Girl in the Dark

by Marion Pauw

  “Easy. Relax, nothing to get so upset about.” Mo showed me how to breathe. “That’s it. That’s better. Feeling better? Listen, it’s quite possible those drugs were hidden in your suite by someone else. It wouldn’t be the first time. In fact, an investigation has been set up to find out what happened.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course. But back to Iris. Let’s arrange another meeting?”

  “Will I have to pee into a cup?”

  “There is that possibility.”

  I hesitated. I never again wanted to have to show my naked penis to the woman who didn’t wear a white coat, but I also had to think of my fish. Of how I longed for Iris Kastelein who said she was my sister to tell me about them.

  “But no matter what, you will have to go and have your urine tested from time to time. Whether you have visitors or not. Everyone is supposed to get tested every once in a while.”

  I stared at Mo. I wished I could read him, the way most folks know how to read other people. “Normal people,” according to my mother. Though Rosita had decided my mother was far from normal herself, and my mother didn’t think Rosita was normal either. Maybe Iris Kastelein who said she was my sister was someone who was normal.

  “Anyway, your sister is a very nice lady. She’s got your best interests at heart.”

  “That’s what they all say. Everybody always has my best interests at heart, and look where that got me.”

  Mo laughed. “Trust me.”

  I could say no, and then I’d never get out of here. I could say yes and never get out of here, either, and make things even harder for myself. But there was a chance Iris Kastelein could help me, and that could happen only if I said yes. It was a risk. I hated taking risks.

  Then I remembered my fish. “Fine, let Iris Kastelein who says she’s my sister come.”

  That afternoon they let me return to the workshop for the first time since I’d been in solitary. The plants had all been labeled, it seemed, because our job was to insert blank CDs into see-through cases.

  I liked the plants better than the CDs. I liked finding out what the plants needed: a lot of light or just a little, to be watered daily or once a week, and whether they could stay outside in winter. The CDs didn’t provide much useful information. The brand name was TDK and all it said on them was CD-RW, and 4x–12x high-speed, 80 minutes/700 MB.

  I sat at a round table with a box of CDs in front of me and a box of plastic cases. You were supposed to fill at least a hundred cases an hour; the pay was two euro. After the first hundred, you got two cents extra per case. If you filled less than a hundred, you got nothing.

  Hank was there, and a bunch of other guys I didn’t know. Hank never sat next to me anymore since I’d gotten out of solitary. I had no idea why. He used to say we were “mates.” You wouldn’t have guessed it.

  Hank was furiously at work, filling cases like a maniac. I saw sweat patches under his armpits. I thought about the smell of tobacco always coming off him, and about the sweat patches. I ought to go up to him and tell him he was a traitor. A filthy, stinking, double-crossing traitor.

  There was a clock on the wall. I’d been working for half an hour and had only done twenty cases.

  “What up, little Rainman?” Rembrandt came and sat down next to me. I put another CD into a case, but my hands wouldn’t do what I wanted. First the CD wouldn’t slip into the groove, and then I couldn’t close the sleeve properly. I tried forcing it, but then one of the hinges snapped. I quickly added the broken case to the pile, hoping no one would notice.

  “Had fun in the hole? Do any nice doodling on the blackboard?”

  I took another CD from the box. This time I did manage to get it into the case without damaging either it or the case. I felt myself starting to sweat. If I wasn’t careful the sweat would show right through my shirt, like Hank’s.

  “You don’t talk much, do you, dog? I like that. Can’t never trust people that talk too much. The more shit they talk, the more they trying to hide, that’s what I say.” He inserted a CD in a case and deposited it on my pile with a big wink. “Must be burning a hole in that little brain of yours trying to figure out who done you in.”

  “Huh?”

  Rembrandt leaned in closer. He smelled of aftershave. It smelled like the stuff in the blue bottle Rosita once bought me for Christmas. It was sexy, she said. She’d pressed her nose into my neck and inhaled the smell. “Mm, smells delicious on you, Ray.” With Rembrandt sitting so close to me, I was getting almost as light-headed as I got then.

