by Helen Grant
Only it wasn’t.
If I don’t find her, I don’t have any proof I saw her at all.
She remembered the expressions on the faces of the police officers when she told them she had seen Joren Sterckx. They had pitied her, the ones who didn’t think she was making it up to draw attention to herself. If Kris looked at her like that she didn’t think she could bear it. Then there was the question of Mevrouw Coppens, Hommel’s mother. Do I tell her I’ve seen Hommel? She’ll probably go straight off and tell Jappe, Hommel’s pig of a stepfather, and if he’s the reason she left in the first place, maybe that isn’t such a great idea. Maybe I should talk to Hommel herself before I go telling anyone.
Veerle finished the pastry, still gazing out of the window. Then she fetched a jacket from her room and let herself out of the flat.
It was a dry clear morning, quite warm even though it was late September. Veerle considered the tram, and then decided to walk to Sint-Baafsplein, following the Coupure and then the canal that led north to the bridge where she had last seen Hommel.
You never know, she thought.
She reached the bridge without seeing anyone she knew, however. The skyline viewed from the path along the Coupure looked ordinary and undramatic this morning too.
No demons.
Veerle wondered whether it was possible that she had seen nothing more than flickering shadows thrown as something passed in front of the light cast by the streetlamps – a fluttering bird, perhaps. She stared up at the parapets, but nothing moved there now.
After she had crossed the bridge it was a five-minute walk to the square in front of the cathedral, reversing the route along which she had chased Hommel a few days before.
Most of the shops and cafés were open by now, but here and there someone was putting out a menu board or wheeling a rack of cards onto the pavement. Veerle walked quickly, threading her way through the early strollers with her head up. There was a tight little knot of excitement in her stomach.
Don’t build your hopes up, she chastised herself. Bram might not have found out anything at all. What are the chances of this Marnix guy actually knowing something?
All the same, she couldn’t stop herself hoping. When she emerged from Magelein and turned along the tramlines towards the cathedral her heart was thudding. Unconsciously she had picked up the pace, wanting to be at the rendezvous as quickly as possible, and her breath was coming fast now, shuddering through her nostrils. As she passed the foot of the Belfort tower she glanced up. At these close quarters its towering bulk was dizzying to contemplate. It seemed to loom over her, and the motion of the banner that hung outside the great arched doorway, billowing in the breeze, threw her momentarily off balance. She stumbled and looked down at the cobblestones under her feet, steadying herself.
That guy, Daan De Moor – he can’t have jumped off there, Veerle thought. The idea was appalling. She could not imagine wanting to be rid of life so badly that you would launch yourself from such a height to sure detonation on the stones below.
The Belfort tower was behind her now and she slowed to a halt, scanning the square for a glimpse of green – Bram’s shirt – amongst the figures who crossed and re-crossed the stones: tourists, locals with shopping bags, workmen.
‘Hi,’ said a voice next to her, so close that she jumped.
Bram was almost at her elbow. He had on a red shirt over a white T-shirt, not the green one she had been looking for.
Stupid, said Veerle to herself. He’s not going to wear the exact same things every day.
Otherwise he looked exactly the same as he had the other day: irrepressibly friendly and a little too engaging for comfort, with those wide blue eyes and carelessly tousled blond hair. He looked relaxed and open, and so guileless that it made Veerle suspicious. It occurred to her again that she would not have liked Kris to witness her tête-à-tête with Bram.
‘Hi,’ she said, trying to inject a brisk and business-like tone into the monosyllable.
‘You came,’ said Bram. ‘I wondered if you’d turn up or not.’
‘Yes,’ said Veerle. She couldn’t very well say, Of course I did; I’m dying to know if you’ve found anything out, so she left it at that.
‘You want to get a Coke or something?’
‘OK.’ Veerle thought she would die of impatience, but she bit it back.
They walked across the square to a little cafeteria. Veerle dug into her jeans pocket for change, but Bram had already fished two Cokes out of the cooler and was paying for them at the counter.
He really is acting like we’re on a date, thought Veerle. She chewed her lip.
They went over to a table by the window, looking out onto the square. As Veerle slid into her seat it was all she could do not to blurt out, Have you found her? She watched Bram unhurriedly pulling back the tab on his can of Coke, and she wanted to lunge across the table at him, grab a handful of the red shirt in her fist and shout, What did Marnix say? at him. She made herself sit still.
She said, ‘Thanks for the Coke,’ and then forced herself to wait another moment or two before saying, ‘So did you see Marnix?’
‘Yeah.’ Bram looked at her, his head on one side.
‘And?’ Veerle was almost choking in her impatience to know.
‘I saw him on Wednesday. If you’d given me your number I could have called you.’
‘But what did he say?’
‘He knew whom I meant right away.’ Bram grinned. ‘She must have pissed him off pretty badly, whatever she said to him. He’s still kind of annoyed about it.’
With a sinking feeling, Veerle said, ‘So I guess he didn’t get her number, then?’
Bram shook his head. ‘Nope.’
That’s it, then, thought Veerle. A dead end.
‘But,’ added Bram, ‘he has seen her again.’
