Page 98 of Hidden in Memories
“I’m afraid so.” Leffe hesitates. “But it seems as if she stayed around somehow. I’ve been down there and felt that ... it wasn’t a good idea to go in.”
Hanna doesn’t know what to think. She has never been particularly superstitious; she doesn’t believe in ghosts or angels. But looking at Leffe’s lined face, his chin and cheeks covered in stubble, he seems totally serious.
He tugs at the straps of his blue dungarees. “I had the dog with me once, and he refused to go in with me. In the end I left.”
He lets go of the door, and it closes with a protracted squeak.
“Do you know the name of the girl who died?”
Leffe shakes his head. “It was long before my time—I was born in 1958.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“Since the seventies.” He smiles, looking slightly embarrassed. “That’s practically my whole life. I’m due to retire soon. I started out changing light bulbs, that was all I did at first.”
Hanna runs her finger down the wall. The surface is a little rough, and there is a patch of damp in the corner. She can hear the sound of a dripping tap nearby. Leffe’s stories have made her both curious and ill at ease.
“Has anything else of note happened at the hotel? Any kind of crime?”
“Why?”
“I just wondered.”
Leffe has turned and set off back the way they came. Shadows dance over the scruffy walls.
“There was something in the early seventies,” he says over his shoulder. “A young waitress was assaulted. I think it was Christmas ’73, shortly after I came to work here.”
“So what happened?”
“People said she’d been flirting too much with one of the guests, sending out the wrong signals, if you know what I mean. Then ... well, you can imagine.”
Leffe falls silent. When he speaks again, his voice is so quiet that Hanna can barely make out the words. “I guess the general view was that she had only herself to blame.”
It’s not surprising. In those days rape investigations rarely focused on the perpetrator or his behavior; instead all the blame was put on the victim. Police interviews were mainly about what the woman had been wearing, whether it was provocative or too daring. The police fixated on the victim’s demeanor, and whether she had a history of multiple sexual encounters.
Had that young woman really said no in a way that made the rapist understand that she didn’t want to have sex with him?
“If you know what I mean?” Leffe adds again, over his shoulder.
Hanna knows exactly what he means, and then some. She herself was raped many years ago, and didn’t report her attacker. She couldn’t face going to the police and being questioned. Or having her reputation trashed in court.
With hindsight, she thinks that was the wrong decision. She should have reported him, stood up for herself. However, she was young, only twenty-one, and the man was her middle-aged boss at the bar where she worked in Barcelona. It was Lydia who flew down and brought her home, made sure she got help to deal with the shock and trauma.
It was after that incident that she decided to train as a police officer.
“Did the case go to court?” she asks. “What happened in the end?”
Leffe stops with one hand on the banister.
“I can’t remember. I think she got fired. The whole story was hushed up.”
“Was it someone you knew?”
“Not directly. I was just a spotty kid changing light bulbs and so on, like I said. I went around in dungarees all day, and she was really cute, small and dainty, with kohl round her eyes and beautiful long hairwith a center parting. That was the fashion in those days.” He gives a melancholy little laugh. “She never even looked in my direction.”
They have reached another staircase. The carpet is badly worn and frayed. Leffe takes a few steps, then stops again and turns around. His voice is full of sorrow when he adds, “I think it ruined her life.”
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