by Carol Wyer
Louisa’s fingers interlocked and she tapped her thumbs together rhythmically.
‘If you were me, DI Carter, would you allow your officer to hunt about on what is likely to be a wild-goose chase or would you deploy them elsewhere, possibly to one of the many areas where they are needed more urgently?’
Robyn squared her shoulders and regarded her superior with a confident air. ‘I would allow the officer to follow their hunch and, if they did not turn up anything, send them elsewhere.’
Louisa breathed in deeply. ‘You are not making this easy for me, DI Carter. I have already had DI Shearer in here complaining that you are not following procedure and that you have suggested he has not done his job properly. I don’t want any bad feeling among my officers. I need you to work as a team. If I am seen to give you the go-ahead, it will appear I am choosing favourites, and there are no favourites in this station, just hard-working individuals.
‘Excuse me, ma’am, I spoke to DI Shearer before I came to see you about this. I most certainly did not suggest he had not done his job properly. I merely pointed out that there had been concerns, from a third party, that Miles Ashbrook had not gone into the sauna willingly. I didn’t want to be anything other than open with him. I didn’t do this behind his back.’
‘I understand.’ Mulholland turned back towards the window. ‘Sorry, DI Carter. There are several case files for you to chase up on your desk and I’d like you to attend to them. I want them resolved. I can’t allow you to pursue any line of enquiry into Miles Ashbrook’s death during valuable police time.’ She let her words hang in the air.
‘Yes, ma’am, I understand,’ replied Robyn, with a thoughtful expression on her face.
Soon afterwards, Robyn strode back into her office. Mitz was typing a report. Anna was working through some files.
‘Anna, isn’t it your day off tomorrow?’
‘It is. I’m taking my dog for a walk on Cannock Chase, and after that I’m having a pamper afternoon – bath, book and wine – lots of wine.’
Robyn grinned at her. ‘I have a better idea. It’s my day off too. Why don’t I treat you to a spa day?’
Seven
‘This isn’t quite what I had in mind,’ complained Anna as she and Robyn squeezed into the office at Bromley Hall.
‘I’ll make sure you get a proper spa day if we uncover anything,’ replied Robyn. ‘Right. You’re the computer whiz. Rewind the video surveillance footage right back to the night Miles Ashbrook died.’
‘You’re lucky they have this much footage. Normally it would have been wiped after twenty-four or forty-eight hours.’
Anna whizzed through to the section where Miles placed his clothes on the lounger.
‘Those are the worst underpants I have ever seen,’ she commented. On screen, Miles, with his back turned to the camera and in a pair of Union Jack boxers, strode to one of the showers outside the sauna.
‘They’re certainly unusual.’ Robyn noted the times as the camera swivelled again to show an empty pool. ‘Is that when he went into the sauna?’
‘No, I think we see him again. I spoke to PC Gareth Arrow on DI Shearer’s team and he said Miles was seen actually going into the sauna.’
The camera panned back to the ice room and then to the entrance to the sauna. Miles was walking towards it. ‘There.’ She paused the footage. ‘That’s him again in his jazzy pants.’
Robyn drummed her fingers soundlessly on her leg. ‘Isn’t it weird to shower in your pants? You’d think he’d have brought swimming trunks.’
‘Must have forgotten them.’
A small sigh escaped Robyn. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was that didn’t feel quite right.
A man appeared at the door. ‘Everything okay?’ he asked. Robyn swivelled in her chair to speak to him. ‘Fine thanks. DI Carter, Staffordshire Police,’ she replied, digging in her trouser pocket for her warrant card. ‘This is PC Anna Shamash. Just going back over footage for the night Miles Ashbrook died.’
‘I thought Miles had a heart attack,’ he said, casually.
‘Just making sure we have covered all angles before we finalise the report, Mr…?’
The man extended a hand. ‘Scott Dawson. I’m the temporary general manager. Also, the gym manager. Poor Miles,’ he added.
Robyn shook his hand, noting the firm grip and clean, neatly cut nails on his tapered fingers. Davies had always had neatly cut nails too, she mused.
