by Della Galton
‘In what respect?’ Zoe asked.
‘I was thinking about Lighthousegate, that’s all. I was wondering if anyone could put up a video. Do you need special skills?’
‘No, I don’t think so. You need your own channel. But anyone can set up a channel. I went out with this lad once who fancied himself as a YouTuber. He reviewed sportswear. He said he was going to make a million by the time he was twenty. He didn’t, although we did get loads of free samples.’
Clara nodded. She could never make up her mind whether the internet was the most genius invention of the century, or the worst. Sometimes she thought it was on a par with splitting the atom.
‘Why are you asking about YouTube? Have you found out who put up that video?’ Zoe asked.
‘No. I was just curious about the logistics. Thanks.’ It was a relief to know anyone could edit a video. She felt bad for suspecting Adam.
Since their evening out, she had spoken to him on the phone a couple of times. Once, he’d passed on the number of a woman who’d called the Manor House about lighthouse accommodation. That had been nice of him. And the other time he’d asked which catering agency they used because the stand-in chef they called when Nick was ill was on holiday.
He’d also called in to return the kegs of beer he’d borrowed apparently, but she’d missed him because she’d been at the bank.
Clara reached absent-mindedly for another biscuit and discovered the plate was empty.
‘I’ve got a reserve packet for the team meeting?’ Zoe said. ‘Shall I get those?’
‘Definitely not.’ Clara glanced at her FunFit. The words:
No pain,no grain
were scrolling across the screen. Which would have worked better if it could spell, but was quite timely! ‘But you could organise the coffee if you like. I’ll get the agendas.’
The team meeting was amazingly positive. They usually were. They had them once a fortnight and they rarely lasted more than forty-five minutes. Anyone, from a washer-upper to Phil Grimshaw, could suggest improvements that would add to the smooth running and/or economic efficiency of the Bluebell. If these were agreed and implemented (Clara had the final word on this) and proved to be effective, the originator would receive a share of the profits in the form of flexitime or commission.
Clara had introduced this incentive scheme and it was extremely popular. So far, the innovations had included a different supplier of the chocolates that were left in guest rooms (Janet the chambermaid), a new organic meat supplier (Mr B) and the pop-up gazebo that sold home-made lemonade in the grounds on hot days (Phil).
Clara had also opened up the sun terrace to the public for cream teas. These were popular and profitable and Mr B was working on the ‘perfect Dorset Apple Cake’, made from organic local flour and Bramley apples from a local orchard. The Bluebell’s ethos was to provide their own produce where possible – they supplied most of the organic vegetables – and to source the finest and best-priced ingredients locally.
Every time Clara updated Kate, she seemed thrilled. The plaster still wasn’t on, but she was in good spirits by the sound of it and she seemed to have accepted that rest was the key to a good recovery.
The Friday of the Young Farmers do was beautiful, as forecast, and as the day wore on and the skies remained clear and the sea gleamed a pristine blue, Clara was relieved on several levels.
The Bluebell didn’t have a large bar area – it was part of the main restaurant. The place had never been designed to be a party venue. But the Young Farmers were renowned for being big drinkers and had asked for a champagne reception, which would be held on the terrace if it was a nice evening.
It was also her weekend off. Sunday was the joint birthday celebration for Rosanna and Gran. The ‘party’ was to be at Rosanna’s and if the weather was good this would be outside in her sister’s lovely garden. Everyone was chipping in with the catering so the responsibility for cooking didn’t fall to any one person. Clara, who was providing two summer berry pavlovas, which everyone loved, was really looking forward to getting together with her whole family and a few extra hand-picked friends. Mum had hinted Grandad might even be there.
‘I hope you’ve told Gran,’ Clara had said.
‘I wouldn’t dare spring something like that on her,’ Mum had replied with a touch of sadness in her voice. ‘Your gran would never forgive me. But I do hope they’re going to put a stop to this silly nonsense soon. Life’s too short.’
