Chapter Nine

05:58 pm. New Year's Eve.

Niven reached out her both hands and gripped tight on the '7' to steady herself.

"Bloody hell!" She cursed, closing her eyes to the warm burst in her stomach and her racing heart. She then calmed herself, forcing air out from between her teeth, and opened her eyes again.

"Oh, Jiminy Cricket," Niven sighed, as she brought her hand to her face and found her eye-glasses missing. It slipped off her nose while she grabbed onto the neon sign for her dear life.

She scanned the ground, squinting her eyes but her short-sightedness obscured her from seeing anything clearly. "I hope it's not broken. It would be flipping hard to navigate through a world of smudges."

As Niven peered downward, a head of black hair caught her sight. She comprehended the figure retreating away from the motel to be Kanwaljit Patel from the muttering in his mother tongue.

"What a funny bloke." She muttered, a flare of hostility in her voice.

"Alright, let's get this done and over with!" Niven exclaimed, pushing up her rolled up shirt sleeves. She then snatched the piece of cotton rag from her back pocket, careful not to fall off the roof, and resumed cleaning the neon sign.

"Excellent!" Niven exhaled, "Give yourself a pat on the back." She praised to herself, a grin breaking out on the side of her face.

She sat on the ridge of the motel roof, her legs dangling on either sides. It was an uncomfortable position but she hardly noticed it as she admired her finished work.

The cold breeze caressed her face and she shuddered. Niven gazed up to spot the sun dipping below the horizon and the bluish grey hues of the approaching night fighting to gain control of the sky.

She had finished fixing the brand new neon sign just in time for the sunset.

Niven grabbed the tool box and carefully climbed down the ladder. As her feet touched the ground, a sigh of relief blew past her thin lips.

She strained her eyes around the premises and found her eye-glasses lying few metres away from the ladder. Niven stooped down and picked up the glasses to discover one of the lenses cracked right down the middle.

"Aw damn," She grumbled. "What a rotten luck!"

Niven plodded towards the motel. She pushed open the storm door, entering the reception area and dropped the tool box on the counter. She stretched her right arm and flipped the switches on. Light flooded the room.

As Niven heard the tube lights flicker, she rushed back outside and craned her neck, looking up at the neon sign. After a brief spell of darkness, an intermittent surge of artificial red light crackled to life, overwhelming the motel entrance in a reddish-orange glow.

Niven's cheeks moved up and the corners of her eyes crinkled. It made her happy knowing that Mr. Boone could see the motel sign was fully functional now as he returns back from his vacation.

The rest of the evening went relatively smooth from there.

Time went by and it was ten o'clock after dark. Niven lounged behind the reception counter after the day's back-breaking work of fixing the motel sign. Her olive-green eyes devoured the comic book held in her hands, occasionally pausing to snack on the Jammie Dodgers and sip her cup of tea.

The sound of a car engine dying down caught her ears and Niven peeked over the top of the book. She leaned over the desk and looked through the storm door, noting a pair of midnight-blue pant legs with an oxblood shoes poking out at the bottom and then the soft slam as the driver's door of the ash sedan shut.

"Blimey," Niven whisper-shouted, dusting the biscuit crumbs off her hands and the counter.

As soon as the storm door opened, she bounced to her feet; a practiced smile of a receptionist smeared on her face. "Good evening!"

The man that walked in was clean shaven, with smartly combed and side-parted blond hair. He was clothed in a white polo shirt and a beige woollen trench coat that stopped just below his knees.

He let the door close behind him, and his gaze settled on Niven. There was a softness in the man's tired blue eyes and a gentleness on his youthful face.

"Hello, good evening! I would like a room for the night, please." The man spoke, his voice hoarse and modulated. 

"Very well, sir. Your room number will be ten," Niven handed an old-fashioned brass key, "That'll be twenty quids, and if you could please write your phone number and sign your name here," she said, pointing out to the leather book register that laid opened on top of the counter.

Niven caught the man covering his mouth to suppress a yawn that overtook him, his eyes watering. The sound of a cell phone ringing filled the reception and the man's hand reached to his pant pocket, but he didn't answer the call.

Instead, he picked up the ballpoint pen that was attached to the back of the book and filled his name — Finn Ward, then his phone number and scrawled his signature before closing the motel register. The man reached around his coat pocket, pulled out his leather wallet, and took out a twenty pound banknote.

