Bichard, Marlise

Marlise Bichard is a high school teacher, and the wife of Miles Bichard, the head of the police force on Guernsey. The couple are usually very polite when people point out the similarity between their names, but have heard it enough times over the years for it to have become quite tiresome.

She first appears in book 1, Dead in the Water, when she accompanies Miles to the combined services dinner and dance at Castle Cornet. She’s rather do something that wasn’t connected to her husband’s job as head of the island police force, but he’s so often working late that she’ll take whatever she’s offered.

She doesn’t approve of his car racing on the beach at Chouet, but he was doing that before they even met and as it seems such an integral part of who she is she doesn’t feel she can object too strongly. Besides, he makes up for it with a long walk and dinner once a month.

Although there does seem to be some kind of ‘spark’ between her husband and Christine Le Page, she trusts him when he says that nothing has happened between them (or ever would) and she therefore accepts Christine as a friend, rather than treating her as a competitor.

Jones, Ruby

Ruby Jones is The Sarnian‘s PR manager, handling all incoming requests for quotes and images from external news and media organisations. It’s a strange position in which she has to balance the needs of promoting The Sarnian with the financial consideration of selling its assets. Any images and content available for licensing, such as shots of news stories or web content are therefore forwarded on to a dedicated licensing team, and she is left with short quotes and pictures of the people providing them. She’s also the first point of contact for anyone looking to run promotions in partnership with the paper or its web site.

She reports to Freya Carlisle, The Sarnian’s editor, but works alongside colleagues from all departments and at all levels within the organisation.

She first appears in book 1, Dead in the Water, as the person to whom Ollie Carey sends a lot of the incoming emails he received after the discovery of Richelle Ibbott‘s body in Marble Bay so that she can decide how it should be handled while he gets on with chasing the story.

Stella

Sella works in the Environment department of the States of Guernsey. That position gives her access to planning applications and details of who owns particular parcels of land on the island.

She is a good friend of Simon Langlois and they sometimes go out for a drink together, usually on the balcony overlooking the Town Church. They don’t do this as often as they’d like, though, and Stella uses the fact that she hears Simon on the radio almost every day as the reason for forgetting how long it is since they last met.

Bonus fact: Stella first appears in The Sarnian book 2, but she wasn’t originally called Stella — she was Sheila. She isn’t the only character whose name changed during the writing process. Ross Ferbrache underwent a name change, too.