‘You’ve been through it all?’ she said with surprise.
‘I’ve had bad jet lag.’
‘I’d say it was a fairly good cure for insomnia.’
‘So you’ve been through it too?’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed.
‘And you were looking for someone coming into the house.’
‘To see if it was foul play, yeah.’
‘I just wondered if we were looking at this from the wrong angle.’ He paused before he spoke again. ‘What if no one came in?’
‘I don’t understand.’ Rachel frowned.
‘What if someone was already in the house?’
‘You mean the catering team?’ replied Rachel. ‘I’ve already asked Diana about them. She was horrified at the thought that they could have had anything to do with it. The owner is a good friend of hers. She’d used them many times before.’
‘I don’t mean the caterers, Rach,’ said Liam. ‘I mean the guests.’
‘The guests?’
‘I know it sounds crazy, but just hear me out. Are you near a computer?’
‘I’m at a hotel. I’ll just go to my room.’
She ran up the stairs, pushed her key card into the room lock and went inside. She flipped open her laptop and logged into
her mail.
‘I’m sending something through now.’
A few seconds later there was a ping.
‘Okay,’ said Rachel into the phone, clicking on his message. ‘I’m opening the file.’
Immediately she could see a grainy screen-grab from the footage. It was time-stamped 19:48 and was a reasonably clear picture of an attractive blonde woman.
‘Do you know who that was?’ asked Liam.
‘I’ve never met her, but I identified all the guests with Diana. The blonde came with Greg Willets.’
‘Well, she never left the party.’
‘Never left?’
‘I’ve looked at everyone coming in and cross-referenced them with everyone leaving. Everyone who came in also left. With the exception of Greg’s girlfriend.’
Rachel cursed herself for not having looked at the footage that way.
‘Are you sure?’ she said, scrabbling through her bag to see if she had her own copy.
‘Pretty sure. I’ve been through the relevant bits a couple of times now. I’ve ticked all the guests in and out – and I can’t see this woman leaving the house. Her partner, Greg, left at about a quarter to twelve, when most guests seem to go.’
The disc was in her bag. She pushed it into the laptop and it whirred to life.