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. Chateau 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
The Loge
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 ?le 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.
“?a 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?”