‘Let’s not jump the gun,’ Douglas said. ‘First, we prove it couldn’t have been you that killed Amelia. Only then will we set about finding out who did.’
18
‘I’d like to see the manager, please,’ I said.
I was back at the Edgbaston Manor Hotel on Thursday morning, having caught a train from London to Birmingham.
‘What about?’ asked the female receptionist defensively.
‘That’s between him and me,’ I replied. ‘It’s not a complaint.’
‘It’s a her actually,’ she said. ‘The manager is a woman.’
‘Great,’ I said, giving her a smile.
The receptionist disappeared into an office behind the desk but soon returned with another woman dressed in a three-piece pinstriped suit, white shirt and dark tie. The manager may have been a woman but she was dressed like a man.
‘I’m Karen Wentworth, the manager,’ she said. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I stayed here last week...’
‘I know, Mr Gordon-Russell,’ she interrupted icily. ‘The police came here about you on Monday.’
‘Oh,’ I said, slightly taken aback that she recognised me so readily. ‘What did they want?’
‘To search the room you stayed in.’
‘Did they find anything?’
She shook her head. ‘I told them it was a waste of time. Two other guests had been in that room in the interim so it had been cleaned three times since you were there.’ She smiled. ‘Our cleaners are very good.’
‘But the police searched it nevertheless.’
‘They did,’ she agreed. ‘Took the drains apart beneath the shower and the wash basin too. They made quite a mess.’
DS Dowdeswell was nothing if not thorough.
‘Did they want anything else?’
‘Copies of all our CCTV recordings.’
‘That’s what I was hoping you might give me.’
‘But why should I help you?’ she asked. ‘The papers claim you’re a wife killer who should be in jail.’
She started to turn away.
‘But the papers are wrong,’ I said quickly. ‘I haven’t killed anyone. I was asleep in my room at this hotel for the whole night while someone else was murdering my wife and I need your CCTV footage to prove it.’
‘So why were you arrested when the police already have a copy of our recordings?’
It was a very good question and one that I’d been asking myself as well.
Karen Wentworth turned away again.
‘Please,’ I cried in desperation, my voice cracking with emotion. ‘It’s bad enough that the woman I adored has been taken from me without also being accused of killing her. You are my only hope.’
She slowly turned back.
‘Come with me.’
I followed her past the reception desk and into the office behind.
‘I’m afraid our CCTV system is quite old,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘It is due to be upgraded next month.’
Old will do, I thought, as long as it shows what I need.
But it didn’t.
The image of the car park only showed the exit and, at night with car headlights on, the image was so grainy it was impossible to tell even the make of the vehicles that went in and out, let alone their number plates.
‘We’ve recently decided to install a barrier at the exit,’ Karen said. ‘To stop people parking in there who are not hotel guests. It gets particularly bad when there’s a big match at the cricket ground.’ She paused as if in apology for even mentioning it. ‘But we haven’t done it yet.’
Shame.
‘What else have you got?’
She pulled up the images from the hotel lobby but they were equally useless. There was only one black-and-white camera in the reception area and that concentrated on the desk itself rather than the front door. It had clearly been designed to catch staff stealing from the till, rather than the hotel comings and goings.
‘Is that all?’ I asked in disappointment.
‘I’m sorry,’ Karen said. ‘To be honest, I didn’t realise just how poor it is. No wonder we’re replacing it. The only decent camera is the one we recently installed in the indoor pool area, so we could see if someone is in trouble. We had a nasty incident last year when an unsupervised child nearly drowned.’
I looked at the image of the swimming pool on the screen and it was bright, sharp and in colour. I obviously should have gone swimming in the middle of the night.
I remembered what Douglas had said.
‘How about the electronic door locks?’ I asked. ‘Does the system keep a record of when they were used?’
‘I think so,’ Karen said. ‘It certainly records the last time someone unlocked the door, but I’m not quite sure how to access it. I’d have to ask our IT man.’
‘I can wait,’ I said encouragingly.
She pushed a button on the desk. ‘I’ve paged him. He’ll be here soon.’
‘Didn’t the police ask for that information?’ I asked.
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
We waited in silence and, presently, a twenty-something bespectacled young man wearing blue dungarees came into the office.
‘Ah, there you are, Gary,’ said Karen. ‘Mr Gordon-Russell here wants to know if our room locks keep a record of when they were used.’
‘Sure do,’ Gary said. ‘Last sixty times for each one.’
Things were looking up.
Gary sat down at one of the computer terminals and started tapping on the keyboard.
‘Which room?’ he asked.
‘Three-ten,’ Karen said.
I was glad she could remember the number. I only knew where it was.
Gary tapped some more.
‘There you are,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Easy as pie.’
I looked at the list on the screen
The last sixty times, Gary had said, and it was none too many. It seemed that room 310 was regularly opened many times per day and the sixty activations of the lock only took us back to Tuesday morning of last week, the very day of my arrival. If I’d left it another day, the data would have disappeared for ever.
‘Can you print this?’ I asked.
Gary looked at Karen, who nodded.
‘No problem,’ he said and tapped yet more.
A printer on the side whirred and out popped a sheet of paper with the information neatly tabulated upon it.
Not only did the list give the time the lock was opened but it also recorded the reference number of the card that opened it.
‘Those first two are Lindy, one of the chambermaids,’ Gary said. ‘I know her keycard number.’ I had the impression it wasn’t the only number of hers he knew. ‘And the next one is Jess, the housekeeper.’
‘She would have been checking that the room was ready,’ Karen said.
‘Then that must be me arriving,’ I said, pointing to an activation at seven minutes past six with the code 4579053.
‘Gordon-Russell, you say?’
‘I checked in as Mr Russell.’
Gary tapped some more on the computer.
‘It was you,’ he said. ‘I cross-referenced your name against the machine that programmes the cards. Keycard 4579053 was created at eighteen-oh-four in the name of Mr Bill Russell.’
The next activation was at 23.34.
‘That’s me returning from the dinner at the cricket ground.’
And the very next activation on the list was at 09.21 on Wednesday morning, with nothing in between.
‘That’s me coming back from breakfast,’ I said with a degree of excitement. Was something finally going my way?