“Yes, I’m sure you were. I understand what it’s like. Just keep things as normal as possible. Look after the guests as best you can. I’ve got a meeting I can’t get out of this morning but I’ll pop over this afternoon for a brief visit, but as I said, you’re in charge.”
Over the next few minutes, three members of the hotel staff turned up.
“What’s going on, Diane? Why the police. What’s happened?” Asked head chef Wayne Hurst.
The other two members of staff stayed silent, content for Diane to reveal the details.
“I found a body in one of the rooms. He was lying there with a knife in his back and blood everywhere. Oh God, it was awful. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in a place like Trentbridge.”
As the police arrived in larger numbers and started their investigation, Diane’s instincts had already kicked in. She realised with her boss away on holiday she was in charge of the hotel and everyone would be looking to her. The determination on her face told everyone she had no intention of letting them down.
She phoned the various staff members who were due to start work later and informed them what had happened.
The restaurant staff and some of the waitresses were due to arrive shortly but most of the house maids and bar staff started work later and Diane told them not to come in until she contacted them, explaining to each one what had happened.
She couldn't answer the main question most of them had. Would they still get paid? That was up to the owner.
Four miles away Detective Inspector Eden Gold had just finished gulping down a cup of coffee and was all set to walk out of his front door. It was his first day off in over a month. He had a broad smile on his face and he had been looking forward to his fishing trip for weeks. As he heard the phone in his pocket, the smile disappeared.
Oh, come on. You’ve got to be kidding me. Why today of all days?
He knew the call would change his plans.
"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but we've had a report of a murder at the Albion Hotel."
“Shit!”
Chapter Four
Peter Moore thought he looked pretty good for his age. Five feet seven inches with a good head of light brown hair, a small dimple in his chin and only slightly overweight with a voice he tried to make sound more upper class than it actually was.
Home was a two-storey apartment above the family antiques shop. The entrance was via a blue door in a recess to the left of his shop and the greetings card shop next door.
The shops formed part of a parade in a secondary area of Dulwich in south London. The name above the door said ‘Moore Antiques’.
The definition of an antique is ‘a collectable object such as a piece of furniture or work of art that has a high value because of its age and quality’. Most of the items for sale in the shop were far from being such.
Peter’s parents, John and Joan had been general second-hand dealers all their lives, carving out a living from buying and selling cheap tat or genuine antiques when they could find them. At the rear of the shop was a small workshop where John Moore repaired and restored clocks. It never made a lot of money as it could take John two weeks to restore one clock, whereas other restorers usually repaired two or three a week.
His parents had tried to teach him what they knew about antiques, preparing him for the day he would eventually take over the family business, and he did admire the quality of many items produced in centuries past but his true passion had always been paintings.
In his last two years of school, a new art teacher had arrived. Before Damian Maelstrom had taken over the art department at Dulwich Secondary Modern, Peter simply knew he liked certain paintings but not why. This new teacher took Peter under his wing and nurtured his love of art, explaining how the great painters worked and developed their skill. Strangely Peter never showed any interest in creating his own.
That was why he loved to spend his days visiting the many art galleries and museums London had to offer. He would spend hours wandering around places such as the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, the Serpentine Gallery right in the middle of Hyde Park, Somerset House, the lesser-known Whitechapel Gallery and of course, both Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Gazing in admiration, imagining how an artist had spent weeks applying brush strokes, gradually adding layer after layer until they were happy with the result.
Peter loved art across every genre. Everything from The Old Masters, the Impressionists, the Post-impressionists, Pre-Raphaelites and much of the abstract contemporary art. He seemed to have the ability to see the beauty and the pain in every artist from Turner to Jackson Pollock.
Other days he liked to attend art sales at the top auction houses, although he could only afford a copy of the catalogue. He made notes of what items sold for.
There were days he would spend hours dreaming of the large house he would own with valuable paintings adorning many of the walls.
In October of 2011, John Moore had died suddenly followed by his wife just four months later.
As their only child, Peter had inherited the shop and upstairs apartment, the business and after funeral and solicitors costs, the sum of sixty-two thousand pounds.
Taking over the family business in early 2012 had been a difficult time for Peter. But then he had met Norman Gentle.
He was seven years younger than Peter. Five feet five tall with a slim tidy figure. He had dark brown hair, nicely tanned skin from regular visits to a salon and a smile that made friends easily.
When they first met Peter noticed Norman had a
