Lost Lives (Emily Swanson Mystery Thriller Series Book 1) (3 page)

The old woman looked around the room, as if all the years she had spent here were scattered among the books and newspapers.

“Since I was ten years old.”

Emily sat back in her chair. The distraction was working. Tears receded. Her throat relaxed.

“See, back in the day, when The Holmeswood was still a hotel, me and my parents came to live here. It was during the war. Father couldn’t go off to fight, on account of him only having one leg. Lost the other in a car accident a couple years before. Anyway, our own house had been destroyed and we had nowhere else to go. The Holmeswood started renting out rooms long-term. The rooms were cheap and so here we stayed. When the war was over, people were still on rations and busy trying to put their lives back together. No one came to stay at The Holmeswood anymore. Most of those that were living there eventually moved out. The owner lost all his money. That’s when Mr Christie stepped in, bought the hotel and turned it into the place it is today. My old dad may have lost a leg but he was still a fine carpenter. Mr Christie offered for us to stay on for cheap in exchange for his help—to convert the hotel rooms into apartments.”

Emily sat forwards, intrigued by Harriet’s story. Andrew, who had clearly heard the tale a hundred times, dropped his book and picked up another.

“By the time all the work was done, Mr Christie had become like family to me and my mum. He was always bringing round clothes and whatnot for me to wear. Said they belonged to his daughter when she was little. Father didn’t much like it. He was proud, you see. And he didn’t much like the attention Mr Christie paid to my mother. When he was found murdered one night, God bless his soul, Mr Christie stopped coming round altogether. I suppose it was unbecoming—a young widow receiving married gentleman callers.”

Sighing, Harriet added another spoonful of sugar to her cooling tea and stirred.

“Murdered?” Emily was aghast.

“They found his body in a dumpster out back.” Andrew’s eyes appeared over the top of his book. “Whoever killed him hadn’t even bothered to clean up the mess. Granddad had been stabbed seventy-two times while taking the lift. His body was dragged across the foyer, out through the back corridors and thrown out with the trash.”

Harriet shook her head and sipped her tea.

“Apparently,” Andrew continued, lowering his book to reveal an almost gleeful curling of his lips, “there was so much blood that it took an entire day to mop it all up.”

“That’s terrible!” Emily exclaimed. “Who killed him?”

Harriet lifted her hands, palms to the ceiling. “No one knows. For all the blood they couldn’t find a single fingerprint or piece of evidence that pointed to the culprit. I always thought that strange. How could someone make such a mess without leaving a single clue? Well, after that, my dear old mum was never the same. Fortunately, Father had had the good sense to take out insurance. Mr Christie started selling off the apartments and she bought ours outright. When I was old enough, she signed it over to me on the condition I stayed living with her. Which I did. I met Andrew’s dad, we got married and he moved in here. Mum died soon after. I’ve been here ever since.”

Harriet fell silent. When she looked up again, her eyes were glassy and wet; two deep pools of sad memories. Emily sat still, at once moved and horrified by her story.

“Of course,” Andrew said, breaking the silence, “his wasn’t the only murder to take place in this building.”

Emily stood. “I should be going. There’s still so much I have to unpack.”

“All those boxes to empty and things to put away. I’ve kept you long enough,” Harriet said.

The old woman was quiet until she had unlatched the chain lock and opened the apartment door.

“You’re welcome here anytime,” she smiled. “And I have to say, after that last couple, I’m very glad to see a nice young lady like yourself taking up residence.”

“Oh? What do you mean?”

“Always shouting they were. Always fighting. And not a kind word to say to anybody. It’s a wonder nothing bad happened sooner. Well, I’ll let you go. Don’t be a stranger!”

Before Emily could ask her to elaborate, Harriet closed the door and slid the lock into place.

Returning to her apartment, Emily set upon the unopened boxes at a feverish pace. She thought about the macabre tale the Goldings had told. Although her inquisitive nature had been a little overwhelming, Harriet’s friendliness was a welcome remedy to the solitude that had been Emily’s only company for the last weeks. She would see Harriet again, perhaps return the favour and invite her over for tea. Andrew, however, could stay in his room. Not only had she found him rude and abrasive, he had positively relished in the bloody details of his grandfather’s demise.

A blast of cold air rushed through the kitchen window and stung Emily’s skin. Rubbing her arms, she spied the refuse sack of women’s clothing. She thought about what Harriet had said about the couple who had lived here. She would ask Harriet about them when she next saw her. For now, she wanted the clothes out of her apartment. They were a bad omen, a black stain on an otherwise spotless floor. And seeing as how her move to London was supposed to be about new beginnings, any signs of endings—even if they weren’t her own—were unwelcome.

