The Chocolate Lovers' Club

by Carole Matthews

  Focused, Chantal punches in the number and then says briskly, “I’m running late. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She sounds as if she means business. If I wasn’t her friend, I’d be scared of her. “Meet me at the bar. Then we’ll go to your room to do the swap.”

  She hangs up. “I hope that bastard doesn’t think there’s anything else on offer.”

  Swiveling round in my seat again, I face Nadia and Autumn. “Are you two ready?”

  “As we’ll ever be,” Nadia says solemnly.

  “Autumn, we’re on first,” I remind her—not that she probably needs me to. Our hippy little friend has a look of grim determination on her face. Autumn has the unenviable task of picking John Smith’s pocket to lift his room key—a skill she has acquired just this afternoon. I hope she’s a good student and that her criminal client has taught her well, as there’s a lot resting on this. While I’m at the bar with him, the girls are going to rifle through his room and then, if all goes well, hotfoot it out of there with Chantal’s jewelry. Simple.

  “I could do with some Dutch courage,” Autumn says with a wavering voice.

  I hand her another Malteser.

  “Thanks.” She munches it gratefully.

  Then I decide that I need some fortification too and eat the rest of the Maltesers in double-quick time. “Good luck everyone,” I say and, before my nerve fails me, I hop out of the car.

  Chapter Forty-six

  AUTUMN AND I ENTER TRINGTON Manor Hotel just in time to see the receptionist at the front desk hand over a plastic key card to Mr. John Smith. “Room 270,” the woman says in a bright singsong voice. “It’s up on the second floor. I hope you enjoy your stay with us, Mr. Smith.” We hang back so that he doesn’t see us.

  This place is very opulent. The carpet must be four inches thick and we both sink deeply into it as we try to saunter in with a casual air. My vertiginous heels make me totter dangerously. Autumn fares better in her rope es-padrilles. There’s a scattering of color-coordinated sofas in tones of burgundy and midnight blue, shadowed by large bay trees in terra-cotta pots. We watch our target closely as he takes his room key and heads toward the lift. This guy looks every inch the sophisticated businessman—confident and poised. Who would have thought that he was a thief and a conman! But then looks— especially good ones—can be deceptive.

  When our Mr. Smith is safely on his way to his room, I phone Chantal to let her and Nadia know the current status, a rush of adrenaline surging through my body. This is really quite exciting in a totally nerve-wracking way. It makes me realize that up until recent weeks, my life has been relatively uneventful. “He’s checked in,” I say, using a stage whisper, “and has taken the case upstairs.”

  I hang up. Turning to Autumn, I tell her, “I’ll go through to the bar now and get myself ensconced. You loiter here until Mr. Smith comes back down. If you go over by that rack of tourist info and pretend to be interested in it, then you’ll have a perfect view of the lifts.”

  Autumn nods at my suggestion. She looks worried half to death.

  “You’ll be great,” I say reassuringly. Giving her hand a quick squeeze for support, I leave her in reception and go through to the bar area.

  It’s fairly quiet in here. On the far side of the room, the lone barman is aimlessly polishing glasses behind the curved mahogany bar. A pianist with more talent than enthusiasm tickles out some bland standards at a baby grand over in the corner—“My Way” is his current offering. It makes me remember my date at the Savoy with Jacob. And to think that I could be out with him now, rather than doing this. … I sigh and continue my perusal of the bar area. There’s a small group of businessmen huddled together on two facing sofas enjoying a raucous laugh. A few couples are dotted around at the other tables. I walk across to the bar, my legs suddenly reluctant to move, feeling as if all eyes are on me. Trying to be as poised as possible given the circumstances, I slip onto a bar stool, choosing one that gives me a clear view of the reception area and Autumn, who’s still lurking behind her potted plant and the tourist information. She’s feigning being engrossed in some sort of pamphlet, but surreptitiously gives me the thumbs-up when I look toward her.

  “What can I get you, madam?” the barman asks and I snap my attention back to him.

  “I’d like a bottle of champagne, please.”

  “We have a good Duval-Leroy.”

