The Paris Apartment (30 page)

“He's dead. He's dead—you've fucking killed him.”

“I have to go,
chérie
,” I tell Mimi. “I have to go and deal with this.” I step onto the landing, leaving her in the apartment.

I look upward. It has happened. The girl is in the
chambres de bonne
. She's found him.

I remember pushing open the door to his apartment that terrible night. My daughter, covered in blood. She opened her mouth
as though to speak, or scream, but nothing came out.

The concierge was there, too, somehow. But then of course she was: she sees, knows, everything—moving around this apartment
building like a specter. I stood looking at the scene before me in a state of utter shock. Then a strange sense of practicality
took over.

“We need to wash her,” I said. “Get rid of all this blood.” The concierge nodded. She took Mimi by the shoulders and led her
toward the shower. Mimi was muttering a stream of words now: about Ben, about betrayal, about the club. She knew. And for
some reason she had not come to me.

When she was clean the concierge took her away, back to her apartment. I could see my daughter was in a state of shock. I
wanted to go with her, comfort her. But first I had to deal with the consequences of what she had done. The thing, in all
honesty, that I had considered doing myself.

I found and used every tea towel in the apartment. Every towel from the bathroom. All of them, soaked through crimson. I wrenched the curtains down from the windows and wrapped the body in them, tied it carefully with the curtain cords. I hid the weapon in the dumbwaiter, in its secret cavity inside the wall, and wound the handle so it traveled up to a space between the floors.

The concierge brought bleach; I used it to clean up after I'd washed the blood away. Breathing through my mouth so as not
to smell it. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth. I couldn't vomit, I had to stay in control.

The bleach stained the floor, leached the varnish out of the wood. It left a huge mark, even larger than the pooling blood.
But it was the best I could do, better than the alternative.

And then—I don't know how much later—the door opened. It wasn't even locked, I had forgotten that in the face of the task
ahead of me.

They stood there. The two Meunier boys. My stepsons. Nicolas and Antoine. Staring at me in horror. The bleach stain in front
of me, blood up to my elbows. Nick's face drained of all color.

“There's been a terrible accident,” I said.

“Jesus Christ,” Nicolas said, swallowing hard. “Is this because—”

There was a long pause, while I tried to think of what to say. I would not speak Mimi's name. I decided that Jacques could
take the blame, as a father should. This was, after all, really his mess. I settled on: “Your father found out what Ben had
been working on—”

“Oh Jesus.” Nick put his face in his hands. And then he howled, like a small child. A sound of terrible pain. His eyes were
wet, his mouth gaping. “This is all my fault. I told Papa. I told him what Mimi had found, what Ben had been writing. I had
no idea. If I'd known, oh Jesus—”

For a moment, he seemed to sway where he stood. Then he rushed from the room. I heard him vomiting, in the bathroom.

Antoine stood there, arms folded. He looked equally sickened, but I could see he was determined to tough it out.

“Serves him right, the
putain de bâtard
,” he said, finally. “I'd have done it myself.” But he didn't sound convinced.

A few minutes later, Nick returned, looking pale but determined.

The three of us stood there, staring at one another. Never before had we been anything like a family. Now we were oddly united.
No words passed between us, just a silent nod of solidarity. Then we got to work.

Even in my darkest moments over the last couple of days, even learning what Ben had got himself into, I haven't allowed myself
to imagine it. Not finding my brother like this, how I found Mum.

I sink to my knees.

It doesn't look like my brother, the body on the mattress. It isn't just the pale, waxy color of the skin, the sunken eye-sockets.
It's that I've never seen him so still. I can't think of my brother without thinking of his quick grin, his energy.

I take in the dark, rusted crimson color of his T-shirt. I can see that elsewhere the fabric is pale. It's a stain. It covers
his entire front.

He must have been up here all along, all this time, while I've been scurrying around following clues, tying myself in knots.
Thinking I was helping him somehow. And to think I'd seen that locked attic door on my first morning here.

Crouched here beside him, I rock back and forth as the tears begin to fall.

“I'm so sorry,” I say. “I'm so bloody sorry.”

