces together over on Saint Auguste. They phone each other and swap theories, realising they've cracked the case between them. Florence tells Neville that they always were a good team, and tells him she's off to make the arrest.
Florence, Darlene and Dwayne gather the four suspects, where Florence explains that, prior to her trip, Abi had been thinking for some time about her need to get justice and closure for what happened in the past. When she saw Cressida's post about the holiday in Saint Auguste, she thought it was her one shot to catch the four of them together. Darlene shows the four a video that Abi covertly recorded in her hotel room the night before she was murdered, when Cressida came to see her. Cressida storms into the room demanding to know what Abi's doing there, and Abi says she wanted to see if any of them had changed. Cressida tells Abi that she's not wanted there, and was never wanted by any of the group — she's still "just a stain in [their] lives". Abi snaps back that Cressida can't talk to her like that any more, because even if the rest of them haven't changed, she has, and she refuses to be a victim any more. She tells Cressida that she's seen her videos where she pretends to be a kind, caring person, but when they were at school, Cressida was only ever pretending to be her friend. She still remembers that happened at that party, when she saw Cressida with Hugo and Barney and realised that Cressida was the real ringleader, goading the others into bullying her. Abi tells Cressida that she's "a manipulative bitch" — and that all of her online fans need to know that.
So, with Abi about to completely trash her online reputation, Cressida needed to get rid of her. Florence tells Cressida that they know she murdered Abi — and they can prove how she did it. After the initial confrontation with Abi, Cressida went to see her again the following morning, around 7am, ostensibly to ask her to reconsider — but she had an ulterior motive. She'd spotted sleeping tablets in Abi's room the night before, so when she went back, she made an excuse to go to the bathroom and opened the capsules to remove the powder inside, which she then tipped into Abi's water flask when her back was turned.
Cressida followed Abi to keep an eye on her, and by the time she returned from her swim, the sleeping pills were starting to kick in. Cressida had noticed that Abi wore a smartwatch which was monitoring her heart rate, so concocted a plan to delay her time of death and thereby give herself an alibi for the time of the murder: she saw her to the hotel pool, where there was an airbed floating in the pool — as seen, fully inflated in the selfie on Abi's phone, and spotted again by Florence in the outbuilding after Abi died, deflated.
After Abi passed out, Cressida hit her on the head with a rock, to give the impression that she'd banged her head diving into the pool. She then moved Abi onto the airbed, face down (causing the abrasions on her skin) and pushed into the pool, then let the air out of the inflatable. She then put out the sign saying that the pool was closed for cleaning to ensure that nobody else would come by and find Abi. All that was left was to give herself an alibi, so she took Abi's key and went back to her room, and once inside she shouted loudly to give the impression that she was arguing with Abi, then made sure that the maid clocked her as she was leaving. Cressida then went off to join her friends for breakfast while the airbed was slowly deflating until it became waterlogged and sank, leaving an unconscious Abi to drown while Cressida was in the restaurant, surrounded by witnesses. Finally, when Amelia and Cressida found the body, Cressida waited for Amelia to go and get help, at which point she retrieved the airbed from the bottom of the pool and hid it in the storage room.
The one flaw in Cressida's plan was that she didn't realise Abi had worked out — or at least strongly suspected — exactly what she was up to. As Abi started to feel woozy on her way back from the beach, she realised that something was wrong, so she took the memory card with the incriminating footage of Cressida out of her bag, wrapped it in a scrunchie, and left it in a tree where she hoped the police would eventually find it.
Cressida is arrested and justice is served — but at the cost of Florence being too late to make it to Neville's farewell party. Neville videocalls her from the airport to congratulate her on the arrest, and she apologises for missing his big send-off. Florence tells Neville she really wanted to see him before he left, and he says it's just their luck that things didn't work out that way — but that it's been lovely to see her again, even if only on a screen. They say their goodbyes, and Neville heads off to catch his flight. A plane takes off — and the words "TO BE CONTINUED" appear on the screen. Is Neville really gone for good? Will Florence ever get a chance to tell him how she feels? Looks like we'll have to wait for next week's finale to find out...
