Girl in the Dark

by Marion Pauw

  Notwithstanding the puzzling fact that none of Rosita’s or Anna’s DNA was found on the blade, the Ikea knife was considered a very damning piece of evidence.

  I stuck another piece of chocolate in my mouth. I told myself I would stock up on carrots and celery tomorrow.

  Then there were the statements from the neighbors. One woman claimed that on another occasion Ray had slashed Rosita’s boyfriend’s tires with a knife. So Rosita had had a boyfriend. Why was there no mention of him?

  CHAPTER 29

  RAY

  The day after Rosita kissed me, she acted as if nothing had happened. She let me in to give Anna the madeleine, but then she said, “If you don’t mind, Ray . . . I’m expecting someone.”

  I had been hoping Anna’s father wouldn’t ever return. But there he was again.

  Rosita was wearing a see-through dress. Her boobs were clearly visible, hard nipples and all. It was difficult not to look. I tried imagining how I’d touch her boobs, take them in my hands and knead them. The thought hurt my penis.

  “Victor’s going on a trip tomorrow with his family. Imagine, Ray, they’re off to Crete—just a little prelude for the summer. In July they’re spending three weeks in Italy. And last Christmas they were in the mountains skiing. But he doesn’t care that Anna has never been anywhere except for Zandvoort-by-the-Sea. ‘My family is my first priority,’ he says. But what are we, then? What do we mean to him? Aren’t we his family, too? Doesn’t Anna have just as much right to a father as his other kids?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Well, I do. Don’t you ever go on vacation?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  I shrugged.

  “We should go to Crete, too. You, me, and Anna. That would make him sit up and take notice, wouldn’t it?”

  I felt a shudder of happiness. “I don’t know if I dare to get on a plane.”

  “Of course you dare,” said Rosita. “But anyway, he’s coming over, and I was just wondering if you could take Anna for a while.”

  I didn’t get it at all. Rosita wanted to go to Crete with me, but I had to take Anna back to my place because she wanted to take her clothes off for him?

  Rosita crouched down in front of Anna. “Sweetie pie? You want to go with Uncle Ray? Maybe he’ll even take you to the bakery. Or the playground.”

  “I wanna see King Kong,” said Anna.

  “Will you put on your jacket, please? It’s cold out. And Ray?” She straightened up. “When you come back, I have a surprise for you. I want to tell you something about your mother.”

  Anna stepped outside holding my hand. Her hand felt fragile, just a few little bones packaged in soft, delicate skin. Rosita waved at us as we left. She did it by sticking just her hand out, hiding the rest of her skimpily dressed body behind the door.

  Across the street the woman with the unkempt garden was peering out her window at us. She waved at us, too, but Anna didn’t notice her.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked in the high-pitched voice I had adopted specially for Anna.

  “Look at fish.”

  “Not the playground? Or do you want to go shopping, like Mommy?”

  “King Kong,” she said firmly.

  “Fine, fine.” As I was sticking the key in the lock I heard a car screeching to a halt right in front of my house. I turned around and saw Victor driving up in his flashy car without even a dent or a scratch on it. He walked up to Rosita’s door and I saw her open it even before he’d rung the bell. I had to gulp down some stomach acid that came up into my mouth.

  Anna and I went inside and sat down in front of the aquarium. “King Kong, Hannibal, Maria, Peanut . . .”

  Through the wall I thought I heard footsteps climbing Rosita’s staircase. She was taking Anna’s father upstairs with her. I had never been upstairs at Rosita’s. Never. When would Rosita finally get it, that I would always be there for her? She’d said we were almost a family, but how long would I have to wait?

  Anna and I had said the fishes’ names I don’t know how many times when she asked me to take her to feed the ducks. I realized I’d been concentrating so hard on the sound of footsteps on the stairs and Rosita’s bed creaking that I’d completely forgotten where I was.

  Anna looked up at me with eyes that were nearly as blue as King Kong.

