Authors: Catherine Hunt
‘Well,’ George stood by the other door, swaying slightly, trying to find some words.
‘It’s been awesome,’ he said, finally. ‘Really has,’ and he shook Joe’s hand before stumbling into the car.
As the taxi drove off Joe knew it was the last he’d ever see of either of them and their software company.
He walked back towards Anna. As he approached, she opened the car door and looked up at him with a tentative smile, no trace of the tempest she had so recently unleashed.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded, furious, banging his fist in frustration on the car roof.
‘Joe, you were kissing her. I … I couldn’t help it.’ she stuttered, nervously. He’d never been angry with her before and she didn’t like it.
‘She came on to me. She’s an important business client. I’m not going to push her away, am I?’
Anna marshalled every bit of self-control to stop herself from screaming at him, screaming that he was hers, that no one else was having any piece of him and if any stupid tart tried sticking her tongue down his throat then she, Anna, would put a very definite stop to it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a small voice, getting out of the car, taking his hand and pulling him towards her.
He shook her off in annoyance. ‘That’s not fucking good enough, Anna. Your mad bitch from hell act has lost me that job and probably quite a few others.’
She took hold of his hand again. ‘I really am sorry. Forgive me?’
He looked into the sharp green eyes. There was something a little weird in them, he thought.
‘How about we go to Room 21 and forget all about it,’ she whispered.
He wanted to ask if she was crazy but he was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that question. He turned on his heel and went back to work.
Harry struggled to understand what it was he had just witnessed. It had been an astonishing drama and he knew it was crucial in helping him discover what was going on.
He was sitting in his silver Volvo estate in the Greene House Hotel car park. The taxi had been parked close by and he had slid low in the driver’s seat while the man who had been fighting with Anna came over to it with the two passengers. Harry had opened his window a fraction but hadn’t managed to catch any of the conversation. He didn’t think there’d been much. The woman had looked icy, like she couldn’t wait to get away.
He could see Anna sitting in her car, slumped across the steering wheel with her head lying dejectedly on her arms. He had spent the day following her. No doubt Laura Maxwell would call it ‘stalking’. It was risky, very risky, but he couldn’t fuss about that. Things were bad enough already and he’d have to take risks if he was going to save himself.
Martha had been collected early that morning by the family who were taking her to London. Anna stayed put at home and he assumed that, with her daughter away, she had nowhere particular to go. He remembered she didn’t have a lot of girlfriends, but he kept hoping she might visit the boyfriend or he would visit her. It had been looking like a cold and dull waste of time and he was thinking of getting something to eat, when she came out, got in her car and drove to the hotel.
He had been to Greene’s a couple of times for business lunches but had always come by taxi and had no idea of the size of the car park. He took a gamble following his wife’s car into the enclosed space, fingers crossed that she wouldn’t spot him. Until then, he’d been careful to keep his distance and he was relieved to find the car park was large and he could slot into an empty place well away from where his wife parked.
She sat in her car for almost an hour. It was too far away for him to see her clearly, and although he had binoculars with him, he didn’t dare use them. He saw her get out of the car, walk to the door of the hotel as if she was going in, then hesitate and go round the side of the building, stopping to peer in windows as she went. It was bizarre. Who was the stalker now? he wondered grimly. He thought she was heading for the front entrance, but not long after, he saw her coming back through the grounds still looking in windows on the way.
Suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks, staring hard. Moments later all hell kicked off and she was running towards the car park door, beating on it and screaming. He had no idea why, but he heard her yelling, though he couldn’t make out the words.
He didn’t recognize the man who came out and tried to calm her down, nor the couple with him, but he could see the man was very angry with Anna. It was obvious, too, that they knew each other pretty well.
It was a puzzle, but now he would have to stop thinking about it because Anna’s car was on the move and he had to decide whether to follow her or go into the hotel and track down the man.
