Secret of the Skull (9 page)

‘That’s the restaurant,’ said Susan. ‘We’ll be going over there to eat in a little while.’

‘Your dad works here too, doesn’t he?’ I asked, watching a fresh drifting of snow glide gently down outside.

‘Yes, he’s the restaurant’s chef,’ said Susan. ‘He’ll be cooking our dinner tonight. He used to be in the police, years ago, but Mum kept worrying that one
day he’d come home with a bullet wound. Then one day he came home with a stab wound and she made him quit. I think he prefers cooking.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said with a smile.

‘Pressies!’ announced Izzy. There was a sudden flurry of ribbons and wrapping paper and female activity.

Earlier in the day, I’d considered not bringing a birthday present with me, because I wanted it to be absolutely clear that I don’t do girlie sleepovers. However, it would have been
rude not to. So I added my small parcel to the pile.

While the girls were oooh-ing and ahhhh-ing all over the place, I took a look around the office. There were cardboard boxes stacked here and there, and a couple of scribbled-on flip charts.
Above me hung a projector – exactly the same sort of thing as we had in our classroom at school. That and the flip charts told me that this room must be used for staff training.

Izzy appeared at my shoulder. ‘Aww, are you feeling a bit of a spare part?’

‘Pack it in,’ I muttered.

At that moment, a man wearing a Regal Hotel sweatshirt came clattering into the room. His hair was yanked back into a ponytail and he had a beard which looked like a small mammal clinging to the
underside of his face. He had a laptop under one arm and was hobbling along with the help of a grey metallic walking stick.

‘Hello, Mr Beeks,’ said Susan.

‘Oh, yes, happy birthday, Susan,’ he replied with a nod.

Ah, Bryan Beeks! The maintenance man who was my reason for being here in the first place.

‘Thanks,’ said Susan. ‘We’ll be out of your way soon, we’re just waiting for another two to arrive.’

Luckily, I hadn’t mentioned any details of my investigation to Susan, beyond what I’d told her at school. She had no idea that I was keeping a close eye on this guy.

I was struck by Mr Beeks’s voice. It was distinctively deep, and he had a noticeable Geordie accent. Whoever it was at the hotel who was the ‘reliable source of information’
the texter had mentioned, I was now fairly sure they wouldn’t have mistaken Beeks’s voice for anyone else’s. So far so good.

‘You’ll have to be out of here soon, I’m afraid,’ said Mr Beeks. ‘I’ve booked this room all evening, I’ve got a lot of paperwork to get done. I’ve
let it pile up a bit.’

‘How’s your leg?’ asked Susan.

‘Not too bad,’ he said, propping his walking stick against the desk and shuffling over to the nearest seat. ‘The doctor says it’ll be another few weeks before it’s
healed.’

He seemed calm and friendly, not at all like someone who was planning to stage a diamond heist within the next couple of hours. He snapped his fingers and stood up again. ‘I’ve left
my phone in my coat pocket.’

He limped across the room. I picked up his walking stick and handed it to him. It was quite thick, but very light.

‘Shall I fetch the phone for you?’ said Susan. ‘If your leg’s hurting?’

‘Bless you,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘but it’s only in the staff cloakroom down the hall. Won’t be a minute.’

Out he went, leaving his laptop on the desk. The last couple of sleepover guests arrived and Susan finished opening her pressies. There was a hushed moment when she got to mine, a copy of a
really
good book I’d read recently called
True Tales of Gruesome Crimes
. Izzy gave me a stare, which I think was her way of signalling that I’d chosen well.

It turned out that Susan’s sleepover party were staying in one of the unbooked rooms on the third floor. She got the keycard from her mum at reception and we all charged up to room 307.
Nice: more thick carpet, big TV, and a shiny white bathroom so big you’d need to mount an expedition to reach the toilet.

Meanwhile, I was torn between not wanting to get involved in all the girlie talk going on, and needing to make progress with my enquiries.

‘Mr Beeks, he does the fixing of broken stuff around here, yes?’ I asked casually.

‘Yes, he’s such a nice guy,’ said Susan.

‘What’s with the walking stick?’

‘He’s torn the ligaments in his ankle and knee, playing rugby. But he’s still coming into work. Did you see his crappy old purple van in the car park?’

‘Yes, I did,’ I chuckled.

Yes. I did.

I’d suddenly spotted an important clue. Bryan Beeks hadn’t torn the ligaments in his ankle and knee at all! That injury was nothing more than acting!

Think back to what I saw before coming into the hotel. Have you spotted the same mismatch I had?

Apart from my own, there had been only one set of footprints in that snowy staff car park. They’d come from an old purple van, which I now knew to be Bryan Beeks’s.
They’d shown someone striding across the snow. Something that would have been impossible if he’d really hurt his leg as badly as he claimed.

But why would anyone pretend to have an injured leg? How could that have any bearing on the robbery he was supposed to be planning? Was he going to make the smugglers think he couldn’t run
away from them, or something? It didn’t appear to make any sense. However, the mysterious texter had been right – keeping watch on Beeks was obviously a good idea.

The girls were having a great time. One or two were sniffing approvingly at the free shampoo in the bathroom, but most of them were lounging around pretending to order fizzy cocktails or
flicking through channels on the TV. I took a peek inside the mirrored wardrobe.

