“And how did he seem when you spoke to him?”
“A bit rattled, nervy for him. He was always a cocky bloke, never let anything bother him, but that night he seemed a bit spooked.”
“And what did you do with the bedding?”
“I threw it in the bins at the back of the hotel.”
Brock turned to Constable Sanita Sanders, who stood in the corner of the room. He nodded at her and she nodded back, a silent understanding passing between them. She left the room and Brock turned back to Hart.
“And did you get new bedding for Mr Alvarado?”
“Yes, I went to reception and got them to give it to me directly and I took it up to him that night.”
“And?” Poole asked impatiently.
“And nothing. He took them and shut the door in my face again.”
“And did you talk about it the next day?”
“No. The next day Jarvis was back to his normal self, winding everyone up and being the big star,” he said, somewhat bitterly.
“You better hope we find those sheets, Mr Hart,” Brock said gruffly as he stood and headed for the door.
Poole got up to follow him as his phone began to buzz in his pocket.
He pulled the phone from his pocket as he stepped out into the corridor, glancing at the unknown number on the screen.
“Hello?” he said as he continued after Brock.
“Hello, Guy. It's your dad.”
Poole stopped dead in his tracks, that familiar ice running through his veins. “How did you get my number?”
“I’ve got something I thought might help you,” his father said down the line.
“Help me?” Poole said, his head spinning. He looked up at the Brock, who was almost at the other end of the corridor now and heading toward the door at the end.
“That girl that was killed earlier in the week.”
Poole frowned, for a moment thinking only of the deaths of Jarvis Alvarado and Jonny Turnbull. Then he remembered Ella Louise, the girl in Anderson and Sharp’s case.
“What about her?” Poole said, unable to keep the sense of dread from his voice. Had his father had something to do with the girl's death? The thought was too much to take.
“She was an escort for a bloke called Ian Ganning.”
Poole frowned, confused. He was pretty sure that Sharp and Anderson would know this. “And?”
“Well from what I’ve heard, Ian has told your lot that this girl wasn’t working for him that night.”
Poole heard voices in the background on the other end of the line. The line was muffled for a moment, as though his father had placed his hand over the phone. Either his dad didn’t know where the mute button was, or this was a landline. Poole pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the number again. It had a Bexford code. He made a mental note to look up the address after the call. He placed the phone back to his ear as his father’s voice returned.
“Look, I’ve got to go. All I know is she was working that night. Don’t ask me how, and if you try and bring me in for a statement I’ll deny all knowledge of it. Speak to you later, son.”
The line went dead. Poole’s right hand which held the phone fell slack at his side as his mind raced. Movement ahead of him made him look up into the face of Constable Sanders.
“Are you OK?” she said, pausing as she saw him. “Sir,” she added quickly, remembering where she was.
“Yes, fine,” he said, marching off, his long stride eating up the cheap tiled carpet of the corridor as Sanita watched him with confusion and a small amount of hurt in her eyes.
Poole marched on, straight through to the main office, pausing as he caught sight of Anderson across the room.
No. He needed to talk to Brock first.
Anderson had noticed him staring and was now looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. Poole turned away and headed toward the canteen. Pushing through the double doors, he saw Brock at the coffee machine and moved alongside him.
“Sir,” he said his voice in a low whisper. “I need to talk to you in the office.”
Brock looked at him, his thick eyebrows dotted in a frown. He grunted an agreement and after scooping his coffee up turned back toward the door with Poole in tow.
Neither of them spoke until they had reached the small office that they shared.
“What’s happened?” Brock asked as he closed the door, his tone hard and urgent.
“My dad called me and gave me information on Inspector Sharp’s case,” Poole said bluntly.
Brock slumped into his chair and sighed. “Go on.”
Poole filled him in, trying to read the inspector’s reaction to the news as he did so. Brock calmly sipped his coffee and stared down at his desk until Poole fell silent.
“I need to tell Inspector Sharp, sir,” Poole said.
“Of course you do,” Brock answered. “But I’m not sure you want to reveal the source.”
“I don’t really, sir, no.”
Brock nodded. “Wait here.” He stood and left the room in a matter of seconds. Poole turned to his computer and pulled his phone from his pocket. By the time the inspector had returned, Poole had noted an address gathered from the number and carefully folded it into his pocket.
“Sharp’s got the info,” Brock said. He had seen Poole slip the paper into his pocket but said nothing about it.
“What did you tell him?” Poole asked.
“I told him it had come from an informant, but that he’d need to check it out for himself.” He looked at Poole as though deciding something. After what, to Poole, felt like an age, he spoke.
“Be careful here, Poole. I don’t know how your dad knew what he knew, but using information like this in a case is risky. Let’s not make a habit of it, OK?”
His tone was so serious that Poole had replied with a clipped, “Yes, sir,” before he had even realised it.
“Now let’s get down to the hotel,” Brock said. “I can’t get Davies on his mobile and I need him to go and look for those sheets.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What the bloody hell is all this?!” Brock grumbled as Poole guided the car toward the Sinton Hotel.
