The Paris Apartment

Jess

My throat hurts and there’s an oily sweat on my forehead. I stare up at the high ceiling above me and try and work out where I am. Now I remember: getting here last night . . . that scene in the courtyard a couple of hours ago. It was still dark out so I got back into bed afterward. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep but I must have drifted off. I don’t feel rested though. My whole body aches like I’ve been fighting someone. I think I was fighting someone, in my dream. The kind you’re relieved to wake up from. It comes back to me in fragments. I was trying to get into a locked room but my hands were clumsy, all fingers and thumbs. Someone—Ben?—was shouting at me not to open the door, do not open the door, but I knew I had to, knew I didn’t have any other choice. And then finally the door was opening and all at once I knew he was right—oh why hadn’t I listened to him? Because what greeted me on the other side—

I sit up in bed. I check my phone. Eight a.m. No messages. A new day and still no sign of my brother. I call his number: straight to voicemail. I listen to the voicenote he left me again, with that final instruction: “Just ring the buzzer. I’ll be up waiting for you—”

And this time I notice something strange. How his voice seems to cut off mid-sentence, like something has distracted him. After this there’s a faint murmur of sound in the background—words, maybe—but I can’t make anything out.

The uneasy feeling grows.

I walk out into the main living space. The room looks even more like something from a museum in the light of day: you can see the dust motes hanging suspended in the air. And I’ve just spotted something I didn’t see last night. There’s a largish, lighter patch on the floorboards just a few feet before the front door. I walk toward it, crouch down. As I do the smell—the strange smell I noticed last night—catches me right at the back of the throat. A singe-the-nostrils chemical tang. Bleach. But that’s not all. Something’s caught here in the gap between the floorboards, glinting in the cold light. I try to wiggle it out with my fingers, but it’s stuck fast. I go and get a couple of forks from the drawer in the kitchen, use them together to pry it loose. Eventually, I work it free. A long gilt chain unspools first, then a pendant: an image of a male saint in a cloak, holding a crook.

Ben’s St. Christopher. I reach up and feel the identical texture of the chain around my neck, the heavy weight of the pendant. I’ve never seen him without it. Just like me, I suspect he never takes it off, because it came from Mum. Because it’s one of the few things we have from her. Maybe it’s guilt, but I suspect Ben’s almost more sentimental about stuff like that than me.

But here it is. And the chain is broken.

Jess

I sit here trying not to panic. Trying to imagine the rational explanation that I’m sure must be behind all this. Should I call the police? Is that what a normal person would do? Because it’s several things now. Ben not being here when he said he would and not answering his phone. The cat’s blood-tinged fur. The bleach stain. The broken necklace. But more than any of this it’s the way it all . . . feels. It feels wrong. Always listen to your inner voice, was Mum’s thing. Never ignore a feeling. It didn’t work out so well for her, of course. But she was right, in a way. It’s how I knew I should barricade myself in my bedroom at night when I fostered with the Andersons, even before another kid told me about Mr. Anderson and his preferences. And way before that, before foster care even, it’s how I knew I shouldn’t go into that locked room—even though I did.

I don’t want to call the police, though. They might want to know things about you, a little voice says. They might have questions you don’t want to answer. The police and I have never got on all that well. Let’s just say I’ve had my share of run-ins. And even though he had it coming, what I did to that arsehole is, I suppose, technically still a crime. Right now I don’t want to put myself on their radar unless I absolutely have to.

Besides, I don’t really have enough to tell them, do I? A cat that might just have killed a mouse? A necklace that might just have been innocently broken? A brother who might have just fucked off, yet again, to leave me to fend for myself?

No, it’s not enough.

I put my head in my hands, try to think what to do next. At the same moment my stomach gives a long, loud groan. I realize I can’t actually remember the last time I ate anything. Last night I’d sort of imagined I’d get here and Ben would fix me up some scrambled eggs or something, maybe we’d order a takeaway. Part of me feels too queasy and keyed up to eat. But perhaps I’ll be able to think more clearly with some food in my belly.

I raid the fridge and cupboards but besides half a pack of butter and a stick of salami they’re bare. One cupboard is different from all the rest: it’s some sort of cavity with what looks like a pulley system, but I can’t work out what it’s for at all. In desperation I cut off some of the salami with a very sharp Japanese knife that I find in Ben’s utensil pot, but it’s hardly a hearty breakfast.

I pocket the set of keys I found in Ben’s jacket. I know the code now, I’ve got the keys: I can get back into this place.

The courtyard looks less spooky in the light of day. I pass the ruins of the statue of the naked woman, the head separated from the rest, face up, eyes staring at the sky. One of the flowerbeds looks like it has recently been re-dug, which explains that smell of freshly turned earth. There’s a little fountain running, too. I look over at the tiny cabin in the corner and see a dark gap between the closed slats of the shutters; perfect for spying on anything that’s going on out here. I can imagine her watching me through it: the old woman I saw last night, the one who seems to live there.

I take in the strangeness of my surroundings as I close the apartment’s gates, the foreignness of it all. The crazily beautiful buildings around me, the cars with their unfamiliar numberplates. The streets also look different in daylight—and much busier when I get away from the hush of the apartment building’s cul-de-sac. They smell different, too: moped fumes and cigarette smoke and roasted coffee. It must have rained in the night as the cobbles are gleaming wet, slippery underfoot. Everyone seems to know exactly where they’re going: I step into the street out of the way of one woman walking straight at me while talking on her phone and nearly collide with a couple of kids sharing an electric scooter. I’ve never felt so clueless, so like a fish out of water.

I wander past shop fronts with their grilles pulled down, wrought-iron gates leading onto courtyards and gardens full of dead leaves, pharmacies with blinking neon green crosses—there seems to be one on every street, do the French get sick more?—doubling back on myself and getting lost a couple of times. Finally, I find a bakery, the sign painted emerald green with gold lettering—BOULANGERIE—and a striped awning. Inside the walls and the floor are decorated with patterned tiles and it smells like burnt sugar and melted butter. The place is packed: a long queue doubles back on itself. I wait, getting hungrier and hungrier, staring at the counter which is filled with all sorts of things that look too perfect to be eaten: tiny tarts with glazed raspberries, eclairs with violet icing, little chocolate cakes with a thousand very fine layers and a touch of what looks like actual gold on top. People in front of me are putting in serious orders: three loaves of bread, six croissants, an apple tart. My mouth waters. I feel the rustle of the notes I nicked from Ben’s wallet in my pocket.

The woman in front of me has hair so perfect it doesn’t look real: a black, shining bob, not a strand out of place. A silk scarf tied around her neck, some kind of camel-colored coat and a black leather handbag over her arm. She looks rich. Not flashy rich. The French equivalent of posh. You don’t have hair that perfect unless you spend your days doing basically nothing.

I look down and see a skinny, silver-colored dog on a pale blue leather lead. It looks up at me with suspicious dark eyes.

The woman behind the counter hands her a pastel-colored box tied with a ribbon: “Voilà, Madame Meunier.”

“Merci.”

She turns and I see that she’s wearing red lipstick, so perfectly applied it might be tattooed on. At a guess she’s about fifty—but a very well-preserved fifty. She’s putting her card back into her wallet. As she does something flutters to the ground—a piece of paper. A banknote?

I bend down to pick it up. Take a closer look. Not a banknote, which is a shame. Someone like her probably wouldn’t miss the odd ten euros. It’s a handwritten note, scribbled in big block capitals. I read: double la prochaine fois, salope.

“Donne-moi ça!”

I look up. The woman is glaring at me, her hand outstretched. I think I know what she’s asking but she did it so rudely, so like a queen commanding a peasant, that I pretend not to understand.

“Excuse me?”

She switches to English. “Give that to me.” And then finally, as an afterthought, “please.”

Taking my time about it, I hold out the note. She snatches it from my hand so roughly that I feel one of her long fingernails scrape at my skin. Without a thank you, she marches out through the door.

“Excusez-moi? Madame?” the woman behind the counter asks, ready to take my order.

“A croissant, please.” Everything else is probably going to be too expensive. My stomach rumbles as I watch her drop it into the little paper bag. “Two, actually.”

On the walk back to the apartment through the cold gray morning streets I eat the first one in big ravenous bites and then the second slower, tasting the salt of the butter, enjoying the crunch of the pastry and the softness inside. It’s so good that I could cry and not much makes me cry.

Back at the apartment building I let myself in through the gate with the code I learned yesterday. As I cross the courtyard I catch the scent of fresh cigarette smoke. I glance up, following the smell. There’s a girl sitting there, up on the fourth-floor balcony, cigarette in her hand. A pale face, choppy dark hair, dressed in head-to-toe black from her turtleneck to the Docs on her feet. I can see from here that she’s young, maybe nineteen, twenty. She catches sight of me looking back at her, I can see it in the way her whole body freezes. That’s the only way I can describe it.

You. You know something, I think, staring back. And I’m going to get you to tell me.

Mimi

She’s seen me. The woman who arrived last night, who I watched this morning walking around in his apartment. She’s staring straight at me. I can’t move.

In my head the roar of static grows louder.

Finally she turns away. When I breathe out my chest burns.

I watched him arrive from here, too. It was August, nearly three months ago, the middle of the heatwave. Camille and I were sitting on the balcony in the junky old deckchairs she’d bought from a brocanter shop, drinking Aperol Spritzes even though I actually kind of hate Aperol Spritz. Camille often persuades me to do things I wouldn’t otherwise do.

Benjamin Daniels turned up in an Uber. Gray T-shirt, jeans. Dark hair, longish. He looked famous, somehow. Or maybe not famous but . . . special. You know? I can’t explain it. But he had that thing about him that made you want to look at him. Need to look at him.

I was wearing dark glasses and I watched him from the corner of my eye, so it didn’t seem like I was looking his way. When he opened the boot of the car I saw the stains of sweat under his arms and, where his T-shirt had ridden up, I also saw how the line of his tan stopped beneath the waistband of his jeans, where the paler skin started, an arrow of dark hair descending. The muscles in his arms flexed when he lifted the bags out of the trunk. Not like a jacked-up gym-goer. More elegant. Like a drummer: drummers always have good muscles. Even from here I could imagine how his sweat would smell—not bad, just like salt and skin.

He shouted to the driver: “Thanks, mate!” I recognized the English accent straightaway; there’s this old TV show I’m obsessed with, Skins, about all these British teenagers screwing and screwing up, falling in love.

“Mmm,” said Camille, lifting up her sunglasses.

“Mais non,” I said. “He’s really old, Camille.”

She shrugged. “He’s only thirty-something.”

“Oui, and that’s old. That’s like . . . fifteen years older than us.”

“Well, think of all that experience.” She made a vee with her fingers and stuck her tongue out between them.

I laughed at that. “Beurk—you’re disgusting.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Pas du tout. And you’d know that if your darling papa ever let you near any guys—”

“Shut up.”

“Ah, Mimi . . . I’m kidding! But you know one day he’s going to have to realize you’re not his little girl any longer.” She grinned, sucked up Aperol through her straw. For a second I wanted to slap her . . . I nearly did. I don’t always have the best impulse control.

“He’s just a little . . . protective.” It was more than that, really. But I suppose I also never really wanted to do anything to disappoint Papa, tarnish that image of me as his little princess.

I often wished I could be more like Camille, though. So chill about sex. For her it’s just another thing she likes doing: like swimming or cycling or sunbathing. I’d never even had sex, let alone with two people at the same time (one of her specialties), or tried girls as well as boys. You know what’s funny? Papa actually approved of her moving in here with me, said living with another girl “might stop you from getting into too much trouble.”

Camille was in her smallest bikini, just three triangles of pale crocheted material that barely covered anything. Her feet were pressed up against the ironwork of the balcony and her toenails were painted a chipped, Barbie-doll pink. Apart from her month in the South with friends she’d sat out there pretty much every hot day, getting browner and browner, slathering herself in La Roche-Posay. Her whole body looked like it had been dipped in gold, her hair lightened to the color of caramel. I don’t go brown; I just burn, so I sat tucked in the shade like a vampire with my Francoise Sagan novel, wearing a big man’s shirt.

