ALEXANdra BELL
Chapter 1
Eve—August 2015
Eve didn’t want to turn around because then she would see it.
The monster. Of course, she’d laid eyes on it before, many times over the years, but there were some things you never got used to, some horrors you would do anything to avoid. It was a child’s nightmare—yet here was Eve, twenty-seven years old today, and the monster was still chasing her. It didn’t come every day, not anymore, but it never missed a birthday.
Eve kept her head down as she hurried towards the escalator that led to the Underground. She caught the train just as it pulled away from the platform, and for a moment she hoped she might have lost it in the crowds. But then she looked up and there it was on the seat opposite, the monster that was shaped like a rabbit. A rabbit, of course, had no business being there in the middle of the London Underground, especially not a rabbit like that. It was white and fluffy, with a splodge of black over one eye. It should have been terrified of all the noise and commotion. It should have been running around in circles, trying to hide, trying to find a way out. Yet it just sat there on the seat, perfectly calm, staring at Eve with warm, friendly eyes as she trembled.
The train jolted and rattled its way to her stop, and she tried not
to look at the monster, or to dwell on the fact that no one else in the crowded carriage was aware of the creature at all. Finally, the train reached her platform and she got off, but the rabbit followed. It always followed. Every time she glanced back, there it was, hopping and bouncing happily in her wake, right onto the escalator.
Eve dug her nails into her palms. Eventually, she knew, the rabbit would go away. The trick was to keep her eyes locked ahead until it did, to stay busy, to continue as normal. She walked briskly along the pavement, trying not to look at the long-eared shadow nearby. Her hands were still shaking as she slipped her earphones in and began playing a piece of music by her favourite composer. Max Everly had lived and died many decades before she was born, but there was something about his music that Eve always found comforting, even on her most difficult days. She’d discovered Everly at nineteen, and on those occasions when despair and shame threatened to reach out their claws and drag her back down into the pit, Everly’s music was a fierce flame that pushed away the shadows and the sorrows.
She did her best now to focus on the music as she walked to Stanley’s auction house. It was sunny, just like it had been all those years ago. Eve always hoped for rain on her birthday, but the August date meant that rarely happened. For a moment, she could see the bounce and sway of balloons, and smell the sausage rolls and strawberry jelly. When she reached the auction house, she paused outside to take a deep breath and try to still the tremor in her hands. Perhaps she should have taken leave, like last year, but she also couldn’t stand the idea of another day sitting in her flat by herself with her rabbits and ghosts. . . .
When she put her earphones back in her bag, she noticed that the rabbit had gone—for now, at least. Once inside the auction house, she could throw herself into her role as a valuer—work that she enjoyed—and there would be some structure to her day. She
was planning to spend the entire morning cataloguing a collection of paintings that had just come in and then writing up valuation reports for the client. They would be quiet, methodical tasks. Exactly what she needed.
She made a start as soon as she reached her office, glad of the air-conditioning. It was far too hot to be wearing a black turtleneck, but it was what she always wore. It was simpler that way. Less chance of a stray tentacle wandering onto her neck and causing any consternation or alarm to anyone who might see it. Less chance of any ink raising questions. Besides, it was irritating to be screamed at. Life was much easier when she wore black and kept people at a distance.
She worked diligently and without interruption until eleven o’clock. It was a relief to look up and see the time. A couple of hours down, and she’d hardly noticed them. Perhaps the day wouldn’t be quite so bad as she feared. Perhaps she could get through it mostly unscathed. . . .
But then her mobile rang, and her heart juddered painfully. This was the worst part of the day, and she briefly considered letting it go to answerphone. How she longed to do just that, to pretend she’d been busy in a meeting, or on the other line, but if her mother had the courage to make the call, then Eve must have the courage to answer it. She’d been crouched on the floor beside a painting, but now she stood up, swiped her thumb across the screen, and raised the phone to her ear. “Hello.”
She couldn’t make her voice sound normal, no matter how hard she tried. It came out as a dry croak, like she was hungover or half asleep.
“Eve. It’s Mum.”
“I know. Hi.” She swallowed hard, tried to force some normality into her voice. “How are you?”
She regretted her words instantly. For a moment, there was utter
silence on the other end of the line. Eve wondered if her mother might simply hang up, but instead she cleared her throat and said, “I just called to say happy birthday.”
