Chapter 8
Mark Turner strolled happily through the halls towards Gillian Foster's office. Peeking his head through the doorway and throwing a carefree glance around the room, he closed the door and moved on once he was satisfied that she wasn't in there. He fully expected that she would be around somewhere. They were always the first two in the building. Mark had taken up the habit when Gillian still lived in the townhouse that he rented. He had been renting her spare room, and it had made sense to carpool. He didn't mind the early start; it gave him a chance to go through the deception training programmes before anyone else was around to disturb him. Even though they were no longer living in the same place, Mark had kept up the habit of the early mornings and he always stopped in to catch up with Gillian first thing.
Mark moved on down the corridor to the lab, the second most likely spot to find her this early on a Monday morning. And there she was, sitting at the computer desk in the centre of the room. Unusually, Lightman was sitting right there with her. Mark checked his watch and confirmed that it was still only a little after 8am. Despite the fact that they lived together, they rarely commuted to work together. Gillian liked to get in before everyone else to catch up on whatever she had going on besides their cases. Sometimes it was admin stuff, sometimes research. Cal preferred to do his research in case study form and, more often than not, out of the lab. Sometimes he didn't show up to the office until shortly before his first appointment. If he was here this early, it meant that something was going on.
"What's going on?"
The pair turned around to face the doorway he had appeared in.
"Nice of you to show up. Good weekend?"
Mark could hear the sarcasm and chose to ignore it, knowing that it wasn't genuine. He never understood why Loker and Torres always rose up to that bait.
"Yeah, pretty good. What's going on?"
Cal gave up his antagonistic game when he noticed the wall clock over Mark's shoulder.
"Do you always get here this early?"
"No. Actually, I'm running a little late today."
"This is your fault, isn't it?" he said to Gillian.
Gillian gave up on her 'why do you have to do this' stare that she had aimed at Cal and shifted to a welcoming look towards Mark, explaining the busy weekend to him and briefing him on where they were with the cases today.
She pulled up some of the footage from the interviews with Trevor Byron.
"What do you see?"
Mark analysed the footage for a moment.
"Well. He's lying about what happened with the pickpocket. He's definitely lying about the other woman, and the way he talks about her he looks more pissed that she ran off than about someone trying to rob him and what happened with that. He has a problem with women in general, would be my guess."
Gillian brought up the footage of the subsequent interview and again asked what he saw. Mark watched again until his attention was caught.
"Woah, right there."
Gillian paused the image at the exact moment where Trevor rubbed his thumb across his knuckles, sharing an impressed smile with Cal.
"Looks to me like your man likes to beat up on women, the way he's rubbing at his hand and that look on his face. He's got some shame going but there's something else too, I'm not sure. I've seen it before though."
Gillian brought the video back again, "Now what do you hear?"
"His pitch changes a little. Deepens, and gets kind of… I don't know. Wistful?"
"Now look at his eyes. His pupils. That pitch? It contrasts the shame, except the two are linked. It's arousal."
"Bet you'll find a lot of hookers with a lot of bruises in the hospitals on the same nights that your man here was booked into those hotel rooms."
"That's a good shout, that is. We'll get Loker looking into hospital records for women with names matching escort service call girls. If we could get the records from the hotel, that should be enough for Pryce to make the sensible choice," Cal said appreciatively.
Gillian then brought up the footage of the St Regis from the previous Friday.
"What do you see?"
Mark again began to study the footage.
"I see two people in a committed relationship pretend they just met so they can hook up in a hotel. Why am I looking at you two role playing here?"
Gillian flushed and Cal threw his pen at Mark.
"Not us, you plonker! Look for something suspicious."
"I did."
Cal glared at him and Mark caved in and turned his attention back to the footage with renewed focus.
"The bar man looks a little off. He's looking way too interested in the customers. Most people in jobs like that look like they want to be anywhere else, but this guy is taking notes… I see a whole bunch of rich business men and political types with wedding rings who are out with a lot of people without them. I see about four call girls, and a woman who isn't a call girl, isn't having an affair and isn't the tiniest bit interested in the guy she's talking to but very interested in anyone wearing designer suits."
"Nice. Now watch this," Cal said pointing animatedly towards Gillian for her to move the recording onto the robbery. She played it out and paused the tape.
"What?"
Cal was slightly disappointed.
"Watch again, here," Gillian said pointing at the soon-to-be victim and she played the video again at slower speed.
Mark watched with curious interest. "Woah! How the hell did she do that?"
The pair at the desk shrugged at him.
"I'm telling you, if I could do that I could have retired by now, I never would have had to take this job."
The pair at the desk frowned at him.
"But I'm glad I did," he pleaded in hasty defence.
Ria Torres and Mark Turner walked into the quite hospital ward with determined strides. Ria approached the nurses station and asked to speak to the person in charge, and explained that they were there at the request of the police to interview Georgina Stanovich.
