by Helen Grant
But that was impossible, and anyway, how could he dare to object?
Anneke saw Veerle react. ‘It’s that boy who got you into all that trouble, isn’t it?’
‘Anneke,’ said Veerle as levelly as she could, ‘you know his name. It’s Kris Verstraeten.’
‘Geert doesn’t want you seeing him.’
Veerle found that she was completely unable to tell Anneke the truth, which was that she wasn’t seeing Kris any more. Apparently. Not since Saturday, when she had found him with Hommel. It would probably have ended what was shaping up to be a bad-tempered argument, but she simply couldn’t make herself do it.
‘I know,’ she said, looking Anneke evenly in the eye.
‘Well, what is he doing, coming to the flat, then?’ demanded Anneke. She was pale – she always looked tired these days – but there were spots of colour in her cheeks now.
‘I don’t know,’ said Veerle truthfully. ‘I didn’t ask him to.’
‘So he came all the way from wherever he lives, in Vlaams-Brabant, for no reason?’
Veerle took her school bag off her shoulder and dropped it on the floor. Suddenly she felt very weary. Automatically she rubbed her left forearm, although she was not conscious of any pain.
‘Anneke . . .’ She really didn’t want to argue. ‘I don’t know why he came, and I really didn’t invite him.’
‘Then what was he doing here?’
‘What did he say?’
‘He wanted to talk to you.’ Anneke scowled. ‘He was very persistent. Veerle, even if you don’t intend to respect your father’s wishes, you could have a little consideration for me. He was quite threatening.’
I don’t believe that, thought Veerle. Then she thought, I don’t know what to believe. I don’t think he’d threaten Anneke, but then I didn’t think he’d go behind my back, either.
It would have been too easy to take out her frustration on Anneke. Instead, she simply said, ‘Sorry,’ and picked up her school bag.
‘Sorry? Well, I’m sorry too,’ snapped Anneke in a significant tone.
Sorry I’m here, thought Veerle.
They stared at each other, Veerle’s hazel eyes meeting Anneke’s grey ones. Veerle saw something dull and ugly – regret? – guilt? – seeping like a grubby stain into the older woman’s expression. She had not meant to speak so hastily, Veerle was pretty sure of that, but the knowledge was as much use as thinking that someone had not really intended to turn round suddenly with a breadknife in their hand when it was sticking out of your midriff.
There was no point in fighting. Geert would be angry if she did; he would say that she should make allowances for Anneke’s condition, and he was probably right. Veerle said, ‘I think I’ll go to my room,’ and Anneke stood back to let her pass.
My room, thought Veerle bitterly when she had closed the door and was standing there between the bare walls that should have been decorated with bunnies and ducks and elephants. She put her bag down on the floor and went and sat on the bed.
Kris, she thought. I wonder why he came. What was he going to say?
That scene flashed through her head again: Kris standing in the doorway, Hommel behind him in the shabby room.
There is nothing he can say. Perhaps that was why he came during the day, when he must know perfectly well that she was at school. Just to make it look as though he was sorry, without having to face her.
And me? Could I face him?
She remembered Bram kissing her on the rooftop the night before, how his kiss had begun gently and become gradually more insistent; how she had responded in spite of herself – who wouldn’t, considering how very, very good at it he was? – and how she had had to push him away when her head had given her susceptible heart a dressing down.
Perhaps, she concluded, it was better if she and Kris didn’t have to face each other.
19
At midnight Veerle awoke to the sound of her mobile phone ringing. It took her a little while to realize what had woken her, and when she did, it was already too late; after six rings the phone had diverted to voicemail.
Veerle lay in bed looking at the slender wedge of light created by the streetlamp outside her window shining through the gap in the curtains. She felt groggy and disoriented, and when she shifted in bed, trying to make herself more comfortable so that she could sink back into sleep, she could feel the evening’s exertions in her joints and muscles.
Out of practice, she thought.
