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  As a lab technician, she knows plenty about poisons. She works for a research institute that offers analytical support to companies developing cosmetics and medicines. It’s her job to analyse the base materials and end-products before they’re released.

  You don’t need to be a Russian spy to be poisoned to death. Medicines and cosmetics are full of poison. The slogan ‘dermatologically tested’ on packaging is usually meaningless. The words suggest that it’s a safe and skin-friendly product that has been carefully tested, while the research often isn’t any more thorough than an employee rubbing the cream into their skin and waiting to see whether they get a rash. The term ‘dermatologically tested’ isn’t legally defined; anybody can put it on their product. A pot of cream that costs the earth and contains innocent-sounding ‘cleansing plant extracts’ doesn’t have to say on the label that the red algae used are poisonous.

  What Lisa does is conduct thorough research, provide information to consumers through publications and attempt to bring some transparency to the chemical jargon of cosmetics manufacturers.

  At present, she’s conducting a crusade against companies that include Botox in their products, emptying their customers’ purses without the ingredient having any effect on wrinkles. If a cream can actually change your skin structure, it’s a medicine, and medicines can be obtained only on prescription.

  Lisa stares into mid-air. Poison is everywhere, in everything that you use or take. Around ninety per cent of poisonings occur in the home: a burger that’s a little too raw or a chicken fillet that’s been out of the fridge all day could be enough. The problem with food, though, is that it’s hard to ensure the poison goes to the right person. The odds are that Kreuger would give that piece of chicken to her. Or, worse still, to Anouk.

  No, she won’t take that risk. She has to approach this more intelligently. Would he notice if she put something in his coffee? Rat poison is naturally very effective, but she doesn’t have any. She does have an ant trap, but how much ant poison would you need to topple a grown man? And what if he susses what she’s trying to do and spits out his coffee right away?

  With a sigh, she takes two coffee cups from the machine and carries them into the sitting room. There’s still time for desperate measures, but she decides to try talking first.

  As she sets down the coffee on the table in front of Kreuger, she attempts to catch a glimpse of what he’s reading. Today’s paper has been delivered.

  ‘Is there any news?’ she asks casually.

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘No new developments, then,’ Lisa establishes.

  The chuckle as he looks up is horrible. ‘They have no idea where I am, if that’s what you mean. So actually there is news. Very good news, even.’

  ‘You know yourself that the police will be careful about the information they give out, so as not to sabotage their efforts.’

  Her comment doesn’t have much effect on him. With an airy gesture, Kreuger shuts the newspaper. ‘But if they knew where I was, we’d have noticed.’

  Lisa can’t say much to this.

  ‘You don’t know,’ she says finally. ‘They might be closer than you think.’

  ‘They’ve already been close. Yesterday afternoon, they drove up and down the embankment.’

  ‘The police?’ An amazed expression appears on Anouk’s face.

  ‘The police. Of course they had no idea they were so warm. They weren’t looking for me.’

  There’s a pause.

  ‘Who for, then?’ Lisa dares to ask.

  Kreuger opens the paper and looks for the page with the regional news. ‘It says someone drove their car into the canal yesterday afternoon. Not that far from here.’

  He obligingly turns the paper towards Lisa. Her eyes fly over the short article containing an account of the incident. As she reads the piece, her breathing gets faster and faster.

  According to the report, yesterday afternoon a 43-year-old woman drove her car off the embankment and into the canal. She lost control of the vehicle when speeding around a bend near the village of Appeltern. The car ended up in the water, and by the time the eyewitness, a man walking his dog, arrived on the scene the vehicle had sunk. The man dived into the water, brought the woman to the surface and resuscitated her until the ambulance arrived. The woman was taken to hospital, unconscious. According to the latest reports, she was still in a coma.

  17

  Senta is torn from her slumber by a jingle. Someone has put a radio next to her bed. A happy voice reaches her ears, then the latest hits, interspersed with jokes and bursts of laughter from the programme’s presenter.

  It’s too fast for Senta, it’s too much, it’s giving her a headache. Can’t someone turn off that horrible noise?

