In other words, Paniatowski thought, she had been killed towards the end of lunchtime, which was probably the point in the day when there were most non-residents in the hotel.
‘Was the victim killed by a single blow?’ she asked.
Shastri laughed. ‘And so it begins,’ she said. ‘Even before I get to work with my dinky little scalpel, you are demanding information.’ She sighed, and gave in to the inevitable. ‘It is likely it was a single blow. It is also likely – given the force of the blow – that the killer was a man, although, as I always caution, an outraged woman can draw on formidable reserves of strength.’
‘Any idea what the murder weapon might have been?’
‘The proverbial blunt instrument. I would guess that it was metal and rather heavy.’
‘Like an iron bar?’
‘Exactly like an iron bar,’ Shastri said. ‘Would you like to take another look at the body before I remove the wig?’
‘No,’ Paniatowski replied. ‘You go right ahead.’
Shastri put one hand behind the dead woman’s head, tilted it forward slightly, and took off the wig with her free hand. She made it look so easy, Paniatowski thought, though, from her own experiences of handling dead weight, she knew just how difficult it could be to manipulate a corpse.
Shastri removed the wig to reveal the dead woman’s real hair. It was golden and very fine. It seemed almost to shine.
‘Is it dyed?’ Paniatowski asked.
Shastri placed a gloved hand on the dead woman’s head, and parted the hair so she could examine the roots.
‘No, it appears to be totally natural,’ she said.
So the victim had used make-up to make herself look less attractive than she was, and had covered up her wonderful blonde hair with a nondescript wig, Paniatowski thought.
Now why should she have done that?
Shastri lifted the victim’s hand.
‘There is a tattoo on her wrist,’ she said. ‘Come and look.’
The tattoo was of a butterfly. Its wings were mostly brown, but there were red markings near the edges of the wing, and the edges themselves were white.
‘It’s a nice piece of work,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Very nice,’ Shastri agreed. ‘Did you know that there is a new – but growing – field of psychological study which examines the reasons that people acquire tattoos and the significance of the particular tattoos they choose?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘I am sure it is all very fascinating, but unfortunately, since people will keep on dying, and you, for your part, will keep insisting that I cut them up, I have not yet had time to look into the subject.’
‘Could you get your technicians to take a couple of photographs of that tattoo?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘Most certainly. When would you like them?’
‘As soon as possible.’
Shastri sighed. ‘I don’t know why I even bothered to ask,’ she said. ‘It is always “as soon as possible” with you.’
TWO
The office was located just behind the Royal Vic’s reception area, and was both spartan and utilitarian.
This wasn’t really Mansfield’s office – the place where he spent most of his working day – Meadows guessed. That office, tastefully decorated and lavishly furnished, would be somewhere else in the building, but he didn’t want his little oasis polluted by the police, so they were doing the interview here.
Time to start.
‘So what can you tell me about the stiff in the Prince Alfred suite, Mr Mansfield?’ she asked.
The manager shifted uncomfortably in his leather chair. He saw himself as a man with a definite – and defined – place in Whitebridge society. Within the confines of the hotel, he was a virtual monarch, issuing proclamations at will, and watching – with not some little satisfaction – as his minions scurried around enacting them. Outside the hotel, he bowed his head to no man (except, of course, his regional manager), and rubbed shoulders with the crème de la crème of the town.
And as far as his relationship with the police went, he regarded officers of the rank of superintendent and above as his equals, but expected those below that rank – like Detective Sergeant Meadows – to treat him with the deference due to his position. So why was it that when their paths crossed – and this had happened twice before – he always felt he was being bullied, and came away from the encounters with a sense of defeat and exhaustion?
‘Well?’ Meadows said, commandingly.
‘As I told you earlier, Miss Edwards has been our guest for the last two weeks,’ the manager said. ‘She is – she was – an American lady.’
‘How did she book the room?’ Meadows asked. ‘Was it through a travel agency?’
‘No, she booked the suite personally, by telephone,’ Mansfield said, before adding, in almost a hushed tone, ‘from New York.’
‘From New York! Gosh, how exciting!’ Meadows said. ‘Who did she talk to, when she called from (gasp) New York?’
‘Initially, she spoke to the booking clerk, but then she asked to be transferred to the general manager’s office.’
‘And you didn’t mind being disturbed by someone who was, after all, but a mere client?’ Meadows asked.
‘Of course not. Being of service to our clients is the raison d’être of everyone who works at the Royal Victoria.’
‘Jolly good,’ Meadows said, encouragingly. ‘Do you have a home address for Miss Edwards?’
The manager consulted his ledger. ‘Lurting Avenue, Bronx, New York,’ he said, and once again, he infused magic and significance into the last two words.
‘Hmm,’ Meadows mused, ‘it’s not exactly Tribeca, is it?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Meadows said. ‘What did Miss Edwards entrust to you for safekeeping?’
The manager turned a page in the ledger and scanned the columns.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Absolutely. If a guest wishes to deposit anything in the main safe, we assign that guest his or her own safety deposit box – and we always keep a record of it. There is no record of Miss Edwards being given one.’
