She shot him a furious glare. “You said it yourself. I’d have to report my own mother. And you too. And it would take too long. What if my father . . . ? These are my parents we’re talking about, Ralf. Who says it’s even true? I can’t believe it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Shh.” She raised her hand and looked up her father’s number, but her thumb hovered motionlessly over his photo. “Fuck.” She bit her lower lip. “What should I tell her?”
“That she needs to get away from your father because he probably took her to England to kill her, or to have her killed?”
Sara stood frozen in the middle of her bedroom, holding her phone in her trembling hand. Slowly, her shoulders sagged. “I just can’t believe it,” she whispered. “That this is happening. But that handwriting—” Her breath caught. She turned her face toward him. “Ralf? We need to go there.”
“What?”
“We need to go where my parents are. If it’s really true that my father . . . then I need to stop him myself.”
“I don’t know if—”
She grabbed his arms and looked up at him. “I want to look him in the eyes, Ralf. He’s my father. You have a car.”
“Hey, I only got my license five months ago. They drive on the left over there.”
“It can’t be that hard, can it? We’ll just go to, what’s it called, Calais, and then it’ll be clear enough from there.”
“Don’t you need to book the crossing in advance?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. A friend of mine just got back from England. They have ferries there, plus a railroad tunnel. All sorts of options. You can travel around the clock.”
Ralf was unconvinced. “What about your grandparents? You’re supposed to go to school tomorrow.”
“Jackie will cover for me. I’ll tell them I’m staying with her, and I’ll park my scooter at her house.”
“And what will you tell her parents?”
“I’ll come up with something. Come on. You need to get going. Pick me up from Jackie’s in half an hour. Oh, wait.” She stopped him. “Do you have ID?”
He patted the inside pocket of his jacket.
“Perfect. I’ll see you soon.”
23
“The way that woman reacted!” The tears rolled down Helen’s cheeks, and her stomach muscles ached.
Werner put on his poshest English accent. “Not. Amused. At. All.” He threw his cardigan into the corner of the hotel room and pulled Helen toward him.
She put her arms around his neck. “I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.”
“Me neither.”
“You know the waiter saw you, right? Those silly faces you were making. They’ll ban us from that restaurant tonight if we’re not careful.”
“I’m more worried about something else.” His face took on a serious expression.
She grew alarmed. “What?”
“What if those two end up sitting right next to us at dinner?”
She burst into laughter once more. “Oh, stop it! Honestly, if that happens, then you’ll have to carry me out of there.”
“It’s her husband I feel sorry for. She had him perfectly trained.”
“Not entirely. He kept staring at my cleavage.”
“I don’t blame him.” His hand cupped her right breast. “Scandalous, the way you carry on.”
“Since when are Anthropologie dresses scandalous? They’re very tasteful, don’t you know.”
His fingers brushed teasingly over her nipple. “Not with your gorgeous body squeezed into them, they aren’t. Then they’re positively outrageous.”
Helen gasped. Her whole body responded to his touch.
“Especially in a respectable hotel like this,” he murmured as his other hand disappeared under her dress. “Full of such respectable people.”
24
The drive had gone well until they reached the Antwerp ring road, where an overturned truck had delayed them by a full hour. Shortly after that, they had filled up the gas tank—Sara had paid—and they were now crossing the French border. The voices on the radio were incomprehensible.
Ralf was dazed by the lights of the oncoming traffic. He narrowed his eyes to slits and pretended that he had everything under control. The imminent prospect of driving on the left in England filled him with anxiety, but it wasn’t half as terrifying as the knowledge that he would be coming face-to-face with Sara’s parents once he got there. And yet he had to do this. Not for Sara or her mother, but for himself.
Sara obviously wasn’t feeling her best either. She had her face turned away from him and was pretending to look out of the window, but he could see her shoulders shaking. Every now and then, he heard a sob.
“How much farther do we have?”
Sara wiped her nose with the back of her hand and looked at her phone. “Another hour and a half or so. Just follow this road.” Her voice was nasal.
“Wouldn’t it have been better to book tickets in advance?”
“How could I? I don’t even have a credit card.”
“What if—”
“It’s a regular service. Trains go back and forth all the time. It won’t be a problem—it’s not like we have a big truck or anything. They always have room for a car.”
He paused briefly. “How many times have you been to England?”
“Never. But I’ve heard enough about it.” She kept looking at him. “Why were you there that night, Ralf?”
“I already told you.” His eyelids fluttered. These oncoming headlights were driving him crazy. He was afraid to drive as fast as he normally did. “Brian needed a ride. He’d lost his license. All I had to do was wait for him outside. I only found out later whose house it was.”
“Do you do things like that a lot? Break into people’s houses?”
“No, that was the first time.” A muscle twitched in his cheek. “And the last.”
“You’re a good liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Maybe not right now. But we talked about Brian at the party, and about his mother—how she’d reported him missing, and stuff. You didn’t give anything away.”
“I’m not proud of it” was all he said.
