by Lee Wood
Wayne checked the restaurant bookings and noted a table had been booked for eight-thirty and the plan was as soon as the two men were in the restaurant. He could keep Kevin informed of how long Peter was likely to be out of the way to give him time to steal the painting.
Everything was set. Wayne knew he could easily hand over most of the cooking to his assistant chefs. He had made sure the best ones were working with him on that shift so he had time to assist Kevin.
In the evenings with few guests signing in, reception would be unmanned after eight-thirty when Dawn finished her shift. If he gave it until around eight forty-five, the coast would be clear. He could take the master key card and pass it to Kevin who would be in the bar and then get it back from him before anyone realised it was missing. Guests didn’t usually phone to book into the hotel after reception had closed, but if they did a member of the bar staff would take the call and deal with it as part of their general duties.
Kevin thought the great thing about his plan was the art dealer would be going back to London after he had attended the Evesham Art and Antiques Fair over the weekend so he wouldn’t be around to talk to the police. He didn’t usually sit in a bar drinking fizzy water, he much preferred a few pints, but for a ‘pay day’ of sixty grand, for one night he was prepared to make an exception.
It looked like it was going to be a rewarding night for Kevin. What a lucky break he and his sons had been in the restaurant.
Chapter Fourteen
Norman Gentle was having a good day and feeling happy. On Mondays the Shoreditch gallery closed at four pm. and he was thinking of going home to wait for Peter who was out viewing a potential purchase when he realised the apartment hadn’t had any fresh flowers for nearly a week.
Since the cash windfall, Peter loved having a bouquet or two in the living room, so Norman decided to make a detour from his normal route and go via Wild at Heart, a fabulous flower shop situated on the Pimlico Road.
As he was leaving the shop holding a stunning bouquet and looked round for a taxi, he noticed a beautiful Bentley Continental convertible that looked very familiar.
He was just about to walk across the road towards it when he saw Peter with his arm around a young man. As they reached the car Peter and the young man start a passionate kiss and then got into the car and drove off in the opposite direction.
The bunch of flowers fell to the floor as Norman almost fainted. He couldn't believe what he had just seen.
Next to the flower shop, there was a bar, and after recovering his composure, Norman made his way inside and ordered a large gin and tonic.
As he sat down at the table in the corner away from everyone, tears formed. Had his eyes been playing tricks on him?
He needed another G and T.
What should he say when he went home. Should he confront Peter or should he hold back until he had more proof. After all, it had only been a kiss. But then why would Peter be kissing someone else?
Norman decided it was best to say nothing. When he got the opportunity, he would check and see if there were any messages or clues on Peter’s phone as to who this young man might be and what his partner was up to. Yes, he thought. Get the evidence before you make a fool of yourself.
He didn’t want to risk throwing everything away when there could possibly be a reasonable explanation. After all, he and Peter had been together for six years and recently had started talking about getting married. They had discussed where the ceremony would take place and were in the process of making up a guest list.
There’s got be a rational explanation Norman thought to himself. Better to sleep on it than rush in and create a scene.
Later that evening, when Peter went to bed, Norman made the excuse of wanting to watch the end of a film. Instead he took the opportunity to check Peter’s phone. He couldn’t see any incriminating messages but he noticed the booking Peter had made for his stay at the Albion Hotel had been for a king-size room and had been changed earlier that day from single to double occupancy.
So who was the second person on the booking? After what he had seen outside the flower shop, he had a fair idea.
Norman had never liked going to antique fairs or auctions. He found the idea of them boring. He preferred to stay and run the gallery. So, Peter was planning to go to the Evesham Art and Antiques Fair on his own.
Norman hoped he had got it all wrong and there was a perfectly good explanation for what he had seen but he needed to find out the truth for himself.
Meeting Peter had been the turning point in his life and for the first time, Norman had felt complete and at ease within himself.
As he made his way to bed, Norman decided he would book a room at the hotel under a false name and confront Peter in his room with his new young lover. But he was praying there had been some sort of mistake.
Up until now he thought life had given him a lucky break. Now he was wondering if the only thing to break would be his heart.
Chapter Fifteen
FRIDAY 18TH MAY 2018
Following the phone call just as he was about to go fishing, DI Eden Gold was the first detective to arrive on the scene at the Albion Hotel. He was in the process of being briefed by PC Mitchell when his boss and the man who would take charge of the investigation DCI Andy Stone, drove up to the front of the hotel.
At 6.26 am., a second marked police car arrived containing PC Frank Edwards and PC Ian Randall.
The next person at the scene was Dr Edward Phillips, the police doctor. Eden Gold explained the situation to him and together they went up to the Trinity suite.
At six forty-two, the doctor pronounced Peter Winston-Moore as deceased.
