Page 32 of The White Octopus Hotel
“Can I do anything?” she asked quietly. “To help you?”
The finger jerked slightly at her touch and then an entire hand snaked around the curtain, thin and grey and cold, covered in weeping sores, and gripped hold of Eve’s hand. She heard the scrape of chair legs as a couple of staff members stood up behind her,uttering startled exclamations, but Eve already knew somehow that the Eavesdropper wasn’t dangerous. He was just afraid and alone, had been like that for too long, and was now lost in the dark. She held on to his hand for several stretched-out moments, and everyone was relieved to hear the terrible cough from behind the curtain start to lessen and eventually subside altogether. Then, with one final squeeze, the hand released her and slipped back behind the folds of the curtain.
“Damned unnatural place,” Max said. Eve turned to see him on his feet, picking up his fedora. He put it back on his head, then nodded in her direction. “You have nerves of steel, madam, but a word of advice: Don’t stay for the scavenger hunt. Don’t stay here at all. Check out of the White Octopus now. While you still can.”
“Mr. Everly—” Eve began.
But Max only tipped his hat. “Good night.”
He walked past her and out the door. Eve glanced back at the remaining staff in the room and saw that they were still looking fixedly at their drinks. She was tempted to approach Alfie and ask what the deal was, why they were all acting so bizarrely, but she wanted to continue her conversation with Max. So she turned towards the door, glancing at the curtain as she strode past. The shoes, and whoever was wearing them, had gone. When she emerged into the corridor, she saw Max stride around the corner. She quickened her pace and caught up with him as he entered another room.
The sign on the door readFountain Room. Eve followed him over the threshold and stared at walls fashioned from glass panels, with numerous fountains positioned in between a collection of orange trees. The air smelled of citrus and all around there was thesplash, splashof water cascading and tumbling, scattering a dance of diamond reflections across the mirrors. The windows looked out towards the magnificent steam baths, striking and splendid in the starlight. Eve glimpsed a few final partygoers still out there, drinking champagne on the lawn in their fur coats.
There was every manner of fountain within the room. Some were large and freestanding, while others were shallow basins attached to the walls. There were several octopuses here—on the fountains themselves and depicted upon the floor tiles. She hastily added them to her list. That made thirty-one still to go.
Max stood beside a medium-sized bronze fountain sporting a large galleon that was balanced precariously on the very edge of a gigantic wave.
Eve walked over. “Mr. Everly. What I’m about to say will sound strange and I imagine you won’t like it much, or even believe me, but for the sake of my conscience I’ve got to tell you that one day—one day fairly soon—you will disappear.”
He glanced at her through the spray of the fountain, one eyebrow raised. “Disappear?”
“You become a missing person. No one ever finds out what happened to you.”
He didn’t look concerned, and why should he? Eve knew she was only making herself sound like a lunatic.
“So you’re, what?” he asked in a bored tone. “A fortune teller?”
“Something like that.”
“Perhaps you can peer into your crystal ball and tell me what became of my friend?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Everly, but I’m chasing my own ghosts. I don’t have the time or energy for anyone else’s.”
She could hear Bella, giggling as she ran amongst the fountains. As always, Eve wanted to shudder but forced herself not to. She would not show weakness. She would not acknowledge her sister at all.
Max walked around to join her. “You know,” he said, “after all this time, I still see my friends who fought with me in France. I see them walking down the street, or mixing drinks in bars, even though they’ve been dead for seventeen years. So perhaps it is that. Of course, that must be the explanation. But your eyes…Are youquite certain that none of your relatives worked here during the war?”
Eve shook her head. “They couldn’t have.”
“You simply must be related. Either that or I’m imagining you, which is also quite possible.”
“What was the nurse’s name?”
“Her name was Eve. Eve Shaw.”
Chapter 20
Max—November 1917
It was a cold, wet, cheerless day when Max first came across the name Eve Shaw.
“Parcel come for you, sir.” His batman, William, tossed it over.
Max’s mother sent him food boxes on a regular basis, along with the occasional serviceman’s hamper from Harrods. She’d even sent one of those ghastly little fumsup charms, which Max had then felt duly obliged to carry. He hoped it would be food this time, or cigarettes, and not a lucky trinket. When he tore off the wrappings, he found a box of Lindt chocolates underneath, but the accompanying card wasn’t from his mother. It read simplyTo Max. From Eve Shaw.
He frowned down at the name. He’d never heard of an Eve Shaw. He thought back through the various social functions he’d attended at home, the girls he’d danced with or spoken to, but he simply couldn’t recall ever once meeting an Eve.
“Kept this one close to your chest, didn’t you?”
