‘Mine, but my models don’t know I live across the corridor. I don’t want girls knocking on my door day and night, begging to pose for me. I want to pick and choose.’
Lewis lifted a hand and with surprisingly gentle fingers tucked a strand of her long wavy red hair behind her ear. Scarlett froze. What was he going to do to her?
‘Don’t look so terrified. I’m trying to decide if you’re beautiful enough to be one of my models, and – do you know – I think you might be.’ He smiled at her, but he still had the eyes of a devil, black and hard.
‘I don’t want to be your model. Can I please have my phone back? I want to go home.’ Her voice broke as she spoke.
‘Sadly, Scarlett, want doesn’t always get. Have your mum and PC Daddy never told you that?’
Scarlett felt sick. He wasn’t going to let her go.
‘The thing is, little girl, you have actually entered these premises illegally. I think you’ll find it’s called trespassing.’
‘But I didn’t break in. I let myself in with a key.’
‘You did indeed.’ He smirked at her in an unnerving way and thrust his head forward so she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. ‘But you stole the key. You’re going to be in serious shit, you know, if I report this. You’re fifteen, you said? You don’t look it, but that’s okay. I was teasing when I said I thought you were seventeen, but the fact is that at fifteen you’re old enough to have a criminal record, and think what that’s going to mean? How easy do you think it will be to get a job when you leave school or university? Goodness me, you have made such a mistake.’
She felt her eyes sting. She didn’t want to cry in front of this man, but she couldn’t get into trouble with the police. Her mum had so much to worry about right now, and so much of that seemed to be Scarlett’s fault.
The first tear escaped and slid down her cheek. She didn’t have a tissue with her, and she rubbed her running nose on the back of her hand. She could see a silvery box with tissues on a small side table, but she couldn’t reach it without touching him.
‘I don’t want people to know about this room. And at the moment you’re the only one who does.’
‘What about your models?’ Scarlett spoke through her sniffs. ‘It’s not just me. They know too.’
‘They won’t talk, and they don’t know where it is, but I’m not going to explain myself to you. More to the point, what am I going to do with you?’
‘Please,’ she said, looking down at her feet. ‘Let me go. I won’t tell anyone.’
‘Yes, but you see, little girl, I don’t know if I believe you.’
He reached out to touch her hair again, and she tensed, trying not to shudder.
‘There’s one thing you could do that might make me trust you.’
Scarlett felt a moment of hope.
‘You could model for me,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to,’ she said again, her voice breaking.
‘And I don’t want to report you to the police, so we’re rather stuck, aren’t we, because that’s the only other option, I’m afraid.’
Scarlett was sobbing now, and Lewis appeared to relent, grabbing a couple of tissues from the box and passing them to her.
‘Thank you,’ she said as she blew her nose.
‘That’s okay. I don’t want to spoil the photos, that’s all. Because, Scarlett, if you want to get out of here, you are going to model for me.’
She was going to have to do it. He might never let her go, and even if he did, she might end up in trouble with the police.
‘What do I have to do?’ she whispered.
‘Oh, don’t look so scared. Some girls would kill for this opportunity.’
He grasped her arm and steered her over to a wardrobe. Inside was an assortment of clothes, and he selected a pretty playsuit in fine white linen.
‘Put this on,’ he said, thrusting it into Scarlett’s hands.
She looked at him in horror.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, I’m not going to watch you get undressed. I’ll wait outside and won’t come back until you say you’re ready.’
‘Promise?’ she said in little more than a whisper.
Lewis laughed. ‘Promise. Would you like me to cross my heart and hope to die as well?’
He thought she was a fool; she knew that. But if it got her out of here alive with no criminal record, it couldn’t be that bad, could it?
Lewis turned towards the door, her phone still in his hand. She knew she couldn’t ask for it back. As he reached the curtain covering the door he called nonchalantly over his shoulder, ‘Oh, Scarlett, as this is a model shoot you need to remove your underwear – knickers and bra. We don’t want any lines showing through the fabric. Don’t worry, the outfit will preserve your modesty. Shout when you’re ready.’
56
Natalie hadn’t been able to concentrate after her conversation with Ed. What could he possibly have to tell her? And why had he been hiding it from her until now?
It was no good trying to work, so by lunchtime she decided to pack it in for the day and take some work home. She spoke to her boss and said she had a migraine, although she wasn’t sure he believed her, as in all the years she had worked there she had never complained of such a thing before. Given that most people seemed to call a bad headache a migraine these days, she hoped he would let it pass.
She missed her old boss, a woman called Mary in her late fifties, who had peered over her glasses and correctly judged Natalie’s ability to concentrate or otherwise in the months after Bernie’s death. It had been a bad day when Mary decided to take early retirement and leave Natalie to the tender mercies of Bruce, the plonker who had mysteriously been promoted to rule his little kingdom of four staff as if he was running a major corporation single-handed.
When Natalie reached their building she walked up the steel staircase as if her legs were about to give way beneath her. She needed to work on the relationship with her daughter, and this afternoon would give them an opportunity to spend some time together. So much had happened, and it had created a barrier between them – a wall of emotion that sprang up any time they started to get close again.
