All the posters that used to cover the walls were put in the recycling long ago. The photos and the pinboard with its colourful jumble of polaroids and concert tickets were taken down. The clothes that used to hang in the wardrobe have been discarded. The chest of drawers and bedside rug were new purchases, Karin’s attempt to set up a guest room, or at least a bedroom without ghosts. Just like the curtains and the white orchids in a pot on the windowsill, which Karin lovingly nurtures.
Hannah stepped hesitantly into the middle of the room and allowed her gaze to roam.
‘It’s very big,’ she said, then walked back to the door and started to measure the room by putting one foot in front of the other, heel to toe.
‘Twenty-eight steps,’ she declared when she got to the wall opposite.
‘Do you like it?’ I asked hopefully; she just shrugged.
When I showed her the desk I must have looked as desperate as a furniture salesman who’s yet to make a sale that day.
‘Look! This is the perfect place for studying. And the chair is very comfortable. Do you want to try it out? Go on, sit down. And look at this! We specially got you a drawing pad and colour pens, and if you like, we’ll buy you a few books too, tomorrow or the day after. Or Karin, I mean your grandmother, could have a look in the cellar to see if some of your mama’s old schoolbooks are in a crate somewhere, and then—’
‘Matthias,’ Karin said from the door, waving me over. ‘Just leave her in peace for a little while.’
With a sigh, I obeyed and stood beside her. ‘What were you thinking?’ she hissed from the side.
She was referring to me telling Hannah I was taking her home. But nobody was more disappointed by the misunderstanding than me.
‘The stars,’ Hannah said out of the blue. Now she was standing beside Lena’s bed, her head back, smiling. Her smile gave me heart.
‘Yes, your mama was so desperate for her own starry sky that we stuck one up for her. Karin, turn off the light and close the door for a sec.’ Because the roller blinds were down in Lena’s bedroom too, as protection from the reporters outside, the stars shone as soon as the switch clicked, a sea of neon-green above, large ones, small ones, stars with tails and others without.
‘Mama made a starry sky at home too, but the crayon doesn’t glow.’
‘Did she draw you stars?’ A warm feeling flooded my chest, my broken ribcage seemed to heal for the time being. What a wonderful, loving mother my Lenchen must have been.
‘Yes, on the slatted frame under Jonathan’s bunk. When I lay in bed I just had to reach up and I could touch them, the stars. They’re even beautiful when they don’t shine. They’re blue and green and red. It’s only the yellow ones that are hard to see on the wood, but I still know they’re there.’
‘Listen, would you like to sleep in this room tonight? Beneath your mama’s shining stars?’
Hannah said nothing, but in the residual light seeping into the room under the door from the hallway I saw her nod. I thought that this was the moment, the moment when we’d bond, when the loose strands would come together. The stars on the ceiling, which her mother had left behind like a sign. The stars, which in their own, silent way had to prove to Hannah that this was where she now belonged.
But I was mistaken. It was during dinner that she asked, ‘How long do I have to stay here before I can go home?’
I put my hope in Karin again, but even she seemed to be at a loss on this occasion.
After a moment, therefore, I had a go myself. ‘Hannah,’ I said, ‘the police have sealed off the cabin. They’ve stuck something on the door which means you’re not allowed in there anymore.’
Hannah put down her bread, having taken a few bites.
‘Never again?’
‘I don’t think so, no.’
‘But why not?’
‘Hannah—’ I began without knowing what I actually wanted to say, but was interrupted by Karin.
‘Because terrible things happened there.’
I tensed up and gave Karin a reproachful look. Until Hannah’s able to understand for herself what really happened in the cabin, I believe we ought to leave it to the professionals to explain things carefully to her. The fact that they hadn’t yet been successful in this showed me even more clearly how sensitively we had to treat her. But I couldn’t have said this to Karin, of course, for she would have immediately reminded me of how often I’d recently described the specialists as incompetent idiots.
To my surprise, however, Hannah nodded at once.
