The Perfect Neighbours

by Rachel Sargeant

  Two elderly women with as much fur on their upper lips as on their collars, walked past her. “Besoffen,” one said.

  “If you’re going to call me drunk at least whisper, you deaf bats,” Gisela called after them.

  Their backs jerked upright. They tried to hurry away but had to make do with an affronted shuffle to avoid falling in the snow.

  ***

  In Aldi people cluttered up the aisles. They must be buying cheap booze before hitting the Weihnachtsmarkt. She had to abandon her trolley to get round them.

  “Mindestens vier Tote,” she heard one man say. (At least four dead.)

  She squeezed through a group of women to get two bottles of Sekt. One was asking, “Wer tötet einen Hund?” (Who kills a dog?)

  The queue at the checkout wasn’t moving. The normally deadpan features of the shop assistant she loathed were animated as she talked to the customers around her. She had bright teeth. All those years of clamping her Maul shut must have kept them nice.

  She shifted her weight from foot to foot, balancing the Sekt bottles in each hand. Hot air blasted out of wall heaters and she wished she had a spare hand to undo Sascha’s jacket. She pushed to the front. “Feiern Sie, oder?” She asked the till operator if they were having a party.

  Instead of her usual withering gaze, the woman smiled. Those white teeth again. “Haben Sie schon gehört? Have you heard? It’s been on the news and one of our customers drove past and saw the roadblock. There’s been an attack near the international school.”

  Sascha. Gisela’s hand went to her throat.

  “Police have been drafted in from all over,” the woman was saying.

  Not Sascha. Police drafted in must mean a terrorist attack.

  “Where was the bomb?” Gisela asked. It was idle curiosity now. She didn’t care if the whole damn school had gone up in flames.

  “Was it a bomb?” the man next to her said. “I heard it was a gun.”

  “You’re both wrong,” the assistant said. “The latest radio report said they are still searching for the weapon, probably a knife.”

  Knife.

  The woman continued her broadcast. “Stabbed an entire family. British.”

  Gisela bolted to the exit, desperate for cold air. Damian Howard was a teacher. Mareike’s letter said it. And Sascha called his wife a stupid goat with expensive taste. The emerald earring burned in her pocket, Sascha’s pocket. Hotter and hotter.

  “You haven’t paid for those,” the woman called. Gisela put the two bottles down in the bag-pack area but one slid off the ledge. It smacked onto the floor and shattered. She stepped over the sweet liquid and broken glass, and ran.

  “Das geht aber nicht!” the woman shouted indignantly after the closing door. “You can’t do that.”

  Gisela fell on the slippery pavement. Her hands stung and a wet patch at her knee turned red. She moved on, wishing she’d hung onto the Sekt.

  ***

  She found Sascha standing in the lounge, smoking and wearing nothing but the housecoat that had belonged to his father before he walked out on them. Sascha had asked her to mend the pocket but she never had.

  “I’ve been looking for that,” he snapped when he saw her in his jacket.

  “Why? Are you going out?”

  He ignored her, taking the jacket. She trembled in case he felt inside it. Was the earring in the wrong pocket? He caught her looking at him.

  “Na und?” she said. She would bluff her way out of it.

  But he turned away without challenging her. She could let him go to his room, to his separate life. Never knowing, ignoring her nagging doubt. But she’d been knocking around hell for the past two years. Could another truth make it worse? She followed him into the hallway.

  “Why were you taking a shower in the middle of the night?”

  He dragged on his cigarette. “I didn’t.”

  “I heard you when I came in.”

  He dragged again then tucked his hair behind his ear. He used to do that as a kid, giving himself time to think, the precursor to a lie. “But you didn’t go out, Mama.”

  Wie bitte? (Pardon?) A lie about his own whereabouts schon gut (fair enough), but she hadn’t expected one about hers.

  She said: “I was out all evening and came home late. I heard the shower.”

  He placed his hands on her shoulders – gentle, fatherly. “Mama, please try to remember. You stayed at home last night.”

