Safe as Houses Read online

  Without wasting a second, Lisa opens the car door and with the same fast energy holds the hammer aloft.

  ‘Come near us and I’ll batter you to death, I swear it!’ she cries with a catch in her voice.

  The man walks around and forces Anouk out and backwards, towards the darkest part of the garage, where they have no chance of escape.

  Lisa darts in front of Anouk to protect her and swings . . .

  ‘Drop it, bitch!’ The man holds the knife poised and makes a stab at Lisa.

  The hammer swings down and a scream suggests a hit, but when Lisa goes to attack again she feels a shooting pain in her hand. Warm fluid drenches the sleeve of her sweater before she realises in shock and disbelief that it is blood. The next moment a large hand clamps hold of her arm and twists it behind her back until she drops the hammer.

  Before she knows it, Lisa is lying on the cold concrete floor and a knife is pressed against her throat. Behind her, she can hear Anouk calling, but Lisa finds herself remarkably calm. It occurs to her that she is no match for her attacker. With a weak child and a wounded hand, she is doubly handicapped, and if she continues to resist she’ll be risking not only her own life but also Anouk’s.

  Her eyes seek out those of her attacker and she forces herself to keep looking at him.

  ‘Please, don’t,’ she says with difficulty. ‘I’ll do what you want, but don’t kill us.’

  He hovers right over her, panting from the effort, an almost hysterical look in his eyes. The knife cuts into her skin.

  ‘Please,’ Lisa whispers. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Shut it! Stand up!’ The man pulls Lisa up and drags her out of the garage. Anouk runs behind them, like a nervous fawn that wants to stay close to its mother. Moaning in pain, Lisa allows herself to be shoved into the utility room, through the kitchen, and back to the sitting room, where she is thrown on to the sofa. Blood drips on to the wooden floor. The television is still on.

  Anouk crawls up against her, and Lisa wraps her good arm around her. As if they’ve agreed on a strategy beforehand, neither looks up; they keep their eyes fixed on the trail of blood on the floor. The man plants himself in front of them with his hands on his hips. He stays like that for a time, watching them, until Anouk begins to sob. He sinks down on to the edge of the coffee table, the bloody knife still in his hand.

  ‘Well,’ he says calmly. ‘Now we are going to agree on a few rules.’

  At that moment the television programme is interrupted by a news bulletin.

  4

  ESCAPED CRIMINAL COMMITS MURDER

  For the third time in recent months a dangerous criminal has escaped in the Netherlands. The man disappeared while on accompanied day-release from a psychiatric prison on Sunday afternoon.

  The criminal in question is 43-year-old Mick Kreuger, who was convicted of several counts of murder just two years ago. The police have launched a nation-wide manhunt, but as yet they have no leads on the suspect’s whereabouts. He is highly dangerous, having already taken one life in the course of his escape, and should not be approached by members of the public under any circumstances.

  All three watch the announcement: Anouk with wide eyes that flick from the television screen to the man, Lisa with a dizzy feeling, Mick Kreuger tense with concentration. Lisa compares the image on the television to the intruder. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening to her, in her own home. Her breathing accelerates and her mouth becomes dry, but somehow she manages to keep a handle on her emotions.

  Kreuger sits down on the sofa, and when the original programme resumes he zaps through the channels to other news coverage. On RTL4 there’s an extra news piece about the murder victim, who was beaten around the head with a heavy object. According to a witness, the suspect fit Mick Kreuger’s description.

  The screen fills with the same photo of a tall, skinny man with black, shaven hair and dark eyes that peer out without a trace of emotion.

  Lisa feels her limbs growing cold; the chill reaches her fingertips. Her hand throbs painfully and is still bleeding. She has taken off a sock to bind the wound, but she knows that what she really needs is a bandage. She presses her thumb and fingers to the wound to keep it as closed as possible and holds her arm up high.

  In the meantime she tries to think. Now that she’s sitting on the sofa as meek as a lamb, Mick Kreuger is paying little attention to her, and she wants to keep it that way.

