Dear Child: The twisty thriller that starts where others end

by Romy Hausmann

  ‘We’ve been meaning to ring you,’ she calls out from the kitchen.

  ‘But then we thought there wasn’t any reason to,’ I explain when Karin turns on the tap, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

  ‘Do sit down, Matthias,’ Mark says unperturbed, a smile on his face. His dark brown hair is shorter than it used to be, while his face – his physique as a whole – looks fuller than the last time we met, back at police HQ. At the time he was as thin as a rake, almost emaciated, which emphasised his swollen nose, encrusted with blood, even more. He couldn’t really blame me, he said in Gerd’s presence; he understood the state I must be in. I just wanted to spit in his face, and in Gerd’s too, who was also taken in by this rotten bit of play-acting. In the end Mark collected seven thousand euros for his performance.

  ‘Thanks, but I’d rather stand,’ I growl.

  ‘How are you, Mark?’ Karin says, coming back into the living room with a tray. Three cups, my cups. I always suspected that Karin had kept in contact with him, but I never asked. I imagine her response would have been to add up the number of times she’d gone to the chemist with prescriptions for opipramol and other sedatives because of me and my solo efforts.

  ‘Yes, Mark,’ I say with a smile. ‘How is the second-hand car business going?’ From the internet I already knew that he’d started up a stage school after moving to France, but it went bankrupt after a few months.

  Mark smiles too.

  ‘We don’t live in Paris anymore, we’ve moved to the country. The Marne Valley, it’s a beautiful area, incredible countryside. We’re making wine. I’ll send you a crate, Matthias.’

  ‘Very kind of you.’

  Karin, who’s now sitting down, clears her throat and puts the tea bags on a separate saucer.

  ‘Here, Mark,’ she says, gesturing to him to take a cup. ‘How are your wife and daughter?’ Mark has a daughter. First he had mine, now he’s got one of his own. I feel a throbbing above my left eyebrow.

  ‘Fine, fine,’ he says, sipping his tea.

  ‘How old is the little one now?’ Karin asks.

  ‘She’s nine. Time flies.’

  ‘Yes,’ Karin says wistfully. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Any new developments about Lena?’

  The throbbing above my eyebrow gets worse when he utters her name.

  ‘Since when has that interested you?’

  Mark noisily puts his cup down and looks at me. If I didn’t know him I’d think this comment had hit him hard, a good shot, accurate. The corners of his mouth sag and I even think I can detect a slight quiver around his chin.

  ‘It always interested me, you know that perfectly well.’

  Karin gives his knee a pat of encouragement and he takes her hand. Mark Sutthoff and my wife are holding hands. I imagine what those hands might have done to my daughter. Grabbed her, strangled her, dug her a grave.

  ‘Mark Sutthoff has an alibi,’ Gerd revealed to me at the time.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Alibi, what does that mean? People lie to give alibis.’

  ‘Matthias, he wasn’t in town during the week before Lena’s disappearance.’ Gerd threw his hands in the air when he saw I was still shaking my head. ‘For Christ’s sake, Matthias, he wasn’t even in the country! He was in France! We’ve got his plane ticket, the hotel reservation, statements from the hotel staff and his companion!’

  ‘What companion?’

  Gerd stared at me for a moment.

  ‘A woman.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘Herr Sutthoff said that he and Lena had already split up several weeks before. We found text messages on his mobile which prove this, but also suggest that they were staying in contact and planned to meet up when he got back. They wanted to make another go of it.’

  I look away.

  ‘I know we’ve had our difficulties in the past, Matthias,’ I hear Mark say. I nod feebly, a memory. My hands on his collar, his back against a wall, his face lobster-red. Where is she, you bastard?

  ‘But, like you, I was always hoping that what happened to Lena would come to light. I never forgot her.’ When he laughs it almost sounds bitter. ‘Just ask my wife. She’s fed up with hearing stories about Lena. But what can you do? Your first major love never goes away.’

  Karin sighs, sounding almost ecstatic.

