Chapter 4: What the Camera Saw
The first aid officer's name was Ruth.
She was sixty-something, unhurried, with reading glasses on a beaded chain and hands that were steady in the way that only comes from years of practice.
She sat Nora on a chair in the small staff room behind the front desk and cleaned the cut above her ear without flinching.
"You're being very brave," Ruth told her.
"It still hurts," Nora said.
"It's going to for a while.
But it's not as deep as it looks.
Head wounds always bl00d more than they should." She pressed a clean dressing against it and held it firm.
"There we go."
I stood near the door.
Through the small window I could see the corridor.
Gareth was out there somewhere.
I hadn't seen him follow us, but I hadn't seen him leave either.
The duty manager — her name badge said *Patricia Holt* — came in and closed the door behind her.
"The footage is being pulled now," she said quietly.
"Our security team is reviewing it.
I want to be transparent with you — once we identify anything relevant, I have an obligation to preserve it and, depending on what it shows, to contact the authorities."
"I understand," I said.
"Do you want to call anyone?
A friend, a family member, a solicitor?"
"Not yet." I looked at Nora.
"Maybe soon."
Patricia nodded.
She started to leave, then paused.
"The young man who came to find me — Connor.
He told me he saw something.
In the corridor, before the incident in the ballroom." She chose her next words carefully.
"He said he saw a groomsman go into the coatroom where the children's things were being kept.
He said it wasn't your daughter."
The room was very quiet.
"Did he say who it was?" I asked.
"He said he wasn't certain enough to name someone.
But he said the CCTV would be."
Ruth finished with the dressing and gave Nora a small wrapped biscuit from her pocket.
Nora took it with both hands and said thank you in a voice so small it made my chest ache.
Twenty minutes later, Patricia came back.
She had a man with her — older, security lanyard, the kind of face that gives nothing away.
"We've reviewed the relevant footage," he said.
"Corridor B, which runs alongside the coatroom.
Timestamp 7:42 PM, approximately fourteen minutes before the incident in the ballroom." He paused.
"Would you like to see it?"
"Yes," I said.
He turned a laptop toward me.
The footage was black and white, slightly grainy the way hotel CCTV always is.
But it was clear enough.
The coatroom door.
The corridor.
A timestamp in the corner.
At 7:42, a figure entered the corridor from the ballroom side.
Male.
Tall.
Moving quickly, head slightly down.
He pushed open the coatroom door and went inside.
Eleven seconds later he came back out.
His right hand was at his side.
His left hand was in his jacket pocket.
He looked up once as he left.
The face was unmistakable.
It was Gareth.
I watched it twice.
Then I sat back.
"He put it there himself," I said.
Not a question.
"The footage shows him entering the coatroom at 7:42," the security officer said carefully.
"It shows him leaving eleven seconds later.
What occurred inside the coatroom is not captured.
But the coatroom is where the children's outer garments were stored, including — according to the event coordinator's records — a small denim jacket belonging to a child in the flower girl party."
Nora had stopped eating her biscuit.
She was looking at the laptop screen.
"That's Uncle Gareth," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"He put it in my pocket." She said it the way children say things that adults spend years dancing around.
Flat.
Certain.
Done.
I looked at Patricia.
"What happens now?"
"That depends on you," she said.
"We will preserve this footage regardless.
But whether you involve the police tonight is your decision."
I thought about what Gareth had said in the corridor.
*No police.
No drama.
You know what I have on you.*
I had spent thirty years wondering what would happen if I ever stopped being afraid of him.
"Call them," I said.
Patricia reached for her phone.
That was the moment the staff room door opened.
My mother stood in the doorway in her pale blue mother-of-the-groom dress, pearls at her throat, reading glasses pushed up on her head.
She took in the room — Ruth, Patricia, the security officer, the laptop, Nora with her bandaged head and her half-eaten biscuit.
Her eyes landed on me.
May you like
"Marissa," she said.
"What have you done?"
