Room Service

Chapter Two

            I could think of better ways to spend a Saturday morning.

            For instance, just one of my suggestions could’ve been joining the flocks of tourists all headed for Walden Beach: dense throngs from the town’s hotels and long-stay car parks, all merging to form a continuous gaggle stretching the entire length of the seafront. Though I would’ve inevitably found myself sandwiched between classic examples of Britain’s rowdiest families, doing anything within my power to drown out the noise of screaming kids left, right and centre, that still would’ve had the edge over this, right here.

            Rare sunshine was streaming through the windows of The Beach House, but I was stuck on the uppermost floor, struggling to push the world’s heaviest cleaning trolley through a narrow corridor and doing a job that was, to put it simply, somebody else’s. It had been nobody’s fault that one of the maids had gone home sick in the middle of her morning shift, but it did mean that I was the one enlisted to cover the last three rooms on her round.

            I was now two down, but still with one unfinished: that, of course, had to be the Lighthouse Suite.

            Since we’d decked out the room at the beginning of the year with themed décor and matching furnishings, it had seen an invariably small number of guests through the off-peak season, and therefore never really required much of a frequent cleaning. But now, heading into the chaotic summer period, it was looking inevitable that the maids and I would be spending a lot more time up here on the third floor. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially not to have the extra cash flowing into the business, but the stairs and I were set to get to know each other a lot better over the upcoming six weeks.

            My trolley rolled to a stop in front of the lightwood door at the end of the corridor, its peephole headed by a large silver anchor. I took a deep breath, an image of the boy from yesterday creeping along a familiar pathway into my mind. I hadn’t meant to keep thinking about him, but all of last night had somehow ended up consumed by the version of him, a reflection of the memory, that drifted around inside my head. Maybe it was his strange behaviour in the lobby yesterday – his odd impatience and insistent manner – that drew my thoughts back to him every time I tried to steer them away. Whatever it was, Lenny Maguire remained very much a person of interest as far as I was concerned, and I couldn’t help but feel intrigued by what had to be his role in a much larger back story.

            I knocked the door: three short raps, firm but not intrusive, followed by a pause intended to be filled with a response. When it didn’t come, I tried again, just in case my call had gone unheard. But still there was nothing, and a distinct lack of a Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the handle, and so on this I assumed that Lenny Maguire must’ve vacated the room sometime this morning.

            So I went inside.

            My guess, as it turned out, had been correct: Lenny Maguire was nowhere to be found.

            But what I hadn’t counted on was for none other than a very startled, very naked Leon McCarthy to be standing in the middle of the room. Clearly fresh out of the shower, he wore nothing but a towel and a deer-in-headlights expression as we stared at each other.

            And I went to scream.

            However, he beat me to it. Dashing across the room with lightning speed, he reached me just in time to clamp a damp hand over my mouth, effectively silencing whatever sound had been about to escape. I wasn’t exactly sure what the words now lodged in my throat were; I guessed they had to be something along the lines of Oh my God. As he kicked the door shut, I seemed to fall back against it, the both of us ending up awkwardly squished up against the hard surface.