The Girl Who Broke the Rules
Marnie Riches
When the mutilated bodies of two sex-workers are found in Amsterdam, Chief Inspector van den Bergen must find a brutal murderer before the red-light-district erupts into panic.Georgina McKenzie is conducting research into pornography among the UK’s most violent sex-offenders but once van den Bergen calls on her criminology expertise, she is only too happy to come running.The rising death toll forces George and van den Bergen to navigate the labyrinthine worlds of Soho strip-club sleaze and trans-national human trafficking. And with the case growing ever more complicated, George must walk the halls of Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, seeking advice from the brilliant serial murderer, Dr. Silas Holm…From the winner of the 2015 DEAD GOOD READER AWARD FOR MOST EXOTIC LOCATION
The Girl Who Broke the Rules
MARNIE RICHES
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright (#u858f87e4-89d4-5bab-b531-ef7959dea265)
AVON
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Marnie Riches 2015
Cover design © Lizzie Gardner
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Marnie Riches asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9780008138349
Version: 2018-01-24
Contents
Cover (#u12a61487-5734-53b2-b31d-f6895fcd7266)
Title Page (#u4ae399a5-6333-5374-9061-f4d891eb4127)
Copyright (#ua1408804-4582-5371-b66a-331028acb7ba)
PROLOGUE: Amsterdam, red light district, 16–17 January (#ub1848f8f-a0fc-5490-a957-6769fdac7a47)
CHAPTER 1: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, UK, 17 January (#udd9d7755-a2f3-5aec-bba0-d97c94ffcd27)
CHAPTER 2: Amsterdam, the set of a porn film, then, Sloterdijkermeer allotments, later (#u64520d21-1671-58cf-9b0d-c9c3a2e93352)
CHAPTER 3: Soho, London, later (#u2a0e684b-cc6a-580d-b9bc-70cdf0ca4d7f)
CHAPTER 4: Amsterdam, mortuary, later (#ua85fd52b-5229-56e8-9e8b-665c055bb237)
CHAPTER 5: Soho, London, later (#u92ac6670-dff4-534a-9aef-2e7cde447ac5)
CHAPTER 6: Amsterdam, mortuary, later (#uab59d416-cae5-561a-bfb4-f7ba6e9aa50e)
CHAPTER 7: Amsterdam, private medical surgery, much later (#ubf111e69-1233-5d16-99ee-dfb1f91684f7)
CHAPTER 8: Amsterdam, police headquarters, 18 January (#u83568a61-0494-5827-be69-fea3f80c6c5a)
CHAPTER 9: Soho, London, Skin Flicks Media Group, later (#u192c031d-8e53-5959-a170-5f6746ec123a)
CHAPTER 10: Amsterdam, Norderkerk, later, then, van den Bergen’s apartment (#uc9ba66a3-f5de-5cb5-9337-ff2a8bd0c977)
CHAPTER 11: South East London, very late (#uab9892fa-4c26-5e0e-a32b-c87be4db4a2f)
CHAPTER 12: Manhattan, New York, 1981 (#u7803245e-6924-5ddb-8e10-9a9ceba3a15c)
CHAPTER 13: Amsterdam, police headquarters, then, a building site, 19 January (#ua7468797-acf2-5f53-a30a-0efdbd9bab77)
CHAPTER 14: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#u544ab2c4-1f4b-5434-8caa-5f05b8c36943)
CHAPTER 15: Amsterdam, Valeriusstraat building site, later (#ufc407b6f-d645-506c-a6a0-26e5cf7edd57)
CHAPTER 16: Stansted Express, East London, later (#uc5dbd91a-9f31-529f-b317-f02d14c8a76d)
CHAPTER 17: Amsterdam, Valeriusstraat building site, later (#u80533e3a-8a3d-5b7b-a742-8ff85af8f44a)
CHAPTER 18: Cambridge, St John’s College, later (#u09b24285-63f3-599e-855f-88250c67a78c)
CHAPTER 19: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#u7f9869c6-c112-5035-9501-156b361c75bc)
CHAPTER 20: Amsterdam, 20 January (#u4ea96b29-6e64-5c5f-8fe9-d2a33da2dace)
CHAPTER 21: Cambridge, Mill Road, later (#u522bff75-a5e4-5e33-a566-96b7e7905589)
CHAPTER 22: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 23: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 24: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 25: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 26: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 27: Amsterdam, mortuary, 21 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 28: Amsterdam, red light district, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 29: Amsterdam, van den Bergen’s car, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 30: Amsterdam, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 31: Amsterdam, mortuary, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 32: Amsterdam, Ruud Ahlers’ apartment, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 33: Amsterdam, van den Bergen’s car, then Ahlers’ apartment, moments later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 34: London, 1985 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 35: Amsterdam, police headquarters, 22 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 36: South East London, Aunty Sharon’s house, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 37: Amsterdam, the Quick Bite Café, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 38: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 39: Amsterdam, Ahlers’ private surgery, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 40: Amsterdam, the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, red light district, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 41: Over the North Sea, 23 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 42: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 43: Amsterdam, van den Bergen’s car, en route to Rotterdam, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 44: Amsterdam, Ad’s apartment, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 45: Rotterdam Port, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 46: Amsterdam, police headquarters, 24 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 47: Amsterdam, mortuary, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 48: Amsterdam, van den Bergen’s apartment, 25 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 49: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 50: Hamburg, Germany, 26 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 51: Katwijk asylum seekers’ centre, Netherlands, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 52: Rotterdam, Port Authority, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 53: Amsterdam, Ad’s