  ‘That’s why,’ Mark continues, ‘I jumped on the next plane when the police contacted me.’

  The throbbing above my eyebrow stops all of a sudden.

  ‘The police?’

  Mark nods.

  ‘Yes, that Bernd Brühling called me yesterday. It seems like they need my help.’

  ‘Gerd Brühling,’ I correct him. It’s a silly, automatic response, but my mind is trying to get to the bottom of this. ‘Your help? With what?’

  ‘I don’t know yet for sure. But,’ he says, taking a deep breath, deep and dramatic, ‘I hope you realise I will do everything I can to help find Lena.’ He turns to Karin, who looks touched. ‘I have a daughter now myself. I don’t know how I’d have got through these past few years if I’d been in your shoes.’ Now he looks at me. ‘I’d have probably gone mad.’ I ignore his suggestive gaze.

  ‘But Gerd Brühling must have said something to you on the phone.’

  Mark shrugs.

  ‘Only that I might be of some help now that they’ve found the other woman and have a new lead. How are the children, by the way? A boy and a girl, wasn’t it? Good God,’ he says, smiling and deep in thought. ‘My Lena, a mother, unbelievable.’

  ‘Your Lena—’

  ‘The children are as you might expect given the circumstances,’ Karin says hastily. ‘But I wouldn’t call it good. Jonathan is severely traumatised, while the psychotherapists suspect that Hannah has a mild form of that . . . Darling, what’s it called again, that syndrome?’

  ‘Asperger’s,’ I grunt.

  ‘Asperger’s, exactly. It’s a type of autism that makes interaction with other people difficult for those affected. In communication, for example. They have a tendency to take things literally and not really understand the context in which something is said . . .’

  ‘Sure, but it’s hardly normal for a child to spend their whole life isolated in a cabin. How is that poor girl supposed to relate to other people? She’s got no experience of it.’

  ‘My words exactly!’ I exclaim, sticking my finger in the air. ‘My words exactly, Mark! They can’t diagnose a disorder so quickly! You should see how clever Hannah is!’

  ‘But Matthias, Dr Hamstedt explained it to you,’ Karin interjects. ‘Many people with Asperger’s are of above-average intelligence. It’s far more about how they experience the world . . .’

  Mark shakes his head.

  ‘Maybe the girl just needs to get used to everything.’

  ‘Exactly my point,’ I say, clapping my hands.

  Karin sighs.

  ‘We’ll see what happens. At least in Regensburg they’re in the best possible hands. The therapist treating them is totally committed.’

  ‘Something Karin can only guess at,’ I say to Mark. ‘She doesn’t come with me when I go to visit the children.’

  ‘No?’ Mark gives Karin a look of surprise. She lowers her eyes.

  ‘I’ve got to get used to everything too,’ she says.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll all be fine in the end,’ he says, reaching for her hand again.

  ‘When are you meeting Gerd?’ I ask.

  ‘As soon as possible, I suppose. I couldn’t tell him on the phone which plane I was taking. So he doesn’t know I’m already in Germany. But I’ll give him a call first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Will you keep us updated?’

  ‘Of course, Matthias. Of course I will.’

  Father of missing Munich party girl found guilty of assa
ult

  Munich (LR) – Matthias Beck, the father of the Munich party girl, Lena Beck (23), who has been missing since January, was yesterday found guilty of assault. Munich District Court sentenced the 48-year-old to a fine of 70 days’ salary, after he was found guilty of assaulting his daughter’s ex-boyfriend, up-and-coming actor Mark S (26). According to his own statements, Matthias Beck was convinced that S was responsible for the disappearance of his daughter. When handing out the fine, the court took into consideration Matthias Beck’s psychological condition at the time of the assault, based on an expert testimony. The judgement is final. The victim, Mark S, seemed happy with the proceedings. ‘When Herr Beck went at me like a wild animal I feared for my life. I’m pleased that the court hasn’t let him get away with it. While I sympathise with his grief, Herr Beck’s explosive behaviour must be checked to protect not just me, but the public as a whole.’