She leaned forward, still watching the guy getting his cases out of the car. “Oh my God, Mimi! He has a cat. How cute. Can you see it? Look, in that carry basket. Salut minou!”

She did it on purpose, so he would look up and see us—see her. Which he did.

“Hey,” she called, standing up and waving so hard that her nénés bounced around in her bikini top like they were trying to escape. “Bienvenue—welcome! I’m Camille. And this is Merveille. Cute pussy!”

I was so embarrassed. She knew exactly what she was saying, it’s the same slang in French: chatte. Also, I hate that my full name is Merveille. No one calls me that. I’m Mimi. My mum gave me that name because it means “wonder” and she said that’s what my arrival into her life was: this unexpected but wonderful thing. But it’s also completely mortifying.

I sank down behind my book, but not so much that I couldn’t still see him over the top of it.

The guy shielded his eyes. “Thanks!” he called. He put up a hand, waved back. As he did I saw again that strip of skin between his T-shirt and jeans. “I’m Ben—friend of Nick’s? I’m moving into the third floor.”

Camille turned to me. “Well,” she said, in an undertone. “I feel like this place has just got a lot more exciting.” She grinned. “Maybe I should introduce myself to him properly. Offer to look after the pussy if he goes away.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s fucking him in a week’s time, I thought to myself. It would hardly be a surprise. The surprising thing was how much I hated the thought of it.

Someone’s knocking on the door to my apartment.

I creep down the hall, look through the peephole. Merde: it’s her: the woman from Ben’s apartment.

I swallow—or try to. It feels like my tongue is stuck in my throat.

It’s hard to think with this roaring in my ears. I know I don’t have to open the door. This is my apartment, my space. But the knock knock knock is incessant, beating against my skull until I feel like something in me is going to explode.

I grit my teeth and open the door, take a step back. The shock of her face, close up: I see him in her features, straightaway. But she’s small and her eyes are darker and there’s something, I don’t know, hungry about her which maybe was in him too but he hid it better. It’s like with her all the angles are sharper. With him it was all smoothness. She’s scruffy, too: jeans and an old sweater with frayed cuffs, dark red hair scragged up on top of her head. That’s not like him either. Even in a gray T-shirt on a hot day he looked kind of . . . pulled-together, you know? Like everything fit him just right.

“Hi,’ she says. She smiles but it’s not a real smile. “I’m Jess. What’s your name?”

“M—Mimi.” My voice comes out as a rasp.

“My brother—Ben—lives on the third floor. But he’s . . . well, he’s kind of disappeared on me. Do you know him at all?”

For a crazy moment I think about pretending I don’t speak English. But that’s stupid.

I shake my head. “No. I didn’t know him—don’t, I mean. My English, sorry, it’s not so good.”

I can feel her looking past me, like she’s trying to see her way into my apartment. I move sideways, try to block her view. So instead she looks at me, like she’s trying to see into me: and that’s worse.

“This is your apartment?” she asks.

“Oui.”

“Wow.” She widens her eyes. “Nice work if you can get it. And it’s just you in here?”

“My flatmate Camille and me.”

She’s trying to peer into the apartment again, looking over my shoulder. “I was wondering if you’d seen him lately, Ben?”

“No. He’s been keeping his shutters closed. I mean—” I realize, too late, that wasn’t what she was asking.

She raises her eyebrows. “OK,” she says, “but do you remember the last time you saw him generally about the place? It would be so helpful.” She smiles. Her smile is not like his at all. But then no one’s is.

I realize she’s not going to go unless I give her an answer. I clear my throat. “I—I don’t know. Not for a while—I suppose maybe a week?”

“Quoi? Ce n’est pas vrai!” That’s not true! I turn to see Camille, in just a camisole and her culotte, wandering into the space behind me. “It was yesterday morning, remember Mimi? I saw you with him on the stairs.”

Merde. I can feel my face growing hot. “Oh, yes. That’s right.” I turn back to the woman in the doorway.

“So he was here yesterday?” she asks, frowning, looking from me to Camille and back. “You did see him?”

“Uh-huh,” I say. “Yesterday. I must have forgotten.”

“Did he say if he was going anywhere?”

“No. It was only for a second.”

I picture his face, as I passed him on the stairs. Hey Mimi. Something up? That smile. No one’s smile is like his.

“I can’t help you,” I say. “Sorry.” I go to close the door.

“He said he’d ask me to feed his kitty if he ever went away,” Camille says and the almost flirtatious way she says “kitty” reminds me of her “Cute pussy!” on the day he arrived. “But he didn’t ask this time.”

“Really?” The woman seems interested in this. “So it sounds like—” Maybe she’s realized I’m slowly closing the door on her because she makes a movement like she’s about to step forward into the apartment. And without even thinking I slam the door in her face so hard I feel the wood give under my hands.

My arms are shaking. My whole body’s shaking. I know Camille must be staring at me, wondering what’s going on. But I don’t care what she thinks right now. I lean my head against the door. I can’t breathe. And suddenly I feel like I’m choking. It rushes up inside me, the sickness, and before I can stop it I’m vomiting, right onto the beautifully polished floorboards.

Sophie

I’m coming up the stairs when I see her. A stranger inside these walls. It sends such a jolt through me that I nearly drop the box from the boulangerie. A girl, snooping around on the penthouse landing. She has no business being here.

I watch her for a while before I speak. “Bonjour,” I say coolly.

She spins around, caught out. Good. I wanted to shock her.

But now it’s my turn to be shocked. “You.” It’s her from the boulangerie: the scruffy girl who picked up the note I dropped.

Double la prochaine fois, salope. Double the next time, bitch.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Jess. Jess Hadley. I’m staying with my brother Ben,” she says, quickly. “On the third floor.”

“If you are staying on the third floor then what are you doing up here?” It makes sense, I suppose. Sneaking around in here as though she owns the place. Just like him.

“I was looking for Ben.” She must realise how absurd this sounds, as though he might be hiding in some shadowy corner up here in the eaves, because she suddenly looks sheepish. “Do you know him? Benjamin Daniels?”

That smile: a fox entering the henhouse. The sound of a glass smashing. A smear of crimson on a stiff white napkin.

“Nicolas’s friend. “Yes. Although I’ve only met him a couple of times.”

“Nicolas? Is that ‘Nick’? I think Ben might have mentioned him. Which floor’s he on?”

I hesitate. Then I say: “The second.”

“Do you remember when you last saw him about?” she asks. “Ben, I mean? He was meant to be here last night. I tried asking one of the girls—Mimi?—on the fourth floor, but she wasn’t too helpful.”

“I don’t recall.” Perhaps my answer sounds too quick, too certain. “But then he keeps so much to himself. You know. Rather—what’s the English expression?—reserved.”

“Really? That doesn’t sound anything like Ben! I’d expect him to be friends with everyone in this building by now.”

“Not with me.” That at least is true. I give a little shrug. “Anyway, maybe he went away and forgot to tell you?”

“No,” she says. “He wouldn’t do that.”

Could I remember the last time I saw him? Of course I can.

But I am thinking now about the first time. About two months ago. The middle of the heatwave.

I did not like him. I knew it straightaway.

The laughter, that’s what I heard first. Vaguely threatening, in the way male laughter can be. The almost competitive nature of it.

I was in the courtyard. I had spent the afternoon planting in the shade. To others gardening is a form of creative abandon. To me it is a way of exerting control upon my surroundings. When I told Jacques I wanted to take care of the courtyard’s small garden he did not understand. “There are people we can pay to do it for us,” he told me. In my husband’s world there are people you can pay for anything.

The end of the day: the light fading, the heat still oppressive. I watched from behind the rosemary bushes as the two of them entered the courtyard. Nick first. Then a stranger, wheeling a moped. Around the same age as his friend, but he seemed somehow older. Tall and rangy. Dark hair. He carried himself well. A very particular confidence in the way he inhabited the space around him.

I watched as Nick’s friend plucked a sprig of rosemary from one of the bushes, tearing hard to wrench it free. How he crushed it to his nose, inhaled. There was something presumptuous about the gesture. It felt like an act of vandalism.

Then Benoit was running over to them. The newcomer scooped him up and held him.

I stood. “He doesn’t like to be held by anyone but me.”

Benoit, the traitor, turned his head to lick the stranger’s hand.

“Bonjour Sophie,” Nicolas said. “This is Ben. He’s going to be living here, in the apartment on the third floor.” Proud. Showing off this friend like a new toy.

“Pleased to meet you, Madame.” He smiled then, a lazy smile that was somehow just as presumptuous as the way he’d ripped into that bush. You will like me, it said. Everyone does.

“Please,” I said. “Call me Sophie.” The Madame had made me feel about a hundred years old, even though it was only proper.

“Sophie.”

Now I wished I hadn’t said it. It was too informal, too intimate. “I’ll take him, please.” I held out my hands for the dog. Benoit smelled faintly of petrol, of male sweat. I held him at a little distance from my body. “The concierge won’t like that,” I added, nodding at the moped, then toward the cabin. “She hates them.”

I had wanted to assert myself, but I sounded like a matron scolding a small boy.

“Noted,” he said. “Cheers for the tip. I’ll have to butter her up, get her on side.”

I stared at him. Why on earth would he want to do that?

“Good luck there,” Nick said. “She doesn’t like anyone.”

“Ah,” he says. “But I like a challenge. I’ll win her over.”

“Well watch out,” Nick said. “I’m not sure you want to encourage her. She has a knack for appearing round corners when you least expect it.”

I didn’t like the idea of it at all. That woman with her watchful eyes, her omnipresence. What might she be able to tell him if he did “win her over”?

When Jacques got home I told him I had met the new inhabitant of the third–floor apartment. He frowned, pointed to my cheekbone. “You have dirt, there.” I rubbed at my cheek—somehow I must have missed it when I had checked my appearance . . . I thought I had been so careful. “So what do you make of our new neighbor?”

“I don’t like him.”

Jacques raised his eyebrows. “I thought he sounded like an interesting young man. What don’t you like?”

“He’s too . . . charming.” That charm. He wielded it like a weapon.

Jacques frowned; he didn’t understand. My husband: a clever man, but also arrogant. Used to having things his way, having power. I have never acquired that sort of arrogance. I have never been certain enough of my position to be complacent. “Well,” he said. “We’ll have to invite him to drinks, look him over.”

I didn’t like the sound of that: inviting him into our home.

The first note arrived two weeks later.

I know who you are, Madame Sophie Meunier. I know what you really are. If you don’t want anyone else to know I suggest you leave €2000 beneath the loose step in front of the gate.

The “Madame”: a nasty little piece of faux formality. The mocking, knowing tone. No postmark; it had been hand-delivered. My blackmailer knew this building well enough to know about the loose step outside the gate.

I didn’t tell Jacques. I knew he would refuse to pay, for one thing. Those who have the most money are often the most close-fisted about handing it over. I was too afraid not to pay. I took out my jewelry box. I considered the yellow sapphire brooch Jacques had given me for our second wedding anniversary, the jade and diamond hair clips he gave me last Christmas. I selected an emerald bracelet as the safest, because he never asked me to wear it. I took it to a pawnbroker, a place out in the banlieues, the neighborhoods outside the peripherique ring road that encircles the city. A world away from the Paris of postcards, of tourist dreams. I had to go somewhere no one could possibly recognize me. The pawnbroker knew I was out of my depth. I think he could sense my fear. Little did he know it was less to do with the neighborhood than my horror at finding myself in this situation. The debasement of it.

I returned with more than enough cash to cover it—less than I should have got, though. Ten €200 notes. The money felt dirty: the sweat of other hands, the accumulated filth. I slid the wedge of notes into a thick envelope where they looked even dirtier against the fine cream card and sealed them up. As though it would somehow make the fact of the money less horrific, less demeaning. I left it, as directed, beneath the loose step in front of the apartment building’s gate.

