by C. L. Taylor
I pick through the washing-up, piled up beside the sink. There’s nothing on the chopping board, other than a few streaks of tomato and the strong scent of garlic, and nothing on the blades of any of the knives. The cat creeps out from its hiding place and winds itself around my legs as I pick up a handful of cutlery then quickly discard it. I look at plates, bowls, pans and dishes, then, out of the corner of my eye, I spot a teaspoon I missed, lying between the draining rack and the tiled splashback. I snatch it up and almost throw it straight back down again but then I see it, fine white power on the back of the spoon. As I run my nail over it, the door creaks open.
‘Everything okay in here?’ Fiona glances around the kitchen, her gaze flitting from the damp wall to the bin to my mug, sitting on top of the counter. ‘I thought I’d come and give you a hand.’
‘Who made the hot chocolate?’ I ask, pointing at the pan with a shaking hand.
‘What?’
‘Who made that?’
‘Well, I made the pasta, Christine made the hot chocolate.’
‘Everything all right, Anna?’ she calls after me as I push open the door. I keep my pace slow and unhurried, aware of the guests’ eyes on me as I stroll through the dining room, but as soon as I’m out in the lobby I sprint to the toilet.
I shove open the door, flip back the seat then bend over and shove my fingers down my throat.
‘Anna?’ There’s a light tapping on the bathroom door. ‘Anna, are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, Melanie.’ I grab a handful of toilet roll and wipe it over my face. There’s sick in my hair, on my hands and down my top. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’
‘I don’t need the loo,’ she calls. ‘I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. It sounded like you were being sick.’
‘I was.’
‘Oh no.’ There’s worry in her voice. ‘Shall I get someone?’
‘No.’ I open the door and peer into the lobby. We’re alone and the door to the dining room is closed.
‘What is it?’ Melanie asks. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Does anyone else know I’ve been sick?’
‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘You looked very pale. I thought there might be a problem with your shoulder. That’s why I came after you.’
‘So no one knows I’ve been sick?’
She shakes her head again. ‘No, I … as I just said, I thought you—’
‘Don’t say anything. The others will worry that it’s a bug or food poisoning and I think we’ve got enough on our plates at the moment. Don’t you?’
She looks confused, as well she should. The real reason I want her to keep quiet is because Christine will be expecting me to pass out in the next couple of hours, but there’s no way I’ll be sleeping tonight. I’m going to leave as soon as it’s light. And I’m going alone.
Chapter 49
Anna
Friday 8th June
Day 7 of the storm
It’s 1 a.m. now and the hotel is quiet. It’s been over an hour since I heard floorboards creaking in the corridor below and the low clunk of doors being pulled shut. My curtains are drawn, the door is locked, the bedside lamp is on and I’ve got the duvet draped around my shoulders. When I first locked myself in my room I couldn’t settle, so I unzipped my suitcase and sorted through my belongings, moving my most precious things into a small tote bag. There’s not much in there that I value – just my purse, passport and a framed photograph of my parents. My phone – without 4G or Wi-Fi it’s little more than a bedside clock with a torch function – is charging on the chest of drawers. The only other item in the tote bag is the teaspoon, wrapped in a tissue. As far as evidence goes it’s pretty pathetic but it’s all I’ve got to take to the police. What else can I show them – a floorboard that may or may not have come loose on its own, a damaged shoulder and a window with a message that I wiped clean? I wish I hadn’t left Christine’s book in her room. I can’t stop thinking about the look on her face when she came up the stairs and the coldness in her eyes. She has to be Steve Laing’s mother or sister, it’s the only explanation for what she’s doing. Does Steve know? Did they decide between themselves that she’d come after me? But why her? She’s a sixty-seven-year-old woman, an ex-primary school teacher. It doesn’t make sense.
2 a.m. I put down the book I’ve been ‘reading’ for the last half an hour. I’ve turned dozens of pages but nothing has sunk in. Beyond the window, an owl hoots in the darkness and the sea roars in reply. The room seems to have grown smaller over the last hour. I feel like an animal in a pen. If anyone comes through the bedroom door I’m trapped in here.
