ICEHOTEL (41 page)

‘So, Mags, you’ve discovered my little secret.’

Her voice gave me such a shock that I jumped to my feet.

I gazed at the newspaper cutting. And then it was blindingly
obvious.

Liz was at the door, a packet of
cigarettes in her hand. We stared at one another in silence.

Her expression changed, and she turned to the children. ‘You
two, up to your room and play,’ she said sharply.

‘Do we have to?’ said Annie. She was sorting the silver
coins and didn’t look up.

‘Stop whining. You can watch television.’

‘
Okay
, Mummy, but we have to finish
this game first.’

‘Now.’

The harshness in her voice had the desired effect. Annie
kicked the piles of coins over, and she and Lucy marched sulkily out of the
room. I heard their footsteps on the stairs, and then a door banged somewhere
above my head.

Without taking her eyes off me, Liz reached behind her and
pushed the door shut. She gestured to the sofa. ‘Sit down, Mags,’ she said
quietly.

I remained standing, my mind in a turmoil.

‘Well, now that you know, what are you going to do?’ she
said watching me, her gaze steady.

I tried to keep my hands from trembling. ‘I don’t know
anything, Liz.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you’ve got a brain the size of a
planet.’

I looked deep into her eyes. Then I dropped the cutting and
sprinted for the door.

She leapt forward and caught my neck in an arm grip. I beat
at her legs, my hands balled into fists, but she didn’t budge. She placed the
heels of her hands below my ears and pressed hard. My blows grew weaker, lights
popped in my head, then rushing blackness overtook me.

When I opened my eyes, I was on the sofa, the sleeve of my
jumper rolled up. Liz was in the armchair, an expression of calm on her face. A
syringe lay on the table beside her.

‘Please don’t be alarmed, Mags. I’ve injected you with
something that causes muscle relaxation. It’s not at all life-threatening, but
I wouldn’t try moving, if I were you.’

I tried to sit up but my body felt pressed by a great
weight. What in God’s name had she pumped into me? I sank into the cushions.

‘I use tiny amounts for sprains and muscle injury.’ She
motioned to the cocktail cabinet. ‘All my goodies are kept in a locked drawer.’

I said nothing. I had to concentrate on the mechanics of breathing.

She ripped the cellophane off the cigarette packet, then
leant forward and took a lighter from the back of her jeans. She lit up,
inhaling slowly.

I watched these familiar actions with growing dread. ‘What
is this stuff, Liz?’ I gasped. ‘I feel like shit.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Her voice softened. ‘It’ll wear off with no
ill effects, I promise you.’

I tried closing my eyes, but that made the queasiness worse.

‘You’re owed an explanation, Mags,’ she went on. ‘And I know
you’ll want to hear it from beginning to end.’ Her mouth twisted, as though
what she was about to say would be painful. ‘You see, after Dick’s suicide, I
simply couldn’t live in London. There were far too many memories, and too many
people knew me. I changed back to my maiden name, Hallam, and got the job here
at Bayne’s.’

I shifted on the sofa, only half listening. If I could keep
her talking, the relaxant would wear off and I might find a way to escape. If
only Mike were here, I thought, aware of the irony behind my wish.

She blew smoke through her nostrils. ‘I’ve waited years, you
know. Long, long years. You haven’t any idea what it’s been like, the strain of
pretending to love him, watching him befriend my children, for God’s sake. But
I want to tell it from the start.’ She looked directly at me. ‘How I became a
murderer.’

In desperation, I tried to move my legs. She watched my
feeble attempts, then rose and locked the door. Terror surged through me, and I
sank back, gasping.

‘Why did you kill Harry?’ I said. My tongue felt thick, my
voice sounding as though it came from far away.

‘Harry was the only one I intended to kill. Wilson was’ –
she picked a tobacco strand from her teeth and examined it – ‘rather
unfortunate.’

Wilson. She’d killed Wilson, too. My God . . .

‘I saw Harry on television a few years ago,’ she was saying.
‘After the trial I thought I’d never have to see his face again. Then, surprise
surprise, he just appeared out of the blue. He’d moved from Cambridge to
Edinburgh. That was what decided me, you see, the two of us here in the same
city. It was fate.’ Her face was expressionless. ‘But I really didn’t need much
persuading. He’d taken my husband from me.’

