WHEN PEOPLE LEAVE an office at the end of the day they suck from it any life and atmosphere that it might borrow during working hours. Michaels’ office had that dead and sterile air as I passed through it on my way out. The secretary who’d signed me in and two other young women I’d seen through a glass partition had gone for the night. The lights were on a dim setting, casting a grey pallor over the quiet space.
Out in the corridor a cleaner pushed a vacuum around as though she didn’t care whether it was sucking or blowing, and the talking lift had only me to chat to on its way down. The whole building was like a velvet-carpeted and well-lit tomb. I thought about Michaels upstairs in his cavernous office, looking down on me as I tapped down the steps and headed back to the multi-storey car park. I thought what a strange view he had of the transactions between people—that there was rarely anything more involved than the transfer of information for the gain of one or other of the parties. It was a philosophy, I thought, that might lead a sane man to hang himself from a lamppost.
Before I left my office I’d stuffed in my pocket the list of hotels that Rory had visited during the last couple of years. So being in Manchester I thought I’d act like a proper detective and do some field work.
The first hotel was in the centre of the city, still a twenty minute drive in rush hour traffic. It was small but stylish, with a lighted balcony overhanging the front entrance. A white ceramic pot shaped like a globe held a superannuated pampas grass, and an imposing doorman with close-cropped hair and pierced ears rocked backwards and forwards on his feet as if waiting for some action to start. He nodded me through warily and I went in and explained what I was looking for to the balding man who stood behind the reception counter.
He bent forward, pointing a pink ear towards me. When I finished he said he wasn’t allowed to talk about guests, and anyway he only covered the evening shift. Midday and afternoons were someone else’s lookout. I thought better of arguing with him and left, nodding casually to the doorman on the way out. He stared at me as though I’d just slapped him in the face with a leather glove.
It was the same routine for the next two hours. If people talked to me they couldn’t help because they weren’t on duty at the right times; if they were on duty, they wouldn’t talk, full stop.
Almost the last place on the list was out by the airport. I took Princess Parkway out of town, hit the M56 motorway, then turned off almost immediately on to the looping slip road that sucked me into the network of roundabouts scattered between the three neon temples that were the airport terminals. After a couple of false turns I found the Ascot Lodge, an old-fashioned country hotel that looked like it offered no more than half a dozen bedrooms behind its shuttered front. It was spot-lit from below, and I cast hulking shadows on its doors and windows as I crunched across its gravelled car park.
I knew my luck had changed as soon as I saw the family photos on the wall and the pram in reception. It was a family-run hotel and more than likely had the same staff on duty throughout the day. The woman behind the desk was in her forties, wide-armed and stolid, like a comfortable armchair. She had the rosy cheeks and innocent smile of the eternally optimistic. She believed anything I said before I opened my mouth.
I went through my routine. I mentioned Rory’s name, said she might have heard he’d been murdered recently.
She took me seriously at once and widened her eyes. When I finished, she bent underneath the reception counter and pulled out a thick register, turning back several pages with a fat finger. Within seconds she found Rory’s last entry, over two years old.
‘There she blows,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Never forget a name, me.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d remember the client he was with?’
She turned coy and her red cheeks flushed a deeper shade of plum.
‘Not a client,’ she said, in a nasal Manchester whine. ‘His usual meeting. He used to say they were business meetings, but he always hired a bedroom, you know, instead of taking one of the conference rooms downstairs. Never let us interrupt with tea or coffee.’
‘When you said “usual meeting”, what did you mean?’
‘Shouldn’t really be saying all this, should I? Getting people in trouble.’
I gave her a serious look. ‘You could save lives,’ I said meaningfully.
‘Put it like that,’ she said. ‘Went on for about six months. That’s why I remember. Used to turn up with the same young lady. Very nice, she was. Blonde lady, very slim. Very well-dressed. I liked her, me. She used to wear these lovely leather trousers. Purple, they were. I fancy a pair meself when I’ve got me weight down a bit. She seemed very nice.’
‘Yes, you said that,’ I murmured. ‘So it must be true.’