The I-Spy Murders

by David W Robinson

  The production control room was situated in what had once been the servants’ dining area, below stairs. Joe found himself confronted with a mass of electronic equipment. One wall consisted of a bank of monitors showing the view from any and every camera in the house. In front of them was a huge control bank with four seats set before it, and in the centre of the control board was a single monitor.

  Helen shook her head. “No. We’re the production company, Mr Murray.” She leaned forward and rubbed irritably at her leg. “Sorry. Childhood scar,” she explained. “Still gives me trouble. Now, what was I saying? Oh, yes. We’re the production company. We’re completely independent of the TV channel.”

  “But you call all the shots?” Joe asked, waving at the equipment surrounding them.

  “That’s the arrangement,” Naughton agreed. “There’s nothing unusual in it. If you take a drama series, it’s usually made by an independent production house, which then sells it to the TV channel, but it’s sold as is. Complete. We’re reality TV, not drama, but the principle is the same.”

  “That’s a debate I already had,” Joe muttered. “More like invasion of privacy TV if you want my opinion, but that, too, is another argument. There’s no one in here of a night?”

  Helen, Naughton and Katy all shook their heads.

  “Not cost effective,” Helen explained. “The truth of the matter is, Mr Murray, there is very little happening in the house during the night. At that time, most of our viewers are online with a few thousand couch potatoes glued to their TV screens. Advertising income for the TV channel tends to be the bottom end of the market in the early hours, so they pay us the lowest rates and we have to economise where we can. We automate as many systems as possible. Motion sensors pick up the Housies during the night, so if there is anything happening anywhere, the computer will pick it up and direct the appropriate cameras.”

  “Not only nosy but cheapskate TV, too,” Joe observed.

  “If Brenda is to be believed, you’re not the freest man in the country when it comes to money,” Katy observed.

  Joe dismissed the scathing tone of her accusation. “I’m a businessman, young lady. I cut costs where I can, but I don’t advertise beefsteak and then serve scrag end.” Switching his focus to Naughton, he asked, “How does the computer decide between rooms if there’s a conflict?”

  “It used to lead to problems,” Naughton admitted. “If there was movement in two rooms at the same time, the computer would switch back and forth like a strobe, but we solved that by putting a minimum ten-second hold on any camera that comes onto the main feed.” He pointed at the central monitor on his console. “That hold is programmed into the computer.”

  “Let me get this straight, then,” Joe said. “If someone wanted to get into the Romping Room from, say, the men’s dorm, and there was movement in the living room, for example, he would have a ten-second window to get himself along the corridor and into the Romping Room. Is that right?”

  Naughton and Helen nodded.

  “Has Hoad been made aware of this? Because if there is a suspicion that Ursula was murdered…”

  “Won’t work, Mr Murray,” Katy interrupted. “We may have a view hold on cameras, but not a record hold. In other words, if someone moved at the same time as someone in a different room, although their movement wouldn’t transmit because of the view hold, we would still have it on record.” She pointed to the vast computer servers surrounding them. “One of the first things we did after Anne found Ursula was check the footage from last night. After they all went to bed, no one moved all night.”

  “Besides, how would any of the Housies know that the cameras were on hold?” Naughton smiled and Joe felt the cockiness in the gesture. “Your murder theory is impossible, Murray. It simply cannot be done.”

  “Hmm. You know, someone once proved that if trains travelled faster than about twenty-five miles an hour, everyone in the carriages would suffocate. I wonder what British Rail would make of that.”

  “Not a lot,” Katy retorted. “British Rail hasn’t existed as such for quite some years.”

  Naughton gave her a small clap for her response.

  “Smartarses, too,” Joe commented and was pleased to see the irritation his remark brought. “Now, listen to me, all of you. I’m not interested in your cheap and nasty programme, or your fancy equipment. I will tell you that this woman was murdered. Hoad doesn’t believe it yet, but he will when he has sufficient evidence. I know the Romping Room is the only room used by the Housies with no cameras, but I need to know how anyone could get in there without being seen.”

