by Alec Peche
“Ah, that makes sense. What will the castle maintenance do with this window? Can they recreate historical glass?”
“They’ll put modern glass in place for now while their maintenance crew contracts with a historic glass maker to make the original repair. They’ll have the window repaired as soon as we take down the crime scene tape.”
“There isn’t much to be learned here other than Nick’s murderer had to be large enough to get him through that window with force,” Jill concluded. “I’m anxious to study all of the security footage from the castle. Did you fingerprint this area?”
“I agree about the evidence in this room. Our crime scene techs debated fingerprinting this area, but with thousands of visitors each week, I think we could waste a lot of time running down prints from people that are not the murderer.”
Jill nodded, and they turned to leave the room, but then Jill stopped and paused a moment looking around.
“How did the murderer keep the public out of this area? I would think that during the open hours of the castle that someone would always be taking pictures of this room.”
“That’s a good question, Dr. Quint. As I wasn’t first on the scene, I’ll get that answer from my men.”
“Are there any other ways into this room?” Jill asked. “Perhaps a secret elevator, or maintenance back stairway?”
“Let’s look as I don’t have the answer to your question.”
They each took a side of the room looking for any hidden doors that might lead to another exit to the room. Sure enough, DI Jones found a panel in a corner that moved to reveal a very industrial looking set of stairs.
“Must be that maintenance corridor that you were looking for,” Jill said. “It’s very industrial looking and has no castle charm.”
DI Jones entered the corridor after asking Jill to stay at the top and followed the steps downward. Sure enough after winding through four or five sets of steps, he arrived at another back corridor of the castle on the ground floor. He was breathing heavy once he’d returned up the stairs to Jill.
“The stairs lead to non-public areas that include space for cleaning and maintenance. I didn’t notice any cameras on the stairs,” Jones said while he looked at the single camera monitoring the summer smoking room. “This doorway may be on that camera, so we’ll get a look at which way they came.”
“One more question,” Jill said. “Can you enter this room without a key?”
Once the stairwell door was closed, Jones tried and failed to get into the room from the stairway.
“Must be a one-way doorway; you can get out of this space in case there is a fire, but you can’t get in it from the stairs without a key.”
Jones nodded, and they departed the room where Nick was pushed to his death. Jill knew that she could never again visit this castle no matter how many future trips to Cardiff she made. This castle was forever off her bucket list.
Chapter 4
Angela wanted to go to the closest Catholic Church, and light a candle and say a prayer for Nick’s journey into the next world. She hoped he would have a chance to meet her father and sister who were already in heaven. When she had time later, she would head to St. David’s church for a private spiritual goodbye to Nick. All she could do at the moment was try and find who killed him and why. As one of her friends said earlier, how strange that they had never researched Nick as a friend; they simply accepted him. Now none of them knew who he was and she realized that empty space inside her head was also causing her grief.
DI Jones had introduced her to DI Oliver Thomas who had the job of collecting witness statements. It wasn’t peak tourist season; still, they had about twenty witnesses between people that were in the castle and those on the grounds that saw Nick’s fall. There were more visitors in the castle than that, but these were people that saw or heard his fall. DI Thomas had interviewed most of the people, and some had even been released back to their homes or hotels. The four that remained for Angela to speak with had been close to the fall on the ground or the summer smoking room.
Angela was introduced as a visiting expert consultant on the case and sat down with the two people that had watched Nick fall. Trying and failing to set aside her personal feelings for Nick she paused to get her emotions under control and said, “Tell me what you saw.”
The couple looked at her in surprise, probably due to her American accent, and then the woman held out her camera and said, “Mark and I were staring at the tower discussing what we wanted to be framed in our photograph. I was looking at the camera screen playing with the zoom. We both gasped when we heard the man yell as he was falling. I took a few shots out of reflex. I’m sorry.”
Angela reached over and placed her hand on the woman’s and replied, “I’m a photographer as well and I know what it’s like to play with your camera to get that perfect picture. I often snap several frames knowing I can edit later, so I understand why you reflexively shot those pictures. May we see them?”
The woman turned the camera on then looked for the pictures. There were three. Angela and DI Thomas viewed the pictures and then he said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry but I’ll need to take your camera and download those pictures. We should be able to return it to you tomorrow.”
She sighed but nodded.
Angela swallowed and said, “Tell me about the sound you heard. Did you hear any conversation come from the tower prior to the man’s fall?”
“No ma’am.”
“Did you see the window break?”
The woman shook her head and replied, “No I was peering through my camera screen.”
“I saw the glass break as a man was pushed out the window,” replied Mark.
“Why do you think he was pushed?” DI Thomas asked.
“He was reaching back toward the window as though trying to grasp something on his way out. He also opened his jacket as though trying to slow his descent to the ground. It was heartbreaking to watch as he so clearly wanted to live by the few seconds of action that I saw him make.”
