The door to the house opened as they wheeled down the driveway, and the man came running out. “Sara?” he called. “Remember, you’re eating at home tonight, OK? No messing around.”
“Yes, Dad, I know. See you later,” answered the girl in front. Her friend waved at the man halfheartedly.
Ralf felt a rush of adrenaline flood through his veins as the scooter zoomed past.
Sara . . .
He knew that girl.
5
“What the hell was all that about?” Werner looked at Helen angrily.
“I don’t know.”
“Honestly. How difficult is it to control yourself for an hour or so?” Werner shoved glasses into the dishwasher. “You should have seen your face. My parents must be wondering what’s going on.”
She raised her hands helplessly. “We should have called to tell them they couldn’t come today. The same goes for Thom’s party on Friday. Can’t we postpone it? I mean, we—”
“Absolutely not, Helen. Everything needs to carry on as usual. We have to look normal.”
She dropped her hands. “What if I can’t?”
“Jesus, Helen. Just look at yourself. I thought the recovery room was where you found the toughest people in the hospital? Nurses with balls, because they have to spend all day dealing with life, and death, and macho doctors, right? Or so I’ve always been told.”
“That’s completely different,” she said. “That’s work.”
Helen retreated from his tense glare. She was just as disappointed in her own panicky behavior as he was, though at the same time, she realized that she had already been a little overworked even before the dreadful event had taken place. Her difficult relationship with Werner was eating away at her, and when she got home from work, the children consumed the last remnants of her energy. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. Or the night before. I can’t get any rest while there’s a corpse in the house.”
“We’re going to sort it out, as soon as we can.”
She didn’t hear him. “Do you know what I was thinking about this morning?”
“What?”
She looked at Werner. “What if he wasn’t alone?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, robbers normally operate in pairs, or in a group.”
“Maybe. I’m no expert in that area.”
She frowned. “But you’ve watched those police reenactment shows, right? Sometimes you get lone criminals robbing gas stations or mugging old people in the street, but nobody ever robs a house on their own.”
“This guy was alone.” He almost snarled the words. “You were there yourself. And it doesn’t make any difference, anyway.” He walked up to her and took her face between his hands. “Stop fretting, Helen. Things are complicated enough as it is. We have a problem, and in the next few days, we’re going to solve it. The important thing right now”—his voice grew milder, and his expression softened—“is that we act like nothing has happened. OK?” He raised an eyebrow. “Whether you think you can do that or not.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“No buts.”
Helen looked at Werner in astonishment. The manager in him had completely taken over. He had always been cooler and more distant than other men, but she and the children also knew his other side—a fun, dedicated father who genuinely cared about his family. She had watched that version of him recede further and further in recent years. People don’t really change, her mother had said to her once. Some character traits just grow stronger over the years, while others fade away.
It would make all the difference if he were to throw his arms around her now and make her feel that they had a connection—but he didn’t. Instead, he turned away and rested his hands on his neck, his eyes closed.
6
Naomi and Sara knew each other. The longer Ralf thought about it, the more certain he was. Brian had invited a group of people over to drink at his place not too long ago, and that girl had been there. She had caught his attention—not just because she was good-looking, but because there was something unusual about her. She seemed older than everyone else, more sensible. Maybe even smarter too. More and more details bubbled up in Ralf’s memory. She had a German-sounding surname. Muller, Mahler, something like that.
On a whim, he pulled his phone out and looked up Naomi’s number. She responded enthusiastically when she heard his voice. That felt good, somehow.
“I haven’t spoken to him,” she said. “He isn’t answering his phone. I guess you haven’t seen him either?”
“No. We’d agreed to meet today, but he didn’t show up.” He paused for a moment. “So, I wanted to call a few of his other friends, but I don’t have their numbers.” He gave the names of some guys that Brian vaguely knew.
“Oh, I think I have those,” he heard her say cheerfully.
Ralf ran his index finger along the inside of the steering wheel. “How about I come over to your place?” he ventured.
“OK.”
OK?
Ralf grinned broadly. “Great, see you soon.”
7
“I could drive to the Czech Republic. Remember when we went skiing there? Completely isolated—all tiny villages and roads that don’t go anywhere. I could push him into a ravine somewhere and come straight back home.” Werner spread a layer of tapenade over a piece of toast. “My parents’ house in the Gers never gets any visitors either, for that matter.”
Helen picked at some loose skin on her cuticle. “You’d be away from home for the night.”
He shrugged. “I do that fairly often anyway, when I go away for trade fairs.”
“But there aren’t any trade fairs at the moment.”
He paused briefly. “I could leave early in the morning, then. I’d be back around midnight. If we planned it right, the kids wouldn’t even notice I went away. I wouldn’t need to spend the night anywhere either.”
Helen took a moment to process this. She did her utmost to not think about how bizarre and gruesome their topic of conversation was, and focused instead on how feasible Werner’s ideas were. His pragmatic approach disturbed and unsettled her, but she also knew he was right. Emotions wouldn’t get them anywhere. Deep down, she wondered how long she would be able to stand this. “You’d leave a digital trail—gas stations, toll roads. And somebody might notice your license plate. A foreign car would be particularly noticeable in a remote area. If someone finds the body, the first thing the police will do is check whether anyone has seen anything unusual.”