She was almost asleep again when she heard a beep from the mobile, the signal that a text message had come in.
Someone wants to get in touch with me really badly. There were very few possibilities, given that her father and Anneke were asleep a couple of doors down from her own room, she’d seen Bram a few hours ago, and as for Kris . . .
Finally curiosity got the better of her and she leaned out of bed to switch on the light. Her jacket was lying on the floor by the bed. She grabbed it with one hand, pulled it to her and lay on her back feeling in the pockets for the phone.
1 message from Kris Verstraeten.
Veerle lay there looking at the little screen.
Is he deliberately trying to miss me?
First the visit during the day, when she was clearly going to be at school, and now a call in the middle of the night, when she was probably going to be fast asleep.
She was still trying to decide whether to open the message when the phone began to ring again. Veerle started, and nearly dropped it. She didn’t have to look at the screen to see who was calling.
Kris Verstraeten.
It briefly flitted through her mind that she could touch the red symbol to end the call, and then switch the phone off to stop him calling her again.
No, she decided. Let’s call his bluff. I want to know what he has to say.
She touched the screen to accept the call and put the phone to her ear without saying anything, gazing sternly at the ceiling.
‘Veerle?’
That one word, her name, nearly undid her. His voice was so familiar, and when he spoke her name something inside her seemed to jump, as it always did when she saw him. The things she had said to him in her head over the last day and a half, the angry, indignant words, drained out of her in an instant.
When she didn’t reply Kris said, ‘Veerle? Are you alone?’
‘Yes,’ she managed to say at last. Her mouth was dry.
‘I’m outside.’
It took Veerle a moment to digest that, and when she did she sat up in bed, clutching the phone to her ear. ‘What?’
‘I’m outside, in the street. Can you come down?’
‘Hang on. You’re outside the flat? On Bijlokevest?’
‘Yes.’
Veerle sat in the bed with the phone clamped to her ear, and for a moment she could think of absolutely nothing to say.
‘Veerle?’ said Kris’s voice in her ear. ‘Can you come down?’
‘No,’ she blurted out, thinking of Anneke and Geert a few metres along the corridor. Anneke never slept very deeply these days, with the baby pressing on her bladder; she was always getting up in the night. If Veerle got up and went down the hall to let herself out, ten to one Anneke would hear her, and then there would be a scene. Then she said, ‘Let me think.’ She was already pushing back the duvet, swinging her bare feet over the edge of the bed. ‘I’ll call you back.’ She touched the red icon to end the call, and stood up.
In the dim light from her bedside lamp she stood and listened. The flat was silent, but what did that mean? Simply that Anneke wasn’t moving around right now.
Veerle dressed quickly, pulling on trousers and a T-shirt, and then she switched the lamp off again. She let her eyes adjust to the darkness, and then she went cautiously over to the window and peered out, doing her best to stay behind the curtain.
Is he really down there?
It was difficult to see the stretch of pavement immediately below the window without actually leaning out. She went as close to t
he glass as she dared and looked out, and there he was. His face was turned up to the window, sallow in the light from the streetlamp, the dark hair falling untidily across his brow.
The phone began to ring again, and Veerle jumped. She picked it up from the bed, pressed the red icon to silence it. Then she went and opened the window.
She leaned right out and looked down, and at the same moment Kris stopped what he was doing, which was examining his own phone with an expression of frustration, and looked up.
‘Stop calling,’ said Veerle in a low voice. ‘You’ll wake everyone up.’
Kris approached the wall below the window, and she said, ‘What do you want?’
She had spoken more harshly than she had intended, and she saw the reaction in his face, a brief flash of anger, or frustration.
‘I want to talk to you.’
‘At midnight?’
‘I came earlier and you weren’t here.’
‘I was at school.’
