‘Did I? That’s—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. Shut up, the pair of you.’ Roberta shone her torch in their eyes to drive the point home. ‘We’reno’ locking people in their rooms. The wee loon might be a nutwit, but he’s right. Here’s the deal: we split the night into three shifts. I’ll take first go; McKinnon, you’re midnight till four; and Sergeant Moore can do the dawn patrol.’
McKinnon checked his watch, face like a spanked puppy. ‘But it’s gone half ten now! How come I’ve got a four-hour shift and you’ve only got ninety minutes?’
‘Cos I’m in charge, and nobody likes a whinge.’ She gave him a poke. ‘And don’t just find yourself somewhere cosy to hole up:patrol. Make sure all the doors and windows are locked too.’
Sergeant Moore jerked his chin towards the front of the hotel. ‘What about Albert Nairn? He’s got keys, remember?’
‘Aye, but he’ll no’ risk anything if he knows we’re waiting for him. So make sure you swing your torches about a bit – make a realshowout of being on guard. OK?’
‘OK.’ McKinnon put his hand in the middle, palm down, and, after a pause, Moore put his hand on top of it.
They both looked at her, eyebrows up, waiting for that third hand on the pile.
‘What are you, six?’ She shooed them away. ‘Go on: sod off the pair of you and get some rest.’ Pointing a finger at McKinnon. ‘I’ll seeyouat twelve.’
Somewhere off in the depths of the hotel, a grandfather clock chimed eleven long sonorous bongs as Roberta wandered along the corridor, playing her new torch across the stuffed animals and oil paintings.
Who thought it was a good idea to fill what was obviously meant to be a luxury hotel with dead things? Place was like a furry mausoleum.
She tried the window at the end of the corridor. Locked.
Then turned and headed back the way she’d come, past all those stiff limbs and wings and claws and beaks.
Every now and then, there’d be this strange noise, like distant voices, but by the time she’d got there, the room or passageway was empty. Not voices at all, just the sounds of an ancient house feeling its age.
Roberta stepped out into the lobby again.
Or maybe it was ghosts?
Christ knew there were enough dead badgers and crows and foxes and deer in here to haunt the place. Call in Ghostbusters and they’d get trampled in the stampede.
With any luck, the long-dead menagerie would find Lord Fitzroy-Galbraith wandering the halls on his tod one night and gore the misogynistic bugger to death. Then eat him.
She tried the hotel’s front doors again – locked – turned around and headed through to the library, shoulders drooping, feet scuffing on the tartan carpet. Big room, double height. Each of its four walls were clarted with books, their spines glittering in the yellowy torchlight, all segregated into genres and formats – the crime fiction paperbacks banished to the furthest reaches of the upstairs balcony, going by the garish spines and lurid titles. Lots of polished wood and dead things in display cabinets. Windows looking out onto the rainy gloom. A fireplace large enough to roast a whole lawyer in.
Pfff...
God this was boring.
Roberta checked her watch, but it was still only 23:08. Nearlyan hourto go.
Going to be alongnight.
Come on, come on, come on...
She stood in the corridor right outside ‘GLENKEITH’, watching the numbers tick down. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... that grandfather clock whirred into life again, sounding its long echoing bongs.
And, at long last, the witching hour had arrived.
Roberta raised her fist to knock, but before her knuckles could get anywhere near the door, it opened and PC McKinnon slithered his way out into the corridor, easing the door shut behind him. He had his police boots in his hand, a big toe performing a cheeky peekaboo through his left sock. Dressed in the full Police Scotland ninja black. His voice was barely a whisper. ‘Barbara’s sleeping.’
‘Oh aye? All shagged out is she? You dirty sod.’ Roberta tapped him on the stabproof chest with her torch, causing angular shadows to dance across his sticky-out Adam’s apple. ‘Just make sure nothing happens on your watch, OK? After last night, I need all the shuteye I can get.’
She turned and swaggered off, humming ‘Patricia the Stripper’, leaving the hotel in McKinnon’s semi-capable hands.
No, Mr Horse, you can’t come into the car. Because you’re too hairy and you smell of cheese. No. Don’t get into the car, can’t you see it’s on fire? Stop knocking on the roof with your horrible hooves, you can’t come into the burning—
