The I-Spy Murders

by David W Robinson

  “You mean like the ones I see on YouTube?”

  “Correct,” Naughton assured him.

  Joe looked around the room and down at the floor where several tower units appeared to be working.

  “If I wanted to make a DVD of some of your backups, could I do it?”

  “If you knew what you were doing, yes,” Naughton agreed. “But it would take a long time. These are high definition files. They take up an enormous amount of memory.”

  “So I couldn’t do it in secret?”

  “Only during the night, when everyone has gone home, but even then you’d need to get past security and into here to do it.”

  Joe stroked his chin and gazed again at the morass of equipment. “All right, Naughton. Let’s imagine the camera on the landing outside the Romping Room breaks down. How quickly can you switch the view to your stock feed?”

  Naughton shrugged. “Me? I could do it in maybe five seconds. Helen probably could, and maybe Katy, too. Most others, I’d guess, would take a good minute, maybe longer. They’d have to search the computer folders looking for the correct feed. I know where it is.” He sat forward in his seat and spun away from his control board. “What are you getting at, Murray? You think someone switched the feeds so they could get into the Romping Room without being seen?”

  Joe nodded. “Hmm. Maybe.”

  “Impossible,” Naughton declared.

  “Why?”

  “Because there are other feeds your supposed killer would have to switch. The main entrance hall, for instance. There was no access to the upper landing from the back stairs. It was sealed off until the police got here. And there’s a second camera on the landing, at the other end. We can watch the landing from either end, and that covers dorms, bathrooms and the Romping Room.”

  Hoad’s eye gleamed with triumph. “You see, Joe. There is no way anyone but one of the Housies could have got into that room, and we know from studying the footage that they didn’t.”

  “So when your post mortem results come back and they tell you she was murdered, which way will you go then?” Joe demanded.

  “If she was murdered, I’ll sell my missus into slavery,” the chief inspector insisted.

  “Then give me a price,” Joe retorted. “I could do with a cheap kitchen hand.”

  ***

  “What about Brenda and the other Housies?” Joe asked as he and Hoad stepped out of the house into the hot, sunny afternoon.

  “We’ve done with them for now, so I think we can let them go,” Hoad agreed. “As long as they agree to stay in the area.” He slipped his jacket on and dug into the pockets for his mobile phone. “If you want to hang about, I’ll give them the good news and your lady friend can go with you back to your hotel.”

  Joe smiled broadly. “Good man. I’ll bell for a taxi and be waiting outside for her. You’ll let me know about the post mortem results?”

  “Yeah, no problem. Tell me, Joe, what’s your thinking now? That one of the production crew came in, set up stock feeds to cover their movements while they did the business?”

  “You said you don’t think it could be done?”

  “It would need a lot of planning and careful timing,” Hoad ventured. “And there’s one other ingredient missing, isn’t there? Motive.”

  “Well, my experience is that the victim will tell you all about the motive.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Hoad promised.

  Chapter Eleven

  After fighting through the rush hour traffic on Grosvenor Road, the taxi circled a roundabout and turned onto the final leg of its journey, along a narrow road, lined either side with terraced houses.

  Contrary to her usual, garrulous self, Brenda had been silent throughout the 25-minute journey from Gibraltar Hall. Joe had wittered, telling her how the café and the Sanford 3rd Age Club had missed her for the past week, and how they were looking forward to having her back in the fold for a celebratory dinner in just a few hours.

  Small talk, he thought to himself. Neither of them wanted to broach the subject of Ursula Kenney.

  They had confronted death, even murder, a number of times in the past, and Brenda had personal experience. She lost her husband, Colin to cancer some years back. It was a subject that touched her, worried her, even frightened her sometimes, and in Joe’s opinion, it helped explain her free and easy approach to life and love. She, more than any of them, was acutely aware of her own mortality, and there was a burning need to bury that fear under a life in pursuit of mild hedonism.

  This time, however, she had been implicated in a death, no matter how slightly. The grilling she had undergone from Chief Inspector Hoad and Sergeant Rahman had unnerved her.

