London Calling - James Craig [30]
While forensics commandeered the victim’s room, Burgess had taken formal statements from Alex Miles and the rest of the hotel staff. For the record, they had reiterated what was previously said, i.e. not very much. The guests in the rooms immediately surrounding number 329 were also roused, to general dismay and annoyance, in order to confirm that they had seen and heard nothing too. To the night manager’s obvious relief, Carlyle agreed that they wouldn’t knock on any further doors on the third floor before seven-thirty. He knew that such activity wasn’t likely to yield anything, so he was happy to make her that concession. Anyway, it was just a matter of ticking a particular box for the record.
There had since been few other developments. The twenty quid rescued by PC Burgess from the Epoca café had been given a quick once-over by the technicians on site. With no signs of blood, it hadn’t yielded anything of immediate interest, so had been sent to Scotland Yard’s Forensic Science Laboratory, at Hendon in north London, for further tests. Finally, Alex Miles had taken Burgess and Carlyle through the hotel’s CCTV footage to see what they could glean from that.
At one point, it struck Carlyle that Miles seemed to be very much leading the hotel’s response to the incident. For such a high-profile hotel, in-house security was conspicuous by its absence. After some probing, Shue admitted that the chief security officer was off site, ‘auditioning’ a pair of Costa Rican hookers who wanted permission to work the premises.
The body itself had left for the morgue about half an hour ago. Having done her thing, the pathologist, Susan Phillips, had returned to Holborn police station to consider her findings and come up with a preliminary report. Meanwhile, the forensics guys had taken turns in going through the room with their own particular fine toothcombs. The remains of the victim’s room-service meal had been bagged up and sent to Hendon, too, along with the murder knife, clothing and a few other bits and pieces found inside the room. Details of anything of interest would arrive on Carlyle’s desk at Charing Cross later in the day, probably sometime in the middle of the afternoon. Business cards found in the victim’s jacket pocket, as well as a driving licence in his wallet, had confirmed the man’s name as Ian Blake.
It appeared that Blake had been managing director of a company called Alethia Consulting, whatever that was. Alethia herself, Carlyle vaguely remembered from various conversations with his daughter Alice, had been some kind of Greek goddess. What the company actually consulted on wasn’t clear, and it was unlikely that it mattered that much right now. Blake’s colleagues, or rather his ex-colleagues, would be receiving a visit within a couple of hours. Doubtless they would express their shock and dismay, portray the deceased as a latter-day saint, and reveal nothing useful whatsoever.
Carlyle drained his coffee cup and finished off the second pastry. He eyed a third but, after a few elongated seconds of emotional struggle and internal debate, he thought the better of it. Putting the