Girl in the Dark (16 page)

Martha Peters had the build of an Eastern European swimming champion. A broad back, sturdy thighs, no breasts to speak of, and a hard set to her mouth. She took up almost the entire corridor.

“Good afternoon, Martha.”

Martha turned around. “Ah, just the person I wanted to see.”

“Oh?”

“Walk with me. I have a surprise for you.”

Without waiting for a reply, Martha turned and marched to the stairs. I decided I'd better follow her, although I couldn't think what the “surprise” could be. It reminded me of going to the dentist when I was little; if you kept your mouth open long enough without complaining, you'd get a “surprise.” A toothbrush. Yippee.

Martha's office was on the top floor of the building, away from the noise and the fuss. In the three years I'd been working at Bartels & Peters I'd gone up there maybe twice. I followed Martha's robust backside up the stairs.

The room was bright, light, and remarkably elegant, in contrast to Martha's imposing form.

“Sit down, have a seat,” she said, in a friendly voice, which immediately roused my suspicion.

“Don't look as if I'm going to bite you! Did you know I have a son, too?”

“I didn't.” It was the last thing I'd have expected of her.

“Sam. He's twenty-two and moved out just recently. So I was a working mother, like you.”

I nodded.

“I've always managed to keep my work and my private life separate. But in my case it was easier. The higher up you are on the corporate ladder, the more latitude and advantages you have. Take this room, for instance. Who's going to notice whether I'm in the office or not?”

“But don't you have to put in your quota of billable hours, like everyone else?”

“But
I'm
the one who decides when and where I work those hours. Nobody would dream of questioning it.” She looked at me with a self-satisfied smirk.

“Fine; you're right. Why don't I just get rid of this kid? I can always have another one once I make partner.”

She shook her head. “No need to be so touchy. That's one of your problems, Iris. You take everything so personally.”

“It was a joke.”

“Of course. Well, anyway, I think you're lucky that we had little choice but to take you on when we did.”

Aha. There you had it. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Martha waved her enormous hands as if hoping to erase her last remark. “And I won't deny that you actually turned out better than I'd expected.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment? Am I wrong in assuming it wasn't the surprise you had in mind?”

“Oh, right.” Martha rummaged in her desk and took out a stack of papers. “Here you are.”

“What is it?”

“You've brought in a new client, didn't you? I just wanted to give you a little head start on your case.”

I stared at the cardboard cover.
R. Boelens, 17th of May 2003—3rd of March 2005,
it said.

“How did you get this?”

“Connections. The only reason I go to all those cocktail parties, which you never attend. Connections, connections, connections. Interesting case, by the way. I don't know if it'll lead to anything, but it's definitely a juicy one.”

Aaron was in bed and I was stretched out on the couch with the file, a cup of Sleepytime tea, and a bar of hazelnut milk chocolate. I was tired, and having a hard time focusing. The file was surprisingly meager. It contained the forensic report and some police interviews with local residents. Ray had made three different statements, each time incriminating himself a little more. That was enough to nail him as far as the police were concerned. Where were Rosita's friends and acquaintances, relatives, lovers—the mailman, even?

According to his first statement, Ray had gone home earlier than usual because he wasn't feeling well. On his way home he had seen Rosita and Anna's front door slightly open. He had walked over to investigate. The first thing he'd noticed was the red stain on the beige carpet. He had pushed the door open a bit more and then he had seen the two bodies bathed in blood. He'd stayed with the corpses a little while “to see what would happen.” I felt a shudder go up my spine.

After that he had gone home. There he sat down to watch his fish, in order to make himself calm down. “I didn't call the police because I didn't think of it.”

His next statements contained a number of incriminating remarks. “It was obvious Rosita and Anna had been stabbed with a sharp object. I'm thinking of a carving knife, like the kind I have at home.” And: “I was mad at Rosita because she rejected me. When I get mad, I lose control. Sometimes I get so mad I start breaking things.”

There was no explicit admission, but you didn't need a law degree to know where this was going. The deposition ended with: “I hereby swear that no words were put in my mouth and that I make this statement of my own free will and without any threats or promises extended.”

I shuffled to the bottom of the pile and came upon a photo of the crime scene.

The dead girl especially broke my heart. An innocent child, her little face twisted with fear. The accompanying report from the crime scene investigator stated that the mother was killed first, then the child. She had left footprints in her mother's blood. The conclusion was that she had come running from the living room before being stabbed to death as well. I thought about Aaron, sleeping peacefully in his cot with his stuffed panda bear.

