Safe as Houses (17 page)

The telephone rings again and she jumps, causing the grater to slip. Holding a bloody thumb in her mouth, she waits tensely, but Kreuger doesn't call her. He just lets the phone ring, until the answering machine kicks in.

A familiar voice resounds through the house, one that fills Lisa's eyes with tears.

‘It's me.' She hears him hesitate. ‘I wanted to call you sooner, but I was just too busy. I want to arrange a time to take Anouk to the zoo.' Silence. ‘I miss you, Lisa. I hope you've changed your mind. Monique knows about us now. I told her. She wants a divorce, Lisa.'

Another silence, then a click announcing that the caller has hung up. His final words pulsate through Lisa's head, as a deadly silence descends.

She stands frozen at the worktop, her thumb still in her mouth, her eyes focused on the door. Anouk, who started off looking happy at the sound of her
father's voice, now looks hesitant, as though she can sense danger. There's no movement from the sitting room, until heavy steps come towards the kitchen. An ominously heavy tread, as though Kreuger's repressed anger is being expressed through his feet.

One step to the side is enough to give Lisa a view of the sitting room. And of Kreuger just outside the kitchen door.

She pulls Anouk towards the utility room.

The door to the basement is open, and the key is still in the lock – she saw it there last night and vaguely wondered if she could hide in the basement in an emergency. It would have to be a real emergency, because they'd be caught like rats in a trap.

This thought screams in her head as she sends Anouk down. But she has no choice. The moment Kreuger enters the kitchen she grabs the key from the door and goes through it.

She slams it behind her and turns the key. A grey darkness encompasses them. A scrap of daylight breaks through the high window, lighting up a spot on the concrete floor.

She is still standing at the top of the stairs when Kreuger throws himself at the door. ‘Open up!' he shouts. ‘Open up, you filthy bitch!'

Lisa sees Anouk put her fingers in her ears in the half-light. Her whole body is shaking. She pulls her daughter towards her.

‘I knew it!' Kreuger screams. ‘You're no better than all those other bitches with their filthy lies! When I get my hands on you, I'm going to cut off your tits and strangle you with your bra!'

His shoulder rams the door, but the heavy wood resists his attack. Lisa and Anouk hurry down the stairs, arms wrapped around each other, and wait.

‘Mummy . . .'

‘Shh, now, he can't get to us.' Lisa's voice is trembling.

The banging and swearing carry on for a while but then suddenly it goes quiet. To her frustration, Lisa can't hear a single sound that might tell her what Kreuger is planning. Nailing the door shut? Lighting a fire? Oh God, please no.

In the hours that follow, she hears his heavy footsteps above their heads, and now and then water rushes down the pipes that run through the basement. They hear him come into the utility room and stand in front of the basement door a number of times. Then she holds her breath and waits for the sound of a crowbar or a saw. But Kreuger doesn't seem to be going down that route. He just leaves them in the basement, and Lisa understands why: there is no food here, nothing to drink and
no bedding. They can spend the night on the cushions from the garden chairs, but that's about it. It wouldn't be so bad if they had any water. They can cope for a while without food. But how long can a person survive without fluids?

She hunts through the space yet again, in the hope of finding a forgotten can of cola or a bottle of water, or even a bottle of wine. She used to keep her supplies here, until she took a tumble down the steep staircase and broke her ankle. After that she moved everything into the utility room and the garage. She didn't have much reason to go down into the cellar, especially once Mark began to view the basement as his DIY space. He liked to make things, but there was no place to work in his own house, which lacked a cellar or a garage. He'd even repaired and repainted a second-hand bike as a birthday gift for his elder son under her roof.

With painful sharpness she remembers the day she discovered how close hatred and love were to each other – the day she realised that her own fantasies had begun to lead a life of their own and to create their own reality.

Only part of Mark belonged to her; the other part would always be inseparably bound to his wife, Monique. Lisa had done her best not to become emotionally dependent on Mark, but on
the day she realised that he wouldn't leave his wife for her she felt as though a meteorite had smashed into her world.

