these.’
‘Oh?’
‘A receptionist at the Havahostel thinks she might have seen him at the motorway services, at around seven o’clock that evening.’
The Inspector and his Sergeant were soon on their way over. The hotel belonged to an area to the east of the town itself, known rather inelegantly as the Corridor; it being the kind of nowhere development that gathered around motorway interchanges and service stations as ancient settlements once had around Roman forts.
The town of Southney, not warranting a freeway of its own, instead made do with an A-road linking to the one that passed nearest. This left them well connected, but without the traffic and pollution of a thunderous six- laner on their doorstep. It also, if they were honest, left them well served among the Corridor’s subsequent developments for carpet warehouses, electronics superstores, multiscreen cinema, and the various other establishments that spring up in such unrestricted hinterlands, well away from planning-conscious town centres.
Upon arriving, Grey pondered on this nameless place (nameless for the Corridor was a name of convenience and not of love). Farms and fields until fifty years ago, no history here at all, he wondered what it must be like to work here, to spend your time in this place without roots or cultural narrative, too far away even to reach the town centre on your lunch hour.
Last chance to fill up before Nottingham! — the sign had one read. The Sixties motorway cafe had long gone, replaced by clean modern restaurant, though the covered footbridge linking the carparks on both sides remained. The last building before the sliproad was an utterly anonymous block called a Havahostel; existing solely, it seemed to Grey, to serve the owners of the Audis and BMWs that flocked around it, and which came to rest in the complex’s unrepresentatively large parking lots.
Just at the factory yesterday, Grey remembered he had been to this hotel before — though only in a professional capacity, it being, with their nearness to the motorway and helpful distance from the town, an excellent place for jaded businessfolk to meet prostitutes or ‘adult’ contacts ferried in from other places.
The building itself, even from the foyer gave Grey the creeps, the area around the front desk smaller than you’d imagine, and leading off along narrow corridors with dark carpets and off-white walls. He moved to the desk quickly and without wishing to absorb too much of the ambience; which to him was the echo of plasterboard walls, the smell of paint not fully dried, and the spirit of a building no one owned or lived in or cared for.
‘Hello,’ announced Cori to the woman at the hotel reception, ‘is it Maria?’
‘Yes, hello,’ she answered brightly.
‘I’m Sergeant Smith and this is Inspector Rase. You called earlier, to report seeing…’
‘Inspector, can I offer my deepest apologies to you.’ Another woman had appeared behind Grey and was addressing him before he had had a chance to turn around.
‘Cathleen Hackett,’ she introduced herself, ‘the manager of the hotel.’ She was in her forties he thought, and well turned out. ‘Imagine how I felt when I saw your broadcast this morning, and to be told of this poor young man, lost to his family, your officers doing all they could to find him — and then to learn that two whole days ago he had been seen right outside our very establishment; and that we had had the knowledge you had been seeking the whole time!’
‘Well, we’re not sure yet…’
‘Oh, my receptionist confirmed it, when she saw his picture on the news — the flatscreens in the guests’ lounge carry the international channels, you understand; but we keep a smaller set in the staffroom. She was adamant it was him!’
The receptionist was barely given chance to nod along in agreement to all this, as her boss carried the narrative. Cori showed Maria a photo of Thomas, who confirmed it was him.
‘So what now, Inspector?’ asked the manager. ‘How can I help?’
‘Ms…’
‘Mrs.’
‘Mrs Hackett.’ Grey was at a loss of how to instruct her. He appreciated her assistance, but didn’t like the way the woman was taking over things, information rushing in too quickly and not in the order he would have liked. ‘Maria,’ he turned to the woman behind the desk, ‘you saw Thomas Long in the carpark somewhere? Was it near these cars, parked just outside?’ She followed his gaze through the doors and nodded in eager agreement. ‘Then perhaps, Mrs Hackett, you could take one of the photos the Sergeant has there, and ask your staff if any of them saw him there, then or at any other time?’
‘Yes, I can see how important that would be.’
‘It really could be vital. And then we’ll come and speak to you properly, once we have confirmed some details with Maria here.’
‘You clearly have your methods, Inspector,’ she said, as taking a photo from Cori, she headed off toward the staff room.
Cori had the feeling Kathleen Hackett could be a real headache to her staff of cleaners and cooks, they likely to be foreign, and hardly well paid. ‘So,’ resumed the Sergeant, no longer hindered by the manager’s presence, ‘Maria, tell us about your sighting of Thomas.’
In the pauses between handing or taking keys from guests, the receptionist told them in her sweet Italian accent what little she knew, she looking at the photo the whole time, ‘I was due to start at seven. The shifts are always changing here,’ she whispered as if fearing her manager Mrs Hackett hearing from the other room, ‘so I was only just on time. And as I came across the carpark, I saw a man standing there, this man,’ she pointed at the picture.
‘Where was he?’
‘Just outside, by the parked cars. He made me jump at first, as there was only us two there. But I could see the hotel doors, so kept on walking. And it was nothing, he stayed there.’
‘He stayed there? How long for?’
‘Well, as soon as I got in I hung my coat up in the staff room, and then came back out here to start my shift; and he was still there.’
‘And did you look for him again?’
‘Yes, a few minutes later; but he had gone by then.’
‘So he would have left there between around seven and..?’
‘Ten minutes past.’
‘Thank you. And you didn’t see anyone else out here, talking to him, or a car picking him up?’
She shook her head.
‘I wonder, Maria,’ began Grey, who had been listening to all this, ‘if I could ask you to step outside a minute, and show us the exact spot?’
‘Mrs Hackett wouldn’t like me leaving my duties.’
‘It’s okay, she knows you’re helping us, it will just be for a moment,’ he encouraged, as ushering her out into the shock September sunshine, the trio walked the ten or so yards to where the services carpark met the paved walkway that fronted the hotel.
‘Now, if you go with the Sergeant to where you were walking when you saw him, and then tell me exactly where to stand.’
‘It’s not the same though,’ she said as Grey moved to the spot she indicated, ‘it’s not the same now. It was dark then.’
‘But you think this was where he stood?’ Grey found himself between two cars, the kind of place you would only normally stand if you were getting in or out of either vehicle.’
‘And he didn’t move, he wasn’t getting in or out?’
‘No, I told you, just standing. But I remember it now,’ she started excitedly, her memory obviously jogged by being here even in such differing conditions. ‘The car in front of you was not there.’
‘This parking bar was empty?’
‘Yes, like I say, there was no car. And the other car, the one behind you, it was odd. Big, and shiny.’
‘What, silver?’
‘No, just small parts of it were silver.’
‘Oh, chrome? You mean the doorhandles? And the lights?
