The Snow Baby

by Chrissie Manby

  ‘Shall I do a proper inventory of the housekeeping cupboard?’ Clare asked.

  ‘I think you better had, Clare. Kate, you’ve left me with no choice,’ said Dave. ‘Since you can’t tell me why you took that money, I’m going to have to assume you were taking it for your own purposes and that you did not intend to return it. Under these circumstances, I’m entitled to ask you to leave the premises.’

  Clare couldn’t hold in her glee. She almost clapped.

  ‘Dave, please. I can explain. But you have to promise that you’ll be understanding.’

  ‘The moment for that has passed. Clare,’ said Dave. ‘I’d like you to accompany Miss Farley to the staff quarters and help her to pack up her things. She must be off the hotel grounds by midnight.’

  ‘It’s Christmas Eve, Dave. Where am I supposed to go?’

  ‘Should have thought of that before you took the money. You’ve got a car, haven’t you? You could sleep in that. Or you could always drive to see your dad.’

  A triumphant sneer crossed Dave’s face as he said that and Kate knew exactly why. It had been a mistake ever to tell Dave about her family circumstances but when they first started working together, he had seemed like such a nice bloke. He’d made her feel she could confide in him and it had never occurred to her that he would ever use what she told him against her.

  ‘Now, are you going to go quietly or do I need to call Gabriel?’ Dave asked.

  There was no need to call Gabriel. He burst in while Dave was counting the money back into the petty cash box.

  ‘Kate! Kate! I think we need to call an ambulance.’

  Kate had no choice but to tell Dave the truth now.

  Moments later, Dave had Clare call an ambulance. He also had her call the police.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘So,’ said Dave, when they got to the barn. ‘This is where you’ve been sneaking off to all night. Getting the Shergar Suite ready, eh? I knew something else was going on. Who are these people? Are they illegal immigrants? Why didn’t you call the police right away?’

  Clare joined Dave in his condemnation. ‘And they’ve lit a fire! Do you have any idea what a danger that is to everyone staying at The Stables? This is outrageous. Dave, the hotel might have burned down.’

  ‘It is outrageous,’ Dave agreed.

  ‘Dave,’ Kate tried. ‘It’s not as bad as you think. I know I should have called the police but with Mandy here being so pregnant… They’ve got nowhere else to go.’

  ‘That’s not my problem. Or yours. You were employed to take care of the paying guests at The Stables, not these drifters. Imagine what the insurance company would say if this barn burned down. You’d probably go to prison.’

  ‘Probably,’ said Kate. ‘But that’s a risk I was prepared to take. It’s preferable to turning a mother-to-be out into the cold on Christmas Eve night.’

  ‘You’re a hotel manager, Kate. An assistant hotel manager. You’re not the inn-keeper at Bethlehem.’

  Clare’s mouth twisted into a semblance of a smile at Dave’s joke.

  ‘Not that you’ll be an assistant hotel manager for much longer,’ Dave added.

  Gabriel tried to intervene.

  ‘Come on, Dave. What else could Kate do? Are you telling me that you wouldn’t have tried to help?’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Dave, full of pride at his answer. ‘And you shouldn’t have got involved either, Gabriel. This isn’t looking good for you. You’ve been in dereliction of your duties for sure. You’re supposed to keep people like this out, not bring your duvet down to make them comfortable.’

  ‘Gabriel is not to bear any of the blame for this,’ Kate insisted. ‘He has been obeying my instructions.’

  ‘Shouldn’t have done that, Gabe,’ Dave said, shaking his head. Now he advanced on Jack and Mandy. ‘Come on, you two. Get your things. You’re going.’

  ‘They can’t leave,’ said Gabriel. ‘She’s been having contractions.’

  ‘And I should be bothered because…?’ Dave asked. He attempted to put out the fire by kicking the bricks Gabriel had piled around it onto the embers.

  ‘You think you’re such a heroine, don’t you?’ Clare hissed at Kate, while Dave’s attention was elsewhere. ‘Everybody loves Kate. All the sucking up you do makes me sick. Lovable Kate. Look how good you are! Look how stupid you are, more like.’

