“Mom!” Sara ran toward Helen, stumbling over the uneven ground.
Werner froze. His rage gave way to complete bewilderment when he saw his daughter.
Sara fell to her knees and drew her mother’s head onto her lap. “Mom?”
Werner remained still, taking in the tableau of his wife with his elder daughter. His shoulders sagged. The stick slid from his fingers and fell to the ground. Slowly, jerkily, he sank to his knees and bent forward, holding his hands over his face.
Ralf kept the pistol trained on Werner. All he could hear was his heartbeat growing louder and more insistent, like a kettledrum in his head. The gun felt cold and heavy in his hand.
“Ralf? Give that to me.” Helen was suddenly standing next to him. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hat was askew, but her voice was strangely calm. “We aren’t going to shoot anybody here.” She gently pushed his arm down and took the pistol from his hand.
He watched her tuck it into the pocket of her coat. Behind her, Werner had scarcely stirred. Sitting there like that—huddled on the edge of the cliff, his face in his hands—he suddenly looked so small and vulnerable. All energy and aggression seemed to have drained out of him.
“Come on; we’re leaving,” said Helen. She put a hand on Ralf’s arm.
Ralf hesitated. He looked at Werner again. His back was hunched, his body shuddering. He might have been crying, but the wind carried the sound out to sea.
Broken, thought Ralf. A broken man.
“Ralf, are you coming?”
He looked up and saw Helen and Sara walking down the hill. Hurried after them, without looking back.
The fall sun hung low over the hills and cast long shadows on the fields. The rolling landscape seemed friendly, gentle. All the villages in this region had complicated names and lay remarkably far apart. Between them, the landscape was dominated by rugged wilderness and farmland, with just the occasional house dotted here and there—at the end of a long, muddy driveway leading through a thick coniferous wood, or on top of a freshly plowed hill and surrounded by open barns full of farm equipment being stored until spring. Settlements that looked like they had been built in the Middle Ages, assembled from large red or sand-colored stones, with shutters over the windows and a well in the yard.
The surroundings made a great contrast to the congestion on the freeway. A whole other world—a silent world, seemingly outside time. Ralf hadn’t seen a single person in the last twenty minutes, although he had spotted packs of long-eared hunting dogs. They were scavenging by the side of the road, their noses sniffing along the ground. Just now, a deer had jumped out of the path of the Mercedes.
Ralf tapped his fingers on the leather steering wheel. The latex operating gloves had felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable when he put them on this morning in the Netherlands. He had grown used to them by now—just like the brand-new coveralls and work boots that he was wearing, and the disposable cap covering his hair. Not that you could see it—he was wearing a new knitted beanie on top, pulled down firmly over his ears.
He looked like an employee at a garage delivering a car, or somebody who had borrowed his boss’s Mercedes. That was the exact intention. He had had to get out only once to refuel, but there were often cameras in places like that.
Invisible speakers were playing “Dear Mama,” Tupac’s ode to his mother. He hadn’t listened to this song in a long time. The slow tempo suited the landscape and the thoughts running through his mind—memories and resolutions—while the music and the lyrics fed emotions that he couldn’t quite put into words. Tupac’s mother had outlived her son, he realized. All she had left was his music.
Ralf pushed up his sunglasses. Outside it was hot, but the climate control kept the temperature inside the car perfectly comfortable. Next to him, on the beige leather seat, lay a Montblanc laptop bag that didn’t belong to him. It contained items that weren’t his either: an iPhone, a MacBook, a passport, a wallet full of cash, bank cards, and a gleaming golden credit card. He had used the latter item to pay the toll—more than one hundred euros. The receipts were tucked underneath the sun visor.
Ahead of him stood a signpost announcing a village. The name was long and full of abbreviations. He couldn’t pronounce it, but that didn’t matter. The GPS would take him where he needed to go. Just before he reached the sleepy French hamlet, he turned off the main road and followed a narrower lane that took him deeper into the countryside. Forested plots, empty meadows. Not a house to be seen. Crows hopped across the stubble-covered fields, and hawks swooped high above them in the azure-blue sky.
Ralf slowed down. Following the instructions from the GPS, he steered the Mercedes onto a forest trail. It was bumpy and poorly maintained, exactly as Helen had described.
Just a few minutes later, he emerged onto a clearing. There was a small house with a pointed roof and a wooden shed next to it. A small round yard covered with dusty gravel.
Ralf got out and looked around. Listened. No noise from a nearby highway; no voices or music. Only birdsong. Earthy odors: soil, vegetation, decay. An animal smell too. A shudder ran through him. Who would want to live in such a remote place? He would go crazy after just one day here.
He opened the rear door and took a suitcase from the back seat. Tucked the laptop bag under his arm and walked up to the front door of the house.
The key fit the lock.
“Helen? It’s Ria. Sorry to be so direct, but Ernst and I are worried about Werner.”
“Why? Is something the matter?” Helen braked for a red light. It was early in the evening, and the roads were busy; most people were on their way home for dinner. Her workday was only just beginning.
“We’ve been trying to get ahold of him for a week, but he isn’t answering his phone.”
“The signal in the Gers isn’t great,” said Helen as the traffic started moving again.
“That’s not the reason. At first, his phone rang when we called it, but it hasn’t done that for a few days now. Instead, we hear a sort of cut-off tone.”
“Werner wanted some peace and quiet. He probably just turned his phone off.”
“Have you heard from him in the last week?”
“No. The last time I saw him was when he came over to pick up his things last Thursday.”
“Did he say anything? Did you talk to each other at all?”
“Barely. He collected what he wanted to take with him and then left for France.”