‘I don’t think Jonathan will have managed to get all those stains out of the carpet anyway.’
An audible intake of breath from Karin.
‘We have to go there anyway, Grandad. Because of Fräulein Tinky. You see, she doesn’t know that the cabin can’t be our home anymore.’
‘We’ll do that, Hannah. No problem,’ I say, earning a reproachful look myself from Karin.
I don’t doubt that Hannah will feel happy with us. That everything will be fine in the end. And yet the night refuses to give me any peace. I refuse to dwell for a second on that tiny, nagging doubt. Ultimately Karin’s doubt that we’ll succeed in being a family must be proved wrong.
I’ve got used to Karin not sleeping through the night. She hasn’t done it for years, not since Lena disappeared. At some point in the middle of the night she wakes up and gets out of bed. She’ll go to the bathroom or down to the kitchen to have a glass of water or a cup of tea, or she’ll go into the living room for a bit of a read until her eyelids feel heavy again. After all these years, the footsteps on the stairs and the sound of running water have just become background noise. I barely open an eye anymore; at most I’ll turn over.
But now I wake with a start.
Screaming.
My hand reaches for the switch of the bedside light.
Screaming. Karin’s voice.
My body shoots upwards; my circulation can barely keep pace. My feet feel for the floor.
The screaming’s coming from downstairs. Something clatters, a chair perhaps. Dining room, I think.
I make it to the bedroom door, my legs like jelly.
Someone’s in the house, I think. Someone’s got Karin. A weapon, I need a weapon, but I don’t have one. All that comes to mind is the poker, which is in its stand beside the fireplace, but the fireplace is in the dining room where I suspect Karin to be.
Stumbling across the landing, I’m briefly tempted to pop into Lena’s old room when the thought of protecting Karin is displaced by the thought of little Hannah. Nothing must happen to her.
I hear Karin again and pause.
‘What the hell were you doing?’ she shouts. And gets a soft reply: ‘It’s impolite not to wave back.’
Hannah! That was Hannah replying.
I hurry to the stairs, then down the stairs, through the hallway and into the brightly lit dining room, where Karin is holding tightly on to Hannah’s arm.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask, looking around incredulously. No burglar, no struggle, just Hannah and Karin.
‘I saw them from the window!’
When I see Hannah wince in Karin’s firm grip, I leap forwards and release my wife’s clenched fingers from Hannah’s thin arm.
‘I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to go to the window. I’m sorry.’
‘Of course you are, Hannah,’ I say, trying to put some distance between the two of them by holding on to Karin’s shoulders and pushing her away. ‘What happened?’
‘When I came downstairs for a glass of water I heard her by the roller blinds. I thought it was a burglar,’ Karin says breathlessly. I take her to the dining table and lower her gently on to a chair. She’s trembling. ‘She says someone was throwing stones at her bedroom window.’
‘It’s true. I’m not lying,’ Hannah interjects. ‘I couldn’t really
see who it was so I came downstairs. You get a better view of outside from here.’
‘How fortunate that you only looked out of the window rather than unlocking the front door,’ Karin says sarcastically, propping her elbows on the table and putting her head in her hands.
‘Is there someone outside the front door?’ As if on autopilot, my body turns to the fireplace, to the poker.
‘No, there’s nobody there,’ Karin interrupts me mid-movement. ‘Hannah must have scared him off when she gave him such a friendly wave.’
‘Oh, Karin, stop it, please,’ I say, nodding towards Hannah. She looks pitiful enough as it is in her nightie from the clothes bank, which is far too big but also far too thin for the autumn weather. Her head hangs heavily and sadly on her narrow, limp shoulders.
‘Hannah,’ I say, stepping over to her and struggling to bend down on my old knees. ‘Will you tell me what happened?’
‘Someone was standing in the garden and threw something at my window. I thought at first it had started raining. It sounded just like it, a small, gentle tinkling. But then I thought I’d better check, though all I could see was a shadow. So I went downstairs into the other room.’