For the time being, I had covered my debts.

“Perhaps you’ll want to return to the third floor now,” I tell the strange, scruffy girl. His sister. Hard to believe it. Hard, actually, to imagine him having had a childhood, a family at all. He seemed so . . . discrete. As though he had stepped into the world fully formed.

“I didn’t catch your name,” she says.

I didn’t give it. “Sophie Meunier,” I say. “My husband Jacques and I live in the penthouse apartment, on this floor.”

“If you’re in the penthouse apartment, what’s up there?” She points to the wooden ladder.

“The entrance to the old chambres de bonne—the old maids’ quarters—in the eaves of the building.” I nod my head in the other direction, toward the descending staircase. “But I’m sure you’ll want to get back to the third floor now.”

She takes the hint. She has to walk right by me to go back down. I don’t move an inch as she passes. It is only when my jaw begins to ache that I realize how hard I have been gritting my teeth.

Jess

I close the apartment door behind me. I think of the way Sophie Meunier looked at me just now: like I was something she’d found on the sole of her shoe. She might be French, but I’d know her type anywhere. The shining black bob, the silk scarf, the swanky handbag. The way she stressed “penthouse.” She’s a snob. It’s not exactly a new feeling, being looked at like I’m scum. But I thought I sensed something else. Some extra hostility, when I mentioned Ben.

I think of her suggestion that he might have gone away. “It’s not a great time,” he’d said, on the phone. But he wouldn’t just up and go without leaving word . . . would he? I’m his family—his only family. However put out he was, I don’t think he would abandon me.

But then it wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared out of my life with little more than a backward glance. Like when suddenly he had some shiny new parents ready to whisk him away to a magical new life of private schools and holidays abroad and family Labradors and sorry but the Daniels are only looking to adopt one child. Actually it can be best to separate children from the same family, especially when there has been a shared trauma. As I said, my brother’s always been good at getting people to fall in love with him. Ben, driving away in the back seat of the Daniels’ navy blue Volvo, turning back once and then looking forward, onward to his new life.

No. He left me a voicenote giving me directions, for Christ’s sake. And even if he did have to leave for some reason, why isn’t he answering any of my calls or texts?

I keep coming back to the broken chain of his St. Christopher. The bloodstains on the cat’s fur. How none of Ben’s neighbors seem prepared to give me the time of day—more than that, seem actively hostile. How it just feels like something here is wrong.

I search Ben’s social media. At some point he seems to have deleted all his socials except Instagram. How have I only just realized this? No Facebook, no Twitter. His Instagram profile picture is the cat, which right now is sitting on its haunches on the desk, watching me through narrowed eyes. There isn’t a single photo left on his grid. I suppose it’s just like Ben, master of reinvention, to have got rid of all his old stuff. But there’s something about the disappearance of all his content that gives me the creeps. Almost like someone’s tried to erase him. I send him a DM, all the same. Ben, if you see this: answer your phone!

My mobile buzzes: You have only 50MB of Roaming Data remaining. To buy more, follow this link . . .

Shit. I can’t even get by on the cheapest plan.

I sit down on the sofa. As I do I realize I’ve sat on Ben’s wallet, I must have tossed it here earlier. I open it and pull out the business card stuck in the front. Theo Mendelson, Paris editor, Guardian. And scribbled on the card: PITCH STORY TO HIM! Someone Ben’s working for, maybe, someone he might have been in touch with recently? There’s a number listed. I call but it rings out so I fire off a quick text:

Hi. It’s about my brother Ben Daniels. Trying to find him. Can you help?

I put the phone down. I just heard something odd.

I sit very still, listening hard, trying to work out what the noise is. It sounds like footsteps passing down a flight of stairs. Except the sound isn’t coming from in front of me, from the landing and the staircase beyond the apartment’s entrance. It’s behind my head. I stand up from the sofa and study the wall. And it’s now, looking properly, that I see something there. I run my hands over the faded silk wall covering. There’s a break, a gap in the fabric, running horizontally above my head and vertically down. I step back and take in the shape of it. It’s cleverly hidden, and the sofa’s pushed in front of it, so you wouldn’t notice it at all unless you were looking pretty closely. But I think it’s a door.

Sophie

Back in the apartment I reach into my handbag—black leather Celine, ferociously expensive, extremely discreet, a gift from Jacques—take out my wallet and am almost surprised to find the note hasn’t burnt a hole through the leather. I cannot believe I was so clumsy as to drop it earlier. I am never normally clumsy.

Double the next time, bitch.

It arrived yesterday morning. The latest in the series. Well. It has no hold over me now. I rip it into tiny pieces and scatter them into the fireplace. I pull the tasseled cord set into the wall and flames roar into life, instantly incinerating the paper. Then I walk quickly through the apartment, past the floor-to-ceiling windows with their view out over Paris, along the hallway hung with its trio of Gerhard Richter abstracts, my heels tapping briefly over the parquet then silenced on the silk of the antique Persian runner.

In the kitchen I open the pastel box from the boulangerie. Inside is a quiche Lorraine, studded with lardons of bacon, the pastry so crisp it will shatter at the slightest touch. The dairy waft of the cream and egg yolk briefly makes me want to gag. When Jacques is away from home on one of his business trips I usually exist on black coffee and fruit—perhaps the odd piece of dark chocolate broken from a Maison Bonnat bar.

I did not feel like going out. I felt like hiding in here away from the world. But I am a regular customer and it is important to stick to the usual routines.

A couple of minutes later, I open the door to the apartment again and wait a few moments listening, looking down the staircase, making sure no one’s there. You cannot do anything in this building without half-expecting the concierge to appear from some dark corner as if formed from the shadows themselves. But for once it isn’t her that I’m concerned about. It’s this newcomer, this stranger.

When I am certain I am alone, I walk across the landing to the wooden stairs that lead up to the old chambres de bonne. I am the only one in the building with a key to these old rooms. Even the concierge’s access to the public spaces of this building ends here.

I fasten Benoit to the bottom rung of the wooden steps with his leash. He wears a matching set in blue leather from Hermès: both of us, with our expensive Hermès collars. He’ll bark if he sees anyone.

I take the key out of my pocket and climb the stairs. As I put the key into the lock my hand trembles a little; it takes a couple of attempts to turn.

I push the door open. Just before I step inside I check, again, that I am not being watched. I can’t afford to be too careful. Especially not with her here now, snooping around.

I spend perhaps ten minutes up here, in the chambres de bonne. Afterward I lock the padlock again just as carefully, pocket the little silver key. Benoit is waiting for me at the bottom of the steps, looking up at me with those dark eyes. My secret-keeper. I put a finger to my lips.

Shh.

Jess

I grab hold of the sofa, drag it away from the wall. The cat jumps down from the desk and trots over, maybe hoping I’m going to reveal a mouse or some creepy crawlies. And yes, here it is: a door. No handle but I get a hold of the edge, wedge my fingers into the gap and pull. It swings open.

I let out a gasp. I don’t know what I’d expected: a hidden cupboard, maybe. Not this. Darkness greets me on the other side. The air as cold as if I’d just opened a fridge. There’s a smell of musty old air, like in a church. As my eyes adjust to the gloom I make out a stone staircase, spiraling up and down, dark and cramped. It couldn’t be more different from the grand sweeping affair beyond the apartment’s main door. I suppose from the looks of it this was probably some kind of servants’ staircase, like the maids’ rooms Sophie Meunier told me about upstairs.

I step inside and let the door swing closed behind me. It’s suddenly very dark. But I notice a chink of light showing through the door, slightly lower than head-height. I crouch and put my eye to it. I can see into the apartment: the living area, the kitchen. It looks like some kind of homemade spy hole. I suppose it could always have been here, as old as the building itself. Or it could have been made more recently. Someone could have been watching Ben through here. Someone could have been watching me.

I can still hear the footsteps heading downward. I turn on my phone’s flashlight and follow, trying not to trip over my own feet as the steps twist tightly round on themselves. This staircase must have been made for a time when people were smaller: I’m not exactly large, but it still feels like a tight squeeze.

A second of hesitation. I have no idea where this might lead. I’m not sure this is the best idea. Could I even be heading toward some sort of danger?

Well. It’s not like that’s ever stopped me before. I carry on downward.

I come to another door. Here, too, I spot another little spy hole. I press my eye to it quickly, look in. No sign of anyone about. I’m feeling a little disorientated but I suppose this must be the second-floor apartment: Ben’s friend Nick’s place. It looks like it might be pretty much the same layout as Ben’s, but it’s all whitewashed walls with nothing on them. Beyond the giant computer in the corner, some books, and what looks like a piece of exercise equipment it’s practically empty, with about as much character as a dentist’s surgery. It seems Nick has barely moved in.

The footsteps below me continue, urging me to follow. I carry on down, the light from my phone bouncing in front of me. I must be on the first floor now. Another apartment and there it is: another spy hole. I look through. This place is a mess: stuff everywhere, empty sharing-size crisp packets and overflowing ashtrays, side tables crowded with bottles, a standing lamp lying on its side. I take an involuntary step back as a figure looms into view. He’s not wearing his parka but I recognize him instantly: the guy from the gate, from that fight in the courtyard. Antoine. He appears to be swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He drains the last dregs then lifts up the bottle. Jesus: I jump as he smashes it against the side table.

He sways on the spot, looking at the jagged stump like he’s wondering what to do with it. Then he turns in my direction. For a horrible moment it feels like he’s staring directly at me. But I’m peering through a chink only a few millimeters wide . . . there’s no way he could possibly see me here. Right?

I’m not going to hang around to find out. I hurry on down. I must be passing the ground floor level, the entrance hall. A further flight of steps: I think I’m underground now. The air feels heavier, colder; I can imagine the earth surrounding me. Finally the staircase leads me to a door, swinging on its hinges—whoever I’m following has just stepped through it. My pulse quickens, I must be getting closer. I push through the door and even though it’s still just as dark on the other side I have the impression of having stepped into a wide, echoing space. Silence. No sound of footsteps. Where can they have gone? I must only be moments behind.

It’s colder down here. It smells of damp, of mold. My phone throws only a very weak beam into the darkness but I can see the orange glow of a light switch across from me. I press it and the lights come on, the little mechanical timer clicking down: tick tick tick tick tick. I’ve probably only got a couple of minutes before it goes dark again. I’m definitely in the basement: a wide, low-ceilinged space easily double the size of Ben’s apartment; several doors leading off it. A rack in the corner that holds a couple of bikes. And leaning against one wall there’s a red moped. I walk over to it, take out the set of keys I found in Ben’s jacket, fit the Vespa one into the ignition and turn. The lights hum on. It hits me: so Ben can’t be away on his bike somewhere. I must have been leaning against it because it tilts under me. It’s now that I see that the front wheel is flat, the rubber completely shredded. An accident? But there’s something about the total decimation that feels intentional.

I turn back to the basement. Perhaps whoever it was has disappeared behind one of those doors. Are they hiding from me? A shiver of unease as I realize I may now be the one being watched.

I open the first door. A couple of washing machines—one of which is on, all the clothes whizzing around in a colorful jumble.

In the next room I smell the bins before I see them, that sweetish, rotten scent. Something makes a scuffling sound. I shut the door.

The next is some sort of cleaning cupboard: mops and brooms and buckets and a pile of dirty-looking rags in the corner.

The next one has a padlock on the door but the door itself is open. I push inside. It’s stuffed full of wine: racks and racks of it, floor to ceiling. There might be well over a thousand bottles in here. Some of them look seriously old: labels stained and peeling, the glass covered in a layer of dust. I pull one out. I don’t know much about wine. I mean, I’ve worked in plenty of bars but they’ve been the sort of place where people ask for “a large glass of red, love” and you get the bottle thrown in for an extra couple of quid. But this, it just looks expensive. Whoever’s keeping this stuff down here clearly trusts their neighbors. And probably won’t notice if just one little bottle goes missing. Maybe it’ll help me think. I’ll pick something that looks like it’s been down here for ages, something that they’ll have forgotten about. I find the dustiest, most cobweb-covered bottles on the bottom racks, search along the rows, pull one out a little way. 1996. An image of a stately home picked out in gold. Château Blondin-Lavigne, the label reads. That’ll do.

