The Beresford
Page 1
Just outside the city – any city, every city – is a grand, spacious but affordable apartment building called The Beresford.
There’s a routine at The Beresford.
For Mrs May, every day’s the same: a cup of cold, black coffee in the morning, pruning roses, checking on her tenants, wine, prayer and an afternoon nap. She never leaves the building.
Abe Schwartz also lives at The Beresford. His neighbour, Sythe, no longer does. Because Abe just killed him.
In exactly sixty seconds, Blair Conroy will ring the doorbell to her new home and Abe will answer the door. They will become friends. Perhaps lovers.
And, when the time comes for one of them to die, as is always the case at The Beresford, there will be sixty seconds to move the body before the next unknowing soul arrives at the door.
Because nothing changes at The Beresford, until the doorbell rings…
Eerie, dark, superbly twisted and majestically plotted, The Beresford is the stunning standalone thriller from one of crime fiction’s most exciting names.
THE BERESFORD
WILL CARVER
For the hell of it.
‘Some people never go crazy.
What truly horrible lives they must live.’
—Charles Bukowski
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
OBITUARY
PART ONE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY–ONE
TWENTY–TWO
TWENTY–THREE
TWENTY–FOUR
TWENTY–FIVE
TWENTY–SIX
TWENTY–SEVEN
TWENTY–EIGHT
TWENTY–NINE
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
THIRTY
THIRTY–ONE
THIRTY–TWO
THIRTY–THREE
THIRTY–FOUR
PART TWO
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
TWENTY
TWENTY–ONE
TWENTY–TWO
PART THREE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY–ONE
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
TWENTY–TWO
TWENTY–THREE
TWENTY–FOUR
TWENTY–FIVE
PART FOUR
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
SEVEN
EIGHT
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
PART FIVE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
OBITUARY
Jordan Irving, famed screenwriter, director, race-relations activist and philanthropist was discovered dead at his home in the early hours of the morning. Authorities suggest that the influential young filmmaker had taken his own life.
No note was found, though the situation is not being treated as suspicious.
Irving sprung up from nowhere to gain critical acclaim and commercial success with his first screenplay, South of Heaven, after working as a runner and location scout on several independent features.
He joins an illustrious list of performers and artists who were taken on the upswing of their careers at the tender age of twenty-seven. Known widely for his clean lifestyle, Irving did not fall into the usual traps of substance abuse or alcoholism, though he did struggle with his mental health.
He was a notably warm collaborator and passionate auteur, but those close to him have commented that he was increasingly tormented towards the end of his life, believing that he was not deserving of his success.
A hard worker, Irving never rested on his laurels. In his short career, he wrote nine screenplays and was due to direct his third feature, following armfuls of awards in both categories. A catalogue of work that any filmmaker working in the industry for twenty years would be pleased with. It is a stark reminder that this gifted storyteller leaves behind a legacy that is so much more than the hidden desperation of his life and brutality of his untimely death.
PART ONE
ONE
Your daughter brings home Abe Schwartz and you’re pleased.
Not for her.
This guy won’t last. He’s not dangerous or charismatic. He’s not on any of the sports teams. He doesn’t ride a motorcycle or wear a leather jacket.
He’s scrawny and academic and polite. He’s average. He’s normal. He’s nice. What he lacks in charisma, he can’t make up for with enthusiasm.
Yes. Your daughter brings home Abe Schwartz and you’re pleased.
For you.
She drinks too much at a party, and Abe Schwartz is going to put her safely into a cab and walk her back to her doorstep; he’s not even thinking about how he will get home. Maybe he’s not drinking so he can drive her back himself. That’s the kind of thing he’d do.
Abe probably doesn’t like parties, anyway, because other people make him feel anxious and uncomfortable.
Your kid is never going to fall off the back of Abe’s bike at 90mph and shatter her skull or fracture her pelvis. Don’t worry.
And that pelvis won’t be moving into a position to squeeze out a child anytime soon because Abe will double-bag his penis if things get that far, or he’ll shoot a load into his pants. He doesn’t have your daughter bent over in an alley behind the club. That Schwartz guy isn’t knocking anybody up. He’s a safe bet.
Here’s the thing: no parent had to think this. Nobody had to feel pleased for themselves about Abe Schwartz because Abe never dated in school.
By the time he hit university, though, that whole ‘geek’ thing was really taking off.
He got laid. He wore a condom. Just the one. And he didn’t come in his pants.
