The Four-Fingered Man (5 page)

‘Spying on the guest, or on your mum?’ asked Charlie.

‘I don’t know, but he was definitely spying and not just looking.’

Charlie thought about that. ‘If Tom is a pirate, he’s probably planning to rob her.’

Amelia almost rolled her eyes. They turned off the road, and up the long gravel driveway
to the hotel. Past the overgrown rose gardens, Amelia nudged Charlie. ‘That’s her.’

Miss Ardman was lying on an old sun-lounge by the fountain, her face turned up to
the hot afternoon sun.

‘Hope she’s wearing sunblock,’ said Amelia. ‘You really would expect an adult to
be more sensible about their skin, wouldn’t you?’

But Charlie wasn’t listening, let alone looking at Miss Ardman. He’d been distracted
by something glinting in the grass on the other side of the driveway and had gone
to investigate.

‘Hey, check this out,’ he said.

It was a black cylinder, with brass rings at each end and more rings in the middle.

‘What is that?’ asked Amelia.

‘I don’t know.’

‘It looks like lipstick for a robot.’

Charlie looked at her scornfully, which irritated Amelia. She’d been far more polite
about his stupid pirate comments. He played with the thing for a minute, then shrugged
and slipped it into his pocket. He took two more steps up the hill, glanced over
at Miss Ardman (at last), and froze.

He gazed for a long while at Miss Ardman. Then he looked up at the hotel. Then down
the driveway they’d just walked up. Then back at the hotel.

‘So, where’s her car?’

‘What?’

‘If she arrived last night, how did she get here? Where’s her car?’

Amelia shrugged. ‘Taxi?’

‘In Forgotten Bay?’ Charlie laughed. ‘What taxi?’

‘I don’t know, I didn’t hear any car.’

‘Well, then how did she get here? Parachute? Bicycle? She can’t have
walked
…’

Amelia realised it wasn’t just the car. The whole scene seemed weird – wrong. Who
would come to a hotel before it was open, or even clean, just to do some sunbaking?
The beach must have been just a short walk away, why not go there?

They trudged up the steps to the main entrance. Amelia was sweaty and weary, and
didn’t care about how Miss Ardman had travelled. All she could think about was getting
an ice block, pronto.

But once they had their ice blocks, something very strange happened.

Amelia and Charlie had both kicked off their shoes and socks in the common room on
their way to the freezer, so their bare feet were soundless on the marble staircase.
They were so busy sucking on their ice blocks, that Charlie (amazingly) wasn’t talking.
And Amelia, who was secretly very curious about Lady Naomi and looking for any excuse
to go past her room, had taken Charlie up the staircase on the guests’ side of the
hotel. So they were in exactly the right place at the right time to see Tom come
out of a guest’s bedroom.

Amelia gripped Charlie’s arm and silently pointed at Tom. They watched him ease the
door shut behind him and limp along the corridor to the back of the hotel.

Amelia’s scalp prickled. She knew which room Tom had just snuck out of.

Miss Ardman’s.

Charlie opened his mouth to shout, but Amelia clamped her palm over his face.

‘Mmph, get off!’ Charlie hissed, pulling Amelia’s hand away. ‘He’s stealing or something!’

‘Maybe, but you can’t just –’

She broke off, watching as Tom limped around a corner and out of sight. Amelia’s
chest tightened. Tom was meant to be working for her parents. He was meant to be
mowing the lawns, trimming the hedges and keeping the tennis courts swept. He was
not
meant to be letting himself into the hotel and prowling around the guest quarters.
She tried to be logical, and not give way to the anger swirling inside.

‘He
could
just be doing some repair work,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe there was a pipe
in that room that needed fixing or something.’

‘Then where were his tools?’ said Charlie. ‘And why be all sneaky about it? Come
on, let’s see where he’s going!’

‘Yeah, OK,’ said Amelia. ‘But
quietly
. We don’t want him to –’

Charlie, though, had already bolted along the corridor. Amelia followed, heart pounding.
They ran past a dozen or more closed doors before the corridor turned and they were
in the servants’ end of the wing. Here were the linen cupboards, a storeroom for
brooms and mops, and the start of narrow stairs that led down the back of the hotel.
And Tom.

His hand was gripping the banister, one foot out in space and ready to descend. He
started at the sight of them. None of those gold tooth-flashing smiles now. Just
a glowering one-eyed scowl.

Charlie and Amelia stopped abruptly, then Charlie said, ‘What are you doing, sneaking
around up here?’

Amelia thought that was brave, but also extremely rude, seeing as Charlie had never
actually met Tom before.

Tom’s eyes widened for a moment, but then his face crumpled back into an angry grimace.
‘I could ask you the same question.’

‘Us?’ said Amelia, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I
live
here! What about you?’

Tom raised an eyebrow. ‘I live here too, and I have done for far longer than you
have, Amelia.’

Amelia swallowed, suddenly wishing they’d never come up here.

‘So what?’ said Charlie. ‘You think that gives you the right to –’

‘To do my job? To attend to hotel business?’ said Tom calmly. ‘Yeah, I think it does.’

Charlie glanced sideways at Amelia. She felt the look but refused to return it. She
was too busy trying to will herself invisible.