  Helen laid her hands flat on the console. “They can’t,” she said with great finality.

  “The cops won’t let us in the room until their scientific support people are finished, but Hoad showed me photographs,” Joe declared, “There’s some kind of hatch on the rear wall. Could someone get in through there?”

  “Not big enough,” Naughton argued. “It’s about nine inches square.”

  “What’s it used for?” Joe asked.

  “Delivery of fresh linen,” Katy replied. “And if you’re wondering why they would need fresh linen–”

  “I may be getting on,” Joe interrupted, “but there’s nothing wrong with my memory... or my physical abilities,” he added hastily. “I’m not in Ursula Kenney’s league but I can still… Never mind, we’re getting distracted. You use this hatch to drop fresh linen into the Romping Room. Are there similar hatches in other rooms?”

  “Every room,” Naughton agreed. “Why?”

  “And how do you get access to the hatch?”

  “The backroom set up, Mr Murray,” Helen told him. “Only the smallest part of Gibraltar Hall is given over to the Housies. Not just Gibraltar Hall, but any location we choose for I-Spy. Far and away the greater part of the house is used by the production and support team. Where do you think your friend, Brenda, got the ingredients for her meal last night?”

  “A meal which, I might add, appears to have had an ill effect on all the Housies,” Katy sneered.

  “If Brenda’s meal has upset their systems, trust me, it’s the ingredients, not her cooking. She’s worked for me for six years and I’ve never had a single complaint.”

  “We were about to look into that when Anne found Ursula,” Helen admitted.

  “Not interested,” Joe dismissed her. “Let’s get back to these hatches. Any chance I can see this backroom area you’re talking about.”

  The three production managers exchanged glances. Naughton shrugged. “As long as the cops don’t mind. Why?”

  “Well it occurs to me that if you can reach through them and leave stuff in the rooms for the Housies, you can also reach in and take stuff out. Stuff like a dressing gown cord. Not only could you take it from the men’s dorm, say, but you could leave it in the Romping Room for someone to pick up and use on Ursula.”

  “Or for Ursula to use on herself,” Katy pointed out.

  “True, very true,” Joe agreed, “except that she didn’t.” Joe proceeded to explain what he had noticed on the footage of Ursula leaving the dorm. “Someone could have put that cord in there through the hatch.”

  “It’s a nice theory,” Naughton said, “but it didn’t happen.”

  “And how do you know?” Joe asked.

  Naughton again gestured at the screens and computer equipment around them. “Every feed from every camera is here. I’m not saying one of us would have spotted it, but whoever did it would know the danger of being caught, and he’d be an idiot to risk it. But even if you’re right,” he pressed on over Joe’s attempted interruption, “you still can’t get round the fact that no one followed Ursula into that room last night. She was alone. The other seven Housies, the only ones who had access to the Romping Room, were all asleep.” Again he delivered that superior smile. “I repeat. Murder is impossible. It’s suicide.”

  Chapter Eight

  “How come you’re all so bloody superior?” Joe asked as Katy led h
im away from the rear of the Romping Room and the access hatch, and towards the back stairs.

  It had proved a fruitless mission. The areas behind each room were simply barren boxes with two, sometimes three, hatches built into the wall. The hatches could not be opened from the front, the Housies’ side of the room. Behind the Romping Room, it was secured by a simple, sliding bolt, which meant that any theory Joe could construct would have to come from the technical side, and that would involve collusion with one of the Housies. Since that appeared to be impossible, and access was denied to the technical crew, it began to look as if Ursula really had committed suicide.

  Joe slid back the bolt and pushed the hatch open. It was too small for him to see the entire Romping Room. At most he could make out the bottom corner of the bed. He backed away, a frown of deep thought etched into his brow.

  “Something wrong?” Katy asked.