  She once saw a programme about armed attackers. The criminal psychologist who was interviewed advised viewers to just go along with everything if they were threatened. The attacker would be as tense and nervous as you were, and a cornered rat can behave unpredictably. If you aren’t able to defend yourself, it’s better to become passive and not make the situation any worse.

  Lisa wonders if the criminal psychologist was speaking from personal experience or whether it was purely theoretical knowledge taken from one of her textbooks. Still, she could see the sense in it. She gives Kreuger a cautious glance. He’s sitting on the other sofa, his body tense. Suddenly he jumps up and launches into a volley of swearing that causes Lisa to cringe.

  Kreuger races around the room madly, holding the knife. Lisa doesn’t know how she’d found the courage to try to escape. He would have cut their throats without a second thought. He might still do that. He’s said so little all this time that it’s strange – he’s clearly not right in the head.

  The best thing to do is to stay calm until help arrives. The man has escaped from a psychiatric hospital; he can’t have disappeared without leaving some kind of trace. The police are bound turn up soon. Until then she must keep to her sole priority: to protect herself and Anouk.

  She lays a hand on her daughter’s forehead. She feels warm. Warmer than she was this morning. She could give her a puff on her Ventolin. But the inhaler is upstairs.

  Kreuger is sitting on the edge of the sofa, staring ahead blankly. He taps the knife on the palm of his hand, tap, tap, tap.

  A fit of coughing from Anouk breaks the silence, and Lisa touches her lightly on the back until it stops.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ It’s the first time Kreuger’s spoken in a normal tone of voice, though his expression is still hostile.

  ‘She’s got asthmatic bronchitis,’ Lisa says, trying to keep her voice even.

  ‘Does she need medicine?’

  ‘She could do with her inhaler, but it’s upstairs.’

  There’s a silence as Kreuger observes her. ‘Go and get it.’

  Gratitude floods through her, and the relief is apparent in Lisa’s voice as she turns to her daughter, ‘Mummy’s going to get your Ventolin. I’ll be right back.’

  Anouk gives Kreuger a suspicious glare.

  ‘He won’t hurt you,’ Lisa says gently. ‘I’ll only be a second.’

  Anouk’s eyes beg her to stay, but a new fit of coughing takes over.

  Lisa runs upstairs to Anouk’s bedroom. There’s a telephone extension here, but her intuition tells her that this is a test. If she takes the phone from its cradle, Kreuger might make Anouk pay the price. He’s probably listening right now on the downstairs phone, waiting for the click to give her away.

  She can’t make a call; she can’t even look for a weapon. There are plenty of things up here with which she could defend herself: scissors, a penknife, a loose floorboard with nails sticking out, any number of heavy objects. But as long as Kreuger is with Anouk, she can’t take anything with her. Nor can she risk him giving her a body-search.

  Lisa grabs the inhaler and the Ventolin canister from Anouk’s bedside table. Her hand begins to bleed again from the exertion. She goes to get bandages, cotton wool and disinfectant from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. When she turns around, Kreuger is standing there.

  She represses a scream. Although he is slight, his height fills the doorframe. His presence makes the room feel small. She shuffles backwards but ends up flat against the wall.

  Kreuger looks at all the stuff she’s holding.
‘What have you got there?’

  ‘I need to bandage my hand. The bleeding won’t stop.’

  With a tilt of the head, Kreuger indicates that she should follow him and she obeys. He nods at the bedroom, and, after a slight hesitation, Lisa goes in.

  ‘Sit down.’

  There’s no chair. He can only mean on the bed. Lisa awkwardly sits down on the edge. Kreuger lowers his long body next to hers. Close, far too close.

  He takes her hand, throws the sock on the floor, rubs some disinfectant on the wound and places a sterile gauze on it. Next he applies a wad of cotton wool and begins to bind her hand. He must know what he’s doing. Two minutes later her hand is professionally bandaged up.

  ‘Thanks.’ Lisa doesn’t know where to look, hating the intimacy of the moment.

