Gone to Ground

by Rachel Amphlett

  The receptionist, a man in his twenties with far too much enthusiasm for a Friday afternoon as far as Kay was concerned, leapt to his feet as they approached, a wide smile creasing his mouth.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  His cheery demeanour faltered when Kay flipped open her warrant card.

  ‘I need to speak to the duty manager,’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s with a group of delegates from one of our shareholding companies at the moment.’

  ‘That’s fine. Please let him know we’re here to discuss the possible murder of one of your hotel guests and we’ll be waiting here for him. No doubt the local media will be wanting to speak to him at some point, too, but with any luck the timing of our visit will help him ward them off and save this hotel – and its shareholders – from any embarrassment that may cause.’

  The receptionist let out a shocked gasp, his face turning white, before he reached out and punched a series of numbers into his desk phone.

  Kay turned from the desk and led Gavin towards four armchairs surrounding a low coffee table and picked up one of the hotel’s brochures as she sat.

  The receptionist’s voice reached her, a flustered tone accentuated by his shock.

  Gavin grinned. ‘That was mean.’

  ‘I know, but we don’t have time to mess around, Gav. We’re almost a week into this investigation and we have no leads. Time to up the ante.’

  Five minutes later, the sound of hurrying footsteps reached her ears and she glanced up from the brochure as a thin man with black hair advanced on her, his brow furrowed.

  ‘Detective Inspector Hunter?’

  She rose from her chair and shook his outstretched hand before introducing Gavin.

  ‘I’m Kevin Tavistock, senior duty manager. Come this way. My office is through here.’

  Kay rolled the brochure between her fingers and followed Tavistock through an opening next to the reception desk into an office at the back of the hotel.

  A roster had been scrawled across a whiteboard fastened to the wall at the far end, with a note of the more important guests who were expected over the weekend.

  Tavistock waved them to two grey plastic seats that faced a desk in the corner and eased himself into a chair behind it, wiggling a mouse to awaken the computer before him.

  ‘I understand you wanted to speak to me about one of our guests?’

  The words escaped his lips in a single breath, and Kay wondered whether it was through shock or excitement.

  She suspected the latter.

  She recited the formal caution before continuing. ‘I have to insist that what we discuss here is treated with the utmost confidentiality.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Tavistock leaned his elbows on the desk. ‘What do you need to know?’

  ‘First of all, can you confirm that Clive Wallis was a guest of your hotel last week?’ said Gavin, and flipped open his notebook.

  Tavistock turned to his computer and hit a few keystrokes, then nodded. ‘Yes. Here he is. Part of a delegation that was booked into one of our conference rooms on Thursday. We keep a note of all names for any dietary requirements, plus of course security in the event of a fire or something like that.’

  Kay raised the brochure. ‘I understand from Mr Wallis’s employers that part of their conference included team building exercises organised by the hotel. Can you tell me which ones?’

  ‘Of course. Let me see… they arrived here on Wednesday afternoon and after a light lunch, they attended the craft workshop. That’s where we offer guests the chance to try their hand at traditional local crafts, such as basket weaving and things. For the team building, I believe there was some sort of competition involved.’ He smiled benevolently as he scanned the screen for the details. ‘A few of our corporate clients are firm believers in getting their staff to work together more closely through practical exercises. Oh, here we go – archery. Got quite rowdy, according to a couple of our older guests.’

  When neither Kay nor Gavin responded, he cleared his throat. ‘Erm, after that they played a few holes of golf, then we organised a barbecue for them on the terrace. The next day, their sales conference was held in the Majestic Room on the first floor. Morning tea at ten-thirty, lunch on the terrace at one o’clock, and farewell drinks at four.’

  ‘And which room did he stay in?’ said Gavin.

  More keystrokes followed, then silence.

  Tavistock frowned. ‘I’m sorry. I have no record of Mr Wallis staying with us on either the Wednesday or the Thursday night. It only says here that he attended the conference.’

  ‘We’ll need a list of the delegates to compare with what we have from his employers, and we’d also like to interview the members of staff on duty that day,’ said Kay.

  The man’s top lip curled. ‘Well, I’ll obviously need the necessary authorisations.’

  ‘We’ll have them to you before close of business today.’

  ‘It’ll be difficult to get all the staff together, too – they work different shift patterns and the duty roster was only changed yesterday morning.’

  Kay rose from her seat and forced a smile as she held out her hand. ‘I have a team of officers assisting with this investigation who are more than capable of coordinating interviews. We’ll be in touch.’

  The man managed a faint smile as they left the office, and Kay led the way back through reception to the car park beyond.

  Once outside, Gavin turned to her and shoved his hands in his pockets as he stared up at the hotel’s logo emblazoned across the porch above their heads.

  ‘All right. If he didn’t stay here, where the hell was he on Wednesday and Thursday night?’

  Twenty-Three

  ‘Settle down, you lot.’

  Kay paced the floor in front of the whiteboard, conscious of Sharp hovering at the sidelines.

  As soon as she’d returned to the police station, she’d knocked on his office door and spent the next half an hour arguing the case for more resources to help with her investigation.