And he did go to parties and drink and he tried the softer drugs, and he liked them. He still does, occasionally. But he never rode a motorcycle and he never let a girlfriend make her own way home whether she was drunk or not. He f
ucked in a bed, never outside, and only twice on the floor.
Then he did what was expected of him, which was graduate and obtain a job that he never really wanted, he doesn’t really care about but cannot leave because he has to buy food and pay rent. And he doesn’t want to starve. And he doesn’t want to get evicted.
That’s Abe.
And that brings us up to date.
Abe Schwartz lives in a one-bed furnished flat. An apartment building called The Beresford. The bell rings and he’s the one opening the front door to a stranger.
Before that, he’s dragging a dead body into his room, mopping up blood and asking himself, What the hell just happened?
TWO
Like so many, Blair Conroy was on that long road to the middle. She’d always had good grades, not the best, but high enough to excel without drawing any attention to herself. She was athletic. A distance runner. Fast enough to be competitive – she worked hard – but not enough to have the consistency that a champion requires. She was beautiful in that not-really-trying way and popular without being a bitch to those deemed (by others) to be on a lower social rung.
Blair was always going to do just fine and nobody begrudged her that prospect.
Her parents were the well-meaning, God-fearing type. But pleasant with it. They’d been married forever. Not passionately in love but not merely existing in the same house. There was a love there, a tenderness, boring as it looked to Blair.
She loved them dearly but it was not what she wanted for herself.
They wanted their daughter to excel, to accomplish more in life than they ever had. They were ready for her to leave – as long as she didn’t go so far away that visiting was made difficult.
‘The Beresford,’ her mother had chirped, ‘sounds very posh.’
The rent was low, it was available for immediate occupancy, and there was no need to commit to a lengthy contract. Blair didn’t have the heart to say that she’d only seen pictures and spoken with the landlady on the phone.
She just wanted out of that small-town life, that tiny-world mentality. She wanted the city and noise and thrum of culture and vibrancy of characters. She’d even told herself she wanted jazz, though she definitely did not.
It annoyed her that she agreed with her mother but the old woman was right, The Beresford sounded like a great place to live. The best thing about it was that Blair had paid an insignificant deposit, so all she had to do now was pack her bags and she was gone.
Goodbye, town meetings and church on Sunday and cooing at the year-three dance recitals. So long, baking for the school fete and carolling with the neighbours at Christmas. Fuck you, bridge night and babysitting for the McDowell brats and the goddamned farmer’s market.
See you never, mother.
Blair’s father hardly spoke as he helped to carry the box of books and few bags of clothing to the car.
‘You’re sure that’s everything you need, darling?’ That’s all he said, his eyes screwed up in disbelief and concern.
‘Yes, Dad. The place is furnished. You can come and see once I’m settled.’
He nodded, wanting to believe her.
‘And you’ve packed your Bible, of course,’ her mother chirped in. It wasn’t aggressive. More of a friendly nudge towards the Lord.
‘Dad carried my box of books.’ Blair’s way of not lying to her mother.
Farewell, scripture study group and creepy Father Cahill and Mary Miller’s too-weak tea with too-dry pastries. See you later, CreationFest and the ‘unmissable’ Christian rock concert.
Screw you, Jesus.
It was a tearful but brave goodbye – Blair’s mother was tearful, her father was brave. Blair didn’t want to look in the rearview mirror, her focus was on what lay ahead. She was getting out of that town where she thought she had never belonged, her future started now. But she couldn’t stop herself from glancing. She’d waited as long as she could but there they were, her parents, waiting in the same spot until she disappeared from view, and for a moment Blair felt sad enough to ease her foot off the accelerator.
Just over an hour later and she’s walking up the steps to her new home and ringing the bell. Within ten seconds, the door is opened by a man, thin, late twenties/early thirties – and he’s out of breath.
THREE
The Beresford was old. The kind of building you don’t expect to see near a modern city. A hulking edifice that seems to appear only in sepia photographs or black-and-white newsreel footage. The building had been noteworthy on occasion. In the twenties, it had been home to several writers and artists before they moved on to Paris. In the seventies, it is rumoured that a notorious serial killer had stayed there for almost a month after a murderous spree, avoiding capture. None of this was ever substantiated. Ten years later, a couple fell from one of the top-floor windows.
Look back another hundred years you’ll find a hundred more stories like that. A mafia wedding reception, business conventions, celebrity affairs. And there’s another hundred stories you won’t find anywhere.