For a long time, there was silence; they were both lost in their own thoughts. Ralf focused on the road and listened with half an ear to Tupac. The volume was low, but it didn’t matter. He knew all the lyrics by heart.
“Why are you helping me?” asked Sara.
“I don’t know.”
He did know, but he wasn’t about to tell her. He was sick to death of people belittling him, constantly being underestimated. Year after year, he had been mistreated by frustrated teachers, by the neighborhood police, even by Brian. He wasn’t going to let anybody else push him around or put him down. The first step had been standing up to Mikey. Now it was everybody else’s turn. When he found Werner and Helen, he would make the two of them tell him everything they knew about what happened to Brian. Then it would be up to Sara to figure things out with her parents. They could murder each other or fall sobbing into each other’s arms—whatever they wanted, as long as they left him out of it. That said, Sara’s mother had seemed like a good person. She was cut from a very different cloth from Sara and her father.
But that wasn’t his problem.
He had enough to worry about with his own mother.
Less than three hours ago, he had gone home to pick up his things and had pulled the wool over her eyes—telling her he had found work on a construction site up in the north, in Groningen. A project that would last a few days. He would stay with a friend. Previously, she would have looked at him with suspicion and asked for names and numbers, but after everything that had happened last week, she’d trusted him. She’d been genuinely happy for him. The look on her face . . . Shame cut through him like a knife. He was her only child. She deserved better.
His parents both deserved better.
&
nbsp; 25
Helen was glad that the romantic part of their first day of vacation had taken place before dinner, as the atmosphere in the Michelin-starred restaurant the Boss was like the inside of a refrigerator. The same went for the temperature. Her bare legs were covered in goose bumps, and she regretted not bringing a cardigan. Or maybe a parka. The concept was doubtlessly very trendy, but it was lost on her. A raised, diner-style bench had been installed along the wall of a large industrial kitchen, with a step to help you get onto it. There were smooth, square tables lined up against the bench, with barstools opposite. The furniture was arranged in one long row, with hard, white lighting overhead. It felt uncomfortable to sit so high up, with your legs dangling into space, although you did have a good view of the chefs as they went about their work. There was barely any privacy for the guests either, as the tables were positioned very close together.
Fortunately, their neighbors were speaking English.
Werner didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. He examined every course with interest and ate with dainty bites. “Molecular gastronomy,” he called it, but it felt more like a chemistry lesson to Helen. Or a guessing game. Something that looked like a vegetable could easily turn out to be fish or a piece of meat. White chocolate crumbled into powder when you touched it and tasted of rose petals.
The courses were brought out in quick succession, accompanied by mumbled explanations delivered in incomprehensible dialect, and so the conversation never had a chance to get going. The chefs delivered their creations to the table personally, the sommelier served wine after wine—each with its own explanation too—and a waitress topped off their water glasses so often, it felt intrusive.
It all put Helen on edge. “It’s awfully expensive, isn’t it?” she remarked when she realized that this little dinner would cost more than six hundred euros.
“Even so, I don’t think they make much money here.” Werner surveyed his surroundings calculatingly. “Not many covers compared to the size of the kitchen staff.”
There were eight or nine chefs hard at work in the kitchen, and every one of them looked young, toned, and hip. It was clear that they hadn’t just been hired for their cooking skills. A black woman was mopping the kitchen floor, while two of the chefs leaned against a counter and chatted.
The memory of her evening with Lex sprang to Helen’s mind. A snug little table in a warm, noisy, dimly lit eatery, with recognizable food that tasted the way it looked. And a dinner partner who had looked at her as if she were the most beautiful woman he had seen in years. Werner was mainly preoccupied with his food. After they’d had sex—which had admittedly been very good—he had withdrawn into himself once more. That was nothing new, she realized. He had been like that from the very beginning, though it had bothered her less back then. After all, she had changed over the years just as much as Werner had. Maybe even more. Originally, she had fallen for his pragmatism—his cool, rational way of looking at the world. She had mistaken it for strength. But since meeting Lex, she had realized that strength could also go with warmth and friendliness—and that those things might even be a better combination.
26
“Shit. Look at this.”
The Eurotunnel was closed. Electronic signposts above the road displayed alternate routes.
“How is this possible?” asked Sara. “They can’t do that, can they? Just close the entire tunnel like that?”
“They can if there’s a bomb threat.”
She looked at him in alarm.
“Or a fire, or whatever.” Ralf looked at his dashboard. It was just after nine, but it felt like midnight. He yawned and rubbed his eyes.
“There are ferries too,” she said. “Let’s try those instead.” She pointed to a line of cars following the signs toward a ferry terminal.
He pulled out of the line, moved into the outside lane, and joined the traffic.
27
“Did you understand what he said?”
“Not a word. But this”—he lifted his glass and examined the liquid inside—“is definitely white wine.”
