‘Yes, and around the windows. It was an old car I think.’
‘Did you see what colour it was?’
‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘It was too dark.’
Seeing the brooding figure of her manager through the hotel doors, Grey thanked Maria and released her back to her ‘duties’. As she headed back Cori took a call on her mobile,
‘It’s the office. I’ll just be a minute,’ she called back to Grey, who remained standing in this same spot awhile, pondering under the burning sun.’
‘Oh God,’ Grey cursed, once he and Cori were on their way back to the station. ‘I forgot to check back with Mrs Hackett.’
‘It’s okay, I saw her when I went back in,’ she answered to his relief. ‘None of the other staff there today recognise Thomas from the photo.’
‘What was that all about?’ he asked her, having been too absorbed in thought at the time to pay much attention to her return to the building.
‘The Desk Sergeant rang: someone had mentioned to him that we were at the hotel, and he remembered he had had a routine request to do with the place, sitting on his desk since yesterday. He asked if I could take a look.’
‘Anything interesting?’
‘Not sure. Apparently the drugs squad in Nottingham wanted us to trace a call made from the hotel two days ago to a suspect they are tailing.’
‘Two days ago. Tuesday?’
‘Yes, but just after ten in the morning; when Thomas wasn’t seen here till seven at night.’
‘Anyone we know?’
‘Well, the call was made to a mobile phone in the name of Stephen Carman. Maria has just told me the room the call was made from was booked in the name of a Mr Smith.’
‘Not very original,’ uttered the Inspector.
‘I know,’ answered Sergeant Smith, ‘I’m not sure any hotel receptionist we have ever checked in with have thought my husband and I were actually married. The other receptionist was on the desk that day, Josie. But she visits her mother on Thursdays, so I’ve left a message for her to call me tomorrow when she’s back in the office.’
‘Stephen Carman though..?’
‘There’s nothing on him in our files boss. The Desk Sergeant had already checked.’
Nonetheless, Grey mulled over the name as they drove.
Chapter 10 — Revelation on the Road
‘No answer on her mobile number — why don’t people have proper phones anymore?’ Grey cursed, before gathering himself to intone a standard answerphone message to Josie, the off-duty receptionist.
‘I told you,’ Cori sighed, ‘I’ve left a note for her at the hotel.’
‘But she could tell us now who this Mr Smith was who booked in.’
‘Well if you do leave a message be nice — odds are working at that place she’s from overseas, and might not think of the police in the same way we do.’
His invitation for Josie to call back left, Grey made another call — to Sarah Cobb, asking for the file on Stephen Carman, she promising to call back asap.
‘There’ll be other clues, boss,’ offered Cori brightly, she noting his listlessness, all the while displaying that skill he so admired in her and others, of holding a conversation and thinking on other things while controlling an automobile past all obstacles and at some considerable speed. ‘Something will turn up.’
‘What we need though is for him to turn up, Thomas. Not for more half-clues like these — all dead ends and delays, each leading us precisely nowhere.’
They spoke only sporadically as she drove them back to town,
‘I saw the bank manager last night,’ he said as much to distract himself as anything. ‘I think he’s on his way to a breakdown.’
‘That bad?’ asked Cori.
‘I only hope his part in this mess is over before it gets to him too badly.’
‘Poor fellow.’
‘Oh, I’ve seen it before, with these respectable types who get into difficulties. Once they come unwound it’s hard to ever wind them back up as tightly.’ He took no pleasure in his grim foretelling.
‘Is he married?’ asked Cori.
‘No idea. You’d imagine so.’
‘I hope his family are all right.’ She found herself visualising the Foys: the kids who looked up to their father; the wife who cooked his meals and worried when he worried, who knew when he was bringing troubles home from the office. Even as a professional herself, and leaving her young family’s matters — both figuratively and actually — at home each day, Cori still felt great sympathy for her imagined Mrs Foy, the homemaker her own mother was and she herself chose not to be.
The Inspector’s phone rang to break their contemplation, it being Sarah with the results of the trace. Grey switched the phone to speaker:
‘Well, I checked for Stephen Carman on the Police National Computer,’ started Sarah, ‘and a Stephen Carman has a record: two minor drug offences in the last two years, the latest six months ago, tried at Nottingham Crown Court. He was sentenced to three months, suspended, for possession.’
‘Nottingham, where the phonecall trace was requested from,’ Grey mused, the confirmation of details soothing him. ‘So we’d assume the same man. What is there on file for him?’
‘Details are scant, sir. I’ll get onto their records for the full story. But it does say he’s twenty-three years old, Caucasian, five feet eight, with brown-blonde hair, no distinguishing features. The photo shows him pretty pale. Not a great looker, I have to say; a bit of a meanie to be honest.’
‘Those photos wash people out; you’re never looking your best when you’re being arrested. What was his first offence?’
‘Just a caution, for drugs also, almost served now.’
‘So there could be other earlier cautions already served… He doesn’t sound a major player.’
‘Okay. Thank you, Sarah. I wonder if he has any link to Southney, or to Thomas Long? Could you have a look for me? I’ll speak to you when we’re back.’
‘School, maybe?’ Cori piped in. ‘They wouldn’t be too far apart.’
‘Yes, that’s a start.’
‘Okay, sir,’ and with that Sarah rung off to take up her new line of enquiry.
‘Are we expecting to find a link?’ Cori cautioned. ‘Just because there was a call from the hotel, what, nine hours before Thomas was seen there?’
He gave out a deep breath, ‘You’re right of course, but what else have we got to go on? And I know that name.’ Even as he said the words though, Grey couldn’t imagine what could involve two such disparate figures: the quiet local lad who never stayed out at night, and the city troublemaker with previous convictions. In their job they lived for clues, longed for them; but this morning’s random pieces of information seemed to be arriving not to clarify those factors already known but rather to throw their investigations off along wilder tangents.
‘Stephen Carman, Stephen Carman — where do I know that name from?’
Cori began to hear Grey repeat it with monotony, chant-like, as if his mind had snagged on something…
‘What’s caught you, boss?’ asked Cori hopefully, knowing he probably wasn’t even able to tell her.
But Grey was still intoning, ‘Stephen Carman, S Carman, Stephen C, S Car… Oh, there’s something in that name, something telling. What the bloody hell is it?’
‘Stop thinking about it and it will come to you; it’s the best way when you’re trying to remember something,’ she advised, keeping as eye out for traffic as they neared the town centre.
‘No it doesn’t: you’re just forgetting all the times you try and forget, and then forget you were even trying to