  “That’s fine.” I have no idea whether it is or not.

  “Just one glass?”

  “Two,” I say. “I’m expecting a friend.”

  The barman puts two champagne flutes in front of me and then disappears, only to return a moment later with my bottle of fizz. Popping the cork with an expert twist, he then lets the champagne froth into one of the glasses. He raises an eyebrow at me with his hand poised over the other glass.

  I shake my head. “My friend hasn’t arrived yet.”

  He leaves me to my drink and I take the glass, sipping self-consciously. Putting the drugged chocolates on the bar in front of me, I pat them affectionately These babies are our insurance policy. I go over it in my mind: two ridges—clean, three ridges—doctored. Actually, I could really do with one of these yummy chocolates right now. Just a look wouldn’t hurt, surely.

  The lovely scent of vanilla and spices wafts out when I lift the lid. Mmm. These will go very nicely with this glass of champagne. My hand hovers over them, but I pull it back reluctantly. As Clive said, I must exercise restraint. Instead, I knock back my glass of champagne, enjoying the instant buzz that the bubbles give me. It seems a bit stupid now, but I haven’t eaten all day— not even much chocolate—as a bad case of nervous tension had tied my stomach into knots. Consequently, the fizz goes straight to my head. My cheeks instantly flush pink and I’m sure my pupils dilate to cartoon dimensions. The barman comes and pours me another one before I can protest. I down that too and he refills my glass once again.

  Sitting at a bar on your own is a soul-destroying experience and I’m glad that I’m not really waiting for a friend who isn’t going to turn up, otherwise I’d be truly depressed. A few of the businessmen are giving me lingering glances and I try not to acknowledge them as I wouldn’t want to be in the middle of being flirted with by someone else when our target arrives.

  After what seems like an eon, the lift doors open and Mr. John Smith— him of the terrible alias and nasty postcoital habits—strides out. I crane my neck to make sure that I can see Autumn. She grabs another handful of tourist pamphlets from the rack and she’s now striding out too, heading him off Midway across reception, she bumps into him and he knocks all of her tourist information to the floor. He bends down to help her retrieve it, amid a flurry of apologies from Autumn. I can’t hear what they’re saying from here, but it looks as if Autumn has stage-managed this very well. My friend fusses with the literature, picking it up only to drop it again.

  Eventually, he stands and hands the pamphlets he’s collected back to her. He’s smiling in a very charming way. Autumn has gone all coquettish. And I can only sit here and hope that she’s achieved what she set out to. They part and Mr. Smith continues his journey toward the bar. Autumn continues toward the front door of the hotel. When she gets there, she holds up a key card in her hand and gleefully waves it in my direction. I try not to make my jubilant smile too obvious. She’s done it. Autumn has picked his pocket. A bubble of relief bursts inside me and I chuck down some more champagne in celebration. This is going so well.

  “What’s a pretty thing like you doing sitting here alone?” a voice next to me asks and I spin round to see one of the businessmen leering in my face.

  This is disastrous. I see John Smith taking up a seat at the end of the bar. It’s him I need to be chatting me up, not this clown! “I’m waiting for a friend,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Mind if I wait with you?” he says, lurching toward me.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Go on,” he slurs. “Let me buy you a drink.”

  “I alrea
dy have a drink. Thank you.” Go away Idiot Features!

  I can see our target looking over at me. There’s a frown on his brow.

  “A little drink wouldn’t hurt.” Clearly there’s some pride at stake here, as he knows that his colleagues are all watching him and are now tittering between themselves.

  “Thanks, but no,” I reiterate firmly.

  He’s gone crimson in the face and isn’t looking too happy.

  “You heard the lady.” The voice comes from the end of the bar. It’s a very Clint Eastwood type of statement and I’m surprised that it’s coming from Mr. Smith. A chivalrous conman. Now there’s a thing.

  “What’s it to you, mate?”

  “The lady said no,” Mr. Smith says calmly. “Leave her alone.”