I reach down to take a hold of his hand. When was the last time we held hands, my brother and I? That day in the police station,
maybe. After Mum. Before we went our separate ways. I squeeze his fingers tight.

Then I almost drop his hand in shock.

I could have sworn I felt his fingers twitch against mine. I
know it's my imagination, of course. But for a moment, I really thought—

I glance up. His eyes are open. They weren't open before . . . were they?

I get to my feet, stand over him. Heart thundering.

“Ben?”

I'm sure I just saw him blink.

“Ben?”

Another blink. I didn't imagine it. I can see his eyes attempting to focus on mine. And now he opens his mouth, but no sound
comes out. Then—“Jess.” It's little more than an exhalation, but I definitely heard him say it. He closes his eyes again,
as though he's very, very tired.

“Ben!” I say. “Come on. Hey. Sit up.” It suddenly seems very important to get him upright. I put my arms under his armpits.
He's almost a dead weight. But somehow I manage to haul him into a sitting position. He half slumps forward and his eyes are
cloudy with confusion, but they are open.

“Oh, Ben.” I take hold of his shoulders—I don't dare hug him in case he's too badly hurt. Tears are streaming down my face
now; I let them fall. “Oh my God, Ben: you're alive . . . you're alive.” I hear a door slam behind me. It's the door to the
attic. For a moment I had genuinely forgotten about anything and anyone else.

I turn around, slowly.

Sophie Meunier stands there. Behind her: Nick. And even though I'm reeling from everything that's just happened, I'm still
able to make out that there's a big difference in their expressions. Sophie's face is an intense, terrifying mask. But Nick's,
as he looks at Ben, shows surprise, horror, confusion. In fact, Nick looks—and this is the only way I can think to describe
it—as though he has seen a ghost.

I feel dread creeping through me as I take in the scene in the attic. I ran up here when I heard the screaming, after dragging
Antoine, semi-conscious, to the sofa in my apartment.

He's here. Ben is here. He doesn't look well, but he is sitting up. And he is alive.

This can't be right. It doesn't make any sense. It's not possible.

Ben is dead. He's been dead since Friday night. My one-time friend, my old university mate, the guy I fell for on that warm
summer night in Amsterdam over a decade ago and have been thinking about ever since.

He died and it was my fault and in the days since I have been trying to live with the guilt and the grief of it: walking around
feeling only barely alive myself.

I look to my stepmother, expecting to see my own shock reflected in her expression. It isn't there. This doesn't seem to have
come as a surprise to her. She knows. It's the only explanation. Why else would she be so calm?

Finally I manage to speak. “What is this?” I ask, voice hoarse. “What is this? What the fuck is happening?” I point to Ben.
“This isn't possible. He's dead.”

You see, I know it for a fact. I had plenty of time to take it all in: the unspeakable horror of that lifeless shape in its makeshift
shroud. The undeniable fact of it. Of the blood, too, spilled across the floorboards and soaked into the towels: far more blood than anyone could lose and live. But it's more than that. Three nights ago, Antoine and I carried his body down the stairs and dug a shallow trench and buried him in the courtyard garden.

It has all gone so quiet now, after the scream up above. What is going on? What has she found?

This is the part I remember. After this there is nothing, until the blood.

It was late and I was tired from all the thoughts whirring around my brain, but couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about
what I had read. What I saw. Ben—and my mother. I'd destroyed my paintings of him. But it didn't feel like enough. I could
see him over there in his apartment, working away at his computer. But it was all different now. I knew what he was writing
about and the thought of it made me feel sick, all over again. I could never un-know it. Even if I tried not to believe it.
But I think I do. I think I do believe it. The hushed tones everyone uses when they talk about Papa's business. Things I've
heard Antoine say. It was all beginning to make a horrible kind of sense.

Ben came to the window and looked out. I ducked out of sight, so he wouldn't spot me. Then I went back to watching.

He moved back to his desk, looking at his phone, holding it to his ear. But then he looked up. Turned his head. He began to
stand. The door was opening. Someone was stepping into the room.

Oh—merde.

Putain de merde.

What was he doing there?

It was Papa.

He wasn't meant to be home.

