by Helen Grant
Over Claudine’s shoulder Veerle could see the coffee table and the newspaper spread out on it, the headline screaming about the body in the lake, that it was definitely murder. Her heart sank.
If I’m not careful she’ll start thinking I’m going to be next and then I won’t get out of the house at all, not without a row. And I don’t want to row with her.
Veerle sensed that some kind of showdown was coming. At present it was in the distance, like a range of mountains seen on the horizon during a trek through scrubland, apparently never getting any closer; however slowly you walked, one day you would reach them, there was a geographical inevitability to it.
I’m seventeen. I can’t let her treat me like a kid, always having to ask permission to go anywhere, always having to tell her where I am every single minute of the day.
Sooner or later she would have to confront it, this situation with Claudine; she knew that.
Not now, though. Now I just have to meet Kris.
‘I already said I’d go,’ she said aloud.
‘Well, you don’t have to,’ retorted Claudine. ‘If she just moved here last term, I don’t see why it’s so important.’
‘Everyone’s going.’
‘Still . . .’
‘It’ll look odd if I’m the only one who doesn’t.’ Veerle looked at her mother. ‘I’m going, Maman.’ Impulsively, she leaned over and put her arms around Claudine, holding her close for a few moments. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. But she knew her mother would.
It was still very cold outside. She dressed in warm trousers, boots, a thick jumper. In the stuffy environment of the house she instantly felt overheated, and so excited that she was almost nauseous. It was like being kitted out for some staggering physical feat – sub-aqua diving under arctic ice or wing-walking on a bi-plane; the discomfort and the anticipation were almost more than she could stand. She kept thinking about Kris, thinking about him much more than she had intended to.
At half past eight she went to the bus stop. There was a bus to within a few hundred metres of the address Kris had given her. She was early; it wasn’t due for another six minutes. She walked up and down as she waited, hugging herself, trying to look neutral while all the time she was bursting with impatience.
You’re building this up too much, she told herself. You’ll see him and it won’t be like you think. But it was. When she got off the bus at the other end and walked the short distance to the agreed address, he was leaning against the wall in that loose-limbed way he had, with the dark hair falling into his eyes and that ironic twist to his lips, and she felt something inside her jump. He leaned towards her and she felt a pang of anticipation so sharp that it was like being stabbed, but he simply kissed her on the cheeks, once, twice, as friends do when they greet each other.
‘Is this the place?’ she said hurriedly, to conceal her disappointment.
‘No,’ said Kris laconically.
‘But this is number hundred and nine,’ she said, looking at the number on the gate again to make sure.
‘I know. But we’ve just walked up to it in plain view,’ Kris pointed out. ‘We’re going to number seventeen in the next road, but we don’t want anyone to see us doing it.’
Of course. Veerle looked at Kris and thought, It’s real. We’re really doing this. She had that feeling again in the pit of her stomach, excitement so strong that it was almost nauseating, like looking down from a high board and knowing you were going to jump. She thought, If anyone sees me they’ll know what we’re going to do. Her skin was prickling with anticipation; her whole body was fizzing with it. It seemed impossible that anyone could look at her and not see it boiling off her in waves.
They began to walk up the street. There was a corner where the street intersected with another residential road; if they vanished from view here there was an even chance anyone who was looking out of their house would think they had turned the corner. The nearest house was shut up as tight as a bank vault, with all the roller shutters down.
Kris glanced around briefly. The street was deserted. He stepped between the front gates of the shuttered house. Veerle followed him down the drive and into a lane at the back, with invisible access to the rear gardens of the houses.
Two minutes later Veerle was standing on the porch of number 17, watching Kris open the door. Her breath was coming in sharp little gusts that were almost painful.
The porch had a Roman-style pediment supported by white columns. Between the columns were planters containing what appeared to be small trees, the foliage clipped into perfect ovoids. All the shutters were down, even the ones on the narrow windows flanking the door. It gave the house a blank look, as though it were some ancient mausoleum, built on architectural principles but with stone panels replacing the windows.
