Storms

by Menon, David

  Annabel now worked as a receptionist at the Carrington hotel on Blackpool’s North shore. It was one of the few four-star hotels in the resort and although she found the work easy and sometimes a lot of fun, the office politics that went with it was sometimes so bloody exasperating. The hotel general manager Marilyn Kent who everybody nicknamed ‘the ice maiden’ because of her avoidance of anything remotely human like a feeling, was adored by some and reviled by others because of the way she controlled all the staff, especially the front line receptionists, according to how your face fitted with her. It had absolutely nothing to do with someone’s ability to do their job. If promotion was on offer then she’d make sure that one of her golden boys got it regardless of whether or not they were competent for it. She was very Thacherite and didn’t promote women. She only liked to promote and surround herself with men so that she could be the focus of all attention. Annabel had been leapfrogged twice for promotion by men who weren’t as good at their job as she was but she’d never been a brown nose in her life and wasn’t going to start now. And there was no point in complaining. Marilyn was only interested in the hotel’s financial results. She was about as interested in the people management side of the business as she was in drinking in her own piss. If a staff member had a grievance they were made to sweep it all under the carpet and put on the smile of a happy team that gets results. She basically couldn’t care less about the feelings of her staff. She occasionally wafted down from her office upstairs to dispense the shallow talk she called wisdom and to remind staff of the hotel group’s current financial targets. She was in competition with the hotel group’s other properties in Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, and Glasgow. And she liked to win. It’s said that she only got the job by providing one of the hotel group director’s with oral sex. Annabel could well imagine that because the job was way beyond Kent’s obviously limited abilities.

  Annabel drove down from her rented house which was a block back from the promenade in the Anchorsholme district of the nearby seaside town of Cleveleys to start work on the 7 a.m shift. She needed the car. Early starts and late finishes didn’t always fit in with public transport even though the famous Blackpool tramline passed right by the hotel. She was about ten minutes early and so allowed herself a cigarette which she smoked with the car window open. Her son Kyle was always giving out to her about her smoking. He was turning into a proper little old woman. Bless him. At least he cared about his old Mum.

  What Kyle didn’t know about was his mother’s torrid affair with Dermot who was one of the hotel’s maintenance men. He was tall, masculine, when she first saw him she thought he’d be the kind of lover who’d throw her round a hotel room and leave her breathless. And indeed he was like that but she’d also discovered a passionate, sensual side to him that left her even more breathless. Annabel wasn’t proud of herself for stepping on another woman’s patch but she needed to take just a little something back from life after all she’d given up when Clive betrayed her. She told herself it was all just a bit of fun. It didn’t matter that he was doing her self-confidence the world of good after it had taken such a battering. It didn’t matter that she went weak at the knees whenever he winked and smiled at her. It didn’t matter that he sent her by text a video of him ejaculating on one of those days when they couldn’t get together to answer their carnal needs. It didn’t matter that she would never admit to him that he could break her heart. She was pretending that none of it mattered and that she could walk away it just like that. It didn’t matter that she was deceiving herself.

  She finished her cigarette and put a mint sweet in her mouth to help clear her breath. She walked into the hotel and immediately saw Tim Robinson, one of the hotels temporary summer recruits waiting to take over from the reception night shift. She loved Tim. He was about the same age as her and had matured well with his full head of black hair and lack of a beer belly. But he was also a bit of a mysterious one. He lived in a one-bedroom flat about ten minutes walk from the hotel and nobody really knew why a man of his age was still doing a reception job and wasn’t a manager of some kind. He’d been of working age for a good twenty years and yet appeared to have nothing to show for it. He spoke well and seemed intelligent. And he was also very funny. He made her laugh and could do a blisteringly good impression of Marilyn Kent. He’d clearly been around and could talk about all sorts of things and places and people. But although he was handsome and eloquent he never talked about boys or girls and nobody knew which side of the stamp he licked. And nobody felt comfortable enough to ask him. It was one of those things.

  ‘Hello you!’ he greeted her and they exchanged a kiss on each cheek.

  ‘Hello yourself’ said Annabel who was so pleased they were going to be working together. ‘Why didn’t you let me pick you up this morning? It looked like it might’ve rained. You’d have got wet’.

  Tim stared at her. Annabel had seen that look before. He was like a rabbit caught in headlights and he didn’t know which way to jump to avoid being run over. What was that all about?’

  ‘Oh I felt like the walk’ said Tim who then added a smile. ‘I was already almost here by the time you sent me the text’.

  ‘Oh right’ said Annabel, nodding and not knowing whether to believe him or not. Well of course she believed him. Why on earth would he lie to her about something so meaningless? ‘Well I’ll give you a lift home once we’re finished anyway’.

  ‘Thanks’ said Tim, his smile remaining. ‘That would be great’.

