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8
‘I simply don’t understand it. I don’t understand why he doesn’t want me to be involved.’
Bill Knight was slumped over the wheel of the Mercedes, staring down at his beige patent leather shoes, shaking his head as he tried to fathom this latest, and probably final, SIS insult to his operational abilities. A passer-by, gazing through the window, might have assumed that he was weeping.
‘Darling, he does want you to be involved. He just wants you to be on the outside. He needs you to keep an eye on the door.’
‘At two o’clock in the morning? Who comes back to a hotel at two o’clock in the morning? He doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t think I’m up to it. He’s been told that you’re the star. It was ever thus.’
Barbara Knight had mopped and soothed her husband’s fragile ego for almost forty years, through myriad professional humiliations, incessant financial crises, even his own hapless infidelities. She squeezed his clenched fingers as they gripped the handbrake and tried to resolve this latest crisis as best she could.
‘Plenty of people come back to a hotel at two o’clock in the morning, Bill. You’re just too old to remember.’ That was a mistake, reminding him of his age. She tried a different approach. ‘Kell needs to gain control of the reservations system. If somebody comes through the door and sees him behind the desk, they might smell a rat.’
‘Oh balls,’ said Knight. ‘It isn’t possible to get into any half-decent hotel in the world at that hour without first ringing a bell and having someone come down to let you in. Kell is fobbing me off. I’ll be wasting my time out here.’
Right on cue, two guests appeared at the entrance to the Hotel Gillespie, rang the doorbell and waited as the night porter made his way to the bottom of the stairs. It was as though they had been provided by a mischievous god to illustrate Knight’s point. The porter assessed their credentials and allowed them to pass into the lobby. Bill and Barbara Knight, parked fifty metres away, saw the whole thing through the windscreen of their superannuated Mercedes.
‘See?’ he said, with weary triumph.
Barbara was momentarily lost for words.
‘Nevertheless,’ she managed, ‘it’s best if they don’t ring the bell. Why don’t you buy yourself a packet of cigarettes and just loiter outside or something? You could still be very useful, darling.’
Knight felt that he was being hoodwinked. ‘I don’t smoke,’ he said, and Barbara summoned the last of her strength in the face of his petulance.
‘Look, it’s perfectly clear that there’s no role for you in the hotel. Kell wants me to play Miss Marple and make a nuisance of myself. If we go in as husband and wife, I’m automatically less vulnerable. Do you see?’
Knight ignored the question. Barbara finally lost her patience.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you simply went home.’
‘Went home?’ Knight reared up from the wheel and Barbara saw that his eyes were stung with resentment; oddly, it was the same wretched expression that he wore after almost every conversation with their errant thirty-six-year-old son. ‘I’m not going to leave you alone in a hotel with a man we don’t know, working all hours of the night on some crackpot scheme to …’
‘Darling, he’s hardly someone we don’t know …’
‘I don’t like the look of him. I don’t like his manner.’
‘Well, I’m sure the feeling is mutual.’
That was a second mistake. Knight inhaled violently through his nose and turned to stare out of the window. Moments later, he had switched on the engine and was beckoning Barbara to leave, purely by force of his body language.
‘Don’t be cross,’ she said, one hand on the door, the other still on the handbrake. She was desperate to get into the hotel and to check into her room, to fulfil the task that had been given to her. Her husband’s constant neediness was pointless and counter-productive. ‘You know it isn’t personal.’ An overweight man wearing a tracksuit and bright white trainers walked past the Gillespie, turned left along Rue Alberti and disappeared. ‘I’ll be perfectly all right. I’ll call you in less than an hour. Just wait in a café if you’re worried. Tom will probably send me home in a couple of hours.’
‘What café? I’m sixty-two years old, for goodness’ sake. I can’t go and sit in a café.’ Knight continued to stare out of the window. He looked like a jilted lover. ‘In any case, don’t be so ridiculous. I can’t abandon my post. He wants me watching the fucking entrance.’
It began to rain. Barbara shook her head and reached for the door. She didn’t like to hear her husband swearing. On the back seat of the Mercedes was a sausage bag in which the Knights usually ferried bottles and cans to a recycling area in Menton. She had stuffed it with a scrunched-up copy of Nice-Matin, an old hat and a pair of Wellington boots. She picked it up. ‘Just remember that we’ve had a lot of fun in the last few days,’ she said. ‘And that we’re being very well paid.’ Her words appeared to have no visible impact. ‘I’ll ring you as soon as I get to my room, Bill.’ A gentle kiss on the cheek. ‘Promise.’
9
Kell drained the last of the Johnnie Walker and picked up the landline on the bedside table. He dialled ‘0’ for Reception. The night porter answered on the second ring.
‘Oui, bonsoir, Monsieur Uniacke.’
It was now just a question of spinning the story. The wi-fi in his room wasn’t connecting, Kell said. Could Reception check the system? The porter apologized for the inconvenience, dictated a new network key over the phone, and hoped that Monsieur Uniacke would have better luck second time around.
He didn’t. Ten minutes later, Kell picked up the laptop and took a lift down to the ground floor. The lobby was deserted. The two guests who had been drinking cognacs in the bar had gone to bed, their table wiped clean. The lights had been dimmed and there was no sign of the barmaid.