He chose the hotel, waited until his wife had left, then walked round to the main entrance and into the lobby. The receptionist was busy with some guests so he sauntered casually past and into the hotel proper. He turned left down the corridor sign-posted to the dining room, found it empty, the last of the lunchtime stragglers had gone. He carried on and stood by the door to the car park, returned and investigated another corridor with an office and a conference suite.
He was about to knock on the office door when he heard someone coming along the corridor behind him.
‘Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you?’ It was the receptionist. He read the name ‘Ellie’ on the badge she was wearing.
‘I’m interested in what conference facilities you have,’ Harry gestured towards the suite.
‘I can give you our brochure and maybe you’d like to talk to one of our organizers about exactly what you’re looking for?’ she said, heading back towards reception.
He followed her and waited at the desk while she got him the brochure, telling her he was the managing director of a local housebuilding company.
‘Pelvale Homes. You might know it, Ellie?’ Harry said.
‘Yes, of course, I’ve seen it all over the place,’ she smiled at him. Joe had told her to always flatter a potential customer.
She picked up the phone, dialled Joe’s extension, explained there was a client who might want to hire the conference suite. He sounded delighted. She knew his earlier meeting had ended badly though she didn’t know why. Strange, because it had seemed to be going well. She liked Joe a lot. He had brought some fun and a little bit of glamour to life at Greene’s hotel and she wanted him to succeed. She kept smiling at the pushy man in front of her.
‘Can I just take your name, sir?’
Joe, still on the other end of the phone, heard the reply and the smile left his face. Anna’s husband, here in the hotel only a short time after she had left.
‘Sorry, Ellie, I can’t see him just now. Can you ask Simon,’ he put down the receiver fast.
Joe didn’t believe in coincidence. This was not good news, he felt sure.
Ellie dialled again. The man was leaning towards her, a little too much in her face. Simon, the hotel manager, answered her call, said, yes, he’d be round at once to talk to Harry.
Harry waited, flicking through the brochure.
‘Business good?’ he asked, conversationally.
Ellie said it was.
‘I used to know a guy who worked here,’ Harry smacked his hand on his forehead. ‘Can’t get his name. Tall guy, black hair. Maybe you know him?’
‘I can’t really say, sir, there’s a few fit that description,’ she said.
The manager arrived and he certainly wasn’t the man in the car park. Harry strung it all out as long as possible, asked to see round the conference area, asked to see round the hotel. He sat in the bar for an hour or so, slowly sipping at a beer, positioned where he could see passers-by, but there was no sign of the man he was looking for. At 6 o’clock he reluctantly decided to give it up.
Ellie was at reception when he was leaving and he waved to her.
‘Have you found what you want?’ she asked.
‘I’ve certainly come pretty close,’ he gave a rather twisted smile.
‘Great. Just give me a call if you decide to book or, if I’m not here, talk to Joe Greene. He runs the conferences.’
If there was business in this, Ellie wanted Joe to have it. It was a shame he’d been too busy to see the man; she was sure he was a lot more charming than Simon.
Harry turned round on his way to the door and stared at her.
‘Joe Greene, you say.’ He emphasized the ‘Joe’
‘Yes, he’s one of the owners.’
‘Is he here now?’
‘You’ve just missed him. He left about ten minutes ago.’
The vet had left a message to call, and when Laura rang back, she found him increasingly agitated by Valentine’s condition. Two of Valentine’s ‘four more days’ were gone; after that, in all conscience, she could not let the horse suffer any more. Laura sat with her head in her hands asking herself the dreadful question, should she even wait that long?
The shrill ring of the phone on her desk startled her and she picked it up cautiously as if it might explode in her face. Her fear-ridden mind felt slow and clumsy. It trailed round and round on the same track, like a hamster on a wheel, unable to come up with any new thought about what was happening to her or what she could do about it. She would have to get a grip, she knew; pull out of this passive state of terror.
She heard a foreign voice with a heavy accent and her mind was so preoccupied with her own problems that she couldn’t immediately place it.
‘Laura, you cannot have forgotten me so soon.’ he said, laughing.
