The Hanging in the Hotel (2 page)

As to all the boring stuff being done by invisible servants, here the hotel was on less certain ground. Though that was certainly the effect to which the management aspired, they didn’t
have at their disposal the vast armies of staff which would have ensured the clockwork precision running of an Edwardian country house. Economy dictated that there were never really enough bodies
around to do everything that was required, that the hotel’s owner ended up doing far more menial work than she should have done and that, when one member of staff failed to turn up on time,
chaos threatened.

Which was why Jude had received an emergency call from the hotel’s owner that April afternoon. There was no one at the antique reception table as she hurried past, just a tiny brass bell
to summon service. Jude was making for the kitchen at the end of the hall, but noticed a door opposite the bar entrance was open, and moved towards it.

Steep steps led down to the hotel’s cellar. The lights were on. As Jude peered down, a familiar face looked up at her.

‘Thank God you’ve come!’

‘What is it this time?’

‘Bloody waitresses! Stella’s cried off because she’s going out with some new man, but she promised me her daughter’d come in. Bloody kid rang in at quarter to four to say
she couldn’t do it.’

‘Any reason?’

‘Didn’t say. Told me and rang off.’

‘Suppose you should be grateful she rang at all.’

‘Why? God, Stella’s going to get an earful when she next comes in!’

‘Don’t sack her.’ Jude’s voice was firm and cautionary. ‘You can’t afford to lose any more staff.’

‘No.’ Suzy Longthorne the hotel owner sighed, and held out two bottles of port. ‘Could you take these?’ She picked up two more, turned off the cellar light, came up the
stairs and locked the door behind her. ‘Going to need a lot of port tonight,’ she said, and led the way through to the kitchen. Inside, she put the bottles down on the table and wearily
coiled her long body into a chair.

Even though she had thickened out around the neck, Suzy Longthorne remained a beautiful woman. It was still easy to see why she had graced so many magazine covers, been a desirable trophy for so
many photographers and pop singers, been so frequently pursued and so frequently won. The famous hair, which had been through every latest style for nearly four decades, almost certainly now needed
help to maintain its natural auburn, but looked good. The hazel eyes, though surrounded by a tracery of tiny lines, were still commanding. And the lithe, full-breasted figure seemed to have made no
concessions to the years, though less of its toning now came from the gym than from the extraordinary effort of running Hopwicke Country House Hotel.

Suzy was incapable of dressing badly. Other women in the same pale grey T-shirt, jeans and brown leather slip-on shoes would have looked ordinary, sloppy even. Suzy Longthorne could still have
stepped straight onto a catwalk. On her even the blue-and-white-striped butcher’s apron looked like a fashion accessory.

In fact, a perfect photo shoot could have been done at that moment – the chatelaine of Hopwicke House in her kitchen. Like the rest of the hotel, the room had been restored by expensive
designers to a high specification. Without losing its eighteenth-century proportions or its wide fireplace, the kitchen had been equipped with the latest culinary devices. Hidden lighting twinkled
knowingly on surfaces of stainless steel and the copper bottoms of serried ranks of utensils.

The two women had known each other since their late teens, when both had been picked up as potential ‘Faces of the Sixties’. But Jude’s modelling career had stuttered to a
quick end. Though she didn’t lack for offers of work (among other things), a couple of long photo shoots and one catwalk show had brought home to her the incredible tedium of the job and she
had moved sideways into acting in the blossoming world of fringe theatre and television.

But Jude’s relationship with Suzy had endured. Not on a regular basis – frequently years would elapse between contacts – but it was always there. Usually, Suzy was the one who
contacted Jude at the end of another of her high-profile relationships. And the tear-stained famous face would be buried in Jude’s increasingly ample shoulder, while the perfidies of men were
once again catalogued and bold unrealizable ambitions for a relationship-free life were once again outlined.

Suzy never seemed aware of what others had observed in their encounters with Jude – that they were the confiders, she the confidant. Jude rarely gave away much information about herself
and, though her own emotional life had been at least as varied – if not as public – as Suzy’s, little of it was aired. There were friends to whom Jude did turn in moments of her
own distress, but Suzy Longthorne was not one of them.