The lights go out. The timer must have run down. I look for a light switch. It’s so dark in here; I’m immediately disorientated. I step to the left and brush up against something. Shit, I need to be careful: I’m basically surrounded by teetering walls of glass.

There. Finally I spot the little orange glow of another light switch. I press it, the lights hum back on.

I turn to find the door. That’s odd, I thought I left it open. It must have swung shut behind me. I turn the handle. But nothing happens when I pull. The door won’t budge. What the hell? That can’t be right. I try it again: nothing. And then again, putting everything into it, throwing all my weight against it.

Someone’s locked me in. It’s the only explanation.

Concierge

Afternoon and already the light seems to be fading, the shadows growing deeper. A rap on the door of my cabin. My first thought is that it’s him, Benjamin Daniels. The only one who would deign to call on me here. I think of the first time he knocked on my door, taking me by surprise:

“Bonjour Madame. I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m moving in on the third floor. I suppose that makes us neighbors!” I assumed, at first, that he was mocking me, but his polite smile said otherwise. Surely he had to know there was no world in which we were neighbors? Still, it made an impression.

The knock comes again. This time I hear the authority in it. I realize my mistake. Of course it isn’t him . . . that would be impossible.

When I open the door, there she stands on the other side: Sophie Meunier. Madame to me. In all her finery: the elegant beige coat, the shining black handbag, the gleaming black helmet of her hair, the silk knot of her scarf. She’s part of the tribe of women you see walking the smarter streets of this city, with shopping bags over their arms made from stiff card with gilded writing, full of designer clothes and expensive objets. A little pedigree dog at the end of a lead. The wealthy husbands with their cinq-à-sept affairs, the grand apartments and white, shuttered holiday homes on the Île de Ré. Born here, bred here, from old French money—or at least so they would like you to believe. Nothing gaudy. Nothing nouveau. All elegant simplicity and quality and heritage.

“Oui Madame?” I ask.

She takes a step back from the doorway, as though she cannot bear to be too close to my home, as though the poverty of it might somehow infect her.

“The girl,” she says simply. She does not use my name, she has never used my name, I am not even sure she knows it. “The one who arrived last night—the one staying in the third-floor apartment.”

“Oui Madame?”

“I want you to watch her. I want you to tell me when she leaves, when she comes back. I want to know if she has any visitors. It is extremely important. Comprenez-vous?” Understand?

“Oui Madame.”

“Good.” She is not much taller than I am but somehow she manages to look down at me, as though from a great height. Then she turns and walks away as quickly as possible, the little silver dog trotting at her heels.

I watch her go. Then I go to my tiny bureau and open the drawer. Look inside, check the contents.

She may look down upon me but the knowledge I have gives me power. And I think she knows this. I suspect, even though she would never think to admit it, that Madame Meunier is a little afraid of me.

Funny thing: we share more than meets the eye. Both of us have lived in this building for a long time. Both of us, in our own way, have become invisible. Part of the scenery.

But I know just what sort of woman Madame Sophie Meunier really is. And exactly what she is capable of.

Jess

“Hello?” I shout. “Can anyone hear me?”

I can feel the walls swallowing the sound, feel how useless it is. I shove at the door with all my strength, hoping the weight of my body might break the lock. Nothing: I might as well be ramming myself against a concrete wall. Panicking now, I pummel the wood.

Shit. Shit.

“Hey!” I shout, desperately now. “HEY! HELP ME!”

The last two words. A sudden flashback to another room. Shouting at the top of my lungs, shouting until my voice went hoarse, but it never felt loud enough . . . there was no one coming. Help me help me help me someone help she’s not . . .

My whole body is trembling.

And then suddenly the door is opening and a light flashes on. A man stands there. I take a step back. It’s Antoine, the guy I just watched casually smashing a bottle against a side table—

No . . . I can see now that I’m wrong. It was the height, maybe, and the breadth of the shoulders. But this guy is younger and in the weak light I can see that his hair is lighter, a dark golden color.

“Ça va?” he asks. Then, in English: “Are you OK? I came down to get my laundry and I heard—”

“You’re British!” I blurt. As British as the Queen, in fact: a proper, plummy, posh-boy accent. A little like the one Ben adopted after he went to live with his new parents.

He’s looking at me like he’s waiting for some kind of explanation. “Someone locked me in here,” I say. I feel shivery now that the adrenaline’s wearing off. “Someone did this on purpose.”

He pushes a hand through his hair, frowns. “I don’t think so. The door was jammed when I opened it. The handle definitely seems a bit sticky.”

I think of how hard I threw myself against it. Could it really just have been stuck? “Well, thanks,” I say weakly.

“No worries.” He steps back and looks at me. “What are you doing here? Not in the cave, I mean: in the apartment?”

“You know Ben, on the third floor? I’m meant to be staying with him—”

He frowns. “Ben didn’t tell me he had anyone coming to stay.”

“Well it was kind of last minute,” I say. “So . . . you know Ben?”

“Yeah. He’s an old friend. And you are?”

“I’m Jess,” I say. “Jess Hadley, his sister.”

“I’m Nick.” A shrug. “I—well, I’m the one who suggested he come and live here.”

Nick

I suggested Jess come up to my place, rather than us chatting in the chilly darkness of the cave. I’m slightly regretting it now: I’ve offered her a seat but she’s pacing the room, looking at my Peloton bike, my bookcases. The knees of her jeans are worn, the cuffs of her sweater frayed, her fingernails bitten down to fragments like tiny pieces of broken shell. She gives off this jittery, restless energy: nothing like Ben’s languor, his easy manner. Her voice is different too; no private school for her, I’m guessing. But then Ben’s accent often changed depending on who he was speaking to. It took me a while to realize that.

“Hey,” she says, suddenly. “Can I go splash some water on my face? I’m really sweaty.”

“Be my guest.” What else can I say?

She wanders back in a couple of minutes later. I catch a gust of Annick Goutal Eau de Monsieur; either she wears it too (which seems unlikely) or she helped herself when she was in there.

“Better?” I ask.

“Yeah, much, thanks. Hey, I like your rain shower. That’s what you call it, right?”

I continue to watch her as she looks around the room. There’s a resemblance there. From certain angles it’s almost uncanny. . . . But her coloring’s different from Ben’s, her hair a dark auburn to his brown, her frame small and wiry. That, and the curious way she’s prowling around, sizing the place up, makes me think of a little fox.

“Thanks for helping me out,” she says. “For a moment I thought I’d never get out.”

“But what on earth were you doing in the cave?”

“The what?”

“Cave,” I explain, “it means ‘cellar’ in French.”

“Oh, right.” She chews the skin at the edge of her thumbnail, shrugs. “Having a look around the place, I suppose.” I saw that bottle of wine in her hand. How she slipped it back into the rack when she didn’t think I was looking. I’m not going to mention it. The owner of that cellar can afford to lose a bottle or two. “It’s huge down there,” she says.

“It was used by the Gestapo in the war,” I tell her. “Their main headquarters was on Avenue Foch, near the Bois de Boulogne. But toward the end of the Occupation they had . . . overspill. They used the cave to hold prisoners. Members of the Resistance, that kind of thing.”

She makes a face. “I suppose it makes sense. This place has an atmosphere, you know? My mum was very into that sort of thing: energy, auras, vibrations.”

Was. I remember Ben telling me about his mum. Drunk in a pub one night. Though even drunk I suspect he never spilled more than he intended to.

“Anyway,” she says, “I never really believed in that stuff. But you can feel something here. It gives me the creeps.” She catches herself. “Sorry—didn’t mean to offend—”

“No. It’s fine. I suppose I know what you mean. So: you’re Ben’s sister.” I want to work out exactly what she’s doing here.

She nods. “Yup. Same mum, different dads.”

I notice she doesn’t say anything about Ben being adopted. I remember my shock, finding out. But thinking that it also made sense. The fact that you couldn’t pigeonhole him like you could the others in our year at university—the staid rowing types, the studious honors students, the loose party animals. Yes, there was the public school accent, the ease—but it always felt as though there was some other note beneath it all. Hints of something rougher, darker. Maybe that’s why people were so intrigued by him.

“I like your Gaggia,” Jess says, wandering toward the kitchen. “They had one like that in a café I used to work in.” A laugh, without much humor in it. “I might not have gone to a posh school or uni like my brother but I do know how to make a mean microfoam.” I sense a streak of bitterness there.

“You want a coffee? I can make you one. I’m afraid I’ve only got oat milk.”

“Have you got any beer?” she asks, hopefully. “I know it’s early but I could really do with one.”

“Sure, and feel free to sit down,” I say, gesturing to the sofa. Watching her prowl around the room, combined with the lack of sleep, is making me feel a little dizzy.

I go to the fridge to get out a couple of bottles: beer for her, kombucha for me—I never drink earlier than seven. Before I can offer to open hers she’s taken a lighter out of her pocket, fitted it between the top of her index finger and the bottom of the cap and somehow flipped the lid off. I watch her, amazed and slightly appalled at the same time. Who is this girl?

“I don’t think Ben mentioned you coming to stay,” I say, as casually as I can. I don’t want her to feel like I’m accusing her of anything—but he definitely didn’t. Of course we didn’t speak much the last couple of weeks. He was so busy.

“Well, it was kind of last minute.” She waves a hand vaguely. “When did you last see him?” she asks. “Ben?”

“A couple of days ago—I think.”

“So you haven’t heard from him today?”

“No. Is something the matter?”

I watch as she tears at her thumbnail with her teeth, so hard it makes me wince. I see a little bead of blood blossom at the quick. “He wasn’t here when I arrived last night. And I haven’t heard from him since yesterday afternoon. I know this is going to sound weird, but could he have been in some sort of trouble?”

I cough on the sip I’ve just taken. “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

“It just . . . feels all wrong.” She’s fidgeting with the gold necklace around her neck now. I see the metal saint come free; it’s the same as his. “He left me this voicenote. It . . . kind of cuts out halfway through. And now he isn’t answering his phone. He hasn’t read any of my messages. His wallet and his keys are still in the apartment—and I know he hasn’t taken his Vespa because I saw it in the basement—”

“But that’s just like Ben, isn’t it?” I say. “He’s probably gone off for a few days, chasing some story with a couple of hundred euros in his back pocket. You can get the train to most of Europe from here. He’s always been like that, since we were students. He’d disappear and come back a few days later saying he’d gone to Edinburgh ’cause he fancied it, or he’d wanted to see the Norfolk Broads, or he’d stayed in a hostel and gone hiking in the Brecon Beacons.”

The rest of us in our little bubble, hardly remembering—some of us wanting to forget—that there was a world outside it. It wouldn’t have occurred to us to leave. But off he’d go, on his own, like he wasn’t crossing some sort of invisible barrier. That hunger, that drive in him.

“I don’t think so,” Jess says, cutting into these memories. “He wouldn’t do that . . . not knowing I was coming.” But she doesn’t sound all that certain. She sounds almost as though she’s asking a question. “Anyway, you seem to know him pretty well?”

“We hadn’t seen much of each other until recently.” That much, at least, is true. “You know how it is. But he got in touch with me when he moved to Paris. And meeting back up . . . it felt like it had been no time at all, really.”

I’m drawn back to that reunion nearly three months ago. My surprise—shock—at finding the email from him after so long, after everything. A sports bar in Saint-Germain. A sticky floor and sticky bar, signed French rugby shirts tacked to the wall, moldy-looking chunks of charcuterie with your beer and French club rugby playing on about fifteen different screens. But it felt nostalgic; almost like the kind of place we would have gone to as students nursing pints and pretending to be real men.

