Adam dropped the keys back to Trevor, keen to make everything appear as normal as possible. The father of the bride thanked him profusely and offered to buy him a drink several times before he managed to get away. The band were back on, tearing through a Bon Jovi mega mix, and Adam was able to slip out of the room undetected.
While Adam was busy in the bar, Colin took it upon himself to partake in a little side mission. Instead of going back to their bedroom when he bid his friend goodbye, he carried on walking down the corridor towards the room Danny had previously occupied.
His first visit to the room had been necessary. The second visit had been risky, and he’d almost been caught snooping around by the authorities. Going back for a third time was surely madness. But the beginnings of a plan had formed upon leaving Trevor’s car, and the plan was dependent on retrieving something from the stricken best man’s room.
If he got caught, he could just act drunk and plead ignorance. He’d simply opened the door to the wrong room. And if anything, it was the staff’s fault for leaving the door unlocked in the first place.
He crept down the corridor slowly, praying that the door had indeed been left unlocked by the staff who had other things on their minds. When he reached his destination, he cast a glance around before trying the handle. It seemed someone had been listening to his hasty prayer…
Adam and Colin arrived back at the room at roughly the same time. Adam shot his friend a quizzical look, though Colin shook his head.
Not here.
Adam opened the door to their bedroom and they entered, keen to uncover whatever evidence was stored on the phone.
Colin could feel the surge of adrenaline as the phone came slowly to life; the dim screen displaying a welcome message. He could see his friend’s hand was shaking.
Adam was nervous. If Trevor was involved in this, it would be a major scandal on the North Coast. His business was worth more money than Adam could imagine, and it would be Adam’s name forever attached to bringing it down. Also, the guy was the size of a house and built like a brick…
‘Shall we see what it says?’ Colin asked, noticing Adam’s sudden reticence.
Adam shook himself from the image of Trevor standing over him with the veins bulging in his slab of a forehead. The call list was empty, as expected. Presumably, this phone was the only means of communication between Danny and Trevor. Danny would never have had the balls to blackmail someone by talking on the phone to them. Instead, he’d have relied on text messages – it was so much easier to say cowardly things with written words.
The presumption turned out to be correct.
Trevor was not as technologically savvy as Danny and had not thought to delete any of the messages he’d received or sent. Adam and Colin spent ten minutes taking in every detail of the correspondence, looking on with disbelieving eyes.
‘Jesus,’ Adam said, setting the phone down and letting the information permeate. Colin sat back in his chair and did the same. Neither spoke for a few minutes.
‘So,’ Colin said, eventually. ‘Danny saw Sam and some random girl kiss on the stag do. He then got in contact with Mr Campbell to tell him that unless he paid Danny to keep the information to himself, he might accidently let that information slip to Emily who would be devastated.’
‘£50 to start with, which Trevor probably thought was a one-off payment and worth it to stop a load of hassle. No wonder Sam said things have been tense between Trevor and him – imagine your future father-in-law knew you’d been unfaithful and was paying to cover it up!’
‘So, he paid the money but then got another text from Danny a week later saying that he was feeling loose lipped and that he’d need another £50 to guarantee that his lips remained sealed. Then, no further correspondence until yesterday when he received another message asking for more.’
‘Which he paid just after midnight. Then, an hour or so later, Danny was dead.’
‘So, who is his accomplice?’
‘If there is an accomplice,’ Adam said. ‘For all we know, Trevor has had no part in this, aside from being the victim.’
This was all becoming too much of a mind wrecker. Colin wished they’d never got involved.
‘We don’t know who the killer is or how they managed to persuade Danny to take tablets he was allergic to. We’re no closer to solving this, and unless you fancy marching up to Trevor and asking if he is our murderer, which would be utterly ridiculous, there’s no way forward.’ Colin let out a long sigh. ‘I need a drink. Where’s your hipflask?’
Those three words hit Adam like a ton of lead.
The hipflask.
‘When you searched Danny’s room, did you see a hipflask that looked identical to mine?’
Colin wracked his brain but couldn’t remember seeing it. He shook his head.
‘I think I know who did it,’ Adam said, moving to the door.