  Tim and Annabel then took the briefing from the night receptionist. Annabel knew that Tim would take it all in and end up being de facto in charge and she was quite happy about that so she let her eyes wander. No matter how hard they tried the hotel still attracted a good eighty odd percent of its clientele from the usual Blackpool crowd of chav families – although these were the upper end of the chav market who no doubt lived in houses with bay windows – and old people who’d never even contemplate going abroad because nowhere abroad served proper tea. It was depressing to look out at them all sometimes. Annabel rarely saw anyone who was half decent to look at. Thank Christ for Dermot when he wandered through in his overalls from fixing this or that. She could feel herself getting wet at the thought of him. Then she turned back to who was giving Tim the morning briefing. Jane was a miserable bitch. Mid-forties, not married and fuck didn’t everybody know about it. Anything that had ever happened to you she’d had ten times worse and she often had a set face that could curdle milk at one glance. She was also the staff trainer which she thought gave her some kind of added authority. She’d been promoted by Marilyn Kent because, Annabel considered, she was ugly and therefore no threat to Marilyn getting all the men’s attention. Annabel silently scolded herself. Jane wasn’t ugly. That was unfair of her to think that. But she did have a downtrodden disposition with a long face to match that made her ugly. She was also Marilyn’s little pet because anything anybody ever told Jane went straight to Marilyn. She couldn’t be trusted as far as any of them could spit and yet if anyone exposed her for wearing more faces than the town clock she threw such a drama with endless tears that everyone ended up feeling bad and dropped all charges even though they knew they were true. And Marilyn of course always believed Jane’s lies above anyone else’s truth.

  ‘So what have you been up to on your days off ?’ asked Annabel after Jane had finally fucked off home. Well, she’d left the reception desk to call in on Marilyn Kent before going home.

  ‘Oh this and that’ said Tim in that way he had of telling you everything and yet nothing at all. ‘Relaxing mostly. Watching some TV, catching up on the laundry’.

  ‘I thought you were going to call me to meet up?’

  ‘Well I was’ said Tim, feeling himself go red and a little hot. ‘I was. I seriously was. But I just seemed to run out of time’.

  ‘Okay I’ll forgive you’ she chided. ‘But next time we have the same day off I’m going to insist we do something’.

  ‘Yes, boss!’ />
  ‘Which reminds me’ said Annabel. ‘I don’t mean to pry or anything, Tim but do you have any family anywhere? You never speak of any’.

  ‘I have a brother’ said Tim. ‘But we’re not close and we don’t see each other’.

  ‘That’s a shame’.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Well he is your brother’.

  ‘You don’t know him like I do’.

  ‘Ah, like that is it?’

  ‘We’re very different people’ Tim revealed. ‘And I don’t know why family members who don’t get on are made to feel like they should keep on trying just because they carry the same blood’.

  ‘Oh I wasn’t suggesting that, I …’

  ‘ … oh I know you weren’t, don’t worry, I didn’t think that. I was just talking generally, you know’.

  Annabel looked up and saw Marilyn Kent walking down the ground floor corridor towards reception. She was in her usual striped trouser suit with black low cut top underneath, five band radio in her hand in case she’s ‘needed’ urgently in another part of the hotel..

  ‘Oh here we go’ said Annabel. ‘Guess who’s on her way to us?’

  ‘I thought there was a chill in the air on this bright and beautiful August morning’.

  ‘Good morning, boss’ said Tim.

  ‘Okay’ said Marilyn. ‘Now before anybody starts I’d just like you to know that I come down here for a chat and a break from all I’ve got on at the moment so please bare that in mind before you start firing questions at me’.

  ‘I only said good morning’ said Tim who couldn’t stand the stupid cow. Call herself a manager? That’s a bloody joke. ‘So if we were to ask you how the sale of the hotel to the new owners is going then you wouldn’t be able to answer us?’

  Marilyn closed her eyes in apparent frustration. ‘You all know that the hotel group has been bought out’.

  ‘But Marilyn what we also need to know is the possible impact that might have on our jobs?’ said Annabel. ‘You know how I’m fixed. I’ve got Kyle to think about’.

  ‘Yes I do know that, Annabel’ said Marilyn, firmly.

  ‘So you can’t tell us anything about the impact on the business that the new owners will have?’ Tim tried. ‘Or even who those new owners are?’

  ‘The identity of the new owners has not been revealed even to me yet’ Marilyn replied testily. Then she went in for the kill. ‘But all I do know Tim is that none of you temporaries will be kept on beyond the end of the season’.

  ‘And could there be jobs for us elsewhere in the group?’

  Tim didn’t get an answer to his follow up question because Marilyn’s attention was taken by one of her pets from the accounts office who started talking to her about last night’s episode of big brother which was clearly more important to Marilyn that answering her staff’s legitimate questions about the future of their employment.

  ‘How did she get that job?’ Tim ruminated, shaking his head.

  ‘That’s what everybody wonders’ said Annabel.

  ‘Apparently, sir, they heard Melanie Patterson’s screams of horror half a dozen houses away’ said DS Ollie Wright.

  ‘I’m not surprised’ said DI Rebecca Stockton. ‘I don’t like the woman but this is bloody sick’.

