‘Gerd says she’s in casualty. She might be seriously injured. Could you bear to see her like that?’
‘Are you crazy? She’s our daughter!’
Karin is right. Lena needs us there with her, especially in her condition. I put my foot down and push our old Volvo to its limits. After more than thirteen years, only one hundred and eighty kilometres separate us from our child.
‘Ciao, Paps! See you soon! And thanks again!’ I hear her say as clear as a bell, and in my mind I see her skipping down the steps to the front garden. On the afternoon before she disappeared, she came to see us for a coffee. Her bicycle had been stolen from campus and I made sure I handed over the money behind Karin’s back. Karin thought the girl ought to be more independent and, like lots of other students, get a part-time job. I thought that was a very bad idea. The girl ought to concentrate on her studies. Well, now the girl needed a new bike, so I’d given her the three hundred euros.
Ciao, Paps! See you soon!
Ciao, my angel, see you in 4,993 days . . .
‘Matthias?’ Karin is waving my mobile. Only now do I notice the ringing and the blue display light illuminating the dark interior of the car.
‘Gerd,’ I presume, and I imagine him standing outside our house at this moment, ringing the doorbell a few times and realising that we’ve left without him. I glance at the dashboard. He’d have been on time.
‘Don’t worry, answer it.’
Gerd moans so loudly into Karin’s ear that even I can hear it. Karin apologises. ‘We couldn’t just wait, surely you can understand.’
Gerd tells her to tell me that I’m still an idiot – I hear this too and can’t help grinning when a feeling briefly flickers, a slight wistfulness. Gerd and I used to be best friends, in the past, in another life.
‘Yes, yes, don’t worry,’ Karin says to Gerd before she says goodbye, and at the touch of a button the car becomes dark again. ‘He said to meet him at the hospital. We’re to stay calm until he gets there, also on account of his colleagues at the hospital.’
I snort; the wistfulness is gone.
‘Like I give two figs about Herr Brühling’s colleagues. We want to know what’s happened to our daughter and that’s that.’
I can hear Karin rummaging around in her handbag; I suspect she’s putting my mobile away. But then I hear the familiar sound of a packet of paper tissues being opened. From the corner of my eye, I see her wiping her face.
‘Abduction,’ she sobs. ‘But if she was abducted, why didn’t anyone contact us about a ransom?’
I shrug.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time some sick bastard abducts a young woman to keep her.’ I immediately think of Mark Sutthoff. What if he did have something to do with Lena’s disappearance after all? Good God, I could have had him . . .
‘Keep is a dreadful word,’ Karin says, her voice mingling with the images inside my head. My hands on Mark Sutthoff’s collar, his back pressed up against a wall, his face as red as a lobster.
Where is she, you bastard?
‘I know,’ I say.
Karin snuffles. ‘Do you think she’ll recover? I don’t mean from the injuries in the accident.’
‘She’s a strong girl, she always was,’ I say with a smile of encouragement, and stroke Karin’s knee.
We spend the rest of the journey in silence, apart from the occasional clearing of a dry throat, either Karin’s or mine. I know what’s going through Karin’s mind. She’s wondering whether the person we’ll be getting back today can still in some way be our daughter, after all these years and everything she may have been through. In the past, Karin often said things like ‘I hope it was quick, at least’, or ‘I’m praying she managed it’. What she meant by managed it was her wish that Lena’s death had been quick, without any physical or mental torture, no suffering. Sometimes I found it difficult not to go for the jugular when she spoke like that, even though I secretly thought the same. I sense that we’re miles apart, even though we’re sitting in the same car with just the central armrest separating us. Karin is frightened, Karin has her doubts. Me, on the other hand, all I’m thinking is that there are doctors for everything, for both body and soul, that it’s all going to be fine now. Why else would Lena have survived if she wasn’t capable of living? If she didn’t want to cling on to life? Maybe I’m too naïve and Karin is too pessimistic; maybe the truth is somewhere in-between, like the central armrest. Maybe it’s handy and quite simple.
‘She’s strong,’ I assert again and Karin clears her throat.