Angela took a deep breath and a big swallow and continued with her questions, “Did any face appear in the glass window after the man’s exit?”
Mark thought for a while and then said, “I don’t recall seeing a face,” and looking over at his partner said, “Honey do you recall seeing a face in the window?”
She shook her head ‘no’ and then spent another moment studying the pictures she took of Nick’s descent. She did not see any face in the window in any of the pictures that she took.
“Did you see anyone run out of the tower building?” asked DI Thomas.
“No. We just stood there in stunned silence. We didn’t go over to the man to see if he needed help because he made such an awful sound when he hit the ground that we knew he couldn’t be alive."
Angela and DI Thomas asked a few more questions but got no useful information out of them. They moved on to the couple that had been inside the castle at the time of Nick’s altercation with the unknown subject.
Again introductions were performed and DI Thomas took them through what they had observed. The new piece of information they picked up from that interview was the gender of the assailant. The couple heard two male voices speaking prior to the sound of breaking glass.
“Were they speaking in English?” Angela asked.
There was a pause as the couple thought about the voices.
“I would guess German or Dutch, but I’m not a language expert,” replied the man.
“What was the tone of their voices? Were they arguing, or pleasant?” DI Thomas asked.
Again the couple thought for a while, then replied, “Their voices were soft like they were trying to keep their conversation low. Then there was a burst of words, followed by noises of a scuffle, then we heard breaking glass, and then nothing.”
Angela screwed her eyes up for a few milliseconds thinking about Nick’s last minutes. Then she convinced herself to snap out of it and move forward to help find his killer. She focused o
n the conversation, but she could think of no further questions.
Looking over at DI Thomas she said, “I can think of no further questions.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, did we get your contact information? You sound like you’re from England, do you live there?” DI Thomas said.
Mrs. Hughes smiled and said, “Yes we’re from a little village called Marlborough just down the M4 and we left our mobile number with someone else from your department.”
“Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, for your help,” and Angela and DI Thomas directed the couple towards the exit.
DI Thomas checked in with his partner and they all met up in a castle courtyard. Jill placed a hand on Angela’s shoulder trying to give her silent support. After discussing their findings, and a promise to send Jill the tapes from the castle cameras, the two women were dropped off at their hotel by the detectives. They scheduled a meeting the next day to discuss developments overnight as well as to make arrangements for Jill to attend Nick’s autopsy. Minutes later the four friends gathered in one of their hotel rooms.
Chapter 5
“Angela, how are you doing?” Jo asked when Jill and Angela entered the hotel room.
Angela smiled sadly and replied, “I’m okay. I’m going to go to the closest church and light a candle for Nick. Jill can catch you up on what we learned at the castle,” and she left the room.
Marie looked at Jill and said, “Should someone go with her?”
“She’s safe walking the streets here and I think she’d like to be alone with her thoughts,” Jill replied.
The three friends looked at each other and agreed. Perhaps the best thing they could do for Angela was find Nick’s killer.
Jill asked Marie, “Did you find out who Nick Brouwer was?”
“Not yet and I’m amazed the four of us never looked into his background before now. If he was a suspect in a different case we’d be ducking all the red flags flying at us,” Marie replied.
“He helped save our lives on numerous occasions so regardless of who he is or isn’t, he’s always been a friend of ours,” Jo declared.
“I wonder if Henrik knows anything about Nick. He’s more protective of his security and privacy than we are; I wonder if he looked much into Nick’s background?” Marie questioned.
“Let’s see if he’s available to talk with us now,” Jill suggested.
After a nod from the others, she put her phone on the table between the three of them and dialed his number. It was answered after only one ring.
“Jill, have you caught Nick’s killer? What can you tell me?” Henrik asked, concern coming across the phone line.
The three friends looked at each other, with Henrik’s questions. He was usually formal in his interactions with them. Now he sounded like he had been waiting by the phone for their call, willing to forgo social conversation to get to the heart of the matter.
“Hi Henrik, it’s Jill, Marie, and Jo on this end of the phone. To answer your question, we haven’t identified Nick’s killer yet. We’re calling you to find out more about Nick. We began researching him this afternoon and his background is so far, filled with red flags. Did you ever run a security check on him?”
“No, I never looked into his background. I checked the four of you out since I thought you were connected to my wife’s murder somehow, but I’ll admit I didn’t review Nick or Nathan and now that we have become friends I wouldn’t check in to your backgrounds. That seems such an invasion of privacy. Why?”
“Nick doesn’t seem to have existed up to about three years ago. We were trying to help the police locate family as none of us could remember a single mention on his part about his own family. That was why we asked you earlier if you knew anything about his family.”
“That’s strange! As you Americans would say, I sensed that the river ran deep in Nick, but I hadn’t explored that feeling. You want me to do a search now on his background? Do you have a picture of him that I could run through the facial recognition software and see if there’s any other name connected with his face?”
