Pedigree Crush With a Twist of Passion: Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Seven
Two acts of Sabotage caused the temporary closure of the hotel for refurbishment that year. The person responsible, in fact, would have been doing them a favour, had it not been heralding the end of an empire for Mother Duck and her brood. The hotel hadn’t had a complete makeover since the day Violet bought it. The Halcyon was inviting an older clientele; it was high tea and scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream. It was classic, vintage, boho British, it was art deco when you didn’t pronounce the T in art, and it was maintained with impeccable cleanliness and taste, but it needed some new life breathing into it, an update was long overdue. Every year, a run of bedrooms would be decorated, and every ten years, the reception, lounge and kitchens would be done on consecutive years. The hotel had never been gutted and given a new, fresh feel. It had been in SP’s mind for years, the saboteur just gave him the push that he needed.
Connie signed in using a credit card in the name of Grazia Martinez. She wore muted clothing, had her mane of black curls pulled back, applied little make-up and hunched slightly to belie her stature, her aim to be inconspicuous was impossible, she was the type of woman to be noticed, even when she tried not to be. Her trunk was noted too, nobody used trunks anymore, not in these days of lightweight designer baggage, it was as over the top as she was beautiful. She went directly to her room. Insisting that she carry her own luggage had caused eyebrows to rise at Reception, that’s what they had porters for, the guests appreciated it, but she had timed it perfectly to coincide with the arrival of a coach tour of pensioners. They needed a lot of assistance and Connie had managed to tuck into the general mêlée and told the desk staff, ‘Please, I see you are very busy, allow me, no please senorita, I insist.’ An old dear yelled that she was about to faint in the heat and Connie got away with the minimum of fuss.
Once inside, she set to work quickly. She had chosen her room with care and specifically requested it when she’d booked. It was a large corner suite on an outside wall, but the real beauty of it was that it was directly above the hotel kitchens.
She pulled the large, solid wood wardrobe away from the wall. It was heavy and she struggled, panicking now, because time was running out. She was sweating and it took precious minutes to move the furniture far enough from the wall to enable her to work. With a jig-saw she cut away two lengths of the skirting board before she dragged the enormous shipping trunk over to the wall. They were packed in individual boxes with pictures of hamsters and budgerigars on them so that they wouldn’t suffocate under the collective bodyweight, but even so, she was worried about the ones on the bottom layers. She had ventilated the trunk well, and they’d been in there less than half an hour, but she was worried for their safety, especially the pregnant ones.
Connie opened each of the two-hundred boxes and talked softly to the occupants before feeding them, one by one, into the holes in the skirting board.
She was long gone, riding in a taxi to Lancaster for cocktails when the first guest screamed.
She rode hot on the heels of that incident, not letting the hotel draw breath before she hit again. This time was easier; she didn’t have to be seen at all and had no need of a room. The hotel worked around the clock, night staff manned reception and there was a core of kitchen staff kept on all night, maintained in the small hours to work on the veg prep and other jobs that could give them a head start on the day to come.
Connie was banking on the good old routine, which had kept the hotel moving for thirty years. She laid her bets on the fact that little or nothing would have changed. Between two and three in the morning the kitchen staff took their break and went into the staff room with tray of leftovers from supper service. The kitchen was unattended. It was easy to wait for the night porters to have a matter to attend and then slip in while they were away from Reception.
It was a hell of a risk, but she wasn’t scared of those. Staff lockers were kept in the ante room to the kitchens; she was banking on the fact that the night workers eating their supper already had everything that they needed. This was not the time for one of them to get a craving for horseradish sauce on their pasta.
Consuela slipped in and worked fast. She hit the storerooms first, moving boxes and packing cases to empty her cartons of maggots where they would do the most damage. She dropped cockroaches in cupboards and along the floors where there were gaps in the skirting. She’d only brought a small holdall with her, that’s all she needed this time. She dropped another box around the sink area, making sure that the maggots had crevices to burrow into so that they wouldn’t be noticed immediately. She opened the catering drums of soup mix, coffee, flour, salt, sugar, gravy mix, pulses and beans, which were already in use and had their seal broken. Working quickly she dug maggots deep into the core of the contents. Anywhere that she could hide maggots and release cockroaches, she did. It had been so easy. Zipping up the holdall with a satisfied smile, she left as inconspicuously as she’d arrived.
At nine the following morning, she used her British accent to call the Environmental Health agency, explaining that she was a concerned member of staff. She told them that the kitchens were crawling.