Girl in the Dark

by Marion Pauw

  “Just leave me alone. And leave Ray alone, too.” She walked into the living room and pulled the throw off the couch. Then she started folding it in the neatest possible way.

  “I won’t. On the contrary, I’m going to have a look at his case, to see if there are grounds for appeal.”

  “What?!” My mother looked at me in disgust.

  “Ray asked me to help him. And since he’s my brother, I am going to do just that. It’s bad enough you’ve washed your hands of him all these years. At least there’s one member of the family who’s interested in what happens to him. Besides, as his attorney I can visit him as often as he wants. And we must have quite some catching up to do, wouldn’t you think?”

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but let me tell you this: Ray isn’t the nice cuddly brother of your dreams. I mean—I assume you know why he’s locked up.”

  “It remains to be seen if he is guilty.”

  “You don’t know him, Iris. Ray can seem very sweet and cute, but he’s dangerous. As a child he was quite irrational.”

  “Was that before or after you dumped him in the institution?”

  “Don’t forget I was very young when I had him. He was just impossible. You think Aaron’s difficult? You should have seen Ray. I couldn’t handle him at all.”

  I had a hard time believing there was anything my mother couldn’t handle. But I did feel sympathy for her, for things to get so bad that she had to send her child away. I gazed at her face. The hard lines around her mouth. Why couldn’t she show me any emotion?

  “Still, you should have told me. Didn’t I have the right to know I have an older brother?”

  “Funny, isn’t it—it’s always got to be about you. Don’t you think it hurt me, to have to give up my son? Because I do love Ray. I have always loved him and will always love him. Having to part from him, do you hear that, Iris, having to, was very painful for me. But no, instead of trying to understand my feelings, you immediately turn it around to yourself. You’re acting as if I’ve done something terrible to you.”

  “Won’t you just tell me a little more? Maybe then I can understand where you are coming from.”

  “It’s a chapter I’ve chosen to close and you will just have to respect that.” She turned around and rolled her suitcase into her bedroom without a backward glance.

  I wasn’t willing to give it up, and followed her. “Have you ever visited Ray? In prison or at the institution?”

  “I’ve been to the prison, yes,” she said stiffly. Her suitcase lay open on the bed. Her clothing, in the gaudy shades women in their sixties tend to be partial to, was arranged in neatly folded piles. Off to the side I spotted a flesh-toned bra and lace-trimmed hip briefs. Apparently she’d had everything laundered while still at the hotel. It didn’t surprise me.

  My mother must have seen me stare. She snatched up her underwear with a catty gesture and stuffed it in her underwear drawer.

  “But do you visit him still? He’s terribly lonely, did you know that?”

  My mother walked over to the closet with a stack of T-shirts in her arms. Standing with her back to me she said, “Let me refresh your memory. He murdered someone—what am I saying?—two people, a mother and child. You needn’t feel sorry for him.” She turned back to the bed, rummaged around in her suitcase, extracted a wrapped gift from the bottom, and tossed it in my direction. It landed at the foot of the bed. “Here, I got you something.”

  It was clearly a bottle of booze. I peeled off the thin giftwrap and read the label of some obscure Slovenian concoction. “Well, thanks.”

  “Local specialty, they told me. I also have something for Aaron, but I’d rather give that to him in person. If he’s still allowed to come here, that is, now that you know what a horrible creature I am.”

  “Feel free to use Aaron to compensate for Ray as much as you like. He doesn’t seem to have any objections.”

  “Nor do you, actually.”

  “You’re right.”

  We were both silent.

  “There’s a chance that your son, your own flesh and blood, is in a mental institution after being wrongly convicted. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know Ray. You have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “Maybe not knowing him means I can be more objective.” That wasn’t true, of course. I wanted to believe in Ray’s innocence just as fervently as my mother wanted to believe he was guilty.

  “You have no idea, Iris. No idea.”

  “I’d still like to find out.”

