‘Assuming the lift is going up, it is about right for the fifteenth floor but it’s impossible to say exactly. The camera position doesn’t allow us to see the doors so we can’t be sure how long the lift was actually moving.’
‘What time did he get into the lift?’
He wound the video back to the exact moment.
‘Twenty-two thirty-one and seventeen seconds.’
Just after half past ten. Ten minutes after Clare had checked in.
Was that a coincidence? As Lisa, the Morning Line producer, had said, coincidences did happen. But was this really one of them?
‘Do you have a list of those staying at the hotel that night?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid not. But we could find out from the hotel.’
‘Let’s check first to see if he leaves.’
We went on watching the video recordings.
‘Is that him?’ I suddenly asked, seeing someone that resembled Austin enter the lift. I shouted at the image. ‘Dammit man, look up at the camera!’
He didn’t, of course, and I wasn’t very certain it had been him.
‘Can you check the lobby films for that precise time?’
DS Sharp again pressed his buttons and the wide view of the lobby reappeared on one of the screens. He wound the recording on until the time code was the same as for the shot in the lift. He then let it run.
Austin Reynolds was clearly visible walking from the direction of the lifts to the main exit.
Without being asked, DS Sharp pulled up the shot from outside with its zombie-like eyes. Austin Reynolds had to wait about four minutes in a queue before he climbed into a taxi and was driven away.
‘Twenty-two fifty-eight,’ DS Sharp said, reading the time code off the screen. ‘Mr Reynolds left the hotel more than half an hour before your sister died.’
Surely no one would kill to prevent me seeing that.
‘Unless he came back,’ I said. But, even I knew that was unlikely. ‘Carlos said there was a second man, so let’s keep looking.’
We spent another twenty minutes looking at the videos from the lifts but there was no one who I even remotely recognized getting into any of them.
‘According to Mario, the second man left the hotel during the commotion that followed Clare’s fall.’
DS Sharp moved the recordings forward to twenty-three thirty on the time code.
I never realized how busy hotel lifts could be. Hardly a second went past without each of the four having people in it moving in one direction or the other as the hotel guests came back from the theatre, or diners from the high-level restaurant and bar descended to their rooms, or to the street-level exits.
But still there was no one I recognized.
At precisely twenty-three thirty-two and fifteen seconds on the clock, a man wearing a dark overcoat and a blue baseball cap entered a lift already half-full with other people, going down. He didn’t look up at the camera, in fact he seemed to be purposefully looking away from it, and also from the other people.
‘Is that the same baseball cap that Clare had on when she checked in?’ I asked.
DS Sharp stopped and re-ran the film.
‘It might be.’
‘Did you find the cap in Clare’s room?’ I asked. ‘Or was she wearing it when she fell?’
The detective sergeant didn’t answer.
‘Where are her things?’ I asked him. ‘Even if she didn’t have a handbag, she must have had her car keys.’
‘There was nothing left in the room except the note.’
‘How about her car? Where’s that?’
No answer.
‘And her phone?’ I asked. ‘Where did that go? And did she call anyone before she died?’
Anyone other than me.
‘I’ll have to investigate,’ DS Sharp said, clearly uncomfortable.
Past time for that, I thought. Well past. He had obviously been so convinced by the note that it was straightforward suicide that he really hadn’t bothered looking for anything else.
I watched on the screen as the lift emptied, presumably at ground level.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Can you find that man in the lobby?’
He fiddled with the equipment and a wide shot of the lobby appeared on a screen.
‘There,’ I said, pointing.
We watched as the man walked briskly across the lobby.
Lots of other people were running towards the main doors, and one or two were staggering back inside with wide eyes, holding their heads or hugging one another. I didn’t want to think about what they had just witnessed on the pavement outside.
The man appeared to be ignoring the disturbance just to his right, marching straight on towards the left-hand side of the main exit.
‘Can’t you zoom in?’ I asked.
DS Sharp tried but the image became very fuzzy and indistinct.
‘I think he’s got his collar turned up,’ the sergeant said. ‘And maybe a scarf around his face as well.’
Why would anyone wear a coat with the collar turned up and a scarf when that particular September evening had been so warm? Was he trying to hide his face from the CCTV cameras?
‘Try another angle,’ I said.
He brought up the image from the camera near the lifts. It showed the man clearly from behind as he walked away. There was no chance of seeing his face from that direction.
DS Sharp went through every camera position in turn but there was no clear image of the man’s features.
‘How about the one outside?’ I asked, realizing as I said it that any images from out there would also show Clare’s body on the ground.
‘Are you sure?’ the sergeant asked. ‘I’ll have to get the original recording rather than the copy.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t. If the man took such efforts inside the hotel not to be seen, he’d hardly let it happen once he was outside. He’d have just gone on walking with his head down.’
‘I can get it if you want,’ he said. ‘We only made the copy without the last bit because we didn’t want some unscrupulous idiot uploading it on YouTube. The original is securely locked in my office safe.’
I could feel my heart beating.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t show anything we can’t already see.’
‘Maybe I’ll look at it later,’ he said. ‘Just to be sure.’
‘Right.’ I breathed deeply and was reminded of my broken ribs by a sharp stabbing pain in my left side. But it was in my head that a bell was ringing.
‘Could you please show me that shot again of the man walking away from the camera?’
DS Sharp pulled up the images onto the screen.
There was something about the way the man moved — an easy, large-stride, lolloping motion, with his head bobbing up and down slightly with each step.
Maybe I didn’t need to see the man’s face in order to recognize him.
22
I arrived back home at five past ten and it was as lonely and cold as I had feared, and it was starting to rain.
Ever since leaving Newmarket I’d kept a keen eye on the Honda’s rear-view mirror to ensure I wasn’t being followed but, nevertheless, I was very wary when I parked the car on the street outside my flat and walked quickly to the front door.
I let myself in and put my Chinese take-away supper in the oven to keep warm while I collected the rest of the things from the car.
Street lighting in my part of Edenbridge could hardly be described as comprehensive. There was a lamppost about twenty yards away in each direction up and down the road, but their meagre glow hardly made it to my door. Consequently I was spooked by every shadow, seeing in my mind a potential murderer behind every bush.