  But suddenly the chatter and the raucous laughter stop, and she feels herself gently being picked up and rocked by reassuring sounds. She knows this song: she’s got the CD.

  She sings along quietly in her under-water world. Not a moment’s hesitation. And from somewhere within her memory’s deep vaults a name pops up. Not the name of the singer, but of someone she associates with this song. A forbidden name, one that could damage her pact with God.

  In her panic she flees towards other thoughts, memories from the time when her children were small, and then back to the present. The last holiday they took together in Italy, when Niels had felt he was too old to go with them and they’d tried desperately to convince him otherwise. For three long weeks he’d sat in a chair with his iPod on, looking bored. He’d scuppered all their plans for daytrips and moved only when there was food on the table. Denise had enjoyed the holiday. Whereas at home it was difficult to get her to do anything, whether it was a board game or going into town with Senta, on holiday, without the constant presence of her girlfriends, she’d been eager to spend time with her mother.

  Senta had enjoyed having her daughter to herself again. At home Senta led her own life: there was a TV in every room, and often they’d all be watching different things. For years the summer holiday had been the only time they really got together as a family.

  That Niels hadn’t wanted to come had been a rude wake-up call for Senta. Her children had grown up: Niels was already seventeen; Denise fourteen; and Jelmer, the youngest, eleven and going to secondary school next year. Soon she’d find herself alone in Italy with Frank.

  She had stood in front of the mirror and taken a good look at herself – this time without first closing the bathroom blinds, so that the harsh light was not subdued. She wasn’t happy with what she saw. But she’d still had a big party for her fortieth, and adopted the nonchalant attitude of someone unconcerned about having left her thirties behind for good. Forty was the new thirty, and that was how she planned to behave.

  In her heart she had known that forty wasn’t a new beginning and that from now on things could only go downhill. Slowly, yes, but inevitably too.

  Just after her forty-third birthday she began to dream about the past. Each night she returned to her university years, to the easy-going, unattached girl she had once been. And when she woke up, it took her some time to realise that she was now twice the age she had been then.

  Suddenly time seemed to go more quickly, and she no longer took pleasure in looking through old photo albums or watching videos of her children when they were small; the tenderness that she usually felt now went hand in hand with a suffocating feeling of nostalgia.

  She was middle-aged. In a few years she’d no longer be able to compete with radiant thirty-year-olds, and she’d no longer be able to attract admiring glances from passing men.

  She hadn’t expected to feel so depressed by it. Perhaps this was why she had been so susceptible to Alexander’s charms. Despite his boldness, Alexander hadn’t moved too fast. He’d taken the time to get to know her, and after a few weeks, when they’d gone to bed together for the first time, his caresses had been tender and careful. He knew exactly where and how much.

  After twenty-one years of mar
riage this was something Frank still hadn’t managed. And once she started to compare her husband with her lover, she found it impossible to stop. She knew very well that in the first stages of falling in love, a lover’s qualities shine brightly, and that the husband you’ve spent half your life with dulls in comparison, like an overexposed photograph. She’d commissioned too many magazine articles on the subject, read too many pieces, heard too many stories, not to recognise the truth of the clichés.

  No, after twenty-one years, Frank wasn’t as attentive as he had been in the beginning. Alexander, on the other hand, held open every door for her, pulled out her chair if she wanted to sit down, didn’t just slice and scoff the garlic bread as Frank did but offered it to her first.

  While these things had never really bothered her before, now she wondered on an almost daily basis who had come up with the idea that people should be monogamous. Monogamy wasn’t a biological imperative needed to keep the species alive; even in the animal world it was quite rare. It was a rule someone had come up with that every mortal was sorely tempted to break.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t love Frank any more. The advantage of so many years of marriage was that the rush of passionate love had been replaced by a close companionship and intimacy – qualities that the young colleagues in her team considered middle-aged and boring, but that had a value Senta certainly didn’t underestimate.