The gentleman murmured a polite 'thank you' as he handed the cash to Niven. The consistent ringing of the cell phone became louder as the man pulled the device out of his pant pocket and walked down the hallway to his allotted room, staring at the screen. 

"Well, just another traveller with a wad of cash, staying for a night because they've got to sleep somewhere, and the choices are slim." Niven thought out loud, blowing lip bubbles.

She pushed up the shirt sleeve on her left arm and stared at the spotless dial of her quartz wristwatch — a Christmas present from Mr. and Mrs. Boone — watching the gold hands change. Ten minutes past ten p.m.

Niven pulled a face, sighing at the thought of her remaining cleaning duties. "I suppose the break time is over."

With a quick, indifferent glance at the surveillance display on the desk, Niven locked the cash drawer and pocketed the keys before walking out from behind the counter in a sluggish way much like a man having Monday blues.

She sauntered towards the utility room behind the motel and grabbed a stack of cotton bed sheets that she had washed earlier, and the vacuum cleaner. In the course of the following minutes, Niven vacuumed the uncleaned rooms and changed the bed sheets and pillowcases.

"Just one more room to go," she mumbled, dragging the vacuum cleaner with her left hand while balancing the bed sheets on her right forearm and hand.

As she passed by the reception, Niven noticed a silhouette of an unfamiliar man at the lounge. She halted in her tracks, crying out, "Looking for a room, sir?"

The man jerked his head towards her direction and replied, "Uh, no, I'm not. I was just leaving." He had a pleasant, gravelly baritone. 

Niven took two steps forward, squinting her eyes to see better. 'I need to get my specs repaired sooner' Niven thought.

The man was fair-skinned, dark-haired, and rosy-cheeked from the cold weather. His stocky frame was overlaid in casual winter clothing.

"I was to meet my friend who'd checked in here but it appears that he has left the building." He continued, tapping his cell phone on his hand with a bashful smile on his face, and lifting his right shoulder up in a shrug. "Alright then. Good night. And, Happy New Year's!" He was already at the storm door, the handle in one hand before he beamed the pleasantry as an afterthought.

"And to you!" Niven greeted back, to which the man nodded before closing the door behind him.

Though, the man possessed a winning smile and a polite manner, something about him gave her a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Niven heaved a quiet breath and resumed her cleaning duties.

It was around half past eleven p.m. when she got to breathe a sigh of relief from the vacuuming and changing bed sheets. As she headed back to the reception from the utility room, Niven caught sight of a slumped profile on the windsor chair in the lounge.

She strode towards the figure and before her eyes recognised the man, the burning stench of liquor overwhelmed her nostrils. 

"Blimey, Jacques! You stink like a skunk!" Niven scrunched her nose, and huffed.

Jacques mumbled something unintelligible, and she rolled her eyes. "I have no idea what came out of your mouth, but get off the chair and go to your room before you puke all over the floor."

Jacques struggled to get on his feet, holding onto the top rail of the chair to support his weight. His left leg wobbled and he stumbled forward.

Niven grabbed the back of his right arm, just above his elbow, and steadied him; rescuing Jacques from a nasty faceplant.

"You're out of your tree, Jacques!" She threw his arm over her shoulder, wrapping her right arm around his middle back. She then helped him walk forward, half-dragging him to his room.

"I couldn't remember my room number." Jacques blurted out, his eyes downcasted, watching the shuffling of his own feet.

"It's seven." Niven's voice turned mellow. "Don't you think you're being a little self destructive?" She asked, her breathing laboured. Niven adjusted his arm on her shoulders, taking clumsy steps forward.

"I've lost control of my life, and I don't plan on regaining it." He countered. Jacques talked as clear as a whistle for an absolute inebriated person. He never had blurry articulation of words nor hiccups.

"Crumbs, I wonder what the final straw was."

Out the corner of her eye, she noted Jacques' gaze falling onto the platinum ring dangling on the silver chain around his neck. Niven was certain she saw pain flurry in his natural brown eyes for a brief second.

She wondered if the alcoholism was a mental anesthesia for him.

As they were few inches away from Jacques' room, Niven heard a frantic slam of a door and her olive-green eyes connected with a pair of round, brown eyes. Kanwaljit Patel.

He stood frozen for a moment, his mouth hung open slightly, before coming back to his senses and unlocking his door. He then disappeared into room No.9.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Niven whispered in thought. "Why'd he look like he got hit with a bucket of ice cold water?"

