by Anne Baker
Gary, the security guard, had the keys to the main areas and many of the storerooms. They both went regularly to the kitchen and helped themselves to the same luxury food as the guests.
‘This isn’t a bad life,’ Gary said with his mouth full of smoked salmon. Leo wasn’t so sure. Working here, he could measure what he had against the life of luxury enjoyed by the guests. What he could afford was not enough to keep a woman happy. His wife had called it poverty and left him for a better provider, and so had the woman he’d found to take her place.
‘You’ve got to look on the bright side, mate,’ Gary said. ‘You’ve got a place of your own?’
‘Well, a rented bedsit.’
‘A nice one?’
‘Not bad.’
‘It’s hard to rent anything these days, and in a bedsit you’ll have plenty of company round you. Friends, like.’
‘Too much company sometimes,’ Leo said. ‘Students banging about day and night.’
‘They’re not all young, though, are they?’
‘No, there’s a fellow who works on the trains, but he’s a bit dour, I don’t like him much.’
‘You can’t like everybody, Leo. There must be some you like.’
‘Well, the landlord’s all right.’ Most of the time Gary was all right too. They helped themselves to delicacies from the hotel’s freezers and storerooms to take home.
‘Helps us save on food bills,’ Gary said as he locked the door behind them. ‘I reckon we have a pretty good life here. It’s a question of making the best of it.’
Leo went home. As he let himself into the house, divided into flatlets, he met his landlord, Conor Kennedy, in the hall. Conor was in his sixties and had a bald and shiny head and a hale and hearty manner. He clapped Leo on the shoulder and said in his Irish accent, ‘My friend, is everybody here behaving themselves?’
‘You can see we are.’
Conor used to live in the bedsit Leo now rented on the first floor, number four out of eight, but he’d moved out round the corner into a two-up, two-down of his own. He came back to check on his tenants almost every day and Leo met him often in the nearby Irish pub. He played the occasional game of darts with him.
‘Aye, it’s all quiet contentment here this morning.’
‘It’s rarely quiet,’ Leo told him. ‘That student in the next room to me had a woman in with him all last weekend.’
‘Did he now? Well, that’s not illegal.’ Conor wanted to know what was going on in his property, but was fairly relaxed about what his tenants did. They had to get on with each other and there was to be strictly no fighting. No drugs either, and they had to pay the rent on time.
‘That kid on the ground floor was bawling its head off yesterday,’ Leo said. ‘It’s right below me, and when I asked its mother to keep it quiet so I could sleep, she gave me a right mouthful.’
‘The kid’s ill,’ Conor told him. ‘She’s taking it to the doctor this morning. Poor Maisie’s got a lot to put up with.’
Leo knew Conor Kennedy was sympathetic towards all his tenants, perhaps because he was living on the rents they paid him. But he was extra kind to Maisie. She had the bedsit next to the front door and it was her duty to make sure it was locked at night. They were a feckless lot here on the whole. Maisie also cleaned the shared bathrooms and the stairs. Leo thought she got something knocked off her rent for services like that.
But Conor was friendly enough. He’d occasionally buy Leo a glass of Guinness at the Irish pub, and that was a friendly place too. The landlord there, Tommy McWilliam, welcomed them all. He and Conor had this thing about how wonderful the Irish were: the songs, the food and, of course, the Guinness. Leo told them his mother came from Dublin; he wanted them to like him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ONE EVENING, LEO WENT to work to find four members of the day staff in a state of shocked agitation and in no hurry to go through the handing-over routine. They were chattering together behind the reception desk.
‘Our chief accountant’s been killed,’ one told him. ‘Isn’t it terrible?’
‘Francis Clitheroe, do you know him?’ asked another.
‘No,’ Leo said. He’d never heard of him. Gary, the security guard who usually worked with him, came in.
‘He’s really nice, very friendly. He was on holiday, we had this postcard from him yesterday.’ It was pushed into Leo’s hand. The picture was of a Majorcan beach resort.
