In the near corner there’s a coat stand with an old khaki jacket on it; I’m sure I’ve seen Ben wearing it before. Maybe even the last time I saw him, about a year ago, when he came down to Brighton and bought me lunch before disappearing back out of my life again without a backward glance. I reach into the pockets and draw out a set of keys and a brown leather wallet.
Is it a bit strange that Ben’s gone but left these behind?
I open the wallet: the back pocket’s stuffed with a few euro notes. I take a twenty and then, for good measure, a couple of tens. I’d have asked to borrow some money if he was here anyway. I’ll pay it back . . . sometime.
A business card is stuffed into the front of the section that holds credit cards. It reads: Theo Mendelson. Paris editor, Guardian. And scribbled on it, in what looks like Ben’s handwriting (sometimes he remembers to send me a birthday card): PITCH STORY TO HIM!
I look at the keys next. One of them’s for a Vespa, which is odd as last time I saw him he was driving an old eighties Mercedes soft top. The other’s a large antique-looking thing that looks like it might be for this place. I go to the door and try it: the lock clicks.
The uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach grows. But he might have another set of keys. These could be spares, the set he’s going to lend me. He probably has another key for the Vespa, too: he might even have gone off on it somewhere. As for the wallet, he’s probably just carrying cash.
I find the bathroom, next. Nothing much to report here, other than the fact that Ben doesn’t appear to own any towels at all, which seems bizarre. I step back out into the main room. The bedroom must be through the closed pair of French double doors. I walk toward them, the cat following, pressing close as a shadow. Just for a moment, I hesitate.
The cat squawks at me again as if to ask: what are you waiting for? I take another long slug of wine. Deep breath. Push open the doors. Another breath. Open my eyes. Empty bed. Empty room. No one here. Breathe out.
OK. I mean, I didn’t really think I was going to find anything like that. That’s not Ben. Ben’s sorted; I’m the fuck-up. But when it’s happened to you once—
I drain the dregs from my glass, then go through the cupboards in the bedroom. Not much by way of clues except that most of my brother’s clothes seem to come from places called Acne (why would you wear clothes named after a skin condition?) and A.P.C.
Back out in the main room I pour the remainder of the bottle into the glass and neck it back. Drift over to the desk by the large windows, which look down onto the courtyard. There’s nothing on the desk beyond a ratty-looking pen. No laptop. Ben seemed surgically attached to it when he took me for lunch that time, getting it out and typing something while we waited for our order. I suppose he must have it with him, wherever he is.
All at once I have the definite feeling that I’m not alone, that I’m being watched. A prickle down the back of my neck. I spin around. No one there except the cat, which is sitting on the kitchen counter. Perhaps that’s all it was.
The cat gazes at me for a few moments, then turns its head on one side like it’s asking a question. It’s the first time I’ve seen it sit still like this. Then it raises a paw to its mouth and licks. This is when I notice that both the paw and the white ruff at its throat are smeared with blood.
Jess
I’ve gone cold. What the—
I reach out to the cat to try to get a closer look, but it slinks out from under my hand. Maybe it’s just caught a mouse or something? One of the families I fostered with had a cat, Suki. Even though she was small she could take down a whole pigeon: she came back once covered in blood like something out of a horror film and my foster parent Karen found the headless body later that morning. I’m sure there’s some small dead creature lying around the apartment, just waiting for me to step on it. Or maybe it killed something out there in the courtyard—the windows are open a crack, which must be how it gets in and out of this place, walking along the guttering or something.
Still. It gave me a bit of a jolt. When I saw it for a moment I thought—
No. I’m just tired. I should try and get some sleep.
Ben will turn up in the morning, explain where he’s been, I’ll tell him he’s a dick for leaving me to basically break in and it’ll be like old times, the old old times, before he went to live with his shiny rich new family and got a whole new way of speaking and perspective on the world and I got bounced around the care system until I was old enough to fend for myself. I’m sure he’s fine. Bad stuff doesn’t happen to Ben. He’s the lucky one.
I shrug off my jacket, throw it onto the sofa. I should probably take a shower—I’m pretty sure I stink. A bit of B.O. but mainly of vinegar: you can’t work at the Copacabana and not reek of the stuff, it’s what we use to sluice the bar down after every shift. But I’m too tired to wash. I think Ben might have mentioned something about a camp bed, but I don’t see any sign of one. So I take a throw from the sofa and lie down in the bedroom on top of the covers in all my clothes. I give the pillows some thumps to try and rearrange them. As I do something slithers out of the bed onto the floor.
A pair of women’s knickers: black silk, lacy, expensive-looking. Ew. Christ, Ben. I don’t want to think about how those got here. I don’t even know if Ben has a girlfriend. I feel a little pang of sadness, in spite of myself. He’s all I’ve got and I don’t even know this much about him.
I’m too tired to do much more than kick the knickers away, out of sight. Tomorrow I’ll sleep on the sofa.
Jess
A shout rips through the silence. A man’s voice. Then another voice, a woman’s.
I sit up in bed listening hard, heart kicking against my ribs. It takes a second for me to work out that the sounds are coming from the courtyard, filtering through the windows in the main room. I check the alarm clock next to Ben’s bed. 5 a.m.: morning, just, but still dark.
The man is shouting again. He sounds slurred, like he’s been drinking.
I creep across the main room to the windows and crouch down. The cat pushes its face into my thigh, mewing. “Shh,” I tell it—but I quite like the feel of its warm, solid body against mine.
I peer into the courtyard. Two figures stand down there: one tall, one much smaller. The guy is dark-haired and she’s blonde, the long fall of her hair silver in the cool light of the courtyard’s one lamp. He’s wearing a parka with a fur rim that looks familiar, and I realize it’s the guy I “met” outside the gate last night.
Their voices get louder—they’re shouting over one another now. I’m pretty sure I hear her say the word “police.” At this his voice changes—I don’t understand the words but there’s a new hardness, a threat, to his tone. I see him take a couple of steps toward her.
“Laisse-moi!” she shouts, sounding different now, too—scared rather than angry. He takes another step closer. I realize I’m pressed so close to the window that my breath has misted up the glass. I can’t just sit here, listening, watching. He raises a hand. He’s so much taller than her.
A sudden memory. Mum, sobbing. I’m sorry, I’m sorry: over and over, like the words to a prayer.