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“What about my sheets?” Jean asked.
Agnes narrowed her eyes at all of them. “This hotel isn’t your own personal store cupboard. You lot will stop entering the areas that are only intended for staff. If you want access to a room, pay for a night. No more sneaking in early in the morning, and no more giving money to the staff.” She glared at Bernadette. “There will be no more tips. We aren’t in America. Nobody tips in Scotland.”
The receptionist looked crestfallen, but she nodded.
“As for the sheets.” She turned to Jean. “You’ll have to learn to live without them. Otherwise, you can purchase a set from our supplier and pay for washing them yourself.”
“But…” Jean started.
“No,” Margaret said. “She’s being fair.”
“Now.” Agnes folded her arms. “Are any of you helping yourselves to anything else in this hotel?”
“No,” came the chorus as the women looked shamefaced.
Agnes studied them until they squirmed in their seats. Stealing jewelry seemed outside the spectrum of what they’d been doing.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Then I think we’re done here.” She turned to Dougal. “Unless you have anything else to add.”
“No. I don’t think I have. You seem to have everything in hand.” He tugged down his waistcoat, making her want to rugby tackle him and remove the damn thing. “I trust you’ll explain things properly to Bernadette?”
“You can count on it.”
Bernadette looked like she was about to burst into tears, but she held it together, raising Agnes’ opinion of her in the process. Maybe there was hope for her yet.
“Sorry about the sheets, Dougal,” Jean said.
“And I’m sorry we didn’t check the situation over the sundries with you instead of Jean,” Margaret said.
“Aye, we should have known better.” Shona glared at Jean.
“It’s not my fault she pocketed the money.” Jean pointed at Bernadette. “If she’d just given the envelope to Dougal, everything would have been fine.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” Agnes held up the envelope. “It’s blank. Did you write instructions on any of the envelopes you handed over?”
“I didn’t think I needed to,” Jean said, and her friends groaned.
“Okay,” Dougal boomed. “I think we’re done here. I have a pub to run and a council meeting to prepare for. Ladies.” He nodded his head at them before striding from the room.
“Do we have to pay for the last two years of supplies?” Margaret asked as she frowned at Jean. “Again?”
Weariness suddenly swamped her. If Dougal wasn’t bothered about the missing shampoo, she wasn’t going to lose sleep over it either. “No, just stop helping yourselves and we’ll call it good.”
“I know it’s pushing it a bit,” Shona said demurely, “but is there any chance we could buy some of the soaps and shampoos? I love the wee bottles. They’re great for travel, and we heard you have a new range that you can’t get on the internet.”
Against her better judgment, Agnes caved on that. “I’ll set up a shelf behind the front desk where you can buy bottles of product and bars of soap. You’ll pay Bernadette, who will put the money straight into the till.” She stared at her receptionist, who nodded fervently.
“Thanks, Agnes,” Margaret said. “We appreciate it.” She turned to her friends. “Come on, time to go.”
As they passed, Margaret stopped in front of her. “You’d make a great member of Knit or Die. We already have a couple of younger women, but they weren’t in on Jean’s soap caper. You’d fit right in. We need your backbone, and you need some women at your back.”
It was hard not to smile at Margaret. “I’m not staying in Invertary long enough to join anything.”
“Aye, well, we’ll see about that,” the woman said. “You don’t choose knitting. It chooses you. Come on, ladies.” And she herded her friends out of the room, leaving Agnes to wonder what that meant.
Last to leave were Shona and Darcy. The young girl wasn’t shy—she came right up to stand in front of Agnes. “I know you aren’t my dad’s girlfriend, but if you have time to tell me any tips and stuff for getting away with things, that would be awesome.”
“Darcy!” Shona snapped.
