Checking Out- The Complete Trilogy

by T W M Ashford

  ‘Oh come now, that won’t be necessary,’ she said, smiling. The clipboard got tucked back under her arm. ‘I wouldn’t want to drag you away from your work. Besides, I do a much better job without an entourage following me around. Nobody to steer me away from what they don’t want me to see, if you catch my meaning,’ she said, casting him a wink. ‘You have a good day now, Mr. Pierre.’

  ‘It would be no trouble…’ whimpered Pierre, but the irksome, pink-nailed woman known as Tabitha Rundleford had already pottered halfway across the lobby without so much as a glance back in his direction. He gripped the edge of the desk and chewed the corner of his bottom lip as he watched her go.

  A happy, young fellow with bright red hair and a hiker’s backpack large enough to carry a pygmy hippo came through the front doors and marched jovially up to the front desk. ‘Hello there,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ve got a room booked under…’

  ‘Oh, not now,’ muttered Pierre, wandering off.

  He found Ashley a couple of seconds later, walking up the corridor that linked the hotel bar with the lobby. She seemed pleased to run into him, which was rarely a good sign. Wesker was right. She was young. She still had bloody freckles, for crying out loud.

  ‘Hey, Ashley,’ he said, beckoning her over. ‘Could you take over on front desk for a little while? An inspector’s turned up and I want to make sure she doesn’t get any funny ideas. Or eaten.’

  ‘An inspector?’ Ashley’s face dropped. ‘Oh no, that’s not good. I thought you said we had months until the next one. Does Viola know? I mean, seeing as she’s not supposed to even be here and all.’

  Pierre groaned. He hadn’t even thought of Viola. Hopefully she was still up in her room, sleeping off her drinks from the night before.

  ‘Never mind all that,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Just look after reception, will you? She’s probably already bumped into the Neptunian druids by now. God knows how I’ll go about explaining that.’

  ‘Who’ll bump into the druids? Viola?’

  ‘No! The inspector!’

  ‘Why are there druids here in the first place? I thought there was a ban.’

  ‘Because they booked their rooms six months in advance, that’s why,’ hissed Pierre. ‘We could hardly cancel on them, could we?’

  The old rotary telephone behind the front desk began to ring.

  ‘Okay. And yeah, sure, I’ll cover the front.’ Big enthusiastic grin, lots of white teeth. Pierre was surprised to see she didn’t still wear braces. ‘But speaking of strange men in robes, we might have a bit of a problem on our hands. That’s actually why I was coming to see you.’

  ‘Oh God,’ sighed Pierre. ‘What is it now?’

  ‘Tibetan monks.’

  ‘Eh? How on Earth are they causing a problem? Wait a second. Isn’t their whole existence based around not letting anything piss them off?’

  ‘Yes, but they’re saying that you borrowed a goat from them a couple hundred years ago and never brought it back. Or that you’re supposed to borrow it from them at some point in the future, but they won’t be able to lend it to you on account that you haven’t returned it yet. The gist is, they want their goat. I don’t know, they seemed just as confused as I am.’

  The telephone kept ringing. The queue at the front desk kept growing. The carrot-topped backpacker kept smiling and waiting.

  ‘Good grief,’ groaned Pierre. ‘I don’t even remember a bloody goat. Well, I’ll go square it with them. Just get on that reception before we have more guests waiting in the lobby than we do filling our rooms.’

  ‘And who’s getting that phone, then?’

  Pierre looked over at Tabitha Rundleford, who at that moment in time appeared to be taking note of how many currants each of their breakfast buns could boast. Then he looked back at the old rotary phone, which looked about ready to hurl its receiver halfway across the lobby.

  He sighed, walked back to the desk with Ashley, and raised its speaker to his ear just as she started taking down people’s reservations.

  ‘Le Petit Monde, good morning, this is Pierre, how may I help you?’ he said in a breathless vocal brush stroke. He watched as Ashley clicked through the various windows of their hotel’s computer operating system, checking the backpacker in. She was young, but she was good. Pierre, on the other hand, didn’t know why they couldn’t just keep writing everybody’s comings and going in the ledger.

