House of the Hanged (7 page)

Tom picked his moment carefully, arriving at the Hôtel de la Réserve when he judged most of the guests would be taking their breakfast. He knew that breakfast was a case of all hands on deck. The reception area was unlikely to be manned, allowing him to slip inside unnoticed, and maybe even sneak a look at the register in the process.

His instinct proved correct, although the register had been locked in the back office; he could see it lying on the desk. It didn't matter. With any luck he'd find everything he needed in the room.

He hurried past the doors to the dining room, glancing briefly inside to assure himself that he hadn't been spotted. The hum of conversation and the clatter of cutlery on crockery swiftly receded as he made his way up the main staircase to the third floor.

Room 312 turned out to be at the far end of the corridor, a corner room with views over the sea and to the west, both served by balconies, Tom knew. The Italian had obviously decided to treat himself.

Tom knocked softly and pressed his ear to the door to be sure.

The Italian's failure to show up for breakfast would be noted but was unlikely to arouse any undue suspicion for now. The maids wouldn't be round to clean the rooms until the guests had taken to the beach, which meant plenty of time for a thorough search.

The moment Tom let himself into the room he realized he was wrong. A quick survey revealed that the Italian had lied to him. He wasn't on his own, and his travelling companion appeared to be a woman. Her diaphanous pale blue
peignoir
lay discarded on the unmade bed next to a wide-brimmed raffia sun hat, and her cosmetics were spread out on the dressing table.

He was going to have to move fast, very fast.

Pulling on his doeskin driving gloves, he started with the writing desk, tugging out the empty drawers and checking that nothing was taped to their undersides. Both bedside cabinets were also empty, although there was a German novel resting on one of them beside a glass of water and a pair of ladies' reading glasses. He checked the first few pages of the book for a dedication, a name, but it obviously hadn't been a gift.

There was nothing under the bed, and the drawers of the dressing table were stuffed with women's underwear, brassieres, stockings and so on. Like the novel, the cosmetics were German, although the perfume was French – Feu-Follet by Roger & Gallet. It was hardly the scent of a young woman, and together with the reading glasses suggested someone further along in years than her Italian companion.

A search of the chest of drawers only added to his confusion. Buried beneath some neatly folded men's socks was a shagreen box containing three pairs of solid gold cufflinks, bone collar stiffeners, a diamond-set money clip, a pearl tie pin, and some silver and onyx dress studs. It didn't make sense. Who carried such costly accessories with them on a mission of murder? And why so many pairs of socks?

The long drawer below contained some summer shirts in a variety of colours and materials. Tom opened one up. It had above-elbow sleeves and was cut to fit a tall man of some considerable girth, whereas the Italian had been short and compact.

He was still struggling to make sense of this when he heard footsteps outside in the corridor. It was probably a guest returning to one of the other rooms, but he folded the shirt as quickly and neatly as possible and silently slid the drawer shut.

He was right to have anticipated the worst. Someone was now at the door, ferreting for a key in a bag.

His eyes darted around the room. The bathroom was out of the question, as was the built-in wardrobe; he had no idea what lay behind its louvred doors. The key was turning in the lock as he slid noiselessly beneath the bed.

It was a woman – wide navy blue cotton slacks breaking on tan leather sandals. She made straight for the desk, not bothering to take a seat. He heard her pick up the telephone receiver and dial a three-digit number. It was a while before she spoke.

‘Where are you?' she asked in German. This was clearly for her own benefit, because she hung up almost in the same breath.

She skirted the bed, making for the wardrobe. Tom shifted to get a better view, ready to withdraw suddenly if she turned round. Her blonde hair was done in a youthful wave and she had a trim figure, but the hands which now removed a man's jacket from a hanger were those of a middle-aged woman. She pulled a key from the hip pocket of the jacket – a key attached to an oval metal fob, just like the one that Tom held tightly clenched in his fist.

This was the last he saw of her. He slunk back as she turned, fearing for a moment that she'd spotted him. She hadn't, though. She made straight for the door and left the room.

