“All due respect,” Theo said carefully, “but I’d sort of gathered. What are they up to, do you know?”
“Me? I’m just your—”
“Pretend you aren’t,” Theo said firmly.
“Ah, well, in that case,” the goblin said, “I’d draw your attention to the bottles, in particular the one left to you by Pieter van Goyen. Once you’ve got inside—”
There was a loud crash, and the goblin vanished. Theo sat bolt upright, and saw Call-me-Bill standing in the doorway, framed by the splintered wreckage of the door.
“Sorry if I startled you,” Call-me-Bill said, with a pleasant smile. “Door must’ve been a bit sticky.” He stepped over the shattered remains of the chair Theo had jammed the door closed with, looked down at it and shrugged. “Just thought I’d remind you, it’s ten fifteen and breakfast finishes at ten thirty. Of course, I’m sure we could rustle you up an omelette or something if you want a lie in, but—”
“No,” Theo said. “No, that’s fine. I—”
“And when you’ve had breakfast,” Call-me Bill went on, “if you could see your way to doing an hour on the desk, that’d be grand. Cheers, then.”
He smiled again and withdrew, and Theo vaulted off the bed, noticing in passing that the bedside light was on. He scrabbled in his carrier bag for his comb and dragged it through his hair, then shook the bag out on the floor searching for his razor. He shaved quickly and brutally, and was heading for the door when he saw the brown manila envelope lying on the bed, where he hadn’t left it the night before.
He spent his hour on the desk in perfect isolation, which suited him just fine, since it gave him exactly the time he needed to fix the mistakes in his calculations that the dream-goblin had so thoughtfully pointed out. When he reached the last line, he paused. Leaving an armed bomb lying around isn’t the smartest thing a person can do, even if it’s lying around in a pocket, or hidden under a pillow, or sealed in a concrete silo at the bottom of the sea. At least two of the people in this hotel had taken a lively interest in his brown manila envelope, and he wasn’t sure their motives were unimpeachably good. However, unless they were top-flight mathematicians, the incomplete formula would be useless to them. He, on the other hand, could solve the last line in a minute or so. He put the pencil and the envelope in his pocket.
No sooner had he done so than Matasuntha came in through the front door, holding a pair of secateurs. “Morning,” she said. “Sleep OK?”
“How is he?”
“Sorry?”
“Mr Nordstrom.”
“Oh, he’s fine, I expect. I haven’t seen him since last evening. Had breakfast?”
“Yes. Look, what exactly—?”
“What did you have?”
“Slice of toast and a coffee. What exactly happened last night? It looked like he’d been—”
“Just a slice of toast? That’s not enough. You should try the scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and oregano.”
Fine. “Tomorrow,” he said. “I overslept this morning. Mr, um, Negative had to come and wake me up.”
She nodded. “He’s very good about that,” she said.
“He didn’t seem to mind, but I don’t know if he was being sarcastic.”
“Oh, Bill’s not like that. Quite easy-going. Really, this isn’t a bad place to work, you know.”
He smiled at her. “You must’ve been up bright and early.”
“No, I—What makes you say that?”
“Well.” He looked at her. “Last night this carpet was absolutely soaked in blood, there was a great pool of it right here, where I’m sitting. And now there’s not a trace of it. I assumed you’d been up at dawn with the carpet shampoo.”
Just for a moment, a look of furious hatred shot across her face, like share prices on a ticker-tape machine. Then it was gone, leaving behind the unruffled surface of her smile. “We have cleaners for that sort of thing,” she said. “And there wasn’t very much blood. Mr Nordstrom slipped and cut himself when the bottle he was holding broke. Just a little nick, that was all. No big drama.”
“Ah.” Theo nodded. “That’s all right, then. Presumably I imagined all the blood.”
“Presumably.” She put the secateurs down on the desk. “Well,” she said, “I expect you need a break. I’ll cover for you for a bit.”
It wasn’t a suggestion, more like an order. “Thanks, but I’m fine.”
“Really, it’s no trouble. Why not drop by the kitchen and have a coffee and a doughnut? They’re very good.”