'Is there anyone else who is frequently in the guest rooms, who would have a chance of picking up small items like rings which have been left about,'
'Well, I suppose somebody might be there, when we're not around, but they'd need a key to get in. And anyway, most guests put valuables in the safes,' Rosie said, 'and no one can open them except the guests themselves.'
'How easy would it be for someone to obtain the room master key? Or a single room key, taken by chance, since these thefts have been on different days?'
Mandy looked puzzled. 'They couldn't. I don't understand what you mean.'
Mrs Jones nodded. 'Of course not. I control the master key, and I am very careful. I suggest, Miss Sankey, that these guests who say they have been robbed either gave their room keys to someone else, or left them lying around. They do, you'll recall, have numbered tags. Or they have instead been careless, dropped their rings or whatever they claim has been stolen, somewhere, and are trying to lay the blame on innocent young girls.'
She shot a malicious glance at Elena as she spoke. Then Mandy, who seemed to have suddenly realised the import of the questions, burst into tears.
'You're accusing us of stealing! I've never stolen nothing my whole life! Well, I won't stay here to be insulted! I won't work where you think a thief! I'm leaving! Now! And I won't come back!'
She rose to her feet, knocking over her chair, shrugged off Mrs Jones's hand and ran, sobbing noisily, from the room.
Rosie got hesitantly to her feet. 'Shall I go after her?' she asked, looking at Mrs Jones for permission. It was clear she thought of her as the boss.
Mrs Jones shook her head. 'You won't catch her, she'll be on her bike already. I'll drive down to talk to her later, at home. Now you go to bed and try to sleep.'
She glared at Dodie, tossed her head at Sheila as if defying her to contradict her orders, and turned towards the door, ushering Rosie ahead of her. Then she turned back and leant across the table, almost spitting in Dodie's face.
'And if she's too upset to see where she's going and gets knocked off her bike and killed, her death will be on your consciences!'
*
Dodie found there was a palpable air of disquiet in the dining room the following morning. The guests looked worried, and the waitresses were unsmiling. From the looks the latter gave Dodie as she helped herself to juice and coffee from the buffet she guessed Rosie had told the rest of the staff what had happened, and her name was mud. Mr Barratt and the ladies who had lost things would no doubt have spoken about it to other guests, too. Elena, unusually, for she was popular with the guests, was sitting at a table on her own, and Dodie went to join her. It was an uncomfortable meal.
'What next?' Elena asked quietly.
Dodie sighed. 'Await developments, I suppose. There's little more we can do. If Rosie or Mandy did steal the things, they'll have had the sense to get rid of them by now, probably by Mandy taking them to the village.'
'So even if Sheila would agree, there is little point in searching their rooms. If they are guilty, and if they'd had any sense, the things stolen before this week would have been taken away long ago.'
'I really think, now people know about the thefts, and because there have been far more than we thought at first, it's time to bring in the police. I'll go and try to persuade Sheila before I have my hair done. What's your programme today?'
'I fancy being pampered, I'm having a facial. So do you think it's time we went home? Can we do any more?' Elena asked.
'Let's wait a day or so. I'm having my hair done, and Sheila tells me Susan lives in the village. I might glean something from her, unless she is so enraged with me on Mandy's behalf she pulls out all my hair!'
*
As it was Saturday Dodie found Pat and Julie doing her room when she went upstairs. Then, hearing noises from the bathroom, she saw Rosie bent over the washbasin, splashing water over her face with one hand while, groaning, she was clutching her stomach with the other.
'My dear, what is it? Are you ill?' Dodie asked, going towards her.
Rosie shook her head and stood upright. 'It's nothing, Mrs Fanshaw. I'm OK now, thanks.'
'Come and sit down.' Dodie led her to the armchair and made her sit down. 'Isn't today your day off?'
'Yes, but I can't settle! I wanted to be with someone.'
'What's made you feel ill?'
Rosie looked up at her, shook her head, and began to cry. 'I'm pregnant! I'm feeling ill every morning!'
