She had worked side by side with Lawrence all that time, but she still couldn’t say she knew him well. She’d seen his CV, of course. He was in his late thirties. He’d been educated in a small but prestigious boarding school north of London. Done a business degree at the London School of Economics, and then moved into hotel management. He’d come to them from a luxury hotel in New York, after stints at a five-star boutique hotel in Paris, a discreet and expensive London hotel and two others in mainland Europe. Madrid and Geneva, if Olivia remembered rightly. Or perhaps it was Vienna. He spoke French, German and some Italian, she knew. He had Spanish blood in his family tree, she’d learned. Only in passing. Lawrence rarely spoke about himself. Was it his grandmother or grandfather? He’d inherited his olive complexion from one of them, at least.

She did know one detail of his life that no one else at the Montgomery knew. Lawrence had asked Edgar to keep it private. He’d come to Edinburgh from New York after suffering a great loss. Four years earlier, his wife of two years had been diagnosed with heart disease, dying only eight months later. Lawrence and Edgar had met previously at an industry event and exchanged contact details. When Lawrence contacted him out of the blue, asking if there were vacancies at the Montgomery, Edgar had been sympathetic to Lawrence’s need to be far from New York. He was Edgar’s last appointment. One of his best, Olivia knew.

Lawrence had been offered a flat in the hotel, but he’d chosen to live ‘off campus’. He still did. The staff liked him, Olivia knew, but he kept his distance. Edgar had been the same. In many ways, Edgar had chosen a manager in his own style. Professional but private.

She checked her watch. Twenty minutes before she’d need to leave for the airport. ‘I’ll look through the other figures later, Lawrence. I don’t want to be late for Eliza. Any further issues for now?’

‘Two more. Alex again. And Celine.’

‘Which is worse?’

‘I’d say equal footing.’

‘Let’s go alphabetical. Alex?’

In their last weekly meeting, the one Lawrence had deemed ‘urgent’, they’d spoken candidly about the situation with Alex. They’d adopted a ‘wait and see’ position, on Lawrence’s advice. He felt it could become too awkward otherwise. It seemed the waiting was over.

‘It’s happened again,’ Lawrence said. ‘Five crates last night. All caught on CCTV.’

‘That bloody idiot.’ Olivia said it before she could stop herself. But she meant it. What a bloody idiot indeed. Alex had already had everything handed to him on a plate. A good education in a fine, if tough, boarding school. Support throughout his university years. A hotel management job waiting for him, if he was the successful son. Backing for his possibly risky idea for an upmarket hostel, which had, frankly, confounded all their expectations. Yet that still wasn’t enough for Alex.

He was stealing from the Montgomery. Crates of wine. Gin. Champagne.