  Kreuger doesn’t respond. He stands up and Lisa automatically does the same.

  They stand facing each other next to the double bed in which she spent so many passionate hours with Mark. Lisa breaks out in a sweat. As long as he doesn’t . . . See, he’s looking at the bed. And at her. She has to try to distract him.

  ‘You must have done that before. Just like a doctor.’ She holds up her bandaged hand.

  ‘I did a first-aid course,’ comes the gruff reply.

  ‘Aha. Always handy.’

  ‘It’s absolutely necessary if you have children. They could choke on a toy or fall into the water or cut themselves on something.’

  Lisa nods in reply. So he has children. Children he feels such a responsibility towards that he has gone on a first-aid course.

  ‘Mummy!’ Anouk cries plaintively from downstairs.

  Their eyes meet: Lisa’s questioning, Kreuger’s irritated.

  Nevertheless, he nods at her, and she flashes him a quick smile to express her gratitude. This is how things are. She has to ask permission to go downstairs in her own house, and she has to be thankful for receiving it, she thinks as she walks down the stairs.

  Kreuger’s footsteps follow closely behind.

  ‘I’m thirsty!’ Anouk says weakly, as soon as they enter the sitting room.

  ‘I’ll get you some water. It’s time for your medicine anyway.’

  In the kitchen she holds a glass under the tap and pretends not to notice Kreuger watching her from the sitting room. She returns to Anouk and gives her a spoonful of antibiotic syrup, followed by the glass of water. Her daughter drinks and then Lisa holds the inhaler to her mouth. A single press on the button releases a stream of Ventolin into Anouk’s airways.

  Kreuger observes them without comment.

  Suddenly Lisa feels more confident. If he’d been planning to murder them, surely he would have done so already.

  Just when she is wondering what will happen next, the calm in the house is broken by the shrill sound of the doorbell.

  5

  She’s been in denial for half an hour, but she can no longer repress the disquieting thought that she is lost. There’s no point in just driving around like this any more. Senta sighs and opens the glove box to take out the road map. Not that she is expecting it to help her much, since she doesn’t have a clue where she is. But perhaps she can work out where she went wrong and follow that road back.

  Spread out, the map covers most of the dashboard and steering wheel. She studies it sceptically. She doesn’t really need the map; she already has a suspicion of where she went wrong – at the roundabout, when she should have gone towards Appeltern. She probably got off one exit too soon. The sudden mist obscured the signposts, but she thought she knew which direction to take. The autumn weather is ridiculously changeable during this period, one moment wonderfully sunny, the next raining or misty.

  Now she is stuck on a bumpy track heading towards God knows where. Senta turns on her headlights. The bright light barely cuts through the thick ribbons of mist.

  Senta takes a deep breath. What now? Turn around and go back to the roundabout, or carry on in the hope of reaching a proper road? She opens the window and sticks her head outside. She looks around mistrustfully. Could she even manage to make a U-turn here? There could be ditches on either side for all she knows. She doesn’t feel like getting out. God knows where she is. Just drive on, then. Even dirt tracks lead somewhere.

  Senta continues with caution. The road surface becomes even worse: the wheels sink into deep troughs. Everything around her is grey and empty, as if she were approaching the end of the world. After five more minutes of lurching along, she hears a plaintive sound somewhere on her right, in the grey mist. It is a sheep bleating, and others slowly join in on the left and on the right.

  Could she be driving through the middle of a field?

  If that’s the case, there’s not much she can do about it. She carefully presses the accelerator and drives on. Tonight, once she’s safely ensconced on the sofa at home, she’ll be able to laugh about this adventure. Her three children will laugh about their mother, and Frank, with a tired glance at her, will make some comment about women drivers.

  Maybe she’d be better off keeping it to herself.

  Suddenly the wheels of her Peugeot get a better purchase on the road. The bumping stops; she’s hit hard ground.

  Senta opens her door. Looking down, she sees a stony surface, and when she peers in front of her she can make out the contours of a house in the distance. She’s probably on private property now, but no one will blame her in this weather. At least she hopes not.

