“Hanneke.” She arches an eyebrow. “I haven’t ordered anything. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I’m not here for a delivery. I’m here for something else. Can you let me in to talk?”
“I don’t think so. It’s not a good time.”
She peers beyond me into the empty hallway, as if willing me to go away. I can’t even begin to imagine what I look like: mismatched clothes, my hair loose and tangled, a run in my stockings.
“It’s all right, Mrs. de Vries,” I say, leaning in close. “I know.”
“You know? What do you know?”
Again, I wonder if Ollie got the address wrong. Mrs. de Vries is as haughty as ever, an icicle of a human being. I lower my voice to barely a whisper. “I’m a friend of Mina’s.”
Her eyes flicker. She reaches her hand to her throat but covers the gesture by adjusting the brooch at her collar. “You should go, Hanneke. I don’t need anything from you today.”
“Please let me in.”
“Really, this is quite out of the ordinary,” she hisses. “I’m going to speak with Mr. Kreuk about this the next time I see him.”
“We can telephone him now if you want. But I’m going to stand in this hallway until you let me in. I’ll say hello to all your neighbors.”
Finally, she closes the door to unlatch the chain, and when she opens it again, I step through before she can change her mind. Inside, the twins sit on the floor, playing with toy cars. Everything looks normal, exactly as this apartment has looked every time I’ve come to visit. No suspicious sounds. Nothing out of place.
Mrs. de Vries stares at me, taking out a cigarette as I stand in her foyer. She doesn’t offer to take my coat. Neither of us knows what to say to the other.
“I came to see Mina,” I say finally. “Where is she? It’s important.”
“Is something wrong? Do the police suspect my apartment?”
“It’s a personal matter.”
Mrs. de Vries exhales a trail of smoke before turning her back to me. For a minute I think she’s ordering me out of her apartment, but I realize she means for me to follow her. I’ve never been invited back this way, down a long hallway with multiple doors on either side. The de Vries family is even wealthier than I’d realized; the furnishings in the rooms we pass are ornate and expensive-looking, with paintings on the walls and a rich, textured wallpaper. She stops in the doorway of what I assume is the twins’ playroom; two rocking horses sit in the corner, and child-size shelves are lined with books and toys.
“Hanneke? A little assistance?” Mrs. de Vries has walked to one of those shelves and is looking back at me with irritation, waiting for me to help her push it aside.
I brace my feet on the rug, sliding the shelf over. Behind it, cut into the wall, is a small cupboard door, big enough for a person to squeeze through, but only on hands and knees. Mrs. de Vries nods permission for me to open it, and when I do, I see two oxford shoes and a pair of ankle socks. Mina quickly drops to her knees and tucks her head out of the crawl space.
“Hanneke! I thought I heard your voice!”
Once she’s free from the cupboard, Mina throws her arms around me. “I didn’t think I’d get to see anybody. Judith said it was too dangerous. Did Ollie get her into her hiding space? What’s happened since I’ve been here? It feels like a year even though it’s only been a day.”
Before I can figure out which question to answer first, another scraping sound comes from the crawl space. Mina hears it, too. “It’s all right, you two,” she says. “It’s safe.”
“You’re not alone?” I blurt out.
Another pair of legs, wearing brown men’s shoes, appears in the space Mina has just crawled out of. They belong to an old man with a white beard, blinking into the light. He’s followed by an older woman, fussy-looking, with impeccable hair and makeup.
“This is Mr. and Mrs. Cohen,” Mina explains to me. They both nod cautiously in greeting. “This is my friend Hanneke Bakker.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” I murmur, while trying to figure out why the name sounds familiar.
“Is everything all right, Dorothea?” Mrs. Cohen asks Mrs. de Vries. “The inner walls in this building have always been so thin, we couldn’t help but overhear.”
I turn to Mrs. de Vries. “The Cohens are—”
“My neighbors. Yes. They’ve been staying with me for a few days.”
Mr. Cohen extends his hand. He smells faintly of cigarettes and leather, a reassuring smell that reminds me of my grandfather.
“But when your other neighbor was here—” I cut myself off. When the woman with the fox fur stole was here, Mrs. de Vries acted as though she was pleased the Cohens had disappeared. But then, what else could she do?