Page 18 of The Dead Come to Stay
“I don’t remember his name, but sure. I’m assuming you have already checked the phone register.”
“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Green asked her.
Arianna smiled toothily—and Evans returned with coffee. MacAdams took a grateful sip. An awful lot was being communicated here, but none of it about the murdered man. Green pushed her coffee away, course correcting.
“Ronan Foley called here on Friday night. Saturday morning, he was found dead on Upper Lane. We need to knowexactlywhat he said to you.”
Arianna’s expression and posture remained unchanged as she absorbed the news, and its implications.
“God. How awful,” she said, but without much feeling.
“Doyou remember him?” MacAdams pressed.
She nodded. “I do. But he didn’t want a room. He didn’t even ask if we had any available.”
MacAdams was poised with his pencil, ready to write down her statement, but this caught him out.
“He called a hotel, but didn’t want a room,” he repeated, making sure he’d heard that right.
“Honestly, it’s probably why I remember it,” Arianna said, lacing her fingers in front of her. “He asked if we alreadyhada booking for him. But we didn’t.”
“I want you to think back very carefully, Ms. Templeton. Whatexactlydid he say,” MacAdams asked.
“I already said—”
“You summarized,” Green interrupted. MacAdams didn’t need Arianna to bristle, however; he put up a placating hand.
“Here, try this—” MacAdams wrote a series of letters down in his notepad:T, F, T, F. “Tfor Templeton,Ffor Foley. Can you fill in the basic conversation as closely as you can?”
She took the pad and pencil and a deep breath.
“I answered as I usually do.” She scribbled a note. “‘This is Abington Arms, how may I help you?’ Next, he said his name was Foley—he gave his first name, too, but I didn’t remembertill you told me. ‘Did I have any rooms under my name?’ Mumbled something about his secretary possibly booking it for him, and he wanted to verify. I told him we didn’t have anything booked for him,butwe still had available suites. He didn’t ask about pricing. He wanted to know if we werebusy.I told him the whole town was booked. One of our guests checking in complained that everywhere ‘affordable’ was taken for the night. That’s when—Oh.” Arianna tapped the notepad, but didn’t write anything down. “He wanted to know if there were self-catering places.”
“Self-catering,” MacAdams repeated. Places where you check in and out on your own, flats where no one greeted you, almost fully anonymous. “What did you tell him?”
“Sorry, you said he was found on Upper Lane?” Arianna narrowed her eyes. “That’s by the new gardens, isn’t it. And the—the American’s cottage.”
“What did youtellMr. Foley?” Green repeated with an impatience MacAdams now shared.
“The place was in the paper; that’s the only reason I knew about it. Part of the old Ardemore estate.”
***
“He chose her cottage on purpose,” MacAdams said, climbing back into the sedan, “because he didn’t think anyone would be there.”
“And the Hammersmith meeting seems connected,” Green said. “He had a meeting Friday and booked about an hour later. But why ask if there were rooms bookedforhim at Abington Arms?”
MacAdams was already batting that question around his brain. “The easy answer is that he expected there to be. As in, someone else made reservations for him.”
“Andhe does the opposite. I mean, he doesn’t stay there, and he chooses an out-of-the-way cottage he expects to be empty,” Green said, warming up to his idea. “You still think he was expecting trouble, don’t you?”
“Or he doesn’t want to be recognized,” MacAdams said. They hadn’t found any indication of train travel (Gridley checked), and so far no word on abandoned vehicles. Then again, if he were trying to be inconspicuous... “Let’s check car hire; he got here somehow. And he was being quiet about it.”
“Shame we have to wait till Monday to tackle Hammersmith.”
It was, at that, but it gave them time to do some digging in Newcastle. He turned onto the main road and flipped on the wipers against a warm drizzle. The next stop would be Ronan Foley’s apartment and—if they were lucky to find him at home—Burnhope’s uptown residence as well. They had an hour to kill, however, so he determined to venture into guarded territory.
“About Arianna Templeton. History?”