  ‘I don’t take kindly to this, you know,’ said Dave, turning back to Kate again. ‘I don’t take kindly at all. A man wants just one evening to enjoy himself with his pals, without having to worry about what’s going on at work. Couldn’t you do that for me, Kate? Well, they are not going to be sleeping rough here. Have you asked how long the police will be, Clare?’

  ‘I’m doing it right now,’ she said, jabbing numbers into her phone.

  ‘What were you thinking, Kate?’ Dave carried on. ‘I trusted you. You’ve proved yourself incapable. Allowing down and outs to sleep on the premises. Theft from housekeeping. Theft from the kitchen. Theft of petty cash. Silly thing to do, give up your job for a pair of strangers.’

  ‘I was going to replace the money as soon as I could get to town.’

  ‘I don’t know that,’ said Dave. ‘Like I said, you’ve made yourself unemployed for nothing.’

  ‘You’re firing her?’ asked Gabriel.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You can’t sack her,’ said Mandy. ‘She was only trying to help us. Out of the kindness of her heart. She said she shouldn’t let us stay here but it’s freezing and I’m pregnant. I couldn’t walk another step.’

  ‘You’re going to have to walk a few more steps now, love, from this barn to the police van. You’re trespassing and you’re causing criminal damage. Still, at least you’ll be warm in the cells overnight, eh?’

  Kate winced. She stepped across to Mandy and wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders. She didn’t know whether it was the contractions or Dave’s unkindness that was making Mandy so pale.

  ‘Great,’ Kate said to her former boss. ‘That’s really lovely. Where’s your humanity, Dave?’

  ‘I didn’t get where I am today by having any humanity.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘Do you want to lose your job too?’

  ‘I’m resigning,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘No,’ Kate mouthed at him. She knew he needed the money too.

  ‘The police are coming!’ said Clare, finishing her call. ‘They’re just dealing with an incident in a pub. Shall I call for some of the lads from the kitchen to come down here and guard the barn door so that nobody escapes in the meantime?’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Dave. ‘Worthy of a new assistant manager.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Of course. You’re acting assistant manager as from this very minute. I shall make it official as soon as I get into the office.’

  ‘Oh thank you! Thank you!’ Clare almost skipped with delight. ‘I’ll ring the kitchen right now.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The lads from the kitchen, including Remi, came straight down, but they didn’t immediately form a Praetorian guard as Dave might have expected.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Remi asked.

  ‘Kate was going to let these beggars sleep in the barn,’ said Clare. ‘But we’ve called the police. We need you to contain these people until the cops arrive.’

  ‘She was going to let us stay here because I’m pregnant,’ Mandy shouted.

  ‘Jeez,’ said Remi, whose own wife was due to give birth at the beginning of January. ‘You look about ready to burst. What on earth are you doing in a barn on a night like this?’

  ‘We had no choice. It’s better than being on the street,’ said Jack.

  ‘Don’t talk to them!’ said Dave. ‘Just guard the door. We need to make sure they don’t go anywhere before the police arrest them.’

  ‘I wasn’t hired to do security,’ said Remi. ‘I’m a chef.’

  Remi pushed past Dave to talk
to Mandy and Jack himself.

  ‘Have you been getting enough to eat?’ he asked them.

  ‘Not lately,’ Jack admitted.

  Remi turned to one of his kitchen staff. ‘Go back to the kitchen and fetch a couple of those leftover beef wellingtons.’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ said Dave to the same lad. ‘If you move an inch, you’ll be fired.’

  ‘And if you don’t let me get this poor woman some food,’ Remi warned his manager, ‘I will be walking and taking my staff with me anyway. What’s it to be, Dave?’

  The two men stood nose to nose. Remi knew that Dave couldn’t afford to lose him. Not the night before Christmas. There were too many guests to feed. Plus, Dave had always been a little scared of Remi. He was the one member of staff Dave didn’t ever seem to patronize.

  ‘OK. But you can only bring food for the pregnant one,’ Dave told the kitchen lad in his version of a magnanimous compromise.

  Remi just winked at the boy.

