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  Checking Out: Clockwise

  T.W.M. Ashford

  Copyright © 2019 by Tom Ashford

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Any characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Tom Ashford

  Image: Tithi Luadthong/Shutterstock.com

  Contents

  Also by T.W.M. Ashford

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  [The story continues…]

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  Reviews

  About the Author

  Also By T.W.M. Ashford

  Also by T.W.M. Ashford

  Everything Ends

  Blackwater: Vol. One

  Checking Out

  Mouth of Midnight

  Blackwater: Vol. Two

  The Portrait Lingers Like a Whisper

  Blackwater: Vol. Three

  Checking Out: Clockwise

  Checking Out: Anticlockwise

  To Ed, who taught me and my friends how to fire a lever-action repeater.

  Chapter One

  Keep one thing in mind as I tell you this story: the tale comes second-hand. It’s not my own. I wasn’t there. It was passed down to me like an older brother’s tatty jumper, or perhaps a better simile would be a novel read once, quickly, so that its pages haven’t yellowed but the spine is starting to show its first wrinkle.

  It came a long way to reach me, this story, and I came a long way to bring it to you. It’s taken some knocks along the way. No doubt some details lie discarded along the path it took to get here, and for that I can only apologise. My best will have to be enough. I am no expert in matters of the multiverse and yet I will endeavour to make sense of it all, to put each and every piece back in its proper place.

  Infinite branches stretching out across infinite universes.

  Another door, another story.

  Business at Le Petit Monde was a little slower during the months that followed the apparent suicide in room 628, but it was not a lot slower. The police had been called, the unfortunate man had been identified as a Mr. George Webber - middle-aged widower from Littlewick Green - and despite a few journalists poking around the next morning his death hadn’t even made the front page. Most wrote him off as just another city suit who couldn’t bear his financial troubles any longer.

  Nobody thought to study the Peruvian soil stamped into the carpet, or to question why poor deceased Mr. Webber was decked out in an altogether different outfit to the one he’d been witnessed wearing only minutes before.

  High profile customers still passed through the hotel’s doors. A famous British comedian booked his room the same day that word of the suicide spread online. A week later, a foreign ambassador was rather enthralled by her two-night stay. She would have slept at her embassy quarters but they were, alas, being renovated, she’d said with a wink. Social media was a godsend; for every three guests who cancelled because of the mysterious death, there were two guests booking a room because of it.

  Of course, scrutiny didn’t come only from the public and the police. The Council of Keys (which go by a great many different names in a great many different universes, but regulate inter-dimensional travel in each) were not so easily fooled by what was not only quite clearly not a suicide but not even the right Mr. George Webber lying on the carpet, and had slapped down some hefty travel restrictions in retribution.

  Not everyone saw this as a bad thing.

  ‘You would not believe how relaxing it is not having to chase that goddamn pig out of the corridors anymore,’ sighed Pierre. ‘What was his name? Oh yeah. Bai Ze. Sure, the guests are more likely to have nightmares without him here to gobble all the bad dreams up. But at least I don’t have to worry about any of them catching a glimpse of him and having nightmares once they get home.’

  ‘That’s great, Pierre,’ said the hotel barman. ‘But it’s your turn to bet.’

  Four of them sat around a table in the bar, which that night Pierre had ‘officially’ set as off-limits to guests. It was approaching two in the morning - they could tell from the old-fashioned grandfather clock ticking away next to the door that led back to the lobby. The lights had been brought down to a mysterious low. The table was as scuffed as their deck of cards.

  ‘I’ll tell you what else, Wesker,’ continued Pierre, accompanied by a collective groan from the rest of the table. ‘I’m glad to see the back of those Romans. I’m not being xenophobic when I say that they simply refused to adapt to our way of doing things. Did I tell you I once walked in on one of them brandishing a sword at a masseuse? A bloody sword!’

  He picked up a couple of chips from his rather mediocre pile and threw them into the middle of the table.

  ‘Thank the Lord,’ said Wesker, in that gravelly voice of his. He sounded like a character borrowed from an old Western film. More likely than not he’d been borrowed from the real thing. ‘I’ll match that. I’m just glad the powers-that-be didn’t put a ban on all those golden-era Hollywood types coming through. Half of my tips come from them alone.’

  ‘How come you landed on your feet so easily, anyway?’ came the voice to Pierre’s right. It was gruff, but not as gruff as Wesker’s. It belonged to Viola, the Victorian gangster. She was wearing her favourite pinstripe suit and the white shirt that plunged down in a V. ‘You let that idiot friend of yours kill his double from another universe and run off with your set of keys. And what happens? Le Petit Monde becomes an immigration no-go zone for ninety percent of the multiverse and you’re the one checking people off at the border!’

  ‘What can I say?’ Pierre shrugged and flashed her a sarcastic smile. ‘Must be mon charisme. Anyway, don’t complain. I let you through when you needed somewhere to go after your factory got blown up, didn’t I? The Council would throw a fit if they knew you were here.’

