“What is it?” I ask her. “Why are you so frightened?”
She’s shaking her head. She takes a few more steps backward, almost tripping over her feet. Then she turns and begins walking, quickly, in the other direction.
“Wait,” I say. And then, as she gets farther away, I shout it: “Wait!” But she starts running. I hurry after her. Shit, she’s fast—those long legs. And I’m skinny but not fit. “Stop—please!” I try calling.
I chase her down onto a busier street—people are turning to look at us. At the last minute she veers off to the left and clatters down the stairs of a Metro station. A couple walking up the steps, arm in arm, break apart in alarm to let her through.
“Please,” I call, pounding down the stairs behind her, gasping for breath, feeling like I’m moving in slow motion, “wait!”
But she’s through the barrier already. Luckily there’s an out-of-order gate that’s been left open: I charge through after her. But as I get to a junction, the right fork leading to eastbound trains and the left to westbound, I realize I have no idea which way she’s gone. I’ve got a fifty percent chance, I suppose: I choose right. Panting, I make it down to the platform to find her standing on the opposite side of the tracks. Shit. She’s staring back at me, white-faced.
“Please!” I shout, trying to catch my breath, “please, I just want to talk to you—”
People are turning to stare at me, but I don’t care.
“Wait there!” I shout. There’s a big rush of warm air, the thunder of an approaching train down the tunnel. I sprint up the stairs, up over the bridge that leads to the other platform. I can feel the rumble of the train passing beneath me.
I clatter down the other side. I can’t see her. People are piling onto the train. I try to get on but it’s full, there are too many bodies packed in there, people are stepping back down onto the platform to wait for the next train. As the doors close I see her face, pale and scared, staring out at me. Now the train’s pulling away, clackety-clacking its way into the tunnel. I glance at the board displaying the route: there are fifteen stations before the end of the line.
A link to Ben, a lead—finally. But I’ve got no chance of working out where she’s going, where she might get off. Or, most likely, of ever seeing her again.
Jess
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
Sophie M knows.
Mimi: how does she fit in?
The Concierge?
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”？