  While the kitchen lad went to find some food, the police arrived in the hotel car park. Though it was almost midnight and Clare had warned them of the need for discretion, the police arrived with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring. If they had to work on Christmas Eve, they were going to have some fun.

  Within a minute, four uniformed officers had joined the crowd now gathered in the barn.

  ‘Arrest them!’ squeaked Clare, pointing towards Jack and Mandy.

  ‘They’re trespassing,’ said Dave. ‘And, as you can see, they have caused criminal damage.’

  ‘They’ve burned a few old chair legs!’ huffed Kate.

  ‘To keep warm,’ Gabriel added.

  ‘It is a bloody chilly night out there,’ said one of the policemen.

  ‘And she’s pregnant,’ Remi the chef pointed out.

  ‘Oh,’ said the policeman. ‘Oh dear. You didn’t say that one of the trespassers was pregnant when you called us in.’

  All four policemen took a step back as they considered the added complications involved in trying to arrest a pregnant woman. They’d covered the concept in training, of course, but it was just one of those things that they’d all hoped never to encounter in real life. The possibility for disaster was enormous. Not one of the male police officers wanted to risk touching the poor girl.

  ‘Have you called an ambulance?’ the senior officer asked.

  ‘There’s supposed to be one on the way,’ said Kate.

  ‘Can’t you just take them to the hospital in the back of your van?’ Dave asked. ‘And then charge them. Criminal damage! Arson! And probably theft!’

  ‘Mandy can’t go in a police van,’ said Kate. ‘She’s been having contractions.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the senior policeman again. ‘Oh dear.’

  While Dave tried to persuade the police to arrest Jack, Mandy and Kate, the lad from the kitchen returned with a tray, onto which he had loaded two beautifully presented plates. He had also carried a tray rest down from the lobby and set it up in the middle of the room now, as carefully as if he had been delivering room service to an oligarch in the Shergar Suite.

  Despite the awful circumstances, Kate felt very proud to see how the top-notch customer service guests at The Stables had come to expect was extended to their poor visitors that night.

  ‘I brought this too,’ said the lad, pulling a half bottle of red wine out of his pocket. ‘You can’t have beef wellington without it.’

  ‘I’ll have to,’ said Mandy, sneaking a carrot from her plate. ‘I’m having a baby, remember?’

  As if on cue, she had another noisy contraction.

  All the men in the room, except for Jack and Gabriel, flattened themselves against the walls in panic.

  Chapter Fourteen

  By now it was not only hotel staff and police who had gathered in the barn. Of course, the hotel guests had heard and seen the police cars coming into the car park. How could they be expected not to be interested in what was going on? It wasn’t long before the restaurant was abandoned altogether as the last of the stragglers made their way to where the real action was happening. And then the people who had already gone to bed couldn’t help but hear the commotion as thirty other guests hurried across the gravel car park, forgetting to keep their voices down as they went. Champagne, wine and brandy made sure of that.

  Mr and Mrs Shepherd and the King sisters were among the first to arrive.

  They hovered by the open barn door for a while, trying to work out what was going on while remaining somewhat discrete. But eventually Eugenie King just stepped right in, having ascertained that she was in no danger.

  ‘Is anyone going to tell us what’s happening?’ she asked. ‘All this noise and fuss? You can’t expect us to go up to our rooms and sleep soundly when there’s so much worrying activity going on.’

  ‘It’s OK, Miss King,’ Kate tried to reassure her. ‘It’s purely a matter for the staff. Everything will be back to normal soon.’

  ‘When these people have been arrested,’ said Dave. ‘What are you waiting for?’ Dave asked the most senior policeman again.

  While the police dithered, terrified at the prospect of arresting a pregnant woman who might resist and with no ambulance in sight (despite the police having called for assistance), Mandy gave Eugenie the low-down between contractions. As she talked, the other King sisters and the Shepherds ventured into the barn. By the time Mandy got to the climax of her tale of woe, pretty much the entire total of hotel guests had squeezed in alongside them.

  ‘And that’s why we’re here. And it’s why this lovely woman let us stay.’

  Mandy finished her story with a grimace. The contractions were getting stronger.

  ‘Is she alright?’ asked Penelope King.