  On the way into Chester, they had been surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells of an English city in full summer flow. An August sun blazed onto the crowded pavements, T-shirts and shorts, lots of bared, often burned flesh, the call of the bars and shops, the chatter of the shoppers, the glare of the sun from the flat calm river, all conspired and called to the sense of freedom which went with a summer’s afternoon. Yet Brenda sat locked in a nightmare of murder (despite Chief Inspector Hoad’s hesitancy, Joe remained convinced that Ursula had been deliberately killed) where she was a possible suspect.

  Now the shops and restaurants had thinned out, becoming this faceless row of terraced houses, and the cacophony of summer faded to the muted peace of suburbia.

  Joe felt a sudden urge to take Brenda’s hand. The two women had worked for him for over five years and all three had been friends since childhood, but he was careful to maintain a discreet distance. A kiss at Christmas, friendly lips touching at birthday parties; they were the sum total of intimacy between them. Joe wanted nothing more of either Sheila or Brenda, but he felt she needed support and if holding her hand would lend it then...

  As his gnarled hand wrapped around hers, she smiled wanly. “Thank you, Joe.”

  The moment did not last. The driver turned into the Victoria Hotel’s forecourt, skirted the fountain and its surrounding rockery and pulled up to the entrance.

  While Brenda climbed out of the car, Joe paid the driver and retrieved her suitcase from the boot.

  “You’ll have to register,” he told her as the car pulled away again. “You’re expected but we couldn’t book you in until you actually arrived. You’re billeted with Sheila and once we get you signed in, I’ll take your bags up to your room.”

  Escorting her into reception, Joe again noticed that she said nothing. She was bottling it up and he knew the flood would come. He would prefer not to be there when it happened. Women who cried always made him feel guilty, and anyway, Sheila had spent many years as a school secretary. She was better equipped to handle the inevitable flood of tears.

  He had rung Sheila from Gibraltar Hall as they climbed into the taxi, warning her to expect them, and she was there, waiting in reception for their arrival. Looking into the bar beyond her, Joe could see the Staineses, Owen Frickley and George Robson at a table close to the entrance. He guessed that the whole of the Sanford 3rd Age Club contingent would be in there, everyone on pins, waiting to see their heroine.

  Brenda spent a few moments filling in the registration card at the reception counter, then crossed the carpeted lobby to chat briefly with Sheila. Joe waited patiently for the two women to move towards the lift, the signal for him to tag along with Brenda’s suitcase.

  Without warning Brenda fell into Sheila’s arm and began crying. Feeling useless and helpless, Joe concentrated on a display of leaflets for boat trips on the River Dee. Why did women always have to cry?

  Sheila hugged her friend for a long moment and then gently guided her to a seat. Sitting alongside her, the two women dissolved into muted, serious conversation, Brenda dabbing away her tears with a tissue, Sheila holding her hand. Joe took out his tobacco tin and rolled a cigarette. When it was completed, he tucked it into his shirt pocket, and looked to the two women again. A thin smile had broken across Brenda’s pained features.
Sheila doing what she did best, he diagnosed; quietly, gently encouraging her best friend.

  Dragging Brenda’s luggage with him, Joe made his way to the bar entrance and looked in. Expectant faces greeted him. Across the room, by the windows, he could see Sylvia and Tanner, sat with Mavis Barker and Cyril Peck. Tanner raised inquisitive eyebrows. Joe gave him the thumbs up. Close to him, George Robson and Alec Staines stood with the obvious intention of approaching. He frowned and shook his head in a gesture that said, “Not yet,” and the two men sat down again.

  Joe backed out. His sole purpose had been to allow his two companions a moment or two alone so they could reconcile Brenda’s distress.

  The two women stood up. “Right,” Sheila announced briskly. “If you’re ready, Joe, let’s get Brenda’s belongings upstairs.”

  “About time, too,” Joe grumbled. “I’m gasping for a smoke and waiting for you two…”

  Brenda bestowed a smile upon him that was almost loving. “Has anyone ever told you, Joe, that you’re a wonderful man?”