  “I know, Ray. I know who’s been fucking with you.”

  One of the CD cases cracked again.

  “I could tell you, Ray Baby. But I could also not tell you. It all depends.” He casually filled another case and put it on my pile.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Go on, ask me. Nice and sweet, just like your momma taught you.”

  My hands were shaking and I felt the sweat rolling down my back. If only I knew what he wanted.

  He reached out and touched my shoulder. It gave me goose bumps.

  “You know where to find me. And take it easy with those cases.” He walked over to Hank’s table and sat down. The two of them started talking and laughing.

  I tried to concentrate on the CDs. I managed not to break any more, and to fill ninety-one.

  “Ah, too bad,” said the workshop supervisor. “Do you want to try again for another hour, to see if you can make a hundred?”

  “I want to go back to my cell.”

  “Your suite. In that case I’ll see you tomorrow. Then you can try again. And the day after tomorrow we’re assembling TV remotes. Maybe you’ll do better at that.”

  CHAPTER 32

  IRIS

  I parked my car in front of Ray’s old house. The curtains were drawn. There was no sign there’d been any activity since the last time I’d been there.

  The sun was shining, but the wind was unpleasantly cold. I walked to number 11, Rosita and Anna’s house. I thought it would be a good idea to survey the scene of the crime. The front yard was much neater than over at Ray’s house. A neatly trimmed evergreen hedge, a climbing rose, pansies. Someone lived here who paid attention to detail.

  The flower-festooned nameplate read Hugo and Phyllis. I rang. It was an electronic bell but had an old-fashioned ring.

  Through the frosted glass I saw a red blur topped with a shock of blond hair approaching.

  “Good morning,” a woman I guessed was Phyllis said cheerfully. “What can I do for you?”

  “Yes, good morning. I’m sorry to disturb you on such a lovely day, but I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Are you one of those market researchers? Because if you are, I . . .”

  “No,” I said quickly. “It’s about something else.”

  “Oh?” asked the woman. “Is it the children, is something wrong?”

  “No, not at all. I just want to ask you about something that happened here a long time ago.”

  “Because our children are camping in the Dordogne with our grandson, Noah. Only nine months old—just think—a baby in a tent! I don’t get it. Still, it could be fun, right?”

  I didn’t want to get involved in a debate about the dangers of camping with babies, so I said, “It’s about the previous inhabitants. Rosita and Anna Angeli.”

  Phyllis looked upset.

  “I’m sorry to bring this up. But I’m working on a possible appeal, which requires me to talk to some of the neighbors.”

  “I don’t know.”

  I took out a business card. Heavy stock, ornate lettering. It was Lawrence’s taste, but it made an impression. Phyllis’s eyes scanned the card.

  “You might as well come in, then.” She flung the door open all the way for me.

  I followed her down the corridor where eight years ago Rosita’s and Anna’s corpses had been discovered. The floor was oak parquet and the walls were painted an apricot shade probably called something like “T
uscan sunset.” There was no sign of the grisly crime that had taken place here. But what did I expect? That I’d see the CSI team’s chalk marks?

  Phyllis pointed me to the sofa and dashed into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. I looked around. The living room wasn’t very large; situated at the back of the house, it looked out on a lovely garden.

  “Well, well, this is a coincidence,” said Phyllis, coming in from the kitchen with two wobbly coffee cups and a cookie tin on a pretty serving tray. “Do you know that we received a letter addressed to Rosita just two weeks ago? A very grand envelope. I said to Hugo, ‘What do you think we’re supposed to do with this?’ I thought of calling the police.”

  She put the cups down on the glass coffee table. Displayed under the glass top were books with titles like The Birds in Our Garden.

  “That is a coincidence,” I said.

  She walked over to the sideboard in the corner of the room and picked up an envelope. “Here it is.”

