Free No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill

throwing himself into the crying
Russian girl the night before, then Stephanie had not wanted to so much as glimpse the back of his head. Because he would have been the same man that had stood outside the door of her room,
listening, after he’d finished with the Russian.
    While Stephanie had waited on the stairs for the male tenant to leave the building, she’d also noticed a strip of yellow light under the door of the bathroom on the first floor. So maybe
another tenant had been inside the bathroom getting ready for their day. It could not have been the Russian girl, because Stephanie had not heard her neighbour’s door open at any time during
her mostly sleepless early morning vigil.
    With the man standing outside her room the night before, she’d sat with her back against the door for two hours before sleep overcame her around one a.m. And within those two hours of
tense, alert wakefulness, she had not heard him creep away. Not heard any sound in the corridor outside her room. Or,
thank God,
inside it either.
    Even as the sky lightened at dawn, after she stirred, near concussed with sleep deprivation, when Stephanie eventually inched the door open there had been no one in the corridor and not a trace
of the smells or the atmosphere she’d encountered in the night. The Russian girl’s room had been quiet and unlit.
    Knacker stood and grinned by the foot of the bed in the first floor room that he was so keen to show her.
    Stephanie never passed through the doorway. ‘I don’t understand.’
    Knacker’s big hyena grin evolved into a mucky laugh thickened by catarrh. ‘It’s yours, girl. If you want it. Same price an’ everyfing. Least ’til the whole house is
done up. Fought it might be a bit more comfortable, like. You know, might help wiv your current dilemma.’
    ‘What . . .’ She didn’t know what to say, or what to make of the offer, or the room. This was a room you might see in an eighties film. Two triple-bulb spotlights cast an icy
glow over black walls and the starkness of a white carpet and ceiling, but without fully lighting the room. Mirrored wardrobe doors gave the impression the room was much bigger.
    ‘As I told you, I’ve been fixin’ the place up, room by room. This kind of job takes time, darlin’. I finished it up today. There’s nuffin’ I can’t do
wiv these hands. You know the Dorchester, yeah, on Park Lane? I did a total refit there. That kind of craftsmanship don’t come cheap neither.’
    He carried on talking but his voice barely registered while Stephanie stared at the room. She heard snatches: ‘Bloke said . . . how much . . . I said, get out of it, what you fink I
am?’
    The bed was enormous, the iron ends decorative and painted white. There was a mirrored glass table with chrome edges set under the window, that appeared to have come from a hairdresser’s
that thought itself classy. Across the room from the bed was a bulky television set, with a case made from grey plastic. She remembered the style from years ago.
    ‘Then I was finking about me old mum and dad’s place . . . Lot of work, but me and me cousin . . . what they always did, have lodgers, like . . .’
    Stephanie was aware of the chemical odours of carpet cleaner and air freshener hanging in what smelled like an older space. Because that’s what it was: an unaired musty room, with dated
décor that gave the impression it had been sealed away for some time, left unused and unchanged. Knacker might have made an attempt at cleaning it, but the paintwork was old, sallow in
places on the ceiling. There was no smell or sign of recent decoration or refurbishments. Knacker was lying. But the room was still a vast improvement on the one she had; a room she would not be
able to spend another night inside.
    ‘Don’t have to make up your mind straightaway, but my phone’s been ringing all day. Rooms here is getting a lot of interest. This one will get snapped up by the first person
that sees it. But