by Helen Smith
Further down the corridor Emily heard the knocking, the doors being flung open, and the almost robotically calm repetition of the words, “Everybody out. Walk, don’t run.”
There was the shrill, persistent sound of a fire alarm and, underneath that, the sound of people running or walking from their rooms, doors slamming. Emily looked at the digital display on the alarm clock provided by the hotel at the side of her bed. It was 3:13.
Outside it was dark.
Inside there was the smell of smoke.
Outside, the darkness was now punctuated by flashing blue lights and the terse shouts of trained men and women doing something useful.
Inside, Emily put on her shoes and grabbed her handbag and notebook.
Outside, guests were gathering in Russell Square at the designated evacuation point.
Emily walked out of her room, walked down the emergency stairs, walked out of the hotel.
As she crossed the street and walked toward the square, she could see other guests waiting calmly in their nightclothes, clutching whatever was of most value to them—handbags, notebooks (there being a lot of writers in residence), laptop computers, armfuls of clothes. Most were wearing the pale-blue, cotton bathrobes provided by the hotel. Some guests stood in small groups without possessions. Their stoic expressions, and the bathrobes, gave the impression that they were invalids from a sanatorium who had been bidden to go into the square to get some fresh air for their health.
Once she was at the assembly point, Emily turned and looked at the hotel, expecting to see it half up in flames with the roof crumbling in. But it was standing imperturbably, as it had done for more than a century. There were only a few puffs of smoke coming from a couple of second floor windows. These were already being treated with water by the firefighters from the fire engine underneath the windows. A second engine drew up and parked next to it, but perhaps it wouldn’t be needed. An ambulance was parked in front of the hotel on the other side. Emily certainly hoped that that wouldn’t be needed.
Then one of the windows on the second floor was smashed open and a distraught man called from inside, “Sookie! Sheena? Sheena, where are ye, hen?”
A firefighter used a loud-hailer to call up to him: “Sir, would you please evacuate the building.”
“Emily, m’dear. Glad to see you’re safe.” Emily turned to see Dr. Muriel in a sensible pair of navy pajamas and a quilted, maroon dressing gown, carrying a large bar of fruit and nut chocolate and her silver-topped cane. “Is that Archie?”
They heard the man’s voice again. It was almost a shriek. “Sheena!”
“You think I should go back in for him?”
“I’d say that rather exceeds the scope of your terms of employment.”
“I know. But—”
“I don’t think he’s in danger. He woke from a nightmare, I expect. He’ll come down presently.” She removed the wrapper from her bar of chocolate and broke it into pieces, apportioning four squares each to whoever nearby put their hand out for it. Emily had some and it was very nice, though she could have done with a cup of tea to wash it down.
Polly strolled up. She was wearing dark-blue, cotton pajamas and a mannish, sensible, dark-blue robe tied tight at the waist. She held a packet of cheddar-cheese-flavored biscuits, a bottle of opened red wine, and two of the stubby porcelain cups that were provided in the guest bathrooms by the hotel for the storage of toothbrushes. “This is like boarding school. All it lacks is a bottle of rum and some playing cards. And some naughty sixth-form boys.”
Emily caught sight of Des standing alone to one side of the square. If he’d had a flaming torch in his hand, she wouldn’t have blamed him. But he wasn’t responsible for the fire. His fists clenched and unclenched at nothing, and he looked down at the ground almost oblivious to what was going on around him. He didn’t look as though he wanted company, and Emily didn’t go over and offer it.
“Polly,” said Emily, “Des said someone from the RWGB contributed a thousand dollars to Winnie’s online fund.”
“You think it looks like blood money? I wanted to provide some practical help on behalf of all of us. Don’t worry, I can afford it.” She grinned. “Just don’t tell Zena. She’ll think I’m being flash.”
The crowd in the square murmured appreciatively as two firefighters appeared at the entrance to the hotel with a large black woman on a stretcher and carried her toward the ambulance. The woman appeared to be conscious. The purple-polished fingertips of one hand gripped the oxygen mask that had been strapped to her head. It was Zena.
