Page 47 of The Dead Come to Stay
“Hello?” MacAdams said when he reached the window. He expected the character Jo had described: heavy brow and jowls, bit of a bruiser. Instead, a youth scarcely older than seventeen popped into view.
“Morning!” he said, dusting hands against his trousers. “Got no butties ready yet. Have you a coffee, yeah?”
MacAdams chose to stick to questions.
“Is thisyourvan?” he asked.
“God no. Gap year, me.” He turned a freckled face to Green. “Coffee? Tea?”
“Nothing, thanks, “she said, casting an are-we-getting-the-badges-out? look to MacAdams. He was weighing that himself and decided against it.
“Bag of crisps, plain,” MacAdams said. “Who does own it—the van?”
“Dunno. I got hired by the Geordie.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s what people call him, I guess.” The kid handed him change. “I just started, to be honest. Couple days ago.”
“Thank you for the crisps,” MacAdams said, leaving him a pound in tip.
Green waited till they were out of earshot to make hay. “You didn’t even ask about the supposedly missing woman hiker. Or why he was parked up here.”
MacAdams handed her the crisps.
“He’ll tell us he doesn’t know. He’s not the driver Jo met. Possibly not the same van, and that’s a lesson in itself. That’s a lot of activity on a quiet stretch of road a long way from customer density.”
Green hmmm’d.“It does seem a bit off when you put it like that. You really think something’s up?”
“Hard to say,” MacAdams said, tearing out the notebook page he’d copied down the license number onto. “Send this to Gridley when we have signal again.” MacAdams checked his watch. “I’ll drop you at the station so you can pick up a CID car.”
He’d promised to pick up Jo by ten.
***
Getting to York by car was alotfaster than taking the train, Jo decided. At least, when she wasn’t driving. Most everything had been booked solid, but she’d found a place called the York Astoria; the name sounded promising. The present-day Waldorf-Astoria on Park avenue, New York, was the very height of luxury and glamour. Hotel spas, signature restaurant, grand ballroom. Of course, these days no one rented rooms in the landmark building. You could buy a thousand square feet of apartment for a cool four million, however.
“You know, the original Waldorf-Astoria was an unofficial palace before it was torn down and relocated,” Jo said, as they followed the satnav into a narrow street. “Built on Fifth Avenue in 1893 by Waldorf Astor. But then his cousin built a taller hotel next door. They eventually stopped fighting about that and connected the two with a marble corridor called Peacock Alley.”
“Why did they call it that? “MacAdams asked, making the final left-hand turn.
“I don’t know actually.”
“I almost find it disconcerting when you don’t know something,” MacAdams said. “Which reminds me, do you know what the Mohs’ hardness scale is?”
“For identifying minerals? Hardness as resistance to scratching?”
“Or cracking open.” MacAdams ran his thumb along his jawline thoughtfully. “Human skull is about a five.”
“I didn’t know that, either,” Jo admitted. It happened a lot more than people supposed. Like right now, as Jo took in the view before them. The York Astoria wasnotliving up to its name.
“Oh.”
They pulled into a badly mended car park in front of a yellow-brick-and-stucco facade. It did not look like the Waldorf. It looked like a Day’s Inn in Gary, Indiana.
The interior did little to alter this impression. There also wasn’t a clerk on duty—which meant running down a member of the cleaning staff. They eventually located the stairs and found themselves on the third floor. The carpeting zigzagged in awful red-and-salmon stripes like something out ofThe Shining.
“That... gives me a headache,” she said.