‘But at the very least, you’ll have her passport.’
More scanning.
‘No, we haven’t.’
‘I thought you always held the passports of foreign guests.’
‘No, we sometimes do, as insurance that they won’t leave without paying their bills – not that there’s much chance of that with the quality of guests we attract, ha ha!’
‘Ha ha!’ Meadows echoed.
‘But if a foreign guest is prepared to give us some other form of surety, we’re perfectly happy to return the passport once we’ve checked it.’
‘Some other form of surety,’ Meadows repeated. ‘Like what? Their firstborn child as a hostage, for example?’
The manager, who was never quite sure whether Meadows was sharing a joke with him or simply using humour to beat him over the head, laughed uncomfortably.
‘Scarcely that,’ he said. ‘We usually just get them to sign a blank credit-card slip.’
‘And that’s what happened here?’
‘Probably. But I don’t have the details myself—’
‘Of course you don’t – you’re far too important to bother about details.’
‘So you’ll have to ask the clerk who booked her in.’
‘What a good idea,’ Meadows said.
The corpse had been taken away to the police mortuary, and the Scene of Crime Officers – with their sterilised pouches, dusting powder and infinite patience – had not yet arrived.
Paniatowski picked up the phone, and when the operator answered, she said that she wanted to make a transatlantic call.
In the movies, switchboard operators were both super- efficient and positively bursting with eagerness to help the police. The girl on the Royal Victoria switchboard, it soon became apparent to P
aniatowski, was not of that ilk.
‘Who should I charge for the call?’ she asked.
‘You do know that I’m a police officer, and that I’m investigating a brutal murder in this very hotel, don’t you?’ Paniatowski countered.
‘Only, we’re supposed to bill all the calls, especially if they’re long distance,’ the operator continued, as if Paniatowski had never spoken. ‘And the one you want to make is very long distance, if you know what I mean …’
‘I do know what you mean.’
‘Because you want to call America.’
The way she pronounced the last word suggested she couldn’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would ever seriously want to place a call to the other side of the Atlantic.
Paniatowski sighed, and gave in. ‘Send the bill to police headquarters,’ she said.
‘Right-y-ho,’ replied the switchboard operator, as if, now that little difficulty had been cleared up, they could go back to being on best mate terms again. ‘So who would you like me to connect you to?’
‘I’d like to speak to Captain Fred Mahoney, 14th Precinct, the Bronx,’ Paniatowski said.
‘Precinct? What’s that?’
‘It’s a police station.’
‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’
It would be nice to talk to Fred again – if this idiot girl ever managed to make the connection – Paniatowski thought.
She had met him at an international policing conference in Denmark. He was a big, beefy, no-nonsense cop. She’d liked him immediately, and if she positively had to hand over part of her investigation to someone in the States – and she obviously did – then she was glad it was Fred.
Miracle of miracles – Mahoney came on the line.
‘Hi, Monika, how the hell are ya?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine. And you?’
‘Great! Top of my game. So how long is it since we made beautiful music together in Copenhagen?’
Paniatowski grinned. ‘It’s three years since we were in Copenhagen, Fred,’ she said, ‘but we never made beautiful music because I’m practically a nun, and you’re a ridiculously happily married man who would never even think of looking at another woman.’
‘Shit, that’s right, especially the second half,’ Mahoney said, with a groan. ‘So what can I do for ya?’
Paniatowski told him about the dead woman.
‘As soon as the mortuary’s done its best to make her look presentable, I’ll be faxing you her photograph,’ she said. ‘When you get it, I’d like you to send someone round to her house and get her family to make an identification. I’d also like to know what she was doing in Whitebridge, and I’d be grateful for any other information they’re able to collect.’
‘You got it,’ Mahoney told her. ‘You want me to call you when my boys have visited Lurting Avenue?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘OK then, you’d better give me a number I can reach you at.’
Paniatowski recited the number, and Mahoney wrote it down.
‘So where is that?’ he asked, when he’d read it back to her. ‘Whitebridge Police Plaza?’
Whitebridge Police Plaza! Fred Mahoney really did live in a different world, she thought.
‘No, it’s not a police plaza,’ she said. ‘It’s the public bar of the Drum and Monkey.’
Mahoney nearly choked with laughter.
‘You Brits,’ he said. ‘You’re so … so quaint.’ He paused for a second. ‘You know, sometimes, when I’ve been dreaming, I wake up convinced we did sleep together, Monika.’
‘And …?’
‘Are you absolutely certain that we didn’t?’
Paniatowski laughed. ‘Positive – though I have to admit, it took a lot of self-discipline to stop me throwing myself on a hunk like you.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose,’ Mahoney said.
And then he hung up.
Paniatowski looked around the suite in which Mary Edwards had been killed, and felt a sudden, unexpected shudder run through her body. Her gut was playing her up again – warning her this wasn’t going to be a simple case with a simple motive, and that if she didn’t tune into the rhythm of the investigation pretty damn quickly, the murderer would slip though her fingers.
‘But at the moment, there simply isn’t anything to tune into,’ she said aloud.
