And am I doing it again or not? If right now what I’m most worried about is what other people might think about me, then that’s ludicrous, a shabby attempt to escape inside my head. I am doing it again, trying to suppress what’s going on here, trying to ignore the panic drumming inside my chest, the fear of the blackness all around me.
I blink again. Black is still black, shapeless, pitch-black. I reach for the bedside light switch. I find it, press it. It clicks, but the room remains black. An unfamiliar sound rises from my throat, not powerful, not loud, but strained; a short, forgotten breath, desperate to catch up. I sit up and look where residual light from the streetlamp should leak into the room through the gaps in the roller blind. No light, just blackness and my heart pounding.
‘Kirsten?’ I call out and wait for an answer. It doesn’t come. I listen out for any sound. But there’s nothing. Silence, blackness and my pounding heart. I think I’m dreaming – I know I’m dreaming. And yet I find it hard to calm myself. To resign myself to this oppressive blackness, this sheer disorientation which reminds me of the storeroom, on the day I was abducted. I sink back, close my eyes, breathe in the familiar smell of home, a trace of Kirsten’s perfume, the hint of freesias still on the pillow. I can cope with this dream.
But I can’t. I open my eyes, again in hope, again in vain. Everything is black. I sit up once more. Feel my way to the edge of the mattress, crawl across the floor to the bedroom door, one arm outstretched. I carefully get up, now feeling for the door handle. I press it down. It squeaks as it always does. Once, again, and many more times in quick succession until I realise that the door won’t open. I’m locked in. I feel beside the door frame for the overhead light switch. A click, but it’s still black. Click again, still black. I hammer my fist against the door. ‘Kirsten!’ I shout. ‘What’s going on? Let me out!’ I hammer, I shout, unable to believe this. It’s a dream, a bad dream. My breathing is fitful, I’m panting. Then I hear a gentle laugh from the other side of the room. His laugh.
And the question.
‘How are you, Lena?’
Matthias
Drive faster. Drivedrivedrivedrive.
The speedometer is quivering at 180. The old banger can’t go any faster.
Where’s he taken her?
Gerd! flashes in my mind. Gerd’s words on the telephone earlier.
He even asked me for Jasmin G’s address because he wanted to send her a get-well-soon card. I couldn’t give him the address, of course, but it just goes to show what sort of a person he is.
A person who was definitely in a position to get hold of Jasmin G’s address, even without Gerd’s help. Anyone can do it; it just takes a few clicks on the internet. I narrow my eyes to help me see better in the distance. But the motorway is empty and black. No taillights, not anywhere.
What if he’s taking her somewhere else?
I lost valuable time running back into the house to fetch the car keys. I lost years while waiting for the garage door to open, and even more years as I was reversing the car from the garage into the street. More than thirteen years.
I won’t be able to catch Mark up.
I didn’t lose any time grabbing a coat or putting on shoes. I’m operating the pedals in my slippers.
I ought to have lost time getting my mobile phone, which is now lying uselessly on our living-room carpet.
No mobile. No possibility of calling for help. No support.
I’m alone.
I had him.
My hands on his collar. His back pressed up against the wall. His face lobster-red.
Where is she, you bastard?
I let him go.
In my mind I hear him talking about the Marne Valley, a beautiful area, incredible countryside – liar. He was making fun of us. He even admitted to having a daughter. Hannah. How come I didn’t see through him?
‘Papi,’ comes the squeaky voice from the back seat. All I can see in the rear-view mirror is her forehead and her shining eyes standing out against the darkness behind me. ‘You’ve got to help me, Papi.’
‘I know, my darling,’ I answer, my voice choking.
‘This time you’ve really got to help me.’
‘Yes, Lenchen, I know.’ I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand when the road ahead starts to blur. ‘I’m on my way to help you. This time I won’t let you down, I promise.’
‘But you’ve got to hurry, Papi.’
The speedometer is trembling at 200; the old banger is careening.
Jasmin
‘Where’s Kirsten?’ I croak.