Lena
Someone screams, ‘No!’ and ‘Oh God!’
My stiff body is wrenched away. Shaken. Warmth, a firm embrace.
‘Lena! Oh God, Lena!’
I blink. Give a weak smile. He came back after all, at the last moment. The children, they’re alive, their arms clasped around his neck. He has an arm around me. His face is pale with horror. I put out my cold hand, feel a tear.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says, and I say, ‘You saved us.’
‘Patient stable.’
Hannah
I think I’ve done something wrong. I’m sure I have, because I’ve already counted to 2,676 and Sister Ruth still isn’t back yet. I mimicked the noise of the watermelon for her. Bam! Then she said she had to ask whether we could go and see Mama, and while she was away I should keep drawing the picture of my family. I’ve given Papa a red patch on the side of his head but now I don’t know what else to do.
I’m tired. The night outside the windows has already turned a bit grey. I haven’t been up this late very often, only when Sara was still with us and kept us awake with her howling. You always have to have enough sleep so the body can regenerate. I lay my head on the table and close my eyes. Mama always says you can choose what you dream if you think hard enough about something before going to sleep. I want to dream something really nice. About Mama and me finally going on another trip, just the two of us because I’m her favourite child.
So I think as hard as I can about the first time we went away together. I was a bit anxious to begin with, but Mama said, ‘It’s a wonderful place, Hannah. You’ll love it there.’ And she said we weren’t to tell anyone we were going away.
‘Shh,’ she said, putting her finger to her lips. ‘Our trips are a secret.’
‘But you mustn’t lie, Mama!’
‘We’re not lying, Hannah. We’re just not telling anyone.’
‘What about Jonathan? He’ll get scared when he wakes up and finds nobody at home.’
‘Don’t you worry about him. He’ll sleep for a long time. And we’ll be back by the time he wakes up, I promise.’
We made ourselves look beautiful. Mama even let me put on my favourite dress, the white one with the flowers. Then we tiptoed out of the house to the car. I sat in the front, next to Mama. The road we drove on was as smooth as paper and reflected the sun. In places it shimmered in the heat like little, colourless fires. I pressed my nose against the cool glass of the window. The sky was a canvas, with snowy-white clouds against a blue background. I traced the outline of a cow cloud on the window. Mama laughed. A song was playing on the radio that we knew, and Mama’s laughter ruined the melody until she started singing along. We left the main road and turned into a residential area. Mama parked the car in the shade of a large tree. It was a maple. You can tell by its five-fingered leaves that look like a big green hand.
We’d been invited to a party, and it was taking place in a garden. Mama was right, it was a wonderful place. We were expected; people were laughing, waving and calling out, ‘There you are!’ Mama tried to introduce me, but I couldn’t stand still with excitement. I slipped off my sandals and ran barefoot through the garden, sniffing the hydrangea flowers that were as large as cabbages, then I threw myself on the lawn on my tummy. The grass smelled of the washing powder we always use. I picked blades of
grass and daisies and let a ladybird run over the back of my hand. A man with really light blue eyes and grey hair sat on the lawn beside me and said, ‘It’s so lovely you came, Hannah.’
I showed him the ladybird on my hand and he told me that ladybirds were really useful because they ate greenfly and spider mites. I was amazed, such a tiny creature.
‘They’re also said to bring good luck,’ the man said. I liked that.
Someone called us to eat. At the back of the garden a long table had been set up. I put the heel of my right foot to the toes of my left, then kept going like this until I measured the length of the table: thirty steps. There was chocolate cake and strawberry tart and custard with raspberries the size of my thumbnail and biscuits and pretzel sticks and barbecued sausages. I wanted to try everything, but Mama said we had to get back. Jonathan would wake up soon. The sleeping pills never work quite as long as we’d like.
‘Can I at least have a piece of chocolate cake, Mama? Just a little bit, please? I eat really fast.’
Mama shook her head. She took a cereal bar from her handbag, tore off the wrapper and gave it to me. ‘Too much sugar’s unhealthy, Hannah. When we’re back home we’ll read what too much sugar can do to your body. Now get your sandals, we’ve really got to go.’