Kell walked towards the reception desk. He had been standing there for several seconds before the night porter, lost in his textbook in the back office, looked up, jerked out of his seat and apologized for ignoring him.
‘Pas de problème,’ Kell replied. It was always advisable to speak to the French in their mother tongue; you earned their confidence and respect that much more quickly. He flipped open the laptop, pointed to the screen and explained that he was still having difficulty connecting. ‘Is there anybody in the hotel who might be able to help?’
‘I’m afraid not, sir. I’m here alone until five o’clock. But you may find that the signal is stronger in the lobby. I can suggest that you take a seat in the bar and try to connect from there.’
Kell looked across at the darkened lounge. The porter seemed to read his mind.
‘It will be easy to turn up the lights. Perhaps you would also like to take something from the bar?’
‘That would be very kind.’
Moments later, the porter had opened a low connecting door into the lobby and disappeared behind the bar. Kell picked up the laptop, quickly moved the bowl of potpourri on the counter six inches to the left, and followed him.
‘What are you reading?’ he called out, selecting a table with a partial view of the lobby. The porter was flicking a panel of lights beside a sign saying FIRE EXIT. Kell had still not been able to find any evidence of CCTV.
‘It’s for my college,’ he replied, raising his voice to be heard. ‘I’m taking a course in quantum theory.’
It was a subject about which Kell knew very little: a few half-remembered book reviews; the odd chat on Start the Week. Nevertheless, he was able to hold a brief conversation about black holes and Stephen Hawking while the porter fetched him a glass of mineral water. He introduced himself as ‘Pierre’. Within a few minutes, the two men had developed that particular rapport which is characteristic of strangers who find themselves alone at night while the world around them sleeps. Kell could sense that Pierre perceived him as easygoing and without threat. It probably suited him to have a guest to talk to; it made the time pass more quickly.
‘Looks like I’ve got a signal,’ he announced.
Pierre, tucking in a loose section of shirt, smiled in relief. Kell navigated to a moribund SIS email account and began to read the messages. ‘I’ll be out of your way as soon as possible.’
‘Take your time, Monsieur Uniacke, take your time. There’s no hurry. If you need anything more, just let me know.’
Moments later, the bell rang at the entrance to the hotel. Pierre walked across the lobby, skipped down the stairs and briefly disappeared from view. Kell could hear a woman talking in flustered and apologetic English about the ‘blasted weather’ and how sorry she was for ‘disturbing the hotel so late at night’.
Barbara.
‘This way, madame.’
Pierre shouldered the sausage bag and led her up into the lobby with practised charm, passing behind the reception desk in order to process her details.
She checked in like a pro.
‘Oh the flight was terrible. I’m not sure that the captain quite knew what he was doing. One moment we were in the air, the next he was bumping us down on the tarmac like a tractor. Do excuse me for not speaking French. I lived in the Loire as a young woman and used to be able to get by quite well, but at my age these things seem to disappear from one’s brain, don’t you find?’
‘Is it just yourself staying with us, madame?’
‘Just myself, yes. My husband, poor lamb, died three years ago.’ Kell almost spat out his Badoit. ‘Cancer got him in the end. You’re so kind to have found me a room at such short notice. I am a nuisance, aren’t I? There were several people at the airport with no idea at all where they were going to stay. I ought to have shared a taxi with them, but it was all so confusing. I must say this hotel seems awfully nice. My passport? Of course. And I suspect a credit card is required as well? They always are these days. So many PIN numbers. How is one supposed to remember them all?’
Kell grinned behind the laptop, screened from Barbara’s gaze by a wall on which the management had hung a monochrome portrait of Nina Simone. Every now and again he would tap random letters on the keyboard to give an impression of honest endeavour. In due course, Pierre handed Barbara the card key for room 232, explained the timetable for breakfast and sent her on her way.
‘Please push the button for the second floor, madame,’ he said, as she walked towards the lifts. ‘I wish you to pass a good night.’
Kell checked his watch. 1.35 a.m. He gave Barbara another ten minutes to settle in and to familiarize herself with the hotel, then sent a text message initiating the final part of their plan.
Time check 1.45. Lobby green. You?
Barbara responded immediately.
Yes. Will be in position from 2. Good luck.
Kell was putting the phone back in his pocket when Pierre emerged from reception and asked if Monsieur Uniacke needed anything further from the bar.
‘Thank you, no,’ Kell replied. ‘I’m fine.’
‘And how is the wi-fi? Still working to your satisfaction?’
‘Completely.’
He waited until Pierre had returned to the office before texting Bill Knight.
Clear?
Nothing came back. Kell watched the clock on the laptop tick through to 1.57 and knew that Barbara would already be in position. He tried again.
Clear outside?
Still no reply. There was nothing for it but to proceed as planned and to hope that Knight had the situation under control. Kell disconnected the laptop from the socket in the wall, tucked it under his arm, took his now empty glass of mineral water to the reception desk and placed it on the right-hand side of the counter beside a plastic box filled with tourist brochures. Pierre was back in his chair in the office, drinking Coke, wallowing in astro-physics.
