LITMIR.BIZ

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from time and barely legible.

      ‘Teeth? You’re serious?’

      ‘You’d be amazed at the number of people who leave their dentures in their room.’

      ‘Uh-huh.’

      ‘And then there’s the knickers.’

      ‘Pardon?’

      ‘Look.’ Katie pulled out a bigger box from further along the row and produced a handful of silk and lace from inside. ‘Women bring their best undies when they visit a hotel. Then they have a night of passion and leave them at the bottom of the bed. Totally forget about them and — bam — they end up in our knicker box.’

      ‘Please tell me you’ve washed those?’

      Katie dropped the crotchless pink thong back into the box. ‘Of course. Well, Housekeeping did. Not me personally.’

      ‘Why do you keep them?’

      ‘In case their owners come to reclaim them. We’re custodians of the lost pants, the dentures, the vibrators—’

      ‘No. Really?’

      Katie nodded.

      ‘Any jewellery?’

      ‘Sure.’ Katie stepped closer and stretched her arm to reach for a shoe box on a high shelf. It was filled with watches. Leather straps, plastic straps, a red Swatch and a huge diver’s watch.

      ‘Why don’t you send these on to the guests? You must have their details.’

      ‘Anything really valuable — like a diamond ring — we do break the pact and contact the MOP, but for everything else...’

      ‘What pact?’

      ‘The pact of “see nothing, hear nothing”. Very important in the hotel trade.’

      ‘Okay,’ Max said, looking confused.

      ‘It breaks the illusion of invisible service if your knickers turn up in the post three days after your holiday. It’s like slapping them in the face with them.’

      ‘Right. Fair enough. But this is worth about three hundred quid.’ He picked up the diver’s watch.

      ‘Really?’ Katie peered at it. ‘It’s fugly.’

      ‘It’s waterproof to two hundred metres, measures depth up to one hundred metres and is made of titanium.’

      ‘Woo-hoo,’ Katie said.

      ‘Ah, come on. It’s shiny.’

      ‘And being more evolved than a kitten that isn’t enough to excite me. Sorry.’

      There was a pause that lengthened past the point of comfort.

      ‘Okay, then. Moving on,’ Katie said, hating the fact that she knew she was blushing.

      Max was standing close. He leaned towards her and, just for a moment, Katie leaned towards him.

      Then she regained her senses and took a step back. ‘You want to look for your handkerchief?’

      ‘My what?’ Max’s voice had gone a bit husky. He cleared his throat.

      ‘Your hankie,’ Katie said. ‘The deeply sentimental one.’

      ‘Right. Is there a box for those?’

      Katie pointed further down the corridor.

      ‘Oh, bugger,’ Katie said, sorting through the shoe box of watches. ‘How am I supposed to know which one is his?’

      ‘You didn’t see him wearing it?’

      ‘I wasn’t looking closely at him, no.’ Katie felt cross. She hadn’t known she was going to be quizzed on Oliver Cole’s accessories. Culpeper’s Herbal had never warned her about that.

      ‘May I?’ Max held out his hand.

      ‘I’m not letting you take Mr Cole’s watch,’ Katie said, gripping the box tightly. ‘I don’t care if you won it.’

      He shook his head. ‘I doubt we’re after the same thing, that’s all. The watch I won was a woman’s one. Diamonds around the outside. Flashy in a mobster’s moll kind of way.’

      ‘So he was gambling with his wife’s watch?’ Maybe that explained why he wanted Katie to find it. Maybe his spirit felt bad about losing his wife’s property.

      ‘You didn’t tell me why you need to find it. You don’t even know what it looks like?’

      ‘No.’ She raked through the box, holding up the Swatch then dropping it back in. ‘I’m an idiot. I’ll just ask his wife. I’ll say he mentioned it was missing — I don’t need to tell her when he told me. Then I’m not lying. Perfect.’

      ‘Perfect if you trust his wife not to pick the Breitling watch and sell it for a tidy profit.’

      ‘Just because that’s what you’d do.’

      ‘In a past life, perhaps,’ Max said. ‘I’m turning over a new leaf.’

      ‘Is that a fact?’ Katie had the box held against her hip. ‘You done, here?’

      ‘Yeah,’ Max said and they walked back upstairs, into the light.

Chapter 5

      Cam was working late at the office and Gwen had taken the opportunity to go through all of Iris’s journals. Back when she’d first inherited the house and had been reading the journals for the first time, it had often felt as if they fell open at exactly the place she needed. These days, she practically knew them by heart, but had to go through them in the normal way. Since there wasn’t any kind of index system, that meant the slow way. After hours, in which the heat of the day made her want to put her head on the table and sleep, she wasn’t at all sure the effort had been worth it.

      When Katie arrived, Gwen delayed talking by making smoothies in the blender. As the fruit and ice whizzed noisily and Katie fetched tall glasses and straws, Gwen tried to think of a gentle way of explaining what she’d just read. Katie reached across and switched off the KitchenAid. ‘What?’

      ‘It’s not good.’

      ‘Tell me,’ Katie said. ‘I’d rather know.’

      ‘Okay.’ Gwen poured out the smoothies. She added a shot of vodka to her own and offered the bottle to Katie who, as always, shook her head. Outside in the garden, Cat was stalking something in the undergrowth and the scent of lavender hung thickly in the air. The evening sun still had plenty of warmth, but it was gentler than earlier in the day. Gwen sat on her wooden bench, passing one of the cushions to Katie and rearranging another behind her own back.

      Katie was gripping her glass and ignoring her smoothie. Gwen wanted to take away her tension, wanted to comfort her, but when she put her hand on Katie’s arm, she shrugged it off. ‘Please tell me you found something?’

      ‘There was some information on haunting. Apparently, spirits do get trapped sometimes. They’re either attached to a place, or an object, or a person.’

      Katie sat back. ‘Okay. So, Mr Cole is attached to me. I mean, he spoke to me through the magpie, so he’s not stuck at the hotel.’

      ‘That’s what I thought,’ Gwen said.

      ‘So, how do I get rid of him? Not get rid, I mean, help him.’

      ‘There isn’t really anything about that. Iris is very cagey about speaking to the dead. She refers to it twice and both times she says it’s a really bad idea.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Apparently her grandmother could speak to the dead. Sort of.’

      ‘What does

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