Safe as Houses Read online

  Anouk decides she wants to finger-paint, and soon she’s absorbed in this.

  ‘Emily loved that stuff too.’ Kreuger takes a bite of his sandwich. ‘After five minutes she’d be totally covered in paint. And the table, the chair and the floor.’

  Lisa smiles in recognition at the image, until she remembers that she’s smiling at the image of a small, dead girl.

  As though he can read her thoughts, Kreuger suddenly begins to share. ‘Jeffrey was two and Emily was four when my wife left me. I’d already known for a while that Angelique was seeing someone else – I just knew.’ His voice takes on the defensive tone of someone who assumes that everything they say will be treated with scepticism. ‘A man can sense when he’s being cheated on. I asked her about it, but she refused to talk to me. She just disappeared off upstairs without saying a thing. When she turned her back on me, something snapped inside. I felt so unbelievably humiliated by having to run around after her, and yes, then I lost control of myself. I threw her down the stairs. In front of the children – that wasn’t so clever. But I couldn’t think clearly: it was as though I was only fragments of myself, as though you’d only have to pull a single thread for me to fall apart. And she kept pulling at that thread.’ He pauses for a while and then continues. ‘Angelique had a few bruises and concussion. She got up, took the children to her parents’ and came back the next day with her brother and sister to pick up her stuff. I tried to talk to her, to say sorry, but there was no point. She disappeared from my life without giving me the chance to make it up to her.’ Kreuger’s voice quavers at the unfairness of the memory. ‘The worst thing was that I hardly got to see my children after that. The visiting arrangements were ridiculous: a few hours a fortnight, under strict supervision. The first hour my children stood there staring at me like I was a total stranger who might attack them at any second, and just when they’d finally relaxed the bitch who came to supervise took them away again.’ His voice is shaking, and his eyes take on a strange lustre.

  Lisa keeps a careful watch on him. ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘My life fell to pieces. I’d never cried as much as I did then. My wife was gone, my children were gone, and, as if that wasn’t enough, I lost my job too. I sat around at home all day with nothing but problems on my mind. And one day I saw her. She was walking through the town centre with another guy. So I was right. She had been cheating on me with someone else, and now they were walking down the street together. With the children. She was holding Emily’s hand, and my little boy was skipping along holding that bastard’s hand. All my fuses blew, but I knew I couldn’t do much in the middle of the high street. I found out where he lived and drove to that bastard’s house. It wasn’t that difficult to break in, and then I lay in wait.’

  He stops and looks at Lisa to check that she’s still listening. She is. One hundred per cent.

  ‘What did you do next?’ she asks quietly.

  ‘I murdered them,’ he says simply. ‘First that prick. He went to the garage. I slipped in behind him and bashed his brains out. Piece of piss – he never knew what hit him. That was a shame, but I couldn’t take the risk of it turning into a fight. Angelique would have been warned then.’

  ‘And then you went back into the house.’

  Kreuger nods in agreement. ‘I’d seen Angelique going upstairs. I got a big knife from the kitchen and went up after her. The children were in the living room, but I could get into the hall through the garage and the utility room without being seen.’ An almost dreamy look appears in his eyes. ‘I’d murdered her so many times in my fantasies. Each time, I did it slowly, so that she would be aware of what she’d done to me, so that she’d realise it was her own fault she was suffering. But, when it came down to it, it wasn’t possible. The children were in the house, and I had to be quick.’

  He says it with resolve, as though he’d been dealing with an irritating household chore that he couldn’t get out of.

  ‘She saw me coming at her with a knife and began to scream, but downstairs they couldn’t hear her over the television. And her screaming soon stopped.’ There is satisfaction in Kreuger’s voice.

  Lisa tries to hide the shivers running down her spine. ‘And the children?’ she whispers.

  Kreuger’s expression darkens. He looks up at her with a face that still betrays despair after all this time. ‘What else could I do? I knew I wouldn’t get away with it and that I’d go to prison for years. What would have happened to Emily and Jeffrey? Think about it: what kind of life would they have had? Their mother murdered, their father in prison, and the two of them sent from foster home to foster home. I did them a service by saving them from that. I did it as fast as I could. I just drew the knife and it was over. I was thinking only about what was best for them. I tried to explain that to the judge too, that I’d been acting in my children’s best interests, but he didn’t listen.’

  Again there is anger in his voice, but it is shortlived. A moment later his eyes are dull, and his voice is tired and depressed.

  ‘Admit it, I couldn’t do anything else, could I?’ he mutters to himself.

  Lisa can only stare at him. That the man sitting opposite her murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend is terrible, but that he managed to cut his own children’s throats is unthinkable.

  Most people would react to a story like this with rigid horror. But, for Lisa, it is as though she can share his memories telepathically. She hears the screaming, the pleading, she smells the blood . . .

  She breaks out in a sweat; her hands begin to shake, and she takes fast, shallow breaths. She notices that Kreuger is keeping an eye on her, so she tries to keep her facial expression as neutral as possible.

  ‘You know what it’s like,’ he says, as though they are kindred spirits. ‘You tried to murder your husband yourself.’

  ‘It wasn’t the same . . .’