  “Of course,” I said. “On the way we can stop at the bakery for some day-old bread. Even though my bread keeps for a lot longer; after three days it’s still fresh and delicious. But you can’t sell bread that’s more than a day old, because then they call it stale. Ridiculous.”

  I helped her into her jacket. It was a pretty red jacket. It had cost 130 euros, but Rosita said it was excellent quality, and Anna could easily still wear it next year. Which was just as well, because the money in my savings account was getting dangerously low.

  Anna skipped along next to me holding my hand as we walked to the bakery. I was getting used to the idea that she liked being with me. Victor’s car was still parked in front of Rosita’s door. I felt myself get mad but thought, Not now. Not while Anna was with me.

  It was quiet in the bakery. The people usually came in the morning to buy their bread. That’s why the store closed at four thirty in the afternoon. It was four fifteen when Anna and I got there. We had to wait for a lady to pay for her pain de campagne first before we could walk through to the back. The lady took her bread and turned around. “Ah, the baker,” she said. “Aren’t you on the wrong side of the counter?”

  “I’ve come to get some stale bread. For the ducks,” I said.

  “Is that your daughter?”

  “We’re almost a family,” I said. “Almost.”

  I think the lady looked surprised. “I have long wanted to tell you I think your bread is delicious. Truly remarkable.”

  “Thank you.” Rosita would like to hear that. She always asked me if I’d had any compliments and then she’d say, “See what a great baker you are, Ray?”

  The light was still on in the kitchen area on the other side of the glass wall. Every surface was sparkling and there wasn’t a crumb on the floor. There was nothing to show that early that morning I’d prepared four hundred croissants, twelve kinds of bread, and a complete batch of pastries in there. All by myself. My boss had asked me if I wanted an assistant, but I liked the safety and comfort of my own thoughts and of doing it by myself.

  “Would you like me to show you La Souche?” I asked Anna. “Of course you don’t understand what that means, but it doesn’t matter. Come with me.”

  She followed me to the back of the bakery, to the warming cupboard where La Souche was kept alive at a constant temperature of sixty degrees Fahrenheit and eighty percent humidity.

  I opened the door and crouched before the earthenware pot.

  “Shh, she’s sleeping,” said Anna next to me.

  “That’s right,” I said, glad that she got it. “She’s sleeping. Sleeping makes you grow, did you know that?” I carefully lifted a corner of the moist cotton cloth covering the mother dough. “Can you smell her? Go on, try. Take a big sniff.”

  Anna sniffed. “Yuck,” she said.

  “You just don’t get it,” I snapped at her, quickly covering La Souche back up.

  Anna stared at me for a few seconds, dazed, and then burst into tears.

  “Don’t do that—stop!” I tried to remember what Rosita had said about what you were supposed to do if someone was crying. It took a little while before I remembered. You had to show you were interested. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “My God!” The girl who helped behind the counter on Wednesdays had come up to us; I hadn’t heard her approach. “What on earth’s going on here?” She picked Anna up. “What’s wrong, my love?”

  “Ray’s a bad boy,” said Anna.

  “Not true,” I said. “Not true at all.”

  “What are you two doing in the warming cupboard, for heaven’s sake? What’s this nonsense? What
did Ray do?” she asked Anna.

  “Bad boy,” she said.

  “Does her mommy know she’s here?” The girl was scowling at me.

  “Yes. Not that she’s here, but that she’s with me.”

  “Ray’s angry,” said Anna. She had stopped crying and was stretching her arms out at me.

  I took her from the girl and turned my back so that she couldn’t touch Anna.

  “Well, I think there’s something funny going on. Taking a little girl into the warming cupboard. It isn’t normal.” The girl put her hands on her hips. I didn’t like her being there.

  “We’ve got to shut the door, or the temperature will go haywire. And in case you didn’t know, the kitchen is only for bakers. You’re supposed to stay in the store.”

  “Never let outsiders set foot in your bakery,” Pierre used to say. “They have no idea how delicate these processes are. They’ll just make a mess of everything.”

