Helen woke with a start. Drops of sweat were running down her neck. She tried to scrape her sopping hair off her face, but her right arm was numb. The sheet had come loose from the mattress and wrapped itself around her upper body and her neck. Panicking, she fought her way free. The thin cotton was damp with her sweat.

It was dark and silent in the bedroom. She switched on the bedside lamp and looked at the space alongside her. No Werner. She ran her hand over the mattress: his side was cool and dry.

Helen slipped out of bed, breathing rapidly. Her heart felt like it was beating high in her chest. She hurriedly pulled on her dressing gown and slippers and walked down the hall.

Werner wasn’t in the bathroom. The doors of the kids’ bedrooms stood ajar. She stopped to listen at each doorway but heard only the calm, regular breathing of her children as they lay in deep sleep.

Nervously, she went down to the kitchen. The light under the exhaust fan was on, but nobody was there. With mounting unease, she walked on into the hall. It was dark, but not entirely: a faint glow emanated from the gap between the locked basement door and its frame. She heard muffled noises from below.

Trembling now, she placed her ear against the door. The noise grew clearer and sharper. It sounded like a file running over a hard surface—a nutmeg seed, perhaps. Helen stood and listened, breathing through her mouth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

She hadn’t been dreaming.

Werner was down in the basement.

Tuesday

Tuesday

1

1

“Look at this. Late-payment penalty.”

Ralf snatched the envelope from his mother’s hand and stuffed it into his back pocket. “Haven’t you ever heard of privacy?”

“I don’t understand you, Ralf. Why don’t you pay your fines right away? Now it’ll cost you even more.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he muttered.

“Take care of it? And how exactly are you planning to do that? You don’t have a penny in your bank account.”

She knew that too, then. “I said I’ll take care of it, didn’t I?”

He had sixty euros in his wallet. Not even enough for a tank of gas. A solution had to come along soon. A job, for example—and ideally one that paid more than minimum wage. It was just a pity that nobody was looking for an eighteen-year-old boy with no qualifications. They’d made that much clear to him at the temp agencies. The best-paid job they’d been able to find for him was in an industrial laundry. “Most of your colleagues will be Polish. You have to pull your weight and be physically strong, but by the looks of you, that won’t be a problem.” Ralf had decided to pass on that offer.