“Please,” he manages, “I can explain.” He has always been able to talk himself out of any situation. Benjamin Silver-Tongue she called him. If he can only find the words. But speech seems suddenly very difficult . . .
The next attack comes with astonishing suddenness, astonishing force. His voice is pleading, high as a child’s. “No, no—please, please . . . don’t—” The words tumbling out of him, he who is always so poised. No time for explanations now. He is begging. Begging for mercy. But there is none in the eyes gazing down upon him.
He sees the blood spatter onto his jeans but he doesn’t understand what it is immediately. Then he watches as spots of crimson begin to fall onto the parquet floor. Slowly at first, then faster, faster. It doesn’t look real: such a brilliant, intense red and there is so much of it, all at once. How can all of this have come from him? More and more every second. It must be spilling out of him.
Then it happens again, the next attack, and he is falling and on the way down his head bounces against something hard and sharp: the edge of the kitchen counter.
He should have known. Should have been less arrogant, less cavalier. Should at least have had a chain put on the door. And yet he thought he was invincible, thought that he was the one in control. He has been so stupid, so arrogant.
Now he’s down on the floor and he cannot imagine ever being able to stand again. He tries to put up his hands, to beg without words, to defend himself, but his hands won’t obey him either. His body is no longer within his control. With this comes a new terror: he is utterly helpless.
The shutters . . . the shutters are open. It’s dark outside: which means that this whole scene must be illuminated to the outside world. If someone saw—if someone could come to help—
With a vast effort he opens his eyes, turns and begins to crawl toward the windows. It’s so hard. Each time he places a hand it slips out from under him: it takes a moment for him to realize that this is because the floor is slick with his own blood. Eventually he reaches the window. He raises himself a little way above the sill, he reaches out a hand and marks a gory handprint against the pane. Is there someone out there? A face turned up toward him, caught by the light spilling from the windows, out there in the gloom? His vision is blurring again. He tries to beat his palm, to mouth the word: HELP.
And then the pain hits him. It is huge, more overwhelming than anything he has experienced in his life. He can’t bear this, surely: it must be too much. This is where the story ends.
And his last lucid thought is: Jess. Jess will be coming tonight, and no one will be here to meet her. From the moment she arrives, she too will be in danger.
Sunday
Nick
Second floor
Morning. I enter the building’s stairwell. I’ve been running for hours. I have no idea how long, actually, or how far I went. Miles, probably. Normally I’d have the exact stats, would be checking my Garmin obsessively, uploading it all to Strava the second I’d got back. This morning I can’t even be bothered to look. Just needed to clear my head. I only stopped because the agony in my calf began to cut through everything else—though for a while I almost enjoyed running through the pain. An old injury: I pushed a Silicon Valley quack to prescribe me oxycodone for it. Which also helped dull the sting when my investments started to go bad.
On the first floor I hesitate outside the apartment. I knock on the door once, twice—three times. Listen for the sound of footsteps inside while I take in the scuffed doorframe, the stink of stale cigarette smoke. I linger perhaps a couple of minutes but there’s no answer. He’s probably passed out in there in a drunken stupor. Or maybe he’s avoiding me . . . I wouldn’t be surprised. I have something I want—need—to say to the guy. But I suppose it’ll have to wait.
Then I close the door, start climbing the stairs, my eyes stinging. I lift the hem of my sweat-soaked T-shirt to rub at them, then carry on up.
I’m just passing by the third-floor apartment when the door is flung open and there she stands: Jess.
“Er—hi,” I say, pushing a hand through my hair.
“Oh,” she says, looking confused. “It looked like you were going upstairs?”
“No,” I say, “No . . . actually, I was coming to see how you were. I meant to say—sorry for running off yesterday. When we were talking. Did you have any luck tracking Ben down?”
I look at her closely. Her face is pale. No longer the sly little fox she seemed yesterday, now she’s a rabbit in the headlamps.
“Jess,” I say. “Are you all right?”
She opens her mouth but for a moment no sound comes out. I get the impression she’s fighting some sort of internal battle. Finally she blurts, “Someone was in here, very early this morning. Someone else must have a key to this apartment.”
“A key?”
“Yeah. They came in and crept around.” Less rabbit-in-the-headlamps now. That tough veneer coming back up.
“What, into the apartment? Did they take anything?”
She shrugs, hesitates. “No.”
“Look, Jess,” I say. “It sounds to me like you should speak to the police.”
She screws up her face. “I called them yesterday. They weren’t any help.”
“What did they say?”
“That they’d make a record,” she says with an eyeroll. “But then, I don’t know why I even bothered. I’m the fucking idiot who comes to Paris alone, barely able to speak the language. Why I thought they’d take me seriously . . .”
“How much French can you speak?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “Hardly anything. I can just about order a beer, but that’s it. Pretty bloody useless, right?”
“Look, why don’t I come with you to the Commissariat? I’m sure they’d be more helpful if I spoke to them in French.”
She raises her eyebrows. “That would be—well, that would be amazing. Thank you. I’m . . . look, I’m really grateful.” A shrug. “I’m not good at asking for favors.”
“You didn’t ask—I offered. I told you yesterday I want to help. I mean it.”
“Well, thanks.” She tugs at the chain of her necklace. “Can we go soon? I need to get out of this place.”
Jess
We’re out on the street, walking along in silence. My thoughts are churning. That voicenote made me feel like I shouldn’t trust anyone in the building—including Ben’s old uni mate, friendly as he might be. But on the other hand, Nick’s the one who suggested going to the police. Surely he wouldn’t do that if he had something to do with Ben’s disappearance?
“This way,” Nick takes hold of my elbow—my arm tingles slightly at his touch—and steers me into an alleyway, no, more like a kind of stone tunnel between buildings. “A cut-through,” he says.
In contrast with the crowded street we left behind there’s suddenly no one else in sight and it’s much darker. Our footsteps echo. I don’t like that I can’t see the sky.
It’s a relief when we pop out at the other end. But as we turn onto the street I see it ends in a police barricade. There are several guys wearing helmets and stab vests, holding batons, radios crackling.
“Fuck,” I say, heart thudding.