Roachville

Despite the reported urgency of the matter, I hesitated over how to get to Hotel Blue. There wasn’t much petrol in my car, so all of a sudden I felt very citizen green and opted for public transport.

The phone played music in my ears and blasted away the remaining cobwebs of sleep sticking to the inside of my skull. After about forty minutes in slow traffic, the bus made its way through the grey city centre. As the song came to an end, the vehicle stopped. I turned off the music app, braced myself for anticlimax and returned to reality as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

The town centre was still busy with late commuters getting into work, and as I made my way to the hotel, I was reminded of that open-plan life I used to lead. Images of comfortable boredom behind sunny windows flashed behind my eyes and even though I sometimes missed a few of my ex-colleagues, I was glad I had given it all up in the end.

As I entered the hotel lobby, I scanned the room to see if there was any blue around and if my client was there – not that I knew what he looked like. The overall colour was red, so why it was called Hotel Blue beat me. I couldn’t see anybody waiting, but I felt that I needed to act with confidence, so I selected a plush burgundy sofa and sat. Maybe I should ask for a Mr Tann at the reception desk? But then, with perfect stealth, a charming East Asian man of indeterminate age appeared in front of me.

‘Annika Roy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Kenneth Tann,’ he replied, offering me a smooth hand. ‘Would you mind following me? My... colleague is waiting in her room.’

‘Are you absolutely positive this meeting has to take place in a hotel bedroom?’

Kenneth Tann raised his perfectly symmetrical eyebrows and cocked his shapely head. His face split open into a wide smile and he emitted a light laugh, like a burst of summer rain echoing on a tin roof.

‘I can see this might seem like an incongruous request. I would also prefer to have this meeting in a public space, such as here…’ He gestured towards the sofa. ‘But my associate is very peculiar and has insisted on talking in her own room. What can I say, she’s getting old and she’s very stubborn.’

I looked at his finely chiselled features that simultaneously radiated business and joy.

‘All right,’ I said quietly. He headed towards the stairs and I scuttled behind him. While he wasn’t looking, I got the mini spray-can out of my jacket and hid it in my sleeve as best I could. He might be very charming, but I decided to remain on medium alert until I saw what was in the room. Deep cavernous tremors shook my empty stomach. I ignored them and concentrated on Kenneth Tann’s visually pleasing appearance: a well-fitting grey suit and shiny brown loafers; medium height with a nicely proportioned body shape, small hips and wider shoulders; short black supple hair with no hint of grey. I still couldn’t say for sure how old he might be; although his overall appearance was youthful, there was something in his eyes that made me think he was older than he looked. In fact, he looked like a handsome porn actor I had noticed before. Not that I’m a porn specialist, but sometimes a girl has to take things in her own hands, and I’ve always been fussy about what turns me on. As my thoughts meandered in this unwanted direction, he turned his head towards me. His features were arranged in a friendly smile, but I caught a cold reptilian glint in his eyes. I straightened my shoulders, thought of my last bank statement and disregarded the insidious wave of apprehension forming round about my belly button.

On the first floor of the hotel, we walked down a long corridor without a word. The walls were grey, and the carpet could best be described as mud brown. Still no blue. Maybe there was a lot of blue under all the layers of dirty burgundy and brown and the owners hadn’t bothered to rename the hotel, or maybe they were planning to paint it all blue. Had I known what to say, I wouldn’t have been speculating on the colour scheme, but after his initial bout of chattiness, Kenneth Tann had closed up like an obstinate oyster. So we kept going in tense silence. He stopped at Room 117, knocked once and went straight in.

I peered inside. An East Asian woman sat by the window. Her age was easier to guess than Kenneth Tann’s: probably around sixty. Her hands were folded in her lap and she was dressed in a neat light blue jumper and a pair of dark trousers. A bit of blue at last! She didn’t look weird or scary in any way and the tension in my hand that was holding the spray can released slightly. The woman, so utterly poker-faced that I wondered for an instant if she might be made of wax, looked up at us with a serious stare. I gulped; this might not be the most fun ever. But I tried to keep it together and made a mental note to practise my own impenetrable look.

