Girl in the Dark

by Marion Pauw

  “So she had no friends, and no enemies, either, and you were her handyman. Did anyone else ever visit her, then?”

  “Ray, of course. And that shithead. Asscher.”

  “Anna’s father.”

  “Father’s a big a word for someone who gets a woman pregnant and then leaves her holding the bag.”

  “But he did take care of her, didn’t he? Didn’t he come over sometimes?”

  Kool sniffed loudly. “What a prick. Rolling in dough, but doing the right thing? Don’t hold your breath. Things were different in my time.”

  “Isn’t it possible someone else killed them?”

  He smiled scornfully. “Yeah, in your dreams. Boelens done it. No doubt.” He picked up his ax and started hacking away like a madman again. It wasn’t difficult to picture him wielding a carving knife. Was he capable of committing murder? Of committing cold, calculated murder on the vague expectation of a fortune somewhere down the road—unless he’d also given Rosita’s biological father a helping hand, which was quite possible, too. In which case he’d been remarkably patient. Eight years! And he was far from being a spring chicken himself.

  I stared at the three dots on his hand. I’d noticed the same kind of tattoo on a good number of our criminal cases. There were varied explanations for it. It was commonly thought to mean “Fuck the police.”

  Inmates gave it to each other in jail.

  CHAPTER 39

  RAY

  After spending hours waiting at the bottom of Rosita’s staircase, I finally walked back to my house. As soon as I got there I went and looked at my fish. At the way they swam round and round and always seemed to be in good spirits, although I could never really be sure. But I did think they were happy, since they always had somebody to take care of them. And that somebody was me.

  To be on the safe side I checked all the levels, even though I’d done it that morning and would do it again before leaving for work later. Everything was A-OK. Knowing it calmed me down. I took a shower and went to bed.

  Usually I got up at three A.M., but that night I woke up after midnight because I heard people shouting in Rosita’s house. The noise was coming from her bedroom. I took a glass and held it against the wall to hear what they were yelling about.

  “Are you out of your mind? How dare you get in touch with her! How dare you! Do you have any idea what kind of position you’re putting me in?” I thought it was Anna’s father’s voice. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen his car parked outside in the middle of the night. According to Rosita, his wife sometimes took the kids to sleep over at her mother’s house. And then Victor would spend the night with Rosita.

  I heard Rosita say something back. She wasn’t yelling; she was talking softly. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, no matter how hard I pressed my ear to the glass.

  “Don’t give me that crap!” Victor yelled back. “Know what you can do? You can go to hell. I’ve had it up to here with you! I’m going on vacation tomorrow, and then it’s over. Do you hear me?”

  Then Rosita’s voice again. She was crying, I did hear that. But what she said wasn’t clear. Victor was talking more quietly, too.

  I stayed there awhile longer with my ear glued to the glass, listening hard. But I couldn’t catch anything else they said. Then I heard footsteps on the stairs and the front door slamming shut. Looking out the window I saw Victor Asscher’s silly car driving down the street. I heard Rosita crying.

  It occurred to me that this fight was good news. Very good news.

  There was nothing keeping Rosita, Anna, and me from being a family anymore. We already were almost a family—Rosita had said so herself. Besides, there were plenty of other signs: I was over there every day, and I’d touched Rosita’s privates, and Anna was fond of me. Now we were really going to be inseparable.

  I was so excited I couldn’t get back to sleep. I got up and went to the bakery much earlier than usual and baked far too many croissants.

  “Did you think it was Saturday?” my boss asked.

  After work I picked out a madeleine for Anna. This time I tied the paper bag with a red ribbon. There was something to celebrate, after all. I couldn’t seem to walk normally. I ended up skipping all the way to our street. I pressed Anna and Rosita’s doorbell.

