The Paris Apartment (11 page)

The apartment is as bright as I can make it. I've turned on every single lamp. I've even put a vinyl on Ben's posh record
player. I'm trying not to panic and it seemed a good idea to have as much noise and light as possible. It was so quiet when
I entered the building just now. Too quiet, somehow. Like there was no one behind the doors I passed. Like the place itself
was listening, waiting for something.

It's totally different now, being here. Before, it was just a feeling I couldn't put my finger on. But now I've heard the
end of the voicenote. Now I know that the last time I heard from Ben he was afraid, and that there was someone in this apartment
with him.

I think about the girl, too. The look on her face when I said I thought something had happened to Ben. She was scared but
it also seemed like she'd somehow been expecting it.

Suddenly I'm very aware of how, if you looked across from the right spot in any of the other apartments, you'd be able to
see me sitting here, lit up like I'm onstage. I go to the windows and slam all the big wooden shutters closed. Better. There
were definitely curtains here once: I notice that the rings on the rail are all broken, as though at some point they've been
pulled down.

I can't just sit here and run through everything in my head over and over. There must be something else I'm missing. Something
that will provide a clue as to what might have happened.

I tear through the apartment. I crouch down to look under the bed, rip through the shirts in Ben's wardrobe, hunt through the kitchen cabinets. I yank his desk away from the wall. Bingo:
something falls out. Something that had been trapped between the wall and the back of the desk. I pick it up. It's a notebook. One of those posh leather ones. Just the kind Ben would use.

I flick it open. There are a few scribbled notes that look like they're for restaurant reviews, that kind of thing. Then,
on a page near the back, I read:

La Petite Mort. Even I can translate that:
the little death
.

Sophie M—it has to be Sophie Meunier, the woman who lives in the penthouse apartment.
Sophie M knows
. What does she know? Mimi, that's the girl on the fourth floor, the one who looked like she was going to hurl her breakfast
when I asked about Ben. How
does
Mimi fit in? What
is
the concierge's connection? Why was Ben writing in his notebook about these people, about “little deaths”?

I flip through the rest of the notebook, hoping to discover more, only to find it's blank after this. But this does tell me
something. There is something strange going on with the people in this building. Ben was keeping notes about them.

I drink more of Ben's wine, waiting for it to take the edge off my nerves but it doesn't seem to be helping. It only starts
to make me feel groggy. I put the wine glass down because I have an urge to stay awake, to keep watch, to keep thinking. I
don't want to fall asleep here. Suddenly it doesn't feel safe.

When my eyes start closing of their own accord I realize I don't have a choice. I have to sleep. I need the energy to keep going. I drag myself into the bedroom and fall onto the bed. I
know I can't do any more today, not while I'm this knackered. But as I turn out the light I realize that a whole day has now passed without word from my brother and the feeling of dread grows.

 

My eyes snap open. It feels like no time has passed, but the neon numbers on Ben's alarm clock read: 3:00. Something woke
me. I know it, even if I'm not sure what. Could it have been the cat, knocking something over? But no, it's here at the end
of the bed, I can feel the weight of its body against my feet and, as my eyes adjust to the dark, I can make it out more clearly
in the green glow of the alarm clock. It's sitting up, alert, ears pricked and twitching like radars trying to catch a signal.
It's listening to something.

And then I hear it. A creak, the sound of a floorboard giving under someone's foot. Someone's here, in the apartment with
me, just the other side of the French doors.

But . . . could it be Ben? I open my mouth to call out. Then I hesitate. Remember the voicenote. There's no light beneath
the French doors: my visitor is moving around in the dark. Ben would have switched on the lights by now.

Suddenly I'm wide awake. More than awake: wired. My breathing sounds too loud in the silence. I try to calm it, make it as
quiet as possible. I close my eyes and fake sleep, lying as still as I can. Has someone broken in? Wouldn't I have heard the
glass shattering, the door splintering?

I wait, listening to every tiny creak of the footsteps making their way around the room. It doesn't feel as though they're
in any particular rush. I pull the throw up so I'm almost completely covered by it. And then, through the thundering of my
own blood in my ears, I hear the doors to the bedroom begin to open.

My chest is so tight it's hard to breathe. My heart is jumping against my ribs. I'm still pretending to sleep. But at the same time I'm thinking about the lamp next to the bed, the metal base nice and heavy. I could snatch out an arm—

I wait, head pressed against the pillow, trying to decide whether to grab for the lamp now or—

But . . . now I hear the soft pad of footsteps retreating. I hear the French doors closing. And then, a few moments later,
further away, the groan of the main door to the apartment opening and shutting.

They've gone.

 

I lie still for a moment, my breathing coming in rough pants. Then I jump up, push through the French doors and run out into
the main room. If I move quickly, I might catch them. But first—I rummage through the kitchen cupboards, come up with a heavy
frying pan, just in case, then pull open the apartment's main door. The corridor and stairwell are dark and silent. I close
the door, go to the windows instead. Maybe I'll catch someone out there in the courtyard. But it's just a dark pit: the black
shapes of trees and bushes, no flicker of movement. Where did they go?

I turn on a light. The place looks completely untouched. No broken glass and the front door looks undamaged. Like they just
walked right in.

I could almost believe I dreamt it. But someone was here, I'm certain. I heard them. The cat heard them. Even if, right now,
it couldn't look more chilled, sprawled on the sofa, cleaning delicately between its outspread toes.

I glance at Ben's desk, and that's when I realize the notebook is gone. I search the drawers, behind the gap in the desk where I
found it before. Shit. I'm an idiot. Why did I leave it out there in full view? Why didn't I hide it somewhere?

