by Adam Carter
They had a job to do and he couldn’t shirk it just because he no longer had the advantage.
“Come on,” Sanders said, heading back out the door. “God, I’ve had enough of Christmas already.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Hi! You don’t happen to have any rooms do you?”
Hotels did not open on Christmas Day. Or so far as Baronaire and Sanders had told her. Most shut over the Christmas period, while some kept on a skeleton staff. There were no full English breakfasts on Christmas morning. But the Fancy Nantucket was relatively new and still fighting to stay open, and after a very brief reconnaissance had Baronaire discovered that they were indeed open and ready for business. Holly had wanted to charge right in, but Sanders had wisely cautioned against such a foolish action. Sanders had suggested Holly and Baronaire check in as a married couple, which Holly had found ludicrous. Baronaire was twelve years her elder and looked even older. She said the hotel clerk would think they would be pretending to be a married couple when in actual fact she was a prostitute. Baronaire had laughed and said the clerk would be right on both accounts.
But there was another reason Holly didn’t want to even pretend to be married to the guy. Baronaire scared her, and the thought of being trapped in a room all alone with him sent chills down her spine.
However, it was the only way to see Tammy again.
The receptionist was short, rotund and evidently furious at having to work the ultimate in unsociable hours. She asked clipped questions, gave clipped answers and generally snapped whenever Holly or Baronaire said anything out of place, which was anything at all. Holly had prepared herself well for feigning the doting wife role, but she realised as they were checking in that she needn’t have bothered. As soon as they were given their key they hurried away to find their room.
Walking the somewhat dingy corridors – Holly didn’t much care what Baronaire said about it not being grotty any more, it was certainly still a dive – Holly opened her mouth to speak. Baronaire placed a finger to his lips and they continued in silence. They reached their room and Baronaire performed a systematic check for surveillance equipment or people hiding in wardrobes; Holly had no idea what he was doing. No one expected them to be coming and bugging every room in the hotel was somewhat excessive for whoever was blackmailing Tammy.
While she waited for Baronaire to stop being such an idiot, Holly explored the room herself. It was standard, without any real amenities. The bathroom had both a shower and bath, which was always nice, and there were pictures of dogs on the walls. She wandered to the window and looked around outside. They had a good view of the back garden, which was overgrown and not all that pleasant to look at. In her profession, Holly had stayed in a lot of hotels, but never this one. If it had indeed been run by people in the business, there was a good chance it was still being operated as such. That would mean they wouldn’t want the competition booking out and using the rooms for similar purposes.
“Clean,” Baronaire said, relaxing only slightly.
“Of course it’s clean,” Holly said with a roll of her eyes. “Now, we need to get on with getting Tammy back.”
Baronaire produced his radio and contacted Sanders. “We’re in. You can start any time you’re ready.”
“Understood.”
Baronaire dropped the radio back into his pocket. “Let’s go.”
*
They had told her Christmas would not be a busy period. In that they had been right, although when Marla Cassidy had agreed to work on Christmas Day she had not realised several things. Firstly, that there would be so few staff in the hotel so not only would she be running reception, she would also be checking security, clearing the breakfast things and answering every general problem their clients had. Secondly, that there would be so many prostitutes working Christmas Day. When the hotel used to be called Chardonnay it had drawn in a lot of money that way, but they had built a better reputation now. They were here to last and they didn’t need the cops breathing down their necks. Take that couple that came in twenty minutes ago for instance; she had so obviously been a working girl it was unbelievable gall to claim otherwise. Marla guessed working girls got paid holiday rates as well though. And thirdly, most importantly, no one had told Marla it would be so boring. She was alone, there weren’t many clients, and watching TV was just depressing her since it only reminded her she should have been at home with her family. True she was being paid a little extra for being here today, but that didn’t make her want to be there to any greater degree.
She looked up from her desk, having heard the door open, and watched dispassionately as a fat Santa ambled through the corridor towards her. This was all she needed. Either he was checking in for a well-deserved rest after working so hard through the night, or he was collecting for charity.
Marla Cassidy was not feeling especially charitable.
Then she noticed the Santa was holding onto the wall, taking two steps and then falling into the other wall, pausing to catch his balance before starting the whole process again.
Third option: Santa had had one too many sherries.
“That’s it,” Marla said, slamming down the magazine she had been browsing and walking around the desk to confront the red-robed figure. “You. Out. Now.”
“Merry ... Chishmass,” Santa drawled. Beneath his bushy beard Marla could see his bloodshot eyes and insanely happy expression.
“Out,” Marla reiterated, “or I’m calling the cops.” It was never a good idea to bring the police out here, especially considering the hotel’s former reputation, but she was in that kind of a mood.
The Santa had one hand against the wall and he was by this point looking a little woozy. Marla had seen that look a lot in people’s eyes and a sudden panic surged through her that she was one of the only members of staff on duty and it was her job to keep the place clean. “Oh no you don’t,” she said, running for him then and grabbing him by the arm. “Out. Now.”