  ‘You’re my little hero,’ laughed Viola, reaching over and pinching his cheek. His face went red, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he was embarrassed or bruised. He glanced down at his cards.

  He didn’t have a good hand. Pair of twos. He wondered in how many other worlds he had a royal flush.

  ‘Hey, Pierre?’ said the fourth voice from the other side of the table. It was Simon, the bell-boy. He was still wearing his stupid red hat. Pierre wondered if the kid ever took it off. Or if he even could. Perhaps somewhere out there in the multiverse there was an entire species of humans born with skulls shaped like little crimson caps. He was so disturbed by this thought that he quite forgot Simon was still talking to him.

  ‘Sorry, I lost you for a second there. What were you saying?’

  ‘I was wondering who was minding the front desk, given that we’re both in here,’ replied Simon, reaching out and hovering his hand over the rim of his glass. Wesker was trying to pour more whiskey in it.

  ‘Oh. Ashley’s on there. Ashley Wilson.’

  ‘Isn’t she a bit young?’ asked Wesker. ‘Or am I thinking of someone else?’

  ‘She’s twenty-three,’ replied Pierre
, brusquely. ‘Besides, she’s more than capable of answering the odd phone call and making sure the lobby doesn’t set itself on fire. It’s not like anyone’s coming through the doors at this hour anyway.’

  ‘He’s got a point,’ Viola interjected. ‘It used to be that Le Petit Monde operated within every time zone in the multiverse. Now check-in really is only after two.’

  ‘At least it means I can catch up on my sleep,’ said Pierre. He glanced at the clock again, then his glass of whiskey. ‘On a regular night, I mean,’ he added. ‘It’s nice dealing with guests that go to bed at the same sort of hour as the rest of us. Or go to sleep at all, for that matter. Have you tried explaining to a Glardon General what “regular office hours” means?’

  ‘Here he goes again…’ groaned Wesker. ‘Go on, Simon. Play the river before dawn breaks, will ya? I must say though, it’ll be nice no longer having to scrub down the bar each time one of those slimy bastards pops in for a mojito. They leave one hell of a snail trail.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to know,’ laughed Viola, tapping her fingers against the table in nervous triplets. ‘Go on, Simon. We haven’t got all night.’

  ‘Sorry guys,’ said Simon. He burned a card from the deck and then added one to the three already face-up on the table. It was a seven of hearts. Pierre had to summon all the restraint he had to keep from groaning. Out loud, at least.

  Viola pushed about half of her already considerable stack of chips towards the centre of the table. ‘I bet you sixty-five,’ she said, winking in Pierre’s direction. He glanced down at the pair of cards he was half-peeling up from the table.

  ‘I fold,’ he sighed, and tossed them forward.

  Chapter Two

  ‘I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t already said, Mr. Boyle. We’re having problems with our wine supplier right now. At least until we can source a new supplier, we’ll be out of the Chappellet Signature Cabernet Sauvignon for the foreseeable future. Can I perhaps interest you in an alternative this evening?’

  ‘No you may bloody well not,’ grumbled Mr. Boyle, looking like a vulture whose carrion has just been carried off by a garrison of army ants. ‘I have a very specific palate and if you can’t meet its needs, well, I suppose I’ll just have to go somewhere else.’

  Mr. Boyle marched away from the reception desk, casting a reprimanding look over his shoulder that was clearly meant to remind Pierre that wherever Mr. Boyle’s palate went, his wallet soon followed.

  ‘See you later, Mr. Boyle,’ shouted Pierre, waving him off with a forced smile. ‘Same time tomorrow, different complaint,’ he added, muttering through his grin.

  If only he could explain to guests such as Mr. Boyle that without access to cross-universe trade routes, it was going to be a long time before the hotel could afford to stock the sort of wines and spirits to which their more libation-liberal visitors were accustomed. If only he could do that without the added effort of mopping their brains off the recently polished marble floor.

  He looked out across the lobby and smiled. This smile was genuine. Every now and then the dual front doors would open - pulled apart by the two doormen, Davis and Brown, their black bowler hats pulled down over waves of distinguished silver - and another fresh couple of family would step through with awe-filled faces as if they were stepped off the goddamn Mayflower. Eyes sparkling like the big centrepiece chandelier hanging over the coffee tables, smiles as wide as the Thames. Simon the bell-boy would hurry over to take their suitcases like some sort of red-capped trapdoor spider scurrying out of its burrow, nothing to suggest he was nursing half as bad a hangover as he deserved.

  Businessmen sat in the lounge just past the lobby, sipping their espressos, rifling through the broadsheets delivered fresh and crisp that morning. Trying to finish their breakfast java before the inevitable 9am surge of small children arriving alongside their overwhelmed parents, all with the sole apparent purpose of kicking the underside of their leather booths with their small, velcro-strapped boots. Waiters as thin as stalks of corn drifted between the tables and the air smelled of coffee beans and croissants.

  The elevator was tucked away in the far corner. An antique, Art Deco floor indicator hung above its doors, its spear of a hand pointing at G for Ground. Another bell-boy stood inside the car, his white gloves ready to push the buttons so the guests wouldn’t have to share the precious grime of their fingertips with anyone else. A wooden stool sat in the corner but was never itself sat upon; it was simply for appearances, for old times’ sake.

