Читать книгу Shadow Sister - Литагент HarperCollins USD - Страница 13

We go to bed late. I have a hot, soothing shower and as I dry myself and apply night cream, I hear Raoul checking the locks more attentively than usual and I’m glad that he’s here to make me feel safe. I snuggle against him in bed and close my eyes with a deep sense of security.

‘Sleep well.’ Raoul kisses me on the forehead.

‘Sleep well,’ I murmur.

I’m exhausted, but after an hour I’m still curled up against Raoul, waiting to fall asleep. I roll onto my other side. Raoul is snoring lightly and I tap him before it gets any louder. I know what’s coming next.

‘What is it?’ Raoul mumbles, drunk with sleep.

‘You’re snoring,’ I say quietly. ‘Lie on your other side for a bit.’

‘I’m not snoring.’

‘You were snoring, I could hear it.’

‘I’m not even asleep,’ Raoul says.

‘You were asleep.’

‘So why didn’t I hear anything if I was awake then?’ Raoul asks, also irritated.

‘Because you were asleep! You were asleep and snoring!’

Raoul mutters, turns over and after a few minutes is asleep again. And snoring.

I sigh and get some earplugs from the bedside drawer. But even my earplugs can’t combat the number of decibels Raoul can produce at night. After fifteen minutes I give up and take my pillow to the spare bedroom. I set the alarm clock on the bedside table and close the curtains with a single swipe. As I’m doing it, my subconscious registers something strange. I open the curtain a chink. Someone is standing outside our house, on the other side of the street. A dark figure with a cigarette in his hand. I presume it’s a man – I can’t imagine that a woman would stand there smoking a cigarette in the middle of the night.

Bilal comes to mind.

I try my hardest to make him out, but I can’t from this distance. Finally the figure moves off, with the slouchy, indifferent walk so typical of my students. Shivering in the cool night air, I watch until he has disappeared. What should I do? There’s no point calling the police – even if they find him, there’s nothing illegal about staring at a house in the middle of the night.

I turn back the duvet and slide into bed, but the chances that I’ll fall asleep now are virtually nil. The image of the sharp point of the knife forces itself into my mind and is amplified many times in the darkness.

I’m up at the crack of dawn the next morning and leave the house half an hour earlier than normal. Raoul and Valerie are usually getting up when I put on my coat, and I give them a quick kiss before I get into my car. This morning they are still asleep, but I enjoy the quietness of my departure. Thoughts race through my mind: I want to go to school and yet I’m dreading entering the building. What am I going to do if I come across Bilal? Jan might have suspended him, but that won’t necessarily keep him away.

I drive through the misty Rotterdam rush hour with a sense of foreboding. A grimy figure jumps out in front of the car at a red light. He holds up a sponge and a bucket. I nod, and he washes my windscreen with sweeping strokes. It only takes him a minute. I gaze sympathetically at his neglected appearance, his long knotted beard and worn-out army jacket. I let my window down slightly and say, ‘Hi, Tom!’

Tom gives me a smile that’s missing at least two teeth and holds out his hand.

I press five euros into his hand. ‘Get yourself a good meal for once, Tom.’ Sometimes I give him one euro, others two and occasionally even a ten euro note. It depends how cold it is outside and how bedraggled he’s looking.

‘Thank you, miss,’ Tom says. ‘You’ve got a good heart.’

I smile because he always says that and I suspect he uses the same line on everybody.

‘I mean it,’ he says. ‘There are enough people who spit in my face or try to run me over. It’s dangerous work, lady. Dangerous work for just a few euros.’ Before I can say anything back, he’s walked off, still talking loudly.

Tom is always at the same crossroads. He usually walks along the queue of cars with a bucket and gets a bit of loose change without having to get his sponge out. I find it impossible to drive on and ignore Tom. In fact I can’t ignore anyone.

A while back, the action group ‘Keep Rotterdam Safe’ called on Rotterdammers not to give money to beggars. The morning before that, I’d given Tom ten euros, a bag of currant buns and Raoul’s windproof ski jacket. I can still picture him standing there with them.

‘Now I’m all set!’ he’d said.

The following day he was at the crossroads, wearing the red jacket. I’ve never dared tell Raoul about it – he’s not that keen on beggars and tramps – but he’s never missed the jacket.

‘No one has to live like that in Holland,’ he always says. ‘They could look for a job, and if they don’t want to, I’m sorry, but they shouldn’t hassle people who do work for their money.’

The topic keeps cropping up in our conversations and occasionally causes rows. But it’s also how we met in the first place.