“Room seven, yes,” I told him. “Which is a very nice room, really! The receptionist, Hannah, appears to think so; but she didn’t tell me much about it, didn’t go into details. So Kevin Anderson got drunk and died in a fall from my balcony, did he?” I shook my head wonderingly, and continued: “I suppose there’s no accounting for the way a tragedy like that—the loss of a loved one—will affect someone. And ever since his accident, Kevin’s widow has shunned that room, eh?”
“Hmmm!” McCann pondered, frowning by way of reply. “Shunned it, aye. Well, that’s true as far as it goes. Mahsel’, I rather fancy she’s affeard o’ it! It’s possible she dwells too much on what happened tae Kevin in that room: the part it played in his…well, while I’m sorry tae be sayin’ this, in his frequently drunken deliriums…”
I stared hard at McCann’s dour face with its grey, serious eyes. “You were party to the way the room seemed to affect him? As if it had some sort of bad or even evil influence on him?”
“But did I no just say so?” McCann replied sharply, raising an eyebrow. And he sipped thoughtfully at his drink before continuing. “Aye, I was privy tae all such. Oh, I worked for them, it’s true, but at the same time I’d become a verra close friend tae both o’ them. And I’m still close tae Janet…”
At which point he paused—possibly to consider his loyalty to the Andersons—and I sensed his sudden reticence. I waited, but after several long moments, while I didn’t want to seem too eager for knowledge, still I felt obliged to press him; even to bribe him:
“Gavin, let me get you another drink—” I signalled the bar girl, indicating our requirements, “—to wet your whistle while you tell me the rest of it.”
“The rest o’ it?” he replied. “Well yes, there is a rest o’ it—for what it’s worth and for all that it’s strange—but I must have ye’re word on it that it’s strictly between the two o’ us! We must have respect…not only for the dead but also for the livin’, meanin’ Janet. Kevin Anderson wasnae a madman, just an addict, a slave tae Demon Drink…” With which he tossed his own drink back, and without so much as a grimace.
Kevin Anderson: a madman? Well it was the first I had heard of that possibility. But:
I nodded and repeated McCann, saying, “As you wish, between the two of us; you have my word on it.” But at that very moment our drinks arrived—and both of them were the real thing: two small glasses, full to the brim with amber whisky!
As the girl turned to leave I caught her elbow, explaining, “I didn’t want whisky. Whisky for the chef, yes, but I’m drinking Coke—with a slice of lemon!”
“Oh!” Her hand went to her mouth. “I make mistake! I thinking you want same for both! No problem, I take it back.” But:
“No need for that!” said the canny Scot, reaching for both glasses. Much to my shame, however, I beat him to it! And:
“What?” he said, seeing me take up one of the glasses. “But ye cannae be serious! Not with ye’re problem as ye told it tae me. I’ll no be party tae it. Man, with what happened tae Kevin, with what goes on with any alcoholic, I’d have tae hold mahsel’ at least partly tae blame!”
“One drink,” I told him as the girl moved off. “One and one only. And anyway, surely you can recall my mentioning how I was never a full-blown alcoholic in the first place?”
He nodded. “So ye did, aye. Ah well then, cheers!” And once again he threw back his drink in a single gulp, licked his lips and settled back in his chair. “But no more interruptions, now. Let me get done with it while I’m still in the mood.” And after a moment’s reflection:
“After we moved in here Kevin’s drinkin’ really took off. I think maybe he felt even more insecure. That first year, business was only middlin’; they took in enough tae keep their heads above water, but that’s all. He was hittin’ the stock; she told him tae stop; he began drinkin’ in the town. He’d run a message for the hotel—frequently for me, stuff for mah kitchen—and come back two hours later under the influence. It was verra bad o’ him, or perhaps not. I mean, it was the booze! He was like a man possessed, and what could he do about it? Oh, it had such a grip on him! And yet if ye didnae know him, ye wouldnae ken the state he was in. He kept it hid, drank vodka which is difficult tae smell on a man’s breath, managed tae control his speech and balance both; that is, while yet he retained at least a measure o’ control…
“Aye, but then he took tae sneakin’ in, goin’ tae room number seven—which at the time was a stock room—and sleepin’ it off in there. Janet asked me tae keep an eye on him, tae try and wean him off the drink. Hah! Poor woman: she neither understood the insidious power o’ the booze, nor the strength o’ her husband’s addiction.
“Well, I tried: I’d have a drink with him in town, try tae get him out o’ there when I thought he’d had enough, then shake mah head and leave him tae get on with it when he’d shrug me off and order, ‘just one last drink, Gavin my friend.’ For that was the problem: it never was the last one. And that’s how it went for three years and more, until a time two summer seasons ago.
“That was when Kevin began tae ramble: his ‘hallucinations’ and what have ye—which probably had their origin not only in the booze but also in the problems at the old hotel up there on the hill. Aye, that’s when the worst o’ it began, with all the trouble up there: the weird deaths and what all.
“And it all came taegether as spring turned tae summer…
“First off, a young fellow—fit, full o’ life—was found dead in bed in his balcony room, one o’ them rooms lookin’ down on your room number seven. An autopsy said he’d been smothered, but how when the door was locked from the inside? Accidentally? That didn’t seem right at all! His balcony doors were open, but those balconies up there are too far apart for someone tae jump across from one tae the next. So in the end they had tae settle for a respiratory disorder or some such—maybe a heart attack? Asthma? Hay bleddy fever? None o’ which quite fitted the bill—and they left it at that. The only other thing: he’d had quite a few drinks, and maybe too many, on the night he died. Accordin’ tae the autopsy, however, that hadnae contributed tae what was considered ‘death from natural causes.’
“But a mystery? Damn right! And such a mystery that as I’ve said, I think it may have added tae Kevin’s problem, his drunken hallucinations and delirious raving, for after that he got a lot worse. He was forever in that room; he no longer slept with wee Janet at all but we always knew where tae find him: in room number seven, aye. And if he wasnae sleepin’ he’d be sittin’ on the balcony gazin’ out and up at that place on the hill. As for what he saw up there—what attracted him, other than the mystery o’ that young man’s inexplicable death—well, who can say? But sometimes we’d hear him chunterin’ away tae himsel’, ravin’ on about…well of all things, about a nun!”
A nun? That rang a bell, but one that tolled faintly as yet in the back of my mind. An alarm bell, perhaps? But while I was still trying to locate the source of a suddenly sharpened sensation of unease, McCann was continuing with his story:
“Well, the time came when Janet asked him tae see a psychiatrist: a ‘trick cyclist’, as Kevin would have it. He must have seen it as a real threat, though, for it did in fact straighten him up…well, for a wee while. But the booze and room number seven—and I think that ghostly place up there—they all had him in their thrall, so that in a matter o’ weeks his addiction had the upper hand again and he’d reverted tae his auld habits.
“But ye ken, the locals can tell ye tales about that crumbling place up there; rumour has it that it’s always had a verra unfortunate, even a bad reputation. And as tae why I bring that up now: it’s because o’ another occurrence no more than a month or so after that young fellow pegged it in his room from no apparent cause other than a severe lack o’ breath. But actually it was far more than just another incident or ‘occurrence’: it was the death o’ another guest!