The Room on the Second Floor (20 page)

‘What I came to say, Rachel, was that you, as manager of the Salon, need an office that’s much more impressive than Mo’s little boot room. How about this room, for example? It has just been decorated, everything is new, including the carpet. You would have your own private bathroom and the view, as you have just observed yourself, is charming.’ He paused hopefully, spotting what looked like a sign of acquiescence on the florid face before him. To further sugar the pill, he hastened to add. ‘You can naturally choose your own furniture. Maybe a settee along that wall as well as a desk and chairs?’ This time he was mightily relieved to see and then hear agreement from her, even though her tone set his teeth on edge.

‘That sounds most acceptable. Good. I think we understand each other perfectly now. Don’t you think so, Mr Scott?’

Resisting the urge to throttle her, he smiled sweetly back and bid her farewell. He returned to the front office to give Mo the good news. At least, he thought to himself, as he did his best to ungrit his teeth, the new manager’s office would now be as far away from anybody else as possible.

Chapter 34

Things in the Salon calmed down once again. Mo was pacified with the news that she was not, after all, being evicted. Duggie, still trying to recover his equilibrium, sat down with her and accepted a cup of coffee.

‘This is very good coffee, Mo? What’s the secret?’

She smiled for the first time that morning. Her finger pointed across to the bulky figure by the door. ‘It’s Rocky’s secret.’

The big man beamed. ‘It’s the mix. I’ve got a little man who does it for me.’

I bet you have
, Duggie thought to himself.

‘It’s part Arabica and part, oh, but I can’t, I promised him I wouldn’t tell. I’m terrible with secrets, but I did promise.’

Duggie raised his hand. ‘No, stop. I don’t want to hear more, Rocky. But you can tell him it’s good.’

‘Thank you, I will. He’ll be thrilled. He says it’s all in the grinding. That and being just moist enough.’ He erupted into a fit of giggles. ‘Oh, listen to me. What
am
I saying?’

‘So, anything else been happening here?’ Duggie looked across at Mo, but it was Rocky who answered first.

‘Well, yes. I would have told you sooner, but after all the kerfuffle this morning, you know… We had a visit yesterday from Linda, Professor Dalby’s girlfriend. She really has got the most wonderful skin. Such a sheen to it. I wonder how…’

‘Rocky!’ Duggie realised that his problems, or should that be challenges, were increasing. ‘Rocky, tell me what she said. What did she want?’

‘She said she was looking for the beauty salon. I told her everybody was in a meeting and she said she’d come back this morning.’

‘This morning?’ Duggie rolled his eyes. ‘Oh Christ, we are in trouble now.’

Then Mo, now much more her normal self, came up with a splendid solution.

‘Years back, I trained as a beautician. I’m not sure I told you that, Douglas.’

This came as news to him. In fairness, at no point in the interviewing process had Duggie and Mo discussed qualifications. Experience, yes, but he had not really considered exam results as relevant. Mind you, he wondered idly, some of those vocational qualifications these days might even apply. Mo’s suggestion was music to his ears. She warmed to the subject.

‘It won’t be too difficult for me to turn one of the rooms into a convincing salon. Room Seven, along the corridor, hasn’t had a bed installed yet, so let’s go for that one. What do you think?’

Duggie could have kissed her. Maybe he would emerge from this day of hell unscathed after all. But then a frightening thought struck him. Followed immediately by another.

‘Fine, Mo, wonderful, but what about the clients? What if she runs into her dentist?’

It had been by chance in conversation with Linda that he had learnt that she used the services of South African dentist Mr Springer of Duke Street. Duggie happened to know that Mr Springer, in his turn, used the services of Natascha in the Whiplash room. And it wasn’t surgical instruments he liked putting into her mouth. Were he and Linda to meet up, there could well be questions asked. And then there was the club’s newly appointed accountant, the owner of the best restaurant in Toplingham, not forgetting the harbour master… The list was long and potentially explosive.

‘And what about the room names? Even somebody as innocent as Linda might think Rawhide and Whiplash a bit out of place in a beauty salon.’ There was a note of panic in Duggie’s voice. Mo, however, rose to the occasion.

