Shadows & Tall Trees

by Shadows

  “Room 18,” she said. “I’ll have to come up with you.”

  “There really is no need,” said Fisher. “I can take Mr. Evans up to his room.”

  “I need to reset the lock on the door,” Marianne lied. “It will only take a second.”

  All three of them went up to the room with Marianne leading the way. She opened the door with her master keycard and explained, as nonchalantly as she could, that it would now be reset. She then made sure that Fisher’s key worked and she handed it over to her. The woman took the young man inside and Marianne used her master key to go into the room opposite, which she knew to be empty.

  She watched through the squint in the door, and when the Fisher left Marianne waited for her to walk down the corridor before she came out. She listened to the woman going down the stairs, and although she couldn’t hear the woman crossing the hall past the unmanned reception desk, she felt the slight change in pressure as the front door opened and closed.

  Marianne risked getting into a great deal of trouble, but, nevertheless, she opened the door to room 18 with her master key and walked in.

  “Please excuse me,” she said, immediately noticing how cold it was in the darkened room. “I do apologize, but I . . .”

  Her first reaction had been to look towards the window again, to see if it was open, which it wasn’t. But her attention was immediately taken by the young man standing just inside the brightly-lit bathroom. He was wearing only a tee-shirt and his hands were tied to the door handle with what looked like a dirty strip of some white material. He was obviously distressed; he was gagged and the look in his eyes was at first wild, but then suddenly hopeful, pleading. Then he looked from Marianne to somebody else who was inside the bathroom with him.

  Suddenly that person pushed past the terrified young man. The first thing that struck Marianne was that the man who appeared was really very, very old. He had a long face and his wrinkles were deep, like the cracks in dried earth. He was also completely bald. He was dressed in a brown suit that, even back-lit from the bathroom and almost entirely in silhouette, appeared dirty and stained. In one hand he carried a hotel towel, and in the other he had a huge hypodermic syringe that looked like it was made of corroded brass.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said with a low, quiet but insistent voice.

  “I’m the night porter,” said Marianne, without thinking.

  “I know, Night Porter,” the man said. “Can we agree that you have seen nothing here? Would you like to leave and never think about this again? It would be for the best.”

  Marianne reasoned that she could be out of the room and downstairs, phoning for the police, long before the old man caught up with her. But the young man was staring at her, trying to scream at her to stay and help him.

  “No,” said Marianne, shaking, still considering running. “You can leave.”

  “I will, when I’ve finished.”

  And the man was across the room with an unbelievable speed and agility. Instinctively Marianne flung the door open to run out and it crashed into him.

  That should have given Marianne enough time, but as she reached the stairs she could already hear the man coming down the corridor towards her. Marianne vaulted over the banisters between the two sections of the dog-leg stair and managed to get her footing right as she landed. She took another leap into the reception area and ran across to the desk. She immediately picked up the telephone and hit nine three times before looking up.

  The man was already standing by her as they both heard the distant, tiny voice asking which emergency service was required.

  “Police,” said Marianne, upset by how shaky and thin her voice sounded. How had the man appeared so quickly beside her? What did he intend to do with the syringe he was holding?

  But the old man just smiled at Marianne, and walked away, backwards. Although he appeared quite calm, and the movement was effortless, the man seemed to move too quick; he was at the stairs and climbing them backwards, too soon, before he should have done...

  “The St. Denis Hotel,” Marianne added into the mouthpiece of the phone. “A guest is in danger, room 18 . . .”

  She put the receiver down on the counter and unwillingly returned to the foot of the stairs. She looked up, but the old man was gone; he would already be in the corridor. Marianne followed reluctantly, and when she saw that the first floor corridor was empty, she made herself walk along to the door of room 18.

  She hesitated before going back inside, but room 18 was now empty; both the old man and the young man had gone. It took a great deal of courage for Marianne to look around the door into the bathroom, and she wasn’t sure if she really felt any relief in finding nobody there. The only signs that there had ever been anybody in room 18 were the horrible piece of material still attached to the door handle, the towel on the floor, and the state of the sink. There were dark marks on the white porcelain, as though somebody had been washing something very black and oily in it.

  The police took seriously the call from Marianne. The security tapes clearly showed Miss Fisher and the young Mr. Evans, leaving the silver Mercedes and entering the hotel lobby. Fisher was traced through the number plate and questioned, but Marianne was told that she could have nothing to do with the disappearance of Evans. Traffic cameras clearly showed her driving away as soon as she had left the hotel. Evans had apparently been acting as Miss Fisher’s “escort” that night, quite legitimately.

  The old man with the bald head didn’t appear on the security tapes at all. There was only a partial shot of Marianne herself at the telephone calling the police; unfortunately, the cameras were angled too far towards the front door to show the whole reception desk.

  Marianne was given a couple of weeks off work, paid, by Mr. Lane. It was very good of him, thought Marianne, who felt bad taking the money when she didn’t intend going back. How could she return after what had happened? The idea of being alone in the hotel at night was unimaginable. Well, not quite alone; there would be guests, of course, locked away in their rooms. But who else might be behind the closed bedroom doors? The old, bald man?

