The Sanatorium(30)

“Isaac told us about him yesterday. People thought he had business troubles, didn’t they?”

“That’s one theory.”

“There were more?”

Margot nods. “Look, I’ll be honest. The renovation, it stirred up . . . how do you say it? Bad feeling.” Her voice pitches higher. “I think people believe that his disappearance was connected to that.”

“Bad feeling? In what sense?”

“Some of the locals didn’t want a hotel here. There were demonstrations, petitions. It took years to get through planning because there were so many objections.”

“Why?”

“The usual variety of reasons.” Margot shrugs. “Design too modern, environmental concerns, enough hotels in the area already . . .” She hesitates. “To be honest, I think some were excuses for something people didn’t want to voice.”

“And what’s that?”

“For the fact people didn’t want anything built here.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “I don’t think it mattered what they’d proposed. Hotel, park, factory, people wouldn’t have liked it.”

“Why?” Elin asks the question, but she knows what’s coming, because she feels it too. Ever since she stepped out of the transfer bus, she’s felt it—that creeping sense of something dark, threatening.

“This place . . . people don’t like it. The fact that it used to be a sanatorium. Superstition, I suppose.” Margot’s face closes. “I think Daniel bore the brunt of that.”

Elin falters. What she’s implying is that Daniel’s death wasn’t an accident. “You think someone hurt him because of his involvement in the hotel?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. As much as I like my job, sometimes this place . . . it just feels wrong.”

“In what way?” Elin’s stomach pitches.

“I can’t describe it any other way. Just wrong.”

Elin forces a smile, but a chill pushes through her as she processes Margot’s words. The logical part of her brain is saying it’s simply an old event. Potentially a past crime, unconnected with Laure going missing, but something’s niggling at her.

As she goes to find Will in the pool area, she feels another flicker of unease: Laure’s disappearance coming at the same time as the discovery of Daniel’s body. The two events colliding . . . it feels like an omen.





24





Will’s doing laps; arms slicing through the shimmering water in quick, clean strokes. This is no performance; he’s at home in the water. At ease.

Elin fixes her eyes on him, follows the rhythmic motion. At the end of the pool, he flips, changes direction. She turns her head, blinks.

Too bright.

The spotlights on the ceiling are reflecting off the glass, the water, fine slices of light ricocheting off it like blades.

Dizzied, she takes a deep breath. Control it. Don’t let it control you. Keep breathing. In and out. Repeat.

“Will,” she calls, walking to the edge of the pool.

He doesn’t hear her.

“Will,” she repeats, louder.

This time he notices her and slows; the easy motion becoming staccato. Swimming to the side, he levers himself out of the pool with his arms. “Watching me, were you?” Will grins. “I wouldn’t have put you as a voyeur.” Exaggerating the word “voyeur,” he raises an eyebrow.

“Nothing wrong with a bit of leching.” Elin smiles, but it’s fleeting, her mind pulling to Isaac, what she’s learned.

“What’s up?” Fat droplets of water fall off Will’s shoulders, hitting the tiles. “As much as I’d like to believe you’ve come to admire my superior swimming skills, something’s wrong . . . I can tell.”

“It’s Isaac.” Bringing her hand to her mouth, Elin bites at her thumbnail. “I’ve been to see him.”

He hauls himself to standing, still dripping, his breathing labored. “Let me guess . . . Laure’s back?”

Elin observes the taut muscle in his arms, the broad chest, the strong shoulders splattered with tiny freckles. At thirty-four he isn’t boy-lean, but he’s still at his peak: no softening, no paunch.

This fitness was one of the things that had attracted her when they’d first met. It reassured her: visible proof that he was self-motivated, disciplined, strong—mentally and physically. He wouldn’t need to be propped up by her.

“No . . .” Elin’s finding it hard to form the words. “I found blood. Blood on the rug in their room. It looked fresh.”

Will smiles, the whites of his eyes laced with red from the chlorine. “Elin, come on, you can’t think—”

“No, of course not.” Elin keeps her voice light. “He said she cut herself shaving.”

“So she probably did.”

“It isn’t just that, though. When I was looking around in the bathroom, Isaac pocketed something.”

“Pocketed something?” Will repeats, his eyes fixed on her. Without his glasses, his irises seem more vivid.

“Yes. Before I could see what it was.”

“It could have been anything. Something private. Condoms, pills . . .”