  Gott im Himmel, was I that far gone? She’d had the odd blackout, now and then, for the last few months but she always recalled fragments. Last night was no different. Like crochet – holes in places, other parts firmly joined. Schnäpse at the Weihnachtsmarkt; more Schnäpse at Konys Bar; a car smelling of dirty leather and sweat; a bloke shouting; stupid keys not working; Christmas wreath; the sound of running, splashing water.

  “You took a shower. I heard you. I’m sure of it.”

  “That was earlier, Mama. Remember?”

  When was it? Um wieviel Uhr? What did her watch say? She scoured her memory. Her wrist came into focus, then the dial but not the figures. Try as she might they would not come. “Around two in the morning?”

  It came out as a guess and he knew it. “Mama, Mama, Mama. We were both asleep by two. I made you hot chocolate at eleven but you were too tired to drink it so I sat on your bed and drank it myself. Remember?”

  “Ich …?” So many holes, wool unravelling. How had she got this bad?

  He led her to the sofa in the lounge. “Take a nap. It might come back to you after a sleep. We spent the whole evening together.”

  Together. The wool yanked tight. They never spent time together. She could have been semi-comatose but if they had spent even half an hour together, she would have remembered.

  “What did we do all evening?” she asked.

  He took another drag of cigarette and tucked away his hair again. “We watched TV.”

  “What did we watch?”

  “I don’t know … some stupid celebrity thing …” Drag, tuck. “Thomas Gottschalk, I expect.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t Tatort?”

  “I don’t think … yes … Das stimmt.” He looked sure of himself now. “That’s right. You’re starting to remember. That’s right, we watched Tatort together, a good old police story.”

  She was shaking and couldn’t stop. Lie down on the sofa, drop it. He said you were together so you must have been. But she couldn’t let it go.

  “I remember now,” she said. “It was an episode I hadn’t seen before.”

  “Okay, gut. Sleep well, Mama.” A dispatch.

  But she wasn’t about to be dismissed. “It was set in an international school. Everyone got stabbed. Isn’t that right?”

  His eyes shot away from her and he swallowed as if trying to suppress something that was rolling up from his gut.

  “Isn’t that what you saw last night?” she asked.

  His shoulders sank and he gulped – a last, defeated attempt to contain his panic. But what she dreaded burst out of him: “You’ve got to help me.” He knelt in front of her.

  Hold him and say everything will be fine. Stroke his wiry hair. Kiss his head. Breathe in his fear and take it away. Eine gute Mama. A good mama.

  He stood up, bearing over her. “I just need you to say I was home with you last night.”

  He brought up his hand to his cigarette. She flinched.

  “Don’t you see?” he said. “If they find out about Mareike, it will lead to me.”

  Her crocheted thoughts vied for attention. Wool tugged, knotted, snapped. Sascha, Mareike, Sekt.

  Heilige Maria, Mutter Gottes. “What have you done?” she whispered.

  He sank to the floor and clasped her knees, making her graze sting. “I was at the Freibad.”

  She struggled to get her breath. “That pool has been locked up for months. You’re lying.”

  He let go of her legs, shoving them away, and strode out of the lounge. Gisela heard his bedroom door slam.r />
  34

  Helen went in the police car. It took ages but felt like moments. A long way and no distance at all. A police station but more like a doctor’s surgery. Chair, computer, couch. In front of a latex-gloved female doctor, she scraped off the torn dress, wet with her urine and Louisa’s blood. Then the rest – boots, tights, underwear. What did nakedness matter? What she’d seen had stripped her bare from the inside out.

  There had been swabs from her fingernails and from the rusty stains on her wrist. She was given a tracksuit and a blanket for the journey home. Later a black-haired policeman had taken her fingerprints. She could see his grey roots when he leant over the paperwork. Sabine was there throughout, in her nurse’s uniform. On her “side” she supposed. She was too knackered to thank her.