Werner tapped his bent index finger against his chin.
“What’s the matter?”
“I was just thinking that I might have an accident. Or get stopped by customs.”
Helen covered her face with her hands. “I feel like I’m going crazy. Maybe—maybe it would be better to bury him in the garden.” She looked up, sought Werner’s eyes. “But I don’t know if I can cope with it—just the idea that there’s somebody lying out there. I’d never . . . It’s so horrible.”
“I wouldn’t want that either.” Werner grinned mirthlessly. “Not in my backyard.”
“I sometimes think—” She shook her head. “If we were to call the police right now, then—”
“Then we would be a couple who shot dead an intruder with an illegal firearm and hid his body in the freezer for two days.”
“For Christ’s sake, Werner!” Helen slammed her palm on the tabletop. She hardly felt the pain. Leaping to her feet, she kicked the unyielding oak of the kitchen island in frustration, and kicked it again. Then she stood still, breathing rapidly, her whole body trembling. She wanted to scream as loud as she could, pull her hair out by the roots, hurl plates and knives at the wall, physically attack Werner. For two days, she had done her level best to act as normal as possible—to negate and suppress all the emotions she felt—but she could do it no longer. She suddenly felt completely drained. “We’ve made a terrible mistake.” Her voice sounded hoarse. “There’s no way out. We should have calle
d the police right away.”
Werner said something in reply, but she didn’t take it in. She raised her head and looked outside, her eyes filling with tears. It was growing dark. The swimming pool would soon need to be covered to protect it from falling leaves, and the pump would have to be cleaned for the winter. The rest of the garden lights were still broken. She could hardly imagine that not even forty-eight hours ago she had still been worried about all that—about such trivialities.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her sleeves and continued to gaze through the window, at the neatly trimmed boxwoods and the roof-shaped plane trees. Their branches were entwined with the bars of a trellis, on which she would hang garlands of peanuts and suet balls every winter. It was wonderful to watch the birds coming and going. Balm for the soul.
“I’ve heard that pigs will eat anything,” she suddenly heard Werner say.
She turned to face him abruptly. His blue eyes had a glassy look to them.
“Werner . . . that’s going too far. Seriously. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
8
The last rays of the sun fell through the windows of the restaurant and flooded the room with an ochre-yellow glow.
Naomi was sitting opposite Ralf at a table, stirring her raspberry milkshake with a straw. Her brown hair glittered with spots of golden light.
“Hey, buddy,” Ralf said into his phone, his eyes fixed on Naomi. “I’m looking for Brian. Have you seen him at all?”
“He’ll probably be at Naomi’s place.”
“Nope, he isn’t there.”
“Well, he must be somewhere.”
“I guess so. Thanks.” Ralf hung up. He’d called just about all their mutual friends. None of them had seen or spoken to Brian since Friday.
“No?” Naomi looked at him inquiringly. Her lips gleamed in a soft pink.
“No.” Ralf picked up the last piece of the burger from the box in front of him and used it to mop up the remnants of lettuce and sauce before eating it. Stress made him hungry.
He didn’t give anything away to Naomi, but with that last phone call, he had abandoned any hope that Brian was still alive. In truth, he’d known it since the evening it all happened—but knowing and accepting were two different things. He simply found it hard to believe that somebody had gotten the better of his friend. Brian seemed invincible, totally in charge of any situation. Then again, Biggie hadn’t been able to believe it either when he’d heard that Tupac had been shot dead in Vegas.
“Maybe he’s at his mother’s place,” said Naomi.
“I don’t have her number. Do you?”
Naomi shook her head. “I don’t know her very well. But I know where she lives. We could drive over there now?”
Ralf had already tried Brian’s mother’s house yesterday, but he didn’t tell Naomi that. He had known Emily for a while now. The first time he met her, he had taken her for Brian’s sister, or a neighbor. She didn’t look like anybody’s mother, let alone Brian’s. He must have inherited those mean, beady eyes from his father, as Emily had brown, Bambi eyes.
“Should we go?” Naomi urged.
Ralf folded his hamburger box in half, then folded it again. Said nothing. In hindsight, he was glad Emily hadn’t been home. Brian didn’t see much of his mother, and anyway, he had disappeared only two days ago. Emily wasn’t stupid. She’d understand instantly that if Ralf was looking so soon, something was wrong. And that he knew more than he was letting on.
“I have to go to the restroom.” Naomi got up and walked away.
Ralf watched her walk across the room: tight jeans, high heels. He’d been so jealous when Brian had introduced him to Naomi, and he found it even more surprising that she had unhesitatingly gotten into his car just now and let him drive her to McDonald’s. She’d sat so close to him that he could smell her chewing gum, as well as a hint of her shampoo, or whatever it was that smelled so wonderful. He had deliberately driven the wrong way so that he could sit next to her in the car for a little longer. Brian would tear Ralf a new one if he knew about all the things he’d done with Naomi in his imagination.
