“But sadly you can’t play all day, right?” He had to leave no later than a quarter to six. Dinner was always ready at six sharp.
“Bye, Heleen.” He planted a kiss on her cheek. She hugged him and held him longer than was usually the case.
“I wish I could stay longer,” he said, sighing. “You’re so nice to me.”
She bit down on her lip. Later, when Alex was home and sitting at the dinner table, then she could cry. She could cry about Frank, herself, and her little neighbor’s innocence and simplicity, which touched her so deeply and brought out so many emotions.
“Hurry home.” She softly nudged him in the direction of the hallway.
He raised his hand and, as he left the room, he said casually, “See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” she whispered while the sound of the front door slamming shut resonated through the room. She grabbed the remote and turned off the television. Then she cleaned up the video game console.
Her Christmas gift had been a big hit. His face was beaming as he unwrapped his gift. He had screamed out in his excitement and almost hugged her to death. The love she had felt and received that day had been overwhelming.
In the weeks prior to Christmas, without giving anything away, she had tried to figure out which Christmas gift he wanted the most. His list always ended with the video game console, quickly adding that it was far too expensive, of course. With this thought in mind and before making the purchase, she decided to contact Alex’s mother first. She did not want his mother to feel embarrassed or upset. This would eventually lead to resentment and that was not worth it to her. She had become very fond of Alex over the past few months and did not bring their connection in any danger.
Much to her relief, his mother responded really enthusiastically as she hesitantly expressed her request. The woman thanked her for taking such good care of Alex. She had experienced a difficult period after her divorce, and it had been hard to find suitable work. For some weeks now, she had a new boyfriend. Alex had a very hard time with that, which was not exactly conducive to the atmosphere at home. After exchanging pleasantries—“Come by sometime, we need catch up and really talk sometime! How strange is it that we have never met in person?”—she put down the phone.
Heleen looked around the room and thought about the next few hours. First, she would make a sandwich. At eight, she would watch the news and then spend the rest of the night on the Internet. Around midnight, she would clean up and go to bed.
Once she was in bed again that night, she could think of nothing else but Frank and that Vincent. If she ever planned to get rid of this worry and concern, she would have to undertake something, do something. She knew that much after all these months. But where would she start?
14
The pilot landed the plane quietly. Heleen felt two gentle taps as the wheels touched the ground, and the aircraft speed to a stop. She relaxed. Flying had never been her favorite thing, and it never would be. She always felt trapped and powerless. If something ever happened in the air, you wouldn’t stand a chance. All the statistics in the world showing that air travel was the safest form of transport could not keep her from believing that you stood a much better chance of making it out of an accident alive in a defective car than a defective airplane.
The plane taxied to the terminal. Through the window to the right of her, she could see the Mediterranean Sea. The water was dark, almost brown. Rusty-colored crests swallowing one another whole. Clouds rushed by, dreary and gray. The dark body of water only seemed the same in its size, but nothing else about it seemed the same. It was azure blue then.
Nice was right in front of her now, and she flashed back to the last time she was here. Once the pilot took a sharp right turn, she got a full view of the city. The first things she saw were the tall palm trees that grew on both sides of the boulevard. In a flash she wondered if the trees had retained their natural green color during winter. Much to her delight, she saw that the trees had not lost their bright and beautiful color. They were actually the only cheerful thing she could find in the area. The city was a rather sad and depressing sight, buried under a dark, drizzling cloud. The memory of that terrible night she had spent in Barcelona after those wonderful few days in Nice came back to her instantly.
She followed the line of passengers leaving the plane. Besides her handbag, she had no other luggage, so she was able to walk straight to the terminal exit. Once outside, she stepped into the first taxi in line and read her destination address out loud from of a piece of paper. The driver repeated her words, nodded, and drove away.
When the cab turned onto the boulevard, the drizzling rain changed into a real downpour. Huge drops came down hard on the roof. The taxi’s windshield wipers moved back and forth at high speed and could barely keep up. The hum of the heat blower on high overpowered the drumming sound of the rain on the roof. Because the windows slowly steamed up, she could see less and less.
The driver made a left turn. Though she could barely read the street name, she suspected the blurred letters formed the words AVENUE DE FABRON. After they stopped at a traffic light, the driver shot to the left quickly, drove about fifty feet, and took a sharp right. He stopped abruptly, mumbled the address, and nodded vaguely to a street to his left, indicating it was a one-way street he couldn’t enter from that side.
Heleen paid the amount that was on the meter and gave the man two euro as a tip. The seemingly bored man gave her a routine greeting and drove away. With her collar pulled up, she ran to the nearest covered apartment entrance for shelter from the rain, which now seemed to be falling in buckets from the sky. It had never occurred to her to bring an umbrella. Until she landed here today, her perception of Nice was that it was a subtropical paradise. Without the sun and palm trees this part of the South of France could easily pass for a medium-sized city in the Netherlands during the early spring.
