Page 8 of The Dead Come to Stay

“Yes. We were busy helping our guests—twenty arriving almost at once. You know we’re a premier venue; weddings, events. Our

clients expect the best.” She said this with evident pleasure. MacAdams steered her back to the questions at hand.

“And five thirty, you took a call from a man named Ronan Foley.”

“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 know exactly what 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.

“ Do you 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 already had a booking for him. But we didn’t.”

“I want you to think back very carefully, Ms. Templeton. What exactly did 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 . “ T for Templeton, F for 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 remember till 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, but we still had available suites.

He didn’t ask about pricing. He wanted to know if we were busy.

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 you tell Mr. 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 booked for him 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.”

“ And he 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?”

Green gave him a side-long look.

“I could ask you the same thing about Evans.”

It was a fair point. MacAdams leaned back against the headrest.

“Yes. I always wondered how old boss Clapham got his money after it came out that he was selling off his military equipment,”

he explained. “It was clearly through connections, because every pound and penny were squeaky clean. Well, Evans was a personal

friend of our Clapham. He was also an accountant at a London firm.”

“A city boy? Running a hotel?”

“Yes, about that. His firm was nailed for fraud. But not Evans.”

“So he either has an exceptional moral compass, or somebody bailed him out in exchange for special accounting.” Green nodded

out the window. “Neat little theory.”

“And still only a theory,” MacAdams said. “But there were goings-on. I suspected back then, I know now—and I doubt we’ve heard the end of it. Anyway, there’s my little story. Are you going to tell me what’s up with you and Ms. Templeton?”

“Nope,” she said, then put the car in gear and pulled out of the hotel parking lot.