‘Hey, there’s a room safe,’ I said.

I heard a rapid scrambling behind me. They all crowded in to have a look.

‘Hey, there’s a room safe,’ they said. It was quite a large one, with a numeric keypad lock, and was bolted to the wall at the back of the wardrobe.

‘All the rooms have them,’ said Susan. ‘You can set your own combination. Shall we put our stuff in there while we go to dinner?’

There was a chorus of ‘Yeah!’s. Every last one of them went straight to their overnight bag, and took out a phone and a handheld games console. After a few bleeps of its keypad, the
safe held enough technology to stock a small shop!

By then it was past seven o’clock, and we were all hungry. Susan led us back down past reception, along the corridor-like front of the building, and into the other half of the
hotel’s U-shape, on the far side of the courtyard.

A sleazy-looking, greasy-faced beanpole in a black jacket and bowtie greeted us at the entrance to La Splendide. This, it turned out, was Vernon, the head waiter. He eyed us as if we were a pack
of scuttering cockroaches.

‘You’re at one of the window tables, Miss Lillington,’ he said to Susan, as if he was speaking to something a cockroach might turn its nose up at.

The restaurant was positively beautiful. The dining area was large and delicately laced with the smell of fresh bread. Its high ceiling was decorated with flowery patterns, and the lighting came
from shaded lamps placed at the centre of every table.

Our table was circular, spread with a spotless white tablecloth and neatly laid with sparkling cutlery and tall glasses. It was placed beside that big window I’d seen from the office
earlier on; looking out, I could see across the snowy courtyard to the brightly lit rectangle of the office’s window. The blinds were open now, and Bryan Beeks was clearly visible, sitting at
the desk by the door, working at his laptop.

I had the perfect vantage point from which to watch him. As I sat down, next to Izzy, Susan leaned across to me and whispered, ‘Spotted any diamond smugglers yet?’

Ah! Good point!

‘Excuse me a minute,’ I said, ‘just got to verify something.’

I nipped back out to the reception desk. There was now a
Do Not Disturb
sign on the admin office door, and I could very faintly hear Bryan Beeks tapping away at his laptop inside.

I asked Susan’s mum if I could take a quick look at the hotel register, as part of my ongoing detective investigation into certain matters which would have to remain confidential for the
time being. She smiled sweetly and clearly thought I was slighty peculiar. Anyway, the current screen of the register showed all check-ins for that day:

I hurried back to La Splendide. It was seven twenty-five p.m. and, besides Susan’s group, there were about half a dozen people dotted around the restaurant. I slid back
into my seat. Everyone was looking at menus.

‘Any news?’ asked Izzy.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can at least confirm that the first of tonight’s two smugglers has arrived and which room he’s in.’

It had taken only a brief look at the register to spot the smuggler. Have you worked out who it was?

‘Only one person arrived at around six, the time the texter told me the first smuggler would get here. I’m pretty sure that’s him because he’s using the
name Moss, which also ties in with what I was told. I doubt either the name or the address he put down are genuine. Anyway, he’s in Room 217, which if I’m not mistaken puts him on the
floor above where we are now. I’m not sure what time his contact will arrive, the one codenamed Heather, but they’re due to meet at nine o’clock. Let’s see thaaaaat’s
. . . exactly an hour and a half from now.’

‘By the way,’ said Izzy, ‘I checked the online news services, like you asked. There are indeed several articles about a smuggling operation. There are very few details, but
they appear to back up what Mr Mystery said.’

‘Or Mrs Mystery,’ I added.

‘Or Mrs Mystery, right.’

Vernon the waiter slimed up to the table and asked if everyone had chosen what they wanted to eat. He made it sound as if we were selecting clumps of goo out of a gutter. Hurriedly, I picked up
a menu.

While the others were ordering variations on the theme of whatever-sounds-poshest, I kept glancing out of the window. Bryan Beeks was there, in the office across the courtyard, tapping away.

I was just trying to work out what
Soup du Jour
might mean, when a movement caught my eye. I glanced back across the courtyard and saw Beeks limping over to the office window. He reached
up and shut the blinds.

‘Sir?’

‘Huh?’ I said.

‘Are you ready to order, sir?’ sighed Vernon.

‘Oh! Ummm . . .’

I returned my gaze to the window. The blinds were open again. Beeks was back at his desk, working away for all the world to see.

‘Sir?’

‘Oh! Sorry!’ I said. ‘Er, have you got any curry?’

‘As it’s a special occasion, sir, I’m sure Chef can oblige,’ said Vernon.

‘Oh great, I’ll have that, then. Thanks,’ I said with a grin.

Once Vernon had oozed away to the kitchen, all the others at the table stared at me.

‘Curry?’ said Izzy quietly.

‘I like curry,’ I said, even more quietly.

The restaurant was getting slightly busier now. Our table was rippling with chatter.

I wondered why Beeks had shut those blinds for, what was it, no more than thirty seconds? Was he signalling to someone? However, as he was clearly carrying on with his work, I let the matter
pass. Maybe he liked to have as good a view of the restaurant as the restaurant had of him?