Someone Else's Shoes(103)

They had not planned for this. There is nothing else for it. Sam flips her hood up over her head and begins to run.



* * *



? ? ?

Jasmine is just walking toward the lift when she hears Frederik, the hotel manager, behind her, his voice lifting above the low hum of the lobby.

“Ah, Jasmine. Just the person.”

He is standing at the reception desk and beckons her over.

Jasmine curses under her breath and turns around, a smile already plastered across her face.

“Wine spillage in two seventeen. The sheets need replacing. Can you get on to it immediately? They’re waiting in the room.”

She opens her mouth to explain that she is not working this shift, but realizes she cannot without explaining what she is doing there. She nods instead, says, “Of course,” and sets off at a brisk pace to the second floor. She texts Nisha as she walks.

    Sorry. Diversion. Give me 5 x



It takes Sam seven minutes to reach the hotel, pushing past people on the busy street, dodging umbrella spokes, apologizing when some curse at her, her chest heaving from the unexpected exercise. She runs into the side entrance, and down the narrow corridor, skidding into the little changing room. A man sits on the bench, polishing a pair of shiny black lace-up shoes.

“Jasmine?” she says breathlessly.

He shakes his head.

She runs along the narrow corridor, yelling Jasmine’s name so that a couple of housekeepers turn to look at her, but nobody answers. Swearing under her breath, Sam stops and tries to think clearly. Jasmine could be anywhere in this hotel. It’s a rabbit warren. The foyer. Jasmine will be in the foyer. Of course she will. She runs back along the corridor, trying to remember where the service lift is. She spies it at the far end and punches the button, jiggling with anxiety as it makes its way sedately down from the fourth floor. The doors slide open, agonizingly slowly. She jabs the button marked G, once, twice, three times. “Oh, come on,” she says aloud, as the rickety lift thinks about it, then finally acquiesces grudgingly, like a grumpy elderly relative, and judders its way upward.



* * *



? ? ?

Nisha waits in the linen cupboard, listening to Ari still talking in the corridor, his deep, flat voice occasionally lifting as he discusses something she cannot make out. Oh, but she’s so close. Her whole body is alive with tension, every muscle tensed for the sound of him moving. It’s fine, she tells herself. Jasmine will be here in a minute. Just breathe. And then finally, after several decades have passed, she hears muffled footsteps on the carpet. They come toward her, so she stands very still, huddled against the shelves with her back to the door, some part of her still waiting for it to be thrown open—for him to find her—and then the footsteps recede, and she is holding her breath, turning cautiously to open the door and peer out. There is Ari’s back, broad and solid in its dark suit, disappearing down the corridor, Ari apparently deep in conversation with whoever is talking into his earpiece. She looks in the other direction, and the two men he had been speaking to are walking down the corridor the other way, toward the elevator.

Nisha closes her eyes and breathes, trying to ignore the trembling in her fingers, and then, once she is sure of the silence, she straightens her shoulders, walks out of the cupboard and briskly down the corridor to 232, looking like the kind of woman who has every right to be there. She holds her key card against the door, and it clicks with a satisfying sound. Finally she is in.



* * *



? ? ?

Sam arrives in the lobby just in time to see Jasmine’s back disappearing through the doors at the far end. She slows her pace to a brisk walk as she crosses the expanse of marble, trying to look unobtrusive, then breaks into a run on the other side of the doors. “Jasmine!” she yells, and Jasmine turns, her hand to her chest. “Did she get the shoes?”

“I don’t know. One of her husband’s goons was standing in the corridor. I was meant to go and get them for her but I’ve got to change some sheets.”

Just then her phone pings.

She looks up at Sam and beams. “Yesss! She’s in!”

“No, no, no! They’re heading back!”

“What?”

“The Frobishers. They had a row and they’re coming back for her coat. Tell her to get out of there.”

“Dammit. Stupid woman. It was obvious she’d be too cold in that suit,” Jasmine mutters, then punches out a text to Nisha.

    GET OUT! THEY’RE COMING BACK!





* * *



? ? ?

Nisha scans the room, her breath coming in short bursts, Liz Frobisher’s pungent, over-sweet perfume still hanging in the air. The shoes are here, dammit. They must be here. She spies the suitcase on the case stand and flings open the top, rifling carefully through it with her fingertips, trying not to consider the ick factor involved in touching someone else’s underclothes. Nothing. She opens the wardrobe door. They are not there either. She stands, thinking. Liz Frobisher wasn’t wearing the shoes. Jasmine had been certain. And Sam would have messaged them—she was following the couple, after all. Nisha lifts the valance so she can peer under the bed in case they have been kicked underneath. She considers the possibility that Liz Frobisher has taken them with her to put on at her destination and curses. Would anyone take a pair of high heels just to eat Chinese? Finally she ducks her head into the bathroom and lets out a gasp of relief: there they are, lying on the tiled floor, their red soles glowing against the marble. The sight of them causes a bolt of electricity to shoot through her, as if all her nerve endings are suddenly alive. She stoops and grabs the shoes and lets out a breath she hadn’t known she has been holding. Yes! And then her phone buzzes. She looks down.