  “Hmm. Maybe, maybe not.” He took out his mobile and dialled. “Frank?” he asked when the connection was made. “It’s Joe Murray. The initial report on Ursula? Did you tell me there were no signs of a struggle?” He listened to the chief inspector’s reply, then said, “That’s what I thought. Thanks. Catch you later.” He hit the side button of his phone and locked it up.

  “Well?” Katy asked.

  “No struggle. It means that Ursula was probably asleep when the killer came into the room.”

  “And?” Katy tapped her foot impatiently on the floor.

  “So how did anyone know she was asleep?” Joe asked.

  “Maybe they didn’t,” Katy suggested.

  “My feelings exactly. And that would mean that the killer knew she was expecting him, or her. Either that, or…”

  Joe turned back to the hatch and examined the frame. There was nothing remarkable about it. He went further and examined the entire wall, but it was no more than a wooden frame covered with plasterboard panels. It had probably been erected in a matter of hours and could certainly be torn down in minutes. The hatch was no more than a wooden panel set into a small frame, with a shelf on the Romping Room side.

  “Nowhere anyone could have hitched one of those tiny cameras,” he concluded. “That means Ursula was definitely expecting her killer.”

  They came away from the room, making for the stairs again, when Joe passed his comment about their assumed superiority.

  “It’s not us, it’s you, Mr Murray,” she assured him. “You come with a built-in reputation, thanks to Brenda and some of the stories she’s told about you this week. But here you’re in TV land, and you’re out of your depth. We have answers for everything, and because this hall is flooded with cameras, we can account for everything that’s happened.”

  Joe stood his ground. “I’m not wrong. I know I’m not. Listen, Katy, call a truce for one minute and tell me, honestly, what did you think of Ursula.”

  The young woman shrugged. “What can I say? She was a whore, plain and simple. Celebrity behaviour, celebrity ambitions, and she went out to show the world just what she could be like.”

  “And that would win her the big prize?”

  “Not necessarily,” Katy admitted. “That’s decided by a public phone vote. But it would certainly bring her to the media’s attention. The tabloids will hand over cheques that make the I-Spy prize look like pocket money. And you can bet your last penny that there was some publicist out there with an army of ghost writers just waiting to pen her biography. She’s not the first contestant we’ve had like that, and without exception, the others have made a fortune even when they haven’t won the public vote.” Setting off down the stairs, she went on, “People like her come on the show simply to manipulate the system.”

  A couple of steps behind her, keeping a firm grip on the banister as they descended the steep staircase, Joe noted, “You sound bitter.”

  The staircase turned back on itself halfway down. Reaching the tiny landing at the turn, Katy paused and gazed up at Joe. “It’s not what we had in mind when we first thought of the programme. Our original idea was to bring in eight people, equally divided between the genders, but all of different ages, and let them make an effort to get on with each other.”

  “I don’t watch a lot of TV,” Joe confessed, as he reached the landing, “and I certainly don’t watch this kind of rubbish, but it occurs to me that when you have someone like Ursula, it probably hypes your viewing figures. She pays your wages.”

  “Yes, well, right now she’s probably put an end to my wages.” Katy continued on her way down the stairs.

  Falling in behind her, Joe asked, “How come?”

  “She committed suicide, Mr Murray. Aside from the police investigation, there’ll be an internal inquiry, and because of the health and safety implications, the company will probably decide that I-Spy is too risky, and that means I’ll be looking for work again very shortly.”

  “And suppose she was murdered?” Joe asked.

  Katy reached the ground floor and waited for him. “That makes it even worse. The other contestants could conceivably sue the company for failing to check the backgrounds of their fellow Housies thoroughly enough and putting them in proximity of a killer. Long before the legal battles start, the company will shut I-Spy down.”

  She led the way along the rear corridor which, Joe guessed, servants would have used at some time in the hall’s history, to the security checkpoint at the rear door. A single officer sat in the small office, and before him were more TV monitors, but these were more familiar to Joe than the plethora of such screens in the control room.

