The Long Weekend Read Free Page B

him goodbye with the other mothers, while their own mother slept on in bed, oblivious.
    It was the same every day.
    Guests invariably gasped with delight when they walked into the Townhouse. A square five-storey building overlooking Pennfleet harbour, it had once been the custom house. It had thick stone walls and large windows that filled it with a translucent light. Inside the feel was opulent, steering firmly away from maritime jollity – Pennfleet was already well served with nautical stripes. The walls were covered in pale-green wallpaper embossed with birds in golden cages. A Murano chandelier hung over the reception desk, throwing a rosy glow on to the chalkboard that bore the day’s weather forecast and tide times; below that hung the keys to the eight rooms, attached to outsize leather fobs, impossible to lose. A small seating area housed a chaise longue covered in burnt-orange velvet and two distressed-leather club chairs; on a round table in the middle of the hall was a glass-lined crate filled with moss and stuffed with blowsy, fat ranunculus. The air smelled delicious: fresh coffee mingled with the scent from a large three-wick candle that burned cinnamon, ginger and cardamom.
    The overall effect was both calming and stimulating. Guests felt as if they were walking into a little haven that was unique and special. Claire hated the descriptions ‘quirky’ and ‘classic with a twist’ – she found both overused – but she supposed the hotel was both, though she never once sacrificed style for eccentricity. Everything was just as it should be.
    She ran her eye down the list of guests for the coming weekend. The three rooms on the third floor had been booked by a stag party. Two blokes in each. Normally Claire baulked at stag events, but the best man, Gus Andrews, had reassured her. ‘We’re coming down for some sailing. We just want a good dinner and some nice wine,’ he told her. ‘We won’t leave the groom trussed up naked in reception, I promise you.’ He sounded civilised and was happy to leave a hefty deposit, so Claire accepted the booking, crossing her fingers that he was true to his word.
    Two of the rooms on the next floor were interconnected, and could be reserved for families with ‘well-behaved children over ten’. These interconnecting rooms had been booked by a Mr Colin Turner, who wanted a double in one room and twin beds in the other – for his ‘friend’ and her daughter. Claire was immediately intrigued. ‘Friend’ always had connotations.
    The smallest room, the one they fondly referred to on their website as ‘the Broom Cupboard’, had been booked by a Miss Laura Starling. And finally, the grand suite on the first floor, with its drawing room and balcony overlooking the harbour, was reserved for their most important guests, Mr Trevor Parfitt and his wife Monique. Claire’s stomach churned slightly at the thought of their arrival.
    Trevor and Monique always had the grand suite, because they had a twenty per cent stake in the Townhouse. Trevor had long been a fan of Luca, when he had been a chef in London. When he’d heard that Claire and Luca were planning to buy a hotel of their own, he had jumped at the chance to invest. The Parfitts visited regularly, coming down for long weekends to enjoy the fruits of their investment, and had even bought a boat – a shiny white gin palace that stuck out like a sore thumb in Pennfleet harbour.
    And now, it turned out, the pair of them had had a brainwave. They wanted to open a hotel in London, and for Claire and Luca to go in with them. They had mooted the idea at their informal AGM three weeks ago. Trevor had pitched it as ‘The Townhouse in the City’, and Claire had felt a prickle of irritation. The Townhouse name had been her idea. Now Trevor seemed keen to roll it out as a brand, and Claire couldn’t help feeling that he had somehow hijacked her concept. She told herself that that was how he had become successful, which he