Safe as Houses (21 page)

Senta slowly nods. That must be what happened, even though she can't remember.

‘Do you live here? Are you Lisa?'

Lisa nods.

The two woman look at each other for a time, and then Lisa turns around and goes back down the stairs. She returns with a little girl in her arms and lays her on the kitchen floor. The child opens her eyes and begins to mutter incomprehensibly.

Senta rushes forward. ‘My God!'

‘Water,' is all Lisa says.

Senta needs no more explanation than this. She fills a glass, sees straws on the table against the wall and puts one in the water. As Senta helps the girl get up, Lisa holds the glass of water out to her. Only once the first few sips have gone down her throat can the girl focus on drinking.

‘So, is that better?' Senta asks gently; and, looking at Lisa, she says, ‘She's dehydrated; she needs to go to hospital.'

‘Where's Kreuger?' Lisa asks again.

She gets up suddenly and goes to the doorway that leads to the sitting room. Without saying a word she looks at Kreuger's motionless body on the floor and the wound to his eye. ‘He's not dead,' she says flatly.

Senta has followed her and lays a hand on Lisa's arm. ‘He can't hurt us any more; he's badly wounded. I've called the police. Listen, they're coming.'

She holds a finger in the air to point out the distant sound of sirens.

‘He's still alive.' Lisa bends over Kreuger's body warily.

‘Mummy . . .' Anouk says fearfully.

Senta pulls the girl back. ‘He can't do anything to you any more, sweetheart.'

But Kreuger suddenly groans. He tries to sit up and then sees Lisa. He reaches out for her with a ferocious snarl.

Lisa jumps back screaming, just out of his reach. She lunges for the crowbar Senta used to free them and pulls it towards her.

Meanwhile, Kreuger is reeling towards them, one hand pressed to his eye.

Lisa relives the moment when he broke into the house and smashed her to the ground. She relives every terrifying moment of the past week. She sees his reddened face as he rapes her in her own bed, and in her thoughts she is vomiting into the toilet bowl again.

Finally she thinks of Mark. Of the love in his eyes before the light went out in them.

Lisa feels it coming. The rage that she has had to repress for so long builds up, faster and faster, looking for an exit. Revenge builds up in her, fighting to emerge. Her anger is now too powerful an emotion to hold back. It shoots out from her like a geyser.

She takes a step towards Kreuger and his
expression changes. He recoils as she raises the crowbar with both hands.

He stumbles and falls to the floor. Something like pleading appears in his eyes, but Lisa sees only the derision, tyranny and threat that had contorted his face previously.

‘Your day-release is over,' she says. The pain in her hand has miraculously disappeared, and she brings the crowbar down on him with all her strength.

‘It's finished, finished, finished!'

When Kreuger has stopped moving, and the floor and her clothes are stained with blood, she lets the crowbar drop limply from her hands.

‘Come here. Sit down.' Shocked, Senta wraps her arm around Lisa and leads her to the sofa, where Lisa continues to sob soundlessly. She helps Anouk up on to the sofa next to her mother and forces herself to walk back to Kreuger's mutilated body. She has to spend much longer than she'd like rummaging in his pockets for the front-door key. Her hands are covered in blood when she goes into the hall. It seems like hours ago that she'd stood at the door, ringing the bell in vain. She turns the key with shaking hands and opens the door wide.

Then she returns to Lisa and Anouk and sits down next to them on the sofa. They don't say a
word; they just listen to the police sirens in the distance. The three of them wait there together until the wailing sound finally stops in front of the door.