Do Not Disturb by Tilly Bagshawe

disgrace.
    Striding grimly up the steps into the lobby, Honor threw the receptionist into a spin by demanding that the manager appear immediately.
    “I’m afraid Mr. Hammond is, er, unavailable just now, Miss Palmer,” stammered the hapless girl. “We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
    “So I see,” said Honor, snapping the dead head off one of the wilted roses in the vase by the door and staring pointedly at the overflowing wastepaper basket in the corner of the lobby. “Where is he?”
    “Well, I…” The girl trailed off, blushing the color of an overripe beet. If she looked any more awkward she’d probably burst into flames. “I’m not a hundred percent sure he’d want me to say.”
    Honor’s lips tightened. Resting both hands on the desk, she leaned forward ominously. “What’s your name?”
    The girl swallowed. She was older than Honor and a good foot taller, but she didn’t think she’d ever felt quite so intimidated in her life. It was the deep, gravelly voice that did it.
    “Betty,” she mumbled. “Betty Miller.”
    “OK, Betty,” said Honor. “I’m going to ask you one more time. And either you tell me where Mr. Hammond is, or I fire you. Do you understand?”
    The girl nodded miserably.
    “So.” Removing her sunglasses, Honor smiled patiently. “Where is he?”
    “He’s at the golf club,” whispered Betty. “He’s been there all morning.”

    Guests who heard the screams and yells coming out of the manager’s office a few hours later were sure that some of them must have warranted a reading on the Richter scale.
    “But, Miss Palmer, you’re being completely unreasonable!” Whit Hammond could be heard shouting himself hoarse. “I was entertaining guests. That’s a legitimate part of my job. Perhaps if you knew a little more about the hotel business, or were willing to listen to wiser heads—”
    But Honor hadn’t let him get any further.
    “Don’t patronize me, you lazy son of a bitch,” she roared. “I know enough about the hotel business to realize you’ve been ripping my family off for the last God knows how many years.” Leaning across the desk—this morning it had been his desk, but now it was most definitely hers—she brandished the rolled-up spreadsheets like a sword.
    “Those numbers don’t tell the whole story,” he spluttered lamely. “It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
    Honor felt her upper lip curling with disdain. Whit personified everything that was wrong with Palmers: overweight, stubbornly complacent, his florid cheeks crisscrossed with broken veins that spoke of a lifestyle of high living and neglecting his duties.
    “You’re right,” she said. “The numbers are only half the story. The other half is shoddy housekeeping, poorly trained staff, a kitchen that would have us closed down in a heartbeat if anyone from Safety and Health saw it. This was the greatest hotel in America once, Mr. Hammond.”
    “With respect, my dear,” he simpered, “that was a long time ago. Things have moved on.”
    “Yeah,” said Honor. “They have. And now they’re moving on again. You no longer have a job here. And I am
not
your
dear
.”
    The decibel level had shot up still further at this point, with plenty of
you can’t do this
es and
you’ll be hearing from my lawyer
s thrown in for good measure. But within an hour the manager who only yesterday had been considered part of the furniture at Palmers, with a job for life, had packed his things into a couple of boxes and driven out of town like a spluttering, paunchy Jesse James.
    By the end of the day, some twenty-five other staff had followed in his wake, fired with equal firmness and finality by a righteously indignant Honor. And there would be more to come. The era of the freeloader was well and truly over at Palmers, and anyone who didn’t like it could lump it.
    It was after eight in the evening by the time Honor finally emerged from Whit’s ex-office. She was exhausted—she