A Castle in the Clouds

by Kerstin Gier

  “How exciting! But how do you know all this?” Amy asked.

  Tristan shrugged. “I know pretty much everything about famous jewels—my grandpa told me all these stories when I was very young. You don’t mess with the goddess Kali—you’d think the robbers back in the seventeenth century would have known that. After all, Kali wears a skirt made of human arms and holds a sickle and a bowl for catching blood. She’s a goddess of death, famed for her powers of destruction, and her task is to maintain the balance of the universe. No wonder her third eye has never brought good luck to anyone.”

  Amy shuddered. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to wear it.”

  “It is beautiful, though,” said Tristan, smiling up at Room 310, where Mr. Von Dietrichstein was now closing his window. “And very photogenic.”

  “And very valuable,” I added, having just spotted Mr. Huber from Room 117 crossing the forecourt and following the four men through the revolving door. Where had he sprung from?

  “Indeed,” said Tristan quietly, “it would fetch the same price on the black market as it would in a legal sale. There are plenty of rich people out there who don’t care about the law. They’d do anything to get their hands on a piece like that. And I mean anything.”

  Oh man. I’d only just managed to get my fears under control and turn my back on my paranoia (and my tinfoil hat)—and now this.

  “Stop scaring us,” I snapped at Tristan, earning myself a surprised glance from Amy.

  And a smug laugh from Tristan. “‘Nadezhda’ means hope, incidentally,” he said, swinging himself gracefully up onto a snowdrift. “And speaking of hope—you do know Aiden’s in love with you, don’t you, Amy? He’s just too proud to tell you. Because he’s afraid you might just humor him out of pity.” He didn’t stay to see Amy’s expression change from one of disbelief to one of astonishment to one of pure rapture, but jumped down from the bank of snow, strolled nonchalantly across the forecourt, and disappeared into the hotel.

  I didn’t see him again for the rest of the day, otherwise I would have thanked him for lifting Amy out of her bleak mood. If Tristan was telling the truth, there was nothing standing in the way of a happy ending for Amy and Aiden.

  Well, at least one of us was happy. I was genuinely pleased for Amy.

  I, on the other hand, couldn’t even walk past Reception without feeling really awkward. It annoyed me that Ben smiled at me so warmly, as if nothing was wrong. But I didn’t want him to think I was bothered by what had happened last night. So I smiled back and even gave him a friendly wave before I went upstairs. I’d read somewhere that if you force yourself to smile for one minute, the brain starts producing happy hormones. But I couldn’t even manage thirty seconds. Because I was bothered by what had happened last night. And I didn’t think my body was going to produce any happy hormones ever again.

  That was probably why a giant zit had sprouted on my forehead—I discovered it in the bathroom mirror a few minutes later. And to make matters worse, I then cut off a big chunk of my hair to make bangs to hide it. Now I not only had a massive pimple on my forehead, but also a quarter of a set of bangs, which made me look pretty bizarre.

  It was the first thing Ben noticed about me when we next met. I popped down to the laundry room to see Pavel before starting my shift in the spa, only to find Ben standing there on a stool, topless, with Pavel pinning up the hem of his black trousers.

  “Oh, I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said unimaginatively—but it was true, because Ben was supposed to still be at work. And at the same time, Ben said: “What happened to your hair?”

  We both fell silent, so Pavel kindly took over. “Poor boy is needing tuxedo for tomorrow night, he forget to buy. But good thing about tuxedos: never out of fashion. I just have to make right size. I already pin jacket. He borrow dad’s shirt; I make smaller size already. Now only need to iron.” He pointed to the white dress shirt that was hanging over the back of the chair. “If you want to help … oh, your hair is looking very strange, little Sophie. What you do to it?”

  “It’s hiding a pimple,” I said grumpily, draping the shirt over the ironing board.

  “Doesn’t mean you have to disfigure yourself,” said Ben.

  “It’s a very big pimple. At least eighteen carats,” I replied.

  Ben chuckled.

  I bent to plug in the iron. “I’m glad you’re in such a good mood, Benny.” I tried to mimic Whatsername’s high-pitched voice. And I put on a bit of a lisp as well. “You’re my hero, Benny! You’re the best!”

