Chapter 7
7
6 NOVEMBER
An almighty crash wakes me from a dead sleep. Did it come from upstairs? There’s no one staying on the third floor though. I sit up and strain to listen. Could someone have broken into the hotel? I fumble for my phone and swipe it to life to see it’s just gone three. I pull the covers back and contemplate investigating. What would I do if faced with an intruder?
Scanning the room, I can’t see one single thing I could use as a weapon to protect myself. What sort of hotelier am I? I jump out of my skin when my door creaks open and I let out a scream when a head appears.
‘Would you stop?’ Manon says, swiping at her sleepy eyes. ‘If there’s a criminal on the loose inside the hotel you’ve just alerted them to our whereabouts.’
‘So you heard it too?’
‘ Oui, obviously. I’m not here to read you a bedtime story . ’ She yawns as if not concerned at all there could be a villain roaming the hotel.
‘Should we check? What if there is someone out there?’ I ask, slightly panicked. ‘Then what?’
‘I’ll handle it.’
Manon does jujitsu and is very good at it, so I trust we’d have a fighting chance if she felt the need to put life and limb on the line. But that’s all well and good if it’s one person. What if there are two? What if there’s a whole gang?
I slide on my robe and then pick up my phone, activating the torch function.
‘ Non! ’ she hisses. ‘He’ll see us coming a mile away.’
‘ He? ’
‘Statistically speaking, he.’
‘Right. Right. I’m not very good at this. I have no true crime experience and I’d like to keep it that way.’
I creep behind Manon, holding on to the corner of her jumper so I don’t fall behind. She keeps brushing my hand off and I keep replacing it. I don’t know jujitsu so I’m not losing sight of my only hope of survival if we do run into a bad guy or three with an ulterior motive.
We check the hallway and find it clear. ‘Didn’t the sound come from above?’ I ask.
Manon grimaces. ‘ Oui , I thought so too, but it seems so much more dangerous going up another level away from the exit, you know?’
I cock my head. I’ve never seen Manon scared. It’s jarring. ‘Are you… frightened?’
‘A little,’ she admits.
I reel back, surprised at her frank admission. ‘How can you be when you read about this sort of thing for fun? You listen to hours of podcasts. To relax , for crying out loud!’
She lifts a shoulder. ‘Well, that’s because I usually feel very safe in my own world and not at all threatened there’s a serial killer lurking about, lying in wait for me.’
‘Serial killer?’ I hold my breath and hope she doesn’t give me one of those ‘statistically speaking’ answers again.
‘It’s best I keep some things to myself. Knowledge is power and all that, but not in every case.’
Mon Dieu! My skin breaks out in goose bumps.
‘We should at least get a knife from the kitchen!’ I hiss.
‘Rookie mistake, Anais. It would take but a moment for him to overpower you, and then guess what? He’s got the knife, and you’re not exactly a fast runner. Boom, he catches you and…’ She makes the horror movie slasher sound.
‘Let’s wake up the backpackers! There’s safety in numbers!’ I march ahead and am suddenly flung backwards as Manon grabs the belt on my dressing gown.
‘No, don’t disturb them.’
‘Why? They’re in danger too!’
She activates the torch on her phone and shines it under her chin, which is a frightening sight to say the least. When she gives me a maniacal grin, I know I’ve been had.
‘You’re the worst cousin in the world, Manon!’
‘This again?’
I shake my head. ‘Revenge will be sweet. My next book will feature a side character named Manon who wears only pink, has a girlish giggle and listens to Mariah Carey’s Christmas album on repeat.’
‘ You wouldn’t! ’
‘Polka-dotted pink!’
‘Fine, I’m sorry!’
‘Good. You are inherently evil, Manon.’
‘Aww, thanks. Look, I’m no Miss Marple but I’d hazard a guess the crashing sound from above was the heavy mirror sitting on the flimsy screw finally falling down.’
I slap my forehead. It’s so obvious in retrospect. We go upstairs to investigate and sure enough at the end of the hallway is the once beautiful mirror face-down on the parquetry.
‘I’ll get a dustpan and broom,’ Manon says and disappears. I lift the heavy frame up and inspect it. The mirror is smashed to smithereens but the frame hasn’t suffered much damage. There are a few nicks and chips but, for an antique mirror, that’s bound to be the case anyway.
Manon jogs back and sweeps up the mess.
‘We can get this fixed. It’s too beautiful not to rescue.’
I stand and stretch, looking at the big hole where the mirror once was. ‘The mirror took a fair chunk of wall with it when it toppled down.’
‘Let me see,’ Manon says, handing me the dustpan and broom. ‘I think I can fit my whole head in there!’ Before I can stop her, her head disappears into the hole.
‘Manon! Who knows what’s hiding in that wall! There could be toxic dust or a build-up of… ah, toxins for all you know!’
‘ Ooh la la! ’
‘What is it?’ I’m not about to believe her again, not after her last attempt at fooling me.
Her head pops out, dusted with plaster crumbs. ‘Anais! Stick your head in there and tell me I’m not seeing things!’
‘Nice try.’
‘I’m not joking this time! Have a look.’
I lean close to the hole and peer through. ‘Is that part of Noah’s property?’
‘ Non , look at the doors.’
My jaw drops when I see the exact same brass numerals that are on each door of L’Hotel du Parc. ‘Suites nineteen and twenty! But – how can that be? Why would they be blocked off with a wall like this?’
Manon considers it for a moment. ‘They must be special? That or they’re derelict.’
I shiver in the cold of the unheated third floor. ‘It’s a little too early in the morning to use a sledgehammer to break down this wall.’ We’d wake up not only the backpackers but probably Noah next door and nothing is worth hearing him harp on about broken sleep and bad manners.
Manon’s shoulders slump. ‘Oui, we don’t want to disrupt the backpackers.’
‘Tomorrow then?’ I glance at the time on my phone. ‘Technically that is today. Let’s try and get some sleep. Not that I’m going to be able to. I’ll be wondering about what’s behind the doors of suites nineteen and twenty.’
Did a family maybe hide in there during the war? Or could it be as simple as Manon suggests, that the rooms are a mess? But surely then just locking the doors would suffice?
It’s more than that. I can feel the secret pulse like a heartbeat as I make my way back to bed.