“Thank Christ for that! She looks all right, doesn’t she? Bit of smoke inhalation, maybe? Least she’s not burned to a crisp.” Cerys had joined them, in a silk kimono and fluffy, red, high-heeled mules, all her diamond rings on her fingers. Either she slept in them or she’d had the good sense not to leave them behind on the dressing table in an unlocked room. She was carrying three shopping bags of clothes and smoking a cigarette. “Doesn’t seem right to be chuffing on this, under the circumstances,” she admitted with a shrug. But she didn’t put the cigarette out. “Oh my…look at that!”
Another murmur from the crowd. Standing at the entrance to the hotel, framed for a moment by the light behind him in an almost parodic silhouette of a hero, was a slender man in white silk pajama bottoms and bare feet, naked from the waist up. Slung across his shoulders was the even more slender figure of a woman in a smart jacket and skirt.
“Can’t see who it is,” Dr. Muriel said. “Is it a ninja, Emily?”
His coppery-red hair hung damply over one eye, and as he began to move toward them and into the light of the street lamps outside the hotel, they saw his face and chest were streaked with sooty dirt. It was Archie.
Cerys provided a commentary. “Archie, carrying a woman. She seems to be alive, thanks be. Is that Sheena, you think? He’s found his Sheena? Aww. Bless him. I didn’t realize he’d brought anyone with him this weekend. Who’d have thought? Oh, look out! He’s coming this way.”
In fact, Archie had not found Sheena. Sheena was the name of his long-dead sister and, though he often searched for her in his dreams and his nightmares, he would never find her. Nor his sister Sookie, either. The woman whose body was slung across his shoulders was Miss Wendy Chen, who had been on night duty on the hotel’s Reception desk and hadn’t needed rescuing. She was thoroughly drilled in evacuation techniques and had only recently completed all necessary components of the Hotel Evac Refresher Course, a prerequisite for joining this hotel from the one where she had recently been posted in Singapore.
As she had completed the last checks on the rooms on the second floor this evening, Wendy was astonished to find herself grabbed out of the smoky darkness and carried down two flights of stairs. She had wriggled and slapped Archie on his bare shoulders, furious at the effrontery. She was aware that some Western men subscribed to the myth that Asian women were docile or acquiescent. She didn’t intend to start her career in this country being plundered by a Scottish pirate. But then he’d staggered about with her on his shoulders bellowing “Sookie! Sookie! Where are ye, hen?” and she’d come to understand that he was searching for lost poultry and was therefore insane, and she’d stopped struggling, and stopped worrying about antifeminist Western myths, and started to calculate whether it made better sense financially to sue the hotel management for compensation for kidnap, or simply to demand a much more senior job when this crisis was over. If the former, then she needed to act hysterical and injured. If the latter, then she should remain calm, and take control of the situation as soon as she could.
Fortunately for Archie, she decided on the latter course. After he set her down on the grass in Russell Square, he began shouting for Sookie again.
“He’s going back in,” someone said admiringly—a fan of American disaster films, perhaps.
The crowd in Russell Square weren’t the only ones watching his antics. A voice came over the loud-hailer again. “Sir! Sir, please do not endanger yourself. Do no
t attempt to regain entry to the premises until someone from the London Fire Brigade has given the all clear.”
“Sookie! Ahm coming tae get ye.”
Wendy Chen composed herself. She drew back her left elbow and floored Archie with a magnificent left hook. “Not a good idea to endanger yourself for a chicken,” she said. She went over to talk to the most senior London Fire Brigade officer on duty to see what should be done next.
As she left, several women in their nightdresses rushed forward from the crowd to tend to Archie’s fallen body. With his handsome, sensitive, high-cheekboned face, his sorrowful eyes fluttering open toward consciousness, he looked like a shell-shocked, poetry-writing infantry officer from World War I.
“What was Archie in prison for, anyone remember?” asked Cerys. “It wasn’t arson, was it?”
