The children walked to the end of a hallway and turned left. Halfway along the passage they came upon a lift and piled inside.
Millie frowned at the four buttons on the panel. ‘Which level do you think we’re on?’ she asked.
‘Well, our rooms are on the eighth floor,’ Alice-Miranda said, ‘but I think Daddy mentioned that reception is on the fourth. So …’
‘Let’s try the top one,’ Sep said just as his sister hit the button for the second floor.
The doors closed but, instead of going up as they expected, it felt like they were going down. The lift soon shuddered to a halt and the doors peeled back to reveal a large storeroom. There were green sacks piled up in one corner, and crates of wine and champagne, foldaway beds, discarded furniture and various bric-a-brac crammed in all over the place.
‘Hold the door and I’ll try to figure out where we are,’ Lucas said, stepping out of the lift.
‘I don’t really like it down here,’ Sloane said, biting on her thumbnail.
Sep rolled his eyes at her. ‘Well, then you shouldn’t have pressed the button.’
‘We’re in the loading dock,’ Lucas called back to them. ‘I think this is where the chocolate is delivered.’
‘How do you know that?’ Jacinta asked.
‘There’s boxes and boxes of it,’ the boy replied.
At the mention of chocolate, Millie shot out of the lift and around the corner, with Alice-Miranda and the others following close behind her. Stacks of large white boxes bearing the Fanger’s Chocolate logo sat alongside crates of champagne.
Jacinta grinned. ‘My mother’s two favourite things.’
‘These must be the award-winning carriers,’ Alice-Miranda said, studying the temperature controls on the side of the sturdy-looking boxes.
‘Fancy another taste?’ Lucas asked as he undid the clip locks on one of the carriers. Inside were rows of beautifully wrapped chocolate bars. He reached in to take one. ‘Whoa, look at the size of them.’
‘Lucas!’ Alice-Miranda scolded. ‘They’re not for us.’
The boy looked at his cousin and then at Jacinta, who shook her head at him. He sighed and put the lid back on. ‘I guess we couldn’t eat that much chocolate, anyway.’
Millie wrinkled her nose. ‘I’d have given it a try,’ she muttered.
‘Come on, we should go,’ Sep said. The parents would be wondering where they had got to, and he was beginning to think guests probably weren’t supposed to hang out in the loading dock.
As the children turned to leave, the large roller-shutter at the end of the room sprang to life. The beeps of a reversing vehicle filtered in from outside. Panicked, Jacinta grabbed Lucas’s hand and ran to the lift. ‘Let’s get out of here!’ she whispered.
‘Keep your hair on,’ Sloane said, scampering after the pair. ‘I thought I was the one who was supposed to be scared.’
Alice-Miranda, Sep and Millie quickly hid behind the mountain of chocolate boxes and watched as the tail-lights of a van came into view. A tall man with a spindly moustache wearing a thick parka and grey beanie jumped out of the driver’s seat. He was talking to himself in German and he didn’t sound happy.
‘Wo ist die blöde Kuh?’ he grumbled as he opened the back doors of the van.
‘Hurry up, you lot,’ Jacinta hissed from inside the lift.
The man spun around and peered into the storeroom. ‘Wer ist da?’ he called out. ‘Frau Doerflinger?’
Millie grimaced. ‘I really don’t want to see that woman again, and I have a feeling she won’t be thrilled to see us down here, either.’
The man grunted, then turned back to the van and began to unload the chocolate boxes.
Millie, Sep and Alice-Miranda silently crept towards the lift to join the others. The doors closed, and before anyone could work out which button to press, the lift jolted into action. It came to a halt just one floor up. As it stopped, the children could hear a familiar voice outside.
‘I have told you I am about to make an offer he cannot refuse,’ the woman said confidently. ‘Of course I am aware of what will happen. I do not take kindly to threats.’
The doors sprang open and the children came face to face with Frau Doerflinger. The woman looked as if she had just seen a ghost – or six of them.
‘What are you doing in here?’ she rasped.
Recovering quickly, Alice-Miranda smiled. ‘Hello Frau Doerflinger. We thought this might be a short cut to the lounge but I’m afraid we’re a little lost.’