‘She’s not coming,’ his voice says. ‘No one’s coming.’
I slap the door and scream, ‘Kirsten!’ and ‘Help!’
‘Shut up!’ the voice hisses. ‘You wouldn’t want to worry the neighbours, would you?’
I keep hammering against the door, banging it, shouting louder, pulling and shaking the handle, which squeaks and squeaks and squeaks. A moment later his hand is there. It takes him a few attempts – in the pitch-black of the room he must be just as disoriented as I am – but then the hand finds what it’s looking for, now over my nose and mouth, tight, too tight, I can’t breathe. His body pushing firmly against my back, his hand on my face. I start thrashing my legs, I kick the door, am wrenched back, I fall, a hard landing, he’s flung me to the floor. I scream in terror and pain and disbelief.
‘Please unlock the door.’
Silence.
‘Please turn the light on.’
Somewhere in the darkness the voice says, ‘I’m afraid it’s not so simple, Lena. You see, I flipped the fuse switches.’
I scrabble backwards until I feel the wall at my back. I carefully pull myself up, groping for the wall with my hand. There’s a rustling, paper: one of the articles I stuck up. I stick out my other hand into the void. Where is he?
‘How did you do this? Who helped you fix it all?’
‘Helped? Me?’ He laughs; it’s coming from my right. ‘Nobody, Lena. I’m God, I don’t need anybody’s help.’ Footsteps slowly getting closer, a whisper: ‘I can even rise from the dead.’
I push myself along the wall, away from him, the newspaper articles rustling behind me.
‘If it’s any consolation, you gave me a right proper whack with that snow globe. I had concussion and was even written off sick.’ I tremble, he laughs. ‘But let’s see the positive side. At least I had a bit of time to prepare everything else.’
‘You killed the driver,’ I pant into the darkness.
‘What about you? You would have killed me. Which means you’re no better than I am, are you? But, to be honest, I’m surprised you haven’t understood all of this until now. I thought you were smarter, I really did.’
‘Hannah . . .’ I whisper. My legs are weak, pull yourself together, keep going, along the wall, it can only be a few more steps. ‘You sent Hannah after me.’
‘No, actually she went with you of her own accord. And you also had a big head start. Especially as the blow to my head meant I wasn’t in the best state to catch you up. Fortunately, however, you ran straight in front of that car.’ There is a brief silence in the darkness, then I hear him chuckle. ‘But I can see you’re keen for the denouement. Like in films. At this point, what happened after the accident would be shown as a flashback from the baddie’s viewpoint. It would show him slashing the face of his stand-in, packing the essentials, instructing his son to wait and clean all the surfaces while the baddie himself drives the car involved in the accident across the Czech border and hides it. Grinning, because he knows full well that by the time the police find it he’ll be long gone.’ He laughs again, from my right, too close. I swing my hand, but into thin air. ‘But you can dream up a scenario like that yourself. We don’t have much time, my darling.’
‘Because now the baddie has come to bring the story to an end and kill
the main character.’
‘The main character?’ Right in front of me. I freeze. His breath on my face. ‘Full of confidence, I like that. Believe it or not, I always liked it when you put up some resistance. But no, don’t worry. I could have killed you long ago if I’d wanted to. Even at the site of the accident. Why do you think I called an ambulance? You survived because I wanted you to.’
My hand makes a grab to my left, finds the cord for the roller blind and gives it a forceful tug. A gap, the width of a hand, perhaps, and, in the light of the streetlamp, his smile.
‘Or, more precisely, because your daughter wanted you to.’
