Hotel Room Murder Read online

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” the inspector started, then went straight to the point. “In order for us to establish the facts and get to the bottom of this case, at the earliest, I would like to know the identity of the woman found in the room. The man, we already identified with his driver’s license.”

  The receptionist looked at the manager, then back at the inspector. None of them replied.

  “I don’t understand,” Inspector Osbourne said, wearing a flat look because he didn’t want to believe that the receptionist didn’t have a clue who the guest was. It would be ridiculous.

  The manager understood the look, and replied, “Unfortunately, she cannot help you out with that information.”

  Inspector Osbourne faced the receptionist again, “So you’re telling me that you have no idea who the woman is?”

  The receptionist reacted this time. She shook her head, then blurted, “No.”

  Inspector Osbourne was about to press further when the manager spoke, cutting him short, as his mouth opened.

  “Inspector, we have over a thousand guests in our hotel, including those who lodge and those who visit or come in for meetings or events,” Mr. Akande Bishop stated. “It’s difficult, if not impossible to give full attention to everyone who walks in and out of here and also keep track of them. That being said, we truly cannot help you with the information you need.”

  “You do know that you are not doing this for me, right?” Inspector Osbourne asked. “Yes, the information will help me find answers, but it would also help you. At least, your hotel wouldn’t be shut down during the investigation.”

  “There is no need for a shutdown.”

  “If I say there is a need, then there is one,” Inspector Osbourne imposed. At that point, he remembered the question he had asked the forensics lead and wanted to hear the management’s excuse for himself, so he asked, “And why wasn’t there an evacuation of the hotel? The general atmosphere is calm like nothing even happened.”

  “Your colleague already asked me the same question.” The manager paused. He suddenly seemed scared that anything he said could be used against him, if not by the inspector, then by his superiors, so he changed course. “But I apologise that it wasn’t carried out. We didn’t think about it at the time.”

  “Why not? Isn’t it protocol?”

  “It is, when the issue affects the whole hotel like a fire or other serious and general issues.”

  “And you didn’t think finding two dead bodies was an issue that could affect everyone?” The inspector raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t think of safety first, just in case whoever killed those victims was on the loose?”

  The manager hadn’t thought about that.

  Inspector Osbourne was furious. He wished at that moment he had the authority to not just evacuate the hotel, but also lock it down until after the investigation so that the management of the hotel would lose a few guests for good, and consequently money. But a quick thought about it and he changed his mind and decided to let it go, as that was not his priority. Finding out who the victims were and what happened to them was his mission.

  The manager still sensed that things could go the wrong way, and he didn’t want that to happen, so he quickly volunteered, “We are willing to provide any other information you need, but we truly cannot give you anyone’s identity. As I said, we have over a thousand guests here.”

  Inspector Osbourne still couldn’t believe his ears. “Well, two out of the over a thousand guests are dead now, so I would need more than what you are giving me, which is technically nothing.” He paused, then turned his gaze back to the receptionist. “Do you remember seeing the man this morning?”

  The receptionist shook her head, for the second time, then replied, “No. According to the room records, he paid about two weeks ago for the whole month, so he entered and left as he pleased.”

  “Really?” The inspector suddenly sounded hopeful. “So you have his payment and card details on record?”

  “He paid cash,” the receptionist said.

  The reply dashed all the inspector’s hopes. He turned to Mr. Akande Bishop and frowned at him.

  Without being asked, Mr. Akande Bishop added, “Some clients like to remain discreet, so they prefer to pay cash without providing their names or personal details. It’s their choice, and also their right.”

  The inspector understood. He nodded, then asked, “But can you at least confirm that the man upstairs in the room is the same man who paid the cash to you?”

  “I mean, he paid, and we gave him the key,” Mr. Akande Bishop replied.

  “In other words, you can’t confirm if it’s the same person,” Inspector Osbourne pointed out.

  “No. And as I said, the man paid and we gave him the key. If he wanted to allow other parties to enter his room, then it was up to him.”

  “And what if other parties, as you put it, or maybe unwanted parties followed him up and forced their way in, and he wasn’t able to raise an alarm?” the inspector pressed further.

  Mr. Akande Bishop licked his lips. He didn’t know what the inspector was driving at, but he hoped he wasn’t trying to blame him for the deaths of the two guests.

  “Mr. Akande Bishop,” Inspector Osbourne said, with a sigh. “Someone entered that room and murdered those guests. We need to find out who and why. Can you not see that you have some serious security issues here?”

  The manager didn’t respond.

  “I saw cameras in the reception,” Inspector Osbourne continued. “Could you give me a copy of the footage to look through?”

  “The camera doesn’t work,” the receptionist replied without delay, as there was no point opening a door that led to a dead-end.

  The inspector was disappointed all over again. He shook his head and exhaled loudly, then stopped to think. From the little he had heard, something stuck. The man had paid two weeks earlier, and for a month, which meant that he and his lover, or partner were regulars. Discreet regulars, however. It also meant that maybe their cars were still in the parking lot.