  ‘Wait, what?’ he said suddenly, sticking a finger in his ear not currently pressed against the receiver. ‘How in God’s name did you get there? For that matter, how did you even get this number?’

  He nodded impatiently, turning his back on the queue and with it the various guests trying to catch his attention. One of them had started coughing, deliberately.

  ‘Yes, I’ll come and get you when I get a chance,’ he eventually said, sighing. A few seconds of listening passed and then Pierre’s face turned sharp. ‘Well I’ve got a lot on my own plate to deal with, alright? Try showing some gratitude, eh? Besides, it makes no difference to you. I could wait two decades before setting out and I’d still arrive about six seconds after you hang up the phone. Idiot!’

  He hung up the phone and turned around. Half a dozen couples and their children were looking at him with expressions of bemused concern.

  He ignored them. ‘Hey, Ashley,’ he whispered, standing behind her. ‘When you’re done with everybody here, could you maybe give the Council a call? I’d like to know what they think sending a run-of-the-mill inspector without warning is going to accomplish. Other than giving me an aneurysm.’

  ‘Sure thing, boss,’ she replied, weaving the words seamlessly around those of her conversation with Backpacker Man. Pierre hovered for a second, collected his thoughts, and then set off towards the belly of the hotel.

  This was not going to be a good day.

  Chapter Three

  He couldn’t find Ms. Tabitha Rundleford anywhere he looked. She wasn’t in the laundry rooms, full as they were of housekeeping staff preparing to make up the rooms. He even checked under some of the bed linen to make sure she hadn’t got herself lost under their white tundra. Simon said he thought he saw her making a beeline towards the in-hotel florist, but unless she’d very recently taken to self-identifying as a geranium she wasn’t in there either.

  What he had discovered, however, was that such a search could lead to some particularly awkward conversations with certain members of staff.

  ‘Of course this isn’t reflective of your performance, Mahieu,’ he said, trying to placate the agitated chef. His fishy barbels were threatening to spill loose from his disguise. Mahieu wasn’t his real name, of course; he only took on the appearance of a man, moniker and all, whilst working his shifts. That was the problem - his shift was due to finish five minutes after breakfast. ‘You know how hard I argued to keep you around after the regulations came in. You’re the best cook this hotel’s ever had.’

  ‘Well, what is it then?’ he blustered, his jowls wobbling.

  ‘I just need you to, erm, keep on keeping up appearances, that’s all,’ said Pierre. He was paying an abnormal amount of attention to the ladle on the counter beside him. ‘On and off duty. Only while the inspector is here, of course. I’ve no idea when and where she might pop up, and imagine the surprise she’ll have if you’re not… Well, you know. Keeping up appearances.’

  ‘Seems a bit discriminatory, if you ask me.’

  ‘Eh? In what way?’

  ‘I don’t imagine you have to wear all those fancy buttons when you’re just having a drink at the bar,’ grumbled Mahieu, pointing at Pierre’s uniform. ‘Or even while you’re taking a nap.’

  ‘No, but that’s because I’m human.’

  ‘That’s what I’m talking about.’

  Pierre grumbled. If there was ever a time he wanted to discuss social justice for abyssal refugees that specialised in mammalian cuisine, this really wasn’t it.

  ‘I’ll give you an extra day’s vacation,’ he off
ered, turning his attention away from the ladle and towards his tentacled friend. ‘And if you took your naps in your room with the door locked instead of in the pantry, like you’re supposed to, you wouldn’t even have to keep the suit on.’

  ‘Done,’ said Mahieu, beaming and sticking out his hand. Pierre shook it. ‘I think I saw your lady inspector a few minutes ago, by the way. She stuck her head in through the door and prodded one of the saucepans our Derek had just finished cleaning. He was well miffed, he was. I’d check the guest floors next if I were you. Won’t be long before she starts knocking on doors, by the looks of her. Nosey type.’

  Pierre’s ears pricked up. ‘The guest floors? You saw her go up there already?’ He scarpered off towards the flappy double doors of the kitchen. ‘Oh no. I assumed she’d work her way through the amenities first…’

  ‘But then again, what do I know?’ Mahieu muttered to himself, going back to chopping the last of the morning’s onions. ‘I’m just a fish.’

