Safe as Houses (8 page)

‘Sing to me . . .'

Barely managing the tune, Lisa begins the song that is part of Anouk's bedtime ritual, but Kreuger puts an abrupt stop to it.

‘Can't you shut up? I'm trying to watch this!'

The silence that follows is total. The shock makes Anouk's small body tense up.

Lisa gives her a reassuring smile. She mouths the song until the end, and Anouk soundlessly moves her lips along.

Then they have a kiss and a cuddle.

‘I love you,' she whispers into Anouk's ear.

Anouk mouths the same back.

Hours later, Lisa starts from sleep when a hand roughly shakes her shoulder.

‘Bedtime,' a voice above her says.

She gets up. The right half of her body has cramp from having slept in the small space left on the sofa by Anouk, who is snoring gently.

‘Get a move on!' Pale and irritable, Kreuger pulls her arm, and Lisa, suddenly wide awake, stands up.

‘Do we really have to go to the basement?'

‘You've got ten minutes to get the mattresses and bedding there. I'll stay with her.'

With an impatient shake of the head, he gestures for Lisa to hurry up.

Still dizzy from standing up so quickly, she goes upstairs on autopilot. The mattress on the double bed in her bedroom is too heavy to carry on her own, and her hand is hurting, so she takes Anouk's mattress instead and pushes it down the stairs. She pulls a second mattress from the spare bedroom and gives it a shove too, so that it slides down the stairs into the hall. Pillows, duvets and pyjamas in her arms, she goes downstairs. Within ten minutes, everything is in the dark, damp basement.

She lugs Anouk down the narrow stairway with difficulty. Kreuger watches her every move. As Lisa is settling them in, his tall shape appears at the top of the basement stairs, and he looks down at her.

‘OK, I'll let you out again tomorrow morning.'

Before Lisa can say anything, the door closes, and darkness is all around them. The light fixture
is broken – one of the things on the to-do list of household repairs.

The key grates in the lock and she sinks down next to Anouk on the mattress.

Her daughter has woken up but falls asleep again when she hears her mother's voice soothing her. Thank God. There's no way they can escape from the basement. High above them there's a window, but it's too small even to stick your head through. It does let in a little of the dusky light, but, because there's no outside lighting at the back of the house, it doesn't amount to much. She'd be best off going to sleep; she desperately needs rest. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

The police, she thinks, full of desperate hope. Please let the police turn up.

She feels for her pyjamas with her good hand and gets undressed. She crawls under the duvet and wraps an arm around Anouk.

Above them there's a rush of water, and then she hears a gurgling in the pipe that runs down into the basement. Kreuger is taking a shower.

Lisa rolls on to her back and listens to the sounds upstairs: the flush of the toilet, Kreuger's footsteps resounding on the landing, the protesting squeak of the cupboards as he opens them. Not long afterwards it grows quiet, and she hears the creaking of a bed. Her bed.

The basement had been Mark's territory. There was enough space to store plenty of stuff; he'd hung shelves on the walls and filled them with all the rubbish Lisa herself would have thrown away, but which he couldn't bear to part with: old, rusty tools that he never used, broken appliances like vacuum cleaners and radios that he was planning to repair, boxes of corks, bin-bag ties, used batteries – he saved everything. He also used the garage for storing larger things, such as damaged garden chairs, and tiles in various sizes and colours that might one day come in handy.

When they broke up, Lisa put everything out with the rubbish. It was a relief in more ways than one. Once Mark and all his mess had gone, there was light and space in the house, but also a terrible emptiness.

She knows exactly what's in the basement – there's nothing here that she can use. The once-packed space is as good as empty, making it a perfect prison cell. Before her clearing-up spree, she and Anouk would never have been able to fit the mattresses into the cellar. But, in that case, Kreuger might have taken more drastic measures to get them out of his way.

She forces herself to think about something else. About Mark. Even though they're separated, he still calls regularly, making all kinds of suggestions as an excuse to contact them. She doesn't entirely mind; she needs to hear his voice too. But unfortunately he also turns up unexpectedly. She can't cope with seeing him, not yet. She hasn't let go of him enough to be comfortable with that.

