Дэвид Уоллес - Island of Fog and Death

She had no idea where the driver had spent the night, and frankly she was in no mood to care. All she knew – all that mattered – was that he was ready and waiting to resume the journey when she finally gave up on sleep, pulled on a black tee shirt and cargo pants, filled her pockets and left.

She pushed open the Inn’s front door and held it as the driver put her suitcase and shoulder bag on the floor just inside. She thanked him and watched him drive away, realising only then that she had been so wiped out by the journey that she had failed to summon up the good manners even to ask his name. She pushed in through a door labelled ‘bar and dining’. Several people were at breakfast, and every head swivelled to the door as she stepped in. A dumpy, middle aged woman with a blue tabard over her dress bustled past, carrying two ‘full English’ breakfasts.

“Sorry, love,” she said to Peri in passing. “Let me serve these and I’ll be right back.”

She put the two platefuls of food in front of two young men that were seated at a corner table, their seats at angle where they could watch the doors, windows and other diners without turning their heads. I’ve seen their type before, Peri thought. Neat, alert and watchful. Tommy’s observation team. Her eyes roamed across the room, taking in an elderly couple sitting in the window alcove, talking animatedly over a map – bird-watchers? she thought – and an old man with white hair and a bushy beard, with a large dog lying under his table. Santa? she thought, and Shouldn’t that be a reindeer, not a dog? She smiled to herself. Then the smile disappeared, as first the dog, and then the man, stared at her so hard that she swore she could feel her skin prickling under their intense gaze.

“Sorry, love,” said the woman in the tabard again, as she stopped in front of Peri. “Can I help you?”

“My name’s Carlton,” said Peri. “My office booked accommodation for me for a few days. I’m afraid I was held up at Heathrow, or I would have been here last night.”

“Oh? Right, I’ll just get Jim,” she said, and headed for a door behind the bar counter, that obviously led to the kitchens. Her voice drifted back to Peri as she vanished. “I’m Mrs Dilby, by the way, but everybody calls me Maura.”

A moment later, a bald and clearly flustered man emerged. “Miss Carlton? Hello, I’m Jim Dilby. Call me Jim. Listen, I might have a problem.” He spoke rapidly, giving Peri no opportunity to reply. “We didn’t see you last night, so we didn’t think you would be here, see, so, er, so it’s like this, ah, your room’s gone.”

She laughed. “I hope you’re kidding Mr Dilby. It can’t be gone .”

“Didn’t think…”

“…I’d be here, yes, I got that. But did I not have a valid reservation? Did my office not pay a deposit or register a credit card to secure the room? Mm?”

“Well, we didn’t think… And the fellow turned up, well, he was here, see, and…”

“And now I am here,” said Peri. “What are you going to do about that ?”

Dilby mopped his bald head with a tea towel. Peri snatched it out of his hand. “And I trust you are not wiping plates with this .” She tossed the tea towel over the bar so it landed on the floor.

“Well…” He shrugged apologetically.

“How many rooms do you have?” she demanded.

“Just the six,” he answered, meekly.

“And all six are occupied?”

“Well, yes.”

“By whom?”

“By…” he stopped himself. “Now see here, young lady, I don’t see that’s any business of yours! My customers have every right to their privacy, you know, and…”

“Is one of them occupied by a Mr Chen?”

Dilby just stared at her.

“Put clean sheets on the bed. He won’t be using it, will he? Being dead, and all.”

“I can’t… no way can I… the police are investigating, so I can’t clear his things out!”

“I didn’t say you should clear his things out. Leave them. I’ll be going through it all anyway.”

He gaped. Finally he said, “Who are you, to be going through his things? You can’t…”

“I represent Mr Chen’s employers, and I just came here straight from talking to his next of kin, his brother, and a rep from the Chinese Embassy. Now let me know when my room’s ready, and get someone to stick my case upstairs. I’ll have a cup of coffee. Black, no sugar”

She picked up her shoulder bag and walked across to sit with the two men in the corner.

“You don’t mind,” she said, making it very clearly a statement and not a question.

Gus Vasa had been first down to breakfast, accustomed as he was to rising early to walk his dog. It wasn’t that Tash needed to be walked, but experience had taught him long ago that it was expected, and if people did not see the expected, it provoked their curiosity. And other people’s curiosity was the last thing Gus wanted to provoke. He picked up a copy of the local paper, and went to sit in one of the two far corners of the bar, with his back to the corner so he could see the whole room without needing to turn his head. Tash, as always, lay on the floor at his feet. Gus pretended to be interested in the paper.

Mrs Dilby – Maura, he reminded himself – bustled in from the kitchen. When her eye alighted on Gus and Tash in the corner, she apologised for keeping him waiting and quickly set his table. He asked for coffee and a full English breakfast, at her convenience, because, he told her, he was early and really should know better than to inconvenience his hostess. He settled in to indulge in some people-watching, a pastime that promised to be more interesting than usual this morning.

Next guest down to breakfast was the journalist. Gus knew he was a journalist, because he had arrived the previous evening and broadcast the fact loudly to everyone within earshot, which was probably everyone in the village, he was so loud. He had arrived at almost eleven, and then proceeded to harangue and bully Jim Dilby until he caved in and gave him a room, fearful of adverse reviews of his establishment getting into the press. Gus thought he was despicable. Tash offered to bite him, or, at the very least, piss on his leg. As a dumb animal, he explained reasonably, he could get away with that where Gus wouldn’t.

The journalist looked around the room, and when Maura bustled in, he declined the offer of breakfast with a smug ‘that’s for wimps’ and asked for coffee in a take-away cup to accompany his ‘morning gasper’. He’d smirked at Gus, not in a friendly way, and left. Tash wanted to go after him, but Gus said no.

Next in was the elderly couple. They said a polite good morning to both Gus and to Tash, then took their places in the window alcove. From a brief conversation the previous evening, and from shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation, Gus knew they were retired teachers with a penchant for rambling. Today, they were contemplating a walk along the coastal path to the west, a picnic lunch, and then a ramble back by a set of inland footpaths. Gus was happy that they were not planning on crossing to the island, because then he’d have to talk them out of it. The island was not a good place to ramble. No, they had been put off that by news of the discovery of a corpse wafting along on the tide.

Then the two youngish men came in. The elderly couple speculated that they were gay lovers. Since they both seemed to be hard of hearing, their voices carried, and the two men had to hide smiles. Gus and Tash were sure they were soldiers. The way they carried themselves, their watchfulness and their obvious fitness gave it away. Special forces, if Gus was any judge of fighting men. They seemed to be simply watching and waiting. They had showed considerable interest in the corpse, and he had heard them speculating about where it had gone into the water in terms that made it clear they were familiar with the sea and the actions of tides. Gus was intrigued by them.