Page 97 of Hidden in Memories
Monica presses the note to her lips. She thinks she can just pick up a faint, lingering trace of Sean’s aftershave.
She lay awake all night, imagining their future together.
She thinks she knows why he wants to meet her alone—he is going to tell her that she is the one he wants to be with, that he has spoken to his wife and is going to divorce her for Monica’s sake.
She ought to be ashamed of wrecking their marriage, but her blood is fizzing with excitement.
At last she is going to start her new life, get away from this place, and discover the world.
Sean will give her a different existence, he will buy her jewelry and fine clothes. She will live in Stockholm, and never again will her parents be able to tell her what to do or say.
Time is flying by. Monica unlocks the door and leaves the staff toilet. She washes her hands meticulously and hurries out with her head full of dreams.
All of her deepest wishes are going to come true.
She is the happiest woman on earth.
76
The farther they go into the empty hotel, the more desolate it feels.
Hanna’s footsteps make the floorboards creak. The four annexes are connected to the main building by dimly lit corridors that seem endless. Without Leffe as her guide, she would have gotten lost long ago.
She plods along after him. Daniel has excused himself to take a phone call, and is still in the main building.
Leffe opens a door to something that was once a family room. Hanna sees a green table, two green armchairs, and two single beds with green valances. The beds are at an angle, and above them are two rectangular cupboards in the same alarming shade of green. When Leffe tugs at one of them, another bed flips out from the wall.
It reminds Hanna of old-fashioned sleeping cars on overnight trains, where the bunks can be folded away when not in use. It feels simple, not especially exclusive, but then again things were probably different back then.
“This is the bathroom,” Leffe says, opening another door to reveal a mustard-yellow bath and black-tiled walls. The handbasin is cracked, and Leffe advises Hanna not to lift the toilet lid.
He sighs. “It needs a major renovation. I think there’s asbestos in the walls too, but I still don’t know if it’s necessary to tear the whole lot down.”
They leave the family room and make their way up a couple of steps and into another corridor. Leffe stops and points to a room with the number 712 on the doorframe.
“The cleaners never dared to go in here alone.”
Hanna can’t work out if he’s joking or not, but his tone suggests the latter.
“They always insisted on having company. One of them used to take her husband along when it was her turn. He would sit on a chair in the room while she did the cleaning.”
“You mean it’s haunted?”
Hanna wants to shrug off the story, but nothing in Leffe’s voice suggests that he is kidding.
It feels a little uncomfortable, especially when she remembers what Raffe said before they left the station.
“Like I said—no one would go into room 712 alone.”
They continue along another corridor and stop at a metal door. Leffe opens it a fraction and points to a worn stone staircase where the white paint is flaking badly.
“This leads to what used to be the staff bar, down in the cellar.” He pauses, glances into the darkness.
“They say that a young girl was pushed down these stairs after the war. She broke her neck in the fall.”
This new tale makes the hairs on Hanna’s arms stand on end. What kind of place is this?
“So she died?”