  My mother walked into the adjoining bathroom to throw what little laundry there was in the hamper. When she returned, she said, “Please leave him alone. Just stay out of it—and out of my past.”

  CHAPTER 27

  RAY

  “Is anyone out there?” I banged on the cell door. “Hello?”

  No answer.

  I looked around hoping to find a way out. All I saw was four white walls and a small barred window that looked out on a strip of grass. Apart from that, the small space had a door with two little shutters—closed. I banged on the door again. Nothing.

  I thought about what would happen if I used up all the air in the cramped space. It was already happening; with each breath I felt my lungs getting less oxygen. Breathing would keep getting more difficult, and in the end I knew I would suffocate.

  My aquarium’s air pump had stopped working once. I discovered it at three in the morning, when I was about to leave for work. I always checked the aquarium and recorded the levels at that time.

  The first thing I’d noticed was the silence. The water wasn’t bubbling, and I couldn’t hear the pump’s constant buzz. I peered into the aquarium to find the fish. They weren’t darting through the anemones and weren’t grazing on the coral. That’s when I saw them. They were floating at the surface. Their mouths open wide.

  I had to save my fish. What was my own life worth, if they perished? Luckily I still had an old pump lying around, which I was able to use as a stopgap measure. “Hang on a little longer!” I remember saying that to them, even though fish can’t hear, all they can sense, at most, is the vibration. Maybe I was saying it more to myself than to the fish. “Hang on a little longer.” I installed the old pump and soon the water began bubbling again and the fish went about their business again as if nothing had happened.

  My fish never lacked for anything. I made sure of that.

  In the solitary cell there was no backup pump, no escape route. Nothing.

  “Is anyone there?” I called again. “Please, is anybody there? I have to get out of here. I’m suffocating!”

  I heard footsteps in the corridor. The little shutter slid open and I saw an unfamiliar face. “Everything all right in there?”

  “No,” I panted. “I can’t breathe. I . . .” I clutched at my throat. “Please open the door. The oxygen is almost all used up.”

  “Impossible,” said the face. “Look up at the ceiling. Do you see those white vents? Fresh air comes out of there. So you can’t suffocate.”

  “It’s not working,” I said. “I can feel it isn’t working. I’m suffocating. You want me to die.”

  “You’re having a panic attack,” said the face. “Try breathing in and out, nice and calm. And if after that you’re still not feeling better, I’ll ask the doctor to give you something to relax you, okay?”

  “You planted drugs in my room so you could lock me in here. And now you’re going to let me die. It’s a trap. I’ve been lured into a trap.”

  “Calm down. Remember what I said. Look at the vents in the ceiling.”

  “It’s not working. It isn’t working.”

  “Do you want me to leave the hatch open? Then you can breathe through the opening if that’ll make you feel better.”

  The face disappeared again and I stood on tiptoe so that my mouth could reach the hatch. I was like François, Maria, Hannibal, Peanut, Raisin, King Kong, and the others. I sucked in the scant
y oxygen with my mouth wide open. Waiting for the backup pump.

  After a few hours I had a cramp in my legs and a stiff neck. I sat down on the floor; I no longer cared that much about dying. It seemed a perfectly acceptable option.

  They brought me a meal. The bigger shutter was pushed aside and a plastic plate of spaghetti was set down on a ledge with some plastic utensils and a cup of water.

  I jumped to my feet. “Hey!” I yelled. “Hey, is anyone out there?”

  Nobody replied. The hatch rammed shut.

  I sank to the floor holding the plate of spaghetti. Tomato sauce dripped onto my white pants. It left a nasty red stain. Red on white.

  Just like Rosita, when she was dead. She was wearing her white top, the top with the thin straps, that let you see her boobs—nipples and all. She always dressed too lightly for the weather. It wasn’t very hot the day Rosita died. But Rosita would rather turn up the heat than put more clothes on. She’d have preferred walking around naked all day, she said.