Davies always believed you could tell a lot by a man’s hands and his shoes. Scott was shorter than her, with short, fashionably cut hair, spiked with gel, sharp facial features and light-grey eyes. His T-shirt, emblazoned with the hotel’s logo, hugged the contours of his well-defined pectoral muscles. Anna threw him a glance and smiled at him.
‘Have you reason to suspect his death was suspicious?’ he asked.
‘We’re just covering all angles, Mr Dawson. How well did you know Miles Ashbrook?’
‘As well as anyone can know a person who spends most of the day behind closed doors, running through budgets and targets. Miles wasn’t one for socialising. It would have been difficult anyway, given he was brought in as an axe man. Everyone was wary of him. None of us knew who was next to get the chop.’
‘Not an easy job. So, you didn’t really know him?’
‘Apart from the monthly meeting for managers, when we had to go through numbers, costings and so on, I rarely saw him. All the staff take meals in the canteen, so I bumped into him on a few occasions when I was on late shifts and he was eating dinner. He joked he had to eat at the Hall because he was a hopeless cook. I told him I ate here because Alex, my wife, is a hopeless cook. She isn’t really. She’s a great cook, but I can’t go home at eleven p.m. and expect her to feed me. Besides, after training all day, I’m ravenous. I’d eat us out of house and home. The food here’s very good, puts me back on track. I didn’t banter with Miles much. He was the quiet, serious sort. He chatted about football though. Supported the same team as me – Wolves.’ His face softened for an instant.
Robyn noted his wedding band. ‘I expect, like for us in the force, the shifts can really eat into your home life at times.’
‘Yeah. I’m lucky that Alex is in the same industry, so she understands. She’s a beautician here, although she’s part-time at the moment. One of us has to be able to look after George, our three-year-old. He goes to nursery in the mornings.’ He twisted a leather-woven clasp bracelet on his wrist. ‘So, what are you looking for?’
‘As I said, Mr Dawson, just going over the footage.’
Scott nodded seriously, his eyes drawn to the monitor. He suddenly drew himself up as if realising he ought not to be intruding. ‘I’ll leave you to it. If you want me, I’ll be in Miles’s office. I mean, my office. It seems odd. One minute I’m running a gym, and now an entire hotel and spa. I don’t think it’s me. I’m happier shouting instructions to a group of exercise junkies, not staff and friends. Let me know if you want to go into the spa and I’ll show you around.’
‘Thank you. Actually, would you mind if I took a look on my own now?’
‘I think we have several guests at the moment, although if you don’t mind using protective footwear, you can wander about.’
Robyn winked at Anna. ‘You’ll be okay here, won’t you?’
Anna nodded. ‘Much more fun than sitting in a jacuzzi or lying in a steam room,’ she replied, maintaining a serious face. Scott moved away from the door and Robyn whispered, ‘Check the time stamps carefully. Make sure this all fits properly and there is no room for doubt.’
Robyn moved away and followed the temporary manager, who guided her through various grand rooms and then downstairs to the spa area via a labyrinth of dimly lit corridors.
He spoke as they walked. ‘We were going to cancel the reservations out of respect to Miles, but there were so many bookings that it was impossible to shut the place down, and there are the guests to consider. We have several high-profile people staying at the mom
ent, who would be most put out if they couldn’t enjoy their daily routines. All the managers were called into a meeting yesterday morning after Miles was taken away.’ He lowered his voice. ‘After a lengthy discussion, we decided to keep the Hall and spa open. The sauna is out of bounds though. I’m not sure when we’ll reopen it. I haven’t been inside it myself, not since…’ He let out a soft sigh.
‘How long have you worked here?’
‘Eight years. I’ve been gym manager for the last six years. Before that I was a personal trainer here. I still run several classes myself.’
‘What do you teach?’ asked Robyn.
He grinned bashfully. ‘Mostly high-impact stuff, and I run my own version of Gracie Combatives.’
‘That sounds interesting. I gather it’s a routine you adapted yourself,’ Robyn replied, as Scott greeted an attractive dark-eyed woman in her thirties. She wore a silk sarong, wrapped expertly around a slim body, with matching platform sandals. Her rich mahogany hair cascaded over her narrow shoulders and she waited for him to open the door with an air of one who was used to such attentiveness. She smiled tightly as he obliged.