apartment, later still (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 54: Berlin, Germany, 1989 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 55: Over the North Sea, then, Ramsgate, England, 27 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 56: Soho, London, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 57: Ramsgate, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 58: Soho, London, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 59: Somewhere in Kent, an industrial estate, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 60: Ramsgate, seafront B&B, 28 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 61: Somewhere in Kent, a field, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 62: Kent, on a train, then Amsterdam, mortuary, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 63: South East London, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 64: Amsterdam, police headquarters holding cell, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 65: Ashford, Kent, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 66: Cambodia, 1992 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 67: Amsterdam, mortuary, 29 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 68: South East London, mortuary, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 69: Amsterdam, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 70: Amsterdam, Nieuw West area, then, police headquarters, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 71: Amsterdam, Ad’s apartment, then NOS TV studios, then police headquarters, 30 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 72: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 73: Amsterdam, hospital, 31 January (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 74: Amsterdam, police headquarters (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 75: South East London, 14 February (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 76: Amsterdam, hospital, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 77: Soho, London, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 78: Laren, the Netherlands, 15 February (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 79: Cambridge, St John’s College, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 80: Laren, the Netherlands, 16 February (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 81: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 82: A secret location near Laren, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 83: Stansted airport, Essex, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 84: Amsterdam, then Laren, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 85: A secret location near Laren, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 86: A secret location near Laren, moments later, then, the Laren house (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 87: A secret location near Laren, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 88: Amsterdam, hospital, 18 February (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 89: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 90: Amsterdam, hospital, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 91: Soho, London, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 92: Berlin, Germany, 23 February (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 93: Amsterdam, hospital, later (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 94: Amsterdam, women’s prison, 28 February (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 95: Amsterdam, the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, then, the hospital, later (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#u858f87e4-89d4-5bab-b531-ef7959dea265)
Amsterdam, red light district, 16–17 January (#u858f87e4-89d4-5bab-b531-ef7959dea265)
The jagged pain between her shoulder blades was fleeting. Magool flinched. Breathed in sharply at the unpleasant sensation. She loosened her seatbelt. Wriggled in the passenger seat to look behind her.
In the dark, there was nothing to see.
Then, she tried to reach behind to feel the leather. But her hands would not move. She stared down at them, bemused. They felt neither leaden nor numb. It was simply as if they no longer existed. And yet, there they sat, chapped from the cold, bitten nails, primly folded over her wringing-wet, jeans-clad thighs.
Frowning, aware of her accelerated heartbeat, she tried to lift her legs, move her feet, wiggle her toes. Nothing. Why was her body not obeying her brain? She looked askance at the driver.
‘I can’t move,’ she said in Dutch. ‘What’s going on?’
The driver stared resolutely ahead. Peering through the windscreen of the car as hail rattled onto the glass, accompanied by fat snowflakes. Swept by the wiper-blades into thin white columns on the windscreen’s periphery that grew thicker and thicker with every second that passed; white screens closing slowly on the real world.
‘Hey! Stop the car! Something’s wrong, I’m telling you. I can’t feel a thing.’ With difficulty, Magool could still turn her head – enough to see the side of her driver’s face. ‘Did you hear me?’
Silence enveloped her, and she realised her words had not sounded at all except inside her head. Through the windscreen, she could just about make out the white-dusted cobbles of the road. The snow, illuminated by the bright, triangular shafts of the streetlights, came down like yellow-gold icing sugar, falling through a sieve. But where the hell were they going on this beautiful, foul night? Not towards her apartment, she was certain. And what was happening to her?
She started to loll forward, held in her seat only by the belt. The driver reached out and with a large, strong hand, pushed her up against the window.
‘Don’t want you to hit your head, do we? Try to relax, Noor. It won’t hurt.’ Her captor had finally spoken in a kindly voice. ‘I’ve given you a very strong spinal block. The syringe was rigged in your seat. But try not to worry. I promise you, I know what I’m doing.’
