No Help For The Dying

Chapter 4

Riley expected to find herself in a corridor leading towards the centre of the hotel complex. Instead she’d landed in what felt like a large stock cupboard. It was about six feet square, heavy with the mixed aromas of cleaning fluids and polish. By inching her way around in the dark, she found two walls lined with wooden shelves holding cleaning gear and some metal containers. The third was taken up with vacuum cleaners and buckets, and the fourth wall included a door with a thin crack of light showing at the edges. It wasn’t much, but sufficient to give her some bearings. She nosed up to the door and listened. If there was anyone out there, they were being very quiet.

She felt for the door handle. It was a standard doorknob with a small locking mechanism in the centre. She snicked it open and a wave of warm, musty air flowed through the gap, carrying a faint smell of carpets and damp.

Riley slid off her jacket and draped it over the handle of one of the vacuum cleaners. It left her in jeans and a plain white shirt. Might as well try and look like a guest, just in case. As an added extra, she messed up her hair and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. It was unlikely to be flattering, but this was business.

When she stepped outside, she found herself in a dead-end corridor lit by overhead strip lighting, with a heavily patterned carpet underfoot and an occasional bland print on the bare brick walls between rooms. She walked towards the far end, where a sign indicated stairs one way and reception the other. At a guess, 210, Henry’s room, would be on the first or second floor, but until she spotted a sign, she’d have to run blind. She just hoped it didn’t turn out to be next to the one where the fight had taken place.

A sudden clatter made her jump. It was an ice-making machine and drinks dispenser set in an alcove. It gave her an idea, and she retraced her steps to the cleaning cupboard, where she took down one of the containers she’d noticed on a shelf. It was an aluminium ice bucket, standard issue in every hotel room from Alaska to Zanzibar. She walked back to the ice machine and jammed it under the dispenser.

The noise was horrendous, making her jump. When the bucket was full, she headed for the stairs. Fortunately, nobody seemed to have been disturbed by the clatter, and everything was quiet save for a vague murmur which could have been a television or the grumbling of the heating system.

Riley walked up to the first floor, where the signs indicated rooms 101–199. So, second floor it was, then. As she turned to go up the next flight of stairs, a uniformed PC stepped out of the shadows off the landing and stood looking down at her.

Riley brushed her hair back and peered at the signs on the wall, then gave what she hoped was the goofy smile of the terminally jet-lagged. ‘This place is like a maze,’ she said, stifling a yawn, and climbed the stairs, moving to step past him. But he reached out an arm and barred her way. Riley felt her stomach go cold.

‘Which floor are you on, then?’ he asked, adding, ‘miss.’

‘Three, I think,’ she replied, trying to recall if there was a three. ‘The ice machine up there looked dirty, so I came looking for another one.’ Before the officer could react, she peered up at him and said: ‘Look, what’s all the noise about? It’s worse than Oxford Street. And why are you lot asking everybody questions?’

She was counting on playing the aggrieved and disturbed guest to work, and it did. His eyes slid from her red eyes and rumpled hair to her boots, taking in the ice bucket on the way. Riley was impressed; there was no pause in his look on the way down, proving he didn’t appear to see beyond the fact that she was simply another guest.

He dropped his arm and gave her the benefit of a half smile. ‘There’s been an incident involving a guest on the second floor,’ he explained. ‘Nothing to worry about. I take it you didn’t hear anything unusual?’

‘No, sorry. Like I told your colleague, I had the television on. I couldn’t sleep.’ She rattled the ice bucket. ‘Thirsty, too.’

‘Colleague?’

‘That’s right. Tall man… looked like Wild Bill Hickock.’ When the PC frowned she added: ‘Not the moustache — the gun.’

He relaxed and stepped aside. ‘In that case, you’d better get back to your room, miss. We don’t want another guest disappearing, do we?’

Riley walked up to the second floor and checked the corridor, then pushed open the door, flinching at the sucking noise made by the draught excluders. Voices came from a room just a few doors down on her right, followed by a short bark of laughter. As she approached, a man stepped out and walked towards her. He wore a rumpled suit, with the tired expression of someone who had been up all night and didn’t expect to get to bed anytime soon. Riley yawned, but didn’t catch his eye. They passed each other without speaking, ships in the night. Well, morning.

As she drew level with the open door, she saw the number and felt her stomach lurch. 210. Henry’s room! What the hell was happening here? She paused and looked in, and saw a man standing by a television set in one corner, scribbling in a notebook. He wore a suit and heavy shoes, his feet surrounded by shards of broken glass. Near the door was a roll of coloured crime-scene tape.

The bathroom light was on, spilling out into the room and illuminating a section of pale wallpaper, and Riley could hear a ventilator fan humming noisily in the background. But what caught her attention was a shocking smear of dark red running down the wall and across the white doorframe.

‘Excuse me, miss.’

