Page 2 of And the Corpse Wore Tartan
She swallowed it down, held up a hand, and huffed out a few deep breaths.
If she wasn’t dead, she was dying. This hangover was terminal, no doubt about it.
Which, if anything, was a relief if it meant the suffering would end.
A rumblingBOOOMmade the air shake, jabbing red-hot knives through her forehead and out the other side.
Death was taking his own sweet time coming.
The auld mannie bent down and picked an empty bottle from the undergrowth, turning it in his hands. ‘Lagavulin, sixteen-year-old. You drink all of this?’ He whistled low and slow. ‘No wonder you smell like a skip full of burnt mattresses.’
A whole bottle of Lagavulin? Oh God.
Why would... Where was...
She did a one-legged lurcharound, keeping the other one firmly locked and straight.
Ah.
An ugly stately-home castle thing loomed in the rain, its thick stone walls painted a cheery shade of pinky beige. Turrets. Mullioned windows. It lay at the far end of a manicured lawn, framed by thick pine forests with a background of purple-flecked mountains – their tops lost in the low cloud. Sort of a Marks & Spencer shortbread tin designed by Hammer House of Horror.
They’d lumped a conservatory on the side, with ‘SKIRIVOURCASTLEHOTEL’ printed in big gold letters on a dark green sign.
Oh no.
Lightning strobed the hillside, bringing with it a hissing clatter, followed by a headache-punishingBOOOOOOO-OOOOOM. Then the rainreallygot to work, battering down on the world in general and Roberta in particular. Because Mother Nature was a vindictive cow who hated her.
The auld mannie pointed at a door marked ‘FIRE EXIT’. ‘Best get inside and dry, lass, afore you catch your death.’
If only he knew, there was a fateworsethan death in there waiting for her...
Gah... How much tartan did one hotel need? Whole place was clarted in the damned stuff. Tartan carpet, tartan wallpaper, tartan furnishings. You’d have to be a sadist to design something like this. What about poor people with hangovers? Did no one ever think about them?
Roberta lurched down the corridor, one hand scuffing along the wall for balance.
And the stuffed animals were creepy too.
Look at them, staring out at her with their beady glass eyes from their bell jars and display cases. Wild cats, foxes, everyvariety of Scottish bird you could shoot. Stags’ heads on the wall, mouths hanging open in surprised disappointment.
The corridor ended in a narrow set of stairs, which were far too steep for normal human beings WITH SODDING HANGOVERS.
She stopped to catch her breath halfway up.
More lumbering growls from her itchy stomach.
Serve them right if she blew chunks all over their tartan horror house.
But then that would land her in even more trouble, wouldn’t it? And she was in enough shite as it was.
Roberta reached the top of the stairs without redecorating them, then staggered along the corridor. They’d cut back on the tartan here. A bit. The carpet was still migraine-inducing, but at least the walls were a womblike dark burgundy. Even if the flock wallpaper was verruca ugly. It set off the nasty oil paintings of twee Scottish scenes. Oh, come away in, you’ll have had yourtea, Hamish. Och, I’d love to, Agnes, but I’ve got this stag to hump.
She dug her key out of her jacket pocket – complete with stupid great-big wooden key fob.
What kind of idiot didn’t put numbers on their hotel rooms?
Look at this lot: ‘BALVENIE’, ‘BENROMACH’, ‘ARDBEG’, ‘GLENDRONACH’... How the hell were you supposed to find your room? They weren’t even themed! Where are you staying? Oh, I’m in the Speyside malts. See, that would makesense. These were all over the shop.
Another sign at the end of the corridor had ‘RECEPTION’ on it, but next to that was the one that matched her stupid key fob: ‘LAPHROAIG’.