Eve slipped her free hand into her pocket, her fingers searching for the fumsup. She was reassured by the feel of its lumpy wooden head beneath her fingers and the way it helped ground her in the moment. She was right here, at work. She wasn’t back there. At the party. Her eye fell on the window, and she saw a balloon go floating past—impossibly purple. Perhaps the most purple thing she had ever laid eyes on. A child must have let go of it on the pavement outside, she told herself. That’s all it was.
“Eve?” Her mum’s voice came over the line. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” The words made a hot flush of guilt prickle over her skin.
She was here. Her sister, Bella, was not. She desperately searched her mind for something, anything, to say to her mum but couldn’t think of a single sentence that wouldn’t make it all worse. The fact was that they hardly knew each other anymore. Eve spoke to her mother perhaps twice a year. It was impossible, at times like this, not to think of how things might have been different between them, how everything might have been different if it weren’t for that single moment twenty-three years ago. One mistake that had changed everything and left their family in shreds.
“Well, I won’t take up any more of your time,” her mum said. “I’m sure you’re very busy. Take care.”
“Bye, Mum,” Eve rasped.
But the call had already ended. She dropped the phone and the fumsup onto her desk. She was too hot again, and since there was no one else there, she took the risk of rolling her sleeves to her elbows and went to the window. The glass was cold as she rested her clammy forehead against it. Then she saw the black cab draw up to the curb.
The passenger door opened, and an elderly man struggled out,
leaning heavily on his cane. He was smartly dressed, in a charcoalcoloured herringbone suit and fedora hat. The clothes were oldfashioned, but he looked as if he had taken pains to dress in his best. She wondered who he was going to meet and what for. A happy occasion, she hoped.
He stood, wobbling slightly on the pavement, and the taxi drove away as he headed towards the auction house. There were only a few steps up to the front door, but Eve could see how difficult they were for him, and how he stopped to catch his breath after each one. She wished someone would offer to help, but people didn’t really help people they didn’t know, did they? Eve wouldn’t have offered if she’d been down there—because, after all, perhaps the man could manage perfectly well, and such an offer would be patronizing and offensive to him. Besides which, people like Eve didn’t help old people up steps. Bella probably would have helped, Eve supposed. If she’d been alive.
Everyone loves Bella, she could hear nonexistent friends saying. She’s so bubbly, so vivacious, so lovely.
All things that Eve was not. Soon enough, the old man had disappeared through the revolving doors, and Eve returned to her paintings.
A short while later, there was a knock and her secretary, James, looked into the office as Eve hastily yanked her sleeves back down to her wrists.
“Hi. Sorry to interrupt, I know you’re busy, but there’s a man here to see you.”
Eve was surprised. “I don’t have any appointments today.”
“That’s what I told him, but he’s . . . well, he’s really insistent. He’s brought something in to be valued and he says he’ll only speak to you.”
Eve frowned. “What’s his name?”
“Max Everly.”
She felt a jolt of shock pass through her. “Like the composer?”
James shrugged. “I guess so.”
James probably wouldn’t have known who Max Everly was if it hadn’t been for the suitcase. Old and battered, it had turned up at this very auction house, full of sheet music for never-before-heard songs written by Everly—whose existing body of work had all been composed before 1935. It was one of the reasons Eve had always wanted to work at Stanley’s—in the hopes that another such suitcase might appear. The compositions were swiftly verified by experts and their discovery created a big stir in the music world. Eve had been glad because it meant more people got to hear the music she had always loved so fiercely.
She heard it ringing in her head again now—the songs that she had played so many times, the ones that acted as a lifeline, tethering her to the world when she was in danger of floating away. She knew her mystery visitor couldn’t be the composer since he had been born in 1899 and would have been one hundred and sixteen by now.
“He’s, um, he’s quite frail,” James said tentatively. “I think it was an effort for him to get here.”
Eve recalled the elderly man she’d seen on the steps outside earlier. It could only be him, surely.
“He said it was important,” James went on. “And he promised he wouldn’t take up more than ten minutes of your time.”
Her secretary didn’t look at all hopeful that she would agree to see him. Eve had once overheard James refer to her as the Black Widow in the staff room, while chatting to their colleague Kate. She supposed this was a reference to the fact that she always dressed in black and didn’t chat much, never going out for after-work drinks or attending Christmas parties. She knew the other staff thought her cold and unfriendly. Perhaps she was cold and unfriendly, although she didn’t particularly mean to be. She was the kind of woman who was forever being asked whether she ever smiled.
Kate had laughed at the Black Widow remark. “Personally, she always makes me think of Miss Scarlett. You know, from Cluedo?”
