The Sanatorium(101)

When she’s finished, she stops, staring. Beneath the vinyl isn’t the solid concrete floor you’d expect, but something else entirely. A wooden door, two metal handles sitting retracted against the top. The surface is thick with dust, but Elin can just make out more dark flakes.

Margot’s been here. She’s repeatedly lifted this door, the matting above, making her varnish flake off.

Elin looks up at Lucas. “Do you know what this is?”

“No,” he replies without hesitation. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“Not during the build?”

“No. When we started the refurbishment, the vinyl flooring was everywhere. It was old, filthy. Uneven. We instructed the builders to level it with the matting until we decided what we were going to do with it.” He looks down at the door. “Do you think this is where . . . ?”

“It’s possible.” Elin’s voice is uncertain. If there is a room under there, it would be the ideal place to hold someone. Easy access to the hotel, yet with total privacy.

She grips the handles tightly, and heaves the door upward. It gives easily, a waft of stale, musty air rushing toward them.

She peers into the gap. An inky blackness. She can’t see a thing.

Pulling the flashlight from her bag, she switches it on. The beam picks out the beginnings of some steps, roughly hewn from stone.

“I’m going down.”

“Now?” Lucas looks at her in surprise.

“We can’t wait. We’ve got to stop her before she hurts anyone else.”

“Okay, but I’m coming with you. It’s not safe for you to go in there alone.”

“Fine.” She meets his gaze. “But I’m going first.”





82





With the flashlight clamped in her right hand, Elin walks slowly down the steps, Lucas behind her. The musty odor is overwhelming; the air here is undisturbed, claggy with dust.

A few steps down, she turns to Lucas, lowers her voice to a whisper. “Before we go farther in, can you check if there’s a handle on the underside?”

Going back up the first few steps, he examines the bottom of the hatch. “There is.”

“So Margot could have come and gone this way . . .” she says, thinking out loud. With the CCTV off, she could easily have moved undisturbed in and out of this room if no one was around, even if the hatch was closed from above.

“It’s possible.”

When they reach the bottom of the steps, Elin realizes they’ve almost lost the light from the archive room. Switching on her flashlight, she moves it around in a circle to get an idea of the space. It’s opened up, but not by much. A dark void stretches away from her.

A tunnel.

Not a basement like she’d imagined. It must stretch out in front of the hotel, under the spa, the car park. Perhaps even farther.

As she sweeps the flashlight beam across the walls, she can see that like the steps, they’re roughly hewn, the surface streaked with water.

Flicking the flashlight upward, she can make out an old-fashioned fluorescent strip light fixed to the ceiling. It’s covered in dust, the glass outer casing fractured with tiny cracks.

Elin studies it. Lighting implies that the tunnel is in fact part of the building, not some add-on constructed at a later date. She looks to Lucas. “You’re sure this tunnel isn’t on the plans?”

“No, it’s not.” He pulls his own flashlight from his pocket, flicks it on. “Nor the survey we had done before the build.” He’s trying not to show his fear, but Elin can sense it: the jerky movement of his chest giving away the shallowness of his breathing.

“And you haven’t noticed any signs outside of the tunnel exit? Any unusual structures?”

“Nothing. The exit must be blocked up, unless it comes out miles away, which wouldn’t make sense considering what it might have been used for.”

“So you know what it might have been used for?”

“I can’t say for sure, but there were several sanatoriums in Leysin with tunnels. They were used to carry food and supplies directly into the building, and also”—his features tighten—“to transport the dead, keep them out of sight of other patients.”

Elin absorbs what he’s said. If this was true, then how didn’t he know of its existence? Surely the tunnel would have been recorded, spoken about? Unless, she thinks, it’s always been concealed for some reason.

“Perhaps,” she says, feeling sick at the thought, “the doctors we saw in those photographs used this space too. That might be why it’s not recorded.”

“Possibly.”

She starts moving forward again, a sense of disquiet building with every step.

A few yards on, there’s a change: the tunnel floor divides into two different surfaces. The right-hand side is a stairway. On the left, there is a smooth path.

“Do you know why it would be built in this way?”

Lucas nods, his neck so tense the veins look like they’re about to break through the skin. “This side, the path, if it’s the same as the ones in Leysin, was used to transport the bodies using motorized trolleys. The steps running alongside it were for the staff.”

Wishing she hadn’t asked, Elin continues walking, the beam of the flashlight only faintly puncturing the darkness. She still can’t see anything: no signs of habitation. No signs that Margot’s been here.