  The white top was torn and covered in red spots. Her miniskirt was smeared with blood, too. There was so much blood. Blood everywhere. I got dizzy looking at it and kept having to close my eyes because it was so hard to look at.

  Anna was wearing a little pink dress. It had been on sale at H&M. Only, there was a big wet stain right across her tummy. Her eyes were open. They had an expression I couldn’t place. Fear? Surprise? I saw the blue irises with the pretty darker edge all around. But her eyes weren’t shiny anymore.

  Rosita’s eyes were half-closed. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she were laughing. Even when she was dead she was still laughing. I had no idea why. Was she making fun of me? Was she still making fun of me?

  There was blood on the ground all around them, like fried eggs with broken yolks. The blood wasn’t very liquid; it was gluey, and it stuck to my shoes. My shoes left tracks on the beige carpet.

  “Do you really want such a light color with a young child in the home?” the man in the store had asked us. He assumed we all lived together, maybe even thought I was Anna’s father. I liked him for that reason. “We also have some lovely brown-flecked shades.”

  But Rosita didn’t want any dark colors in her house. “Beige is chic,” she said. “All the rich folks that live in the big houses have it. And if it gets dirty, we’ll just buy a new one.”

  The carpet had cost almost six thousand euro, including installation. It took half of my savings.

  And the carpet was ruined.

  There was a smell of rusty iron in the air. It wasn’t very pungent or strong, but it made my stomach turn. I never knew blood had an odor before.

  I stared at the plate of spaghetti in my lap and couldn’t think of what else to do but just start eating.

  CHAPTER 28

  IRIS

  Martha Peters had the build of an Eastern European swimming champion. A broad back, sturdy thighs, no breasts to speak of, and a hard set to her mouth. She took up almost the entire corridor.

  “Good afternoon, Martha.”

  Martha turned around. “Ah, just the person I wanted to see.”

  “Oh?”

  “Walk with me. I have a surprise for you.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Martha turned and marched to the stairs. I decided I’d better follow her, although I couldn’t think what the “surprise” could be. It reminded me of going to the dentist when I was little; if you kept your mouth open long enough without complaining, you’d get a “surprise.” A toothbrush. Yippee.

  Martha’s office was on the top floor of the building, away from the noise and the fuss. In the three years I’d been working at Bartels & Peters I’d gone up there maybe twice. I followed Martha’s robust backside up the stairs.

  The room was bright, light, and remarkably elegant, in contrast to Martha’s imposing form.

  “Sit down, have a seat,” she said, in a friendly voice, which immediately roused my suspicion.

  “Don’t look as if I’m going to bite you! Did you know I have a son, too?”

  “I didn’t.” It was the last thing I’d have expected of her.

  “Sam. He’s twenty-two and moved out just recently. So I was a working mother, like you.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve always managed to keep my work and my private life separate. But in my case it was easier. The higher up you are on the corporate ladder, the more latitude and advantages you have. Take this room, for instance. Who’s going to notice whether I’m in the office or not?”

  “But don’t you have to put in your quota of billable hours, like everyone else?”

  “But I’m the one who decides when and where I work those hours. Nobody would dream of questioning it.” She looked at me with a self-satisfied smirk.

  “Fine; you’re right. Why don’t I just get rid of this kid? I can always have another one once I make partner.”

  She shook her head. “No need to be so touchy. That’s one of your problems, Iris. You take everything so personally.”

  “It was a joke.”

  “Of course. Well, anyway, I think you’re lucky that we had little choice but to take you on when we did.”

  Aha. There you had it. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing.” Martha waved her enormous hands as if hoping to erase her last remark. “And I won’t deny that you actually turned out better than I’d expected.”

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment? Am I wrong in assuming it wasn’t the surprise you had in mind?”

  “Oh, right.” Martha rummaged in her desk and took out a stack of papers. “Here you are.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ve brought in a new client, didn’t you? I just wanted to give you a little head start on your case.”

