Safe as Houses by Simone van der Vlugt

The children were in the house, and I had to be quick.’
    He says it with resolve, as though he’d been dealing with an irritating household chore that he couldn’t get out of.
    â€˜She saw me coming at her with a knife and began to scream, but downstairs they couldn’t hear her over the television. And her screaming soon stopped.’ There is satisfaction in Kreuger’s voice.
    Lisa tries to hide the shivers running down her spine. ‘And the children?’ she whispers.
    Kreuger’s expression darkens. He looks up at her with a face that still betrays despair after all this time. ‘What else could I do? I knew I wouldn’t get away with it and that I’d go to prison for years. What would have happened to Emily and Jeffrey? Think about it: what kind of life would they havehad? Their mother murdered, their father in prison, and the two of them sent from foster home to foster home. I did them a service by saving them from that. I did it as fast as I could. I just drew the knife and it was over. I was thinking only about what was best for them. I tried to explain that to the judge too, that I’d been acting in my children’s best interests, but he didn’t listen.’
    Again there is anger in his voice, but it is shortlived. A moment later his eyes are dull, and his voice is tired and depressed.
    â€˜Admit it, I couldn’t do anything else, could I?’ he mutters to himself.
    Lisa can only stare at him. That the man sitting opposite her murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend is terrible, but that he managed to cut his own children’s throats is unthinkable.
    Most people would react to a story like this with rigid horror. But, for Lisa, it is as though she can share his memories telepathically. She hears the screaming, the pleading, she smells the blood . . .
    She breaks out in a sweat; her hands begin to shake, and she takes fast, shallow breaths. She notices that Kreuger is keeping an eye on her, so she tries to keep her facial expression as neutral as possible.
    â€˜You know what it’s like,’ he says, as though they are kindred spirits. ‘You tried to murder your husband yourself.’
    â€˜It wasn’t the same . . .’
    â€˜Oh, no? What’s the difference?’
    Lisa remains silent.
    Kreuger leans towards her a little. ‘You want to spit at me. I’m such a bastard that I make you feel sick. Do you think you’re better than me because you don’t have any blood on your hands? You’re wrong, darling. We’re exactly the same.’
    No, we’re not, Lisa thinks. We’re not at all, you disgusting piece of shit. I would never do anything to my daughter. I would rather leave her with Mark and never see her again than lay a single finger on her.
    She doesn’t say a word until she notices that Kreuger’s face is becoming darker and darker. Fear tightens around her throat.
    â€˜Maybe you’re right,’ she says gently. ‘Remember I told you that I suffered from post-natal depression after Anouk was born? That was really heavy. I wasn’t myself for months.’ She picks up the leftover crust of a toasted sandwich from her plate and nervously breaks it into tiny pieces. ‘I couldn’t cope. The housework, the baby crying all the time, my body completely broken after the difficult birth . . .’
    An encouraging nod from Kreuger helps her to carry on.
    â€˜I can’t imagine it now, but there was a momentwhen I was convinced that Anouk couldn’t have ended up with a worse mother than me. Why else would she cry all day and all night? I wondered why on earth I’d thought it necessary to bring a child into the world. Into this polluted, stinking, bad world, where she spent all her time kicking and screaming. One afternoon the bawling got so deep into my head that I couldn’t think any more. I took all the sleeping pills that were in the