Hannah
Papa said I should draw something. So I don’t get bored while he wakes Mama up. He’s brought me a drawing pad and crayons in a metal box, all new. They’re really long, longer than my index finger, and there are even three different shades of red: carmine, vermilion and claret. He also gave me a cereal bar in the car, and for the first time ever I was actually pleased to have one. I was so pleased, it made the cereal bar taste a bit better than usual. But I was hungry. At my grandparents’ house all I ever had was bread and butter to eat. Papa praised me for remembering everything so well. Better, in fact, than he’d hoped. He says he finds it astonishing. I like being praised. I can be proud of myself now, I think. Although I wonder whether Papa may have doubted me too, because ‘astonishing’ doesn’t just mean ‘impressive’, it also means ‘unexpected’. And that wouldn’t be right, seeing as the whole thing was my idea. I mean, he couldn’t have had any ideas in his head when he lay on the floor as if dead, soaking the carpet in blood, after the really silly thing Mama did. Mama had opened the cabin door and said in her lion voice, ‘Come on, children! Let’s go!’ But Jonathan and I were still thinking about it. ‘Come now! We’ve got to go!’ Jonathan sank to his knees beside Papa, on the carpet soaked in blood. Mama ran outside.
I told Jonathan we ought to split up. The carpet was dirty and had to be cleaned. Cleanliness is important. But Mama had said we should go with her, and you always have to do what grown-ups tell you.
‘But look what she did, Hannah!’ Jonathan whined as I was deep in thought. I didn’t know if he was talking about Papa, who was still lying motionless on the floor, or his broken snow globe, a bit of which he held in his hand.
‘Give it to me!’ I took the glass shard and put it in the pocket of my dress to stop him hurting himself. Sharp objects can be very dangerous, and there were enough stains on the carpet already. Then I told him I’d made my mind up. He should clean the carpet and I would follow Mama.
Although I was quick, I didn’t catch her up until after I heard the big crash. She lay there in the middle of the road, her eyes closed, and a stranger was kneeling over her. I heard him talking to her.
Suddenly there was a crack behind me. It was Papa, who had a red patch on the side of his head. And he was holding our poker. He put a finger up to his pursed lips and went, ‘Shh!’ Then he held my shoulder and whispered into my ear through the secrets funnel, ‘Sit here and close your eyes, Hannah.’
So now I was sitting there in the undergrowth with my eyes closed, just like Papa had told me to. Although I blinked sometimes. I blinked after the Bam! and I blinked when there was a rustling and cracking beside me, and Papa laid the man down in the undergrowth. But then I opened my eyes properly again. I wanted to see what was going to happen to Mama.
Papa had grabbed her under the armpits; her head was wobbling loosely on her neck and her legs scraped along the tarmac as Papa dragged her towards the undergrowth too. I leaped from my hiding place and said in my lion voice, ‘The ambulance!’
Papa gave a start, almost dropping Mama.
‘The man said he was going to call an ambulance. The ambulance won’t find her if you take her away!’
‘Hannah.’
Papa put Mama back on the road and came over to me. He squatted down and stroked my face. His was completely wet, beads of red sweat rolled from his forehead to below his chin. His collar had turned red too.
‘Darling, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes, I do!’ my lion voice said. ‘An ambulance is a vehicle specially equipped for emergency medical care and is used to administer first aid to sick or injured people and to take them to hospital.’
‘Yes, Hannah, that’s true, but—’
‘And a hospital is a building where diseases or injuries are treated by medical specialists!’
‘It’s not that simple, my darling—’
‘The ambulance has to come!’
‘Hannah, you can see what she did.’ He meant the red sweat on his face and the thing with the snow globe.
‘That was just a silly accident. Please, Papa.’ You always have to say please and thank you.
Now Papa went back and forth, rubbing his brow, which smeared the red sweat all over his face. ‘Okay, then,’ he said eventually. ‘Let’s get her to a hospital.’
The stranger had a mobile in his coat pocket. A mobile is a cordless and wireless telephone that works almost everywhere. ‘I’ll call the emergency services now, but then we’ve got to quickly pop back to the cabin to pack our things.’