  ‘How long have you been getting contractions?’ Mrs Shepherd asked, rushing forward and taking the young girl by the hand. ‘Sit down.’

  Someone had produced a chair.

  ‘Stand back,’ said Dave. ‘The hotel can’t be held responsible if a guest is attacked under these circumstances. These people could be dangerous.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ said Josephine King, the big sister. ‘They’re children.’

  ‘And I’m a midwife,’ said Mrs Shepherd. ‘At least, I was before I retired.’

  Kate wondered how she had allowed that to slip her mind.

  ‘Do you mind if I examine you?’ Mrs Shepherd asked Mandy. ‘When did you last see a doctor about the baby?’

  ‘I haven’t seen a doctor at all,’ Mandy confirmed.

  ‘Well, this is ridiculous. We need to get this young lady into the hotel,’ said Mrs Shepherd, taking control.

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said the senior policeman, clearly relieved that someone else was prepared to be in charge.

  ‘No way,’ said Dave. ‘I cannot have these people on my premises. Whatever would the guests think?’

  ‘I think,’ said Mr Shepherd, ‘That your guests would be relieved to know that these people are being properly looked after. Just as Kate and your staff have always looked after us.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Josephine. ‘Come on, everybody,’ she turned to the other onlookers. ‘Make some space, please. Pregnant lady coming through.’

  ‘Stop!’ Dave tried to prevent Mandy’s exit.

  ‘There isn’t any point taking her up to the hotel,’ said Clare. ‘There isn’t anywhere to put her! Every single bed in the place is in occupation. Except for the Shergar Suite. But, as you told me, Kate, we’ve got a special guest coming.’ She gave Kate a triumphant smirk.

  There was no special guest, of course. But Kate was not going to get into that right now.

  ‘We can take them to the spa,’ said Kate. ‘And put them in one of the treatment rooms.’

  ‘That sounds like a good idea,’ said Josephine. ‘Lots of towels and hot water on tap.’

  ‘You can’t put them in there,’ said Dave. ‘The treatment rooms are for paying guests. It’s a luxury spa. Luxury!’

 
; ‘Isn’t that what these young people deserve?’ asked Eugenie. ‘A bit of luxury in their hour of need. Come along everybody. Make way, make way.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Dave asked the policemen. ‘They’re getting away.’

  ‘I know it seems unconventional,’ said the policeman. ‘But don’t you think it might be the best thing for the moment? There’s no way we can arrest a pregnant woman without her first having a medical examination but all the county ambulances are in use right now and it really isn’t possible to do a medical examination in the dark of this barn anyway. Makes much more sense for them to be in the spa. Safer. Cleaner. Warmer too.’

  ‘Are you refusing to do anything?’ Dave asked.

  ‘I am,’ said the policeman.

  ‘If that’s your attitude, I shall be reporting you to your superiors!’ said Dave. ‘Don’t think I won’t. I was having a drink with the police commissioner only this evening.’

  ‘Then you’ll know that his daughter is having her first child in the spring. I’m sure that might colour his view as to whether or not I made the right decision.’

  ‘You’ve not heard the last of this,’ said Dave, but he could do nothing other than follow the procession back towards the hotel’s luxury spa. Kate was at the head of it, leading the way. The guests behind her lit the path with their mobile phones. A flurry of snow-flakes danced around them like tiny fairies. There was something faintly magical about it, if only Dave could have seen past the red mist that had descended now that his authority was being ignored.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gabriel, who had keys to all the buildings in case of emergencies, unlocked the spa’s main door and pushed it open with a flourish. Mandy, Jack and their myriad helpers streamed inside.

  The lights were turned on. As was the ‘whale music’ that echoed through the spas corridors all day long. It came on automatically. Never had so many people been in such need of relaxation at once.

  Kate directed Mrs Shepherd towards the largest of the treatment rooms and they checked to see that she would have everything she needed in there should Mandy’s baby come before an ambulance arrived. It was looking increasingly likely that the baby would arrive first. Fortunately, Mrs Shepherd was happy that she could work in the room, which was usually used for ‘couples’ massage’. More towels were brought. Someone produced some disinfecting wipes with which to swab down the padded couches.