Yet the relationship wasn’t one-sided. Suzy mattered to Jude. There was a core of honesty in the woman that appealed to her, together with a strong work ethic. And Jude was endlessly
fascinated by the problems that accompanied the fulfilment of many women’s dream – that of being born incredibly beautiful.

Suzy Longthorne had bought Hopwicke Country House Hotel with the proceeds from the breakdown of her longest marriage. For thirteen years she had stayed with Rick Hendry, as he metamorphosed from
ageing rocker to pop entrepreneur to television producer, and as his tastes had shifted from the maturity of his wife to the pubescent charms of wannabee pop stars. Rick had made his name with a
band called Zedrach-Kona, who produced supposedly profound sci-fi-influenced concept albums in the late seventies. The success of these, including the massive seller
The Columns of Korfilia
,
had made him rich and famous for a year or two, then rich and forgotten. But in his fifties, Rick Hendry had found a new incarnation as an acerbic critic on
Pop Crop
, a television talent
show which pitted the talents of manufactured boy and girl bands against each other. His own company, Korfilia Productions, made the show, and so once again for Rick Hendry the money was rolling
in.

By that time, being back in the public spotlight meant his ego no longer needed the support of marriage. The divorce settlement had been generous and Suzy had invested it all in Hopwicke
House.

The venture had started well. The conversion of the space from private dwelling to hotel had been expensively and expertly completed. The recollected glamour of its new owner gave the venue an
air of chic. Well-heeled names from her much-publicized past booked in. Journalists who’d cut their cub-reporting teeth on interviews with Suzy Longthorne commissioned features for the
newspapers and magazines they now edited. For a place that marketed itself as a discreet, quiet retreat, Hopwicke Country House Hotel got a lot of media coverage.

Suzy was by no means a remote figurehead in the enterprise; she was a very hands-on manager. Her money was backing the project, and she had always kept an eye on what her money was up to. She
was punctilious about the quality of staff – particularly the chefs – who worked for her. The media may have started the ball rolling, but word-of-mouth recommendations ensured its
continuing motion.

As the reputation of Hopwicke House grew, the hotel appeared more frequently in brochures targeted at the international super-rich – particularly Americans. Soon the breakfast tables in
the conservatory resounded to Californian enquiries as to what a kipper might be, or tentative Texan queries about the provenance of black pudding. The hotel was included in an increasing number of
upmarket tours, and played its part in nurturing the delusion of wealthy Americans that England had been created by P. G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie.

So Suzy Longthorne had cleverly carved her niche, done the appropriate niche-marketing, and looked set fair to reap great riches from that niche.

Until 11 September 2001. Among the many other effects of that momentous day, as Americans ceased to fly abroad and the bottom fell out of the tourism market, bookings at Hopwicke Country House
Hotel immediately declined. Unfortunately, the transatlantic market was not alone in drying up. A collective guilt about over-indulgence had struck the Western world, and no amount of inducements
in the form of weekend breaks with suicidally low profit margins seemed able to reverse the downturn for Suzy’s business. She had been forced to abandon the exclusivity that had been her
cachet and selling-point, and accept bookings from anyone who wished to stay.

It was with this knowledge, on that April afternoon, that her friend Jude asked, a little tentatively, ‘Who have you got in tonight?’

Suzy’s perfect nose wrinkled with distaste. ‘The Pillars of Sussex.’

‘Oh.’ Jude grimaced in sympathy. Though she had never met any members, she recognized the name. Like most British clubs and institutions, it had been founded in the second half of
the nineteenth century. Originally, under the grand name of ‘The Pillars of Society’, the group had been initiated for philanthropic purposes, and was still involved in local charity
work and Christmas fund-raising. As with many such associations, however, the initial worthy intention soon took a back seat to procedures, rituals, ceremonies, elections, all of which had the same
general aim: that those who had achieved membership of the Pillars should feel eternally superior to those who had not. Nothing had changed since an 1836 publication,
Hints on Etiquette
, had
observed that, ‘the English are the most aristocratic democrats in the world; always endeavouring to squeeze through the portals of rank and fashion, and then slamming the door in the face of
any unfortunate devil who may happen to be behind them.’

