‘Stephen Crowfield … the new chef,’ Tim said, still sitting at his desk, taking it all in. ‘This is it. This is the connection.’
Dee explained, in her ever-rational way, that more evidence was required. ‘This could still be a spurious correlation,’ she said, fist on her bottom lip.
‘A whaty what?’
‘A spurious correlation is when two things appear to be linked, but in fact are not,’ she said. ‘It pains me to say it, but Inspector Kane might have had a point. We can’t let our imaginations guide us any further. We need to head down to fact town.’
She was right. They had to be sure. ‘What have you got in mind?’ he asked.
‘Is there a record of when Dawn Star staff work?’
‘Um,’ Tim nodded. ‘Yeah, there must be. The rotas.’
‘Where are they or, more specifically, where is Stephen’s?’
‘His will be at the workstation at the back of the kitchen, I imagine.’
‘We could look at it, find out if he was here on the night before Granddad’s flight?’
‘Let’s go.’
Tim hadn’t even realised the time until they stepped out of his bedroom. The hotel was dead, silent. Straight down the stairs, through the hall – no time for lava – to the lobby, which was completely empty besides the night porter, who was slumped, reading a magazine at reception. He didn’t notice them briskly pass through and to the kitchen doors.
‘Down here,’ Tim said, pointing ahead of them.
It was weird seeing this place – usually bristling with commotion and heat – in a quiet and cold state. Everything seemed grey. At the back of the room, behind a dividing wall, was a messy desk. Tim switched on the lamp and, without another word, Dee began searching through the drawers.
‘This it?’ she said, holding up a folder.
‘Looks like it.’
With a lick of her thumb, she flicked through the staff rota, scanning down the column marked ‘S. Crowfield’, noticing the days the young chef had filed overtime. There was just one single evening he’d worked late: the night Professor Eisenstone went missing.
‘That’s it,’ Tim said, placing his finger on the entry, then tapping it. ‘And look … he’s not down to work from next week onwards.’
‘Maybe he’s resigned?’ Dee wondered. ‘Maybe his job is done.’ With that, she returned the folder to the third drawer down. ‘We should leave it as we found it. We don’t want to arouse— Wow. What’s this?!’
She slid a plastic DVD case out from under some pens and clutter. Tim removed the disc and inspected it. Something on the front had been scribbled over with black marker – he flipped it over to see that the back was scratched. There were deep grooves across the rainbow silver.
‘This has got to be the footage of that night,’ Tim said. ‘Whatever is on here, Stephen doesn’t want the world to see …’
‘Why hasn’t he got rid of it completely – he’s not very good at this, is he?’
‘Careless. Right.’ Tim turned the lamp off and pocketed the DVD. ‘They can still recover data from these things.’
Walking briskly from the kitchen, Dee whispered from behind, ‘We need to confirm Stephen and Clarice are definitely related.’
‘Crowfield is a pretty rare name,’ Tim said quietly over his shoulder.
‘I know, but we’ve got to be certain.’
‘How?’
‘We could look up his address, his number?’ Dee suggested. ‘We could ring and literally ask for Clarice.’
‘That’s just—’
‘So simple, bold and logical it makes complete sense?’ Dee smiled. ‘Why thank you.’
They paused at the edge of the dining hall, before rounding the corner and heading back into reception. ‘We’ll need to look on Elisa’s computer,’ Tim said, peering at the night porter. ‘Which means getting rid of him.’
‘Hmm.’ Dee turned to look at the phone on the wall by their side, used by waiting staff to take table bookings for the restaurant. She picked it up – the tone hummed gently. ‘How do you call reception?’
‘Um, press nine and then press the hash key.’
She hit the buttons and, still hidden behind the corner, twirled the curly wire as she spoke in a very strange, posh voice. ‘Ah, yes, hello there,’ she said to the porter. Tim couldn’t help but snigger. ‘My name is Francesca Bumblesnatch. I am staying in room thirty and I think there’s a burst pipe in the hallway. There’s a terrific puddle of water. I suggest you come right away.’
‘Oh, thanks for letting me know. I will check it out,’ the porter said.
With him gone, they swept to the office behind reception and logged straight on to the computer. Once the monitor was on, he clicked to the staff folder on the desktop, opened it up and took down the chef’s home number. He noticed his address was Crowfield House.