Veerle expected Kris to pick the lock, though she had no idea how to go about it herself. She was surprised when he felt in his jeans pocket and produced a key.
How did he get that?
She had the sense not to ask the question out loud.
Kris opened the door. Inside it was pitch dark, as expected, but Veerle was horrified to see a red light winking away.
There’s an alarm.
Kris didn’t seem bothered, although he moved quickly. He drew Veerle inside and closed the door. The light switch had an illuminated panel so it was easy to locate; he turned on the lights and went to the alarm control box. Veerle watched as he entered four digits and pressed a button. There was a moment’s silence. Then she heard him exhale.
‘They didn’t change it,’ he said. ‘I always think they’re going to do that.’
Veerle opened her mouth to ask him how he knew what the number was in the first place, and then she looked around, really looked for the first time, and totally forgot what she was about to ask.
My God, she thought. It’s a palace.
The entire footprint of the house she shared with her mother would fit into the hallway of this one. It was enormous, a house for giants, an impression only heightened by the size of the artworks used to decorate it. There was an oil painting so big that Veerle had never seen anything like it outside a gallery, and a marble statue so tall that she had to look up into its face. The sheer vastness of it all made her feel somewhat better about trespassing. It was more like being in a museum or a grand hotel than a home, and the people who lived in such a place seemed as remote as beings from another planet. Veerle couldn’t imagine them as real people at all, more like elegantly costumed figures in an elaborate tableau. Nobody could possibly come into a hallway like this one at the end of a long day and throw their bag into the corner, kick off their shoes, relax. She stretched out a hand and touched the statue’s arm, feeling the cool marble smooth under her fingers, confirming that it was real.
‘Come on,’ said Kris. He was already opening another door, one that led further into the house. Veerle followed him through a series of rooms, each more luxurious than the last. She gazed about her, wide-eyed. There was a drawing room with cream leather sofas and heavy green velvet curtains, a dining room with spindle-legged gilded chairs and a vast table polished to a high gloss, the white rose bowl placed in the centre of it dimly visible in reflection, like a ghost of itself. The feeling of unreality grew. Veerle felt as though she were walking through a series of theatrical sets.
Finally they reached a flight of steps leading down to a lower floor. Kris stood back to let Veerle go first. From the cryptic smile he gave her she knew there must be something interesting on the other side of the door at the bottom, but even so she couldn’t repress a gasp when she saw what it was.
An indoor pool, a great rectangle of sparkling turquoise, underlit so that the water seemed to glow and wavelets of light danced over the tiled walls and ceiling. The owners had clearly aimed to continue the last-days-of-Pompeii theme suggested by the Roman portico and the statuary in the entrance hall; amongst the towering ferns and potted palms lurked classical statues, white-limbed and elegant. It was wonderfully
, tropically warm in spite of the chill outdoors; almost as soon as she was inside the pool room Veerle was uncomfortably hot in her outdoor clothing.
She took off her jacket, and then she took off her boots because it seemed sacrilegious to wander around the poolside in them. The water was deliciously clear and brilliantly turquoise.
It’s fabulous. I have to swim.
Kris was already pulling off his clothes. ‘There are costumes in the cupboard,’ he told her, nodding at a slatted wooden door. He didn’t bother, though; he went into the water in his underclothes. After several moments of hesitation Veerle decided to do the same, stripping off her clothes as quickly as she could, feeling self-conscious. She slid hastily into the water. The temperature was perfect, cool but not cold. She swam a few strokes, luxuriating in it.
Kris ducked underwater and came up shaking his head like a dog to get the hair out of his eyes. He laughed at Veerle’s blissful expression. She laughed too, twisting in the water, joyful, feeling free, as though unseen chains had fallen away from her. Tonight, in this stranger’s house, she wasn’t Veerle De Keyser any more, she was Honingbij, simply Honingbij – no family name, no family ties. A rebel. A rule-breaker.
