The Overlook

Jeff Duncan smiled warmly as he welcomed his guest into the bar of The Overlook Hotel. His guest, a man in his mid-fifties in a designer polo-shirt, pointed to a table.

‘Over here, yeah?’ He said.

‘Of course, anywhere you like.’ Jeff waved a hand. ‘I’ll be over in a moment with the drinks menu.’

Jeff dashed over to the table, with a towel over one arm, and drinks menu in hand. His guest scanned the laminated card and ordered a pint of Belgian beer. There was a bossy tone to his voice that rankled with Jeff. He forced his smile even wider. 

‘Coming right up. Would you like a selection of cheese and biscuits? Complimentary, of course.’

The guy simply nodded, and pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. 

Jeff placed the pint and the cheese and biscuits on the table, telling his guest to enjoy. His guest did not look up from scrolling on his mobile phone.

A little while later, Jeff returned to the table, seeing that the gentleman’s glass was empty.

‘Another drink?’ Jeff offered.

He simply nodded. When Jeff came back with a fresh pint, his guest was tutting in disgust.

‘The cheese and biscuits are revolting. The crackers are stale.’ He said.

‘I’m sorry, sir. I can assure you they were fresh this morning.’

‘Well, they are not fresh now, look.’

He folded a cracker in two in front of him. Rather than snapping, it flopped and folded.

‘See? Crackers should not bend.’

‘I do apologise. I have some fresh biscuits behind the bar, if you would like?’

‘Yes, I would. What is the point in putting on free bar snacks, if they are stale?’

He tossed the cracker on to the table. 

‘Yes sir, coming right up.’

Jeff popped over to the bar and returned a moment later. The guest stared in confusion. Jeff was holding a hammer, the smile suddenly gone from his face. His guest was still wearing the same puzzled expression as the hammer connected with the side of his head. 

Detective Inspector Gina Parks pulled up outside the property. The street was lined with police vans and cars and Scene of the Crime and other officers swarmed around. The area had been cordoned off when the first body had been found. From what she had been told their search had uncovered several further bodies and human remains found in the garden and the basement of the hotel. 

As she crossed the street and headed towards the entrance, Gina glanced up at the sign. The Overlook Hotel. This was like something from a horror film. She had a feeling this would be the biggest and most horrific case in her decade on the Force. 

The constable standing at the doorstep explained where the other officers were in the premises, before standing aside to let her inside. Gina simply nodded. 

The hallway looked like the entrance to any other hotel, the stairs and lifts to the side, reception desk front and centre. Apart from the police officers milling around the place, it looked like a perfectly ordinary hotel. There was nothing to suggest the sheer horror that lay beyond. 

When she reached the basement, where the Scene of the Crime officers were gathered going through the grisly discoveries, she stopped. She took a moment to get herself together. The scene was simply awful, the body parts in various stages of decay, lay stacked in neat piles on the plastic sheeting that covered the floor. It looked like an abattoir, a slaughter house. She shivered at the thought. 

Back at the station, Gina marched into the investigation room, determination in her step. They had to catch whoever was responsible. A young Detective Constable, Andy Pitts, came over. 

‘The hotel landlord is in the interview room, guv. One Jeffery Duncan, forty-seven years old.’ He said.

‘I want everything you can find out about this guy. If he has an outstanding library fine, I want to know about it.’ Gina said.  

‘I’ll do some digging and see what I can find out.’ Pitts said.

Gina stopped, and pointed at him, her finger inches from his face.

‘I need you to come through, Pitts.’ Gina yelled.

She turned and clapped her hands for the other detectives in the room to listen up.

‘I need you all on board on this. We’ll have the Super Intendant and the press breathing down our necks. Come on, people!’ Gina shouted.

The detectives nodded in agreement, knowing when to keep their mouths shut. Gina was well-known in the station for getting results, but for being tough to work with. Over the years, a lot of people had left, seeking employment elsewhere, rather than tolerate the verbal abuse. The others sensed that Pitts would be the next to leave because of her. She argued that she didn’t have time to pussy-foot around and be all nicey-nicey. She had to get results, and if that meant pushing people around, stepping on a few toes, then so be it. 

A constable handed her a mug of tea. Gina took the tea and walked away without even looking at him.

In the interview room, Gina detailed how they had found human remains at his premises, and while they were still waiting for the lab results back, he, the landlord, was the prime suspect.

