I GET BACK to the hotel with a stack of homemade gingerbread in a plastic tub, the interim report filed and acknowledged by Milsom and a smile on my face. MyPhys has logged mild shock but nothing so prolonged that it would merit any fuss, thanks to Linda’s intervention. She even invited me out on the bike later, saying it would be good for me, but I had to decline. I said the case was too high profile and needed a fast turnaround. I didn’t tell her that the terms of my contract prevent me from pursuing any extreme sports or traveling in or on vehicles with a safety rating below five out of five. The MoJ wouldn’t appreciate its property being broken.
I have steak in my room, listening to some old Chinese electropunk Tia has suggested I might like. I turn it off after the first mouthful of the steak, wanting to devote my full attention to the experience, reveling in my solitude as the flavors play across my tongue. If I tried to buy a steak like this in London it would cost two months’ worth of my “salary” and I’d have to cook it at home, as none of the restaurants that serve this stuff would let the likes of me through the door. When I finish the last of the potatoes and deliciously crisp mange-tout I stare at the plate for a few moments before licking it clean. And that is why eating alone is always best.
I’ve indulged myself enough. As my body digests, I take my mind back to the MoJ server space and open my personal incident room. I spend half an hour or so mocking up a virtual board like the old-style mersives always have, just so I can stand back from it and look at what I have so far.
In terms of a murder case, I have fuck all. In terms of a suicide there’s a lot more evidence, but that niggling sense of missing something critical still haunts me.
“Tia, come talk this through with me.”
She walks up to my side from behind me in the same three-piece pinstripe as usual, her flats clicking on the parquet flooring. “So, what do we have?” she asks.
“The victim drugs his girlfriend, either hangs himself or is forced to do so; then his body is cut up. Now, there are gaps in this big enough to drive a truck through. For one thing, the camera footage of the lift and corridor outside have been altered to hide whoever went into his room after he and Selina retired.”
“It would also disguise the victim leaving the room and returning before his death, or being returned already dead,” Tia notes, programmed to extrapolate logical possibilities from the information available.
“Right. Now, I would guess that whoever chopped him up also tampered with the footage. That same person might also have forced him into that noose, but there’s no evidence at all to support that.”
“The only DNA within the room is that of the victim, Selina Klein and Theodore Buckingham,” Tia reminds me. “As Klein has been eliminated, the only other person the evidence can potentially place at the scene in the murder window is Buckingham.”
“But Buckingham has no tech skills at all, so if he is behind all of this, he would have had to get someone to doctor the video, and who the hell would do that? Even if Klein could have helped afterward, she was too doped up to be able to hack the local node while Theo was still in the hotel.”
“Travis Gabor could have the technical knowledge to hack the node,” Tia says.
“Yeah. Where does he fit in?” I scratch my chin, feeling the stubble just starting to surface. “He was stalking the victim. What if he went to speak to him that night? It’s a potential motivation for the victim drugging Selina, if he didn’t want her to know or overhear. If Travis entered the room early enough in the window, he’s a better suspect than Buckingham. But if Travis forced him to hang himself and then mutilated him, why did Buckingham check out at five in the morning?”
“Travis Gabor is very wealthy,” Tia says. “Perhaps he paid Buckingham to remain silent, or to leave.”
“Or terrified him into it.” I try to reconcile the tanned fashion victim with the idea of a brutal killer. Appearances can be deceiving, especially when it comes to high-functioning obsessives. “Crimes of passion often follow periods of stalking,” I say. “But forcing Alejandro to hang himself seems so much colder than the rest of the crime.”
“There is insufficient data to form a case against either Theodore Buckingham or Travis Gabor,” Tia says.
“Yeah. I need to learn more about Travis’s movements that night. Tia, pull the camera footage from the entire hotel from six p.m. the evening of the murder through nine thirty a.m. the following morning. I want you to map out the movements of the victim, Theo Buckingham and Travis and Stefan Gabor, as far as you can. While you’re doing that, I’m going to see if I can find out anything more about Theo.”
—
AFTER a brief conversation with Nadia about her staff, I go down to the small conference room she offered for my use and wait for the first person to arrive.
There’s a knock on the door, rather timid, less than five minutes later. A tall man enters, dressed in a black suit, with brown skin and very short black Afro hair that is graying at the temples.
“Ms. Patel said you needed to talk to me,” he says in a deep baritone voice. “I’m Marcus Magill. I was on the desk overnight when . . . the thing happened.”
I gesture toward one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table. “Sit down, Mr. Magill. Could you confirm you’ve given consent to have this interview recorded for use by the Ministry of Justice?”
