The Blissfully Dead (6 page)

Chapter 10
Day 3 – Patrick

P
atrick and Carmella sat in the McDonald’s round the
corner
from the Travel Inn, a pair of steaming coffees between them. Patrick had resisted the urge to buy a Big Mac and Carmella had surveyed the menu as if it listed a variety of poisons. Just across from them a toddler was munching chicken dippers and rattling the toy from her Happy Meal. So far, Bonnie was barely aware that McDonald’s existed, but he knew this place drew
children
like a mermaid luring sailors to the rocks. It wouldn’t be long, he suspected, before he was feeding her chicken McNuggets and fries.

The manager hadn’t recognised Rose from the photograph they’d shown him, nor did any of the almost exclusively teenage staff, though their eyes had widened and a whisper of excitement had whipped through the restaurant. The girl who was murdered! They all so desperately wanted to recognise her, to have something to tell their friends. But it looked like the burger Rose had enjoyed as her last meal had come from somewhere else.

‘Going round every fast-food place in Kingston,’ Carmella said, wincing at her coffee. ‘We should have given this job to Gareth. He’d love it.’

‘Maybe I will,’ Patrick said. ‘Or Winkler.’

‘Uh-uh. He doesn’t eat junk food, does he? Only the finest organic produce passes his lips.’

Hearing this made Patrick reconsider ordering that Big Mac.

They walked round to the Travel Inn, dodging puddles and warily eyeing the sky, with its battalion of black rain clouds. Before leaving the station, Patrick had spoken to the senior SOCO on the investigation, Marie Branson, who had confirmed what he already knew. The killer had left no DNA at the scene – no stray hairs, blood or semen. No fingerprints. All the hotel staff had been
interviewed
, CCTV tapes had been reviewed, including those from the streets surrounding the hotel, and the names of all the guests had been run through the system. Nobody had seen anything. The cameras had captured nothing. And no-one who’d been staying in the hotel had anything more on their record than a parking ticket or some other minor misdemeanour.

Somebody
must have seen the murderer entering or leaving the hotel. He wasn’t a phantom. The problem was that nobody who’d seen him would know they had been looking at a killer. After all, he wouldn’t have been cackling and carrying a knife dripping with blood. That was the thing about murderers: they usually look just like
everyone
else.

Heidi Shillingham, the hotel manager, was waiting for them in the same conference room where they’d interviewed the cleaner a couple of days before. Heidi had grey smudges under her eyes and Lennon noticed her bite down on a yawn as she greeted them.

‘Ms Shillingham,’ he said.

‘Oh, call me Miss, please,’ she replied with a tired smile. ‘I can’t be doing with any of that feminist nonsense. In fact, call me Heidi.’

Carmella raised an eyebrow.

Patrick said, ‘We want to talk to you about room 365.
Specifically
, how the perpetrator and the victim got inside. We don’t know which one of them entered the room first, or if they arrived together. But we need to know how they got in.’

Heidi nodded. ‘OK. Well, all of our rooms are controlled with these key cards.’ She produced a white credit-card-sized key, the type Patrick had seen and used many times before. ‘It’s pretty
standard
. The magnetic strip on the back controls which room you can access. When a guest checks in, we give them a key card and set it to their room using the central computer system.’

‘I understand all that. What if someone kept their key after they checked out? Could they come back the next day, or a week later, and use it again?’

As Patrick predicted, Heidi shook her head. ‘No. The card – or, rather, the link between the card and the room – is cancelled when the guest checks out. Then the next time the card is used, it will almost certainly be set to a different room.’

‘Had anyone reported losing a key on the day in question?’ Carmella asked.

‘Yes, I checked this. One person. But that was room 218. The system clearly shows that no cards were set to room 365 last
Wednesday
.’

‘What about master keys?’ Patrick asked. ‘Staff always seem to be able to get into any room. Like the cleaners. I guess they have a master key to all the rooms?’