There's a strong chance that he'll turn up on the doorstep tomorrow. Sweat breaks out on her forehead at the thought: how on earth are they going to stop him from coming in? Mark isn't someone who'll accept no for an answer. Luckily she didn't get the chance to tell him that Anouk was ill; otherwise he'd certainly have come. Whatever else she thinks of him, he's undeniably a good father and he loves his daughter to bits.

‘Mark . . .' Lisa mumbles into the darkness.

Deep in the night, Anouk wakes suddenly in the middle of a bad dream. When she sees how dark
it is around them, she begins to scream. Lisa shoots upright, feels for her daughter, gathers her in and comforts her.

‘Quiet now, quiet now, Mummy's here. Don't scream, Anouk, everything's fine.'

Relieved that she's not alone, Anouk presses into her. ‘Light,' she says in a trembling voice.

‘The light's broken, darling. But there's no need to be frightened, I'm here with you.'

‘Light!' There's panic in Anouk's voice, but Lisa manages to quieten her.

‘Let's cuddle up together. The dark isn't scary, it really isn't.'

‘Where are we?'

Lisa feels Anouk tense up next to her.

‘In the basement,' she says simply. ‘You know, Daddy's room.'

‘With all that mess.'

‘Yes, but the mess has gone now. I tidied it all up, remember?'

‘I want to phone Daddy,' Anouk says with her thumb in her mouth.

‘Daddy needs to fix the light. I want to go to my own bed.'

Lisa sighs gently. ‘Me too, but we can't, darling.'

There's a short silence, then the sound of Anouk's voice again in the darkness. ‘Is that scary man still there?'

He's in my bed, Lisa thinks bitterly, but replies
in a cheerier tone, ‘Yes, but it won't last much longer.'

Another silence, then Anouk asks, ‘Is he a child molester, Mummy?'

Despite everything, Lisa has to laugh. ‘No, he's not a child molester. But you're right, he is a strange man. That's why we have to do exactly what he says; otherwise he'll get angry.'

‘And then he starts hitting really hard, doesn't he?' There's a concerned tone in Anouk's voice, and Lisa feels her daughter's small hand glide over her face. She kisses it and says nothing, afraid her voice will betray her emotions.

With gentle force, she manages to get Anouk to lie down again; then she pulls the duvet over her shoulders with a nurturing gesture. She curls up against her daughter and sings softly to her until she dozes off. Lisa lies there, sleepless, until the first morning light enters through the tiny window.

She gets up and makes a thorough inspection of the basement. Just as she'd expected, there's nothing that she can use as a weapon or to raise the alarm in any way. There's just an old radio of Mark's.

Lisa plugs it in and turns a dial, and to her surprise she hears a noise. Amazingly, it works.

She searches feverishly for a news programme but gets only adverts. Although she has to wait at least fifteen minutes before the six o'clock news
begins, there's something about Kreuger almost as soon as the programme begins.

A special team from the national police force is working around the clock to track down escaped convict Mick Kreuger. This special unit has been set up in view of the danger the man poses to the community. Yesterday, Kreuger killed two people during his escape, and today it has been made public that he was responsible for the violent murders not only of his ex-wife and her partner, but also of his children
.

Her ear pressed to the radio, Lisa sits down on a stool. She doesn't dare turn up the volume for fear of waking Anouk or of Kreuger hearing it, but she doesn't want to miss a word. The newsreader continues without intonation, his voice as neutral as if he were reading a traffic report. The stool seems smaller and smaller, until Lisa almost falls from it and needs to support herself by placing her good hand on the shelving unit.

My God. He really did murder his wife. And not just her but also his own children. Violently. What does that mean?

An image of two large hands closing around a child's throat appears before her eyes. Who would do something like that? What can go so wrong in
your head that you become capable of squeezing the life out of a helpless child?

Behind her, Anouk mutters in her sleep, and Lisa closes her eyes so as not to be swept away in a wave of despair and helplessness.

A large part of the morning has passed before the key grinds in the lock and the basement door swings open. Lisa and Anouk are sitting side by side, leaning against the wall, the duvets pulled up around them.

Kreuger looks down on them like a medieval lord and nods at the stairs.

Lisa stands up stiffly and helps Anouk to her feet. The child is quiet and pale, but not coughing any more. Thank God the antibiotics have started to take effect.

