Kiss Me When I'm Dead

by Dominic Piper

  So Amelia Finch expected both Viola and herself to be there the next morning, unless she was being very smart and devious indeed.

  ‘How does breakfast work here if you’re a guest?’

  ‘You go down to the breakfast room in the basement and one of the restaurant reception staff will check your name and room number.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t really bother booking a breakfast if you had no intention of eating it here.’

  He looks at me as if I’m rather dim.

  ‘No, and if you’re booking online, which Mrs Finch was, it’s not an easy thing to do to book your breakfast by mistake. To do it twice would be even more unlikely. The whole thing isn’t set up so you could do that. Also, breakfast adds another fifteen pounds to the bill. You wouldn’t book it unless you were going to eat it. There are plenty of places about five minutes’ walk from here where you can get a cheaper breakfast and a better one, too, though I didn’t say that, of course.’

  ‘Is there any way of checking whether these guests ate breakfast on the morning of the eighteenth? The morning they would have been checking out.’

  ‘Actually yes there is. The breakfast room receptionist would electronically tick you off on the computer when you confirmed your room number.’

  ‘Is that electronic ticking off still on the computer?’

  ‘It should be. I think the computer guys have an info purge every three months.’ He looks me straight in the eye. ‘You know I shouldn’t be telling you any of this…’

  He wants to know if he’s going to be paid for giving away guests’ secrets. I’ll let him know that he will be. It’ll make him more enthusiastic. I keep the eye contact.

  ‘I know, yeah. I’ll be very, very grateful, though.’

  ‘OK. Just so we understand each other.’

  He taps away at the keyboard. I look around the office. I’d like an office like this in my flat. It’s decorated in exactly the same way as the rest of the hotel; marble floors, classy prints, nice furniture, air conditioning. No windows, though.

  ‘Here we go. There’s no record of either Mrs Finch or Miss Hart visiting the breakfast room on that morning. Ah!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s also no record of either of them having checked out. It happens sometimes. We did a pre-authorisation of Mrs Finch’s card and took an imprint. She paid in full in advance online and there were no extras, no minibar use or anything else like that. Of course, if there had been any extras we had her card details. That’s why we do the pre-authorisation.’

  ‘There was no problem with the credit card that she used to pay for the rooms.’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Can you give me the card details?’

  He looks shiftily from left to right, even though we’re the only ones in the room. ‘I can print them off for you, if you like, thanks to the wonders of modern technology.’

  ‘Yes please. So both of these women could have left the hotel at any time the previous night and nobody would have been any the wiser.’

  ‘That’s true, yeah. It’s an unlikely thing to happen, seeing as the rooms had been paid for in full, not to mention breakfast being paid for, but it’s still possible. I was off at ten that night. Someone else would have noticed that neither of them checked out, but that wouldn’t have been until around midday or maybe later. As there was no money owed, no one would have made a great fuss about it. I didn’t hear anyone mention it. If there was something suspicious, someone would have said something to me, as I was the one on duty when Mrs Finch and Miss Hart checked in.’

  He hands me the printout. It’s got everything; Amelia Finch’s card details, a contact telephone number and an address in SE19, which I think is Crystal Palace or thereabouts. I would be very surprised if any of this was genuine, though the card obviously worked.

  ‘But they both checked in. You’re sure of that.’

  ‘Yes, they did. Mrs Finch checked in at 19.15 and Miss Hart checked in at 20.54.’

  ‘I noticed CCTV cameras in reception…’

  ‘Sorry. All that footage is only kept for seven days.’

  ‘Is there any way of knowing whether either of those beds had been slept in?’

  ‘Not on the computer, no. The maids would notice something like that, but it’s very unlikely any of them would remember it three weeks on. It happens from time to time, you know? People having affairs booking into separate rooms, that kind of thing. A maid would just see it as a bit of work that didn’t need to be done. She wouldn’t make a note of it or report it. She’d just see the bed was OK, give the room a clean, move on to the next one and would have forgotten about it by lunchtime.’