The Santa began making strange noises in his throat and she knew she had to get him back to the front door in the next few seconds. He was a handful to work with, but through a combination of forceful dragging and gentle threats she not only got him to the door but managed to physically throw him back onto the street.
“And stay out!” she told him as she slammed the door.
Returning to her reception desk, Marla sank into her chair. She picked up her magazine once more and went back to the celebrity gossip with a furious shake of her head. What was with these people?
*
Holly was pacing when Baronaire returned to their room. “And?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“I got it,” he replied, tossing the registration book onto the bed.
Holly could not believe her eyes. “You weren’t supposed to bring the book, just have a look to see which room Tammy was in.”
“Tammy wouldn’t be checked in,” Baronaire told her, “and if she was it wouldn’t be under her own name. Whoever she’s come to see, that’s the name we need.”
Holly closed her eyes. This was difficult for her. She knew Baronaire and Sanders likely did this sort of thing every day, but hers was a simple job and she liked it that way. Sneaking around like this wasn’t something she would have done for many people.
When she opened her eyes she found Baronaire looking at her with something even approaching sympathy to his face. “You all right?” he asked. “Can I get you some water?”
“Water won’t bring Tammy back,” she said, sitting and taking the book in her lap. There were not many guests staying at the hotel presently, which would make the elimination relatively easy. She scanned the names, however, and drew a blank. “None of them mean anything to me.”
“So we’re going to have to approach each one in turn.”
“What? We can’t just barge in on people. After the first, we’d be making too much noise.”
“You’re right. What time is it?”
Holly checked her watch. “Coming up to half
nine.”
“Christmas Day, that accounts for a lie in, we’re cool.”
Holly stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I think it’s time you changed profession, Holly.”
*
“I thought it was self-service today, being Christmas Day?”
The small man with the wire-framed glasses had sat himself down with his wife of similar stocky build, all prepared to help themselves to the cereal and fruit juices that had been laid out for them. The hotel had signs everywhere, including external advertising, that there would be a skeleton staff available over the course of the day. As such, breakfast would be self-service, with no access to cooked breakfasts unless guests wished to brown their own bread: an electric toaster had been set aside for this very purpose.
However, there was a woman standing at the table of the man with the wire-framed glasses. She was fairly short herself, with rich red hair tied back into a professional bun. She wore a thin shirt and short black skirt, and seemed as though she had made half an effort to look presentable. Her smile, however, was genuine, and that more than made up for it.
“We changed our minds,” the waitress purred, her eyes sparkling as she spoke to him and only him. “We felt it best our guests were afforded every comfort, sir.”
The small man was flustering now, his wife looking on with daggers. He coughed, reset his glasses and said, “Yes ... well, that’s good. Good, that’s good to know. So cooked breakfasts are back on are they?”
“For you, sir,” she said, her throaty voice taking on a quiet, husky tone, “I oiled the pans personally.”
The man removed his glasses, scrubbed at them with a handkerchief, cleared his throat again, and said, “Well, yes. Uh, full English, certainly. Is the bacon smoked?”
The waitress laid her hands almost upon her knees as she bent towards him, and it was clear to them all how difficult the small man was finding it to look at her face. “Smoking right now,” she breathed. “I think I can handle an extra sausage if you’re up for it.”
The small man was certainly not looking at her face now. He tugged unconsciously at his sweating collar. He was without doubt a man unused to this attention; and a man clearly knowledgeable that his wife was sitting two feet away. “Uh,” he said, “what will you be having, Doris?”
“Cornflakes,” she said icily, rising slowly, “and I’ll get them myself thank you. I’ll leave the two of you alone, I’m only getting in the way.”
“Uh ... Oh dear,” he said as his wife stormed off.
The waitress shrugged her perfect shoulders. “What can you do?” she rasped. “Door number?”
“Uh ... pardon?”
“For your bill.”
“Oh. Uh, fourteen.”
She straightened, took back a menu he hadn’t even noticed her hand him, let alone look at. “Thank you kindly,” she said with a wink. “Might drop by later for my tip.” And she sauntered away, hips swaying gently and leaving the poor man mopping furiously at his brow.
From the doorway Baronaire was just shy of banging his head against the wall. It had been a simple assignment, why did she have to go and glamorise it all?
Holly was coming now and Baronaire ducked away from the door as she passed through. She pulled the bun loose and shook her hair free, depositing the leaflet about the local castle on a table. She straightened her skirt and worked a kink out of her shoulder.
“What?” she asked, noticing Baronaire’s glower.
“Get their room numbers,” Baronaire said. “That’s all you needed to do.”
“Yeah, did that. Just thought I’d have a little fun with tubby in there.”
“Why?”
“Because I had him once.”
“And you’re sore because he was cheating on his wife? Because he was a bad tipper? Because he was dirty or tried to get you to do things you didn’t want to do?”