Back in his room, and spurred on by Dee, he dialled, not giving a thought to how late it was. After a few rings, a flustered woman answered.
‘Yes, hello,’ she said in an angry, tired voice. ‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘What is your name?’ Tim asked. Dee gave him a firm thumbs up – clearly pleased with how direct he was being.
‘You rang me. You know perfectly well that I am Clarice Crowfield and—’
Tim hung up. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Stephen lives with Clarice.’
‘And that was her name when she married Professor Whitelock,’ Dee said.
‘So …’
‘It’s probably her maiden name. So she’s not Stephen’s wife. Got to be a relative. Sister? Mother?’
‘She sounded old.’
‘We need to speak with Inspector Kane,’ Tim said. ‘We can’t trust anyone else.’
‘So we’ve got to wait until the station opens?’ Dee shook her head. ‘No way. Stephen’s done something. Whatever is on the DVD is obviously incriminating. What if they’ve taken Granddad? Or worse. Plus, what if Inspector Kane still doesn’t think this is enough to investigate? You saw how reluctant he was to do anything – he thought we were speaking nonsense.’
‘Well, what are you suggesting?’
‘I think we should go there, to their house, and have a look about,’ Dee said. ‘Get some concrete evidence.’
‘When?’ Tim asked. ‘Now?’
A moment later and Dee was zipping up her jacket and slipping on her shoes. Tim tied his laces, stood and finally placed his reader hat on in front of the mirror. Dressed in a dark, maroon-chequered shirt, he tightened the straps on his rucksack. He was ready.
Tim pulled open the top drawer to see Phil tucked up peacefully in his perfectly made miniature bed. ‘Phil, wake up,’ Tim said.
‘What in heaven’s name? What time is it?’ the monkey mumbled.
‘I don’t know – a million o’clock? We’re going out. Do you want to come?’
‘Pardon? Where? It is still dark.’
‘We’re going to Crowfield House.’
‘I beg your pardon, Timothy?’
‘We’ve had some breakthroughs – we need to look in Stephen Crowfield’s home.’ Tim then explained what they had learned.
‘You plan to break in?’ Phil asked, standing.
‘Don’t make it sound like we’re the baddies,’ Tim said. ‘But yes.’
‘We have just cause, Phil,’ Dee added. ‘This is all very reasonable.’
She swung her coat’s hood on to her head – in the shadow Tim could still see the white polka dots on the hairband he’d made for her.
‘What about Elisa?’ The monkey was concerned, as Tim knew he should have been.
For some reason he just couldn’t find anywhere in his head that worried about the consequences. He thought for a moment about the morning he met Eisenstone – the stolen cakes. What a tame crime it was, and now he was preparing to leave in the dead of night to break into someone’s house.
‘Elisa won’t mind,’ Tim said. ‘She won’t find out.’
‘Hmm, is this not a trifle … illegal?’
‘Certainly,’ Dee said. ‘But, like, literally, what’s the worst that could happen?’
‘Prison?’ the monkey suggested.
‘For breaking into someone’s home? No,’ Dee said. ‘Children rarely go to prison. Especially not for something minor. I think this kind of thing is frowned upon, sure, but legal consequences? Pfft, unlikely.’
‘I am afraid I am still a little apprehensive,’ Phil added
‘Look,’ Tim sighed. ‘Clarice Crowfield, who lives with Stephen Crowfield at Crowfield House – the old mental home on the hill – married Professor Whitelock. Remember, Eisenstone’s old colleague, who died?’
‘I think Clarice Crowfield knows something about the imagination box, about Eisenstone’s work. Firstly, the watch is enough reason to be sure that the professor is missing. We’ve checked everywhere he should be. He’s gone. The destroyed CCTV footage, the fact that Stephen Crowfield has concrete links to the only other living soul we can be sure knew about Eisenstone’s invention, and he was working here the very night the professor disappeared. Don’t you get it, Phil? It all adds up.’
‘Totally fits together,’ Dee agreed. ‘Tim’s right. Plus, Inspector Kane won’t listen until we have something absolute. We need proof.’
‘Yes,’ Tim said. ‘You took the words right out of my mouth. Now, it could be risky, it could be dangerous. You don’t have to join us if you don’t want to – I will completely understand if you’d—’
‘Worry not, old bean, I am coming.’