“I don’t know,” she said.
“We have to do something.” Werner picked up their cups. He carried them over to the counter and set them under the stainless-steel coffee machine. Silently, he focused on making two cappuccinos, sprinkling cocoa on top, as usual. The topping seemed inappropriate at a moment like this. “It’ll be OK as long as nobody finds him.”
She accepted one of the cups. “But if somebody does find him, there’ll probably be fibers on his clothes that can be traced to us. Our DNA too.” Helen recalled how she and Werner had dragged the boy into the hall and then carried him down the basement stairs. She’d held his knees, and Werner his armpits. She often had to lift patients at the hospital, including some who had passed away. On those occasions, she had always managed to switch off her emotions and do what needed to be done—but this time she had experienced an overwhelming sense of revulsion.
“No doubt,” said Werner. “But those fibers and that DNA aren’t linked to our names in the system. The police would need to suspect he’d been in our house if they wanted to do anything with that information.” He took a sip of his cappuccino.
The lump around his eye had grown, Helen saw. A dark crescent was developing on the outer edge of his eye socket. His lip was so swollen that it interfered with his speech.
After a brief silence, she said, “He might have told somebody that he was planning to rob us.” She gave him a probing look. “That’s a possibility, right?”
“Of course. But then the other person would be an accomplice, so they wouldn’t exactly rush off to tell the police.” His eyes wandered over to the flat-screen TV hanging on the wall, which was playing a recap of a tennis match.
Now that the worst of the shock had passed, the manager in him was beginning to take over. Werner was acting as if he had a business problem to solve. And she had been assigned the role of insubordinate employee.
“You aren’t at work, Werner,” she said softly. “We have to do this together.”
“Not necessarily.”
“I think you’re underestimating how much work it is to dig a deep grave. It’ll take you hours, maybe even a whole day. And I presume you won’t be able to get all the way out to a genuinely remote spot like that in your car, will you?”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“So he’ll need to be dragged there. And then you’ll need to cover the tracks made by his body. Assuming you haven’t been caught by that point.” She shook her head. “It’s too risky.”
“We could do it together. It’d be quicker that way. And not during the day, but at night.”
“That would look even more suspicious if somebody saw us.”
Werner stood up and looked down at her with irritation. “Do you have a better idea, then? You were the one who shot the boy, not me.”
“What should I have done?” she asked sharply. “Talk to him? He was completely crazed—probably on drugs.” A shiver ran down her back at the memory.
“He didn’t have to die, Helen.”
“That’s not what I—”
“What I mean is I wasn’t the one who created this problem.”
She leapt to her feet and struck the table with her palm. “You’re the one who brought a gun into this house without thinking to discuss it with me. And you’re the one who didn’t want to call the police.”
“You shot him three times, Helen. Three times.”
“I was panicking.”
“And yet you still managed to hit him three times, even though you’ve never fired anything more than an air rifle in your entire life.”
“I don’t know why—”
A loud bang resounded against the wall. Both of them looked up in alarm. The gate, realized Helen. At the same time, they heard the high-pitched whine of a scooter.
“Sara,” said Werner.
10
Ralf wasn’t sure what he expected to find here. He knew Brian wouldn’t be lying somewhere nearby, licking his wounds like an injured animal. But still. That house was the last place he had seen his friend. Right there in that big kitchen, chasing the man up the stairs with his gun in his hand.
He placed his hands on the wall and used a tree stump as a step. The yard was long, with shrubs, trees, and flower beds, a substantial lawn, and a swimming pool in the middle with a wooden cabin and a hedge around it. It was so big, it felt more like a park than a yard. And the house itself looked more like a hotel, or the office of some law firm.
Ralf was startled by a sudden movement and crouched down. A girl was walking across the lawn. Around twelve or thirteen. Jeans, a red hoodie, and light-blonde, curly, almost frizzy hair. She had a plastic bag in her hand. The only reason she hadn’t noticed him was probably because she was busy looking at the ground, as though she’d lost something. Ralf wondered whether this was the same girl he had seen coming home last night. It was possible; she was around the same size. As he watched, he heard a scooter—the noise rapidly drawing nearer. The scooter slowed down, and he heard the gate open and then close with a bang. He couldn’t see who it was; the hedge between the deck and the swimming pool blocked his view.
The girl gave up her search and stood upright. She called something to whoever had just arrived, and the newcomer greeted her back—another girl, by the sound of it. Now he could see her too as she walked along the side of the house and went inside. He couldn’t make out her face from this distance, but she was slim, wore a tailored coat, and had the same color hair as the first girl. Her sister?
11
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” Sara hung up her coat in the utility room and walked into the kitchen.
She had the same stubborn, frizzy hair as Helen and Emma, though she’d been hiding it under straighteners for years now. Today, she wore her hair up. A layer of powder covered her pale skin, and sleek black lines ran along her eyelashes before ticking upward from the outer corners. She looked older and more mature than seventeen. That was partly due to her clothing. Even in elementary school, Sara had longed for the day when she could finally stop shopping in the kids’ section. She had expensive taste: ever since she had started receiving her clothing allowance, she had preferred secondhand designer clothes to new outfits from H&M. Werner called her “our little lady of leisure,” in a tone that suggested he didn’t consider it a bad thing.
