you check it out?’
He changed direction and headed through the lobby. Six years of worldwide travel, staying in the best hotels and attending celebrity-packed events and this is where he was now. Persuading mad sightseers that craning out of windows is a bad idea. How the mighty had fallen. He groped in his mind for the reason – any reason – why he’d agreed to this job when it was offered out of the blue. Apart from the fact that putting down some roots and staying in one place was something he’d somehow never got around to doing, and the fact that he did experience the occasional pang for good old England with her Marmite and fish and chips, he couldn’t actually think of any. His mother didn’t count – he’d managed her situation perfectly well for months from a distance. What it boiled down to was a decision made on a whim because his contract providing security services to Stan Taylor had come to an end and Joe was at a bit of a loose end and fancied a change. At the age of sixty-five and reduced to playing father-type cameo roles, Stan had finally decided that security services weren’t really the thing for him these days. He rarely went out, his house was like a fortress and his A-list days were far behind him. Joe Marshall had looked around for alternative work and the Lavington Hotel job had landed in his lap via the grapevine.
An up and coming boutique hotel with an increasing celebrity guest list, they’d approached his friend’s London firm looking for someone to overhaul their hotel security. The person engaged to take the job had dropped out, and the post was Joe’s for the taking. He’d planned on storming in, updating the security protocols, training all the staff, and ending up with a security department that was the envy of top class London hospitality by the time he’d been in post for three months. By then he’d know if he liked being back in the UK with a mainstream job after all these rootless years. And while he was here he could check out the quality of his mother’s care home, organised months ago over the phone from Vegas when one of her friends tracked him down to fill him in on her ailing health. He’d fitted in a fleeting visit a month or so later and had gone right back to his old life within twenty-four hours.
He really should have stayed there.
This job had sounded so easy when he agreed to it. He hadn’t counted on the calibre of staff he’d be dealing with, their lack of pay and motivation. And now on top of the day job he had an A-lister with a top-secret reservation on the premises. The only bright point was that so far the press had no inkling of it because the details were restricted to half a dozen people here, of which he was one.
He stepped out onto the sunny street with its brisk London traffic, took a left and walked the perimeter of the hotel at speed. As he rounded the corner to the south side of the hotel he saw a crowd of rubbernecking pedestrians on the pavement. He shielded his eyes against the sun and craned his head back.
Hanging out of the window was a bit of an understatement. A slightly-built young woman with long dark hair was sandwiched between the railings and the window of a room on the second floor, and surely there could only be one reason why anyone would climb onto a window ledge two storeys off the ground and shut that window behind them.
‘Stay right where you are, Miss!’ he shouted up to the girl. ‘Don’t do anything until I get there. I’m on my way.’
Bellowing details of a possible suicide attempt into his walkie-talkie, he belted into the hotel’s side entrance and took the nearest flight of thickly-carpeted stairs three at a time. He was sprinting down the second floor corridor as the receptionist called out the room number, and he burst into room 214 with his master key to be presented with a shapely backside in skinny jeans through the window. The dark-haired girl caught sight of him and knocked on the glass.
For Pete’s sake.
Ready to take the softly-softly approach to talking down a manic depressive, not that he was remotely familiar with doing that, instead when he heaved the sash window open, the girl climbed back into the room without him needing to utter so much as a word, let alone an understanding one.
A spattering of cheers and applause could be heard from the pavement below.
‘Thanks so much,’ she said, straightening her white blouse. She didn’t meet his eyes. Instead she grabbed for the cloth tote bag on a side table and hoisted it over one shoulder.
‘What the hell were you doing out there?’ he said, incredulous. ‘Half the hotel is on suicide alert.’
She visibly paled. He took a deep and calming breath. All was well. A jumper on his first week in post would not have looked good on a reference.
‘Who are you?’ She leaned in to scrutinise the badge on his lapel. ‘Joe Marshall,’ she read out loud. ‘Head of Security.’
She took a step back and glanced at the door, biting the edge of her thumbnail.
‘The London Eye,’ she said vaguely. ‘I was trying for a picture. But the hotel was in the way. I thought if I leaned out of the window a bit…’ She held up the camera around her neck. ‘But then I got a bit carried away and the window shut behind me.’
There was a spray of freckles over her nose and she had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. Minxy green. He stared at the camera while alarm bells clanged in his head.
‘The London Eye?’
He narrowed sceptical eyes at her.
‘London Eye, London streets,’ she breezed, tugging her bag up higher on her shoulder. ‘Sightseeing weekend, you know how it is, didn’t want to miss anything.’
‘Nice piece of kit, that,’ he commented, nodding at the camera suspended from her neck.
‘Bit of a hobby, photography,’ she said, dismissively, tugging the strap over her head and tucking the camera into her tote bag. He followed her as she headed for the door.
‘Let me escort you downstairs, Miss…?’
She didn’t supply a name, setting off another alarm in his mind. Could you see through the windows of the Purple Suite if you hung out of the window of room 214? Was this some kind of security breach? He dismissed the thought carefully. Only a handful of people knew that the guest staying in the Purple Suite was Betsy Warrender. And in Joe’s experience, when one journalist turned up they were never alone. Paparazzi photographers travelled in packs. He hadn’t seen so much as a sniff of anyone looking remotely like a journo or wielding a camera except for Green Eyes, and she really didn’t cut it as a seasoned hack. He’d headlocked enough paps in his time to know one when he saw one and she wasn’t it.
The door of 214 clicked shut behind them. She was a good foot smaller than him as he kept pace with her down the corridor. Almost imperceptibly she increased her speed. By the time they reached the lift she was almost trotting.
‘Really, there’s no need for you to accompany me,’ she protested as he stepped into the lift beside her.
In the enclosed space they stood shoulder to shoulder and he could pick up the notes of her perfume, something clean and floral that perfectly suited the summer’s day outside.
‘No trouble at all. I’m heading to the lobby myself.’
She impatiently pressed the button marked G for a second time.
‘Where next then?’ he probed. ‘Natural History Museum? Buckingham Palace?’
She stared sideways at him.
‘Your sightseeing tour,’ he said.
She laughed a touch too loudly.
‘Actually I thought I’d have afternoon tea in the lounge,’ she said.
The lift opened onto the marble-floored opulence of the lobby and he braced himself for the possibility of a paparazzi onslaught. Nothing of the kind. A group of four guests stood near the velvet sofas in the corner. As he watched, one of the concierges joined them and collected their luggage. There were a couple of people at the reception desk talking through a map in low voices with one of the receptionists. People came and went. Not a single thing out of the ordinary. Nothing to indicate that the fact a