Apartment 16 (24 page)

The people here didn’t need to dream of such terrible things. They lived among them.

TWENTY-TWO

Seth entered his room at the Green Man. In the dark, in the sudden stench of turpentine, he shrugged off his overcoat and let it fall to the sheets he had laid over the floor. He was almost hallucinating from sleep deprivation; felt like he could just lie down on the greasy dust sheets in his clothes and pass out. He’d been pushing himself too hard. Needed to sleep all day before the next shift. The strain of having just spent another two hours in apartment sixteen made him clutch both sides of his skull as if to still the carousel of wretchedness screaming through his mind. He thought of the blood-mired surgeons who amputated limbs for hours after battles. Reaching behind, he felt for the light fitting, then flicked the switch on. And fell against the door.

He stared at the wall over the radiator and at the section above the fireplace. At yesterday’s work, at the things he’d painted before leaving for Barrington House. They punched him to immobility and left him breathless. They’d been waiting for him to come home.

He knew in an instant that these were the sorts of things the criminally insane produced in prison, where he might very well end his days. They looked like the nightmares that make you wake up with a gasp and then leave you nervous all day.

Animal teeth filled the stretched mouths. Pupils red with pain and rage were directed right at him, the creator. And what were these things that walked on their hind legs but looked like apes with doggish faces? Hyena snouts and jackal laughter, piggish eyes and cattle-bone limbs: this was the work of a broken mind.

His genius. His attempts to mimic the work in apartment sixteen. Distorting the individual into fragments. Shattering the sense of being whole in an ordered universe. But all he had done was mortify and then shatter himself. In a cold and damning moment of clarity, he wondered if perhaps these were not images of any hidden truth, but only the suggestions of how a deeply disturbed mind sees itself.

He experienced a sudden hot desire to mutilate himself with a knife before erasing his face against a wall.

Falling to his knees, his eyes and teeth and fists clenched hard, he bit down on the hysteria that tried to burn its way up his throat. ‘Jesus, God. Jesus, God. Jesus, God. What am I?’ he muttered and then began to sob. He’d never seen so many tears. His soul was sick and melting away through his eyes.

The murk and dross inside his reddish thoughts were briefly rinsed away by the scalding salt of his grief, allowing him to think as he had once done so long ago. To know himself again for a moment. Something resembling free will, some final shred of his former self, seemed to have been washed clean. A tiny bright place within him grew in proportion to the dull mackerel light silvering the thin curtains.

But then he turned and saw the little girl with the tear-streaked face sitting up by his pillows, watching the door. Always watching the door.

He walked across to the curtains, his breath sobbing in and out of him. A small part of him still clung on to a denial that such things could exist, and on to a belief that his exhaustion was just inserting part of his sickened and subconscious mind into his waking eyes. He would open the curtains and the window and take a deep breath and then, when he turned around, that tear-stained face would no longer be looking at the door.

But when he drew the curtain, his eyes were immediately pulled down to the scruffy yard at the back of the Green Man. Beneath whatever the adjacent apartment block had been built over, it seemed that a small assembly of former tenants were looking up at him from out of hollow sockets. Behind the railings and inside the little concrete moat outside the basement flats, he saw fragments of things whitish and indistinct reaching up to claw at the cold metal bars. The angle of their heads and the movement of the papery mouths suggested to him that they had suddenly seen a curtain twitch above them, and were now eager to engage the help of whoever was looking down upon their wretched state.

He let the curtains drop and stumbled back to the bed with his eyes clenched shut. Slapped off the lights. Then curled up at the foot of the mattress and whimpered.

‘Me dad’s coming soon. He told me to wait,’ the girl said.

TWENTY-THREE

Behind the large desk Piotr moved heavily to his feet and wiped at his forehead. ‘Hello Miss Apryl. How can I help you today? Maybe the umbrella it is you need?’

It was raining again and she’d been caught in a downpour walking to Knightsbridge from Bayswater. Her mood had slipped further into the black when she’d seen Piotr grinning behind the desk. She’d been hoping for Stephen. ‘Sorry, I’m dripping on the carpet.’ Slowly, she warmed up after the chill from the wind and the heavy burst of rain outside, leaving her slightly dizzy in the heat of the lobby.