“Did you have fun with Jackie in Antwerp?” asked Helen.
“I guess.” Sara took a glass out of the cupboard and poured herself some Coke. She remained standing next to the kitchen island. “Mom, Dad? Could you go out next Saturday night?”
“Go out?” Werner leaned his elbow on the back of the leather dining chair. “Why?”
“It’s my turn to host movie night.”
“That’s a little inconvenient,” said Werner. “Thom is turning sixteen on Friday, and I think two parties in one weekend would be too much of a good thing.”
“But that’s perfect, isn’t it? We can use up the leftovers from Thom’s party. You always buy too much.” She looked brightly at her mother. “And then you two can go and do something fun on Saturday.”
“We’ll see,” said Helen.
“Aw, please? I already talked to Emma. She’s going to stay at Linde’s on Saturday.”
“And I’m going to Yorick’s,” said Thom as he entered the kitchen. He opened the fridge and studied the contents intensely, as if his life depended on it, before finally selecting a bottle of Fanta and wandering back to the living room.
“Let me sleep on it,” said Helen.
“Aw . . .”
“Sorry. Your father and I have a lot on our plates at the moment.”
Sara rolled her eyes and sighed. “Work, admin . . .”
“Less of that, young lady,” Helen heard Werner say. “And isn’t there something you should be telling us?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Maybe something about what you did in Antwerp—or rather, what you had done?”
“Oh, you mean that.”
“Yes, that,” said Werner sardonically.
“Well, we didn’t go through with it. The guy was ridiculously expensive, and he’s booked for the next two months. Jackie wanted to try somewhere else, but it was some dirty biker with a beer belly. So gross.”
“I bet he was a lot cheaper,” remarked Werner in a considerably more cheerful tone.
“I’m not an idiot, Dad. I want it to be a nice one.”
Helen looked her daughter in the eye. “I think you’re too young to get a tattoo, Sara. And you need to discuss things like that with us first.”
“What difference does it make? You’ll never see it.” Sara’s cell phone began to buzz. She took it out of her bag and looked at the screen.
“It’s not about us; it’s about you. You’re still too young to—”
“Yes, yes, I know already: I’m too young to understand the consequences of my actions,” Sara shot back. “What do you think I’m going to do? Get a tattoo right here saying ‘Boner Garage’?” She drew an imaginary line above her pelvis with her phone.
“Who knows?” grunted Werner.
Her perfectly made-up eyes burned with indignation. “Come on! I’m not stupid.”
“You aren’t an adult yet either.”
“Well, who is? Sorry, but I need to take this. Oh yeah, Jackie’s on her way over. She’s staying the night.” Sara held the phone to her ear and disappeared down the corridor.
12
The blue sky was growing darker and darker. Bats had emerged from their hiding places and were swooping noiselessly over the swimming pool, which emitted a blue-green glow.
Ralf squinted at the back of the house. There were lights on inside, both downstairs and behind a dormer window on the top floor. From time to time, he saw silhouettes moving around.
Brian hadn’t named any names. In fact, he’d told him nothing about the people who lived here; however, based on what he’d seen today, Ralf thought it was probably a husband and wife with three children. An average family, but rich. Maybe they owned a jewelry store or a car dealership. It didn’t look like a mafia hideout, anyway. All the same, three shots had been fired in there yesterday, and nobody had called the police. And Brian had been missing ever since.
The woodland soil was springy beneath his sneakers as he walked around to the front of the house. The garden wall merged almost seamlessly into the garage, and the short driveway was bordered by a neatly trimmed, waist-high conifer hedge. There were two cars: a dark-colored Mercedes and a light-blue Fiat 500. Ralf crawled to the corner and peered at the road.
He noticed that his heart had started beating faster. The road seemed quiet. Across the way, an electrical substation was hemmed in on both sides by dense, rustling undergrowth. Behind it, he knew, lay a shallow moat that ran all the way around the affluent neighborhood. He crossed the driveway and walked up to the mailbox, a green plastic container on a pole. There was no name on it, just a number: 23. He opened the door and peered inside. Nothing. Then he looked at the house. The curtains were closed, but he could hear vague sounds—voices, a TV. Hesitantly, he walked up the path that led to the front door. It was straight and narrow, laid out in paving stones. There was no nameplate here either—nothing.
Who are these people?
Sunday
1
In many respects, Sara took after Werner’s mother, Helen realized as she placed a cappuccino on the table in front of her mother-in-law.
Ria retrieved a silver dispenser from her handbag and dropped a tablet of sweetener onto the thick layer of foam. Her pearl bracelets clacked together softly.
