Chapter 15
It wasn’t quite as dark on the balcony that ran along this side of the lobby. A wan grey-ish light filtered in through the windows, thickening the shadows to solid black. But down below, on the lobby floor, two circles of light had converged in front of the huge metal stag.
Roberta switched her phone’s torch off and crept forwards, ears straining.
‘. . . did he?’
‘Oh, like you wouldn’t believe!’
Not quite whispering, but not far off it.
She edged her way to the staircase and padded down it on soft careful feet, not making a sound.
‘Then I don’t suppose we’ve got any choice, do we?’
‘Nope.’
Closer, skirting the back end of the statue like a ninja.
Closer. Closer.
‘Still, at least—’
Roberta leapt from the shadows. ‘What-ho, sharny bumholes?’
Swear to God, the pair of them leapt about six foot in the air and screamed like frightened rabbits.
She grinned as PC McKinnon and Sergeant Moore tried to get their breath back, hands clutching their chests, faces going from pale-as-a-sheet to beetroot.
‘Bloody hell.’ Moore stared at her. ‘Frightened the life out of me!’
McKinnon nodded. Trying to pretend he hadn’t just pooped himself. ‘Ma’am.’
Well, he wasn’t getting off that lightly.
She poked him in the chest. ‘I’ve got one word to say to you, Constable: wellington sodding boots!’
A puzzled chin-in frown. ‘But that’s three words.’
‘So’s “rectal shoe insertion”. Which is what you deserve for letting me tromp through the bastarding monsoon this morning when there were wellington boots in the Land Rover!’
‘Ah . . . Erm, here:’ he dug into one of the pockets on his stabproof and produced a blue plastic torch. Clicked the button and handed it over. ‘Found them in a utility cupboard. Got one for the Sarge too.’
As peace offerings went, it wasn’t great, but never look a gift torch in the mouth.
She tried it out on the cavernous lobby. The beam wasn’t exactly lighthouse-bright. Better than her phone, though. ‘What happened to the proper lights?’
‘They switched off the generator at ten to save on diesel. Everyone’s meant to be asleep anyway . . .’
Sergeant Moore leaned back against the statue’s plinth. Arms crossed. ‘I still say we should lock them in their rooms. Stop them getting out and up to things.’
‘Aye, but what if there’s a fire, Sarge? Health and Safety would do their nit if we got everyone killed.’
Moore stared at him. ‘“Nut”, you twit. Do their nut.’
‘What did I say?’
‘You said “do their nit.”’
‘Did I? That’s—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. Shut up, the pair of you.
’ Roberta shone her torch in their eyes to drive the point home.
‘We’re no’ locking people in their rooms. The wee loon might be a nutwit, but he’s right.
Here’s the deal: we split the night into three shifts.
I’ll take first go; McKinnon, you’re midnight till four; and Sergeant Moore can do the dawn patrol. ’
McKinnon checked his watch, face like a spanked puppy. ‘But it’s gone half ten now! How come I’ve got a four-hour shift and you’ve only got ninety minutes?’
‘Cos I’m in charge, and nobody likes a whinge.’ She gave him a poke. ‘And don’t just find yourself somewhere cosy to hole up: patrol. Make sure all the doors and windows are locked too.’
Sergeant Moore jerked his chin towards the front of the hotel. ‘What about Albert Nairn? He’s got keys, remember?’
‘Aye, but he’ll no’ risk anything if he knows we’re waiting for him. So make sure you swing your torches about a bit – make a real show out of being on guard. OK?’
‘OK.’ McKinnon put his hand in the middle, palm down, and, after a pause, Moore put his hand on top of it.
They both looked at her, eyebrows up, waiting for that third hand on the pile.
‘What are you, six?’ She shooed them away. ‘Go on: sod off the pair of you and get some rest.’ Pointing a finger at McKinnon. ‘I’ll see you at twelve.’
Somewhere off in the depths of the hotel, a grandfather clock chimed eleven long sonorous bongs as Roberta wandered along the corridor, playing her new torch across the stuffed animals and oil paintings.
Who thought it was a good idea to fill what was obviously meant to be a luxury hotel with dead things? Place was like a furry mausoleum.
She tried the window at the end of the corridor. Locked.
Then turned and headed back the way she’d come, past all those stiff limbs and wings and claws and beaks.
Every now and then, there’d be this strange noise, like distant voices, but by the time she’d got there, the room or passageway was empty. Not voices at all, just the sounds of an ancient house feeling its age.
