The Thirteenth Room (Kempston Hardwick Mysteries Book 4)

by Adam Croft

  ‘Probably for the best,’ Hardwick said. ‘Would the equity in the house cover the debts, then? By my calculations there’s over a hundred thousand pounds owing and I think I saw somewhere that your house was remortgaged fairly recently.’

  Scarlett started blinking rapidly. She was clearly not a woman who was particularly good at hiding her thoughts or emotions, but on the same measure she wasn’t someone who would easily give in or back down.

  ‘There’ll be something we can do. There has to be. Like I said, I haven’t had time to look at all the details yet.’

  Hardwick heard her voice break slightly on the last couple of words and chose not to say anything, instead letting her process her own thoughts.

  ‘Oh god,’ she finally said, as the tears started to roll down her cheeks and her shoulders began to tremble. ‘What am I going to do?’

  Hardwick was saved from having to comfort her by the sound of a key turning in the lock and the front door creaking open. A couple of seconds later it closed and the sound of footsteps coming towards the living room got louder and louder as Kevin McGready entered the room.

  ‘Oh. Didn’t know you had visitors,’ he said to Scarlett.

  ‘Mr McGready, what a pleasure it is,’ Hardwick said. ‘I see you’ve got your own key. That’s handy.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Nothing at all. Like I said, it’s handy. You can pop round and see how Scarlett’s getting on.’

  ‘Right. And what are you doing here in the first place?’ Kevin asked. ‘I thought I told your mate not to bother coming round again.’

  ‘You did. You told him not to go to your flat. You didn’t tell me not to come to Scarlett’s house.’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny with me mate?’ Kevin said loudly as Scarlett jumped up and grabbed his arm.

  ‘Kevin, don’t! Leave it. He just came to ask me some questions, that’s all. He knows. All right?’

  ‘Knows what?’

  ‘About the financial stuff. Just leave it, all right?’

  ‘I was going to say, Mrs Carr, that there’s been a second death at the Manor Hotel. I know it seems very odd to ask it, but I have to do so as a matter of course because you were both connected to Elliot Carr. Where were you on Friday night?’

  ‘What, so now you think I not only bumped off Elliot but that I’m a serial killer as well. Is that it?’ Kevin said.

  ‘Not at all. We just need to ask everyone.’

  ‘I was at home. So was Scarlett. Happy now?’

  ’Thank you,’ Hardwick said. ‘It’s just procedure.’

  ‘Procedure?’ Kevin asked. ‘For who? The police?’

  Hardwick could see where this was going. He pulled his notepad out of one of his jacket pockets and produced a pen from the other.

  ‘If you could just jot that down for me, Mr McGready, then I promise I’ll be able to leave you be.’

  ‘Jot what down?’

  ‘Just write “Scarlett Carr and I were both in our respective houses on the night of the second suicide, signed Kevin McGready.” That should do.’

  ‘Then you’ll leave us alone?’

  ‘Of course. If you have nothing to hide.’

  Kevin McGready stared at Hardwick for a few moments before grinding his teeth, picking up the pen and beginning to write.

  Once he’d finished, Hardwick put the pen back in his pocket, glanced at the paper and smiled.

  ‘Thank you, Mr McGready. That’ll be all for now.’

  38

  The Manor Hotel felt like a strange kind of home to Rosie Blackburn. It wasn’t her actual home, but then again she wasn’t sure what was. The house she owned and lived in wasn’t far away at all, but it could hardly feel like home seeing as she’d only just moved in. She didn’t quite have the same attachment to her previous home as most people would after a number of years, either.

  Sure, the old house had been home, but that sense of security and belonging had been cruelly torn from her four years ago and it hadn’t come back since. That feeling that something was missing was a feeling that she would never be able to shake. Nowhere would ever feel like home again. The Manor Hotel was the closest she’d ever come, though.

