The Sanatorium(62)

Elin already knows the rough time window from the other camera: it was about half past three when she finished speaking to Will.

When she finds the right time, she presses play. Nothing happens for the first few minutes. The image is static, fixed on the door. The only movement is from the snow drifting past the screen. Any sounds are muffled by the wind.

Holding her breath, Elin drums her fingers on the table, willing her hunch to be correct.

Beside her, Cecile is watching the screen intently.

Still no movement.

Elin exhales heavily, frustrated. Whoever it was, they had to have used this door to access the changing room, surely? Unless they’d gone in before her . . .

“Is there—” she starts, then freezes.

A movement.

A person in the bottom left of the frame.

The figure is tall, well built, dressed in a black waterproof coat, hood pulled up around the face. They’re wearing dark, shapeless trousers.

Elin feels winded. She was right all along.

Someone had been in there. Someone had been watching me.

She focuses on the figure; he or she is clearly not aware of the camera. Not even a glance in its direction. They’re walking purposefully toward the door.

So who is it? Who was watching me?

It’s impossible to tell. Unless the figure turns, she doesn’t stand a chance of identifying them. The formless clothes, the hood—it’s the perfect disguise. She can’t even tell if they’re male or female.

Staring at the screen, she watches as the figure puts a key fob to the electronic pad on the door, starts pushing it open.

Turn, Elin wills, turn.

Then, as if the person has heard her: the figure glances around, toward the camera, clearly looking to see if anyone behind is watching them enter.

Elin’s looking so intently at the screen, her eyes start to water. The image blurs. She blinks once, twice, but the picture remains the same.

She reaches out a hand, hits pause. The image is freeze-framed.

Elin pinches the screen, spreading her fingers wide. The image zooms in, the picture quality so clear she can almost make out the pores on the person’s face.

The blood pounds in her ears with a deafening roar.

She knows who it is. She knows exactly who was watching her.





48





It’s Laure,” Elin says, her mouth dry. “It’s definitely her.” Clearing her throat, she turns to Cecile. “When I was in the spa yesterday, in the changing room, I felt someone watching me. I heard one of the cubicle doors being opened and closed, but no one came out. I checked all the doors. . . . No one was there. Now it makes sense. Someone could have come through this side door.”

Cecile’s hand hovers over the screen. “You think she was watching you?”

“If there’s no CCTV in the changing room, I can’t say definitively, but why else would she be going in there?” Elin scrolls forward another few minutes, her stomach filling with a gnawing dread.

As she expects, it’s Laure who reemerges.

The image is like another punch to her gut.

An instinctive sense of relief that Laure’s alive, unhurt, which is immediately punctured by an immense hurt. Disappointment.

Why? Why would she do something like that?

Then Elin’s mind makes the next leap. “There’s something else I need to check. Yesterday, someone pushed me into the plunge pool.”

Cecile’s face darkens. “You’re thinking it’s her?”

“I don’t know.” Elin looks back at the screen. “Is there a camera near there?”

“Not officially, but yes. It’s on the fencing to the left.” Cecile finds the feed.

Thanks to the moisture on the lens, it’s hard to make out faces, only fleeting glimpses of bodies—seminaked forms, arms wrapped around themselves.

Elin can’t see either of the main pools, only the plunge pool and a small section of wooden walkway above it. For a few minutes, the footage is still: no more movement. Then a group of people appear; five, six, walking out of shot back to the indoor pool.

There’s no sign of her.

The image on the screen is motionless again—only clouds of steam pulling up in pockets through the air.

Two more minutes.

Elin finally comes into view; walking from the bottom of the frame, up the wooden walkway. She watches herself turn left, her hair a pale arrow, pointing down the nape of her neck.

A chill comes over her; it feels strange, seeing herself like that, half naked, vulnerable. In her mind, she’s as strong, as physically infallible, as any man, yet in this image she seems anything but.

She sees herself stop beside the plunge pool. The camera is too low to catch her head; all she can see is a segmented profile of her torso.

There’s no sign of anyone else. No one walking near the pool.

Elin bites her lip with frustration. I can’t be wrong. Surely . . .

But then she catches a sudden movement behind her.

A shadowed figure at her back.

Elin holds her breath. She wants to shout to herself—Move, turn, run!

But there’s nothing she can do apart from watching the scene play out.

She watches herself fall forward. Though it felt impossibly quick at the time, here it feels almost hideously slow.

Individual frames of movement.