The Secret of Annexe 3

It could have been only some two or three minutes later that she heard the noise, fairly near her. And suddenly, illogically -with the stillness of the half-lit, empty entrance hall somehow emphasized by the happy voices heard from the dining room she experienced a sense of fear that prickled the roots of her honey-coloured hair. And then, equally suddenly, everything was normal once again. From the door of the Gents' lavatory there emerged a gaily accoutred personage who on any normal evening might justifiably have been the cause of some misgiving on her part; but upon whom she now bestowed a knowingly appreciative smile. It must have taken the man some considerable time to effect such a convincing transformation into a coffee-coloured, dreadlocked Rastafarian; and perhaps he hadn't quite finished yet, for even as he walked across to the dining room he was still dabbing his brown-stained hands with a white handkerchief that was now more chocolate than vanilla.

Sarah drank some more of the liberally poured cocktail - and began to feel good. She looked down at the only letter that had found its way into her tray that morning: it was from a Cheltenham lady thanking the hotel for the fact that her booking of a room had been answered with 'laudable expedition' ('very quickly', translated Sarah), but at the same time deploring the etiquette of these degenerate days that could allow the 'Dear Madam' of the salutation to be complemented by the 'Yours sincerely' of the valediction. Again, Sarah smiled to herself - the lady would probably turn out to be a wonderful old girl - and looked up to find the Lord High Executioner smiling down, in turn, at her.

'Another?' he suggested, nodding to the cocktail.

'Mm - that would be nice,' she heard herself say.

What had she remembered then? She could recall, quite certainly, clearing away after the soup course; picking up the supernumerary spoons and forks that marked the place of that pusillanimous spirit from Solihull, Doris Arkwright; standing by in the kitchen as a Pork Chop Normandy had slithered off its plate to the floor, to be replaced thither after a perfunctory wipe; drinking a third cocktail; dancing with the Lord High Executioner; eating two helpings of the gateau in the kitchen; dancing, in the dim light of the ballroom, a sort of chiaroscuro cha-cha-cha with the mysterious 'Rastafarian’ - the latter having been adjudged the winner of the men's fancy-dress prize; telling Binyon not to be so silly when he'd broached the proposition of a brief dive beneath the duvet in her temporary quarters; drinking a fourth cocktail, the colour of which she could no longer recall; feeling slightly sick; walking up the stairs to her bedroom before the singing of 'Auld Lang Syne’; feeling very sick; and finally finding herself in bed. Those were the pretty definite events of a crowded evening. ('But there must have been so many other little things, Miss Jonstone?') And there were other things, yes. She remembered, for example, the banging of so many doors once the music and the singing had finally ended - half-past midnight, it must have been - when standing by her window (alone!) she had seen the guests from the annexe walking back to their rooms: two of the women, their light-coloured raincoats wrapped around them, with the prize-winning Rastafarian between them, a hand on either shoulder; and behind that trio, another trio - the yashmak'd, graffiti-conscious woman, with a Samurai on one side and Lawrence of Arabia on the other; and bringing up the rear the Lord High Executioner, with a heavy, dark coat over his eastern robes. Yes! And she remembered quite clearly seeing all of them, including Binyon, go into the annexe, and then Binyon, fairly shortly afterwards, coming out, and fiddling for a moment or two with the Yale lock on the side door of the annexe - presumably to secure the inmates against any potential intruders.