“What does the warehouse look like?”
“Looks unused. There’s a locked gate to the loading zone, and no vehicles are visible. We can see through one of the street-facing windows, and inside appears to be completely empty. Though it’s possible that there’s stuff or people in there. To be definitive, we’d have to, um …” Antonucci trails off. Secure app or not, he doesn’t want to discuss breaking the law.
“No,” Griffiths says. “A dumped phone wouldn’t be right next to the reason for dumping it.”
Antonucci glances at the trash can, oddly full considering how out-of-the-way this spot is. People must use this can to illegally dispose of household trash.
“This bin is pretty packed,” he says. He has worked in cities with underfunded, deprioritized sanitation services, garbage everywhere. Lisbon isn’t one of these. Trash cans here aren’t allowed to overflow. “I’d imagine pickup must be soon. Should we take the device?”
“Definitely,” Griffiths says. “Let’s have ourselves a look.”
*
The time stamp identifies that it was 6:51 A.M. when John strode through the small lobby, which is not really a lobby—no furniture, no desk, it’s just a roomy foyer, a cool, airy, tile-floored space, one end of which is the hotel’s front doors, the other is the elevator and the staircase that winds around the center of the building. Reception is upstairs, on what everyone in Europe calls the first floor; like the word entrée, this means something completely different than it does in America. From up there in reception, the downstairs foyer is monitored via a security camera that’s mounted in one corner, next to the elevator, facing the front door.
By the time John exited the building, a few hotel employees had already entered: a kitchen worker at five-thirty, then, just before six, Duarte, followed minutes later by the two chambermaids.
A second camera hangs on the building’s exterior, facing the front door obliquely, providing a semi-profile of anyone who enters, and a decent view to a small swath of sidewalk. There’s no way for this vantage to do a good job of identifying any faces; this camera’s main benefit must be to identify the activity, or merely to deter it. This is a camera that would be noticed by anyone with a mindset to look for one, which you’d do if you were up to no good.
It was still 6:51 when this camera captured John pushing open the door and glancing around. He took a single step out to the sidewalk, and raised the angle of his head incrementally, as if noticing something, or someone. He froze for a moment, perhaps surprised, or perhaps debating, not sure how to proceed. Then he made his decision and took a couple of strides in that direction. Then he disappeared from the frame.
This footage shows mostly John’s back, with a glimpse of side. Ariel can see that he’s wearing suit pants and a white shirt but neither jacket nor tie, and he isn’t carrying anything—no briefcase, no newspaper, nothing. He doesn’t look like a businessman on his way to work.
“Let’s watch that again.”
Duarte glances at Ariel. They’ve already watched this footage twice, and there’s nothing to see. But the clerk isn’t going to argue. You don’t argue with guests about anything, and certainly not a guest in this type of predicament. With this type of personality.
They rewatched the whole thing, saw John exit the frame again, seemingly the end of the evidence. But Ariel keeps her eyes glued to the screen, looking for something more, anything, any movement, any change, any—
“There,” she says to Duarte. “What’s that?”
“Excuse me? What, please?”
“That. Look: Go back a few seconds.”
The young man slides the cursor.
“There. Do you see? That big shadow? It moves, just a couple of seconds after John leaves the frame in that exact direction. What do you think that is?”
“That direction is the street, so that shadow is an auto, maybe. What else can it be?”
“I don’t know. A streetcar?”
“No, a streetcar is much bigger, and with a different shape.”
The young man leans away from the screen with the satisfied look of someone who just solved a puzzle. “I believe that is a car, senhora. And it drives away. After your husband gets into it.”
*
Ariel stands in the spot where the phantom car would have been. The hotel is on one side of this street, the park on the other. She scans in every direction, taking in everything, the trees, the streetlights, the front doors and first floors of buildings, the entrances to businesses and residences. She identifies at least a dozen security cameras, but can’t see any of their lenses; none of the cameras are facing this precise spot. And if she can’t see the lens from this spot, then the lens can’t see this spot. Isn’t that the way it works? Ocular physics? Logic?
A large part of being an actor was being hyper-observant. When Ariel gave up professional acting, she didn’t become any less observant; she simply trained her observations on new objects. And in the decades since, her steady diet of mystery novels has reoriented her toward exactly this: looking for clues.
There are too many trees here, blocking the view. Trees are abundant in Lisbon, not just in parks and squares but growing out of circular cut-outs of sidewalks, planted in pots in front of shops, providing refuge from the relentless sun.
Ariel knows that none of the other cameras around this square can provide any useful evidence.
Another dead end. They’re mounting up quickly.
CHAPTER 7
DAY 1. 1:49 P.M.
Lunchtime has arrived. The downtown sidewalks are crowded, but people here don’t seem to be rushing around, they’re not staring obliviously at handheld screens, jockeying for position at street corners, challenging cars, trucks, one another. Instead it seems to be a leisurely break that people are taking, moving slowly in the heat, jackets off, sleeves rolled, sticking to the shady sides of streets lined in pastel-painted buildings, pale peaches and plums, faded lavender and mint and every conceivable shade of yellow, with thin black lines of suspended lamps and window frames and balcony railings, ornamentation that looks like India ink over watercolor washes.
Ariel should eat. She never got around to breakfast—too anxious—and she hasn’t grown any calmer since. It’s hard to imagine sitting at a table, behaving like a calm civilized person, waiting for the waiter, for the menu, for the check. These are tediums that she can barely endure even on the best of days.
“Senhora Pryce, how nice to see you again. So soon.”
It sounds like disappointment that’s coming from Moniz. But what should she expect?
“I have evidence.” Ariel puts the thumb drive on the detective’s desk.
“Oh?” He squints at the little device. “Excuse me,” he says, and pats his jacket, removes a pair of glasses. “It is inconvenient, losing your vision. Unpleasant. Has this happened to you?”
She shakes her head.
“Not yet? You are fortunate.”