Kris stared up at her and she felt that familiar feeling, as though something were tugging at her, pulling her to him. She fought the feeling. Longing and anger were swirling around inside her like oil and vinegar, never really combining, always separating out into distinct and painfully intense emotions. She wanted to go down to him and throw herself into his arms. She wanted to slap his face.
‘Come down,’ he said again.
Veerle looked at him. She thought about the bedroom door, which creaked like a sow in labour whenever you opened it. She thought about the front door of the flat, which had a deadlock that opened with an audible clunk. The door itself was heavy, and unless you were careful it was inclined to swing shut with a bang.
‘Veerle . . . please.’
‘Shhhh.’
She glanced up and down the street. No one about other than herself and Kris. Veerle climbed out onto the windowsill, stood up very carefully, and stepped over onto the bracket holding the drainpipe to the wall. A couple of minutes later she stepped down onto the pavement next to Kris, brushing her hands on the front of her trousers. Then she straightened and looked at him.
‘How long have you known about Hommel, Kris?’
Her voice was steady but her heart was thumping and she was trembling.
‘Veerle, it’s not like—’
‘How long?’
‘Two weeks,’ said Kris reluctantly. ‘Well, maybe three.’
‘Three weeks,’ said Veerle. She was so angry that she felt light-headed. She would have liked to shout Kris’s words back in his face, but she fought to keep her voice down, conscious of the open window above. ‘You’ve been in Ghent for three weeks and you didn’t tell me?’
‘Not in Ghent,’ said Kris. ‘I only came here on Friday night. Look, will you let me explain?’
‘What is there to explain?’ hissed Veerle savagely. ‘I’m not stupid. You were in her bed when I banged on the door, weren’t you?’ She hunched her shoulders angrily, hugging herself. ‘I don’t know why I came down here. I don’t know why you came here, either.’ She glared at Kris. ‘You didn’t phone me for a whole week, and if I phoned you, you didn’t answer. It’s just sheer chance that I found Hommel. If I hadn’t, I’d still be wondering what the hell had happened to you, and you’ – Veerle was rigid with fury – ‘you’d be with her.’
Kris had been listening to Veerle with a deepening frown on his face. ‘Veerle, I couldn’t call you.’
‘Why not? Too busy . . .’ Veerle couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. She turned her back on him and put a hand to her face.
‘Look,’ said Kris’s voice behind her, ‘I’m here now. Will you at least let me explain?’
Veerle said nothing.
‘Hommel called me a couple of weeks ago. OK, three weeks ago. And I swear to you that I had no idea beforehand that she was here. I thought she was . . . dead.’
He let out a long breath. ‘I couldn’t believe it was her at first, when she called. It was like talking to a ghost. She sounded odd too, really shaken up.’
‘Really,’ said Veerle flatly.
‘She told me she was here in Ghent, living under a different name. She calls herself Hannah.’
‘I know.’
‘She came here to get away from Jappe, her klootzak of a stepfather. That’s another story. Anyway, she’s not registered here. She’s living in the flat over Muziek City and that fat bastard Axel pays her a pittance in cash to help out in the shop.’
Veerle could tell from Kris’s voice that he had moved closer to her. She turned sideways, not wanting to let him get close enough to touch her, and not wanting to meet his eyes.
‘I can see why you’re angry.’
‘Can you?’ snapped Veerle.
‘Yes, I can. I was really angry with her too when she rang me. We thought that she was dead, like Vlinder; that whoever had killed the others had killed her too. It made the whole thing personal, and we risked our necks trying to get the guy to show himself.’
‘While she was actually selling CDs in Muziek City.’
‘She said she was sorry. She had no idea.’
‘She’s sorry? I’m sorry too, Kris. You know how many bones I broke when I fell off the castle tower?’ Finally she shot him a glance, full of white-hot anger. ‘And you could have died. Is she sorry about that too?’
‘Of course she is.’
‘And that’s all right?’
Kris sighed. ‘No. But she is sorry.’
‘So why did she call you? She got lonely?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘So what was it like, Kris?’
