Free Deadly Diplomacy by Jean Harrod Page B

appointment with Inspector Sangster. She’d give it to him instead.
    Mind made up, she tucked the diary in her bag and walked down the stairs to the ground floor.
    *
    Collecting a copy of the press lines, Jess walked out of the business centre and into the lobby. She could have been in an up-market hotel in any Western city. Grey marble covered the floor and pillars, and a decorative fireplace stood at the far end, with several plump-cushioned sofas and chairs scattered around for guests to sink into. Sitting down at a glass-topped table, she scanned the faces looking for Susan Chambers. Ellen had looked slim and attractive in that newspaper photo, with shoulder-length blonde hair. Would Susan look like her sister?
    Behind the wood-panelled desk, a receptionist was checking-in a group of noisy Indonesian tourists. She looked miserable. All the staff did. They kept giving each other nervous glances, and huddling in groups to chat whenever they got the chance. Jess could feel the tension. Hardly surprising since a guest had been viciously murdered in the grounds, and the police were swarming all over.
    As she sat observing, goose bumps rose on her arms. She felt a presence, as if someone was watching her. She looked up, but couldn’t see anyone particularly interested in her. Uneasy, she pulled out her mobile and dialled Simon. His phone switched to voicemail. “I’m at The Palms, Simon. Call me back please.”
    She looked around again and rubbed her arms to get rid of the chill. Sitting there idly, she remembered the diary in her bag. She pulled it out and laid it on the table. The cover was made of red leather, with the year in gold lettering. It looked expensive. Opening the front cover, she saw Ellen Chambers’ name and contact details written by hand. Jess hesitated. It seemed wrong to delve into Ellen’s personal diary, macabre even, given the circumstances. But she was so drawn to it, she couldn’t help but flick through the pages.
    The first thing she noticed was Ellen’s neat and legible handwriting. Every one of her appointments had a precise name, with contact details and meeting venue recorded next to the date and time. Ellen Chambers had been a highly organised woman, she thought. Nothing had been left to memory or chance. Reading on, Jess saw that Ellen had spent alternate months in the UK and Australia since the beginning of the year. And she’d visited Beijing at the end of March and… oh, that was interesting, she’d only just returned from a second trip to Beijing.
    Reaching the back page, Jess’s eyes stopped on several lines of random letters and numbers written in Ellen’s neat handwriting. She studied them but they didn’t seem to make any sense. She counted the lines. Six in total; but what did they mean? Were they some kind of code? Or passwords perhaps?
    As she sat mulling things over in her logical mind, something seemed out of place. She flicked back through the pages, studying all the entries as she went. Then she saw it. Ellen had entered every appointment in the same precise way, except for regular entries marked TH that had no name or contact details beside them. Who or what was TH, Jess wondered.
    “Oh!” A sudden movement made her jump, and she looked up at the heart-shaped face of a young woman who’d slipped into the chair opposite. She wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up and looked almost boyish with spiky blonde hair that stood fashionably on end. The young woman flicked a nervous glance over her shoulder and turned back.
    Jess smiled. “Hello. I’m Jessica Turner,” she said, holding out her hand. “You must be Susan Chambers.”
    Feverish, blue eyes stared at Jess. “You must help me find my sister’s killer.”
    Jess dropped her hand. “That’s a job for the police.”
    Susan struggled to keep her voice down. “My sister’s dead. She’s a British citizen. I want to know what you’re doing about it.”
    Jess put her hand on Ellen’s diary, bracing herself for