Chapter Sixteen
MELTED BARBIE
The ambulance set off for the hospital, Zena aboard, blue lights flashing, sirens silent out of respect for those sleeping in this mainly residential area. Morgana now came out to the square to check up on the RWGB members that she could pick out in the crowd.
Across the street Emily saw Det. James, obviously not long out of bed himself, though fully dressed. He got out of an unmarked squad car and went up the steps into the hotel. He was followed by uniformed officers who arrived in another car.
“What’s the news, M?” asked Cerys as Morgana reached her side. “Can we go back in?”
“What a ghastly night. Yes, they said we can make our way back in. All the rooms can be occupied, except Zena’s. They may keep her overnight in the hospital for observation. But if not, the hotel will find her another room. They’re prepared to move anyone else who asks, particularly if they’re on the second floor. Just speak to Wendy Chen at Reception.”
Emily said, “What happened, has anyone told you?”
“The fire started in Zena’s room, that’s all I know. Seems she unscrewed the smoke detector on the ceiling. Probably wanted to smoke in her room. You have to be so careful about that sort of thing. You know, someone once tried to teach me a technique for smoking in an airplane toilet that involves flushing the loo and simultaneously exhaling, but if you don’t time it right—well, either you get sucked half-out of the plane or you set off the alarms. Either way it’s an ignominious way to draw attention to yourself. Not that I’ve tried it. I’ve only thought about it. I wish Zena had only thought about doing this.”
Dr. Muriel said, “I vote we go back in and try and get some sleep. I don’t want anyone missing my Ethics in Literature session first thing. On that note, can we meet beforehand, Emily? Over breakfast? Nine o’clock? I’d like to discuss a few ideas with you.”
It was nearly five o’clock now. Dawn was opening up the gray tin can of the London skyline, and the birds in the trees were starting to sing. Quite loudly.
“Listen to that! I could gladly shoot the lot of them,” said Cerys.
“Imagine a world without birds,” said Polly. “It doesn’t bear thinking about. Mao tried it, and when the birds dropped out of the sky with exhaustion and a plague of locusts came, the people were soon sorry.” She walked quickly toward the hotel empty-handed, leaving the remnants of her boarding-school-style midnight feast discarded at the foot of a tree in the square.
“Well, that’s me told!” said Cerys.
Emily was so tired she thought that if she were a bird, she’d drop like a stone from the sky. She said to Dr. Muriel, “Shall we say nine thirty?”
Dr. Muriel nodded and rushed ahead. No doubt she could sleep anywhere. She was an intrepid traveler who had told Emily she was happy enough with third-class accommodation on foreign trains. Emily imagined her friend propping herself into a corner, folding her arms and sleeping with the untroubled dreams of someone who thought very deeply about things when she was awake.
Emily hung back a little to keep pace with Morgana. She wanted to ask her a question. They went into the hotel and began to climb the stairs.
“Is it true that Archie’s been in prison?”
“Hmm? Yes. That’s where I met him. My creative writing program Write Back Where You Belong. I teach some of the classes. Lex is a patron. Good night, Emily, and thanks for everything. You’ll be glad to get back to the nine-to-five after this, won’t you?”
Morgana darted off into the corridor on the first floor where her bedroom was located. Emily tramped up to the second floor. She was fit, but she wasn’t used to climbing stairs. She thought she might have a rest. And what better way to rest than to loiter here on the second floor for a bit, and then have a quick look at Zena’s burned-out room? Though she shouldn’t have been on the second floor, Emily didn’t attract attention. There were plenty of people coming and going, fetching washbags and a few clothes for the next day from their smoke-damaged rooms: most of the guests who had been staying on the second floor had been allocated rooms on other floors.
As she was officially helping Morgana at the conference, Emily had seen a list with all the RWGB guests’ room numbers. She knew Zena’s room was along the end here, something like 236 or 238—though she didn’t really need to know the number. All she had to do was follow the smoke.