We caught up on the missed decade between us: my time in Palo Alto; his journalism. He got out his phone to show me his work.

“It’s not exactly . . . hard-hitting stuff,” he said, with a shrug. “Not what I said I wanted to do. It’s fluff, let’s be honest. But it’s tough right now. Should have gone the tech route like you.”

I coughed, awkwardly. “Mate, I haven’t exactly conquered the tech world.” That was putting it mildly. But I was almost more disappointed by his lack of success than my own. I’d have expected him to have written his prize-winning novel by now. We’d met on a student paper but fiction always seemed more his thing, not the factual rigors of journalism. And if anyone was going to make it I’d been so sure it would be Ben Daniels. If he couldn’t, what hope was there for the rest of us?

“I feel like I’m really hunting around for scraps,” he said. “I get to eat in some nice restaurants, a free night out once in a while. But it’s not exactly what I thought I’d end up doing. You need a big story to break into that, make your name. A real coup. I’m sick and tired of London, the old boys’ club. Thought I’d try my luck here.”

Well, we both had our big plans, back when we’d last seen each other. Even if mine didn’t involve much more than getting the fuck away from my old man and being as far away from home as possible.

A sudden clatter brings me back into the room. Jess, on the prowl again, has knocked a photograph off the bookshelf: one of the rare few I’ve got up there.

She picks it up. “Sorry. That’s a cool boat, though. In the photo.”

“It’s my dad’s yacht.”

“And this is you, with him?”

“Yes.” I’m about fifteen in that one. His hand on my shoulder, both of us smiling into the camera. I’d actually managed to impress him that day, taking the helm for a while. It might have been one of the only times I’ve ever felt his pride in me.

A sudden shout of laughter. “And this one looks like something out of Harry Potter,” she says. “These black cloaks. Is this—”

“Cambridge.” A group of us after a formal, standing on Jesus Green by the River Cam in the evening light, wearing our gowns and clutching half-drunk bottles of wine. Looking at it I can almost smell that green, green scent of the fresh-cut grass: the essence of an English summer.

“That’s where you met Ben?”

“Yup, we worked on Varsity together: him in editorial, me on the website. And we both went to Jesus.”

She rolls her eyes. “The names they give those places.” She squints at it. “He’s not in this photo, is he?”

“No. He was taking it.” Laughing, getting us all to pose. Just like Ben to be the one behind the camera, not in front of it: telling the story rather than a part of it.

She moves over to the bookcases. Paces up and down, reading the titles. It’s hard to imagine she ever stops moving. “So many of your books are in French. That’s what Ben was doing there, wasn’t it? French studies or something.”

“Well, he was doing Modern Languages at first, yes. He switched to English Literature later.”

“Really?” Something clouds her face. “I didn’t—I didn’t know that about him. He never told me.”

I recall the fragments that Ben told me about her while we were traveling. How she had it so much harder than him. No one around to pick up the pieces for her. Bounced around the care system, couldn’t be placed.

“So you’re the friend that helped him out with this place?” she asks.

“That’s me.”

“It sounds incredible,” he’d said, when I suggested it the day we met up again. “And you’re sure about that, the rent? You reckon it would really be that low? I have to tell you I’m pretty strapped for cash at the moment.”

“Let me find out,” I told him. “But I’m pretty sure, yes. I mean, it’s not in the best shape. As long as you don’t mind some slightly . . . antique details.”

He grinned. “Not at all. You know me. I like a place with character. And I tell you, it’s a hell of a lot better than crashing on people’s sofas. Can I bring my cat?”

I laughed. “I’m sure you can bring your cat.” I told him I’d make my inquiries. “But I think it’s probably yours if you want it.”

“Well . . . thanks mate. I mean . . . seriously, that sounds absolutely amazing.”

“No problem. Happy to help. So that’s a yes, you’re interested?”

“It’s a hell yes.” He laughed. “Let me buy you another drink, to celebrate.”

We sat there for hours with more beers. And suddenly it was like we were back in Cambridge with no time having passed between us.

He moved in a couple of days later. That quick. I stood there with him in the apartment as he looked around.

“I know it’s a little retro,” I told him.

“It’s certainly . . . got character,” he said. “You know what? I think I’ll keep it like this. I like it. Gothic.”

And I thought how great it was, having my old buddy back. He grinned at me and for some reason I suddenly felt like everything might be OK. Maybe more than OK. Like it might help me find that guy I had been, once upon a time.

“Can I use your computer?”

“What?” I’m jolted out of the memory. I see Jess has wandered over to my iMac.

“Those bloody roaming charges are a killer. I just thought I could check Ben’s Instagram again, in case something’s happened to his phone and he’s messaged me back.”

“Er—I could give you my Wifi code?” But she’s already sitting down, her hand on the mouse. I don’t seem to have any choice in the matter.

She moves the mouse and the screen lights up. “Wait—” she leans forward, peering at the screensaver, then turns around to me. “This is you and Ben, isn’t it? Jeez, he looks so young. So do you.”

I haven’t switched on my computer in several days. I force myself to look. “I suppose we were. Not much more than kids.” How strange, to think it. I felt so adult at the time. Like all the mysteries of the world had suddenly been unlocked to me. And yet we were still children, really. I glance out of the windows. I don’t need to look at the photo; I can see it with my eyes shut. The light golden and slanting: both of us squinting against the sun.

“Where were you, here?”

“A group of us went interrailing, the whole summer after our finals.”

“What, on trains?”

“Yes. All across Europe . . . it was amazing.” It really was. The best time of my life, even.

I glance at Jess. She’s gone quiet; seems lost in her own thoughts. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah, sure.” She forces a smile. A little of her energy seems to have evaporated. “So . . . where was this photo taken?”

“Amsterdam, I think.”

I don’t think: I know. How could I forget?

Looking at that photo, I can feel the late July sun on my face, smell the sulphur stink of the warm canal water. So clear, that time, even though those memories are over a decade old. But then everything on that trip seemed important. Everything said, everything done.

Jess

“I’ve just realized,” Nick says, looking at his watch. “I’ve actually got to get going. Sorry, I know you wanted to use the computer.”

“Oh,” I say, a little thrown. “No worries. Maybe you could lend me your code? I’ll see if I can get on the Wifi from up there.”

“Sure.”

He suddenly looks very eager to be gone; maybe he’s late for something. “What is it,” I ask, “work?”

I’ve been wondering what he does for a living. Everything about this guy says money. But whispers it rather than shouts it. As I’ve been looking around his place I’ve noticed some very swanky-looking speakers (Bang & Olufsen, I’ll look it up later but I can just tell they’re expensive), a fancy camera (Leica), a massive screen in the corner (Apple) and that professional-looking coffee machine. But you have to really look to see the wealth. Nick’s are the possessions of someone who is loaded but doesn’t want to boast about it . . . might even be a little embarrassed by it. But they tell a story. As do the books on his shelves—the titles that I can understand, anyway: Fast Forward Investing, The Technologized Investor, Catching a Unicorn, The Science of Self-Discipline. As did the stuff in his bathroom. I spent about three seconds splashing my face with cold water and the rest of the time having a good root through his cabinets. You can learn a lot about someone from their bathroom. I learned this when I was taken to meet prospective foster families. No one’s ever going to stop you if you ask to use the toilet. I’d go in there, poke around—sometimes nick a lipstick or a bottle of perfume, sometimes explore the rooms on the way back—find out if they were concealing anything scary or weird.

In Nick’s bathroom I found all the usual: mouthwash, toothpaste, aftershaves, paracetamol, posh toiletries with names like “Aesop” and “Byredo” and then—interesting—quite a large supply of oxycodone. Everyone has their poison, I get that. I dabbled with some stuff, back in the day. When it felt like it might be easier to stop caring about anything, to just kind of slip out the back door of life. It wasn’t for me, but I get it. And I guess rich boys feel pain, too.

“I’m—well, between jobs at the moment,” Nick says.

“What were you doing before?” I ask, reluctantly moving away from the desk. I’m fairly certain his last job didn’t involve working in a dive with inflatable palm trees and flamingos dangling from the ceiling.

“I was in San Francisco for a while. Palo Alto. Tech start-ups. An Angel, you know?”

“Er . . . no?”

“An investor.”

“Ah.” It must be nice to be so casual about looking for work. Clearly “between jobs” doesn’t mean that he’s scrabbling for cash.

He squeezes past me to get to the doorway; I’ve been blocking his way and being a nice posh English boy he’s probably too polite to ask me to budge. I smell his cologne as he does: smoky and expensive and delicious, the same one I had a spray of in his bathroom.

“Oh,” I say. “Sorry. I’m holding you up.”

“It's OK.” But I get the impression he’s not as relaxed as he sounds: something in his posture, perhaps, a tightness about his jaw.

“Well. Thanks for your help.”

“Look,” he says. “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. But I’m still keen to help. Anything I can do, any questions I can answer—I’ll try to.”

“There is one thing,” I say. “Do you know if Ben’s seeing anyone?”

He frowns. “Seeing anyone?”

“Yeah. Like a girlfriend, or something more casual.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just a hunch.” It’s not like me to be prudish, but there’s something in me that gets the ick at describing the knickers I found in Ben’s bed.

“Hmm . . .” He puts a hand up to his hair and runs his fingers through it, which only makes his curls stand out more messily. He’s beautiful. Yes, all my focus is on finding Ben but I’m also not blind. I’ve always had a stupid weakness for a polite posh boy; I’m not saying I’m proud of it. “Not that I know of,” he says, finally. “I don’t think he has a girlfriend. But I suppose I don’t know everything about his life here in Paris. I mean, we’d kind of fallen out of touch before he arrived here.”

“Yeah.” I know how that is.

But that’s just like Ben, isn’t it? Nick had said, just before. He’s always been like that, since we were students. And all I could think was: is he? Has he? And if he was always rushing off at the drop of a hat when he was at Cambridge, how did he not find more time to come and see me? He was always saying he was “so busy with essays” or “I can’t miss any of my tutorials. You know how it is.” But I didn’t, of course. He knew I didn’t. One of the only times he came to see me—I was fostering in Milton Keynes at the time—was when I suggested a trip to Cambridge. I had an inkling that the threat of his scuzzy foster-kid sister turning up and damaging his image might work. Thinking about it, I feel a little spike of something that I hope is anger, not hurt. Hurt is the worst.

“Sorry not to be more use,” Nick says, “but if you need me, I’m right here. Just one floor down.”

Our eyes meet. His are a very dark blue, not the brown I’d taken them for. I try to see past the little tug of attraction. Can I trust this guy? He’s Ben’s mate. He says he’s keen to help. The problem is I’m not good at trusting people. I’ve been used to fending for myself for too long. But Nick could be useful. He knows Ben—apparently better than I do, in some ways. He clearly speaks French. He seems like a decent guy. I think of weird, jumpy Mimi and frosty Sophie Meunier: it’s nice to think someone in this building might be a useful ally.

I watch as he pulls on a smart navy wool coat, wraps a soft-looking gray scarf around his neck.

He goes to the door and opens it for me. “It’s nice to meet you, Jess,” he says, with a small smile. He looks like a painting of an angel. I don’t know where the thought comes from—maybe it’s because he used the word himself just now—but I know that it’s right; perfect even. A fallen angel. It’s the dark gold curls, those purple shadows under his navy eyes. Mum had a thing about angels, too, she was always telling me and Ben we all have one looking out for us. Shame hers didn’t seem up to the job. “And, look,” Nick says. “I’m sure Ben will turn up.”

“Thanks. I think so too.” I try to believe it.

“Here, let me give you my number.”

“That would be great.” I give him my phone: he puts his details in.

As I take it from him our fingers brush, and he quickly drops his hand.