  She’d come here every year on this day for the past four years and had felt both comfortable and safe, knowing that this was her tradition. This was her place on this day of the year. Every other day of the year had got progressively easier as time had gone by. The pain had never gone away, but it had dulled, become numb. This one particular day never got any easier, though. That was why she came to the Manor Hotel to be on her own and to both escape and be with her memories, short as they were.

  Some of the coping mechanisms were working well. Her counsellor had convinced her to try meditation and relaxation therapies, which’d had some benefits. The concept of talking to people — people she didn’t know — about what had happened was something she had been unable to do up until now. But somehow the fog was lifting slightly. She’d told herself that if the subject came up in conversation she’d talk about what had happened four years ago.

  She knew it wouldn’t be easy. She knew she’d probably break down in floods of tears. It would be the first time she had properly addressed the situation with another person, but it had to be done.

  Once she’d checked in, Rosie hauled her overnight bag over her shoulder and made her way up the staircase to her room. The hotel seemed quieter than usual, which was hardly a surprise considering the stories in the news about the two suicides recently. That didn’t bother her, though. She’d almost become desensitised to death.

  In her room, she took her change of clothes out of her overnight bag and laid them on the bed. In the bottom of her bag, next to her toiletries holder, was a small framed photograph. She brought it here every year and knew she had to be close to it. It was a permanent reminder of what she’d been through, but it was also a huge comfort.

  She should have been at home tidying up paper plates sodden in jelly and ice cream and waving off the last of the tired toddlers as their mothers came to collect them but it was not to be. Instead, she was here at the Manor Hotel, as she was every year, escaping from the absence of the family life she should have had.

  She looked at herself in the small gilt-edged mirror over the dressing table, gazing deep into her own eyes. She saw nothing. Rosie had never been one for wearing lots of make-up, but she dabbed some powder and blusher on her cheeks and topped up her lipstick before changing into her spare clothes and making her way downstairs to the lounge room, locking the hotel room door behind her.

  39

  The evening had gone relatively smoothly for Kit Daniels. He and Becky had watched two films and got through two bottles of wine, and all without her having nagged him about getting their own place together.

  It was the evenings in with Becky which really got to him as she’d always make some comment about how nice it would be if they could do this every night in a place of their own. How lovely it would be not to have to part ways afterwards. How it would make them feel like a real couple.

  It wasn’t that Kit didn’t want to commit or that he didn’t agree with her. Far from it. He just felt impotent and helpless as to what he could do about it. Things would change, though. He knew that much.

  The pattern was all too predictable. As the credits rolled on the second film, Becky yawned and drained her glass of wine. Honestly, sometimes it was like going out with a robot and living through Groundhog Day at the same time. He braced himself for what he knew was coming, the red wine sloshing about in his head.

  ‘I meant to ask, how’s that story going at work?’ Becky said innocently, trying to pretend it was just a passing thought as she pulled the fluffy jumper over her head.

  ‘We’re getting there,’ Kit replied. ‘Do you want me to walk you back?’

  ‘Only if you don’t mind. You’re such a sweetie. You know, I can’t wait until I can spend every evening with you.’

  Kit forced
a smile and put on his shoes and jacket.

  They were barely a hundred yards down the road before Becky broached the subject yet again. ‘How close are we to doing it, Kit?’ she asked, looking up at him inquisitively as she held his hand a little tighter.

  ‘To doing what?’ he replied, knowing full well what she meant.

  ‘To getting our own place.’

  ‘I’m doing my best, Becky. You don’t have to keep bugging me about it, all right?’

  ‘Because I was thinking, we could start looking at places and getting a feel for what we like. Perhaps speak to a mortgage advisor and see what we’d need to save and what sort of money they’d give us. Just so we know where we stand. Don’t you think?’

  Kit could feel the blood thumping at his temples as he tried to control his anger.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, can’t you just give it a bloody rest?’ he barked as they walked past the communal garage block which joined the two estates.

  ‘But it’s important to me, Kit. I thought it was to you, too. Look, if you don’t want to then at least just have the decency to tell me.’

