Chapter Eight
Marika Stefanski, who had been clearing away the lunch tables in the hotel restaurant, watched as a white Mercedes sports car pulled into the car park.
‘Hanna, will you come here?’ she said in halting English. ‘I need to know something.’
At the sound of Marika’s arrogant tone, the other waitress, who was busy removing tablecloths and stuffing them into a laundry bag, stopped what she was doing. She glared across to the spot where Marika was currently standing in one of the far bay windows, staring at something out in the car park.
‘Did you hear me?’ Marika persisted, her gaze still held by whatever was beyond the window.
‘Of course I did.’ In one irritable motion the girl finished pushing the tablecloth into the bag and went to join her.
What now? she wondered. Marika was nothing but a rude bitch.
No one liked her. She had made it clear on her arrival at the hotel that her waitressing job was merely a stepping stone.
Tarwin House was a luxury hotel and here, she’d confided in Hanna, she hoped to snare a husband.
Hanna had given an amused snort. As if the kind of clients who stayed here would find someone like her appealing.
With her long dark hair and striking blue eyes she might be attractive but what good were those attributes when her life was a web of lies?
Since starting work a few weeks ago she had continually boasted of the life she had left behind in Poland, but Nadia and Janina, the other two Polish girls in the team, knew different.
Marika, they’d said, came from a rural area near their own home town and none of the stories about the beautiful mansion house and luxury lifestyle were true.
All of it, they told the others, came from Marika’s rather fanciful imagination.
‘What is it you want to know?’ Hanna asked as she joined her at the window.
‘The Mercedes.’ Marika indicated the car, which had now slotted itself into a vacant parking space. ‘Who does it belong to?’
Before Hanna could answer, the driver, a young man in his early twenties wearing denim board shorts and a white T-shirt, got out and stretched before sweeping a tanned hand through his curly blond hair.
Hanna heard Marika draw in a breath. There was no doubt Jordan Hunter was hot but he wasn’t the sort any decent or sensible girl should get involved with.
He might have a great body, model looks and money, but he had a cruel streak.
Hadn’t she seen enough evidence of that on the occasions she’d offered to work an evening shift in the hotel’s basement club?
None of these silly girls, it seemed, learned any lessons.
Willing victims lined up, ready to spend time with him, only to be callously dumped when he became bored with them.
And during her time at the hotel she had learned Jordan loved to end his romances publicly.
In fact, the more pain and humiliation he could inflict the better.
She knew the name girls back home in the Czech Republic called men like him … kretén.
Hanna noticed Marika’s expression cloud when, moments later, the passenger door opened and a slim girl with shoulder length ash blonde hair emerged.
In skinny jeans and a cropped top she slipped a pale leather bag over her shoulder and joined him, reaching for his hand as they walked towards the hotel entrance.
‘That is Jordan Hunter,’ Hanna said, deciding now was an appropriate time to annoy Marika. ‘His father is a friend of Mr Trevelyan’s. He comes here regularly. Brings his girlfriends for lunch, or to use the spa.’
‘Is that what she is? A girlfriend?’ She heard Marika’s scornful response, her eyes narrowing as she continued to watch the couple.
‘Yes. I believe her name is Chantelle.’ Hanna smiled. ‘She’s very beautiful, don’t you think?’
‘If you like thin women with colourless hair.’ Marika sniffed, turning her attention back to clearing away.
‘Well, he seems to.’ Hanna nodded to where Jordan had now wrapped his arm around Chantelle. He was whispering in her ear and through the open window both girls heard her laughter.
‘For now.’ Marika turned to look at her, wearing that infuriatingly smug smile Hanna and the others had grown to detest. ‘Maybe I can make him change his mind.’
‘What?’ Hanna stifled a laugh. ‘You think you stand a chance with him? He’s rich, Marika. He lives in a different world to you and me. We don’t belong there and anyway he’s—’
Marika held up a hand to stop her. ‘Back home I lived in his world. We had servants, a beautiful home …’
Hanna resisted the impulse to roll her eyes as Marika wheeled out her familiar tale of wealth and privilege once more. She seemed to enjoy setting herself apart, indicating she was better than the rest of the waitressing team. She drew in an exasperated breath as Marika continued.
‘This Jordan Hunter. I tell you he will be mine soon.’
‘You are crazy.’ Hanna shook her head and walked back to begin stripping the cloth from another table. ‘You and him … impossible,’ she laughed.