The nurse brought them to the room where the uniformed police were stationed outside, and they both showed their ID and business cards. The police had been expecting Lightman himself, if not his partner, but accepted that Dr Lightman was otherwise engaged and that Torres and Turner were instructed to conduct the interview.
Ria walked into the hospital room first. Mark followed a few paces behind. Georgina noticed the disturbance immediately and tensed up. She was already dressed and waiting for a doctor to show up to let her out of this place. These two didn't look like doctors.
Ria introduced them and explained who they were and why they were there. Georgina was reluctant to speak to them, but Torres pushed on asking some questions about why she was at the bar. Georgina was evasive on the topic and so Torres switched tactics.
"What do you know about Trevor Byron?"
"Who?" she answered in confusion.
"The man accused of assaulting you," Torres replied.
"Oh. Um, I don't know anything about him. I don't think he even assaulted me to be honest. He turned around at the wrong time and I just kind of fell."
"You're lying."
"Look, just leave me alone ok? I don't want to talk to you."
"Why are you protecting him?"
"I'm not. I'm just not trying to make a big deal out of nothing."
"Were you trying to rob him?"
"No."
"Did you know the woman he was with?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"I didn't even know he was with a woman. Because I didn't see him before he stood up, turned around while I was passing him, and I guess he must have accidentally knocked into me or something."
"Witnesses say that he yelled at you, grabbed you and the other woman, and that's how you fell. In the struggle."
"Well I guess witnesses were mistaken."
"Why were you in the bar?"
"Why is anyone in a bar on a Saturday evening?"
Just then, a team of doctors opened the door to Georgina's room. The interview was cut short, and Ria and Mark had to head off.
Walking through the hospital hallways, they reviewed the information they had.
"She knew the woman."
"Yeah, I got that too. I don't think she knew Byron though," Mark replied.
"No, but do you think she knew that the woman would be there? Maybe that's how they're getting their targets?"
"That doesn't explain why the one in the St Regis was scoping out Lightman and Foster, and at least a dozen other people. I think they have an idea who to look for but no real plan until the opportunity presents."
"We need to talk to some call girls, don't you think?"
"I'm game."
Torres shot him a look of mild disgust, returned by his practiced innocence.
"We should look into the bar staff too. The guy behind the bar on Friday was showing a lot of interest in his customers," Mark detracted.
Loker had looked through the websites of all of the escort services they could find, predictably without complaint. He had used the regular open channels and also the dark web. There were duplicates of services between the two, the standard world wide web offering the usual dinner dates with beautiful women, with the dark web offering more sordid services with a small amount of crossover. Most of the women on the regular channels were not being advertised on the dark web, but there were some.
Loker had cross referenced the photos of the women's faces on their employers website with the available video from the bar from the few nights they had recorded. They cross referenced it with any available CCTV that they had been able to source from the various bars they had identified from Philipa too. There was a number of matches.
A request into the escort services for interview was met with rejection. They were unwilling to risk potential exposure of their clients. Further research determined that a few of the women, including Trevor Byron's 'date' from Saturday evening, were college students.
Stephanie Camden walked through campus with her bag slung over her shoulder and her mind stuck on the lecture she had just left, headed towards the car park. Finals started next week, and contract law was the worst. Distracted as she was, she didn't see the two women approach until they called her name. But it wasn't her name.
"Chrissie?"
Her head jolted up to meet the source of the voice. Nobody here knew to call her by that name. Two women, unknown to her were headed her way.
Gillian Foster stepped in to block her path from her left, and Ria Torres did the same from her right. Their expressions were calm, open, and kind. Stephanie had no choice but to slow her stride, but she was determined to carry on walking. The two women walked with her.
"That's the name you go by for work, right?" asked the taller of the two women.
"I don't know what you're talking about. That's not my name."
"No, but you do go by it sometimes. We need to ask about Saturday night."
"I have nothing to say to you."
"We need to know what you know about Trevor Byron."
Stephanie stopped, her temper becoming short with these two strangers.
"I don't know who that is."
"Sure you do," said Torres.
"We just need to know if you had been with him before, or if you know anyone who has."
Stephanie took a step towards them and ducked her head. Lowering her voice conspiratorially she said, "I really can't talk to you about this. I can't breach client confidentiality. I'll get fired."
Gillian could tell that she was afraid of more than losing her job.
"Does he have a reputation?"
Yes. She hadn't wanted to go out with him, but she hadn't been given the option to turn down the job.
"Did you know the woman who got hurt?"
No. Not personally at least. But she did recognise her.
"Are you working with the pickpockets?"
"Are you crazy? How would we ever get away with that with the kind of guys we work for?"
She was telling the truth. They weren't working together.
"I have to go," Stephanie continued on her path, finally losing patience with the interruption to her day.
"Just one more question," Torres called out. "How badly does her hurt them?"
Stephanie shot her a look of barely concealed anguish before she left them standing without an answer.