Her mother-in-law sighed and was silent for a moment. “I might as well tell you that Ernst and I think it’s a real shame you two are fighting. So unexpectedly too. It was such a shock when you came back from England separately.”
“I’m just glad he was able to stay at your place,” she remarked.
Ria sighed again. “Werner told us that you two had been having problems for a while now. He’d expected your trip to turn out very differently.”
“Oh yes, I’m sure he did. You could say the same for me, of course.”
“He kept saying there was no way to patch things up.”
“I don’t know what else he told you, but it wasn’t a real fight, Ria. If you ask me, he’s struggling with his own feelings more than anything else. He’s been working far too hard over the last few years. But it’ll all blow over, I think. We’ve been together for such a long time.” Helen drove onto the hospital parking lot and looked around for a good spot, as close to the staff entrance as possible.
“Well, Helen, there’s something else.”
Helen felt her eyelid twitch. “What?”
“I asked the neighbors to pop over and take a look at the house. They said his car is parked in the yard, and the bed has been slept in. The lights were on, but Werner himself is nowhere to be seen.”
“Huh. You’re right; that is strange. Maybe he went hiking? Or camping? He did take the tent with him.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that.”
“I really wouldn’t worry, Ria. Werner was looking for peace and quiet. He didn’t want to be bothered by work
calls when he was in England either. Anyway, speaking of work, I have to go. I got to the hospital a few minutes ago, and my shift is about to start. As soon as I hear anything from Werner, I’ll let you know. But honestly, Ria, there’s no reason to be worried. I’m not.”
Helen got out of the car. Two colleagues walked past, greeting her. She smiled, then pretended that an important message had just arrived on her phone. For appearance’s sake, she reread one of the messages that she and Lex had exchanged over the past few days. She felt tense, but she still couldn’t help smiling.
Only once her colleagues were out of sight did she walk to the back of her Fiat and open the trunk. She took a deep breath.
“Well, here we go,” she whispered, before lifting out two heavy yellow shopping bags. As she walked toward the staff entrance, she felt the chill emanating from them through the thick fabric of her jeans.
Mother Dear,
This summer, it will have been eight years since you passed away. Your absence feels different now from how it felt in the beginning. Different, but not less. What I didn’t fully understand back then was that, when you died, I lost the last person in the world who loved me selflessly. Somebody who would always take my side, whatever I did. You once said to me, “Mothers love their children more than their children love them. That’s natural, and it’s how things should be.” You were probably right, just as you were right with so many other things.
I wasn’t always very understanding toward you, Mother. I regret that. When I remember our arguments, I cringe with shame. I was always so critical of you.
I often blamed you for splitting up with Father. I was jealous of friends who had a normal family life, and I focused on what I didn’t have instead of all the things you gave me. Only now can I see that it’s sometimes better to grow up without a father. And that your feelings about Werner were correct—though you could never have predicted any of this. Who could? It’s pure luck that I’m still alive.
I would rather have had him locked up, Mother. That would have been far preferable. But if I’d followed the official route, then Sara, Thom, and Emma would have lost both their parents. They would have been left dependent on one another, brought up by Werner’s parents, or drifting from one foster family to another. The thought of it tore me up inside. The alternative was just as horrible: Should I have held my tongue and continued to expose my children to the man who tried to kill their mother? Should I have suffered in silence while they spent their weekends with him? A mother’s duty is to protect her children. So that’s what I’ve done.
Yes, Mother, I know—I’m just as worried about Sara as you are. She’s seen and heard too much. But she’s strong too. She has her pragmatic father’s genes. I think I’ve managed to gloss over most of it. Justify it, even. And as far as she knows, Werner went to France to work on himself.
His body was never found. Ultimately, she’ll be better off without him.
We all will.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Emily and Ria lately. Emily was on TV just now. Her son has been missing for six months, and she thinks the police aren’t doing enough to investigate. She wept; she looked straight at the camera. I was so close to picking up the phone. It’s eating away at me, Mother. More and more. I don’t know if I can stay quiet, if I can keep the truth from her. Then again, I’ll never know if she and Werner were partners in crime, or if she knew that Werner wanted to remove me from his life so drastically.
Maybe I’ll still do it; maybe I’ll confess what I’ve done to Ria and Emily. Not now, but in the future. When my kids no longer need me.
Acknowledgments
Berry
&
Annelies
Sally
Sabrine
Sabine
Renate
Nini
Monique
José
J. and L.
Debby
&
Carola
Thank you to Jozef van der Voort, Liza Darnton, the copyeditor, the proofreader, and the teams in the US and UK for all the work, effort, knowledge, and love you have put into this translation. I could not have asked for a better team.
About the Author
Photo © Noortje Dalhuijsen
Nova Lee Maier is a pseudonym of Dutch bestselling author Esther Verhoef, whose psychological thrillers and novels have sold more than 2.5 million copies in the Netherlands. Esther is the recipient of numerous awards, including the NS Publieksprijs (NS Audience Award/Prix Public); the Hebban Crimezone Award; the Diamanten Kogel (Diamond Bullet); and for Mother Dear, the prestigious Gouden Strop (Golden Noose) Award for best crime thriller of the year. She is also the author of Close-Up and Rendezvous, both available in English. For more information, visit www.novaleemaier.com and www.estherverhoef.com.
About the Translator
Jozef van der Voort is a professional translator adapting Dutch, German, and French into English. A Dutch-British dual national, he grew up in southeast England and studied literature and languages in Durham and Sheffield. He has lived and worked in Austria, France, Luxembourg, Germany, and Belgium. As a literary translator, he took part in the Emerging Translators Programme run by New Books in German and was also named runner-up in the 2014 Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize. Mother Dear is his first translated novel.
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