“It depends how you read it,” said Roz thoughtfully.
“If it were set out neatly for you in a circle it would say Amber hates Amber hates Amber ad infinitum.”
The Belvedere was a typical back-street hotel, two substantial semis knocked together and entered via a flight of steps and a pillared front door. The place had an air of neglect as if its customers sales reps for the main part had deserted it. Roz rang the bell at the reception desk and waited.
A woman in her fifties emerged from a room at the back, all smiles.
“Good afternoon, madam. Welcome to the Belvedere.”
She pulled the registration book towards her.
“Is it a room you’re after?”
What terrible things recessions were, thought Roz. How long could people maintain this sad veneer of confident optimism when the reality was empty order books?
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m afraid it isn’t.” She handed over one of her cards.
“I’m a freelance journalist and I think someone I’m writing about may have stayed here. I was hoping you could identify her photograph for me.”
The woman tapped a finger on the book then pushed it away.
“Will what you write be published?”
Roz nodded.
“And will the Belvedere be mentioned if whoever it is did stay here?”
“Not if you’d rather it wasn’t.”
“My dear, how little you know about the hotel trade. Any publicity would be welcome at the moment.”
Roz laughed as she placed the photograph of Olive on the desk.
“If she came it would have been during the summer of eighty-seven. Were you here then?”
“We were.” The woman spoke with regret.
“We bought in eighty-six when the economy was booming.” She took a pair of glasses from her pocket and popped them on her nose, leaning forward to examine the photograph.
“Oh, yes, I remember her very well. Big girl. She and her husband came most Sundays during that summer. Used to book the room for the day and go home in the evening.” She sighed.
“It was a wonderful arrangement. We were always able to let the room again for the Sunday night. Double pay for one twenty-four-hour period.” She heaved another sigh.
“Chance’d be a fine thing now. I wish we could sell, I really do, but what with so many of the small hotels going bankrupt we wouldn’t even get what we paid for it.
Soldier on, that’s all we can do.”
Roz brought her back to Olive by tapping the photograph.
“What did she and her husband call themselves?”
The woman was amused.
“The usual, I should think. Smith or Brown.”
“Did they sign in?”
“Oh, yes. We’re very particular about our register.”
“Could I take a look?”
“Don’t see why not.” She opened a cupboard under the desk and sorted out the register for 1987. “Now, let me see. Ah, here we are. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. Well, well, they were more imaginative than most.”
She twisted the book so that Roz could look at it.
She gazed at the neat script and thought: Got you, you bastard.
“This is the man’s handwriting.” She knew already.
“Oh, yes,” said the woman.
“He always signed. She was a lot younger than he was and very shy, particularly at the beginning.
She gained in confidence as time passed, they always do, but she never put herself forward. Who is she?”
Roz wondered if the woman would be so keen to help once she knew, but there was no point in keeping it from her. She would learn all the details the minute the book appeared.
“Her name’s Olive Martin.”
“Never heard of her.”
“She’s serving a life sentence for murdering her mother and sister.”
“Good lord! Is she the one who-‘ She made chopping motions with her hands. Roz nodded.
“Good Lord!”
“Do you still want the Belvedere mentioned?”
“Do I heck!” She beamed broadly.
“Of course I do! A murderess in our hotel. Fancy! We’ll have a plaque put up in the bedroom. What are you writing exactly? A book? A magazine article? We’ll provide photographs of the hotel and the room she stayed in. Well, well, I must say. How exciting! If only I’d known.”
Roz laughed. It was a coldbloodedly ghoulish display of pleasure at another’s misfortune but she couldn’t find it in her heart to criticise. Only a fool would look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Before you get too excited,” she warned, ‘the book probably won’t be published for another year and it will be an exoneration of Olive, not a further condemnation. Yeu see, I believe she’s innocent.”
“Better and better. We’ll have the book on sale in the foyer. I knew our luck had to turn eventually.” She beamed at Roz.
“Tell Olive she can stay here free of charge for as long as she likes the minute she gets out of prison. We always look after our regulars.
Now, my dear, anything else I can help you with?”
“Do you have a photocopying machine?”
“We do. Every mod. con. here, you know.”
“Then may I have a copy of this entry in the register? And perhaps you could also give me a description of Mr. Lewis.”
She pursed her lips.
“He wasn’t very memorable. Early fifties. Blond, always wore a dark suit, a smoker. Any good?”
“Maybe. Did his hair look natural? Can you remember?” The woman chuckled.
“There now, I’d forgotten. It never occurred to me till I took them in some tea one day and surprised him adjusting his wig in the mirror. I laughed afterwards, I can tell you. But it was a good one. I wouldn’t have guessed just by looking at him. You know him then?”
Roz nodded.
“Would you recognise him from a photograph?”
“I’ll try. I can usually remember a face when I see it.”
“Visitor for you, Sculptress.” The officer was in the room before Olive had time to hide what she was doing.
“Come on. Get a move on.”
Olive swept her wax figures into one hand and crushed them together in her palm.
“Who is it?”
“The nun.” She looked at Olive’s closed fist.
“What have you got there?”
“Just plasticine.” She uncurled her fingers. The wax figures, carefully painted and clothed in coloured scraps, had merged into a multi-coloured mash, unidentifiable now as the altar candle they had sprung from.
“Well, leave it there. The nun’s come to talk to you, not watch you play with plasticine.”
Hal was asleep at the kitchen table, body rigidly upright, arms resting on the table, head nodding towards his chest. Roz watched him for a moment through the window, then tapped lightly on the glass. His eyes, red-rimmed with exhaustion, snapped open to look at her and she was shocked by the extent of his relief when he saw who it was.
He let her in.
“I hoped you wouldn’t come back,” he said, his face drawn with fatigue.
“What are you so frightened of?” she asked.
He looked at her with something like despair.
“Go home,” he said, ‘this is none of your business.” He went to the sink and ran the cold-water tap, dowsing his head and gasping as the icy stream hit the back of his neck.
From the floor above came a sudden violent hammering.
Roz leapt a foot in the air.
“Oh, my God! What was that?”
He reached out and gripped her arm, pushing her towards the door.
“Go home,” he ordered.
“Now! I don’t want to have to force you, Roz.”
But she stood her ground.
“What’s going on? What was that noise?”
“So help me,” he said grimly, “I will do you some damage if you don’t leave now.” But in outright contradiction to the words, he suddenly put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her.
“Oh, God!” he groaned, smoothing the tumbled hair from her eyes.
“I do not want you involved, Roz. I do not want you involved.”
She was about to say something when over his shoulder she saw the door into the restaurant swing open.