this was a main commercial artery: now they were shops and restaurants at ground level, businesses above, flats above that.
And The Barbican Hotel, which occupied the eastern block. Anyone staying in the hotel would have access to the roof. Shapiro filed that interesting fact away for further consideration.
Donovan took him to the spot he’d found where years of airborne pollution had been swept from the parapet. The roofs ran together in a continuous concrete span, so the fact that the girl had gone off the northern building didn’t mean that’s where she’d come from. The spot was chosen simply because there was a kind of concrete step against the wall which would have made it easier to lift someone over.
‘I wonder if he knew there was a boat there,’ said Shapiro. ‘Maybe he meant her to go in the canal.’
‘Better for him if she landed on something solid,’ grunted Donovan. ‘He may have thought her injuries would cover up the beating he’d given her.’
The superintendent nodded slowly. ‘I suppose it was meant to look like suicide. Or an accident. If he’d fed her a bit less cocaine it might have done. She
got high, she was prancing around up here in the buff, she lost her balance and fell. Only we know she wasn’t prancing anywhere. She couldn’t have walked, let alone climbed the parapet.’
‘At least we know now why nobody saw anything. Unless you were looking at precisely the right moment, there was nothing to see. First she was up here, out of sight; five seconds later she was dead in the bottom of the boat. Doped up like that she wouldn’t even have yelled.’
Shapiro looked around. The concrete desert was interrupted by various outcrops: water-tanks, gear-houses for the lifts, doors that led by way of stairs into the buildings below. When The Barbican was redeveloped from the old warehouses the architects had it in mind that a very pleasant roof-garden could have been created up here. But somehow roof-gardens weren’t very Castlemere. Even after the council had done its best it remained a working town rather than a bastion of middle-class gentility. If they’d done the redevelopment ten years earlier people would have strung washing-lines up here.
‘Has anybody tried the doors?’ he said. ‘To see which open and which are locked?’
Donovan tried them now. There were eight in all, two on each building. Only two opened from the outside: one each on the north and east wings. ‘Doesn’t mean they won’t open from the inside. They might have to, as part of the fire regulations.’
So it proved. Shapiro sighed. ‘So he could have come from any door in any building, walked round till he found a handy spot and pushed the poor girl
over, and unless he was unlucky enough to bump into a late-patrolling caretaker there was next to no chance of him being seen. Get hold of the caretakers, make sure they really didn’t see anyone at the top of the stairs, then meet me in the hotel foyer.’
‘They could as easily have come from one of the flats,’ objected Donovan.
‘Of course they could,’ agreed Shapiro. ‘But the hotel will have a much bigger turnover. Plus, if you were planning on killing a girl you probably wouldn’t want to chuck her off your own roof and have her found still pointing an accusing finger at your bedroom window. It’s different for hotel guests: they could be miles away before she was found.’
‘But she died last night,’ said Donovan. ‘Whoever killed her was here last night.’
‘So our prime suspect is someone who was staying in the hotel but left last night or first thing this morning.’
That narrowed it down, but not very much. When he went down to The Barbican Hotel Shapiro discovered what Liz had just learned: that a conference booking had occupied some forty rooms, some of them doubles, from Friday evening until Monday morning. Of the sixty-three delegates, forty-eight were men. None had their wives with them. Most had left before Tom Lacey
And The Barbican Hotel, which occupied the eastern block. Anyone staying in the hotel would have access to the roof. Shapiro filed that interesting fact away for further consideration.
Donovan took him to the spot he’d found where years of airborne pollution had been swept from the parapet. The roofs ran together in a continuous concrete span, so the fact that the girl had gone off the northern building didn’t mean that’s where she’d come from. The spot was chosen simply because there was a kind of concrete step against the wall which would have made it easier to lift someone over.
‘I wonder if he knew there was a boat there,’ said Shapiro. ‘Maybe he meant her to go in the canal.’
‘Better for him if she landed on something solid,’ grunted Donovan. ‘He may have thought her injuries would cover up the beating he’d given her.’
The superintendent nodded slowly. ‘I suppose it was meant to look like suicide. Or an accident. If he’d fed her a bit less cocaine it might have done. She
got high, she was prancing around up here in the buff, she lost her balance and fell. Only we know she wasn’t prancing anywhere. She couldn’t have walked, let alone climbed the parapet.’
‘At least we know now why nobody saw anything. Unless you were looking at precisely the right moment, there was nothing to see. First she was up here, out of sight; five seconds later she was dead in the bottom of the boat. Doped up like that she wouldn’t even have yelled.’
Shapiro looked around. The concrete desert was interrupted by various outcrops: water-tanks, gear-houses for the lifts, doors that led by way of stairs into the buildings below. When The Barbican was redeveloped from the old warehouses the architects had it in mind that a very pleasant roof-garden could have been created up here. But somehow roof-gardens weren’t very Castlemere. Even after the council had done its best it remained a working town rather than a bastion of middle-class gentility. If they’d done the redevelopment ten years earlier people would have strung washing-lines up here.
‘Has anybody tried the doors?’ he said. ‘To see which open and which are locked?’
Donovan tried them now. There were eight in all, two on each building. Only two opened from the outside: one each on the north and east wings. ‘Doesn’t mean they won’t open from the inside. They might have to, as part of the fire regulations.’
So it proved. Shapiro sighed. ‘So he could have come from any door in any building, walked round till he found a handy spot and pushed the poor girl
over, and unless he was unlucky enough to bump into a late-patrolling caretaker there was next to no chance of him being seen. Get hold of the caretakers, make sure they really didn’t see anyone at the top of the stairs, then meet me in the hotel foyer.’
‘They could as easily have come from one of the flats,’ objected Donovan.
‘Of course they could,’ agreed Shapiro. ‘But the hotel will have a much bigger turnover. Plus, if you were planning on killing a girl you probably wouldn’t want to chuck her off your own roof and have her found still pointing an accusing finger at your bedroom window. It’s different for hotel guests: they could be miles away before she was found.’
‘But she died last night,’ said Donovan. ‘Whoever killed her was here last night.’
‘So our prime suspect is someone who was staying in the hotel but left last night or first thing this morning.’
That narrowed it down, but not very much. When he went down to The Barbican Hotel Shapiro discovered what Liz had just learned: that a conference booking had occupied some forty rooms, some of them doubles, from Friday evening until Monday morning. Of the sixty-three delegates, forty-eight were men. None had their wives with them. Most had left before Tom Lacey
Similar Books
Wolf Island
Cheryl Gorman
The Sapporo Outbreak
Brian Craighead
The Douglas Fir
Anyta Sunday
Return to Exile
Lynne Gentry
Always a Temptress
Eileen Dreyer
My Legendary Girlfriend
Mike Gayle
Wolf Creek Alpha (Texas Pack 1)
Jo Ellen
The Perfect Christian
E. N. Joy
B009YBU18W EBOK
Adam Zamoyski