She shivered. It was probably no more than ten degrees Celsius. She was wearing a skirt cut just above the knee, a matching blouse, black shoes with a short heel, and a short jacket, which had previously seemed like the right choice. It was stupid of her not to have checked the weather report first.
The street where Vincent Gautier lived lay before her. This neighborhood was probably built in the fifties, she concluded. On both sides of the one-way street there were large blocks of apartment buildings. Six apartments on each floor and all three stories high. Even in this horrible weather, the apartments made a good impression. As a whole, it appeared as a neat, typical neighborhood where the older population could settle down.
The contrast with the entrance of the apartment in which she now stood was rather striking. Everything about it felt shabby and run-down. The difference in maintenance of the buildings on the street where Gautier lived was immense.
Heleen stepped out of the entryway to get a better view of Gautier’s apartment, which was just a little farther down the street. The pouring rain quickly drove her right back into her shabby hiding place. From looking at the nameplates and the apartment numbers, she concluded that this building had eight floors. All French and Arabic names. Behind the closed door, she saw a stocky little Arabic-looking man step out of the elevator. He opened the door and immediately closed it behind him. He looked at her blankly and walked outside.
She watched the man as he walked away. With his sagging shoulders and his eyes fixed on the ground, Heleen thought he was more or less a reflection of his surroundings. His body language symbolized the hopelessness and lack of prospects in a poor area. Because he made her feel uneasy, she turned around. Anything was better than watching someone carry around the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Her face was reflected in the glass of the door. What she saw did not make her happy. There was not much left of her hairstyle. It had gone all flat on her head and was hanging down in her face.
“Jesus, I look like a drowned rat, but okay, there are worse things in life,” she whispered.
She took
in a deep breath of air through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Her heavy sigh was carried away by a gust of wind. Quickly, she made a decision.
After just a few steps the rain found the opening in her raised collar. The water seeped into her blouse. Because she was so focused on the apartment where Vincent Gautier lived, she stepped straight into a deep puddle. The water gushed across her shoes. She felt how the water ran down to her toes. With each step, her feet sloshed around in her shoes more. She saw that the house numbers ran from high to low and that she needed to walk a bit farther before she would arrive at number 49.
Right around number 81, the insecurity and uncertainty began to chew away at her initial determination. She was here to talk to Vincent Gautier. She needed to ask questions only Gautier could answer. It would be painful, but once she could process it all, she could finally move on with her life. Then she could close this chapter. She had to see this Vincent in person.
Around number 63, she slowed her pace. Her doubt was growing, but she still continued. She had imagined it all very differently at home. Dressed to kill, with a calculating facial expression, and feeling very self-assured, she would force him to give her the answers she needed. But she didn’t quite look the part. She looked almost haggard now and not at all self-assured or confident.
Gautier’s apartment was lit up by a faint glow inside, probably a lamp in the corner of the room. Although she could only see slight contours from the street, Heleen’s first impression was a positive one. The living space radiated warmth and comfort. That was remarkable, seeing as all the other apartments lacked that sense of domesticity. It must have something to do with Vincent’s nature. …
It seemed like such a different world in there compared to the sad environment she was standing in. The fear of rejection, of making a fool of herself, took over her whole body. If she walked away now, she could save herself the possible embarrassment, but then she might never be able to find closure. … But who says she would even find it after hearing his story? It could also make matters far worse?
Resolutely, she turned around. It felt like a complete liberation, like she was walking away from a pending disaster.
As she recklessly stepped through the puddles, Heleen told herself that she didn’t want to know what had taken place in that apartment. She had to let the past rest. She had to let it be and move on with her own life.
There was a busy intersection farther down the street; finding a taxi there should be no problem. Hopefully, they would agree to take her in the soaked state she was in. Quickly, she made her way to the intersection. It was over and done. She was going to try and pick up her old life and put this behind her.
Part 3
15
Heleen walked past Matthijs Lievens’s desk. She snatched an envelope from his outgoing mailbox.
“I’ll take care of this. I have to go that way anyway.”
From behind his screen, Lievens gave her a warm smile.
“You’re an angel.”
“I know,” she replied and continued walking. Moments later, she stopped at the desk where Marianne, her colleague who handled the incoming and outgoing mail, sat and dropped the envelope. Then she casually walked to the coffee machine and got herself a cappuccino. With her fingers around the edge of the cup, she walked into the lunchroom. As she’d expected, she was the only one taking a break. It was tax return time, leaving the entire staff trapped in their offices with endless piles of work. There was simply no time for extended coffee breaks. Everyone ate at his desk and, every now and then, someone hurried to the cafeteria for a quick coffee or for a few minutes of solitude. Everyone worked very hard here in June.
