“I’m not staying in the hotel?”
“That was the plan originally. We have a small loft room we keep for staff in emergency situations, but we had a leak in the roof a few weeks ago that still hasn’t been fixed so you’re using the apartment in the Smuggler’s Inn that we also reserve for staff. It’s small, but the views are great and you’re right in the village so you can take advantage of all the amenities.”
It hadn’t occurred to her that she wouldn’t be staying in the hotel itself. Was that good or bad?
Good, she decided. It might be easier to keep a little distance if she wasn’t on the premises all the time. And she could write up her reports and contact her mother without worrying about someone overhearing.
“It sounds perfect. Thank you for arranging that.”
“I’m glad you’re here. And if you see things you think we need to improve you’re to tell me right away. Don’t spare my feelings. This place is important to me. Ireallywant it to do well.”
It wasn’t the response she’d expected. She’d never met anyone as open and enthusiastic as Evie.
She knew more experienced managers than Evie who would have done anything to avoid asking for feedback.
“How is the hotel doing generally?” Abby didn’t reveal that she already knew the answer to that question.
“It’s great,” Evie said brightly. “Super. We have a few little staffing issues of course, but so does everyone in the hospitality industry. And costs are soaring, which isn’t easy to handle. But I’m confident that everything is going to be fine. Totally fine. Especially now you’re here. I’m glad head office sent you—it’s supportive of them, and that’s good to see. A relief, in fact, after—” Her voice tailed off and her smile dimmed a little. “Actually, things haven’t been that great, to be honest. Lately I’ve had a bad feeling. Not sure if I’m being paranoid.”
Abby waited. Her first assessment of Evie had been wrong, she could see that. She’d thought she was bright and breezy and she was, but she was also weighed down and worried. And good at hiding it.
Evie hesitated and then glanced at her. “We’ve had this man poking around the place and it freaked me out a bit. I first saw him a month ago, when he checked in for a few days. He reminded me of a weasel.”
“A weasel?”
“He was behaving furtively. Several of the guests commented on the fact that they’d seen him loitering in the corridors behaving suspiciously. Every time I saw him he looked guilty and stopped what he was doing.”
Abby frowned. “And what was he doing?”
“Different things.” Evie shrugged. “Measuring doorways and corridors. Staring out of windows. Tapping walls. And he even asked Mrs Masters, one of our long-term guests, for a look inside the King Arthur suite. Fortunately, she isn’t afraid to speak her mind and told him exactly where to put his tape measure, but it left me with a bad feeling. I’ve been waiting for the phone to ring and someone in head office to tell us they were selling The Alexandra, Cornwall to a grasping developer. I imagined this place being renamed Weasel Towers. When they called and told me they were sending you, I breathed a sigh of relief. I’m sure they wouldn’t have done that if they were thinking of selling.” Evie batted a wasp away from the table. “Which is good. I had a bad feeling about him.”
Abby had a bad feeling, too. “What was his name?”
“Well,that’sthe annoying thing. Or one of them. When he checked in he said he was Nicholas Glyn. I happened to be helping behind the desk on that day and something about him didn’t seem right to me, so I kept an eye on him. He didn’t behave like someone on holiday. He didn’t visit anywhere. And he asked for his room not to be touched during his stay which normally we would respect, but we had a leak in one of the bedrooms above and I had to access his bedroom and that’s when I saw the plans.”
“Plans?”
“Building plans. They were spread out over every surface. Turns out he works for a company called Howard Developments. Known for buying land and building holiday homes, although not in Cornwall. That seems to be a first. I did an internet search—there have been a lot of complaints about the quality of his buildings.”
Howard Developments.
Abby felt a flicker of annoyance and made a note to mention it to her mother. She was confident no one had given him permission to look around the hotel.
“And this was a month ago?”
“Yes. I didn’t mention it to anyone because—well, I didn’t have any actual facts. Just a bad feeling. As a manager you can’t dump suspicions on people, can you? But he was back here last week lurking in the grounds. Phillip, our head gardener, saw him and challenged him.”
“Last week? You’re sure?” Abby mulled over the timing. That didn’t make sense, because her mother had turned his offer down before that. Why was he persisting? Perhaps he thought her mother was using a negotiation tactic.
“Yes.” Evie watched her and nodded. “Do you think I’m overreacting? I sometimes do, I know that. I’m a bit of an all-or-nothing person. I consciously have to rein myself in and focus on facts, not feelings.”
Abby wasn’t sure how to respond. Evie was obviously relieved to be able to share the stress of it, and she wanted to reassure her.
But something didn’t feel right to her, either.
“I think it’s good to be observant, and I think if you have a bad feeling about something,” she said slowly, “then it’s worth paying attention to that.”
“Yeah, but it’s not as if I can contact head office and say hey, there’s a suspicious man poking around the hotel and by the way are you planning on selling it? But it’s good to know you agree with me that it was weasel-like behaviour.” She took a sip of her tea and then put her cup down. “It issucha relief to be able to talk about it with someone. I hadn’t realised until this moment how isolated I’ve been feeling. Before I stepped in to cover Gerald I used to be able to talk to everyone, you know? Never had to watch what I said. Didn’t give it a secondthought. I miss that camaraderie. It’s pretty lonely. It’s hard to explain. I don’t expect you to understand.”