Needless to say, meetings of the Pillars of Sussex involved a great deal of drinking.

What made all this worse, from Jude’s perspective, was that the Pillars of Sussex was an exclusively male organization. She had grown up suspecting that in the absence of female company
men get increasingly childish, and experience had turned the suspicion into a conviction. She did not relish the evening of raucous misogyny ahead.

But her views didn’t matter; she was there to help out her friend. ‘What do you want me to do, Suzy? Bar?’

‘No, I’ll handle most of that. Part of being the hostess. Might need some help with the drinks orders before dinner.’

‘Trays of glasses of wine?’

‘I think this lot’ll probably be drinking beer. No, basically, I want you to help with the waitressing.’

‘OK.’ That was what Jude had been expecting. ‘Is it just me?’

‘No, I’ll help, of course. And I’ve got Kerry . . .’

Suzy spoke as if this possession was a not unmixed blessing. Jude had met the girl on a previous visit – a sulky, rather beautiful fifteen-year-old supposedly destined for a career in
hotel management. Since Kerry was in her last year at private school and without much prospect of making any impact academically, her parents had arranged for her to spend her Easter holiday doing
‘work experience’ at Hopwicke House ‘in order to get some hands-on training’. The girl’s commitment to her career choice was not marked – her only interest
seemed to be pop music – but Suzy endured Kerry’s flouncing and inefficiency with surprising forbearance.

Perhaps any help was better than none. Finding steady waiting staff was a continuing problem for Suzy. ‘Don’t suppose you know anyone looking for some part-time work?’ Jude was
asked, not for the first time.

She shook her head, not for the first time, and once again had the mischievous idea of mentioning the job to her neighbour. It wouldn’t be a serious suggestion. Carole Seddon, with her
civil-service pension and her hide-bound ideas of dignity, would be appalled at the notion of acting as a waitress. But Jude was playfully tempted to unleash the inevitable knee-jerk reaction.

‘Max is cooking for them, presumably?’

‘Yes.’ Suzy looked at the exquisite Piaget watch Rick Hendry had lavished on her for one of their happier anniversaries. ‘He should be in by now. I’m afraid the Pillars
of Sussex aren’t his favourite kind of clientele. Still, how else are we going to get dinner for twenty and most of the rooms full on a Tuesday evening?’ She spoke with weary
resignation.

Max Townley, Jude knew, saw himself as a ‘personality chef’. He was good at his job and, so long as Hopwicke House attracted high-profile guests, he had enjoyed mingling, and
identifying himself, with celebrity. Since the downturn of the previous year, Max had been less at ease, and Suzy knew that each ‘ordinary’ restaurant booking she took made him more
unsettled. The fact that fear of drink–driving convictions would guarantee most of the hotel’s rooms were booked for the night carried little weight with the chef. From Max’s
point of view, as clientele for a restaurant where he was cooking, the Pillars of Sussex were about as bad as it could get.

‘Are you worried about him not turning up?’ asked Jude.

‘No, he’ll be here. Max is enough of a professional to do that. But he’ll make his point by being late . . . and resentful.’ Her voice took on the chef’s petulant
timbre. ‘A load of bloody stuffed shirts who wouldn’t recognize good food if it came up and bit them on the leg, and who will have blunted any taste buds they have left with too much
beer before dinner, and then be allowed to smoke all the way through the meal.’

‘Really?’ asked Jude, amazed. One of the strictest rules of the Hopwicke House restaurant had always been its non-smoking policy. Mega-celebrities of the music and film business had
succumbed meekly to the stricture, and retired to the bar for their cigarettes and cigars. The fact that the prohibition was being relaxed for a group as undistinguished as the Pillars of Sussex
showed, more forcibly than any other indicator, the levels to which Suzy Longthorne’s aspirations had descended.

But it didn’t need saying. Jude leant across the kitchen table and took her friend’s hand, still soft from its years of expensive lotioning.

‘Things really bad, are they, Suzy?’

There was a nod, and for a moment tears threatened the famous hazel eyes.

‘Everything rather a mess, I’m afraid,’ the ‘Face of the Sixties’ admitted.