She hurried towards the garden gate without saying goodbye to the other guests. When I caught her up just before she got to the car, I turned around again. Standing by the garden fence and waving at me was the man who’d told me about ladybirds. I raised my hand, but only briefly so Mama didn’t see. Then we were back home.
‘The excessive consumption of sugar and sugary foods can lead to the following symptoms,’ Mama began reading from the fat book, which is always right. She’d taken it from the shelves in the sitting room as soon as we got back. ‘Tiredness, lack of motivation, anxiety, digestive problems, flatulence, diarrhoea or constipation, nervousness, sleep and concentration disorders, as well as tooth decay. You see?’ She slammed the fat book shut, very loudly. ‘Be glad you didn’t have to eat the cake.’
I nodded. My mama looks after me. She only ever wants the best for me.
A moment later Jonathan was standing in the doorway. He must have just woken up.
‘What are you two doing?’ he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
‘Nothing, Jonathan,’ Mama said with a smile, and winked at me.
We had a secret, my mama and I. We belonged together for ever, my mama and I . . .
*
‘Hannah?’
I blink.
‘Hannah?’
I lift my head from the table.
Two strangers are standing in front of me. A man in a grey suit and a tall, thin woman with short brown hair. My body flinches with shock. Now I’m sitting up, my back very straight, like you have to do when sitting at the table for mealtimes. The woman offers me her hand. I hold out both of mine and turn them slowly so she can see my fingernails, then my palms. Before I can finish showing her she takes my right hand and shakes it. The woman and the man say, ‘Hello, Hannah,’ and tell me that Sister Ruth isn’t coming back right away because she has to have her break first.
‘She’s looked after you so nicely all this time,’ the woman says, smiling. Then she tells me her name is Dr Hamstedt, but she doesn’t look like a doctor. She’s not wearing a white coat. I want to tell her that, because she might just have forgotten her coat and could get into trouble, but I don’t get the chance because now it’s the man’s turn. He doesn’t want to see my hands either, even though he’s a policeman. He even shows me his ID and laughs because he looks very different in the photo than in real life.
‘I was young and handsome back then.’
I think this is supposed to be a joke, but the moment my mouth begins to twitch the man turns serious again.
‘Hannah, I urgently need to check that everything’s all right at your home,’ he says, taking the chair Sister Ruth was sitting in earlier. Then he stretches his neck to look at the pictures I drew and taps his finger right where Papa has a red patch on his head.
‘After what Sister Ruth told me I think something terrible happened there last night. I think you and your mother might have been so frightened that you ran away and then she had that accident in which she was injured.’
Now he takes my first picture, showing Mama and Papa in the woods, and points at the cloth that Papa’s holding.
‘You mustn’t be afraid, Hannah. Tell me where the cabin is. I’ll look after everything. And nothing bad is going to happen to you, I promise.’
‘Listen to Inspector Giesner, Hannah. You can trust us.’
‘Where’s the cabin, Hannah? Can you tell me how to get there?’ – the policeman again.
‘Don’t worry, you’re safe here’ – the woman.
I don’t find these people unfriendly. The policeman, in particular, is much nicer than I thought he’d be. But I don’t want to talk to them. I want Sister Ruth to come back, or at least I want to go to sleep. I think they understand this because they leave me in peace when I lay my head on the table again and close my eyes. I try to think of something nice to begin with, but it doesn’t work, because I’m trying so hard to listen to the man and woman for a sign they’re getting up and leaving the room. But they stay sitting there until I’ve counted to 148. Then I finally hear their chairs scrape across the floor and, shortly after that, the door.
Matthias
We turn into the hospital car park. It’s not quite four o’clock.
