“Do you know the date?” asks Andy, his fingers poised over the keyboard.
“June twenty-first,” I say.
“And approximate time?”
I wish I could pinpoint the moment I’d left and Jacob was still there, but I can’t even remember when I got here.
“It would have been around 9:30 p.m.,” I say.
Andy sits down and inputs the date and time into the system, which doesn’t look too dissimilar to the one Ian used to operate. He clicks the mouse, turning the lobby into a time-lapse video, sending guests scurrying in and out of the shot. As the timer in the corner approaches 9:27 p.m. he clicks again and the recording returns to real time.
“OK, so why don’t we take a look at the entrance first,” he says. “See what time he left, if indeed he did.” I can’t help but wince at his foreboding words. “You said he was supposed to check in?”
I nod. “But I called reception the following day and they had no record of him.” It’s only as I say it out loud that it occurs to me I was asking for the wrong man. “Actually…” I muse. “Could you check again for me, under another name?”
Andy nods and pulls a notebook out of the top pocket of his suit jacket.
“Can you try Michael Talbot?” I say.
“I’ll go and check now,” he says. “Are you OK to stay here for a minute? I’ll leave this running, so you can keep an eye on it.”
I could kiss him. “Yes, of course,” I say, sitting down on the wheeled chair and pulling myself in toward the desk.
As soon as his back is turned, I click on the live image of the bar in the top right corner of the screen and repeat what I’ve just seen him do, rolling the tape back ninety-six hours, to a time when my life was so much simpler.
It takes me a couple of minutes to find us, but as soon as I do, I almost wish I hadn’t.
Without sound, we look like any other couple walking into a bar for a hard-earned drink after a long day. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but my hand is on his arm, no doubt trying to reassure him that everything will be all right, but without context it looks like an intimate gesture between two people who are more than comfortable with each other.
I look up, knowing I haven’t got long before Andy gets back. I double up on the speed, watching Jacob down four whiskies in quick succession, and press play at the moment I had gone to stand up.
I watch, mortified, as the “will they, won’t they” moment plays out on screen. If I didn’t know the outcome, I’d definitely put money on us heading to a hotel room beyond the security cameras.
The flash of intensity from Jacob, as he accused me of leading him on, only adds to the apparent sexual tension.
There’s no way I can let the police see this; not least because of what it looks like, but because I haven’t even told them I was here. Though now Andy knows I was. Shit.
I pick up the phone on the desk and dial reception.
“Hello, this is room 328,” I say. “I want a member of the managerial team up here right now. I’ve been waiting for my room service to be cleared for over half an hour.”
“I apologize, madam,” says the receptionist, making me feel wretched. “I’ll get that sorted for you immediately.”
“I want to see the manager,” I say.
“Of course, I’ll send him up straight away.”
The damning video is stuck on freeze-frame, Jacob’s hand inter locked with mine. It’s just a moment, like all those frozen moments we pore over online, when we’re convinced we’re witnessing a new celebrity coupling. Though if we were to press play, it would be a man chivalrously holding a door open for a woman he’s never met before as they arrive separately to an event, caught in the lens of a desperate photographer.
That’s all this is, I say to myself as I look at the screen. Just a moment. But I’m not the one who needs to be persuaded.
Keeping an eye on the corridor where housekeeping and room service are bustling past with trolleys laden with both food and dirty laundry, I drag the moving image back to where Jacob and I enter the bar, willing myself to recall what Ian used to do every three months when the footage was no longer needed.
I frantically stab at the delete button on the keyboard, but the image is still goading me from the screen. Suddenly, I remember Tristan in the Tattenhall security lodge, blocking out great swathes of time with his cursor, eradicating the events of the previous twenty-four hours. It takes a couple of tries, but I eventually manage to double-click the mouse to highlight the time period that compromises my future and am offered an option to delete the selected frame. My hand shakes as the cursor hovers over Yes.
I tell myself I have no choice. That it is far too incriminating for an innocent person like me to risk leaving. But then I fast-forward to the police dramatically storming the hotel after a tip-off that the missing man, whose photo will be all over the news by then, was here shortly before he disappeared. They’ll demand to see the CCTV, find that it’s been wiped, speak to Andy, who’ll have to admit to me being here and show them the hard drive back-up …
Stop! I scream at myself, my internal monologue threatening to spontaneously combust. This can’t get any worse than it already is. And what I need to do now is absolve myself of any involvement.
I look up to the heavens and ask Mom for forgiveness as I hit Yes, hoping she’ll understand my need to turn this investigation back onto the real guilty party, whoever that may be.
With all trace of myself now erased from the scene, I carry on watching the video as Jacob orders another whiskey before answering a call on his mobile. He seems scared as he listens to whatever the caller is saying, looking around covertly as if frightened of what he might see.
I follow his gaze, but as his eyes fleetingly pass over the man at the other end of the bar, mine are rooted to the spot.
It can’t be. It just can’t be. I zoom in on the man’s face, the image becoming grainier the closer I get, but there’s no denying the blue checked shirt I’d laundered just this morning.
Numb, I watch the barman who’d served me just moments before put down a tumbler that Leon picks up and knocks back in one. What the hell was he doing there, and how had I not seen him? Had he been there all along or had he only come in once he’d seen me leave? I wince as I imagine what he might have heard … what he might have seen.
My heart is pounding as I watch him watching Jacob. His face is almost unrecognizable from that of the husband I know and love. His jaw is set and his fixed eyes are empty and dark, seemingly devoid of anything other than hate and intent.
Struggling for breath and with fingers that feel anaesthetized, I fumble for the mouse and will myself to remember what I’ve just done. I can’t let anyone see this, but my brain just won’t cooperate with my hands.
I cut and chop whole frames of time, indiscriminately hacking at whatever’s there, desperate to erase all trace of anything that may incriminate me, and now, more importantly, Leon. If the police get wind of him and me being here on the night Jacob disappeared, the spotlight of suspicion will rest firmly on us both; the only distinction being that I know I’ve not done anything wrong. The sickening swirl in the pit of my stomach tells me that I can’t say the same for Leon.
18
“Hi, I’m home,” I call out as I step into the hallway, desperately trying to sound as normal as I possibly can. But he knows me well enough to hear the falter in my voice; he may even be able to see the horrific images playing out in my head. Because try as I might, I’m unable to stop the rolling film of him bludgeoning Jacob to death.
I brace myself against the hall wall, biding my time, waiting for some kind of divine intervention to tell me how best to approach this.