Roberta stepped out into the lobby again.
Or maybe it was ghosts?
Christ knew there were enough dead badgers and crows and foxes and deer in here to haunt the place. Call in Ghostbusters and they’d get trampled in the stampede.
With any luck, the long-dead menagerie would find Lord Fitzroy-Galbraith wandering the halls on his tod one night and gore the misogynistic bugger to death. Then eat him.
She tried the hotel’s front doors again – locked – turned around and headed through to the library, shoulders drooping, feet scuffing on the tartan carpet.
Big room, double height. Each of its four walls were clarted with books, their spines glittering in the yellowy torchlight, all segregated into genres and formats – the crime fiction paperbacks banished to the furthest reaches of the upstairs balcony, going by the garish spines and lurid titles.
Lots of polished wood and dead things in display cabinets.
Windows looking out onto the rainy gloom.
A fireplace large enough to roast a whole lawyer in.
Pfff . . .
God this was boring.
Roberta checked her watch, but it was still only 23:08. Nearly an hour to go.
Going to be a long night.
Come on, come on, come on . . .
She stood in the corridor right outside ‘GLENKEITH’, watching the numbers tick down. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one . . . that grandfather clock whirred into life again, sounding its long echoing bongs.
And, at long last, the witching hour had arrived.
Roberta raised her fist to knock, but before her knuckles could get anywhere near the door, it opened and PC McKinnon slithered his way out into the corridor, easing the door shut behind him.
He had his police boots in his hand, a big toe performing a cheeky peekaboo through his left sock.
Dressed in the full Police Scotland ninja black.
His voice was barely a whisper. ‘Barbara’s sleeping. ’
‘Oh aye? All shagged out is she? You dirty sod.’ Roberta tapped him on the stabproof chest with her torch, causing angular shadows to dance across his sticky-out Adam’s apple. ‘Just make sure nothing happens on your watch, OK? After last night, I need all the shuteye I can get.’
She turned and swaggered off, humming ‘Patricia the Stripper’, leaving the hotel in McKinnon’s semi-capable hands.
No, Mr Horse, you can’t come into the car. Because you’re too hairy and you smell of cheese. No. Don’t get into the car, can’t you see it’s on fire? Stop knocking on the roof with your horrible hooves, you can’t come into the burning—
Roberta spluttered upright in bed with an ear-thrummeling snork and sat there, in the dark, blinking at . . . Where the hell was she? This wasn’t home.
She rubbed a hand across her face and peered out into the darkness.
Phone. Phone on the bedside cabinet.
Picking it up set the screen glowing, banishing a little bit of the gloom, revealing a tartan bedspread, with murderous threats of further tartan beyond. Ah. Right. Skirivour Castle Hotel. The poncy palace of plaid.
She sagged back into her pillows and let free a jaw-popping yawn. Threw in a little burp for luck. Sighed.
Time was it?
The glowing red numbers on her phone read, ‘02:16’.
Gah . . .
Far too early for crap like—
Was that voices?
She sat up again as a faint thump sounded somewhere out in the hall.
OK, there was definitely somebody there.
Roberta scrambled from the bed and into her T-shirt and jeans – no time to waste pulling on underwear, this was strictly a commando exercise. Grabbed the torch on her way from the room. Locking the door behind her. Just in case.
Dear Lord, it was dark.
The torch’s beam slid across the tartan carpet and up across the walls. No sign of anything but the creepy stuffed animals in their creepy display cases.
She crept her way down the corridor and eased the door at the end open, stepping out onto the balcony. Stupid torch wasn’t nearly as bright as it’d been when McKinnon handed it over – the light a bit yellow and feeble. And getting more feeble with every minute.
‘Oh, for God’s sake . . .’
Trust that wee idiot to give her the dud.
Bashing it against her palm a few times made it brighten a little, but not much. Still, better than nothing. She played it across the lobby to the opposite balcony. Nobody there. Nobody down at ground level either. Well, unless they were hiding behind the monster stag.
Roberta picked her way down the stairs and out onto the lobby floor. Checked around the back of the statue, just in case.
No one.
She tried a sort of shouty whisper. ‘McKinnon?’
No reply.
The front-door handles wouldn’t turn when she tried them, so they were still locked – the key sticking out of its keyhole. Not the most robust of home-security measures, but it should stop Albert Nairn getting his key in the other side.
Right. So it was time to play ‘Find The Useless Constable’.
Left or right?
Six of one.