The Hawkshead Hostage by Rebecca Tope Read Free Book Online

laugh, playing a joke on her. There had been bodies before, associated with flower deliveries and malign uses thereof. Not until that final word did she understand that this was real, and that the boy was not merely panicked but terrified.

Chapter Five
    She ran back into the hotel, intending to find Melanie. But then she realised that help and reassurance were luxuries she could not rely on. Something terrible had happened to Ben, and suddenly it was as if her own most beloved child was in danger. His cry of Hey! echoed in her mind, swelling with a host of dreadful implications. He had been alarmed, angry, shocked and scared. It was all in that one little word.
    The woman with the exaggerated lashes was standing in the foyer, gazing with modified rapture at Simmy’s flowers. Her head was on one side, and a hand extended as if – outrageously – to adjust a bloom. ‘Help!’ cried Simmy, ignoring pangs of embarrassment at her naked emotion. ‘Something awful has happened – is happening – down by the lake. I’ve had a message. We need to call the police. Quickly.’
    The woman fluttered the heavy black fringes over her eyes. They made her look like a caricature of a doll, itselfalready a caricature of a real child. They made one doubt whether there was a fully formed functioning individual behind them. ‘What?’ she said.
    Penny was behind the reception desk, watching dispassionately and making no move to intervene. Simmy ignored her instinctively. Instead she waved her phone in the painted face before her. ‘A dead man!’ she shouted. Then she took a breath and understood that it was down to her. She squinted down at the screen and pressed the 9 digit three times. It was not the first time she had done this, but it still felt imbued with horror. Her stomach churned and her legs trembled.
    When it came to explaining her problem, she floundered. ‘A friend just phoned me to say he’s found a dead body, in some woods on the banks of Esthwaite. Then he broke off, as if he was being attacked.’ That was what she should have said. But it didn’t come out like that. ‘He’s just a boy,’ she repeated. ‘He said somebody’s dead. It’s by the lake. I’m at a hotel.’ Phrases emerged that made perfect sense to her, but were clearly gibberish to the woman at the end of the line who repeatedly urged Simmy to calm down and to give helpful details such as her actual position. ‘Is somebody injured?’ she asked. And, ‘Can you see what’s happening from where you are?’
    This seemed to go on for hours, before Mrs Bodgett snatched the phone away from her and tried in turn to provide useful information. Given that she still had little idea as to precisely what Ben had said – or who Ben was anyway – she did not do very much better than Simmy had.
    ‘We should go down there and see for ourselves,’ Simmy said, when the emergency person finally agreedto send a police car to investigate. ‘Where’s Melanie?’
    ‘In the office.’ The woman gestured at a door across the hallway, which Simmy had barely noticed. In other hotels she had known, the office had generally been visible by anyone standing at reception through a glass partition or suchlike.
    Penny leant forward. ‘Who is this Ben person?’ she asked in her high voice. ‘Not one of our guests?’
    ‘He’s a friend of mine. He came with me.’
    The gesture of neck and chin clearly said, Oh well – not a problem for the hotel at all, then . Simmy felt hot and angry, but said nothing. Panic levels were subsiding, but there was still a great choking cloud of anxiety about Ben’s welfare. Melanie would understand, and even assuage to some extent. ‘Can you fetch her?’ she asked. ‘Please.’
    Her plea was acted upon by the manager’s wife and suddenly there was the big dependable young woman standing right in front of Simmy, calmly prepared to hear whatever might be said. ‘Listen,’ said Simmy, holding out the phone. ‘It’s a message from