Suddenly what she'd heard Sam say made a different sense to Dodie. He hadn't been talking about jewels.
'And Sam wants you to have an abortion?'
'How – how did you guess?'
'Never mind that. Is he the father?'
'Yes, of course he is! We're engaged. But I don't want to kill my baby!'
'Why does he?'
'He says we can't afford it yet, I'd have to give up work.'
'He's a selfish brute, like most men!' Pat said. 'Takes his pleasure and doesn't want the responsibility.'
'What can I do?'
'Nothing about the baby, yet. What you need to do now is go and lie down. I don't imagine you slept much last night? Julie, will you go with her and make sure she gets into bed properly? Did you have any breakfast, Rosie?'
She shook her head. 'I felt too queasy.'
'Then make her a cup of tea and some toast with just a scrape of butter.'
'Will do, Mrs Fanshaw.' Julie hesitated and glanced anxiously at Pat. 'But we're not supposed to be alone in the guest rooms.'
'I'll stay here until you get back. I want to have a word with Pat anyway.'
The two girls departed, and Dodie took the armchair, gesturing to Pat to sit on the desk chair.
'Is Mrs Jones around? Does she know about Rosie?'
Pat, sitting on the edge of the chair, shook her head. 'No to both. Rosie only told us this morning, when she was sick. Mrs Jones has both Saturday and Sunday off, and I haven't seen her this morning, though her car was in the car park when I got to work. She often goes away for weekends, I think she has family in Middlesborough.'
'Then how do you get the master keys when she's away?'
'I'm her deputy. She gives me the keys on Friday, after we have finished, and I give them to the others. On Saturday, that's only for the middle floor, as we are covering up here as well as doing the ground floor.'
'I see. You live in the village, I think? Do you take the keys with you on Saturday night? And during the day, when you have time off?'
'Yes, always. I don't leave them here. Why do you ask?'
'You know about these thefts? Mr Barratt's tie clip and the others?' Dodie knew the more recent thefts had not been mentioned.
'Rosie told us.' She had answered freely up to now, but her voice hardened. 'Rosie isn't a thief, Mrs Fanshaw. It wasn't right to accuse her.'
'No, and she hasn't been accused, I hoped she or Mandy could answer some questions, that's all. But I am interested to find out how any thief could gain access to the guest rooms. It seems far more likely to me that these items were stolen from the rooms than the owners just happened to mislay them.'
'Well, they didn't get the master keys from me!'
Dodie ignored her defensive tone. 'If you have any ideas, let me or Miss Sheila know, will you?'
She nodded, and they sat in silence until Julie returned, so say Rosie had drunk her tea and was feeling a little better. Dodie nodded and went, somewhat belatedly, to her hair appointment.
*
Susan, she found, was in a chatty mood. She had heard about the missing items, but not, it seemed, about the questioning of Rosie and Mandy the previous day. All she knew, and she speculated freely about it, was that Mandy had walked out in a huff.
'She was in the pub last night, telling her mates about it, but they were at the far end of the bar, I didn't hear what it was about. She was waiting for Terry, ready to have a row with him, I guess, but he never came in. They are always having rows, even now they are
not going out together. He's still jealous of her other boy friends.'
'They were once a couple?' Dodie wondered whether this was significant.
'Yes, for a bit, though we all told her he was no good. But Mandy won't listen. I was at school with her, and even then she was always picking the rotten ones that didn't care a damn for her, and always let her down. She never learns. She's got some London guy now, but we never see him. She meets him in Middlesborough. She says he's a commercial traveller, and has a posh car, but why does she have to keep him a secret? She never did before, when she was with that lad from Glasgow, down here on a building site. Then the job finished, and he was off, never so much as a phone call, though she was ringing and texting every day.'
'So she doesn't have much luck with men?'
'To tell the truth, I get fed up with hearing about them. We usually cycle to work together, us and Pat, as we all live on the Bull estate, and she's always complaining. It gets us down.'
'You were at school together? Was she clever?'