‘What’s happened to him?’ Gary asked. The day staff all spoke at once.
‘He went on a jeep safari.’
‘It went off the track, rolled down the mountain and turned over.’
‘It killed both him and his wife.’
‘It’s awful, isn’t it? You never know the moment.’
‘They’re being flown home tomorrow.’
‘But in Majorca?’ Leo asked. ‘That’s all beaches, how could . . . ?’
‘The safari was to the mountains in the north. There are huge mountains there.’
It took the day staff much longer to get on their way home. The security guard was still talking to one of them. Leo turned off most of the lights and, still musing about Francis Clitheroe, went to the main office to sign in. To be chief accountant for a hotel like this, the fellow had done pretty well for himself, but he should never have gone on that jeep safari. His luck had been out that day.
The office supervisor left the signing-in sheets on top of her desk. Leo was used to seeing the other desktops cleared by their owners before they went home, and everything locked up. But tonight, as he picked up the pen to sign, he could see that the supervisor had forgotten to lock her desk. The centre drawer was slightly open. He pulled at it and it slid back, revealing a file clearly marked with the name Francis Lovell Clitheroe.
‘Wow!’ he murmured to himself. Nosiness welled up inside him. He wanted to know more about this man, and here was something that would help him while away the long night hours. He took the file out and slammed the drawer tightly shut.
The bell on the reception desk pinged, letting him know that a guest was seeking his attention. Leo held the file under his arm, making it as inconspicuous as possible, as he hurried back. He passed Gary on his way to sign in. Spending so much time with him, Leo felt they were on chummy terms, but Gary was responsible for security, it wouldn’t do to tell him everything.
There were plenty of hiding places behind the long mahogany reception desk. Leo was able to keep the file out of sight until the place grew quiet and the guard had gone round the hotel on one of his security checks. He chuckled to himself as he opened it. Francis Clitheroe’s sudden death must have thrown everybody off kilter.
He flipped through the contents and the first thing he saw were copies of the man’s birth certificate and educational certificates. Clitheroe had a degree in economics and was a chartered accountant. Leo felt a surge of excitement. Even his bank account details were here, together with the amount of salary that was paid in monthly. It was enough to make his mouth water. Nobody had ever offered him a salary like that.
He hadn’t realised that Francis Clitheroe had only been working at the Exchange Hotel for two months. He’d come with a history of long-time employment in an insurance company in London. Here was a letter from them recommending his services. He was said to be efficient, hard-working and honest. Yes, honest. Leo took a deep breath and stepped back, his heart pounding. Information like this could prove invaluable, and he wondered how he could put it to best use.
Two guests came in and asked for their room key. They kept him chatting for a few moments, but all the time his mind was racing. The question of how he could benefit from Francis Clitheroe’s personal details closed it to everything else.
Leo wondered if he could take Clitheroe’s identity and get himself a better salary. He remembered how he’d borrowed his brother’s birth certificate to help get a job in that pub. It had worked and nobody would ever have found out, not even his brother, if his friend hadn’t come into t
he bar and opened his mouth too wide.
Could he pretend he was Francis Clitheroe? Apply for a job in his name and get away with it? He’d be a trusted member of management, wouldn’t he? No longer the gofer, tea-maker and sweeper-up. Could he do whatever an accountant did? If he wasn’t looking for a career, could he do it for long enough to get his fingers in the till? Well, they’d tried to teach him basic book-keeping in prison and he’d concentrated, thinking he might find it a useful skill. He’d done some when he’d worked for that insurance company, too. Clitheroe had worked for an insurance company. Would anybody doubt him when he had authentic details like this? Leo was simmering with excitement. He could be on to a good thing.
At midnight, Gary locked the front doors. From now on, guests would need to ring the night bell. This was when they went to the kitchen to rustle up some supper. Gary took out his keys and unlocked the main fridge. They made smoked salmon sandwiches and took out a handful of quail’s eggs that had been hard-boiled.