Kenneth Tann glared at the woman and smoothed his eyebrows with his thumb and middle finger. He wasn’t smiling anymore. I let my eyes wander about the tidy room. The bed was made and I noticed a small zipped-up black case. The woman probably didn’t want to stay here for long.

Kenneth Tann cleared his throat and asked me to sit down. He half turned to me while keeping an eye on the woman and spoke again.

‘Would you please ask her when she saw it for the last time?’ he asked in his lovely accented voice.

I raised my eyebrows, expecting more details from him. But Kenneth Tann, who hadn’t bothered introducing me or briefing me about the common business that brought these two together, gave me an insistent look. As I was a lowly interpreter without much work on her order book, I translated his question, keeping my thoughts to myself. The woman lifted her gaze to me and told me in French with a Far Eastern accent that she’d had ‘it’ in this room until the previous day.

‘Where is it now?’ he asked again.

‘She doesn’t know. She came back in the afternoon and it had disappeared,’ I replied, curious about what ‘it’ could be.

‘Has someone stolen it?’

‘The door wasn’t forced.’

‘So it just decided to go through the wall, go for a walk and disappear?’ His upper lip curled to reveal a shiny canine.

‘She doesn’t know.’

‘You don’t need to translate this, I can see for myself,’ he said curtly, before recomposing his face into a gracious smile aimed at me. ‘Please would you ask her if anyone saw anything at the reception?’

‘She doesn’t know,’ I said again, resisting the urge to bite my fingernails.

He stared fiercely at the woman, but she didn’t flinch. She didn’t seem to care, but I was certain this must have been just an act, because Kenneth Tann’s smooth features turned ferocious when he spoke to her. I was stuck in the middle of a staring competition and I had no idea who was going to win. I fiddled with the strap of my brown leather handbag, recalling Sartre’s hell in which three characters are punished by being locked together for eternity. Maybe that was it: I must have died without noticing and now I was stuck with these two forever. The seconds ticked on, followed by what seemed like hours. As I was about to stand up and poke one of them to find out if they had turned to stone, the old lady cleared her throat.

‘I will stay here until it comes back,’ I translated.

‘I’m glad to hear that.’ Kenneth Tann smiled. ‘Although you know I will have to take certain measures if you don’t return it to me soon.’ His voice could have induced internal organ displacement.

‘Yes, I know. But it will come back, and I will contact you through the girl and you can have it and leave me alone forever.’

A spasm made my left eyelid twitch; she meant me. Now they were both staring at me and I was just trying to look dumb. Kenneth Tann smoothed his features once again, but you could still feel an arctic breeze when he spoke.

‘I hope this is the last time we have to interact in such a manner. As you know, I will keep a close eye on things, so please don’t do anything without informing me first, because I will find out if you are hiding something from me.’

What great people to do business with! Even with dual-nationality couples trying to divide their possessions and cut their children in half, I had never felt this uncomfortable.

‘There is nothing I can do about the fact that it has disappeared,’ she stated. ‘You know as well as I do that it has a mind of its own. But as soon as it comes back, I will contact the girl and you can let me be.’

Kenneth Tann mulled this over for a few seconds, but I already knew I didn’t want anything more to do with these two, even at double my usual rate.

‘You know, I might be busy over the next few weeks,’ I said.

The Asian lady turned to me and smiled for the first time.

‘It has to be you.’

‘But…’

‘I’ll triple your rates,’ Kenneth Tann interrupted before I had time to add anything. In fact, he flashed me a smile that made me dizzy and he got a black leather wallet out of his coat pocket. I froze like a mouse about to be swallowed by a snake; when I looked down at my left hand, there were five glossy fifty-pound notes in it.

‘Okay then… that settles it,’ I muttered, getting up and letting my nervous feet back me away from the two pairs of scrutinising eyes.