Page 20 of Death on the Rocks (Lily Larkin Mysteries #1)

Chapter Twenty

Flynn had intended to update Sergeant Proctor on the camera situation via a message, but given what Miss Larkin had told him, he decided a phone call was warranted.

The phone rang for quite some time before Sergeant Proctor’s rough voice greeted him.

“How are you feeling?” Flynn asked politely.

“Probably about as good as I sound. Has something happened?”

“There’s been a development I thought you ought to know about. Regarding the stolen camera. It was handed in this morning by Mr and Mrs Miller. It’d been found by the young lad who does the gardening for them.”

“Good. That sounds like a loose end tied up. You could have sent me a message.”

“Except I’m not sure it ties anything up,” PC Grainger told him. “I’ve just had a chat with Miss Larkin. She told me she discovered the camera hidden in the garden shed yesterday and that there were images of a naked woman on one of the memory cards.”

A heavy sigh came down the phone. “Nude photos aren’t necessarily a crime.”

“I realise that, but from the way Miss Larkin described them, I suspect these were the criminal variety.”

“And what did you think?”

“How do you mean?”

“What’s your opinion of the photographs?”

“I haven’t seen them.”

“Why not?”

“They’ve disappeared. When Lily went back to retrieve the camera from the shed yesterday evening, it had been moved. This morning, the Millers handed it in claiming that Oscar found it in the neighbour’s garden.”

“That sounds messy.”

“Yeah. Something doesn’t add up. And if Mr Roth has been up to something shady, that adds a whole new spin to his death.”

“That seems like a leap.” Sergeant Proctor cleared his throat. “We have Mr Roth’s possessions, don’t we?”

“Yes. Alanna and her boyfriend packed up his things. They brought them in yesterday. I still haven’t managed to contact the next of kin, by the way.”

“Have a squiz through his belongings and see if anything jumps out at you.”

PC Grainger was already on his feet and moving to the storeroom at the back of the building. “Will do. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

He located Mr Roth’s belongings easily. A large duffel bag and a backpack. After donning a pair of gloves he had a quick rummage through the duffel, but it was only clothes and shoes. Nothing out of place there. But then, surely anything valuable would be stashed in his backpack.

Everything seemed to be in order with his wallet, and nothing jumped out as suspicious. He’d thought perhaps there’d be more memory cards, but so far there was nothing. After continuing to probe the smaller pockets, he came across a mobile phone, but that was no help without the passcode.

Presumably his laptop would be password protected too, but if not, that could be quite revealing.

Not that he should really be delving into the devices.

The digital forensic team should be the ones to deal with it, but given that the death was currently being classed as an accident, he wasn’t too concerned about breaking protocol.

Abruptly, Flynn stopped his search of the backpack. Then he looked again before concluding that there really was no laptop lurking inside.

There was no way he’d have been travelling without a laptop.

Surely he needed one for the job. After re-packing the bag, Flynn wandered back to his desk and found the number for Alanna Harding.

He didn’t have to wait long for her to answer the phone, and exchanged a polite greeting with her before getting to the point.

“I wonder if you know if Mr Roth had a laptop with him?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Of course. Why?”

“Because there isn’t one among his belongings, so I’m just wondering what happened to it. Do you have it?”

“No. I didn’t think about it when we packed his things. My head was all over the place, but now that you mention it, I didn’t see it. Hang on a sec and I’ll ask Marc if he knows anything about it.”

PC Grainger waited while she filled her boyfriend in. A moment later, she put the phone on speaker.

“I didn’t see it,” Marc told him. “But we also didn’t look too hard. Now I’m wondering if he might have hidden it somewhere.”

“Why would he hide his laptop?” Alanna asked.

“His camera had been stolen,” Marc said. “Or that’s what he thought. Maybe he was worried about security.”

“That makes sense,” PC Grainger said.

“Do you want us to have another look around his room?” Alanna asked.

“Yes, please.” He could go and search himself, but he’d really like to know the whereabouts of it as soon as possible.

They stayed on the phone and PC Grainger listened while they searched under the mattress and behind the bed, and in all the other nooks and crannies.

“That’s really weird,” Alanna said. “Where on earth could it be?”

“Maybe he had it with him when he went out that morning,” Marc suggested.

“We carried out a sweep of the surrounding area,” PC Grainger mused. “Nothing was found.” A laptop shouldn’t be too difficult to spot, either. “Thanks for checking his room,” he said. “If it turns up, please let me know.”

They promised they would, and he ended the call even more confused than he had been before.

Over a coffee, he sat and pondered what he knew, but couldn’t make sense of it.

He gave himself until the bottom of the coffee before he called the sergeant again.

“Anything turn up?” Sergeant Proctor asked gruffly.

“Not exactly. I couldn’t find anything incriminating in his belongings, but I noticed a lack of a laptop. I thought it strange that he wouldn’t have one, so I called Alanna. She confirmed he had one, and she checked his room again. It’s not there. She doesn’t know where it could be.”

“Right. So what you’re saying is, you have no evidence of anything? That’s actually a good outcome for your search.”

“How so?”

“Because with no evidence, we don’t need to do anything.”

“But his laptop is missing,” Flynn pointed out. “That’s a sign of something dodgy.”

“All you keep telling me is what you don’t have. I’m not sure what kind of policing you’re used to, but around here we build a case based on evidence, not a lack thereof.”

“Come on,” Flynn said, more fiercely than he’d intended. “You have to admit that something isn’t adding up here.” He had a nasty suspicion that Sergeant Proctor might dismiss anything Flynn said out of spite, regardless of whether he thought he was right or wrong.

“There is nothing to suggest that what happened to Mr Roth was anything other than an accident,” Sergeant Proctor said slowly, as though talking to a child. “So that is exactly how we’re going to treat it.”

Flynn stood and paced the room. “Can we please keep this professional? Put aside your feelings about me and look at this objectively.”

“That’s exactly what I am doing,” the sergeant snapped, then spluttered and coughed. “And I’ll tell you something about policing around here. It’s nothing like what you’re used to. It’s a quiet, peaceful place with good people––”

“That doesn’t mean you should turn a blind eye to a potential crime.”

“Stop and think for a minute, will you?” Sergeant Proctor growled.

“What you’re suggesting is that Mr Roth’s death wasn’t an accident.

You know what that leads to… a murder investigation.

And what do you think a murder investigation does to a place like this?

A place where most businesses survive on visitors to the island.

Imagine what happens when all those holidaymakers decide not to visit because there’s talk of a murder.

Even if it turns out not to be true, the bad publicity will stick. ”

“You can’t be serious,” Flynn whispered, dropping into his seat.

“Don’t push this,” the sergeant said, a warning note in his voice. “If you think you’re on my bad side now, I should warn you that things could get way worse for you.” He paused. “Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Flynn said flatly, then hung up the phone, only barely resisting the urge to fling it across the room.