“Miss Scarlett is a blonde,” Eve had remarked from her chair, which was hidden behind the door. Eve’s hair was jet-black and cut short in a sharp bob. Her eyes were different colours too—one blue and one green.
James and Kate had both looked appalled to see her there, but just because her colleagues had cast her in the role of femme fatale, that didn’t mean it was who she was deep down. It cost her nothing to see this old man for a few moments, and she had liked his hat, so she said, “Show him in.”
She tried not to notice or mind James’s look of surprise. He left the room and soon returned with the unexpected visitor, ushering him over the threshold before giving Eve a nod and closing the door. It was, indeed, the same person she’d seen on the street. He looked to be in his late seventies and had removed his hat to reveal thin wisps of silvery hair combed neatly back from his forehead. His shoulders were rounded, and he hunched forwards over his stick, his gaze directed towards the floor as he shuffled in with slow, careful steps. Eve came around her desk to greet him. Even with his stoop, he was quite a bit taller than her.
“Good morning, sir. I’m Eve Shaw.” She’d expected there to be a painting, as these were her specialty, but there was no sign of any wrapped package under his arm. In fact, he didn’t appear to be carrying anything at all. She held out her hand and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Max Everly paused for a moment before reaching out to take her hand. He had a surprisingly strong grip, and the warmth of his palm sent a little spark of something through Eve. She felt, for the strangest moment, like she’d been here before, meeting this man before, holding his hand before. He was staring down at her fingers, clasped in his, and she felt a tremor pass through his palm.
“The pleasure,” he said quietly, “is all mine.”
He raised his head, meeting her gaze for the first time, and Eve found herself looking into brown eyes, dark and rich and deep, and the strangest thing was that even though she knew this man couldn’t possibly be the musician from the 1930s, in that moment his eyes seemed startlingly like the ones she’d seen in the black-and-white photographs of the composer from all those years ago. Not only that, but she was sure she saw a flash of recognition in this elderly man’s gaze too. She had the sudden conviction not only that he recognised her, but that he knew her, and that she must, therefore, in turn know him. A gasp caught in the back of his throat and his hand tightened around hers.
“Hello, Eve,” he breathed.
Suddenly, her feeling of knowing him evaporated, and it was a stranger who stood before her. He seemed reluctant to let go of her hand, and when he stepped closer, Eve sensed that he meant to embrace her. She automatically took a step back. She wasn’t a hugger and was relieved when Max let go of her hand.
“Forgive me,” he said, a little breathlessly. “You . . . you remind me of someone I used to know, that’s all. My name is Max Everly. Thank you for meeting with me. I appreciate your time.”
“Not at all,” she said briskly. “Please take a seat.” She waved towards the comfortable armchairs facing her desk. “Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Coffee?”
“Coffee, thank you. Black. One sugar.”
She walked over to the coffee pod machine on a table in the corner and made their drinks. She set one down in front of her guest and then took her seat opposite him behind the desk.
“So, what can I help you with, Mr. Everly? James said you had something for me to value?”
“Please,” he replied. “Call me Max.”
He reached for the coffee cup, and Eve noticed the liver spots on the backs of his hands, and the boniness of his knees where they
pressed against the fabric of his trousers. Yet there was a glint of something warm and almost mischievous in his eyes, an echo of the younger man he’d once been. Eve had the sense that, unlike herself, this was someone who had smiled and laughed often.
“That’s a curious little fellow,” he said, nodding at the fumsup charm on Eve’s desk.
“Curious” was one word for it. Eve had always thought the fumsup had a bit of a creepy look, with its jointed metal body, overlarge wooden head, and white glass eyes, but she liked it no less for that.
“It’s a good-luck charm,” she said. “They were sent out to soldiers during the First World War.”
“And how did you come by yours?” Max asked.
“I . . .” Eve trailed off, recalling the childhood dream she’d once had that a magician had given it to her, but the truth was that she didn’t know where it had come from. “I can’t remember. I’ve just always had it. I suppose I found it somewhere.”
“I suppose you did.” He leaned forwards a little. “You know, sometimes the end is also the beginning.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.”
“Have you travelled a long way?” she asked carefully. She was starting to wonder whether he was quite all there.
A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Well, yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, you could say that. But it was worth the wait.”
“How did you happen to come across my name?” Eve asked. “It’s just that I normally specialise in valuing paintings, you see, so—”
“Do you not think,” Max interrupted, looking at her closely, “that it’s high time you stopped valuing paintings and started producing some masterpieces of your own?”