After the six thirty workers, the next shift was due to start work from seven and then more staff at various times throughout the morning. So Andy Stone instructed the hotel assistant manager to make a list of the staff members as they arrived.
The Scene of Crime team arrived at 6.41 am.
There was only one staircase leading up to all the guest rooms so PC Frank Edwards had been posted at the bottom to explain to the guests that due to an incident they could not leave the hotel. Instead they were asked to go through to the main dining room.
The time was 7 am., and the restaurant wouldn’t normally start serving breakfast for half an hour, so none of the guests were expected to leave their rooms, although Diane had mentioned on occasion one or two liked to take a walk or a jog before breakfast. So the staff probably had about ten minutes before any early birds would leave their rooms.
The Trinity Suite, where the murder had taken place, was the last room on the right, so apart from the room opposite, no one would have a need to go that far along the corridor.
The room opposite to the Trinity Suite was room 109 and had been occupied the previous night by a late arrival guest called Katie Tavistock.
One of the first things would be to obtain a list of the guests and then arrange a team to interview them. Diane, in her usual organised way, had already realised this and printed out a full list of all the guests staying in the hotel, together with the rooms they were occupying.
Having established the murder weapon appeared to be a large kitchen knife, DI Gold instructed two of the forensic team to check out the hotel kitchen to see if it had come from there. They could also check if the area held any evidence before they allowed staff members in to work.
When the area had been examined and photos taken, based on the fact nothing looked out of place and no matching knives had been found, Eden told the kitchen staff they could start making hot drinks. He felt many of the guests would be more inclined to talk if they at least had a cup of tea or coffee.
According to the list Diane had supplied, the previous night, twelve of the rooms had been occupied by a total of twenty-two guests: eighteen adults and four children.
Six rooms were single occupancy, a further four had double, and two rooms were occupied by families with two children in each.
Today he was lucky. With no
other major incidents in the area so far, DCI Andy Stone had four team members at his disposal.
DS Tracy Archer, DS Will Redgrave and DS Carla Parsons had all been called in to assist, along with DI Eden Gold and each had the necessary training and qualifications to interview the guests and staff members.
DCI Stone gave a briefing to his team. “Doctor Phillips has pronounced the victim deceased. It looks like he was stabbed repeatedly with the knife still lodged in his back. The murderer made no attempt to take it with them and although he would like to do the Post Mortem first the doctor has estimated the time of death as between 11 pm. and 1 am.”
He went on. “According to business and credit cards found in his wallet the victim appears to be a gentleman called Peter Winston-Moore who is a London Art Dealer. The motive could be robbery as there is an empty display easel set up in the corner of the room but no painting on it.
“We'll deal with the guests first. Start with the families as it will avoid any problems with the children getting bored and besides, they are probably unlikely to be involved unless they say they knew the victim. Then the married couples. Leave the people booked in on their own to last. Maybe one of them was meeting up with the victim. We need to ask them for all for I.D. and permission to search their rooms.”
“We also need someone to run PNCs on all the cars in the car park and check the footage on the CCTV cameras I noticed in the reception area. You never know, we might get a lucky break.”
Chapter Sixteen
As the victim’s body had been found at the entrance to the bathroom and several feet from the outside door, the SOCO team had laid down a line of raised metal stepping-stone plates. Each plate was approximately twelve inches square and five inches high with just four small feet touching the ground to give the crime scene investigators access to the scene while minimising contamination of possible evidence.
One member was logging details of anyone entering or leaving the crime scene. Another was busy taking photos from every angle and producing a sketch of where everything was laid out in the room.
The Forensics team were busy taking photos of the body. The team was also gathering any physical evidence from the room they could pass on to help the detectives.
Digital photos were taken of all the fingerprints and downloaded onto the laptop computer, linked to the Fingerprint Bureau via a secure network. These would be run through the fingerprint database and any relevant information forwarded to the officers running the investigation.
Before the body could be removed, Scene of Crime Officers examined the door to the room and also the hallway outside, trying to discover any clues or evidence before people trampled over the area as the body was being removed.
By 8.15 police officers had knocked on all the doors of the occupied rooms and briefly explained there had been an incident in the hotel overnight and everyone should make their way down to the restaurant within the next twenty minutes. No one was allowed to leave the hotel until they had been questioned.
As this was happening on the first floor, the DCI had a team of four officers; one located at each corner of the large dining room interviewing the guests, using a list provided by the assistant manager Diane
The police had so far questioned two families and three couples. It seemed none had any connection with the victim so, after giving a brief statement and supplying a verified form of identification and contact details, they were allowed to leave.
There was just the final couple and the six single occupants left to question.
Being interviewed by the police was the last thing fifty-seven year-old solicitor Michael Farrington needed. He had come to what he thought would be a nice quiet hotel forty miles from his hometown of Eaton Spa under the pretence of attending a law society seminar.