  ‘Oh, no? What’s the difference?’

  Lisa remains silent.

  Kreuger leans towards her a little. ‘You want to spit at me. I’m such a bastard that I make you feel sick. Do you think you’re better than me because you don’t have any blood on your hands? You’re wrong, darling. We’re exactly the same.’

  No, we’re not, Lisa thinks. We’re not at all, you disgusting piece of shit. I would never do anything to my daughter. I would rather leave her with Mark and never see her again than lay a single finger on her.

  She doesn’t say a word until she notices that Kreuger’s face is becoming darker and darker. Fear tightens around her throat.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she says gently. ‘Remember I told you that I suffered from post-natal depression after Anouk was born? That was really heavy. I wasn’t myself for months.’ She picks up the leftover crust of a toasted sandwich from her plate and nervously breaks it into tiny pieces. ‘I couldn’t cope. The housework, the baby crying all the time, my body completely broken after the difficult birth . . .’

  An encouraging nod from Kreuger helps her to carry on.

  ‘I can’t imagine it now, but there was a moment when I was convinced that Anouk couldn’t have ended up with a worse mother than me. Why else would she cry all day and all night? I wondered why on earth I’d thought it necessary to bring a child into the world. Into this polluted, stinking, bad world, where she spent all her time kicking and screaming. One afternoon the bawling got so deep into my head that I couldn’t think any more. I took all the sleeping pills that were in the medicine cabinet and the next second I was standing over her cot with a pillow. Just as I started to press it on to Anouk’s face, Mark arrived home . . .’ Lisa’s voice dies away. She keeps her eyes fixed on the plate and the crumbs, so as not to catch the look of understanding and recognition in his eyes.

  It remains quiet, and after a while there’s nothing else to do but look up. Kreuger is leaning back with an impassive expression on his face.

  ‘He put me into a clinic,’ Lisa says simply. ‘Not a forced admission: I went voluntarily. I knew I’d try again
otherwise. I didn’t come home until I was cured, and then I learned how to enjoy Anouk.’

  ‘So you didn’t tell me the entire story.’

  ‘It’s nothing to be proud of.’

  Kreuger’s eyes fix on her. ‘But you can admit it to a disturbed criminal who murdered his own family.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Her honest reply disarms him. He gives her a hypnotic stare – it lasts so long that Lisa begins to feel nervous – but then suddenly he grins. ‘We have more in common than I thought.’

  ‘I believe that many people have a dark side. And that there are few people who’ll admit how close they’ve come to the edge.’

  Kreuger nods. He believes it, Lisa thinks. That idiot really believes I tried to suffocate my child.

  The loud ringing of the telephone breaks the silence like a grenade going off. Lisa jumps up, and Kreuger is so quick to get to his feet that his chair falls over backwards.

  He grabs the house telephone, which had been clipped to his belt, and looks at the LCD display.

  ‘Mum,’ he reads aloud. ‘OK, just pick up. And think before you speak: no hints, no cleverness, no secret messages. Just have a chat, get it? Not too long and not too short.’ He hands Lisa the telephone, adding, ‘Put it on speaker phone if you like. I know it’s impolite, but I’d really like to listen in.’

  20

  The relationship between body and soul is a strange phenomenon. We know that the soul has a strong capacity to heal the body, but how exactly this occurs is still a mystery. It must have something to do with willpower, with the force you exert to get your body under control.

  If you believe that your body won’t obey you, how likely is it that your state will change? But if people can think themselves out of recovery, shouldn’t they also be able to think themselves better?

  Senta holds her breath and concentrates so hard on waking up that it gives her a headache. Then she opens her mouth and screams an order at her soul with all the air she has in her lungs. But the water absorbs her scream, leaving her only with silence. The black hole tugs at her, but Senta resists and kicks frantically, like a drowning man on his way to the surface.

  And then, all of a sudden, she is up. When she least expects it, she shoots through the tough membrane that has separated her from the world all this time,

  She opens her eyes and looks around, breathing hard. A television hanging from a stand shows a ball game. A ray of golden light streams through the window, giving the room a warm glow.

  Very carefully, as though she might damage it irreparably, Senta lifts her hand and holds it in the sunlight. A pleasant warmth caresses her skin. Tears appear in her eyes.

  At that moment, a woman with a white coat and a stethoscope around her neck comes into the room. She stops in her tracks when she sees Senta.

  The next minute the room is full of doctors and nurses. They look at her and talk among themselves. The woman doctor with the stethoscope sits down on the edge of the bed, takes Senta’s hand and asks her how she’s feeling.

  With difficulty, Senta manages something that resembles ‘good’. It’s not much more than an ‘oo’ sound, but they seem to understand.

  ‘I’m Lilian Reynders from Diagnostics.’ The doctors looks at her with warm, dark eyes. ‘You’ve kept us on tenterhooks for quite some time, Mrs Van Dijk. It’s good news that you’ve woken up. Very good news!’

  ‘Where—’

  ‘You’re in Intensive Care at the Radboud Hospital in Nijmegen. You had a car accident. Can you remember it?’

  Senta looks at the doctor vacantly. A car accident?