Heleen sat down on one of the plastic folding chairs that stood beside a long table. She drank the cappuccino and realized she had really been lucky with this job. She had her own desk and fixed working hours, but she was not part of one particular department. Her function as super hero and problem solver suited her just fine, and, during those first few difficult months after Frank’s disappearance, her colleagues had called and had come by regularly. Even when it became clear that this was going to be a long-term issue and that it would be a while before she came back to work, and that it was questionable whether she would come back to work at all, the bond between them remained the same. Only now, after she’d already been back at the office for a few weeks, did it occur to her how special her colleagues were. They had really made an effort to always give her the feeling she still belonged.
After her short stay in Nice, she tried to pick up the pieces and put things back in order at home. In Nice, her decision to let it go seemed like the right one. Back in the Netherlands, however, there was more of a nuance to it. The conflict between letting the past rest and getting some clarity kept her mind occupied for days. It was hard to simply pick up her work and pretend she had really left it all behind her. Only little Alex’s presence gave her some much-needed distraction. But then Peter Redderswaal had brought some change to the situation.
He had visited her again following the payment from the French insurance company to Vincent Gautier. He had been less tense this time, which in turn had a positive influence on her. He told her bluntly that the company was going to follow suit and pay out the amount of Frank’s life insurance to her. The considerable amount would be in her account within two weeks. Instead of the expected sense of relief, she kept looking at him with a blank stare. He understood that she needed to talk and stayed in his seat.
He asked her some innocent questions to which she gave superficial answers. While she spoke on autopilot, the realization came over her that the man seated opposite her was actually the only one who knew the whole truth about this situation. He had told her about Frank’s relationship with the Frenchman, a secret she had up until now not yet shared with anyone else. When this truly dawned on her, she decided to put all her cards on the table.
She told him about the useless, empty feeling that she constantly carried around with her. Her life was a sequence of breathing, eating, and drinking. She didn’t allow any room for happiness in her life; in fact, she wasn’t even sure if she could remember what happiness felt like. It felt like she had to pay and suffer for what had happened to her.
She also talked about her trip to Nice. How senseless it had been. Nothing had come of her intention to put it all behind her and to more or less start over. She still found herself in complete isolation. She lacked the strength to take the necessary steps. Peter didn’t interrupt her. He just listened.
When she had finally finished he allowed there to be a moment of silence first. Then he asked her questions and gave her a sense of encouragement that she could have never given herself. She was suddenly less gloomy after he explained to her how her work could provide her with some stability, rest, and distraction. She knew he was right and had often told herself this, but had always created obstacles for herself. Found excuses not to go back. But the way he presented it, all of that didn’t even seem necessary.
Heleen finished her cappuccino. Silently, she thanked Peter. It had been so different, so liberating to be able to talk about her real problems without having to watch her words.
After he’d said good-bye, she had known that this time she would succeed.
She had started to work five days a week from nine until two again. The first few days were a bit uncomfortable, but soon after it felt just like it had in the past. She enjoyed her work, and during the afternoons she took care of the necessary things around the house and enjoyed Alex’s company, now even more.
She slept much better, and sometimes the nightmares would actually stay away. Then she would wake up and almost feel well rested in the morning, a new and surreal feeling. She also went out with her colleagues at night again, to the movies, the theater, or the pubs.
“Hi, Heleen! Time for your afternoon shot of caffeine?” Esther Fijten pulled up a chair and plopped down in the seat next to her.
“Looks like you could use one as well?
” Heleen stood up and threw her empty cup in the trash bin and walked to the coffee machine. “Let me get you one—my treat!”
Esther laughed. The coffee was free. “Yes, thank you. Milk and sugar please? You are actually too good for this world.”
Heleen grinned and placed the full cup in front of her.
“So, Esther, how many text messages did you receive today? Fifty or more?”
With her pretty face, long blond hair, and feminine shape, single girl Esther Fijten was extraordinarily attractive. Men frequently bombarded her phone, asking her out on dates.
“A dozen, or so,” Esther replied. “But only one was really worth it.”
Heleen looked up at her. It was a known fact around the office that Esther usually dumped these romantically tinged text messages straight into the digital trash bin.
“It was from my brother, Niels,” she explained. “He recently started his own company, and brought in a big fat contract this morning.”
“Wow, that’s great,” Heleen responded spontaneously. “What kind of business is he in?”
Esther shrugged.
“He’s a computer expert, specializing in security. But don’t ask me what he really does, because that’s still a mystery to me. Basically he tells companies where there are leaks in their systems. To convince them, he sometimes hacks their system, uncovering the weak spots and defects.” She giggled. “He can really hack any computer system. If he tried, he could easily get Brad Pitt’s and George Clooney’s private phone numbers.”
“Well, in case they ask … I’m available.”
Esther waved her joke away while laughing and immediately switched on to another topic.
“So, let’s talk about tonight. Don’t forget that we planned to meet at the bar at nine o’clock, okay?”
She drank her coffee and got up. “Well, duty calls again. Yay.”
Heleen also got up. Given the piles of work that were waiting for her, this coffee break had already taken a little too long.
Cruise: A Thriller Page 6
