Chapter 7
These healthy types had to eat too, but they were the sort to turn their nose up at food they deemed to be too predictably full of enemy calories.
Lee reckoned he’d cracked it with the variety of dishes on offer and he’d even tried some of them.
He wasn’t one for health and fitness, and he barely had time to do anything other than earn a wage, but his new job was important to him.
His promotion to head of conference and banqueting at the Heron Hall Hotel on the shore of Rydal Water had gone to his head, and he waltzed around the final event of the afternoon checking the guests were happy with their low-sugar ginger champagne cocktails.
He was consummately friendly and professional.
It was only day two of the four-day conference and everyone was on a high after the speech by the woman who sneaked away for a clandestine cigarette whenever she could. Her mutiny amused him.
Lee had worked silently in the background as speakers lectured about pills and potions that could reduce your waistline, stop depression, lower cholesterol and promote longevity.
They were lofty promises, and he was cynical about their efficacy, but it wasn’t his place to question the claims of science, and there were plenty of experts here.
They knew better than he did. His weekly shop consisted of whatever he found in the supermarket, and he wondered who had time, or the money, to shop for the concoctions being promoted by the guest speakers.
He was tired of hearing slender women in their twenties promising diet shakes that really worked and testosterone-fuelled gym bunnies proclaiming a miracle new protein bar delivering every nutrient required to achieve their rippling physiques.
They were liars and charlatans. He’d seen them in the hotel gym when he topped up the water cooler, and he recognised the telltale signs of starvation and medical injections: that gaunt skeletal look that was so in vogue now.
There was nothing wrong with steak and butter in Lee’s book, but he kept his views to himself and pocketed the generous tips and smiled sweetly.
The attendees of the conference were mostly young, ignorant and very wealthy.
As well as sales and marketing reps, they also had podcasters, YouTubers and Instagram stars who made money from followers and clickbait.
It was a symposium of beautiful people who knew everything but understood very little.
They lived in a bubble and for the duration of the forum, Lee indulged their whims. It was a well-orchestrated sales event, that was all.
But the woman called Sandy stood out. She was an older woman and not like the others. She smoked heavily – he’d seen her down by the lake when he nipped out for his own nicotine fix – and she looked exotically wizened, as if she’d existed on common sense her whole life.
Lee couldn’t help thinking that they were all a bunch of lunatic Dr Frankensteins playing with the human body, but it wasn’t the woman’s speech he’d been interested in; it was the mischief in her smile.
He could tell she’d once been a good-time girl and Lee had been working in the hotel industry long enough to spot when a woman was lonely.
He’d watched her from the back of the hall, between giving out orders for clean napkins.
She was an expert speaker, bringing just the right balance of emotion and professionalism to her presentation.
She’d received a standing ovation for her delivery, and he could tell she was respected in her field.
She’d talked of metabolism, disease management and clinical experiments and had received rapturous applause, but Lee wasn’t interested in any of that.
A couple of days ago, before the conference got going, they’d shared a cigarette during one of his breaks down at the lake.
She’d joined him on the jetty, overlooking the tiny body of water, and he’d asked her how she was able to smoke cigarettes and preach about fitness at the same time.
She’d laughed and told him that her job had nothing to do with her personal life.
Her lips had tripped over the words in a way that made him feel intrigued and had assured Lee that she was flirting with him.
The age gap didn’t bother him. A beautiful woman stayed beautiful no matter her age.
She wore no ring on her wedding finger and her eyes twinkled like stars when she lingered a little too long on what she wanted from the bar.
She’d insisted it was brought to her room and that’s when he’d enjoyed her company for a couple of hours, learning not for the first time that older women not only knew exactly what they wanted, but also how to get it.
Now, his eyes found her as she appeared beyond the entrance outside, through the highly polished glass doors.
She didn’t see him at first but then she nodded over her shoulder at him.
He guessed she’d been out for a cigarette, enjoying the glorious sunshine of the late afternoon.
She looked distracted. The hotel buzzed with energy and the hum of conversation filled the seating areas near the foyer.
He put down the tray of nibbles, which nobody was interested in anyway, and headed to the double doors, his body tense with anticipation of a repeat of this afternoon when they’d spent an hour in her suite.
He got halfway across the entrance, which sat underneath a dramatic atrium, before a loud bellow, followed by a crunching noise, made everyone duck.
The sound of chatter ceased immediately, and people looked at one another, unsure what had occurred, until a delegate screamed, and Lee covered his ears.
He lost sight of Sandy through the glass doors, and his lust deserted him as he tried to make sense of the chaos ensuing rapidly around him.