  ‘OK. And you were behind the reception desk during the time period that both women checked in?’

  ‘Almost certainly, but I don’t recall either of them. That’s quite a busy time of night and we have a big turnover of guests here.’

  I take out my facial composite of Lara Holland, flatten it with my hands and push it over the desk towards him.

  ‘Does that look like Amelia Finch? I did it quickly, so it’s pretty impressionistic, but…’

  He takes a long look at it, then places one of his hands over her eyebrows. ‘Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. I remember her now. Quite striking features. Very pretty girl. But you had to fight to see it, you know?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘She had glasses on, for a start, like full-rimmed, you know?’ He makes the shape of the frames around his eyes. ‘And the hair here is different. Is this meant to be light hair of some sort? Light brown or blonde?’

  ‘I was told blonde.’

  ‘Well Mrs Finch didn’t have blonde hair and it wasn’t short like this. Her hair was brown and it was definitely shoulder length. It covered her face more than the style you’ve got here does. It was like a wispy kind of style. But you couldn’t mistake those beautiful green eyes. You’ve got the eyes perfectly. You kind of wanted to reach out and take those glasses off, d’you know what I mean?

  ‘She was quite tall, too. Maybe had heels on. I couldn’t really see. Wasn’t dressed in anything out of the ordinary. Could have just been smart work clothes. I didn’t really take any notice of what she was wearing.’

  So Amelia Finch and Lara Holland are the same person. I thought as much, but it’s nice to have it confirmed. She was wearing a wig and glasses, but for what reason? Maybe she was just naturally cautious. I take out my mobile and get the photograph of Viola up on the screen; the nice one, the one she had done by a photographer. It only now occurs to me that this was one of a pack of photographs she had done to sell herself on Sakura’s site. I’ll check with Sakura the next time I see her. I slide the mobile over to Mark Kerrigan.

  ‘Do you recognise this woman?’

  He takes a look at Viola’s photograph.

  ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘Yes. That’s Natasha Hart. Do you remember her booking in? Her appearance may have been different from this.’ She has shoulder length blonde hair in the photograph. ‘Her hair is almost certainly different from this now. It might be a different colour and it might be a different length and style.’

  ‘Vaguely, yes. Possibly, I mean. I think we had quite a queue at the time, phones going off, all the rest of it. She’s the prostitute is she?’

  It’s a bit of a shock hearing that word so casually used about Viola. ‘Yes she is. She didn’t return from the job that Mrs Finch booked her for and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.’

  ‘I can usually identify them. Call girls, that is. There are a great variety of them. In appearance, you know? Hair is always different, clothes are always different, beauty is different, manner is different and the walk is different. No two the same. But whether they know it or not, there’s something about them that enables you to spot them straight away after you’ve been doing this for a while. It’s their manner. It isn’t the manner of a guest. I’m always polite to them, though. It’s just a job, isn’t it.’


  ‘I take it that nobody on the staff would have noticed either of these women leave.’

  ‘No. You don’t look at people leaving; you only look at people arriving because you’re going to have to do something. People who are going out of the hotel, unless they’re checking out, are of no interest to staff unless they’re carrying a lot of luggage and want help.’ He smiles. ‘Or carrying a big pile of towels. Old people you notice, in case they need help. Running, shouting kids you notice. Pissed people you might notice. Sometimes, if you notice people dressed up like they’re going out to a restaurant or the theatre or something, you might tell them to have a nice evening if you’re not busy. But exiting guests are non-people. Besides, people going out generally have their back to you.’

  ‘So they could have left at any time and no one would have seen them go.’

  ‘That’s about it. What do you think happened to her?’

  I rock backwards on my chair and stare into the middle distance for about twenty seconds before answering. ‘I don’t know. But I think Amelia Finch may have some of the answers, so the next thing I have to do is find her and ask her some questions.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got her address, at least. Just one other thing, and it may be nothing, but I was surprised that she had the title Mrs, you know? She didn’t look old enough to be married, but you can never tell, of course.’