‘And there was someone standing at the window?’
She nods.
‘We waved at each other.’
‘Did you see who it was?’
‘It’s still very dark outside.’
I stroke her arms to comfort her.
‘No need to worry. I’ll have a quick check. Go back upstairs and lie down, okay?’
Hannah nods again and says over her shoulder to Karin, ‘I’m sorry. I promise I’ll never go to the window again without permission.’
When Karin just sighs, I say in her place, ‘It’s all right, Hannah. You’ve done nothing wrong. Everything’s okay. Go back to bed, now. We’ll be up in a sec.’
I keep my eyes fixed on Karin as I listen to Hannah’s cautious little footsteps. When I think she’s out of earshot, I launch into Karin: ‘How could you?’
‘Please!’ she snarls, taking her hands from her head.
‘She might have just had a bad dream. And you get at her like that!’
‘Or it’s just as I feared.’ Karin gives the tabletop a feeble thud. ‘One of those press vultures set up camp outside overnight.’
‘Rubbish. They all left just before nine o’clock. We heard the cars drive off. And when I went to check a little later there was nobody there. They realised there’s nothing to be had here.’
Karin ignores my objection.
‘And then Hannah’s encouraging these people by giving them a jolly picture of her waving! I told you, Matthias! I said right at the start that I didn’t want any of that again. I don’t want to see myself in the paper every day.’ Karin jumps up so abruptly that her chair almost topples over. She catches the backrest just in time and pushes the chair to the table.
‘I’m going to take a look just to be sure,’ I say, turning to the fireplace and taking the poker from its stand. ‘If anything needs sorting out, I’ll sort it out. And you’re going to go back up to Hannah. But be friendly, Karin, okay?’
*
Outside it’s completely silent save for the birds who’ve started chirruping away in the dawn light. Poker in hand, I stand on the top of the four steps that lead down from our front door. My gaze flits across the front garden. The garden gate is shut and there’s no sign that anyone was on our property a few minutes ago. And apart from the rose bushes, there are no shrubs or trees with large trunks, behind which an intruder could hide. Even in the grey dawn light, I have a good view of our small front garden, which sits there in peace. Just as I suspected, Hannah must have had a bad dream.
Matthias
I don’t know what’s up with Karin. It begins at breakfast. Hannah only eats a slice of bread with butter, just like yesterday evening. So what? Well, Karin thought she was giving her a treat – offering her something – when she brought a jar of Nutella from the kitchen and placed it on the dining-room table.
‘So far as I know, all children love Nutella,’ she said, giving Hannah a conspiratorial wink.
But after studying the ingredients on the jar, Hannah pushed the Nutella away.
‘You mustn’t eat too much sugar. The excessive consumption of sugar and sugary foods can lead to the following symptoms: tiredness, lack of motivation, anxiety, digestive problems, flatulence, diarrhoea or constipation, nervousness, sleep and concentration disorders, as well as tooth decay.’
Karin’s lips formed a half-baked smile, then she picked up the jar, took it back into the kitchen and stuffed it into the larder, with all the chocolate bars, bags of gummy bears and packets of biscuits she’d bought specially once we knew for sure Hannah was going to stay with us. I can understand her disappointment. She meant well. But couldn’t she have been happy with taking the jar off the table?
No, now she starts sniffling too. I can hear it from the dining room. I’ve already braced my hands on the table to push myself up and follow her into the kitchen. But then I think better of it. Hannah is sitting opposite, looking at me. On the plate in front of her is a plain slice of bread she hasn’t touched since Karin shot off into the kitchen.
‘Just butter?’ I ask.
Hannah nods.
I reach across the table and pull her plate over so I can butter the bread.
‘Thanks,’ she says very politely when I give her back the plate.
‘Do start, Hannah. I’m just going to check on Grandma.’
*
‘Can’t we just have breakfast in peace?’
I try to whisper so Hannah won’t hear, but even at this low volume there’s an unmistakable sharpness to my tone which surprises Karin as well as myself.