  The guy looks like he might square up for a fight, but then one of his colleagues, perhaps sensing that the situation has gone beyond a bit of fun and could well turn ugly, comes across and pulls him away. The man looks embarrassed. “Sorry,” the guy says. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just the drink talking.” Maybe this is a regular occurrence.

  I try to look forgiving, but my hand is shaking. “That’s okay.”

  He steers his colleague back to the group and they all laugh uncertainly.

  This is it, I guess. Now or never. I lift my glass in a toast and tilt it toward Mr. Smith. “Thanks,” I say. “For speaking up on my behalf.”

  “No problem.” He’s certainly handsome. If I wasn’t here on Operation Liberate Chantal’s Jewelry and didn’t know all about his dark side, then I’d be seriously tempted to chat him up if I saw him in a bar.

  “Perhaps you’d join me in a glass of champagne?” I suggest. “Then you can protect me while I wait for my friend.”

  He smiles at me, but hesitates. Panic pulsates through me. Supposing he doesn’t bite. What then? I give him a flash of my whopping fake diamond ring. And I don’t know if that’s what swings it, but after a moment, he leaves his own seat and takes the one next to me instead. “I’m also waiting for someone,” he says. “Business.”

  Don’t I know it, buddy! I hastily splash some champagne into a glass and hand it to him so that he feels beholden to stay with me for one drink, at least. Will that give the girls enough time to go up to his room? I wonder. I have to keep him here for as long as I can. “Lucy Brown,” I say. If he can have an unimaginative alias, then so can I.

  “John Smith,” he replies.

  As we clink our glasses together, I see three little heads pop up by the window. My friends are staring through the glass, checking whether the next part of the plan is working. Now all I have to do is be witty, charming and alluring for as long as it takes them to search through his stuff I’d better have some more champagne. Their heads disappear.

  “To my knight in shining armor,” I say.

  We both laugh and I think, You bastard!

  Chapter Forty-seven

  CHANTAL, NADIA AND AUTUMN WAITED until the receptionist’s back was turned and then they hightailed it across the lobby and jumped into the lift as the doors opened. Autumn clutched her booty. “It’s Room 270,” she said to the other members of the Chocolate Lovers’ Club.

  They were all nervously chewing their lips, the sound of Norah Jones and “Come Away With Me” singularly failing to soothe them.

  “I hope that this doesn’t take long,” Chantal said, her breathing shallow.

  At the second floor, the doors opened again and they cautiously peered out. No one was around. They kept close together as they went along the deserted corridor looking for Room 270. As soon as the room was located, they slotted in the key card and slipped inside. The room could have been in any hotel, anywhere in the world; it was clean, nicely appointed and utterly bland. Mr. Smith clearly had made little use of the facilities on offer. The tray of tea-making accoutrements lay untouched, the television was still displaying Trington Manor welcomes Mr. Smith on the screen.

  Chantal experienced a flashback to when she’d been in a hotel room with this guy. Her stomach turned at the thought of it. All she wanted to do was get her jewelry back and get out of here. John Smith’s attaché case was sitting on the dressing table, beside the television. She went across and grabbed it, flinging it to the bed. They all gathered round expectantly. But when Chantal tried to click open the clasp, she found it was locked. “Goddammit!” She banged her fist on top of it.

  “Here. Let me see if I can open it,” Autumn said. “I had quite a few useful lessons from my client this afternoon.”

  Their friend pulled a metal nail file out of her handbag and worked it into the lock of the case. A minute later, the lid sprang open. Even Autumn looked surprised.

  “Fantastic,” Chantal cried, and she rifled inside the case. There was nothing there. No sign of her necklace, rings or bracelets. Just a copy of that day’s Financial Times lay untouched, pink and perfect, in the bottom. At that moment, she could have wept. This was a stupid, half-baked idea and she should have known that it would never work.

  “We have to search the whole room,” Nadia said. “And quickly. I don’t know how long Lucy will be able to entertain that guy before he gets suspicious.”

  “We’d better get a move on,” Autumn agreed.

  “What about the room safe?” Chantal suggested. “I’ll check that.” She opened the wardrobe doors in succession until she located it tucked at the back of one of the shelves. The mini-safe was, of course, also locked. She turned to Autumn. “I don’t suppose safe breaking is part of your repertoire too?”

