Lifting the Lid(16)

‘I won’t keep you a moment, sir,’ said the receptionist without diverting her attention from the monitor.

‘Ninety-five quid, wasn’t it?’

‘I’ll be right with you, sir.’ Her tone bristled with irritation.

‘Actually, I’m in a bit of a hurry,’ said Trevor and slapped five twenty-pound notes onto the desk.

The receptionist ponderously removed her heavy, black-rimmed glasses. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but—’ She broke off abruptly and leaned forward as if to confirm that her eyes had not deceived her. ‘Is that your dog?’

Milly sat staring up at her and panting slightly.

Trevor was getting tired of having to answer the “Is that your dog?” question and chose to ignore it. He patted the banknotes on the counter. ‘That’s a hundred quid there. Okay?’

‘Sir, I did tell you last night about the hotel’s policy with regard to—’

‘You did indeed, and now you’ve caught me red-handed.’ He raised his hands in a gesture of mock surrender, surprised at how cocky he must have seemed. ‘You owe me a fiver by the way.’

‘I’m afraid I’ll have to call the manager,’ said the receptionist and reached for the telephone.

‘Look, I haven’t got time for all that.’ He bent down and picked up his holdall. ‘I tell you what. Why don’t you keep the five quid as compensation for the dog and we’ll say no more about it?’

He crossed the foyer to the main exit and held open the glass door, waiting for Milly. The receptionist had been joined by a tall, pasty-faced man in a dark blue suit and a pink and white striped tie. Both were looking in his direction, and the receptionist was pointing at him.

Trevor called to Milly to get a move on, and she was almost at the door when she suddenly squatted down and deposited a small puddle on the richly carpeted floor.

‘Hey!’ The man in the tie began to make his way out from behind the reception desk.

Out on the street, the holdall bashed repeatedly against Trevor’s knee as he and Milly ran, but by the time Trevor heard the manager shout again from the hotel steps, they were just about to turn a corner and disappear.





CHAPTER ELEVEN



His reaction wasn’t unexpected, but there was no way of breaking it to him gently, so DC Swann had come straight out with it and then braced herself for the response. Logan was sitting at his desk reading a newspaper. He folded it roughly and slapped it down in front of him.

‘Gone?’ he said. ‘What do you mean, it’s gone?’

‘As in… not there any more?’

He snatched up the newspaper and pointed it at her as if it were a loaded weapon. ‘Don’t get smart with me, constable.’

‘Hey, I’m only the messenger,’ said Swann. ‘There’s nothing on the system, and I even got Records to check the file hadn’t been put back in the wrong place.’

‘But that’s ridiculous. A missing persons file can’t just vanish.’

Swann decided this wasn’t the time to remark on the irony of his statement. Instead, she told him how she’d asked around and found out who’d led the investigation into Imelda Hawkins’s disappearance.

‘Tom Doyle?’ said Logan. ‘But he retired months ago.’

‘Still lives locally though.’

He drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. ‘I suppose we ought to pay him a visit then.’

‘Two o’clock suit you?’

Logan raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’

Swann could detect a gradual easing of the volcanic tension as she summarised her phone call with Doyle. He’d denied all memory of the case at first, but she’d chipped away at him with the few details they had until he eventually admitted to having “some vague recollection”. Even then, he’d become defensive, almost to the point of abusive, and had been doggedly resistant when she’d suggested a meeting. In the end, it had taken all her reserves of womanly wiles and the oral equivalent of some serious eyelash fluttering to bring him round.

‘Always was a bit of a one for the ladies as I recall,’ said Logan. ‘Didn’t get the name Donger Doyle for nothing.’

‘Ee-yuck,’ said Swann, guessing that the guy must be into his sixties by now and trying to blot out the inevitable mental image. ‘Did you know him then?’

‘Not really. I never worked with him directly, and he kept himself to himself most of the time. As far as us blokes were concerned anyway. – You ask him if he thought it was murder?’

‘I decided I’d leave that to you.’

‘Good plan.’ He leaned back in his chair, swung his feet onto the desk and opened his newspaper.