“No. It would surprise me if anybody ever sees them again. Not alive, anyhow. But I’m beginning to understand what happened to them, and why.”
“You believe that they are dead?”
“I think that it’s a very strong possibility, yes.”
“All of them? The whole family?”
I nodded. “I don’t have any proof yet. But it seems very likely. And I don’t think it was accidental either.”
“But Dr. Westerlund was a surgeon, wasn’t he? Why would anybody want to kill him?”
“I think I know what the motive was. I also think I know who did it. As I say, though, I don’t have any proof. None that makes any sense.”
“Well, I wish you luck. If the Westerlunds really have been murdered, then they deserve justice.”
I put down my coffee cup. “Your wife tells me that you know who owns this apartment.”
“How would this help?”
“I’m not sure. But whoever bought it from the Westerlunds, maybe the Westerlunds gave them some clue about where they were going.”
Professor Olofsson dragged out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “Of course our lease was all arranged by my university, and so I never saw the original contract. But when the heating went wrong, I got in touch with the letting agents, and when I visited their office, the paperwork was all there, lying on the agent’s desk. Penumbra. Not a name you would forget.”
“I’ve heard of Penumbra. They’re based in New York.”
“In that case, it will not be so difficult for you to talk to them, yes?” He blew his nose again. “Murdered. That would be terrible. What a world this is turning into!”
We sat in silence for a short while, punctuated only by the lurching of logs in the fireplace, and the clink of coffee cups. Then I said, “I understand you’ve been hearing voices, professor.”
Professor Olofsson looked across at Anna-Carin and wagged his finger at her. “My wife shouldn’t tell you such stories! I don’t want it getting out that I’m going a bit funny in the head.”
“You have, though?”
“Well—I don’t think they can really be voices. More likely, it’s just a draft, blowing under the door. You know how the wind can sound as if it is talking to you, especially at night, when you’re very tired.”
“Can you make out anything of what they’re saying?”
Professor Olofsson looked at me sharply. “It’s the wind, Mr. Lake. I’m almost sure of it. I just like to think that in an old apartment like this, the spirits of the people who used to live here are still keeping us company.”
“Did you ever hear them saying the word drunkna?” “
Drowning? Who told you that?”
“So you did hear them say it?”
Professor Olofsson shook his head. “No, of course not. I heard nothing except whispering.”
“Have you ever heard any unusual noises—like children, running along the corridor, in the middle of the night?”
“Sometimes the plumbing makes a banging sound. But that is simple physics. Expansion and contraction. Not children.”
“And you’ve never seen anybody? Or felt anybody touching you?”
“You sound like one of those mediums, Mr. Lake. I don’t believe this apartment is haunted. I hear whispering sometimes and it sounds like voices, but that is all.”
He looked at his watch and I could tell that he didn’t want to discuss this anymore. Anna-Carin gave me a sympathetic shrug.
“Okay,” I said. “I think I’ve probably taken up too much of your time already. Thank you for your hospitality, sir, and thank you for your coffee, Mrs. Olofsson. Is it okay if I use your bathroom before I go?”
“By all means,” said Anna-Carin. “I will show you where it is.”
I knew, of course, but she led me along the corridor anyhow. Outside the bathroom door, she stopped and said, “Berthil does not want you to think that he believes in such things. But he has told me that he can sometime catch what the voices are saying. One of them said, vilja de drunkna oss? Will they drown us?”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you. You don’t know how helpful you’ve been.”
Professor Olofsson called, “Anna! Anna! Kanna Jag har något mer kaffe?” and she called back, “Coming, my darling!” and left me alone in the corridor.
I was pushing open the bathroom door when I thought I heard singing, coming from one of the bedrooms. I stopped, with my hand still holding the doorknob, straining my ears. It was very high, and very faint, but it was definitely singing.
I walked farther along the corridor until I came to what had once been Elsa and Felicia’s bedroom. I pressed my ear against the door panel, and I could still hear it. Two girls’ voices, clear and infinitely sad, and singing in English.