‘Only for the rooms they are cleaning.’

‘So only Mosope Adeyemi had a key for room 365 that day?’

‘Yes. And the day before too. The day of the . . . unfortunate incident.’

That’s one way of putting it
, Patrick thought. ‘And what about you, Ms – Miss – Shillingham, er, Heidi?’ He was gratified to see Carmella’s lips twitch at the same time that Heidi pursed hers. ‘Do you have a master key to all the rooms?’

She hesitated. ‘Yes, I do. Several of the staff have them. But they are on our person all the time we’re in the hotel, and they’re deactivated when we go off shift.’

Patrick drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Have you ever had any issues with people accessing rooms that they shouldn’t? Any thefts? Guests going into the wrong room?’

Heidi squirmed in her seat. ‘No . . . Well, sometimes staff accidentally allocate a room twice, so we’ve had incidents of guests walking into a room that’s already occupied. Which can be highly embarrassing.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘And there was one incident . . . But not at this hotel.’ The way her eyes jumped around the room made it clear that Heidi was worried about getting into trouble.

‘Go on.’

‘A couple of years ago, someone got into a few rooms at one of the hotels in Essex and stole valuables – a laptop, an iPad, some jewellery, cash. It turned out that they had – how did they put it? – reverse-engineered a master key so it was able to open any door.’

‘Hang on – you mean they basically created their own master key, waltzed into the hotel and opened whatever door they
fancied
?’

‘That’s how I understood it. It was this young lad, a hacker. But he got caught after boasting about it on his website. Stupid prat. I know we made some changes to the security system after that and we were all told it wouldn’t happen again. But . . .’

‘But?’

‘Well, you know what these hackers are like. It’s a challenge, isn’t it? Maybe that’s what happened here.’

Patrick and Carmella took the lift back to the third floor. Patrick wanted to see the room again, not because he expected to find any useful information there but because being at the scene of the crime helped him focus, allowed him to imagine the scene. He used the key Heidi had given them to open the door, which was still sealed off with yellow tape.

‘So our murderer is also a hacker who knows how to reverse-engineer hotel keys?’ Carmella said.

Patrick sighed. ‘It seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Let’s talk to the tech guys, but I’m guessing it isn’t easy to do.’

‘But maybe our murderer acquired a hacked key from someone. Bought it online, or paid someone to create one.’

‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.’ He tapped the key against the palm of his hand. ‘Which means we might finally have a lead.’

Patrick ducked under the tape and entered the room, Carmella following. The smell of perfume had faded now and been replaced with the musty smell of closed rooms and dust. The Travel Inn had asked the police not to release the room number to the press,
fearful
that no-one would ever want to stay here again. Patrick wanted to tell them not to worry. There were probably a lot of people out there who would get a kick out of staying in a room where a girl was murdered.

The perfume that had been sprayed into Rose’s wounds was being analysed at the lab and results were expected back soon.
Patrick
didn’t expect to learn much from this. What difference would it make if the killer used Chanel No.5 or CK1? Maybe it would tell them whether he could afford expensive perfume, but that was about it. All the wheelie bins and patches of wasteland within a mile radius had been searched, but there was no sign of Rose’s clothes. They were probably on a dump somewhere, Patrick thought.

‘Let’s get back to the station,’ he said. ‘We need to find out if there are any hackers for hire out there selling hotel key cards.’

As they left the hotel, his mobile rang. It was Gareth.

‘Ah, Gareth, I’ve got a job for—’

Gareth interrupted. ‘Sorry, boss, but something’s happened.’

Patrick stopped walking and gestured for Carmella to wait. The rain pummelled the pavement, soaking the two detectives as Patrick bent almost double, protecting his phone from the downpour. He couldn’t hear what Gareth was saying.

‘Can you repeat that?’

‘I said, we’ve found another body. Another girl.’