'Not her! Thick as two planks. Which is why she has to work as a maid. Lord knows what she'll do now she's walked out. There's not much else suitable in the village. Miss Sheila won't take her back and she couldn't even work in the pub. She did it for a few days, but she was always getting the change wrong, and she soon got the push.'
Not, Dodie thought, clever enough to carry out thefts from locked safes. But she would probably have had an opportunity to copy the room master keys.
'Pat doesn't seem thick.'
'No. Well, she's older, and this job is only temporary. She's doing exams, working on computers, and bookkeeping, I think. She wants to get a job in an office.'
'And you say Terry is jealous of Mandy?'
'Well, he acts that way, but I think he's interested in Fiona. She's only been with us for six months. But I doubt she's keen, she's heard too many tales about him.'
'Oh?'
Susan was happy to elaborate. 'There was Mandy, and he made a play for Julie until she told him where to get off. He was boasting, once, down at the pub a couple of months back, that one of the guests had invited him to her room. We thought it was all hot air, he'd never dare. Miss Sheila would have sacked him straight off.'
*
When Dodie left the salon she waited outside Fiona's room, hoping to catch Elena coming from her session. They needed to see Sheila and decide what she wanted them to do, whether they could be of any more use or could go home. If Sheila decided to call in the police, and there was no reason why not now the guests knew about some of the thefts, there was little she and Elena could do. She hated the idea they had failed, but had to accept it.
She could see several guests swimming in the pool, or relaxing in the hot tubs. If she hadn't just had her hair done she'd have felt tempted to join them. She was watching idly through the glass wall when the sound of terrified screams came to her. She glanced round, and saw Hazel Prentice backing out of one of the sauna cubicles. Terry rushed over to her, catching her just as she fainted. He laid her down on one of the benches, looking helpless. Another of the guests, about to enter another cubicle, ran across and Dodie could see the frantic conversation that took place. Then the door to the pool area was opened as another guest entered, and Dodie heard some of the words.
'Fetch Miss Joan,' Terry yelled, and Darren, gulping, ran out through the open door, sending the guest just about to pass through staggering against the opposite wall.
Dodie stopped to help her regain her balance, then they both went through the doorway into the pool area. Hazel was coming round. She sat up, pushing away the towel Terry was helplessly flapping in her face. She looked round, then burst into sobs.
'Come now, lass, tell us what's the matter,' Dodie said, sitting beside her and putting her arm round Hazel's shoulders.
Hazel sobbed, shook her head, and gestured towards the sauna.
'Terry? You'd best go and see what's the matter. Calm down, Hazel, it won't help for you to have hysterics.'
Terry, with an angry look at Dodie, began to object, then he changed his mind and went to look into the cubicle.
'I – I'm not! I – oh, it's not true! I must have imagined it! It can't be true! Oh, I'm going to be sick!'
Dodie swiftly shoved the towel Terry had been flapping at Hazel, and held her while she vomited.
'Can someone get her a cup of water from the water cooler?' Dodie asked, wishing some of the swimmers gathering round would do something helpful.
One woman rushed off, just as Joan came in, followed by Darren. Then Terry, his face drained of colour, turned round towards them.
'It – it's Mrs Jones,' he stammered. 'I – I think she's dead!'
*
CHAPTER 8
The crowd of people, mostly swimmers who had clambered out of the pool and the hot tubs, plus people emerging from their therapies and attracted by the commotion in the pool area, swarmed towards the sauna cubicle.
'What is it?'
'Terry? What do you mean?'
'Hazel, are you all right?'
'No, I'm not! Can't you tell?'
She sounded much better to Dodie, her voice strong and her tone aggressive. The crowd were still exclaiming.
'Mrs Jones?'
'Dead?'
'She can't be!'
'Let me see, I've done first aid.'
Dodie, who was nearest, shook her head and stretched out her arms to try and hold them back.
'No one must go in!' she said.
'But we must make sure she's dead. We can't just leave her! It's inhuman.' It was one of the keen walkers.
