‘We nearly asked him to leave last year, when there was all that publicity about the little boy.’ Ryan was staring out of the window. ‘But in the end he talked Louise round.’

‘He’s got a way with women, has he?’ Vera gave a little laugh to show there was no real significance to the question.

‘Must have. Louise is as tough as old boots when it comes to the business.’

‘Did he ever bring Mattie Jones, the boy’s mother, here?’ Vera asked.

Ryan shook his head. ‘Not as far as I know. And once he and Freya set up home together, Freya kept away too. The girls she used to work with invited her back for lunch one day, but she didn’t come.’

‘Have you got a key to the room he uses as a clinic?’

‘Of course. But Michael doesn’t keep any equipment there. He brings it with him each time.’

‘Does he make his own appointments, or do the girls on reception here do it for him?’

‘He sees to all that himself,’ Ryan said. ‘If anyone expresses an interest in consulting him, we pass on his mobile number.’

‘So no appointment book.’ Vera should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. ‘No way of getting hold of his client list.’

‘Sorry.’

She gestured towards the closed door, the way from Ryan’s private room to the outside world of the hotel. ‘Tell you what, pet, while you’re out there doing my job for me, asking your people about Michael Morgan, find out if anyone ever saw him with Jenny Lister.’

Ryan nodded his head, another young man eager to please her.

‘I thought I’d just have a bit of a wander round myself, chat to folk. That’s all right with you?’

‘Of course.’ But Vera could tell that he’d be very pleased when he’d got rid of her, when she was finally off the premises.

Chapter Twenty-Two

She wandered through the hotel, going through doors that said Staff Only, looking into cupboards and a laundry, hitting at last on the staffroom. A small square box with hardly any natural light, one bright electric bulb in the middle of the room, furniture discarded from the rest of the building. A stack of lockers against one wall.

Lisa from the pool was there on her lunch break, eating chopped-up fruit from a Tupperware box, reading a paperback novel. Vera nodded towards the book. ‘Any good?’

A couple of middle-aged women were gossiping in a corner. They looked up briefly and went back to their chat. Ears flapping.

Lisa set down the book and ate the last piece of melon. ‘It’s OK. Escapist, you know.’