Maestra by L. S. Hilton Page A

porter had seen us coming in last night. We could say we had come out for a laugh, that we couldn’t really go through with it. Two silly girls taking an old man for a ride. We could say that James had been angry when we didn’t want to follow up on the promised sex, told us we had to go home today and we’d gone out on the town without him. We didn’t say goodbye because we thought he was sleeping, furious. Plausible. I took my mobile from the robe pocket and texted Leanne to get upstairs immediately. My thumb slipped greasily across the screen. He had a wife – Veronica. They would find her, through his passport, perhaps she would want to keep things quiet, to avoid scandal. Surely she would have been expecting a heart attack in the not too distant future anyway.
    My phone buzzed. Leanne was at the door. I opened it and pulled her into the suite.
    ‘Sit down. Don’t say anything and for God’s sake don’t scream. He’s dead. No joke, no mistake. Whatever you gave him, it was too much. He’s in there.’
    I had never seen anyone go white before – part of me was interested to see that the blood did indeed drain from her face, leaving it greenish under her tan. I went to the bathroom, fetched one of the fine linen towels hanging by the bidet to wrap round my hand and fetched her one of the mini bottles of cognac from the bar, no glass.
    ‘Drink this.’
    She swallowed obediently in one gulp, and began to sob, burying her face in the sleeves of the robe. I took the bottle and padded through to James’s room. I didn’t look at the thing on the bed, just set the empty down on the bedside cabinet. There was already alcohol in his system, so that couldn’t hurt.
    I tried to make my voice as gentle as I could.
    ‘Leanne, this is bad. It’s very bad. We can’t tell anyone, do you understand? If we do, it’s a crime, even though we didn’t mean it. We would go to prison. Tell me you understand.’
    She nodded. She looked incredibly young.
    ‘I can handle this. Do you want me to handle this?’
    She nodded again, grateful, desperate. I hardly believed it myself, but my instinct was all we had. I just needed to keep my actions as quick as my thoughts. Leanne started gasping, the hiccupping in her throat moving towards hysteria. I gripped her arms tightly.
    ‘Look at me. Leanne, look at me! Stop that. Breathe. Come on, just take a deep breath. And another one, that’s it, come on now. Better?’
    She nodded again.
    ‘OK. Now all you have to do is exactly what I tell you. They don’t know who we are – it will be OK. Listen! It will be OK. Get dressed, something neat and smart. Put everything in your bag. Check the bathroom carefully, no make-up, bottles, anything.’ I didn’t think that really mattered but having something to concentrate on would keep her quiet. She shuffled into our bedroom like a hospital patient.
    I went back to James. If I kept my eyes away, it was alright, but I had a queasy fear that one of those fat dead hands was suddenly going to reach out and grab me. Looking round the room, I saw his navy linen jacket hanging on a chair. Using the towel again, I reached inside and found his phone, which was switched off. All the better. There was a wallet with credit cards, driving licence, a few fifty-euro notes and a silver Tiffany money clip. Probably a gift from Veronica. I took out the cash. Most of it was in pink 500-euro notes, some yellow 200s. I counted it, disbelieving, and counted again. Then I remembered. This was the Eden Roc. The hotel was famous for only accepting cash – I remembered reading some vulgar restaurant reviewer boasting about it. God knows how much a suite here cost, but James had obviously withdrawn all the money ready for the bill, plus what he had promised to me. There was just over 10,000 euro. I took two of the fifties from the wallet, added 200 and placed them back in the money clip in the jacket. For a mad second I thought of removing his huge gold Rolex but that