When she came back, she’d freshened up her lipstick; her mouth was a darker pink. There was also something different about her hair.
He stood up. “Come on; let’s go.”
“To Emily’s?”
“No. No point worrying her.” He gave her a sidelong look. “Should we try visiting some of your friends?” Friends called Sara, for example, he added mentally.
It was worth a try. There hadn’t been a good opportunity to ask her about Sara yet, since there was no obvious reason why he would be interested in her.
Once outside, Naomi said, “Maybe it’d be better if you took me home. I need to study for my exam tomorrow. My mother will kill me if I fail history again.”
He walked beside her in silence. She was giving him the slip, just when he really needed her.
Her face brightened when they reached his Polo. “Your car is really nice, you know. I can’t wait until I get my driver’s license. But that’s still two years away. You won’t catch me dead on a bike once I get a car.”
As he unlocked the door, he said as nonchalantly as possible, “I could give you a driving lesson sometime if you like.”
Her eyes flew wide open. “Really? Are you serious? Oh, that would be amazing!” Then her face fell. “This is a joke, right?”
“No joke. Brian must have let you drive his car a couple of times already, I bet?”
She raised one of her thin eyebrows. “Brian won’t even let me hold the steering wheel.”
“Well, I don’t mind you holding mine,” he heard himself say.
Monday
Mother Dear,
Do you remember the conversation we had in that old coffee shop in town? We spent the whole afternoon there. I’m sure you remember the time I’m talking about, even though it was nearly eighteen years ago. I don’t think we’d ever had such an open and honest discussion before. I was twenty-two, and in my eyes, you were beginning to change from a mother who stood far above me to a woman who walked by my side.
You told me you were very happy with me, but that you regretted ever meeting Father. You wished you’d chosen a different partner for yourself, and a different father for me. One who was less selfish. Two years earlier, we’d gotten word from Aruba that he drowned while diving—but by that point, we hadn’t seen or heard anything from him for six years. His absence had shadowed my entire youth. My tough, handsome father—why did he choose another woman over us? Didn’t he think we were good enough? I often blamed myself, and sometimes I blamed you. So unfair, but I didn’t know any better.
Because you had made the wrong choices when it came to men, you thought it was your duty to protect me. “Children should do better than their parents, not repeat their mistakes,” you said. You were talking about my choosing Werner.
You didn’t think he was a bad person, and you said as much. Those were the exact words you used, and only then did I understand the situation—that you actually couldn’t stand him.
“There’s a lack of warmth in his character; it’s as though nothing really touches him,” you said that afternoon. When I told you that you’d gotten it all wrong—that when we were together, he was really very kind and loving, and that I would rather be with a tough guy than a tree hugger anyway—all you did was shake your head.
What neither of us knew on that day was that I was already a month pregnant with Sara. You never said anything negative about Werner again, though you made your point very clear in a different way further down the line. Fortunately, you never let the children see any sign of your aversion to him. We went on to have many more conversations, but I never forgot that afternoon. Usually, the memory roused feelings of anger and frustration. Didn’t I make better choices than you when it came to men? Only now, over the last few years, have the things you said back then finally sunk in. A little late, right? I always was a slow learner. But I think I now f
ully understand what you meant that afternoon. You were wise; I was young and in love. And pregnant.
The reason I’ve come to think so differently about all this is because I’ve met Lex. By now, I know him well enough to see that he would have been a much more suitable partner for me than Werner. I feel like I’m a better person when I’m around Lex.
But, Mother, what good does that do me? What good does that do the children? Things turned out differently. Werner has his faults, but he’s there for the kids, and he never lets us down.
I don’t want to be one of those parents who turns her back on her family when things get tough and flounces off to seek her own happiness. Because at the end of the day, Mother, I’d just be doing exactly what Father did all those years ago. I’d be putting myself first—ahead of Sara, Thom, and Emma. This family gives the kids stability, certainty, strength. It’s their foundation.
And yet, after Friday, I’m not so sure about that anymore. I thought I knew Werner—but do I really? He bought a gun without telling me. What possessed him? And how do you even get hold of a gun? I wouldn’t know where to start.
But Werner knew. And then he kept that awful thing in our bedroom. Mother, it’s true that he’d been afraid of a robbery for a long time. But a lot of people worry about that—do they all go out and buy guns? Is there something I don’t know? Does it have anything to do with all that time he spends at work? Do Werner’s actions really add up?
1
“Good afternoon. I’m Helen. What’s your name?”
“Piet van Drunen,” replied the patient—a man with thick gray hair and a piercing glare.
“And your date of birth?”
“March twenty-seventh, 1950.”
Helen typed the first letters of his surname on the touchscreen. His data promptly appeared on the display, below-the-knee amputation.
“I’ll just put in a drip for you,” she said, and disinfected a spot on his forearm. She doubted that the man was still working full-time, given his age, but she asked him nonetheless.
Mother Dear Page 7