It seems so obvious now. After hearing that voicenote I should have taken extra precautions. I should have put something in
front of the door. Should have known that someone might come in here, poke around. Because they wouldn't need to break in.
If it's the same person Ben was speaking to on that recording, they already have a key.

Everything goes black. Just for a moment. Then it all becomes terrifyingly clear. It is going to happen here, now, in this
apartment. Right here, on this innocuous spot of flooring just beyond the door, he is going to die.

He understands what must have happened. Nick. Who else? But one of the others in this place might be involved . . . because
of course they are all connected—

“Please,” he manages, “I can explain.” He has always been able to talk himself out of any situation.
Benjamin Silver-Tongue
she called him. If he can only find the words. But speech seems suddenly very difficult . . .

The next attack comes with astonishing suddenness, astonishing force. His voice is pleading, high as a child's. “No, no—please,
please . . . don't—” The words tumbling out of him, he who is always so poised. No time for explanations now. He is begging.
Begging for mercy. But there is none in the eyes gazing down upon him.

He sees the blood spatter onto his jeans but he doesn't understand what it is immediately. Then he watches as spots of crimson
begin to fall onto the parquet floor. Slowly at first, then faster, faster. It doesn't look real: such a brilliant, intense
red and there is so much of it, all at once. How can all of this have come from him? More and more every second. It must be
spilling out of him.

Then it happens again, the next attack, and he is falling and on the way down his head bounces against something hard and sharp: the edge of the kitchen counter.

He should have known. Should have been less arrogant, less cavalier. Should at least have had a chain put on the door. And
yet he thought he was invincible, thought that he was the one in control. He has been so stupid, so arrogant.

Now he's down on the floor and he cannot imagine ever being able to stand again. He tries to put up his hands, to beg without
words, to defend himself, but his hands won't obey him either. His body is no longer within his control. With this comes a
new terror: he is utterly helpless.

The shutters . . . the shutters are open. It's dark outside: which means that this whole scene must be illuminated to the
outside world. If someone saw—if someone could come to help—

With a vast effort he opens his eyes, turns and begins to crawl toward the windows. It's so hard. Each time he places a hand
it slips out from under him: it takes a moment for him to realize that this is because the floor is slick with his own blood.
Eventually he reaches the window. He raises himself a little way above the sill, he reaches out a hand and marks a gory handprint
against the pane. Is there someone out there? A face turned up toward him, caught by the light spilling from the windows,
out there in the gloom? His vision is blurring again. He tries to beat his palm, to mouth the word:
HELP
.

And then the pain hits him. It is huge, more overwhelming than anything he has experienced in his life. He can't bear this,
surely: it must be too much. This is where the story ends.

And his last lucid thought is: Jess. Jess will be coming tonight, and no one will be here to meet her. From the moment she
arrives, she too will be in danger.

Morning. I enter the building's stairwell. I've been running for hours. I have no idea how long, actually, or how far I went.
Miles, probably. Normally I'd have the exact stats, would be checking my Garmin obsessively, uploading it all to Strava the
second I'd got back. This morning I can't even be bothered to look. Just needed to clear my head. I only stopped because the
agony in my calf began to cut through everything else—though for a while I almost enjoyed running through the pain. An old
injury: I pushed a Silicon Valley quack to prescribe me oxycodone for it. Which also helped dull the sting when my investments
started to go bad.

On the first floor I hesitate outside the apartment. I knock on the door once, twice—three times. Listen for the sound of
footsteps inside while I take in the scuffed doorframe, the stink of stale cigarette smoke. I linger perhaps a couple of minutes
but there's no answer. He's probably passed out in there in a drunken stupor. Or maybe he's avoiding me . . . I wouldn't be
surprised. I have something I want—need—to say to the guy. But I suppose it'll have to wait.

Then I close the door, start climbing the stairs, my eyes stinging. I lift the hem of my sweat-soaked T-shirt to rub at them,
then carry on up.

I'm just passing by the third-floor apartment when the door is flung open and there she stands: Jess.

“Er—hi,” I say, pushing a hand through my hair.

“Oh,” she says, looking confused. “It looked like you were going upstairs?”

“No,” I say, “No . . . actually, I was coming to see how you were. I meant to say—sorry for running off yesterday. When we
were talking. Did you have any luck tracking Ben down?”

I look at her closely. Her face is pale. No longer the sly little fox she seemed yesterday, now she's a rabbit in the headlamps.

“Jess,” I say. “Are you all right?”

She opens her mouth but for a moment no sound comes out. I get the impression she's fighting some sort of internal battle.
Finally she blurts, “Someone was in here, very early this morning. Someone else must have a key to this apartment.”

“A key?”

“Yeah. They came in and crept around.” Less rabbit-in-the-headlamps now. That tough veneer coming back up.

“What,
into
the apartment? Did they take anything?”

She shrugs, hesitates. “No.”

“Look, Jess,” I say. “It sounds to me like you should speak to the police.”

She screws up her face. “I called them yesterday. They weren't any help.”

“What did they say?”

“That they'd make a record,” she says with an eyeroll. “But then, I don't know why I even bothered. I'm the fucking idiot
who comes to Paris alone, barely able to speak the language. Why I thought they'd take me seriously . . .”

“How much French can you speak?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “Hardly anything. I can just about order a beer, but that's it. Pretty bloody useless, right?”

“Look, why don't I come with you to the
Commissariat
? I'm sure they'd be more helpful if I spoke to them in French.”

She raises her eyebrows. “That would be—well, that would be amazing. Thank you. I'm . . . look, I'm really grateful.” A shrug.
“I'm not good at asking for favors.”

“You didn't ask—I offered. I told you yesterday I want to help. I mean it.”

“Well, thanks.” She tugs at the chain of her necklace. “Can we go soon? I need to get out of this place.”