I did. Blatantly, Molly has a crush on Malcolm. The poor girl practically turned to blancmange in his company. And the look on her face when Malcolm said that he and Erin spent the afternoon together, in her apartment! I couldn’t make my mind up who I felt more sorry for in that moment, her or him.
‘Anyway, I’m sure Molly would’ve said something if she had. We’re all really worried about Erin,I’mreally worried about Erin.’
He sounded miserable and I felt a pang of empathy for him. I guess you can’t help who you fall in love with, but it’s my duty to warn him.
‘Erin suffers from various mental health issues,’ I say it as gently as possible. ‘She could be a danger, Malcolm, to you and to herself. So if she does contact you, or tries to meet with you or?—’
‘Mr Riley… Detective Riley,’ he butts in, ‘if you see Erin,whenyou see Erin, will you give her a message back from me,please?’
‘OK, Malcolm.’ I let out a small sigh. ‘What’s the message?’
‘Can you tell her I said, “You don’t need to be”?’
Looking here at Mr Samson’s ‘guest book’, ‘Molly Malcolm’ checked in two days ago, but the information on when she checked out is blank.
‘Did you speak to Molly during her stay, Mr Samson? Did you chat together?’
‘Only the basics, when she arrived, like “Hello, please sign in, no smoking in the rooms…”’
‘She didn’t come down to the bar to get a drink, or something to eat?’
‘Maybe. Can’t really remember. I serve dozens of people every day. After a while, their faces seem to blur into one, know what I mean?’ He pours himself a neat Scotch and throws it back in one.
‘I take it you have CCTV on the premises that we can check?’ Davis says. ‘It’s one of the conditions of your licence here, isn’t it, Mr Samson, that you must have working CCTV in operation to retain your licence?’
He gives Davis a hard stare from behind the bar.
‘It got damaged, a few days ago. Stopped working.’ He loudly sniffs back mucus from his nose and throat. ‘I’ve called an engineer out, but they ain’t got no one till next Tuesday.’
‘Great, well, we’ll see you next Tuesday then!’ Davis smiles.
He exhales, laughs as he shakes his head. ‘I quite like you, sister, you got balls,’ he smirks, ‘probably literally.’
Davis flashes him a hard stare in return, unimpressed.
‘Why does the room smell so strongly of bleach, Mr Samson?’
‘It’s a crime to keep the place clean, now is it? Seriously? It smells of bleach because it’s beencleaned, ready for the next guest.’ He rolls his eyes, clearly exasperated.
‘Wasthisthe woman who was staying with you?’ I place Erin’s mugshot in front of him. ‘You may have already seen her picture on the news, on social media.’
‘Don’t watch the news. Life’s miserable enough, ain’t it? And I only use one website – OnlyFans.’ He grins at Davis, displaying two gold teeth.
‘Quite the charmer you, aren’t you, Mr Samson?’
Davis can barely disguise the disgust on her face.
‘How much do they pay you lot to do this shit, eh?’ He gestures around him at the empty bar, most of the guests having made a hasty exit upon our arrival. ‘Not enough, I’ll say. An attractive woman like you could make a good little earner out of OnlyFans as a sideline – you should give it some thought.’
‘That’s enough, Mr Samson – the photo.’ I tap a hard finger on it, for him to look. ‘Isthisthe woman who was staying here, is this ‘Molly Malcolm’?’
Reluctantly, he glances down at it.
‘No.’ He shakes his head, and for the first time since we arrived, it seems genuine. ‘You got the wrong girl, mate. All that effort, all that damage for nothing…’ He tuts, shakes his head ruefully. ‘The girl that was here was a blonde, attractive, yeah, she was… really pretty…’ He seems a little contemplative for a moment. ‘Actually, I quite fancied her.’
Blimey, there really must be something in the air tonight.
‘She looked nothing like this minger here.’ He nods at Erin’s photo with a curled lip. ‘Never seen her before in my life.’