He didn’t need news of this getting back to his wife. After all, it wasn’t as if he had anything to do with this murder. He had never heard of the victim. All he wanted to do was try to regain some of his youth and what better way than to be in the arms of his thirty-three-year-old extremely attractive lover Valerie Wilson.
His wife had grown fat and the sex was almost non-existent and certainly not what it once was. Valerie, on the other hand, knew exactly what to do and she did things his wife had never wanted to try. The previous night Valerie had worn him out and then woke him at six to do it again. For the past few weeks he had been drawing up plans to leave his wife and make a new life in Italy with the woman he was deeply in love with and who couldn’t seem to get enough of him. He was just waiting for some inheritance money to come through and then he would tell his family.
So he wasn’t looking forward to being questioned by the police. As he waited, the thoughts running through his head kept repeating themselves. Play it cool. Don’t try to be clever, just tell the truth and hope they don’t need to check details with his office.
He and Valerie were interviewed separately.
Twenty minutes later, Michael was thanked for his help and told he was free to go. He noticed Valerie sitting waiting for him. Obviously her interview had been shorter.
“What did you tell them?” Michael asked his lover.
She gave him a big naughty smile. “I told them I spent the entire night bonking your brains out and there was no way you’d have had the energy to get out of bed let alone murder someone by the time I’d finished with you.”
With that Michael seemed extremely relieved but something in the way he looked made Valerie wonder if there was something he wasn’t telling her. However, being a light sleeper she knew what she had told them was the truth and Michael hadn’t stirred until she woken him at six with the words, “Wakey wakey, Honeypops, your little buttercup needs another good servicing.”
Now the police could concentrate on the six people staying in the hotel on their own. And three in particular seemed of interest as they had been flagged up as antiques dealers who knew the victim.
With murder investigations like this, things could change in an instant. Each of the detectives knew interviewing people was often the way to get their first lucky break. The one that would lead to them finding the killer.
Chapter Seventeen
INTERVIEW WITH FRANCIS TACK
“Hello, Mr Tack, I'm DCI Andy Stone. As you may be aware early this morning a member of staff discovered the body of a gentleman we believe to be Peter Winston-Moore and we’re treating his death as suspicious."
I understand you knew him well and after seeing a photo my colleague showed you, have positively identified him. Thank you for your assistance in that matter."
He pulled his notebook nearer, and got out his pen.
"Now, this is purely routine so if we could start with your full name and address, and then if you can, tell me the reason for visiting the hotel?”
From his manner Francis tried his best to look calm. The DCI could tell he wasn’t by the fact of his shoulders being tense and he cleared his throat before answering.
“Certainly. My name is Francis Tack. I live at 32 Portobello Road in Notting Hill, London and I’m an antiques dealer. I’m here to attend the Evesham Art and Antiques Fair this weekend.”
“I wonder if you have your driving licence or a form of identity on you for me to check. It’s purely routine, however it would be helpful.”
Francis reached into his jacket pocket and took out a leather wallet. “Yes, I have my licence and a business card.”
DCI Andy Stone nodded. “Would it be okay to take a copy of the licence?”
“Of course. Anything I can do to help.”
Andy looked at the licence and handed it together with the business card to PC Pauline Underwood who noted down the details and then went off to the hotel office where Diane had said they could use the photocopier.
A few minutes later, she came back and returned the items to DCI Stone, who then passed them back to Mr Tack.
“Thank you, Mr Tack, that’s most helpful. I won’t keep you much longer. Can you tell me, how you
knew Mr Winston-Moore?”
“Actually, yes I know him, or rather knew him because we are both antique dealers. In fact he is the reason I’m staying at the hotel.”
Francis Tack seemed happy to go on and explain the situation without being asked. “You see, as I said, he’s a rival dealer and over the last year or so his business has taken off from virtually nothing to overtake mine by a mile. I was, shall we say, curious to find out how he was doing it and I got wind of the fact he was staying at this hotel before the antiques fair. I wanted to find out how he had managed to become so successful. So I came here to spy on him but I swear I had nothing to do with his death. Nothing at all.”
The policeman made a few notes before looking up. “Did you see him yesterday?”
“As I said, I've been trying to figure things out for ages. So I was in the bar with him last night buying him a few drinks in the hope he would say something, but he never did.”
"Did you go into his room at any time?"
“Yes. I was trying to get him to open up about where he finds his stock and he took me up to see a valuable new painting he had just discovered. I was only there for about a minute then we went back down to the restaurant. I think he just wanted to boast as usual. I’m not an art expert like Peter but he said it was worth around £250,000 and I can believe it.”
The DCI nodded and tapped his pen against his teeth. “Right, I see. I noticed you talking to those two other gentlemen over there. Are they friends of yours?”