The veins in the woman’s neck seemed to be pulsating with her every breath. ‘This area is private!’ she said accusingly. ‘The doors are marked as such and they are locked too.’
‘I’m so sorry, but we didn’t see a sign on the door downstairs,’ Alice-Miranda explained. ‘And it was open.’
‘Liar.’ Delphine suddenly remembered the phone in her hand and raised it to her ear. ‘I will call you back. I have some children to deal with first.’
The way she said ‘children’ sent a shiver up Jacinta’s spine.
‘Alice-Miranda’s not a liar!’ Millie objected. ‘There wasn’t a sign and the door wasn’t locked. Was it, Lucas?’
The boy shook his head, though it occurred to him that perhaps he’d caught it before it had closed properly.
‘This is my hotel and you will play by my rules,’ Delphine snapped, her face fast taking on a crimson hue.
‘What happened to “the customer is always right”?’ Sloane quipped.
Delphine recoiled. ‘You are not my customers. You are spoiled brats whose parents pay for everything. When you make your own money and stay in my hotel, then I will consider you my customers.’
Sloane gulped and Millie blanched. Frau Doerflinger clearly wasn’t to be messed with.
‘Where have you been?’ the woman demanded.
The children exchanged glances. Lucas stepped forward, keen to diffuse the situation before they ended up on the street for the night. ‘We’re terribly sorry if we are somewhere we shouldn’t be. We just rode the lift down and back up again.’
‘And we saw –’ Sloane began before Millie swiftly elbowed her in the ribs. ‘Ow! What did you do that for?’
Millie made a face at her, willing the girl to keep quiet.
Frau Doerflinger narrowed her eyes at them. ‘What did you see?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing,’ Sloane squeaked, shaking her head vigorously.
‘Honestly, Frau Doerflinger, there was no sign or we wouldn’t have come this way. If you could show us how to get back upstairs, we’d be most appreciative.’ Lucas flashed her his winning grin.
Delphine’s lips twitched and she sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils. ‘For a start, you can get out of that lift,’ she snapped.
The children obediently spilled into the hallway. Frau Doerflinger waited for the doors to close before leading them up a staircase at the end of the passage. She flung open a door into a lobby that none of the children recognised.
‘Where are we?’ Jacinta asked.
Delphine Doerflinger closed the door and pointed at the word ‘Private’ printed on it in large black letters. ‘There was no sign, was there?’
‘There wasn’t one downstairs,’ Jacinta retorted, unrepentant.
The woman huffed and walked off along another timber-panelled corridor.
‘Where’s the door?’ Sloane muttered as they reached the end of it. She was beginning to think Frau Doerflinger was actually leading them to some sort of dungeon.
Delphine waved a white card over an invisible sensor and the panel pivoted.
‘Whoa,’ Sep marvelled, impressed. He wondered if all hotels had secret passageways like this. It probably helped the staff move around without being noticed.
The children found themselves in the hallway near the concierge desk. Alice-Miranda’s parents reached the bottom of the staircase just as the children appeared.
‘Goodness, where did you lot come from?’ Hugh said, blinking i
n surprise. ‘I could have sworn you weren’t there a second ago.’
‘We got lost and Frau Doerflinger kindly helped us find our way back upstairs,’ Alice-Miranda explained.
Delphine Doerflinger’s face melted into a smile as she approached Hugh and Cecelia. ‘The poor little mites had got themselves so confused,’ she said with a laugh.
Sloane glanced at Jacinta, who shrugged. The woman was clearly unhinged.
‘Thank you, Frau Doerflinger. I hope they didn’t cause you any trouble,’ Hugh said. He did his best to give the children the hairy eyeball but he wasn’t very good at it.
‘There you are, my darling,’ Otto Fanger sang out, waddling into the room. ‘I’ve been looking for you all over the place.’
‘I’m afraid the children are to blame,’ Cecelia apologised.
‘Please, Madame Highton-Smith, Delphine would not have minded one little bit. She loves children. Don’t you, my petal?’
‘Newsflash,’ Millie whispered. ‘No, she doesn’t.’
Delphine nodded. ‘Children are so … intriguing.’
