Tim lived in a modern high-rise block of flats, designed to keep out undesirables. The night attendant checked Tim’s ID card. He requested Max and Carla sign in and offer some evidence of identification, in addition to taking a high-resolution photograph of them. There would be no chance of a stranger slipping in unnoticed as a resident entered.
Tim had a top floor flat, with interesting views over the city and uninteresting views, looking down into back yards of wannabe derelict homes.
He quickly started his laptop, logged on to the server, and a neat calendar display allowed access to the room and associated feeds for that day. Tim selected the day on which Robert had stayed at the hotel and skimmed through the video, the events were just as Robert said. Tim clicked on a menu item to export the whole record to a DVD and deleted the data from the server. To satisfy Carla, he let her look back at the record on the server, but it displayed {Deleted}.
Tim slipped the finished DVD into a sleeve and handed it to Carla.
“Now, we need to look through all the records from today, going backwards,” said Tim, “this is going to be a long job, so I will get some coffee and snacks to keep us going.”
He showed them how to work through the program, it was so instinctive a child could do it, and then he went out to prepare refreshments.
Like any video viewing software, it was easy to fast forward to skip empty room scenes; sound at high speed warned there might be something worth listening to. For example, the room was empty, but someone was talking in the bathroom.
They had to evaluate every segment, for its blackmail escalation potential. Someone discussing the murder of his wife was obviously high potential, but people kill for much less!
Max considered other questions that were puzzling him.
How would the victims know they were being spied on?
Those Bill had already contacted would know, but how were they able to follow the trail back to Bill?
He considered that this was the brilliance of Bill’s scheme.
Normally, at some point, the blackmailer must meet the victim or go-between, to hand over the cash in exchange for the incriminating evidence.
Bill had found the way around that weakness.
He got paid when the jewelry was unexpectedly stolen by Tim. True, the victim was left in limbo, wondering if the evidence would come to light or more demands would be made, but as time passed and no further contact was made, the whole matter would be forgotten.
The fact that the insurance paid back the victim, was somehow reassuring to the victim that the threat was a thing of the past.
In his mind, Max continued to question the blackmail process.
How would the victims that Mark and Bill considered not worth blackmailing, ever know they had been recorded, and therefore be motivated to murder them?
He thought the victims might have discovered the camera as Carla had, and assumed they had been bugged in other places as well. Obviously they had things to hide, that made murder an acceptable solution.
It was clear to Max that every event had to be investigated, and now the high-risk list was expanding rapidly.
Carla had a sudden thought. She quickly deleted the wild sex scene with Max in the hotel room. Tim would not be seeing that!
***
Dawn would soon be breaking; the next item to review was Friday 13th July 2012, room 236.
Just as Mark had done, they initially assumed it to be just a business meeting. However, the opening scenes caught everyone’s attention, the male occupant of the room was edgy and vigilant and he looked around, checking everything out.
When the other five men entered the room, several minutes apart, it was becoming clear that this was deliberate, they were not late. The five newcomers were familiar faces; they were leading players on the world stage.
As the meeting progressed, Max, Carla and Tim watched awestruck, they could hardly believe the plot the men had conceived.
Without doubt, Bill’s family had died for this file. They even noticed how the camera panning range had suddenly been restricted, and later on the vigilant man inspected the lamp briefly, before the feed was interrupted.
“Time to celebrate, looks like we hit the jackpot. Nothing will top this recording” said Tim, bringing over a bottle of white wine and three glasses.
Carla sent a copy of the file and a covering message to Sam, explaining all that had happened. He would ensure the right people saw it and acted on it accordingly. By conveying the facts through Sam, it avoided many embarrassing questions as to how the file was obtained.