  Before Becky could even wait for a reply, she found herself pinned against the nearest garage door, her back having hit the sheet metal with an oddly satisfying thwump. She could hear only the echoing of the metallic impact and the blood pulsing in her ears as she stared into Kit’s wild eyes, his hand constricted round her throat.

  ‘For once in your bloody life, will you just shut up!’ he yelled, the warm alcoholic fumes hitting her face like a tsunami.

  ‘Kit, you’re hurting me,’ she squeaked as she saw the life return to his eyes. Kit’s grip relaxed and he took a step back as Becky’s hand shot to her throat. She found no words as she just stared at him, watching him pace back and forth across the concrete, rubbing his head.

  ‘I can’t handle this pressure, Becky. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I just... Look, I don’t know. It’s just building up. Believe me, I’m doing everything I can to make you happy but you’re making it so bloody impossible for me.’

  Becky remained impassive, staring at him.

  ‘Becky? Please. I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ he said, gripping her forearms and looking into her eyes, seeing her visibly flinch as he did so. ‘I don’t know what happens. It’s just been building up. I’m so sorry. I’ve just been under so much pressure and this really isn’t helping. Look, I’m going to sort this out, all right? Please just stop asking me about it. I’ve got something in the pipeline right as we speak and when it breaks it’s going to set us up for life. All right?’

  Becky swallowed and nodded, not quite sure exactly what she was agreeing to.

  Wednesday 25th March

  40

  Ellis Flint was thoroughly engrossed in the old black and white western on TV, but answered his ringing phone almost immediately, as he usually did.

  ‘Ellis? Hardwick here. Listen, I’m in a phone box on my way to speak to Detective Inspector Warner, so I can’t chat for long. I just wanted to keep you updated. Something very strange happened on Monday morning. I received a death threat.’

  ‘What? Are you serious?’ Ellis said, those being the first words he’d managed to squeeze in since pressing the “answer” button on his phone.

  ‘Absolutely. But I wouldn’t worry. I know who it was from.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Kevin McGready. Fortunately, he turned up while I was at Scarlett Carr’s house. I managed to get him to write down his alibi for the night Kimberly Gray died.’

  ‘What? You don’t honestly think he killed Kimberly Gray, do you, Kempston?’ Ellis asked.

  ‘Oh no, not in the slightest. I only wanted his alibi written down so I could compare his writing to the note I received. He tried to obscure the handwriting, but not enough. Besides which, it was a little grammatical peculiarity which gave him away. He has a dreadful habit of spelling “our” a-r-e. That gave him away somewhat.’

  ‘Right. So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Nothing. There’s nothing to do and no point in doing anything. As I said, I don’t really think he’s a credible suspect so I shan’t be poking around in his business, as he sees it.’

  ‘But how can you say he’s not a suspect, Kempston? He had a damn good reason to want Elliot Carr dead. And we still don’t know where he was on the night Elliot Carr died.’

  ‘He wasn’t at the Manor Hotel, that much is certain. I’ve seen the CCTV footage of people coming and going from the front entrance — the only entrance — on the night he died. Kevin McGready isn’t on it.’

  ‘Well who is? Surely the killer must be on the CCTV,’ Ellis said excitedly.

  ‘You’d imagine so, yes.’

  ‘So why don’t you just get their names and addresses off the hotel and we can go and speak to them all? We’ve got a closed circle of suspects, Kempston.’

  ‘It’s not quite that simple, Ellis,’ Kempston said, sighing as he pushed another pound coin into the payphone. ‘I looked at the CCTV footage from the night Kimberly Gray died, too. Far fewer guests that night after the news of Elliot Carr’s death beforehand, and none of them were there on both nights. The only people who were there on both nights were staff members, as you’d expect.‘

  ‘Is there another way into the hotel?’

  ‘Not that I know of. I mean, of course there are french windows and fire exits and what have you, which I suppose is what I’d use if I was going to break into a hotel and kill someone. The CCTV doesn’t cover them all, though. Only the ones which can be opened from the outside.’

  ‘So if someone went in through an already open door which only opened from the inside, they could get in without being seen?’