‘Good morning, Scott,’ she purred in a transatlantic accent. ‘Now I won’t ruin my freshly painted nails.’ She waved shiny deep-red nails, the colour of blood, at him and moved past Robyn without acknowledging her.
‘Fiona Maggiore,’ he hissed, as if that explained everything. ‘Married to a multimillionaire property developer. She comes here three or four times a year. One of our VIP guests.’
He showed Robyn into yet another corridor. Unlike the others, which were lit by minuscule wall lights placed at ankle height, this one was brightly lit, painted in subtle tones of blue and cream, with eye-catching seascapes on the walls. Robyn passed a glass cabinet housing top-of-the-range beauty products, nestled among delicate pink seashells, before turning a sharp left into a large glass-domed area, where her eye was drawn to the curved reception desk. At first she thought the large aquamarine wave pattern on the desk was painted, but given that it sparkled in the light, she soon worked out it was in fact a tessellation created on a flat surface using many coloured tiles to give an impression of curvature. Behind the desk, a very tall, trim woman in her late twenties with smooth, coffee-coloured skin, large almond eyes and deep purple hair, was on the telephone. Scott nodded in her direction.
‘You asked about Gracie’s Combatives. It’s a concept that was originally developed for the US army. It’s to do with the techniques used in ju-jitsu. In layman terms, I studied under the masters who created it and now teach thirty-six of the many hundreds of techniques, in a specialised routine.’
‘So, you were in the States before you came here?’
‘For a while,’ he replied, grabbing for his mobile, which had just buzzed. He glanced at it and frowned.
‘And did you work with the US army?’
He either ignored or didn’t hear the question, instead waving his phone at her. ‘Ah, Lorna’s free. Sorry, I have to go. I’m needed upstairs. I’ll leave you with my colleague here. Lorna, can you show DI Carter to the spa? She’d like to browse about and look at the sauna. Let me know if you need anything else.’
Lorna gave Robyn a wide smile, displaying a gap in her front teeth, and Robyn followed her through a door marked ‘Changing Rooms’.
‘You checking on where Miles died?’ she asked. ‘The sauna’s been shut since it happened. It needs a proper cleaning. No one wants to go in and do it so management’s getting a professional company in. Bet no one will want to go in afterwards, will they? I wouldn’t want to use a sauna where someone had died.’ She shivered at the thought.
‘Were you here yesterday?’
‘My day off, thank goodness. I’d planned on going to Birmingham with some girlfriends to do some early Christmas shopping. We cancelled because the weather was so bad, so I stayed in all day. Good thing too. I didn’t fancy driving to Birmingham in that wind and rain. I hate this time of the year. It’s so depressing. I suppose that’s why we make so much of Christmas. I can’t help myself – I start decorating the house right at the beginning of December.’
Lorna chatted cheerfully while guiding Robyn towards the pool and spa area. Robyn hadn’t given a thought to Christmas. No doubt it would be the same as the last couple of Christmases. She would be invited to her cousin Ross’s house to spend the day with him and his wife, Jeanette, and would refuse, as usual, citing work as an excuse. She loved her cousin, who had been on the force with her until poor health and concerns over his heart had forced him to reconsider his lifestyle. Now he worked as a private investigator and had not suffered any further problems with his heart. However much she loved his company, she didn’t want to mess up their Christmas Day by mooching about their house. On Christmas morning she’d get up early and run for ten miles, after which she’d take her bike out, cycling as far as she could before she was completely exhausted. She’d return home, sit in a hot bath for an hour, put on her PJs and watch reruns of old films on television and drink wine until she felt numb enough to cope with the day.
‘The spa’s through here.’ Lorna opened a glass door. Robyn was immediately hit by the warmth and humidity. This was a place that would make you soporific within minutes. Lorna slipped on some heavy-duty blue plastic overshoes, similar to those used in hospitals to prevent infections being spread. Robyn pulled a pair over her trainers and padded into the spa.
‘As you can see, there are different zones. Guests can go from a hot or warm zone to a cold one and vice versa. The sauna is behind the ice shower.’ She pointed to an igloo-shaped area. ‘I’ll leave you to do your detective stuff.’