All about her brass door handles sparkled. Glass shone on the doors and picture frames. And the thick clean carpets beneath the heels of her boots made her feel self-conscious about tramping dirt inside. This part of the building was immaculate – dust free and show-home lit – but still unable to conceal the fragrance of age that seeped down from elsewhere. The reception area was nothing but a front. Behind this little capsule of bright light and warmth she could already sense the sepia gloom of its stairwells and rotten apartments, waiting up there to frighten her. How soon her impression of the place had changed. Staying in the hotel room and taking a few days out to explore the city had given her a distance, put her back in touch with herself, and now just the merest whiff of Barrington House made her remember the fear and confusion of her nights here.

But not long now and she would be free of the place. The cleaners would be in this week and then the estate agents. After that she’d never have to come back here again. Ever.

‘Got caught in quite a storm out there,’ she laughed and patted at her hair; the rain had flattened it. ‘I never know what the weather’s doing in this city. The sky was blue when I left Bayswater.’

She kept up her smile, but the affability of the fat porter failed to put her at ease. It always felt like he was making a pass. He came around the desk and stood too close, one hand reaching out to take her elbow. ‘Please. Sit down. You must rest, no?’ His shirt seemed too tight again, as if the collar was squeezing his round head up and out of his body, and then strangling him.

She took a step to the side and placed one hand on top of the desk to regain her personal space. ‘I’m fine. Just a bit damp.’ She put her bag on the counter, patted her leather coat down and then removed her black gloves. She couldn’t avoid Piotr today; she needed him.

He maintained a constant and irritating banter. ‘You know, it is nice to be in the warm and dry, no? And I am always happy to let the beautiful ladies come inside from the weather, yes?’ He finished with a loud, excitable laugh.

It was becoming difficult to maintain the smile. But what she intended to do was invasive. She had shown up in the rain to interrogate the staff, and potentially a long-term resident, for information about apartment sixteen. She knew from Stephen that these exclusive apartment buildings in west London were often havens where the wealthy and famous expected the strictest privacy and security. Porters were forbidden to give out any pertinent information about the residents or the building. Stephen told her kidnap was now an ever-present danger for the children of the wealthy.

‘So what can I do to help you, Miss Apryl? Today I am the happy man because of the pay day see? So anything at all I am happy to do for you.’

‘Well, I have a strange request.’

Piotr slapped one hand over his heart. ‘At last the day is a here. When the beautiful lady comes into the Barrington House and say she have a request for me, no?’

Don’t push it, fat boy.
‘I don’t know whether you know, but this building has some history. You see, a painter lived here. A man called Felix Hessen.’ Without revealing the fact that he lived in number sixteen, Apryl watched Piotr’s face for traces of recognition, but it remained blank and slightly distracted as if he was merely thinking of the next thing to say to her. Before he could interrupt, she told him of her research into her great-aunt’s life and of her desire to speak with a long-term resident, someone who had lived in the building since just after the Second World War.

‘Ahh.’ He raised one finger in the air. ‘I think there are two peoples that live here after the war, no? Mrs Roth and the Shafers. Very, very old now, yes? But their nurses tell Piotr that they live here oh so long ago.’

‘That’s amazing. My great-aunt said she was friends with Mrs Roth, and Mr and Mrs Shafer. How do you spell those names?’

He moved back behind the desk and opened a leather-bound ledger on the desktop.

One of his plump fingers moved down a list of names and telephone numbers stored beneath the laminated pages of the desk ledger.

Quickly, she leant over the desk. Her eyes became frantic, flicking up and down the names and searching for apartment and telephone numbers. She looked at the place in the ledger where Piotr’s index finger had paused:
Mrs Roth,
followed by three phone numbers. One was next to what had been misspelled as
Dawter,
another was next to
Nerse,
and the third read
Landline.
This was an 0207 number and she quickly committed it to memory while fishing for her cell phone.