Colin followed Adam down the hallway. The low rumble of the bassline and the thump of the drums drifted through the closed doors, telling them that the band were still keeping people’s attention in the confines of the bar. Adam hoped that the person whose room they were about to visit was either on the dancefloor or sitting happily at a table, tapping his foot and not waiting for them behind the door.
A boy Adam recognised from school – and a girl he did not – sauntered past them, hand in hand, presumably towards one of their rooms. Adam felt a pang of annoyance. He should be enjoying the party and attempting to reap the rewards of being on the wedding party by trying to crack on with one of the bridesmaids. Instead, here he was, putting himself in harm’s way to try to solve the murder of someone he didn’t even really like.
When they reached the door they needed, Adam tried the handle, but it didn’t budge. Thankfully, the room was around a corner from the main hallway and afforded them some privacy. Colin kept lookout while Adam attempted to work his magic on the lock.
For several minutes, he waggled a paperclip in the lock and was thankful to both YouTube and the ancient, basic locking system within the door when he felt it give. The door creaked open slowly.
Adam’s heart raced at the thought of walking into the lion’s den, but everything that this tiring day had thrown at them had led them here. He was now so close to discovering if his hunch was correct or not, and that fuelled his steps across the threshold and into the room.
Colin continued to keep watch while Adam searched the room. Aside from an open case on the floor and a few ripples on the bedcovers, one might assume the room was unused. Certainly, the keeper of the keys hadn’t spent much time in here aside from getting ready for the evening’s festivities.
Adam took a quick look in the obvious places but came away empty handed. He cast an eye around the room and settled on the case. Surely, if you had something to hide, it’d be in there.
He poked at some clothes, moving them out of the way while trying to keep everything as it was. As the seconds ticked by, his searching became more erratic. He tipped everything out and patted items down before moving them to the side.
‘Hurry up,’ Colin hissed.
‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ Adam whispered back.
Suddenly, something caught his eye. A colour that tugged at a memory. He grabbed the trousers and thrust his hand in the pocket, pulling out a wad of cash. He had no time to count it now, but he’d bet it totalled £200.
Sure that the hipflask was not amongst the clothes, he began scooping trousers and T-shirts up and was about to pile them back in the case when his eyes happened upon something.
In the case, sewn into the lining, was a zip. It was the same colour as the fabric and could be easily missed.
Adam pulled it slowly. In the silence, the noise of the material sounded like bison charging across a desert plain, such was the volume of the material parting.
Colin’s head appeared around the doorway.
‘There are footsteps on the stairs,’ he whispered. ‘I think someone is coming.’
Quickly, Adam reached into the compartment, his fingers knocking against something cold and hard.
His heart leapt.
He pulled the hipflask out of its hiding place and showed it to Colin. The engraved initials, D.C., twinkled in the light of the room. He reached in again and grabbed the other item – a key.
‘Great,’ Colin said. ‘Now, let’s go.’
Adam stood and watched as his friend peeked around the corner of the wall. Whoever had been ascending the stairs had obviously gone into another room along the corridor as the hallway was empty.
‘Ready?’ Colin asked.
Adam nodded and they both sprinted along the corridor, not stopping until they reached their room.
‘We’re sure it’s him?’ Colin asked when the adrenaline had once again subsided.
Adam shrugged. He looked at the pile of money, which totalled just over £300.
‘The money doesn’t necessarily point the finger of guilt his way. It’s more than Danny had asked for. But I reckon it, coupled with the hipflask, do. Why else would he have it?’
Colin agreed, though took another few minutes to cast a spotlight over the evidence they’d uncovered, just in case they’d missed anything. He couldn’t see that they had.
‘How do we go about confronting him though?’ Adam said.
Colin smiled at him. To his mind, it had felt like Adam had been the leader all day. Now, he had an idea. He went to his jacket and from it pulled out the item he had taken from Danny’s room less than an hour ago.
Adam shot him a confused look.
‘It’s the phone charger for Danny’s burner. I thought rather than us storming in and pointing fingers, we’d let our accused do the admitting. It’s how it’s usually done on TV dramas – you trick them into spilling the beans.’
‘And I assume you have a plan?’ Adam asked.
‘That I do,’ Colin answered.