“I did, just now, on the way here,” he says, jerking forward when he realizes he should sit down. There’s a sheen of sweat on his high forehead and he looks like a man about to be condemned.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I say. “I just wanted to speak to you about the shift you did from ten p.m. to eight a.m. three nights ago.”
“I was on the desk,” he says. “Mostly. A few times I went into the back office, but the desk would have pinged me if someone came into the lobby, so I know I didn’t miss anyone.”
“Have a glass of water,” I say, pouring one for him. He takes it with a shaking hand.
“Am I in trouble? Only, I love working here. I’ve been here for years. Was there something I should have done differently?”
I smile, trying to reassure him, but it isn’t enough to penetrate his anxiety. “You’re not in any trouble, Mr. Magill. I just wanted to ask about the guest who checked out at about five o’clock that morning.”
“It was three minutes past,” he says, twisting the glass of water on the table in front of him. “I looked it up on the way. I’m not allowed to record when I’m on duty, but there are cameras in the lobby. I can get the files over to you if—”
“That’s all in hand. Why aren’t you allowed to record personally?”
“It would be a breach of privacy. It’s about keeping the trust of our guests. Ms. Patel is very strict about it. She says the people who come to stay here want to get away from all that. The local node checks uploads, just in case anyone is tempted. There was a girl who started working here last summer—I don’t remember her name. Anyway, this actor came to stay and she tried to record him secretly. She said it was only for her own use, but she was still sacked. Ms. Patel really laid into her. Could hear the yelling from the lobby, I could.”
He’s starting to relax. Good. “Why do you like working here?”
“I won’t lie: the pay is good. And Ms. Patel is one for detail and things being done well and I like that. She notices the things I do and she says so, and there’s not many who do that these days. Sick pay is generous; holiday too. And we all know each other. We get a meal per shift here too. Good food. Proper stuff, you know. Like my mum used to make.”
That surprises me. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be enough surplus to sustain that. “Is there much turnover of staff?”
“No. A lot less than most other work at this pay grade, you know. We all know how good we got it here.”
“It was Theodore Buckingham who checked out that morning,” I say, and he tenses, knowing I’m back onto the important stuff. “What can you remember about him that morning?”
“He was out of breath,” Magill says, looking up as he recalled. “I remember thinking that he looked like he’d been running around or something. Bit sweaty too. I remember him wiping his lip”—he swipes the back of his hand across his top lip to demonstrate—“like that a couple of times. He said he wanted to check out. He only had a small bag with him, carry-on size. I asked if he wanted his suitcase brought downstairs from his room and he looked surprised, like he’d forgotten it. He said yes and that he wanted a taxi into town. Ms. Patel told the other police, the ones looking for him, about the taxi company.”
I nod. “Yes, the manhunt team has all the details. Did he say anything else?”
Magill thinks hard, staring at the table as he does so. “No. I asked him if he’d had a pleasant stay—I always do—and he just looked at me. It was a bit strange, like he was distracted. I saw on the system that he arrived in a party of three and asked if the other two people he arrived with were planning to leave early too. He just shook his head and said he’d wait outside for the taxi. The room was already paid up to the end of the week, so he didn’t have to settle anything. I just asked for the key and told him the remainder of the room fee would be repaid, minus the deposit for each day, but he didn’t seem to care. Then he went outside and walked up and down. Bob was on the door that night and we both looked at each other—I remember that, because it was about minus one and freezing out there. It was still really windy too. That storm hadn’t gone through. It was still gusting out there.”
“How long was he waiting for the taxi?”
“About twenty minutes. He came back in twice, asking if it was coming, and I said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and gave him ETAs, and then he went back outside. He must have been frozen by the time it came. When it did, he just got in with his hand luggage and the driver nearly left without the suitcase—Bob had it with him in the lobby. It was like he forgot about it again. Truth be told,” he says, leaning forward, “I thought he must have had a fight with his boss, or that lady who was with him. He didn’t look happy most of the time they were here.”
“Anything else you remember about him? That night he checked out, or any other time during his stay?”
He frowns at the glass of water, deep in thought. His eyebrows suddenly jerk up and he looks back up at me. “Yes, actually. He smelled of shower gel, the stuff from the guest bathrooms, and I remember thinking he was mad going outside with his hair still damp in that weather.” He frowns again. “I suppose that isn’t very interesting. Lots of people shower when they’ve got a long journey ahead. Sorry.”
“You’ve been very helpful, Mr. Magill. Thank you.”
He stands uncertainly. “Is that all you need, then?”
“Yes, thanks.”
He is the epitome of relief as he leaves the room.
