“We also need someone to run PNCs on all the cars in the car park and check the footage on the CCTV cameras I noticed in the reception area. You never know, we might get a lucky break.”
Chapter Sixteen
As the victim’s body had been found at the entrance to the bathroom and several feet from the outside door, the SOCO team had laid down a line of raised metal stepping-stone plates. Each plate was approximately twelve inches square and five inches high with just four small feet touching the ground to give the crime scene investigators access to the scene while minimising contamination of possible evidence.
One member was logging details of anyone entering or leaving the crime scene. Another was busy taking photos from every angle and producing a sketch of where everything was laid out in the room.
The Forensics team were busy taking photos of the body. The team was also gathering any physical evidence from the room they could pass on to help the detectives.
Digital photos were taken of all the fingerprints and downloaded onto the laptop computer, linked to the Fingerprint Bureau via a secure network. These would be run through the fingerprint database and any relevant information forwarded to the officers running the investigation.
Before the body could be removed, Scene of Crime Officers examined the door to the room and also the hallway outside, trying to discover any clues or evidence before people trampled over the area as the body was being removed.
By 8.15 police officers had knocked on all the doors of the occupied rooms and briefly explained there had been an incident in the hotel overnight and everyone should make their way down to the restaurant within the next twenty minutes. No one was allowed to leave the hotel until they had been questioned.
As this was happening on the first floor, the DCI had a team of four officers; one located at each corner of the large dining room interviewing the guests, using a list provided by the assistant manager Diane
The police had so far questioned two families and three couples. It seemed none had any connection with the victim so, after giving a brief statement and supplying a verified form of identification and contact details, they were allowed to leave.
There was just the final couple and the six single occupants left to question.
Being interviewed by the police was the last thing fifty-seven year-old solicitor Michael Farrington needed. He had come to what he thought would be a nice quiet hotel forty miles from his hometown of Eaton Spa under the pretence of attending a law society seminar.
He didn’t need news of this getting back to his wife. After all, it wasn’t as if he had anything to do with this murder. He had never heard of the victim. All he wanted to do was try to regain some of his youth and what better way than to be in the arms of his thirty-three-year-old extremely attractive lover Valerie Wilson.
His wife had grown fat and the sex was almost non-existent and certainly not what it once was. Valerie, on the other hand, knew exactly what to do and she did things his wife had never wanted to try. The previous night Valerie had worn him out and then woke him at six to do it again. For the past few weeks he had been drawing up plans to leave his wife and make a new life in Italy with the woman he was deeply in love with and who couldn’t seem to get enough of him. He was just waiting for some inheritance money to come through and then he would tell his family.
So he wasn’t looking forward to being questioned by the police. As he waited, the thoughts running through his head kept repeating themselves. Play it cool. Don’t try to be clever, just tell the truth and hope they don’t need to check details with his office.
He and Valerie were interviewed separately.
Twenty minutes later, Michael was thanked for his help and told he was free to go. He noticed Valerie sitting waiting for him. Obviously her interview had been shorter.
“What did you tell them?” Michael asked his lover.
She gave him a big naughty smile. “I told them I spent the entire night bonking your brains out and there was no way you’d have had the energy to get out of bed let alone murder someone by the time I’d finished with you.”
With that Michael seemed extremely relieved but something in the way he looked made Valerie wonder if there was something he wasn’t telling her. However, being a light sleeper she knew what she had told them was the truth and Michael hadn’t stirred until she woken him at six with the words, “Wakey wakey, Honeypops, your little buttercup needs another good servicing.”
Now the police could concentrate on the six people staying in the hotel on their own. And three in particular seemed of interest as they had been flagged up as antiques dealers who knew the victim.
With murder investigations like this, things could change in an instant. Each of the detectives knew interviewing people was often the way to get their first lucky break. The one that would lead to them finding the killer.
Chapter Seventeen
INTERVIEW WITH FRANCIS TACK
“Hello, Mr Tack, I'm DCI Andy Stone. As you may be aware early this morning a member of staff discovered the body of a gentleman we believe to be Peter Winston-Moore and we’re treating his death as suspicious."
I understand you knew him well and after seeing a photo my colleague showed you, have positively identified him. Thank you for your assistance in that matter."
He pulled his notebook nearer, and got out his pen.
"Now, this is purely routine so if we could start with your full name and address, and