Maybe Kreuger will leave today, Lisa thinks hopefully. Surely he can't stay here for ever. She could offer him money and clothing to speed him on his way. If necessary she could take him over the border in her car. Whatever he wants.

New-found hope takes over, and, in a better
frame of mind, she helps Anouk up the stairs. The television is on in the sitting room, but the curtains are still drawn. Behind the thin fabric, the sun is attempting to shine, but this only serves to highlight the chaos inside. Pages of newspaper have been tossed all around the sitting room – on the sofa, on the floor, on the coffee table – as though he had literally been spreading the news.

The kitchen is a disaster: the worktop is covered in empty packets and the floor littered with crumbs, cheese rinds and bits of eggshell. Pretty much the entire contents of the fridge have been spread out over the worktop, and there's a strong smell of coffee and fried eggs. His lordship obviously feels at home. Suddenly Lisa is less convinced that he'll leave any time soon, and the disappointment translates itself into a throbbing pain behind her eyes.

As Kreuger whistles his way through the sitting room, Lisa goes over to the worktop, prepares breakfast for Anouk and herself and takes the meal to the small wooden table in the kitchen, rather than to the dining table in the other room.

‘I'm not that hungry, Mummy,' Anouk says quietly.

‘Me neither.' Lisa chews reluctantly on a cheese sandwich. The bread forms a sticky ball in her mouth, which she has to wash down with a few large gulps of tea. ‘Try to eat what you can. A few
mouthfuls is enough. Can you manage some milk?'

By way of an answer, Anouk picks up her glass with both hands and drinks it all. She gives her mother a triumphant look. Lisa smiles approvingly.

Anouk leans in towards her conspiratorially and asks, ‘Do we have to stay here today?'

Over my dead body, Lisa thinks. This is still my house.

‘No,' she says. ‘I'm going to have a word with that man. Maybe we can take him somewhere.'

‘Where?'

To prison, Lisa thinks. Or a very deep pit.

She shrugs. ‘Somewhere where they can't find him.'

‘He's hiding here,' Anouk surmises. ‘From the police.'

Lisa cannot deny it.

‘Can't the police find him, Mummy?'

‘No. They don't seem to be able to.'

Anouk looks out of the kitchen window and Lisa gives her a worried glance. What is going through her head, and how great is the chance she'll be damaged by it? Anouk has had to watch her mother being hit until she bled and threatened with a knife; and she's had to spend the night locked up in a dark basement. Although all the ingredients for long-term problems are there, if Kreuger leaves today hopefully the harm shouldn't be too great.
Anouk might be frightened of strangers for a while, but in time she should be able to forget the incident.

And it could all have been much worse. How can she protect her child from everything that she fears?

By not holding back cautiously any longer, she realises. She has to take matters into her own hands and convince Kreuger that he'd be better off leaving.

‘Mum?' Lisa is jolted from her thoughts by Anouk's hopeful voice.

‘Yes?'

‘Can you please bring my Barbies downstairs?'

It's a perfect domestic scene: Anouk in the sitting room playing with her Barbie dolls, Kreuger sunk into his newspaper and Lisa cleaning up the kitchen. Once she's finished, she automatically switches on the espresso machine, and the smell of ground beans fills the kitchen.

‘Yes, coffee!' Kreuger shouts from the sitting room.

Lisa stands in the door opening. ‘Milk or sugar?'

Kreuger shakes his head without looking up.

Or would you like something else in it? Lisa adds in her thoughts. Rat poison, an overdose of sleeping pills, a mixture of all the dregs from the bottles of strong medicine . . .

As a lab technician, she knows plenty about
poisons. She works for a research institute that offers analytical support to companies developing cosmetics and medicines. It's her job to analyse the base materials and end-products before they're released.

You don't need to be a Russian spy to be poisoned to death. Medicines and cosmetics are full of poison. The slogan ‘dermatologically tested' on packaging is usually meaningless. The words suggest that it's a safe and skin-friendly product that has been carefully tested, while the research often isn't any more thorough than an employee rubbing the cream into their skin and waiting to see whether they get a rash. The term ‘dermatologically tested' isn't legally defined; anybody can put it on their product. A pot of cream that costs the earth and contains innocent-sounding ‘cleansing plant extracts' doesn't have to say on the label that the red algae used are poisonous.