‘Where? Is he sure it was her?’
‘You really want to find her, don’t you? Yeah, he’s sure it was her. She made a big impression on him, I guess. He says he’s seen her in a shop, here in the centre. He thinks she was working in there.’
‘A shop? What kind of shop?’
‘Music. CDs. Vinyl too. It’s got some name like . . . I don’t know, Muziek City or something. It’s only open half the time. Not doing well, I guess, and not surprising really, if all the staff are as rude as your friend is.’
‘You know the shop?’
‘Sure. It’s on . . .’ He thought for a moment. ‘I can’t remember the name of the street. I can take you there, though. Hey,’ he added. ‘Sit down. At least finish your Coke first.’
Reluctantly Veerle sat down again. She looked at her Coke but didn’t touch it. Nervous energy was thrumming through her in waves, like electricity down a wire. She felt as though it might come crackling out of her fingertips at any moment, like blue lightning.
‘There’s one thing,’ added Bram. ‘Marnix says her name’s not Els Lievens. He heard the guy in the shop calling her Hannah.’
‘Hannah?’
Maybe it isn’t her. Veerle had a moment of sickening disappointment, and then she thought, It doesn’t mean anything. If she’s somehow hiding here, she’s not going to use her real name.
It was no use. She couldn’t bear to sit there any longer.
‘Bram? I’m sorry, but can we go? I really have to know if it’s her.’
She was conscious of the gaze of those blue eyes on her, studying her.
‘All right,’ said Bram. He pushed away his Coke and got to his feet. ‘Look,’ he added, ‘I’d kind of like to know what this is about, if it really is your friend in the music shop.’
‘OK,’ said Veerle, in a fever to be away. She would have promised him anything, just to get to the shop and see for herself. In her imagination she was already phoning Kris, or if he still wasn’t answering she was emailing him with just enough information to make sure he called back.
They left the shop and walked back to Magelein. Veerle was not surprised when Bram led her down Benn
esteeg; it was the route Hommel had taken when she was pursuing her. They didn’t go as far as the bridge, though. Instead, they took a dogleg down a series of small streets, stopping just short of the canal; when they came to a halt Veerle had a glimpse of its glossy green water between two buildings.
‘There,’ said Bram, pointing.
Veerle didn’t remember ever seeing the shop before, although admittedly she didn’t know every street in the city centre. She didn’t think she had been down this one. The building was an old one, a once-elegant nineteenth-century creation of red brick with black wrought-iron balconies, four storeys high. At some point an evil-looking shop front had been grafted onto the ground floor. It had been painted matt black like the backstage of a theatre, and indeed it had something of the tawdry impermanent look of stage flats. The name of the shop, MUZIEK CITY, was executed in large pink-and-orange letters in a style that could have been trying to suggest anything from Art Deco to Glam Rock. There was no window display to speak of; behind a couple of faded posters Veerle could see the backs of CD and record racks.
It would be no use trying to see if Hommel was inside from out here, that was very plain. The interior of the shop behind the display racks was as dim and obscure as a cave.
‘You’re in luck. It’s open,’ said Bram.
Veerle looked at the door and saw that he was right: it was half open, not so much inviting as reluctantly allowing customers inside.
‘Thanks, Bram,’ she said, firmly enough to let him know that she could handle this alone.
He didn’t take the hint. As she crossed the street to the music shop, he was at her elbow; the red shirt was a blaze of colour at the edge of her vision.
‘Can’t you stay out here?’ she growled at him out of the corner of her mouth. She didn’t wait for his reply, but as she entered the shop she was aware that he had remained outside.
After the autumn sunshine, the interior of the shop was almost dark. Veerle stood just inside the door, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. Whoever owned the shop appeared to have equipped it entirely with forty-watt bulbs, perhaps working on the assumption that the scruffy décor, like that of a run-down nightclub, was best not exposed to too much light. Music was playing somewhere, but it was so muffled that Veerle could make out nothing except an insistent beat. There was a very faint smell of burning on the air, something sweetish and spicy.
Veerle looked around and saw racks of CDs and vinyl records in dog-eared sleeves. To the right was a wall painted in the same dusty black as the shop front, but with a long strip of mirror at head height. The mirror had probably been intended to create the appearance of greater space inside the shop, but now its blotched and smeared surface merely gave Veerle the impression that she was peering into an adjoining chamber even murkier than the one in which she stood.
To the left was a cash desk, the front of it papered with faded concert posters. It was unattended.
There’s no one here, she thought, nonplussed, and then she caught a flicker of movement from the gloom at the very back of the shop, a white hand flitting across the rack of CDs.
Hommel, she thought.
It had to be her. The girl had her back to her, apparently intent on rearranging some of the stock, but with that slim build and sleek pale hair it had to be Hommel, or else her twin. It had not escaped Veerle, either, that the girl had not bothered to turn round to greet her customer, although she must have heard Veerle come in.
Typical, she thought. Still, so much the better; it gave her the opportunity to approach Hommel unawares. She began to move stealthily towards the back of the shop.
