The Sanatorium(76)

“Will?”

He turns.

“Look, I’ve found something.” She holds it up.

“A lighter?”

“Looks like it.” Elin turns it between her fingers, picturing Laure that night outside smoking, talking on her phone, no idea she was only days away from this.

Will looks at it, eyes narrowed. “It’s a bit big for a lighter, isn’t it?” He frowns. “The old-fashioned ones are large, but they were a different shape entirely. Squarer. You don’t usually see ones like this.” He hesitates. “Try it.”

With one rapid motion, Elin flicks the wheel down. She sucks in her breath, staring at the top of the lighter, the small piece of metal sliding from the top instead of a flame.

“A memory stick.” Will stares.

Elin is unable to stop her hand from shaking. She can’t believe the killer meant to leave this on the body. Either her attacker didn’t know it was there, or—and she thinks this is the more likely option—they’d only realized or remembered it was there when it was too late.

Perhaps this is what had caused the delay in coming up to the penthouse. It’s possible that her attacker had only worked out Laure had it on her after they’d put her body in the lift. Then they had gone back, but the lift had already left.

Either way, this is the mistake, isn’t it? This.





60





You think it was recent?” Cecile’s voice splinters, and like Will before her, her eyes dart involuntarily toward the lift, to Laure’s body, the dark rubber mask skewed across her face. Although everyone is trying to avoid it, the open mouth of the lift keeps pulling at their gazes.

“Yes. After examining the body, I’d say she was killed early this morning. I’m not an expert, but I think it’s a good assumption. I had a text from her at sixish, which would work, timing-wise, but it’s hard to say at the moment if it was from her or the killer . . . a trap . . .”

Cecile’s eyes are glassy, wet with tears. “I’m sorry.” Pulling a tissue from her pocket, she wipes her eyes. “After Adele, I knew there was a chance, but it’s hard to take in.”

Elin reaches over, touches her arm. “I understand.”

“And you really don’t have any idea who’s doing this?”

“After this, no.” Elin shifts on the sofa. The movement jars: a dull ache crawling up her spine from where the killer had knocked her to the floor. Her one lead is the memory stick, but she doesn’t want to mention it to either Lucas or Cecile until she’s had a chance to look at it.

At this point, she hasn’t questioned anyone about their alibis, so everyone’s still a suspect, including them.

Her eyes slide to Lucas, a few feet away. He’s standing by the kitchen area, talking intently on his cell phone. His hair is scraped away from his face, twisted into a loose knot behind his head. For the first time she can see his face clearly, and with it his expression.

Elin doesn’t like it. It’s closed. Opaque.

As if sensing her eyes on him, he looks up, but gives no nod of recognition, just continues talking, phone pressed against his ear.

Cecile wraps her arms around herself. “It’s got to be someone here, hasn’t it?” Her voice is strained. “You’ve got to speak to everyone again. The staff, guests. See if they have alibis for this morning.”

“Of course,” Elin says evenly. “You’ll obviously need to provide information about your whereabouts too.”

Her words hang for a few moments unanswered, before Cecile finally replies. “That’s fine,” she says stiffly. “It’s not very exciting. I was alone in my room first thing, and then with a member of staff.”

Elin nods. “I’ll take the details later. First, I need to ask about CCTV. Is there a camera in the corridor to the lift?”

“No. There should be, but it’s gone down.”

“The camera?”

“The whole system. Overnight. We’re trying to get someone to work on it remotely, but there’s a problem with the software. It looks like it’s corrupted. The external technician said it could take several days.” Her features tense. “Before this, I thought it was a fault, but now . . .”

Elin absorbs her words, a heavy weight settling in her stomach.

The killer’s done this.

They’ve taken out the CCTV: the only thing she could use to try to identify them. Without it, Elin is blind.

She’s about to reply when she notices Lucas striding toward them. Holding out the phone, his expression is serious. “It’s the police. They want to speak to you.”

She takes it from him. “Hello?”

It’s Berndt. His voice is muffled. “Elin, I’m sorry, but we’re not going to be able to get anyone up to the hotel today. The Groupe d’Intervention has just received an update from the pilot, the METAR—”

“METAR?”

“The radar information for the next few hours. Visibility is below one hundred sixty feet and sustained wind speeds are at sixty knots, gusting to eighty-plus.”

As if on cue, the wind howls. It feels like it’s pulling at the building, tugging at the foundations. “So you can’t come?”

“No,” Berndt says awkwardly. “Elin, it’s not a choice, it’s against regulations. The conditions are so bad they’ve had to pull the aircraft back into the hangar to prevent damage from any flying objects. It’s not looking good down here.”