  “How do you keep track of cars that come in and go out of your premises?” Inspector Osbourne asked.

  “During security checks on the cars, a staff types the plate number and the name and phone number of every passenger, including the driver into a database.”

  “For a thousand people?”

  “It’s an emergency protocol, in case we need to evacuate. It’s done manually and it’s time-consuming, but needed, and we have a dedicated team for it.”

  “I need to see the list of all the cars that came in this morning and are still here, right now.”

  The manager nodded at the inspector, then did the same to the receptionist and she left the room.

  “In the meantime,” the inspector continued. “I would like to speak with your staff who discovered the bodies. Alone.”

  “Her name is Titilayo Lawrence. I’ll send for her straightaway.”

  ***

  Titilayo Lawrence walked in about a minute later. Unlike her colleagues, she was neither relaxed nor composed. She was visibly shaken up as if suffering from a cold, but she was also sweating. She had a blanket wrapped around her, which didn’t do her any good. Without looking at Inspector Osbourne, she went to sit across him, where Mr. Akande Bishop had earlier sat.

  “How are you doing?” Inspector Osbourne asked, trying to make her relaxed before the questioning. He brought out his notepad and pen in anticipation of the first question he was going to ask.

  “Better,” she replied, after a few seconds.

  “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “I went to the room by 12:30 p.m. for my cleaning round. I knocked twice and there was no answer, so I used my access badge to enter, then announced that I was entering, just in case there were guests there who hadn’t heard me knock. It’s housekeeping procedure.”

  Inspector Osbourne opened his notepad and titled his list of entries Hotel Room Murders – Tunde’s List. He then wrote 12:
30 p.m. housekeeping and access badge to enter the hotel room under the title. He was a memorist, but he still liked to write down key words and put them together to solve a case, when needed.

  When he was done writing, he looked up at Titilayo Lawrence, wondering why she had stopped talking.

  Titilayo Lawrence figured what he was probably wondering, just by the way he looked at her, then shyly said, “Sorry, I was waiting for you to finish writing.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Inspector Osbourne said. “Just keep talking.”

  “So I pushed my trolley inside in front of me and stopped to pick up a pillow that was on the floor, by the door. I saw some clothes belonging to both a man and a woman littered about, also on the floor in the sitting area.” She used her hand to draw invisible circles to support her explanation and counted her words as if she was a child. “I picked up the clothes, then went towards the bedroom. The inner sheets and the blanket covered the whole bed, but it looked like there was something underneath it, because it was bumpy.”

  Inspector Osbourne would have been irritated at the pace she was taking on a given day, but given that she was recanting details of what she had seen, he didn’t mind her taking her time so that she wouldn’t miss anything. He continued, “What did you do?”

  Still using her hands to demonstrate, she, too, continued, “I pulled the inner sheets and blanket off and saw two people on the bed.”

  Inspector Osbourne noticed that she had used ‘people’ and not ‘bodies’. It meant that she was either careful or clueless. He didn’t know which yet. He didn’t say anything; accordingly, she carried on.

  “So, I went over and touched them—”

  “You touched them?” Inspector Osbourne interrupted. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just touched only one of them to see if she would maybe wake up. I don’t know why I did that, they looked asleep on the bed, but in a strange way. I don’t know.”

  “Do you normally touch guests while they are in bed?”

  “No. Never.” She raised both hands dramatically as if in surrender. “I’ve never seen anyone in bed before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been cleaning that room since last year, and I’ve never seen anyone in it before.”

  “Okay.” The inspector nodded. “Those two guests had been using the room for about two weeks consistently. You never saw them once?”

  “No. Maybe they leave before my round, but I saw two people there today for the first time since I started this job. Usually, if people say they are still in the room when I knock or call out for housekeeping, I just leave and return later.”

  “I see.” Inspector Osbourne nodded again. “So what happened next?”

  “I noticed patches of blood on the bed, then I ran to the reception and asked them to call the police.”

  “Why didn’t you just call the police from the room instead of running all the way to the reception?”

  “That was my first instinct, to call the police, but we don’t carry our phones on us. There are passage phones on every floor just beside the lift that can only call within the hotel, but not external. And since I wasn’t too far from the reception, I went down to them immediately.”

  “Why didn’t you use the phone in the room? I assume there’s a phone in each room.”

  “I panicked, so I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We’ve been trained never to use phones in hotel rooms, so in that time of emergency, I was still thinking of my training instead of acting fast.”

  “Why are you trained never to use phones in hotel rooms?”

  “The phones call outside the hotel and the hotel gets billed for it. If staff want to call other departments, we are to use the passage or office phones. Only guests are allowed to use the phones in the rooms. If I made a call to the police or anyone else and I incurred bills for the guests, the guest can contest the bill and I would be obliged to pay from my pocket.”

  “That makes sense,” Inspector Osbourne said. “But did you notice anything unusual in the room?”