Marika watched her for a moment then returned to loading her tray with crockery and cutlery. ‘You can laugh,’ Hanna heard her say, ‘you can all laugh, but soon I am telling you I will be the one with the smile on my face.’
‘Do you know where Dad is?’
Cat looked up to see her brother hovering in the doorway of her office. She didn’t like the expression on his face. It was clear something was very wrong.
‘He’s gone out. Said he had something to pick up in Truro. Why?’
‘I’ve just come from the kitchen. Isaac the fish delivery man was there. He says there’s a protest going on outside the mini-market in the High Street.’
‘A protest?’ Cat frowned. ‘What sort of protest?’
‘He wasn’t sure. Something about an elderly woman being escorted off the premises with a warning not to return.’
‘Shoplifting, maybe?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Nathan shook his head. ‘The protesters are her three friends. Sound familiar to you?’
‘Oh no not again.’ Cat groaned. Since Aunt Em’s ban from the hotel her little band of women had been driving Carrenporth businesses mad.
First they went on a temperance mission, haranguing fishermen emerging from The Smugglers at lunchtime and warning them about the dangers of demon drink.
Then they called into one of the galleries and draped a cloth over the statue of a naked woman, Rosalind pronouncing it depraved and disgusting.
Following that they hit the local garden centre, protesting about cruelty to fish and demanding they close the aquatics section there.
It appeared no one was safe from this bunch of marauding women.
At first the locals treated them as mildly amusing eccentrics; bored elderly ladies with nothing better to do. But as time progressed their antics became more extreme, disrupting businesses and causing chaos. ‘It can’t go on,’ she said, ‘pretty soon someone is going to call the police.’
‘Or some journalist will get wind of it and come to investigate,’ Nathan offered, ‘and before you know it they’ll be all over the tabloids. We need to put a stop to this once and for all before Dad gets involved. What has got into Em?’
‘I guess she’s bored. And she’s hoping her behaviour will embarrass Dad enough to get him to let her back into the hotel. So he can keep an eye on her.’
‘She’s crazy if she thinks that’s going to happen,’ Nathan said crossly. ‘You know I’m sure he plans to forgive her but not as long as she has that group of old harridans tagging along. She needs to break away from them. Then he might consider it.’
‘We need to tell her that then. Try and channel her energies in a more positive direction.’
‘Doing what exactly?’
‘I don’t know. Helping out at the local library, maybe. She loves books.’
‘I don’t think that would work. She’d have to be quiet for a start and you know how Em loves to chat.’
‘What about the museum? I heard Adrian Tregorran was looking for some help. Do you think she’d be interested?’
‘We’ll talk about it in the car.’
‘Fine, let’s go then. I’ll drive,’ Cat said, grabbing her car keys and following him out of the room.
By the time they had found a parking space and walked to the High Street a small crowd had gathered in front of the mini-market.
Cat followed Nathan as he eased his way through the cluster of onlookers.
She knew before they reached the cause of all this interest exactly who would be there.
Already she could hear her great-aunt’s voice loudly denouncing the supermarket manager as a thug and a bully.
‘Picking on the elderly,’ Em’s voice declared indignantly.
‘He should be ashamed of himself. Yes, you, I’m talking about you.
’ By this time Cat could see her great-aunt, standing precariously on a plastic chair someone had appropriated from one of the tables outside The Smugglers.
She was pointing an accusing finger at Seth Parkinson, the minimart’s owner.
Usually a large intimidating man, on this occasion he was trying desperately to calm things down, his face pink with frustration.
‘Miss Trevelyan, I assure you I was not picking on anyone. Your colleague,’ he pointed directly at Rosalind, who stood there looking indignant, ‘decided to re-arrange the shop.’
‘I did not,’ Rosalind chirped, her chins wobbling. ‘I was merely sorting out your fruit and veg section. Tomatoes are a fruit, not a vegetable. I was merely making room for them next to the apples and bananas where they belong.’
‘Pardon me, Mrs Myers, but how I run my establishment is absolutely no affair of yours. Traditionally tomatoes belong in the salad section.’
‘Well, that’s entirely the wrong place,’ Rosalind insisted, ‘so I thought it was about time I put things right. And I have to say, Mr Parkinson, if and when I cross your threshold in future, I won’t hesitate to do the same thing again.’