Seasons

Michael casually sipped iced tea and pretended to read a newspaper at a table in the window of Shirley’s Coffee Shop. Across the road, the Edwardian building that was Season’s Hotel, oozed style, money and class. He watched people enter and leave the elegant foyer, and a wry smile touched his lips. It all looked so normal. For now.
He went to the Gents to check his appearance in the mirror. His blond hair, dyed black and grown longer, hid a shrapnel wound on his neck. His bright blue eyes were concealed by brown contact lenses and a pair of dark glasses, and several sessions at a tanning salon had darkened his skin. Some theatrical false teeth slipped over his own perfect smile, completed the transformation. His appearance was Asian rather than European and it amused him. All he needed now was the courage to do what must be done.
He returned to his table in time to see his twin Andrew, with Caroline, emerge from the hotel and climb into a waiting Jaguar.
Michael waited until the car drew away before paying for his drink, straightening his tie, and flicking a speck of dust off his immaculate suit. Satisfied, he took a deep breath, picked up his brief case and weekend bag, and crossed the road. Seconds later he walked into the Hotel, which his brother had stolen from him, together with Caroline, the only woman he’d ever loved.
‘I’d like a room, please,’ he told the receptionist. She glanced at him and he wondered for a moment whether she might spot the likeness to Andrew; but she merely smiled, asked for his credit card and swiped it, before requesting he fill out a check in form.
A few moments later he was shown into a room on the third floor, overlooking the garden and newly-built spa beyond. Andrew had always been the one with the business acumen; the drive to make everything he touched into a success. He was a single-minded, ruthless, soulless man with a Midas touch, whom Michael had in turn hated, envied and admired all his life. Certainly Andrew’s management of their father’s hotel had turned Season’s into a goldmine, but Michael had always assumed that when their parents died, he and Andrew would be left equal shares. It had been a monumental shock when his father, who had finally passed away in an alcoholic haze, left Seasons to Andrew.
Michael poured a small scotch and bitterly raised the glass to his father. ‘Thanks for the small house in Hampshire and fifty thousand pounds, Pa,’ he growled contemplating that Seasons, this watering hole for the rich and famous, was worth millions. The injustice ate away at him like a cancer.
He knew he had never been suited to business; he hated the routine, the tedium of being nice to the right people. He craved adventure and excitement and the army had provided that. He had toured in Afghanistan and Iraq, been honoured for bravery and made the rank of Colonel. But a year ago disaster had struck, when a road-side bomb blew up the tank in front of him.
He rubbed his neck where the scar still hurt. Two months in hospital and an honourable discharge were the reward for ten years in the service of his country. He was catapulted back into civilian society with barely a thank you.
Andrew had visited him in hospital, and offered him a job in the hotel…A job.
‘What sort of a job,’ he had demanded. ‘Bell boy? Yes sir, no sir, thanks for the tip sir…up yours sir!’ he had stormed.
‘Michael, I’m sorry. You know nothing about running a hotel – it’s a valuable business now and I have to keep the reins.
‘I don’t want crumbs from your table,’ Michael spat at his brother. ‘Get out – I can look after myself.’
And so Michael became a hit man. Army life had left him a lot of contacts, some of whom, like himself, had fallen on hard times after leaving the service. One or two boasted even more dubious friends, and since Michael had learned to kill so efficiently, so quietly and with some enthusiasm, he soon found a new use for his skills
A rapist had been his first victim. He’d been given a derisory sentence for attacking a ten-year old girl and the child’s father wanted vengeance. The man had ended up in the Thames, his throat sliced from ear to ear. The second was a drug dealer who had been responsible for the death of three teenagers from the same family after selling some bad dope at their party. Michael was never sure who had commissioned that hit, but it paid well and it gave him a great deal of satisfaction to throw the man from the top of a multi-storey car park.
And now he was about to kill his own brother. The self-satisfied jerk was going to get what was coming to him. Cain and Abel, he grinned to himself. But this time Cain also gets the girl…one way or another.
Caroline had lived next door to Michael and Andrew all their lives. They had been playmates, their parents were great friends, and as the children grew into their teens Michael and Caroline began to look at each other in a different way. He had lusted after her from the age of twelve, and by the time he was sixteen, while Andrew slogged away at his school work, the more adventurous, less academic Michael developed a powerful sexuality which needed to be satisfied. And Caroline had been willing. They often escaped into the woodlands where youthful experimentation soon led to a passionate and careless affair, enthralling them both. Even as Michael, sitting morosely in the hotel room remembered, his body quickened at the thought of her, slim, sweet and yielding in his arms; her delighted cries, pleading for more. She had been as insatiable as he.