When did he get back? And what was he doing in Ben's apartment?

Papa had something in his hands. I recognized it: it was the magnum of wine he had given Ben as a present only a few weeks
earlier.

He was going to—

I couldn't bear to keep looking. But at the same time I couldn't look away. I watched as Ben crumpled to his knees. As Papa
raised the bottle again and again. I watched as Ben staggered backward, as he collapsed onto the floor, as blood began to
soak into the front of his pale T-shirt, turning the whole thing red. And I knew it was all my fault.

Ben crawled toward the window. I watched as he raised his hand, hit his palm against the glass. And then he mouthed a word:
Help
.

I saw my father raise the bottle again. And I knew what was going to happen. He was going to kill him.

I had to do something. I loved him. Ben had betrayed me. He had destroyed my whole world. But I loved him.

I reached for the nearest thing at hand. And then I ran down the stairs so quickly it felt as though my feet weren't even
touching the ground. The door to Ben's apartment was open and Papa was standing over him and I just had to make him stop—I
had to make him stop and at the same time maybe there was a little voice inside me saying: he's not really your papa, this
man. And he's not a good man. He's done some terrible things. And now he's about to become a killer too.

Ben was on the ground and his eyes were closed. And then I was behind Papa—he hadn't seen me, hadn't heard me creep into
the room—and I had my canvas cutting knife in my hand and it's small but the blade is sharp, so very sharp, and I raised it above my head . . .

And then nothing.

And then the blood.

Later, I thought I heard the sound of voices in the courtyard. I heard the scrape of shovels. It didn't make any sense. Maman
likes to garden, but it was dark, nighttime. Why was she doing it now? It couldn't be real: it had to be a dream. Or some
kind of nightmare.

I remember leaving Papa's study after I had told him what Ben had been up to, what he was writing about. I had called him
home, told him there was something he needed to hear. As I descended the staircase I thought about the look on his face. The
barely controlled rage. A charge of fear that returned me to childhood; when he wore that expression it was time to make yourself
scarce. But at the same time I felt a frisson of perverse pleasure, too. At bursting the Benjamin Daniels bubble. At showing
Papa that his famous judgment wasn't always as sound as he thought, tarnishing the golden boy he had briefly seemed to hold
closer than his own sons. I had betrayed Ben, yes, but in a much smaller way than he had betrayed me and my family's hospitality.
He had it coming.

Any feeling of triumph soured quickly. Suddenly I wanted to be numb. I went and took four of the little blue pills and lay
in my apartment in an oxycodone haze.

Maybe I was aware of some kind of commotion upstairs, I don't know—it was like it was happening in another universe. But after
a while, as the pills began to wear off, I thought perhaps I should go and see what was going on.

I met Antoine on the stairs. Could smell the booze on him: he must have been passed out in yet another drunken stupor.

“What the fuck's happening?” he asked. His tone was gruff, but there was something fearful in his expression.

“I have no idea,” I said. This wasn't quite true. Already, an unnameable suspicion was forming in my mind. We climbed to the third floor together.

The blood. That was the first thing I saw. So much of it. Sophie in the middle of it all.

“
There's been a terrible accident.
” That was what she told us.

I knew in an instant that this was my fault. I had set all of this in motion. I knew what kind of man my father was. I should
have known what he might be driven to do. But I had been so blinded by my own anger, my sense of betrayal. I had told myself
I was protecting my family. But I also wanted to lash out. To hurt Ben somehow. But this . . . the blood, that terrible, inert
form wrapped in the curtain shroud. I could not look at it.

In the bathroom I vomited as though I could expel the horror like something I had eaten. But of course it did not leave me.
It was part of me now.

Somehow I pulled myself together. Ben was beyond help. I knew I had to do this, now, for the survival of the family.

The terrible weight of the body in my arms. But none of it felt real. Part of me thought that if I looked at Ben's face it
would make it real. Perhaps that was important, for some sort of closure. But in the end I couldn't bring myself to do it.
To undo all that tight binding, to confront what lay beneath.

So you see, this is what happened. Three nights ago Ben died—and we buried him.

Didn't we?