by Oliver Tidy
‘No. We’re hoping someone might have seen something regarding a new line of enquiry. No need to gather them all together. I know you have a busy establishment to run. But I would appreciate you putting the word out that we’re about and we’ll be speaking to everyone. I have a couple of other officers and a forensics team on the way. Who should I speak to about whether a guest who was staying here had their own transport?’
‘Reception should have that information.’
Room number eleven had not been occupied since Mrs Allen had left. That was good news. The forensics team installed themselves and set about collecting their samples and scouring the accommodation for something that might make a liar of Mrs Allen. Grimes and Harmer duly arrived and Romney asked the manager if he might make temporary use of one of the empty conference rooms.
Romney explained what had been discovered and what was now believed to have happened. Grimes had half a dozen colour copies of Mrs Allen’s profile photograph downloaded from the website of the literary agency she worked for and that Romney had told him to get enlarged and printed off at the station and bring with him.
They discovered that Mrs Allen had driven to the hotel and taken advantage of the hotel’s free parking. However, the parking area was not secured or patrolled and guests were free to come and go as they pleased. There was a CCTV camera monitoring the area and Romney set Harmer to investigating any footage from the weekend. Grimes went in search of employees to question regarding whether they had seen anyone resembling Mrs Allen coming or going on that night.
Both avenues of hopeful enquiry soon proved to be disappointing. A seagull had built a nest that obscured the view of the car park camera and the police were reminded of the wedding that had taken place at the hotel that Saturday, the well-attended disco of which had gone on past midnight. More than one member of staff told Grimes that it was impossible to know who was a guest and who wasn’t, let alone who anyone was.
Romney asked for the key to room ten and said to Marsh, ‘I’m going up for another look. Coming?’
Romney unlocked and they ducked under the police tape. The windows had remained shut and the air was fetid and still. The room was haunted with the unpleasantness that had occurred there and it subdued the officers.
‘What are we looking for?’ said Marsh.
Romney huffed and said, ‘I have no idea.’ After poking about for a minute, he said, ‘Mrs Allen knew that Stephanie had cleared out, right? Run off home to drown her sorrows or lick her wounds or whatever she was intending to do. She must have known it before Rachael arrived for her to have felt comfortable about leaving the body in here so that Stephanie would fall under suspicion. It wouldn’t have worked if she’d believed Stephanie could return at any time to start denying things.’
‘Right.’
‘How would she have known?’
‘Stephanie probably told her.’
‘How? I’d bet she didn’t knock on her door and tell her. She’d have wanted to avoid that. Stephanie was a writer. Writers write. If she were going to let her agent know she was clearing out, my guess is she’d have left a note.’
‘Perhaps. So?’
‘If you’re in a hotel room and you want to write something down where do you write it? On the hotel notepaper. Maybe Stephanie wrote a note and left it for Mrs Allen to find.’ Romney was opening drawers looking for a pad of Dover Marina Hotel notepaper.
‘If she did and she’s got something to hide she’s hardly likely to have left it lying around is she? And in any case, the cleaning staff would have thrown it away if she had,’ said Marsh. ‘Wouldn’t she have just sent a text message, given the century we’re in?’
Romney found what he was looking for and waved it at Marsh. ‘Possibly. So here’s the funny bit, but don’t laugh. It’s a bit Sherlockian. Something I learned when I was a kid. If you write on a piece of paper that’s part of a pad quite often where you press down an impression of what you wrote is left behind on the paper beneath.’
‘That’s twice you’ve mentioned Sherlock Holmes this afternoon, sir.’
‘What about it?’ he said. Marsh shrugged. He was holding a pencil at an acute angle and was moving the tip of it rapidly from side to side across the paper, like he was shading something in. His tongue was poking out of the corner of his mouth. Marsh moved over to stand next to him.
‘Get out of my light, will you?’ he said.
