Apartment 16 (26 page)

Mrs Roth covered as much of her face as possible with the handkerchief and sobbed. When she spoke again her voice was broken. ‘I went down with Lilly to help. He’d had a terrible accident . . . His face was all gone . . . Down to the bone.

‘They took him away. We thought he would die. No one could have survived those injuries. And no one knew what had happened to him. He must . . . he must have done it to himself.

‘But he came back. Months later. With his whole head in bandages. And there was a nurse, who he dismissed a few days later. Some of us even sent flowers and cards to the wretched man. We knew he was in there, but he wouldn’t come to the door. Like before, he just wanted to be left alone. So we left him alone. At least until it began again. And the next time it was worse than before.

‘He was evil. I told you that. And now I have them again. The nightmares. They killed Reginald and Arthur. It was the dreams, dear. No one would believe me now, but we knew then. He killed them both.’

Apryl couldn’t remain silent any longer. ‘How, Mrs Roth? I thought he was just a painter.’

‘No. No. No,’ she shook her head, the rims of her eyes now inflamed. ‘I told you. He was all wrong. Evil. I never knew anyone could be so bad, dear. He should never have come here. I don’t remember why he did. But he ruined the building. Killed it.’

‘How, Mrs Roth? My great-aunt wrote the same things. What did he do?’

‘The shadows have come back to the stairs. We could never get rid of them then, and they’re back here now. They changed the lights but it never made any difference. People stopped coming here. People left. But some of us refused to let him ruin our home. It was such a wonderful place until he came here.’

‘Did you see . . . his paintings?’

Mrs Roth nodded. ‘Horrible things. You’ve no idea. He didn’t know what beauty was. He made us all dream of them. We thought the Colonel was going gaga. He used to live here, the Colonel. And Mrs Melbourne. They saw them first. At night, dear.

‘People took pills and went to doctors. Real doctors. Not like you have now, dear. They don’t know anything now. They’re bloody fools. But even our doctors could do nothing for anyone who had the dreams. Reginald had them next. And Lilly. Then me. I was only young.’ She began to weep again and to squeeze at Apryl’s hands.

‘What were they? I don’t understand. What were the dreams?’

‘I can’t say. I don’t know how to. But he made us see things. You think I’m mad, don’t you?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Yes you do. You think I’m a silly old woman. I’m not.’

‘No. No.’ Apryl rubbed Mrs Roth’s back, to which she responded with a surge of sobs.

She began to sniff and talk at the same time, in a tearful voice. ‘The voices came out of that flat and onto the stairs and into our rooms. Arthur and I used to sit together and hear them. There was never anyone there, but we could always hear them around us. Anywhere near his flat, you could hear the things he brought with him. They came out of there.’ Again, she pointed a twisted hand at the floor.

‘Oh, it was terrible.’ Mrs Roth began to speak in bursts between her sobs. Apryl moved her head closer as it was becoming difficult to make out exactly what she was saying. ‘And Mrs Melbourne jumped from the roof. I saw her down there in the garden. She hit the wall. She wasn’t the last to do it either.’ The last sentence she spoke softly and with a genuine remorse that shook her words, but she wouldn’t or couldn’t look at Apryl as she spoke.

‘Oh, Mrs Roth. I’m so sorry. They were your friends. It must have been terrible.’

‘You have no idea. It was his fault. He did it.’

‘With his paintings?’

Mrs Roth drew a deep breath and swallowed a sob. She nodded, once. ‘They confronted him. Reginald and Tom and Arthur. They went to see him, dear. They were so angry, you can’t imagine. We were all going mad with it. So the men went to his flat because he wouldn’t receive our telephone calls and wouldn’t answer letters from the management. The men took keys from the head porter and let themselves inside.

‘And . . . and he looked terrible. They said his head was all wrapped up in something. Over his face he wore this mask. It was red. Cloth. And through it they could see the terrible shape of his face, dear. It was so tight on his face. No one knew what to say. But Reginald tried to be calm. Asked him what it was he thought he was doing to our home.

‘He laughed at them. He just laughed. They were very reasonable. They were all good men. But he just laughed. His face in this . . . this red thing. They could only see his eyes.

‘And then the men saw them again. On the walls. What he’d been doing in there for so long. They were worse than before. All the terrible things from our dreams. The paintings . . .’

‘What were they like? Please tell me. Please.’

‘And then Reginald lost his temper. They . . .’

‘They?’

Mrs Roth sat up in her bed and released Apryl’s hand. The sobbing and sniffing stopped abruptly, and her face froze back into a grim facade. ‘I’m tired.’

‘But . . . I mean, you were telling me . . . about the paintings?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. It’s not important.’

‘But you were so upset. I want to understand.’

‘It’s none of your business. I want Imee. Imee. Where’s my bell? It’s time for me to eat. You shouldn’t visit at mealtimes. It’s rude.’ The bell was ringing next to Apryl’s ear, the action deliberate, she felt.

She moved back to the chair to collect her things. Then turned to speak as Imee came through the door – but Apryl found herself too bewildered by Mrs Roth’s story to move her lips. And it was clear the woman was terrified and had told her far more than she ever intended to.

Apryl moved quickly from the bedside, only looking behind once she reached the safety of the doorway to see Imee beside the bed, bent by the force of the shrieked reprimands issuing from amongst the pillows.
A cushion over that old face would not be unreasonable.
Apryl felt shocked at the presence of such a thought that did not feel like one of her own.

She would let herself out.
What kind of woman lets herself out, dear?
Relief to be away from the dreadful woman pushed her down the aged hallway, and excitement at the revelations she would recount to Miles made her nimbler in her high-heeled boots. Until she opened the front door and passed through onto the landing.

With a breath-stealing suddenness, there was a quick flurry of whitish motion on her left side. Cringing, she sucked in air so fast she issued a tiny shriek. Then looked past the gloved hand she had raised to fend the thing off. In her peripheral vision she’d seen a flapping shape speeding towards her, with a smear of red above what could only have been bony shoulders.

And as she peered through her gloved fingers at the large polished mirror on the wall opposite the elevator, there was a brief billow of something white within the gilt frame. Which made her turn about swiftly to see the origin of the reflection on her right side.

Terrified she had flinched at a reflection and not the actual assailant, she staggered back two steps and braced herself for the impact.

But there was no one on the landing with her. She scoured the stairwells and elevator door for what had come rushing at her, but nothing moved, with the exception of the rapid ascent and descent of her own chest that struggled to take a breath.

TWENTY-FOUR

‘What are you doing?’

The sharp voice pierced him from behind. Seth didn’t even need to turn to identify who had caught him unlocking the door of apartment sixteen. It was a voice he’d heard on the house phone most nights for the last six months. But when he did turn to face Mrs Roth and saw her dressed in a pale blue housecoat and red slippers, the childlike vulnerability had gone, along with the frailty and confusion she exhibited last time they met, outside this very door. Now her hair was perfect; the bulb of thin silver covering the mottled skull hadn’t even touched the pillow. She’d sat up all night waiting for the sounds to begin.

Panicked at being caught trespassing – he could be sacked for entering this flat, and would be blamed for the noises coming out of it – Seth tried to speak. But failed, muted by his own fear. Mrs Roth would be sure to tell Stephen first thing at daybreak, if not before. She wasn’t just angry; she was furious at the sight of him before that door with keys in hand. Her face was red, her bottom lip trembling with emotion, the small eyes sharpened by rage. She raised her arm, the elbow bent, the quilted sleeve of her housecoat slipping down an emaciated forearm, stained with blue veins and continents of liverish discolorations.

‘I asked you a question. What are you doing?’ Her voice rose as she spoke until she was shouting. It could carry. He wanted to shut her up, but was powerless to act, to placate her. She was too clever. Too aware of the weakness of others, of his lowly status, and of her instant advantage as a resident. Too eager to expose and torment.

Seth swallowed. ‘I heard something. I thought someone had broken in.’

‘Liar. You are a liar. It’s you. You! You make the noises in there. I knew it! You do it to frighten me because you know I am upstairs. You are a terrible man to frighten an old woman. I want Stephen now. Call Stephen. Now!’

He felt sick. Couldn’t dislodge that huge lump of fear clogged behind his breastbone. It was like being a kid again. She always flustered him.

Bitch.

The very sight of her filled him with a rage of such intensity he imagined smashing her dried-up stick body against a wall. That idiotically big head, the threadbare hair, the pointy, vicious face above that child-puppet body of old sticks and loose flesh: why couldn’t she die? Her own family despised her. She couldn’t keep a nurse for more than a month. Reduced them to tears every day. No one could work for her. Or stand her. She had even driven the taciturn Stephen grey with her impossible demands.

Seth felt himself go white with loathing from head to toe. An antipathy that frightened him; the kind that would astonish him once it passed. Something he regularly experienced now, but never grew accustomed to; he’d never before been able to hate with such intensity, or to create from it with such integrity. And didn’t she understand that he had no choice – that something far greater than him was calling him up here to study its genius?

At last he found his tongue, but managed to suppress the anger, quickly thinking of a tactic to sidestep this mess. ‘I am responsible for the health and safety of the residents in this building at night. And I am sick of the noises in here.’ He jabbed a finger at the door. ‘And I can do nothing because of some stupid rule about the key. And you phone every night complaining to me about the noises in the empty flat beneath you. It’s gone on for too long, Mrs Roth. And tonight, I decided to go inside. So phone Stephen if you want. I really don’t care. Because I’ve had enough.’