  Ben stopped chuckling. “I can’t help it if other people … like me,” he said. “I fixed her phone, that was all.”

  “Oh, please be careful with shirt.” Pavel frowned anxiously when he saw how roughly I was handling the shirt. “Is only one we have. And ball is tomorrow.”

  “Yes, yes, okay.” I was determined not to mention Gretchen and the waltz. Absolutely determined. “What was it you were going to tell me about Mr. Huber from Room 117?” I asked instead. Jeez, couldn’t Ben put a T-shirt on or something? Looking at his bare torso was getting me all flustered, especially when he folded his arms like that across his muscular chest. He must spend all his free time doing push-ups and sit-ups. You didn’t get a body like that without working out.

  “I was going to tell you last night,” he said. “But you ran off.”

  “I actually got beamed up onto an alien spaceship for a conspiracy theorists’ conference.” I ran the iron along the hem of the shirt. “So tell me, what did you find out?”

  Pavel sighed. “I not like it when you two argue. You should come with me to concert tomorrow. In Jesuit church in Sion. Beautiful choir music. Good for soul. Always I go at New Year. Come back with new strength and full of peace.”

  “We’re not arguing, Pavel. We’re just having a discussion. Even if Ben doesn’t want to tell me anything and I have to drag it out of him. He probably hasn’t found out anything at all—he’s been too busy fixing people’s phones and being the best.”

  “I have found out something, actually,” said Ben. “His name is Alexander Huber, and he’s forty-three years old—”

  “Oh, wow,” I broke in sarcastically. I just couldn’t help myself. “Just like it says on his booking form? That’s some amazing detective work right there.”

  Ben looked affronted. “If you really want to know, I managed to look at his ID card and I made inquiries with the registry office and his employer.” Just to annoy me, he paused for effect. “I even saw his gun license,” he added. “Mr. Huber isn’t here to kidnap anyone. He’s here because of the Yegorovs’ necklace.”

  Aha! So that was it. “And he just admitted this to you?”

  Ben nodded happily. “He was actually very keen to clear up any misunderstanding. He works for an insurance company. To be precise, the insurance company that insures the insurance company Yegorov’s necklace is insured with.”

  It took me a minute to process this.

  “The necklace is incredibly valuable.” Ben was visibly pleased by my stunned silence. “But Yegorov has insured it for even more than its actual value, just to be on the safe side. So the insurers always want to know exactly where the diamond is. As soon as the necklace leaves its safe at the bank, Yegorov’s insurance company has to let its insurance company know. And that’s the company Mr. Huber works for.”

  “Sophie. Do not leave iron on fabric,” Pavel admonished me.

  “But … Yegorov doesn’t even know this Huber man.” I gnawed my bottom lip.

  “True. Yegorov doesn’t know his insurance company’s insurer has sent a man to keep an eye on the necklace,” Ben declared. He’d clearly been expecting me to say this and looked thoroughly pleased with himself. “Because it’s not unheard of for people to ‘lose’ their own valuables just to get their hands on the insurance money. It happens more often than you’d think.”

  “Finished,” said Pavel, slapping Ben on the leg.

  But Ben didn’t move—he just looke
d triumphantly down at me. “Well, Miss Tinfoil Hat? Any more questions?”

  “Yes, actually,” I promptly replied. To be honest, I believed his story and I was already starting to change my mind about the kidnapping theory, but Ben’s smug tone, his bare chest, and the memory of him and Whatsername whispering sweet nothings to each other last night made it impossible for me to admit it. “Firstly, the necklace only arrived here today, but Mr. Huber’s been here for over a week—how do you explain that? And secondly, what was he doing last Saturday poking around in the staff quarters? And thirdly, are you ever going to put some clothes on? Do you think I’m impressed by your naked body?”

  Ben jumped hurriedly down from the stool. He’d gone red, though not quite the same shade of tomato red as last night when Whatsername had kissed him.

  “Oh no!” said Pavel. “You iron crease into shirt, Sophie!”

  “Nobody will see it under that stupid tux anyway.” And it served Ben right. I’d done it on purpose.

  “The shirt will have to wait a moment, I’m afraid, Sophie,” a soft voice broke in, and I looked up in surprise. Monsieur Rocher very rarely left his room, and I’d never seen him down here at this hour before. He was cradling the purring Forbidden Cat in one arm. “You’re needed urgently.”