Clara didn’t mention that having an affair, however brief it had been and however old you were, wasn’t silly nonsense and that she didn’t blame Gran for reacting like she had. They had discussed it all before.
At 5.30 just as Clara was filing paperwork and closing down her laptop ready to go home, Zoe came into the office, looking anxious.
‘I don’t want to bother you. But no one’s turned up yet for the Young Farmers do.’
‘It’s a bit early, isn’t it?’
‘Not really. I know the champagne reception doesn’t start until 7.00, but a lot of them are staying overnight. Someone should have checked in by now.’
‘Yes. I see what you mean. We had confirmation though, didn’t we – on Wednesday, as usual?’
‘We did. I spoke to the organiser myself. A guy called Jack Halliwell. It was all systems go.’
‘Maybe there’s been a traffic incident somewhere.’ Clara hooked out her phone to check but couldn’t find any mention of traffic issues. ‘There’ll be an explanation. Don’t worry.’
‘OK,’ Zoe said, unconvinced. She disappeared.
Ten minutes later, Phil Grimshaw appeared at the door, looking agitated, his eyes as black as his dark suit. ‘We have a problem,’ he said, standing in the doorway with his arms folded.
‘Is there still no sign of anyone?’
‘No. If they were coming, Clara, they’d be here.’
She knew he was right.
‘Would you like me to phone?’ he added.
‘No, I’ll do it.’ She picked up the landline on the desk, feeling a prickle of coldness in her stomach. If she hadn’t been so distracted with thinking about her family, not to mention Adam Greenwood who kept popping into her thoughts, she’d have picked up on this earlier. Not that she could have done anything other than what she was doing now.
Phil came right into the office as she found the number and dialled. Not far behind him was Zoe, who perched on a chair. They all waited.
The ringtone of the phone changed as it got forwarded to another number that was eventually picked up by a man.
‘Could I speak to Jack Halliwell please.’
‘You’re speaking to him.’ He sounded distracted. She could hear faint music in the background.
‘This is Clara King from the Bluebell Cliff. We’re expecting to host you tonight. I’m just checking that everything’s OK.’
There was a sound like a strangled snort on the other end of the line. Then a clunk as if he had dropped the phone. When he picked it up again, he was breathing heavily. ‘Is this some kind of a joke?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Halliwell. I’m not with you.’
‘You pulled the rug on us…’ When she didn’t immediately respond, he went on, speaking slowly. ‘Someone from your organisation telephoned yesterday morning and cancelled our evening. He said you had double-booked.’
Clara closed her eyes fleetingly. She felt as though she had just stepped into some surreal dream. Her brain kicked in, sharpening her thoughts with adrenaline. ‘I am so sorry, but I don’t think they telephoned from here. Could you please tell me what time…’? She realised she was talking to a dead line. He had hung up.
She told Zoe and Phil what had happened.
Zoe looked really shocked. Phil swore. ‘I’ll let the kitchen know.’
‘Thanks. I’ll need a complete list of everyone who was here yesterday morning,’ she told Zoe. ‘I think it’s highly unlikely that anyone did phone from here. But we need to check. Just in case this is some huge miscommu
nication somewhere.’
‘’What else could it be?’ Zoe asked.
Clara didn’t answer. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about, but however much she tried to slip back into a comfortable place of denial, it was the alternative that was the most likely explanation. Someone had sabotaged the booking. Very likely it was the same someone who had posted the video on YouTube.
At 6.45, two photographers from the local society magazine turned up. That jolted Clara too. They were far too curious about why the Young Farmers hadn’t arrived. It took all of her tact, and several drinks, to persuade them there had just been an administrative balls-up and it wasn’t one worthy of publishing.
By Saturday lunchtime, Clara, who’d given up taking Saturday off, had established several things. No one from the Bluebell had phoned Jack Halliwell and cancelled the booking. Or, to be more accurate, no one had owned up to it. She had no reason to disbelieve them. Sabotaging an event that was so profitable and high profile made no sense.
