Page 55 of Ethan & Grace

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Cabinet Member Alistair Eddington backs Darlington: “Richard is a man with a heart of gold. He would never harm anyone deliberately.”

Statement from Alistair Eddington

Ethan

I knocked on the office door of our head of security to announce myself, but didn’t wait to be invited in before shouldering it open.

Hank, who’d been in charge of security at The Darlington for over a decade, sat behind his desk. He wore a suit with a white shirt beneath it. The hotel logo—a golden D set in a circle of floral flourishes—was embroidered on the chest. His uniform strained across his broad shoulders, and his hair had been shaved down to a crewcut.

Hank looked up. “Ethan Darlington. What a nice surprise.”

“Hey,” I said, closing the door behind me.

“What brings you here?” He snapped his laptop shut and rested his elbows on the desk. “Do I need to make another sex tape disappear from the lift cameras?”

I pulled a face. It hadn’t been my proudest moment—or rather, moments. Hank had made more than one incriminating video of me with a date go away in the past. Still, it meant I had a good connection with him, which I hoped would give me an advantage now.

“No, but I do have a few questions,” I said, sitting down in the chair opposite his desk. Without a word, I produced a bundle of cash from the front pocket of my hoodie and let it drop on the table. That was how things worked between Hank and me: I paid him, and our conversations stayed between us. In general, I trusted him, but then again, money ruled the world, and if Grace was right and Amy’s killer really was trying to cover things up, we’d have to beat them at their own game.

Hank’s eyebrows shot up. “How much is this?”

“Five thousand.”

He looked taken aback. “More than usual. Do I need to make a body disappear this time?”

“No, but you have to be completely honest with me.” I fixed him with a look to impress on him how serious I was. “And who knows—if I like your answers, there might be more where that came from.”

Hank rested his chin on his hands. “I’m all ears.”

“I want to talk to you about the night of the Pearl Gala and the accident in which Grace Claymore’s sister died,” I said, pausing briefly to see if my words stirred anything in Hank, but his expression remained impassive. “The footage from the security cameras, which should have recorded the accident, is missing. Do you know anything about that?”

“No,” Hank replied. I watched him expectantly. For five thousand pounds, I expected a little more. “The cameras were working fine when I checked them that afternoon. For the rest of the evening, I was supervising the lobby. Until the chaos following the accident. After that, I was helping calm the guests. A guy from forensics pulled me aside at some point to talk and asked for the footage from our cameras.”

“And how did he react when you told him the recordings weren’t there?”

Hank leant back in his chair, which creaked under his weight. “He was sceptical, but it was already late, and he said he’d be in touch again about it. Which never happened.”

I nodded. His reply confirmed not only what Grace had told me—that the footage had gone missing on site at the hotel—but also her suspicion that the police had been bribed into asking no questions. It seemed unlikely to me that it was simply laziness or lack of time. After all, someone had died, and the accident had made headlines, like everything connected to The Darlington.

“How do the cameras work?” I inquired.

“They run on PoE,” Hank explained. He must have noticed my confusion, because he clarified: “Power over Ethernet. It means the data and the power run through the same network cable. A power cut could take down the whole system, but there were no power issues on the day of the Pearl Gala. The camera data is usually transmitted to our server live and is stored there for a week. But that night, nothing was saved. The folder with the recordings was empty.”

“Could someone have deleted the footage?” I asked, keeping my eyes on Hank to gauge his reaction.

He pressed his lips together, but didn’t seem caught out or nervous—mostly frustrated. “Anything’s possible. But access to the server where the footage is stored is tightly restricted. Only three people have access: Mr. Darlington senior, junior, and me.”

I took a deep breath, because . . . fuck. It was pretty obvious which of the three was behind this. Henry would never have done something like that; he was too honest and his sense of justice was too strong. My dad, on the other hand, had shown more than once that he had a slippery grasp of morality and the law.

“Can you prove you didn’t delete the footage?”

Hank’s expression darkened, as if I’d insulted him. “Firstly, I would never break the law. Making your videos disappear is one thing; covering up a fatal accident is something completely different. If that came out, I wouldn’t just lose my job at The Darlington. I’d never work in security again. And secondly, I have at least five dozen eyewitnesses who saw me helping people into taxis after the accident. I wouldn’t have had time to delete the recordings.”

It sounded pretty convincing, which unfortunately confirmed my first thought: My dad had deleted the CCTV footage. Not only was it befitting of his morally corrupt personality, but it also corroborated Grace’s suspicion. A guest at the gala had caused the accident and then contacted the hotel to cover it up. And many of the guests had my dad’s number.

“Could someone else have got access?” I asked, clutching at straws. This family really couldn’t afford any more shit.