THIRTY
And the next night Seth waited for the call, all the time unable to stop shivering in the warm reception area. Anticipating the moment the solemn hooded figure would appear before his desk, to instruct him on who was next. Who he was to escort not merely to their death, but to something infinitely worse that came after.
But would the boy come for him first? Or would it be the police, wishing to speak to the porter on duty when two of the most senior residents had died within a week of each other?
It had been just over two hours since Stephen left him alone. The head porter had been waiting for Seth to come in, and had told him there was ‘some more terrible, terrible news’. Mr Shafer had died in the night and his wife had suffered some kind of breakdown. ‘Looked like a stroke to me. Poor thing must have lost the plot when she realized her husband was dead. They were very close, you know. They had their moments. We all know that. But they were inseparable.’
And Stephen had nearly called him at the Green Man this time, to ask how he’d missed finding Mrs Shafer while he was on patrol in the night. Mrs Benedetti from flat five had discovered Mrs Shafer on the first-floor landing the following morning just before six, looking as if she had been slowly making her way down to the ground floor all through the night. She was found, still dressed in her nightgown, on her hands and knees, catatonic with shock and cowering in front of the mirror on that landing, as if she was looking at something above her. But then Stephen had assumed by the state of Mrs Shafer that her husband must have died after Seth’s last patrol at two and that she’d lost the presence of mind to raise the alarm.
‘Terrified. Absolutely witless,’ Mrs Benedetti had told the front desk before Piotr went up to investigate. An ambulance was then called and Stephen ventured up to the Shafers’ apartment to find the front door open. Inside the main bedroom he found Mr Shafer, still tucked up where Seth had left him. ‘His face, Seth. Must have been very bad at the end for him. Perhaps that’s what set her off.’
‘Must have been,’ Seth had muttered, his entire body so tense he expected his mind to snap like a corroded rubber band stretched too far.
‘And you know what they say, Seth. Death comes in threes. Makes you wonder who’s next, eh?’ Stephen had said, trying to add levity to a conversation that made Seth so deeply uncomfortable he’d forgotten to breathe. ‘Or was Lillian the first? Which would make Shafer number three. Who knows? Still, let’s keep our chins up, eh?’ he added, with a smile that seemed to be battling with his casual solemnity.
Had he got away with it? Too early to tell. But he would be caught soon enough. Surely. Because he sensed his work here was unfinished; and knew that another death during his shift would certainly put him under suspicion. There had been no sign that he would be released from the tasks set him by the presence upstairs. From his involvement in it all, to procure revenge, because that was what this was: a murderous vengeance, and there was no refusing a call when it came. He wondered who was left; who else had wronged that enduring genius in apartment sixteen. He just had to sit here and await guidance.
But what would become of him when his grisly work was finally done? He wondered this with a tightening of the gut, followed by a wave of anxiety so acute it made his heart hammer and his head feel dizzy.
Despite his fearful anticipation of the malevolent presence that required so much of him, his hands seemed to automatically resume their work with charcoal and paper. As if they had a story to tell, and needed to record the further progression of this nightmare there was no waking from, his scratching and smudging and rubbing on a sketch pad were soon audible in reception.
Unaware of the passing of the early evening, and only mildly conscious of the pain in his bladder that demanded he urinate, Seth withdrew inside himself to where the world had been reshaped. For once he wasn’t disturbed by the men from Claridge’s delivering Mrs Roth’s supper, or by the calls from Glock for cabs, or by the shuffling nuisance of Mrs Shafer. He was permitted to fill the hours and the pages with what only he and the presence in apartment sixteen could see of the world.
It wasn’t the hooded boy who finally interrupted his frantic work just after the security clock clicked nine; it was the appearance of an attractive young woman standing in front of the reception desk of Barrington House.
She was pretty. Verging on beautiful. Unchanged. Unlike the creatures with the lumpy grey complexions hidden by makeup whom he saw on his journey to and from the building, or glimpsed on his rare forages for food in Hackney. This one was slender and well-groomed, and walked with grace. Like something off the silver screen; a vision from the past.
He’d never met her before, but had seen her captured on the security monitors coming in through the back door of the east block. An American girl. The niece or something of crazy old Lillian who snuffed it in a black cab. The girl Piotr lusted after, always rolling his eyes whenever he mentioned her. And Seth could see why.
So chic in a black leather jacket and that tight pencil skirt and high heels, her hair styled like a film star from the forties, with her big dark eyes flicking up to the camera as she came in through the rear doors, either alone or with that guy with the half-smile, like he knew something about you he kept to himself for fear of embarrassing you.
But tonight she came through the main entrance of the west wing alone and into reception to speak to him. Immediately, his eyes dropped to the flash of the new leather of her boots, and to the smoky gauze of dark nylon clinging to her shapely knees. Then his stare roamed up across her tight curves to her pale throat and pretty turned-up nose. She smelled so good.
His body warmed with desire. A feeling so alien and incongruous its sudden re-emergence made him dizzy. Glock’s escorts used to make him feel the same way when their painted and scented loveliness had been summoned to service the rotund body of the director. He’d forgotten a woman’s body could offer any pleasure.
Seth stood up, both to receive her as he had been taught to greet all residents and visitors, and also to continue his admiration of her figure before it was concealed against the front of his desk.
Under that smile she was nervous. ‘Hello,’ she said, with a beautiful painted mouth and perfect white teeth. He felt his idea of himself immediately shrink and hunch into something unkempt and unwashed. His uniform was a creased disgrace. His shirt unclean, the collar brown and rubbery against his skin. He could not recall the last time he had bathed or shaved. Or cared about such things.
‘Good evening, miss. How can I help?’