  “Who’s it from? Do you know?”

  She handed me the letter. Burley & Burley it said in fancy script. Solicitors.

  “Junk mail, probably. I’d just mark it Return to sender, if I were you,” I said in a nonchalant way.

  “You think?” Phyllis hesitated. I could see she was a woman who was determined to do the right thing. “I’m not sure.”

  “May I ask you a few questions?”

  “Of course.” She perched on the edge of the armchair.

  “When did you move in here?”

  “About seven years ago.”

  “So you were the first to live here after the murder.”

  “That’s right. I did find the idea of it a bit creepy at first. But my Hugo said, ‘You can’t even tell it ever happened.’ ”

  “And . . . were you able to tell?” A rather awkward question. What was I hoping to get out of this conversation, really, other than a look at the crime scene? Phyllis hadn’t known Rosita and Anna, or Ray, either. What was there for her to tell me that I didn’t already know from reading the police report?

  “The police and the housing co-op had made sure the place was thoroughly cleaned. But you could still see the stains in the concrete. I had a wood floor installed right away.” She leaned over toward me. “The blood’s still there, underneath the wood. I try not to think about it.”

  “And the walls?”

  “They were repainted.”

  I took a sip of my coffee. Phyllis hastened to offer me a cookie from the tin. “What about the neighbors? Did anyone ever talk to you about the murder?”

  “I don’t talk to the man next door. He’s . . . different. I find him to be quite unpleasant. Although I have to say he does keep to himself. But you never hear him take a shower. Never seems to bother to air the place out, either.” Phyllis shook her head disapprovingly. “You know who you should talk to? The lady across the street; she knew Rosita pretty well. She seems to think Rosita liked men a lot.”

  “But she had a steady boyfriend, didn’t she?”

  “I believe she did. A classy guy in a fancy car. I remember him coming by from time to time after we’d just moved in. He’d park in front and peer inside. Gave me the creeps.”

  “Did you report it to the police?”

  “Well, he wasn’t really doing anything illegal, you know? He was just looking and lurking. But I didn’t like it.”

  “Are you sure it was Rosita’s boyfriend?”

  “The lady across the street is sure. She . . . keeps an eye out.”

  “But you never talked to him.”

  She shook her head. “Hugo did step outside once. But he drove off in a hurry. Oh, you know, it was just when we first moved in. After a while he stopped coming.”

  “Could you explain what you mean when you say, ‘She liked men’?”

  Phyllis shrugged and took a bite of her cookie. “It’s just what I heard, of course. She was a flirt, people say.”

  I got to my feet, for want of anything further to ask. I tried not to look too eagerly at the envelope on the sideboard. “I have to go to the post office anyway. Would you like me to mail that letter for you?”

  She was hesitant.

  “It seems to me you’ve had enough trouble with all this. I’ll take care of it for you, it’s the least I can do.”

  “Remind me, where are you from?”

  “From the law firm.” I said it categorically, leaving her no room to object.

  “Oh, right.” She handed the letter over.

  “Thanks again for your time.” I put the letter in my handbag. We shook hands. It wasn’t until I’d reached my car that I heard the door close.

  The lady in number 20 was already posted at the kitchen window, peering outside. One hand on her hip, the other holding a cigarette.

  Putting on a friendly but professional face, I walked up to her door.

  Before I had a chance to ring the bell, the door swung open. “I was wondering when you’d get to me.” She had a strange, hoarse voice.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. If there’s anyone in this street who knows what’s going on, it’s me.”

  “I’m Iris Kastelein.” I put out my hand.

  “Geraldine. You’d better come in.” She led the way. We sat down at a little gingham-covered table by the kitchen window. The pungent mix of cigarette smoke and household cleaner made my eyes sting.

  “I usually sit right here, except when I’m doing housework. I never sit in the living room, actually. What’s there to look at in the backyard? At least here in the front there might be something going on.”