While Piotr talked quickly about them meeting for ‘the coffee, no? To speak about the history and the aunt Lillian, yes?’ she smiled and nodded, half-listening but trying to screen out the sound of his voice while she quickly added Mrs Roth’s number to the address book of her phone. When she caught Piotr studying her, she raised the phone to her ear, as if to listen to a message. ‘Sorry, I have to listen to this. A voicemail.’ She rolled her eyes as if irritated. After a suitable pause she snapped the lid of the phone shut, shaking her head. ‘Not what I thought.’ Then looked into Piotr’s eyes and smiled.

He went into a diatribe about ‘the mobile’, while her eyes scoured the page of the open ledger again to find the Shafers. There it was: number twelve, with one phone number given, which she also rehearsed and then surreptitiously inputted into her cell phone by holding it below the top of the desk.

‘It is not so good at this time to speak to Mrs Roth and the Shafers.’ Piotr beamed and held out his arms. Then closed his eyes. ‘Ahh, but I will surely tell them that you asked about the aunt Lillian, no? In the mornings they don’t like to be disturbed. Maybe if we meet and you tell me the interesting story about the aunt Lillian, then I can say to them: hey, I know this really nice lady who comes to our lovely building and is the relative of Lillian. Then I think they might say the yes, no?’

‘No.’ She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice. But then softened it to say, ‘I don’t have time. I’m very busy with sorting out the apartment and seeing . . . friends in the evening. I can catch up with these people another time.’

Maybe the Shafers and Mrs Roth would be annoyed when she called. They’d already refused to see her once. It was all such a long shot. But it was a shot she had to take if she was to validate anything in Lillian’s journals. Miles had said as much in the bar in Notting Hill the night before. After reading a few of Lillian’s journals he was suddenly very keen for her to find out whether anyone had seen Hessen’s paintings in Barrington House before he disappeared. For an art historian, this kind of information would be a coup.

Apryl was shepherded by Piotr up to the door that connected the lobby to the east wing. Close to her, his breath was unpleasantly warm on her face and neck, and the broken-English banter was relentless, insistent, until she practically fell into the sombre elevator to escape the bulbous shape beaming through the glass of the doors as they slid shut. He mimed the holding up of a phone, while showing her all of his little square teeth.

She half-turned and pretended not to see his hand signals. But then saw something else from the corner of her eye. She glimpsed it in the mirror at the back of the carriage. Something moving quickly behind her shoulder. Tall and thin and whitish, it rapidly vanished from her line of sight.

Sucking in her breath, she lurched around to see the gleaming but empty carriage. Nothing there but her. ‘Jesus,’ she said, breathing out. Then looked at the panel, as the elevator made what felt like a deliberately slow ascent. Six, seven . . . come on . . . eight . . . nine. And why wasn’t the door opening now? It hadn’t ever taken this long before, had it?

With a swish the doors finally opened and she rushed out of the carriage, looking back over her shoulder, at herself in the elevator’s mirror, at her frightened pale face. A face with an expression she’d only ever seen before in the mirrors of Barrington House.

‘Who is this? What do you want?’ The tone of voice was as unsettling as the smashing of crockery on a tiled floor.

Apryl cleared her throat, but the thin voice that slipped out was not one she cared to recognize as her own. ‘I’m . . . Er, my name is—’

‘Will you speak up! I can’t hear you.’ Mrs Roth’s voice rose beyond annoyance. Elderly, sharpened by age, too brittle for warmth, it instantly made her want to hang up.

‘Mrs Roth.’ She raised her voice, but couldn’t banish the tremor from her words. ‘I hope you don’t mind me disturbing you, but—’

‘Of course I do. Who are you?’ In the background she could hear the music from a television show.

‘My name is Apryl Beckford, and I’m—’

‘What are you saying?’ the old woman shouted, adding, ‘I don’t know who it is’ to someone who must have been in the room with her. ‘No! Don’t touch it. Leave it! Leave it!’ she shouted at the other occupant.