  “No. I wasn’t there for too long.”

  “Did you see a handbag in the room?”

  “There was no handbag in the room to the best of my knowledge.”

  “You didn’t stay there for too long, but you noticed that there was no handbag?”

  “It’s part of my training. Safety and security. We have a few seconds to look around for personal effects so that guests don’t report them missing if they were never in sight.”

  There was a knock at the door and Mr. Akande Bishop entered with the receptionist who was holding a sheet of paper.

  Inspector Osbourne added handbag not seen by cleaner on his list, then looked up at Titilayo Lawrence, and said, “That would be all. Thank you. I’ll reach out to you if I have further questions.”

  Titilayo Lawrence nodded, got up, and left the room. The receptionist gave the sheet of paper to Inspector Osbourne, and she also left the room, followed by the manager.

  When the door closed behind them, Inspector Osbourne glanced through the list. Only 15 names were on the list but with different serial numbers, meaning that out of the people who arrived in cars that morning, only 15 of them were still there. Number 207, which was the 11th on the list was Mr. Kamar Ogunba, the male victim.

  Inspector Osbourne looked through the list again and found what he was searching for. There was only one woman on the list and her name was Mrs. Enitan Umanze. She was the 5th on the list and her serial number was 110, which meant that she had arrived before Kamar Ogunba. And looking at both timestamps, she had arrived one hour before Kamar Ogunba. The inspector circled both timestamps on the list, he then took the list with him and went outside the hotel. With the help of some police officers on the scene, they tracked down Enitan Umanze’s car and broke into it.

  Inspector Osbourne put his gloves back on and began searching through the car. The first thing he noticed was that there was no handbag in the car. He didn’t know why the handbag came back to his mind, but maybe it was because he knew that women always had handbags on them. A thought that maybe the guests had been robbed crossed his mind, but then, Kamar Ogunba’s wallet hadn’t been taken.

  Another thought crossed his mind at that instant. Kamar Ogunba’s wallet hadn’t been stolen, but maybe other contents like money could have been taken. If there was a thief, then it could be safe to conclude that the thief was more interested in handbags and not wallets. Maybe the thief had weighed the handbag and wallet and decided to go with the handbag or simply just needed the handbag to carry all the stolen items.

  Inspector Osbourne added handbag versus wallet on his list, then continued looking through the car. He checked out the car particulars and saw that it was registered to a certain Doctor Patrick Umanze. The doctor’s contact details were also registered on the insurance papers, so Inspector Osbourne took note of it and left the car to be further processed by the police. He then went to Kamar Ogunba’s car and also broke into it.

  There was nothing out of the ordinary in the car, but if something was out of place, he wouldn’t know. He went straight for the glove compartment, got out the car particulars, and verified that the car belonged to Kamar Ogunba. He then confirmed the man’s home address with that on his driver’s license and got out of the car. It was time to meet the spouses of the deceased and find out what they knew about their cheating other halves.

  Before he left the hotel, the inspector sat in his car and gave the medical examiner a call. If he was going to speak with the spouses of the victims, he had to at least know when the autopsy preliminary results would be ready and when the spouses would be able to identify the bodies.

  The medical examiner responded almost immediately. “Hello, Inspector Osbourne.”

  “Doctor Akachi,” the inspector greeted. “I’m at the Lagos Star Hotel and Officer Ndidi Okezie, along with some paramedics left here more than thirty minutes ago with
two bodies for an autopsy.”

  “I’m aware,” the doctor replied. “They came in not too long ago, and we’re all set to begin the process.”

  “How long before I know the cause of death for both victims?”

  “Autopsies usually take between two to four hours for one body.”

  “I know, but how long would it take you and your team for the two bodies?”

  The doctor hesitated, then said, “I should have a preliminary report for you in two hours.”

  “And when can the bodies of the victims be identified by their next of kin?”

  “Same time, today. Just knock on the window and let them know who you are there for.”

  “I know how it works, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” the doctor replied. “I better get to work.”

  Inspector Osbourne hung up after that, then powered his engine and drove off.

  Chapter Two: Body

  Same day

  Thursday, 22nd November 2018

  2:25 p.m.

  The man in the dark glasses was getting worried, and for two reasons. First, his client was running late. She was five minutes late, but late all the same, and she was never late. She always got there before him. He had called her at exactly 2:20 p.m. but the call had rung out. The second time he called, it rang only twice or three times, he wasn’t sure which, before it was cut off. He had just tried to call her again and her line was switched off. So the second reason he was getting worried was that his client was not reachable.

  He wondered if it had been a mistake leading her to the hotel to see her husband because it appeared that she had gotten what she wanted and didn’t desire to work with him anymore. It meant that he could as well kiss the balance of his payment goodbye.

  He sat in his vehicle, his air conditioning on the highest dial because of the scorching heat, and watched as cars drove by, commercial motorbikes and tricycles zoomed off, and people strolled around. His worry began to turn to anxiety with each passing second, and he literally counted the seconds.