An Unwanted Guest(52)
Matthew doesn’t answer. David will only want him to go back to the others. But Matthew doesn’t feel like part of this little group. He doesn’t have to follow their rules. And he has a gun. His heart pounding, Matthew makes his way quietly along the hallway to his right, silently trying all the doorknobs as he goes. His hands are sweaty. All the doors are locked, of course. Coming back down the hall towards the stairs, he peers into the dark sitting room. He stands still for a moment. There is the faintest light coming in from the windows; it’s slightly less dark than the corridor. But all he can pick out are the ghostly shapes of the furniture – chairs and sofas, empty and sinister-seeming. Then he hears someone coming up the stairs to the second floor. He steps quickly into the sitting room and stands behind the wall as still as a sentry. He tightens his grip on the gun. It’s David – he can hear him quietly calling his name. Matthew waits while David searches this side of the staircase – passing the sitting room, peering in, seeing nothing – and then walks slowly down the hall on the other side of the stairs. After a short while, Matthew decides David must have gone down the servants’ staircase.
Matthew follows in his footsteps, to the other end of the hall. The door to the housekeeping closet is unlocked and opens beneath his hand. He steps inside, turning the weak torch on briefly. He turns it off again. Continuing down the hall, he reaches the back staircase and pushes the door open and finds himself on the narrow landing. The door closes behind him, and he stands motionless, listening. Satisfied that David is no longer on the back stairs, he switches the torch back on. He ventures slowly down the staircase to the first-floor landing, all senses on alert.
He turns the torch off again and cautiously opens the door to the first floor. He doesn’t hear David calling him any more; he’s probably given up and gone back to the lobby. Here, on the first floor, is the room that he and Dana were sharing.
He peers down the first-floor hall, listening. It’s so dark that without the torch on he can’t tell if anyone else is here. He walks quietly down the corridor, peeking into the housekeeping closet and the sitting room, then returns to the back staircase and finds himself once again on the ground floor. The servants’ staircase opens into the dark hallway outside the kitchen. He makes his way silently along the hallway at the back of the hotel and turns, finding himself outside the library. He steps inside. The faintest sliver of moonlight falls now through the French doors. For a moment he just stares around the room.
He spies a large book open on the coffee table. He switches the torch on, and sees a picture of a nineteenth-century ship locked in the ice. He wonders who was reading it. He sweeps the torch around the room and turns it off again. Losing interest, he pauses at the doorway. If he goes right, he knows he will find another sitting room and wind up back in the lobby. He doesn’t want that. Instead, he turns to his left, and moves back along the rear of the hotel. This time he recognizes the door to the woodshed. He hesitates, then pushes open the door.
Chapter Twenty-six
RILEY IS GLAD that David is gone. She thinks he’s reckless, and she’s glad he’s gone. Maybe he’ll get himself killed.
She hears the muffled sound of a door closing somewhere in the hotel and her nerves jump.
‘What was that?’ she says, frightened.
Henry answers nervously, ‘It’s probably just Matthew, or David.’
Straining to hear what’s happening outside their little circle, all she can hear is the wind drumming against the windows. Whether the storm subsides tomorrow or not, they must try to make their way – no matter how slowly, or with how much difficulty – out to the main road and try to get help.
She thinks of her therapist, Donna – the woman who has been helping her regain a sense of control over her life, or at least trying to. With Donna’s help, she’s been trying to learn how to manage her negative thoughts. She certainly wouldn’t be happy with the way Riley’s using alcohol to cope this weekend. But she’s trapped in a remote inn with a bunch of strangers, and people are being murdered. She imagines being in Donna’s office, telling her all about it. She would say, You have experienced some terrible things. Yes, she has. She would say, Because of this, your mind will sometimes play tricks on you.
‘Are you all right?’ Gwen says suddenly. Somehow Gwen is standing right in front of her. She doesn’t remember seeing her move from the sofa. But Gwen is squatting down in front of her now, looking intently into her eyes, concern stamped on her face.
‘I don’t know,’ Riley whispers. Gwen stares back at her, alarmed. ‘I don’t know,’ Riley repeats, more urgently. She’s in a strange place. Hell isn’t imaginary; it’s real. It’s a real place and it’s also a state of mind. And she can feel herself slipping into the pit, she can feel the fear taking over, the paranoia, the need to react. She doesn’t want that to happen. God, not here. Not now. She grabs Gwen’s hand tightly. ‘Stay with me,’ she says.
‘Of course,’ Gwen says, and sits down beside her, the tension between them seemingly forgotten, at least for now. ‘I won’t leave you,’ Gwen promises.
Inside the woodshed, a sudden rattling sound coming from the direction of the outside door startles Matthew. He whirls towards the sound and trips over something, dropping the torch before he can turn it on. Completely blind, he senses something in the darkness, something moving. Matthew fumbles from cold and nerves, clutches the gun and raises it. He fires wildly in the dark.