‘Have you anything to say at this time? Did you yourself commit the murders?’ Gina asked.

‘Yes, I did.’ Jeff said.

Gina was stunned by honestly of the response and by the calmness in his voice. It was as though he was discussing the most everyday thing in the world, rather than a spate of grisly murders.

‘We will go through everything in more detail, later in the course of these interviews, but would you tell me why you did it?’

‘Why I killed those people?’ Jeff asked.

‘Yes.’ Gina said.

‘The answer to that is in the name of the hotel.’ Jeff said.

Gina checked her notes to remind herself of the name.

‘The Overlook? I don’t follow.’ She said.

Jeff gritted his teeth, his grimace almost a snarl. Then he spoke.

‘All my life I’ve been ignored. I went from not being noticed at school, to an office job where I did my very best, stayed late each night, and yet, despite my five years of service, I was overlooked for promotion. They gave it to some upstart, someone almost ten years younger, who I had actually trained up. I handed my notice in the same week. I couldn’t take it.

‘It was just another kicking. The rest of the world told me I was a nobody, over and over again. Treated me like I was invisible. This went on for years. I told myself I was being over-sensitive and not to take things so personally. 

‘At the next company I worked for, I decided to put myself out there. I decided I had to change. I went on works nights out, I tried to join in. I was ignored at best, and mocked at worst. I overheard conversations one morning. I was being laughed at in group chats I wasn’t a member of. I stopped trying. 

‘I decided to try with a different crowd, going along to an open-mic poetry evening. I went along to read my attempts at poetry. I sat there all evening, waiting for my turn. By the end of the evening, my name hadn’t been called. I had put my name down but I wasn’t on the list. Yet again I was treated as though I was invisible. It was so humiliating.

‘When my aunt left me a large sum of money, I decided to open the hotel. I hoped that being the landlord of a hotel would finally give me a place I belonged. It would be my place. I would be the host, and the hotel guests would be just that, my guests. I treated my guests as friends. I would welcome them, invite them for a free drink in the hotel bar. 

‘I had a couple staying with me one weekend, they were in town to see a band at the arena. I treated them to a bottle of Prosecco when they arrived and insisted that they give me a shout if there was anything they needed. I downloaded the band’s latest album and played it in the hotel bar for them that evening. The next morning, as I served them breakfast, I asked them how the concert had been. They smiled as they left, insisting they would be back to stay with me soon.

‘When they got home, they posted a review online. They said the gig was great, but the weekend had been ruined by the creepy hotel owner. And then she took to social media. She had taken photos of me behind the bar while I was serving them drinks. Drinks with the weirdo! Do not stay here! Worst hotel ever! And the comments her posts received were even worse. 

‘I decided that the next guests in my hotel would be treated differently, very differently indeed. I had a businessman staying that night. He barked orders at me. Rather than polite requests, he would click his fingers and point. In the hotel bar that evening, as he tapped away on his laptop, he would snap his fingers, and wave his empty wine glass at me to be refilled. 

‘That was the last time I would let anyone treat me like I was nothing. The world had told me too many times that I was insignificant.’ Jeff said.

‘So, you killed him?’ Gina said.

‘I kept a cricket bat behind the bar for security. When he yelled at me for bringing him the wrong type of wine, something snapped. I came back with the bat rather than the bottle. You should have seen the fear on his face. He had mistaken me for a nobody. Nobody would make that mistake ever again.

‘I decided to show everyone, show all of you, what I am capable of.’ Jeff said.

After the revealing confession, Gina need to get her wits together for the next part of the interview. She would inform her superiors of the development. Gina checked her watch, pausing the interview, and stopping the recording. 

With the weight of the confession weighing on her, Gina left the interview room and stepped outside into the open-plan detective office. The killer’s motive was that he was lashing back at a world that had treated him harshly. The world was a tough place, Gina knew that, and while she wasn’t sure what the answer was, she knew it was not to resort to murder. 

The young constable rushed over, mug in hand.

‘Cup of tea, guv?’ he said.

‘Yes.’ She said, bluntly, snatching the mug from him.

She took the tea and went to walk away. With the killer’s words and his motive still on her mind, she stopped.

‘Thanks for the tea.’ She said with a smile.

By Chris Platt

From: United Kingdom