The door to Zena’s room was open and Emily peeped in. She saw the charred, damp remains of many purple fashion accessories, including a trilby hat which she had never seen Zena wearing. In the corner of the room, on the dressing table, was the most blackened item. It was shaped like a miniature playhouse or a diorama. At first Emily could only think that it was some kind of apparatus that Zena used to develop her stories, though the objects inside it seemed like strange choices if they were to represent characters in a play. There was a very small glazed pot and a small silver bell, of the kind that a very polite, bedridden invalid might ring to summon help from a family member. In the middle of this diorama was something melted that Emily recognized by its nylon, yellow hair as the remains of Barbie doll. A few scraps of the doll’s clothes were now fused to her misshapen body: she had once been dressed in pink.
Emily looked at the bell and the Barbie doll, and she suddenly knew what this “diorama” must be. It was Zena’s altar. If the Barbie doll represented who she thought it represented, then somewhere in this room…Yes, over there! A Topshop bag. And, inside it, a little pink cardigan with a piece cut out of it, the size roughly suitable to be used to fashion a crude costume for a doll.
She heard Det. Rory James’s voice, in earnest discussion with other voices she didn’t recognize, heading in her direction, and she stuffed the ruined cardigan back in the bag. As the voices drew nearer, she found it easier to make out the words. One of Det. James’s colleagues was saying “…blueprint for murder. Stabbing. Arson. Dogs attacking…Notebook…Seems to make the case for a propensity to violence against women…”
She darted out of Zena’s room and walked back along the corridor, as nonchalantly as possible. Rory nodded at her in greeting but continued his conversation with his two colleagues without breaking his stride. The three of them stopped when they reached Zena’s room, and one of the uniformed officers got out some blue-and-white tape, and began to seal off the area.
As Emily continued walking along the corridor toward the stairs, Dr. Muriel poked her head out of her room.
“Emily!”
“Isn’t it too smoky for you here? I could ask the hotel to find you another room.”
“That’s fine, m’dear. Reminds me of Tibet.” Dr. Muriel jerked her head in the direction of Zena’s room. “Been having a look? Got everything you need for tomorrow, I hope?”
“What’s happening tomorrow?”
“Ah. I thought you’d realized when I asked if we could move my session to kick off the conference. Tomorrow’s the denouement.”
Chapter Seventeen
THE DENOUEMENT
Emily would have said she’d hardly slept at all. But she’d had crazy, smoke-filled dreams, with Archie shouting and breaking out of prison with Lex, and policemen in uniform drop
ping dead after eating poisoned artichoke hearts, and Morgana and Polly holding hands and jumping off the roof and calling, “It’s OK, Emily. We can fly. Come and join us.”
It’s said that a good night’s sleep is a wonderful way to put your thoughts in order. If true, then there was no surer indication that Emily hadn’t had a good night’s sleep. She still had no clear idea about what had happened to Winnie and Teena. Perhaps Dr. Muriel knew what she was doing and they could expect a confession from someone that morning, and Emily wouldn’t have to worry about making sense of things.
She went into the Brunswick room to find that dozens of people had washed in again for the vigil, their presence and absence seeming almost tidal. The pile of cellophane-wrapped flowers was a little higher than yesterday, and the sweet rotting-compost smell that came from the lower layers was more noticeable. Several toy cats had also been left under the table, in acknowledgment of Winnie’s love for her pet. Apparently stuffed representations of Maine coon cats were hard to find in London, because people had brought in black-and-white cats, ginger cats, pink cats. The ginger cats were the most popular. Small ginger cats were on special offer in WHSmith, and there were two branches of the shop in nearby King’s Cross station.
Frazer the bookseller was setting up his stall again, with the cheeriness of someone who expects to make a good few sales. Polly’s pile of books had a beautifully written notice next to it: Nominated for a RAA Lifetime Achievement Award. Polly was at the table, in a pale pink trouser suit, hair tied back neatly, pen in hand, signing books. She looked up at Emily and smiled, and rubbed her wrist ruefully (she had a lot of copies to sign) and then got back to work.
Emily went to the hotel dining room to meet Dr. Muriel for breakfast. The kitchen was functioning again—presumably the police had completed their search—and there were a lot of tired, grumpy, hungover people in the hotel dining room eating the full English breakfast: bacon, sausage, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast.