Apartment 16

Twenty-five

‘They killed him, Miles. They murdered him.’

Miles paused in the process of removing his jacket. ‘Who? What are you talking about?’

Apryl was breathless, wasn’t making any sense — she knew it — but couldn’t stop herself the moment Miles entered her room at the hotel. ‘My great-uncle, Reginald, Mrs Roth’s husband and Tom Shafer. The men who lived there. In Barrington House. They killed him. They went to confront him. About the dreams. The shadows. They thought he was haunting them. Like my great-aunt, in the journals. It all changed after he moved in. Then he had some kind of accident. And it all got worse after that. Don’t you see it all makes sense?’

‘No, I don’t. What the hell are you talking about?’

‘The residents killed him. They saw the paintings. In his apartment. They must have destroyed them. Burned them. And killed him too. He didn’t disappear. They killed him.’

‘Sweetheart. Please. Sweetheart, sit down. Here. Please. Slow down. I don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense. You’re talking like a crazy thing.’

But Apryl continued to pace back and forth. ‘She didn’t mean to tell me, but she wanted to. Part of her wanted to confess. She’s very old, Miles. But she’s not senile. Oh, no. She’s as sharp as a cut-throat razor. She knows exactly what she’s doing. My God, she’s a control freak. But she can’t control her conscience. No. It’s why she’s such a miserable bitch. She’s got a guilty conscience. And she wants to confess to someone. Anyone. I caught her at a vulnerable moment. Whenever she wakes, she’s vulnerable. Her judgement is impaired — you know how it can be — and she just needs to get it off her chest.

‘She’s so spoilt she’s still like a child,’ she went on. ‘But she doesn’t have long left now. She knows it. And it’s all been building up inside her. She did something terrible. A long time ago. Lillian too. They all did, and kept it quiet. And now her mind is playing up and she’s convinced that Felix Hessen has come back to the building. For revenge, or something, I don’t know. She claims she has heard him in his apartment again. Moving about underneath her. Like he used to do. She lives right on top of his old place. And the stairs are full of shadows again. Like they used to be. Shadows he brought with him years before. She can hear the voices again and is seeing things and everything. Like Lillian. It’s contagious. It’s so creepy up there. I mean, Jesus, I. thought I saw something. Again. But it’s like. it’s her conscience. It’s just so fucking gothic, but it explains everything. What happened to Hessen. To the paintings.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘Listen. Listen to me.’ Apryl sat beside him and held his forearm tight with both of her hands.

‘But—’

‘Just listen. Please. Do me a favour, Miles. Just listen to me.’

When Apryl finished a less frantic account of her meeting with Mrs Roth and what she’d gleaned from her, Miles leaned back on the bed and rested on his elbows. He looked at her, his face inscrutable.

‘You see?’ she said, her eyes and hands still flitting with excitement.

‘Jesus, what a terrible story.’

‘Yes. It’s the story of Hessen’s missing years, and of the proof he painted.’

‘Maybe. And it’s just a maybe.’

‘Oh Miles!’

‘Hang on, sweetheart. Just cool your boots. I’d like to speak to this Mrs Roth myself before I make up my mind.’

‘She won’t see you. I’m sure of it. Or me again. I just know it.’

Miles raised his eyebrows. ‘But what do you make of it? All that business about the shadows. And the sound of raised voices in his apartment. It’s pretty damned eerie if you ask me. It’s exactly the same thing Lillian wrote.’

Apryl smiled; she was so excited she wanted to scream. ‘Isn’t it! Have you read all the journals? Tell me you have.’

A frown creased his forehead. ‘I have. Finished the last legible one this afternoon at work. In fact, I’ve read some of them twice. But darling, Mrs Roth is probably crazy. Like that Alice character you told me about at the Friends, who claims she knew him. And like your great-aunt. ’

‘Lillian was nothing like Alice.’ Then Apryl paused and clapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘Oh, God. Alice. Alice said the same thing. About an accident. She said Hessen had an accident. She must have known him. They both must have known him after the war. I think he self-mutilated.’

‘Oh, hang on, girl.’

‘Why not? You’re the expert aren’t you? Didn’t Van Gogh cut his own ear off? Hessen was all alone in there, tormented by his vision. Working furiously. His mind disintegrating. A mind that was never truly like anyone else’s to begin with. You said so. It all adds up. Talking to himself. Shouting. Doing those rituals that got him thrown out of places. God, he must have lost the plot in there and. mutilated his own face. His own beautiful face.’

‘Apryl. Let’s not get carried away. Please. Let’s just bring it down a notch. You’ve no proof. Just a couple of half-crazy old women telling you stories. I mean you were telling me a few moments ago how the residents of Barrington House carried out an Agatha Christie murder mystery. Mrs Roth in the dining room with a candlestick.’

‘If you’re going to laugh at me, Miles, then I want you to leave.’

‘Hey.’

‘I mean it. I followed the clues my great-aunt left me. And it led to this. The man was murdered in his own home. Who knows why? Who knows what he really did to them? She said there were a lot of Jewish people in that building and they would have known he was a fascist. Mrs Roth is Jewish too. I mean, her name? There’s all kinds of motives.’

‘Well, yes, that’s one, and it’s pretty flimsy. Oswald and Diana Mosley had Jewish friends before and after the war. They didn’t rub them out. Different rules applied up top. Far more forgiving of each other’s faux pas, darling. But—’ Apryl turned to him with an expression suggesting a complete absence of patience with his doubt. ‘—if you truly believe he was murdered, then it is a matter for the police.’

She nodded. ‘But I need to know more. Find out more.’

‘How?’

‘I need to go back and talk to the Shafers. Get it all confirmed. They’re still alive. I’ll even stop them in the street if I have to. I still don’t know how Reginald died. I didn’t get the chance to ask. But I know, I just know, it’s connected to this.’ She turned and looked at Miles. ‘I want the whole story. For Lillian’s sake.’