Karin reaches for my hand. Hers is cold and wet. She says something. I can’t hear anything apart from my own pulse in my ears. We don’t run, we don’t storm the building, we take cautious, little steps. Everything runs on autopilot. We enter the foyer through a door and walk the short distance to reception, where a woman is sitting. My mouth is moving. I want to tell her that we’re the parents of Lena Beck, who was admitted as the victim of a road accident. That we have to go to casualty. I don’t know how I sound. Or if the sentences coming out of my mouth are the same as those I’ve composed in my head. Now the woman at reception moves her mouth too and picks up her telephone. Karen grabs my sleeve and drags me a few paces away from the glass box where the woman is sitting and making a phone call. Karin’s face is white and her eyes are quivering in their sockets as she looks at me. When I notice her shifting nervously from one leg to the other, I put my arm around her shoulders. I want to tell her to calm down, and evidently I do say that because I see her nod in response. A doctor comes or an orderly, I don’t know which, but at any rate he’s wearing a doctor’s coat. With him is a man in a grey suit. Names fly past my head, my hand is shaken. We follow the two of them to a lift. It moves, but I don’t know whether we’re going up or down. Time is pulling the strings. The lift stops, one of the men touches me on the shoulder, probably to signal I should get out. Karin has taken my hand again and is squeezing it. Our procession takes us halfway down a corridor then comes to a halt. Karin abruptly lets go of my hand. Only because this unsettles me, I suddenly become alert again.
‘It would be better if only one of you came in with us,’ the doctor says. ‘Although she’s had treatment, she’s still unconscious. We want to let her come round in her own time, especially as we can’t rule out the possibility that she’s in shock.’
‘Which means I can’t talk to her,’ I say rather stupidly.
The man in the grey suit, who I now identify as a police inspector, says, ‘First we need your help to identify her beyond any doubt. Then we can discuss everything else.’
‘I’ll do it,’ I say to Karin. She nods. It’s what we’d already agreed years ago. I would do the job of identifying the dead body of our daughter shrouded by a thin sheet on a mortuary slab. I would hold her hand one final time and give her a last kiss on her cold forehead. Tell her that we love her.
Only we’re not in some forensics basement,
but in a hospital, and our daughter is alive. The doctor leads me by the arm towards a nearby door, which divides the corridor from a separate area. Behind me, Karin asks the inspector what’s going to happen now. I don’t hear his answer as the door closes behind the doctor and me. All of a sudden, I feel unsure; I begin to wonder what she looks like, our daughter, with the injuries sustained in the accident and whatever else has happened to her. When she disappeared, she was in the fourth semester of her teaching degree, a young girl just spreading her wings. Now she’s thirty-seven years old, a proper woman, who might have been married and had her own children, if she hadn’t been wrenched from her life on that one night.
‘Please don’t be horrified,’ the doctor says as we’re standing outside her room. Although he’s already holding the handle, he’s hesitating. ‘She has a few injuries to her face, cuts mainly. But it looks worse than it is.’
I make a grunting sound. I don’t have enough air for anything else. My chest feels tight. The doctor pushes the handle. The gap in the door widens.
I close my eyes and am drowned by images. My Lenchen, the tiny bundle in Karin’s arms. Fifty centimetres tall, 3,430 grams in weight, a minute hand clutching my thumb. ‘Welcome to the world, my angel,’ I say. ‘Your papa will always look after you.’ My Lenchen with the missing tooth and the huge bag of sweets for her first day at school. Lenchen insisting she must be called Lena from now on because all the other names are too childish. Lena, having dyed her beautiful blonde hair black, sitting on the sofa in our living room with her knees up and scratching holes in her jeans with a safety pin. Lena, now blonde again, and my pride and joy. Who looks ravishing in her dress at her school prom, has a great set of exam results and so many plans in her head. Lena the student, and Lena when I see her the last time before she disappears. Skipping down the steps into the front garden after visiting us, turning around again and giving me a jolly wave. Ciao, Paps! See you soon! And thanks again!
Then I go in.
Her bed is in the middle of the room. I hear machines beeping. Her eyes are closed. There are indeed injuries to her face; it’s covered in cuts that look like tiny triangles. The left-hand side is blue and swollen. It looks as if she’s been stitched above the eyebrows. The small scar to the right on her forehead is clearly visible nonetheless. And yet . . .
Dear Child: The twisty thriller that starts where others end Page 4