  Marianne continued to keep the hours that she had done when working at the St. Denis. She didn’t admit to her mother that anything had happened at the hotel; instead she would go to The Milky Way until five in the morning, and then walk around the streets, sobering up in the cold dawn until she could go home after seven. She would still go to bed at the same time, although she would now be getting up at more like four in the afternoon.

  Not that she could sleep; Miss Fisher and the old man insisted on invading her thoughts as he lay awake in bed, threatening to enter her dreams if she dared to lose consciousness.

  Marianne had never been a regular anywhere before, but The Milky Way made it easy for her. She knew one of the barmen who worked there during the week, and at the weekends her old school friends would turn up. It was dark and full of alcoves where she could hide away and nurse a drink for hours if she had to. However, she soon got to know several other regulars, including a middle-aged man called Anthony, who she was becoming quite attached to. Anthony was an insomniac, and, distressingly, probably an alcoholic. Marianne worried that she might end up the same as him, but she enjoyed his company, and he seemed to tolerate hers. Marianne knew that she could not keep up the lifestyle indefinitely, not least because the St. Denis Hotel stopped her pay after two weeks, and the little money she had saved was already dwindling. She was convinced that her mother would find out what had happened, as Mr. Lane telephoned every week to ask after Marianne, leaving messages on the answer-phone. (Luckily, Marianne had always managed to intercept and erase them.) The hotel manager was trying to make it easy for her, Marianne knew that. She also knew that at some point she would have to re-apply to the benefits agency, and Lane could easily tell them that she had just walked out of the job. Then there wouldn’t be any money coming in for at least a month.

  It
was three weeks later, perhaps four (Marianne had lost some sense of time), when she saw Miss Fisher walk into The Milky Way. It was a weeknight, and not at all crowded. Having bought drinks at the bar, Fisher sat at a table at the back. With her was yet another young man.

  Marianne had been talking to Anthony. At some point in their friendship she had told him about the hotel and Fisher. She now pointed the woman out to him.

  “Ask her,” he said, and because Marianne had finished her fourth glass of wine, and felt safe in such a public place, she did so.

  “The police have already interviewed me,” Fisher insisted, uncomfortable at having Marianne confronting her across the table.

  “I know, and they could prove nothing,” said Marianne.

  “Because there’s nothing to prove! You gave them a description of the man they need to talk to.”

  “It’s too much of a coincidence,” Marianne dismissed the reply. “You’re in league with the bald old man.”

  “I really don’t know him. Look, I’m here for a quiet drink with my friend . . .”

  “Another one of your escorts?” She turned to the young man, who looked confused at the sudden appearance of Marianne and her accusations.

  “I hope she’s paying you well?” Marianne asked. “I don’t know what services she’ll ask of you, but if she tries taking you back to a hotel afterwards, don’t let her. There’ll be an old man with rusty hypodermic waiting for you.”

  “Please, Miss. . . Night Porter,” said Fisher. “Please leave us alone. Otherwise I’ll have to call the management.”

  “And tell them what? I’m a regular here, don’t you know?”

  “I like to have company of an evening. I’ll take a companion to a restaurant, or a bar, or sometimes a club like this. When my young friend is tired I drop him off at a hotel with a couple of hundred pounds in his pocket to thank him.”

  “And that’s when they meet your bald friend . . .”

  The young man had been looking increasingly uncomfortable, and Marianne watched in amusement as Fisher opened up her purse, handed him some notes, and told him that he could go.

  “I hope you’re feeling happy with yourself,” said Fisher, as the young man walked away.

  “If I’ve saved his life, yes!”

  “And how, exactly, have you done that?”

  “By saving him from you, and the old man who disposes of your ‘escorts’ for you.”

  “And how does he dispose of them?”

  “I don’t know,” said Marianne. “Perhaps he injects them with something to dissolve them. . . so all that’s left is an oily, fatty mess in the sink!”

  Fisher laughed, to which Marianne took exception. She hadn’t realized how drunk she was, or how tired. She realized that she had voiced a private fantasy that really was too fanciful. She decided to leave Fisher and the scene of her minor triumph, resolving to walk away without looking back. She made her way back to Anthony and apologized to him, saying that she was going home. She was depressed that he simply said goodnight and let her go. She looked back at him on her way out, and he was heading for the bar.

  As she was leaving, Marianne went in to the ladies’. She sat on the toilet and replayed the scene with Fisher in her head, confused, unable to decide if she had made any sense. As Marianne walked out of the cubicle she heard the main door open and Miss Fisher walked in.

  “I have nothing to hide, Night Porter,” said the woman.

  “You drug your young victims,” said Marianne, wondering why she was continuing to be confrontational when all she wanted to do was leave.

  “No, I don’t drug them. I buy them a decent meal and they usually end up drinking too much.”

  “It’s called prostitution.”

  “No, they only act as company. Nothing sexual happens.”

