‘So what’s the alternative?’
‘The publican—this Rob character. He’s the one who found her, right? He’d know which room she was in without having to watch, and he wouldn’t have been out of place hanging around the stairwell and the hall and the rooms. Was he here last night? Working?’
‘Yeah.’
‘If we find out in due course that it wasn’t the publican, and it wasn’t a punter, then we’ve got a vantage point problem,’ I said. ‘Because where’s his vantage point? The roadside out there?’ I pointed to the back of the pub, towards the beer garden.
‘I don’t think so.’ Dodge searched the ground at his feet, his eyes restless as they moved over the surrounding landscape in his mind. ‘Past the beer garden there’s the road, and beyond that there’s houses. Just about everyone in town’s got a dog, including the people in those houses. He’s not setting up camp to watch from someone’s property without getting barked at.’
‘What about from the front, here?’
‘Well, you can’t see the hotel room windows from the front of the building. No windows in the hallway.’
‘So where did he watch from, then?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘Find out.’
‘I will.’
‘Back to Rob.’
‘Look, sir. I really think that one’s a dead end. It wasn’t him.’
‘Oh.’ I stepped back and appraised Dodge where he stood, which made him flinch. ‘I didn’t realise you were there when the murder happened. Please. Go ahead and stop me from wasting my fucking time, and just tell me who the killer was, Dodge.’
‘Sir’—Dodge put his hands up in surrender—‘I justknowRob Winter. Okay? Everybody does. This is the only pub between here and Wisemans. Rob is a good bloke. We’ve been close since I started in the area, on account of me driving the odd drunk home for him or clearing out the louts. He’s not someone who’s gone and stabbed a young girl to death.’
‘Can you do me a favour, Dodge? Can you spare me your completely biased assessments of the criminal potential of everyone in town, please?’ I asked. ‘I’m trying to run an investigation with some integrity here. You clearly bribed someone to get you through the police academy, but even watching a couple of episodes ofMiss Marplewould arm you with the knowledge that nine times out of ten when someone’s murdered, the person who found the body is the culprit. Andanothernine times out of ten, the kinds of people who stab young women to death do an all-right job of appearing like “good blokes”.’
‘I’m more of aLaw & Orderguy,’ Dodge said.
‘If it’s not one of the other guests, or Rob, how’s the killer got past the swipe card access to the rooms?’
‘If you lose your swipe card, you can punch in a code to override the swipe system, and—’
‘—and let me guess. The code is one-two-three-four.’
‘It is.’
I gave a rueful smile. ‘Where’s Chloe’s swipe card?’
‘We haven’t found it yet.’
‘And was she given one when she checked in, or two?’
‘Rob says that unless someone asks for two, he just gives out one per room,’ Dodge said. ‘People lose them all the time. Put them in their bags and take them home. He’s constantly replacing them.But, you’re right, sir. Rob had access to this upper floor without having to guess the code. He has his own swipe cards. He’d have known which room was hers. He also could have been up there, across the landing, past the blue door, where they have the pub’s storage space. He could have made an excuse to go up, and watched for a while until he saw his chance. It’s just a short hop across the landing from the blue door to the hotel door. You could make it in a few seconds, without anyone down in the beer garden noticing you.’
‘I want his criminal history,’ I said. ‘I also want to call up everyone who’s slept at the hotel in the past six months. Start with the female guests. Get them to tell you about his behaviour.’
‘You got it.’ Dodge gave a little salute, clicked his boot heels and took out his phone to send the necessary commands via text. I liked all that behaviour. The doing what he was told without asking questions, the salute, the immediate actioning of my directions. But I sure wasn’t going to let him know it.
One of the officers I’d seen standing around in the beer garden smoking approached us from inside the pub, having come from the counter where patrons ordered food. The cop was carrying an open laptop on one palm, like a waiter with a tray. He passed the device to his other hand and put his mitt out to shake mine. His grip was firm and he was covered in colourful Japanese koi fish tattoos that reached to the very end of each wrist, exactly where policing regulations allowed them to exist and no further. He was moustached and his name badge readN. Fry. I dropped eye contact and backed up immediately, because tattoos and moustaches are a few of my favourite things. ‘Sir, glad to meet you,’ he said.
‘This is Nathan Fry.’ Dodge gestured to him. ‘One of my staff from Wisemans.’
‘What is it, Fry?’ I demanded.
