Two inverted 'V's of damp on the wall and dark patches on the carpet showed where the men had urinated. The light fittings, broken and torn away, were hanging by their wires. In spray paint on the wall, above where the heads of the beds had been, was the outline of a giant erect male organ with the obscenity 'SHIT SHAGGERS' scrawled in thick marker-pen below it.
The major cause of the stench lay in the tangle of crumpled bedding on the floor. They had defecated on the white cotton of my sheets. With the room's en suite toilet a few yards away, the action demonstrated real malice. The mess on my bedding appalled me more than all the other damage. As I opened the windows to let out the stink the braided curtains seemed to hang with chaste disapproval over the devastation below.
The perpetrators of this outrage had doubtless made their escape before the house stirred. The prospect of cleaning up what they had left in the sheet made me nauseous. I stood at the window for several minutes inhaling fresh air, watching the boughs of the street's plane trees swaying in the breeze. In the hotel downstairs activity would be continuing as usual; the cook and waiter would be busy with breakfasts, and people checking out that morning would be asking for their bills. If I went down to normality now the smell and the mess in the room would be waiting to be dealt with, and would be constantly on my mind.
With no rubber gloves to hand I gingerly lifted up the soiled bedding, keeping my fingers clear of its repulsive contents, and manoeuvred the faeces towards the toilet. After flushing the excreta away and putting the soiled linen into black plastic sacks, I washed my hands, flushed the toilet a second time and washed my hands again, hoping to make doubly certain that every last trace of the filth had gone. On leaving the room I carefully edged the door closed, hiding the devastation from other guests who might pass.
I called the police, and during a lull in breakfast activity took the part-time cook and waiter up to see the damage. Sharing the horror with them helped me a little, but at ten- thirty they went off duty leaving me on my own. Darren had left for an early shift at the hamburger dive, the cleaner was not due in that day, and there was no answer to my 'phone calls to Tom or Andrew.
I apologised to the guests who had heard the disturbance, saying this was the first time there had been any trouble and that the hotel was normally very quiet. Fortunately none of them made a fuss. When everyone had gone, various hotel duties kept me occupied for a time, but after putting the last of the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher I sat miserably in the bay window of the dining room waiting for the police, wishing merciless vengeance on the pair who had vandalised my room.