  “Yes, well, don’t go spreading it about. I have a reputation to live up to, you know.”

  ***

  Sat on the rear terrace looking over towards the boat station, Joe drew on a cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. With the afternoon sun dipping behind the distant city centre, Joe, Sheila and Brenda sat with tea enjoying the cool evening shade, watching the sightseers and early Friday evening revellers, making the most of their time, and Joe felt more at peace than he had done all day.

  After changing into a conservative dark skirt and white blouse, escorted by her two friends, Brenda had made her way down to the dining room for just after seven, where a rousing cheer from the STAC members almost reduced her to tears again. She received their gushing reception and personal messages of goodwill with modest reddening of her cheeks, causing Joe to comment, “I never thought I’d see the day when Brenda Jump blushed.”

  Eventually, after an excellent meal of lemon sole, still carrying a glass of white wine, she joined Joe and Sheila on the terrace, and declared, “It’s nice to know you have such friends.”

  “We were all rooting for you, Brenda,” Sheila told her.

  “What will the TV company do with the prize money now?” Joe wanted to know.

  “It’s also nice to know that some things never change,” Brenda teased. “As I understand, Joe, we’re sharing it, all eight of us. Ursula’s share will be paid to whatever family she had, or if they can’t find anyone, they’ll donate it to a charity.” She drank from her glass and demanded, “Tell me the truth, Joe. Was it suicide?”

  Joe shook his head. “It was murder. By the time I’d done with Frank Hoad, he was all but convinced, and the only good news is that you Housies are all in the clear. There is no way any of you could have done it. You’d need access to the control room to get out of the dormitory to the Romping Room.”

  “I know I didn’t do it,” Brenda said, downing another large swallow of the house white. “But that bloody detective, that Hoad, swore blind I had a grudge against the girl. Me? When do I bear grudges?”

  “You did have some arguments with her, dear,” Sheila pointed out.

  Brenda aimed an accusing finger at Joe. “I argue with him six days a week, but I haven’t minced him up into the steak pies yet.”

  “I like the way you left the option open,” Joe said. “Brenda, tell us about Ursula.”

  “You haven’t been watching?” Brenda sounded affronted and Joe felt secretly pleased that she was coming back to her old self.

  “Of course we have,” Sheila replied, “but I think Joe’s hinting that even watching you for twenty-four hours, day and night, you don’t get the same, er, feel for a person as you do when you’re with them.”

  “Sorry,” Brenda said. “I can’t help thinking that the poor girl…” She trailed off, tears sparkling in her eyes, and drank more wine to settle her nerves.

  “Brenda,” Joe insisted, “I know you don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but in this case, we need to know everything we can about her. Listen to me. Someone murdered her. I’m sure of it, and when he gets the post mortem results in, Hoad will be too. The only way we can get justice for her is to find her killer, and the only person who can give us a hint is Ursula. She’s dead, so we need to get those hints from people like you. So come on. I don’t need you to speak ill of her. I just need you to be honest.”

  Brenda remained silent for a while, staring out across the river to the far bank where couples walked hand in hand. Her eyes focussed again and narrowed on Joe. Pulling in a deep breath, she let it out with a sigh.

  “She was a little tart. There. I’ve said it. A cow of the first order. She spent all week playing up to the men, looking for a fight with the women so she could show that she was the celeb, the alpha-mama.” Brenda sighed again in an effort to ease her anger. “If she was murdered, and I stress, if, then a lot of people will say she got what she deserved. But you know me, Joe. It’s not true. It was a front, all of it. She was fond of telling us she’d been an actress some years ago, and she was using whatever acting skills she had to put it all on. She wanted that prize money and she actually said more than once that it was as good as hers.”

  “Because she was so sure she could out-perform you all,” Sheila commented.

  “Or did she know something the rest of you didn’t?”

  The two women stared at Joe.

  “That’s impossible, Joe,” Sheila said at length. “The winner was to be decided by a telephone vote.”