  “What for?” I was about to ask, when I heard voices approaching down the corridor.

  “… I caught it and put it in a cardboard box and did it up with packing tape. He was supposed to keep it in the concierge’s lodge till you came. But you took so long…” It was Nico, the traitor, and the testy voice that answered him belonged to none other than Gordon Montfort.

  “Are you trying to tell me where I have to be and when, now?” Montfort blustered. “You’re lucky I needed to come down to the basement anyway.”

  The voices came closer and I realized I had to do something. Monsieur Rocher was looking at me expectantly: When Gordon Montfort came bursting in he was going to find not only the Forbidden Cat but also me, standing next to his half-naked son, scorching his stolen dress shirt with a hot iron.

  “But it’s true! I swear on my mother’s life,” Nico wailed.

  “I feel sorry for your mother,” thundered Montfort. “Back to your post, you useless moron.”

  I put the iron down, launched myself out into the corridor, and managed to close the door to the laundry room just as Ben’s dad strode around the corner. He narrowed his eyes and stared at me, and I was close to flinging myself in front of the door and crying, “Don’t hurt them!”

  “Ah, there you are. A word, please, Miss … er…,” he said.

  Of course. He must have found cat hairs on my bed. And now he was going to fire me. There could be no doubt about it. At last he’d be rid of the intern who didn’t know her place, who’d fallen in love with his son, and who was always causing trouble.

  “I was told I’d find you down here.” He looked me up and down, and I felt a rising panic.

  “You know the Smirnovs, who are staying in the Panorama Suite,” he went on. He was wearing a new jacket, one without bird poo on the shoulder. And his voice was relatively friendly. But that could be deceptive, as I well knew.

  I nodded tentatively.

  “Well, the Smirnovs need a babysitter for little Natasha while they’re at the ball tomorrow evening,” he went on in a booming voice. “And Mr. Smirnov specifically asked for you, Miss … er…”

  “Spark,” I said, flabbergasted.

  “It’ll be quiet in the spa tomorrow evening, so Mr. Heffelfinger won’t need you. I should like you to report to the Panorama Suite tomorrow evening at seven o’clock sharp. In uniform, please.”

  He made to leave, but then turned back for a second. “You don’t happen to have seen Monsieur Rocher around here just now with a cat? Or a cat on its own?”

  I shook my head mutely.

  “Just as I thought.” He tutted as he walked away. I waited until his footsteps had faded on the stairs, then tottered back into the laundry room, trembling. Monsieur Rocher and the Forbidden Cat were gone—they must have escaped through one of the back doors. Pavel had saved the shirt from irrevocable ruin and hung it on a coat hanger. And Ben had put a T-shirt on at last.

  I collapsed into a chair, emotionally drained. “Right, where were we? Oh yes—if Mr. Huber is the hotel kidnapper, I need to know. Now.” Before I found myself all alone with little Dasha in the Panorama Suite—with Mr. Huber and his gun in the room next door.

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Not this hotel kidnapper stuff again. I’ve explained exactly what … oh, I’m sick of this. I’m going back upstairs.”

  “Yes, go,” I said. “I’m sure there are plenty of phones out there that need fixing.”

  22

  “She’s very tired,” said Yegorov, despite the fact that Dasha was currently wide awake, bouncing around on her parents’ king-sized bed and shouting my name excitedly. “It doesn’t take her long to fall asleep here. I put it down to the mountain air and all that playing in the snow.”

  I smoothed my perfectly fitted uniform and gave what I hoped was a serene smile. If he thought I was fazed by bouncing children, he was quite mistaken. Especially when there was only one of them.

  Dasha tried to do a somersault. Then she said something in Russian that I didn’t understand, but I suspected meant something like, “Come on, Sophie, you do a somersault, too.”

  “She’s had her supper and brushed her teeth, and I’ve read her a bedtime story.” Yegorov tugged rather distractedly at his black bow tie. Like all the men this evening, he was wearing a tuxedo, which looked exactly the same as everyone else’s even though it had probably cost twenty times as much.