He was up and after her in an instant, pausing at the door, listening to her footfalls receding down the corridor. Chancing a quick glance outside, he saw her turn down the main staircase. Easing the door shut behind him, he set off in silent pursuit.

Her destination was a first-floor room towards the front of the hotel, almost directly above the main entrance. In terms of location (and cost, no doubt) it couldn't have been more different from the one they'd just left. She knocked furtively on the door. When no one responded she let herself in with the key.

Tom approached just close enough to read the number on the door: 104. Everything told him this was the Italian's room, and the urge to gain entry to it right now, to force some answers from the woman, was almost overwhelming. Cold common sense prevailed, though. He mustn't do anything to link himself to the dead man. He knew the rules. He had to remain anonymous, faceless, nameless, at all times. Besides, an idea about the real nature of the woman's role in this affair was beginning to take shape in his head, and he needed to test the hypothesis first.

Olivier, the hotel manager, was making conversation with an elderly couple at their table in the dining room, but the moment he saw Tom enter he made his excuses and hurried over, beaming.

‘Mr Nash . . .'

He pumped Tom's hand.

‘After five years, I think you can call me Tom, don't you?'

‘I'm on duty.'

‘You spend far too much time on duty, Olivier.'

‘What can I say?' shrugged Olivier, an ironic twinkle in his eye. ‘I'm a consummate professional.'

‘Then find me a table on the terrace for breakfast.'

‘Find it yourself,
connard
,' Olivier fired back, and they both laughed.

They hadn't seen each other for a couple of weeks, not since Tom had strolled down to the hotel with his book for a quick dinner, only to end up staggering home in the early hours of the morning after a marathon, and rather drunken, bout of Bezique. They would probably have played right through till daybreak if Olivier's wife, Nadine, hadn't searched them out in the bar in her nightdress and summoned her husband to bed.

Tom opted for the terrace because he suspected Olivier would come and sit with him, and he knew that the guests were obliged to pass across it when making for the beach below. He selected a table near the head of the wide steps which ran down the bluff to the sand, turning his chair to admire the view while waiting for Olivier to return with his coffee and the two fried eggs he didn't really want.

He almost never dropped by for breakfast, and he'd thought it wise to play up the occasion: the final meal of the condemned man, condemned for the next few weeks to a string of house guests and other friends in need of near-continuous nourishment and entertainment. This was the still before the storm, and he couldn't exactly mark it with a solitary
café au lait
, hence the eggs. He had passed up the offer of a fried slice of pork belly to go with them. The eggs were bad enough, the mere thought of them threatening to unravel the tight knot of nausea which had been sitting low down in his belly for the past few hours.

He felt bad lying to Olivier, but he could hardly tell him the truth: that he'd killed one of his hotel guests, the man in Room 104, and that the young Italian now lay trussed up in tarpaulin on the sea bed somewhere over there.

He squinted out to sea, trying to identify the spot. He realized, with a stab of self-reproach, that he should have thought twice before dumping the body where he had. The exact location might not be visible from where he was sitting, but it certainly would be from the villa, whose terracotta roof tiles he could see poking above the pines on the headland around to his left. As long as he lived in Villa Martel he would have a direct line of sight, a constant reminder of his actions.

He should have gone east towards Cavalaire, around the corner: out of sight, out of mind. He rarely sailed that way, whereas he was always beating to and from the islands. He saw himself as an elderly man sitting hunched at the helm, an arthritic hand on the tiller, still tensing and falling silent every time he passed over the watery grave.

This vision of his dotage was, he reflected miserably, the very best he could hope for. It assumed that he would still be around to see out his declining years in Le Rayol; it supposed that he would come through the current situation unscathed, and that having done so, Le Rayol and the simple life he'd carved out for himself here would not have been irredeemably tainted. It relied on a lot of things, none of which he could guarantee, or even reasonably hope for.

He was stirred from his maudlin trance by a voice behind him.

