by Keith Dixon
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
TURNING IN BY THE hotel sign, I was now on a private tarmac road that led between tall pines and over humps in the road that were spotlit by small round lamps at either side and painted with diagonal yellow lines. A sign pointed off to stables, and another to the farm. This went on for fifty yards until the pine trees fell away and the glare of the Unicorn Hotel itself came into view. It was an Edwardian mansion that had been converted into a hotel. A semi-circle of driveway passed in front of the entrance and then continued to rejoin the main road further down. A car park stood to the left, and I could see the gleam of executive vehicles shining dully in the moonlight, their massive power just waiting to be unleashed.
The entrance was a blue canopy stretched over half a dozen stone steps that led up to tall wooden doors, one of which was currently open and revealing a welcome glow. An unlit verandah stretched down one side of the building, with rows of neatly chopped firewood like huge cigarettes stacked tidily in front of its glass doors. As far as I could see, every other window in the building was lit, radiating a soft light into the surrounding darkness. I drove past the hotel to the car park and found an empty bay. When I killed the engine and stepped out, the stillness hit me like a blow. I took my bag from the rear seat and walked over crunching gravel to the front entrance and up the stone steps.
From inside I heard the deep-throated conversation and laughter of males in a state of heightened excitement. Pushing open the door it was as though I’d crashed a loud party that was at its height. I was met by a crowd of twenty or so people, mostly male, who were standing in excited conversation on the tiled floor of the lobby. There was a smell of damp and testosterone rising like a primitive cologne from the crowd, as if to entice frailer sexual companions to abandon themselves to some ancient orgiastic rite. They wore parkas and rain gear with hoods and toggles and zips, and one or two carried clipboards holding lists and maps. I spotted three people wielding long torches. It seemed that a night exercise—some kind of group search activity—was in the process of finishing. The noise of self-congratulation boomed and echoed around the panelled lobby as they re-told their tales of bravery out in the Cumbrian wilds.
I fought my way through to the reception desk, where a young woman with a frazzled smile and a dark-blue uniform seemed happy to see me. As I spoke, she tilted her head to one side to demonstrate her keen attention. I told her my name and said that I’d rung earlier. This close to Christmas the management training season was winding down and they’d found me a room despite the large party that jostled and laughed around me. On the walls by the reception desk there were plates awarded by various tourist bodies, illustrating with rosettes and stars the high quality of the hospitality that awaited me.
The receptionist asked me to fill out a card and asked whether I’d like a newspaper or an early morning call. I told her neither.
‘Breakfast’s between seven-thirty and nine o’clock,’ she said, ‘and we like the rooms to be emptied by ten. Now can I swipe your credit card, please?’
I mused on the decline of customer service as I handed over my card. She accepted it with another tilt of her head, and a smile. As she put it through the machine and waited for it to register, she said, ‘Oh, Mr Dyke? I have a note for you.’
She leafed through a box and came up with a small yellow envelope, which I took from her and opened immediately. It was from Hampshire:
I trust you’ve signed in. Ask the receptionist to point you towards Mill Gill. I’m out here till gone midnight, so we can meet and have a proper talk. I’ll be the one in the red jacket carrying a torch. You’ll find me.
I turned to the receptionist, who was handing me back my credit card. ‘When were you given this?’
‘I don’t know, sir. The girl on the previous shift found it on the counter. Would you like to speak to her?’
I said no, then picked up my bag and made my way through the crowd to the door that led to the stairs.
Once in my room, I kitted myself out. The prospect of Eddie Hampshire waiting for me in the dark, in landscape I didn’t know, wasn’t promising. I checked the sap that I’d put in my sock and re-seated it, put some coins in each of my pockets to act as knuckle-dusters if necessary, and tied my shoelaces with double bows so they wouldn’t trip me up. I did a couple of stretching exercises to warm my muscles, zipped my North Face fleece up to my neck, then left the room. I hadn’t even unpacked my bag.
Downstairs, the crowd was thinner because the majority of them had moved into the bar and lounge, which was a kind of glass gazebo with a view over an elaborately paved patio, currently lit up like a stage set. They were flopped on cane chairs as though the bones had been extracted from their bodies. They had barely enough strength to hold their pint glasses. I approached the receptionist and asked her for the quickest way up Mill Gill. She performed her habitual head-tilt and reached for a collection of printed tourist leaflets that were filed in a wire contraption screwed to the side of the reception counter. She placed it before me with a flourish and then pointed to key areas on the line-drawn map on its reverse.
‘That’s us. You come out of here, through the main door, then turn right and walk past the car park and through this field. There’s a gate just here, then you follow the path upwards, but be careful because it’s not safe. Are you sure you want to go out this late, sir? There’s not much light out there at this time of night.’
An odd expression had come over her face, a mixture of excitement and curiosity. Through the windows to her left we could both see it was pitch black, and now the heat generated by the adventurers who’d occupied the lobby had dissipated, a chill was beginning to settle in the space that the dying log-fire in the corner couldn’t do anything to alleviate.
‘I’ll be fine. I’ll be back in an hour. Will I be able to get something to eat?’
‘Last orders for the restaurant are nine forty-five, so you should just make it.’ Now she frowned, and I thought she was going to give me one more admonishment about going out in the dark. She said, ‘I’d try to get back for nine-fifteen, if I were you. Chef’s a bit touchy about late-comers.’
But Chef’s feelings were the last thing on my mind.