At first she seemed startled that anyone would dare to take such a defiant tone with her. But the anger gradually softened from her face, only to be replaced with an expression of suspicion as she regarded him in silence, and thought on what he’d said. After a few seconds of deliberation, she raised the crooked hand again, showed him her big knuckles and fingers lumpy with arthritis. ‘Don’t you lie to me. You have been going in there. At night. And moving things. Making noises.’

Seth did his best to muster a stance of impotent frustration. It wasn’t hard, he’d had plenty of practice. He shook his head, stared at the ceiling as if to beseech a higher power. This had to be good; even though most of the sting had gone from her voice. ‘Mrs Roth, you believe what you want to believe. I am only doing my job. Would you rather I sat downstairs and ignored a break-in? So be it.’ He locked the door and walked towards the stairs.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked, the bent finger jabbing the air again.

‘I’m going back downstairs, Mrs Roth. Isn’t that what you want?’

‘Don’t be a bloody idiot. Get it open. I want to see for myself. Go on, open it. Now.’

He tried to fight a smile. He could tell Stephen she forced him to open the flat because of the noises, and that he only entered the apartment to finally shut her up. He should have called first, but he didn’t want to wake Stephen, knowing how tough he had it with Janet being so sick and everything. Maybe he and Stephen could keep it between themselves. Didn’t they have an arrangement of sorts, anyway? So what was the point of making trouble?

But what would Mrs Roth think of the paintings? He imagined her pale with shock, moments before the impact of a stroke; envisaged some tiny black blood vessel inside that heavy brain, its hard wall cracking, springing a lethal leak.

And she would ruin everything if she survived the ordeal of looking at them, by shrieking her ignorant complaints at Stephen. Seth might be fired; no head porter job for him. At the very least, the locks would be changed and the door alarmed. Sealed off from him. His access would be over.

Why tonight? Why did she have to make her move tonight? He was desperate to see the last room. Terrified, but alert to the potential of its influence on his own work, back at the Green Man. On the walls. Wet on the walls. So vivid. Something to bring the London art world to its knees. Oh yes, he was having his doubts. Was sick with fear at what he was doing, what he was becoming, what he was seeing inside his very home . . . But an artist must be courageous, and what was flowing from his hands was too spectacular to deny.

‘You bloody fool! I own the flat, it’s my property. Get it open. I’m telling you to open that door. Do as you are told.’

He started to fret again. To taste panic at the back of his mouth. He removed the keys from his pocket. Fumbled with them. But how was this possible? How did Mrs Roth own this place and the ghastly wonders inside it?

And then another voice spoke. From the stairwell, behind Mrs Roth. A voice he also knew well, its words coming from the cold, windy shadows of deserted council flats, from the rain-blurred streets of Hackney, and from the dim horrors inside the rooms of the Green Man. His hooded companion had returned. ‘Go on, Seth. Open it up for the old lady. There’s someone down there who wants to see her. An old friend, like. She’ll be taken care of. She’ll get what’s coming.’

Inside the mouth of the stairwell and half-obscured by the wall, Seth glimpsed the lowered cowl of nylon hood. The face was lost in darkness and the melted hands were tucked away in the rustling oversized pockets.

She’ll get what’s coming.

What did he mean? Seth felt sick.

‘Give them to me! Get out of my way!’ Mrs Roth came across the landing, quick on those clawed feet for an old lady. Her face animated by fury at his indecision, one of her lumpy hands snatched for the bunch of keys.

He held them up, out of her reach. Stared down at her, keeping his voice even. ‘Please. Would you just let me do my job?’

It was no use; she gave him no choice. He slid the frontdoor key inside the lock. He was not responsible.

‘Hurry up. Hurry. Why are you just standing there?’

Seth unlocked the door and pushed it open. He stood there and stared into the darkness in front of him. A cold draught wiped across his face and made his neck shiver.

Around his elbow he felt the clutch of her hand. Despite her anger and the way she had spoken to him, she still expected to be escorted in there. And protected.

He glanced down at her. Could see how agitated she had become. How frightened she was of the place. What did she know about it? She knew something. She’d lived in this building since the Second World War, and must have known the former resident of this apartment. They had been neighbours. And now she owned the flat.

Seth led her into the darkness, pausing inside the front door to reach for the lights. Into the hallway came the crimson glow.

‘Don’t they work? It’s so dark. Have you got a torch?’

So her eyes weren’t that good. No surprises there; she was nearly a hundred. Seth looked over his shoulder quickly. The hooded boy stood on the landing, watching.