‘What are you thinking?'

It was Olivier with a tray.

‘How beautiful it is.'

There were any number of sandy bays to choose from along this stretch of coast, but none held a torch to Le Rayol. Some were too narrow, too enclosed, or too expansive and exposed, or the hills pressed in too tightly behind, or, as at Cavalaire, their slopes died too far back from the sea. There wasn't one thing at Le Rayol he would have changed: the lazy arc of the white beach, the gin-clear water, and the proud thrust of its headlands which protected the bay from all but the most southerly winds.

‘Yes, and you own a nice big piece of it,' said Olivier, settling himself down at the table. ‘I wish I could.'

‘You can.'

‘Not on my salary.'

Tom didn't say anything, but he decided then that if he ever had to sell up and leave he would parcel off a bit of his land and gift it to Olivier and Nadine. He knew how much they loved this place. He knew that when they shut up shop in November and returned to their native Grenoble they spent the winter months dreaming of April and the new season on the Côte des Maures.

‘Why don't you have children?' Tom asked suddenly.

The question just slipped from his lips. It was as unexpected to him as it was to Olivier, who pushed his lank, dark fringe from his eyes before replying.

‘We tried. It didn't happen.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Why are you sorry? You don't have children either, and at least I have a beautiful wife I love.'

‘Point taken,' Tom conceded, reaching for his coffee.

‘Actually, we're still trying. I think Nadine might be too old. Don't tell her that, though, or she might want to stop trying.'

Tom laughed, and as he did so he caught sight of the woman from Room 312 stepping from the dining room into the glare of the terrace. She was now wearing a light summer frock along with the raffia sun hat he'd seen lying on the bed upstairs. A large beach bag swung from her hand.

He had only ever viewed her from behind, and he saw now that she was in her forties, but wearing the years extremely well.

‘Frau Wissmann,' nodded Olivier as she passed. ‘Monsieur Perret.'

Tom waited for her to disappear down the steps before asking, ‘German?'

‘Swiss German. She's a regular, comes every summer with her husband, although he's running late this year, something to do with a business deal back in Zurich.'

‘She's very attractive.'

Olivier lowered his voice. ‘You're not the only one who thinks so.'

‘Oh?'

‘There's an Italian here who's taken a shine to her. Young fellow. Flash. Struts around like a cock on heat.'

Not any more
, thought Tom.

‘Hardly her type, I imagine,' he said.

‘You haven't met Herr Wissmann. Any type would be better than that. He's arrogant, and rude with it. Nadine despises him.'

‘I've never known you to be so indiscreet about your guests.'

‘Not just my guests. You should hear what I say about you.'

Tom laughed, cutting into the eggs.

The theory held: Frau Wissmann was an unwitting pawn in the Italian's game, little more than a convenient alibi. This was the only logical explanation.

The Italian must have set out to seduce her, to spend the night with her, planning to slip from her room, taking her key with him, and returning after the deed was done. It was no more than a brisk five-minute walk to Tom's villa along the coast path. All going well, he would have been back between the sheets within twenty minutes. Only, it hadn't gone so well for him.

‘An Italian, eh?' said Tom. ‘I think I might have seen him around. Does he drive a fancy roadster?'

‘Must be someone else. Signore Minguzzi arrived by train. I know because he insisted on being picked up from the station, even though it's a short stroll.'

Minguzzi. And no car to search, just the room, which meant filching a spare key from the reception desk. Or maybe not. With any luck, Frau Wissmann would have left the original back in her own room. She had obviously returned there to get changed for the beach after her visit to Minguzzi's room.

Tom tried to imagine what she was thinking. Undoubtedly confused by the Italian's sudden disappearance, and probably a little insulted, she was unlikely to do anything that would draw attention to their illicit tryst.

He knew he didn't have long before the maids went into action, and he needed a convincing reason to return back upstairs. The best he could come up with on the spur of the moment meant spinning yet another yarn to poor Olivier.