‘The television. Perhaps you should turn the television down,’ Apryl prompted.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m watching it now. There’s nothing wrong with it. Stephen fixed it for me. I’m not interested in anything you have to sell.’ The phone hit the cradle with a sound like a stone hitting a windshield.

Apryl winced and listened to the dialling tone for a few seconds, too stunned to move.

Three hours later, sitting on the bed in Lillian’s bedroom, she called again. This time there was no sound of a television booming in the background. Instead, the woman sounded as if she’d just been roused from sleep.

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, I hope I didn’t wake you.’

‘You did.’ The words uncurled like something dark and mean, and in her mind Apryl saw small cruel eyes narrowing. ‘I don’t sleep at night. I’m not well. How can I sleep?’

‘I’m very sorry to hear about that, Mrs Roth. I hope you get well soon.’

‘What do you want?’ The question was more of a bark than a sentence.

‘I’m . . .’ Her mind went blank. ‘Well, I’m calling because—’

‘What are you saying? You’re making no sense.’

Then shut your mouth, you evil bitch, and I’ll make some sense.
‘I’m very interested in Barrington House, Mrs Roth. The history. You see—’

‘What’s it got to do with me? I don’t want to buy anything from you.’

Apryl imagined the phone crashing down again and braced herself. ‘I’m not selling anything. I’m the niece of Lillian Archer, Mrs Roth. I’m just trying to find out about her. I never knew her. And I believe you’ve lived here for a long time. I would really like to talk with you because I’m sure you have some very interesting stories. Especially about the artist—’

‘Artist. What do you mean, artist?’

‘Erm. A man called Felix Hessen. He lived—’

‘I know where he lived. What are you trying to do? Frighten me? I’m not well. I’m old. And it’s a cruel thing to call me and remind me of him. How dare you?’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, ma’am. Only, I’m visiting here from America to sort out my great-aunt’s—’

‘I’m not interested in America!’

Apryl closed her eyes and shook her head. What was wrong with these people? Apart from Miles, every tenuous connection to Hessen led her to the unstable, the dysfunctional and the senile. It was wearing her out. It was impossible to communicate with them. They didn’t listen. She was just there to function as an audience for their craziness. She took a deep breath. ‘You don’t have to be interested in America. Please, just listen to me. It’s quite simple really. I’m not trying to sell anything. Nor am I trying to frighten you.’ Irritation gave a force to her words.

‘You don’t have to shout, dear. It’s not very nice.’

Apryl bit her bottom lip. ‘I just want to talk to someone who knew my great-aunt, and the artist Felix Hessen. She wrote about him a lot. Nothing more. Just a conversation.’

And then an extraordinary thing happened that filled Apryl with remorse at having raised her voice to this confused and elderly lady she’d woken from a nap. Mrs Roth’s voice quivered with emotion and then thickened with a sob. ‘He was an awful man. And I can’t sleep because of him. He’s doing it again.’

‘Mrs Roth, please don’t cry. I’m sorry I upset you. I just want to speak to someone who was here when Lillian was alive.’

The crotchety voice disintegrated into a few frail words interspersed with sniffs. ‘I can still hear him. I’ve told them downstairs.’

Apryl struggled to comprehend what she was being told. ‘Mrs Roth, I’m sorry you’re upset. You sound so sad. My aunt was too. Because of him.’

‘Well I am, dear. And you would be too. You believe me, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do. Of course I do. And talking to someone might help. I think you need a new friend, Mrs Roth.’

Somewhere in the apartment, the metronome of a clock’s hand struck a steely echo that travelled like sad tidings throughout the empty rooms. But she couldn’t see the clock or seem to be able to get any closer to the far-off sound. And it was still hard to believe homes like this existed in Barrington House: peeling and faded with neglect from floor to ceiling, room after room.

As the small Filipino nurse, Imee, scurried ahead of her, Apryl found herself in a daze, dawdling down the long hallway of Mrs Roth’s apartment, the soles of her boots landing hard against the worn carpet. It might have been blue once, but was now threadbare and grey.

To the side of the hatstand and telephone table, a small and aged kitchen presented itself, cramped with an old enamel cooker and refrigerator. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years.