“The forest may be tangled . . . but every time you stray . . . you can always find a Pointing Tree . . . to help you find your way . . .”
I opened the bedroom door, and as soon as I did so I had that skin-shrinking feeling. Elsa and Felicia were sitting together on the end of the bed, facing each other and holding hands. But they were transparent, as if they were nothing more than holograms. I could see the closet and the dressing table right through them.
“Elsa?” I said. “Felicia?”
I stepped into the room and they both turned their heads and smiled at me, although their eyes were so dark and shadowy that it was impossible for me to tell if they could see me.
“Elsa, Felicia, it’s me—Gideon. The guy who wrote you that song.”
Neither of them spoke, although they both kept smiling. As I came nearer, I could see that they were both wearing white nightdresses, but that both of their nightdresses were soaked, and clinging to their skin.
“The men who did this to you—I’m going to find them, and I’m going to make sure they get punished for it. Do you understand me?”
Elsa reached out for me. I tried to hold her hand, but there was nothing there, only the faintest of chills, as if she had breathed on me.
“We knew that you could save us,” she said.
“Yes,” said Felicia. “We told each other that Gideon would never forget us.”
They faded away right in front of my eyes. Within seconds, I was standing in the bedroom on my own—panting, as if I had run all the way along Skeppsbron and up the stairs and along the corridor, to catch them before they disappeared.
Self-consciously, I laid my hand on the cream woven bedspread, to feel if it was damp—but it was completely dry. Wherever Elsa and Felicia had been soaked in water, it hadn’t been here.
I left the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind me. Then I went back to the bathroom.
It was dark inside, so I reached for the light cord, and tugged it. The ceiling light clicked on, and I almost shouted out loud.
Standing on the tiled floor right in front of me, her dress plastered in blood, was Tilda. Her hair was as wild as a cockatoo. Her eyes were bulging and her mouth was stretched wide open in a silent scream.
She took one lurching step toward me, almost falling over—and then another. Her face had been cut all over—her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, her lips. There were gaping cuts on her shoulders and blood was running in thin streams from her elbows.“Behaga döda jag,” she mumbled, and bubbles of blood burst out of her nostrils. “Please kill me.”
I could have called out for Anna-Carin. I could have taken Tilda in my arms, and tried to give her first-aid. But I knew that Anna-Carin wouldn’t be able to see Tilda, and I knew that Tilda was just as insubstantial as Elsa and Felicia. None of them were really here, not anymore. They were nothing more than a terrible echo.
I did the only thing that I could think of. I switched off the light and slammed the bathroom door behind me. I stood in the corridor for a moment, breathing hard. I thought of taking another look in the bathroom, just to make sure that Tilda wasn’t really there, but I decided against it, in case she was. Stiff-legged, I walked back to the living room. Anna-Carin smi
led at me, and I tried to smile back.
“Are you all right, Mr. Lake?” she asked me. “You look a little—I don’t know. Off-balance.”
“I’m just pooped, I guess. Venice, Zurich, Stockholm, all in one day. I think my bed’s calling me, back at the Sheraton.”
Professor Olofsson shook my hand, very firmly. “I wish you well. I hope that you find the answers that you are looking for, and that the conclusion of your quest is not too tragic.”
“Well, me, too, professor. But between you and me, I’m not holding out too much hope of a happy ending.”
* * *
Margot called me at 2:35 in the morning.
“This is my revenge for you waking me up,” she said.
I rolled over in bed and pulled down the toggle of the bedside lamp. “Sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart, but I wasn’t asleep yet.”
“What’s the matter? Insomnia?”
“If you’d seen what I saw, you’d have insomnia, too. For weeks.”
“Not more weirdness?”
“You’d better believe it. The same weirdness, only worse. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back to New York.”
“You’re okay, though?”
“Sure, I’m okay. Did you find out anything about Penumbra?”