‘Come, come, everyone, let us get some drinks and canapés. I am starving. It has been a long time since afternoon tea.’ Otto patted his stomach and led the way to an area that had been cordoned off for the event.
‘Yes, children, follow Herr Fanger,’ Frau Doerflinger said. ‘I have asked the chef to prepare some delicious treats for you.’
‘Probably poisoned apples,’ Millie mumbled.
Hugh looked at the girl. ‘What was that, Millie?’
‘Nothing,’ she fibbed.
‘I will be back to join you very soon,’ Delphine promised. With that, the woman turned on her heel and glided out of the hall.
‘I don’t think we should have gone that way. Frau Doerflinger had every right to be upset,’ Alice-Miranda said, feeling guilty.
Millie shook her head. ‘I don’t like her. She’s mean and she’s up to something.’
‘We don’t know that,’ Alice-Miranda said, biting her lip. But she had to admit that there was something about Delphine Doerflinger that didn’t quite add up.
The young woman lazily flicked through the pages of a magazine and slurped on a soda. Her greasy hair was scraped into a messy ponytail and her fingernails bore the remnants of blue polish.
The bell above the door jingled and a man strode in. He glanced around at the peeling paint and mismatched furniture, then gingerly walked up to the reception desk.
Without removing the straw from her mouth, the woman looked up. ‘Are you checking in?’ she asked. She sucked the dregs from the bottle, then belched.
He nodded, a grim smile set on his face. ‘Yes, thank you.’
‘You’re not from around here, are you?’ the girl said. He didn’t look like their usual clientele of backpackers and young skiers. This man was much older, though still handsome. He had a shock of silver hair and wore a black cashmere coat. ‘Do you want me to call Fanger’s Palace or somewhere a bit more upmarket?’ she offered.
The man shook his head. ‘No, no, this is fine,’ he insisted. ‘The booking should be under the name Florian.’
‘Florian …?’
‘Oh, von … no, um, Epple,’ he said. ‘Florian Epple.’
‘Are you sure?’ the receptionist asked.
‘Yes, my name is Florian Epple,’ he said firmly.
The woman flicked through the guest register. ‘Here it is,’ she said, scribbling something down next to the booking. She placed a key on the desk. ‘I think this is for your room, but if you get up there and find that it doesn’t work just come back and I will look again.’
‘Thank you.’ Florian glanced at the number on the key. Thirteen. Of course it was, he thought to himself.
‘That will be two hundred and fifty francs,’ the woman said.
Florian swallowed. ‘Are you sure it’s as much as that?’ he asked.
The receptionist nodded. ‘High season. You should see what they charge over at Fanger’s. I heard from a friend of a friend who works there that some rooms are thousands of francs a night. It would want to be good for that much money.’
Florian took out his wallet and peered inside. He’d have to pay cash as his credit card had already been declined at the train station.
‘By the way, your toilet is blocked, so you’ll have to use the communal bathroom down the hall,’ the woman added. ‘Sorry about that, but the plumber only visits once a week and it clogged up a couple of nights ago.’
Florian was tempted to head back to the station and take the first train home. And what then, pray? he chastised himself. There had been some difficult times before, from which they had emerged relatively unscathed, but this he could not understand.
Florian’s stomach grumbled. ‘I don’t suppose you have room service?’ he asked, then wondered why he had even bothered. This was the last place he’d choose to eat something from.
‘No, but there’s a convenience store just across the road where you can get some takeaway,’ the girl replied.
Florian nodded and picked up his small leather suitcase. ‘Could you tell me how to get to my room?’ he asked.
‘It’s on the third floor,’ she said, looking up. ‘The lift is just through there, but you’ll have to take the stairs because –’
‘The lift man only comes once a week,’ Florian finished.
The receptionist grinned. ‘Ja, sorry about that.’
‘Daddy, isn’t that the Baron?’ Alice-Miranda asked as her family and friends strolled along the snowy street. She pointed at a man climbing the steps to a building across the road. He was holding a small takeaway pizza box.
‘The Baron from Zermatt?’ Millie asked.
Hugh immediately looked over. ‘Florian!’ he called, waving to the man.
