An Unwanted Guest(74)
After a while, she heard a sound in the hall. She got up from her seat by the window where the light was good enough to read, and moved quietly to the door and looked out. It was Candice, unlocking the door to her room across the hall. Candice opened the door and went inside, leaving the door open. Lauren crept down the corridor towards the open door. She looked quickly up and down the hall; no one was there. Candice was standing at the desk, her back turned to her. Lauren wasn’t going to negotiate. There was only one way to deal with a blackmailer. It was easy to sneak up behind Candice, her feet sinking noiselessly into the carpet. She quickly grabbed both ends of the scarf around Candice’s neck and pulled with all her strength. She didn’t let go until she was sure. She let Candice slump to the floor. Once Lauren was absolutely certain she was dead, she left, using her sleeve to close the door behind her. And then she retraced her steps to the sitting room, where she took up her book again.
Problem solved.
And then she had another idea. Checking that no one was coming, she slipped across the corridor and, picking the lock – a skill she’d learned as a troubled teenager – slipped quietly into the empty room at the end of the hall across from Gwen and Riley’s room. She had to be very quiet, so that they didn’t hear her. She messed up the bed a bit, made it look like it had been slept in. She went into the bathroom, and taking a towel, turned on the tap and sprinkled some water on the sink. Then she slipped carefully out of the room and returned to the sitting room feeling rather clever. She was sure no one had seen her this time.
She thought it would end there.
When Candice’s body was discovered, she found it easy to dissimulate, to pretend a horror, a fear, she did not feel. She behaved like the others, mirroring their emotions like a chameleon. She’s been doing this all her life. It was easy.
They’d all crowded around Candice’s room, messing up the murder scene. She deliberately bent down over Candice and made a show of touching her in front of everyone, trying to loosen the scarf, just in case. So she wouldn’t have to worry about trace evidence.
But by then she’d already realized that she’d made a terrible mistake.
It was when they’d returned from the icehouse, before Candice’s body had even been discovered. Bradley had gone off to the library to look for her. Lauren had stood in front of the reception desk and reached across, using her iPhone to search for a pen. She wanted to do a crossword by the light of the oil lamp. Her eyes fell on a small white notepad with paper the same size as the disturbing note in her book. She held the light closer. She could see the faint imprint of block letters. Even upside down, she could make out the words saw and Dana, clearly enough.
It was Bradley’s desk. She’d never seen his father – or anyone else – behind the desk. Bradley might have written the note and put it in her book. Maybe Candice had nothing to do with it. It might have been Bradley who’d seen her kill Dana. She quickly grabbed a pen and turned away from the desk, her heart pounding in her chest.
Still, she thought, settling down and pretending to work on a crossword, Candice may have seen the note – I saw what you did to Dana – inside the book, which was in her hand. And Lauren told her the book was hers. It was probably just as well that Candice was dead. Snoopy bitch. But Bradley … He must be the one who’d seen her.
Later, after Candice was found, she realized that Bradley must be afraid that she had also killed Candice. She thought that maybe he’d lost his nerve, was too afraid now to approach her and ask for money. He knew what she’d done. She knew she had to kill him.
When Riley ran outside into the dark, and Bradley followed, she saw her opportunity. She grabbed her coat. Her leather gloves were inside the pockets. Ian was with her but she urged him to go after Riley quickly, pretending to struggle with her boots. Alone on the porch in the dark, she picked up the boot scraper and slipped quietly in the direction she’d seen Bradley take. When she finally came upon him she let her rage take over – she struck him with everything she had.
Then she froze in the night, listening, worried that someone had heard him fall. But it was too windy to hear much of anything. No one came. She could just hear, faintly, Gwen calling for Riley, panic in her voice. Lauren stayed in a crouch and moved away from Bradley, abandoning the boot scraper by his body. She headed for the other side of the hotel, far away from the body. Soon after, she saw the light appear at the front door and saw David and Matthew coming outside to join them.
When she heard the shouting, she made her way over to where she’d left Bradley dead. But then things didn’t go the way they were supposed to. David was there, holding the fading torch, Gwen beside him. She saw James hovering over Bradley, and she tried to go to him, to offer help, to check Bradley’s pulse, to see if he was really dead. But David wouldn’t let her near him. He stopped her. He wouldn’t let her go to Bradley, even when she pummelled his chest and sobbed. She thought she seemed pretty convincing. But she hadn’t been able to get near the body. He wouldn’t let her help carry Bradley inside, either.
She wondered then if David was on to her.
It was unfortunate that she’d had to reveal the truth about her and Ian. That they hadn’t been together that afternoon, after all. She’d undermined him, suggested he was the killer without looking like she was doing it. It was lucky, that lie about his brother. She loved Ian as much as it was possible for her to love anyone, but ultimately, he was disposable. It was necessary. She would find someone else.