Page 16

There was no sound.

No other apparent movement in the room.

As another roll of static crept up the screen, Laurence’s attention moved from the old man on the bed to the archway in the wall behind him. On-screen, the blackness there seemed even more absolute than it had while standing in the room. He remembered the faint rush of cold air that had been coming from it earlier.

A figure emerged suddenly from the darkness of the archway.

Laurence paused the video and peered carefully. The figure was little more than a pale smear, like an animal caught on a trail cam, and he imagined most of the frames would yield similar results. There might be better evidence in motion though, and so he restarted the footage.

The figure cautiously stepped out of the darkness of the archway. With the low quality, Laurence could tell that it was a man but not much more than that. He saw what looked like jeans. Some kind of jacket.Dark hair. And he appeared to be holding something. Laurence turned his head to one side but couldn’t make out what it was—only that the man was clasping it between his hands and pressing it to his stomach. Whatever it was, it wasn’t big. It didn’t look heavy. And yet there was something about the way the man was holding it—almost nervously—that suggested it weighed on him in a different way.

The object glinted slightly.

Is anything missing?

Laurence remembered the way the lawyer had glanced at the archway.

I don’t know yet.

He watched as the man stepped over beside the bed and stood there for a few seconds, staring down at Alan Hobbes. Laurence cursed the lack of audio. Was the man talking to Hobbes? He was turned away from the camera, so it was impossible to tell. If so, there was no response from the old man. Hobbes appeared to remain asleep, lying there in the bed with the covers over his chest gently rising and falling.

A line of static rolled over the pair, making them both jitter.

The man turned away from the bed and walked toward the door, his head bowed, his face entirely out of sight.

And then he disappeared from view.

Damn it.

Laurence leaned back. It was perhaps too much to hope that the murder had been caught on camera, but the footage might at least have had the decency to offer a viable view of a suspect. As things stood, he didn’t think they would get anything from it on that score. But. Accentuate the positives. This had been recorded well after members of staff were all supposed to have been dismissed, and even if it was low quality, it might still be good enough to identify one if they had come back.

Laurence stared at the screen.

There were only a few seconds left of the recording, and he watched as another roll of static began its steady ascent up the screen. Laurence leaned forward and peered more closely as it reached Alan Hobbes.

And then the entire screen was filled with a face.

Laurence pulled back—his heart leaping from the shock. The whole of the footage was white for a couple of seconds, before an eye moved into view, filling the screen, looking this way and that, and then the man leaned away from the camera, his entire face clearly visible now, and stared directly into the lens for the briefest of moments.

And then the screen went black.

His phone rang.

Laurence glanced down, his heart beating hard. Pettifer was calling him back.

“So,” she said when he answered. “What do you think?”

“I think give me a minute.”

“No,” she said. “Please just tell mehow goodthis is.”

He ignored her and played the footage again, pausing it toward the end. The frame gave about as clear an image as it was possible to get. The man in the footage was about thirty years old, with pale skin and earnest-looking eyes. Long hair. A spread of freckles across his nose and cheeks.

And a scar that ran down his face from the side of his eye to his chin.

Tell me how good this is.

“I’ll do you one better,” he said. “I’ll tell youwhothis is.”