  It took a long time. Maybe Rosita was in the bathroom. After a while I pressed the bell again. And again. Nobody came to answer. I hung the bag with the madeleine from the doorknob and walked over to my own house. Why wasn’t she home? I kicked a door and smashed a vase my mother had given me on the floor. It didn’t help at all. I forced myself to calm down. I recited all the fishes’ names a few times. That did help. My heart stopped racing and my head stopped reeling. I decided to make myself something good to eat.

  The day before, I’d brought home a pain de figues, which was delicious to eat with sheep’s-milk cheese. As I was slicing the cheese, I thought I heard something through the wall. It was vague and sounded far away, but it was unmistakable: “Tinky Winky . . . Dipsy . . . Laa-Laa . . . Po . . .”

  I knew that song. I took a bite of the delicious pain de figues and realized that if the TV was on, Rosita and Anna must be home. Which meant Rosita hadn’t opened the door on purpose.

  I climbed over the little gate leading to her backyard and peered through her window. Rosita was sitting next to Anna on the couch. She was wearing sweatpants and a tank top, and her feet were bare. She was smoking a cigarette. As if she’d been sitting there the whole time. But she’d refused to open the door. Anna was munching on the madeleine. The red ribbon was at her feet.

  Then Rosita saw me. She stared at me. I must have given her a fright, because her shoulders went up and she dropped the cigarette on the couch. The couch I’d bought her. She snatched up the burning cigarette and started rubbing at the spot where it had fallen. Anna saw me, too. Her mouth formed the word Ray! She even waved at me.

  I just stood there outside the window; I didn’t know what else to do. Rosita got up off the couch. I thought she was going to let me in, because she walked over to the back door. She opened it a crack and stuck her head out. “What are you doing here, Ray? Can’t you just leave me alone a single day?”

  I took a deep breath and decided to just come out with it. The thing I’d been waiting to say for so long. I’d hoped it and dreamed about it, and the moment had come. “I’ve come to be a family. With you and with Anna.”

  For a moment she didn’t say anything. Then she burst out laughing.

  But what I’d said wasn’t funny.

  When she’d recovered a bit, she said, “Come on, Ray! You don’t really think we can be a family, do you? Really, whatever gave you that idea? I think you’re sweet and very nice, although I didn’t think you were very nice yesterday, when you just stood there at the bottom of the stairs and wouldn’t leave, but okay, maybe it was my fault. But now you’re going too far. We are neighbors, Ray. Friends, even. But family? Come on, that’s never going to happen.”

  “But you said so yourself.” I went to the door to take her in my arms. To hug her and kiss her, the way people do who belong together.

  But she jumped back. “Over my dead body!” She slammed the door in my face, turned the lock, and savagely drew the curtains shut.

  I stared at the yellow drapes, her words tumbling through my head like raisins in the bread mixer. Suddenly I knew the awful truth. She had fooled me. She’d told me we were nearly a family. But nearly means “just a few more steps and you’re there.” But those few more steps didn’t exist. Not then, not tomorrow, and not ever.

  CHAPTER 40

  IRIS

  The next one on my list was Asscher. It hadn’t been easy to get him to agree to a meeting. Only when I mentioned that I could also call him at home about this matter if he liked, he surrendered. We agreed to meet at a highway rest stop that I suspected was mainly frequented by traveling salesmen and people on Match.com dates. The tables had salmon-pink tablecloths and little vases with a couple of gerbera
daisies wrapped in a caster bean leaf. An optimistic attempt at giving the dump some atmosphere.

  I could understand what Rosita had seen in Victor. Not exactly handsome, he did radiate an unmistakable virility. Not bad for an accountant. Tall, sturdily built, and he wore his hair longer than you’d expect of someone wearing a gray tailored suit and striped silk tie.

  “I already told you over the phone, I have nothing to add. I’ve told the police all I know. And I don’t have much time.”

  “You spoke to the police? Strange . . .”

  He didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “What do you mean, strange?”

  “Your statement isn’t in the record.”

