Siege

Nine

EVEN MORE THAN half an hour later Elena still couldn’t believe what she’d done. She’d assaulted one of the hotel’s best customers. What on earth did you do about that?

Her response had been to get on with her job, and, as always, there was plenty to be getting on with. Already she’d had to deal with a regular business guest who was kicking up a fuss at reception because the room he’d specifically ordered wasn’t available; a couple whose room wasn’t ready because the previous guests had only just been (at last) evicted, and who were trying to wangle a partial refund (they didn’t get one); and three separate complaints about missing room service meals. And all the while she’d been waiting for the inevitable call from Siobhan, the general manager, or a representative of the Stanhope’s owners, the GreenSky Group, telling her that she was dismissed. Or worse still, someone from GreenSky actually showing up and escorting her from the building in front of all the other staff – a humiliation she didn’t think she’d be able to handle.

But so far Elena had heard nothing, not even from Mr Al-Jahabi, who she’d half-expected to come storming into the lobby demanding an immediate apology. So she just carried on.

Right now she was hunting down one of the room service waiters, a new addition to the team called Armin, who’d gone AWOL, and who, according to the kitchen, was the one responsible for at least two of the missing meals. He wasn’t in the usual hiding place in the mezzanine floor’s satellite kitchen – Clinton was still fast asleep in there. She’d asked the catering manager, Rav, to check the male toilets on each floor, but so far he hadn’t shown up there either. As she headed for the fire exit staircase, wondering what could have happened to him, she finally put in a call to Rod.

‘Hi babe, you OK?’ he said, sounding pleased to hear from her.

‘Not really,’ she answered, her voice beginning to shake as she told him about the incident with Mr Al-Jahabi.

When she’d finished, he surprised her by letting out a burst of raucous laughter. ‘Good on ya, babe. It sounds like he’s a right pervert.’

‘But Rod, I could lose my job over this.’

‘Then you’ll have to come back to Oz with me, won’t you?’

She wanted to tell him then that she’d made her mind up to go with him, but decided to break the news when they were sharing a glass of wine after she’d finished her shift and everything had calmed down. ‘I don’t want to leave under a cloud. It wouldn’t be right.’

‘Look, you did the right thing. Don’t worry about it. If they try to sack you over it, we’ll sue the bastards.’

‘Do you think I should call Siobhan and let her know what’s happened?’ she asked, mounting the fire exit steps.

Rod sighed. ‘I would, babe. Otherwise it’ll look like you’re trying to hide something. But don’t worry, all right? You’re going to be fine. We both are.’

She had a sudden, overwhelming urge to go home. To walk out of the hotel and forget the whole bloody job with all its hassles and moaning guests and head back to their little flat and jump straight into his arms. Rod had taken the day off after their late one the previous night – as a self-employed plumber, he could get away with it – and he’d tried to get Elena to do the same. She should have done too. She hadn’t had a day off sick during her whole time at the Stanhope, which given the levels of absenteeism in the hospitality industry almost certainly put her in a minority of one. Instead she’d done the right thing – and now it was going to cost her her job. Siobhan was a supportive GM, and the two of them had always got on well, but Elena couldn’t see her boss siding with her over this one.

‘Shit,’ said Rod down the phone, interrupting her thoughts.

Elena frowned. ‘What is it?’

‘They’re saying on the TV that there’s been an explosion at the Westfield. It sounds like it might be a bomb. Have you heard anything over there?’

The Westfield was barely a mile from where they lived, and she and Rod had been shopping there the other week.

‘No, nothing. But I haven’t been past a TV in the last twenty minutes. Has anyone been hurt?’

‘I don’t think they know yet. It’s only just happened, but they’re saying it’s in the underground car park. Blimey, it’s all going on today, isn’t it? Maybe you ought to come home. Call Siobhan and tell her you’ve been traumatized by your experience with that Arab bloke and get back here for a bit of R and R.’

Elena sighed. ‘I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll take tomorrow off, but I’m the only DM on today so I need to stay put.’

As she spoke, she heard someone talking on the steps above her. Looking up, she saw a young room service waiter on the phone by the third-floor doors. His tray was on the floor in front of him. She’d never met Armin before, but she’d have bet a week’s wages it was him.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she told Rod. ‘I’ll talk to you later, OK?’

Without waiting for an answer, Elena ended the call and marched up to the waiter.

He quickly ended his own call and replaced the phone in his pocket.

‘Armin,’ she snapped, reading his nametag. ‘Where have you been? Rooms 422 and 608 haven’t received their food orders.’ She looked down at the full tray at his feet. ‘I assume that’s them.’

Armin was lean and wiry, and would have been quite good-looking if it hadn’t been for the pinched, aggressive expression he wore. He looked her up and down dismissively. ‘Sorry,’ he said in heavily accented English, sounding like he didn’t mean it. ‘I got held up.’

‘You left the kitchen more than twenty minutes ago. How held up can you be?’

‘I was on the phone.’

‘Who to?’

He hesitated before answering. ‘A friend.’

Elena considered herself a fair boss, and one who didn’t lose her temper easily, but Armin’s bizarrely unapologetic attitude was infuriating her. ‘You shouldn’t be calling your friends in office hours. Especially when you’re in the middle of delivering room service orders. What were you thinking about? Don’t you want this job? Because there are plenty of people out there who do.’

She stopped, realizing that she’d raised her voice, something she’d always been taught to avoid doing since all it showed was that you were losing control of the situation.

Armin looked her right in the eye, and there was such naked rage in his expression that she took a step back. ‘I said I was sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll deliver the order now.’ He picked up the tray and continued up the stairs, leaving Elena staring after him.

She took a deep breath and ran a hand over her face. The confrontation, short as it was, had really shaken her. Partly it was because she was still in shock from what had happened earlier, but it was more than that. It was because she could tell from the way he’d spoken that he despised her. Yet she’d never even met him before.

Beginning to wonder whether it might actually be quite a good idea to pull a sickie, as Rod had suggested, she turned and started back down the stairs, determined to have a word with Rav and get him to sack Armin the moment his shift was finished.