The Hotel Riviera(17)

How do you know it was a man? she asked quietly. Tom turned and looked at her, his eyes narrowed into slits. Bloody hell, Mollie, he said, you know what? You’re a bloody genius. Excuse the bad language. Then he’d gotten up and made a phone call or two, slung on his anorak, said goodbye and see you when I see you, and hurried into the frosty night in the old green Land Rover, heading for the M4 and London.

It turned out the mother and her boyfriend were the killers after all, and after that, Tom would often talk to Mollie about the difficult cases. She learned a lot about violent crime: about the murders; the rapes; the gang assassinations; things she’d previously only read about in newspapers. And Tom found her lucid mind and simple reasoning a great help. For a while.

Sighing, Miss Nightingale pulled open the shutters leading to her tiny balcony and stepped out into the sultry night. Lightning flickered across the sky and the heavy scent of night-blooming jasmine filled the air. She couldn’t grow jasmine in the Cotswolds, at least not in her little patch of garden; it just wouldn’t “take,” didn’t like the chilly nights, she supposed, so it gave her special pleasure to smell it now and catch the gleam of its white petals in the darkness.

Her room was the smallest in the hotel, and because it was on the shady side and quite dark, Lola had sponge-painted it a yellow that was meant to be primrose but had turned out more egg yolk. There was a comfy double bed with an iron frame and gauzy curtains, a pair of mismatched nightstands painted Mediterranean blue and a bleached-pine farmhouse armoire found on one of Lola’s country antiquing expeditions. On the small table by the window were a water carafe and a glass, a pile of books, and Miss N’s knitting—currently a long stretch of stripes, a winter muffler that, in fact, she would give Lola as a parting gift.

A comfortable blue velvet chair was placed near the window and two pretty lamps with country-toile shades completed the décor. This room was the cheapest in the hotel because it was on the corner overlooking the parking lot. Not that Miss N found that a hardship, because the straw matting strung over the graveled space to keep the sun off the guests’ cars was now covered with deep blue convolvulus and it made for a pretty sight. Plus, if she craned her neck a little as she did now, she could catch a glimpse of the sea, and the red and green riding lights of the small sloop still anchored there.

She was just thinking, how wonderful to be aboard that little sloop with the waves lapping outside your window and the sea rocking you soft as a baby in its cradle, so calm, so peaceful, so silent, when headlights beamed down the lane. A large black car gunned into the lot, then squealed to a stop, gravel crunching, right beneath her balcony.

Miss N shrank back; she didn’t want to be spotted in her bathrobe and slippers with her hair in a net to preserve its careful waves. And besides, who could this be, arriving so late? The car had Marseilles license plates and it certainly did not belong to any of the guests.

The passenger door was flung open and a weighty man in a crumpled white jacket with a broad-brimmed Panama hat slammed over his eyes hauled himself out. He didn’t bother to close the door; he left that to the two gendarmes who slid quickly out after him. He stood for a minute getting his bearings, then with a grunt and a wave of his arm for them to follow, he strode down the sandy path toward Lola’s cottage.

Miss N drew in a shocked breath. The police! At this time of night they were definitely here on business. And that could only mean Patrick.

She sank into the white rattan balcony chair, staring after them, waiting, wondering. It seemed a long time before they came back, and when she heard their footsteps, she leaned over the balcony to get a better look. The big man lifted his head and looked right back at her.

Oh dear! Oh my! she said to herself, shrinking back against the wall, flushing with embarrassment. And then she thought about her Tom and how this pasty-faced, overweight, sweating detective in his white jacket and Panama hat couldn’t hold a candle to him, and she pulled her dignity together and stepped silently back into her room, closing the shutters behind her.

She waited until the sound of the car disappeared into the distance. Lola’s alone, she thought. Lord knows what they have just told her. It’s about Patrick, though, I’m sure of that. Maybe they have found him…or found his body is more like it.

Wrapping her pink robe tightly around her, she opened the door and crept along the hallway. She padded down the stairs and out the front door, hurrying softly in her slippers, down the path to Lola’s cottage.

Rounding the thick oleander hedge, Miss N stopped. No lights showed. No sound came from within. She hesitated, wondering. Should she knock and say, it’s me, Lola, it’s just Mollie Nightingale wondering if everything is all right?

Sighing again, she shook her head, then she turned and walked slowly back through the gardens. Something bad had happened, though, she felt it in her bones. And her old bones surely knew a thing or two about trouble.

She turned for one last look at the shuttered house by the sea. The only lights were the red and green ones on the small sloop anchored out in the bay.





Chapter 17




Lola

My eyelids were on springs. Every time I tried to shut them they just snapped right back open. And there I was staring at the ceiling again, counting the cracks between the beams in the emerging dawn light. You’ll know the questions I was asking myself over and over as the hours ticked past, slow as a night-bound snail. Those where, why, who questions. And especially the why me? Why did the police suspect me of being involved in my husband’s disappearance?