  Computer controlled, they were external CCTV screens and they showed only four views; the exterior of the house and rear garden from each corner of the building, and the view into the woods at the rear from each corner of the property’s back wall.

  While Katy explained that she and Joe would be going out to look around the gardens, Joe watched the cameras panning around their respective views. Using the garden’s ornamentation as a guide, he guessed that there should be some overlap between the views, but there was not. An elephant shaped bush disappeared from one screen and there was a delay of almost two seconds before it appeared on the other.

  “Right, Mr Murray,” Katy said. “Let’s show you the outside.”

  Joe took out his tobacco tin and rolled a cigarette. “Please call me Joe,” he invited. “I’ve never liked formality.”

  Warm sunshine greeted them as they stepped out into the garden.

  “Would you consider yourself a success, Joe?” Katy asked.

  Breathing in the fresh air, hung with the tang of various scents from the riotous flowerbeds, Joe lit a cigarette and drew deeply on it.

  “That’s better. Nothing like a bit of good, old-fashioned pollution to set you up.” His wrinkled brow creased even further. “A success? It depends how you define the word. I took over the running of the café when my father got too old to work it. I stamped my own personality on it. I’m mean, miserable, grumpy and tight-fisted, but everyone in Sanford knows me, and my place is a gold mine. The food is staple, working class diet, I suppose, but I have a large customer base, and they know exactly what they’re getting. I end each year in profit. I don’t make anything like the amount people think I make, but I’m happy with my lot, so from that point of view, I suppose yes, I’m successful.” He took another drag on his cigarette. “What about you?”

  Katy pointed up at the caricature of a head wearing a top hat. “The man who cut that from the bushes probably took the same view as you. He trained and trimmed that bush until he created something. He was probably paid pennies for doing it, but nevertheless, he would have been happy with it. He would have considered himself successful. I don’t think I’m a success. I’m twenty-seven years old and unmarried by choice. I didn’t want relationships to get in the way of my career. I came out of university six years ago, and here I am a production assistant on I-Spy. By my calculations, I should have been at least one more rung up the ladder.” She smiled wanly. “Second unit assistant direct
or on the next James Bond movie.”

  “I was reading James Bond on the way to Chester,” Joe commented. “It’s good to be ambitious, and you’ll probably get there.”

  Katy shook her head. “There are others coming along behind me who will probably leapfrog over me. I haven’t even got to work on a drama project yet. I piddled about with silly jobs on a few minor projects, and then landed I-Spy two years ago. If that goes, I’m back in the pool, scratching for work.”

  “Where is all this leading?” Joe asked.

  “Ursula Kenney. She would have understood, Joe. She was a failed actress turned estate agent. Thanks to her, I’ll probably be out of work, and maybe I’ll end up as an estate agent, too. If you’re looking for someone who might have murdered her, you could do worse than look at me. I had every reason to kill her.”

  ***

  Her whole body trembling, Brenda took the chair opposite the two police officers and drank from a bottle of water.

  “A friend of yours has turned up,” Hoad told her. “Joe Murray.”

  Brenda cleared her throat nervously. “I knew he would the moment he heard the news. Has he, er, offered to help you?”

  Hoad nodded slowly. “I’ve charitably permitted him to ask a few questions here and there, but made it clear to him that this is my investigation.” The chief inspector sat back and nodded at his junior.

  “Mr Murray insists that Ursula Kenney was murdered,” Sergeant Rahman declared.

  Brenda shrugged. “If Joe says that, then the odds are he’s right. He always is.”

  “We don’t think so,” Hoad admitted,” but we have to entertain the possibility because Joe is persuasive, and that’s why we’re talking to you.”

  The first inkling of alarm spread through her. She drank again from her bottle. “Oh yes?”

  “We’ve just spoken to Marc Ulrich concerning the cord from his dressing gown, which he claims went missing sometime yesterday. That cord was used to hang Ursula.”