Marsh adjusted her position, watched and waited. As the white of the page gradually became more obliterated with the pencil lead, Marsh was astonished to see letters forming where whoever had written on the last sheet that had been torn out had pressed down hard into the pad. The letters joined to become distinguishable words and then a sentence. Romney stopped and turned it this way and that to read it.
‘What does it say, sir?’
‘More tea bags, please.’
Romney warned Marsh to keep that to herself. She said it wouldn’t have counted for anything anyway because it couldn’t be proved that Mrs Allen had got any message. Romney told her to go down and talk to the staff with Grimes and he went, once again, in search of the manager.
Mr Unwin was in his office and at his desk. Romney tapped on the glass and was beckoned in.
‘Sorry to bother you again.’
‘No problem, Inspector. What can I do for you?’
Romney sat down heavily. ‘Mrs Allen raised the alarm, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Tell me what happened when you went upstairs.’
‘Mrs Allen was waiting outside number ten. She explained her concerns. I used my pass key to gain entry to the room. I looked in and immediately saw that poor woman sprawled on the floor.’
‘Did Mrs Allen enter the room?’
He thought. ‘Yes. I took a couple of paces in and she came in behind me.’
‘Did she go near the body?’
He shook his head. ‘Neither of us went within ten feet of it. I said we should get out immediately and call for an ambulance and the police.’
‘Can you remember how Mrs Allen reacted?’
‘Naturally, she seemed very shaken up.’
‘Did she say anything?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Sorry, Inspector. Nothing that I can remember. May I ask why you’re so interested in the actions and reactions of Mrs Allen?’
‘Not now, Mr Unwin.’ Romney thanked him and wandered back out into the foyer feeling deflated and frustrated. Grimes was standing with a slightly-built man wearing the hotel’s uniform that seemed at least two sizes too big for him sharing something they both found funny. Romney walked over with the intention of giving Grimes the hint he should be getting on with what he’d been told to do and not wasting police time in idle banter with the help.
‘There you are, gov,’ said Grimes. ‘We were looking for you.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘Mr D’Angelo here remembers Mrs Lather and Mrs Allen.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Mr D’Angelo was working Saturday afternoon. Because the hotel was busy with the wedding, he was called in.’
‘Fascinating. Is there a point to this?’
‘Getting there, gov. Early Saturday afternoon, the Lather woman left a message at reception to pass on to the occupant of room eleven but not until half an hour had elapsed.’
‘How do you know it was Mrs Lather?’ Romney asked D’Angelo.
‘I recognised her from the do in the morning.’
‘Was it delivered?’
‘Yes. I was asked to do it. I gave it to the woman in that picture.’ He pointed at the colour photograph of Mrs Allen that Grimes was holding in front of his chest like someone looking for a missing family member after a natural disaster.’
‘What time did you deliver it?’
‘Just after one o’clock.’
‘How can you be sure of the time?’
‘When she left the message, I’d just come back off my lunch break. And she said to
wait half an hour so we did.’
Romney beamed. ‘Well done,’ he said to Grimes. ‘Thank you, Mr D’Angelo. That could prove to be very important.’ To Grimes, Romney said, ‘Seen Joy?’
‘In the staffroom, I think, gov.’
Romney made to move off in the direction Grimes had pointed.
‘Don’t you want to know what the message said, gov?’ said Grimes.
Romney turned his interested gaze back on the hotel man. ‘You read it?’
‘The envelope wasn’t sealed.’
‘Well?’
‘It said, ‘Had enough of Dover. Tell the hotel to pack my stuff up and deliver it.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘I knew it.’ Romney stopped short of punching the air.
*
‘So we now have a credible witness who can testify that Stephanie Lather wrote a goodbye note and Mrs Allen received it,’ Romney told Marsh. ‘That’s something and nothing.’
‘But we can’t be sure that she read it, can we?’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, and it’s likely, but we can’t be certain. If she did, it confirms three things: it tells us that Mrs Allen knew Stephanie had left the hotel and gone home; that she knew Stephanie’s room would be empty and that she has something to hide because she has been less than honest with us.’