Was he trying to make a joke? If so, Eve couldn’t bring herself to laugh. But beneath the fabric of her black jeans, the octopus tattoo on her thigh began to burn upon her skin.
“I’m not sure that I follow,” she said. “Are you looking to have something commissioned? This is an auction house; we don’t create new work here.”
“That’s a pity.” Max set his coffee cup down. “But no matter. The reason I came here was to give you this.”
He reached into his trousers pocket and gently set an object on the desk between them. It was a small, ornamental octopus.
Chapter 2
Eve stared at the octopus. It was pearly white, with long tentacles sprawled around it, elegant and strange. The very tip of one tentacle was black, like it had been dipped in ink. There was a small hook on top of its head, as if it had once been attached to something else. Its eyes were ancient and wise. Her thigh burned worse than ever. The tentacles tattooed onto her skin were of her own design and almost identical to the ornament in front of her. Suddenly, Eve was no longer in the auction house at all, but back home, surrounded by dozens of her sketchbooks, the pages all full of octopus drawings. Over the years, she had filled up volume after volume with twisting tentacles and giant, staring eyes. And every single octopus had one tentacle with a black tip. It was such an unusual detail that she was shocked to see it in the ornament before her now.
She’d never tried to turn any of her sketches into paintings— though she had thought about it, had longed to do it—and she’d never shown them to anyone, ever. Yet she couldn’t get away from the feeling that Max Everly knew about them somehow, that he knew about all those sketchbooks neatly stacked up at home, and the fact that octopuses both fascinated and delighted her. When she
met his eye, she was almost certain that his gaze flicked, just once, towards her thigh, as if he knew about the tattoo too.
“Some sorrows seem like too much for any one person to bear,” he said softly. “I know all about that. But there is light to be found as well, I promise you.”
Eve shook her head, trying to clear it, trying to find her way back to a normal conversation. “I don’t understand. Is this the item you were hoping to have valued?”
“Oh no, I’m not interested in valuing it. I doubt it’s worth much. Please,” he said, “take it as a gift.”
“I couldn’t possibly—”
“It’s for you,” Max insisted. “It was always meant for you.”
There was a sudden catch in his voice, and Eve was startled to see that he was blinking back tears. She was sure now that he must have escaped from a retirement home or something. There was probably a group of worried carers out searching for him.
“It’s very kind of you, really,” she began firmly. “But we have policies here, and I can’t accept any gifts from clients.”
“I’m not your client.”
“Even so, I can’t—”
“You must!” he cried. For the first time since walking in, he looked a little unsure of himself, a little desperate. “You already have. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. Now you have to do your part.”
“All right,” Eve said, speaking quickly because he was starting to sound quite distressed. Perhaps the best thing to do was to play along. “All right. It’s very kind of you and I’m sorry, I don’t mean to seem ungrateful.”
He took a deep breath. “Everyone should have something on their birthday.”
“It’s just that . . . Wait. How do you know it’s my—?”
“Thank you for seeing me.”
Max gripped his stick and used the edge of the desk to drag himself to his feet. Eve rose too. She wished James had never let the man into her office.
“I’ll walk you out,” she said, picking up the octopus and slipping it into her pocket. Perhaps she could toss it into the taxi after him.
“There’s really no need,” Max said, but without much conviction. “I’m sure I can find my own way.”
“I was going out to buy a sandwich anyway,” Eve lied. “And perhaps I might flag down a taxi for you? Unless you’d like me to phone someone?”
“My dear,” he said with that half smile, “there is no one to call.”
Eve didn’t know what to say to that, so they left the room and walked down the corridor to the lift in silence. But as the doors closed behind them Eve realised that something was wrong. Max had suddenly lost all the colour from his face; his breathing was too shallow and his hands were trembling.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“There is so much,” he said, his voice quivering. “So very much that I would like to say to you. But it’s all . . .” He waved a hand. “It’s already been said.”
Eve’s gaze went to the numbers counting down at the top of the lift; she willed them to go faster. When the doors finally slid open on the ground floor, she tried to persuade Max to take a seat in the lobby, but he insisted on heading to the exit.
“I want to be outside . . . ,” he said breathlessly.
His words made Eve shiver. She had a sudden foreboding that something bad was about to take place. She followed him as he lurched unsteadily out onto the steps, sucking in a deep lungful of air.
“Can I help you down the stairs?” she asked, reaching towards him.
