He didn’t want to wait another four hours. He wanted to be there now!
Chapter Eighteen
Over breakfast Joe struggled to keep his eyes open. He had managed to catnap a few times before finally rising and showering at seven.
At that point, he returned to Dan Wellesley’s website on the off-chance that it may have been a server error, but after receiving another 404 error, he went back to the notes he had made. Several times he thought he spotted something, but each time, it proved a false alarm.
Over and over again, he came back to the tale of how Victor Prentiss had ‘wrecked’ almost as many actresses as he had ‘made’. Wellesley was careful; he named no names. Joe didn’t know if Prentiss had any relatives (if so the site did not mention them) but that aside, many of the ruined women would probably still be alive and the potential for legal action by any of them would have been enough to make Wellesley tread carefully.
Joe had no doubt that Ursula Kenney was one of them, but at the same time Marlene Caldbeck had said Ursula was rubbish as an actress; always had been.
“It seems unlikely to me that Prentiss could have ruined Ursula’s chances if, as Marlene claimed, she had no chance anyway,” he said over chilly bacon and rubbery eggs.
“So you still come back to this idea that Ursula knew something about Prentiss’ death and it was linked to someone on I-Spy?” Brenda asked. Unlike Joe, she had elected for cereal followed by buttered toast.
Sheila, grimacing at the tang of grapefruit, commented, “And you still think Prentiss’ death may have been murder.”
“I think it all ties in,” Joe said with a yawn, “and even if I’m not sure who, I think I know how it was done. I’m going out to Gibraltar Hall to test my theory after breakfast.”
“So you don’t suspect Marc Ulrich anymore?” Sheila washed the grapefruit down with fresh orange juice, and shuddered again.
“On the contrary. Of all the Housies, he’s the one in my sights. It was his dressing gown cord, and I can’t understand why he was wearing the bloody thing in the first place. Also, he was the only one Ursula criticised who might have actually jumped her, although he denies it. Greg and Ben say they didn’t, and Dylan openly admits he did. But she never criticised Dylan, did she?”
Swallowing the remains of a cup of tea, Joe rolled a cigarette and got to his feet. Rattling his knife against a glass, he called out, “Can I have your attention please?”
The hum and clatter of the dining room quelled and the Sanford 3rd Age Club members turned their eyes on the Chairman.
“I make no apologies for repeating this, but you must vacate your rooms by ten this morning. The hotel has a storage area here on the ground floor where you can leave your bags, and Keith will be here at three thirty this afternoon to pick us up. We’re scheduled to leave at four.”
“What about Brenda?” George Robson asked. “Is she being detained for questioning?
“Shut it, George,” Brenda threatened, “or I’ll tell the cops what you get up to when no one’s looking.”
A ripple of laughter ran round the room.
“You’ll never know when I have one of them radio controlled cameras on you, Brenda,” George riposted.
“All right, all right,” Joe stepped in. “Enough of the funnies. Three thirty for a four o’clock departure, and you know what Keith is like in rush hour traffic. He’s grumpier than me, so don’t be late.” He sat down again. “If I leave it with you, can you make sure my bag gets on the bus? There’s only the one. I’ll need my backpack and netbook.”
Brenda and Sheila exchanged more smiles.
“Does he leave his wallet in his suitcase?” Brenda teased.
“No he does not,” Joe grumbled. “Now, come on. I have enough to do today and I ain’t had much sleep.”
“The disco laptop is safely stored, Joe?” Sheila asked.
He nodded. “And like I said, I’ll have the netbook with me.” Swallowing the last of his tea, he got to his feet again. “I’m gonna grab a taxi and get off to Gibraltar Hall. I may need you both there later on, and if I don’t, Hoad might, so keep your phones on.”
He hurried from the dining room dialling a taxi as he did so. While he waited at the front entrance, he rang Hoad first.