3 a.m. I’ve yawned at least a dozen times in the last hour and I’m desperate for a coffee but there’s no way I’m risking a trip downstairs to the kitchen. I’ve tried pacing to keep myself awake but it’s barely six strides from one side of the bedroom to the other and the boards creaked with each step. I’ve tried sit-ups but the effort made me feel even more exhausted so I had to stop. With the silence and darkness comes paranoia. I’m starting to wonder if maybe I jumped to the wrong conclusion about Christine. I assumed the book was hers but what if it wasn’t? What if whoever took Trevor’s tablets from his room planted the book in her bag to try to throw me off the scent? But that would mean Fiona’s behind it all. She could easily have crushed up the Valium in the kitchen, not Christine. I just don’t know any more. Either way I’m still getting out of here. I’ve got the key to the Land Rover in my pocket but I don’t know how much petrol there is left, if any. I didn’t think to check after we all got back from looking for Trevor. Could I swim across the river if I had to? I remove my sling and tentatively bend and stretch my arm but it makes me feel sick and I have to stop.
4 a.m. I nearly fell asleep then. It can’t have been for more than a second or two and I snapped awake, my heart thumping in my chest. I’ve written a letter, just in case anything happens to me, but I’m not sure where to put it – under the mattress, in my suitcase, in the pocket of my jeans? I nearly tore it up, after I read it through. I feel like I’m jinxing myself by writing a letter that starts, ‘If you’re reading this then I am no longer alive,’ but I need to document everything that’s happened. It has to come from me. I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. I mustn’t … I MUST NOT …
I wake with a start, clutching at the desk as I jolt back in my chair. For a second I don’t know where I am but then I see the sun streaming through the gap in the curtains and the double bed, unslept in, and a suitcase on the floor and I remember. Shit. I snatch up the phone: 5.25 a.m. The hotel is quiet; all the other guests must still be asleep. I can still creep away unnoticed. I nip into the en suite to use the toilet but, when I flick the light switch, nothing happens. The bulb must have gone. I wee in the dark, one foot outstretched to keep the door open, then pull up my jeans and pat the pockets to check for the Land Rover key. Still there. With my tote and phone in one hand I slowly unlock and open the bedroom door, slip out onto the landing and step over the missing plank. I run on tiptoes down the stairs. I stop, suddenly, as I reach the stairwell on the first floor.
Smoke. The distinctive, acrid smell floods my nostrils. Not cigarette smoke though. It’s much, much stronger.
Instinctively I glance up at the fire alarm but the light’s not blinking on the small red box on the ceiling, halfway along the corridor. I was wrong when I thought the bulb had blown in my en suite: the electricity’s gone off.
As I run down the stairs to the lobby the smell grows stronger and stronger, but there’s no sign of smoke, no terrifying crackle of flames. Is it the lounge? Has an ember started to smoulder on the rug? I tentatively touch a hand to the door. Cold. I turn the handle and peer inside. Malcolm, splayed out, is snoring on the sofa. There’s a dead fire in the grate.
‘Malcolm.’ I lightly shake his shoulder. ‘Wake up!’
When he doesn’t respond I give him a shove. ‘Malcolm, wake up! I can smell smoke.’
His eyelids don’t so much as f
licker.
I leave him snoozing on the sofa and venture into the dining room but stop short before I reach the kitchen door. Thick, black smoke is twirling and winding its way through the cracks between the door and the doorframe. I tap the door handle with the very tips of my fingers. It’s not hot but I’m scared. I’ve seen films where people yank open the door on confined fires and are thrown across the room in a huge, fiery backdraught. I need to get outside and look through the window.
But when I return to the lobby and pull on the front door it’s locked and the key isn’t on the hook behind reception. I reach into my pocket for the master key, then stop as my fingers close around cold metal. They only open the inner doors of the hotel. The lock on the front door is completely different.
