“It sounded like she was really worried about something,” Christoffel says. “I’ll wait here until she gets back.”
“I’m sure you have better things to do, Christoffel. Why don’t I give you some money for your trouble, and you can get back to your life?”
But, irritatingly dutiful, he takes the other seat at the table, fiddling with one of the teacups. Minutes tick by. When Mrs. Janssen couldn’t find me, what would she do next? Something rash? Would she try to go find Mr. Kreuk? Or Ollie? How much have I told her about him, and the resistance?
“Do you really think it’s all right if I leave? I do have another place I’m supposed to be,” he admits finally.
“Of course you should leave. I’ll tell her you stopped by.” Even the scraping of my chair sounds eager as I usher him out of his seat.
“Did I leave my hat?” he starts to ask, looking around his seat.
“Here,” I say, exasperated, thrusting the gray cap at him that he’d set on the table.
We’re almost out of the room when a squeak emits from the pantry, an un-oiled, plaintive sound. Verdorie. I remembered to shut the outer pantry door when Tessa Koster came in, but I don’t think I locked the secret shelf inside. It must be swinging, loose, behind the closed door. “Old houses make the strangest sounds,” I say.
We’re at the front door now. All I have to do is shove him through it, and then I can figure out where Mrs. Janssen is. I’ll start with Mr. Kreuk. That’s who introduced us to begin with. Mr. Kreuk handled the memorial service for her husband.
“Next time I come I’ll bring some oil,” says Christoffel as I open the door for him. “That shelf always squeaks when the latch is open.”
And.
He doesn’t even realize what he’s said. He doesn’t realize it at all. It was just a sentence to him. A string of words, a helpful comment. He’s putting on his cap. The door is open.
Slowly, like I’m watching my own actions in a dream, I close the door again, and it shuts with a whisper of a click.
“Hanneke?”
The shelf always squeaks when the latch is open. I replay the sentence again in my mind, searching for a way that it could mean something different from what I know it means. Shelf. He didn’t say “pantry door.” He specifically said “shelf.” He would have to know that the shelf swung open with a latch. Always. As in, multiple times. As in, he knows the workings of that hidden, rusty shelf.
“Hanneke, I thought you said I should leave.” He’s looking at me, confused.
“You know about the hiding space.” My voice comes out in an uneven whisper. “Christoffel?” He starts to shake his head, but it’s too late. A light has flickered in his eyes. “What do you know about it, Christoffel?” I ask softly.
“I don’t know anything. Please let’s not talk about this. Please just let me go.”
He reaches for the doorknob again, but I move in front of it. “I can’t let you go. You know that.”
“Hanneke, please leave this.” His voice is so quiet I can barely make it out.
Outside I hear someone selling an evening newspaper, and the gritty, swishing sound of a broom over cobblestones. Life is going on and on, and I’m in here with a soft-faced boy who is drained of all color. “Christoffel, it’s just the two of us in here. No matter what you tell me, good or bad, I can’t ever call the police or talk to anybody but Mrs. Janssen about it. But please, please, just tell me: How did you know there was a space behind the pantry?”
Outside the sweeper has landed on something metal, maybe a coin. Christoffel stares at his thumb, at a vicious hangnail rubbed red from repeated worrying. He’s an inch or two taller than me, but it’s gangly height, the height of a recent growth spurt.
“I didn’t know about—about her,” he says. “Not at first. I swear, I didn’t know at first. Usually when I’m here, Mrs. Janssen is in the room with me, and we’re talking or making noise that would cover up sounds from the pantry.”
“But not all the time?”
“One time I was delivering some things. Mrs. Janssen couldn’t find her pocketbook. She went upstairs to look for it, and she was gone for a long time, and down here it was quiet. And I heard something. A squeak.”
“Did you go to see what it was?” That would be so like helpful Christoffel, to hear a rusty hinge and decide to investigate it, repair it.
“I didn’t have to. I heard the squeak, and then she came out of the cupboard.”