‘Less than honest? She’s a lying, scheming cow. She could end up rivalling that other witch West in the evil stakes. The female of the species and all that.’ They were sitting in the otherwise empty hotel conference room at a table Mr Unwin had had set up for them. He’d even thoughtfully provided coffee and biscuits. ‘But we’ve got nothing solid. Nothing incontrovertible. It’s all circumstantial. She could claim she didn’t read the note, or just forgot about it. And even if she didn’t, it doesn’t prove anything, does it? Neither does the Temazepam link or the dead dog. With the lack of CCTV for that night and a busy wedding celebration in full swing the gods of murder and mischief have been smiling on her.’
‘We’ve got her signed statement, sir, and enquiries to make about her journey up to Stephanie’s that night.’
‘That’s something, I suppose. With the porter’s statement it’s something extra. But it’s not nearly enough. We’d better hope that forensics find something in her room.’
The door to the conference room swung open to reveal Superintendent Vine in full uniform. She was not looking pleased. ‘Give us a moment, Sergeant Marsh, would you, please?’
Marsh looked only too happy to oblige. As she was shutting the door behind her, Romney caught a look of concern on her pasty features.
‘The coffee’s fresh,’ said Romney.
Superintendent Vine appeared not to be interested. She placed her regulation hat on the table and occupied the seat vacated by Marsh. Romney didn’t particularly want another cup of the brown stuff, but he helped himself anyway.
‘Inspector Romney, I had hoped that I’d made it quite clear to you that I need to be kept informed of your whereabouts at all times.’
‘If you’re on about this morning, ma’am, I left a message with your secretary.’
‘I got it. I’m going out for a bit isn’t really what I had in mind.’ She allowed this to settle before saying, ‘I’ve just spent an uncomfortable fifteen minutes on the telephone with a Mrs Allen. She is considering making a serious and formal complaint against Dover police regarding the exhumation and subsequent “post-mortem” of her dog – all without her consent – the circumstances surrounding which, if she is to be believed – and I for one see no reason to doubt her – leave me almost at a loss for words. The use and abuse of police resources for your own ends is a matter of the gravest concern for me.’
Romney opened his mouth to speak only to have Boudicca show him the palm of her right hand. That was twice she’d done that to him and he was getting a little tired of it. ‘An operation, for want of a better word, in which you made me an unwitting partner. A matter of life and death, you said. You asked me to trust you and this is how you repaid that trust. That makes me extremely unhappy.
‘And on top of all that I now learn that you have been involving yourself in the investigation of circumstances surrounding the death of Bernard Stark directly in opposition to my expressed and clear instructions that you keep well out of it. Inspector Romney, I have to wonder whether you are deliberately seeking to antagonise, provoke and alienate me with your behaviour. If not, if your conduct reflects your normal way of doing things, then I shudder to think what other abuses of your position you have engaged in under the blind eye of my predecessor.’
Romney felt the temperature and flow-rate of his blood increase rapidly in the short time it took the station chief to tear him off a strip. He felt his face flush and saw reflected in the eyes of the woman opposite him something of his rising anger. And then it was passed for him – he rode the red wave, crested it and plunged down the other side into the cooling waters of Fuck-You Bay. He bought himself a moment with a sip of his bitter coffee and said with a quiet, even-tempered naturalness, ‘OK. Just for a couple of minutes let’s drop the charade, shall we?’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘I said, let’s try some honesty. You don’t like the way we do things here. Or more precisely you don’t like the way I do things here. You’re here, in Dover, to make a name for yourself. Break a few ranks. Add something to your CV. Because you’re going places and you don’t care who you tread all over to get there.’ A crimson flush beneath the heavily-freckled exterior betrayed Superintendent Vine’s own outrage at levels of insubordination and rudeness she was clearly quite unused to. But Romney was suddenly past caring about whether he would ever be able to climb out of the hole he was digging for himself. ‘I’m leading a murder enquiry and I go where I have to go and do what I have to do to find those responsible, which I believe we now have – the woman, incidentally, who you’ve been sympathising with and no doubt encouraging to go ahead and make her official complaint against me – and bring them to account.