“Frank, it’s Joe. Listen, I’m on my way to Gibraltar Hall. I think I know how it was done. You’ll need everyone there later today, but I know that Helen Catterick was leaving for London. Try to stop her. If not, you’d better get onto neighbouring forces and get them to intercept her.”
“It’s her?” Hoad asked urgently.
“I’m not sure. I’ll know later on, but she’ll need to be there.”
“I’ll get onto it, Joe,” Hoad agreed, “and I’ll see you out at the hall.”
Joe killed the connection and then dialled Scott Naughton.
“Are your cameras still in place?” he asked.
“Some of them,” Naughton admitted.
Joe’s taxi turned into the hotel entrance. “Do you still have the feeds from the dorms and the landing?”
“Of course. We have all of it. We keep it for years.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Joe said as he climbed into the cab. “Are the cameras still set up and able to record?”
“We have cameras in the dorms, but we’re working on the landing.”
“Tell them to hold at least one camera,” Joe barked. “One second.” He ordered the driver, “Gibraltar Hall, please. Quick as you can.” Putting the mobile to his ear again, he said to Naughton, “I’ll need your help to work with the cameras in both dorms, and I’ll need to see some footage from during the week. Can you do that?”
“Any reason why I should?” the director asked.
Joe tutted and the driver said, “I can’t help the rush hour traffic, mate.”
Joe looked out at the packed, slow moving vehicles. “It’s okay, pal. I’m not having a go at you. It’s the muppet on the phone.”
The driver laughed and Naughton protested, “Calling me a muppet isn’t the best way of getting my co-operation.”
“Then what is?” Joe asked. “I need you to do some recording in the dorms.”
“And I asked why I should.”
“The only possible reason you have for not doing so is because you murdered Ursula and if you refuse, I’ll have Hoad arrest you. I’ll be there in half an hour.” Joe jabbed the disconnect button, glowered at his phone and tucked it in his shirt pocket.
Up front, the driver laughed. “I wouldn’t like to meet you down a dark alley.”
“Down dark alleys, I’m safe. Try taking the mick and you’re in trouble.”
***
Joe arrived at Gibraltar Hall just after nine thirty. He felt tired, more irritable than ever, and Naughton’s obduracy served only to exacerbate his mood.
“I have enough to do as it is,” the director complained, “without running round at your beck and call.”
“You ever heard of a man named Dan Wellesley?” Joe asked.
“Yes,” Naughton admitted. “He was a venture capitalist who used to put money into movie and TV projects. He was murdered sometime on Saturday night.”
Joe’s eyebrows rose. Naughton reached across to Helen’s desk and picked up the Daily Express where the story of Wellesley’s murder took front page headlines.”
“You can read, too?” Joe dripped cynicism. “You could be in the frame for his killing.”
Naughton shook his head. “I can prove where I was on Saturday night. I was with Helen. So there’s two suspects crossed off your list, Murray.”
“You slept with her?”
Naughton almost exploded. “Of course not. What the hell do you take me for?”
“An arrogant sod who’s so used to being in control that he can’t handle it when others make demands of him. You know you didn’t murder Wellesley, nor Ursula, but I don’t know it. Or at least, I only know it intellectually. I couldn’t prove you didn’t do it. Now let’s cut out the big ‘I
am’ and see about proving your innocence.”
The director sighed. “What is it you want?”
Joe took out his netbook, plugged the adaptor into a free mains socket, and switched it on. “Set up and run the sequence from both dorms at the time we suspect our killer climbed over the wall.”
“Driscoll says she left at about half past midnight,” the director said, “So if I run you from, say twelve thirty-five, will that be okay?”
Joe nodded.
It took Naughton a few moments to locate the specific feeds, and then the twin screens in the centre of the console began to run the footage.
“Speed it up,” Joe ordered. “What I’m looking for could take some finding.”
Naughton did as he was told, and the scenes moved quickly on.
“Nothing’s happening,” Naughton said. “They’re all asleep.”
“Patience,” Joe advised. “We’ll get there.”