'She's dead,' Dodie said, for she had glanced in and seen the engorged face and the sagging body. The shoes had been dropped on top of a scrunched-up towel, and the legs draped from the bench where the body had been propped into a corner. 'There's no mistake. She's been strangled.'
'Then we can't leave her there! Poor woman, she deserves some respect, doesn't she, even if she is dead? We have to bring her out, lay her down somewhere private. Now do get out of my way!'
The insistent woman tried to push past Dodie, and to the latter's relief she found Tim Barratt, in swimming trunks, coming through the crowd towards her and holding the woman back.
'Don't be foolish. We mustn't move her, we need to leave everything as it is, for the police,' he said. 'It's a crime scene.'
'Someone – Elena,' Dodie exclaimed in relief as she saw her daughter at the back of the crowd, 'go and ring the police. Mrs Jones has been murdered.'
Elena, with just a lift of her eyebrows, didn't ask questions. She merely nodded and vanished, while the rest of the crowd exclaimed in horror and dismay.
'Police?
'Murdered?'
'Oh no!'
'How dreadful!'
'Poor woman.'
'Surely not? Not here!'
'Do we have to involve the police?'
'Couldn't it have been an accident?'
'Oh dear, I suppose we must.'
Sheila arrived at that moment, and looked across at Dodie, a question in her eyes. 'Who?' she asked.
'Mrs Jones. Sheila, I think everyone should leave now. We ought to close the pool room.'
'What? Oh yes, of course. Please, everyone, could you collect any of your belongings and go to your rooms. I think it's best if you stay there for the time being. We'll serve lunch as soon as we can. Terry, Darren, perhaps you had better wait in the staff dining room. Dodie,' she added quietly as the other guests moved slowly away, some appearing excited, most looking bewildered, 'please stay with me!'
Dodie nodded, then as the last of the guests left and Joan shut and locked the door after them she turned back towards the cubicle, taking her mobile phone out of her handbag.
'Are you phoning the police? The reception isn't very good, especially inside here.'
'Elena's gone to phone. No, this thing is also a camera, and though the police would probably object, I want to take my own photos.'
Sheila was s
hocked. 'Ought you to?'
'Probably not, but no one will know. Don't worry, this is a crime scene, and I won't destroy any evidence. I can get the photos I want from outside the door.'
Joan was looking round, seeming bewildered. 'The outer door will be unlocked. We leave it like that in the daytime so that people can get out quickly if necessary. Do you think I ought to lock it?'
Dodie was busy snapping photos. She glanced round. 'We don't want anyone walking in unexpectedly. Yes, lock it. I don't suppose there are any useful fingerprints on the key or the knob. What are there won't be significant. Several people will have used that door recently.'
Elena came back and Joan let her in.
'The police are on their way. What can you see?'
'By the look of her she was strangled with her own head scarf.'
'Oh, how dreadful! Let's go and have some brandy, in our sitting room,' Sheila said. She looked as though she was ready to collapse. 'This room is locked up, no one will come in.'
'I'll stay here to make sure,' Joan said. 'The police will come to the front door, unless,' she turned to Elena, 'you told them it had happened at the pool?'
'No, I just said someone had been murdered, no details.'
*
'Who could have done it?' Sheila asked, as soon as she had given Dodie and Elena hefty helpings of brandy from the decanter she kept in their private sitting room behind the office.
Dodie took an appreciative sip. 'I think it must be connected with the thefts. Too much of a coincidence if it's something else. It's possible she discovered the thief, and challenged them. Sheila, can I load these photos onto your computer, to get better pictures?'
'The office machine? I wouldn't use that. The police might want access to it,' Elena warned.
'We have one upstairs, in the flat. Let's go,' Sheila said, and carrying the brandy glasses the three of them went quickly up the stairs and into the private accommodation.
Sheila and Elena exclaimed in horrified dismay when they saw the photographs.
'Poor woman! Who could have done that to her?'
'It must have been someone strong,' Elena said. 'She was a big woman, and it doesn't look as though she struggled.'
Strangled in the Sauna Page 9