‘Leave the door open. I don’t like it,’ Mrs Roth muttered. ‘Can you see anything?’ The strength had gone from her voice. Now she was just a frightened old lady, squeezing his elbow. Asking for reassurance. How could he ever have been afraid of her?

And yes, Seth could see everything: the paintings covered by the dirty ivory sheets, hung upon red walls, and all lit by the dim rose light silting through patterned glass. Just as he’d left it. But Mrs Roth didn’t appear to notice the paintings, which he thought odd. She was still complaining about the dark. Pressing herself against him, her head only rising to his bottom rib. A flicker of sympathy caught in his chest before he banished it, knowing this was no mark of friendship between them, or of respect. She despised him. She needed him now, that was all. In the morning she’d be reporting him to Stephen. Ruining everything between him and the treasures in this sacred place.

‘Can you see anyone?’ Her voice was shaky and imploring. Then she called out, ‘Who’s there?’ into the darkness; the obtuse tone was back in place, but seemed to lose its power inside the hallway.

‘Mrs Roth, who lived here?’

‘A terrible man,’ she said. The strength in her voice was slipping away again. She sounded confused and frightened. Misery and fear combined to sag around her mouth, to bow her head, as if she were being forced to remember something acutely painful. She seemed more stooped over than ever before. ‘We don’t want him coming back.’

He led her down to the middle of the hallway, aware of her breathing, that seemed laboured, as if she were enduring some strenuous exertion as opposed to merely wandering on slippered feet between these red walls. Walls she took no notice of. He heard her whimper.

‘An artist lived here, didn’t he, Mrs Roth?’

Mrs Roth said nothing as she looked at the closed doors.

‘Someone you didn’t like. Probably didn’t understand. So tell me, Mrs Roth, who was he, this terrible man? And what did you do to him?’

‘I don’t want to think of him. Don’t ask me again. I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to remember him. Not in here. I bought this place to get rid of him.’ And then, her voice practically a whisper, ‘After he’d already left.’

‘What did he do, Mrs Roth?’

‘Shut up!’ she suddenly shrieked, then pointed at the door to the mirrored room. ‘In there. Do you hear it? I can hear him in there. He’s laughing. It can’t be. We got rid of him.’ The sudden force of her fear made Seth jump. She was shaking. White with shock and looking so frail now, he was practically holding her up: a papier-mâché puppet with bones of bamboo.

‘He can’t come back. It can’t be him. Someone is playing a trick on us. We got rid of him. We wouldn’t allow him to be here. Open that door. Open that door and turn the lights on. I want to see. I don’t believe it.’

Unsure of what to do and so aware of the power inside that room, he hesitated. Just standing near the door made him tense with an unpleasant anticipation. And Mrs Roth was witless with fear. Was trembling against him. What could she hear? She said she could hear
him
laughing. But Seth could not hear laughter . . . Just the wind. Yes, the suggestion of a far-off wind. The sense of some tremendous cold distance approaching, as if a black sea were making its way towards them on some impossible tide. One that washed in from above them, and somehow below them at the same time.

‘No. It’s not safe. We have to go,’ he whispered desperately at her.

‘Open it! Open the door. I want to see. This isn’t right. It’s not right. He can’t come back.’ She was becoming hysterical. The perfect dome of silvery hair was falling apart. What pitiful remnants of blood still survived inside her veins appeared to have drained from the surface of her skin. She looked ready to collapse; her flesh had taken on a greyish tinge and he was seeing far too much of the whites of her eyes.

But he couldn’t just stand here and let her scream. She might wake someone. Right now another resident might be banging on Stephen’s door, or calling the front desk. Or worse, the police. He was losing control again. Control of this stupid panicking old bitch. Anger replaced his unease and fear. Anger could do that; it had its uses. ‘All right. All right,’ he said, his teeth clenched in a grimace. He reached out and seized the cold brass handle of the door. But when the moment came to give the handle one full turn, it was pulled from his hand. Opened from inside with a force that made them both cry out.

Seth sat behind his desk. Unmoving. Staring at the glass of the front doors and the blue-black of dawn behind. Shivers ran across his skin, beginning somewhere inside, but spreading out and over his entire form. In the ceiling the lights made tinkling sounds from their own heat. Somewhere outside, a powerful car accelerated into the distance.

He wanted to keep his mind clear but couldn’t even follow the action on the television screen below the desktop. It was just a senseless mosaic of flickers and colours and distant voices. The pictures in his head were far more compelling. And they refused to stop or be still, but surged forward to reassemble the events that had occurred so quickly around him upstairs.

He remembered jumping back, instinctively, away from the dark, empty rectangle of space behind that middle door. At least that’s what it had looked like. A room that failed to materialize when the door had been torn from his hands by an eagerness within.