  There was no sign of Ms. Rundleford on either the second or the third floor. Pierre knew this because he’d gone sprinting down the lengths of their corridors like a greyhound chasing after a flung sausage. There was enough sweat running off him to sail a ship on.

  One of the older guests had nervously cracked open her door, no doubt thinking it was a bunch of unruly teens making all the noise. She’d been quite surprised to instead find a somewhat dishevelled Frenchman standing hunched over with his hands on his knees.

  ‘Are you quite alright there, sir?’ she asked, her head poking out from around the door like a bemused tortoise. ‘I heard one heck of a thundering racket. Has housekeeping come round yet?’

  ‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Armstrong,’ he rasped, waving her back inside. ‘Just chasing a mouse. No, not a mouse,’ he quickly corrected himself when he saw the look on Mrs. Armstrong’s face. ‘A list. A list of all the suppliers I need to call today. I’ve lost it somewhere. Now, please go back inside. And don’t worry. Housekeeping will be along in no more than an hour or so.’

  ‘I don’t want them knocking on my door,’ she grumbled. ‘I’ll be sleeping. I’m supposed to be sleeping now.’

  ‘Then make sure you hang the little sign saying as much on the front of your door,’ sighed Pierre. She shut her door and ignored his advice. He shook his head. ‘Have a good nap, Mrs. Armstrong.’

  He jogged back towards the stairwell and ran into Viola halfway up to the fourth floor. She’d been coming down the other way, yawning.

  ‘A woman,’ he wheezed, holding onto the bannister. ‘Short. Big glasses. Haughty demeanour. Clipboard. Have you seen her?’

  ‘Blouse like a forest fire?’ she replied, raising a groggy, overslept eyebrow. She pointed her thumb back over her shoulder. ‘Yeah, she’s just up there. Any reason why she’s taking notes on all of the doors?’

  ‘She’s a bloody inspector!’ hissed Pierre, looking around for any guests that might be listening.

  ‘What?’ snapped Viola, grabbing him by the shoulders. ‘Why is there a goddamn inspector here? She’s not looking for me, is she? You told me nobody would find out!’

  ‘She’s not here for you,’ he reassured her. ‘Or at least, I don’t think she is. She’s a… she’s a regular person, Viola. I don’t think she’s travelled further out than Slough, let alone Cygnus X-1.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. What were the Council thinking? You might want to get up there before she runs into the twins. You know how they can be around strangers.’

  ‘The twins? For the love of… Okay. Do me a favour, will you? Go knock on Wesker’s door and let him know what’s going on. Then the two of you are to go down to the bar and stay there until I’ve sorted all this out, okay? Try to act like everything is normal. Blend in.’

  ‘Everything is normal,’ she replied, sulkily descending the stairs. ‘Everything save for that bloody woman! And we’re from the nineteenth century, not the nineteenth dimension. How much blending do you think we need to do?’

  She had a point. For all their anachronisms, Viola and Wesker were as on-trend as any of their guests from Shoreditch. Not that they had many of those, mind. Pierre was more concerned about Viola threatening to knock Ms. Rundleford’s teeth out if the inspector happened to look at her funny.

  ‘Thank you, Viola,’ Pierre called after her. She waved a resigned hand over her shoulder in return.

  He spotted Tabitha Rundleford the moment he breached the top of the stairs. She was about halfway down the corridor ahead of him, paying excruciating attention to the bronze numbers on the door of room 415. Pierre found himself wondering how recently they’d been polished. If they’d ever been polished, come to think of it.

  He straightened his uniform, slicked his hair down to one side and then strode along the corridor with a big plastic smile plastered across his face.

  ‘Ms. Rundleford!’ he exclaimed, waving at her. She looked up at him through spectacles like two magnifying glasses taped together. ‘So glad I could find-’

  Suddenly the door to his right was flung open and a saffron cloud of robed monks came spilling out. Pierre came to a quick and unexpected stop, surrounded by stern and upturned faces.

  ‘-you.’

