Bloodline

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ he said, stopping and holding up his hands in apology. ‘I thought you were another of those ghoulish creeps we’ve been getting here all week.’ He must have spotted that I was not doing too well as he took me by the arm. I think it was his intervention that may have stopped me collapsing altogether.

He guided me inside the hotel.

‘Would you like to sit down, sir?’ he asked. ‘You don’t look very well.’

I nodded weakly and one of his colleagues pulled up a chair.

‘I’m sorry,’ I croaked.

Someone arrived with a glass of water and I slowly recovered my composure.

‘Sorry,’ I said again to my saviour. ‘I didn’t realize how much it would affect me.’

‘It’s no problem, sir,’ he said. ‘When you’re ready I’ll take you back outside.’

‘Thank you.’

And, in due course, he did just that, showing me exactly where Clare had met her end.

I stood staring at the unremarkable spot on the concrete paving and offered up a silent prayer for Clare’s soul. Then, once more, my eyes were drawn upwards towards the balconies high above me.

She had fallen quite a distance away from the building and I wondered if she had purposely jumped outwards. She must have only just missed the overhanging steel canopy. In a funny sort of way, I was glad. The canopy edges appeared very sharp, although it surely would have made no difference to Clare, or to the outcome.

But why had she done it? Why? Why? Why?

‘Will you be all right now, sir?’ asked my friendly doorman.

‘Yes. Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

He nodded at me, then moved away to help some people into a black London taxi. I, meanwhile, remained rooted to the spot for a few moments longer, even bending down to stroke the rough cold surface as if, in doing so, I was somehow offering a final caring touch to my dead sister.

Finally, I stood up and moved away. It had been a necessary journey to see where she had died, but I would always remember Clare as brimming with life. I once again thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t accompanied James and Nicholas to see her battered and broken body. That was one mental image I could readily live without.

I waved at my friendly doorman and went back into the hotel.

I suspect that the lobbies of all the larger London hotels are busy places at eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings, and the one at the Hilton was certainly no exception. There were several lines of guests waiting at the reception desk to check-out after a big Saturday-evening event in the hotel ballroom, while a large group of brightly dressed American tourists hung around aimlessly, desperate to check in and sleep after their overnight red-eye flight across the Atlantic. And there was baggage everywhere, lined up in long snakes like dominoes waiting to be toppled.

I went over to a young woman sitting at a desk marked ‘Guest Relations’ and asked if I could please speak with the hotel’s general manager. To my eyes, she hardly looked old enough to be out of school and she instantly became defensive, asking me what I wanted him for. Perhaps she believed that anyone who wanted to talk to the manager was going to complain about something. I told her that it was a personal matter, but she still refused to pass on my request.

‘Are you sure I can’t help you?’ she asked with an irritating smile.

‘It’s rather delicate,’ I said. ‘Would you please just call the general manager.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, I can’t do that without knowing why you need him.’ She continued to smile at me in her annoying way.

OK, I thought, I had tried but with no result. Now I was getting slightly irked by her attitude. ‘Young lady,’ I said loudly and somewhat condescendingly, ‘my name is Mark Shillingford and I’m trying to discover why my beautiful twin sister fell to a violent death from one of your hotel balconies. Now, can I please talk to the general manager?’

She looked rather shocked, and, in truth, I had also somewhat surprised myself by my own determination and resolve.

‘He’s not here on Sundays,’ she said, the smile now having vanished altogether.

I sighed slightly. ‘Then I will speak to whoever is in charge of the hotel at this very moment.’

She used the telephone on the desk. ‘Someone is coming,’ she said to me, putting down the handset.

I stood and waited, looking around me. A man wearing a suit soon appeared and came over towards us.

‘Mr Shillingford,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m Colin Dilly, duty manager. How can I help?’

He was about the same age as me but shorter and with a slighter build.

‘I notice you have lots of CCTV cameras in this hotel.’ I pointed up at the one positioned above the Guest Relations desk. ‘I would like to see the images for the Friday before last.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ said Mr Dilly. ‘The images are recorded on a rolling seven-day cycle. Those for that Friday will have been overwritten by this past Friday’s.’

Dammit, I thought. I should have come sooner.

‘Didn’t the police make copies?’ I asked in desperation.