Christopher Fowler - Personal Demons

Malcolm drew up a list of practical questions about the hotel. He was less concerned with facts and figures, which were easily obtained, and more anxious to convey the unique ambience of a stay at the Rex. As the sapphire rawness of the morning tempered itself into a golden windswept summer's day, very possibly the last of the year, he strolled through each of the hotel's public spaces, watching and listening, filling his calfskin notebook with neat square writing.

But the suites which lined the top two floors of the hotel remained forbidden territory, and their exclusion nagged at him. Even the lifts would not go there without a special key. Something was being deliberately hidden from his gaze, and he wanted to know why. What on earth could a hotel such as this have to hide?

Malcolm was a man whose curiosity sometimes extended beyond common sense, and now his former tabloid skills represented themselves. Once he had ascertained the whereabouts of the silver lift keys, it was a simple matter to slip behind Mr Mack's counter and borrow one. That afternoon he had it copied in the town and returned to its hook before nightfall.

By itself, though, such a key was useless without further access to one of the suites, and this could only be gained by breaking the general's rule about fraternising with their occupants. That evening, Malcolm sat down to formulate a plan.

His main problem was finding a point of contact. The suite-guests did not mix with the other residents, and even sunbathed on a separate peninsula of rock away from the hotel's exclusive pebbled beach. The rubescence on the cheeks of the Archduke's concubines suggested that they took a little sun, and as this seemed a good enough place to start, Malcolm set about observing their movements.

He soon saw that there were two sides to Marisia and Therese (as they addressed each other in conversation). They gave courteous smiles as they rose from their morning table, nodding to the waiters and the other guests, but when they felt themselves to be unobserved, their mansuetude faded and expressions of the utmost dolour fell upon them. Indeed, they looked so sad that Malcolm felt ashamed to be spying on them. But his curiosity drove him on.

As the weather began to disappoint, the ladies took to sitting inside the glass-walled sun terrace until luncheon, writing in their commonplace books or demurely reading until the gong sounded. Within the space of a few days Malcolm was a familiar figure to them, always doffing his cap as they passed. Finally he was bold enough to sit beside them one morning as they shielded their eyes from the sun to watch several tiny white yachts cresting the waves.

'The Archduke hopes to sail tomorrow if the fine weather holds,' Marisia told him.

'But it is due to change,' warned Therese. 'Mr Satardoo tells me that the barometer is dropping.'

It was all the information he needed to know. Malcolm continued to work on his history of the hotel that afternoon, and prayed that the pressure would remain high enough for the Archduke to take out a boat.

He awoke next morning to a glorious sunny day. Rising early, he sat in the lobby reading the newspapers until he observed the Archduke and his men leaving. They were dressed in blue and white striped sweaters and flapping cream trousers, unmistakable yachting gear. Malcolm carefully folded away his copy of the Times and made his way to the sun lounge.

'I don't like that man,' Mr Mack confided to Flora, one of the third-floor chambermaids. 'There's something altogether too furry about him, the wispy hair and beard, the woolly jumper and corduroy trousers. He's sly. Forever creeping about behind people's backs, padding around in those horrible brown suede shoes, it's not natural.'

'What, brown suede shoes?' laughed Flora, giving him an affectionate pinch on the bum. 'He's a writer, he watches people for ideas.' She checked to see if her cap was back on straight. The concierge had knocked it awry when he had pulled her into the pantry for a kiss.

'He's up to something.' Mr Mack narrowed his eyes, then let the fronds of the aspidistra fall back in place. 'Well, he may have got around Mr Satardoo, but he won't get around me so easily. Have one of your girls keep an eye on him.'

Malcolm watched the dazzling gold and crimson ranks assemble and launch tipsily into the overture from Orphee Aux Enfers . Marisia and Therese were seated in a pair of striped deckchairs nearest the bandstand. An empty chair stood five feet from them.

'Good morning, ladies,' said Malcolm, tipping his cap as he tugged the spare chair closer. 'Perhaps we'll be lucky with the weather after all.'

'I do hope so.' Therese looked out to sea, where the yachts were bobbing on a fresh swell. 'The Archduke is an enthusiastic sailor but not, I fear, a good one.'

From where he was sitting he could see the suite key lying in the top of Marisia's needlework bag. Malcolm smiled generously as he shuffled closer. 'Please, ladies, do not allow me to interrupt your appreciation of the music.'

The band struck up a languorous piece by Sibelius, the sun reappeared from behind a small cloud and the ladies settled back in their chairs. Within minutes, their eyes were fluttering shut. Malcolm raised himself from the deckchair as quietly as possible and, as he passed Marisia's back, pretended to attend to his shoelace. The ladies usually fell asleep during the day. Presumably their night exertions took a certain toll. With the suite key deftly slipped into his left palm, he quickly walked to the hotel steps.

Malcolm waited until the coast was clear and boarded a lift. The two floors on which the suites were housed were marked by a pair of unlabelled brass buttons. The first took him to a curving blue corridor with recessed doors, but here the numbers fell short of the one on Marisia's key, and a maid eyed him suspiciously as he examined the doors, so he continued up to the second. Alighting, he soon found himself facing the door of the Archduke's suite. With a pounding heart he inserted the key and twisted it in the lock. Surely there had to be something extraordinary within. Why else would the General and his staff have such a need for secrecy? The door swung silently wide, and he stepped into the room.

General Sullivan sat in his office with his head in his hands, as a sense of infinite sadness settled upon him. He supposed it was inevitable that such a thing should happen, that the outside world would finally invade his kingdom. He had been taken in by Malcolm Bridger. A simple routine check on the biographer's background told him that five years ago Bridget had been dismissed from a notorious tabloid newspaper for breaching their code of ethics, such as the publication had. And now he was being allowed to snoop around the hotel, peeping and prying. The general had made his first foolish mistake, and it had to be put right immediately. With a heavy-hearted sigh, he summoned Mr Satardoo.

Malcolm stared about him. Nothing was out of place here – quite the reverse, in fact. The Archduke's suite was luxurious beyond all imagining. The furnishings were more suited to a Moorish summer palace. Great teak-framed windows, swathed in fine gilt silk, ran from floor to ceiling, and the light from the sea threw brilliant undulations on to the arched sapphire walls. The rooms around him swayed blue and gold, gold and blue, like a tropical aquarium in the sky. Each room, it was said, had its own style, one like a winter palace in Samarkand, another like an Egyptian seraglio. Why would the management wish to hide such magnificence? Puzzled, he began a systematic search of the rooms.

Mr Satardoo tipped himself on to the points of his shoes and looked about the sun-lounge. 'I understand our elusive gentleman biographer was briefly sighted here earlier. Have you been vouchsafed such an epiphany?' The head bellboy dreaded being asked anything by Mr Satardoo because he rarely understood a single sentence that issued from the under-manager's lips.