“I’ll tell you later.”
Sam, too, looked around the room, and perched on the edge of the mattress. The bed was made up, ready for the next guest, but it was covered only with a single cotton sheet, and there was no sign of a radiator in the room.
“You’d have to do some serious shagging in here to keep the cold out,” she complained.
“It’s what most of them come here for,” Drake said and watched as she moved one of the chairs to a position alongside the wardrobe.
To his total mystification, she tested her weight on the chair, then climbed up, stretched on the balls of her feet, and studied the top of the wardrobe. She took out her phone.
“Sam, what are you—”
She cut him off with a sharp glance.
Her head was below the level of the wardrobe’s top, and in order to take the pictures she had to guess that her camera was held at the correct angle. She made two attempts, both of which were useless, and then with some chagrin recalled the ‘selfie’ setting of the phone’s camera. Switching the lens attitude, she raised the camera a little higher and this time, she could see the screen, and took the necessary shot.
Climbing off the chair, putting it back alongside the bed, she leant into Drake and whispered, “You obviously think Pearson has audio surveillance in this room, so I’ll keep the conversation neutral.” She carried on at a more audible volume. “Just thinking about the attack, there’s not much room to swing a baseball bat.
“You don’t need much room when you bring it down over your head time and time again. You’ve read the autopsy report. It didn’t mention any damage to Barbara Shawforth’s wrists, and I concluded that she was asleep when the attacker struck. If she was awake and aware of what was happening when the killer entered, she would have at least raised an arm to fend off the blows, and you would expect to find wrist bones, forearm bones shattered. If there was none, it means she was either asleep or comfortable in the killer’s presence, and taken completely by surprise.”
She expressed her satisfaction with the analysis, and they left the room, Sam locking the door as they came out, and they made their way back to the ground floor and along to Pearson’s quarters, where she handed over the key.
Czarniak signalled that he had all that was necessary, and Sam addressed Pearson.
“We have all we need for the moment, Mr Pearson, and I’d like to thank you for your cooperation. As the investigation progresses, it may be that we’ll need to speak to you again. If so, we’ll be in touch.”
Pearson left his armchair and prepared to escort them to the exit. “I don’t… I don’t know what more I could tell you.”
“Neither do I, sir, but we never know what may come up.”
Once out on the street they made their way to the seafront, Drake handed his car keys to Czarniak. “You’re the local boy. Get us to Alex Walston’s place.” As they made their way back through Harbour Passage, Drake went on, “You’re not saying anything, Paul. Do I take it that you didn’t hear anything after Sam and I left you?”
“Not a peep, sir. Not even you moving around.”
The light dawning on Sam, his constant shushing satisfactorily explained, she pointed out, “I guess that’s what you were thinking, but room sixteen was on the other side of the corridor from the room above Pearson’s living quarters.”
“I realise that, but it wasn’t only Pearson I was thinking of. One creaky stair in an entire flight? If Rachel Jenner sneaked into the hotel behind Alex Walston, how come he didn’t hear that step creak? If we’re to accept that explanation, she must have been right behind him, and she couldn’t hang about in the pokey lobby because Pearson might have spotted her. Even if Walston had made the top of the stairs, and was standing outside room sixteen, he would still have heard her, and given the clandestine nature of his assignation with Barbara, he would have wanted to know who was there.”
His explanation was greeted with the silence.
When they reached the car, Czarniak took the wheel, Sam climbed into the rear, Drake the passenger seat. He shifted the subject sideways.
“The wardrobe top, Sam? What the hell were you up to?”
She opened up the photo gallery of her telephone, accessed the relevant images and passed the phone to him.
“I’ve heard about this setup before,” she said. “A tale one of my colleagues in Leeds told me. It was a brothel where the, er, management, for want of a better description, were determined to wring as much cash as they could out of the johns. You prompted me when you checked the drawer front on the dresser.”
Drake nodded. “Self-assembly. The drawer front is held in place with a simple twist screw. You insert an Allen key, turn the screws through ninety degrees and the front of the drawer detaches. My guess is that if and when you get round to searching the Bellevue, you’ll find a replacement front, one with a convenient, tiny hole drilled into it, behind which our Mr Pearson will position a camera.”
Sam handed the phone to Czarniak who paused in the act of inserting the ignition key, and studied the images.
He handed it back and Sam passed it to Drake a second time. “If you look at the picture, the dust has been disturbed by something placed there, something about the same diameter as a pound coin… when they were circular. My guess is a mini camera. They have a wide-angle lens, which would take in most of the room, including the bed.”
Czarniak’s features darkened. “He was videoing them at it. I always knew there was something about him.”
Sam agreed. “You may be right, Paul, but remember, I met Pearson less than an hour ago and I already have questions about the man. Barker told me he had a juvenile conviction for stealing underwear. Could he have graduated to the rank of peeping tom? Next, he has three floors of hotel rooms, all of them empty, and according to the register, he hasn’t had a proper, paying guest for months. So how does he afford the council tax on this place, not to mention gas, electricity, water charges and business rates? All right, all right, you say he charges lovers and prostitutes for using the rooms by the hour, but even so, he’s gonna have to let an awful lot of rooms just to cover the expense of owning a building like that. Put it all together and what price he’s been filming some of these prostitutes at work, not just for his own pleasure, but for the purposes of blackmail? And it’s not just blackmail. If, as I suspect, he’s into porn, he could be uploading the results to various sites on the web, and they would pay by the view.”