  CHAPTER 30

  IRIS

  It was clear that Renzo de Winter, the detective who had led the homicide team in Ray’s case, wasn’t interested in meeting with me.

  “I assure you every avenue was pursued in our investigation,” he said. “All the facts point to your client’s guilt. I don’t know what you’re hoping to dig up. Besides, I don’t have to tell you I am not permitted to disclose any information about the case without the attorney general’s approval.”

  “I completely understand that you can’t say anything on the record. I’m just here for an informal chat.” I looked out the window to take the pressure off the conversation. A young couple was cycling down the street holding hands. They looked happy.

  Renzo de Winter gave a deep sigh.

  “Please?”

  “Off the record. It was a pretty straightforward case as far as we were concerned. Boelens had a history of violence, he had a motive, he was present at the scene of the crime, and he made a number of incriminating statements. That’s four important grounds for indictment. In general it takes no more than two to bring it to the judge.” Renzo de Winter gazed at me with a weary look. I suspected he was younger than he looked.

  “What do you mean by ‘history of violence’? My client didn’t have a rap sheet.”

  “Your client spent his adolescence in an institution for troubled youth. His school records state he killed a dog when he was nine.”

  I tried to keep my face expressionless. What kind of kid would kill an innocent animal? Maybe my mother was right: I had no idea what kind of man Ray was.

  “The neighbors also told us he’d slashed up the victim’s boyfriend’s car. Let me see . . .” De Winter rummaged through an impressive stack of papers on his desk. “Here it is: Boelens stormed outside with a kitchen knife and began slashing Mr. Asscher’s tires. Next he broke the jaguar ornament off the hood and used it to smash the windshield. Never seemed to show remorse.”

  I tried not to think about the dead dog and concentrated on Asscher’s Jag instead. “Did Asscher file a complaint?”

  De Winter sighed, irritated. “No.”

  “Strange.”

  “What difference does it make? I’m sure the Jaguar repair shop could dig up a damage report for you. Mr. Asscher must have had his reasons.”

  “He must have. But can you explain to me why the police never took a statement from Asscher regarding the murder?”

  “Unnecessary.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mr. Asscher was away on vacation when the murder occurred.”

  “Right. Well, then, could you explain the circumstances in which Mr. Boelens’s statements were taken?”

  “How do you mean?”

  I took out my own stack of papers. “Let’s see. Here: ‘It was clear that Rosita and Anna were stabbed with a sharp object. I’m thinking of a carving knife, such as the one I have at home.’ Are those literally Mr. Boelens’s own words?”

  “Yes.”

  “It reads a bit forced to me. Especially this: ‘I hereby swear that no words were put in my mouth and that I make this statement of my own free will and without any threats or promises extended.’ That sounds like a rather formal way for a baker to speak, don’t you think? Knowing Mr. Boelens as I do, I can’t imagine him using these words. Nor can I see Mr. Boelens being so enamored with the strong arm of the law that he would go out of his way to protect the officer who took the statement.”

  “Ms. Kastelein, I am sure you have a fine legal mind, but really, this case couldn’t be more straightforward. Policemen are human, naturally, and if you kept digging you’d be bound to come across a typo or two, or some unfortunate wording. But what of it? As far as we are concerned, the culprit was caught and is paying for his crimes. Justice prevailed.”

  “How did Boelens strike you? Did he seem confused?”

  De Winter glanced at his watch. “I’m running late.”

  “Was Boelens responsive? Did he understand what was happening?”

  “He was panic-stricken. Because he knew what he’d done and knew we knew it, too.”

  “Panic-stricken?”

  “He just went on and on about his fish. He kept raging and yelling about them.”

  “Ah, yes, he did . . .” I remembered the logbook Ray had kept so meticulously for all those years. The prizes he’d won. The way he’d tenderly touched the photos of his fish with his fingertips after I’d handed them to him. “He was in a panic about his beloved fish. And yet you claim that he managed to dictate a statement in elegant, well-turned prose.”

