How did you know? Luke’s sensitive about drugs, because he was a user himself.
I didn’t know, of course. But it made sense. When I thought about how she wanted to kill him, with diamorphine in the arm, looking like it was self-inflicted. But I didn’t want to engage with that—instead I told her she was being unfair, and also that I needed to distance myself. But Scarlet said our lives were intricately bound together now, that there was no escape for me. That it was more crucial than ever that I kept my side of our bargain.
I wrote:
We made no bargain! It’s all in your head.
She came right back telling me that I was deluded. A deal had been struck—she had acted, and I had to reciprocate. And the date she’d sent me earlier would still work.
When you went to Luke, you increased the urgency of your mission. Don’t lose your nerve. Honor Belle.
I’m not even convinced that you actually did what you said you did, I wrote back, sickened, and untruthful.
Remember the four-leaf clover. How else would I have it? It’s proof.
I need more proof.
Okay—well, I can tell you this. I brought him breakfast that day—a pain au raisin. What does it say in the postmortem? Is that what he had eaten that morning?
I felt dizzy. She’d done exactly as I had asked and had supplied me with more evidence—it was almost too good to be true. I could go to Melody Sykes now and say, “Look what she wrote! How could Scarlet possibly have known they found raisins in his stomach?” Together with the cuff link, it was almost conclusive. At the back of my mind, though, I felt that one small piece of the picture was missing, some third sign that would place Scarlet at the Ashleigh House Hotel that day—and I took the decision to go back there, to see Agnes again, the receptionist who’d taken photographs.
? ? ?
It was easy—a short train journey, and then a cab ride, and I was back in that stylish Georgian hotel, lawns stretching out to the woods.
I asked for Agnes. The young man on reception said that she was on her break. “Who shall I say wants her?”
“Tell her Callie Farrow, the sister-in-law of Felix Nordberg.”
A few minutes later, she appeared, looking smart in her black uniform and perfect makeup, and her hair tied up in a neat ponytail.
“I wondered whether you could tell me about the day Felix died,” I said, “and whether I might have another look at the photographs you took.”
“I sent them to your sister.” She sounded wary.
“I don’t want to bother my sister. It’s a difficult time for her.” It sounded weak, but I couldn’t think of anything better.
“She asked me to delete them. . . .”
“Did you?”
“Actually, I didn’t. But they’re very intimate, I haven’t shown them to anyone.”
She wasn’t budging, so I tried a new tack: “It’s possible that someone came to see Felix that morning, and I want to see if there is any evidence of that in the photographs.”
“Really? I didn’t see anyone go to his room.”
“But wasn’t the hotel busy? There was a conference going on.”
“That’s true. One of his colleagues, maybe.”
That wasn’t what I meant, but there was no need to elaborate, and I gave Agnes a half smile that was meant to say Well?, and at last she reached into her bag, telling me to come with her to the lounge area where we could sit down. She passed me the phone and I scrolled through the photos—once again I was struck by the pristine nature of the room—everything perfectly tidy. Of course, that was normal for Felix. Nonetheless there was a strange sense of the scene of his death being arranged for a viewing, the artistic way in which he was lying on the bed, his arm hanging down the side. Even his bathrobe appeared to be draped in a thought-out fashion—and I thought of Scarlet’s attention to detail, the way she planned things so carefully. I looked at the photographs a second time, hoping that something would unlock my thoughts, make me realize why I’d thought it so important to have come back here, to the hotel. Then, something struck me—the picture of the untouched hospitality tray. Nothing drunk and nothing eaten, not the wrapped-up biscuits, nor the piece of fruitcake encased in cellophane.
“Did Felix have any breakfast sent to his room that morning?”
“No. Not at all. It was one of the reasons we thought something was wrong, when he hadn’t left the room all day. He hadn’t eaten anything, no breakfast, no lunch. Nothing.”
I thought about the pain au raisin. I supposed that Felix could have brought it with him to the hotel—but why? And if he had, why were there no used plates, no crumbs anywhere?
“Thank you, Agnes,” I said. “Could you send me these pictures? As I say, I don’t want to bother Tilda right now. She’s too upset.”
“Okay . . .” She didn’t sound sure, but she did it anyway. I checked that the untouched hospitality tray photo was in my inbox, and I thought, It convinces me, so surely it will convince Melody Sykes. There was, though, still one element that was bothering me, that would be hard to explain to the police—why would Felix have let Scarlet into his room in the first place? Did he know her from somewhere?
“The person who might have come to see Felix was a young woman, about my age,” I said, “with dark hair, quite tall. Her name is Charlotte.”
“I don’t remember anyone like that coming to reception, and I was the only staff member on the desk that morning. Although, we were busy, and I may have forgotten.”
“So it’s possible that she came and asked for Felix’s room number?”
“Yes. But we wouldn’t give it out, just like that. We’d call up to the room, and check with the guest first. I’d remember that.”
“I see.”
Maybe Felix had known Scarlet; maybe she had known his room number. For an instant, something flashed into my mind. One thing they had in common was that Felix was angry and violent and controlling, and Scarlet liked sex games with violent men. But I dismissed the thought just as fast. For all his faults, I didn’t see Felix as a cheater. Especially as he had been married for only a few weeks.
I thanked Agnes again and, as I left the hotel, I called a taxi to take me into Reading, to the police station.
39
A receptionist behind a metal grille was casually scrolling on her phone, not looking up as I said I wanted to speak to Melody Sykes. “It’s in connection with a death she investigated.” That was too strong, but I thought it would grab her attention.
Melody appeared two minutes later, clutching a Styrofoam coffee cup, propping the door open with a big hip. “Come on through, we’ll go somewhere private. . . .” She sounded irritated, like I’d interrupted something important, and I almost had to jog to keep up as she strode down the corridor, swinging her large frame from side to side. She ushered me into a small, bare room, the sort you see in TV dramas when the police interview their prime suspect, and we faced each other across a table.
“So, Ms. Farrow, how can we help?”
“It’s about Felix Nordberg. The man who died at the Ashleigh House Hotel.”