Safe as Houses Read online

  One of her hands continues its hopeless attempt to get the electricity cable from her neck; the other feels for her coat pocket and reaches into it. A tapered, very sharp weapon pricks her palm. Somehow she gets it out, swings it forward and then back, using all her strength to smash it between Kreuger’s legs.

  A direct hit was inevitable, and Kreuger’s high screech is no surprise. The cable around her neck loosens a fraction, and she quickly seizes the chance to worm her fingers under it. Before Kreuger can react, she swings the hammer again, this time upwards. It strikes home in his face.

  Freed from the pressure around her neck, Senta stumbles forward, into the sitting room. She sees Kreuger panting. He reaches for his eye with an almost childish sob.

  Senta snorts like an animal fighting for its life, the hammer poised for attack, sweat prickling in her eyes.

  But Kreuger has something else on his mind. He sinks sobbing and cursing on to his knees, his hands pressed against one of his eyes. Blood drips through his fingers.

  Her sons’ excited cheers fill Senta’s head, the wild cries that accompany the violent video games they so love playing. Finish him off! Kill him!

  A few seconds ago she had acted in self-defence. But to go over to a wounded man and deliberately finish him off is beyond her.

  Half crying, she gets out her mobile phone and dials 112. As Kreuger crawls across the floor, screaming with pain, she explains as well as she can what has happened and where she is.

  ‘We are on our way, madam,’ the call handler says. Out of the corner of her eye, Senta sees Kreuger edging his way towards her. She lifts up her weapon in a flash.

  ‘Stay away from me or I’ll smash your brains out!’ she screams. ‘I’ve called the police. They’re on their way!’

  Kreuger slowly gets up, one hand still covering his eye. ‘Filthy bitch, did you really think you’d live to tell this story. I’ll . . .’ He launches himself at her, but his coordination is off. A quick step to one side is enough to avoid him, and Kreuger hits his head against the open kitchen door.

  The impact is so hard that for a moment Senta thinks he’s broken his neck. She looks at him warily from a few steps away. Even lying still on his back, his eyes closed, she doesn’t trust him one inch. She walks around him in a semicircle, studying him from all angles, but doesn’t take a single step in his direction. Her body is shaking so heavily that the LifeHammer moves backwards and forwards in her hand.

  What she needs to do is stand here and keep an eye on him. If he moves, she can hit him again. The police are coming; it will take about ten minutes, a quarter of an hour at the most. Then this nightmare will be over. She can manage that.

  The next instant she hears something. Senta pricks up her ears. There’s a banging noise somewhere in the house. Again and again she hears it. Senta looks around, not understanding. Is there someone else here?

  Her eyes glide to the photograph of the woman and girl on the dresser, and suddenly she knows why she had to return to this house.

  43

  After casting one last glance at Kreuger, who is lying motionlessly on the floor, Senta goes into the kitchen. She inspects everything around her, but it all seems normal. But she hears someone crying for help. It sounds muffled, as though they might be in a cupboard, but it is most probably coming from behind the door in the utility room, which has been battened shut. Either in a great hurry or a great rage, someone has haphazardly nailed five planks across the door. It’s not hard to guess whose work this is. There are a couple of empty bottles of methylated spirits lying in the corner. The planks barring the door are drenched in it, and there’s a big puddle on the floor. It’s not hard to guess what he was planning to do.

  Pressing her face to the door, Senta shouts, ‘Is anybody there?’

  ‘Yes! We’re trapped in here! Help us!’ a female voice shouts back.

  She’ll need tools to get the planks off.

  ‘The door has been battened shut. I’m looking for something to open it with,’ she shouts.

  ‘The other door leads to the garage.’ The trapped woman’s voice sounds closer now. She’s probably standing just on the other side of the door.

  Senta looks at the garage door and sees that it’s ajar. As soon as she opens it, a strong smell seeps out, a smell of iron that has penetrated the whole room. At the same time she sees a dark shape lying on the ground.

  Her first impulse is to dart back and slam the door shut. Instead she screws up her courage, turns on the light and glances at the shape: it’s a man wrapped in a blood-soaked rug. It doesn’t take much to ascertain that he is no longer alive. He is lying on his stomach, but a wide trail of blood leading from the door to the body makes it clear what has taken place in the house.

  Someone has mopped up the blood in the house, but left the garage as it is.

  Senta averts her gaze, walks past the body and looks for tools on the workbench. Plenty of choice. She returns to the utility room with a crowbar. She puts the claw behind the first plank determinedly. She places one foot against the wall and pulls hard. It’s slow going and costs her more energy than she’d expected, but after a while the planks lie in a pile at her feet.