It certainly sounds as if Theo Buckingham was distressed. Could he have showered to wash off the blood?
“Tia, put me through to Alex.”
“Afternoon,” he says after accepting voice contact.
“Alex, Theodore Buckingham’s room, the one next to the Diamond Suite. Have you checked it out yet?”
“No. I wanted to get this suite done first. Has something come up?”
“You didn’t mention any footprints, even though there was all that blood.”
“We think there was one that the ax wielder must have noticed and scrubbed at with a cloth or piece of clothing. Then he or she probably took off their shoes.”
I get up out of the chair. “The desk clerk noticed Buckingham’s hair was wet when he checked out. I thought maybe he showered off the blood after—”
“I’ll get a team in there right away.”
There’s a knock on the door as I end the call and the cleaner enters, a short, rather pale man with a slight build in his late forties. He has a shock of black hair and dramatic eyebrows that haven’t seen any grooming in those forty-odd years. I scan his profile, see nothing unusual and gesture for him to sit down as I do so. “Thank you for coming to see me, Mr. Tregowne.”
“Ms. Patel said I had to,” he says with a broad west-country accent. “I’m supposed to be at home.”
“I won’t keep you for very long. Could you confirm you’ve given consent to have this interview recorded for use by the Ministry of Justice?”
“I have, with pleasure. I wanna do my bit.”
“I wanted to ask you about the man who was staying in room two, next to the Diamond Suite.”
“Not about the murder?” His bushy eyebrows dip as he frowns at me.
“I’ve read the statement you gave to the local police on the day. I may need to ask you more questions about that, but now I want to focus on the man in room two.”
“I cleaned that one before I went into the Diamond Suite,” he says, and inwardly I groan. Judging from the rest of the hotel, Alex’s team will be lucky to turn anything up. “That bugger stole the towels. All of ’em. I had to put it in the log. And to think, these people have everything but still steal. Terrible, ennet?”
“Did he leave anything in the room?”
Tregowne tugs at an earlobe as he considers this. “His bed was a mess—didn’t even straighten that, but they don’t often. There weren’t nothing in the bin.”
He looks at me as if that’s significant. “Is that unusual?” I ask.
“Well it is, matter of fact,” Tregowne says, straightening himself in the chair as if he’s about to deliver a proclamation of great import. “See, I empty the bins by takin’ the plastic liner out, then I sprays it and run round with a cloth, then I put a new liner in. Weren’t no liner that day. Put it in the log, I did. I put everythin’ in that. Ms. Patel likes the details, she does. I reckon he pulled it all out, though why he’d want to travel with a bag of old tea bags and cotton wool, I dunno.”
“Those were missing from his room too?”
“Oh yessir. All the tissues. All the cotton wool. I assume he used some of it. Bloody cheek. Only thing he left were the shampoo and shower gel, but there was hardly any left anyway, so I had to replace them. Put that in the log too, I did.”
Everything is pointing toward Theo again. “Did you ever meet him?”
“Room two, you say?” Tregowne leans back, tugging his earlobe again. “I did, now you say it. Was the first mornin’ they was here. He wanted to know where the room’s uniport charger was, you know, for portable units for thems that aren’t chipped—that sort o’ thing. It’s tucked away in one of the desk drawers. I showed him and he said thanks. He seemed nice enough.”
“This was over a week ago,” I say. “What made it stick in your mind?”
“Oh, it didn’t. I just looked over my log before I come in ’ere. I put it in the log, I did. All the guest questions and comments go in there. Ms. Patel says it shows where the hotel needs to be better-like. She’s a sharp ’un.”
“Did you ever see anything being charged?”
He shakes his head.
“Anything else in the log for room two while Theo Buckingham was there?”
“He liked his tea and coffee. I thought the Yanks only drank coffee but he took a liking to the tea too. Didn’t touch the drinks in the fridge. Liked the cheese snacks more than the rest. That’s about all I can tells you ’bout him. Was he the murderer, then? Only I was wondering that myself. Don’t like the thought of no one running about at large who does that sort o’ thing to people. B’ain’t no natural thing.”
“We’re on the case, Mr. Tregowne. Thank you for your help.”
He stands. “Was a terrible shock, seein’ that. I won’t be cleaning on that floor again. Ms. Patel said I don’t have to. I reckon it’ll be haunted now.”
I fail to think of a response, and realizing that I’m not going to comment, Tregowne goes to the door, gives a polite nod and leaves. I look out the window, seeing the sun break through the cloud for the first time in days. “Let’s go for a walk,” I say to Tia. “I want to look at where the groundskeeper left the ax before it went missing,” I add. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was taking some time out for myself, after all.