‘Now,’ Tom continued, ‘why don’t you kids move along? I don’t think your parents
would be too happy to find you snooping around the guest quarters, do you?’

And with that, he limped heavily down the stairs. Amelia closed her eyes, stomach
twisting. If she’d been on the wrong side of Tom before, what did he think of her
now
?

‘Amelia?’ Mum called from the other end of the hotel. ‘Is that you home? Have you
got Charlie with you?’

They ran back to the gallery end of the corridor and leant over the railing to see
her looking out from the library, a phone pressed to her ear. The phone cord stretched
tight behind her, so she couldn’t come out any further.

‘Mum!’ Amelia was flooded with relief. ‘Tom was up here – in Miss Ardman’s room!’

‘Tom? Really?’ Mum frowned.

Amelia and Charlie glanced at each other.

‘I hope you two didn’t bother him while he was working,’ said Mum, taking away any
thread of hope she’d be on their side. ‘Oh, err, hang on.’ She turned her attention
to the phone. ‘I’m sorry, could you just give me a moment? Well, yes, I know I was
waiting on hold for you, but now I just need thirty seconds to – right, very kind
of you, I’m sure.’ She covered the mouthpiece, and turned back to them. ‘Look, never
mind, I’ve got to take this. But don’t distract Tom, OK? You can see how much work
this place needs before we can open.’

‘But, Mum –’

Mum held up a finger. ‘Not now. Go on – scoot. I’m busy.’

‘Come on, Charlie,’ muttered Amelia. ‘Let’s go to my room.’

‘
Hotel business,
’ Charlie sneered, following her across the gallery to the family
wing. ‘Yeah, right! As if
that’s
what Tom was doing!’

‘Yeah,’ Amelia breathed. She crept into her room and over to the bay window, beckoning
Charlie to follow. ‘That’s why I want to see where he goes.’

‘Why are you whispering?’ said Charlie, in his usual voice.

‘Shh!’

Amelia crouched on the window seat, and saw Tom trudge down the steps, then pause
and glare at the hotel. He took a step back towards them, then thought better of
it and continued across the grass in the direction of his house.

‘Go on,’ Amelia murmured. ‘Keep going … don’t hang around here …’

Finally, Tom stomped off down the driveway and across the lawn to the magnolia trees.

Amelia breathed a sigh of relief.

‘You know,’ said Charlie, ‘Tom must have seen that woman sunbaking. We did.’

‘Miss Ardman? So?’

‘So, if Tom knew she was out
there
, then what did he want in
here
? If it were really
hotel business
then he would have just told her, right, and come up and down the
front stairs like a normal person. But he was sneaking. And the only reason I can
think of to sneak is because he’s a thief. He wants to go through her bags.’

‘She only brought one. And it was like a big handbag, it wasn’t a proper suitcase
or anything.’

‘Well, I bet you anything,’ Charlie said, ‘that whatever is in that bag is worth
a fortune and Tom is trying to steal it.’

It wasn’t completely clear to Amelia how Charlie had talked her into it, but two
minutes later, there she was – creeping around behind the front desk of the hotel,
searching for the spare key to Miss Ardman’s room. She scanned the wall behind the
desk. It was covered in dozens of wooden pigeonholes, each with a brass room number
above the opening. Back in the hotel’s heyday these tiny niches were used to hold
guests’ mail or phone messages. Right now, they just housed the keys.

Getting the key was easy. Mum had locked the partition that closed off access to
the reception desk, but after six years of gymnastics, that was hardly a barrier
to Amelia. She sprang lightly over it, grabbed the cold length of the key, and jumped
back over without a sound. She ran back to Charlie and threw the key in his lap.

‘Gee, it’s a heavy old thing, isn’t it?’ said Charlie, examining it. ‘You were great,
Amelia! You could be a professional cat-burglar.’

Amelia was horrified. ‘Don’t say that!’ She paused. ‘Charlie, I don’t know if I can
go through with this. If we go sneaking around in Miss Ardman’s room, how are we
any better than Tom?’

‘So, what then?’

Amelia bit her lip. ‘Maybe we should put it back.’

‘OK,’ Charlie said simply.

‘What?’

‘OK, let’s put the key back.’

‘Really?’

‘Sure. No problem. We put back the key, and we forget about getting evidence, and
you can just
trust
that Tom is honest and trustworthy and safe to have around your
family and your stuff. You can just
trust
that he’s a good guy, while you sleep alone
in this big hotel, far from town …’

Amelia snatched the key out of Charlie’s hands. ‘Fine. Give me that.’ She stalked
up the stairs.

Charlie scurried after her. ‘We’re only going to look, anyway,’ he whispered. ‘We’re
not going to touch anything, and no-one will ever know, so there’s no harm, and –’

‘Shut up, Charlie,’ Amelia hissed.

They trod quietly past Lady Naomi’s room, though Amelia had no idea whether she was
in there or not. Maybe Lady Naomi didn’t even exist. She could just be a story Tom
had invented to cover up some pirate secret. Amelia considered it a very bad sign
that Charlie’s stupid pirate theory was starting to feel at home in her brain.

Charlie nudged her. ‘We could get the key to that room next.’