The Girl I Used to Be(32)

I picked up a menu from a vacant table next to me and read it. It was as though I hadn’t seen it before. I could see the meals on the receipt, the chicken and the steak. I couldn’t remember which I’d eaten and which David had had. I felt like ordering both just to see if I could remember when I saw them, but the thought of seeing them made me feel sick.

I left the restaurant and waited at the reception desk until the receptionist was free.

“Please may I have a word with your manager in private?” I asked.

She raised her eyebrows but went through a door at the back of the reception and came out a few minutes later with a woman with an elegant silver pixie cut and a harassed look on her face. She greeted me and ushered me into a small office to the side of the reception desk.

“How can I help you?”

“I’ve got an unusual request, I’m afraid. I wondered whether it would be possible to view your CCTV. I stayed here a while ago and I need to identify a man I had dinner with.”

She looked surprised. “Identify him?”

I swallowed. I couldn’t think of any way around this. “I thought I knew who he was, but it seems I don’t.”

She looked completely confused by now.

“I was here for a training conference on the twenty-fourth of June,” I said. “I stayed here the night of the twenty-third and I bumped into a man I knew from home. I’m an estate agent and he’s a client.” I hesitated. My face was burning. “And I think something happened that night. I think he was in my room.”

“Without your permission?”

“The thing is I was very drunk. I don’t usually drink much but I was really, really drunk. I felt terrible the next day.”

She winced. “And you think he came back to your room afterward? Were you hurt?”

“No, not hurt. I just had a hangover the next day. It’s just . . .” Suddenly I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell someone. I was sick to death of having these thoughts racing around my head. “He sent me photos,” I said quickly. “I need to contact him to tell him to delete them.”

“Photos?” She saw my face then, and understood. “Incriminating photos?”

I nodded, humiliated. “I was naked.”

“And you didn’t consent to that?”

“God, no,” I said. “I can’t even remember him taking them.”

She looked horrified. “You know he’s broken the law? You should go to the police.”

“I can’t. I can’t do that.”

She glanced down at my wedding ring. “They can be discreet, you know.”

“It would be different if I could show them a picture of the man. Everything he told me was a lie—his name, address, phone number . . . If I had a photo of him it would really help. And that’s when I wondered—do you have CCTV from that night?”

“From the twenty-third of June?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but that’s over a month ago. We keep records for thirty-one days, and then they’re destroyed. That’s what we’re advised to do by the police. Our system’s automatically set up to delete anything after that time.”

My mind raced. So he’d sent me the photo and the video over a month after I came back from London. He must have hoped I wouldn’t be able to find CCTV records by then.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Really I am. What he’s done is shocking. Illegal. I can understand your reluctance to get the police involved, but really I think you should.”

“I’ll think about it.” I stood up to go. “Thanks anyway.” I picked up my bag, then remembered something. “I’m not sure you’d know about this. I paid for a meal in the restaurant here and must have forgotten to pick up the receipt. I was sent a photocopy of the receipt four weeks after I was here.”

As soon as I heard myself say that, I knew that of course the hotel hadn’t sent it. Why would they wait four weeks to send a receipt to a guest they didn’t even know?

She frowned. “Who sent you that?”

“I assumed you had,” I said, feeling foolish.

“The restaurant is a franchise,” she said. “It doesn’t belong to us. We simply rent them the space here. We have no connection to them. If someone left their receipt behind in the restaurant, we wouldn’t know anything about it. And besides, the restaurant’s open to the public. The staff wouldn’t know if you were staying here or not. We certainly wouldn’t pass on your address.”

So he sent it to me. Why would he do that?

I stood in silence for a moment, trying to work out what was going on.

“I know this sounds odd,” I said, “but if the room I stayed in is empty, would I be able to have a look at it?”

She looked a bit surprised, but clicked her mouse at the computer there on the desk and said, “Which room were you staying in?”

“I don’t know. I’m really sorry; I can’t remember.” I frowned. “My memory’s been really bad lately.”

She looked up, a concerned look on her face.

“It’s just work,” I said. “I run my own business and it’s stressful at the moment.”

“Oh, that must be tough.” She asked for my name and scrolled down the screen, searching their database. “The room’s empty, though someone’s booked into it for tonight. They’re not due in until late as they’re coming into Heathrow on an evening flight.” She picked up her keys. “Come on, I’ll show you around. You were in room 912.”