  ‘So glad we could finally find you, Pierre,’ said the monk directly in front of him. He was bald and wrinkled. A shifty guy beside him was carrying what looked like a long flute. ‘Not a single visit in six generations. Six. And you never answered our calls.’

  Pierre could see Ms. Rundleford over the top of the bald monk’s head. She was squinting and shaking her head. Even worse, she was taking notes.

  ‘Just some important foreign dignitaries on a trade visit from the mountains, Ms. Rundleford,’ he shouted to her, wishing he could read what she was writing down. ‘Nothing to be concerned over!’

  A meek bleating noise came from Pierre’s left. He turned his head and found himself looking at a small boy holding a sheep.

  ‘Emotional support animal,’ Pierre added, but the inspector was already waltzing away.

  ‘You’re not dodging us any longer,’ continued the Head Monk. ‘We want our goat back.’

  ‘Plus interest,’ interjected another monk, who then looked a little embarrassed with himself.

  ‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’ Pierre sighed. ‘I really feel like I’d remember if we’d met. Are you sure it was me you lent a goat to? Not a different me from another universe? Hard thing to forget, a goat.’

  ‘Erm, we haven’t lent it to you yet,’ said the monk with the flute, scrunching his face up as he tried to remember his lines. ‘But we know we’re going to. Soon. That’s what you told us when you came before, anyway. You were adamant that it was of the utmost importance. And that’s why we need the goat from you first.’

  ‘Because we don’t actually keep any goats,’ explained the Head Monk.

  ‘We need one though,’ sniggered another monk, before his friend could jab an elbow into his ribs.

  ‘We have a sheep,’ said the small boy with a fluffy friend. He held it out towards Pierre. ‘You can borrow a sheep, if you need it for milk or something. But we need that goat, please.’

  ‘So that we can give it to you,’ continued the Head Monk. ‘But the only way we can do that is if you give us back the goat we lend you in the future first. Otherwise we won’t have a goat to lend you, you see? And you don’t want to be left empty-handed in your time of goat-need, do you?’

  He smiled, satisfied he’d done a good job of explaining the situation.

  Pierre gave it some thought.

  ‘I hate to say it, but it doesn’t sound as if there is a goat,’ he replied, slowly and delicately. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to pull a fast one on me, would you?’

  The monks looked at each other uneasily. The young boy refused to make eye contact.

  ‘Wait… you are, aren’t you? What is this, some sort of livestock racket? Are any of you actually monks? Is that even a real flute?’

  The monks put on their best
show of looking aghast. Somebody’s performance stretched all the way to an audible gasp.

  ‘Look,’ Pierre said, squeezing his way out of the circle. ‘I really don’t have time for this nonsense. Either go back to your mountain or speak to Ashley at reception. You’ve wasted some of her time already if I’m not mistaken. Maybe she can help you find out which universe you’re supposed to be in. Or which prison. But any more funny business and I’ll see to it you’re all barred from this hotel, you hear me?’

  He jogged away from them as professionally as a concierge in full uniform can. The monks shuffled off towards the elevator, grumbling and bleating.

  Several shades more irritable than when he’d set out, he found Ms. Rundleford down the next corridor on the right. She was peering at the numbers of yet another door - 427 - and jotting something down.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, catching up to her. ‘Never a quiet moment in this business, am I right?’

  She looked at him as if he were a splash of gravy on a white shirt.

  ‘So…’ he continued, ‘is there anything I can help you with? Show you into some of the rooms, maybe? Give you a tour of where we keep all our records and accounts? I’m sure ours isn’t the only hotel on your to-do list today.’ He scratched the back of his neck. ‘Is it?’

  Ms. Rundleford largely ignored his questions, but was suddenly paying a great deal of unnerving attention to the space about four or five inches to the left of his crotch. Pierre looked down and laughed, dryly.

  ‘Ah. These beauties,’ he said, unclipping the keyring from his belt and dangling it between the two of them, ‘are the master keys for every door and lock in the hotel.’

  And a great many doors beyond that, he might have added. Though most of the keys were of the traditional silver and bronze variety (plus a fob, because the times kept a-changing), one particularly gold and shiny key stood out as more… influential than all the rest.