  “Yes, although we only covered a few of the basics,” her friend admitted without irony. “We ran out of time.”

  Nadia and Chantal laughed. Autumn grinned proudly.

  “You are a dark horse, Autumn,” Nadia said. “I hope they don’t hear about your newly acquired skills down at the Green Party. You’d be blacklisted.”

  “Give me a few minutes with this,” she said, “while you two go through the rest of the place.”

  So, Autumn concentrated on opening the safe, while Nadia and Chantal checked under the bed, under the mattress and the pillows, in all of the cupboards and the drawers, behind the curtains, on top of the pelmet and in the waste bins. They even checked whether Chantal’s jewelry had been taped to the bottom of one of the chairs. But they could find nothing.

  “It’s got to be in the safe,” Chantal said. “It can’t be anywhere else.”

  “Come on, Autumn,” Nadia urged. “Do your stuff.” They both sagged back onto the bed and sighed deeply while they waited.

  A few moments later, Autumn said, very quietly, “Bingo.”

  “Good girl!” Chantal exclaimed, and they both dashed to the safe where their friend was still crouching.

  “Nothing,” Autumn said with a disbelieving shake of her head. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Where the hell can it be?”

  “Could he have it in his pockets?” Nadia asked.

  “I didn’t feel anything when I was searching for the room key,” Autumn said. “But maybe I struck lucky. I didn’t have the time or opportunity to give him a thorough frisking. He could very well have them hidden about his person.”

  “Damn.” Chantal sucked in her breath. “Now what do we do?”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  “I’M GIGGLING LIKE A LOON. I’ve hitched up my dress so that I’m exposing a fair amount of thigh and I’ve let my shoulder strap slip seductively down my arm. For the last twenty minutes or more, I’ve been trying to pour as much fizz as possible down Mr. John Smith’s neck. We’re onto our second bottle—at his insistence and expense. He seems to be holding his drink very well, whereas I am three sheets to the wind.

  The businessmen have just departed and the couples have started to thin out too, everyone heading back to their rooms until there are very few of us left in the bar. We’re on the point of exhausting general chitchat, particularly as I’m lying through my teeth to him. He thinks I’m a marketing executive for a computer co
mpany and I think he’s a smarmy bastard. Mr. Smith is now glancing surreptitiously at his watch and I get the feeling that my charming company is starting to pale. Though I’ve noticed that he’s clocked my fake diamonds more than once. I give him another flash of my twenty-one-diamond tennis bracelet—worth a princely £21. My mobile rings and I fish in my handbag for it. This had better not be my mother phoning to tell me about some row she’s had with one of the neighbors or the new shade of her hair color or how hot it is in Spain compared to Britain or how little she’s had to eat today. All of them form the usual topics of her conversation. And her timing is appalling. Why does she always seem to catch me in the middle of a crisis? I answer briskly. “Hello?”

  “It’s Chantal,” my friend says in a whisper.

  I turn away from Mr. Smith, so that he’ll have no chance of catching even a snippet of our conversation. This had better be good news.

  “We need more time,” she tells me. “We’ve searched his room from top to bottom and the goddamn jewelry isn’t here. It’s not in the case. It’s not in the safe. Can you check out his pockets?”

  Looks like the drugged chocolates are going to be needed, after all.

  “Will do,” I reply. “Talk to you soon.” I hang up and then give a nonchalant little shrug to Mr. Smith. “My friend doesn’t seem to be coming.” Seem comes out as “sheem.” I try to appear coquettish. “Looks like I’m stuck here alone.”

  “Yes,” he agrees.

  I eye the chocolates on the bar and pull them toward me, flirtatiously. “I think we should eat her birthday present.”

  “I’m not a big chocolate fan,” Mr. Smith tells me.

  Is this guy a complete arsehole? Not a chocolate fan? My brain is having trouble computing that. But then my brain is having trouble computing much at the moment. Good grief, I shouldn’t have got tucked into the fizz quite so enthusiastically. I feel dizzy.