Chapter 11
Day 3 – Chloe

C
hloe
Hedges sat on the edge of her bed and checked her phone for the twentieth time in
the
space of five
minutes
. She had been caught on the horns of this particular dilemma for the last few hours – Jess had not returned her calls or texts since they’d parted after last night’s vigil. This in itself wasn’t unusual – Jess was the touchiest of all Chloe’s friends and could be offended at the drop of a hat, leading to a period of cold-
shouldering
for
perhaps
three or four days. And they had argued after the vigil – Chloe had got annoyed with Jess’s bizarre and
irreverent
behaviour. After the singing ended, Jess had got the giggles during the two minutes’ silence for Rose, when Chloe had suddenly found that tears were pouring down her own face, even though s
he hadn’t known Rose in real life. It was the sight of R
ose’s poor parents that had set her off. She imagined it was her who’d been brutally
murdered
, and that
it
was
her
mum and dad up there at the front of the small
gathering
, looking as though their lives were over too. Already annoyed because Jess wouldn’t tell her why she was acting so weird, she’d snapped at her friend, who had then stormed off, leaving Chloe to get the bus home in tears on her own.

But before that, they’d made an arrangement to meet this afternoon, to go to the Rotunda – mainly because there was this boy who always hung out there that Jess had the hots for. Jess had been a no-show. Chloe waited for ages, trying to call her friend, before giving up. In the couple of hours since then she had sent a series of increasingly worried messages, apologising for the row and begging Jess to let her know she was all right. Silence.

She tried to take her mind off it by returning to the story she’d been working on for over a week – it was her best yet, much
better
than anything she’d written before, she thought. Miss
Jameson
, her English teacher, told Chloe she needed to write from the heart, and Chloe was finally doing that, now she felt brave enough to write about the C-word. But she found that her thoughts kept drifting anxiously back to Jess, and after ten minutes’ staring at the screen without adding a single word, she gave up. She decided to check the forums instead, but only got as far as inputting her log
in – F-U-Cancer
– when her mum yelled up the stairs.

‘Supper, Chloe!’

Chloe grimaced, closed her laptop and bade a silent farewell to the poster of Shawn from OnTarget sellotaped to the back of her bedroom door. She trudged downstairs. ‘What is it?’

‘Quorn fillets in tomato sauce,’ said her mother, sliding three empty plates out of the top oven where they had been warming.

‘The ones in breadcrumbs? What kind of tomato sauce?’

Her mother sighed. ‘No. Not the ones in breadcrumbs. Normal tomato sauce, like pasta sauce.’

‘
Eurgh
. I only like the ones in breadcrumbs. Where’s Dad?’

‘He’s not back from the match yet. Probably gone to the pub.’

They sat down at the table. Chloe’s little brother, Brandon, was already seated, quietly tinkering with a Transformer. He looked up when he saw his mum dishing up the food. ‘Oh no, not broccoli.’

Chloe’s mum slammed a plate down in front of him and glared at them both.

‘For heaven’s sake, can we not have
just one meal
where you two don’t complain about everything?’

After that they ate in silence. Chloe wanted to ask her mum’s advice but was afraid she would get on the phone to Jess’s mum, and it would be really embarrassing, especially as they didn’t even know one another. She imagined her mother doing her posh phone voice and squirmed. Also, Chloe might then have to admit that she had got the bus home by herself after the OnTarget concert, which was strictly
verboten
. They only lived three miles away from
Twickenham
Stadium, but her dad would go mad if he knew she’d got the bus by herself after nine o’clock at night. Not to mention getting Jess into trouble too, for leaving her after the vigil. Jess might never talk to her again.

But what if Jess was in danger? Rose Sharp’s face flashed into her head. No – if she’d gone missing like Rose Sharp, they’d know about it by now. It would be on the news and everything – appeals circulating on Twitter and Facebook. Jess was probably just still in a strop with her.

Then why did Chloe feel so anxious? She glanced at her mum, who was still looking cross, then opened her mouth to say
something
. ‘Mum—’

Brandon interrupted her. ‘Can I get down, Mummy? I’m full.’