  I stared at the cardboard cover. R. Boelens, 17th of May 2003—3rd of March 2005, it said.

  “How did you get this?”

  “Connections. The only reason I go to all those cocktail parties, which you never attend. Connections, connections, connections. Interesting case, by the way. I don’t know if it’ll lead to anything, but it’s definitely a juicy one.”

  Aaron was in bed and I was stretched out on the couch with the file, a cup of Sleepytime tea, and a bar of hazelnut milk chocolate. I was tired, and having a hard time focusing. The file was surprisingly meager. It contained the forensic report and some police interviews with local residents. Ray had made three different statements, each time incriminating himself a little more. That was enough to nail him as far as the police were concerned. Where were Rosita’s friends and acquaintances, relatives, lovers—the mailman, even?

  According to his first statement, Ray had gone home earlier than usual because he wasn’t feeling well. On his way home he had seen Rosita and Anna’s front door slightly open. He had walked over to investigate. The first thing he’d noticed was the red stain on the beige carpet. He had pushed the door open a bit more and then he had seen the two bodies bathed in blood. He’d stayed with the corpses a little while “to see what would happen.” I felt a shudder go up my spine.

  After that he had gone home. There he sat down to watch his fish, in order to make himself calm down. “I didn’t call the police because I didn’t think of it.”

  His next statements contained a number of incriminating remarks. “It was obvious Rosita and Anna had been stabbed with a sharp object. I’m thinking of a carving knife, like the kind I have at home.” And: “I was mad at Rosita because she rejected me. When I get mad, I lose control. Sometimes I get so mad I start breaking things.”

  There was no explicit admission, but you didn’t need a law degree to know where this was going. The deposition ended with: “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.”

  I shuffled to the bottom of the pile and came upon a photo of the crime scene.

  The dead girl especially broke my heart. An innocent child, her little face twisted with fear. The
accompanying report from the crime scene investigator stated that the mother was killed first, then the child. She had left footprints in her mother’s blood. The conclusion was that she had come running from the living room before being stabbed to death as well. I thought about Aaron, sleeping peacefully in his cot with his stuffed panda bear.

  The murder weapon was not found at the crime scene. But the Netherlands Forensic Institute had established that it was, in all probability, a carving knife belonging to the kitchen starter set from Ikea, bluntly called “Börja,” Swedish for “start.” Some 130,000 of these sets had been sold from 1990 to 2009 in the Netherlands alone. In 2009 it had been redesigned; the carving knife’s handle was no longer brown but black.

  Ray owned one of those Börja starter sets. It had been a present from his mother, the statement read.

  I remembered when I’d first left home. My mother thought it was ridiculous that I didn’t want to live at home, when we lived so close to the city. “I let you come and go as you please, don’t I?” But I longed for my own chaotic student digs, where I could drink Lambrusco with my friends until the early hours of the morning before passing out on a worn mattress on the floor.

  The first time my mother came to look at my nine-by-twelve-foot room in the Jordaan quarter, she’d had little to say. But the disapproving look in her eyes said it all. Pushing a large box into my hands she’d said, “Don’t you even have a proper chair to sit on?”

  I’d torn off the blue-striped wrapping paper to reveal the Börja starter set. I’d completely forgotten its name, even though the empty box had served as the hall wastepaper basket for months.

  “Thank you, Mother.” She had offered her cheek, a sign that I was allowed to give her a kiss.

  The thought that my mother had driven to Ikea to buy both of us a Börja set was almost laughable. For herself she bought only top quality, but for others she liked to see what was on sale that week. Ikea must have been having a two-for-one sale.

  Ray’s carving knife, the alleged murder weapon, had been found in his kitchen drawer. Not a trace of blood was detected on it, but it did have Ray’s fingerprints as well as a number of residues with chemical-sounding names that meant nothing to me. Also, the knife was in pretty bad shape. Bent and chipped, well used.