A Thrust to the Vitals Read Online Free

back to the scene in the main reception room. Several of the celebration’s remaining buffet canapés of what looked like smoked salmon and caviar lay abandoned in the centre of vast silver platters, though, by now, these looked rather less appetising than they must have been at the start of the evening. More bottles, mostly three quarters empty, were fixed into the optics behind the specially set up bar in the left-hand corner of the suite’s main room. These bottles’ earlier companions, now drunk dry, stood in crates stacked behind the bar, awaiting collection. There was a well-spread stain of what Rafferty assumed was red wine on the once crisp white cloth that covered the long buffet table facing the door. Someone had also crushed one of the canapés underfoot on the pricey- looking carpet.
    All in all, it looked much as Rafferty imagined a room must look the morning after one of those Roman orgies when the participants were all nursing sick headaches and saying, ‘Never again, Nero.’
    In his head, Rafferty could hear his Ma tut-tut ting in disapproval at the self-indulgent and careless excesses of these new Romans. Of course they, like their ancient predecessors, could make as much mess as they liked, sure in the knowledge that some other, much poorer, bugger, was going to get the job of cleaning up their mess. It was ever thus.
    But Rafferty, left with the job of cleaning up an even bigger, more bloody, mess, was only too aware that he had no time to indulge in a bout of self-righteous moralising. He didn’t have time, either, to enjoy the Edwardian splendours of one of the more pricey of the Elmhurst Hotel’s enormous suites, even though he felt like a round-eyed urchin with his nose pressed against the glass of an upmarket toy shop and with no hope, unless he was prepared to get himself hopelessly in debt, of ever playing with what was behind the glass.
    The plush penthouse suite had, of course, been hired, at vast expense, by the local council for Seward’s shindig, the usual town hall accommodation having been pre-booked for another, even higher status, VIP. With its glittering Tiffany crystal chandeliers, and its Sicilian Carrara marbled bathrooms with the Jacob Delafon bathware and its giant-sized, carved, African walnut beds, the suite gave a whole new meaning to the word ‘ostentatious’.
    Rafferty, who wouldn’t have known a Tiffany chandelier if one had crashed down on his head, had gained this sophisticate’s vocabulary after he had requested and been given one of the Elmhurst’s promotional brochures by the manager on his arrival. It was from this slim but triumphalist piece of literature that he had learned of the hotel’s self-proclaimed class and style. He had gained a knowledge of the hotel’s prices, too, of course. They made him shudder. Of course, such swank didn’t come cheap: the quoted price for one night’s stay had rendered him goggle-eyed in nose-pressed urchin mode. It had also sent up a warning signal to make sure he didn’t take the brochure home with him in case Abra found it on her return from Dublin. It might give her ideas that would make his bank account, rather than his body, shudder.
    With the thought of the prices still at the forefront of his mind, Rafferty was moved to comment, ‘I wonder what Elmhurst’s council tax-payers would have to say about this extravagance if they ever got to know how much it must have cost especially when they get their next inflation-plus increase on their bills.’
    Dafyd Llewellyn, a sternly brought-up Welsh Methodist, gave a Puritan’s sigh for such excess and told him, ‘As I’m one of those council tax-payers, I’m sure I can provide you with enlightenment.’
    Rafferty smiled tautly. ‘Don’t bother, Daff. I’m one as well, as you know. All this high on the hog stuff at our expense makes me sick. I’ve a good mind to write the Elmhurst equivalent of the “”Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”” letter to the local rag —