Czarniak raised an objection. “He’d need more than the cameras, boss. He’d need a wi-fi receiver, and that would have to be hooked into a PC or a tablet. I never saw anything of the kind in his living room.”
“The third floor access was locked,” Drake pointed out. “Could it be up there?”
“We’ll need a search warrant,” Sam said.
The sergeant was doubtful. “On what grounds, ma’am? All this is speculation.”
“On the grounds that we’re investigating a murder, Paul. If I’m right, Pearson – even if he is only exercising his right fist – was recording couples having sex. That’s an invasion of privacy at the very least, but consider this; Barbara Shawforth was an attractive woman – allegedly – and it would be too good a chance for him to miss. Add to that a local, well respected businessmen like Alex Walston giving her what for, and it’s fairly certain that Pearson would have had the cameras running that afternoon, and in that case, he knew exactly what went on in room sixteen. And what price, he also saw the murder? The killer, obviously, wasn’t aware of it, or he/she would have eliminated Pearson too. And if Pearson really is a blackmailer, he knew exactly who killed Barbara, and could have been living off the proceeds ever since. Search warrant, Paul. First thing tomorrow.”
“Right on, boss.”
“Right. Let’s have a chat with Mr Walston before we call it a day.”
From the top of Town Hill, they turned to follow the inner ring road and then onto Stanhead Road where shops began to thin out. Here were the more usua
l semi-suburban businesses, those catering more for the residents than the holiday trade: the small shops, pharmacies, the DIY merchants, estate agents. Residential property also began to appear; houses and bungalows built of redbrick, whole terraces of bay-windows built of stone.
Eventually, Czarniak pulled into the kerb outside a row of shops and parked. “Doesn’t look like he’s in, ma’am.” He gestured around. “His car is a white, BMW soft top and it isn’t here.”
Walston Web Solutions declared a boxed sign in garish red and white. The place was slotted between a hairdresser and a minimarket, and whatever went on inside was denied to the passers-by thanks to terracotta-coloured, vertical blinds, turned to block the view.
They found the interior as pristine as the outside. Hard wearing carpet covered the floor, modern, pine effect workstations filled the available workspace, each with a widescreen TFT monitor attached to its own tower system. There were four members of staff; two were intent on their screens, while the other two, both young men, were building another workstation, and had pieces of pre-cut, laminated MDF spread across the floor.
A quiet word with Pamela Normington, the receptionist proved Czarniak right. Walston was out on business somewhere, and not expected back until the following morning.
Sam left her card. “Tell him to ring me. And stress that it is urgent.”
From there, with Drake taking the wheel, they returned to the police station. Czarniak was first out of the car, but as Sam prepared to leave, Drake stayed her. “Have dinner with me tonight. Peace offering.”
“No. I’m sorry, Wes, but not—”
“We’ll never get on any better if we don’t make the effort.”
“It’s not that. Tomorrow or the day after, possibly, but I’ve been up since just turned six this morning. I’m tired. All I really want to do is sign off, go home, and flake in front of the TV.”
He grunted his agreement. “Tomorrow or Wednesday then. I’ll catch you later.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Consciousness returned only slowly, and he found himself staring into a brilliant white light, so intense that he could see nothing beyond it.
Automatically, he tried to raise his hand and shade his eyes, only to learn that his wrists were bound behind his back. He tried to look sideways, but it hurt, a burning sensation to the skin of his neck, and it took a few seconds for him to realise that there was a rope almost throttling him, and it was held rigidly in place, pinned to the rough, stone wall behind him.
“Time to confess, Alex.”
The voice filled Alex Walston with dread. No matter what he said, no matter how much he pleaded, this was only going to end one way.
He racked his memory in an effort to work out how he had come to this.
A phone call. From whom? The tracks of his memory skipped here and there, women, work, contracts, sales, women… Christine. Christine had rung him. She sounded worried. She had to meet him. Urgently. At the same place where they always met back in the days when…
He remembered Christine with great fondness. That wonderful body, the determination to drag every ounce of satisfaction from him before allowing him his relief. Christine was one of the best, but she belonged to his past. Such was the angst in her phone call, however, that he had no choice, he had to meet her.
He recalled the drive to the country club, and he remembered thinking back on the times he had made that same journey, times when he burned with anticipation of the all-consuming fornication to come. This time, it was different, or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe her worry was simply another manifestation of her overpowering libido.
It was odd. Christine was married, and to a young buck at that. A man ten years her junior. Maybe, his beefcake physique, his regular workouts in the gym drained him of energy. Maybe he was just show, no substance. Maybe all she wanted was a good fucking. And Alex Walston was the man to give her that.
He had a hazy memory of a blowout, his front tyre exploding, of climbing out of the car, examining the damage, flipping up the boot to dig out the spare, and then… nothing. A stunning pain to the back of his head perhaps, but beyond that a void.