He met her gaze and smiled. The smile lit up his face, and suddenly there seemed to be so much humour, and wit, and life in his eyes. So much joy.
“I’d prefer you to go back inside, but I know you won’t. So, yes. I would appreciate your help this one last time.”
It was an odd reply, but then so much of what he’d said made no sense. There was no time to linger on any of it, however—although Eve would replay his words many times in the weeks that followed. But in that moment, she simply took his arm, feeling how thin and frail it was through the fabric of his smart jacket. She heard his knees click as she helped him down one step, then another.
“Your hat,” she said, suddenly remembering that he must have left it in the cloakroom. “Shall I run back and—?”
But she didn’t finish the sentence before Max gave a sudden, sharp cry of pain. His walking stick fell from his grip to clatter down the steps and he leaned forwards, clutching a hand to his chest. Then his legs buckled, and he was dragging Eve down with him.
She shouted up to the doorman, who hurriedly got out a phone to call for an ambulance. All around, people were stopping and staring. Some came to see if they could help, but there was nothing anyone could do except wait. Eve knelt on the steps by Max’s side, holding his hand in hers. Even to her untrained eye, she could tell this was bad. His face was white and etched with lines of pain, his breathing a shallow gasp.
“The ambulance is coming,” she said helplessly. “It’s going to be okay.”
To her surprise, Max gave the smallest of smiles. “I know.”
She looked at his face and thought his eyes had a glassy look, as if he wasn’t really seeing her at all. “Promise you’ll come back to the hotel,” he said, his voice slurring slightly. “Please.”
There was such a look of hungry desperation in his eyes that Eve nodded, even though she knew he was speaking to someone else,
from some time long ago. He must have regained some lucidity right at the end, though, because he used her name when he spoke again, for the final time.
“Thank you, Eve.” His hand tightened briefly around hers. “For saving me.”
She tried to offer some stumbling reply, but it was already too late. His hand was limp, and the life and light had gone from his eyes, which were now empty and unseeing. She knew, even before the paramedics arrived shortly afterwards and confirmed it, that the person Max Everly had been was gone forever. He was pronounced dead at the scene, shortly after midday. Eve hadn’t known him—they’d barely exchanged a few dozen words—yet she felt very sad as she let go of his frail hand and watched him being loaded onto the stretcher.
It occurred to her, too, that this would do nothing whatsoever to help dispel the Black Widow nickname she’d gained at work.
Chapter 3
France—One Year Later
Eve walked through the market, trying to ignore the rabbit hopping along behind her. Her hands shook as she lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision to get the ferry to St. Malo a few days ago. She’d hoped that being abroad might make her birthday easier. The market was nothing like the antiques ones she often went to back home. In fact, it was little more than a flea market, full of bric-a-brac, and knitted cardigans, and secondhand books. Eve didn’t really expect to find anything of interest there, but it was something to do, something to look at.
She’d found herself thinking of Max Everly several times today, too. The episode last year had been as strange as it was sad. Eve had never seen anyone die before. It was the one small mercy when it came to her sister. She’d thought about trying to track down his next of kin in case they wanted the octopus back, but she hadn’t known where to start. The hospital had found no identification on him and the only reason the medics even knew his name was because Eve had given it to them. It made her sad to think of him being buried alone.
There was the hat too—the fedora Eve had collected from the cloakroom. It was old and shabby, at odds with the smart suit he’d been wearing. The initials ME had been written on the label inside, along with a single musical note inked in one corner. Once again, Eve found it impossible not to be struck by the coincidence of this man sharing a name with her favourite composer. It seemed wrong to throw the hat away, but there was no one to claim it, so she’d taken it home, along with the octopus.
She’d tried googling Max Everly in the hopes of locating his family, but the fact that he shared a name with such a famous composer made that impossible. Her searches only returned information about the Everly from the 1900s. She ran her eyes over the handful of photographs she knew so well—a headshot of seventeenyear-old Everly in his lieutenant’s uniform, just before he set off to war; some pictures taken at musical performances, along with a couple snapped at glamorous-looking parties. Black-haired and handsome, with dark eyes that were almost magnetic. Eve had had a bit of a crush on him when she’d first discovered his music as a teenager. “Crush” was the wrong word, though. More of an obsession, really. But there was something about the photos that always made her feel a bit shivery too. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d disappeared sometime in 1935, and nobody ever found out what became of him. It seemed so wrong for there never to have been an answer. One day, he simply stepped out of the world and was gone, off to join the Missing Persons’ Club with Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller, and the crew of the Mary Celeste. A disappearance made all the more mysterious by the fact that the suitcase full of music had turned up sixty-five years later.