Five minutes later, Emily stood in the lift as it descended towards the ground floor. She half-dragged, half-carried the sack of clothes across the foyer, moving beyond the staircase and into the darkness of the corridor. The sound of the bag sliding across the tiled floor was like pouring sand. She listened to its hypnotic rhythm as she passed boarded up doors and stacks of broken, empty crates.

She came to the back door of the building, took a breath and began counting. Winter wrapped icy tendrils around her as she stepped out into the narrow alley. Dumpsters for waste, recycling and clothing were lined up against the exterior wall. Rain played a lonesome melody against their metallic bodies. Empty beer cans rattled and old newspapers flapped as the wind skimmed along the litter-strewn ground, bringing with it the drone of traffic and pedestrian chatter.

Wedging the fire door open with a fallen chunk of masonry, Emily worked quickly, heaving the sack up with both hands and swinging it over the lip of the clothing dumpster. An acrid smell seeped out, burning her nostrils.

When she returned inside, the fire door slammed shut, the thunderous boom chasing after her like a malevolent spirit.

Back in her apartment, Emily couldn’t shake the feeling that something had followed her in from outside. She felt eyes burning holes in the back of her neck as she paced from room to room, anxiously picking up empty boxes and flattening them for storage. When she passed the bathroom doorway, she saw the painting leaning against the wall. It was the woman’s eyes she felt. They cut through the failing light, fixing her with their penetrating stare.

Emily regarded the painting for a moment before flipping it over, pressing the woman’s face against the wall. She should get rid of it. Along with the rest of the rubbish that still sat on the living room floor. She would do it first thing in the morning.

Lying back on her bed, she listened to the rain fall against the window. She would venture out tomorrow. She would go to the supermarket, perhaps even to that café. Once she had overcome her anxiety and made it outside, things would get easier. It was just a matter of time. Because time erased all worries and abated all fear. It soothed pain and blotted out terrible memories. It even tempered guilt. But you had to have patience. You had to relinquish that pervasive sense of hopelessness. Otherwise, all that time could bring you was infinite despair.

The room had grown dark. Outside, the rain intensified, beating on the windows, demanding to be let in. Emily stared into the shadows. In the corner by the door, she thought she saw movement.

“Phillip, is that you?” she whispered into the darkness. Then she was asleep.

Pulling a hat over damp hair, Emily grabbed her shoulder bag and headed out of the apartment. A sign announced the lift was out of order, so she took the stairs. One floor down, panic had sunk its teeth into her.

“Get a hold of yourself,” she whispered, gripping the stair rail.

She drew in a deep breath and blew it out in a steady stream. Behind her, the fire door burst open, missing her by inches. A tall man in his late twenties came rushing out, eyes down and headphones blaring.

“Sorry!” he shouted, noticing Emily at the last moment. His smile was dazzling against his walnut-coloured skin as he pulled the headphones from his ears. “Not looking where I’m going as usual. I always try and fit one song in before I get to work. Helps me start the day in the right mood. Customers can be a pain in my ass, so anything to get that smile going, you know? Are you walking down?”

Emily nodded, both wary and intrigued by the stranger beside her. They took the rest of the stairs together.

“You just moved in, right?”

Emily stopped still. “How did you know that?”

The man’s smile grew wider. “You get to know the faces around here. Plus Harriet Golding told me all about you.”

They got moving again and moments later, Emily saw the red and white tiles of the foyer below.

“You’ve moved in right above me,” the man said. They reached the foot of the stairs. “You’re in Twelve-A, right?”

“Yes.”

They were by the door now. Emily’s gaze froze on the view through the glass. Hundreds of bodies moved by in a slow train. Beyond them, traffic jammed the road.

The man wrapped his fingers around the door handle. “Well, thanks to Harriet, I already know you’re Emily. I’m Jerome Miller. It’s great to meet you. If you ever want to drop by and say hi, I work at the Italian café across the road, Il Cuore? The coffee sucks but the service is exceptional.”

With one last blinding smile, Jerome pulled open the door and a torrent of noise flooded in. He waved her goodbye and then dove into the crowd. The door was closing again. If she was still standing here by the time it had shut it would mean another day without food.

Her heart racing, Emily drew in a deep breath, began counting, and ploughed forward. The crowd surged, absorbing her into the stream. All around, people pushed and parried. Cars and buses crawled along the road. Drivers punched horns at cyclists racing past. Lights changed to red, and pedestrians began crossing the road, pouring into the gaps between the vehicles like cement filling in cracks.

