‘Anyway,’ Harriet said, ‘I wanted to find you to tell you to be careful with that woman Hanlon.’ Hanlon pricked up her ears.
‘Why? What’s the story with her?’ he asked.
‘She’s police.’
Hanlon’s eyebrows lifted; how could she have known?
‘That’s why I wanted her drugged for tonight. I don’t know why she’s here, but I don’t want her sniffing around, not when it’s a party night. She might be here undercover, the vice unit. So I want you to be very careful. Maybe she’s the drugs squad. You wouldn’t want that, what with all that nose candy you’ve got in your cottage.’
‘Aye, bearing in mind who some of those people are I’m nae that surprised. People talk. Police, eh… she’s not bad-looking, that’s for sure. I’d do her.’
‘You’d do your granny, Kai.’
‘Aye, well, I’ve done you, Harriet, so I guess I’m capable of anything.’
‘You’d better watch your step,’ Harriet said. Her voice was level; she didn’t sound particularly angered by the insult. Hanlon guessed that it would take a fair bit more than Kai’s childish slurs to rattle her cage. ‘You are skating on very thin ice.’
‘Oh, is that a threat?’ he said. ‘That I’ll end up like Eva?’
‘Just watch it, Kai, just watch it,’ said Harriet coolly.
‘Who did it, Harriet? You or Jim?’ he sneered.
‘Fuck off.’ Now Harriet did sound angry. She didn’t sound guilty. Hanlon wondered for the first time if they had actually had something to do with Eva’s death. It had seemed obvious to her that they were implicated. Maybe she had just jumped to conclusions, her judgement swayed by her hatred of Big Jim.
‘Consider this a final warning.’
‘Oh, aye, are you going to put that in writing? I’m not shaking with fear, Harriet.’
‘Goodnight, Kai. Don’t stay up too late. You’ve got work in the morning.’
The kitchen light went off and Hanlon heard the door into the dining room swing behind her.
‘Auld bitch!’ he said. Then she heard the clatter of the fly chains and the bang of the kitchen door as he walked into the night.
Hanlon sat down on the floor of the dry store. She suddenly felt dreadful: her head thumped, her mouth was dry and she felt depressed, exhausted and deflated. A reaction to the cocaine. She looked at her phone.
Three a.m.
She endured another two hours of waiting on the floor of the dry store before she stood up. She felt herself drifting in and out of a weird, gossamer-thin sleep. She let herself out of the kitchen and stood staring up at the morning sky, breathing in the heavy salt air and listening to the crash of the surf on the rocks. In the distance, out at sea, she could hear the throbbing of the powerful engines of a fishing boat. On the far horizon the sky was darkening in the east. It looked as if a storm was on its way.
She made her way round to the front of the hotel. The cars were gone; the party had finished, its participants returned home.
She yawned and went back into the kitchen. She stole through the deserted, dark dining room and into the hall. All the lights were out except for one over the porch. She walked quietly up the stairs. The fire door was now unlocked.
She walked down the corridor and let herself into her room.
Sitting on her bed, Hanlon looked out of the window. She considered Harriet’s words to Kai. A hotel propped up financially by revenue generated from sex parties. How much would a participant pay for such a thing? A venue for like-minded couples?
‘Bearing in mind who some of those people are…’ Kai’s phrase – pillars of the local community maybe? Was someone seeking to monetise the clients with a spot of blackmail?
Then there was the dead girl. Accident or design? Kai’s words: ‘Is that a threat? That I’ll end up like Eva?’
Had Eva been murdered? Kai clearly thought so.
And Kai’s cryptic comment about boys?
The mountain outside, its dark bulk gradually becoming more distinct in the early morning light, was not going to provide any answers. That was for sure.
Hanlon got into bed fully clothed. Just in case.
Sleep was a long time coming.
9
The body was discovered the following day.
Earlier, Hanlon had been discovering how changeable the west-coast weather could be. The day before it had been sunny, the colours an impressionist blue of the sky and sea, the amazingly varied shades of green – from brilliant moss to calm bracken and ferns to the sombre darkness of the needle-like leaves of the conifers. Patches of yellow lichen on the rocks and the red plastic balls of buoys in the sea added vivid splashes of colour to the scene. Above everything, the silvery scree covering the tops of the emerald mountains.
Today was predominantly grey. A shade that leached the colour out of everything. Grey skies met gunmetal-grey sea and misty drizzle obscured the views of the Paps. Hanlon shivered in the gusty wind whipping in westerly from the Atlantic. She was wearing black running tights, shorts and a light cagoule over her Lycra vest.
She set off for a run after breakfast up the single-track road northwards, in the direction of the headland.
She was feeling infinitely better than she had when she had woken at seven. Her body had felt heavy and drugged, her sinuses were painful, still inflamed from the coke, she guessed. As she ran along the track that skirted the foothills, her mind clearing, she wondered what course of action to pursue.
She could, of course, call the police. But to say what? That a sex party had taken place, that she had seen people taking drugs? If anything, she was probably the weird one, never taking them – God knows she had