‘Liz, your husband killed himself,’ I said, forcing out the
words. ‘All Harry did was uncover the truth.’

Her eyes blazed. ‘What would you know about it? You’ve never
had a husband, you, with your casual affairs and one-night stands. You’ve never
known what it is to be in love, not the kind of love Dick and I had.’ Her face
was distorted. ‘That awful ache, after he’d gone. Harry took everything away
from me. Worst of all, he robbed my children of their father.’

Her anger hung in the air like smoke from a pistol. I didn’t
dare reply.

She continued more quietly. ‘Once I’d made up my mind, it
wasn’t terribly difficult. You know the sort of person he is, always giving
lectures, attending book-signings. The first time I spoke to him, I saw
immediately he didn’t have a scooby who I was. I’d kept out of the limelight,
you see.’ She indicated the cutting. ‘You know, I think that article carried
the only photograph of me. Harry can’t have see
n it.
I’d forgotten I still had that. Where did you find it?’

I nodded at the cigarette case on the floor.

She looked at it for a long time. ‘How careless of me,’ she
murmured.

I had to keep her talking. ‘Your parents,’ I said slowly.
‘Didn’t they recognise Harry?’

‘I kept them apart. My parents are too poorly now to travel
to Scotland.’

‘Didn’t the twins give the game away?’

‘Oh, children don’t use surnames. My parents knew of a
Professor Henry Auchinleck from Cambridge. They didn’t suspect he was the Harry
the twins talked about.’ She stabbed out the cigarette and lit another. ‘Things
became more complicated when you got the job at Bayne’s. I was sure you’d see
through my relationship with Harry. But as time went on, I realised I’d fooled
you.’

‘You fooled us all,’ I said with difficulty. ‘Specially
Harry.’

Her mouth forced itself into a smile. ‘I thought first about
killing him here in Edinburgh, you know. I dreamt up one plan after the other.
There are drugs that can bring on a cardiac arrest, for example. I even thought
about killing him with my bare hands. My karate would have come in handy there.
But all these methods would lead back to me. Questions would be asked and the
truth about Dick would come out.’ She pulled on the cigarette. ‘Then the
perfect opportunity came up. Harry suggested a holiday.’

I closed my eyes, remembering that autumn afternoon in her
garden.

‘It really couldn’t have been better,’ she said. ‘You see, I
could kill Harry abroad. If I took care to make it look like an accident,
no-one would dig up the past.’

That conversation Harry and I had had about the holiday.
We’d been so worried Liz would back out. Now I understood why she’d accepted so
readily.

She became animated. ‘Harry had brought those skiing
catalogues. When I saw the Icehotel, I knew it would be the perfect location.
It was the bit about sleeping in rooms without doors. Remember? I realised then
how awfully easy it would be to kill someone. Someone who was drugged.’

Yes, Wilson had been drugged. But what did that have to do
with Harry?

‘The Icehotel’s Web site had the details. That jolly
reception in the Ice Bar, the Activities Room. There was even a picture of the
snowsuits.’

I slurred out the words. ‘How did you get the drug into
Wilson’s food?’

She laughed lightly. ‘I didn’t just drug Wilson, you little
idiot, I drugged everybody.’ She was enjoying the expression on my face.
‘Remember Purple Kiss? Well the Web site lists the Icehotel’s cocktails and all
their ingredients. On that first night, only Purple Kiss is served at the
reception. As it happens, crème de
violette
is the main
ingredient.’ Her eyes were gleaming. ‘But this is the point, Mags, crème de
violette
is only in Purple Kiss. None of the other cocktails has
it. My plan was to drug Harry, then roll him out of his sleeping bag, but I had
to do it with the minimum of risk. So I introduced Phenonal into all the
bottles of crème de
violette.
That way, it would get into
the pitchers of Purple Kiss and everyone, including Harry, would take it.’

It was devastatingly simple. I had to admire her. Who was
the chess player now?

‘There was always a teensy risk that Harry wouldn’t drink
Purple Kiss, but he has a sweet tooth, so I thought it worth a try. And
Phenonal has a sweetish after-taste, you see, so Purple Kiss was ideal.’

‘When did you get it into the bottles?’ I said slowly.