  Jasmin

  Chest of drawers, second drawer down. I’m still sitting on the mattress, watching Kirsten feel for the right pair of socks, then unroll it. I gaze at her face. Her eyes, usually so clear, now cloudy. Her lips thin and drawn. With shaky fingers she’s taken the shard of glass, still with dried, brown streaks of blood on it, from the tangle of socks.

  ‘Was this . . . ?’

  ‘That is the piece of the snow globe that the police didn’t find.’

  ‘Why did you take it with you from the cabin? Surely not as a souvenir?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Hannah gave it to me. In hospital. The doctor had administered a sedative and I was fairly out of it. Then Hannah came into my room and put the piece of glass in my hand. She said: I remember every detail. I thought I’d dreamed it when I first woke up, but then I realised I was clutching the piece of glass.

  ‘But why did she give it to you?’

  ‘I couldn’t find an explanation for that, either, at first. But after seeing that letter, I think she was trying to remind me of my guilt.’

  I think back to the ambulance and the strange feeling I had when I heard the voice. Her name is Lena, she said, the voice, which at the time I didn’t think could be real, but must be a result of the sedative or the shock. The strange feeling, which was even stronger later when I learned from Cham and Munich that Hannah had actually come with me in the ambulance and was now here in the hospital, probably just a few rooms away, one floor at most. The strange feeling that something wasn’t right. Hannah would never have left the cabin. Even though I’d screamed at her only a few hours earlier. I’d screamed at both of them to follow me. Come on, children! Let’s go! But they didn’t come. Jonathan was whimpering quietly as he kneeled beside the lifeless body on the floor. Hannah was standing beside him, staring at me in disbelief. I’d just struck their father, with full force, with an archaic cry, with the snow globe.

  ‘They’re blaming me for their father’s death.’

  ‘Jassy, they’re little children.’

  ‘Hannah’s thirteen already and Jonathan’s eleven.’

  ‘They’re children.’

  ‘The shard is a sign.’

  ‘Oh, please.’

  ‘And the letter was meant as a reminder. I should never forget what I did to them. They wanted to keep me as their mother for ever and ever and ever. And I destroyed everything for ever and ever and ever.’ I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘She remembers every detail.’

  ‘Jassy, the letter doesn’t even have a sender. It must have been put straight into your mailbox. You don’t seriously believe that two children being treated in a psychiatric institution were allowed out to roam Regensburg and deliver letters?’ She twiddles the bloody piece of glass in her fingertips. ‘Why didn’t you hand this over to the police?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think I just didn’t want to have to do any more explaining. So I hid the glass in the gap between my bed and the mattress, then in the overnight bag that my mother brought to hospital for me.’ I pause to read Kirsten’s face, a face that was once so familiar. In which the twitch of an eyelash contained an answer and pursed lips an entire discussion. The face that’s so alien to me now, just as mine must appear alien to her. As everything about me must appear alien.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ I tell her.

  Kirsten doesn’t respond.

  ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to.’

  ‘But I’d like to, Jassy! It’s just so bloody hard to follow you.’

  I give a feeble smile. He was right.

  You don’t have anybody anymore, apart from us. You’ll feel better when you understand that.

  Hannah

  I liked it better here in the beginning. In the children’s clinic, I mean. It wasn’t that good, but it was better. Jonathan and I could sleep in the same room. We were allowed to eat together there too, just the two of us, rather than go to the big hall with the other children. Frau Hamstedt and her helpers left us in peace. Although they came to check on us regularly, that was all right. We were allowed to go to the toilet punctually and they kept asking us if we needed or wanted anything. I said I wanted Fräulein Tinky, but Frau Hamstedt said the police hadn’t found her. I think she escaped when Mama and I ran out of the cabin that night. Or when the police went into the cabin. I bet they didn’t close the door properly. I imagine Fräulein Tinky getting very scared of all those policemen she’d never seen before and running off into the woods. And now she’s sitting somewhere in the dark undergrowth, scared because she’s hungry and can’t find her way home. Or, worst of all, she has found her way back to the cabin, but now she’s even more scared because none of us are there.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hannah,’ Frau Hamstedt said when I wept. ‘I know how important your cat is to you. I’m sure she’s fine.’ Then she said that animals weren’t allowed in the children’s clinic anyway. That was what made me think this couldn’t be a particularly nice place.