I can do anything I want.
12
AFTER THEY HAD finished swimming, Veerle sat on one of the bar stools in the kitchen, while Kris rewired the two-pin plug on the toaster. Like everything else in the kitchen, the toaster was large, shiny and expensive; it had the kind of sleek rounded styling associated with sports cars.
The stool Veerle was perched on was covered in red leather, to match the gleaming red tiles. The work surfaces were all made of black marble. In a small room the effect would have been claustrophobic, like the inside of the smallest cubicle in Hell, but in a kitchen this size it looked impressive, regal. There was an enormous stainless steel fridge, as big as a pharaonic sarcophagus.
In front of Veerle, on the gleaming table top (black lacquer, to match the marble), was a crystal glass of bessenjenever. Kris had brought the bessenjenever in a flask; the glass belonged to the house and would have to be washed, dried and polished before it was replaced in the cabinet. Veerle picked up the glass and took a sip; the rich sweet taste of berries filled her mouth. She watched Kris working. His head was bent over the plug; all she could see was his tousled dark hair. His hands were long-fingered and deft. How does he know how to do these things? she mused. I’ve never rewired anything in my life.
‘Kris,’ she said.
‘Mmm.’ He didn’t look up.
‘Where did you go?’
Now he did look at her, one dark eyebrow raised.
‘I mean, did you move away? I haven’t seen you since . . . I don’t know.’ She considered. ‘It seems like about ten years.’
‘We moved to Overijse when I was ten,’ said Kris. He shrugged. ‘I had to change schools.’
‘Overijse – that’s not so far away. Didn’t you ever come back? It seems strange that we never met before the castle.’
‘Not that strange,’ said Kris cryptically.
‘Why not?’ Veerle was genuinely puzzled.
‘Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’
‘Your parents. Well, your mother. She wasn’t exactly going to invite me in if I came round.’
She hardly invites anyone in, thought Veerle. She gazed down into the richly tinted bessenjenever, considering. She could remember some of her friends coming over when she was younger and still at the primary school in the village. Sometimes she’d visited them too; she had vague memories of a friend’s garden, and her dog, a large friendly Labrador, flopping about on the grass. Then there had been that girl who sometimes came over, the daughter of Claudine’s friend Melise. What was her name? Louise or Lotte or something like that, and I remember she was a couple of years older than me and horribly snotty. She came with her mother and I had to amuse her.
When had things changed? When did the friends stop coming? It wasn’t that Claudine refused to let anyone into the house, it was more that she generated a kind of force field of unspoken disapproval that put people off. Who wanted to come and hang out with Veerle if it meant her mother hovering in the background, shoulders hunched as though labouring under a burden, dropping in the occasional chilly question? When Veerle met up with friends, it was usually somewhere other than the house in Kerkstraat.
‘It’s not just you,’ she told Kris. ‘She’s funny with everyone.’
‘Does she tell everyone she’ll kill them if they come anywhere near her daughter ever again?’
‘She said that?’ Veerle was open-mouthed. ‘But we were just kids.’
‘Well, that was the gist of it.’ Kris looked at her quizzically. ‘You really don’t remember?’
‘Remember what?’
‘Silent Saturday. You know, the day the bells fly to Rome. We went up the bell tower.’
‘I can sort of remember that . . . I remember something scared me.’ Veerle rubbed her arms uneasily.
‘Something?’ Kris’s eyes widened. ‘It was Joren Sterckx. It was the day they caught him. We were up in the tower and we saw him coming across the fields.’
Veerle stared. She could feel the first stirrings of apprehension fizzing about inside her, like wasps in a bottle. She couldn’t taste the bessenjenever any more; suddenly her mouth was too full of saliva and she had to swallow.
She said, ‘Joren Sterckx? The murderer?’
Kris nodded, his dark eyes serious. ‘You went crazy and started screaming the place down. Mum was cleaning in the church and she heard you and came up. She couldn’t get you to stop – you were hysterical.’
