An Unwanted Guest

She remembers how she’d been up all the night before, finishing some assignment. She’d had a lot to drink, and needed to lie down. She found a bedroom – it was a house party – with a bed and a spare mattress on the floor. She crawled under some blankets on the mattress. Then a girl came crashing into the room, waking her up. It was dark, with only the light from the streetlight outside penetrating the room. Gwen recognized the girl – she was in some of her classes. She was trying to shrug some guy off, but he wasn’t having it. He started pulling off her clothes. Gwen was about to get up – she thought the two of them could make him stop – but then two more men came in and closed the door behind them. One of them propped a chair up under the doorknob so no one could open the door. Gwen was paralysed with fear.

The other girl screamed, but the music was so loud no one could have heard her. They held her down on the bed while they raped her. They were laughing. It all happened so fast. She hadn’t wanted them to know she was there. She was afraid they would do the same to her.

They left the girl there, sobbing, on the bed. As soon as they were gone, Gwen threw up. She went over to see how the other girl was, but she’d passed out. Gwen turned her on her side so that she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit, and then she went to find Riley. And Riley told her she should have fought back.

Riley has told her since then that she doesn’t think that any more. When Gwen found Riley at the party and told her what had happened, they went up to see the girl together. Gwen told her she’d been in the room; the girl didn’t say anything, but Gwen could see the reproach in her eyes. She asked Gwen if she would be able to identify the men who raped her, and to corroborate her story. She’d told Riley that she thought she’d be able to recognize them, but the minute the girl put her on the spot, Gwen panicked. She didn’t want the responsibility. She told her that it was too dark, and that she couldn’t bear to watch, that she’d hid under the covers. That she wouldn’t be able to identify them. That she couldn’t help her.

The girl wanted to press charges, but she didn’t want to do it without Gwen’s help. But Gwen didn’t help her, even though Riley urged her to. She told her that she couldn’t be a witness. She did nothing. She graduated and moved away and tried to forget about it. But she’s always been haunted by the thought that those college boys – whoever they were – are now grown men. And if they could behave that way once, they could do it again. She heard that the girl killed herself not long after. And Gwen’s been living with the guilt ever since.

It has defined her, shaped her life. She’s a coward, someone who failed to do the right thing. She knows she no longer deserves any of the good things life has to offer.

Riley has always judged her for it. Even now, years later, Riley’s generally holier-than-thou attitude infuriates her. She sometimes wonders if Riley did everything she should have done in all those war zones, whether she’d always done everything absolutely fucking morally perfectly. She wonders if Riley ever made a mistake, if she’d ever been afraid, all that time in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lost in her thoughts, she suddenly hears Riley suck in her breath with a loud gasp. She turns, startled, and sees Riley in the chair in front of the fire, her face drained of colour.

‘Oh, no,’ Riley says.

‘What?’ Gwen’s alarmed at the visible change in Riley. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I knew I’d heard his name before.’

Gwen turns away uneasily.

‘Come over here. Listen to me.’

Gwen looks at her warily, and reluctantly goes and sits across from her.

‘I’ve just remembered who he is.’ She leans forward and looks at Gwen intensely, genuine concern on her face.

Now Gwen is starting to worry. Surely there’s nothing wrong with David. There can’t be.

Riley says, ‘He’s the attorney who was arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife.’

Chapter Twelve

Saturday, 10:00 AM

JAMES SCRUBS THE frying pan in the big kitchen sink and ponders how to rejig things so that he can feed his guests adequately without any electricity. The refrigerator isn’t working. At least he can cook with the gas oven. But he’s without a dishwasher. Breakfast was easy enough – eggs and pastries, and nobody much felt like eating anyway, from what he could see, after that poor girl fell down the stairs.

He’s lost his appetite, too. He feels terrible for that man’s loss. And the whole thing makes him sick with anxiety. It’s the kind of situation every hotel owner loses sleep over – an accident in his hotel, a fatal accident at that. He has insurance, but Christ. What a thing to happen. He knows he’s not to blame. His carpets aren’t loose – he’d gone up to the landing and checked over that carpet himself the first chance he got. It was fine. She must have stumbled for no reason. There’s absolutely no way anyone can blame him or his hotel.

He thinks again about how much she might have had to drink the night before. He’d asked Bradley, in the kitchen earlier when they were preparing breakfast.

‘Do you think she was drunk?’ he asked him in a low voice. ‘Do you think that’s why she fell?’

Bradley shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, Dad. She wasn’t drunk. I was serving, remember?’

‘But I had you put that bottle of champagne in their room, remember? Do you know if they drank it?’

Bradley shook his head again. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t been in there this morning, David didn’t want me in there.’

James chewed his lip, something he does when he’s worried, a habit he’s been trying to break. He hadn’t looked for the champagne bottle when he was in the room, hadn’t thought of it.

‘Dad, don’t worry,’ Bradley repeated firmly. ‘You have nothing to worry about. She didn’t fall because she’d been drinking.’

But James couldn’t help noticing that Bradley also seemed shaken by what had happened. He looked tired; there were rings under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept.

‘Were you up late last night?’ James asked.

‘No,’ Bradley said, picking up the trays. ‘I need to take these out.’ Then he’d taken the muffins and croissants out to the dining room.

James finishes with his frying pan and puts it on the drying rack. He wishes the power would come back on. He misses his bloody dishwasher. He wishes the police would get here and take the body away. He can’t believe he’s got to take care of almost a dozen people without electricity and that there’s a dead body at the foot of the grand staircase in his beloved hotel and he can’t do anything about it.

Saturday, noon

Lauren descends the staircase into the lobby, stepping with distaste around Dana’s body, Ian right behind her. It’s a rather horrible choice they all have to make – whether to use the creepy back staircase or the main one with the body at the bottom. When she looks up, the lobby is empty except for Candice, who hurriedly puts a book down on a side table and turns to face her. It’s Lauren’s book.

‘That’s mine,’ Lauren says. ‘I thought I’d left that book down here.’

Candice asks, ‘Do you know where Bradley is? I came out to ask him to bring me some hot tea.’

‘I can tell him if I see him, if you like,’ Lauren says.

‘Oh, would you? And tell him to bring my lunch to the library. Thanks. I didn’t really want to bother his father in the kitchen.’ Candice hurries away.

Lauren watches her go.

She sits down on the hearth of the lobby’s big stone fireplace and pulls Ian down beside her, trying to warm up while they wait for the others to appear and for lunch to be served. Lauren stares across the room at the front windows. She can’t stop thinking about it. Dana is dead, at the foot of the stairs. She avoids looking in that direction as best she can. ‘This is so terrible,’ she whispers to Ian.

‘I know,’ he agrees, beside her. He takes her hand, clasps it in his own. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.’

She lightly kisses his cheek. Then she whispers, ‘I don’t see why she can’t be moved. Why do we have to wait for the coroner?’

‘It’s awful to leave her lying there,’ Ian agrees.

‘Do you think someone might have pushed her?’ Lauren whispers.

‘No, of course not. It must have been an accident. David’s an attorney – he’s just following procedure.’ He adds, pushing a strand of her hair behind her ear, ‘Lawyers always think they know everything.’ He glances over his shoulder at the body and says, ‘But if the police don’t get here soon, surely we can’t just leave her there. It’s too creepy.’