Sam Bourne - The Chosen One

Without warning, he stepped out from behind his small, stand-up desk and headed through the hotel’s revolving door, raised his arm, and summoned a cab he had spotted the way an osprey can spy a fish below the surface of the ocean from one hundred and thirty feet.

Having ushered the waiting guest towards the taxi, helped with loading the bags and pocketed a one-dollar tip with a grateful smile, he returned to Maggie and her odd question. For what was a small hotel in a middling town, he seemed rather a grand concierge.

‘Longest serving? That would be me, Miss.’

Good. Just as she had hoped. ‘I’m researching the history of this area and I wonder if you could help me with something. I understand there was a fire here many years ago.’

‘Before my time, Miss.’

‘I thought you said you-’

‘I’ve worked here fifteen years. But that was-’

‘More than twenty-five years ago.’

‘Right.’

‘And there’s no one else here who has memories of that night?’

‘Like I say, no one here has worked longer than me.’

‘What about the owners?’

‘Changed hands eight years ago. This hotel is part of a chain owned out of Pennsylvania now.’

Maggie’s face must have displayed her disappointment because he seemed hurt, eager to please again. ‘What do you need to know?’

‘Anything you can tell me.’

He leaned on his desk. ‘I heard it was a very big fire. Destroyed the interior of the hotel. They had to rebuild and redecorate. Hotel was closed for a year.’

All of which had been covered in the anniversary story in the paper.

‘And no clue how it started?’

‘They say that was a mystery. Though one of the older cleaners – she’s dead now – she said it was cigarettes, set the curtains on fire. On the third floor.’

‘But nobody died.’

‘Where do you hear that?’

Maggie pulled from her pocket the photocopied Daily World cutting about the reopening she had taken from the library. With a quick glance, she checked it again now. Nowhere did it mention any fatalities. She had assumed everyone had survived. She looked back at the concierge. ‘Do I have that wrong?’

‘I think you do, Miss. The anniversary was a couple weeks back, right?’

‘Yes. It was.’ She smiled again. ‘I’m impressed you know the date, just like that.’

‘Well, it’s difficult to forget. They come here every year.’

‘Who comes?’

‘The family. March 15, every year. They lay a wreath outside the hotel. Very polite, always ask permission.’

‘The family?’

‘Of the person who died. In the fire.’

‘And they did this last week?’

‘Yep. Same as always.’

‘What’s the name of the family?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Miss. They never say.’

‘And do you still have the wreath?’

‘I threw it out just yesterday.’

Damn. She wondered about slipping him a twenty, asking him to go look out back, but decided against it. Bound to arouse suspicions. She thanked him for his time, handed him a five-dollar bill and left. Five minutes later she was in the loading bay behind the hotel, with its giant trash cans and handful of parking spaces. Bracing herself for the stink, she flipped open the lid of the first dumpster. Just glass bottles. There was a blue one full of paper and then, next to it a large black one, with its lid ajar.

She heaved the black dumpster open and was assailed by the stench. It was full of black bin bags, but several had burst, with food scraps and rotting peelings leaking out. Breathing through her mouth, she gingerly pushed a bag to one side and leaned further into the bin. She heard the sound of footsteps behind her. She wheeled around, her heart thudding, imagining how easy it would be for anyone who wanted to simply to shove her inside. There was a man a few yards behind her – but he was just a hotel guest, unlocking his car and preparing to drive away.

She went back to her task, tearing at each bag, watching as old fish guts, rock-hard slices of bread and a wad of bloodstained tissues spilled out.

She had all but given up when she glimpsed the dark green edge of it. Using the lip of the bin as a fulcrum, her body see-sawed into the dumpster and she hooked it out. The wreath was in a sorry state, the flowers dead and brown, the greenery wilted. But there was a small, white card still attached to it, though it was damp and buckled and stinking. Chucking the wreath back into the garbage, she examined the card. It bore a single word, handwritten in ink that had run but was still legible.

Pamela.

Aberdeen, Washington, Sunday March 26, 11.51

She had been hoping for more, a last name at least. She wondered if she was travelling ever further down the wrong path, piling error upon error, taking one false turn after another. What if Forbes’s date referred to something else entirely, nothing to do with Aberdeen? Even if it did relate to something that had happened in this town, how could she be sure it was the fire he had had in mind? It was possible that none of this had any bearing whatsoever on the death of Victor Forbes. She caught a reflection of herself as she left the hotel – the new hair, the bruise, the face still pained from the wounds she had sustained less than two days ago – and wondered what the hell she was doing.

For a moment she imagined hailing a cab to the airport and running away. She could buy a ticket to anywhere. Maybe she could turn up at Liz’s flat, ask to sleep on the sofa, get to know her nephew. There would always be a bed for her at her parents’. But then Maggie reminded herself that the sweet lady who had sabotaged her car on Friday night had been ready to kill without discrimination; then she remembered what Liz had said, how no one was trying to kill her because she knew nothing. She had already drawn her sister in too deep – plumbing the depths of the Hades that lurked beneath the internet – it wouldn’t be fair to expose her to anything worse.

New York? The idea filled her with instant warmth. Instantly, too quick for her to stop it, an image floated into her head – she was standing in Uri’s apartment, the pair of them smiling at each other the way they smiled before a kiss.

But now rational thought caught up, trapping the image that had escaped and throttling it with reality. That apartment was no longer her territory. Hadn’t she heard another woman padding along those hardwood floors? Wasn’t there now another woman stepping out of the shower and shaking her hair dry before that strange, blemished Tunisian mirror, another woman sleeping on those sheets?

She could, of course, go back to Washington with her tail between her legs. But Washington was not kind to losers. And the President was there, the President who was relying on her: she would be consigning him to failure too.

No, there was no running away. She owed it to Stephen Baker, to Stuart and to herself to find out what – and who – was behind this, wrecking the Baker presidency and several lives in the process. She could not rest till she had.

She pulled out her BlackBerry and made a bet with herself. If there was any man who, on principle, would ensure his number was in the local phone book, it would be him. She called directory assistance and asked for the home number of Principal Ray Schilling.

She wondered if he would be surprised to hear from Ashley Muir, still alive and well. What if he too had been in on the plot to send her car skidding into oblivion on Friday night? If he had been, he had done a good job hiding it.

After a few pleasantries, and an apology for disturbing him at home on the weekend, she went straight in. ‘Mr Schilling, something you said stayed with me. “I remember all the students I teach.” That’s what you said.’