Werner’s parents came to visit every Sunday around midday, for what had somehow become a set date since Sara was born. There was no way of avoiding it—though, fortunately, they had purchased a houseboat that spring and had taken to going on weekend trips. Helen had so far managed to fend off the occasional invitations to join them, as Werner’s brothers and their families had already done, but she had been less successful in dodging joint vacations in the Gers in France. The family had a tiny, ancient farmhouse down there, located in a remote spot with views of the snowcapped Pyrenees. When the kids were younger, they had spent countless vacations camping out both in and around this “witch’s house,” where leaky air mattresses, heavily chlorinated tap water, and a complete lack of privacy were the order of the day. It was also a place where Ria would exhibit an alarming character shift and “let her hair down” under the influence of the cheap wine she procured in jerricans from the local vintner. Another trait Sara had inherited from her grandma, thought Helen.
“You’ve got a stain here,” whispered Ria, as if imparting a weighty secret. She ran her finger along the neck of her own immaculate white blouse.
Helen pulled her top forward a little and examined the collar. A tiny mark. “I see it, thank you. I’ll wash it tonight.”
Ria explained to her in a lowered voice that she should soak the stain first. She did so very patiently. To Ria, Helen would forever be young and ignorant. It never occurred to the woman that her daughter-in-law had already managed to remove thousands of stains from all manner of blouses, pants, and shirts, all by herself.
Ernst sat next to Ria on the red sofa. He was wearing a pair of turned-up gray pants, a shirt, and a dark-red sweater. Ernst didn’t talk much. He had moved here from Germany in the seventies to work for a division of a German company. It was meant to be a temporary posting, but the company extended his contract, and Ernst met Ria and started a family. Their three sons all had children of their own now. And so, Ernst had never gone back. In all that time, he had made little effort to master the Dutch language. Helen had the impression that Ernst viewed that as a shortcoming, and that he compensated for it with a rather distant and reserved attitude.
All in all, Werner’s parents weren’t the sort of people you would voluntarily choose to spend your Sunday afternoons with.
“Helen, could you fetch my father a glass of cognac?” she heard Werner ask.
She stood up and walked through to the kitchen. In the hallway, she passed the basement door. It had never been locked before, but it was now.
Helen took her time in the kitchen. She washed her hands, then put the cups and plates on the counter into the dishwasher. Checked the soil in the herb pots on the windowsill—basil, curly-leaf parsley, and chives. Watered them. She examined the mark on her top and dabbed at it halfheartedly with a damp dishcloth. That only made it worse. Suddenly, another stain swam into view on the wall immediately in front of her. She had found a constant succession of new ones since last night. Brown spots on the table leg, on the side of the kitchen island, on the handle of a rarely used drawer. She wiped the wall clean and threw the dishcloth into the trash can.
2
It had rained again overnight, and the dense shrubs were slowly releasing moisture onto Ralf’s clothing. A drop of water ran down his neck, and a thick branch scraped persistently down his back. Ralf’s hiding place wasn’t comfortable, but it offered a perfect view of the front of the house.
A gray BMW 5 Series had pulled up half an hour ago. Two stylish retirees had gotten out—the husband wearing a red windbreaker, and his wife a long beige coat. The red-haired husband had welcomed them in. There was a black shadow down the side of his right eye, which was half-closed from swelling, and he also had something wrong with his lip. That face had looked better before Brian had gone into the house.
The girl who had been wandering around outside yesterday had kissed the old-timers on the cheeks three times and called them “Grandma and Grandpa.” The man’s parents, Ralf guessed—“Grandpa” was also a ginger. After that, they had gone inside.
3
“Did you get up to anything exciting last week?” asked Ria.
Helen opened her mouth. “Well, no, we—”
“Business as usual,” she heard Werner say.
“And school? How are the children doing?”
“Great. Outstandingly, even.” Werner shifted f
orward to the edge of his seat and began to describe a new program at Thom’s school where the students could study languages such as Russian and Chinese. That led to a conversation about the future of international trade with Asia and the decline of the Western European economy.
Helen looked at Werner and his parents. She watched them talking and moving as if through thick glass. The sounds were muted, deadened, and a hysterical, tormenting voice welled up in her mind with increasing insistence: Hey, did you two know there’s a dead body in our freezer?
A dead body!
In. The. Freezer.
“Helen? What on earth is the matter with you?” asked Ria, looking at her in astonishment. “You have the strangest expression on your face!”
Werner jabbed her with his elbow. A silent reproach.
“I don’t think I’m feeling very well,” she said.
Just as she was about to stand up, Sara entered the room, with Jackie trailing behind. Although they were fully dressed and made up, they gave the impression that they had only just gotten out of bed.
“Grandma, Grandpa!” Sara hugged Ria and gave Ernst a kiss on the cheek. He handed her a five-euro note and winked, just like every week. That was the real reason for Sara’s over-the-top enthusiasm. She, Thom, and Emma were impossible to drag out of bed on a Sunday without financial reward.
Helen took advantage of the commotion to slip out of the room. Once in the hall, she stepped into the bathroom and locked the door. Her breath caught. It felt as though a raging swarm of bees were in her stomach, the insects fighting their way out and blocking her airway. She stood in the dark, with her back against the cool tiles—her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth wide open in a silent scream.
4
The gate next to the house swung open. Ralf heard laughter, chattering. Two girls: one with a brown braid running halfway down her back; the other slimmer and more elegant, her blonde hair worn up. They were riding a white scooter, with the blonde in front.
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