Magool wanted to scream. Her brain shrieked for help; phantom hands hammered on the window each time they passed a figure on the street, huddled in dark winter clothes, braving the blizzard. Unaware of the young girl who was imprisoned in the same vehicle that had just splattered their work trousers with virgin slush.
With only her mind unfettered, she considered the sequence of events that had brought her to this terrible place.
Standing in her booth, she had watched with fascination when the flakes began to waft down from the heavens. Pink sky overhead, as though the very neon lights of Amsterdam’s red light district were reflected in the snow clouds hanging above her in the night sky. It was the first time she remembered ever having seen snow. The mangroves that clung to the coastline like grasping old men’s hands; the turquoise splendour of the Indian Ocean; the baking heat of her homeland – they were all half a world away. Now, the hail came down among the snow, making the same musical rattling noise against the glass door of her booth that the tropical rains of the Gu and Dayr wet seasons had made on the corrugated iron roof of her family’s shack.
Just hours earlier, watching that snow, Magool had felt something bordering on elation. She was finally safe. On these crimson-lit streets, she was Noor. Different girl. Different continent. Different life. Magool resolved, there and then, as the hail pounded against the glass door to her booth, to look upon her parents’ selling her and her infant brother to the al Shabaab militia men as an act driven by desperation, not greed. They had thought, perhaps, that she and little Ashkir would both have a good life in that exotic, far-off place they called Italy. Hadn’t the soldiers promised?
When she had arrived in the arid, rubble wasteland of Mogadishu, clutching the squalling infant, her hope had faded quickly. Tears had pricked the backs of her eyes as she remembered Ashkir being plucked from her bosom by those corrupt African Union troops. Burundian men, who had laughed heartily and exchanged easy greetings with her couriers.
She had overheard them saying that her brother was destined for adoption in Milan. But, at thirteen, she had been too old to be adopted.
Magool had cursed the name that marked her out as the early flowering girl. Had cursed her parents, each time the men forced themselves on her. Her own kind, amid the diesel-stink and filth of the ramshackle Somali ship. Then, white men when she reached Rome. There was no distinction to be made between them. By the time she had escaped the cocaine fug of nightly abuse and arrived in Amsterdam on the train, she was already five months pregnant. Not showing yet.
Two full years later, now. Watching the snow and feeling hopeful, just as that charlatan showed up, knocking on her window. She should have known better than to let him in.
He had caressed the jagged, lumpy line of her caesarean scar before putting his hand between her legs.
‘You healed well,’ he said, kissing her neck.
She bit her tongue. Swallowed the retort. Money was money and he’d paid up front.
He lay down on the narrow bed and pulled her on top. Guiding her onto him. Hands on her small breasts. ‘Tell me I’m the best,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘Faster.’ His voice was high. His breath came short. ‘Tell me again how I saved your life.’
As she stared down at his corpulent pink body with its nauseating smattering of fluffy blond chest hair that crawled from one flabby tit to another, she fantasised about strangling him with her bare hands. Her small slender fingers would never stretch around that red bull neck. He was twice her size.
‘I saved you, Noor,’ he said, thrusting himself upwards into her.
Her words slipped out, unchecked.
‘You’re a butcher,’ she said. ‘I have to charge less because of you.’
The fat pig showed no remorse. He did not even open his eyes to look at her. Merely smiled, gripped her tightly by the hips and ground her pelvis harder towards him. ‘Nonsense. I’m a master craftsman. Black skin just scars more.’
Afterwards, they had squabbled over the fee. He snatched up the euros he had given her at the start and stuffed them under the bulk of his body.
‘Come and get it, little Noor!’ he said, starting to laugh. Glee in his eyes.
What was this? Some kind of perverse game? Wasn’t it enough that he had cut her baby out of her in that cold, damp back room he called a surgery and stitched her back up like an old sack? Fury flared within her.
‘Give me my money back!’ she said, trying to roll him over to reach the notes.
He grabbed her by the wrists and pushed her away so that she fell against the wall. Suddenly, fear snuffed out the flames of her anger.
‘What made you think I would pay, you dumb bitch?’ He pulled the foreskin back down on his flaccid, spent manhood. A sea slug stuck to his thigh. ‘You owe me. You’ll always owe me.’
She rose to her feet. Backed into the corner, folding her arms over her naked chest. ‘I already paid through the nose!’ she said, wanting to show this beast that she wouldn’t be trifled with. Wanting him to see that she wasn’t a defenceless little girl. But she knew her body language betrayed her and she was annoyed by the waver in her voice. ‘Give me the cash or I’ll report you to the authorities!’
