Mr De Vries’s son and his colleagues didn’t need an autopsy of Thomas’s father’s heart, or of his blood vessels, or his lungs. His stomach didn’t have to be pumped to check for anything more unusual than the leeks, meatballs, and vanilla pudding he’d had for dinner that fateful night. They’d immediately known what the pathologist and his helpers had to examine, because there was just one very visible injury. All they’d needed was a pair of tweezers.
They couldn’t help whistling through their teeth when the pathologist pulled the pencil out of the deceased’s left eye. It had been driven into the eye with such force that the point had broken off against the inside of his skull. It was a fat, round, red colouring pencil.
He must have died instantaneously.
When at five o’clock that evening the details of the murder were published in the newspaper, our mothers could no longer keep it from us.
After tea we managed to give them the slip and snuck out of the house. We met up on the green. Hiding behind the beech hedge, we kept the rectory under surveillance. We waited patiently, confident that the police would come to the same conclusion as us. After all, there weren’t too many people who used that kind of pencil; it was only too obvious the murder weapon had come from this house. The killer must have stolen it from the studio. Or maybe he’d pinched it from Lucy’s backpack.
There were two of them, and they arrived in an ordinary, unmarked car. Their faces were ordinary too, and their windbreakers were so ho-hum that it almost made you fall asleep. It was all very different from what we’d seen on TV.
They were inside for an hour, at least.
We could feel our hair growing, that was how little else was happening. We hadn’t expected them to take this long over the identification of stolen goods. Though they had to be careful not to erase any fingerprints, of course.
Suddenly the rectory’s front door opened. Flanked by the two detectives, Lucy’s mother came out. She walked resolutely down the path, carrying an overnight bag, the kind mothers always took with them when they had to go to hospital to have another baby. One of the detectives held the car door open for her. Just as resolutely, she climbed into the back seat. We couldn’t see the expression on her face because her long, straight hair hung down like a curtain. It was as if she just had to go somewhere, and was thinking, How lucky that these nice gentlemen can give me a lift!
We all rose to our feet to gaze after the car. When it disappeared round the corner, we looked back at the house.
The rectory seemed to tower even higher than usual over the surrounding houses. We flung our heads back, but we didn’t see Lucy in the attic window gazing after her mother as she was driven away. We tiptoed up to the blue stoop and pressed our ears against the door. Inside we heard creaking sounds, the house sighing and quietly groaning, as usual. We rang the doorbell.
It took a while before we heard footsteps in the hall. Either Ludo or Duco pulled open the door with some effort, as if it had suddenly grown considerably heavier. We hardly recognized him. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks were sunken, his hairline seemed to have receded at least another four inches, while what was left of his hair was sticking straight out on either side of his head. He tried to say something, but his mouth was too trembly to get any words out.
Unceremoniously, we shoved him out of our way and thronged inside. ‘Lucy!’ we cried into the dark, cavernous hallway.
Ahead of us, at the end of the corridor, a faint shimmer of light spilled from the semi-closed kitchen door onto the tiled floor. Stumbling towards it, we flung the door all the way open.
Lucy was sitting at the kitchen table with her head buried in her arms. Her back was arched like an angry cat’s. Her bony vertebrae poked through her sweater. Her legs were clasped around the rungs of her chair as if she were afraid she’d float up to the ceiling otherwise. Ludo—we could tell from the shoes it was he—sat next to her, rubbing her back.
The kitchen smelled of ginger biscuits and chamomile tea. As usual, there were piles of dirty dishes on the granite counter. The hum of the water heater was a hum as familiar as our own heartbeat. The last of the stickers we had stuck on the fogged-up window a while ago were peeling off. For a while there, they had been giving out stickers with every purchase: petrol or chips or detergent. We’d been over the moon about it at first, collecting them greedily and swapping them in elaborate transactions—blood was spilled over those stickers!—but in the end we got fed up with them, we wound up just sticking them anywhere, indiscriminately, on any convenient surface, there were just too many of them, it was raining stickers, and still our mothers insisted on bringing them home with a tireless zeal that embarrassed us no end, they kept buying more stuff just so they could saddle us with even more of those wretched stickers; all in all, it had been a complete farce.
In the doorway, Duco said, ‘I couldn’t stop them.’
Ludo looked up as if he’d only just realized we were in the kitchen. Then he shook Lucy’s shoulder gently. ‘Honey,’ he said, ‘your friends are here.’
But she didn’t raise her head from the tabletop, which was a mess of white rings made by juice glasses.
Ludo said, ‘It is sweet of you to have come over right away.’
We glowed with pride. The Three of Cups, the card of friendship: that was the most important card of all.
Duco walked over to the cooker. He started turning on the burners, one after another.
Ludo went on rubbing Lucy’s back. He didn’t explain what else you were supposed to do in this situation, besides coming over right away.
Duco told us, ‘We’re about to eat.’ All four burners were now blazing away. The gas hissed. But we didn’t see any pan of potatoes, nor even the faintest sign of dinner preparations.
Yet, for some reason, we had suddenly lost the nerve to ask why Lucy’s mother had gone with the police, or where. Too embarrassed to open our mouths, we scuffed our feet on the floor. Our eyes darted here, there, and everywhere, trying to find inspiration for something to say. But all we saw were the Luducos’ crumpled faces and Lucy’s winter-white neck, and it was hard to say which of those was the most pathetic.
‘Oh honey,’ Ludo muttered. ‘Oh my little girl.’
Shuddering, Lucy hunched her shoulders a little higher.
Duco stared at the blue gas flames.
Our parents were waiting for us at home; surely Lucy would understand that. In countless houses mothers were beginning to fume, glancing at the clock. They were starting to hurl complaints about like tossed frisbees: Jesus Christ, I’m not running a hotel here! Then, beginning to get worried—there was a murderer on the loose, after all—they grabbed coats, scarves, hats, gloves, and flashlights. They ran into the street. They called out our names. They bumped into each other in the dark, and cried out in alarm, ‘Yours too?’ Suddenly weak at the knees, they propped one another up, fear clutching at their hearts. Anything, they’d do anything for us: wash our dirty socks and knickers, clean up our messes, donate their last kidney to us—‘That’s what a mother is for, darling.’ They’d do anything to have us back. But something as simple as walking over to the rectory to rescue us from that awkward scene in the kitchen? The thought never even entered their heads.
Frightened, we grabbed one another by the hand. All we could hope for now was that Lucy’s mother would shortly hitch a ride home. As soon as she walked in, everything would go back to normal again. But as Duco went on staring at the flames as if paralyzed, and Lucy began to sob under her breath, it finally hit home: we had probably seen the last of her, for the time being.
The authorities promptly started showing up.