‘They taste like ordinary eggs.’ Leo was disappointed. ‘But they’re fiddly, and it’s twice the trouble to get the shells off. Not worth bothering with.’
There were several trays of individual servings of chocolate mousse, meant for tomorrow’s lunch menu and left in the fridge to set firm overnight. They had one each and voted it excellent. The chef left out a tray every night for them to make tea. Leo made a pot for them to share. They were supposed to bring their own food.
Every night, they took it in turns to have a couple of hours’ kip. Gary did his rounds and brought a blanket and pillow from the store cupboard. He took off his shoes and left them under the reception desk, peeled off his jacket and hung it neatly on the back of an upright chair. Then he padded across the lounge and lay down on a large sofa in the shadows at the far end, pulling the blanket over him.
Leo made himself comfortable behind the reception desk and gave more thought to Francis Clitheroe and the information he had about him. It wasn’t going to be that easy to get money out of his bank account; he’d need to know his mother’s maiden name. Asking a customer to give that was becoming an essential part of bank security.
It occurred to him then that in his position, Francis Clitheroe would probably have a private office. He might be able to find out more about him if he could get into that. Leo knew where the hotel manager’s office was and he thought he’d seen others along the same corridor. He heaved himself out of his chair and listened; he could hear soft sounds of contented sleep coming from Gary’s sofa. He edged over to where the security guard’s jacket was swinging on the back of a chair and felt in the pocket for his keys. He’d done this once before, when he’d taken a duck from the freezer for his Christmas dinner. He knew he had to get a tight grasp on the keys before he moved them so they wouldn’t rattle.
He picked up the powerful torch Gary used in the semi-gloom, unlaced his shoes and crept silently away to look for the accountant’s office. It wasn’t hard to find, Clitheroe’s name was on the door. Leo was about to slip the key into the lock when he pulled up short. Fingerprints. It might not make the slightest difference if he left them plastered everywhere inside the office, but he’d learned enough when he was in jail to know that if ever the police were called in, it could be his downfall. He went swiftly back to the kitchen to get a pair of rubber gloves and felt immediately safer.
He closed the office door behind him and switched on the light. Mr Clitheroe had left his mackintosh swinging on a peg on the door; he’d have that for a start. It took him a few moments to get the desk open – he had to force it – but what he saw made him glad he’d thought of coming. Here was Clitheroe’s security badge with his photograph and fingerprints. Leo studied it. Clitheroe looked a smart professional gent. He also found a new hardback novel, a romance by Rosamund Rogerson. It seemed an unlikely choice for a chief accountant. On the title page the handwritten message read: To my son Francis. You were wrong to bet I’d never get it published. Read it again, hope you enjoy it this time.
Leo looked at the book with new eyes. It appeared to have been written by Clitheroe’s mother. It would be very useful to know his mother’s maiden name, so the book was an amazing find. But how could he find out if Rogerson was her real maiden name or just a nom de plume?
On the flap of the back cover was a picture of the author, who looked no spring chicken; well, she wouldn’t be if Francis was her son. It said she was married to John Lovell Clitheroe, a university professor, and went on to extol his claims to fame. Leo didn’t care about him; he could feel a surge of warm triumph stealing through him. That made her Mrs Clitheroe, so there was a good chance that Rogerson was her maiden name.
He saw Clitheroe’s diary and fell on it with eagerness, hoping to learn more, but it was a desk diary and recorded only appointments and professional meetings. At least he knew something of Francis’s family history.
He stuffed the novel in a pocket in the mackintosh, threw it over his arm and helped himself to an expensive-looking pen before locking up carefully. He returned to the main office and found a large manila envelope; he meant to take the whole file away, including Francis’s postcard. It would be as well to know what his handwriting was like.