She had spoken again to Jack Halliwell. She had left him three messages before he’d responded, but he had finally got back to her and she’d been able to persuade him the Bluebell had not been responsible for cancelling the event. Jack had told her, in a manner a little more contrite than his previous one, that the man who’d phoned had been well-spoken and had sounded professional. He’d been profusely apologetic and had offered an alternative date, which Jack had refused. He had also offered compensation.
‘What form of compensation?’ Clara asked, trying to glean as much information as possible.
‘Monetary. To our bank account. I haven’t checked if he did it. To be honest with you, I wasn’t too worried about compensation. I was just pissed off that he’d pulled the rug on us. It’s a humungous amount of work – putting together an event like this.’
‘Can we reschedule?’
‘We’ve already rescheduled.’ There was a pause that dragged on and on.
‘But not with us,’ Clara said, feeling sick. ‘Do you mind if I ask who you rescheduled with?’
‘We went back to our original venue. The Manor House Hotel.’
Mr B was incandescent with rage when he heard this. ‘It was probably those bastards that cancelled it in the first place. I thought you’d come to an arrangement with them. We need to speak to them again. They need to be held accountable.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Clara said swiftly. ‘But I really don’t think it was them.’ Correction. She didn’t think it was Adam. Surely she couldn’t have been so wrong about him. Could it possibly have been his brother?
Phil didn’t think so. ‘It’s too obvious for it to be the Manor House. They must know we’d soon be looking in their direction. Particularly as they’ve taken back the booking.’
Mr B had reluctantly conceded that he was right. ‘Someone has it in for us though,’ he said. ‘This is a direct attack.’
Clara’s mind flicked back to something Ed, her brother-in-law, had said when they had been talking about Lighthousegate – ‘If someone does have a vendetta against the hotel, they’ll be up to other mischief too, so you’ll soon know about it.’
This definitely qualified as ‘other mischief’ and it was most likely to be the same person. She could rule out Will then, which was a relief. He was probably still out of the country. He was also unlikely to know that the local branch of the Young Farmers was even having their annual do at the Bluebell.
Then again that was hardly classified information. Twenty Young Farmers knew. So did their guests. So did the society magazine. So did the suppliers. So did anyone the Bluebell staff might have spoken to in the pub.
It would be totally impossible to track down the culprit.
‘I know it’s a long shot, but it may be worth asking Jack Halliwell if the Young Farmers record incoming calls,’ Phil suggested. ‘Then maybe we could have a listen – see if anyone in the hotel recognises the guy’s voice.’
‘Or Jack Halliwell’s mobile phone log,’ Zoe offered.
‘Good idea.’ Clara felt a surge of optimism, mixed with anxiety. She would hate to discover Adam’s voice on that recording.
But, as it turned out, there was no recording and a withheld number had been used to make the call, so this was never put to the test.
With a heavy heart, she reported the whole thing back to Kate and this time she could tell that her boss was worried.
‘That doesn’t sound good, Clara. On the bright side, we do have insurance that will cover the cancellation costs, in view of wasted food, vacant rooms, et cetera. I’m not sure what our excess is – it may not be worth making a claim.’
‘I’ll check,’ said Clara, thinking about the conversation she’d had with Mr B a couple of weeks previously about the high menu costs, the staff overtime.
‘I’m more worried about bad publicity than anything else,’ Kate added. ‘About word getting out that we’re not reliable. That’s much more of a problem than a few canapés.’
It was a bit more than a few canapés, but Clara agreed that she was worried about that too.
Kate gave a deep sigh. ‘It is beginning to seem that somebody has an axe to grind. Can Mr B shed any light on it?’
‘We’ve talked through some theories about a neighbouring hotel but nothing really, no.’
‘He’s mentioned the Manor House before,’ Kate said. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think that we’ve sorted things out with them.’ Clara hoped she was right. ‘I had a meeting with Adam Greenwood last week.’
‘Is he the one who’s ill or the one with the money?’ Kate asked. ‘I can never remember which one’s which.’