"Stop being a nose parker, Niven." Jacques reprimanded, shrugging his arm off her shoulder and dragging his feet towards room No.7. He patted the pockets of his shirt, then his jeans, and fished out his room key from the back pocket.

"Here, give me that." Niven snatched the key out of his hands, seeing Jacques' hand tremble and fumble with the keyhole. "And, I'm not a nose parker. Just observant." She swung the door opened.

"Whatever you say, lassie." Jacques walked past her, entering the room.

"Don't forget the key," Niven prised the key out of the door and outstretched her hand. The key dropped into his palm and he uttered a quiet 'thank you'.

Niven bid good night to him and Jacques departed into his room. The door clicked shut.

'What the bloody hell was Patel doing in room No.10?' Niven thought, her feet already moving towards the room.

She rapped her knuckles against the vinyl door. Silence greeted her. "Uh, hello? Mr. Ward?" Niven shouted, knocking louder. Her calloused fingers wound around the door handle, tempted but paralysed for a moment, before applying pressure. The latch detached without protest and the door gave away.

Niven's posture stiffened and her eyebrows slightly raised. She cracked the door open enough to peek inside the room. A stuttering gasp hitched in her throat. "Oh, bloody Jiminy Cricket!"

With a gentle push, the door swung open; Niven nearly gagged at the sight. There, in the middle of the room, laid a human body, unmoving and crimson liquid oozing all around the linoleum floor.

In a precipitous impulse, her legs stepped past the threshold. Her eyes fixated on the brutal scene; she couldn't look away, even if she wanted to.

The man's eyes were still wide open, staring at the ceiling. One, a firecracker blue, and the other one missing. A gaping hole.

"Blimey, it's him," Niven breathed, recognising the face; it was the man with the winning smile. "What? How?"

"I should call the police!" She said out loud and swerved backwards — almost stumbling over her own feet — before sprinting out the door. Her frantic footsteps halted at the reception counter and she hauled the telephone off the desk, dialling the police number.

Two rings and a pause. Then, a toneless voice answered. Before even hearing the words from the other end, Niven babbled, "There's a dead body in my motel!"

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08:45 am. New Year's day.

"Is this another one of your clever plotted stories?" Loxley asked, resting her laced hands on the surface, her posture straight and her torso almost touching the table.

"You tell me," Niven huffed. "You were the one who called me out on my roguery earlier."

Loxley's face was serious and deadly calm. No reaction of any kind. Merely observing the girl's face and waiting for her to continue speaking.

Niven discharged a long sigh through her nose and looked away from the detective's penetrating and intimidating outstare. "Bloody hell! I know I lie a lot but I'm telling the truth this time!" She cried, meeting Loxley's eyes. Seeing as she wasn't convinced, the girl added: "For Mr. and Mrs. Boone. They've too much faith in me for me to let them down."

"What'd you have to gain from the lying?"

"Jolly well nothing! You said it yourself, Detective, old habits die hard."

Loxley could tell the girl was upset from being caught red-handed and it seemed it almost physically hurt her to tell the truth. Niven still had her arms wrapped around her torso but it looked like she was beginning to huddle herself.

"Alright. You still stand by witnessing Mr. Patel come out of room number ten?"

"Yes! But, no bloody shirt." Niven mumbled the last line, shame staining her words.

"This supposed owner of room ten, Finn Ward, did you see that man check out of the motel?"

"No. But, his car was missing from the motel frontage, so he should've left sometime that night."

"Thank you, Niven." Loxley rose to her feet and strode over to the recording camera. "You can take your leave now. Officer Malek will escort you out." She declared, turning off the handycam.

"Does that mean I'm done with the questioning?" Niven asked, a hopeful lilt to her voice.

Loxley's right hand graced the door handle before she tilted her head back, answering a bold 'Yes, for now'. She walked out of the interrogation room, wrenching the cell phone out of her suit jacket's pocket in a frenzy. Loxley pulled up her recent calls and pressed the call button; the log screen cutted to the call screen.

She paced to the end of the hallway, listening for the long rings to cease and the accustomed spirited voice of her co-partner to speak up. She clicked her tongue and muttered a curse as the call went to Ebony's voicemail. Pursing her lips, Loxley clicked the inbox icon and typed out a message — Call me back, Blaine.

She spun around to see Niven being assisted out of the room by Officer Malek. "Please bring in the immigrant, Officer." Loxley raised her voice to gain his attention and walked past them back into the interrogation room.