‘Talking to yourself, boss?’ said a voice from the doorway. ‘That is one of the first signs, you know.’
Paniatowski grinned. ‘It’s a risky business – accusing your boss of being doolally,’ she said, ‘because there’s always a chance that before she goes completely off her chump, she might have you transferred to traffic.’
‘There’s no danger of that,’ DI Beresford replied. ‘You’d be lost without me – and we both know it.’
It was true, Paniatowski thought. Colin Beresford would never be a brilliant detective – he simply did not have Meadows’ flair – but he was hard-working, dependable and loyal, the latter having much to recommend it in the snake pit that was the Mid Lancs police. Besides, they’d worked together since he was a constable and she was a sergeant, and, though neither of them would have put it in quite those terms, Beresford was her best friend, and she loved him like a brother.
Beresford looked around the room.
‘This is the perfect setting for one of them old-style whodunits,’ he pronounced. ‘Lord Muckety-Muck is found dead, and you know from the start that the murderer just has to be either the spendthrift nephew or the betrayed wife. And then it turns out that, despite all the clues pointing to them, they’re both completely innocent, and the real murderer is, appropriately enough, someone from the lower orders who talks a very common sort of English.’
If only it could be like that in real life, Paniatowski thought. Look for the one person who couldn’t possibly have done it, and he’s your killer.
Simple!
‘Brief me on what’s happening in the world outside the Royal Vic bubble,’ she said.
‘Word’s come down from the top brass – and beyond – that this is a priority case, that we should use all available manpower, and that there’ll be no quibbling when we put in the overtime sheets.’
‘And what manpower have we got at the moment?’
‘There are five detective constables waiting downstairs for instructions, and I’m expecting another half a dozen within the hour.’
‘Good,’ Paniatowski said. ‘We’ll need an incident room. I think we’ll use the hotel ballroom-stroke-conference room.’
‘The manager won’t like that,’ Beresford said.
‘Then get Sergeant Meadows to deliver the bad news. He’s frightened of her.’
‘And which of us hasn’t been – at one time or another?’ Beresford said, with a slight shudder.
‘Once you’re up and running, I want statements taken from everybody who was in the hotel between one o’clock and four o’clock. After that, I want anybody who was in the immediate area questioned. And finally, I want door-to-doors conducted, starting in the immediate vicinity and working outwards.’
‘What will we be looking for?’ Beresford asked. ‘Are we trying to track Mary Edwards’ movements and associations?’
‘Exactly,’ Paniatowski agreed. ‘She’s been here for two weeks. I want to know what she’s done and who she’s seen, and then maybe we’ll be able to work out why she was here.’
‘Shall I get Jack Crane to set up a press conference for you?’ Beresford asked.
Paniatowski shook her head. ‘Not yet. We’ve nothing to say. But as soon as her face has been made presentable, see that a photo of Mary Edwards is in all the local papers and on television. I’ll draft the usual vague appeal for information.’
‘Got it,’ Beresford said, turning to go.
‘Wait a minute,’ Paniatowski said. ‘I’d like to have a poke around before the SOCOs get here, and if I’m doing that, I want a witness.’
The desk clerk’s name was Jimmy Bentley. He wa
s a good-looking lad of twenty-three, who, if he’d been prepared to make the effort, could probably have bedded a fair number of girls of his own age after only a relatively short courtship. He had, however, chosen to go another way, targeting older women on the grounds that they made far fewer demands on him, were so much more grateful, and – because they’d been half-expecting it all along – did not kick up too much of a fuss when he dumped them.
Generally speaking, he was not really bothered if they were plain (or even ugly), because, as the old saying went, you didn’t look at the mantelpiece when you were poking the fire. But that was not to say he didn’t have standards, he reassured himself. For instance, he insisted that the women he slept with had good bodies, unless, of course, there were no women with good bodies around, in which case he would make do with what was available.
The older woman sitting opposite him now – Detective Sergeant Meadows – had a good body, though she was slimmer than most of the women he seduced. She was also prettier – in an innocent, fairy story sort of way – than his usual quarry, but he saw no reason why that should be any barrier to her experiencing the Jimmy Bentley phenomenon, and he had promised himself that he would hunt her down and have her in his bed before the week was done.
He didn’t realise he was daydreaming until Meadows tapped him lightly on the skull with her knuckles, and asked, ‘Anyone at home?’
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘I was wondering if you remember checking in Miss Edwards at reception,’ Meadows said sweetly.
He was in here, he told himself. That gesture with the knuckles had been so intimate that he was sure she really fancied him. But best not make it easy. He could encourage her, certainly, but it should also be made plain that she was going to have to work at it.
He gave her a smile which he felt conveyed just that message.
‘Yes, I do remember,’ he said, ‘I remember it very well.’
‘Really?’ Meadows asked, looking vaguely troubled. ‘Now that does surprise me.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, I would have thought that you register so many guests over the course of a week that they all blur together.’
‘Most of them do,’ Bentley admitted. ‘But a few of them have special qualities that make them stand out.’
Death in Disguise Page 3