Helen took a sip. The wine tasted good, but she still didn’t feel at ease. Her feet were resting on a metal bar positioned halfway between her seat and the floor. She felt like a toddler. Or a dwarf. She had hoped she would adopt a more positive view of the evening after a few drinks, but she was struggling to enjoy herself.
“What’s on the program for tomorrow?”
She noticed his jaw clench. “Something very different.”
“Like what?”
He picked up a piece of bread and tore it down the middle. “Do you want any?”
“No, thanks. Will it be something fun?”
“We’re going to walk off all the calories we consumed today.”
“Oh really? On the hotel grounds?”
He shook his head. “An hour’s drive away. It’s a tough hike, I’ve been told. But well worth the effort.”
“What is there to see?”
He pinched the bread, plucked a piece off. “You’ll find out tomorrow.”
She gave up. There was no point asking questions when he was in this mood. And why should she, anyway? He had arranged everything perfectly so far, and a little mystery made everything more fun. More exciting. Although she would have much preferred to eat a burger at a local pub this evening.
“It’s interesting, I’ll grant you, but it’s not exactly homey, is it?” she said, looking around demonstratively. The room was now flooded with sharply dressed people, but it was still as brightly lit as the freezer aisle in a supermarket.
“Not everything has to be,” answered Werner. “It’s a trendy concept, and they’ve executed it without making any concessions. Kind of fun to experience something like that. They say it’s the best restaurant in the region.”
“It must just be me, then.”
“Sometimes it’s good to step outside your comfort zone,” he said.
Course number six was brought to the table by a young chef with a South Asian background who listed the ingredients one by one. He had a friendly smile, but his explanation—delivered in brisk English—was lost amid the noise from the kitchen and the background buzz of the restaurant.
Helen peered at her plate. Its contents resembled a collage made of bath foam, flower petals—purple and yellow, were they violets?—and a few cubes of a glistening substance.
“Looks amazing, doesn’t it?” asked Werner.
“Very interesting. But is it edible?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
She picked up a petal from her plate and placed it on her tongue. It tasted of petal.
28
Ralf drove away from the terminal building, which had the words “Port de Calais” painted on it in black lettering. There were still long lines of stranded travelers waiting inside. Truck drivers, businesspeople, students. Everybody was hoping to buy tickets for the next crossing, but the ferry companies had all sold out. The later sailings were all full too. Ralf was relieved that they’d managed to get hold of some tickets, even though the boat wasn’t departing for eight and a half hours. At least their place on board was guaranteed.
“Are there any potato chips left?”
Sara shook her head. “They’re all gone.”
Ralf looked around. Nothing but cars, tall fences, barbed wire, concrete. Not a KFC or a McDonald’s to be seen.
“I think we have to go through customs first,” said Sara. “After that, I’m sure there’ll be a café somewhere selling sandwiches and stuff.”
Ralf followed the signs for the ferries. The word “customs” made him uneasy. It had felt like such a good plan when he’d been packing his things at home, but now that he was confronted with all these grim fences, cameras, and uniforms, it suddenly seemed a lot less clever. Naive, even.
At home, whenever he was unsure whether to take a scarf or hat out with him, his father would always say, Better safe than sorry. But that saying wasn’t always true, he realized now
.
Or maybe it only applied to hats and scarves. Not to the item lying at the bottom of his duffel bag.
29
Dessert consisted of small morsels that looked like pieces of summer fruit. Helen bit into a blueberry and lifted her eyebrows in surprise. No powder. No chocolate or ginger. It was a berry. A real one. She nearly burst out laughing.
Squinting at the menu on the table between them, she mentally ticked off the dishes that had already been served. This was the final course. Just a little longer in this noisy kitchen and then the whole exercise would be over.
“Shame—a bit basic, this one.” Werner laid his spoon on his empty plate.
“I like it. The Bavarian cream is good.”
“True, but I’d been hoping for ice cream.”
Helen wanted to remark that the events of the past week had left her with an immense aversion to frozen food, but she held her tongue.
“Are you looking forward to tomorrow?” he asked.
“I think so.”
He looked straight at her for a moment, then lowered his eyes to the tabletop. Wiped a crumb from the surface. “We’re going to do something exciting. Something you’ve never done before. Me neither, for that matter.” He smiled. “I don’t even think it’s allowed. But we’re going to do it anyway.”
“You’re making me very curious now.”
His face tightened. He gave no other response, so she summarized: “It’s about an hour away. A tough hike, you said. And it might not be allowed. Something I’ve never done before, and you haven’t either.” It couldn’t be a ride in a hot-air balloon, as that wouldn’t involve a long walk. And it was legal, of course—even in England. At least, she assumed so.
“Do you think the kids are in bed already?” she wondered out loud.
“Are you really thinking about the kids right now?”
She opened her bag out of habit and went to take out her phone. Then remembered she’d lost it. Was everything OK at home? It was nearly midnight, and all three of the children had school tomorrow, so it was too late to call. A sad feeling welled up inside her. Homesickness, she realized. “I wanted to wish them good night.”
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