‘Eat your broccoli first.’

Chloe had
so
known her mum would say that. It was as predictable as being told to put her iPhone outside the bedroom door every night at 10 p.m. She decided to wait until Brandon had left the table.

Her phone beeped with an incoming text and she snatched it out of her back pocket as Brandon gingerly poked a stem of broccoli into his mouth, making disgusted faces throughout.

‘No phones at dinner, Chloe!’ admonished her mother.

‘It’s urgent!’

‘I don’t care. Put it away.’

But Chloe had seen that the text wasn’t from Jess. She must have looked upset because her mum gave her a long searching look, and let Brandon get down without clearing his plate. He scampered off immediately with his Transformer, thumping up the stairs to his bedroom before she changed her mind again and made him sit there until the broccoli was cold and limp and even less appealing.

‘Everything all right, Rog?’

‘Don’t call me that!’

Her mum smiled. Chloe’s dad had a habit of adapting everyone’s names, so Chloe had, as a baby, become Chlo, which he had lengthened into Clodagh Rogers – who had apparently been some sort of ancient singer – and then shortened again to Rog. She hadn’t minded it when she was little, but now she loathed it.

‘Sorry. Is everything all right? You seem a bit on edge.’

Chloe swallowed hard, still undecided about whether or not to unleash this potential shit storm. Her mother pressed her advantage, knowing that it must be something major if Chloe hadn’t immediately bitten off her head and told her to mind her own business.

‘Are you still upset about that poor girl who was killed, honey? You know, I thought it was really sweet of you and Jessica to go to the vigil last night.’

At the sound of Jess’s name, Chloe knew she couldn’t dither anymore. Worst case scenario, Jess never spoke to her again – well, she could deal with that. There were plenty of other
OnTarget
fans she could hang out with and chat to. Jess didn’t go to her school, so she wouldn’t have to face her ire in person if she really got her into trouble. And sometimes she was a bit of a pain anyway.

‘It’s just that me and Jess were meant to meet up today and she didn’t turn up,’ she blurted. ‘And now I can’t get hold of her.’

‘You haven’t fallen out, have you?’

‘No. We did sort of have a fight – but, like, it wasn’t a real fight . . .’

Her mother looked thoughtful. Chloe knew that her mum didn’t much care for Jess. On the couple of occasions that Jess had been to her house, she hadn’t made much of an effort to be polite to her mum, and hadn’t even thanked her for the flapjacks that she had made specially for them one day when they’d come back to hang out in her room and watch the new OnTarget movie.

‘I wouldn’t normally be worried,’ Chloe said. ‘But after what happened to MissTargetHeart . . . Rose.’

‘Do you know her home phone number?’

‘Oh. Yeah, I do actually.’

‘Why don’t you call it, then?’

Chloe pulled a face, she was a bit scared of Jess’s mum. Jess’s mum was vague and a bit of a hippie, but not a mellow one – a sort of bitter, neurotic one who drank too much and didn’t tell Jess off when she said ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’.

Her mum smiled softly. ‘OK, I’ll do it.’

Chloe stood in the kitchen doorway, biting her thumbnail as she listened to her mum call Jess’s mum.

‘Hello? This is Rebecca Hedges, Chloe’s mum . . . No . . . Sorry, I think we’re talking at cross-purposes. Jess isn’t here.’

She looked across the hallway at Chloe and Chloe felt her heart drop into her stomach.

‘No, she hasn’t been here at all today. She told you she was coming here?’

As Chloe’s mum continued to talk to Mrs McMasters, Chloe sat on the bottom stair and hugged herself.

‘Please God,’ she whispered. ‘Please let Jess have gone off to meet a boy. Please don’t let it be anything more than that.’

By the time her mum said, ‘Perhaps you should call the police,’ Chloe was convinced. Something terrible had happened to her friend.