  The problem was that every five years or so you change, like a snake shedding its skin. For years she and Frank had shed their skins at the same time, got to know each other again and held each other’s interest. But recently Senta had felt stuck in her old skin, however hard she tried to wriggle out of it. And Frank looked on without lifting a finger to help her, without even realising that she was slowly suffocating.

  18

  The black print dances before Lisa’s eyes. It is as though she can sense a deep abyss, and instinctively she grabs the edge of the table.

  ‘Appeltern, that’s this place, isn’t it?’ Kreuger asks with interest.

  Lisa only nods.

  ‘Just fancy that. If I’d gone out on to the street yesterday afternoon, I’d have walked right into the police’s arms. It is much too risky to leave the house. I’d be better off waiting here for a while, don’t you think?’ Kreuger says breezily.

  ‘Yes,’ Lisa admits. ‘I think you’re right.’

  He looks at her in amazement.

  ‘At least for the time being,’ she continues. ‘I won’t try to make it difficult.’

  He studies her carefully. ‘Very good.’

  ‘But I can imagine you have a plan. I mean, you can’t stay here for ever. Do you have any idea where you want to go? I could drive you; it’s not a problem. I have a car, as you know. Or you could borrow it if you—’

  Kreuger’s laugh stops her mid-sentence.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure yet, but perhaps I’ll take you up on your offer. Money, a car, yeah, that would certainly help. Maybe I’ll take you with me. Or just your little girl. Now that I think about it, that seems like a good idea . . .’

  His eyes grow thoughtful as Lisa’s become wild.

  ‘No!’ she says furiously. ‘You stay away from my daughter, do you hear? I—’

  All the friendliness vanishes from his face.

  ‘I’ll do what I want,’ he says quietly. ‘And you’ll cooperate, get it? You won’t make things difficult. You’re not about to kick off, are you?’

  His gaze descends to Anouk, who is busy laying her bikinied Barbies on sun loungers.

  ‘No, of course not. I’m sorry I lost control.’ The hoarse, hunted tone of her voice sounds like a total stranger’s – someone she would rather not know. Meek-as-a-lamb Lisa, who lets herself be toyed with, seems like someone else. When Kreuger gets up and turns to her, she expects to see the scorn and contempt she feels for herself reflected in his face. She’s not prepared for his pity and the gentle voice he uses.

  ‘I do understand. Don’t think I don’t understand, Lisa.’

  Hearing him say her name sends shivers down her spine. The way he says it gives her hope, even though she knows she mustn’t trust him.

  ‘You won’t harm her, will you?’ she whispers. ‘She’s all I have.’

  Behind her Anouk brings Ken on to the scene. ‘Who’s coming for a swim?’ a deep voice asks, and the Barbies get up to dive into the sea with Ken.

  ‘She’s ill,’ Lisa says quietly. ‘She needs a doctor.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem that ill to me.’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive – listen to her breathing.’

  As though sensing the importance of the moment, Anouk coughs loudly a few times.

  ‘She’s got penicillin,’ Kreuger says.

  ‘But if that isn’t enough, she has to—’

  ‘We’ll see how it goes,’ Kreuger interrupts. ‘At the moment she’s fine. Look how nicely she’s playing.’ The tenderness on his face turns into something tired and infinitely sad.

  What is he thinking about? What images are flashing before his eyes?

  ‘My daughter had some of those pink horses,’ he says. ‘She would comb them all the time. What do you call them again?’

  ‘My Little Pony?’ Lisa asks cautiously.

  ‘Yes, that was it. Little Ponies.’

  Quick, say something else to keep the conversation going. ‘I think all the girls like those. Anouk has a few.’

  Kreuger sits there staring into a world that Lisa cannot see but that she can imagine. What should she say? Maybe she’d better hold her tongue.

  But Kreuger doesn’t give her the chance. ‘You know what happened, don’t you? What I did?’ He looks at her, and his glare forces her to answer.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You mean, how I do know?’

  He nods impatiently.

  Her confession comes out as a whisper. ‘There’s a radio downstairs.’