‘She’s scared,’ he said.
‘Scared?’ repeated Veerle sceptically.
‘She thinks someone’s stalking her. She’s doesn’t have anyone else to turn to, Veerle.’
‘What about Axel?’
‘What do you think? He’s only interested in himself.’
‘So she phoned you, and you came running?’
‘Do you have to make this so difficult?’ Kris snapped back at her. He ran a hand through his dark hair, scowling. ‘The first time she called I told her to forget it. I was just as pissed off as you are.’
I doubt it, thought Veerle.
‘But she called me again about a week ago and she sounded like she was in a state of total panic. In the end I said I’d come up for a few days. I finished work late on Friday and came up for the weekend. I’m going back tomorrow on the early train.’
‘And why didn’t you call me and tell me all this?’
‘Hommel doesn’t want people knowing she’s here in Ghent—’
‘Kris, I’m not people. I’m your girlfriend. I mean, I thought I was.’
‘That’s the whole point. What would you have said? Sure, Kris, go and stay with your ex?’
‘Well, if you knew I wouldn’t like it, why did you do it?’
‘Because she’s terrified.’
‘This is going round in circles,’ said Veerle. She put her head back and looked Kris right in the eye. ‘Why does she think someone is stalking her?’
‘She’s been followed.’
‘By whom?’
‘She’s never had a good look at him. It’s not anyone she knows, but she thinks Jappe might have put someone on to her.’
‘Her stepfather? He’d have to be a psycho to do that. Isn’t it enough that she’s left home?’
‘Veerle, he is a psycho. If he were just a klootzak she wouldn’t have left. She’s told me things . . . If her mother would support her she could report him to the authorities. Only she won’t.’
Veerle was silent for a moment, remembering her own encounter with Mevrouw Coppens, the way she had seemed so cowed and unconfident, yet had reacted so violently to the suggestion that she report her daughter’s disappearance to the police. She had taken a swing at Veerle with her bag, right there in the street.
Finally she said, ‘What does she want you to do?’
‘She wanted to see if the guy would f
ollow her again. It’s always in the old part of the city, around the Sint-Baafsplein. If she thinks he’s following her, she tries to lose him before she goes back to Muziek City. She’s afraid of what he might do if he finds out she’s staying there.’
In spite of her antipathy to Hommel, Veerle felt a frisson at that. Hommel was unregistered; that meant that officially she didn’t exist at all in Ghent. Who would notice if she vanished altogether, apart from Axel, who didn’t look like the sort of guy who would care? She shivered.
‘If he did follow her, I was going to speak to him.’ Kris’s voice was grim.
Veerle studied him for a moment. He was tall and broadshouldered, and although he was lean he was hardened with working outdoors. Even without that scowl on his face he’d have looked like someone who wouldn’t take any crap.
If I were Hommel, I’d ask him for help, she realized. It wasn’t much comfort.
‘And did he?’ she asked Kris.
He shook his head. ‘No. At least we don’t think so.’
‘So what now?’
‘I have to go back to Overijse tomorrow. I’ve already taken one day off.’
‘But you’re going to come back, aren’t you?’
‘Veerle . . .’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Kris sighed heavily.
‘When?’
‘Next weekend. Probably.’
‘And you’re going to stay with her, there, in that flat?’
‘Well, what else am I going to do? Book into the Grand Hotel?’ snapped Kris defensively.
‘And I’m not supposed to object?’ Veerle’s voice was rising again; with an effort she lowered it. ‘I’m not stupid, Kris. I know you were in her bed when I banged on the door.’
‘Nothing happened.’
And I’m just supposed to accept that?
‘Kris, when she saw me in the cathedral she ran away. I chased her halfway across Ghent. That doesn’t look like she has nothing to hide from me, does it?’
‘She panicked. And anyway, we both knew how you’d react—’
‘ “We”?’ Veerle’s hands curled into fists. ‘That says it all, Kris.’