  Sharp hadn’t been the problem, but headquarters was reluctant to spend the money and it had taken all of her patience and Sharp’s diplomatic skills to coerce the additional funding for overtime.

  Finally, they’d acquiesced, and now she was faced with the task of informing her team their weekend plans had changed.

  The last uniformed officer had collapsed into a spare chair at the front of the group with an apologetic smile. Kay held out a sheaf of paper to Barnes who stood at the right-hand side of the arc of team members.

  ‘Take one and pass them along,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, but today’s events have left me with no choice but to insist on us continuing our investigation over the weekend.’

  No sound emitted from the group, for which she was grateful. Her team were professionals and would do all they could to catch the killer in their midst.

  ‘We’re going to spend the next two days interviewing the staff at the hotel where Clive Wallis was last seen. According to both his employer and the hotel manager, Wallis turned up on the Wednesday to participate in a team building and sales conference event that lasted until Thursday afternoon. We have a problem.’ Kay turned and tapped Wallis’s photograph. ‘According to the hotel’s booking system, he didn’t stay overnight at the hotel as planned. So, where did he go?’

  She faced the group once more. ‘On the sheet of paper in front of you, you’ll find a note of who you’ve been teamed up with and a list of the people you’re tasked with interviewing. We’ll concentrate on hotel staff tomorrow, then the people who run the extracurricular activities on the Sunday. A lot of the businesses that provide the activities are managed by local craftsman and the like, so you may need to interview them at home if they’re not at work. Debbie’s very kindly collated all the relevant email addresses and phone numbers you need to give you a head start.’

  She paused and took a sip of water before placing the plastic cup on the desk next to her. ‘Update the databas
e as you work, and flag anything suspicious with myself, Barnes, Gavin or Carys immediately. Any questions?’

  A flurry of hands went up, and Kay spent the next twenty minutes fielding queries and fine-tuning some of the tasks until she was satisfied the team had everything they needed.

  ‘Right, the hotel manager has allocated one of the smaller conference rooms to us for our use tomorrow, but it won’t be locked, so under no circumstances leave any information regarding this investigation laying around, is that understood?’

  ‘Guv.’

  ‘Guv.’

  ‘I’m sure our friends in the media will cotton on to us conducting these enquiries tomorrow, so if you experience any trouble, let me or DCI Sharp know.’

  Kay glanced at the clock on the wall, then back to her team and forced a smile. ‘You’re all doing a great job, so thank you. We’ll reconvene here as a group on Monday morning. I’ll be at the hotel helping to conduct the interviews as well, so if you need me in the meantime, come and get me. Dismissed.’

  Sharp wandered across to her as the team dispersed, and she turned to him with a sigh.

  ‘Well, at least everyone was polite enough not to grumble about the weekend to my face.’

  ‘They know you’d only ask if you had no other choice. Don’t worry about it. They want to catch this killer as much as you do.’

  Her gaze fell upon the photographs on the whiteboard. ‘What if we can’t, Devon? What if he’s done what he’s set out to do? What if he’s disappeared?’

  He reached out and patted her arm. ‘Then we’ll find him, Kay. That’s what we do, remember?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at her colleagues as they shut down their computers for the night and began to leave the room. ‘Go on. Get home. You’ve got a busy day ahead of you tomorrow, and you’re going to need a decent night’s rest. It’ll be bedlam at the hotel in the morning, mark my words.’

  Kay’s mobile phone began to ring, and she smiled at the familiar number on the screen.

  ‘Hi, Abby,’ she said.

  ‘Hang on.’ A muffled voice scolded someone in the background before returning. ‘Sorry about that – kids are being a handful at the moment. I was checking you were still okay to catch up for my birthday next month?’

  Kay smiled. Her sister had managed to persuade their parents to babysit the children for a weekend so Abby and her husband could have a relaxing weekend to celebrate her birthday, with Kay and Adam due to join them at a country retreat in Surrey.

  ‘That’s the plan. I’m even going to wear that red dress I bought months ago.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  They laughed, and then the phone on Kay’s desk lit up and she groaned.

  ‘Can I get back to you? I’ve got to take this one.’

  She ended the call and picked up the other phone while stuffing her mobile into her handbag.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s Jonathan Aspley. Got an update for me?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘What were you doing at the Belvedere Hotel?’

  Kay dropped her bag on the desk, stunned. ‘Are you following me?’

  ‘You didn’t answer the question.’

  ‘I’m not going to. Back off, Jonathan. You’re walking on thin ice.’

  ‘Is there a connection between the victim and the hotel?’

  ‘We’re conducting a number of enquiries in relation to our investigation.’

  ‘Don’t stonewall me, Hunter.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Kay slammed the phone back into its cradle and glared at it, then swiped her car keys and bag off the desk and stormed from the room.

  Twenty-Four

  Kay parked her car in the far corner of the hotel car park the following morning, the spaces nearer the reception doors signposted with warnings that read “guests only” providing a clear indication of the hotel manager’s feelings about her investigative team descending upon the business at a weekend.

  She shouldered her bag, aimed her key fob at the car door to lock it, then strode across the asphalt, her jaw set.