‘It was that first afternoon, after the tour of the
Icehotel. We went our separate ways. You wandered off to look at the Ice
Theatre, I think. I went exploring. You know, for a hotel, the Excelsior is
remarkably insecure. Absolutely no-one saw me slip into the storeroo
m. The purple liqueur bottles were all lined up, ready to
be taken to the Icehotel. It took only a minute to unscrew them and add the
powder. Easy peasy.’

‘How did you get the stuff into the country?’ I hadn’t seen
airport dogs but they must have been there.

‘It was in a hermetically sealed packet, actually, which I
stuffed inside a tin of strong-smelling talcum powder for good measure. I
flushed what was left down the loo in the Locker Room.’

It was a plan worthy of a super-spy. No wonder she looked
smug.

‘I planned it down to the last little detail, Mags,’ she
said with a wide smile. ‘Everyone would have a jolly good night’s sleep. Phenonal
is a commonly used sedative which metabolises rapidly, so after a few hours
it’s completely out of the bloodstream. When a man’s
freezing to death, the metabolic rate slows but, even then, I thought the drug
would be out before hypothermia kicked in.’ Her smile faded into a frown. ‘I
was wrong about that, though.’

‘What if Harry hadn’t drunk Purple Kiss?’

‘I’d have found another way.’

‘But you drank it, too.’

She smiled again. ‘Only a tiny amount. That drunken fool
Jonas was spilling it everywhere so it was easy to spill mine. What I didn’t
realise, though, was that you weren’t drinking it either.’ The smile vanished.
‘That was rather a pity.’

Blood was pounding in my ears. I placed my hands against the
sofa and tried to push myself up. My arms buckled and I sank back, sweating
heavily.

‘I wouldn’t, Mags. Adrenaline reacts badly with that drug.
You’ll be dreadfully sick.’ She ran a hand over her hair. ‘Where everything
began to unravel was when Harry’s and Wilson’s rooms were swapped. I didn’t
know, I really didn’t. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, you saw me coming
out of Wilson’s room.’

‘But I saw a man,’ I said, stunned. ‘A big man.’

She
lit a cigarette
,
inhaling slowly. ‘You know, it was the Web site that gave me the idea. There
was a detailed description of the snowsuits. It occurred to me as I read about
the different sizes that I could put one on over the other. I’d look much
bigger, and being tall helps. When I tried it, I realised I could easily be
mistaken for a man.’

The room was spinning. All these years, and how little I
knew her.

‘After I’d spiked the bottles, I hid a large suit in my
locker. Then, at night, when everyone was semi-comatose, I slipped out of my
room. It was near that side entrance so it only took a minute to get to the
Locker Room. I pulled on the outer suit, then crept into Harry’s room. It was
too dark to see his face, and I was in a hurry, so I didn’t look terribly
closely. All I saw was tousled hair that looked like Harry’s.’ There was
bitterness in her voice. ‘When I discovered it was Wilson I’d killed, I really
couldn’t understand it. There was that frightful statue of Pan in there. To cap
it all, I heard your voice as I was walking away. But as long as I didn’t turn
round, I knew you couldn’t identify me.’

‘The blue suit and the woollen hat,’ I breathed. ‘I thought
it was Harry.’

‘Well, the blue suits were the largest. As for the hat, I
considered putting my hood up, but it might have come down. The bobble hat
really was perfect. I took the first that came to hand and tucked my hair under
it. I didn’t intend to look like Harry – it was sheer co-incidence it was blue.
And I wore a ski mask. But you wouldn’t have known that.’

I saw it all now, how easily I’d got it wrong. How easily
everyone had got it wrong.

‘I didn’t return the clothes to the Locker Room. I mean, why
take the risk? I stuffed the outer suit behind the linen basket in the
washroom. No-one would think it strange finding a snowsuit there.’ She sat
back, staring straight ahead. ‘I was stunned when I discovered I’d killed the
wrong man. I’d done my homework so thoroughly, you know, I could have found
Harry’s room blindfold. All that careful planning gone to waste. I had to think
quickly after that.’

I knew what she was going to say. She was going to tell me
how she’d killed Harry. Through the ceiling, I heard muffled laughter from the
girls’ bedroom.

‘It wasn’t planned,’ she said. ‘Not the way I had to do it.
It was two days after the police interviews. You were off somewhere, and Mike
had gone on that husky trip.’ She paused, the cigarette halfway to her lips.
‘Harry said he’d stay in the hotel and work on his book, he was behind with
some chapter or other. I saw a chance so I stayed too.’