When Bernie had died, Natalie had believed her daughter’s need for comfort and support was greater than her own and had tried her best to save her own anguish for times when she was alone or with Alison. To lose a husband was a terrible thing, but sometimes widows moved on and found someone else to love, as Natalie had believed she had. This didn’t diminish the love of a wife for their dead husband, but to lose a parent – particularly when so young – was a terrible thing. The unconditional love of a father was impossible to replace, and Natalie had tried to compensate in the only way she knew – by enveloping her daughter in maternal love.
Somewhere along the line she must have got it wrong, and she felt a stab of longing for her husband. She had never needed Bernie as much as she needed him right now.
She pushed her key into the lock and forced a smile onto her face.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ she called as she opened the door.
There was no answer. The room was empty.
*
Natalie had given up trying to get Scarlett on her mobile. She wasn’t too worried, though. Scarlett hadn’t been expecting her home and she could be anywhere. Maybe she had gone to the library, although her initial enthusiasm for her history project seemed to have waned a little.
Opening her laptop, Natalie tried to do some work, but her mind kept drifting. She forced the conflict with Ed from her head so she had space to think about Bernie.
There were days when she couldn’t even bring her husband’s face to mind – his full bottom lip, intense blue eyes and the stubble that she loved him to grow on the days he wasn’t working. Sometimes, like now, she could only see fragments of him, as if looking at him through a broken mirror. But she wanted all of him. What would he think of everything that had happened with Ed? Would he tell Natalie to trust his friend?
She stood up and walk
ed into the bedroom. She needed to see Bernie’s face, inhale his scent, feel his short, soft hair beneath her fingers. She conjured him up, piece by piece, sense by sense, but most of all she needed his smile. And she knew just where to look.
When they had been packing to leave Ed’s, Natalie had gone into ‘her’ room and dug out one of the boxes. She knew that somewhere in there was their photo album. It wasn’t something they looked at often, but over the years she had made sure to keep a few precious pictures to show Scarlett, and maybe in the future her grandchildren. There were photos of both her and Bernie as children, but from the time she was seventeen and Bernie nineteen every photo seemed to be of the two of them together.
Scarlett had asked why she still had some photos printed – nobody did that any more – but Natalie had been adamant. Computers died and were replaced, phones even more regularly. She didn’t want to lose her memories.
Natalie reached up to the top shelf of the wardrobe where she had put the album when she unpacked, hoping that one evening she and Scarlett could spend a few hours remembering Bernie. It had somehow never seemed appropriate when Ed was around.
She settled herself on the bed, propped up against the pillows, and began to turn over the pages, feeling grateful for so many happy times. She flicked through quickly to the end, to see Bernie as he had been the summer before he died. She stared at the picture. Something was wrong. She flicked back to two years earlier. Bernie had hardly changed at all in that time, except in one respect. Two years earlier his face had been alight with joy as he hugged Natalie to him, a young Scarlett being the photographer that day. In an almost identical photo two years later Bernie’s arm looked stiff, his smile not reaching his eyes. What had happened to him to take the shine away?
In a plastic pocket at the back of the album were photos from their last Christmas together, and Natalie wanted to see if the same expression still haunted her husband’s face. The images had been emailed to a printing company after the festivities were over and had come back a few days before Bernie died. He had stuffed them into the pocket ready for Natalie to add to the album. She never had.
She pulled them out and laid them on the bed, staring at his face. Bernie was smiling in all of them, but she couldn’t read his expression. Whatever he was thinking, though, his body seemed tense.
The receipt from the printers was in the plastic pocket, and Natalie was about to screw it up when she noticed some writing on the back and smiled to herself. This would be one of Bernie’s notes – something he wanted to remember but would have forgotten where he had written it down.
She turned it over and read the words. She turned it back, making sure it really was the receipt for the photos. The date was there – only a few days before Bernie died. She turned it back over and read it again.
An address was printed in Bernie’s handwriting. It was the address of their apartment block. Underneath he had written two numbers – 210S and 216N. Natalie had no idea about the first number, but the second was the number of the apartment they were living in right now. And Bernie had written it down eighteen months ago.
57
As Scarlett pulled her jeans back on, she went over everything that had happened in the last hour.
Lewis had been different when he was taking her photographs. He hadn’t mocked her. Neither had he seemed cold and indifferent, as he had before. He had been kind and had made her feel beautiful.
To begin with she had been tense, but he hadn’t been cross with her. He smiled and told her she was scowling, but said it was normal.
‘Sometimes it can take half an hour before I get a picture that I can use,’ he said. ‘So relax and have fun. You look lovely – really.’
To get her to unwind he told her to lie on the bed, propping herself up on one elbow and resting her chin on her raised hand, and as she had become more comfortable he had suggested that she roll from side to side, and he would catch the best shots as she relaxed. He told her to let her hair settle wherever it wanted to on the dark blue cover, and he had taken photos from above, looking down on her lying with her hair spread around her and her arms outstretched. He told her all the time how beautiful she was and what stunning shots he was getting.
