“Oh, God. I just thought. Will Gleeson. He’s lying there. Some poor sod will discover his body. What if it’s someone with a weak heart.”
“Don’t worry. It’s all been taken care of. An anonymous call was made to the police just after you called me. Go and get some sleep, and I’ll come and join you after you’ve had some breakfast. You can’t say I didn’t warn you about Kevin O’Connor and his family. He’ll have an alibi for tonight. And the BMW is almost certainly stolen. It’ll most likely have been torched by now. Get a good night’s rest, and I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
Twenty minutes later, the Range Rover pulled in alongside the garage at the rear of the Milton Motel, and Roger Maynard made his way round to the hotel reception desk to be greeted by Gerry Payne.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE MILTON MOTEL
“Hello, you must be Roger Maynard,” said a friendly voice.
“How on earth did you know that?”
“I was a detective until I retired and bought this place. I can see the fear in your face and Phil told me to expect someone with that look. Don’t worry. A good night’s rest and it will all seem much better tomorrow. If you’d like to follow me, I’ll show you to your room.”
The reason Phil Jones had sent him to the Milton Motel was that Gerry Payne was a former colleague. Over recent years as the police force had become more political, a lot of the best people had decided to take early retirement and start their own businesses.
Nowadays it was more about management services and people from university. People with the right qualifications, but no real experience of what the job entails, were being fast tracked up the ladder.
The College of Policing was offering fast track and direct entry programmes. Their website offered university educated graduates the opportunity to become a Superintendent within two years, rather than work their way through the ranks by their effort and on-the-job experience.
Their website offered:
The Direct Entry at Superintendent programme supports the National Policing Vision in helping to bring existing exceptional leaders into the police service to make an immediate impact on culture, efficiency and effectiveness. This will be achieved by opening up entry to the service to proven leaders who will join policing directly at the rank of superintendent rather than having to work their way up from the rank of constable.
Programme members will be trained over eighteen months and given coaching and mentoring, to equip them with the skills required to perform as a superintendent, inspiring confidence in officers, staff and the public. This will create a cohort that has the potential to further develop and acquire the skills and experience to progress to the chief officer ranks.
It meant the police were losing highly experienced officers who could see their future career opportunities limited if they hadn’t attended a prestige university.
The lower ranks would be expected to work long hours; fourteen-hour shifts were becoming the norm, as paying overtime was seen as being cheaper than recruiting new raw recruits. Of course, the fast trackers, once they reached superintendent, would probably only work normal office hours.
The local golf club had seen its membership grow as these new fast trackers made every effort to spend their time in the company of their superiors. Members of the club not associated with the police called them the arse licker brigade.
Luckily, Gerry’s wife Paddy had been a bookkeeper with a local firm of accountants, and when the previous owners of the motel had decided to retire, she knew how profitable the business was and how much potential it had for the future. With Gerry’s police pension and their savings, they had worked out it was a good investment.
Over the past few months they had upgraded the rooms from the traditional style of the previous elderly owners to a more contemporary décor that had more appeal to upmarket travellers and at the same time had extended the front of the hotel and were in the process of moving the run-down coffee lounge from the side to a bright modern extension that had been added to the front.
So far half of the bedrooms had been transformed. Out went the frilly curtains and dated furniture and velour headboards. In came fresh paint in nice neutral colours, window blinds and a minimal look with fitted sliding wardrobes where old Victorian dark oak free standing wardrobes had previously been.
“Don’t you want my credit card and details?”
“All in good time. Phil’s vouched for you. He said you’re an honest guy. That’s good enough for me. He said you had gone through some trauma, so I put a miniature whiskey in your room, compliments of the hotel. A drink will help you settle. Then get some rest and tomorrow is another day.”
Roger found his room and entered, switching on the light and seeing the bottle next to the two-seater sofa. He poured a good measure into the glass and drank. It felt good. Really good. His mind couldn’t settle. What had he got himself into? More importantly, how was he going to get out of it? He really hoped Phil had the answer because at that precise moment he didn’t have a clue.
Two hours later, he looked at his watch. 1.30 a.m., Sleep just wasn’t happening. he got up and sat on the two-seater sofa. Gradually his eyelids felt heavy. He made it to the bed and within a few minutes had managed to drop off to sleep.
The alarm on Roger’s watch woke him at his usual time of 6.30am. Time for a shower. No way to shave as he hadn’t arrived with a razor. Perhaps he could borrow one. Or perhaps, for once, he could just go unshaven. What the hell. He had more important things to worry about.
Breakfast at the Milton Motel was served