The octopus ornament the modern-day Max Everly had given her wasn’t valuable, although Eve liked it very much. In fact, she loved it. It was like seeing one of her drawings brought to life. Right now, it was sitting on her bedside table back home, and she was
thinking about it at the very moment she rounded a corner of the street market in France and found herself face-to-face with the teacups.
The stall in front of her held an assortment of china, including a tea service in a striking lavender-grey colour, all stamped with a white octopus crest. It was identical to the creature back home on her bedside table. It even had the same black tip on one tentacle. Eve walked over and asked the stallholder in her stumbling French whether she might examine the set. This was not her field of expertise, but she could tell at a glance that the tea service was decades old and that it was of superb quality. Names like Limoges and Sèvres went through her mind, but when she carefully picked up a plate, she found no relevant marks on the back.
It was still exquisitely beautiful but all in quite bad condition. The sugar bowl was chipped and so were some of the plates. The handle of the milk jug had broken sometime in the past and been glued back on. Most of the teacups were damaged, and the teapot was missing altogether. It might have been worth something if it had been better preserved, but Eve doubted it was valuable in its current condition. Even so, she couldn’t stop staring at the teacup in her hands. She asked the stallholder where the items had come from, but the response she received was too rapid for her to follow. There was one word she did recognise, though—hôtel.
Come back to the hotel. . . .
She recalled Max’s words, hearing his voice as clearly as if he was standing beside her in the market.
She tried to ask for more information, but the stallholder’s reply was more impatient this time. “Hotel closed,” she said curtly in English.
It was clear she wanted to turn her attention to the other prospective customers gathering at the stall, so Eve took out her wallet and asked how much she wanted for the tea service. A short while
later, she walked away with the pieces hastily wrapped and bundled into a couple of supermarket carrier bags. When she got back to her room, she spent some time examining the china from every angle, turning it over and over in her hands, marvelling at the beauty of the octopus and the strangeness of the coincidence.
When she returned to work after her trip, she took one of the teacups with her to show Kate. Ever since that Miss Scarlett comment, the other woman had avoided Eve whenever she could, but chinaware was her specialty, so Eve was determined to pin her down.
“It’s not a brand I recognise, I’m afraid,” Kate told her. “It was probably made by one of the smaller regional factories in France. It’s beautiful but not worth much.”
“And its background?” Eve asked. “The stallholder seemed to think it had come from a hotel.”
Kate shrugged and handed the teacup back. “That doesn’t really narrow it down much, although it’s . . . Wait, can I take another look?”
Eve passed it over and Kate examined it again. “There’s an auction house myth,” she finally said. “A bit of auctioneer’s lore, really. About a place called the White Octopus Hotel. You’ve never heard of it?”
Eve shook her head.
“My mentor told me the story when I first started here. You remember Victor Harris? Lovely man. He retired a few years ago now. He said there was meant to be this beautiful hotel called the White Octopus that was famous in its day for containing various magical objects.”
Eve raised an eyebrow. “Magical objects?”
Kate nodded. “Clocks that could rewind time, a telephone that let you speak with someone who’d died, things like that. Real fantasy stuff. I thought Victor was just making it up to be amusing, but
I’ve since heard the story from other people too. The hotel supposedly closed under mysterious circumstances and the contents were sold off, scattered through various auction houses across Europe. It’s just a fairy tale, of course.”
Eve didn’t have a particularly hard time believing that fairy tales might be real. Monsters were, after all. And ghosts. Life could be strange and unexpected sometimes; she was well enough aware of that. The octopus tattoo tingled on her skin. It was on her collarbone today, perilously close to being visible. Fortunately, it hardly ever strayed onto her face, so the turtleneck and long sleeves were usually enough to keep it hidden. Even so, she was just thinking she ought to leave when she felt a tentacle flick casually over the top of her turtleneck. Unfortunately, Kate’s eyes were drawn by the movement too, making her jump.
“What was . . . ?” she began.
Eve quickly clamped her hand over her neck and stood up. “Thank you for your time.”
“Of . . . of course.”
Eve picked up the teacup and quickly returned to her own office. She hoped Kate wouldn’t say anything about the tentacle, but it had only been a momentary flash; she probably hadn’t even seen it properly. And it wasn’t as if anyone would believe her anyway. Tattoos didn’t move around a person’s body. Everyone knew that.