  ‘That’s about the long and short of it, yes. And as the hotel only has a few rooms, CCTV on the floors is very limited.’

  ‘Right. So what do we do now?’

  ‘As I see it, if the deaths are connected and both Elliot Carr and Kimberly Gray were murdered, then it’s very difficult to see how the same person could’ve killed them both. The only people there on both nights were the members of hotel staff and none of them even knew Elliot and Kimberly, let alone had a reason to kill them, knowing they’d become the prime suspects if they did.’

  ‘Except for Owen Bartlett, who did a runner.’

  ‘Indeed. But he wasn’t in the area when the second death occurred. Which means we’d then be looking at two separate killers. Why would they both kill in exactly the same way in exactly the same place? They’d have to be connected in some way. In cahoots, perhaps. Failing that, the third possibility is the one that I somehow feel least happy with. That they were both suicides and that Kimberly Gray’s was a copycat suicide. It just doesn’t ring true, though. It doesn’t feel right.’ A sudden moment of clarity hit Hardwick. ‘Or maybe there’s no link at all. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe the victims weren’t the target.’

  ‘How can they not be the target?’ Ellis asked.

  ‘Maybe the victims were just collateral. Maybe someone had a grudge against the hotel.’

  ‘Owen Bartlett?’

  ‘Perhaps. Or maybe someone had a grudge against a particular person and wanted to set them up for murder.’

  ‘So why make it look like suicide?’ Ellis asked.

  ‘That’s what I’m not quite sure of at the moment.’

  Ellis was silent for a few moments. ‘Kempston, do you ever think that perhaps for once your feeling might be wrong?’

  Hardwick swallowed hard before speaking. ‘No, Ellis. I don’t.’

  41

  ‘You’d better have something good for me, Hardwick. And I mean bloody good,’ Detective Inspector Rob Warner said as Hardwick entered his hallway.

  Hardwick knew he didn’t have something good, other than his hunch. DI Rob Warner was not a man who worked from hunches, but he was occasionally vulnerable to being gradually worn down over time until he gave up and acquiesced.

  ‘Yes and no,’ Hardwick said. ‘I’ve s
poken to Kimberly Gray’s parents and friends.’

  ‘You’ve done what?’ Warner croaked, by now resigned to Hardwick’s whims and insistence.

  ‘It’s not a crime, is it?’ Hardwick asked innocently.

  ‘That all depends, doesn’t it? Did you go around telling them you were a police officer again?’

  ‘I never once claimed to be a police officer, no. I never have. If people choose to believe that, it’s not for me to disabuse them of the notion.’

  ‘Don’t get clever with me, Hardwick. What did they say?’

  ‘They said that Kimberly wasn’t the sort of person to kill herself. Quite the opposite, in fact. They said that she had been having the time of her life recently. Absolutely no indication that she would do anything like that.’

  ‘Well yes, that’s often the case,’ Warner said, leaning back on his reclining chair in a manner which suggested a nonchalant confidence over Hardwick. ‘You never know what people are going through privately. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t mentally ill, though, does it?’

  ‘No, but it does make it rather unlikely,’ Hardwick said. ‘I also spoke to Owen Bartlett.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The employee at the Manor Hotel who disappeared on the night Elliot Carr died. He went back to his mother’s house in Brighton.’

  ‘Right,’ Warner said. ‘I see.’ Hardwick could see that this piece of information hadn’t been relayed to Warner until now. For the first time, he felt that he finally had the upper hand.

  ‘Something wasn’t quite right about him. He was definitely hiding something. I can tell you that much. But it wasn’t what I’d expected, I must be honest. First of all he told me that he hadn’t enjoyed working at the Manor Hotel for a long time and that finding out Elliot Carr had died had tipped him over the edge and he’d left. Fairly plausible, I grant you. But I’d already asked the people he was living with in South Heath, and they told me he’d come back just after eleven o’clock that evening and then got on a train.’ Hardwick stopped to let this information sink in.