Back up in Ben’s apartment I’m relieved to find I can get onto Nick’s Wifi using the password he gave me. I head to Ben’s Instagram and look for “Nick Miller”—the name he’s put in my phone—but I can’t see him among Ben’s followers. I try a more general search and get Nick Millers from all over the place: the States, Canada, Australia. I look through them until my eyes sting. But they’re too young, too old, too bald, from the wrong country. Google is useless, too: there’s some fictional guy called Nick Miller from a TV show which fills all the Google results. I give up. Just as I’m about to put it back in my pocket my phone vibrates with a text. And for a moment I think: Ben. It’s from Ben! How amazing would that be, after all this—

It’s from an unknown number:

Got your message about Ben. Haven’t heard from the guy. But he’d promised me a couple of pieces of work and a pitch. I’m working at the Belle Epoque café next to the Jardin du Luxembourg all day. You can meet me here. T.

I’m confused for a moment, then I scroll up to my message above and I realize it’s the guy I texted earlier. I take Ben’s wallet out of my back pocket to remind me of his full name. Theo Mendelson, Paris editor, Guardian.

I’m coming now, I text back.

Just before I slide the card back into the wallet, I notice another one sitting behind it. It catches my eye because it’s so simple, so unusual. Made from metal, it’s a dark midnight blue with an image like an exploding firework, picked out in gold. No text or numbers or anything. Not a credit card. Not a business card either, surely. Then what? I hesitate, feel the surprising weight of it in my palm, then pocket it.

When I open the door that leads onto the courtyard I realize it’s already starting to get dark, the sky the color of an old bruise. When did that happen? I haven’t noticed the hours passing. This place has swallowed time, like something from a fairytale.

As I walk through the courtyard I hear a sound close by, a rasping: scritch, scritch, scritch. I turn and start as I see a small, stooped figure standing only a couple of meters away to my right. It’s the old woman, the one I saw last night. She wears a scarf tied about her gray hair, and some sort of long shapeless cardigan over an apron. Her face is all nose and chin, hollow eye-sockets. She could be anything from seventy to ninety. She’s holding a broom, which she’s using to sweep dead leaves into a heap. Her eyes are fixed on me.

“Bonsoir,” I say to her. “Um. Have you seen Ben? From the third floor?” I point up to the windows of the apartment. But she just keeps on sweeping: scritch, scritch, scriiiitch, all the while watching me.

Then she steps even closer. Her eyes on me the whole time, barely even blinking. But just once, quickly, she looks up at the apartment building, as though checking for something. Then she opens her mouth and speaks in a low hiss, a sound not unlike the rasping of those dead leaves: “There is nothing for you here.”

I stare at her. “What do you mean?”

She shakes her head. And then she turns and walks away, goes back to her sweeping. It all happened so quickly I could almost believe I imagined the whole thing. Almost.

I stare after her stooped, retreating figure. For Christ’s sake: it feels like everyone I meet in here is speaking in riddles—except Nick, maybe. I have this sudden, almost violent urge to run up to her and, I don’t know, shake her or something . . . force her to tell me what she means. I swallow my frustration.

When I turn to open the gate I’m sure I can feel her gaze across my shoulder blades, definite as the touch of fingertips. And as I step onto the street I can’t help but wonder: was that a warning or a threat?

Concierge

The gate clangs shut behind the girl. She thinks that she’s staying in a normal apartment building. A place that follows ordinary rules. She has no idea what she has got herself into here.

I think of Madame Meunier’s instructions. I know that I have no option but to obey. I have too much at stake here not to cooperate. I will tell her that the girl has just left, as she asked me to do. I will tell her when she comes back, too. Just like the obedient member of staff I am. I do not like Madame Meunier, as I have made clear. But we have been forced into an uneasy kind of alliance by this girl’s arrival. She has been sneaking around. Asking questions of those that live here. Just like he did. I can’t afford to have her drawing attention to this place. He wanted to do that too.

There are things here that I have to protect, you see. Things that mean I can never leave this job. And up until recently I have felt safe here. Because these are people with secrets. I have been too deep into those secrets. I know too much. They can’t get rid of me. And I can never be rid of them.

He was kind, the newcomer. That was all. He noticed me. He greeted me each time he passed in the courtyard, on the staircase. Asked me how I was. Commented on the weather. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But it felt like such a long time since someone had paid any attention to me, let alone shown me kindness. Such a long time since I had even been noticed as a human being. And soon afterward he began asking his questions.

“How long have you worked here?” he inquired, as I washed the stone floor at the base of the staircase.

“A long time, Monsieur.” I wrung out my mop against the bucket.

“And how did you come to work here? Here—let me do that.” He carried the heavy bucket of water across the hallway for me.

“My daughter came to Paris first. I followed her here.”

“What did she come to Paris for?”

“That was all a very long time ago, Monsieur.”

“I’m still interested, all the same.”

That made me look at him more closely. Suddenly I felt I had told him enough. This stranger. Was he too kind, too interested? What did he want from me?

I was very careful with my answer. “It isn’t a very interesting story. Perhaps some other time, Monsieur. I have to get on with my work. But thank you, for your help.”

“Of course: don’t let me hold you up.”

For so many years my insignificance and invisibility have been a mask I can hide behind. And in the process I have avoided raking up the past. Raking up the shame. As I say, this job may have its small losses of dignity. But it does not involve shame.

But his interest, his questions: for the first time in a very long time I felt seen. And like a fool, I fell for it.

And now this girl has followed him here. She needs to be encouraged to leave before she is able to work out that things are not what they seem.

Perhaps I can persuade her to go.

Jess

It’s strange to be back among people, traffic, noise, after the hush of the building. Disorientating, too, because I still don’t really know where I am, how all the roads around here connect to one another. I check the map on my phone quickly, so as not to burn too much more data. The café where I’m meeting this Theo guy turns out to be all the way across town on the other side of the river so I decide to take the Metro, even though it means I’ll have to break another of the notes I nicked from Ben.

It feels like the further I move away from the apartment the easier I can breathe. It’s like a part of me has smelled freedom and never wants to go back inside that place, even though I know I have to.

I walk along cobbled streets, past crowded pavement cafés with wicker chairs, people chatting over wine and cigarettes. I pass an old wooden windmill erupting from behind a hedge and wonder what on earth that’s doing in the middle of the city, in someone’s garden. Hurrying down a long flight of stone steps I have to climb around a guy sleeping in a fort of soggy-looking cardboard boxes; I drop a couple of euros into his paper cup. A little way on I cut through a couple of smart-looking squares that look almost identical, except in the middle of one there are these old guys playing some kind of boules and in the other a merry-go-round with a candy-striped top, kids clinging onto model horses and leaping fish.

When I get to the more crowded streets around the Metro stop there’s an odd, tense feeling, like something’s about to happen. It’s like a scent in the air—and I have a good nose for trouble. Lo and behold, I spot three police vans parked in a side street. I glimpse them sitting inside wearing helmets, stab vests. On instinct, I keep my head down.

I follow the stream of people underground. I get stuck in the turnstile because I forget to take the little paper ticket out; I don’t know how to unlatch the doors on the train when it arrives so a guy has to help me before it pulls away without me. All of it makes me feel like a clueless tourist, which I hate: clueless is dangerous, it makes you vulnerable.

As I stand in the crowded, smelly, too-warm crush of bodies on the train I get the feeling I’m being watched. I glance around: a cluster of teenagers hanging from the rails, looking like they’ve stepped out of a nineties skate park; a young woman in a leather jacket; a few elderly women with tiny dogs and grocery trollies; a group of bizarrely dressed people with ski goggles on their heads and bandannas round their necks, one of them carrying a painted sign. But nothing obviously suspicious and when we get to the next stop a man playing an accordion steps on, blocking half the carriage from view.

Up out of the Metro the quickest way seems to be through a park, the Jardin du Luxembourg. In the park the light is purple, shifting, not quite dark. On the path leaves crunch under my feet where they haven’t been swept into huge glowing orange pyramids; the branches of the trees are nearly bare. There’s an empty bandstand, a shuttered café, chairs stacked in piles. Again I have that feeling of being watched, followed: certain I can feel someone’s gaze on me. But every time I turn back no figure stands out.

Then I see him. Ben. He flashes right by me, jogging alongside another guy. What the hell? He must have seen me: why didn’t he stop?

“Ben!” I shout, quickening my step, “Ben!” But he doesn’t look back. I start to jog. I can just about make him out, disappearing into the dim light. Shit. I’m lots of things but I’m not a runner. “Hey, Ben! For fuck’s sake!” He doesn’t turn around, though several other runners glance at me as they pass. Finally I’m just behind him, breathing hard. I reach out, touch his shoulder. He turns around.

I take a step backward. It isn’t Ben. His face is totally wrong: eyes too close together, weak chin. I see Ben’s raised eyebrow, clear as if he really were standing in front of me. You mistook me for that guy?

“Qu’est-ce que tu veux?” the stranger asks, looking irritated, then: “What do you want?”

I can’t answer, partly because I can’t breathe and talk at once but mainly because I’m so confused. He makes a little “crazy” gesture to his mate as they jog off.

Of course it wasn’t Ben. As I watch him move away, I can see everything’s wrong—he runs clumsily, his arms loose and awkward. There’s never been anything awkward about Ben. I’m left with the same feeling I had when he ran by me. It was like seeing a ghost.

The Café Belle Epoque has a kind of festive look to it, glimmering red and gold, light spilling onto the pavement. The tables outside are crowded with people chatting and laughing and the windows are steamy with condensation from all the bodies crowded around tables inside. Round the corner, where they haven’t turned on the heat-lamps, there’s one guy on his own hunched over a laptop; somehow I just know this is him.

“Theo?” I feel like I’m on a Tinder date, if I bothered going on those anymore and it wasn’t all catfishers and arseholes.

He glances up with a scowl. Dark hair long overdue a cut and the beginnings of a beard. He looks like a pirate who’s decided to dress in ordinary clothes: a woolen sweater, frayed at the neckline, under a big jacket.

“Theo?” I ask again. “We texted, about Benjamin Daniels—I’m Jess?”

He gives a curt nod. I pull out the little metal chair opposite him. It sticks to my hand with cold.

“Mind if I smoke?” I think the question’s rhetorical, he’s already pulled out a crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds. Everything about him is crumpled.

“Sure, I’ll have one thanks.” I can’t afford a smoking habit but I’m feeling jittery enough to need one—even if he didn’t actually offer.

He spends the next thirty seconds struggling to light his cigarette with a crappy lighter, muttering under his breath: “Fuck’s sake” and “Come on, you bastard.” I think I detect a slight accent as he does.

“You’re from East London?” I ask, thinking that maybe if I ingratiate myself he’ll be more willing to help. “Whereabouts?”

He raises a dark eyebrow, doesn’t answer. Finally, the lighter works and the cigarettes are lit. He draws on his like an asthmatic on an inhaler, then sits back and looks at me. He’s tall, uncomfortable-looking in the little chair: one long leg crossed over the other knee at the ankle. He’s kind of attractive, if you like your men rough around the edges. But I’m not sure I do—and I’m shocked at myself for even thinking about it, in the circumstances.

“So,” he says, narrowing his eyes through the smoke. “Ben?” Something about the way he says my brother’s name suggests there’s not that much love lost there. Maybe I’ve found the one person immune to my brother’s charm.

Before I can answer a waiter comes over, looking pissed off at having to take our order, even though it’s his job. Theo, who looks equally pissed off at having to talk to him and speaking French with a determined English accent, orders a double espresso and something called a Ricard. “Late night, on a deadline,” he tells me, a little defensively.

Mainly to warm up I ask for a chocolat chaud. Six euros. Let’s assume he’s paying. “I’ll have the other thing too,” I tell the waiter.

“Un Ricard?”

I nod. The waiter slouches off. “I don’t think we served that at the Copacabana,” I say.

“The what?”

“This bar I worked in. Until a couple of days ago, actually.”

He raises a dark eyebrow. “Sounds classy.”

