Page 50 of Hidden in Memories
Only a few feet away.
There is no air, and a terrified whimper escapes between her lips. Then the light comes on, and her colleague Sussie is standing in the doorway, looking surprised.
Aada stares at her, openmouthed. She is holding her hands up in front of her chest in a defensive position; she is so scared she can’t move.
Her throat is constricted; she can’t make a sound.
“Did I scare you?” Sussie says. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I hit the switch by mistake and happened to close the door at the same time.”
Sussie is ten years older, and has worked at the hotel for years. She is responsible for the rosters.
Aada shakes her head and tries to find the words in her broken Swedish. She gives up and chooses English instead.
“It’s okay. I thought . . . after what happened . . .”
“I understand,” Sussie reassures her. “Everyone is shaken up—hardly surprising under the circumstances.”
Aada manages a weak smile. “Exactly.”
“By the way, have the police interviewed you yet? They spent a whole hour questioning me, and I wasn’t even working over the weekend.”
Aada doesn’t know what to say. She dare not admit that she has deliberately stayed out of the way. If her bosses find out, they might be angry.
“I have to get to work,” she mumbles, lowering her head and grabbing the rest of the items she needs to add to her trolley.
Tears are scalding her eyes as she scurries away.
39
While the manager tries to track down Paul Lehto, Hanna and Daniel have gone up to the Silver Suite.
Daniel positions himself with his back to the suite so that he has an overview. The fire door is directly in front of him, separating the walkway from the last three rooms, located in their own corridor. The number of the suite is 632, next door are two more rooms—633 and 631—to the left. All have been vacated while the technical investigation is ongoing.
It’s like a world of its own in here,he thinks. The rust-colored wooden walls create a cozy, cave-like atmosphere. Warm light spills from the wall lamps; the sound of footsteps is silenced by a graphite-gray carpet.
The perpetrator left a bloody shoeprint in the hallway, but the traces ended after only about three feet. It has been impossible to establish which way he went.
Hanna is frowning. She adjusts her ponytail, then slowly runs her fingers down the smooth wooden wall while she ponders.
“He fled after the murder. But where did he go?”
Daniel joins her, and they go through the fire door and continue along the walkway. He looks around carefully when they stop. On the right is the staircase leading down to reception, at the other end, to the south, a wall of glass. He can just see crisscrossing wooden bridgesbetween the rectangular buildings. There are plenty of comfortable chairs and tables of different heights so that guests can chat or work.
From up here they have an excellent view, with the communal areas on the ground floor at their feet.
Hanna points to the guest elevator about twenty yards away—a stainless steel construction that breaks up the row of identical doors. Ten yards farther along is the staff elevator that Espen showed them earlier. You have to have a special key card to use it.
“I can’t imagine him taking the elevator,” she says. “If he’d used the staff elevator, we’d be able to trace him through the card, and he would have known that. We also know that he must have been covered in blood. No one in that state is going to simply step into an elevator that can stop to pick people up on any floor.”
“He can hardly have walked down the main staircase either,” Daniel points out.
He looks around again. To the left of the fire door is a plum-colored velvet sofa, then another door with no number on it. It blends into the wall so well that he’s only just noticed it. “Have you seen that?”
They go over to the discreet door. A red fire extinguisher hangs next to the frame. Maybe that’s what confused them before.
Daniel suddenly realizes something. They are standing on the other side of the tall copper wall in the airy foyer. No one can see them, not from reception or the other walkways. They are well hidden from curious eyes.
“I wonder if it’s locked?” Hanna says.