She remembered then. It was Karim Chehoudi, the lawyer from Tunis.
‘I’m sorry, Karim, there’s been a lot happening here’ she got herself together, ‘But it’s always lovely to hear from you.’
‘You are flattering me, I think. But you will be pleased to hear my news, I’m sure of that.’
He’d had a tip off. The boy, Ahmed, and his father were booked on a flight to Istanbul in three days’ time. They were spending a week with relatives before returning to Tunis. He waited for the information to sink in, waited for her to understand, was disappointed when she didn’t pick up on it at once. She was usually such a smart lady. ‘Laura, this is Turkey we are talking about. Turkey has signed the Convention.’
She came to life then, concentrating on what he was saying. Fear retreated a step from her immediate thoughts. Of course, he was right. It was that small chance she had been hoping for, that the boy would set foot in a country that had signed the child abduction treaty. If she could get a court order issued urgently, get it served by immigration officials when the pair arrived in Istanbul, the boy could soon be back in England. For the first time in a long time she sniffed success, felt the rush she always felt when she won a case against the odds.
‘Thank you, Karim, I’ll get onto it at once. I owe you.’
‘Dinner will be good,’ he said. ‘I am in London in two weeks’ time.’
Two weeks. It seemed like another century. Would she be alive then? She told him how much she hoped to see him then and meant every word.
Morrison was in her office almost before she realized it. He’d given his usual perfunctory knock and marched in just as she was putting down the phone to Karim Chehoudi. Her brief diversion into another life, a life she used to have where she worked as a solicitor and no one tried to kill her, even though they might have wanted to, was over. It seemed that Monica had spread the word and Morrison had been listening.
‘I’m hearing things, Laura, worrying things. What’s going on?’
‘Not sure I’m with you, Marcus?’ Make him spit it out.
‘The police,’ he hissed. ‘Monica has been telling me.’
She knew his tricks and she wasn’t falling for that one. He wanted her to tell him the story, so he could check her version against the one he’d got from Monica.
Laura felt stronger, buoyed up by the call from Tunis and the chance of getting Mary Hakimi her son back. She would follow Morrison’s own golden rule – never apologize, never explain.
‘Monica?’ she said, puzzled. ‘Has something happened? Afraid I’ve been so busy today with developments on the Hakimi case, I haven’t had time for much else.’
That got his attention as she’d known it would.
‘Developments? Progress, I hope.’
She hadn’t intended to tell him, not yet, not until the boy was back home and safely reunited with his mother, because there were still an awful lot of things that could go wrong. She would have much rather waited for that happy ending, then dropped in to his office and mentioned, casually, that the whole business was resolved, as if there had never been any doubt that it would be. But she wanted to divert him from Monica’s tittle-tattle and so she told him.
Morrison tried hard not to show how pleased he was that her unpromising scheme might actually deliver a result.
‘We need that court order asap. Get the barrister onto it now,’ he ordered, as if it was all his own idea and she hadn’t just said she would be doing exactly that. He was already preparing to take the credit, but, given the nightmare her life had become, she wasn’t in any mood to fight over it.
‘As I said,’ she dredged up a smile, ‘I was about to ring him when you came in.’
There was silence for a moment. She guessed he was considering whether to raise the police visit again. In the end, he contented himself with reminding her about that night’s Law Society dinner, then got up to go.
‘Well, let’s hope there’s an end to this appalling mess.’
‘Yes, with luck we may be close to sorting it out.’
He paused in the doorway, couldn’t resist a parting shot.
‘Don’t celebrate too soon, Laura. Close doesn’t get the cigar, eh?’
Anna sat on the bed and swallowed hard but the lump in her throat wouldn’t go away. Joe had been angry with her, walked away from her, dismissed her as if she disgusted him. She felt she would go mad, the terror of being abandoned by him growing in her brain like a huge, ugly tumour.
She took his photo from under her pillow and kissed it, examined every inch of his handsome face, gazed into the laughing blue eyes, softly stroked the cleft in his chin and ached to put her arms around him.