  ‘You drove your car into the water. Luckily a passer-by saw it and got you out. Do you remember?’

  Her only reaction is an astonished shake of the head.

  ‘It might come back to you,’ Dr Reynders says in an effort to comfort her.

  Frank and the children run through her head, but she has difficulty in making sounds. Dr Reynders must be a mind reader, because she smiles at her reassuringly.

  ‘We’ll inform your family right away. In the meantime we’ll run a couple of tests and see how you’re doing.’

  Senta resigns herself to the succession of activities that follows. They check whether she has regained control of her limbs – she has to move everything and say whether it hurts or not – blood is taken, and then a nurse wheels her away for an MRI scan.

  When she is returned to her room, Frank and the children are sitting there waiting for her. As soon as her bed is rolled through the door, they spring to their feet.

  ‘Senta, darling!’ Frank takes a step forward and then hesitates. He waits until Senta’s bed is back in place before sitting on the edge of it.

  The children remain standing, pale and nervous, with tense eyes focused on their mother. Cautiously, as though the slightest touch could send her back into a coma, Frank takes Senta’s hand in his and brings it to his lips. ‘We were so worried, darling. So terribly worried! Thank God you’ve woken up.’

  Senta produces a weak smile. Her husband doesn’t look well: he’s as white as chalk, and his red-ringed eyes have bags under them.

  Frank tenderly bends over her and kisses her gently on the mouth. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Tired,’ Senta whispers.

  ‘You must be. You’ve gone through a lot.’

  ‘You could say you’ve had a lovely, long sleep,’ Niels laughs, causing his sister to elbow him in the ribs.

  ‘Behave,’ she says angrily.

  Senta gives her elder son a reassuring smile. How tall the boy is, standing there at the foot of her bed. He towers over her, all arms and legs. His camouflage clothes and cap worn nonchalantly backwards are a good disguise for the emotional tempest he’s been through, but they don’t fool his mother.

  Impulsively she holds out her arms to him. Niels moves forward and puts his arms around his mother as best he can. There’s something awkward about it, but it’s the first time they’ve hugged for a long time. Niels has never been very physical, and he has always shrugged off her attempts at affection with something like impatience.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back, Mum,’ he says a little hoarsely.

  Next Denise rushes into her mother’s arms. She wraps herself around Senta and kisses her on the cheek. ‘You know what the doctor said? She said you might never wake up!’ She stands up and rubs her eyes.

  ‘She didn’t say that: you read it on the internet,’ her father corrects her. ‘I told you not to get carried away by what was on those sites.’

  ‘But it could have happened! Mummy was in a coma!’ Denise shouts.

  Senta turns to Jelmer, standing silently next to his father. ‘Hey, sweetheart,’ she manages to say softly. ‘How are you?’

  Without saying a word, Jelmer climbs up on to the bed and snuggles against her. Senta moves over and wraps her arm around her son. She runs her hand through his dark brown hair and kisses the top of his head. The familiar smell of her child sets off memories of their bedtime ritual: one last cuddle, tight arms around her neck and lots of wet kisses.

  How could she have forgotten her family? How distant from them must she have been for that to have happened?

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she says, gradually recovering her voice. She looks at them one by one. ‘I’ve woken up now and everything’s going to be all right.’

  With the caution of someone who is not quite convinced, Frank strokes a stray lock of hair from her forehead. ‘Can you remember how the accident happened? What on earth where you doing on that embankment?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . The only thing I can remember is that I was on my way back from Oss. And then . . .’ She reflects for a moment. ‘It suddenly got very misty. Yes, I remember now. I ended up at a roundabout and I couldn’t read the signs. I must have taken a wrong turn.’

  ‘But why were you driving so fast in the mist? That’s not like you; you’re always so careful.’

  Senta looks at him in astonishment. ‘Was I dr
iving fast?’

  ‘According to a witness, you were driving dangerously fast, Mum,’ Niels says. ‘And that man should know: he saw everything.’

  ‘If that man hadn’t been walking his dog there . . .’ Frank shakes his head, as though wanting to drive further thoughts away.

  An uneasy feeling steals over Senta. It’s as if they’re talking about a film they’ve all seen, one in which she has the lead role, only she can’t remember any of it.

  ‘What exactly happened?’ she asks uncertainly.

  ‘Can you really not remember, Mum?’ Denise cries out. ‘You drove into the water! You nearly drowned!’

  With a face that says he can hardly imagine anything so horrific happening to his mother, Jelmer sits up straight. ‘That’s so horrible,’ he says quietly.

  Drowned. That’s why she felt as if she had to rise to the surface of the water. She’d driven into the canal and almost drowned, and she can’t remember any of it.

  ‘Who . . . how—’

  ‘The man who saw it happen got you out,’ Denise says, helping her.

  ‘I can’t remember a thing. Not a thing.’

  There’s a short silence.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Frank finally reassures her. ‘The most important thing is that you survived, and that you escaped unharmed.’

  They’ll have to wait to see whether this is true, and when their eyes meet they realise it simultaneously. With the children there, they don’t say anything more. She is alive, she has recognised her family, she can move and talk. The rest is for the future.