something better comes up. I don’t even know who was manager then.
You’ll have to get on to the owners. I can give you their address,” she finished helpfully.
“Thank you. It’s worth a shot, I suppose.”
The woman took her over to the cash desk and sorted through a card index.
“Funny, I remember those murders, but I never put two and two together.
You know, that the sister had worked here.”
“She wasn’t here very long and I’m not sure it was even reported. The press was more interested in Olive than in Amber.”
“Yeah.” She took out a card.
“Amber. It’s not that common a name, is it?”
“I suppose not. It was a nickname, anyway. Her real name was Alison.”
The woman nodded.
“I’ve been here three years and for three years I’ve been pressing to have the staff toilet redecorated. The recession’s their excuse for not doing it, same as it’s their excuse for any wretched thing, from cuts in wages to cheap imported stock that’s not even stitched properly. Anyway, the toilet’s tiled and that’s an expensive job, apparently, chipping off the old ones to put up new.” Roz smiled politely.
“Don’t worry, love, it’s to the point and I’m getting there. The reason I want new tiles is that someone took a chisel or something similar to the old ones. They scratched graffiti into the surface and then filled in the scratches with some sort of indelible ink. I’ve tried everything to get it out, bleach, oven cleaner, paint remover, you name it, love, I’ve tried it.” She shook her head.
“It can’t be shifted. And why? Because whoever did it gouged so deep they cut right through the ceramic, and the china clay underneath just goes on absorbing dirt and stains. Every time I look at it, it gives me the shivers.
Pure hate, that’s what it was done with.”
“What does the graffiti say?”
“I’ll show you. It’s at the back.” She negotiated a couple of doors, then pushed open another and stood aside to let Roz pass.
“There. It sucks, doesn’t it? And, you know, I’ve always wondered who Amber was. But it must be the sister, mustn’t it?
Like I say, Amber’s not that common a name.”
It was the same two words, repeated ten or eleven times across the tiles, a violent inversion of the hearts and arrows that more usually adorned lavatory walls. HATES ER… HATES BER… HATES AMBER.
“I wonder who did it?” murmured Roz.
“Someone very sick, I should think. They certainly didn’t want her to know, seeing how they’ve left their name off the front.”
“It depends how you read it,” said Roz thoughtfully.
“If it were set out neatly for you in a circle it would say Amber hates Amber hates Amber ad infinitum.”
The Belvedere was a typical back-street hotel, two substantial semis knocked together and entered via a flight of steps and a pillared front door. The place had an air of neglect as if its customers sales reps for the main part had deserted it. Roz rang the bell at the reception desk and waited.
A woman in her fifties emerged from a room at the back, all smiles.
“Good afternoon, madam. Welcome to the Belvedere.”
She pulled the registration book towards her.
“Is it a room you’re after?”
What terrible things recessions were, thought Roz. How long could people maintain this sad veneer of confident optimism when the reality was empty order books?
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m afraid it isn’t.” She handed over one of her cards.
“I’m a freelance journalist and I think someone I’m writing about may have stayed here. I was hoping you could identify her photograph for me.”
The woman tapped a finger on the book then pushed it away.
“Will what you write be published?”
Roz nodded.
“And will the Belvedere be mentioned if whoever it is did stay here?”
“Not if you’d rather it wasn’t.”
“My dear, how little you know about the hotel trade. Any publicity would be welcome at the moment.”
Roz laughed as she placed the photograph of Olive on the desk.
“If she came it would have been during the summer of eighty-seven. Were you here then?”