  “No?” asked Marianne. She was relieved to have been able to get past the woman, and was now close to the door, able to leave.

  “Night Porter, how I envy you,” said Fisher. “And the young men I pay to keep me company. I admire your youth, your vitality, your innocence . . .”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You could help me meet young men. There would be something in it for you . . .”

  Fisher had come forward, almost without the younger woman noticing, but Marianne pushed her away. Suddenly there was a flurry of arms and legs as Fisher slipped backwards on the wet floor, and, when she fell, there was a horrible sound as her head hit the dirty cracked tiles. The woman didn’t move, and immediately an almost black liquid started to flow from out under her head. In the dim, ineffectual light it took a few moments before Marianne realized what it was. But she didn’t have time to find out how badly Fisher might be hurt because she was frozen by a blast of cold air. A cubicle door had opened. She had thought they were alone, and she was confused to see that it was the cubicle she had, herself, just come out of.

  Suddenly there was the old, bald man with the deep wrinkles. He looked at Marianne, then at Miss Fisher, and he smiled.

  “I’ll finish her off for you,” he said. “In a few moments there will be nothing.”

  “I don’t want to know,” said Marianne, backing away.

  “Good, good. Then we can agree that you have seen nothing here. Leave and never think about this again.”

  “But why help me?” asked Marianne, although her voice was so quiet she hardly knew whether she had articulated her thoughts.

  “Why?” asked the old man. “I was always there to tidy up for you before. And I’ll be there when you need me again.”

  THE STATUE

  MYRIAM FREY

  As usual, Benjamin had found himself the longest and most cumbersome piece of wood—most of a young beech tree in this case—and dragged it behind himself for ages, ploughing the damp, black forest soil as he went. Julie was investigating a brown heap of crumbling leaves just this side of compost. She was fascinated with micro-organisms and her plan was to observe some live decay under her microscope later that day. She had been given it for her sixth birthday and she had since examined every body fluid and foodstuff known to her, putting Benjamin off milk because of the red and purple blotches all over it. Spring was late this year; it was early April, but there were still small patches of snow at the base of some of the larger trees. The soil was faintly gurgling and hissing and the branches of the trees were strangely tense with the impending eruption of millions of buds.

  Sarah led the way and turned around to tell the children to step it up a bit. The sunshine earlier in the day had fooled her into putting on her soft-shell jacket. Now she was freezing and she needed the loo. Patrick had chosen a different route, presumably to jump into their path as if out of nowhere when they least expected it. The lack of foliage would make this a tricky one, Sarah knew, but her husband’s resourcefulness with pranks was legendary. Benjamin finally let go of his tree, having grown tired of pulling it along. Their path took a turn to the right and then they saw Patrick, standing on a tree stump, arms to his side like a soldier. Sarah had witnessed this many times, but it always gave her the creeps to see him like this, unblinking and as if carved in stone.

  The children giggled. “Dad’s a statue!” Benjamin screamed and quickened his step because he knew what was coming. His dad would jump off the tree stump with a huge roar and grab whoever stood nearest to him and give them a messy cuddle. Sarah and the kids walked cautiously past Patrick, who didn’t move. They shot nervous glances over their shoulders, expecting him to be all over them any second now, but he wasn’t. After a few metres, Sarah turned around to face Patrick and warned him that they were going to start dinner without him if he wasn’t coming. “Maybe he wants to see how long he can stand like this,” Julie suggested. “Mrs. Moll made us do that in PE and it was really hard.” Sarah agreed. It was just the kind of thing he would do.

  When they got home, the children kicked off their muddy boots and went st
raight for the couch. Sarah picked up the phone to call Patrick. She let it ring until she heard it go off in their bedroom. She rolled her eyes, wondering once again why her husband had bothered to buy a mobile in the first place. He always seemed to mix up his settings so he couldn’t hear it, or he forgot to take it altogether.

  Sarah cut open a roll of ready-to-bake pastry dough and spread it on a large baking tray. She pricked it with a fork, sprinkled ground hazelnuts and started to grate apples over it.

  “Mum? Where’s Dad?”

  The children had just put in a Madagascar DVD and were waiting for the anti-piracy disclaimer to fade.

  “He’ll have bumped into someone. You know Dad.”

  “Yeah,” Benjamin chuckled, “we know Dad!”

  Once dinner was in the oven, Sarah started to worry. She went upstairs and called Michelle, their emergency babysitter from next door. She appeared on the doorstep ten minutes later in tracksuit bottoms. Her hair was wet. They walked into the living room together.

  “Julie? Ben? Look who’s here!”

  “Michelle!” Julie jumped off the couch and threw her arms around the girl’s neck. Sarah knew she was her daughter’s favourite babysitter in the world, but dodgy friends and a rumoured weakness for weed confined her to the substitute bench.

  “Where are you going, Mum? You didn’t say you were going out.”

  Benjamin didn’t like sudden changes in schedule.

  “Sorry, Ben. I didn’t know earlier. Dad’s met some friends on his way home and they’ve invited us over for a drink and a bit of a chat.”