‘Could I check something?’ Kell asked him.
‘Of course, sir.’
‘What rate am I paying on my room? There’s a confirmation email from my office that seems lower than I remember.’
Pierre frowned, approached the desk, logged into Opera and clicked into the Uniacke account. As he did so, Kell lifted the laptop on to the counter and placed it approximately two inches from the bowl of potpourri.
‘Let me see.’ Pierre was muttering, squinting at the screen. ‘We have you on …’
Kell put an elbow on to the laptop, let it slide along the counter, and sent the bowl of potpourri plummeting towards the floor.
‘Fuck!’ he exclaimed in English as it exploded in a cluster bomb of petals and glass. Pierre reared back from the counter with a matching ‘Merde!’ of his own as Kell surveyed the delightful chaos of his creation.
‘I am so, so sorry,’ he said, first in English and then, repeating the apology, in French.
‘It doesn’t matter, sir, really it doesn’t matter. These things happen. It can easily be cleaned up.’
Kell, bending to the floor in pursuit of the larger chunks of glass, searched for the French phrase for ‘dustpan and brush’, but found that he could only say: ‘Do you have a vacuum cleaner?’
Pierre had now made his way out into the lobby and was standing over him, hands on hips, trying to calculate the best course of action.
‘Yes, I think that’s probably a good idea. We have a Hoover. I will clean everything up. Please do not worry, Monsieur Uniacke.’
‘But you must let me help you.’
Pierre dropped to the floor beside him. To Kell’s surprise, he even placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. ‘No, no. Please, you are a guest. Relax. I will fetch something.’
‘I think I saw one on the stairs on the way up to my room. Is that where you keep them? I can get it for you. Please, I’d like to help …’
It was the only risk in his strategy; that the night porter would be so concerned about the security of the front desk that he would accept a paying guest’s offer of help. But Kell had read his personality correctly.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I can fetch it. I know the cupboard. It’s not far. If you wait here …’
The phone pulsed in Kell’s pocket. He took it out as Pierre walked away. Knight had finally deigned to reply.
All clear out here Commander. Over and out.
‘Prat,’ Kell muttered, checked that Pierre had gone upstairs, and slipped behind the reception desk.
10
Barbara Knight had closed the door of her room, put the sausage bag on the floor outside the bathroom, poured a cognac from the mini-bar and telephoned her husband.
The conversation had gone better than she had expected. It transpired that Bill had begged a cigarette from a passer-by, found himself a seat at a bus stop thirty feet from the entrance to the hotel, and was busy killing time trying to remember the details of a love affair between the French Consul in Lagos and the daughter of an Angolan oil speculator which had been the talk of their three-year residency in Nigeria more than twenty years earlier.
‘Didn’t he eventually have a hand cut off or something?’ Knight asked.
‘Darling, I don’t have time for this now.’ Barbara closed the curtains and switched on one of the bedside lights. ‘I think it was a finger. And I think it was an accident. Look, I’ll have to call you later.’
She had then replied to a Kell text message – Yes. Will be in position from 2. Good luck – removed her blouse and skirt and, wearing only a pair of tights and a white Hotel Gillespie dressing-gown, walked out into the corridor. Less than a minute later, Barbara Knight was standing on a step halfway between the first- and second-floor landings, holding her shoes and listening out for the footsteps of the blond-haired porter with wretched acne who had only recently checked her in.
Pierre duly appeared at 2.04 a.m., jerking back in fright at the white apparition bearing down on him with a mop of wild hair, clutching a pair of shoes.
‘Madame? Are you all right?’
‘Oh, thank goodness you’re here.’ Barbara was shuddering in mock-frustration and had to remind herself not to overcook the act. ‘I’m afraid I’m rather lost. I was on my way downstairs to see you. I was trying to leave my shoes outside to be polished, you see, but I’ve only gone and locked myself out of my room …’
‘Please, madame, do not worry, we can …’
She interrupted him.
‘And now I can’t remember for the life of me which floor I’m supposed to be on. I think you kindly put me in 232, but I can’t seem to find …’
Pierre guided Madame Knight to a safe landing on the first floor. It was to the unanticipated advantage of the Secret Intelligence Service that the night porter’s own grandmother was in the early stages of dementia. Recognizing a kindred spirit, he had put a kindly hand in the small of Barbara’s back and informed her that he would be only too happy to escort Madame Knight to her room.
‘Oh, you’re so kind, such a nice young man,’ said Barbara, brandishing a keycard from the pocket of her dressing-gown. ‘I have the damned thing right here, you see? But of course nowhere does it tell you the number of one’s wretched room.
Kell had worked quickly. The reservations software was open at a welcome page on the desktop; Pierre was still logged in. With the porter attending to Barbara’s needs, he clicked ‘Current’ and was taken to a grid that gave him access to information on every guest in the hotel. The room numbers appeared in a vertical column on the left-hand side of the grid, the dates of occupancy on a horizontal line at the top of the screen. He found the matching dates for Amelia’s stay, clicked on ‘218’ and was taken to the details for her room.