‘Rocky, can you find a screwdriver please? There’s something I would like you to do for me.’

‘I’ll go and ask Stan.’ He was out of the door and down the stairs in a flash.

‘I’ll talk to the girls. I’ll make sure they see that all the clients are tucked up quietly when Linda comes along the corridor. Any comings and goings can be through the back entrance.’

Just for a moment, the Duggie of old came close to surfacing. But his worries choked off the desire to giggle. Mo, unaware of the comic potential of her choice of vocabulary, carried on.

‘Now, as for all the other stuff, I am sure that between us we have got all that you would expect to find in a good beauty salon. Leave it to me, Douglas. We’ll sort her out.’

And so they did.

Linda duly received a message via Duggie that they had made an appointment for her for ten o’clock. She made sure she was on time. Rocky, the rumba dancer, was absent. In his place she found Maureen, the personnel officer. Linda liked Mo, which was more than she could say for Rachel Turner, whose rudeness was ever more apparent. Mercifully, the manager was otherwise engaged.

Mo met Linda and accompanied her through the security door and down the corridor to Room Seven. If Linda noticed the holes in the woodwork of the closed doors just under the numbers, she gave no sign. The brass plates and the screws were safely hidden, along with the screwdriver, inside the filing cabinet in Mo’s office. Rocky would replace them that afternoon.

The doors they passed were all closed. Nothing could be heard from within any of the rooms. Mo’s instructions to the girls had been quite clear: nobody to move until she gave the all-clear. Mr Starkey the accountant was pleasantly surprised to find that his hour-long session extended to almost two hours that day. And for no extra charge. Delighted to get something for nothing, he took full advantage. In consequence, he finally reached work shortly before lunch in a state of suspended animation. His secretary later described it as being, ‘as if he had just been turned over by the Revenue’. His morning had indeed been taxing, but not in the fiscal sense.

Oblivious to the extent of the deception around her, Linda was very impressed by the Salon, and Room Seven in particular. A long unit against the wall was covered with every possible beauty aid, and the bathroom filled with lotions and creams. The fact that the bottom half of the wall unit contained over three thousand pounds’-worth of German sex toys and clothes, was not divulged to her. There were lilies on the low coffee table and a smart leather three-piece suite. Fortunately, she failed to notice the rings set into the back of the settee, where one of the best-known local bankers liked nothing better than to be chained up, prior to his spanking by Natascha. Linda was particularly grateful to Mo, who pulled on a crisp white coat and proceeded to give her a splendid session of pampering. This ran from a facial to a full manicure and pedicure.

As the morning proceeded, Linda asked, and obtained, a number of beauty and fashion tips. Mo was keen to help her show off her looks to best advantage. They were later joined by Ingrid, the tall Latvian girl, who further advised her, while giving her a most relaxing shoulder massage. When asked where she had learnt her trade, Ingrid answered honestly. She had been involved with massage for some years now, but had no formal qualifications. Linda finally left the Salon feeling like a million dollars. Armed with the girls’ suggestions, she determined to go into town to do some serious clothes shopping.

As for Mo, she was delighted with the success of the session. She found herself looking forward to Linda’s next appointment. As she tidied the room, returning the creams and lotions to their place in the cupboard, she sighed. She looked wistfully at these reminders of her original career, squeezed in on the shelf between German leather underwear and Taiwanese plastic sex toys. What would have become of her, she wondered, if she had stayed as a beautician?

Never one to indulge in introspection, she closed the cupboard and turned to the door. She was in a salon of a decidedly different nature now, and it was time to sound the all-clear.

Chapter 35

Rachel Turner was doing a risk assessment. When asked by Rocky what this entailed, her reply was predictably curt.

‘Every business needs a risk assessment. There are all manner of things round here that could be dangerous.’ She looked at him dismissively before turning her head towards the corner of the room. ‘Take that television over there, for example. I bet it’s not secured on top of that table. If somebody bumped into it, they could tip it over. If a small child were on the floor nearby, it could potentially be lethal.’ Stupid man, her attitude said it all.

‘In that case, rather than writing it down, wouldn’t it be better just to secure it to the table top like you say?’ Rocky couldn’t see the point.