“Not a whole lot. They have a website but all it gives you is a few photographs of ritzy apartments, and a blurb about ‘prestige apartments worldwide . . . rare and distinguished rental properties in some of the most historic cities of Europe and Scandinavia . . . homes for international players of taste and influence.’
“Underneath that it says ‘Rome—London—Stockholm—Venice—Prague.’”
“Any contact information?”
“There’s an e-mail address, and a line that says ‘a wholly owned division of Sunpath Holdings.’ But that’s all. I called my friend Gavin who works for Manhattan Realty Group. He knows everybody in property but he’s never heard of Penumbra, or Sunpath.”
“Have you tried Googling Sunpath?”
“Yes . . . but there’s nothing listed . . . except for some elementary school in Minnesota and a housing development in Arizona. It’s a word used by realtors to describe the position of a house in relation to the sun, but that’s about it.”
“Okay, Margot. Thanks.”
“Listen—you’re stopping off in London, right?”
“I’m catching the eleven o’clock flight tomorrow morning. Well—in eight and a half hours’ time.”
“Will you have time to buy me some British rock candy? You know, that pink stuff with london written all the way through it?”
“You’re a kid, Margot. Did you know that?”
I put down the phone. Sunpath Holdings. I wrote it down on the Sheraton notepad beside the bed.
* * *
I ordered breakfast on room service the next morning, hard-cooked eggs and cheese and thin slices of salami. It was 8:00 AM, but outside it was still dark and snow was falling into Lake Mälaren.
I watched CNN News while I dressed and drank my coffee, black with three brown sugar cubes in it. I didn’t usually take sugar but this morning I felt like I needed the energy.
Every now and then the television picture crackled and jumped. At the end of his 8:15 am bulletin, weatherman Carl Parker said, “. . . apologies for all of the interference, folks . . . this is being caused by unusual solar flare activity . . . so blame the sun, not your set . . .”
I was standing in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, before the words came together in my head. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I felt as if I were in one of those reverse zooms they do in the movies, when the background dwindles rapidly away but the character seems to be coming toward you.
Blame the sun. Solar flare activity. Sun equals Sol. Path equals way.
Solway. Penumbra was owned by Victor Solway. In his arrogance, in his supreme self-confidence, he had hardly even tried to disguise it.
* * *
The sun was shining sharply when I arrived at 37 Wetherby Gardens. When you see London in the sunshine, you realize how grimy it is and how gray and how decrepit. London itself looks tired these days, a city of exhausted dreams.
I paid off the taxi and managed to work out a reasonable tip—or maybe it was too much, because the cabbie called out, “Cheers, mate! Cheers! Thanks a lot!” before he drove away.
The first thing I noticed as I climbed the front steps was that there were no drapes hanging in the living room windows of the Philipses’ apartment. When I reached the porch, I shaded my eyes so that I could look inside. There was no furniture in the living room either—and no paintings hanging on the walls. All I could see were bare floorboards and a half-open door leading to the hallway.
I rang the doorbell but there obviously wasn’t much point. The Philipses were gone. All I could do was find myself another taxi and fly back to New York.
Halfway down the steps, however, I stopped and turned around, just to take a last look. And there she was—sitting on the right-hand windowsill, watching me. The white Persian cat who may or may not have been Malkin.
Slowly, I climbed up the steps again, and confronted her.
“What are you?” I mouthed, even though I knew that she couldn’t hear me through the glass—and even if she could, she wouldn’t be able to answer me. “What are you doing here? What are you trying to tell me, for Christ’s sake?”
She stared at me for a few seconds longer. Then she jumped down from the windowsill and ran out of the living room, into the hallway, toward the kitchen.
I glanced around. There were three or four passersby on the opposite side of the street, but none of them was taking any notice of me. Why should they—a scruffy-looking guy in a raincoat? I went back down the steps, and around to the side of the house. There was a white-painted wooden gate, but it was unlocked, and I was able to make my way along the narrow alley where the garbage bins were stored.