  An English-speaking police officer stayed in the house with her overnight. “Until the school’s welfare lady can get your family out here.” The woman, whose thick, smiley lips made her face look wrong for her job, went upstairs and removed Gary’s razor and spare blades from the bathroom. Until that moment Helen hadn’t thought of slitting her wrists. But, as she stood in the shower trying to wash away stink and sweat and slaughter, she cursed the woman for denying her an escape route from the hellish images in her head, from the knowledge that Gary was gone and that she was alone.

  Helen brought a duvet downstairs and wrapped herself up on the sofa, too exhausted, too blunted to sleep. She and the woman, Call me Jutta, didn’t talk. They’d have time to get acquainted in the coming days because there was no way Helen was letting anyone interrupt her parents’ cruise. And her brother would be of more use to her in Shrewsbury, negotiating with her new tenants to get her house back. She crushed the quilt in her fists. After months of longing to return to England, this bloodbath would get her there.

  After an age of pointless wakefulness, she went upstairs. Jutta followed and watched over her shoulder as she switched on the computer and Googled: “Death Germany what to do.”

  “I can help you with that,” Jutta said. Her voice sounded concerned but the damn mouth still smiled.

  “I’ll manage.”

  But all the best websites were in German. Even with Google Translate and Gary’s Langenscheidt dictionary she couldn’t understand them. She was glad of the distraction when Zanders and Simons arrived to question her, but soon wished they’d get lost and leave her to her … what? Grief? Could she call it that? But wasn’t grief intense, passionate, demanding? She was too empty for that.

  They took up position in the two armchairs in the lounge. A pair of uneven German bookends: the petite uniformed woman and the lanky, leather-jacketed man. Simons asked if she’d slept. Helen nodded. Zanders got down to business.

  “What time did your husband go to the party?” he asked.

  “About seven thirty.”

  “What time did you go there?”

  She crossed her legs. “Just before nine.”

  He wrote something and took ages over it. How long could it take to jot down a couple of numbers? Eventually he asked, “Why were you so late?”

  “I … I wasn’t going to go, but I changed my mind.” Her throat constricted. “I didn’t want to let Gary down.”

  “A glass of water?”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine.” What a stupid thing to say. She’d never be fine again.

  Zanders was at his notepad, slow and precise. His eyes concentrated on his writing but Helen figured his mind was planning his next move.

  “Did you and your husband often disagree over dinner invitations?”

  “It hadn’t happened before.” She pulled her sleeves over her wrists.

  The officers exchanged a glance. Zanders unbuttoned his jacket. Jutta had turned up the heating but Helen didn’t feel any warmer, doubted she ever would.

  Simons said: “Our liaison officer noticed that your spare bedroom has been occupied. Do you have a house guest?”

  Thanks, Jutta. She trawled her mind for a plausible lie and came up with a partial one. “The night before last, Gary couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to disturb me.” She looked at the detective’s brown eyes determined to hold his gaze. He mustn’t see her wavering. She didn’t want this stranger dwelling on their sleeping arrangements. It made no difference where they slept; Gary was still dead.

  Zanders surprised her by breaking eye contact first. He changed the subject. “Who else did Mrs Howard invite to dinner last night?”

  “Only the Mowars, but Gary told me that Mel, that’s Mrs Mowar, wouldn’t be going because she was ill.” A thought occurred to her. “Has anyone told her? I must go to her.” She stood up and stepped towards the door.

  “Please sit down, Mrs Taylor. The lady next door was admitted to hospital early this morning.”

  “What? Oh God, is it like the burglaries? Several houses. I hadn’t even thought of that. Who else did he attack?” She sank back onto the sofa.

  “As far as we know the incident was confined to number 10 Dickensweg,” Simons said. “Unfortunately Mrs Mowar saw the police activity through an upstairs window and came outside as the stretchers were being removed. The duty doctor admitted her to hospital as a precaution. I understand she suffers with her nerves. Why wasn’t Mr Howard at the dinner party?”