Just as he did a bus rounded the corner. The driver blasted the horn and screeched to a halt as another car swerved into the roundabout. For a few seconds the bus completely blocked their view. By the time it moved, the man was gone.
‘Yes,’ Alice-Miranda said to Millie, ‘but I must have been imagining things.’
‘No, I thought it looked like him too,’ her father said. ‘And it’s quite possible he and Giselle have come over for the racing.’
Alice-Miranda skipped along beside her father with Millie. They crossed the street and reached the building they had seen the man enter.
‘It’s a guesthouse,’ Millie said, spotting the two stars on its signage.
‘Do you think Uncle Florian could be staying here?’ Alice-Miranda asked, taking in the flaking paintwork on the door and cracked window beside it.
‘Anything’s possible, I suppose,’ Hugh replied, though he had his doubts. It wasn’t the sort of accommodation the Baron and his wife would normally frequent.
‘You could ask,’ Millie suggested.
‘Good idea,’ Hugh said. He turned to Cecelia, who was walking behind them and chatting to Pippa. ‘Darling, why don’t you all go on to the restaurant?’ he said. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’
‘What are you up to?’ the woman asked.
‘Alice-Miranda and I thought we spotted the Baron, so I just want to check,’ Hugh explained.
Cecelia smiled. ‘Oh, that would be a lovely coincidence. We’ll see you in a minute, then.’
‘We’ll come too, Daddy.’ Alice-Miranda grabbed Millie’s hand and the pair followed Hugh inside.
The reception area was sparsely furnished, almost bare apart from a bicycle and a rack of ski boots off to the left.
Millie pinched her nose. ‘Pooh!’
Hugh looked at the boots. ‘I quite agree, Millie. It isn’t ideal to have a drying rack in the lobby.’
A young woman emerged from the back room, carrying a steaming mug. ‘Hello, are you checking in?’ she asked.
‘No, I just wanted to inquire about a friend of ours that might be staying here,’ Hugh said.
The woman took a sip from the mug and opened up the guest register. ‘Sure,
what’s the name?’
‘Baron von Zwicky,’ Hugh said.
The girl almost spat out her drink. ‘As in a real baron?’
‘Yes,’ Hugh replied, smiling patiently.
‘I don’t think so but I’ll check for you.’ She ran her finger down the list of names and then shrugged. ‘No barons. There are no dukes or kings, either, for that matter.’
‘Sorry to have troubled you,’ Hugh said, clearly disappointed. ‘Come on, girls, we should get going.’
They turned to leave and were hit with another wave of the pungent odour of sweaty feet. Millie turned back to the woman, unable to hold her tongue any longer. ‘You should really find a better place for those boots,’ she said. ‘They stink.’
The receptionist nodded. ‘I know, but someone locked the door to the drying room downstairs and I can’t find the spare key.’ She held up a handful of keychains with keys of all shapes and sizes.
‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea to sort them out?’ Millie asked.
‘Ja, I just don’t have time.’ The woman flipped open the pages of a magazine and sat down on the stool.
Millie frowned. ‘I’d have thought sorting out the smelly boots would be more important than reading that rubbish.’
The woman shook her head. ‘It’s not rubbish, and you never know who might be in St Moritz. Lawrence Ridley was here a few years ago but I didn’t get to meet him because he was constantly surrounded by pesky photographers.’
‘That always happens,’ Alice-Miranda said, taking her friend by the arm. ‘Come on, Millie.’
Hugh waited by the door, hoping neither of the girls elaborated on Lawrence.
‘Goodbye.’ Alice-Miranda waved, but the woman’s eyes were glued to the magazine.
‘Well, I still think you should get rid of those boots,’ Millie huffed, walking to the door. ‘First impressions count, you know, and I wouldn’t want to stay here.’
The receptionist looked up. ‘Me either.’
Millie stepped out onto the street, shaking her head. ‘There’s no way I’d want her working for me.’
‘I couldn’t agree more, Millie,’ Hugh said with a chuckle.
‘You have to ask yourself: what’s wrong with the kids of today?’ Millie tsked.
Alice-Miranda in the Alps Page 4