‘I can’t believe this. We saw Joren Sterckx?’
‘Well, he lived in the village.’
‘I know, but . . .’ Veerle put down her glass. Her brow furrowed as she struggled to remember. It was no use; she might just as well not have seen Joren Sterckx for all the recollection she had of it. She could remember ascending the bell tower, and she could still recall the overwhelming feeling of terror that had seized her, but when she tried to summon up a memory of the killer himself, it slipped out of her grasp and twisted away into the darkness with the sinuous ease of a fish darting down into the black depths of the sea. The feeling unsettled her; she envisioned her seven-year-old self overshadowed by some savage menace she was completely unaware of.
‘It’s . . . weird,’ she said finally. ‘It’s like I’ve seen Dracula or the bogeyman or something and I can’t remember.’ She shook her head. ‘So what happened next?’
‘Mum didn’t believe us. Well, not at first. She looked out of the window and you couldn’t see him any more. He’d gone. And you were still howling. In the end she had to practically carry you downstairs. When we got outside the police had arrived and your mother was already on the doorstep looking for you with a face like thunder. I guess it gave her a fright, their finding a kid dead and her not knowing where you were.’
‘And she blamed it on you? She told you to stay away or she’d kill you?’
Kris looked at her for a moment without saying anything. Veerle could read nothing in the level gaze of his dark eyes. Then he said, ‘She grabbed you by the arm and she slapped you. Really hard. And Mum got cross, because she never hit us, even though people were always saying it would have done Denis good if he’d had a hiding now and again.’
Veerle’s eyes widened. She hit me. I was afraid, and she hit me. A hard little knot of something – anger, shock – was forming inside her, a jagged fragment she could choke on. She felt a faint sense of unreality too. Kris’s mother told Mum off for mistreating me? She looked down, away from Kris, angry with and ashamed for Claudine in equal measure.
Kris went on, ‘She told your mother not to hit you, you’d had a fright, and your mother lost it and, well, amongst other things, she said I’d better keep away from you, or . . .’
‘She’d kill you.’ Veerle grimaced.
Kris shrugged. ‘We moved away anyway. T
hat was the year my parents split up, and Mum took us and went to Overijse.’
‘It’s not so far,’ said Veerle. ‘You’d think I would have seen you.’
‘Maybe you weren’t looking.’
No, thought Veerle. Maybe I wasn’t. So much had happened in the intervening time; those were the things that stood out in the landscape of her memory, like the debris of wrecked ships revealed by low tide. Her own parents’ divorce; that couldn’t have taken place more than a year or two after the bell-tower incident. Her father moving away, back to Ghent, where he had been born. Claudine’s mother, Veerle’s grandmother, dying in the hospital in Namur. Veerle’s uncle, Claudine’s younger brother, had died too, in a car accident. If she had wondered where Kris had gone, what he was doing, the curiosity had faded out somewhere during all that upheaval.
And Claudine, what had those years done to her? Veerle was shocked by what Kris had told her. She hit me. The revelation was as raw as the red mark of a slap on her skin. All the same, she began to see that there could be more to it than a simple moment of uncontrolled temper.
Was that it? Was that the moment she started to be afraid? When there was a killer on the streets of our village, one of the worst killers, a child killer, and she couldn’t find her seven-year-old daughter? How long did it go on – the hunting, the calling for me, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach? How long?
Veerle had been angry with her mother; now she felt a kind of horrified pity. Ten minutes, twenty minutes – it doesn’t matter, she thought. Maybe it’s never stopped for her. She shivered. The idea chilled her, and it didn’t really help; she still had no idea how to deal with Claudine’s paralysing fears.
She picked up her glass and took a sip of the bessenjenever, savouring the rich sticky sweetness, an antidote to dismal thoughts.
‘I looked out for you,’ Kris said, interrupting her reverie.
‘You did?’ It took Veerle a moment to realize what he meant. After he moved away.