  Just out of Pierre’s sight were the stairs; one set led upwards to the suites, another led down to the baths, saunas and spas (and beyond that, maintenance). Busy during the day, the staff were now on strict orders to keep them locked come nightfall. Back on the ground floor, a corridor at the back of the hall (almost but not quite adjacent to the elevator) lead to the hotel restaurant; now, at forty-five minutes past eight in the morning, they would be serving a choice of Continental or traditional English breakfasts accompanied by a buffet of cereals, juices, teas, coffees and a pyramid of chocolate-infused baked goods that anyone but a European would identify exclusively as a dessert. To the right of the reception desk was another corridor. This one was shorter and led to the bar. For the sake of both the hotel’s reputation and the livers of guests such as Mr. Boyle, the bar didn’t re-open until midday.

  That, and so Wesker could have a lie-in. He could be a right grumpy old bastard otherwise.

  So yes, Pierre was smiling. The hotel was running like clockwork, and everything was going how it should. He always said that the best hotel was a hotel with no guests, but this was the next best thing.

  The peace was never going to last for long.

  ‘Excuse me,’ came a mousey voice from somewhere beneath his eyeline. ‘Can I speak to the manager, please?’

  Pierre looked down to find a small, middle-aged woman peering up at him from the other side of his reception desk. He didn’t recognise her as a guest. She fell about an inch or two short of five foot and her hair was a pigeon nest of auburn curls. On top of a small, fat nose was perched a pair of huge, round, thick rimmed glasses that swallowed the upper half of her face and made her rheumy eyes look like brown jellyfish swimming in a bowl. A white pearl necklace matched her earrings. She wore a smart, tight black cardigan over a frilly, flowery red and yellow top, and a similarly black skirt that draped to a little past her knees. Her perfume was doing all it could to permanently sabotage his nostrils.

  Under her arm she carried that most dangerous of hotel impedimenta: a clipboard.

  ‘Hello, madam,’ he said, trying to keep his eyes trained on her own and not the worrisome article she had clasped in her pink-nailed hand. ‘My name is Pierre and I am the Head Concierge at Le Petit Monde. Is there anything I can help you with today?’

  ‘I should certainly hope so, Mr. Pierre,’ she said, beaming him a smile normally employed only by game show hosts and the mentally unhinged. It looked about as genuine as a Monet painting hanging in a downstairs bathroom. ‘My name is Tabitha Rundleford, and I’m here on behalf of R.A.S.H. - the Regulatory Association for Services in Hospitality. This is an impromptu inspection.’

  ‘Inspection?’ Pierre blinked at her as if she’d just asked him where she could find the nearest brothel. ‘That can’t be right. We’re not expecting an inspection for, let’s see…’

  He bent down behind the reception desk and retrieved a massive, leather-bound tome. Dropping it on the desk with a dusty thud, he opened it to where its long, red bookmark stuck out like a snake’s tongue and hurriedly flicked forward through the pages. Tabitha Rundleford waited, saying nothing.

  ‘Here!’ he exclaimed, pointing a thin and indignant finger at the incriminating page of his ledger. ‘It’s booked in for the eighth of December, plain as day. And who the hell are R.A.S.H., anyway? Our inspections have always been performed by, well… other agencies.’

  ‘I assume you’re aware of what the word impromptu means, Mr. Pi
erre?’ Once again Ms. Rundleford flashed him that fake smile of hers. She reminded Pierre of a sarcastic pit bull terrier. ‘It means unscheduled. Unexpected. Sprung upon you to make sure you’re not just painting over the cracks and brushing the cockroaches under the carpet for the one day each year we come to take a look. And I told you only a second ago, Mr. Pierre. I’m from the Regulatory Association for Services in Hospitality, and quite frankly we don’t give two hoots who normally runs a finger along the pots in your kitchen.’ She tapped the front of her clipboard with a long, irritated nail. ‘You’re going to let us inspect your hotel, just like everyone else does.’

  Pierre swallowed, hard. This was bad. It wasn’t as if Le Petit Monde didn’t get inspected - there really was a note in his ledger under December 8th, scrawled in red ink and underlined with three angry strokes. But it was always done through the Council of Keys, not some backward government outfit that didn’t know its Ansibles from its Alpha Centauri. One glimpse of a tentacle slithering out from the kitchens and this Tabitha woman would be straight on the phone to the Food Standards Agency, screaming for the hotel’s restaurant license to be revoked. She wouldn’t even stop to think that it might just be the Head Chef popping out for a smoke break.

  But what if she had been sent by the Council of Keys? They’d certainly been pulling in the reins since George had killed his double and gone galavanting across the multiverse. Outsourcing an inspection to a group of “normals” in order to check all their new rules and restrictions were being enforced - risky as it could be, it wasn’t completely out of character for them. And if they hadn’t authorised the inspection, wouldn’t the Council have already put a stop to it?