  ‘How old would you say she was?’

  ‘Twenty? Certainly no older than, say, twenty-two. It was her complexion.’ He taps his cheek. ‘Fresh and young. A bit like mine.’

  ‘This has been really useful, Mr Kerrigan. Just one more thing, and I don’t know if this is going to be possible. Can I take a look at both rooms?’

  ‘Hmmm. Let me just check.’

  While he’s checking, I try to get my thoughts straight. If I’m able to check the rooms out, what will I be looking for? I’ve no idea, really, but something may pop into my head. It could be I’ll be looking at the last place that Viola ever stayed in or visited. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll feel some vibes or something.

  ‘Well, the King Deluxe room that Mrs Finch booked is free at the moment, so we can go and look at that right now. In fact, no one’s stayed in that one since your Mrs Finch. The Double Deluxe that was booked for Miss Hart is currently occupied by a couple from Amsterdam. I’ll see what I can do. Come on.’

  He stands up. I take five hundred out of my wallet and place it on the table, along with one of my business cards. ‘This has already been more valuable than you could imagine. Thank you for your time.’

  ‘My pleasure, Mr Beckett.’

  He takes the money and the card, slips them into an inside pocket and off we go.

  The King Deluxe room is on the third floor. It’s big and airy and although the view isn’t up to much, I can’t imagine they get many complaints. The first thing you notice is the massive bed, which could easily sleep five. The room has got all the usual stuff, soft sofas, massive television, huge prints, thick pile carpets; it’s like every hotel you’ve ever stayed in, but more so.

  The bathroom is full of glass, brown marble, bright strip lighting and chrome, with a power shower, a wide bath, a telephone in the toilet and neat piles of pristine towels everywhere. The whole thing is spotless and smells like no one’s ever been in it. Maybe they haven’t. Mr Kerrigan follows me in, interested in what I’m doing. He notices a smear on the mirror over the sink, breathes on it and wipes it away with a hand towel. He laughs when he sees I’ve spotted him doing it ‘You’d be amazed at the things that our guests complain about, Mr Beckett. That’s probably saved one of our staff an irate telephone call.’

  As I walk around, waiting for some revelation to reveal itself, Mr Kerrigan stoops down and runs his hand across a section of carpet to the left of the door, about two feet away from a small writing desk. ‘Will you look at that? Scuffs everywhere. Cleaners should have vacuumed it out. Ah well. They probably didn’t notice. It’s the sort of thing you see when you’ve had kids in one of the rooms.’

  The carpet is pale brown with a complex dark brown pattern all over it. I think it’s meant to look like the tendrils of a plant, as there are little flower details every now and then. Mr Kerrigan is rubbing his hand over an area about a foot long, which looks like someone has dug their heel into it and dragged it across hard, with the intention of damaging the carpet. Nothing that a good hammering with a vacuum cleaner wouldn’t sort out, but interesting all the same.

  Because of the colour and pattern, it would be easy to miss (unless you’re Mr Kerrigan), and it’s an area of the room you wouldn’t walk across much. What’s even more curious is that on closer inspection, there are quite a lot of small scuffs and marks. The carpet looks new, and the pile is thick. Mr Kerrigan looks peeved.

  ‘Looks like someone’s been having a bloody fight in here. Or playing football.’

  But it’s probably nothing. I look out of the window. We’re on the third floor and I can see it’s quite a drop to the outside. Apart from that, I don’t think you can fully open the window, which would be usual in a hotel now. ‘How would you get out of here if you didn’t want to pass through reception?’

  ‘Well, you couldn’t. Unless you used the fire escape.’

  ‘Show me.’

  We leave the room, turn right into the corridor and then right again at the end into a smaller corridor that’s maybe about ten feet long. If you were a guest in any of the nearby rooms, you would never come down here unless it was a mistake, or unless, perhaps, the hotel was ablaze. At the end, there’s an escape door with a wide panic bar.