Having packed together what he wanted to take home, he went back to the kitchen to make another pot of tea, and poured out two cups. He could hear Gary now, snoring heavily. It was time to wake him up so he could have his turn on the sofa; two hours of comfort. Before doing that, he returned the keys to Gary’s coat pocket and ensured his torch was exactly where he’d left it. Then he padded across the lounge to shake him awake and present him with his cup of tea.
Shortly afterwards, Leo pulled the warm blanket over himself and settled down to give Francis Lovell Clitheroe more thought, but almost immediately, he could feel sleep creeping over him.
As the summer months slipped slowly away, Chloe tried to make up her mind what to do. She felt tense and unhappy, but she tried to pretend to her mother that all was well.
She and Adam were going over and over the same ground and having arguments that escalated into shouting matches and major rows. The level of conflict seemed to rise daily. She’d thought herself to be head over heels in love with Adam, but her doubts about him had worn her love down. His dishonesty was altering everything. She couldn’t rely on the life they had continuing in the same way. There were risks she hadn’t known about.
Chloe knew that if she left Adam, she’d have to go home to Mum. She had no other practical option. Mum would have her, she didn’t doubt that, but it would be embarrassing all round. Helen hadn’t wanted her to live with Adam; she’d wanted them to marry. She’d warned her against doing what she had. But the way things had turned out, Chloe could see that marriage would have solved nothing. It would have made leaving him harder, because it would have meant getting a divorce.
Compounding her problem was that caring for Lucy took up all her time and energy. If she left Adam, she’d need to get a job to support herself and her child. She didn’t feel she could expect her mother to do that, and thought it unlikely that Adam would hand money over to her if she left him. Not with his dishonest ways of increasing his income.
Autumn brought a long spell of cold, damp weather. Adam caught the flu and took to his bed, and Chloe pushed their problems behind her to look after him. Lucy went down with it a week later and she had two fractious patients to care for. Lucy was ill enough for Chloe to get the doctor out to her, and he prescribed antibiotics.
By the time Chloe began to feel ill, Adam was recovering, and because they had a generous amount of domestic help, hot meals could be provided and they were able to cope.
But Chloe took longer to get better and had pain when she breathed in. Adam drove her down to see the doctor and he gave her antibiotics too. It was November before she felt well again.
She felt one good thing had come from it: she and Adam had had to forget their differences to look after each other and were getting along with less friction
. Life at last got back to normal. She wasn’t sure whether he’d given up fencing or whether he was being careful to hide it from her.
She was helping him run his business again and going to sales with him. They were back on friendly terms and he became the ardent lover he used to be.
By December, Chloe was suffering bouts of nausea. She felt as though she was pregnant but dismissed the idea as impossible. She was sure she’d never missed taking her daily pill; she was very careful about that. The feeling didn’t go away, and in January, Adam drove her to her doctor’s surgery.
‘I have to tell you you’re about fourteen weeks pregnant,’ the doctor said.
She’d suspected it, but confirmation shocked her to the core. ‘I can’t be,’ she wailed. ‘I’ve never failed to take the pill.’
‘I’m afraid there’s no mistake.’
‘Fourteen weeks! But how can I be?’
‘It does sometimes happen; if you’re taking one drug, it can be affected by something else you take.’ He studied her notes. ‘Yes, I prescribed penicillin in the middle of October.’
‘Penicillin? I wouldn’t have taken it if I’d known.’
‘I’m sorry, but we in the medical profession are only just finding out the effect one drug can have on another. I wouldn’t have prescribed it for you without explaining this if I’d known. It takes time for these side effects to become apparent.’
Chloe felt ill. Another baby! This rocked her confidence. She’d been so sure the pill would prevent this. Another pregnancy! She was not ready to go through all that again. She walked slowly back to the car, knowing Adam would not welcome her news. Lucy was asleep in her car seat; he was reading a newspaper spread out on the steering wheel.
‘I’m fourteen weeks pregnant,’ she announced.
‘Oh my God! Not another? It’s the last thing we need.’ He spun round at her. ‘I trusted you to be careful. You said you were taking your pill.’