“Henrik, at this point we’ve hit a blank wall. Granted it’s very early in our investigation and we usually run into blank walls in the beginning but if you can find anything on Nick that would be great and I’ll forward a picture to you if we can find one. I don’t ever remember taking a picture of Nick, but maybe he’s in the background of one of our numerous vacation photos. Angela is the most likely to have such pictures but she’s out of the room at the moment so I’ll ask her when she gets back.”
“How did he die?” Henrik asked quietly.
“He was having a conversation with someone in a language that was not English, and then there was a scuffle, and he was shoved out a tower window at Cardiff Castle. His landing caused brain damage not compatible with life,” Jill said.
There was silence on the phone line while Henrik digested Jill’s terrible news, then he said, “At least his death was quick.”
“Yes,” replied Jill waiting to see if Henrik had any questions or comments.
There was a sigh and then Henrik said, “Well I guess I better get to work helping you find his killer. Send me the photo when you get it.”
After the call ended the three women were sitting staring at the phone on the table as if in a trance. Then Marie asked, “Should we take a moment to reroute our vacation. I’m thinking that this is going to take a while since we first have to identify who Nick is before we can deduce who his killer is.”
“Good point, we’re scheduled to leave Cardiff tomorrow and we’re supposed to spend the next two nights in Manchester before heading for Scotland. We don’t have train reservations, but we did book a hotel in Manchester,” Jill said then looking at Jo asked, “What are the cancellation procedures and I guess we better see if we can stay here a few more days.”
By the time Angela returned they had rerouted their trip for the next two days. They were all hoping to get to Scotland, but solving Nick’s death was important. Angela agreed with by-passing Manchester and heading straight for Edinburgh. They knew from past investigations that there generally wasn’t anything they could do by being on the scene other than having a stronger relationship with the local constabulary, so they could take the train to Scotland and still work on solving Nick’s murder.
Angela described her interviews with the witnesses to Nick’s fall.
“So there was an argument in a language we can't identify, then a scuffle, and then Nick was pushed out of the tower,” Jill noted. “We know the murderer is a male and of sufficient size and strength to shove Nick out the window. I think our next step is to get a copy of the video from the cameras covering the castle.”
“Do any of those cameras capture voice?” asked Marie.
“That’s a good question I didn’t think to ask the video guy if any of their cameras recorded sound, let me ask and also find the time when the tapes are supposed to be delivered here. We may just want to go to dinner now and then come back to the hotel and do some work,” Jill suggested.
Jill got a delivery time of one hour for the video footage from DI Jones and so the women left for a pub seeking Welsh food and beer. Jill and Marie opted for shepherd’s pie, while Jo was adventurous with cockles, a type of clam. Angela, never one to have an enormous appetite, was having trouble finding interest in food given the horrible day. Knowing she needed something to feed her brain, she settled on cheese and bread.
After dinner, they arrived back at their hotel to find a flash drive waiting for them with the video footage from the castle at the reception desk. Jill had her laptop with her that contained the software from Henrik’s facial recognition program.
“There’s a lot of footage here and I was thinking about how to divide it up?” Jill said. “Why don’t we use Henrik's software to find specific objects? Angela, do you have any photos of Nick that we could use as one of the objects?”
She thought for a moment and then remembered the photos she had taken at the ski resort when
her real intent was to identify other people in the bar. Those photos contained a picture of Nick. She didn’t have those photos with her and so spent some time accessing her data cloud where she stored photos. As a professional photographer, she had over a hundred thousand photos on the cloud. After thinking about her filing system, she was able to locate the photo of the group from Colorado. She thought it was the best full-faced picture she had of Nick. She hadn’t realized he’d done such an excellent job avoiding being in any photos. Perhaps this was further evidence of a secret life he led. She quickly edited the picture so they had a single headshot of Nick which she emailed to Henrik. Entering the picture into her copy of the software, she started the search for Nick on camera. Five minutes later they had their matches.
They were able to track Nick’s approach to the castle and his purchase of an admission ticket at the information booth. He then seemed to walk the grounds of the castle visiting the Roman ruins before pausing to read a text. From there, he strode toward the tower and his eventual death. He was seen entering the tower, but not falling out. It seemed that no camera focused at the front façade of the tower. That was too bad, not because they wanted to watch Nick fall to his death, but rather they hoped to see his murderer peering through the broken window.
“We have Nick’s movements tracked and I’m going to let DI Jones and Davies know of our progress. Let’s isolate all the pictures of adult males on the grounds thirty minutes before Nick’s death. I have no idea how many people that will be – perhaps thirty or perhaps one hundred, but let’s see what we get,” Jill said.
The next search, because it was so broad, took a lot longer. In the interim, DI Jones requested to visit their hotel to look at their evidence. The Welsh Police did not have the speed and accuracy of the software that Jill had used and hadn’t made any headway in tracking Nick’s movement in the castle. Their hotel room was small; so they met the detective in a nook area of the hotel lobby. It was secluded, and it would allow them to keep their conversation private.
