Read Online The Happier Dead by Ivo Stourton - Free Book Online Page B

my facts and I don’t like being used.”
    “Two things. First, we don’t have any relationship working or otherwise and if I drop you the odd tip you should be grateful, not lecture me on professional standards. Second, I haven’t told you anything but the truth.”
    “I’ve been through the guest log for last night, and there’s no trace of any Prudence Egwu. If you need me to put a false name out or help you out like that it’s fine, but I expect a little professional courtesy, because if I start to feed my readers that kind of contaminated crap then before long they’re someone else’s readers.”
    “I don’t know what to tell you Grape. That’s his name. Maybe the register’s wrong.”
    “How can it be wrong? I’m looking at the booking records now.”
    “I don’t want to know about your hacking. And I’ve seen the written register and he’s in there. Maybe they haven’t updated it.”
    There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then Grape said, “You swear?”, and she was young again, not the hardened professional but the girl out there somewhere in the city who Oates was helping, and he felt a strange gratitude sweep through him.
    “Cross my heart.”
    “Okay. I’ll check again. So what about this suspect then? I’m hearing all kinds of rumours.”
    “Oh yeah?”
    “Juicy ones.”
    “Like what?”
    “Assassin for the Mortal Reformers. Industrial spy. Government provocateur.”
    “His name’s Ali Farooz.”
    “F-A-R-O-O-Z?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Can I use it?”
    “You can say we have a suspect in custody, he’s helping us with our enquiries and he’s an Avalon employee. That’s it.”
    “Did he do it?”
    “Come on.”
    “You come on.”
    “No.”
    “No you won’t come on or no he didn’t do it?”
    “Both.”
    “So who is this poor Eddy?”
    “He’s a young guy from Kenya, washed up with the amnesty. Serves food in the canteen, porters, stuff like that.”
    She started to laugh.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “You don’t get it? Oh come on, it’s a scream!”
    “No.”
    “Someone tried to pretend like the butler did it.”
    Oates hung up. He started to walk back into the dome, and to his surprise, he found himself grinning.
     
     
    “C AN I HAVE a look at the register?” he said as he entered the ops room.
    “Sure.”
    Bhupinder nodded his head towards the desk where various articles lay in neat lines, some bagged in plastic, others loose, all bearing numbered labels. The register was leather bound and glistening with gilt at the page ends. Oates flicked through until he came to the date of Mr Egwu’s arrival at the spa. It was the very last signature in the book, but there it was.
    “Do we know why Mr Egwu came late?” He spun the book for Bhupinder, who eyed this new source of labour suspiciously. “Ali reckons he helped him with his bags just yesterday.”
    “No. I’ll ask Charles.”
    “How are the interviews going?”
    “Alright. Nothing much so far. They have a curfew so pretty much everyone was in their rooms. I can’t be dealing with this speeded-up time, now it’s light out I feel bloody exhausted. Doesn’t seem like much of a holiday to me. Maybe it’s like opera, you know: it’s boring unless you’re rich.”
    “Lori likes opera.”
    “Yeah? Well, she’s a special case, your missus. Too good for you,” Bhupinder looked up shyly to check how his joke had gone down, and at the sight of Oates’ smile he gave a little nod of relief. “One thing though, the list of people staying in the school buildings looks about half as long as the list we got from the fire safety team.”
    “Is it the staff they missed?”
    “No, we got the staff list. I spoke to that PR bloke and he says that that’s right, there’s only half of the guests in here, the other half we don’t need to worry about.”
    “But he wouldn’t say where they were?”
    “Just that they were in another site somewhere under the dome. Completely separate from St