Mara was outside her office when I came through the front door.
She took one look at me and moved aside.
“Come in.”
I sat down. The chair creaked under me, the same chair I'd sat in when Oliver's watch first went missing. I put my empty tote on my knees.
Mara shut the door but stayed standing.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did someone touch you?”
“He stood in my way. Callum. He moved when people looked over.”
She pulled her own chair out and sat.
“Tell me from the beginning.”
I started with Friday morning. I had collected the tin from Callum's room. I had counted the money. Seen the inscription. Asked for her photograph while I was carrying the watch in my bag.
“I should have told you I had it.”
“Yes,” she said. “You should.”
I looked down at the handles in my hands.
“I wanted Ruby to explain. I thought there might be another way he'd got it.”
Mara waited. She didn't tell me there couldn't have been. She didn't make it easier either.
I told her what had happened at the shelter. The call to Callum. Their agreement to sell, made yesterday after I'd offered to carry the tin. Ruby saying she'd seen the watch in the room and suggested taking it. Callum saying he'd chosen that moment to ask for my help with the linen.
I had to stop after that.
Mara moved the box of light bulbs off her desk and put a glass of water in front of me.
“What did you see yourself?” she asked when I could speak again.
“The tin, this morning. The watch inside. And him taking it from my bag just now.” My voice caught. “He told me yesterday that he'd gone into Ruby's room. I didn't see that. Or the first time, with Oliver's watch. They told me.”
“And now Callum has it?”
“He put it under his jacket. Ruby went after him.”
“Where did they go?”
I described the corner behind the shops. I didn't know any farther than that.
Mara wrote it down.
“Ruby said she was going to a jeweller tomorrow,” I said. “I don't know which one. She said she'd see what they'd offer. Can we stop them?”
“I'll report what you've told me. Including the planned sale.”
“Tonight?”
“Now.”
She turned her computer towards herself and opened the non-emergency reporting page. Before she began, she took the old watch correspondence from the folder on her desk. She checked Oliver's full name and the contact details against it.
“I kept thinking it was a private thing,” I said. “A row between them.”
“You've told me now.”
I drank some water. It tasted of the plastic jug from the kitchen.
“There's one more part,” I said.
Mara looked up.
“When Callum said I was helping him that whole time, back then. I wasn't. I took the linen downstairs and went back to Ruby.”
“Do you remember what time?”
“No. Only that I went back.”
She nodded and wrote that without asking me to find a time I couldn't know.
She sent the report while I held the glass between my hands. When the confirmation appeared, I had to ask what it said. I'd been staring without reading.
“I don't know what happens next,” she said. “They may need to speak to you. Keep your messages.”
“All right.”
“And don't go looking for them on your own. Callum isn't coming through our staff door again. I'll tell him. Ruby won't be going into guest rooms while I deal with this.”
I rubbed my thumb over the rough edge of a tote handle.
“Most of my things are here. I've got some at his room.”
“Take someone with you if you collect them. If he's there and you don't want to go in, leave.”
I nodded. I couldn't think of anyone except Tess, and I'd sent her out of my room last night with my accusation still between us.
Mara looked at my phone.
“Does Callum know you've told me?”
“Not yet.”
I wanted him to know I'd told her and would stand by it.
I took the phone out of my jacket pocket and opened his messages.
The last one was from that afternoon. He'd asked whether I wanted dinner after I'd seen Ruby. I could still answer it as if nothing had changed. Tell him to get food. Turn tonight into one more night in his room.
I typed instead.
I've told Mara everything you and Ruby said. About the watch, the linen and selling it. She's reported it. I'm not taking any of it back.
I sent it while Mara was still beside me.
Callum rang almost at once.
My thumb moved towards the green button. I stopped it and let the call end.
“You can leave that for tonight,” Mara said.
“He'll keep ringing.”
“You can silence it.”
I did. Then I put it back in my pocket.
Outside the office, the hotel was still doing exactly what it always did. Someone asked reception where they could park. A child came down the stairs trailing a jumper. The lift rattled, reached the ground floor and gave its little ding.
I stood still until the doors opened.
Tess was behind the desk. She saw me and put the pen she'd been using down.
“Can you help me get my things?” I asked.
She didn't answer straight away.
“From Callum's?”
“Yes.”
She looked towards Mara's office, then back at me.
“Give me ten minutes.”