Emily hurried along, keeping up with the crowds as she counted each panicked breath. The street came to a crossroads where hundreds of workers, shoppers and tourists swamped the pavements, heaving in and out of large department stores and blocking the entrances of the underground station. Every face shared the same grim expression. Thick grey plumes asphyxiated the air. The blare of car horns and engines, in-store music, footsteps and chatter swooped and dived overhead, converging in a perpetual, relentless roar.

Bordering on hysteria, Emily attempted to push through the crushed bodies, but as she squeezed by each one, there was another to take its place. A scream climbed its way up her throat.

A side street swung into view. Forcing her way to the edge of the crowd, she leapt towards it. Suddenly, the world was quieter. Emily leant against the wall, drawing in deep breaths. She closed her eyes, shutting out everything.

In the village, the streets had been quiet and pleasant, paved with cobbled stones and decorated with hanging baskets of flowers outside each shop window. People wished you a good morning. Emily thought about those smiling faces. She recounted the names of all the people she had known; friends and acquaintances who had once waved a hand or stopped to pass on the latest news. How quickly they had turned on her without a moment’s thought.

In contrast to the large modern stores just metres away on the high street, this winding, narrow road contained small boutiques with names Emily had never heard of. Further along, shoehorned between a French patisserie and a Chinese herbal medicine store, was a supermarket. She stumbled towards it, eyeing the handful of people that hurried past. Not one of them acknowledged her existence, their gazes fixed on either the ground or their mobile phones.

The supermarket was a cramped affair. The aisles were long and narrow, their shelves stacked right up to the ceiling. Shoppers had to move in awkward single file, picking up the items they needed and then circling around again if they had forgotten something. Armed with a handwritten shopping list and a basket hooked over one arm, Emily navigated the curious one-way system. As she picked up the items she needed, she calculated the mounting cost. Her eyes grew wide with alarm. City life was not only chaotic, it was extortionate too. She wondered how so many people could afford to live here. And there were so many people living here.

It wasn’t just the sheer volume that overwhelmed her, it was the fact that everyone was so different. Her lowly sheltered life had been comprised of white working-class farming families. There were less than a hundred children in the village school where she had taught, and not one of them had come from outside of the surrounding community.

What a blinkered way of living, Emily thought, as she looked at the colourful cans on the shelves. A blinkered way of living that had almost been the end of her.

Her basket full, she turned a corner to join the snaking queue. Her mind wandered as she waited, finding its way towards Lewis.

The entire time she had been holed up in her cottage with reporters crawling over her garden, trampling on the flowers she had spent hours nurturing and feeding and growing, all Lewis had worried about was whether or not the unwanted attention would affect his chances of promotion at the bank. It hadn't been his photograph in the paper next to vile, accusatory words. It hadn't been his reputation destroyed, his freedom stolen away.

Yes, people did stop and whisper and yes, they did regard him with a steely candour from a discreet distance, but he was still able to trawl the aisles of the supermarket. When Emily had last entered the supermarket, her hood pulled up in a bid to pass unnoticed, two mothers from her school had dragged her across the aisle by her hair and thrown her into a pyramid of apples. Emily had tried to pick up the fruit while the women screamed terrible things and spat on her back.

There was just one person ahead of her now. Two men worked the counter, conversing in a language she didn’t recognize. Emily watched them for a minute, then her eyes wandered over the shelves of cigarette packets and painkillers, until they came to rest on a small public message board.

Among the handwritten postcards advertising rooms to rent and massage services, was a missing persons notice. The photograph at the centre of the notice was grainy black and white, but the person it depicted was unnervingly familiar. The woman had short, light hair parted in the middle, a square jaw and aquiline nose. Her eyes emitted an iciness that permeated right through the paper to prick Emily’s skin.

She reached the counter. As one of the men began scanning and packing her items, Emily read through the information on the poster.

Alina Engel. 43 years old. 5’ 4. 60 kg. Reported missing after failing to return home from an evening shift at the Ever After Care Foundation. Alina, who is of German descent, called her husband at around nine pm on Monday, 24th August, stating that she was waiting for the 247 bus on the corner of Romford Road and Fowler Road, IG6. Co-workers confirmed seeing Alina leave at around eight-thirty. She was wearing a blue and white nurse’s uniform and was carrying a light blue backpack at the time of her disappearance. If you have any information or know of Alina’s whereabouts, please call the following number.

Emily stared in stunned silence, reading the words over and over.

“You know her?” the shopkeeper asked.

