In the novel Murder in Mesopotamia, Richard Carey is an architect and a longtime colleague of Dr. Leidner. Before working together at the dig at Tell Yarimjah, they had worked together in Palestine. At the time of the events of the novel, they had been friends for about ten years. Mr Carey is a handsome man of about 40, who falls victim to Louise's charm in spite of himself.
According to Nurse Leatheran, Mr Carey is handsome, and at the same time, looks like a death's head. His head gives the "effect of having the skin stretched unusually tight over the bones", but they are beautiful bones. The lean line of his jaw, temple, and forehead is so sharply outlined that he reminds her of a bronze statue. His eyes are bright and intensely blue, and he is about six feet tall. Nurse Leatheran also observes an "extraordinary look of strain on his face", and feels that he is at the end of his tether, and that something will soon snap.
Nurse Leatheran initially gets the impression that Mr Carey and Louise Leidner did not get along, as he was always very stiff with her, and she with him. However, Sheila Reilly tells her that Mr Carey was "head over ears in love" with Louise, and that it was tearing him to pieces because he was loyal to Dr Leidner as an old friend. They used to meet outside, she would walk down to the river and he would leave the dig for an hour at a time, and they would meet among the fruit trees.
Mr Carey later tells Poirot that he and Louise did not hit it off particularly well. He thought that she had been a shade jealous of his old friendship with her husband, and he was a shade resentful of her influence over Dr Leidner. However, he later says that the truth was that he hated Louise.
On the day of Louise's murder, Mr Carey was on duty at the dig. However, it is later revealed that he was not there all the time, as Sheila had ridden up to the dig after lunch, and had not seen him. He explains that he had gone for a walk down by the river.
Poirot explains that Mr Carey had at first been devoted to his friend and employer, Dr Leidner, and indifferent to Louise. However, Louise set herself out to capture him, and fell in love with him herself. He was unable to resist her, and so was torn by two opposing passions. He loved her, but also hated her for undermining his loyalty to his friend. This might have been a possible motive for murder.
Portrayals[]
In the ITV 2001 TV adapatation of the novel, the part of Richard Carey is played by Christopher Bowen. The portrayal is fairly faithful to the original novel. He is a long-time archaeological colleague of Eric Leidner and had been one of his partners at the dig of Tel Yarimjah from the time before Leidner married Louise. When Louise arrived, she went out of her way to attract him and after a while they fell in love. Carey tried to disguise this. They argue, for example, when he turns up late for dinner. This seems to convince some people such as Nurse Leatheran who told Poirot that she thought Carey disliked Louise. However, the more astute Sheila Maitland bluntly told Leatheran and Poirot that Carey was in fact "head over heels" in love with Louise. His specialisation at the dig is not stated but he appears to spend his time mapping walls and structures, and making drawings, activities consistent with a previous training as an architect.