‘How long do you keep the footage from the camera?’ I asked him.

‘A week,’ Wren said.

‘In that case while we’re upstairs we’d like you to look through the tape and cue it up on a shot of Maria Rodriquez. Can you do that?’

‘Sure.’

Drummond then turned to the officer leading the tactical unit, gave him the key card and said, ‘Over to you. Fourth floor. Room twenty-two.’

The firearms team went about their task with military efficiency. Four of them hurried up the stairs and Drummond and I followed. The rest of the team remained in the reception area.

On the fourth floor the officers moved quietly along the corridor and arrived at room twenty-two just as the phone started to ring inside.

It continued ringing for a full minute before the team leader signalled that he was going in.

He inserted the key in the slot and pressed down on the handle. Then he pushed the door open and stepped back while shouting, ‘Police, police! Stay where you are!’

There was no response from inside, and the only sound was the phone ringing.

The team leader peered into the room and then stepped inside and turned on the light. The rest were right behind him.

‘All clear,’ one of them called out almost immediately as the phone was picked up to stop it ringing.

I entered the room behind Drummond just as other guests started to appear in the corridor and the officers had to tell them to go back inside their rooms.

Room twenty-two was pretty basic. A double bed, fitted wardrobe, TV, dressing table and en-suite bathroom. The bed hadn’t been made properly but it didn’t look as though it had been slept in recently.

We donned our latex gloves and started looking around. And it wasn’t long before we discovered what Maria Rodriquez looked like.

We also found proof that she was indeed the female assassin who had brought terror to London.

70

Laura

It didn’t take us long to carry out a thorough search of the room. But the first thing that struck us was what was actually missing from it. There were no toiletries or make-up and no toothbrush in the bathroom.

But there were clothes in the wardrobe, along with a travel bag on wheels. It made us believe that the woman was sleeping elsewhere but planned to return before checking out.

‘Maybe she’s staying overnight with someone she knows,’ Drummond said. ‘Might even be in a hotel or apartment down near the South Bank, which is why she came across the officer in the patrol car.’

We didn’t dwell on this because our attention became focused on the small safe resting on one of the shelves in the wardrobe. It was locked and a combination number was needed to open it.

The night manager was summoned, and he unlocked it using an override code. That was when things became really interesting.