“It was the absolute worst.” But the day The Pervert decided to show his disgusting little dick to me was the day I’d finally had enough. Also the day I decided I’d get the creep back for all the times he’d lingered too long behind me, breath hot and wet on the back of my neck, or “steered” me out of the way, hands on my hips, or the comments he’d made about the way I looked, the clothes I wore—all those things that weren’t quite “things” except were, making me feel a little bit less myself. Another girl might have left then and never come back. Another might have called the police. But I’m not that girl.

“Right,” Theo says—clearly he has no time for further chit-chat. “Why are you here?”

“Ben: does he work for you?”

“Nah. No one works for anyone these days, not in this line of work. It’s dog eat dog out there, every man for himself. But, yeah, sometimes I commission a review from him, a travel piece. He’s been wanting to get into investigative stuff. I guess you know that.” I shake my head. “He’s due to deliver a piece on the riots, in fact.”

“The riots?”

“Yeah.” He peers at me like he can’t believe I don’t know. “People are seriously fucked off about a hike in taxes, petrol prices. It’s got pretty nasty . . . tear gas, water cannons, the lot. It’s all over the news. Surely you’ve seen something?”

“I’ve only been here since last night.” But then I remember: “I saw police vans near the Pigalle Metro stop.” I remember the group with the ski goggles on the train. “And maybe some protestors.”

“Yeah, probably. Riots have been breaking out all over town. And Ben’s meant to be writing me a piece on them. But he was also going to tell me about a so-called ‘scoop’ he had for me—this morning, in fact. He was very mysterious about it. But I never heard from him.”

A new possibility. Could that be it? Ben dug too deep into something? Pissed off someone nasty? And he’s had to . . . what? Do a runner? Disappear? Or—I don’t want to think about the other possibilities.

Our drinks come; my hot chocolate thick and dark and glossy in a little jug with a cup. I pour it out and take a sip and close my eyes because it may be six euros but it is also the best fucking hot chocolate I have had in my life.

Theo pours five sachets of brown sugar into his coffee, stirs it in. Then he takes a big glug of his Ricard. I give mine a sip—it tastes of licorice, a reminder of all the sticky shots of Sambuca I’ve done behind the bar, bought for me by punters or snuck from the bottle on a slow evening. I down it. Theo raises his eyebrows.

I wipe my mouth. “Sorry. I needed that. It’s been a really shitty twenty-four hours. You see, Ben’s disappeared. I know you haven’t heard from him, but you don’t have any idea where he might be, do you?’

Theo shrugs. “Sorry.” I feel the small hope I’d been holding onto fizzle and die. “How do you mean disappeared?”

“He wasn’t in his apartment last night when he said he would be. He’s not answering any of my calls or even reading my messages. And there’s all this other stuff . . .’ I swallow, tell him about the blood on the cat’s fur, the bleach stain, the hostile neighbors. As I do I have a moment where I think: how has it come to this? Sitting here with a stranger in a strange city, trying to find my lost brother?

Theo sits there dragging on his cigarette and squinting at me through the smoke and his expression doesn’t change at all. The guy has a great poker face.

“The other strange thing,” I say, “is he’s been living in this big, swanky building. I mean, I can’t imagine Ben makes that much from writing?” Judging by the state of Theo’s outfit, I suspect not.

“Nope. You certainly don’t get into this business for the money.”

I remember something else. The strange metal card I took from Ben’s wallet. I slide it out of the back pocket of my jeans.

“I found this. Does it mean anything to you?”

He studies the gold firework design, frowning. “Not sure. I’ve definitely seen that symbol. But I can’t place it right now. Can I take it? I’ll get back to you.” I hand it over, a little reluctantly, because it’s one of the few things I have that feels like a clue. Theo takes it from me and there’s something about the way he grabs it that I don’t like. It suddenly seems too eager, despite the fact he’s told me he doesn’t know Ben all that well and doesn’t seem all that concerned for his welfare. He doesn’t exactly give off a Good Samaritan vibe. I’m not sure about this guy. Still, beggars can’t be choosers.

“There’s one other thing,” I say, remembering. “Ben left this voicenote for me last night, just before I got into Gare du Nord.”

Theo takes my phone. He plays the recording and Ben’s voice sings out. “Hey Jess—”

It’s strange hearing it again like this. It sounds different from the last time I listened, somehow not quite like Ben, like he’s that much further out of reach.

Theo listens to the whole thing. “It sounds like he says something else, at the end. Have you been able to work out what?”

“No—I can’t hear it. It’s too muffled.”

He puts up a finger. Hang on. Then he reaches into the rucksack by his chair—as crumpled as everything else about him—and pulls out a tangled pair of headphones. “Right. Noise-canceling and they go really loud. Want one?’ He holds out a bud to me.

I stick it in my ear.

He dials up the volume to the max and presses play on the voicenote again.

We listen to the familiar part of the recording. Ben’s voice: “Hey Jess, so it’s number twelve, Rue des Amants. Got that? Third floor” and “Just ring the buzzer. I’ll be up waiting for you—” His voice seems to cut off mid-sentence, just like every time I’ve listened to it before. But now I hear it. What sounded like a crackle on the voicemail is actually a creaking of wood. I recognize that creak. It’s the hinges of the door to the apartment.

And then I hear Ben’s voice at a distance, quiet but still much clearer than what had been only a mumble before: “What are you doing here?” A long pause. Then he says: “What the fuck . . . ?”

Next there’s a sound: a groan. Even at this volume it’s difficult to tell if it’s a person making the sound or something else—a floorboard creaking? Then: silence.

I feel even colder than I did before. I find myself taking hold of my necklace, reaching for the pendant, gripping it hard.

Theo plays the recording again. And finally a third time. Here it is. Here’s the proof. Someone was there in the apartment with Ben, the night he left this voicenote.

We each remove an earbud. Look at each other.

“Yeah,” Theo says. “I’d say that’s a little fucking weird.”

Mimi

She’s not in the apartment right now. I know because I’ve been watching from my bedroom window. All the lights are off on the third floor, the room in darkness. But for a moment I actually think I see him; appearing out of the shadows. Then I blink and of course there’s no one there.

But it would be like him. He had this habit of showing up unannounced. Just like he did the second time I met him.

I’d stopped by this old vinyl store on my way back from the Sorbonne: Pêle-Mêle. It was so hot. We have this expression in French, soleil de plomb, for when the sun feels as heavy as lead. That was what it was like that day—hard to imagine now, when it’s so cold out. It was horrible: exhaust fumes and sweaty sunburnt tourists crammed together on the pavements. I always hate the tourists but I hate them most of all in the summer. Bumbling around, hot and angry that they came to the city rather than the beach. But there were no tourists in the store because it looks so gloomy and depressing from the outside, which is exactly why I like it. It was dark and cool, like being underwater, the sounds from outside muted. I could spend hours in there in my own little bubble, hiding from the world, floating between the stacks of vinyl and listening to record after record in the scratched glass booth.

“Hey.”

I turned around.

There he was. The guy who’d just moved in on the third floor. I saw him most days, wheeling his Vespa across the courtyard or sometimes moving around in his apartment: he always left the shutters open. But close up, it was different. I could see the stubble on his jaw, the coppery hairs on his arms. I could see he wore a chain around his neck, disappearing beneath the neckline of his T-shirt. I wouldn’t have expected that, somehow: he seemed too preppy. Up close I could catch the tang of his sweat, which sounds kind of gross—but it was a clean peppery smell, not the fried onion stink you get on the Metro. He was kind of old, like I’d said to Camille. But he was also kind of beautiful. Actually, he took my breath away.

“It’s Merveille, isn’t it?”

I nearly dropped the record I was holding. He knew my name. He’d remembered. And somehow, even though I hate my name, on his lips it sounded different, almost special. I nodded, because I didn’t feel like I could speak. My mouth tasted of metal; maybe I’d bitten my tongue. I imagined the blood pooling between my teeth. In the silence I could hear the ceiling fan, whoomp, whoomp, whoomp, like a heartbeat.

Finally, I managed to speak. “M—most people call me Mimi.”

“Mimi. Suits you. I’m Ben.” His English accent; the bluntness of it. “We’re neighbors: I moved into the apartment on the third floor, a few days ago.”

“Je sais,” I said. It came out like a whisper. I know. It seemed crazy that he thought I might not know.

“It’s such a cool building. You must love living there.” I shrugged. “All that history. All those amazing features: the cave, the elevator—”

“There’s a dumbwaiter, too.” I blurted it out. It’s one of my favorite things in the building. I wasn’t sure why, but I suddenly wanted to share it with him.

He leaned forward. “A dumbwaiter?” He looked so excited; I felt a warm glow that I’d been the cause of it. “Really?”

“Yeah. From back when the building was a proper hôtel particulier—it belonged to this countess or something and there was a kitchen down in the cave. They’d send food and drink up in it and the laundry would come back down.”

“That’s amazing! I’ve never actually seen one of those in real life. Where? No, wait—don’t tell me. I’m going to try and find it.” He grinned. I realized I was smiling back.

He pulled at the collar of his T-shirt. “Christ it’s hot today.”

I saw the small pendant on the end of the chain come free. “You wear a St. Christopher?” Again, I just kind of blurted it out. I think it was the surprise at seeing it, recognizing the little gold saint.

“Oh.” He looked down at the pendant. “Yeah. This was my mum’s. She gave it to me when I was small. I never take it off—I kind of forget it’s there.” I tried to see him as a child and couldn’t. Could only see him tall, broad, the tanned skin of his face. He had lines, yes, but now I realized they didn’t make him look old. They just made him seem more interesting than any of the guys I knew. Like he’d been places, seen stuff, done stuff. He grinned. “I’m impressed you recognized it. You’re a Catholic?”

My cheeks flamed. “My parents sent me to a Catholic school.” A Catholic girls’ school. Your papa really hoped you’d turn out a nun, Camille said. The closest thing he could find to a chastity belt. Most kids I know, like Camille, went to big lycées where they wore their own clothes and smoked cigarettes and ate each other’s faces in the street at lunch break. Going to a place like the Soeurs Servantes du Sacré Coeur makes you into a total freak. Like something out of the kids’ book Madeline. What it means is you get stared at in your uniform by a certain kind of creep on the Metro and ignored by all the other guys. Makes you unable to talk to them like a normal human being. Which is probably exactly why Papa chose it for me.

Of course, I didn’t stay the whole time at the SSSC. They had some trouble with a teacher there, a young man: my parents thought it best I leave and for the last few years I had a private tutor, which was even worse.

I saw Benjamin Daniels looking at the record I was holding. “Velvet Underground,” he said. “Love them.” The design on the front of the vinyl sleeve—by Andy Warhol—was a series of pictures showing wet red lips opening to suck soda from a straw. Suddenly it seemed somehow dirty and I felt my cheeks grow warm again.

“I’m getting this,” he said, holding up his record. “The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. You like them?”

I shrugged. “Je ne sais pas.” I’d never heard of them. I’d never listened to the Velvet Underground record I’d picked up, either. I’d just liked the Warhol design; had planned to copy it in my sketchbook when I got home. I go to the Sorbonne, but what I’d really like to do (if it were left up to me) is art. Sometimes, when I’ve got a stick of charcoal or a paintbrush in my hand, it feels like the only time I’m complete. The only way I can speak properly.

“Well—I’ve got to run.” He made a face. “Got a deadline to meet.” Even that sounded kind of cool: having a deadline. He was a journalist; I’d watched him working late into the night at his laptop. “But you guys are on the fourth floor, right? Back at the apartment? You and your flatmate? What’s her name—”

“Camille.” No one forgets Camille. She’s the hot one, the fun one. But he’d forgotten her name. He’d remembered mine.

A few days later a note was pushed under the apartment door.