‘But then we’d have nothing to put in the risk assessment, and HSE are very keen on risk assessments. Don’t you realise, we’ve got to have one.’ Rocky left her to it.

She walked along the corridor, pushing the doors to the rooms open as she went. She took a careful look inside each, making notes on her clipboard as she did so. She noted the fact that two of the rooms gave onto a flat area of lead-covered roof. In consequence, she recorded on the form the possible noxious effects of the lead on staff or clients inside these rooms, if the windows were open. In the Action column, she wrote, ‘install alternative ventilation’.

Gossamer, aka Room Two, had obviously just been vacated. There were sheets and clothes strewn across the bed and floor. She noted in the Hazards column that somebody could easily catch a foot in a discarded bra, or suspender belt, and fall. In the Action column, she solemnly wrote the injunction to avoid discarding clothing anywhere other than the designated undressing area. She decided to have signs denoting these areas prepared and installed in every room. Reaching down, she picked up a pair of bright-red panties. After a furtive look over her shoulder, she stuffed them in her pocket. She made no mention on her clipboard of the risk of theft in this room.

When she got to Room Five and pushed the door, she found it locked from the inside. Unperturbed, she knocked sharply and waited. It took a further rap at the door before the handle turned. Mindy looked out at her enquiringly.

‘Risk assessment, Mindy. Is there anything potentially dangerous in there?’ As the MD of the local racecourse was currently tied to the bed head while Sindy, wearing a jockey’s helmet, slashed his backside with a crop, Mindy was not sure how to answer.

‘Um, I don’t think so really.’

‘Nothing that could harm anybody?’ A particularly enthusiastic swipe by Sindy produced a squeal from the MD. Rachel Turner pricked up her ears. ‘So you’re sure there’s no chance of anything in here actually hurting anybody?’ Another muffled cry rang out. Mindy was getting fed up by this time.

‘I must get back to work, Ms Turner. It’s time I took over from Sindy. She’s been suffering with tennis elbow.’ She withdrew her head, and pushed the door closed again. Rachel Turner decided to err on the side of caution, so she added ‘ropes and lashes’ to the Hazards column. The action to be taken was, ‘care needed when administering S&M gratification, so as to avoid excess flagellation’. As an afterthought, remembering Sindy’s tennis elbow, she decided she should investigate Repetitive Strain Injury. Maybe if the girls alternated arms every so many swipes? That should cover it.

The newly finished Rawhide room was empty. Preparations had clearly been made for one of Natascha’s ‘special’ clients. A selection of unusual items littered the bed. The manager’s eye was drawn to a World War Two gas mask, and a CD of the best of Vera Lynn. She added ‘militaria’ to her list of potential hazards and filled in the Action column as ‘staff to be fully trained in the use of all items’. She finished her inspection and returned to her office.

As she walked along the corridor, she hummed happily to herself. Tonight she was going on a date. This would be the first time in months. She hadn’t been out with a man since the departure of her unlamented former husband. She had hooked up with this one on an online dating site, and had spoken to him on Skype earlier in the week. She might even wear some of the saucy underwear she had been collecting. He was South African, a dentist. His name was Springer.

Chapter 36

The country club Christmas party was in full swing by eight o’clock. At Duggie’s suggestion, Roger had readily agreed to a party for all the staff, accompanied by their nearest and dearest. In all, about fifty people were now crowded into the snooker room on the ground floor. Judging by the noise at least, they were all having a really good time. Even with the radiators turned off, and the sash windows open, it was boiling in there.

As for Roger, it didn’t really matter these days where he was. As long as he was with Linda, he was very, very happy. He looked across the room and saw Duggie alongside Tina. She was looking radiant. Her long dark hair framed her smiling face as she draped herself around Duggie and teased his hair with her fingers. He was really pleased for his friend.

He and Duggie went back a long way. He knew that the time Duggie had spent in the armed forces had involved him in things that had scarred him physically and mentally. Even now, he couldn’t talk about them. Add to that the succession of unfortunate relationships and subsequent divorces, and he had had an emotional pasting. To a great extent, his exterior bonhomie had developed into a convenient screen. It covered his inner feelings, but now, at least, he seemed settled. Roger stretched out his arm and pulled Linda towards him.