  Geraldine’s house was right across the street from Rosita’s. A stretch of about fifty feet. You didn’t even need binoculars to spy on your neighbors.

  “So you always know what goes on in this neighborhood?”

  “Sure do. I see everything,” she said proudly. “I also know you were here a week ago, with your kid. Little boy? Cute as a button. I could tell you hadn’t come to view a house or to read the meter.” She laughed.

  “How clever of you to keep tabs on everything.” I hoped I’d be able stick it out a bit longer in this stifling air. “I am representing Mr. Boelens, your former neighbor, as his attorney. I’m trying to learn more about the murder of Rosita and Anna Angeli.”

  “I’d gone to the market that morning. Just when something finally happens, there I am buying lettuce for fifty cents a head. So I didn’t see it happen. But I am the one who called the police. I saw that her door was open and I thought, that isn’t right; I walked over to the house and saw her lying there. Her and her kid. What a mess. You’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t think I slept for a month.”

  She lit another cigarette. One of those extra-longs. From a black pack featuring a gold Playboy logo. An old man walked by. He lifted a hand to his Humphrey Bogart fedora by way of salute.

  “That’s old Col. He was Boelens’s neighbor on the other side. You could try talking to him, too. Though he’s not all there these days. He once told me that Ray could raise a mighty ruckus. He’d start roaring like an animal, he said.”

  “Did he do that a lot?”

  “Depends. Sometimes. He was doing pretty well for a while. Before he began hanging out with that woman. But as soon as that started fizzling out—heaven help us.”

  “You weren’t too fond of Rosita, were you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “She was a piece of work, that one . . . Mustn’t speak ill of the dead, but . . . How do I put it? She had a stick up her ass. Thought she was better than everyone else. But meanwhile she’d gotten herself knocked up by a married man, and she was on welfare. And always making eyes at men and leading them on. It’s lucky my old man, Joe, wanted nothing to do with her. ‘Give me a real woman,’ he says, ‘not one of those bimbos.’ ”

  “But do you think Ray killed her?”

  “He was crazy enough. Do you know he used to go around pruning the neighbors’ hedges in the middle of the night? My husband once bumped into him wielding
one of those”—she spread her arms wide—“huge hedge shears. With that crazed look in his eye, the way he’d look at you sometimes, you know. My old man almost had a heart attack. But apart from that he didn’t really bother us. He was always at work, wasn’t he? He’d set out for the bakery in the middle of the night. Then he’d be home for a couple of hours in the afternoon and you’d see the lights go out around eight o’clock. What kind of life is that? No wonder he went berserk.”

  She lit another cigarette. I was starting to get a headache, but I really wanted to hear what else she had to tell me.

  “You know that rich prick, the father of that woman’s kid? Ray once slashed the guy’s tires. I saw the whole thing myself. He just went nuts, he did. Never seen anything like it. The way he went at it, hacking those tires with that knife! And then suddenly it was over. He calmed down and marched back to his house as if nothing was the matter. I said to Joe, I said, ‘Mark my words, that’s going to end badly.’ And that’s exactly what happened. But hey, everyone gets what they ask for, am I right?”

  And what you’re asking for is lung cancer, I thought.

  She stared out the window. “I’m just sorry about the little girl. She was a dear little thing. She’d wave at me sometimes. But with a mother like that . . .”

  “Do you think Ray and Rosita were lovers?”

  “Who can say? Look, Ray lived here awhile before she came on the scene. He never saw anyone. Except for his mother. She sometimes came to see him.”

  I tried to wrap my head around the idea that my mother had been here, on this street. That she’d led a whole secret life neither my father nor I ever knew about.

  “So when that woman moved in and started giving him the come-on, Ray naturally fell for her right away. But did they do it? Beats me. Never saw them holding hands or anything. They never spent the night together—at least, not as far as I know . . . I never understood it, the two of them. Never. What an unlikely pair.”