Claridgesl I wondered. I shook my head in disbelief and turned to leave.
There were three tiny pictures on the wall alongside the door, and they attracted me like marmalade to carpet pile, as pictures always do. At first I thought they were abstracts, but then I saw they were the wings of something like a dragonfly. I lifted one off its hook and took it under the light.
I need spectacles. It comes to everyone, with the passing of years. I peered at the caption in the bottom right-hand corner until my head ached. The microscopic letters read, I think, Aeshna grand is whatever that is. The signature in the other corner was easier. It said J.
Wilson, who we now know as Mrs. Holmes.
Chapter 10
"He's got a dirty muriel on his bathroom wall," I announced, strolling into the kitchen.
"Not bad, is it?" Dave replied.
The photographer had joined him. "Oh, can I go look?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Sorry, Pete, it's against the rules."
"Shirley would love this," Dave said, waving at the appliances. His wife is the best cook I know. "Poggen… pohl? Where are they from?"
"Why the kitchen?" I asked. "She'd probably love the bedroom or the television lounge or every other room in the house."
"Women like kitchens, Charlie," he stated. "Maybe that's where you go wrong."
"Could be," I replied, 'but this is not for us. Give 'em a click, Dave, and let's go."
He undipped his radio from his belt and clicked transmit three times, as we'd agreed. "We'll wait at the gate," I said, 'just in case she comes to the door to wave goodbye." The photographer followed me out and we took the car to the bottom of the drive. Five minutes later Dave, the local DC and the WPC piled into the back seat and we drove back to Kendal nick. On the way we told them that they could let Kingston go.
The fraud boys calculated that Kingston was living way beyond his legitimate income. He appeared to receive frequent but irregular sums of money from somewhere, and he said that he gambled at a casino in Blackpool. Checks they made later showed that he was a member, but nobody there recognised him from his photograph. He must have been the most successful player of roulette ever, but he claimed he had a system, which he had to be careful not to give away. He was, he said, very cautious and low-key when he played. Casino winnings are not tax-deductible, so they let him go and even managed a strained apology.
Kingston was happy, because he thought he'd fooled us, and we were delirious because he was happy. Like they say, nowadays we're a service, not a force. The local team took us to the pub and we had a long lunch, sitting outside in the sun, and Mr. Snappy took a picture of us all.
I was sitting at my desk, just before seven, when Pete the photographer rang me. "We've something to show you," he said.
I pulled my jacket on and ran down four flights of steps to the basement, where the darkroom was. I knocked and he opened the door.
With him was a scientist from the Home Office lab at Wetherton. We'd met before and exchanged pleasantries.
"This is proper photography," Pete said. "There's no arguing with this."
"How do you mean?" I asked.
"Well," he explained, 'with this digital stuff you can fake it. The picture is converted to a million bits of information, little electrical impulses, passed down wires and through silicon chips, then reassembled into something that hopefully resembles what you started out with. With the Hasselblad, the image falls directly on to the negative and from that directly on to the print paper. What you see is what you get."
"He's right," said the scientist, whose name I'd forgotten. "A thousand-pound-a-day barrister would get digital evidence kicked out of court."
"That's something for us to think about," I said. "So what have you found?"
"OK," the scientist began. "Pete shot a roll of 100 ASA through the Hasselblad and printed it on medium-grade glossy fibre paper. The prints you supplied are on similar paper. The border of each picture, as you know, is an image of the frame in the camera that the film is held flat against. Ideally, we should see four dead-straight black edges all the way round. In practice, when seen under the microscope, there are minute blobs of paint and specks of dust that make it irregular. Let me show you."
He switched on an overhead projector and placed a slide under it. The images on the screen jerked around as the shadow of his hand manipulated them, its movements magnified by the apparatus. I could see two black right-angles which he eventually placed side by side. "We took some negatives from your pictures," he said, 'and this is a typical comparison. It's not as clear as under the 'scope, but you can see here…" He pointed to something on the slide, then realised that it was easier to show me on the screen and jumped to his feet.
"Here," he continued, 'and here. These are probably dust particles stuck to the paint that the camera interior was treated with. As it is matt paint we can also show how irregular that looks. See here, and here."
"They look similar," I said.
"That's right. There are also some scratches across the negative, caused by dust in the camera. Similar scratches can be seen on the photographs."
"So what's the bottom line?" I asked. Sometimes the cliche is the easiest way of expressing it.
"The bottom line, Inspector, is that I am quite prepared to stand in the box and say that the pictures you supplied of the groups of partygoers and the film that Peter says was shot through a Hasselblad earlier today were taken on one and the same camera. No doubt about it."
"You'll do for me," I said. "You'll do for me." We could prove that Melissa and Kingston had met, in spite of his denials. I rang Tregellis's home number from my office and told him the good news.
"Great!" he said. "Leave it with me."
The young lovers shuffled forwards in the queue, tightly holding hands.
Rows twenty-one to thirty were boarding flight BA175 from Heathrow to New York, and their seats were 22 A and 22B. They worked for British Airways, in the accounts department, and this was the first time they had used the generous concession on fares that their employer offered.
It was also to be the first time he had ever been abroad and the first time she had been to New York. And slept with a man. It was to be a short stay, two nights, so they only carried hand luggage. Hers contained a selection of tasteful underwear and a transparent nightie; his held enough condoms for the crew of a nuclear submarine on shore leave in Saigon. Expectations were high and sightseeing wasn't in the itinerary.
He offered their boarding passes to the stewardess at the mouth of the tunnel that would transfer them magically on to the jumbo, and wondered why the man with her was peering over her shoulder and paying so much attention to the passes.
"Ah!" the stewardess said, showing a pass to the man.
"Ah!" he responded, saying to the couple: "Could you just step to one side, please. I'm afraid your seats have been taken and we'll have to bump you off this flight."
They turned tearfully away and never noticed the two men who came running through the departure lounge to join the back of the queue. One of them was short and bulky, with an Adidas holdall over his shoulder, and the other, the one with the bow tie, carried a leather Armani flight bag. Both of them were puffing with the exertion. Graham and Piers were on their way.
I did some travelling too, but slower and lower. Friday afternoon, on a whim, I drove 190 miles to Welwyn Garden City and at five forty-five pressed the bell at the side of the front door of Andrew Roberts' house. It was called Sharand. I hadn't noticed that before. Shaz, is wife, must be Sharon, I thought. How clever. The Bedford and the Saab were on the drive, but the Fiesta was missing.