“No,” she said, sounding offended. “Because I only had him the once. I mean, if you’re going to pay to have a hooker and you don’t go back, there’s got to be a reason, right? Guy clearly doesn’t get any at home, so what I do to him that horrified him so much?”
Baronaire could not believe what he was hearing, but then he wasn’t a prostitute and could not begin to understand, or even want to understand, Holly’s mind-set. Besides, none of it mattered any more. They had the information they wanted, and knew which rooms were currently empty. They knew which ones they could search for signs of Tammy.
He was tempted to cross the small man off the list already, but that wasn’t thorough police-work.
“We’ll split the rooms,” he told Holly as they moved away from the breakfast area. “We’ll cover more ground quickly that way. Meet back in our room when you’re done.”
“What if they aren’t as empty as we figured?”
“Then shout, and I’ll come running.” He could see she was far from convinced, but they had only a limited amount of time before people started drifting back to their rooms. Or began to wonder where their cooked breakfasts had got to. Baronaire didn’t even know what they were looking for precisely. He didn’t think they would be fortunate enough to find Tammy’s body, alive or dead, stashed away in the bathtub or in a cupboard, although there was a chance her killer had counted on there being no room cleaning today.
He realised he was assuming again. They had no evidence that Tammy was even dead. If this was indeed blackmail, it was more likely she was being forced into doing something she didn’t want to. What that could have been, Baronaire could not say. It wouldn’t be anything sexual, since whoever was blackmailing her could have just paid her for that and be done with it. No, whatever these people wanted from Tammy it was something bigger.
Perhaps they realised she was an informant of Sanders. Perhaps they wanted to use her connexion to bring down WetFish.
It was a frightening thought, yet one which Baronaire was debating on not telling Sanders about. What with running around with a shotgun, the man was clearly not in the best frame of mind as it was.
Baronaire arrived at the first door now and fished out the correct key from his trench coat pocket. He had grabbed far more than just the registration book when Sanders had distracted the receptionist. Fitting the key to the lock, Baronaire entered as though he had every right to be there. It was of course vacant, and a quick search revealed nothing untoward. There were two people who had booked out this room: a man and a woman. Both were in their late-thirties, early-forties, and the clothes matched in both appearance and size the people he had seen sitting down to breakfast. As Holly collected door numbers from the guests, Baronaire had been noting as much detail as possible.
After only two minutes he had determined there was nothing in this room there should not have been. It was just two people spending Christmas in a hotel.
Leaving the room and carefully closing the door behind him, Baronaire moved to the next, knowing the occupants would never even know he had been snooping around. He glanced down the corridor to make sure no one was coming, but it was empty. Holly was on the floor above him: he could hear a door close and knew she had either just begun her search or had just finished a room. Baronaire’s hearing was excellent, although in the daylight hours it was not much better than an average human. The hotel corridors were so quiet, however, that if he strained he could hear some of what was going on upstairs. Certainly enough should Holly start screaming.
Probably.
The next room along revealed much the same story. A room in use by the people he had noted down at breakfast. He performed his search quickly this time, knowing what he would find.
He closed the door behind him once more, mentally ticking off the suspects. There were only three occupied rooms where the guests had not come down to breakfast, and he had already pegged these as the most likely places to find their target. However, this was their only opportunity to check every room and he was not about to let it go to waste.
A noise sounded behind him the
n and he slowed his pace, stopping to tie his shoelace. A woman walked past him, smiled a brief good morning, and carried on. She was average height, dark-skinned, around fifty years, black hair streaked with silver. She wore casual attire and moved with a certain grace. Baronaire watched her from where he crouched. She approached a door at the far end of the corridor and knocked, waiting. The door opened and she went inside.
Baronaire thought back to the registration book. The room the woman had disappeared into was booked out for one person.
So who had let the woman in?
Baronaire rose, activating his radio. “Room 12, may have something. Will let you know once I’ve investigated.”
Holly tried to speak, but Sanders spoke over her irritably. “Just don’t go in heavy-handed, Charles.”
“You want me to come down?” Holly asked.
“No,” Baronaire replied. “Keep to the schedule. If this doesn’t pan out at least we’ll have crossed off some suspects. Baronaire out.”
He turned the radio off in case one of them was tempted to call him at the most inconvenient of times. He approached the door and set his ear to it. He could hear the gentle hum of conversation, two women. But they had the television on and Baronaire could not make out specific sentences through the noise. He considered breaking the door down, but he did not know how many people were inside, or whether Tammy was even here. If these people had her and he tipped them off she could well be dead in moments.
He opted for the easier option. Just because there wasn’t much in the way of staff on hand today, didn’t mean there wasn’t any.
He rapped his knuckles upon the door and waited.
A hushed whisper made him figure he may have been right about things, but the door opened a few seconds thereafter. The woman from before was standing in the doorway, looking quite perplexed at him. “Yes?” she asked.