Eighteen months later Michael had joined the army and she had gone to university. And three years after that, she married Andrew. Sensible, boring, ambitious Andrew.
..Sorry Michael, but I can’t see myself living on army pay. You hate him and I understand that, but he suits me. And don’t think of saying anything to anyone about our youthful fling. Remember, I know it was you who stole five thousand pounds from the hotel and let the poor accounts clerk take the blame.
Even if it had been possible to get leave from Afghanistan, he could not have faced going to the wedding.
But now it was payback time. Once Andrew was dead, he knew he’d never need to do it again. And Caroline would at last be his.
His plan was simple. That evening there was to be an important civic event at the hotel, to be hosted by Andrew and Caroline. The hotel always employed agency staff as waiters for such large events and in his weekend case, pressed and immaculate, lay his waiter’s costume.
As the time drew near, he carefully glued on a discreet moustache, donned a pair of heavy glasses and pushed a cushion pad into the front of his trousers. He hardly recognised himself; a fat, short-sighted, moustachioed waiter. Carefully he left his room and swiftly made his way down the back stairs, joining the rest of the staff milling around with trays as the guests began to arrive.
‘You’re wearing white gloves – is that necessary?’ asked the Events Manager.
‘Psoriasis, sir. Eet do not look so good for the guests you understand,’ he murmured in a thick, Spanish accent.
‘Very well.’ The already harassed man thought no more about it and rushed away.
Andrew and Caroline had returned in their evening wear, and his heart lurched as he approached them, offering champagne. His brother accepted, and passed a glass to Caroline; neither gave him a second glance. So far, so good.
Soon a hundred people gathered in the large function room, chatting and drinking before dinner. Andrew expertly worked the room, introducing the Mayor to his business cronies no doubt, thought Michael. Brown-nosed bastard. He followed discreetly, waiting his moment, and finally, just before dinner was announced, he noticed Andrew’s glass was almost empty.
‘More champagne, sir,’ he asked, affecting his Spanish accent.
‘Thank you,’ said Andrew, turning to speak to another guest. Michael, removed his empty glass, and passed him a fresh one, into which he had dropped a cyanide pill. He then moved swiftly away, dumped his tray on a table and slipped back upstairs to his suite. By the time Andrew had taken his last drink, the fat Spanish waiter had vanished and become the svelte Asian guest, Mr Vee-jay Shiraz, as named on his credit card. He picked up the phone and ordered room service.
He grinned with satisfaction on hearing the approaching nee naw of an ambulance. Clearly the hotel staff had not summoned the police, assuming poor Mr Carson must have suffered a heart attack. With luck they wouldn’t realise he’d been murdered until the post mortem.
Michael could have left the hotel then, but it amused him to stay. He ate his own meal before drifting back downstairs to enjoy the shocked disbelief of the remaining guests.
Just after midnight, Caroline was brought back to the hotel. He watched as she walked through the foyer, looking calm and composed, if a little pale. He was surprised when she didn’t go directly to her room, but asked the girl on Reception to check something and then dialled a number on the house phone. To his horror, his mobile phone began to ring, and Caroline turned immediately and stared at him.
For a moment she looked confused, but then she nodded at him and with a slight turn of her head indicated he should follow her into the lift. As the doors closed, she looked at him and laughed.
‘It had to be you, Michael, so bloody disorganised you forgot to turn your mobile off.’ Stunned he followed her to the bedroom she and Andrew kept for their own use. ‘You murdered Andrew. Cyanide I presume, judging by the blue lips and smell of bitter almonds.’
‘What are you planning to do about it?’ he asked running sensuous fingers up her back.
‘Well, I inherit the hotel now, and I am rid of a boring, cold-hearted and under-sexed husband, a little sooner than I had expected. Drink?’ She went into the kitchenette returning a moment later with a bottle of red wine and two glasses.
‘A little sooner?’ he asked, accepting a much-needed glass of wine and taking a large gulp.
‘Yes. You see Andrew had an inoperable brain tumour and only a few months to live. I had hoped they might be suitably agonising, but you spared him that. He was on incredibly strong drugs to combat the pain, which are fatal in overdose. You have just drunk a massive overdose. When you become unconscious, my lover, who is the manager of the hotel, will help me to remove you to your room, where you will be found with a bottle of wine and the empty pill bottle. In time it will be discovered that you were Andrew’s brother in disguise, who murdered his twin, and then committed suicide in remorse. Very neat.
Already the room was beginning to spin and Michael, clutched at a chair before falling to the floor.
‘You evil bitch,’ he gasped. ‘I thought you loved me once.’
‘To everything, my dear, there is a season,’ she replied.