Free Deadly Diplomacy by Jean Harrod Page A

Nothing seemed certain any more.
    Throwing her mobile on the bed, she shook out her clothes and hung them in the wardrobe. Catching sight of her bedraggled hair and damp skirt in the mirror, she picked up her wash bag and walked into the bathroom to tidy up after the soaking she’d got outside.
    Ten minutes later, she stood in front of the dressing-table, touching up her make-up. She turned and looked about. There was something familiar about this hotel room. What was it? Then she spotted the gilt mirror on the wall by the bed. The fern leaf design on its ornate frame was exactly the same as the one in that hotel in Paris, with Jack, on their fifth wedding anniversary. That’s when he’d bought her the silver hair clasp. He’d never been one for celebrating birthdays or anniversaries, so that weekend had been a real surprise.
    A special weekend, for my special girl, he’d said.
    And it had turned out to be very special. He’d given her the best present of all in Paris… Amy!
    Jess pulled the photo of Jack and Amy out of her bag and placed it on the bedside cabinet. Now she felt better.
    Slipping her laptop out of her briefcase, she laid it on the desk by the window, powered it up and connected to the hotel wireless internet. Simon’s media lines popped up in her inbox. She skimmed through, and downloaded them onto her memory stick. Logging off, she picked up her bag and mobile and hurried out of the door to get a copy printed in the business centre on the ground floor.
    At the end of the corridor, she pressed the button for the lifts and waited. But they seemed stuck on the ground floor. Impatient to get on, she swung through the stairwell door and ran down the stairs, rehearsing the press lines over and over in her head.
    Distracted, she pushed through what she thought was the door to the ground floor.
    “Stop right there!” A deep voice halted her in her tracks.
    She froze.
    A man in a grey suit glared at her. “Didn’t you see the sign ?”
    Turning, she saw a police Do Not Enter sign by the door. Oh God! She’d blundered into a cordoned off corridor. “I’m sorry.” She looked back into steely grey eyes, “I thought this was the ground floor.”
    “Please leave.” The man turned his back on her while the other officers looked on.
    “Can I just introduce…”
    “ Ma’am .” He spun round. “This is a crime scene. Please leave .” He clapped his hands. “Come on guys,” he said to a group of policemen who stood staring at her, “back to work.”
    Watching him disappear into one of the bedrooms, Jess knew instantly it was Ellen Chambers’ room. Much as she wanted to talk to the police, Jess knew this wasn’t the time. Turning, she went back through the door, and bumped straight into a small Asian woman on the stairs. “Oh, sorry.”
    “He rude.” The woman jerked her head at the door.
    Jess looked at the woman. With her neatly-tied long, black hair and blue uniform, she had to be a cleaner.
    “I find this.” The woman stood, nervous, gripping something with both hands. “In dead woman room.”
    It looked like a diary to Jess. “You’d better give it to the police.”
    But the woman pushed the diary at her. “I clean room this morning before I know she dead.”
    “The police,” Jess said, slowly, while pointing at the door. “Give it to the police.”
    “I take spare blanket out top of wardrobe to change. When I get to laundry I find this inside.” The woman shoved the diary into Jess’s hands. “I no want trouble.” And she darted up the stairs.
    “Hey, wait,” Jess shouted after her. But the woman had already disappeared through the stairwell door on the next floor. Jess could hardly blame her for running off, after the blast she’d just got from that oaf. She was about to go back through the door and give him the diary when she stopped. Did she really want to give him another chance to be rude to her? Glancing at her watch, she saw it was 1.30pm. In half an hour she had an