  “Right. So?” I stared at him quizzically for as long as it took for him to elaborate. “I was in Crete with my family at the time of the murder. I read about it in the newspaper.” He swallowed.

  “When you were still in Crete or after you got home?”

  “In a café in one of those Greek fishing villages. I just happened to see a three-day-old Dutch newspaper. That’s where I read it.”

  I pictured Asscher, surrounded by wife and kids, reading the terrible news about his mistress. “That must have been awful.”

  I saw that he was getting emotional. “Would you like a glass of water?”

  He nodded.

  When I returned with the water, Asscher was blowing his nose in a neatly pressed pale blue handkerchief. I was struck by how old-fashioned that was. I didn’t know anyone who still used a linen handkerchief, let alone anyone who had the time or inclination to iron them.

  “I’m sorry,” said Asscher. “I’m not used to talking about it.”

  “I understand. It must feel very lonely, keeping a secret like that.”

  “Yes.” His eyes were watery again. “Do we really need to dredge this all up?”

  “I am so sorry. I will try to keep this as easy as possible. We were talking about why your statement wasn’t in the official record, Mr. Asscher.”

  “You can call me Victor.” He smiled through his tears. “I wasn’t planning to go to the police at first. Not on my own account, but to spare my wife, Millie. It would break her heart if she ever knew I’d had a mistress and a child.”

  I gave a sympathetic murmur. Rence used to say, “Building trust is largely a matter of making the right reassuring noise at the right moment.”

  “After a few weeks I began to feel remorse,” Asscher went on. “I thought, what if I’m the one holding the missing piece of information? I went to the police, but they didn’t seem too interested. They listened to my story and that was it. I asked if they wanted me to sign a statement or anything, but the case was already solved, they told me.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I see.”

  “It was an open-and-shut case—Boelens did it. That guy isn’t normal.”

  “Didn’t he slash your tires once?”

  “Yes. I did try to warn her about him. Especially after that slashing incident. The way he went at it like a maniac . . . terrifying. ‘That man is dangerous,’ I told Rosita. ‘Stay away from him.’ But no. She said he was a friend . . . A friend! ‘He isn’t like you or me,’ she’d say, ‘but he has a good heart.’ Well, we sure have proof of that, don’t we? Do you know how many times Rosita was stabbed? Fourteen.”

  “Do you have any idea why Rosita considered him a friend?”

  He shrugged. “Mainly to make me jealous, I’d think. As if I could be jealous of someone like that guy. I can still see him coming home from work with one of those disgusting little cake offerings for Anna. Every day he’d bring her one. Can you imagine? He’d sometimes babysit Anna, too. I didn’t think it was a great idea, but Rosita said it could do no harm. In hindsight . . .” He blew his nose again.

  “Please, take your time.”

  “This is hard for me.”

  “I know.”

  “Shit. I’m not usually such an emotional wreck.”

  “As an accountant you’re probably rarely in danger of getting your emotions involved.”

  He laughed.

  “Did Rosita have any other enemies? Or any debts?”

  Asscher took some time to think about it, then shook his head. “She was a spirited girl. I do have to say that. A ticking time bomb even, sometimes. But enemies? I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t quite get what you mean. In what sense was she a ticking time bomb?”

  He hesitated. “You know. Hotheaded. Latin temperament.”

  “For a spirited girl like Rosita, wasn’t it hard to play second fiddle all the time? To your wife, I mean?”

  If I’d had Asscher’s trust, it was over. The steel shutters came down with a mighty crash. “I don’t see the relevance of this line of questioning. Where are you going with this?”

  “I’m trying to get a better sense of the sort of people who knew Rosita Angeli. And you were one of them.”

  “I’d almost forgotten you were Boelens’s attorney. Say hi to him for me. And tell him that once he’s sprung from that institution he’s going to get what’s coming to him.”

  I tried to think of something to get Asscher talking again, but he was already on his feet. He stuck out his hand. “Good-bye.”