  I’d arrived at the Panorama Suite to find, to my great disappointment, that Stella Yegorov had already left. She and her dog were downstairs at the champagne reception, giving the Von Dietrichsteins an exclusive interview. And she was wearing the Nadezhda Diamond. I’d been hoping my babysitting duties would mean I was the first to clap eyes on the famous jewel. Gracie, Amy, Madison, and particularly Mrs. Ludwig had been green with envy when I’d told them, although Mrs. Ludwig was more interested in the dress than the necklace. I’d bumped into her and Mr. Ludwig walking back to their room hand in hand after their afternoon coffee. Mrs. Ludwig had been so excited she hadn’t been able to eat her cake, and Mr. Ludwig had seemed a little nervous, too. He practiced his waltz steps in the corridor while Mrs. Ludwig chattered away happily, jumping from one topic of conversation to another. At last, the day she’d been dreaming of for decades had arrived.

  When Mrs. Ludwig heard I was going to be spending the evening in the Panorama Suite, her eyes positively shone. “Oh, you lucky thing!” she cried. “That means you’ll be the first to see the belle of the ball. What do you think, will she wear a blue dress to match her blue diamond? Although red’s usually her color; it suits her so well, with her brown hair. She looks lovely in whatever she wears, not like wrinkly old me … I’m rather worried that my dress is too revealing. One ought not show too much cleavage at my age. I don’t want to make a fool of myself. The skirt is so long; I’m not used to it, and I can only take tiny little steps. What if I trip and fall over? While I’m dancing, even?”

  Mr. Ludwig laid a hand on her arm. “It will all be fine, my beautiful. I’ll be waiting for you here at the foot of the stairs, and you’ll come floating down them like an angel, I know it. And if anything does go wrong while we’re dancing, it’ll be because I’ve stepped on your toes.”

  Mrs. Ludwig laughed and laid her curly white head on his shoulder for a moment.

  These two were just too cute. I hoped that when I was old I’d have someone like Mr. Ludwig by my side, kissing my head fondly.

  “The monkey she takes to bed with her is called Alexei,” Yegorov instructed me, as Dasha bounced around the bed more energetically than ever. “That’s my middle name. He’s over there on Dasha’s bed. But I promised her she could sleep in our bed if she likes.” He gave a rather sheepish smile. “S
he usually comes in with us in the middle of the night anyway.”

  I nodded understandingly. I didn’t mind if Dasha wanted to bounce around on the bed for a bit longer, and I was intrigued to find out whether I could actually do a somersault. After Yegorov had gone, of course.

  He glanced at his watch. “If you need us for any reason,” he said, pointing to the floor, “we’ll be just down there in the ballroom.”

  I nodded again. The ballroom was only a stone’s throw from here—out the door, turn right, along the corridor a little way, down the stairs, and there you were. You could hear the music from here, though it was surprisingly faint given that the room was directly above the orchestra gallery. The gala orchestra had been setting up since early that afternoon, and now the strings were tuning up. The ballroom itself was unrecognizable, with the tables around the dance floor all decked out in damask cloths and lavish flower arrangements, with candlesticks on all the tables and the walls. At eight o’clock, 276 ivory candles would be lit and, together with the twelve chandeliers, would bathe the ballroom in golden light. Monsieur Rocher had told me the same amount of candles again were held in reserve, ready to replace the others when they burned out. Two of the waiters had been put on candle-monitoring duty; while handing round the canapés, they would subtly inspect the candlesticks to make sure the wax wasn’t dripping and that nothing had caught fire. I didn’t envy anyone working in the ballroom this evening. At most I was a little jealous of Gretchen Barnbrooke, who would get to waltz with Ben. She would probably—no, definitely—be looking stunning tonight, in an absolutely beautiful dress. (Gracie and Madison had described it to me in great detail. I couldn’t remember what color it was, but I knew it was supposed to be quite exquisite.)

  On the other hand—no atmospheric lighting, no string orchestra, no ball gown, nothing could top my waltz with Ben on the roof, and whatever had happened afterward, nobody could take that moment away from me. I’d probably still be telling my grandchildren about it when I was a bitter old woman. Oh no, hang on—that wouldn’t work, would it? If I was a bitter old woman, I wouldn’t have any children or grandchildren. I’d probably have a skinny, grumpy old cat.