‘I’ll be able to sell these, and you can make some money,’ he told her, and for a moment Scarlett had felt a tingle of pride.
She had changed clothes three times, and on each occasion Lewis had left the room, telling her she could lock the door behind him if she felt more comfortable.
She shivered with the thrill of it. She had always thought she was plain, too thin, no figure to speak of. Her mother had told her time and time again that all young girls thought like that. They all believed themselves to be too thin, too fat, hair too curly, hair too straight. It was normal to feel insecure as she changed from being a child to being a woman. But no matter how many times she had heard this, Scarlett still hadn’t believed a word of it.
‘I’m dressed, Lewis. You can come in now,’ she called, feeling slightly more confident with this man now, although the threat of being locked in this room forever had never entirely left her.
He walked in, pushing the curtain aside, a smile lighting his dark eyes. He was carrying an iPad in one hand.
‘Do you want to see some of the shots? I transferred them while you were getting dressed.’
Scarlett wrapped both arms around her body. Did she want to see? What if they were really awful and she was disappointed?
As if sensing her apprehension, Lewis held the tablet towards her and smiled. ‘Come on, Scarlett. You need to see how wonderful you look.’
She reached out both hands and took the iPad. Lewis moved to stand next to her and casually draped his arm over her shoulders. She could feel the heat from his body and for a moment she wanted to move closer.
She stared at the image of a face she barely recognised, and for the first time in her life believed what her dad had always told her. She really did look beautiful.
‘Can I look at some more?’ she said, her voice sounding slightly breathless.
‘Course you can. Just scroll through them. They’re not all fantastic, but that’s the way it goes. Some are stunning, but I haven’t always caught you just right. The fault of the photographer, not the model.’
She kept a tight grasp on the tablet, using her finger to scroll forward. At first she looked only at her face, but as she became used to seeing images of herself, she grew more critical of the poses. She loved the white playsuit she had worn first, the shorts making her legs look long, and she beamed. The next shot was of her lying on her back, her arms spread wide, her hair like a red-gold halo around her head. She looked like a model, a real model.
Then Scarlett looked closer. She turned her head and glanced up at Lewis. He was smiling.
‘Like them?’
She looked back at the image and pinched her thumb and forefinger to zoom in on one area. She felt her cheeks grow warm.
‘What’s up?’ Lewis asked.
She couldn’t look at him and wanted to ask a question, but the words wouldn’t come.
‘Oh yes, a bit of nipple visible on that one,’ he said. ‘That fabric’s quite fine, which is why your underwear would have shown through.’ He shrugged as if it were nothing and dropped his arm.
Scarlett didn’t know what to say. If anyone saw it, she would die of embarrassment. If her mum knew, she would kill her.
‘Don’t look so worried. I won’t use that one. It’s not like I’m going to post it on Instagram and tag you or anything.’
‘You wouldn’t do that. Please tell me you wouldn’t?’ she asked, uncertain now of this man who had seemed so friendly just minutes earlier.
He held out his hand for the iPad. ‘I think we should let this session be our little secret, don’t you?’ he said, raising his eyebrows.
Scarlett was confused. Why couldn’t she tell anyone? She wanted to show her mum the pictures – well, some of the pictures.
Lewis was l
ooking at her, and his eyes had turned flat with none of the sparkle she had become used to over the past hour. She had thought he liked her, but now felt her earlier fear come rushing back. More than anything she wanted to get out of that room, to run and tell her mum what had happened. But it didn’t take much of a brain to realise that if she did that picture would not remain a secret any more.
Lewis held out his arm to indicate the door. ‘Now, little girl, I think it’s time you were on your way. I think you’d better give me the key.’
Scarlett didn’t know what he meant for a second, but then remembered that she had stolen the key to the apartment from Martin. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and felt the cold metal between her fingers.
‘I hope we have a deal here, Scarlett.’ Lewis took the key and handed Scarlett her phone, his level tone scaring her more than his earlier anger. ‘Remember. This room is private. Nobody must know about it, and you and I both know you entered my property illegally.’
Scarlett felt a moment of bravery. ‘You can’t prove that. You could have invited me in.’
Lewis tutted. ‘Silly girl. You didn’t look through all of the photos, did you?’ He flicked through the images. ‘I downloaded some others too.’
He held out the iPad again, and Scarlett looked at the screen. There she was, standing outside the apartment, the number on the door perfectly clear. She was glancing anxiously over her shoulder as her right hand pushed the key into the lock.
Lewis leaned over and scrolled the screen to the right.
In the next shot Scarlett was opening the door and stepping into the apartment.
‘Want to see more?’ he asked, as if he was chatting about holiday snaps.
Scarlett shook her head, unable to speak, but he ignored her and scrolled on. This time she was in the living room, looking around. There was a shot of her in the hall too, and one in the bedroom.
How had he got those photos?
‘Oh, little Scarlett, you are so naive. How do you think I’ve known you were here each time you came?’ He waited for an answer that was never going to come, then leaned towards her. ‘There are hidden cameras. They are everywhere – in the corridor outside the door, in every room of this apartment. Everywhere, pretty girl. Everywhere.’
The Sixth Window Page 23