His eyes darted from screen to screen, watching the accelerated action. A body turning over here, a slight movement beneath a duvet there, until…
“There!” Joe pointed at monitor 2, showing the scene from the men’s dormitory. “Stop and rewind, then play it at normal speed.”
Naughton again carried out Joe’s bidding.
As the video footage continued, nothing happened, until suddenly there was a brief flare of light, so transient, it could have been missed.
“What is that?” Joe asked.
Naughton shrugged. “I told you before, it could be anything. A reflection on the camera lens, could be an anomaly on the camera iris. Anything.”
“Can we copy that onto a memory stick and load it onto my netbook?” Joe asked.
“No problem. Less than five minutes.”
Joe handed him the memory stick. “There’s another, similar flash of light from the ladies’ dorm. I need you to find and copy that too.
“So what is it?” Naughton asked. “What’s so important about a tiny flicker of light on the video? It was probably a speck of dust in the air.”
“Except that it wasn’t,” Joe said, and concentrated on the screens again. “Can I watch in the dorms?”
Naughton shook his head. “No monitor.”
“Can you rig one up for me?”
The director let out an exasperated sigh. “We’re trying to dismantle the equipment, Murray, not set more up.”
Joe swivelled his chair round to face his antagonist. “Lemme ask a question. Ursula’s death. Suspicion hangs around the crew and the Housies. Will that suspicion affect your career?”
Naughton gave Joe that condescending look again, as if chastising him for asking a stupid and obvious question. “Yes. Happy now? Content now you know I’ll get the dirty end of the stick whether or not I’m involved?”
“I don’t let my personal feelings get in the way,” Joe told him, “but speaking personally, I think you need a good kick up the backside as a reality check. Putting that aside,” he pressed on, picking up Naughton’s look of thunder, “what harm will it do your prospects if we prove it wasn’t you?”
“None at all,” Naughton admitted. “In fact, it might do me some good.”
“In that case, indulge me and get a monitor set up in the men’s dorm. And bear in mind, I may need it shifting to the women’s dorm later.”
Huffing out his breath, Naughton snatched up the phone, dialled and barked orders into it. “I don’t care what you think,” he concluded. “I have an amateur cop here determined to hang me for killing the bimbo, and I need that monitor in the men’s dorm, ten minutes ago.” He slammed the receiver into its cradle and glowered again at Joe. “Satisfied?”
“Not yet. Only when I know that you understand what I want you to do.” Joe dug into his pockets and took out his mobile. “You got one of these?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Write down your number and I’ll send you a text. Store my number because you’re going to be texting me several times.”
His confusion and anger growing with every passing moment, Naughton did as he was instructed. Joe copied the number into his phone and sent an immediate text, and as he received it, Naughton again followed Joe’s orders.
“Let me get this right in my head,” Joe said eventually. “While I’m in the dorm, I can speak and you’ll hear me. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Can you get back to me through Master Spy’s microphone?”
Naughton leaned across the control console and flicked a couple of switches. “Yes.”
“Good boy.” Joe turned to the video feeds and ran them. When he reached that point where the flare of light in the men’s dorm appeared, he paused it, and concentrated on Naughton again. “I’m going up to the men’s dorm, and I’m going to try to recreate that flare. You understand? It may take a few attempts. I want you to record it all, and after each attempt, on my instructions, I want to you run it through the monitor your boys are setting up, so I can judge how close we are. If we don’t get close, I’ll do it again.”
“You’re going to try to capture a speck of dust in the room? You’re out of your mind.” Naughton declared.
Joe waved an irritated hand at the screen. “That flare has nothing to do with a speck of dust. Now, clue me up on something else. When I kill the lights and the monitor, I’ll be in total darkness, won’t I, and the camera will shift into night vision mode?”
Naughton nodded.
“When I give you the word,” Joe said, “send me the text. And remember, Naughton, we may need to do this many times before we get it right. All right?”
The director heaved a sigh of resignation. “Whatever you want.”