Lorna lightly stepped away, pausing only to wave at an elderly lady lying on a lounger, reading a magazine.
Robyn stood for a moment to get a feel of the place. Miles would have entered from the men’s changing room and exited from the opposite direction to her. She walked over and stood in the changing room doorway. There were no cameras facing it. She moved towards the shower closest to the sauna and paused, her mind processing the information. Miles had placed his clothes on a lounger near the ice room. The camera had picked him up as he walked from the lounger and showered. Robyn turned a full circle. In one corner of the room, above the igloo, a camera pointed at her. After a while it turned to the left then swivelled back to the right. She counted the seconds in between each swivel. The camera focused on an area for three minutes before moving on to the next.
She walked past the igloo, spotting the tape that cordoned off the area and the notice declaring that due to unforeseen circumstances the sauna would not be operational. It apologised for the inconvenience.
Robyn walked the route Miles would have taken once more and stopped beside the lounger he had used. A thought flickered in her head, then departed before it could settle. She eased open the door to the sauna and held her breath. The room smelt sickly and she was convinced she could detect the stench of burnt flesh. She glanced around, noting the stains on the floor where flesh had made contact with the hot wood and stuck to it. Lorna was correct when she said no one would want to take a sauna in here.
Robyn left the sauna and shut the door. It fitted snugly, but there was no lock to it. If Miles had felt ill, he could have opened the door and escaped the heat. The heart attack must have happened so quickly it had prevented him from doing so.
Robyn surveyed the scene once more. Attached to the wall of the sauna was a box, a temperature regulator, its display no longer lit. Robyn turned about once more. The humidity in the spa was getting to her. She needed to clear her head. A cough interrupted her train of thought. Anna stood by the exit to the changing room. ‘Sorry, guv. Mitz rang me. He says DI Shearer is on the warpath. He’s found out we’re here.’
‘How?’
‘Mitz doesn’t know. He says Shearer’s got a face like a bulldog licking piss from a thistle.’ Anna’s mouth twitched.
‘DI Shearer always looks like that. Did you find anything useful?�
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‘Didn’t have enough time. I copied it all onto a USB stick to go through back at base.’
‘Excellent. Okay, let’s go.’
Robyn couldn’t understand how Shearer had found out about her being there unless someone had alerted him. Either Shearer had charmed someone here and made a friend, or somebody didn’t want her snooping. Her senses told her it was definitely the latter. Shearer couldn’t charm anyone even if his life depended on it, which made this all seem even more intriguing.
Eight
Rory Wallis was having the day from hell. Not only had bloody Suzy phoned in at the last minute to say she couldn’t do her shift, but then the Carlsberg had gone off and, while he was going into the cellar to change the barrel, he’d slipped on one of the steps and sprained his ankle so now it throbbed like crazy. The pub was hosting a party of revellers on a stag night. Rory wished they’d bugger off to one of the nightclubs. They’d been in the pub for the last three hours and had consumed so much alcohol it was amazing they could still stand. There were twenty of them and they were now playing yet another drinking game that involved raucous laughter and the downing of shots. His Friday night regulars had left much earlier, fed up with the noise the young men were making. Rory hadn’t tackled them about their obscene language or the row because not only did they all look like front-row rugby props who would give him a good kicking if he yelled at them, they were spending money like it was going out of fashion, and heaven knew he needed that till to ring.
Business had been pretty lousy recently. It had been lousy all year, ever since people discovered coffee shops and started buying cheap booze in supermarkets. Two more coffee shops had opened near him in the last three weeks. There were now more cafés than actual shops in Lichfield, or so it seemed. And he couldn’t blame the fact people weren’t frequenting the Happy Pig on lack of income. They all had ample money when it came to buying takeaway coffees at two pounds fifty a go. He had to face up to it – spending habits were changing, and people today would rather have a frappé latte and a muffin than come into the pub for a quick pint. He raked a hand through his shoulder-length blond hair and heaved a sigh. The old days were gone, and now he was reduced to hosting themed nights to drag punters into the Happy Pig pub. The last bloke he had hired as Elvis had been dreadful. Even Rory could do a more passable impersonation of the great man.