‘Malcolm! WAKE UP!’ I slap his cheek, gently at first then harder when he doesn’t respond. There’s half a glass of whisky on the table. When I hurl it into his face his eyelids flicker and he looks lazily in my direction then closes his eyes again and goes back to sleep. I was right about the hot chocolate, but it wasn’t just my mug that was drugged.
I reach through the curtains and pull at the sash window. It only opens three or four inches. I try the next window, and the next, but none of them open more than a couple of inches.
‘FIRE!’ I run up the stairs and move from room to room, thumping and kicking on the doors.
I pause outside each room, listening for the sound of stirring, of shoes and clothes being pulled on and voices raised in alarm. But there’s nothing. The corridor is completely silent.
‘Katie!’ I bang on her door. ‘Wake up!’
When there’s no response I slot the master key into the lock and let myself in. Katie is curled up on her bed, fast asleep. I shake her, shouting her name, but she doesn’t so much as stir. It’s the same in Joe’s room, Fiona’s and Melanie’s. They’re all comatose. But when I open the door to Christine’s room there’s no one inside.
I speed back down the stairs, grab the fire extinguisher from behind reception and then stop abruptly halfway across the dining room. The thick black smoke that was drifting through the gaps in the kitchen door a couple of minutes ago is now billowing out. It hangs in the air above my head like a dark cloud. I pull the sleeve of my jumper over my mouth and retreat into the lobby, slamming the door after me. I need to get everyone out but with the front door locked and the fire raging in the kitchen there’s no escape. We’re trapped.
Chapter 50
I slip my arm out of the sling and, lifting the fire extinguisher with my left hand, take the weight with my right. All the nerves in my shoulder scream at me to put it down again but I grit my teeth and carry it into the lounge. Our only way out is through a window. Malcolm, still on the sofa, snuffles and shifts from his back to his side.
I rest the fire extinguisher on the table then reach for the curtain. As I pull it back a face looms out at me and a startled scream catches in my throat. Trevor’s standing outside the window, the hood of his jacket pulled tightly around his face, his glasses misted with rain. There’s a grunt from the sofa as Malcolm stretches his arms over his head, gurning and blinking as he wakes up.
‘Don’t go back to sleep!’ I reach back with my foot and kick the sofa repeatedly. ‘Wake up, Malcolm. Wake up!’
Trevor is still watching me from outside, his hands wrapped around the straps of his rucksack, his eyes wary. His lips move but I can’t hear a word through the thick glass.
‘Move out the way.’ I gesture for him to move away from the window. The dank, acrid stink of the smoke is stronger now and loud pops and bangs punctuate the crackle that’s growing louder and louder. The fire must have spread to the dining room. There’s a fire door between it and the lobby but it won’t hold forever. I hack and cough as I take the weight of the fire extinguisher and step towards the window.
‘One … two …’ Pain shoots from my shoulder to my neck as I swing the fire extinguisher behind me. ‘Three!’
I’m not strong enough to throw it with any power and, for one horrible second, I think it’s going to drop to the floor before it hits the window but then – BANG – it smashes against the glass and lands with a clunk outside. I grab an iron rod from beside the fire and smash the rest of the glass away.
‘There’s a fire!’ I shout at Trevor. ‘Please, please help me get everyone out!’
Trevor stares at me blankly from beyond the shattered window. Of course he’s not going to help me. Why would he, after what we did to him? He looks away, towards the driveway and the river beyond it, and the expression on his face changes. There’s a spark of excitement, or perhaps fear. Whatever he’s watching doesn’t keep his attention for long because he looks back at me, shrugs off his backpack and unzips his coat. He bundles his coat into a pillow shape then steps towards the window.
‘Move,’ he says as he knocks the broken glass out of the base of the frame with the handle of his knife. ‘I’m coming in.’
We leave Malcolm, still struggling to sit upright, on the sofa and run up the stairs. My injured arm throbs with every step but I barely notice the pain when I open the door to Katie’s room and see her, so small and fragile in her pyjamas, walking socks and an oversized hoody, curled up on her bed with one hand tucked under her face.
