The Guest Who Ordered Tomorrow

How it begins

The man in room four wanted poached eggs tomorrow. Rose could have accommodated the eggs. It was room four that bothered her.

"We don't let the attic," she told him.

He pushed the breakfast card across the desk with one finger. His nail was neatly trimmed and stained blue at the edge, as though he had changed a fountain pen cartridge in a hurry.

"Then put me wherever you usually put him."

Rose looked up. "Who?"

The man glanced at the stairs. Rain ticked against the glass above the front door. In the dining room, Imran Shah was photographing the marmalade labels with the solemn concentration of someone documenting an endangered species.

"My mistake," the man said. "Room three will do."

She gave him the key. He paid in cash, accepted no help with his small brown case, and went upstairs. His shoes made no sound on the carpet. Rose had chosen that carpet specifically because it concealed stains, not footsteps, and she resented being made to think about either before breakfast.

"Everything all right?" Imran called.

"New guest."

"Excellent. You were worried about bookings."

She turned the card over. Under dietary requirements, the man had written a name: Arthur Mercer.

Her father had been dead twenty years.

Rose put the card in her apron and carried a fresh pot of coffee into the dining room. There was probably a reasonable explanation. There were quite a lot of Mercers in Cornwall. Arthur was a perfectly ordinary name. Neither observation explained why her hands were cold.

Imran lowered his phone. "You've brought me the empty pot."

She looked down. She had.

Upstairs, a door opened and shut. Rose crossed the hall before she had decided to move. Room three stood ajar. The brown case rested on the bed, its buckles open. Inside lay a guest ledger wrapped in a clean tea towel.

There was no sign of the man.

At the far end of the landing, a strip of yellow light shone beneath the attic door. Rose had disconnected the electricity to that room herself.