Outside a small crowd were gathered, the cameras and microphones held by many of them making it clear they were journalists.
“I thought all this lot had buggered off,” Brock said as they passed the crowd, turning in through the archway to the small courtyard at the rear of the hotel.
They stepped out and headed through the back door and into the lobby which was full of people. A group of men and women in expensive-looking suits loitered to their left, while the rest of the room was filled with young, good-looking people who were laughing and joking loudly. This party atmosphere was accentuated by the fact that everyone in the room held a flute of champagne as waiters and waitresses buzzed about with silver trays full of canapés.
Brock accosted a waiter who had a selection of small curls of raw beef, each with a dollop of horseradish.
“What’s all this about?” he asked the man as he helped himself to two of the rolls.
“It’s the announcement of the new Foul Murder film,” the waiter asked with an amused expression. “Have you gate-crashed or something? The normal hotel guests aren’t allowed in here for this.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we’re not normal guests then, isn’t it?” Brock said, taking another slice of beef and stepping past him into the crowd.
Poole followed, looking up as the main doors opened and the press began to flood in. He noticed Mike Hart was the person responsible for opening the doors and pointed him out to Brock, who headed toward him like a large shark parting the waves.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Brock said as they reached Hart, still sporting the black polo-necked shirt he always seemed to wear, but it was now accompanied by a suit jacket.
“They’re announcing the film,” he answered miserably.
“Now?!” Brock thundered over the dull humo
ur of the room. “When there have just been two murders here?”
“No better time.” Hart shrugged. “The publicity’s through the roof. They’ve got a box office hit on their hands before they’ve even made the thing.”
Brock snatched a flute of champagne and some small pastries from two passing waiters and shook his head. “Some people will try and exploit any situation.”
“And where are the rest of the cast?” Poole asked.
Mike Hart looked at him nervously. “Well, Gina will be making her grand entrance in a moment. She’s going to be confirmed as the lead in the film. Eli’s somewhere around here. I saw him talking to some of the film people a while ago with that Jane Marx from the theatre.” He turned his eyes to the crowd and began scanning it.
“And what about Miss Lennon?” Poole asked.
“Isabella’s gone back to London,” Hart said meekly.
“What?!” Brock said, spinning back to him and spraying pastry for his mouth.
“Look, it's not my fault,” Hart said, stepping back from the reddening Brock. “Ask your constable over there; he’s the one who had the fight with her.”
Brock followed his finger and looked across the room to where Constable Davies was stood behind the reception desk, talking to a middle-aged woman.
Brock set off, marching across the room and parting the crowd like a professional rugby player.
“Davies,” Brock roared as he arrived at the desk. “Why the bloody hell has one of my murder suspects been allowed to leave?”
Davies turned to him, righting his helmet as it slipped on his head. Now that he was looking at them, they could see the forming of a black eye on the left side of his face.
“I’m sorry, sir. I told her she couldn’t go and she hit me with her handbag,” Davies said in a weak voice. “I think she had a bowling ball in it,” he added darkly.
“And what exactly did you do then? Just let her walk out of here?!”
“Well I was knocked out for a little bit, sir,” Davies said, his cheeks reddening. “But we’re checking the footage of the outside camera to see if we can get a look at the car she left in.”
Poole watched Brock’s face change from one of annoyance to something calmer.
“OK, Davies, good work. When you’ve done that I want you to get out the back and check the large wheelie bins there for any bed sheets you can find.”
“Bed sheets, sir?” Davies said, looking confused.
“Bed sheets,” Brock confirmed. “Then bag them up somehow and get them to the lab and see what they can pull off them. Rush job, as fast as they can.”
“Yes, sir,” Davies said, bewildered.
Brock turned and walked a few steps away before scanning the crowd.
“I think we need to go and talk to the people in suits,” he said as Poole joined him. They moved back across the lobby to the group who looked as though they had been taking full advantage of the free alcohol.
“I’m Detective Inspector Brock and this is Detective Sergeant Poole.” Brock’s loud voice cut across a young, brash-looking man who had been telling a story of some sort.
“Ah, the police!” the man said, turning to them. “I wondered when we could expect a visit from you.”
“And you are?”
“Chester Lavington,” the man answered. “This is my picture.”
“So, it’s you that’s been changing your mind over the lead in the film?”
The man’s smile flickered. “Hardly changing our minds, Inspector; it's more that our choices have been dropping like flies—which I think is your job to stop, unless I’m mistaken?”
A thick silence spread over the group, seeming to block out the noise of the room. Poole watched Brock’s jaw tighten as he took a step forward.
“Believe it or not, Mr Lavington,” Brock said, his voice a low growl, “I’ve met people like you before. Little people with money which lets them act like they’re above everybody else. But they’re not, are they, Mr Lavington?” Brock inched closer as Lavington tried to back up but found the wall behind him. “This flashy persona, the cocky manner, it’s all just there in the hope that people don’t see the real you and realise what a tiny little worm of a person you are.”