  And after a few days I knew I was right.

  They said it was better if Jonathan and I had our own rooms and ate in the big hall with the other children. They also stopped asking if there was anything we wanted and they locked the toilet. I was pretty good at holding it in, but Jonathan wet himself three times. It was then that they gave him the yellow pills and they were okay. At least he made an effort with his drawings and talked to me. Not to the others, but he did talk to me. Once he said we had to be here as a punishment. ‘That’s not true,’ I said and told him not to worry because someone would pick us up soon. A promise is a promise and promises don’t get broken. He didn’t believe me.

  Shortly afterwards he started hitting his head on the table whenever we were eating. Then they gave him the blue pills. Now he doesn’t talk anymore and just scribbles when it’s drawing time. I’ve told him he needs to make more of an effort, but he simply won’t listen to me. His scribbles are so ugly that we’re not even allowed to have drawing time together anymore. His drawing time is always earlier than mine. I hardly see him any longer, only when he comes out of drawing from Frau Hamstedt’s office and I’m waiting in the corridor to go in. Like today.

  I don’t like his stupid eyes. I know that it’s the blue pills making him stare so idiotically, but it’s making it harder for me to love him. He doesn’t say ‘hello’ either when he sees me. You always have to be polite and say ‘hello’. Frau Hamstedt pushes him out the door and then it’s just a few steps along the corridor to the helper who brought me here and who’s waiting for him.

  ‘Would you look after the young man, Peter?’

  ‘Okey-dokey,’ the helper replies, which isn’t a proper word. Then to Jonathan, he says, ‘So, little man, how are you today? Have you been drawing with Dr Hamstedt?’ Jonathan shuffles beside him without giving an answer. ‘Great,’ the helper says anyway. ‘Now we can take you back to your room, mate.’

  I watch them wander down the corridor. Apart from his stupid eyes, Jonathan looks completely different in othe
r ways too. Even from behind I can see that his hair hasn’t been combed. In the middle, where he laid his head on the pillow last night, his hair has gone flat on both sides, while the funny grey trousers they’ve given him almost hang down to his knees. I’ve been given some trousers like that, but mine are pink. I’d rather have my own things from home.

  ‘So, Hannah,’ Frau Hamstedt says when Jonathan and the helper are almost at the glass door which leads to the stairwell. ‘It’s your turn now, hmm?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say and slip past Frau Hamstedt into her office.

  The window is open. Frau Hamstedt always airs the room in between drawing times. I like it when the window’s open. Because it means the blind’s up too and I can see the sky. Sometimes it’s really blue, sometimes grey, but it’s never brown because I don’t go into Frau Hamstedt’s office with sunglasses on. I don’t like the brown sky at all. I wait until she’s closed the window and pulled down the blind. Then she tells me to sit. My seat is at a children’s table where the drawing pad and sharp pencils are ready. Further back in the room is Frau Hamstedt’s large desk. It’s got chairs too, but I’ve never sat there.

  ‘Two things are different today, Hannah,’ Frau Hamstedt says, sitting at the children’s table with me. I pinch my lip as I don’t want to laugh at her because her long legs don’t fit properly under the low table. You must never laugh at someone, even if the way they’re sitting looks funny.

  ‘Would you like to know what?’

  I nod.

  ‘First, I’ve got some good news for you. Would you like to hear it?’

  I nod again.

  ‘Your grandfather’s coming to fetch you.’

  My heart is beating faster.

  ‘To take me home?’

  Now she’s nodding.

  ‘Are you pleased?’

  I want to nod again, but I leave it because I think it’ll look stupid if the two of us keep taking turns to nod. In any case her question is a stupid one, because I’ve already told her a hundred times that I want to go home. So of course I’m pleased. ‘Right now?’ I ask instead.