Emily shook her head. “Do you?”

“People come in and out every day. They look the same to me.”

Emily paid the man.

“I should take it down,” he said. “After three months, that woman isn’t coming back.”

Behind them, waiting customers grumbled. Emily thanked the shopkeeper and turned to leave. She stared at the poster one last time, memorizing Alina Engel’s features. If only her phone had been in her purse and not switched off in one of the kitchen drawers, then she would have been able to take a picture.

The street was busier now but she hardly noticed, her mind fixed on the missing woman’s face. She tried to hold it there, an exact image copied from the poster to her brain. Minutes later, she emerged panting and wheezing from the throngs.

Inside The Holmeswood, someone had taped a notice across the lift doors: GET THIS FIXED! SOME OF US CAN’T USE THE STAIRS!

By the time Emily made it to her apartment, she felt as if her heart might punch a hole through her chest. Slamming the door behind her, she dropped the grocery bags onto the floor and hurried towards the bathroom.

The painting was still there, face down against the wall. She flipped it over. Alina Engel stared back.

***

“You’ve got lots of space in here for just one person.”

Harriet sat at the dining table, peering around the room with an inquisitive eye. Emily had been busy. There were books on shelves and rugs on the floor. An array of photographs and prints hung from the walls, featuring striking landscapes—a dense forest in the grip of autumn, a rickety pier overlooking a tranquil lake—but there were no family photographs, Harriet noted. No people.

“It’s probably too big,” Emily said, sliding a cup and saucer towards her guest. “I’m having trouble filling it.”

“A nice husband would take up some room,” Harriet said, stirring spoons of sugar into her tea.

“Or some new cabinets.”

Harriet cackled. “Someone’s had man trouble.”

Shifting in her seat, Emily looked out of the window. Winter sun bounced off the glass, creating a glare.

“Men are always trouble,” Harriet said. “They either want you to be the servant to their master, or they want you to be their nursemaid. They’re like babies, never really growing up. But I suppose we have to put up with them. Lord knows who else will.”

She gave Emily a wry wink and sipped some of her tea.

“Assuming every woman wants to be in a relationship,” Emily said. “And that every woman is attracted to men.”

Harriet squinted, then shook her head. “I don’t know anything about those modern relationships. Have you met Jerome yet? He’s very modern.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s one of those,” Harriet said, lowering her voice. “Had a gentleman friend living with him until recently, went by the name of Darnell. Just goes to show, it doesn’t matter what side your bread is buttered, if there’s men involved you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Emily nodded. “What about Alina Engel? Did she have her work cut out?”

“Eh? You mean Allie? Oh yes, she certainly did. That man was trouble all right. Karl Henry, mister big man, walking around like he was something important. The amount of times I heard him shouting it’s a wonder he had any voice left. That poor woman should have left him as soon as he raised a hand to her.”

“He hit her?”

Harriet sat back in the chair and pursed her lips. “All I know is that one time, me and Andrew were coming back from the shops when we bumped into Allie on the stairs. She was on the way to work—some kind of nurse she was—and her lip was all fat on one side, with a big purple bruise on her chin. I asked her if she was all right, and you know what? She jumped like I'd screamed at the top of my lungs!”

“What did she say?”

“That's just it. She didn't say anything. She just carried on walking as if she hadn't even seen us. Like we were invisible.”

Emily put down her teacup, disturbed that not so long ago her apartment had been home to violence and abuse. In this very room, the bedroom, maybe both, a man had raised a hand and brought it down hard against his wife's face. She wondered if that left a residue; all that negative energy seeping into the walls and floors.

“Never was one for talk that Allie,” Harriet added. “Not even when you got her on her own—if you managed to get her on her own. And it wasn’t a language problem because she could talk better English than most people I know. Shame really, she seemed like a nice lady.”

Emily leaned forward, pushing her cup to one side. “Paulina Blanchard, the letting agent, she told me that Karl Henry was moving out because his wife had left him. That she’d gone back to Germany. Today in the supermarket, I saw a missing persons notice. It was for her. For Alina.”

Harriet raised an eyebrow. “All I know is what that pig told me. That she’d run off and left him. And you know what I said to him? I said, ‘Well it’s about time too!’ He didn’t like that, not one bit, the nasty piece of work.”

“But he reported her missing. It said so on the poster. That she called him on her way home from work the night she disappeared.”

“First I’ve heard about it.” Harriet stopped to drain the contents of her cup.

“But if she was reported missing didn’t the police come around? Surely they would have asked the other tenants if they’d seen her.”