‘Mrs Allen is a double murderess. She’s been clever and coldly calculating but she’s no Moriarty.
‘Of course she’s making a complaint against me. She wants to deflect attention from herself. I suppose she’s demanding her dog be returned immediately?’ And he derived some satisfaction from the change of expression on Boudicca’s face to confirm this. ‘The same dog that will help us to convict her.
‘As for me involving myself in Bernie Stark’s death, did you really expect me to sit idly by and watch my reputation be carved up by all those with an interest in seeing it? My investigations into Bernie Stark’s untimely demise have revealed things that only local police knowledge and contacts could. If I’d left it to one of Area’s stuffed shirts I can just imagine how much effort they’d have put into getting to the bottom of it and Dover CID out of the shit that Area want to bury us in.
‘I suppose what you have to decide, Superintendent Vine, is what is more important to you: bean counting and bureaucracy or what we’re paid for – catching the bad guys.’
When Boudicca finally found her voice it had assumed a tone that suggested not only had she never been spoken to in such a way before, but that she might also harbour a sneaking admiration for Romney for speaking his mind so frankly. In more measured tones, she said, ‘What interests me, Inspector, is everything that running an effective and successful modern police station involves: productivity, people, procedure, performance and paperwork.’
‘So you do your job and let me do mine.’ Romney grinned suddenly and it was apparent that Superintendent Vine found this disconcerting. ‘I’ll tell you what, ma’am. Let me alone to do things my way on this. If I cock it up, you can have my warrant card and I won’t even make a fuss about it. I’ll go quietly and save you the job.’
Before Boudicca could respond to his offer there was a tap at the door. Romney barked out, ‘Come,’ and Grimes stuck his fat face, looking like
a ripe pumpkin, through the narrow opening. ‘Sorry to interrupt, gov, but forensics have found something that might interest you in Mrs Allen’s room.’
Romney nodded once and Grimes withdrew. ‘Well, ma’am?’
They stared levelly into each other’s eyes for several long seconds before Superintendent Vine said, ‘Let’s go and see what they’ve found, shall we, Inspector Romney?’
Marsh and Grimes were standing in the corridor outside Mrs Allen’s room looking in through the open door. Both straightened up when they saw who Romney had brought along with him.
‘What have we got?’ said Romney.
‘They’ve found blood on the wall behind the unit there.’ Marsh gestured towards a small wooden cupboard on wheels. ‘And there’s a stain on the carpet under it. They think it’s blood someone has tried to clean up and hide.’
‘It’s something.’ Romney called through to the technicians. ‘What’s the soonest you can let us know whether this matches the blood of the dead woman from down the hall from last Saturday?’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ someone answered.
‘I need it sooner,’ said Romney. He turned to Marsh, ‘Any luck with their mobile phones yet?’
‘No mobile phone was recovered from Stephanie Lather’s home, sir.’
‘How come?’
‘Either she lost it or it was taken by someone,’ said Marsh, trying not to sound as though that was too easy a question. ‘Rachael Sparrow’s should be back at the nick in the evidence room. I’m going to check that out as soon as we get back.’
Romney nodded and thought. Then he said, ‘We’re done here. I want everyone back in the CID meeting room and ready in an hour.’ He turned and walked away without another word.
Superintendent Vine waited a few seconds more. To Marsh she looked like someone burdened with appalling knowledge. Vine looked across and caught Joy’s eye. She didn’t smile. With a serious look fixed to her features she wheeled about and left, also without speaking.
‘What do you reckon, Sarge? Lovers’ tiff?’ said Grimes, and Marsh, despite her fears for her DI’s position, had to smile at him.