“You know what to say, Alex. Say it.”
He did not want to. The moment he said it, he knew what would happen. The longer he held off, the more likely he might negotiate.
He tried to speak, but his vocal chords would not work. He gagged.
Hands shrouded in forensic gloves and clutching a bottle of water appeared ahead of the light. The cap was removed, the bottle pressed to his lips and tilted. He drank, but much of it spilled.
When the bottle was taken away, he spoke. “Let me go. We’ll come to a better arrangement.”
“Say it, Alex. Then we’ll talk.”
“I—”
“I’m beginning to lose patience with you, Alex. Say it. Now.”
So he said it. His voice was faltering, stuttering, afraid. But he said it on the promise that there would be scope for negotiation once he had confessed.
It would be costly. Of that, he had no doubt. As if the current arrangement wasn’t enough. But it would never go any further than between the two of them. It would be held as a threat. Like the other evidence, it would be tucked safely away, never to see the light of day as long as he behaved himself.
He didn’t know how much. If it was too much, it might cost one of his employees his/her job. Unfortunate, but preferable to the truth ever coming out.
And soon he was done. The confession was made.
And then came the inevitable.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sam had suffered a disturbed night. A good night’s sleep was a luxury which belonged to another Samantha Feyer, one who was comfortable in her job and her life. A Samantha Feyer before the departure of Don Vaughan and the arrival of Wesley Drake.
Crawling out of bed just after seven in the morning, she showered and dressed in the same business suit she wore the previous day, then made her way down to the kitchen for a breakfast of muesli, semi-skimmed milk and a much-needed cup of coffee. While she ate, she checked her phone for overnight messages, logged on to the police server, and checked her emails.
Nothing of any great importance. Routine stuff, nothing concerning Jenner, the Shawforths, Tom Hacton and nothing from Wesley Drake.
At eight-fifteen, she collected her briefcase, ensured she had everything she would need for the day, and made her way to the front door.
She stopped dead. It was too early for the postman, but on the doormat was a small, brown, padded envelope. She picked it up, and turned it over in her hands. Nothing written on it, no postage stamp, obviously delivered by hand sometime in the early hours, she guessed. She peeled back the self-seal, and found a memory stick inside.
She was supposed to be at the station by half past eight, but curiosity nagged her to check the content. She looked back into the living room where her laptop stood silently on the workstation. Suppose it was malware? Suppose it carried some kind of virus, or a Trojan?
Better to leave it until she got to the station. Let the police servers take the risk rather than her personal machine.
She lived in a modest, two-bedroomed semi, just off Fraisby Road, about a mile and a half out of Landshaven centre, but the police station was on the opposite side of the town, and the journey to work was the same nightmare every morning. Nose to tail, stop-start traffic, cars, lorries, buses, jostling for position in the lanes, interminable sets of traffic lights, changing with what seemed to her, alarming rapidity. Without physically checking, she would swear that the green lights lasted less than thirty seconds, barely enough time to get two or three vehicles through, and yet the red lights lasted an eternity.
While she was going through this daily agony, the memory stick gnawed at her, calling to her, determined that she should investigate its content.
She signed in at twenty minutes to nine, and five minutes later she sat before the monitor in her office, and ran the video.
It lasted less
than two minutes, and when it concluded, she snatched up the phone.
“Frank, get a team up to the castle. Alex Walston’s there.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“He’s dead. Now get a move on.”
“Well, shouldn’t you—”
Sam cut him off. “I have other, more important things to deal with, like getting Neville Trentham out of bed and getting his butt down here. I’ll join you as soon as I can, but for the time being, you’ll have to supervise. Take Larne and as many uniforms as they can spare. If you find him, and I’m sure you will, get the SOCOs in, and keep me posted.”
“Roger, dodger.”
Sam slammed down the phone, picked it up again, and rang Trentham’s phone number.
He took an age to answer, and when he did, he sounded half asleep. The news woke him.
“I’ll be with you by about half past nine. Is there any clue as to the perpetrator?”
“None. But I’ll be pulling Rachel Jenner in, and Wesley Drake.”
“Drake?”
“It’s unlikely, Neville, but he seems determined to prove that Rachel Jenner is innocent. We need to speak to him.”
Once more she put down the phone, and then took her mobile, called up Drake’s number, and rang.
He was finishing breakfast at the Castle Hotel, and was immediately irritated by her insistence that he get to the station as soon as possible. “And you’d better be able to account where you were last night.”
“If you’d had dinner with me as I suggested, you would know where I was. What the hell is going on?”
“Not over the phone. I’m expecting Trentham at half past nine, and I’ll need you here at the same time.”
She cut the call, picked up the desk phone, and made her final call, this time to Paul Czarniak.
“Take three uniforms, at least two of them female, go out to Ruth Russell’s. Have two of the uniforms, at least one of them female, to bring Rachel Jenner in. If she carps, arrest her on suspicion. Once she’s on her way back here, I want you and whichever uniform you’re left with, and she should be female, to search her room.”
The Frame - from the author of the Sanford Third Age Club (STAC) series (A Feyer and Drake Mystery Book 2) Page 13