She turned. The first man was watching her from the open door at the end. She waved apologetically and continued walking away from him, but he called again. ‘Hey — miss?’

It was time to go. Another ten steps took her to the far end of the corridor, with a fire exit on the right-hand side. Using her shoulder to thrust it open, she ran down a set of bare concrete steps coated with a non-slip surface. She heard muffled footsteps pounding heavily along the corridor she had just left, and an exchange of voices.

She hit the next landing on the run and continued on down. She probably had a few seconds before someone thought to use a radio to shut off the downstairs exits. If she could get back to the cleaning cupboard, she had a good chance of getting out and clear before they got organised.

A glance through the glass panel showed the bottom corridor was deserted. As she hit the door a volley of shouting echoed down the stair well behind her. She sprinted along the final stretch of carpet, praying nobody chose this moment to come out of their room. She dumped the contents of the ice bucket in the dispenser then ducked into the cupboard, where she wiped the bucket with a piece of paper towel before replacing it on the shelf and retrieving her jacket.

The rear car park was clear. She shut the door behind her and hurried back to the car. She felt exposed and vulnerable under the rows of windows, but there was no burst of shouting and no heavy footsteps to intercept her. As she reached the Golf and fumbled with the keys, an engine burst into life on the other side of the car park and a white delivery van nosed out past the barrier. Riley tucked herself in behind it and followed it out onto the Bath Road, joining an already growing convoy of commuter traffic heading into central London.

Back at the flat, as if taunting her with the idea of a day not yet done, the answerphone light was blinking to announce a waiting message. She hit the button and began to take off her jacket. A familiar voice filled the room.

It was John Mitcheson.

‘I told you she wouldn’t be back.’ Madge Beckett watched as her husband, George, did a tour of the flat. It didn’t take long. It wasn’t much more than a glorified bed-sit, really, with a separate kitchenette off to one side through a sliding door. American kitchen, the builder had told them when he’d shown them the plans; everyone was having them. A bathroom was just along the passageway with a toilet next to that. It wasn’t much but their tenant had never asked for more. She’d seemed happy, anyway, staying here over seven years in all. Most tenants moved on long before that, always saying they’d found something better, something they could call home; a real step up, was the implication, as if this was merely a staging post. But with most of them you knew that wasn’t true. This one, though, had seemed different. Settled, she’d been. Like she’d found her place in the world.

‘But just like that? It doesn’t sound like her.’ Madge thought George sounded dismayed, as if the young woman had been his own daughter and she’d run off with their life savings. He flicked at some of the personal objects around the room, on the sideboard and the dressing table, brushing them with his fingertips as if they might tell him a secret. ‘Why would she just leave?’

Madge didn’t know. She shrugged and stared past him out of the window at the rooftops of Chesham. If she squinted hard, she fancied she could almost see the shimmering haze of traffic pollution off the M25 round north-west London.

Jennifer Bush had wandered in one day in answer to an advert in the local newsagents, and she’d taken the flat, as they’d grandly called it, without a murmur. She’d brought in a few things; a CD player with a stack of Asian-sounding music, a small trunk and a load of books, but that was all. A special needs teacher, she’d let slip one day when Madge asked her what she did for a living. For autistic kids and the like. And here she’d stayed, quiet, self-contained and never a noise or a cross word for anyone. Until two days ago. Madge had heard her go out in the early morning, while it was still dark. She’d bumped against something on the way down the stairs, which was unlike Jennifer; she was usually so considerate. Seconds later Madge thought she’d heard a car door slam, but it could have been her imagination.

‘A man, you reckon?’ George said, picking up an object like a small drum on a stick, with some tassels attached. He tapped it against his hand but there was no sound so he put it down again. He sniffed loudly and picked at a partially burned incense stick, stuck into a small pot of white sand. ‘Stuff stinks, doesn’t it? What good does it do?’

‘It never harmed us,’ said Madge quietly. She felt sad looking around this room, with its neatly made bed, its few scattered ornaments and books. She’d only been in here a couple of times, to sort out a problem with the blinds and another with the heater. There had never been any need, otherwise. But suddenly she knew the girl wasn’t coming back. She could feel it. She reached out and took George’s hand, an instinctive source of comfort. ‘It’s only incense… joss-sticks. Smells quite nice to me. And so what if it was a man? She’s entitled, isn’t she, a nice girl like that? Maybe she was just waiting for the right one to come along. Same as I’ve been doing all my life.’

George looked at his wife with raised eyebrows. ‘Very funny. I know you don’t mean that.’ He moved past her, shaking his head, but kept hold of her hand. ‘So what do we do, then — wait for her to show up? She’s left all her things here.’

‘We’ll give it a few days.’ Madge turned to follow him, wondering where Jennifer, their quiet, sad, trouble-free tenant, burner of joss sticks and lover of mystical, eastern music had gone. And, not for the first time, where she had come from.