Then he saw the blood.
The crunch had been a body breaking on the tile floor as it dropped from the atrium above the main entrance.
People screamed, some darted away, others reached for their phones. The VIPs’ bodyguards from the US, who hung around the organisers, drew their weapons and people only screamed louder and panicked even more. He saw a podcaster recording on her phone.
Lee realised his legs had turned to jelly but he knew he must take charge. He walked quietly to the scene, aware that he felt terribly sick, and he knew that his body had gone into the first stages of shock. He breathed deeply, not wanting to look, but not being able to glance away either.
The man’s body was skewed awkwardly, twisted and crumpled. Blood seeped from beneath him. A woman behind him gasped and another cried.
‘He jumped!’ someone shouted.
Lee looked up to the atrium and saw no one up there.
Then the man moved.
Lee shot back, along with those standing around him.
The poor bastard was still alive.
The sense of the surreal which had taken hold now eased and noise and life rushed back at Lee and he heard more screaming, running and phone conversations. Somebody shouted that they’d called an ambulance.
Two floors encircled the atrium, and the top one was thirty feet above their heads. The guy had hit the ground like a sack of rocks, headfirst, but he had definitely moved.
Then a gurgle left his lips, and his head shifted, just an inch, but enough for Lee to holler at everyone present to stand back.
His staff scuttled around, some being helpful, others less so. Some cried; others ran away. Humans behaved curiously in a crisis…
The bodyguards put away their weapons and stern words were given by the large Texan VIP in the cream suit. The hawk-like woman with him, the one called Tilda Dent, covered her mouth.
Lee went to grab a tablecloth to cover the man but stopped, questioning if he was contaminating the scene of a suicide.
Or something else… His brain whirred and his managerial head made him indecisive.
Instead, he held up the sheet to block the view of the body and as he did so, his heel backed into the man’s blood.
He slipped backwards and fell over, dragging the sheet on top of him and ending up across the man’s broken body.
The man groaned and Lee desperately scrambled to his feet.
But now he struggled to gain traction to get himself up because his hands were in the blood and his knees were soaked in it.
It was slippery and Lee was surprised by its warmth.
It felt as though the blood itself was more alive than the man.
He saw that the podcaster with the phone was still filming the whole thing and Lee tried his hardest to stand up, holding out his hands to prevent the camera closing in on his face.
She continued recording even though he screamed at her to stop.
The dreadfulness of the moment seemed like a slow-motion horror show and he saw faces staring at him in bewilderment.
Another member of staff threw serviettes over the blood and helped Lee up.
He turned back to assess the mess. There was smeared blood all over the floor of the atrium and the lights of the water feature in the middle illuminated the sheen on the tacky red liquid draining from the man.
Behind him, people continued to shout and scream and sob. But nobody did anything.
The man on the floor groaned once more, and Lee went to him.
‘Hang in there, man, an ambulance is on its way,’ he whispered to him. Lee knelt alongside him and humanity, from somewhere deep inside of him, made him hold the guy’s hand. He thought he saw him move his mouth and he leant close to see if he could make out what he was telling him.
As he got closer, the guy whispered something, though it could have been a gurgle of blood as he fought hard for breath. Lee was unsure, but he could have sworn he said something.
He looked up and into the eyes of the two VIPs with whom he’d been liaising for the duration of the conference, and months before that.
One was the Texan; the other was the hard-balled woman from New York.
Hank Hampton and Tilda Dent. Their bodyguards stood around them protecting them rather than checking if there was an existential danger of anyone else getting hurt.
They stood over him as if demanding answers, as if it was his fault.
Funnily enough, he did feel guilty.
Their suits were clean and their cheeks rosy from the champagne cocktails.
Their smug faces were framed by the lights above their heads and Lee felt as though he was being judged, as if he was part of the tragedy on the floor.
They looked at him as if he was leaching blood too.
As if he was a lab rat being experimented on by mad doctors.
They seemed more concerned with the mess than with the suffering of the poor sod who’d fallen.
Still, nobody helped him.
Then the man’s hand slipped out of his and Lee realised he’d stopped moving altogether.
Instinct kicked in and he fingered the man’s neck. There was no pulse at all, and the guy’s face was turning grey and his lips blue. His eyes remained wide open, and Lee reached out to close them.
He looked at the man’s name badge pinned to his yellow T-shirt, now covered in thick, oozing blood, though Lee already knew who he was. The man who’d plunged from the atrium was Jamie Robbins.
And Sandy had disappeared.