I grab her by the wrist and pull. She slides across the sheets towards me but doesn’t wake up. I look back at Trevor, hovering in the doorway. He looks as though the slightest noise might send him scurrying back down the stairs. I wrap Katie’s arm around my neck and try to hoist her onto my back but she keeps slipping to one side. ‘Trevor,’ I shout. ‘Please, help me!’
My shout seems to snap him back into himself and he rushes forwards and scoops Katie off the bed and into his arms.
‘No, wait,’ I say as he turns to leave. ‘Let me take her. You can get Fiona.’
‘No.’ He disappears down the corridor before I can stop him.
The door to Melanie’s room is still ajar. Other than Katie she’s the smallest and lightest guest and if I’m going to be able to get anyone onto my back and down the stairs it’s her. But, unlike Katie, Melanie isn’t splayed out on her mattress. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing her hands over her face and groaning softly. She turns slowly and blinks up at me as I walk into her room. Without her glasses her eyes look small and beady below her thick, unkempt eyebrows. She coughs as she tries to sit up, then collapses back onto the mattress.
‘I need to get you out.’ I take hold of her hand, loop her arm around my neck and straighten my knees. She’s so light she slides off the bed but when her feet hit the floor her legs crumple beneath her.
‘You need to stand up, Melanie. Look at me! Melanie, look at me. There’s a fire. We need to get out.’
She croaks something about her glasses but I haven’t got the strength, or the time, to put her back down again so I can look for them.
‘I can’t see,’ she says, her words slurring together as I half drag, half carry her out of the room, her toes barely making contact with the carpet. ‘I can’t see without my glasses.’
‘We have to leave them. Come on. Please. Try to walk.’
Sweat is pouring off me and we’re only halfway down the corridor. As we approach the stairwell Trevor comes pounding up the stairs, arms pumping, with a piece of material wrapped around his nose and mouth. He reaches out to take Melanie but I shake my head.
‘You need to get Fiona and Joe. I can manage.’
He nods sharply and squeezes past me.
It seems to take forever to get down the stairs and each step is agonising. With no free hand to grip the banister I have to press my bad shoulder into the wall to stabilize myself. Melanie is still unsteady on her feet and I screech each time she lurches forwards. Finally, we make it to the bottom stair and I pretty much drag her across the lounge and over to the window. Malcolm is sitting up now, his head resting on the top of the sofa, his eyes closed. I shout his name as we pass him and his eyes flicker and open.
> ‘Mel?’ He looks groggily at his wife and frowns in confusion. ‘Mel?’
Trevor appears in the doorway with Fiona, awake but woozy, flung over his shoulder. He drops her onto the sofa beside Malcolm then disappears back into the lobby. Beyond the window Katie is lying on the grass outside, still asleep and curled up on her side.
‘Mel.’ I point to the blanket that Trevor must have wrapped over the base of the frame. ‘You need to step over that.’
She lifts her leg, grabbing hold of me as she wobbles and tries to get her foot over the sill, but she’s too short.
‘Wait here.’ I leave her slumped against the wall and drag an armchair across the room. ‘Here.’ I hold out my hand for Mel to take. ‘Step on the chair, then on the blanket, then jump out of the window. There’s a bit of a drop on the other side so be careful.’
‘Okay.’ She rubs at her eyes then takes my hand.
‘Careful.’ I pat the blanket with the flat of my hand before she steps on it but I can’t feel any glass. ‘Ready? Three, two, one.’
She falls, rather than jumps, out of the window, her bare feet hitting the patio, her hands smacking against the grass verge. She lies still then lifts her head and drags herself towards Katie, lying a few feet away. The lobby is full of thick black smoke now and flames are licking around the dining room door. Where’s Trevor? He’s a tall man, ex-military, but Joe is no featherweight. He’s probably struggling to move him. I don’t know whether to help him or try to get Malcolm and Fiona out of the window.