The murder weapon was not found at the crime scene. But the Netherlands Forensic Institute had established that it was, in all probability, a carving knife belonging to the kitchen starter set from Ikea, bluntly called “Börja,” Swedish for “start.” Some 130,000 of these sets had been sold from 1990 to 2009 in the Netherlands alone. In 2009 it had been redesigned; the carving knife's handle was no longer brown but black.

Ray owned one of those Börja starter sets. It had been a present from his mother, the statement read.

I remembered when I'd first left home. My mother thought it was ridiculous that I didn't want to live at home, when we lived
so close to the city. “I let you come and go as you please, don't I?” But I longed for my own chaotic student digs, where I could drink Lambrusco with my friends until the early hours of the morning before passing out on a worn mattress on the floor.

The first time my mother came to look at my nine-by-twelve-foot room in the Jordaan quarter, she'd had little to say. But the disapproving look in her eyes said it all. Pushing a large box into my hands she'd said, “Don't you even have a proper chair to sit on?”

I'd torn off the blue-striped wrapping paper to reveal the Börja starter set. I'd completely forgotten its name, even though the empty box had served as the hall wastepaper basket for months.

“Thank you, Mother.” She had offered her cheek, a sign that I was allowed to give her a kiss.

The thought that my mother had driven to Ikea to buy both of us a Börja set was almost laughable. For herself she bought only top quality, but for others she liked to see what was on sale that week. Ikea must have been having a two-for-one sale.

Ray's carving knife, the alleged murder weapon, had been found in his kitchen drawer. Not a trace of blood was detected on it, but it did have Ray's fingerprints as well as a number of residues with chemical-sounding names that meant nothing to me. Also, the knife was in pretty bad shape. Bent and chipped, well used.

Notwithstanding the puzzling fact that none of Rosita's or Anna's DNA was found on the blade, the Ikea knife was considered a very damning piece of evidence.

I stuck another piece of chocolate in my mouth. I told myself I would stock up on carrots and celery tomorrow.

Then there were the statements from the neighbors. One woman claimed that on another occasion Ray had slashed Rosita's boyfriend's tires with a knife. So Rosita had had a boyfriend.
Why was there no mention of him?

The day after Rosita kissed me, she acted as if nothing had happened. She let me in to give Anna the madeleine, but then she said, “If you don't mind, Ray . . . I'm expecting someone.”

I had been hoping Anna's father wouldn't ever return. But there he was again.

Rosita was wearing a see-through dress. Her boobs were clearly visible, hard nipples and all. It was difficult not to look. I tried imagining how I'd touch her boobs, take them in my hands and knead them. The thought hurt my penis.

“Victor's going on a trip tomorrow with his family. Imagine, Ray, they're off to Crete—
just a little prelude for the summer
. In July they're spending three weeks in Italy. And last Christmas they were in the mountains skiing. But he doesn't care that Anna has never been anywhere except for Zandvoort-by-the-Sea. ‘My family is my first priority,' he says. But what are we, then? What do we mean to him? Aren't we his family, too? Doesn't Anna have just as much right to a father as his other kids?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know? Well, I do. Don't you ever go on vacation?”

“No.”

“Never?”

I shrugged.

“We should go to Crete, too. You, me, and Anna. That would make him sit up and take notice, wouldn't it?”

I felt a shudder of happiness. “I don't know if I dare to get on a plane.”

“Of course you dare,” said Rosita. “But anyway, he's coming over, and I was just wondering if you could take Anna for a while.”

I didn't get it at all. Rosita wanted to go to Crete with
me
, but
I
had to take Anna back to my place because she wanted to take her clothes off for
him
?

Rosita crouched down in front of Anna. “Sweetie pie? You want to go with Uncle Ray? Maybe he'll even take you to the bakery. Or the playground.”

“I wanna see King Kong,” said Anna.

“Will you put on your jacket, please? It's cold out. And Ray?” She straightened up. “When you come back, I have a surprise for you. I want to tell you something about your mother.”

Anna stepped outside holding my hand. Her hand felt fragile, just a few little bones packaged in soft, delicate skin. Rosita waved at us as we left. She did it by sticking just her hand out, hiding the rest of her skimpily dressed body behind the door.

Across the street the woman with the unkempt garden was peering out her window at us. She waved at us, too, but Anna didn't notice her.

“What do you want to do?” I asked in the high-pitched voice I had adopted specially for Anna.

“Look at fish.”

“Not the playground? Or do you want to go shopping, like Mommy?”

“King Kong,” she said firmly.

“Fine, fine.” As I was sticking the key in the lock I heard a car screeching to a halt right in front of my house. I turned around and saw Victor driving up in his flashy car without even a dent or a scratch on it. He walked up to Rosita's door and I saw her open it even before he'd rung the bell. I had to gulp down some stomach acid that came up into my mouth.