New Year’s Eve, 1982. A woman went missing from one of the upper-floor apartments. She was found two days later, frozen and naked on the roof. Nobody could understand how she got up there unnoticed. The cause of death was seemingly an overdose. It was unclear whether it was accidental or not, but suspicions were roused and The Beresford came under some scrutiny.
It changed after that.
The top eight floors remained the same as they always had been. But a new entrance was built around the side of the building to access the lift that would take residents to the upper levels. An antique, art deco design with iron doors you have to shut yourself. The kind you would expect to find in a jazz-age hotel, complete with its own operator.
The third floor was cordoned off for functions, conventions and other events. This was also accessible from the new side entrance.
That left the first two floors. No lift. The original entrance to The Beresford – a discreet doorway that opened into a large communal area. Five apartments. Two up the grand, white stone staircase and three at ground level, including one occupied by The Beresford’s owner and keeper, Mrs May.
She had seen it all. The stories everybody had heard and embellished and mythologised, and the ones that had never left the walls of The Beresford, much like the old lady herself.
The exterior of The Beresford altered over the years. Originally renaissance revival in its architectural style, gothic archways were introduced at ground level. The facade was updated in the mid-twentieth century and the high gables and balconies suggested more German renaissance, while the interior high ceilings felt Victorian. The hodge-podge nature of its styling reflected in the multi-culture of its residents over time.
The Beresford was old. It was grand. It evolved with the people who inhabited its rooms and apartments. It was dark and elephantine and it breathed with its people. Paint peeled and there were cracks in places. It was bricks and mortar and plaster and wood. And it was alive.
FOUR
Flat two is Abe’s place. The entrance is tucked beneath the stairs, which is fine for Abe now, because it means he doesn’t have to summon strength he does not possess to haul a body up to the first floor. Until today, Abe has hated that he has to sleep at street level; it never felt safe to him.
This is the first person Abe has killed. And it was an accident, he thinks. Though the two black marks beneath the dead man’s Adam’s apple suggest it was not. Surely he could have stopped pushing against his windpipe. He could have let him live. Maybe just knocked him out.
Abe panics and checks the body over.
Not breathing. Definitely dead.
He takes his phone from his pocket and opens his internet browser.
He types ‘serial killer body disposal’ and hits the search button.
‘Following each murder, Nilsen would observe a ritual in which he bathed and dressed the victim’s body, which he retained for extended periods of time, before dissecting and disposi
ng of the remains by burning on a bonfire or flushing down a lavatory.’
Jesus Christ. Not that. Bathing with them?
Abe Schwartz throws up onto the floor next to the dead guy from flat three.
He tries again.
‘How to get rid of a dead body.’
Search.
Something about Greeks and Romans cremating bodies. Blah blah. He scrolls.
People also ask: can you keep a body at home? The dropdown suggests that this is possible but involves putting embalming fluid into the bloodstream to delay decay. Abe isn’t even sure what he will use to clear up his own vomit. This looks like too much.
He scrolls.
‘Ten Ways To Get Rid of a Dead Body (If You Absolutely Have To).’
Click.
First things first, you have to destroy the teeth, finger/toe prints and the DNA. Abe Schwartz did not learn to ride a bike until he was a teenager, and now he has to pull somebody’s teeth from their skull. Abe Schwartz, whose two main hobbies are reading and masturbating, has to find a tool that will allow him to cut through bone so that he can remove the twenty digits that are easy identifiers of the man who no longer lives at number three.
He’s sweating. He looks at the body, then the door, then back at his phone screen.
Options include:
BURIAL. Too risky.
BURYING A DECOY. So, burying the body ten feet into the ground then burying something four feet above it. Like a dog. But then he’d have to buy a dog and kill it. And what about the digging? Ten feet? Abe’s biceps start to ache if he takes more than three minutes to whack one out.
REUSE A GRAVE. Preferably a recent one. Dig it up and throw your body underneath. Abe was tired just thinking about all this digging.
A sound outside. Abe Schwartz holds his sick breath. Probably Mrs May skulking around in the foyer near the stairs. He’d got rid of the blood, there was only a small patch. He was sure he’d cleaned it up well enough.
The body was going to have to stay in his room until he knew what do with it. Abe put his phone on the bed, grabbed the former resident of number three beneath the armpits and dragged him towards the bathroom. The floor was tiled and would be easier to clean. He took a deep breath and hauled the body over the edge of the bath tub. The head and arms were flopped inside while the legs were still on the outside.