‘No,’ he said, ‘she’s the police officer in charge of this murder investigation.’
‘Oh. Yes.’ She looked round for another member of staff, beckoned over a young man with spiked hair and an eager face, told him to take her place behind the desk.
‘Come with me, please.’ She walked round to Phil’s side of the desk, went through another doorway that led to the main section of the hotel.
Phil knew from the night before where the room was, but didn’t want to appear as the kind of arrogant policeman he hated, so he followed her. Tried hard to take his eyes from her pencil-skirted legs and spike heels. She walked like he imagined Marilyn Monroe must have walked. If she had been on sand, the dots of her heels would have been in a straight line.
He picked his eyes up, looked round. The wood panelling and worn flags persisted. They reached a central area with a huge old fireplace, the fire unlit. Then up a wide, high staircase. The panelling gave way to plastered walls, stained-glass windows. Even a suit of armour.
Phil looked through a set of double doors to an old wooden doorway that seemed even more aged than the rest of the hotel.
‘What’s in there?’
‘The chapel,’ said the girl.
‘Chapel?’
‘Yes. It was Knights Templar chapel. Very old.’ She looked round. ‘You would like to look in?’
‘Yeah. Please.’
They crossed the floor. She opened the door. They stepped inside.
The first thing Phil noticed was the cold. The walls were heavy old stone. The windows stained glass, the floor flagged. It was like stepping even further back in time. He could feel the history in the place.
‘Nice,’ he said to the girl. ‘How old is it?’
‘Oh, it is… very old,’ she said, turning her head quickly, favouring him with a quick smile. ‘I do not know… ’
‘Right,’ he said. He looked over at the far wall. A huge wooden door stood there, so old and heavy it looked like the chapel had been built round it. ‘Where does that lead?’
‘Nowhere. Is… blocked off.’
‘Right.’
‘Would you…?’ She pointed back the way they had entered.
Phil followed her out and up the stairs.
They kept walking. ‘Can I ask, where are you from? That accent isn’t from round here.’
Another smile. ‘Lithuania,’ she said. ‘I come here to work.’
‘Right. Enjoying it?’
She didn’t turn round this time. ‘Is OK.’ Then perhaps thinking she should have said more, ‘Is fun.’
‘Good.’
They walked in silence until they reached the room. ‘In here… ’ Her expression darkened as she showed him the doorway. He would have worked out which one it was. The only one with crime-scene tape across it.
Phil thanked her, and she turned, walked away down the hall. Her heels perfect dots in the carpet once more. Phil turned to the doorway.
‘OK to come in?’ he called.
‘Get yourself suited first,’ came the reply.
A plastic-wrapped bundle was thrown into the hallway. Phil undid it, put it on, zipped up. Entered.
DS Jane Gosling was already in there, looking round. ‘See anything you like?’ she said.
Phil noticed how different it looked from the previous night. The body was gone, for one thing. Down to the mortuary to be rendered down to its component parts, weighed and examined, quantified and analysed. Adam Weaver no longer a person, just a dead organism. A human watch, broken beyond repair, lacking a set of instructions as to why it had stopped ticking.
Phil hated the aftermath of a murder scene. He often found it worse than when the body was still there. The absence of life more disturbing than the loss of it. A murder presented an end, but also a beginning. Because that was where his job started. But the aftermath showed that life went on. And in a way that was worse. Because one day that would be him.
He shook his head. He had been having increasingly morbid thoughts since the birth of Josephina. Because her existence reminded him that one day there would be a world without him in it. But she would go on. He knew that was right, the way things were meant to be. But that didn’t make it any easier.
‘Catch me up, then,’ he said, focusing on the job in hand. ‘Any progress?’
‘Not a lot,’ said Jane. ‘We’ve canvassed the other rooms, asked the guests if they saw or heard anything suspicious. Nothing. Not until the girl started screaming.’
‘Staff?’
She shook her head. ‘Same thing. No one saw or heard anything. Until the screaming.’
Phil nodded, looked round once more. Saw the emptiness. Felt the absence. Tried to think in absolutes, not abstracts. Weaver’s suit jacket was still on the bed, his other clothes in the wardrobe. The woman’s underwear was discarded on the bed next to a selection of sex toys. The wrapping and packaging beside them showing they had just been bought for her.
Phil frowned. Something…
‘Jane,’ he said. ‘Where was the girl from? The one in the room here?’
Jane Gosling shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘What was her name?’
She checked her notebook. ‘Maria. And then… Oh God, I can’t read it. Here, have a look.’
Phil looked.
‘Luko… sevic… ius… ichius?’ Jane read. ‘Something like that. Eastern European, it looks like.’
‘D’you know where, exactly? What country?’
Another check of her notes. ‘Lithuania, she said.’ Jane looked at him, frowned. ‘Hey, why does that ring a bell?’
‘Because Weaver lived in Lithuania. And the staff here, the woman who let me up was Lithuanian. And the builder Mickey spoke to… ’
‘A pattern,’ said Jane. ‘Or a coincidence?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Phil. ‘Don’t know what it is yet.’ His eyes travelled round the room once more. He had to get out. ‘I’m just going to have a look round the grounds. See if anything comes to me.’
He left the room.
Outside, the air felt colder than the previous day. Summer losing the fight against autumn. The leaves starting to brown and redden. He walked round the corner of the hotel, by the kitchens. Past the bins and skips. Some outbuildings were dotted around. Old, but lacking the preserved charm of the rest of the place. Where the staff live, he thought. Behind them was the river.
He walked down to it, stood on the bank, staring at it.
Something else was hitting him. Hard. Not just a feeling, an emotion, but something more solid. More tangible. A memory.
His heart skipped a beat at the realisation of what it was. He looked up and down the river again, back to the hotel. Looked at the roof, the chimneys against the trees, the skyline.
And he knew what the memory was telling him.
He had been here before.
52
Samuel Lister walked down the hospital corridor. Enjoyed the looks he received. Smiles. All smiles. And the best thing was, even if they didn’t like him, they smiled.
He enjoyed everything about his job. Well, most things. Dealing with the staff under him, endless meetings, that kind of thing bored him. But the rest more than compensated for it. The lavish dinners and parties. The golf.