Leaving the control room, Joe made his way via the back stairs to the upper landing and into the men’s dorm where two technicians were in the process of installing the monitor he had requested.
“You want it left on?” one of them asked.
Joe shook his head and as they left, he faced the camera. “You picking me up all right, Naughton?”
“Loud and clear.”
“I’m about to kill the lights.”
Joe made his way to what had been Greg’s bunk, reached up and switched on the overhead lamp, then walked back to the door and killed the main lights. Returning to the bed, he lay down, turned away from the camera and switched off the light.
He was suddenly plunged into blackness so complete that it startled him. He could see absolutely nothing but the image of the doused lamp burned onto his retina. “Naughton. You still getting me?”
“Yes,” the director’s voice came over the Master Spy link. “And the cameras are in night-vision mode. I can see you.”
“You’re recording?” Joe asked.
“As per your orders, Führer.”
“Cut the crap and send me the text.”
There was a delay of many seconds before Joe’s phone vibrated and the screen lit with an icon and short message telling him he had received the text. He opened the message, read it, and the locked the phone.
He began to count in his head: one-one thousand , two-one thousand, three-one thousand… After five seconds, he said, “stop the recording and get ready to play it back through the monitor here.”
“Wilco,” Naughton replied, “but I’ll tell you now, it doesn’t look like you want it to look.”
“Let me worry about that.”
Joe activated his phone again, and by its light, reached up and switched on the overhead lamp. He rolled from the mattress, returned to the monitor and switched it on. “Okay, Naughton, let it roll,” he said when the screen was up and running.
As Naughton had promised, he was clearly visible laid on the bed in night vision mode. He heard himself give instructions, and Naughton acknowledge them. The audio system even picked up the buzz of his phone when the text arrived, but when he activated the phone, the light was so bright that the camera tried switching to day mode and as a result blurred everything. The camera corrected itself within a second of
Joe locking his phone.
Sat on the edge of what had been Ben’s bunk, he drummed his fingers on his knees. Too much light. How had Greg muted it? More to the point, how did it tie in with Marc, whose bunk was next to Ben’s on the opposite side of the room?
“All right, Naughton, we go again. This time I’ll be on Marc’s bunk.”
Killing the monitor and the overhead lamp, he used his mobile to guide him to Marc’s bed, lay down and they repeated the exercise. The results were similar, but this time, the light had come directly from Marc’s side of the room, and bore even less resemblance to the original footage.
He tried again, this time clasping the phone lightly in his hand to dim the light, but the camera hardly picked it up. He did the same on Greg’s bunk and the result was worse.
Sitting before the monitor after his sixth attempt, his brow furrowed. “How the hell did you do it?”
***
“What is he buggering about at?” Hoad demanded.
Naughton shrugged. “You tell me. He’s been in there over half an hour now, trying to replicate this few seconds of footage, and he still hasn’t done it.”
They watched Joe as he rolled to face the camera, the phone buried in his hand before ordering Naughton to run the test again.
“What’s so important about it?” Hoad wanted to know.
“He wouldn’t tell me,” Naughton replied. He reached across his console and kicked the recording in for the tenth time. “All he said was it would clear me.”
The result was better this time, but still it did not match the original footage. When Naughton reported back, Joe said, “I’m coming back down. Do me a favour, will you. Dig out some daytime views of the dorm. I need to know whether anything is missing.”
“Will do,” Naughton agreed, and swung his seat to the adjacent monitors to seek out the relevant footage. “Do you often get nutters like this meddling with your investigations, Chief Inspector?”
“Don’t know about nutters,” Hoad responded. ”This fella comes seriously recommended by his local police force. Not that he sees thing others can’t, but he sees them that much quicker and puts some odd twists on them. Cornered a couple of killers in Filey earlier this year, got one of his chums off the hook before that. One of them from that club he runs. He has an eye for detail. Reckons it’s what comes of serving lorry drivers for too many years.”
The I-Spy Murders Page 23
