Chapter 27
Organizing a viewing of the security footage turned out to be anything but simple. It involved a call to the hotel manager, who was not currently in Orkney. When he was eventually reached, he said he needed a warrant to allow what he called ‘some random female turning up, demanding to view it’.
At this point in the proceedings, Jo took the phone and pointed out that she was in fact Detective Sergeant Jo Green, that the female missing from his hotel was possibly in danger, and if anyone had removed her unwillingly from the hotel premises, she would hold the manager responsible.
After this, she was promptly given access to the appropriate room, plus the necessary password to review the footage.
She’d handled such a task before, where the mind-numbing manner of it had had her wondering how super recognizers managed to do their job, sitting as they did in front of grainy images for hours, looking to match a particular person.
Luckily the security camera at the rear of the building wasn’t recording a busy location. Running it from early morning, she watched as guests exited by the back door with their luggage, located their vehicles and drove away.
There were arrivals too, of course, who parked their cars and made their way inside to book in at reception. But no image of Rachael’s arrival in the early afternoon, since, according to the receptionist, she’d entered by the front door.
Her patience beginning to run thin, Jo was contemplating skipping forward to when Rachael was definitely in the hotel, when she saw a figure enter the car park and head for the back entrance.
It was a male – he wore jeans and a grey hooded top, and it appeared to her that he checked for the camera and purposefully dipped his head to avoid his face being recorded.
Totally focused now, she counted the seconds and minutes as they ticked past, watching to see the same male exit. He didn’t. Neither alone, nor with Rachael.
Checking the time, she noted he’d been inside the building for at least twenty minutes. Had he left by the front door? Or was he in fact an employee who had simply arrived for work?
Deciding to check this, she stopped the recording and went through to reception, where Gail, as her name tag said, looked at her worriedly.
‘Do you have a young male employee who would arrive here for work at about two o’clock? He was wearing a grey hoodie and was around five foot ten?’
Gail looked taken aback by the question, then thought for a moment. ‘Possibly. I can check the roster if you can wait for a second?’
‘Of course,’ Jo said, trying to keep the impatience she felt out of her voice.
Gail, pressing a sequence of keys, brought up a grid and began to study the names on it. ‘It might have been Patrick,’ she offered. ‘His shift in the kitchen is supposed to start at two and he sort of fits your description.’
‘Would you recognize Patrick from the recording?’
‘Probably, but I can’t leave reception,’ she said apologetically.
‘Then tell Patrick to come here. I need to speak to him,’ Jo told her.
She waited as Gail made the call, where she stressed that a police officer wished to speak to Patrick immediately in reception.
Patrick, when he arrived, wore a look of defiance mixed with fear, which made Jo wonder what he got up to in his spare time. Taking pity on him, she asked him to come through to the viewing room with her.
‘Is that you?’ she said, pointing at the screen.
‘Jeez, I was only ten minutes late!’ he said in an amazed tone, before he took a closer look. ‘Anyway, that isn’t me.’
‘He’s dressed like you,’ Jo said.
‘Not exactly.’ He pointed to the screen. ‘Wrong footwear.’ He indicated his white sneakers. ‘And I was ten minutes late, this guy came in before me. Look at the clock.’
He was right. Jo could have kicked herself. Where was her professionalism? It had, she realized, departed as soon as she’d heard that her former partner was en route to Orkney.
Thanking Patrick for his help, she let him go before she ran the recording on, and there was Patrick arriving, just as he’d said, at least five minutes after the mystery man.
She continued to play the recording, but her suspect didn’t re-emerge, either with Rachael or alone.
Switching to the camera at the front of the building, she now ran it from the beginning. The bustle of comings and goings by the front entrance far exceeded the ones at the rear.
Eventually she saw Rachael climbing the front steps of the hotel, looking upbeat and confident. The man accompanying her was likely her taxi driver, Sam, because a short time later he reappeared with a middle-aged couple and their luggage.
Things then went quiet until mid-afternoon, when there was a sudden influx of folk, probably from a recently docked ferry.
As they trooped up the steps with their suitcases to fill the foyer, two figures exited.
One, she thought, looked like the hooded male from the rear door camera, his taller figure obscuring a smaller female, also hooded, in front of him.
Jo stopped the recording, then replayed the sequence. Once, twice, three times.
If Rachael wasn’t in her room and hadn’t left by the back exit, then she had to have left via the front. Maybe Gail hadn’t noticed her because she was too busy dealing with the crowd of new arrivals.
Jo froze the screen on the one decent image of the exiting pair. God, it definitely could be Rachael. If so, was she leaving of her own free will? Or being manhandled out by the hooded guy, whose relative height and build might match that of Kris, but without a face she couldn’t tell.
Was this an image of Kris rescuing Rachael from the hotel after what had happened this morning at the reading of the will? Or had one of the Mowats taken umbrage at the outcome of the proceedings and abducted the woman who would inherit everything if something happened to Kris?
Gail’s expression was one of horror when Jo told her that Rachael had likely left the hotel with the hooded man, who’d entered via the back door.
‘What can I do to help?’ she immediately said.
‘I need to inform my commanding officer, DI Flett, as to Ms Everett’s possible missing status. He may wish to come and view the security recording himself. In the interim, please have Rachael’s room locked. No one should go inside,’ Jo told her.
‘I hope she’s okay,’ Gail said, a tremor in her voice.
‘I hope so too,’ Jo told her.
Now back in her vehicle, Jo prepared herself for the necessary call. Much as she wished to leave DI Flett alone tonight, she didn’t think he’d want that, not if there was the slightest concern for Rachael Everett’s welfare.
Listening as the call rang on for longer than was usual, she felt a wash of relief when it was finally picked up.
‘DS Green,’ Erling said in a serious tone. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘It’s regarding Rachael Everett,’ she told him, unburdening herself of everything that had happened since she’d first tried to make contact with Rachael. When she’d finished her story, Erling told her she’d been right to call him.
‘I’ll be with you directly. I’d like to view the security footage myself.’
When Erling rang off, Rory immediately asked what was wrong.
‘I have to go to Stromness. Rachael Everett, Kris Mowat’s partner, has gone missing from her hotel room and her mobile’s been disconnected.’ Reading Rory’s expression, he added, ‘Kris made her his sole beneficiary should anything happen to him.’
Rory muttered a curse. ‘You think she may have been kidnapped?’
‘Or maybe Kris came for her himself, if your sighting of him alive and well on Flotta is correct,’ Erling said.
Rory met his questioning look with a firm nod. ‘I think it was him, but you can always have your recognition software compare the two photographs. Isn’t that how the Glasgow detective found out about me?’ he added.
‘I intend to,’ Erling said firmly, without commenting on Rory’s mention of DS McNab. ‘Can you send me over a copy of the photo you took?’
‘Your wish is always my command, Detective Inspector,’ Rory said, throwing back the duvet and climbing out of bed. ‘Any idea when you’ll be back?’ he added as he walked naked to the shower.
‘None,’ Erling told him with a look of regret.