Michael Walters - The Shadow Walker

She shook her head nervously. “No,” she said. “The bed hadn’t been slept in. I thought it was a bit strange, as the room was occupied… but you don’t know-” She giggled slightly and turned away.

“Thank you,” Nergui said.

The chambermaids giggled again, glancing back at him, then moved off together. Nergui turned to the manager. “Do you know who was on duty last night? On the reception, I mean. After midnight.”

The manager nodded. “We lock the main doors at midnight, so people have to use the intercom to get in. I’ll need to check who the night porter was last night.”

“Thanks. And can you make sure that no one goes into 204. I mean, no one. No chambermaids. No one.”

The manager nodded, looking anxious. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but what do you think has happened? I mean, after the last incident, we’re all a bit on edge.”

“Trust me,” Nergui said, “I’m as much on edge as any of you. As for what’s happened, well, I haven’t a clue at the moment. I’m hoping nothing’s happened. But I’m fearing-well, I don’t even know what I’m fearing, except that it’s nothing good.”

Back down in the hotel lobby, Nergui commandeered the manager’s office as a makeshift base. The manager himself seemed only too pleased to hand over leadership to someone else.

While the manager was checking on the identity of the night porter, Nergui made another call to the embassy. The ambassador was still busy, as Nergui had expected, so he left a message for him to call back urgently. If anything had happened to Drew, it would be highly damaging if the ambassador was not advised of the situation immediately. He had also left a message for his own Minister, briefly setting out the current situation. In the circumstances, he recognized that this was probably the least welcome news the Minister could have received. Losing one Westerner might be an accident. Losing two-and one of them a senior policeman at that-might well be construed as criminal negligence. Nergui’s was not the only career that was likely to be on the line here.

Oddly, Nergui felt remarkably calm. As soon as he had realized that Drew had not returned to his room the previous evening, his personal anxiety had melted away, replaced by an almost glacial attention to the minutiae of his duties. This was one of his strengths-the capacity to detach himself from personal emotions and lock himself rigorously into the requirements of his job. It was, he suspected, not a particularly attractive personal quality, but it was one of the factors that contributed to his professional effectiveness. In this case, though, he was conscious that his own emotions were buried not far below the surface.

The manager returned a few moments later with the night porter. He was a tall man, dressed in blue overalls. As the night porter sat down at the manager’s desk, Nergui could smell alcohol on the man’s breath. It was not clear whether he had slept since completing his shift early that morning.

Nergui nodded to him. “I do not need to detain you long,” he said. “Just a few simple questions.”

The night porter looked anxious. Nergui guessed that, in that line of work, there was always temptation to break the rules, or even the law in minor ways-drinking, petty theft. Probably the porter assumed that he had been caught out in some transgression and was about to be sacked, if not arrested. In other instances, Nergui might have been tempted to play that to his advantage, but that did not seem appropriate at the moment.

“You were on duty last night?” he asked.

The man nodded. “Came on at eleven thirty, worked through to seven.”

Nergui paused, as though taking in this information. “Were there any disturbances last night? Anything out of the ordinary?”

The man shook his head. “Nothing. It was a quiet night.” He looked nervously across at the manager. Nergui suspected that the porter had probably spent much of the night asleep.

“I dropped off an English couple after midnight. Did any other guests return after that?”

“Not last night. We don’t tend to get many. If tourists go out to eat, they tend to be back before then. There’s not a lot of late night entertainment. The bar here’s open till one, so if people want to drink they usually stay here.”

“So there was no one else?”

“No one.”

Nergui leaned forward across the table, staring intently at the porter. “You’re absolutely sure of that?” he said. “This is very important. I’m not trying to catch you out. I just need to be sure.”

The man nodded, more nervous now, but apparently telling the truth. “I’m sure,” he said. “Nobody can get in without using the intercom. Even if I was-” For a moment, Nergui thought he was going to say “asleep” but he went on: “Even if I was away from the desk for some reason, they’d have to wait till I got back.”

“And it’s not possible that someone else might have let anyone in in your absence.”

“Not last night. There was no one around. I was the only one on duty. The bar closed early-before midnight-because no one was in. So, no, I’m sure no one else came in after midnight.”

“Okay, that’s fine. That’s all. Thank you for your help.”

The porter looked surprised and relieved, as if he’d been reprieved from some major crime. He smiled and nodded, and looked across at the manager. “No problem,” he said. “I’m here on site if you need anything else.” He rose and hurried out of the room before anything more could be said.

“Assiduous chap,” Nergui commented.

“He’d have been asleep most of the night,” the manager said. “Probably half drunk. Or more. But I’m sure he’s right. Even if he was dead to the world, it would just mean that no doors stayed locked. We’ve got video cameras over the entrance so we can check the tapes to be sure, but I think you can safely assume that nobody else came in here after midnight last night.”

Nergui rose. “We may need to talk to other staff at some point. But if he was the only one on duty, I don’t imagine anyone else can tell us much.”

The manager shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought so. I mean, we’ll give any help we can. What’s this all about?”

Nergui hesitated for a moment. The manager would have no difficulty looking up Drew’s name or recognizing that he was a Westerner. He might even have some knowledge of who Drew was. “Look,” he said, “this is all highly confidential. Nothing must leak out. I’m serious, if anything about this appears in the press, I’ll be back here before you can open your mouth again. And you’re likely to become closely acquainted with the inside of our magnificent prison facilities. So don’t say a word to anyone. Not even gossip.”

The manager was wide eyed. “I wouldn’t-”

“Of course. But I can’t take any risk on this one.”

“You think this guest-this Mr. McLeish-has gone missing?”

Nergui was not surprised that the manager had already checked Drew’s name. “We don’t know,” he said. “All we know is he didn’t come back here last night.”

“And is this connected to the previous-incident?”

Nergui was tiring of providing explanations, but he recognized the importance of treating the man with some courtesy. “Probably not. As I say, it may all turn out to be nothing. But, especially given the previous incident, we can’t afford to be too careful.”

The manager nodded, with some enthusiasm. “Of course, of course. I understand. As I say, if there is anything more I can do to help-”

“We will be in touch. I am very grateful for your kind assistance today. I am sorry that I was so peremptory in dealing with your receptionist, but you will appreciate I was in a hurry. Please pass on my apologies.”