  “And only the TV company would know the outcome of that vote,” Joe pointed out. “Let’s just play devil’s advocate here. Suppose, just suppose, she had an arrangement with someone high up in the company headquarters. What’s to stop them fixing the vote? I don’t know enough about the safeguards to really comment, but it must be possible.”

  “There have been cases in the past,” Brenda murmured, “but I don’t know that they actually affected the outcome.”

  “Were you given any indication at any time of your ongoing popularity?” Joe asked.

  “Not in so many words,” Brenda said. “When you went into the video room, they would say, your popularity has risen today after… whatever you did. Or it might go the other way. Your popularity has slipped today because of… again, whatever it was you did.” Brenda finished her wine and pushed the glass to one side. “Joe, I can see what you’re driving at, but according to our best information, the vote was impossible to rig. You’ll probably have to argue this out with the TV company or the police, but I don’t think it could be done.”

  Joe chewed at the stub of a cigarette. Digging into his pockets, he pulled out his Zippo and lit it. “Then why the hell was she killed?”

  “If she really was murdered, only she would know that.”

  “The killer would, too,” Joe pointed out. He glanced at his watch. “A quarter to eight. The disco is at nine. What say we take a walk along the river bank?”

  “That is the best suggestion you’ve made all day,” Sheila replied.

  “I’ll second that,” Brenda agreed, “and I’ve only been here a couple of hours.”

  ***

  “Frank’s here,” Joe said to Sheila. “Do you wanna handle the disco while I see what he wants?”

  To the sound of the Monkees trying to take The Last Train To Clarksville filling the lounge bar, Chief Inspector Hoad entered, looked around, spotted Joe on the podium and waved.

  Sheila nodded, Joe gestured to the terrace and as Hoad made his way round a dance floor crowded with members of the Sanford 3rd Age Club, Joe stepped outside and rolled a cigarette.

  “You’re a DJ, too?” the chief inspector asked as he sat down.

  “Only for the club,” Joe confessed. “My choice of music is a bit limited for Radio One… Radio Two as well, come to think. Bitta fifties, lotta sixties and seventies. Nothing later than Abba.” Joe dropped his tobacco tin in the side pocket of his gilet. “So, what can I do you for
, Frank?”

  “I have to hand it to you, Joe, you got it spot on,” Hoad said. “Ursula was murdered. Post mortem leaves no doubt.”

  Joe jammed the pipe-cleaner-thin cigarette between his lips, took out his Zippo and lit up, his face briefly illuminated in the early evening light. Blowing smoke into the light breeze, he invited, “Go on.”

  “Pathologist’s preliminary report says her bloodstream contained large doses of Zopiclone. It’s a short term tranquiliser, marketed under the trade name Zimovane. A sleeping pill.”

  Joe frowned. “So what does that prove? Everyone who watched her on TV saw her taking pills before she went to bed every night.” Joe smacked his hand against his forehead. “She told everyone they were Dihydrocodeine Tartrate. And they were Zimovane?”

  Hoad shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that, even. Everyone who watched her on TV saw her taking chalk before she went to bed every night. Her pills, which she claimed were powerful painkillers, were ordinary paracetemol capsules. Headache stuff nothing more. And as far as we’re aware, she had no need to be taking them. She was putting on an act, Joe. So where did the Zimovane come from? When we found out, we asked for urine and blood tests from Ernie Bexley. We’re waiting for the results, but we think he may have been doped with the same stuff, and it was you who put us onto it.”

  “All right,” Joe agreed, “so it begins to look more like murder. You still don’t know for sure?”

  “Yes we do. The post mortem also reports that on close investigation there are two ligature marks round her neck. The one was caused by the cord she was hanged with, but it was post mortem. She was already dead. The other, the one that really killed her, was caused by something a lot finer and not plaited the way the cord was. A nylon stocking or something similar.” Hoad drummed his fingers on the table. “She won’t have known much about it. The Zimovane would have knocked her out by the time the killer came. She was asleep and she just never woke up.” He frowned again. “We searched the Housies’ effects yesterday, looking for Ursula’s pills – alleged strong painkillers – and a few of the women had tights and stockings in their bags.”