Anna and I went inside and sat down in front of the aquarium. “King Kong, Hannibal, Maria, Peanut . . .”

Through the wall I thought I heard footsteps climbing Rosita's staircase. She was taking Anna's father upstairs with her. I had never been upstairs at Rosita's. Never. When would Rosita finally get it, that
I
would always be there for her? She'd said we were almost a family, but how long would I have to wait?

Anna and I had said the fishes' names I don't know how many times when she asked me to take her to feed the ducks. I realized I'd been concentrating so hard on the sound of footsteps on the stairs and Rosita's bed creaking that I'd completely forgotten where I was.

Anna looked up at me with eyes that were nearly as blue as King Kong.

“Of course,” I said. “On the way we can stop at the bakery for some day-old bread. Even though my bread keeps for a lot longer; after three days it's still fresh and delicious. But you can't sell bread that's more than a day old, because then they call it
stale
. Ridiculous.”

I helped her into her jacket. It was a pretty red jacket. It had cost 130 euros, but Rosita said it was excellent quality, and Anna could easily still wear it next year. Which was just as well, be
cause the money in my savings account was getting dangerously low.

Anna skipped along next to me holding my hand as we walked to the bakery. I was getting used to the idea that she liked being with me. Victor's car was still parked in front of Rosita's door. I felt myself get mad but thought,
Not now
. Not while Anna was with me.

It was quiet in the bakery. The people usually came in the morning to buy their bread. That's why the store closed at four thirty in the afternoon. It was four fifteen when Anna and I got there. We had to wait for a lady to pay for her
pain de campagne
first before we could walk through to the back. The lady took her bread and turned around. “Ah, the baker,” she said. “Aren't you on the wrong side of the counter?”

“I've come to get some stale bread. For the ducks,” I said.

“Is that your daughter?”

“We're almost a family,” I said. “Almost.”

I think the lady looked surprised. “I have long wanted to tell you I think your bread is delicious. Truly remarkable.”

“Thank you.” Rosita would like to hear that. She always asked me if I'd had any compliments and then she'd say, “See what a great baker you are, Ray?”

The light was still on in the kitchen area on the other side of the glass wall. Every surface was sparkling and there wasn't a crumb on the floor. There was nothing to show that early that morning I'd prepared four hundred croissants, twelve kinds of bread, and a complete batch of pastries in there. All by myself. My boss had asked me if I wanted an assistant, but I liked the safety and comfort of my own thoughts and of doing it by myself.

“Would you like me to show you La Souche?” I asked Anna. “Of course you don't understand what that means, but it doesn't matter. Come with me.”

She followed me to the back of the bakery, to the warming cupboard where La Souche was kept alive at a constant temperature of sixty degrees Fahrenheit and eighty percent humidity.

I opened the door and crouched before the earthenware pot.

“Shh, she's sleeping,” said Anna next to me.

“That's right,” I said, glad that she got it. “She's sleeping. Sleeping makes you grow, did you know that?” I carefully lifted a corner of the moist cotton cloth covering the mother dough. “Can you smell her? Go on, try. Take a big sniff.”

Anna sniffed. “Yuck,” she said.

“You just don't
get
it,” I snapped at her, quickly covering La Souche back up.

Anna stared at me for a few seconds, dazed, and then burst into tears.

“Don't do that—stop!” I tried to remember what Rosita had said about what you were supposed to do if someone was crying. It took a little while before I remembered. You had to show you were interested. “What's the matter with you?”

“My God!” The girl who helped behind the counter on Wednesdays had come up to us; I hadn't heard her approach. “What on earth's going on here?” She picked Anna up. “What's wrong, my love?”

“Ray's a bad boy,” said Anna.

“Not true,” I said. “Not true at all.”

“What are you two doing in the warming cupboard, for heaven's sake? What's this nonsense? What did Ray do?” she asked Anna.

“Bad boy,” she said.

“Does her mommy know she's here?” The girl was scowling at me.

“Yes. Not that she's here, but that she's with me.”

“Ray's angry,” said Anna. She had stopped crying and was stretching her arms out at me.

I took her from the girl and turned my back so that she couldn't touch Anna.

“Well, I think there's something funny going on. Taking a little girl into the warming cupboard. It isn't normal.” The girl put her hands on her hips. I didn't like her being there.

“We've got to shut the door, or the temperature will go haywire. And in case you didn't know, the kitchen is only for bakers. You're supposed to stay in the store.”

“Never let outsiders set foot in your bakery,” Pierre used to say. “They have no idea how delicate these processes are. They'll just make a mess of everything.”