Eve set the octopus teacup on the desk and switched on her computer. When she typed “the White Octopus Hotel” into Google and hit the search button, she expected there to be nothing at all, but then the results appeared on the screen, and the headlines all shared the same theme.
The White Octopus and other abandoned hotels . . . Uncertainty over future of landmark White Octopus . . . Home of renowned painter Nikolas Roth crumbling into ruin . . .
Eve stared at that last headline. She’d learned about Nikolas Roth at university and knew that he had been a renowned Victorian painter, beloved by critics of the day, who had praised his art as dark and powerful, fascinating, ahead of its time. His paintings were much sought after by private art collectors, but it seemed that no one could get their hands on an original Roth painting, no matter how high a price they offered. Nikolas Roth was an eccentric recluse who shied away from interviews and rarely left his home in the Swiss Alps. Not only did he refuse to sell his paintings, or loan them to museums, but he strictly banned all photographers from his private exhibitions too.
The only place he was known to have displayed his art was on the walls of his hotel. So, throughout the years, forbidden photographs would sometimes appear, claiming to have captured a Roth painting in situ. Most of these were dismissed as hoaxes and fakes, but there was one photo, taken in 1927, that modern-day scholars thought could be genuine. It was too blurred and grainy to make out any details of the painting properly and it didn’t show the whole canvas either—just a small part of it, along with a man stood nearby, whom many believed to be Roth himself. He was tall, greyhaired, and dressed in a well-cut suit, but you couldn’t see his face because it was angled away from the camera.
Upon his death in the 1930s, his collection of paintings all mysteriously vanished. Eve had always nurtured the vague hope that perhaps, one day, a Roth painting might fi nd its way to the auction house, just as Max Everly’s music had. What a find that would be.
She clicked on the link that referenced the painter and found herself on an art history website. There was no mention of any magical objects, but the piece detailed the fact that Nikolas Roth had lived and worked in his family home in the mountains, which had also been open to the public at the turn of the century as a lakeside hotel called the White Octopus.
During the era of “grand hotels,” the White Octopus was known as the most beautiful example of belle époque architecture in Switzerland. The pearl-coloured stonework, iron balconies, and asymmetrical turrets had a fairy-tale quality befitting the beauty of its lakeside location.
In its heyday, the thirty-six rooms at the hotel were much sought after, with guests eager to partake of the celebrated afternoon teas on the veranda, restore their health in the exquisitely tiled steam baths, and take a turn about the famous Fountain Room at sunset. Today, there is little remaining of the splendour that once flourished here, and it seems Roth’s former home is destined to crumble into ruin. . . .
Eve scrolled down to continue reading the article, but it was broken up with a photo of the hotel. It depicted a truly beautiful building—more castle than mansion—with elegant white spires piercing a deep-blue sky. A crystal-clear lake sparkled in the foreground and mountain peaks rose majestically on the horizon, but Eve couldn’t take her eyes from the hotel itself. She recognised it at once. It was like suddenly seeing the face of a very old and very dear friend, unexpectedly, after many years apart. She felt a sudden powerful wave of gladness and nostalgia, mixed with an inexplicable sense of homesickness and loss. She’d been to this hotel before.
Chapter 4
Eve couldn’t pinpoint when exactly she had visited the White Octopus, but it must have been when she was very small. A family holiday, perhaps, before Bella died and it all went wrong. Eve never talked about those years with her parents. Even when she’d lived at home, it was a rule that they never, ever spoke about the time before, not a word. But Eve remembered snippets sometimes— pleasant outings to feed ducks on a pond, or riding the bus into town to buy new shoes, or filling a paper bag with sweets in a sugarscented shop full of jars. There had been normal, happy moments . . . at least for a little while.
And surely, they must have gone on holiday to Switzerland one year and stayed at this hotel. When Eve searched her mind for details, she could practically hear the tinkling notes of a pianist playing in the lobby, and smell the icy-fresh peppermint creams served on silver plates during afternoon tea, and see the sparkle of the sun setting over the emerald lake.
But then she clicked on a few more links and learned that the hotel had closed its doors for good on 27th November 1935, during the famed “last party.” Over fifty years before her birth. She
frowned. If the hotel had been closed all this time, then she couldn’t possibly have visited. The article explained that guests and staff alike had all left on the same night, leaving undrunk coupes of champagne in the ballroom and half-smoked cigarettes in the cigar lounge. There was a game of chess frozen halfway through a match in the library and wooden cues discarded partway through a game in the billiards room. Everything just seemed to be put down where it was.