But I didn’t want to pack my things. And certainly not go away, as Papa said. I told him that if we went away, it would be pointless if the hospital made Mama better, because we wouldn’t be able to have our better mama back. I almost thought Papa was a bit of an idiot if he hadn’t understood by now that I wanted to keep Mama. And I’d have never thought myself that I’d want to keep this mother. When she came to us, I was worried she’d just be another of those who didn’t work out. But she did look really good as a mama: she had the scar, the beautiful long, blonde hair and a very white face. Papa had made a real effort with her, because you always have to make an effort, especially for your children. Maybe he’d just got a bit irritated, because Jonathan and I kept telling him we wanted a new mama to stop us feeling so alone at home when Papa went to work. Being a bit irritated doesn’t mean you’re really angry and you go shouting your head off and punish people, but you don’t like it when nobody talks to you anymore. Especially as we’d really deserved a new mama by now. We’d been very good children, Jonathan and I. We’d always done our homework well and I was being serious when I swore I’d learned something from the business with Sara. But when Papa finally saw our point and the new mama lay on our sofa, she didn’t seem at all happy to have been chosen. Even though children are the greatest gift there is and you have to be grateful for them. I don’t suppose she realised this until the day when the recirculation device stopped working and we almost suffocated. But that didn’t matter. At least she’d finally understood. It takes some people a little longer, which doesn’t make them a bad person, only a bit of an idiot. They learn slowly, just like Jonathan who didn’t learn how to read properly until he was four.
‘Okay,’ Papa said when he’d finally understood. ‘But then I’m going to need your help. Concentrate, Hannah. Will you cope? You will cope, won’t you? You’re a big girl now. So, listen to me very carefully . . .’
He took off the stranger’s coat and put it round my shoulders to stop me freezing in the cold night. You can’t concentrate properly if you’re freezing. Then we discussed what I had to do and I really tried my best, which wasn’t always easy. After all, you mustn’t lie. But nor must you be like Jonathan and just say nothing, otherwise people think you’re ill and give you pills, or they think you’ve got something to hide. Then they get suspicious and end up spoiling the entire plan. Even though I knew I was doing everything right, I sometimes worried that Papa might have changed his mind. Then I thought he’d changed the plan without letting me know but had told Grandad, because Grandad kept talking about taking me home. Unfortunately I was wrong and got into all of a muddle. I wasn’t even sure if it really was Papa in my grandparents’ front garden yesterday evening, throwing ston
es at the window of Mama’s old bedroom. It could have been one of the people who’d been standing outside with their cameras since the day of my arrival – ‘hanging about’, as Grandma called it. But the very next day – today – the package with my dress and Fräulein Tinky arrived, and I knew the time had come. Finally we were going to be a family again and have a new home. Papa said Mama was already waiting for us. But the waiting seems to have made her tired, I think, and she had to lie down for a while. That’s all right because you always have to have a good rest before doing something special. So Papa brought me to the kitchen in Mama’s apartment, took a candle from the windowsill and lit it so I’d have enough light to draw with while he went to wake Mama. He said he had to turn off the light fuses for a while so she doesn’t have any problem with brightness when she wakes up. Because the retina problem is in the family. It’s very gloomy in the kitchen now, and it’s black in the rest of the apartment. It would have been better if Mama had just used dimmer bulbs for her lights. But at least the candlelight is good enough for me to be able to see the difference between the three reds in my box of crayons. After all, I’m drawing the woman lying on the kitchen floor and I definitely need carmine for her. It’s not true that this colour is made of cochineal blood. It’s more an acid produced by these insects to defend them against their predators. To get the colour, the cochineals are dried and boiled in water with sulphuric acid. But it’s always the best colour to use for drawing fresh blood. Claret’s fine for old blood, and for really old blood the brown crayon is best.
Jasmin
It’s a strange, cement-like layer of horror and affection that covers my face and makes it rigid.
He notices.
‘In spite of all that you’ve done, the children still love you.’
I nod. I understand. The glass shard that Hannah gave me in the hospital. I now realise it wasn’t intended as a threat, but as comfort. Her assurance that she’d remembered everything in perfect detail. And by that she meant what Papa had instructed her to do.
Dear Child: The twisty thriller that starts where others end Page 27