  ‘Can I open this?’

  ‘Yes, but an alarm would go off.’

  ‘What would happen then?’

  He points to a CCTV camera about six feet away which points directly at the escape door. ‘Security would see a red light flash on the relevant screen and one of their audio monitors would start bleeping. They’d come down to sort whatever it was out. Kids open them sometimes, or just stupid people. Or drunks. Whoever was on duty would look at what that camera was seeing before they decided how quickly to act.’

  ‘So somebody from security would come up here and what then? Would they have to reset the alarm, or does it reset automatically?’

  ‘They’d have to reset it locally – on the door itself – and then they’d confirm the reset in the security office. It’s all a bit complicated now. Used to be much easier in the old days. Computers have changed that.’

  I squat down and take a look at the alarm pack on the door. It’s powered by batteries, presumably.

  ‘So let’s say I wanted to disable the alarm on this escape door. I could open the pack here if I had the right key, or just break it off if I had the right instrument, disconnect the battery, then run down to the security office and switch all the flashing lights and buzzers off before anyone noticed.’

  ‘That would be the way to do it, but you’d have to rely on there being nobody in the security office for a start, and of course you’d have to know where it was. Even if there wasn’t anyone there, a message stating the time of the disconnect would be logged on the computer system, which you’d then have to hack into and delete.’

  ‘So it would be impossible for me to do that without someone knowing.’

  ‘Basically, yes.’

  I look through the reinforced glass of the escape door. There’s a platform outside, which leads to the steps of what looks like an ordinary fire escape ladder. It’s new and sturdy looking.

  ‘Can we go and look at the other room, assuming there’s no one at home?’

  ‘Certainly. I have to get back on duty soon, though.’

  ‘This is the last thing. You’ve been very helpful.’

  He knocks on the door of the Double Deluxe room that Natasha would have been in. It’s on the floor above the other one. There’s no reply, so he gets out an electronic key, swipes it and we’re inside. He turns to me and grins. ‘I hope you’ve got a good story ready if they come back.’ />
  ‘I’ll tell them we had reports of rats in this room’.

  ‘That should be fine.’

  The room is untidy, which isn’t surprising, with various items of clothing scattered over the furniture. It’s a noticeably smaller room than the one Mrs Finch had, but has all the same amenities. The bed is smaller, but still pretty big by normal standards. I take a look out of the window again. The window is the same type as the King Deluxe; you can’t open it and the drop is greater. Apart from that, there’s really nothing of interest to see.

  On our way out, Mr Kerrigan is smiling to himself. ‘You keep looking out of the windows all the time. I can’t help but notice. Are you looking to see if someone who was out of their head on booze or drugs could be chucked out the window or out of the fire escape? Or maybe looking for a way someone could dispose of a body? Some way that wouldn’t involve dragging it past reception?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s at the back of my mind. It isn’t possible, though, is it?’

  ‘Well, now I come to think of it, there is one possibility, though you’d have to know the hotel fairly well to know about it. Come with me.’

  We walk down the stairs to Mrs Finch’s floor again. We walk past her room and head towards the fire escape, but stop short while Mr Kerrigan pushes open a door I hadn’t really noticed.

  It’s more of a large-ish storage cupboard than a room and it’s for the use of the cleaners. There are three of those trolleys that you usually see laden with room supplies; soap, shampoo, coffee, sugar and all the rest of it. All the walls are basically shelves, stacked with supplies and cleaning stuff. There’s a window, but it’s narrow, perhaps two feet wide. Kerrigan points at it.

  ‘I think we may be entering the realms of fantasy here, but you could shove someone out of this window if you were crazy enough and knew about this room. Of course if you tried to jump from here, the fall would probably kill you as we’re on the third floor. The window can’t be opened from the outside, and even if it could, you’d have to be Spider Man to scale the wall in the first place. But you can open it from the inside. There’s a lock here, see?’