A Body in the Lakes by Graham Smith (great books of all time .TXT) 📕

She didn’t know the man, but she’d already taken a dislike to him. His having a hard uncomfortable chair for visitors would be his way of exercising his superiority and making sure visitors to his office were keen to leave at the earliest opportunity.

‘I’ll stand if you don’t mind, I’ve been in the car for an hour so it’s good to stretch my legs a bit.’

Beth would have taken the seat in other circumstances, but she didn’t want to yield any ground, and by standing she retained some dominance.

‘Of course.’ Ketteringham twiddled with his cravat. ‘Now, if you could be specific about the information you require, I’ll see what I can do about it.’

Beth told him the date the mayor had met with Lorraine, her room number, and requested that he share what information he had about the booking and the person who’d made it.

‘I see. Shouldn’t you have a warrant to justify me breaching a customer’s confidentiality?’

‘That depends on you, Mr Ketteringham. I can come back with a warrant. But I’m investigating four rapes and murders so your cooperation will save me a lot of time.’

‘I see. And do you think the killer may have stayed here, at the Wall Park?’

‘Not that I know of, but I think the person who did stay in that room on those dates may be connected to the killer.’ Beth put a hard look into her eyes. ‘Now, are you going to give me what I need, or do I have to come back with a warrant?’ The way Ketteringham held her stare was infuriating to Beth, so she decided to add a little extra pressure. ‘You have a bar in the Wall Park, therefore you must have a licence to sell alcohol. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that licences and their renewals are granted by the licensing board, and that they take into account the opinion of the police when they’re assessing individual applications or renewals. I’m sure that you don’t want a black mark going against you.’

‘You wouldn’t.’ Ketteringham’s face had blanched with shock and fury. ‘You’re blackmailing me to give you information without a warrant. That’s immoral and despicable.’

‘I’m doing no such thing.’ Beth feigned an air of innocence. ‘All I’m doing is pointing out how the decision you’re about to make may come back to haunt you. If my DI or DS was here with me, they would suggest there may be surprise visits from Customs and Excise to check your measures and the provenance of your alcohol supplies. I’m sure you have invoices from breweries for every drop of alcohol on the premises and that you don’t buy it from a supermarket, because you know fine well that it’s illegal for a licensed premises to purchase liquor from a public retailer and then resell it. Something else they might do if they wanted to force you to answer their questions is threaten you with anonymous complaints to the likes of Trading Standards and Environmental Health. They aren’t here though, and all I’m doing is asking you to save me a few hours and a bit of paperwork, because, let’s face it, one way or another, we’ll have the information from you before the day’s out. So it’s up to you, Mr Ketteringham. When I leave here, will I be calling my DI to share information, or will I be asking her to sort out a warrant?’

Beth didn’t hear what Ketteringham muttered under his breath as he opened the laptop on his desk and she didn’t care. She’d get what she wanted and that was all that mattered.

She didn’t speak as the hotelier looked up the details of the booking.

After five minutes of awkward silence the printer whirred into life and spat out a sheet of paper. It contained the details of the booking and the name and address of the person who’d made it: ‘L. Jones’.

So Lorraine’s surname was Jones and the listed address was in Keswick.

Best of all, though, was the mobile phone number.

As she scanned further down the page, Beth saw that the room had been booked through the Booking.com website. As delicious as the irony was that there was a chance Forster’s software had unknowingly been used by the woman he’d slept with, Beth was pleased that she’d used the system. The name may well be false, the surname of Jones suggested it may be, as might the address and even the phone number, but Beth remembered signing up for Booking.com herself. She’d had to feed in her card details, and therefore Lorraine would have had to do the same. That meant she could still be traced if the other details turned out to be false.

‘One last thing, Mr Ketteringham, if this number and address don’t check out, I may need details of the card used to secure this booking.’ Beth lifted a hand to silence the man’s protests. ‘I’m not asking for them now, but I may call for them later. I would appreciate it if you could have the details to hand should I call.’

Beth got a terse nod as his answer.

When Ketteringham left her to find her own way back to reception, she had to resist the urge to nip into the bar and scream ‘mouse’ while pointing at the far side of the room. It would be a petty action and one beneath her, but it might prick Ketteringham’s pretentious bubble.

Rather than making mischief, she had a higher priority. Now she had Lorraine’s full name and address plus a number for her, she could arrange to speak to the woman.

Thirty-Four

Rather than go straight back to Carleton Hall, Beth put in a call to the office and connected with Unthank. Within a couple of minutes, he’d run the address for Lorraine Jones and found that a Louise Jones lived there.

If Lorraine was a false name, and it seemed like it was, it made sense to Beth that Louise Jones would keep the initial the same