A few weeks after they met, he told her he was married and that his wife was pregnant. Lisa could understand why he wouldn't want to abandon Monique when she was expecting his child. So for the first few months after Sam was born, she didn't insist that he leave Monique. He spent every free moment with Lisa, and they lamented the fact that they hadn't met a year earlier. She had really believed they had a future together, and still believed it when Sam turned one. But when Monique became pregnant again, Lisa began to have her doubts. She raged at Mark. How could he have been so stupid as to have let this happen? Was she supposed to sit out another pregnancy and the baby years of their second child before he'd leave his wife? She had lost faith in him, and, despite all of Mark's pleas and assurances that he was serious about her, Lisa had ended their relationship.

She'd cried herself to sleep for nights on end but held firm: she never wanted to see Mark again.

Then he sent her two gifts: one package contained a blue Babygro and the other a pink one. He wanted to have a child with her, he'd written on the card – proof that he was choosing her, not his family.

‘If you leave your family now, you're an even bigger prick than I thought,' she wrote back. ‘My children deserve more than that – and I do too.'

Not long afterwards she found out she was pregnant.

Contrary to what she had told Kreuger, the period following Anouk's birth was amazingly joyful. The birth had been fast and easy; she'd not had post-natal depression, and she'd walked on clouds for weeks. And Mark had been at her side, as radiant as she was.

‘Thank you, thank you,' he'd repeat while kissing Anouk's black hair. ‘I already had two sons and now you've given me a daughter. Isn't she beautiful, Lisa! Just look at her!'

She had looked at her baby, and then at Mark, and she'd seen his deep love for her and Anouk through his eyes. And they had made up.

‘I'll leave Monique,' he had promised her. ‘Our marriage isn't important; it never has been. Not since I met you. I'm so fed up with all the arguments and her possessiveness. Please be patient, Lisa. I have to find the right moment to tell her. It's not a small matter, and I also have to think about Sam and Tim.'

Lisa understood this and gave him time. But when she celebrated Anouk's first birthday, there was still no change in sight.

Anouk was eighteen months old when Lisa unexpectedly ran into Mark with his family. That experience made Kreuger's story horribly familiar: the desperation, the wild jealousy and the hatred that had surfaced in him when he saw his ex-wife with another man; the irresistible urge to take revenge, to kill. But, while he had acted on his feelings, she had put on an inner brake. At the very last moment, it has to be said.

She was waiting at the traffic lights in her car when she suddenly saw them. They were coming around the corner, the elder boy skipping ahead, the younger in the buggy. They didn't look like they had marital problems. On the contrary: their faces were happy, and they were talking and laughing. And they kissed just in front of Lisa's nose, before going in different directions. Monique went into the toy shop with the children, and Mark hurried to the newsagent's on the other side of the road.

He stepped out into the road and looked back over his shoulder to shout something to his wife. Monique smiled, gave him a thumbs-up and blew him an air kiss.

And that's when Lisa released the brake. The traffic light was on green now, and the driver next to her was revving his engine aggressively.

If she'd stepped on the pedal with all the
intensity of her feelings, Mark would have been under her car two seconds later. The temptation was enormous.

That's it for you, she thought.

But she had held her foot poised above the accelerator and hesitated – an instant of rationality that had saved Mark's life, one that she was thankful for much later. The rage, though, had flooded through her body for days, turning into bitter, deep regret shortly afterwards.

On that day, she'd ended their relationship again, afraid of the intensity of her feelings and the unpredictability of her moods.

Senta had imagined that being back home would be rather different from this. She wanders restlessly through the sitting room, a cup of coffee in her hand. She has a long afternoon ahead of her, hours to kill with nothing but her own thoughts. If it had been up to her, she'd have returned to work. She'd soon know if she wasn't up to it. What's the point of hanging around the house all day? Work is no punishment for her; it's what she likes to do best. What's more it would be a distraction from all that pointless worrying about the accident and how close she'd come to death. One shouldn't dwell on things like that.