Veerle was perhaps three metres from Hommel when the other girl turned to meet her. There was an expression of ironic enquiry on her face, as though she were expecting whoever was approaching her to ask some question of staggering stupidity. It dropped from her features in an instant, replaced with a look of blank horror.
‘Hommel . . .’ began Veerle, but Hommel wasn’t listening. She was frantically looking about her for a way out, and she made as if to lunge past Veerle, heading for the door. Then she checked herself, her eyes wide and panicked. Veerle glanced behind her and saw Bram in the doorway, blocking it. She looked back at Hommel, but Hommel had already turned and was wrenching open a door at the rear of the shop. Veerle hadn’t even seen it before; it was painted the same matt black as everything else and blended into the wall almost perfectly. Hommel had dived through the door and slammed it shut behind her before Veerle had had time to react.
Veerle heard fumbling on the other side of the door as Hommel tried to secure it, and flung herself against it. After a couple of seconds of resistance it burst open and she staggered into a narrow hallway. Daylight streamed down from above, showing faded striped wallpaper and worn floor-boards. Hommel was already at the other end of the hallway, racing up a flight of wooden stairs painted white so long ago that they had turned a dirty shade of cream.
By the time Veerle started up the stairs, Hommel had turned a corner at the top. Veerle heard her footsteps pounding along the upstairs landing. A second later a door slammed.
Veerle stopped taking the stairs two at a time and stood still, listening. She could hear her own breathing sawing painfully, and the sound of a car passing outside. Inside the building there was nothing. She began to climb the staircase again, running her hand along the banister. It had been painted over many times without the existing coats being removed, and the surface had a strange waxy feel to it.
The upstairs landing was just as shabby as the hallway below. The daylight that streamed through the front and rear windows simply exposed the grimy wallpaper and the chipped and yellowing paintwork. The floors above the shop appeared to be derelict.
Hommel can’t hide up here for ever, thought Veerle.
She began to walk along the landing. There were two other storeys above this one, but she didn’t think Hommel had gone any higher. Almost at the end of the landing there was a door, and that door was tightly closed. Veerle thought Hommel was inside.
She went up to the door and tried the handle. It was the same as the banister rail; it had been painted over so many times that it was encased in a thick glossy shell. It was difficult to get a good purchase, but after trying to turn it several times, she knew that the door was locked.
Leaning close to the wooden panels, she said, ‘Hommel?’
Silence.
If she thinks I’m just going to give up and go away, she’s wrong.
‘Hommel?’
Veerle banged on the door with the flat of her hand. Then she listened.
At first there was nothing, and then she heard it: the creak of a board. Someone was on the other side of the door, no doubt listening as carefully as she was.
‘Hommel,’ she said again in a loud voice, ‘open the door.’
Still nothing.
Veerle looked at the blank and implacable face of the closed door and felt the hot anger uncoiling inside her, a serpent waiting to strike.
You owe me an explanation, damn it. You owe Kris one. You can’t just shut the door in my face and think if you wait long enough I’ll go away.
She let loose a volley of blows on the door, hammering it with her fist. ‘Hommel! I’m not going away!’
Veerle paused from her hammering and blew strands of dark hair away from her face. She threw back her head and shouted, ‘We thought you were dead, Hommel.’
If there was anyone else in the building, the owner of the shop for example, they couldn’t help hearing her now; she was yelling at the top of her voice. Veerle found that she didn’t care. She was determined to know the truth.
‘Kris and I risked our necks for you,’ she shouted at the door. ‘Did you know that?’ She took a deep shuddering breath. ‘We could have walked away but we didn’t. Because it was personal. Because Kris knew you.’ She thumped the door again with all her strength, a savage blow that sent pain streaking up her arm to the shoulder. ‘We could have died. So the least you
can do is open the door and talk to me, you – ungrateful – bitch.’
She cradled her hand, rubbing the offended fingers. Her breath was coming in short gasps, as though she had been running at full tilt. She glared at the door as if she could will it to open, but even so she was taken by surprise when she heard the sound of a key being turned in the lock.
The door swung inwards and there was someone standing there, and in the split second before she realized that it wasn’t Hommel she had glimpsed the room beyond: comfortless as a squat, with clothes scattered on the bare boards and a mattress on the floor. Then she was staring at him – not Hommel at all, with her cold angular face and severe blonde hair, but a tall young man with untidy dark hair and aquiline features, clad in jeans and a white tank, his feet bare on the floorboards.
It was Kris Verstraeten.
13
Veerle saw it at once. Not all of it: there were parts of the puzzle missing, things that didn’t occur to her until later. But enough. She saw the mattress on the floor, the sheets rumpled as though someone had only just got out of bed. She saw Kris’s bare feet, his bare arms, and in her mind’s eye he was struggling into his jeans while on the other side of the door she thumped and shouted. She looked past him and saw Hommel standing by the curtainless window with her arms wrapped around her slender body, staring defensively through strands of pale blonde hair.
He knew, she thought. He knew she was here, here and alive. That’s why he wasn’t taking my calls. He was with her.
Something was crumbling inside her, painfully.
He knew.
Already that knowledge was running like a shock wave through her memories, overturning everything in its path, going further and further back.