  She follows the road, which goes past the house and climbs towards a canal. A little more gas and she’s on the embankment, and when she reaches a fork in the road she puts on the brakes.

  And now? Her intuition tells her to turn right, but she’s already made the mistake of trusting her intuition. After a brief hesitation she decides to go back to the house she’s just passed to ask for directions. In a moment of clarity she remembers to put on her hazards, then she gets out, locks the car and walks down the steep slope.

  The house looks quiet and deserted. Ribbons of mist swirl around the sloping roof and engulf the flower pots and box trees in the front garden.

  The gravel crunches under her feet as she advances towards the front door and rings the bell. An old-fashioned-sounding tinkle fills the space behind it.

  No reply. The second time she rings she presses her ear to the door, but once the sound has died out there’s nothing from inside. There is probably no one home, but it is difficult to tell through the frosted glass. To her right there is an extension with a garage door. She’ll have to walk around the house. It’s rather impolite, but the chance of getting even more lost puts paid to any thoughts of decorum.

  Decisively, she starts on her way. There’s a rotary washing line in the garden. The washing, a few shirts and a nightdress hang motionlessly in the mist. There’s a sheet on the ground, surrounded by a jumble of pegs. The washing basket, which had probably been on the wrought-iron side table, lies on the grass a little further up.

  It is as though someone is running chilly fingertips along her spine. The thick mist, the doleful washing and the eerie silence around her cause her throat to tighten.

  She casts a glance through the kitchen window. Nobody. Now she starts to feel a little afraid. She can hardly try the door or knock on the window-pane, can she?

  This is stupid – she’s going back. The embankment will probably lead to a village, no matter which way she turns on it.

  She arches her neck and takes a step to the side to look in through the large windows of the sitting room. She jumps when she sees someone on the sofa. A young woman is staring right at her. Even at this distance, Senta can see how pale she looks and how unnatural and tense her posture is.

  With a reassuring hand gesture and a smile, Senta tries to make it clear that she means no harm. The poor woman must have been terrified when Senta loomed up out of the mist. She raises her eyebrows questioningly and nods at the kitchen door, but the woman doesn’t move. She is sitting next to a small girl, who is lying on the sofa under a duvet. The w
oman holds Senta’s gaze for several seconds, then slowly raises her hand and brushes her blonde hair from her face. Then her eyes roam over to a spot in the corner of the room.

  Something about her bearing sets off alarm bells in Senta’s head. Maybe it is the fixed expression on the woman’s face, or the bandage on her raised hand. A warning sign begins to flash. Don’t take another step.

  But she does. A small step – not towards the kitchen door but towards the window. The curtain obscures her view of the room, but the house has large windows on all sides, which must let in a lot of light in fine weather. Behind the sofa on which the woman sits there’s another large window, and she can see the rest of the room reflected in it.

  There’s a man standing in the middle of the room. She sees a large knife in his right hand.

  Senta automatically takes a step backwards. The man doesn’t know that she’s standing here; he probably assumes that she’s still outside the front door. The woman is the only person who has seen her, but she doesn’t make the mistake of letting her gaze travel outside again.

  Very carefully, Senta retreats, relieved that she didn’t knock on the kitchen door or, worse still, go inside.

  She runs, her heart racing, back towards the front of the house. As she sets foot on the gravel path, she pulls up and forces herself to walk normally, like someone who has given up ringing the bell and is leaving.

  She keeps expecting the man to come up behind her. She resists the temptation to look back over her shoulder and checks her pace all the way to her car. Only when she reaches it does she turn around. The house looks quiet, swallowed up in the mist again.

  Senta gets into her car as fast as she can. She puts on her seatbelt and starts the engine. She hesitates for a second, mobile ready in her hand, but then she sees there is no signal. Get away – not a second to lose.

  She presses the accelerator nervously, accidentally turns the wheel too far to the right and almost drives off the bank. With a frustrated curse, she corrects the manoeuvre.