Lavington’s mouth opened and shut like a fish.
“Now, I think you should tell us who you told about the changes to the lead role of this and when you told them, and then we might be able to catch this lunatic.”
“We told all of them different things,” Lavington blurted out. “We were trying to play them off against each other, get them all hungry for the part so they would bad mouth each other in the press and we would get some publicity out of it. I can get my PA to give you the details,” he stammered, his eyes pleading that this would be enough.
Brock turned and walked away abruptly, leaving the rest of the group shuffling nervously as Poole took the details of Lavington’s PA and moved toward Brock, who stood a few feet away.
“I rather think Miss Glover is about to make her entrance,” Brock said, smiling as his gaze fixed on the red-headed figure of Gina who had appeared at the top of the stairs.
Poole couldn’t help but notice that Brock’s mood seemed to have suddenly improved greatly. He often likened the inspector to a steam pipe whose pressure needed to be released periodically or he’d blow up. He was just grateful that there were other people in the world to take some of these releases, not just him.
The press had noticed Gina now and a murmur flew around the lobby as the crowd turned toward her as one.
As she descended and the cameras flashed, Poole’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Hello?” he said, sticking one finger in his ear to try and block out the noise of the room.
“Poole? It’s Anderson.”
“Anderson? What do you want?”
“It looks like our case is connected to yours.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Now, Sam, I want you to remember that this is still my case,” Detective Inspector Roderick Sharp said, “and I’m going to pursue it as such.”
He stood looking up at Brock, his perfectly rectangular moustache bristling either in the wind or with indignation.
Sharp and Anderson had arrived just twenty minutes later at the hotel and Brock and Poole had stepped out to join them.
“That’s fine with me, Rod, but we’re dealing with two deaths here and some maniac who might not be finished. If your girl is mixed up in this somehow I’d put money on her killer being the same as ours.”
Poole glanced at Anderson, who stood next to the much shorter figure of Sharp with his arms folded. A sneer of distaste played on his lips and he for all the world gave the impression of a man who did not want to be there.
“Just tell us what the link is,” Brock said firmly.
“Well apparently Ella Louise was hired through her agency on Tuesday night, the night she died, and her client was someone in this hotel.”
“Who?” Brock asked urgently.
“We don’t know; they never gave a name. All we know is it was a woman.”
“A woman?” Brock said, one magnificent eyebrow rising to the overcast sky.
“That’s right. Can you think of anyone who might have—” Sharp cleared his throat as though he was finding the conversation uncomfortable “—done that from the hotel?”
Brock’s eyes narrowed. “I think we need to find Isabella Lennon.”
“And who’s that when she’s at home?” Sharp said in his clipped, military tone.
“She was having a sexual relationship with our first victim, Jarvis Alvarado”
Sharp snorted. “Then she hardly seems the type to have been calling up an escort, does she?!”
“Actually,” Brock said, “I’m starting to wonder if all three of them might have had a date together.”
“Good lord!” Sharp said, turning to Anderson as though looking for confirmation that such things could indeed happen.
Anderson continued to seeth
e from behind Sharp, as he had done since they had arrived, staring at Poole with thinly veiled hatred.
“Poole, we need to get to Isabella Lennon,” Brock said, turning and walking away.
“I want to be kept up-to-date with everything, Sam!” Sharp called from behind them.
“Will do, Rod!” Brock called back, smiling.
“It’s Roderick!” the cry came back.
“Anderson really doesn’t like you, does he?” Brock said with a chuckle, his good mood apparently continuing. “It looked like he was trying to make your head fall off by staring at you.”
“I think he thinks we always get the good cases, sir,” Poole answered honestly.
“Then he’s an idiot,” the inspector answered, his face suddenly grim. “There’s nothing good about murder no matter how famous the people being killed are.”
“So, shall I go and check with Davies to see whether he’s got the number of the car Isabella Lennon got into?”
“Could do,” Brock answered, “but first you should get some uniform to go round to her house in London.”
“You think she’s gone back there?”
“I don’t know yet; that’s why you need to send uniform around.”
Poole smiled and pulled his phone from his pocket and then paused.
“So, do you think Isabella Lennon made that call, sir?”
“Think about it, Poole. Isabella Lennon was seen leaving Alvarado’s room the next morning. She said herself she slept with him that night. Then he gets Mike Hart to get rid of the sheets the next day. Why would he do that?”
Poole stopped in shock. “You think Alvarado killed the escort in the hotel room?”
“Maybe. But I think it’s more likely that the three of them had a little fun and then somehow that girl was killed and he panicked about possibly having her DNA in his hotel room.”
“But Isabella Lennon couldn’t have killed her; she was with Alvarado until the morning when Eli Patrick saw her leave.”
“You heard how much Alvarado liked a drink. He could have been snoring his head off with Isabella sneaking out to kill this Ella Louise.”
A Staged Death (A Brock & Poole Mystery Book 2) Page 11