‘He’s not the one who’s ill. I didn’t know he was the financier. I thought they were partners.’
‘According to my late aunt, the brother who was ill had the dream and the other brother had the money. He got a huge redundancy package from some big I.T. company and he ploughed pretty much all of it into buying that hotel, which maybe wasn’t the brightest idea because neither of them had ever run a hotel before and that place is a money pit. It needed loads doing to it.’ She paused for breath. ‘So did the Bluebell, but we had a bigger budget.’
‘I see,’ Clara said, feeling her spirits sink lower.
‘What did you make of him anyway?’
‘I wasn’t sure at first, but after we got talking, I warmed to him.’
‘I liked him too,’ Kate said. ‘He’s got the reputation for being the grumpy one, but it struck me that was only skin-deep. I respected the fact that he loved his brother enough to risk pretty much everything he owned. He sold his house too apparently to make the sale price – and they don’t employ a lot of staff in that place. Not compared to us anyway. I don’t know how they do it.’
‘I noticed it looked a bit run-down when I visited,’ Clara said, wishing that the odds of it being Adam weren’t getting higher with each passing second. She’d had no idea of just how much he’d had to lose by having another hotel set up practically next-door.
Kate must have heard her despondency because she said, ‘I’m so sorry that I’m not there. Fingers crossed it won’t be much longer. I’ve got an appointment with the consultant next Tuesday. Hopefully he’ll say the plaster can go on and then I can get a date to fly back. I don’t like the idea of you having to cope with this alone.’
‘I’m not. I have Mr B and Phil and Keith and Zoe and a host of other brilliant staff in my corner.’
‘All right. But if anything else happens – anything that looks in the slightest way as if it’s some kind of sabotage – will you promise to let me know immediately?’
‘I promise.’
‘Also, can you please let me know if bookings are adversely affected? Or if anything gets into the papers or on social media, or if there’s anything at all else that crops up.’
‘I will.’
Kate finished by asking the same question she always did. ‘How’s my lovely girl?’
‘She’s absolutely fine,�
�� Clara assured her. ‘In fact, she’s put on weight.’ Did she dare joke that Foxy had done quite well out of the cancelled Young Farmers’ dinner. As had all the staff. There had been an awful lot of food that wouldn’t keep and couldn’t be frozen and which she’d advised Mr B to distribute, rather than throw away.
She didn’t need to say anything. Kate tuned straight into her thoughts. ‘I bet she had a steak dinner last night, didn’t she? Don’t worry, Clara. We’ll get to the bottom of this.’
As Clara hung up, she thought, not for the first time, that she must have the best boss on the planet, as well as the best job. She really could not bear to lose it.
15
The sun stayed for the Sunday afternoon birthday party. It shone out of a cloudless blue sky, picking out the light of a dozen or so sparkling glasses of Prosecco, held by people who were dotted around the garden. The King family didn’t do champagne, but they did do posh glasses. Rosanna had got the best ones out and, right at this moment, they were all full in readiness for a toast, which Ed, as the host, was about to deliver. First of all, though, he was making a speech.
‘I’d like to thank everyone for coming today and for helping us make another momentous birthday special.’ He sounded slightly drunk. Clara wasn’t surprised. Ed always knocked it back a bit at gatherings, and whereas roast dinners were good at mopping up alcohol, finger buffets weren’t.
‘Not that momentous,’ Rosanna said under her breath. ‘I’m not forty until next year. Oh My God. Forty! Can you believe it?’
Gran winked at her from her place on a patio chair on the decking. ‘Wait until you’re seventy-seven, angel.’
Rosanna rolled her eyes.
Their mother giggled and said, ‘I think I’m a tittle lipsy.’
Dad shushed her.
Clara wished they’d get on with it. It had been a pleasant afternoon, but she’d been disappointed that Grandad hadn’t turned up. Or, more to the point, as her mother had hissed to her when she’d arrived, he hadn’t been allowed to turn up.