  ‘Then you know exactly what kind of monster I am, what I’m capable of.’ There is a bitterness behind his words. Yet it doesn’t seem to be aimed at Lisa, so she cautiously continues.

  ‘I believe we can all find ourselves in situations in which we lose the run of ourselves. When we do things we wouldn’t normally do. Sometimes circumstances drive us to it,’ Lisa carefully offers.

  ‘Or people.’

  ‘Yes, or people.’

  Unexpectedly he pushes back his chair and stands up so that they are facing one another. Lisa represses the temptation to step back and increase the distance between them. Her heart begins to beat more quickly.

  Kreuger’s face comes very close. ‘Have you ever been in a situation like that?’

  ‘I tried to murder my ex,’ Lisa mumbles, barely comprehensible.

  She has his attention. He tilts his head slightly and stares at her. ‘What did you do?’

  Lisa avoids his eyes, but it is as though Kreuger sucks her gaze towards him. His eyes tear the words from her mouth. Now that she’s said this, she’ll have to speak – she won’t get away with this vague confession.

  ‘I ran him over.’

  Kreuger whistles softly. ‘Did he die?’

  ‘No – he was seriously injured and went to hospital, but he survived.’

  There’s something of respect in his expression. ‘And you got away with it?’

  Lisa runs her hand through her hair nervously. ‘Yes. I drove off really fast. There weren’t any witnesses. Mark never found out that I was the one who ran him over, though he suspected it. He used to give me a funny look whenever we talked about his accident . . .’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we broke up,’ Lisa says simply. ‘He understood he’d overstepped the mark and that I’d kill him the next time.’

  ‘Really? You would have done it again?’

  ‘Definitely.’ The wound on her hand throbs; her lip has opened again and stings. ‘I can understand and forgive just like the next person, but there are limits.’

>   19

  Lisa pulls on her jeans and a clean white top. She hurries because she hates leaving Anouk with Kreuger, even for such a short time. She gives her hair a perfunctory comb with her fingers and runs downstairs. As her foot reaches the bottom step, she hears the sound of a car in the distance.

  Her hand grips the banister tightly and, holding her breath, she peers through the frosted glass of the front door to try to see something. Is it Mark, or her mother?

  Please let it be one of them, she pleads inwardly. No, for God’s sake let it not be one of them!

  Torn between hope and fear, she waits until Kreuger notices the sound, but the hall door is closed. Lisa tiptoes to the front door. Something orange shines through the glass. It’s the post van. Can she do anything? Thoughts race through her brain. As long as the door is locked, she can’t do anything. Shouting a warning to the elderly, rather deaf postman through the letter box is much too risky. All the conversations she’s ever had with him have been shouted comments about the weather.

  The post van stops in front of her house, and Lisa looks around, at her wit’s end. Pen, paper! She has to write a note, hurry!

  Too late: the crunch of footsteps on the gravel announces the postman’s approach. His shape pops up in front of the door, like a guardian angel from another world – out of reach. ‘Postman! Postman!’ she calls through the letter box as loudly as she can. She sees him rummaging around in his bag and puts her hand through the letter box in an attempt to attract his attention. The next moment she can hear him laughing and feels the post being pressed into her hand.

  The sound of footsteps retreating is a drum roll announcing the end of the world – her world.

  She goes into the sitting room in despair. Anouk is kneading Play-Doh at the dining table, and Kreuger is following her work closely. He pays the same intense attention to the letter in Lisa’s hand.

  ‘Post,’ he says, in a tone that betrays he hadn’t thought of this possibility.

  The kitchen is suffused with the smell of toasted sandwiches and fresh coffee. It is just after one thirty in the afternoon. The morning slipped by in relative peace and quiet, and Lisa notices that she feels less tense. The radio is on, the curtains are still closed, and it’s stuffy and warm inside, but she’s less fearful of being murdered. Nothing is certain in the company of a psychopath, but at this moment it is hard to imagine that the man sitting opposite her murdered his family. It’s best just not to think about it. Every time her thoughts take the wrong turn, she redirects them to the next morning. The postman will be back then.