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The place was packed with people, some of whom she recognized. The women of Knit or Die were there, giving Dougal the evil eye and trying to get her to sit with them. The town’s evil overlord, Betty, was there, enjoying the trouble she’d stirred up at the last council meeting. Lake and Kirsty Benson, Josh and Caroline McInnes, and Mitch and Jodie Harris all shared a booth at the back of the room. When Agnes went over to say hello, she found out Jodie owned the spa that housed the restaurant she’d enjoyed so much. And Mitch was Josh’s manager but also ran a talent agency with Caroline. It seemed everyone she spoke to was somehow connected to everyone else. It was the way of small-town life.
As she circled the room, making sure everything was being taken care of, Dougal waved her over. Relu
ctantly, she went to see what he wanted now.
“Can you check with the sound person again and make sure this is the right volume?” It was the third time he’d asked her. Dougal didn’t like it when something was louder than him, and he was too busy with the bar to check the sound for himself.
“I checked. It’s fine. I don’t want to bother them by asking again.”
“It’s awful loud.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say, so are you. Instead, she waited. Dougal’s particular brand of micromanagement meant his questions and instructions tended to come in clusters.
“The kitchen’s taking too long to get the platters of finger food out to the tables,” he said.
“I’ll have a word with them.”
“Mrs. Docherty in room eight came up to the bar to tell me that there’s a strange noise coming from her closet and the thermostat in her room isn’t working properly.”
“I’ll deal with it.” Because in a hotel that size, there weren’t any housekeeping staff around overnight. Normally, a guest complaint would have to wait until the morning, when the reception desk was staffed, but everyone knew to speak to Dougal at the bar if they had a problem. And he knew to call on her—because she was so conveniently located in the building.
She really needed to find a place to live outside of the hotel.
“Also”—he frowned—“I have to question some of the jokes on the sweatshirts you bought.” He glanced down at hers and his face turned red.
Agnes pulled it out to look at it. “What’s wrong with it? It says ‘Santa’s little elf ho, ho, ho’. What’s offensive about that?” She gave him an innocent look. But she knew exactly what he meant. The elf part wasn’t written in words. Instead, it was a small appliqué image in the middle of lots of huge text. From a distance, it read ‘Santa’s little ho, ho, ho’. She found it funny.
“Never mind,” Dougal said. Obviously deciding it wasn’t worth getting into. “Mr. Thompson called to say he’s run out of toilet paper.”
“Again?” What the hell did he do with it?
“Could you drop some off to his room? I’d have one of the waitresses run up there, but they’re busy.” And why use a waitress when he had a hotel manager to boss around?
Actually, now that she thought about it, her job wasn’t managing anything. Really, she was Dougal’s hotel slave. No—she looked down at her sweatshirt—tonight she was his hotel elf. She blinked. She was bloody Dobby. And suddenly, she desperately missed her sister Donna, because she was the only one who’d get that joke.
“Anything else?” she said to Dougal, who was still standing there as if waiting for something. She didn’t know what.
“No. Nothing. Except, did you make sure the Benson Security people are monitoring the cameras? Tonight seems a ripe night for theft.”
“Logan rigged up a signal booster, so that someone in their office can watch them.” So was she, as they were still set up in her bedroom. With the current state of the BBC, there was nothing else to watch when she suffered from insomnia.
“Okay,” Dougal said. “That’s all then.” And she was dismissed.
As she walked away, she imagined all the ways she could torture the man with the soda gun behind the bar.
“Ah wouldnae put up wi’ that crap,” someone said as she passed, and Agnes turned to see Betty sitting on a stool, kicking her feet, while she ate a Scotch pie. A Scotch pie that wasn’t on their menu. As usual, the cuboid-shaped woman wore a tartan tent of a dress in, what could only be described as an attractive mud color. There were black boots on her feet and a huge tatty black handbag in her lap.
Agnes had heard the rumors about that bag. People who got too close to it tended to get stun gunned. So she took a step back. “I’m sorry?” she said.
“Aye, you should be. You’re letting Dougal walk all over you. It nearly put me off my pie.” Betty waved the pie, sending beef mince flying. “You might as well roll over and let him scratch your belly, same as he does for that mangy dog of his.”
Well, it turned out there was a limit to the crap she’d take for her job. And the limit was called Betty. Agnes glanced at the crowd in front of the stage. “Have you ever crowd surfed? Because I can make that happen for you.” Although, she wasn’t sure anyone would catch the woman.
“If you ever want to learn how to stand up for yerself, gimme a call.”
“Do they have cell coverage in hell?”
Betty just cackled and carried on eating her pie. Agnes, meanwhile, went off to deliver toilet paper to an old man who spent far too much time in the loo.