  “We did our best, naturally, to calm him down, and promised him we’d make sure the fish were looked after. We aren’t ogres, you know.”

  “Or did you promise to look after the fish in exchange for his statement?”

  “Now you’re going too far.” Again De Winter looked at his watch. “Time’s up.”

  “Is there a recording of the interrogation?”

  De Winter looked at me, irked. “I know what you’re getting at. You think I have closed my mind, that I have tunnel vision. But I can assure you that this happens to be one of those cases in which I am absolutely convinced we got the right guy. I know you are just trying to do your job, but this one is a total waste of time. Not that I suppose you care. How many billable hours are you getting out of this little visit? Three? Four?”

  I tried to keep my cool. Mentally I was hurling the contents of the entire police station at De Winter’s head.

  “I’m sure your boss is delighted,” said De Winter.

  “Now you’re the one going too far.”

  CHAPTER 31

  RAY

  Iris Kastelein who said she was my sister was also going to be my lawyer.

  “What’s she going to do, then?” I asked Mo. We were sitting in the same office where I’d smashed the dracaena against the wall. Mo was one of the only ones I was still willing to talk to. All the others had tricked me. Jeannie and her too-sour, too-sticky bread; Hank and his lightning bolt; Eddie who called me Raynus; Rembrandt who called me Rainman. They were the ones who’d left the drugs in my room.

  I wasn’t completely sure if I could trust Mo, either, but I had to have someone. That’s what the Mason Home principal used to say. “I know you have trouble trusting people, but if you’re willing to risk it, then take a gamble on me. Because you’ve got to have someone.” The principal had never let me down. Never. He’d made the others stop teasing me, and he’d signed me up for baking school. He had taken me to the planetarium and was always nice to me. And he often told me, “You’re going to be okay, Ray.” But I hadn’t been okay.

  “Iris wants to find out if the murder investigation and the trial were handled properly.” Mo spoke very slowly. “The trial that led to your incarceration. You yourself asked her to help you, don’t you remember?”

  I did remember. Even though I was tired of it all. “And then?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on what emerges from her investigation, I think. Anyway, it does mean that, as your attorney, yo
ur sister can visit you more often. Would you like that?”

  I stared at the wall, at the spot where the plant had hit the white plaster. It no longer showed. Iris Kastelein who said she was my sister wanted to visit more often. Which meant she’d bring me more pictures of the fish and tell me about them. But it also meant I’d have to pee in the cup in front of the nurse without the white coat again. And then they’d find drugs in my cell and then they’d put me in solitary again.

  “I know you keep telling Dr. Römerman you didn’t do it. If that’s true, then here’s your chance to prove your innocence.”

  “And then?”

  “They’ll let you go home.”

  I looked at Mo’s face, which always seemed kind to me. I thought about the pictures of all the faces they’d shown me in therapy. The way you could tell from the mouth or the eyes if someone was happy or not.

  “What’s bothering you, Ray? What are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t want to go back to solitary,” I said. “Never again.”

  “That’s completely up to you,” said Mo. “If you abide by the rules, there’s no reason for you to be put into solitary.”

  “Oh no? Oh no? So what happened last time? Why was I thrown into solitary when I’d done nothing wrong? Nothing!”

  “You threw a plant at Jeannie’s head.”

  “She told me I wouldn’t be allowed to do the gardening anymore. Don’t you know I’m the one who trims the hedges? It’s the only thing that makes me feel good. Because I still don’t have my fish. Even though I’m always being told ‘we’ll discuss it’ and ‘we’ll think about it.’ Meanwhile weeks go by and I’m still waiting for an answer.”

  Mo was no longer smiling. He looked serious. His eyebrows were wrinkled; the corners of his mouth went straight across. “Ray, did those drugs belong to you?”

  I banged my hand on the table. “Don’t I keep telling you? I don’t have any drugs! I don’t use drugs! And I don’t smoke, either and how the hell am I ever going to get out of here if nobody ever believes me?” I kept talking without stopping for breath. My head was spinning.