At the end of the alley, on the right-hand side, I came across a second gate, but this was unlocked, too. I climbed three shallow concrete steps and found myself on the Philipses’ patio. I could see into their kitchen, and into the master bedroom, too. There was a double bed in the bedroom, although it had been stripped down to the mattress, and the kitchen was empty. But the white cat was sitting at the window, as if she had been expecting me.
I approached the window and hunkered down in front of her. She touched the glass with her nose, and licked her lips.
“What are you trying to tell me, puss?” I demanded, much louder this time. “Come on, Malkin—show me!”
She looked up, and so I looked up, too. In the window, I saw the reflection of a young boy, standing right behind me. I twisted around, losing my balance, so that I had to grab hold of the window frame to steady myself.
I stood up. The boy was about twelve or thirteen years old, with a short brown haircut. He was wearing a gray sweater with a school badge on it, and baggy gray pants. His face had been badly beaten. His lips were split and his cheeks were swollen, and it looked as if his jaw might been dislocated.
But it was his eyes that shocked me the most. They were wide-open, as if he were staring at me, but the irises and the pupils were milky white, while the eyeballs around them were deeply bloodshot. His eyelids were encrusted with a transparent crystalline substance, some of which had dripped halfway down his cheeks like tears, but then solidified.
“Daddy?” he said, reaching out in front of him. “Is that you, daddy?”
“It’s Gideon,” I told him. “Listen—I can get you some help.”
“Is that you, daddy?” he repeated. “It hurts so much. Please tell them to stop. Please tell them not to hurt me anymore.”
I gently took hold of his hands. He flinched, and tried to tug them free, but I wouldn’t let him go.
“Listen,” I said, “my name’s Gideon. I’m not going to hurt you. Can you tell me your name?”
“My eyes,” he said, twisting his head around and around as if that mi
ght help to clear his vision. “They hurt my eyes. They’re burning and they won’t stop burning and I can’t see anymore.”
“Tell me your name,” I repeated. “I can help you, I promise. But I need to know your name.”
He suddenly stopped twisting his head and stared in my direction, although he was blinded.
“Giles Nicholas Philips,” he said. “Thirty-seven Wetherby Gardens, London SW5. Please give them what they want. Please, daddy. Please. Don’t let them hurt me anymore. Please!”
I knew that it was far too late for me to help him, and that nobody else could help him either. I could call for an ambulance, but they wouldn’t find anybody here.
I squeezed his fingers tight, and then I gripped his shoulder, to try and show him that I understood what he was going through, although he was plainly going through hell, and how the hell could I understand that?
I left him there, on the patio, still calling for his father, and I went down the steps and closed the gate behind me. Sometimes other people’s agony is too much for us to listen to. Shit, listen to me, philosophizing. I left him because I simply couldn’t bear it anymore.
As I crossed the paved front yard, the door opened and a young man in a dark business suit came out, carrying a briefcase.
“Excuse me!” he called out. “Can I help you?”
“I—ah—not really.”
He came briskly down the steps, on very shiny black shoes. He had one of those smooth fresh faces that you see in high school photographs, still unmarked by life’s disappointments.
“Were you looking for somebody?” he asked me. “Perhaps I can help.”
“Well, uh—I was wondering if this apartment was for rent. I’ve been looking for a base in London for quite a while, and I just happened to be walking past.”
“It is available, as a matter of fact.” The young man opened his briefcase and took out a business card. Keller & Watson, Letting Agents, 161 Brompton Road, Knightsbridge. “If you’d like to take a quick look around, I have the keys with me.”
I glanced up and I could see Malkin back on the windowsill, watching me. “No, thanks. Maybe I can make an appointment. You know—bring my wife along with me. She doesn’t come over from New York until next week, but I daren’t make any kind of major decision without consulting her—if you get my drift.”
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