Chapter 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?”
“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 hair with 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.”