Safe as Houses Read Free Page A

television to the intruder. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening to her, in her own home. Her breathing accelerates and her mouth becomes dry, but somehow she manages to keep a handle on her emotions.
    Kreuger sits down on the sofa, and when the original programme resumes he zaps through the channels to other news coverage. On RTL4 there’s an extra news piece about the murder victim, who was beaten around the head with a heavy object. According to a witness, the suspect fit Mick Kreuger’s description.
    The screen fills with the same photo of a tall, skinny man with black, shaven hair and dark eyes that peer out without a trace of emotion.
    Lisa feels her limbs growing cold; the chill reaches her fingertips. Her hand throbs painfully and is still bleeding. She has taken off a sock to bind the wound, but she knows that what she really needs is a bandage. She presses her thumb and fingers to the wound to keep it as closed as possible and holds her arm up high.
    In the meantime she tries to think. Now that she’s sitting on the sofa as meek as a lamb, Mick Kreuger is paying little attention to her, and she wants to keep it that way.
    She once saw a programme about armed attackers. The criminal psychologist who was interviewed advised viewers to just go along with everything if they were threatened. The attacker would be as tense and nervous as you were, and a cornered rat can behave unpredictably. If you aren’t able to defend yourself, it’s better to become passive and not make the situation any worse.
    Lisa wonders if the criminal psychologist was speaking from personal experience or whether it was purely theoretical knowledge taken from one of her textbooks. Still, she could see the sense in it. She gives Kreuger a cautious glance. He’s sitting on the other sofa, his body tense. Suddenly he jumps up and launches into a volley of swearing that causes Lisa to cringe.
    Kreuger races around the room madly, holding the knife. Lisa doesn’t know how she’d found the courage to try to escape. He would have cut their throats without a second thought. He might still do that. He’s said so little all this time that it’s strange – he’s clearly not right in the head.
    The best thing to do is to stay calm until help arrives. The man has escaped from a psychiatric hospital; he can’t have disappeared without leaving some kind of trace. The police are bound turn up soon. Until then she must keep to her sole priority: to protect herself and Anouk.
    She lays a hand on her daughter’s forehead. She feels warm. Warmer than she was this morning. She could give her a puff on her Ventolin. But the inhaler is upstairs.
    Kreuger is sitting on the edge of the sofa, staring ahead blankly. He taps the knife on the palm of his hand, tap, tap, tap.
    A fit of coughing from Anouk breaks the silence, and Lisa touches her lightly on the back until it stops.
    â€˜What’s up with her?’ It’s the first time Kreuger’s spoken in a normal tone of voice, though his expression is still hostile.
    â€˜She’s got asthmatic bronchitis,’ Lisa says, trying to keep her voice even.
    â€˜Does she need medicine?’
    â€˜She could do with her inhaler, but it’s upstairs.’
    There’s a silence as Kreuger observes her. ‘Go and get it.’
    Gratitude floods through her, and the relief is apparent in Lisa’s voice as she turns to her daughter, ‘Mummy’s going to get your Ventolin. I’ll be right back.’
    Anouk gives Kreuger a suspicious glare.
    â€˜He won’t hurt you,’ Lisa says gently. ‘I’ll only be a second.’
    Anouk’s eyes beg her to stay, but a new fit of coughing takes over.
    Lisa runs upstairs to Anouk’s bedroom. There’s a telephone extension here, but her intuition tells her that this is a test. If she takes the phone from its cradle, Kreuger might make Anouk pay the price.