Headlines speculated that something strange must have happened at the hotel that night. Why else would everyone get up and leave in the middle of a party? Especially when it was cold and snowing outside, and miles to the nearest town. There were even rumours of guests abandoning their fur coats in the cloakroom. But the mystery was never explained, and the hotel didn’t reopen. It seemed that it was located in an area of the Alps that fell out of favour with tourists, and no investor was ever found with deep enough pockets to bring the hotel back to life. It was a peculiar story, and Eve recognised that parts of it had clearly been embellished and made fantastical beyond belief. It was intriguing to think that her tea set might once have graced the hotel’s veranda, though.
In the days and weeks that followed, Eve couldn’t get the place out of her mind. She found herself reading about the hotel in her spare moments and looking at photos online. She became distracted at work, unable to concentrate on the paintings in front of her. Even her dreams were filled with champagne parties and white tentacles.
She’d wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to get back to sleep for thinking about the hotel. She drew the building in her sketchbooks over and over again. And then she drew the rooms as she imagined them to be—a mixture of Cluedo-style mansion and dark fairy-tale castle. She couldn’t shake the conviction that she had been to the White Octopus, even though she knew it was
impossible. She went back through her dozens of sketchbooks, the pages filled with gigantic eyes and elegant tentacles that spilled across the pages, all with that single black tip.
One rainy Sunday afternoon, while following various virtual rabbit warrens online for information about the hotel, she came across an expired listing for an item that had been sold at another auction house last year. It was a gilded menu with the name of the White Octopus Hotel printed at the bottom of the page. Eve recognised the distinctive lavender-grey hue of the paper. Not only that, but there was a stamped emblem of a white octopus at the top— and it was in every way identical to the china ornament she’d received from Max Everly and the tea set she’d found in France.
She began asking around the other staff members at the auction house. Most of them had never heard of the White Octopus Hotel. A few, like Kate, were aware of the story but clearly viewed it as nothing more than a myth. It seemed there was no further information to be found at work, but Eve’s interest in the White Octopus Hotel was a thirst that couldn’t be quenched. Finally, she thought of Victor, the valuer Kate had told her about. Eve had met him a few times before he retired, and he’d always been pleasant and friendly. It wasn’t too difficult to get his contact details from HR by pretending she’d found some old paperwork of his that needed to be returned. She considered phoning first but then decided to visit instead. She doubted he’d remember her, and it would be easier to talk to him in person.
She arrived at his home on a bright Saturday morning, with the white octopus Max Everly had given her wrapped up in her bag. A visitor turning up unannounced and uninvited was Eve’s idea of hell and as she knocked on his door, she suddenly wondered whether she ought to have brought something. Cakes, perhaps? Pastries? It was too late now, though, and Eve gritted her teeth at the knowledge that Bella would certainly have brought cakes. Then
the door opened, and a middle-aged woman in scrubs greeted her cheerfully.
“Hi,” Eve replied. “Is Victor in?”
She nodded. “I’m Molly, his carer. Is he expecting you? He didn’t mention a visitor today, but he forgets things sometimes.”
“No, he’s not expecting me,” Eve admitted. “I’m an old colleague.”
“From the auction house?”
“Yes. Eve Shaw. I was hoping to speak with him about . . . about a work thing.”
Molly looked dubious. “He hasn’t worked there in years, so—”
“I know, but it’s important.”
Molly shrugged. “I’ll ask. He’ll probably enjoy a natter anyway.”
She flashed Eve a grin and disappeared into the house, returning a few moments later to usher her inside.
“Go on through. He’s in the living room.”
“Thanks.”
Eve went in the direction indicated and found a room filled with books. Victor was sat in an armchair with a blanket over his knees and a paperback novel in his hands. He put this down when she walked in and removed his reading glasses to peer at her. He was thinner and frailer than Eve remembered but had the same untidy white hair and kindly brown eyes.
“I’m sorry to turn up like this,” she began in a rush. “You probably don’t remember me, but I work at Stanley’s and—”
“Molly said,” Victor replied. “Forgive me for not standing, but my knees are playing up today. Make yourself comfortable.” He waved towards the sofa opposite him. “I do remember you, as it happens. You’re the one they call the Black Widow. You know, they probably wouldn’t do that if you smiled once in a while. . . .”
Eve decided right then that she wouldn’t smile for the entire visit. “I don’t care what people call me.”