  I stayed behind, perplexed. I’d hit a raw nerve, obviously. I couldn’t imagine Rosita being happy with her mistress status. She struck me as someone who liked to be number one. Why else would Asscher have said that she wanted to make him jealous?

  As I picked up my purse, another thought occurred to me. Had Rosita threatened to tell Asscher’s wife about the relationship?

  CHAPTER 41

  RAY

  “Tell me,” said Iris Kastelein. “When you were still living at home, what was Mother like?”

  “Angry” was my answer. “She was almost always angry.”

  She laughed. I didn’t know why. Was she making fun of me?

  “What was she angry about, then?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m no good at this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You keep wanting to talk about feelings and stuff. I’m not good at feelings. Didn’t you know that?”

  She laughed again. “I don’t mean to confuse you. Shall I tell you something about myself? I’m your sister, after all.”

  I was going to say no but remembered the shrink at school: You have to show you’re interested in other people. So I nodded.

  “Mother didn’t get angry at me all that often. I’d say she was indifferent. As if I were a project yet to be finished. Luckily I had Dad. My father.” She was silent awhile, and her forehead crinkled into a frown. “My father passed away ten years ago. Do you know who your father is?”

  I started feeling warm. So warm I almost couldn’t breathe. “Can I take off my sweater?” I asked Mo.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I’m suffocating in here.”

  “Do you mind?” Mo asked Iris Kastelein.

  “Of course not.”

  I pulled off my sweater so that I was sitting there across from her in my white undershirt. It helped a bit, but I was still hot.

  “We were talking about your father,” said Iris Kastelein. “Do you know who he is?”

  I clenched my teeth, grinding them from side to side. It made a grating sound.

  “Didn’t Mother ever tell you anything about him?”

  Why was everyone always asking me questions I couldn’t answer? Who’s your father, who’s your father, your father’s this, your father’s that, when I had no idea. Did they all think I’d never asked her about it myself? Did they think I was a moron?

  “Sorry,” said Iris Kastelein. “I’ll stop harping on it, all right? You know, I always had this feeling that something wasn’t right. In hindsight, all of this explains a great deal. Why Mother would go off to garden shows every once in a while, for instance, and was adamant that Dad should stay home. And then there was her secret study. Did you know about that? There was this room in the house that was strictly off-li
mits to me. She was completely fanatic about it.”

  She looked over my shoulder at something in the room. I turned my head to follow her gaze and saw she was looking at Mo, who was sitting in the corner. What did she do that for?

  “Another thing,” said Iris Kastelein. “I’ve persuaded the warden here to try and find out how those drugs got into your cell.”

  “Suite,” said Mo from the corner. “We call it a suite here.”

  “Oh, right.” Iris Kastelein suddenly also seemed to be feeling the heat. But then she’d arrived wearing a classy pantsuit with a white blouse underneath. “Fancy-pants, la-di-da,” Rosita used to say. She didn’t like Iris’s sort. Rosita was pretty tolerant, even of the nosy neighbors, but she couldn’t stand people who dressed up. “They always think they’re better than everyone else. Why? Because they happen to have more money in the bank? Because the pearls they’re wearing are real? You can’t even tell the difference. You have to bite them to know. They can kiss my ass.”

  I wondered if Iris Kastelein thought she was better than everyone else.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I explained you couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with the drugs that were found in your suite. You’re neither a user nor a dealer. You’ve never had a positive urine test, and the social workers have never observed any behaviors that would indicate drug use. Isn’t that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Exactly. I’m demanding a thorough investigation into what really happened.”

  She crossed her arms and looked at me with a funny expression. It was as if her mouth wanted to smile, but her eyes didn’t. When people smile, they scrunch up their eyes a bit. Iris Kastelein’s eyes were wide open.

  “What are you now?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What are you now? Angry? Sad? Scared? Happy?”

  “Determined,” she replied.

  “Oh.”

  “Did you know I’ve spoken with Victor Asscher?” said Iris.