  ‘The planks have gone, but I don’t have the key,’ Senta calls out.

  By way of response, a key grates in the lock on the other side of the door, and it opens cautiously.

  A pale female face, framed with messy blonde hair, peers at her through the narrow opening. ‘Where is he?’ she whispers.

  Senta nods in the direction of the sitting room. ‘He’s there. Lying on the floor unconscious. Or dead, I’m not sure. Come.’

  She slowly reaches out a hand for the woman and gently forces her to come out.

  Senta is overcome with a feeling of sympathy. What on earth has this poor woman been through?

  ‘I’m Senta,’ she says softly. ‘Don’t be afraid. It’s over. He can’t hurt you any more.’

  Tears appear in the woman’s eyes. ‘Really?’ she whispers. ‘Has he gone?’ Then recognition crosses her face. ‘You’re the woman who was at the window, who went to get help. Right?’

  Senta slowly nods. That must be what happened, even though she can’t remember.

  ‘Do you live here? Are you Lisa?’

  Lisa nods.

  The two woman look at each other for a time, and then Lisa turns around and goes back down the stairs. She returns with a little girl in her arms and lays her on the kitchen floor. The child opens her eyes and begins to mutter incomprehensibly.

  Senta rushes forward. ‘My God!’

  ‘Water,’ is all Lisa says.

  Senta needs no more explanation than this. She fills a glass, sees straws on the table against the wall and puts one in the water. As Senta helps the girl get up, Lisa holds the glass of water out to her. Only once the first few sips have gone down her throat can the girl focus on drinking.

  ‘So, is that better?’ Senta asks gently; and, looking at Lisa, she says, ‘She’s dehydrated; she needs to go to hospital.’

  ‘Where’s Kreuger?’ Lisa asks again.

  She gets up suddenly and goes to the doorway that leads to the sitting room. Without saying a word she looks at Kreuger’s motionless body on the floor and the wound to his eye. ‘He’s not dead,’ she says flatly.

  Senta has followed her and lays a hand on Lisa’s arm. ‘He can’t hurt us any more; he’s badly wounded. I’ve called the police. Listen, they’re coming.’

  She holds a finger in the air to point out the distant sound of sirens.

  ‘He’s still alive.’ Lisa bends over Kreuger’s body warily.

  ‘Mummy . . .’ Anouk says fearfully.

  Senta pulls the girl back. ‘He can’t do anything to you any more, sweetheart.’

  But Kreuger suddenly groans. He tries to sit up and then sees Lisa. He reaches out for her with a ferocious snarl.

  Lisa jumps back screaming, just out of his reach. She lunges for the crowbar Senta used to free them and pulls it toward
s her.

  Meanwhile, Kreuger is reeling towards them, one hand pressed to his eye.

  Lisa relives the moment when he broke into the house and smashed her to the ground. She relives every terrifying moment of the past week. She sees his reddened face as he rapes her in her own bed, and in her thoughts she is vomiting into the toilet bowl again.

  Finally she thinks of Mark. Of the love in his eyes before the light went out in them.

  Lisa feels it coming. The rage that she has had to repress for so long builds up, faster and faster, looking for an exit. Revenge builds up in her, fighting to emerge. Her anger is now too powerful an emotion to hold back. It shoots out from her like a geyser.

  She takes a step towards Kreuger and his expression changes. He recoils as she raises the crowbar with both hands.

  He stumbles and falls to the floor. Something like pleading appears in his eyes, but Lisa sees only the derision, tyranny and threat that had contorted his face previously.

  ‘Your day-release is over,’ she says. The pain in her hand has miraculously disappeared, and she brings the crowbar down on him with all her strength.

  ‘It’s finished, finished, finished!’

  When Kreuger has stopped moving, and the floor and her clothes are stained with blood, she lets the crowbar drop limply from her hands.

  ‘Come here. Sit down.’ Shocked, Senta wraps her arm around Lisa and leads her to the sofa, where Lisa continues to sob soundlessly. She helps Anouk up on to the sofa next to her mother and forces herself to walk back to Kreuger’s mutilated body. She has to spend much longer than she’d like rummaging in his pockets for the front-door key. Her hands are covered in blood when she goes into the hall. It seems like hours ago that she’d stood at the door, ringing the bell in vain. She turns the key with shaking hands and opens the door wide.

  Then she returns to Lisa and Anouk and sits down next to them on the sofa. They don’t say a word; they just listen to the police sirens in the distance. The three of them wait there together until the wailing sound finally stops in front of the door.