  As she pushed through the reception doors and made her way across to the desk, she noted the subtle notes of piped music filtering through the space, no doubt an effort by the same manager to add a nuance of calm to offset the number of uniformed officers milling about.

  Moments later, Kevin Tavistock appeared, his face flustered as he jabbed a clipboard in her direction.

  ‘Detective Hunter, I must insist that your people move away from the reception area immediately. Goodness knows what our guests will think.’

  Kay forced a smile. ‘Not a problem. Can you show me the rooms that have been allocated to us, and we’ll make a start?’

  He huffed, then spun on his heel and called over his shoulder. ‘Through here.’

  She noticed Barnes and Carys hovering next to a fire exit on the far side of the reception area.

  ‘Come with me – Tavistock is showing me where we can set up. Where’s Gavin?’

  ‘On his way,’ said Carys. ‘About five minutes out. He said he was going to stop by the incident room and pick up extra stationery in case we need it.’

  They fell into step beside her, the duty manager leading them through a catacomb of corridors until he stopped at a dead end.

  He gestured to a set of industrial-sized kettles, water jugs brimming with ice cubes and a stack of glassware and teacups that had been organised across two tables.

  ‘My staff will ensure these are refilled on a regular basis,’ he said. He moved to a closed door next to one of the tables and handed Kay a key. ‘You and I are the only ones who have a key to this room. Come on through.’

  He unlocked the door and led the way into a large conference space with tables and chairs set out in rows. Power extension leads snaked across the patterned carpet, and a whiteboard and overhead projector had been left on a table at the far side of the room.

  Light poured through the windows that lined the wall to Kay’s left, and she blinked to adjust her sight after the dim and dowdy hotel corridor.

  ‘Will this be sufficient?’

  She turned to the duty manager. ‘It’s perfect, thank you. What about rooms for interviews?’

  ‘You’ll find two more doors off the main corridor opposite the refreshment tables. They can’t be locked, but they do have tables and chairs and power sockets for your equipment.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter; we won’t be leaving anything behind when we finish this afternoon.’

  Tavistock clasped his hands together. ‘All right, well if you’ve got everything you need?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  He nodded, then hurried from the room.

  Kay turned on her heel, mentally preparing for the onslaught of a busy enquiry team descending upon the peace and quiet, then turned to Barnes and Carys.

  ‘Okay, you two – round up everyone and we’ll get started, shall we?’

  Kay watched the uniformed officers file from the room, the briefing concluded.

  Each one carried a list of hotel employees and contractors who would be interviewed over the next few hours, their responses entered into the HOLMES database by Debbie West and two of her colleagues who sat closest to the whiteboard with their laptops open.

  Kay hoped that by filtering the information as it was received from the interviews, the team would have a head start on processing it all when they returned to the incident room at Maidstone police station on Monday morning.

  ‘Guv? Me and Carys are going to head over and start interviewing the activities teachers,’ said Gavin, hooking his jacket on the back of a spare chair and rolling up his sleeves.

  ‘Sounds good. I’ll be here if you need me – Barnes has gone to speak with the groundsmen. Who are you starting with?’

  Carys checked her notes. “Marjory Phillips – runs a local horse riding school and offers pony trekking for guests. That wasn’t offered to Clive Wallis a
nd his colleagues according to their itinerary, but the horse riding trail borders the back of the hotel grounds, so we thought we’d better speak to her.’

  ‘Good plan,’ said Kay.

  ‘Thanks, and after that we’ve got the woman who runs the orienteering classes,’ said Gavin.

  Carys flipped the page on her clipboard. ‘Finally, Kyle Craig. Runs the archery lessons. That should take us up to lunchtime, and then we’ll check back here to find out who’s left.’

  ‘Perfect, thanks.’

  Kay watched them hurry from the room, then leaned against one of the desks and tried to relax.

  Twenty-Five

  Gavin eased the pool vehicle into the hotel car park, exhaling as he applied the handbrake. He ran a hand over his face as he tore the keys from the ignition.

  ‘Good grief, could that woman be even more exhausting to deal with?’

  Carys laughed and let her seatbelt roll back into its housing before she opened her door. ‘Well, I suppose if she teaches orienteering for this place, she’s got to have lots of energy. Those groups can cover a serious amount of mileage.’

  ‘I know, but on top of the other one that runs the stables, I’m worn out from listening to them.’

  ‘And here was me thinking you were a super-fit surfer.’ Carys tutted under her breath. ‘Had me fooled.’

  Gavin rolled his eyes and climbed out the car, waving the key fob over his shoulder to lock it and hurrying to catch up with his colleague.

  ‘It’s the amount of talking that I found exhausting. If that was two blokes, we’d have been in and out within half an hour each, tops.’

  Carys narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Yeah, but we probably would have had to go back and ask for more information. At least this way, we’ve got two thorough interviews under our belts. Useful, too.’

  ‘Bet the one with the archery teacher goes faster.’

  A coachload of tourists cluttered the asphalt apron in front of the building, the vehicle’s engine ticking as it cooled. Foreign voices filled the air as each person tried to locate their suitcase while an exasperated driver attempted to steer them towards the reception area.