Bulverton, where she could make arrangements for weekly direct transfer in sterling to the White Dragon's account. Receipted invoices were to be sent direct to the company's
head office in Taipei. After a flurry of what read to her like exotic and oriental greetings, the fax message was signed by Mr A. Li, of Project Development Division, GunHo Corporation of Taipei.
At the bottom of the message were printed the names of the four GunHo executives on whose behalf the booking was being made. Amy stared at these for a moment, then went upstairs with the fax. Nick was still asleep.
The day went by, and although Nick did appear at midday he was obviously in another bad mood. Amy knew better than to try to get through to him.
In the afternoon she went for a brief walk, annoyed with herself for allowing him to control her with his moods, even, as things now stood, with her own anticipation of his moods. lt wasn't as if the news was bad: it promised a sudden increase in business, with nearly half the hotel's rooms occupied, probably for the first time since the media circus had left town last summer. The further news, that the people from Taiwan would be staying halfboard which meant they would be In the hotel for dinner every evening suggested that she and Nick could now afford to take on extra staff, at least on a temporary basis. As she walked through the Old Town park, Amy was already making calculations about how much help would be needed in the kitchen, in the restaurant, and also for servicing the rooms. She knew Nick would baulk at first at the idea of paying more staff, but the other side of the equation indicated that the hotel would be profitable for the next two weeks at least, and possibly afterwards.
When AMY returned to the hotel she noticed that Nick's car was missing from its parking place, so she was able to stay out of his way for the rest of the day. His moods still mystified her. She had seen many sides of him in the past,
when they were younger, but this destructive moodiness had not been one of them.
That evening, after she had cooked and served Teresa Simons' dinner, Amy went down to the bar, where she knew she would find Nick. He was there, propped up on the stool behind the counter, a paperback novel on his knee. Half a dozen customers were drinking at one of the tables by the window. The jukebox was playing.
'I thought you'd like to see this,' she said, trying to make it sound casual. She gave him the original fax message on its curl of thermal paper, and then used one of the cloth towels to wipe down the counter needlessly, while he read the fax.
'Two weeks,' he said. 'That's good.'
'The hotel will be busy.'
'It'll be a lot of work. And what sort of food will Chinese guests expect?'
'That's mentioned.' She leaned over, and pointed out the sentence. 'They say they expect international cuisine.'
'That could be anything. Pity we don't have a chef'
'We can manage, Nick! Come on ... say you're pleased!'
'I'm pleased. I really am.' He twisted his hand round the back of her neck, and gently pulled down her face for a kiss. 'But do we have four rooms free with double beds? There are only ten rooms in the whole place, and six of those are singles or twinbedded. Mrs Simons is in one of the doubles, isn't she?'
'That's something 1 wanted to ask you about,' Amy said. 'I was wondering what you would think if we asked her to change rooms?'
'Have you mentioned it to her?'
'Not yet. The booking only came through today. 1 thought until the people in Taiwan made it definite we shouldn't do anything.'
'But this is a firm booking.'
'Yes.'
'I don't think she likes this place,' Nick said. 'She never complains, but I'm certain she finds it uncomfortable. just little things she lets slip.'
'That's what 1 think too. Maybe she would like to move out. This would give her an excuse.'
'Do you think she needs one?'
'I've no idea. She's so polite it's impossible to work out what she really means.'
Nick put the fax message on the counter, where the curl of its paper made it stand up like a shallow arch. Amy picked it up again.
'These don't sound like Chinese names to me,' she said. 'Kravitz, Mitchell, Wendell, Jensen.'
'GunHo Corporation,' Nick said. 'That doesn't sound Chinese either. A bit oriental, but who can tell any more, and does it matter anyway? If they pay, we let them in.'
'Did you notice? Two of these people are women?'
'Yes, 1 did notice,' Nick replied. 'What do you think, Amy? Can we manage on our own, or should we think about getting a couple of extra staff in?'
CHAPTER 11
Nick was in the bar, waiting for something or other to happen, with not much hope that it would. Dick Cooden and his girlfriend June were playing pool; three men who he knew worked in a garage in Bexhill were standing at the far end of the bar, putting away a lot of pints of bitter; one of the tables near the door had a group of five youngsters perilously close to the minimum legal age, but he didn't feel like checking. Other people had been in and out earlier, and there were always one or two who would straggle in shortly before closing time.
Sitting in the bar was what he did, what he liked to do. Amy had gone to bed. He would close the bar in half an hour, once the Bexhill men had given up and gone home.
Then Teresa Simons came in and ordered a bourbon and ice. He put in a single measure, and reached down the
