“Have you interviewed all the hotel staff?” Tay asked.
“Just the ones who worked on the twenty-sixth floor.”
“Interview all of them. Maybe somebody saw her in the service lift.”
“But, sir, hundreds of people work at the Marriott.”
“Then you better organize some men and get right to it.”
Kang grunted unhappily and they made they rest of the trip to the Marriott in silence.
A quarter of an hour later they parked in the driveway right in front of the hotel’s main entrance and Kang fended off the doorman with his warrant card.
“What do you want to do first, sir?” Kang asked when the doorman was out of earshot.
Now that they were here, Tay wasn’t at all sure. What was the point of going over the suite again? It had been a week since the body was discovered. Not only would the suite have been thoroughly cleaned, for all he knew there might be guests in it by now.
My God, Tay thought, some unsuspecting Japanese banker might even now be lying on the very bed where Elizabeth Munson’s body had been so carefully posed, having no idea of the tortured spirit with whom he was sharing it. The thought gave Tay the creeps. He knew he would remember that the next time he himself checked into a hotel, went to a room, and closed the door behind him. How could anybody ever know what ghosts we were sharing our hotel rooms with?
“What was that security man’s name?” Tay asked.
“Keshar, sir. Ramesh Keshar.”
“Right. I’m going to talk to him. You talk to the manager and organize the staff interviews. Somebody saw her, Sergeant. We just have to find them.”
Tay told a young man at the concierge desk, more of a boy really, that Keshar was expecting him and asked the way to his office. Tay’s warrant card and his small lie impressed the boy sufficiently to extract the information without the boy feeling the need to telephone Keshar first, which had been the whole point of telling him that he had an appointment. Tay believed there was an advantage in arriving unexpectedly to talk to people, even, if possible, completely unannounced. Surprise sometimes spurred people to tell the truth, mostly because they didn’t have the time to think up a good lie.
Tay found Keshar’s office without difficulty, but Keshar wasn’t there. His secretary was as impressed by Tay’s warrant card as the boy at the concierge desk had been and paged her boss immediately. In a few minutes the security man hurried in a little out of breath.
“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, Inspector. If you had called in advance, I would have been waiting for you.”
Tay searched Keshar’s words for a rebuke, but found none. The afternoon the body had been discovered, he had sensed in the security man’s manner real shock, even something like embarrassment that this could happen in Singapore. Perhaps it had only been corporate concern for the hotel’s image, but Tay didn’t think so. The more he thought about it now the more he wondered if Keshar might be his way in.
“Please, Inspector,” Keshar spread his arms as he settled in behind his desk, “tell me how I can help you.”
“So far we haven’t been able to determine when Mrs. Munson came into the hotel and whether or not she was with anyone when she did.”
“You haven’t found her on any of the surveillance tapes?”
Tay shook his head.
“That’s odd,” Keshar said. “And the staff interviews-”
“Nothing useful either, although I understand that so far we’ve only talked with those employees who actually worked on the twenty-sixth floor. Sergeant Kang is making arrangements now to interview the entire staff.”
“That’s a big job, Inspector.”
“That’s exactly what Sergeant Kang said.”
“Well…if you must. I’ll do whatever I can to help, of course.”
Tay studied Keshar for a moment. He was waiting expectantly, knowing full well Tay wasn’t there to pass the time of day. Tay decided to get straight to the point.
“Is there a way Mrs. Munson could have gotten into that room without showing up on the surveillance cameras?”
Keshar laced his fingers together over his belly.
“No, Inspector. None that I know of.”
“Is it possible there are ways you would not know of?”
Keshar smiled, but it was the smile of an accountant. Tay recognized it immediately.
“No.”
“How many lifts are there up to the tower other than the passenger lifts from the lobby?”
“Just one service lift.”
“Does it have a camera in it?” Tay asked.
Keshar smiled again. “I get the feeling you already know the answer to that, Inspector.”
“I thought it best to ask you anyway.”
“The service lift doesn’t have a camera, but you can’t access it without passing through at least one area covered by a camera.”
“How long has the camera in the main lift lobby been broken?”
“It’s not.”
“Sergeant Kang says it was cutting in and out during the days before Mrs. Munson’s body was found.”
The expression on Keshar’s face seemed to Tay to be one of genuine surprise.
“I really don’t see how that’s possible,” he said. “No one reported anything like that to me.”
“Can the camera be turned off and then back on again?”
Tay thought he saw a flicker of hesitation in Keshar’s eyes but, if there was, he covered it quickly and answered the question in a firm voice.
“There are local switches for some of the cameras, but they can only be activated by a master security card.” Keshar produced a blue-and-white plastic card from his jacket pocket. He held it up, rotating it in his fingers. It looked like a room key. “Each master security card opens every door in the hotel and allows the holder to control the parameters of all our security systems including the cameras.”
“How many people have them?”
“I have this one,” he said. “The general manager has one, and the executive assistant manager has one. The fourth is kept in my safe in case of emergency.”
“Then there are just four master security cards?”
“Yes. Four.”
“And if you have one of these cards, you can turn cameras on and off and go in or out of this building without being recorded on your surveillance system. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir. That’s right.”
“Then you or your general manager or…who else was it you said had a security card?”
“Mike Evans, the executive assistant manager.”
“Any one of the three of you could have taken Mrs. Munson to room 2608 without her appearing on a surveillance camera.”
“I suppose so, Inspector, but surely you don’t-”
Tay shook his head and waved Keshar into silence.
“Are you absolutely certain that no one else has access to a security card?”
There was that flicker in Keshar’s eyes again. This time Tay was sure of it.
“There is someone, isn’t there, Mr. Keshar?”
Keshar looked chagrined. “Am I that obvious?”
Tay said nothing.
“I really don’t see how it could be relevant to your investigation.”
Tay nodded encouragingly, but he still didn’t say anything.
“Look, it would probably get me into a lot of trouble if head office found out I’d told you. You can keep this just between us, can’t you?”