  Helen, fighting the image of Gary’s body being carried out through the bitter night into a mortuary van, took a moment to register the question. She explained that Damian had left that morning for a head teachers’ conference in London. Only then did it strike her as odd that he’d got back on the same night.

  Zanders moved on. “So as far as you know, the intention of the dinner party was for Mrs Howard to entertain Mr Mowar and your husband without Mr Howard, Mrs Mowar or yourself being present?”

  “Yes … No. I was supposed to be there too.” The word “entertain” sounded sordid. Zanders had made up his mind what sort of woman Louisa was. In different circumstances Helen would have delighted in his misconception. But not now.

  “If you’re trying to make out they were involved in an orgy, you’re way off track. Our neighbours are perfectly normal people.” She heard Gary’s voice in her head; “perfectly normal people” was how he’d described the neighbours in their last row.

  The detectives ignored her outburst. “What about Mrs Howard and Mr Mowar? How was their relationship?”

  She hesitated. Louisa and Chris at the Christmas market. She should mention the conversation she overheard. Zanders was writing in his notebook again. There was something prissy about the way he held his pen. She felt a sudden allegiance to her dead neighbours that she’d never felt during their lifetimes. She resolved to keep quiet.

  “Mrs Taylor, if you know something, it might help us find out your husband’s killer.”

  At the mention of Gary, her fledgling loyalty vanished. The neighbours were bit parts in the scene in her head. Only Gary mattered.

  “A few days ago I heard Louisa and Chris arguing. Louisa seemed to be backing out of something. I thought at the time she was ending an affair but it was probably nothing.”

  “Did you discuss what you heard with anyone: Mrs Mowar, for example?”

  “I wouldn’t want to upset her, and I didn’t even know for sure what it meant. You said yourself she suffers from nerves.”

  “Did the Mowars have a happy marriage?”

  Her mind went to Louisa and her bloody Relate business card. “I … how should I know? Marriage is no one’s business but the two people in it.”

  Zanders pointed at the wall behind him. “I think you hear perhaps shouting from the house next door?”

  There’d never been raised voices, but she thought she heard sobbing once. “I never heard shouting,” she said.

  “And Mr Howard also loved his wife?”

  Helen thought of Damian looking too long at other women across a cocktail party. His near admission of infidelity when Murdo was missing. His phone calls to Sweetheart. What should she say?

  “Of course.” Now was not
the time to throw him under the bus. He, she, and Mel were the only passengers. They would need each other.

  “And you got on with all of them except Mrs Howard?”

  “Yes … no. I liked Louisa too.” Her cheeks grew hot as the officers scrutinized her. “Everyone did. I wouldn’t be surprised if she isn’t up for a posthumous award. Sorry, that was a tactless comment.” She looked at the floor.

  “But understandable. A lot of people use humour to cope with shock,” Simons said. Sympathy dispatched, she returned to probing. “Is there anyone at all who might have a grudge against her, no matter how trivial?”

  Sascha Jakobsen, shouted a voice inside her. He stalked the Howards, dogged them, attacked their property. Don’t get involved, shouted another. If she told them about his feud with the Howards, the police might find out what happened between her and Sascha. What if they mentioned it to Gary’s parents? Time to let it go. Enough damage done.

  “No one,” she said. She traced the seam on her joggers with her finger, looking away from Simons’s sceptical eyes. “Surely you should be after someone unconnected to us? The culprit must be a nutcase on a killing spree.”

  “It is possible that these murders were random, but in my experience most victims of this kind know their killer. There’s a connection. It’s our job to find it,” Zanders said.

  Her throat went dry, desert-parched. She needed that glass of water now.

  35

  More bloody questions, she thought, when the doorbell went again. But Jutta led Damian Howard into the lounge before making herself scarce in the kitchen. He sat in a chair – Gary’s chair – and caressed the leather arms. The laughter lines at his mouth had become more deeply etched.