‘I don’t want to live like this, Matthias,’ she says, pointing vaguely upwards. Unusually for this time of day the ceiling lamp casts a cold white light into the room. In all rooms, to be exact, for the roller blinds are still down throughout the house.
‘There aren’t half as many as yesterday, Karin,’ I say, referring to the journalists who are kicking their heels pointlessly on the pavement outside. When I went to fetch the newspaper from the mailbox at half past six this morning nobody had turned up yet, and I almost thought it would stay that way. The first car finally arrived around eight o’clock.
‘Yes.’ Karin laughs scornfully. ‘They got their photo of Hannah last night.’
‘Don’t start again, please. Nobody was here last night. Hannah had a bad dream. And you’ve seen today’s paper. There’s no picture of Hannah waving, just . . .’ I hesitate when I realise. But I don’t want any discussion now about whether the article in the Bayerisches Tagblatt, attacking the police’s handling of the case, is justified or not. ‘Listen, Karin,’ I say instead. ‘It’s not easy for me either. But all that matters at the moment is that we find out who this guy was and what he did to our girl.’ My throat turns dry. ‘And where he took her.’
‘That’s what this is about, is it?’ Karin’s eyes are still shimmering with a film of moisture, and now there’s a disconcerting, sinister note to her expression.
‘Yes, of course. What did you think?’
‘You haven’t even asked Mark if he’s met Gerd.’
‘Gerd would have told me.’
Karin throws her hands in the air.
‘You don’t even see that!’
‘Don’t be so loud,’ I hiss, peering around the corner at Hannah. She’s staring straight ahead of her as she chews thoughtfully on her bread. Fortunately she’s sitting side-on to us, which means her vacant gaze passes us by and perhaps alights on the fireplace.
‘What don’t I see?’ I say, turning back to Karin.
‘Gerd doesn’t talk to you unless he absolutely has to. And today’s newspaper article gives him even more reason not to.’
/> ‘Gerd doesn’t talk to me? Really? Then maybe there’s something wrong with my memory. I must have imagined him calling me in the middle of the night when Frau Grass was admitted to hospital.’
‘He called us, Matthias. And I’m sure he regrets that now. He didn’t want us to go to the hospital in Cham. That was your decision.’
‘No, it was our decision!’
I shake my head wearily.
‘Why are we talking about Gerd, anyway? I was asking you why you were making such a fuss over a jar of Nutella.’
Karin’s chin is quivering.
‘Because you claim this is about Lena. But that’s not true. Not anymore. Now it’s all about Hannah, isn’t it?’
I can barely believe what I’m hearing. How can she have the nerve to talk like this? My Lenchen, my everything . . . Only the thought that this is Karin, the woman I’ve been married to for almost forty years, prevents me from turning abusive. Had it been Gerd, Giesner or Mark, I’d have grabbed them by the collar for being so offensive.
‘Hannah is all we have left,’ I say instead, then in the same breath add, ‘and Jonathan,’ to avoid giving her more ammunition in this dreadful conversation.
But it seems that Karin refuses to accept this.
‘How do you know that?’ she shouts, keeps shouting, while I say ‘Shh!’ and peer around the corner again to see if Hannah is listening. ‘They still haven’t found Lena’s body! What if—?’
‘Karin. We know she’s dead,’ I interrupt, when I see that Hannah’s still sitting unfazed at the table like a good girl, eating her bread.
‘But how? When Gerd called us a fortnight ago on the night of the accident, neither of us doubted that Lena might be still alive, did we?’
‘Karin, please—’
‘And you’re doing nothing to help!’
‘What?’
‘You could ask Hannah about her!’
‘I’m not a psychologist, Karin! You can’t predict what you might unleash if you—’
‘Wasn’t it you who said the so-called professionals haven’t got a clue? And yet you seem to feel you’re enough of a psychology expert to bring her home to us,’ she interjects.
Dear Child: The twisty thriller that starts where others end Page 22