  Melanie Patterson had received a DVD from the murderer of her son Leroy. It was a film of Leroy being ‘executed’ and she’d sent it on to Jeff. He and his team had just finished watching it.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like that’ said DS Adrian Bradshaw, shaking his head. ‘The poor bastard. What was that thing he was strapped to?’

  ‘It’s called a garotte’ said Ollie. ‘It’s a medieval method of execution that was mainly used by the Spanish right up until the time of Franco in the sixties and seventies’.

  Everybody looked round quizzically at Ollie.

  ‘Look, I took my niece and nephew to Blackpool at the weekend and we went in this dungeon place by the tower where they have all this stuff to do with ancient torture and execution methods. They have actors scaring the living daylights out of people too and it was quite good fun actually. Our Charlotte and Jason enjoyed it and so did I’.

  ‘I’m glad that’s the explanation, Ollie’ said Jeff who was thinking how distraught Melanie Patterson would be after watching that. ‘We’ve got some really twisted individual to find here if that’s not an understatement after watching that film and we’ve got to make significant progress before he gets the chance to do that to someone else’.

  ‘We’ve got as many of the routes in and out of the estate covered with either CCTV or uniform surveillance, sir’ said Rebecca. Although she’d hardened her heart towards Jeff in the way of romance it had only been to protect herself from any further heartache. She still wanted to support him implicitly as her senior police officer and regretted the previous spat they’d had. Life was increasingly becoming about the separation between work and personal. She wished it wasn’t that way but neither did she feel she had any choice than to accept that it was and it was why she still intended to go through with her transfer request. ‘Short of closing off the estate completely there’s not much more we can do on that score and it still means that someone could get in there without us noticing’.

  ‘True’ said Jeff. He avoided letting his eyes linger on Rebecca anymore. The tension between them had given way to an obvious distance that sometimes pissed him right off. Why couldn’t they go back to where they were before? Was he so weak and pathetic that he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her about the situation between them? He didn’t ask to be widowed at thirty-four years old with a young son to bring up. He was doing the best he could but he hadn’t bargained for the loss of his beloved wife to emotional regress him by about fifteen years. ‘So where else can we go for answers?’

  ‘Well at least the community is now talking to us, sir’ said Ollie. ‘Even though they’re not telling us much they’re not slamming their doors in our faces anymore’.

  ‘Well can we go through everything from the house to house on the estate, please’ said Jeff. ‘I know there’s precious little there but I want you to go back to anyone who told us anything, however small or insignificant it might appear. There’s got to be some way of tying something together to make a lot more than it first seems. Now Ollie, what did you find out about her and her nephew Jackson Williams?’

  This wasn’t a question that Ollie was comfortable about answering. He needed to speak to the boss about this in private but in the meantime he decided to share the official story about Jackson Williams. ‘A background check on Jackson Williams confirms what Melanie Patterson told you, sir, orphaned in a hurricane, lived in a children’s home before coming to stay with his Aunt here. And on the face of it his Aunt must be supporting him because he has no visible signs of any other income’.

  ‘Unless he’s living off the immoral earnings of the Gorton boys’ said Rebecca. ‘Like I suspect Melanie Patterson is too because her only visible means of financial support is the benefits she gets. But from what you said about her house, sir, she must be getting money from somewhere else. It would be my guess that she’s more involved with the Gorton boys and all their rackets that she’d like us to know and I would put money on her knowing something about the looting of Evelyn Squires’ house’.

  ‘Then bring her in’ said Jeff.

  Rebecca looked round in silent surprise before turning her eyes back on Jeff. He’d seemed protective of Melanie Patterson up until he’d been to see her. Rebecca wondered what she’d said to make him change back into an investigating police officer and away from the pathetic alpha male he came across as when the name of Melanie Patterson was mentioned. ‘Do you mean that, sir?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I mean it, DI Stockton? The funeral of her son Leroy was yesterday and even though we kept a discreet distance we were never going to pick up anything from it. I know you think, or thought, that I was a little blind where Melanie Patterson is concerned but you were wrong and you’ve been wro
ng all along. I’m not blind to what she really might be up to and I’m not soft on her because her son was brutally murdered. I’m still a police officer, DI Stockton. First and foremost I want a result and whatever I think about Melanie Patterson is worth nothing compared to that’. Is that understood?’

  Rebecca swallowed. She hadn’t counted on Jeff being quite so forthright. ‘Loud and clear, sir’.

  ‘Good’ said Jeff. ‘Now let’s get on with it’.

  Ollie waited for the room to clear of everyone else before approaching Jeff. ‘Can we have a word, sir? In private’.

  STORMS FIVE

  ‘What’s on your mind, Ollie?’ Jeff asked when it was just the two of them and the door was closed. He wasn’t necessarily in the mood for emotional complexities. He hoped to God that Ollie had a problem of the operational kind.

  ‘Well if I’m right then it could be as wrong as it gets, sir’ Ollie answered. ‘You asked me to look into the background of Jackson Williams?’