At the rear there was a low stone wall with a raised grassy area behind it, broken up by four parking spaces. Two of them were filled; one by a silver Toyota Corolla, the other by a blue Ford van. Two green dumpsters stood to the right, one of them propped open. In the middle of the building, about head height, gray steam poured out of a wall vent, perhaps indicating a laundry room. The back door was to the right of it. It was wedged ajar.
I went through the open door and heard the hum of washing machines on my left. Straight ahead, another room opened up in which I could see stainless steel counters and racks of pots hanging from the ceiling. Obviously the kitchen. A pile of empty cardboard boxes lay on the floor and I picked one up. Holding the box high on my shoulder, I walked into the kitchen and rapidly assessed the room.
An old, fat cook was cutting vegetables over a deep sink. He turned his head to look at me and I moved the box around so that he couldn’t see my face. With a purposeful stride, I marched on through the room as if I knew exactly where I was going. The tactic probably wouldn’t have worked in a busy city hotel but I prayed it would get me into this sleepy little place.
It did. There was no protest from the cook as I exited the kitchen and carried on down the hallway to the front of the building. I found the elevator, called the car and went inside. There was no way that a building this small could have thirty-three guest suites, so I assumed Room 33 indicated a room on the third floor. I punched ‘3’ on the display and lowered the box.
What if my pursuer decided to come down at this very moment? A ding announced my arrival and my hand flew to the gun at my waist, my thumb pushing up the t-shirt. The elevator door opened, revealing an empty corridor. I stepped out.
My eyes checked the ceiling and walls. There were no video cameras in a place like this. I found Room 33, about halfway between the elevator and the back stairs. Again, there was a simple lock with a lever handle on the door, rather than an electronic key-card slot like city hotels.
I’d got this far with relative ease and wondered if I could get even further. It was now late afternoon and I was pretty sure the tiger be somewhere close to the cottage, watching for me, perhaps planning the best time and place for my assignation. On the other hand, he could be on the other side of the door.
I had a big decision to make. A drop of sweat trickled down my forehead, into my eye. I wiped it dry, rubbed my forehead a little to clear away the whiskey fog. My hand went to the pistol, extracted it.
I knocked on the door with my left hand. No sound inside. I knocked again, louder this time. “Room service,” I called out, with my mouth close to the door. “Room service coming in,” I repeated, feeling ridiculous. Still nothing happened on the other side. I looked left and right then depressed the handle.
It was locked, of course. I put the gun away, took out my wallet and selected an old plastic library card. This sort of thing worked in the movies, right? I forced the card into the narrow crack between the edge of the door and doorframe and slid it down to the metal plate where the lock bar was located. Somehow I had to get the card stuck in behind the bar. I wiggled the card up and down while simultaneously jiggling the door handle. This combination seemed to rock the lock bar and I felt the plastic card snick in and get caught at the top. I sensed that I was nearly there.
While I’d been at the door, the elevator had descended and risen again. Some sixth sense now made me aware of it. Sure enough, it dinged its arrival on the third floor.
My heart raced and I barely kept myself from panicking. Another couple of seconds was all I needed. I bent the card away from the door handle and felt the bar slide back into the body of the lock. The room door opened at the same instant as the elevator.
I dived into the room, shut the door quickly but quietly, and jammed my ear tight against it.
Outside, the elevator door closed again and someone, obviously a woman in heels, walked past me and down the hall. A lock clicked, another door opened and closed. I let out the breath I hadn’t even realised I was holding.
The suite I found myself in was big and I guessed it was the best in the hotel. The two double beds and pull-out couch bed could have accommodated an entire family. With the gun back in my hand, I quickly confirmed that the bathroom just beyond and the clothes closet beside it were both empty of any human occupant.
An expensive looking Nikon camera with a telephoto lens lay on the nearest bed. I reached out to pick it up then froze my hand in mid-air. It looked complicated, with lots of buttons. I had no idea how to scroll through the images and by the time I’d found the right buttons I could accidently have changed some of the settings. Then he’d know that someone had been at it. It was tempting, but could I risk it?
To hell with that. The whiskey was surging through my bloodstream. I picked the camera up, felt its heavy weight and examined the buttons at the back of it. I found the ‘On’ button and pressed it. Images started to display on the view screen.
I felt blood drain from my face and suddenly I was stone cold sober. The camera was full of photographs of my house, the cottage, and me. It was an eerie, unsettling experience to scroll through the images and realise just how closely my otherwise mundane life had been observed and recorded. I switched the camera off with a sense of relief, and placed it carefully back on the bed, exactly where it had been before.
Apart from the camera, there wasn’t much else lying around. Working rapidly, I checked the bathroom and found expensive men’s toiletries around the washbasin and a razor with tiny black hair trapped in it. If the room cleaner had come round this morning she hadn’t done a thorough job; a few long black hairs were wrapped around the bathtub drain.
In the closet about a dozen hangers held expensive casual clothes, including a black track suit and hoodie. I searched the pockets and found nothing. On the closet floor were walking shoes caked with mud and a pair of heavy boots. No suits or ties, so he was not a businessman. On the shelf above the clothes rested a large, hard-sided suitcase. I hauled it down, felt its heavy weight, and placed it on the bed.
It had the brand name ‘Pelican’ on the top and the black polypropylene construction looked solid enough to stop a bullet. On the side, between recessed handles and latches, was a four number combination lock.
Even if I’d had a high-powered electric drill, there wasn’t a chance in hell of me opening this case inside about four hours or so. I lifted it back up onto the shelf and closed the closet.
That was it. I stood in the middle of the room and silently mouthed a curse of frustration. I’d found nothing. A laptop might have been good, though it would probably have been password protected. But there wasn’t even a photograph, letter, book, receipt, nothing.
A frightening thought flashed into my head. I recalled the spy camera I’d noticed in the tree behind my house. There might be one hidden in this room, recording my movements. These things could be tiny, right? He could have put one anywhere. There was an air vent high up on the wall, a likely place to conceal a camera. I squinted my eyes and tried to see if the screws at the corners of the vent panel had been undone recently. No way of telling. I swallowed down the panic.
Then I realised it could be even worse. He might have remote viewing that he could switch on at any moment. He could be watching me right now, as he made his way back here.
I turned and almost ran for the door, barely pausing to listen for anyone outside. In the hallway I took the stairs two at a time, found my way to the back of the building and left the way I’d come.
This time I didn’t have a box to hide my face. I needn’t have worried.
The cook never even gave me a glance.