Apartment 16

Thirty-seven

When Apryl arrived at one in the morning, Barrington House was enshrouded by a wet darkness. The lights in most of the apartments were out. Only in the communal areas did the discoloured electric bulbs illumine the hazy stairwells and dismal landings. But there was nothing comforting about this light, nothing warm, and nothing about the dim glow to make a person want to take shelter in there, even if it was wet outside.

At the end of the reception area Seth watched Apryl peer through the main doors, at the place he occupied once the sun was dead. Around her silhouette the night was a blur of depth and reflection, like a combination of inner and outer worlds. Two separate places joined on the thin layer of glass.

She was wrapped in a long, dark coat and her hair was concealed by a headscarf. He could almost smell her. That sweet sweet smell. Even on the other side of the door, before she let herself in with the pass code, he anticipated the taste of her.

Behind Apryl’s svelte shape, he caught the shudder and then the rattling whoosh of a black cab passing away. Had she come by taxi? He’d told her not to. Not to allow anyone to see her enter this building tonight. Or to tell anyone where she was going. They had a deal. Who knew how things could go up there? Just the thought made him sick with fear.

He looked up at the ceiling. Bits of whatever was in there must have escaped from the mirrored room back when the residents and Barrington House were younger — before the building was aged by what came through, by what it now held within its feeble bricks.

He had come to think it began when life began and that this building was nothing but a keyhole through which a few draughts had snuck. But he could only guess at the invisible byways by which its influence had then spread. Hessen used it to find allies and to destroy enemies. From amongst those close to his presence, and that of the terrible collective that used madness and nightmare to make itself known in the places it could only be brought into by men like Hessen. And not sent back.

Hessen had waited fifty years for someone to finish his business. He was greater than Seth, and Seth could not defy his will. His tutor had waited too long for this opportunity. Had even hobbled Mrs Roth and the Shafers to keep them close, all this time, while he waited. Never forgetting. Unforgiving. Pure in purpose as an artist must be.

Seth clambered out from behind his desk and walked over to greet Apryl. ‘You came in a cab. I told you not to. I told you to be discreet.’

‘I didn’t. I only took a cab to Sloane Street, and then walked from there. Like you said.’ She reached out and touched his arm. ‘It’s OK. You can trust me, Seth. I want you to trust me.’

Looking into her pretty eyes and then letting his stare linger on her red lips, glossy with a scarlet that contrasted so arrestingly with the white skin of her face, he would believe her. Cabs always passed by this place, looking for fares in the richest part of town. That’s all it was. But God he was jumpy.

‘You have the keys?’ she asked.

He fished them out of his pocket. Made them jingle on the silver hoop in front of her face. ‘Remember, if anyone sees you, if the head porter sees you, you don’t mention number sixteen. He won’t be around, but just in case. OK?’

‘Sure. Right.’ She was nervous but her eyes were excited. He liked that. Stupidly, he wanted to kiss her before she went in there. But the thought of where she was going made him swallow to try and force the panic back down his throat.

‘Let me get the pager. Then we’ll go up by the stairs. The lift makes too much noise. Sometimes it gets stuck. I don’t want to leave anything to chance.’

‘Seth. What you’re doing — it has to stop. You know that. And we are going to stop it. Together. You understand that, don’t you? What you brought in can be sent back. Somehow.’

It did something to his stomach, the way she looked at him. Right into the middle of him. He shivered in a nice way. Felt a bit dizzy too. She was the kind of woman he could just look at. For ever.

But she really did not have a clue.