She puts down her coffee mug on a pile of Denise's exercise books and sits at the piano. They both play the piano, but Senta has hardly touched it in recent years. She tinkles the first notes of ‘Für
Elise' with one hand, but has forgotten the rest. A few years ago she could play the whole piece effortlessly.

Her eyes glide over to the silver photo frames displayed on top of the piano – pictures of the children when they were still sweet little toddlers. How big they have become. Their rounded cheeks have become thinner, their eyes less curious and open. In the photos she takes now, they always look like they are suffering slightly, as if they are only posing to make her happy.

A feeling of nostalgia overwhelms her, even though she knows this is ridiculous. If you want the past back, you have to accept all of it, including the sleepless nights and the lack of time for yourself.

Things are fine as they are, she decides. She is happy with her life, her work and her freedom. She is even able to look forward to the time when it is just her and Frank in the house again, and they can go on the round-the-world trip they've always talked about.

Her thoughts instantly move on to Alexander, as though his name is inextricably linked to Frank's. To her surprise, she doesn't feel that familiar sense of loss. What was recently a welcome addition to her life is now mainly a complication that she'd miss like she'd miss toothache. How could she have found her life boring? How could she have thought
that her work, husband and children weren't enough to make her happy?

Senta tinkles away at the piano some more, but soon stops. It is a beautiful autumn day. Frank had dutifully kept her company the whole morning. He looked up in concern every time she took a step, or yawned, or made the slightest sound, as though she might collapse at any moment, frothing at the mouth. He finds it hard to believe that she can't remember anything of her suffocating adventure under water, and he has taken Dr Reynder's warning that a lung infection could still develop very seriously indeed.

An emergency call from the newspaper presented him with huge dilemma. Could he go to the office and leave his wife alone?

‘Go on, I'll manage,' Senta had said. ‘Really, if bubbles start coming out of my mouth, I'll call you.'

He couldn't help but laugh. ‘You'll call 112 right away. Have you got your mobile in your pocket? Good. Keep it with you; don't leave it lying around.'

‘I will. Bye, darling.' Senta kissed her husband and then went to the window to wave goodbye.

She'd remained standing there long after the sound of the car's engine had died away. The children were at school, and a pleasant peace had descended on the house.

But after a half hour of reading magazines, answering emails and calling her father, the quiet had begun to get on her nerves. She was rarely home alone, and on the occasions when she was, she was always working.

Senta leaves the piano, picks up her coffee from the exercise book and gulps it down. Then she goes to her study and searches through the mess on her desk for the piece of paper with her rescuer's contact details. She finds it quickly, not yet buried under all her other papers.

‘Rob Wenteling,' she reads aloud. His address and phone number are written underneath.

She picks up the phone and calls him.

‘Rob Wenteling speaking.'

‘Good afternoon, this is Senta van Dijk.' Her legs suddenly feel weak and she sinks down on to the desk chair. ‘I'm calling to thank you.'

There is a pause and then Rob Wenteling says, ‘You're the woman who drove into the water.'

‘Yes. And you got me out. I'm really incredibly grateful to you.'

Rob Wenteling dismisses this at once. ‘Anyone would have done the same. How are you getting on?'

‘I got out of hospital yesterday. That was pretty quick, given the circumstances. I've been very lucky.'

‘That's for sure!'

They discuss Senta's health briefly, and then she asks him whether he'll be home this afternoon. Rob Wenteling says that he will; he's retired and has a lot of free time.

‘Can I drop by and thank you in person? And would you show me the site of the accident? I still can't really remember what happened,' Senta says.

Mr Wenteling hesitates, then agrees to her visit and offers to go with her. ‘I can show you exactly where it happened.'

‘Fantastic, thank you.' Senta looks at her watch. ‘It will take me an hour or two to get to you.'