I couldn’t work out what it meant at first. Who had found what? It didn’t make any sense. It had to be something for Camille. And then I remembered our conversation in the record store. Could it be? I went to the cupboard that contained the dumbwaiter, pulled out the hidden handle, cranked it to bring the little cart upward. And I saw there was something in it: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs record he’d bought in the store. A note was attached to it. Hey Mimi. Thought you might like to try this. Let me know what you think. B x

“Who’s that from?” Camille came over, read the note over my shoulder. “He lent it to you? Ben?” I could hear the surprise in her voice. “I saw him yesterday,” she said. “He told me he’d love it if I could feed his kitty, if he ever goes away. He’s given me his spare key.” She flipped a lock of caramel-colored hair behind one ear. I felt a little sting of jealousy. But I reminded myself he hadn’t left her a note. He hadn’t sent her a record.

There’s this expression in French. Être bien dans sa peau. To feel good in your own skin. I don’t feel that way often. But holding that record, I did. Like I had something that was just mine.

Now, I look at the cupboard that has the dumbwaiter hidden inside it. I find myself drifting over to it. I open the cupboard to expose the pulleys, crank the handle, just like I did that day in August. Wait for the little cart to come into view.

What?

I stare. There’s something inside it. Just like when he sent me the record. But this isn’t a record. It’s something wrapped in cloth. I reach down to pick it up and, as I close my hand around it, I feel a sting. Hold my hand up and see blood beading from my palm. Merde. Whatever is inside here has cut me, biting through the fabric. I drop it and the cloth spills its contents onto the ground.

I take a step back. Look at the blade, crusted with something that looks like rust or dirt but isn’t, something that’s also streaked all over the cloth it was wrapped in.

And I start to scream.

Jess

I can’t stop thinking about how Ben sounded at the end of that message. The fear in his voice. “What are you doing here?” The emphasis. Whoever was there in the room, it sounded like he knew them. And then the “What the fuck?” My brother, always so in control of any situation. I’ve never heard him like that. It hardly even sounded like Ben.

There’s a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s been there all along, really, growing since last night. But now I can’t ignore it any longer. I think something happened to my brother last night, before I arrived. Something bad.

“Are you going to go back to that place?” Theo asks. “After hearing that?”

I’m kind of struck by his concern, especially as he doesn’t seem the sensitive sort.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel, “I need to be there.”

And I do. Besides—I don’t say this—I don’t have anywhere else to go.

I decide to walk back instead of taking the Metro—it’s a long way but I need to be out in the air, need to try and think clearly. I look at my phone to check my route. It buzzes:

You have used nearly all your Roaming Data! To buy more, follow this link . . .

Shit. I put it back in my pocket.

I pass little chi-chi shops painted red, emerald-green, navy blue, their brightly lit windows displaying printed dresses, candles, sofas, jewelry, chocolates, even some special bloody meringues tinted pale blue and pink. There’s something for everyone here, I suppose, if you’ve got the money to spend. On the bridge I push through crowds of tourists taking selfies in front of the river, kissing, smiling, talking and laughing. It’s like they’re living in a different universe. And now the beauty of this place feels like so much colorful wrapping hiding something evil inside. I can smell things rotting beneath the sweet sugary scents from the bakeries and chocolate shops: fish on the ice outside a fishmonger’s leaving stinking puddles collecting on the pavement, the reek of dog shit trodden into the pavement, the stench of blocked drains. The sick feeling grows. What happened to Ben last night? What can I do?

There have been times in my life when I’ve been pretty desperate. Not quite sure how I’m going to make the rent that month. Times I’ve thanked God I have a half brother with deeper pockets than me. Because, yeah, I might have resented him in the past, for having so much more than I ever did. But he has got me out of some pretty tight spots.

He came and collected me from a bad foster situation once in the Golf his parents had bought him, even though it was in the middle of his exams:

“We have to stick together, us orphans. No: worse than orphans. Because our dads don’t want us. They’re out there but they don’t want us.”

“You’re not like me,” I told him. “You’ve got a family: the Daniels. Look at you. Listen to how you talk. Look at this frigging car. You’ve got so much of everything.”

A shrug. “I’ve only got one little sister.”

Now it’s my turn to help him. And even though every part of me recoils from calling the police, I think I have to.

I take out my phone, search the number, dial 112.

I’m on hold for a few moments. I wait, listening to the engaged tone, fiddling with my St. Christopher. Finally someone picks up: “Comment puis-je vous aider?” A woman’s voice.

“Um, parlez-vous anglais?”

“Non.”

“Can I speak to someone who does?”

A sigh. “Une minute.”

After a long pause another voice—a man’s. “Yes?”

I begin to explain. Somehow the whole thing sounds so much flimsier out loud.

“Excuse me. I do not understand. Your brother left you a voice message. From his apartment? And you are worried?”

“He sounded scared.”

“But there was no sign of a break-in in his home?”

“No, I think it was someone he knew—”

“Your brother is . . . a child?”

“No, he’s in his thirties. But he’s disappeared.”

“And you are certain he has not, for example, gone away for a few days? Because that seems like the likeliest possibility, non?”

I have this growing feeling of hopelessness. I don’t feel like we’re getting anywhere here. “I’m fairly certain, yeah. It’s all pretty fucking weird—sorry—and he’s not answering his phone, he’s left his wallet, his keys.”

A long pause. “OK, Mademoiselle. Give me your name and your address, I will make a formal record and we will come back to you.”

“I—” I don’t want to be on any formal record of anything. What if they compare notes with the UK, run my name? And the way he says, “formal record,” in that bored flat voice, sounds like—yeah, we’ll think about doing something in a couple of years after we’ve done all the stuff that actually matters and maybe a bit of the stuff that doesn’t.

“Mademoiselle?” he prompts.

I hang up.

That was a total waste of time. But did I really expect anything else? The British police have never helped me before. Why did I think their French counterparts would be any different?

When I look up from my phone I realize I’ve lost my bearings. I must have been wandering aimlessly while I was on the call. I go to the map on my phone but it won’t load. As I try to get it to work my phone buzzes and a notification pops up:

You have used up all of your Roaming Data. To buy more, follow this link . . .

Shit, shit . . . It’s getting darker, too and somehow this only makes me feel more lost.

OK. Pull yourself together Jess. I can do this. I just need to find a busier street, then I can find a Metro station and a map.

But the streets get quieter and quieter until I can hear just one other set of footsteps, a little way behind me.

There’s a high wall on my right and I realize, glimpsing a little plaque nailed to it, that I’m skirting a cemetery. Above the wall I can just make out the taller tombs, the wing tips and bent head of a mourning angel. It’s almost completely dark now. I stop.

The footsteps behind me stop, too.

I walk faster. The footsteps quicken.

Someone is following me. I knew it. I round the curve of the wall so I’ll be out of sight for a few seconds. Then, instead of carrying on I stop and press myself back against the wall on the other side. My heart’s beating hard against my ribs. This is probably really fucking stupid. What I should be doing is running away, finding a busy street, surrounding myself with other people. But I have to know.

I wait until a figure appears. Tall, a dark coat. My chest is burning: I realize I’ve been holding my breath. The figure turns, slowly—looking around. Looking for me. They’re wearing a hood, and for a moment I can’t see their face.

Then they take a sudden step back; I know they’ve seen me. The hood falls down. I can see their face now in the light from the streetlamp. It’s a woman: young, beautiful enough to be a model. Dark brown hair cut in a sharp fringe, a mole on her high cheekbone, like a piece of punctuation. A hoodie under a leather jacket. She’s staring at me in surprise.

“Hello,” I say. I take a cautious step toward her, the shock ebbing away, especially now I can see she’s not the threatening figure I’d imagined. “Why were you following me?” She backs away. It feels like I have the upper hand now. “What do you want?” I ask, more insistently.

“I—I’m looking for Ben.” A strong accent, not French. Eastern European, maybe—the thick sound of the “I.” “He isn’t answering. He told me—only if it’s very important—to come to the apartment. I heard you asking about him last night. In the street.”

I think back to when I first arrived at the building, when I thought for a moment I saw a figure crouched in the shadows behind a parked car. “Was that you? Behind the car?”

She doesn’t say anything, which I suppose is as much of an answer as I’m going to get. I take another step toward her. She takes a step back.

“Why?” I ask her. “Why are you looking for Ben? What’s important?”

“Where is Ben?” is all she says. “I must speak with him.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to work out. I think something’s happened. He’s disappeared.”

It happens so quickly. Her face goes white. She looks so scared that I suddenly feel pretty scared myself. Then she swears in another language—it sounds like “koorvah.”

“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. 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”?

I flip through the rest of the notebook, hoping to discover more, only to find it’s blank after this. But this does tell me something. There is something strange going on with the people in this building. Ben was keeping notes about them.

I drink more of Ben’s wine, waiting for it to take the edge off my nerves but it doesn’t seem to be helping. It only starts to make me feel groggy. I put the wine glass down because I have an urge to stay awake, to keep watch, to keep thinking. I don’t want to fall asleep here. Suddenly it doesn’t feel safe.

When my eyes start closing of their own accord I realize I don’t have a choice. I have to sleep. I need the energy to keep going. I drag myself into the bedroom and fall onto the bed. I know I can’t do any more today, not while I’m this knackered. But as I turn out the light I realize that a whole day has now passed without word from my brother and the feeling of dread grows.

My eyes snap open. It feels like no time has passed, but the neon numbers on Ben’s alarm clock read: 3:00. Something woke me. I know it, even if I’m not sure what. Could it have been the cat, knocking something over? But no, it’s here at the end of the bed, I can feel the weight of its body against my feet and, as my eyes adjust to the dark, I can make it out more clearly in the green glow of the alarm clock. It’s sitting up, alert, ears pricked and twitching like radars trying to catch a signal. It’s listening to something.

And then I hear it. A creak, the sound of a floorboard giving under someone’s foot. Someone’s here, in the apartment with me, just the other side of the French doors.

But . . . could it be Ben? I open my mouth to call out. Then I hesitate. Remember the voicenote. There’s no light beneath the French doors: my visitor is moving around in the dark. Ben would have switched on the lights by now.

Suddenly I’m wide awake. More than awake: wired. My breathing sounds too loud in the silence. I try to calm it, make it as quiet as possible. I close my eyes and fake sleep, lying as still as I can. Has someone broken in? Wouldn’t I have heard the glass shattering, the door splintering?

I wait, listening to every tiny creak of the footsteps making their way around the room. It doesn’t feel as though they’re in any particular rush. I pull the throw up so I’m almost completely covered by it. And then, through the thundering of my own blood in my ears, I hear the doors to the bedroom begin to open.

My chest is so tight it’s hard to breathe. My heart is jumping against my ribs. I’m still pretending to sleep. But at the same time I’m thinking about the lamp next to the bed, the metal base nice and heavy. I could snatch out an arm—

I wait, head pressed against the pillow, trying to decide whether to grab for the lamp now or—

But . . . now I hear the soft pad of footsteps retreating. I hear the French doors closing. And then, a few moments later, further away, the groan of the main door to the apartment opening and shutting.

They’ve gone.

I lie still for a moment, my breathing coming in rough pants. Then I jump up, push through the French doors and run out into the main room. If I move quickly, I might catch them. But first—I rummage through the kitchen cupboards, come up with a heavy frying pan, just in case, then pull open the apartment’s main door. The corridor and stairwell are dark and silent. I close the door, go to the windows instead. Maybe I’ll catch someone out there in the courtyard. But it’s just a dark pit: the black shapes of trees and bushes, no flicker of movement. Where did they go?

I turn on a light. The place looks completely untouched. No broken glass and the front door looks undamaged. Like they just walked right in.

I could almost believe I dreamt it. But someone was here, I’m certain. I heard them. The cat heard them. Even if, right now, it couldn’t look more chilled, sprawled on the sofa, cleaning delicately between its outspread toes.

I glance at Ben’s desk, and that’s when I realize the notebook is gone. I search the drawers, behind the gap in the desk where I found it before. Shit. I’m an idiot. Why did I leave it out there in full view? Why didn’t I hide it somewhere?

It seems so obvious now. After hearing that voicenote I should have taken extra precautions. I should have put something in front of the door. Should have known that someone might come in here, poke around. Because they wouldn’t need to break in. If it’s the same person Ben was speaking to on that recording, they already have a key.