Even in my darkest moments over the last couple of days, even learning what Ben had got himself into, I haven’t allowed myself to imagine it. Not finding my brother like this, how I found Mum.
I sink to my knees.
It doesn’t look like my brother, the body on the mattress. It isn’t just the pale, waxy color of the skin, the sunken eye-sockets. It’s that I’ve never seen him so still. I can’t think of my brother without thinking of his quick grin, his energy.
I take in the dark, rusted crimson color of his T-shirt. I can see that elsewhere the fabric is pale. It’s a stain. It covers his entire front.
He must have been up here all along, all this time, while I’ve been scurrying around following clues, tying myself in knots. Thinking I was helping him somehow. And to think I’d seen that locked attic door on my first morning here.
Crouched here beside him, I rock back and forth as the tears begin to fall.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’m so bloody sorry.”
I reach down to take a hold of his hand. When was the last time we held hands, my brother and I? That day in the police station, maybe. After Mum. Before we went our separate ways. I squeeze his fingers tight.
Then I almost drop his hand in shock.
I could have sworn I felt his fingers twitch against mine. I know it’s my imagination, of course. But for a moment, I really thought—
I glance up. His eyes are open. They weren’t open before . . . were they?
I get to my feet, stand over him. Heart thundering.
“Ben?”
I’m sure I just saw him blink.
“Ben?”
Another blink. I didn’t imagine it. I can see his eyes attempting to focus on mine. And now he opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Then—“Jess.” It’s little more than an exhalation, but I definitely heard him say it. He closes his eyes again, as though he’s very, very tired.
“Ben!” I say. “Come on. Hey. Sit up.” It suddenly seems very important to get him upright. I put my arms under his armpits. He’s almost a dead weight. But somehow I manage to haul him into a sitting position. He half slumps forward and his eyes are cloudy with confusion, but they are open.
“Oh, Ben.” I take hold of his shoulders—I don’t dare hug him in case he’s too badly hurt. Tears are streaming down my face now; I let them fall. “Oh my God, Ben: you’re alive . . . you’re alive.” I hear a door slam behind me. It’s the door to the attic. For a moment I had genuinely forgotten about anything and anyone else.
I turn around, slowly.
Sophie Meunier stands there. Behind her: Nick. And even though I’m reeling from everything that’s just happened, I’m still able to make out that there’s a big difference in their expressions. Sophie’s face is an intense, terrifying mask. But Nick’s, as he looks at Ben, shows surprise, horror, confusion. In fact, Nick looks—and this is the only way I can think to describe it—as though he has seen a ghost.
Nick
Second floor
I feel dread creeping through me as I take in the scene in the attic. I ran up here when I heard the screaming, after dragging Antoine, semi-conscious, to the sofa in my apartment.
He’s here. Ben is here. He doesn’t look well, but he is sitting up. And he is alive.
This can’t be right. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not possible.
Ben is dead. He’s been dead since Friday night. My one-time friend, my old university mate, the guy I fell for on that warm summer night in Amsterdam over a decade ago and have been thinking about ever since.
He died and it was my fault and in the days since I have been trying to live with the guilt and the grief of it: walking around feeling only barely alive myself.
I look to my stepmother, expecting to see my own shock reflected in her expression. It isn’t there. This doesn’t seem to have come as a surprise to her. She knows. It’s the only explanation. Why else would she be so calm?
Finally I manage to speak. “What is this?” I ask, voice hoarse. “What is this? What the fuck is happening?” I point to Ben. “This isn’t possible. He’s dead.”
You see, I know it for a fact. I had plenty of time to take it all in: the unspeakable horror of that lifeless shape in its makeshift shroud. The undeniable fact of it. Of the blood, too, spilled across the floorboards and soaked into the towels: far more blood than anyone could lose and live. But it’s more than that. Three nights ago, Antoine and I carried his body down the stairs and dug a shallow trench and buried him in the courtyard garden.
Mimi
Fourth floor
It has all gone so quiet now, after the scream up above. What is going on? What has she found?
This is the part I remember. After this there is nothing, until the blood.
It was late and I was tired from all the thoughts whirring around my brain, but couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had read. What I saw. Ben—and my mother. I’d destroyed my paintings of him. But it didn’t feel like enough. I could see him over there in his apartment, working away at his computer. But it was all different now. I knew what he was writing about and the thought of it made me feel sick, all over again. I could never un-know it. Even if I tried not to believe it. But I think I do. I think I do believe it. The hushed tones everyone uses when they talk about Papa’s business. Things I’ve heard Antoine say. It was all beginning to make a horrible kind of sense.
Ben came to the window and looked out. I ducked out of sight, so he wouldn’t spot me. Then I went back to watching.
He moved back to his desk, looking at his phone, holding it to his ear. But then he looked up. Turned his head. He began to stand. The door was opening. Someone was stepping into the room.
Oh—merde.
Putain de merde.
What was he doing there?
It was Papa.
He wasn’t meant to be home.
When did he get back? And what was he doing in Ben’s apartment?
Papa had something in his hands. I recognized it: it was the magnum of wine he had given Ben as a present only a few weeks earlier.
He was going to—
I couldn’t bear to keep looking. But at the same time I couldn’t look away. I watched as Ben crumpled to his knees. As Papa raised the bottle again and again. I watched as Ben staggered backward, as he collapsed onto the floor, as blood began to soak into the front of his pale T-shirt, turning the whole thing red. And I knew it was all my fault.
Ben crawled toward the window. I watched as he raised his hand, hit his palm against the glass. And then he mouthed a word: Help.
I saw my father raise the bottle again. And I knew what was going to happen. He was going to kill him.