He smiled brightly. ‘An underage, illegal Somali immigrant, working as a whore? Report me, a pillar of the community? I don’t think I’ll be losing any sleep on that front, little Noor. Do you?’
He was already dressed. Stuffing the notes back into his wallet, now. Magool steeled herself to step forward and snatch it from him. But the doctor sensed her intentions, leaned in and punched her hard in the face.
Her cheek stung. Tears sprang from her eyes against her will. She failed to swallow them back.
‘Get out, then! Go on! Fuck off and don’t come round here again. Ever.’
But as he opened the door, he looked back at her. A pause that perhaps betrayed the flicker of remorse in those bloodshot blue eyes. He reached inside the breast pocket of his overcoat and retrieved the leather wallet. Pulled out a twenty. Threw it at her.
‘No hard feelings?’ he said.
She picked up the money from the threadbare brown carpet. Pushed it back into his hand.
‘Stick your money up your ass, sharmuutaa ku dhashay! You need this more than me,’ she said, bundling him out the door and locking it behind him.
Waiting until the clatter on the stairs and the glazed door slamming marked his departure, she crouched in her small room and clutched her knees. Allowed herself to weep, but not for long. Cursed him and vowed she would get even one day. Somehow.
Her thoughts turned to her shared bedsit.
Enough for one night. It was time to shut up shop and go home. Get her shit together so that, tomorrow, she could face a new day. Hell, the weather was terrible anyway.
Outside, the mixture of hail and snow bit into her flesh. Her jeans and even her padded coat seemed to provide no protection from the unforgiving elements. Peering ahead down the street, it was as though she were watching whiteout static on the old black and white TV her parents had in their shack back home. And it had looked so picturesque from inside her booth. It would be an arduous walk back.
At first, she had not noticed the dark Lexus sliding slowly alongside her. She walked ahead of the car, pulling her hood further down over her eyes; following what she saw at her feet as a guide to which direction home lay in. But when the car edged forward and remained at her side, she lifted her hood to see if it was a familiar punter, hoping she might reconsider, retreat and reopen the shop.
The Lexus stopped. The driver’s window opened just enough for her to see who was behind the wheel.
‘You?’ she said. Hard to keep the incredulity out of her voice.
‘Get in!’ the driver said.
Magool clutched her shoulder bag across her chest defensively. ‘I said I never wanted to see you again.’
‘Look, it’s a storm out there. It’s warm in here. I’ll drive you home. You’re wringing wet.’
‘No thanks. I’ll walk it.’
‘Come on! Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve got heated seats.’ Placatory tone. Friendly eyes. The driver’s face and body language were benign. ‘Get in, for God’s sake!’
By now, she was quaking with the cold. Beyond uncomfortable. Despite sensing that the driver’s concerned gesture was off key, Magool walked round to the passenger side. Opened the car’s heavy door and registered the sting between her shoulder blades, as she sank back into the luxurious, leather heated seat…
The snow had stopped falling by the time Magool Osman returned to the red light district. Her makeshift bed was a bench beneath the windows of the Old Sailor Café Bar at the junction of Oudezijds Achterburgwal and the cobbled alley of Molensteen. Fittingly opposite the Erotic Museum, and ironically within spitting distance of her compatriots in their relatively safe, red-lit booths. But she had been dropped off after her final ordeal in the small hours, when only the water rats and the ghosts of Amsterdam’s Golden Age roamed those streets. The darkest hours before an unforgiving, wintry dawn.
Just after 6.30am, Magool’s empty eye sockets stared blankly up at Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen. With a cracking hip, wishing he had had time for breakfast and a coffee before leaving home, he crouched to get a better look at this young woman:
Dark skin. Diminutive stature. Completely naked. Frozen solid, with a dusting of ice that still sparkled like fake diamond dust beneath the harsh light in the makeshift forensic tent.
He thumbed his white stubble in contemplation of her corpse; once a thing of beauty, now defiled and incomplete. It was as though the girl had been unzipped from her throat to her pubic area, revealing all the fragile matter that lay beneath. Chest framed by the white stripes of her ribs, which had been split down the sternum and levered apart. Where once her lungs must have breathed in this sharp, Amsterdam air; where once her stomach might have digested a moreish meal; where once her kidneys and liver might have filtered celebratory wine…now, there were but gaping holes, frozen blood and a mere suggestion of the life and hope that had once inhabited such a young body.
Elvis, one of van den Bergen’s two most loyal protégés, moved the flap of the tent aside. He entered the scene, wearing white plastic overshoes.
Van den Bergen rose to his full height. Noticed the alarmed grimace on his subordinate’s face.
‘Stop gawping, Elvis,’ he said. ‘Show some fucking respect for the dead.’
‘Sorry, boss.’ Elvis covered his nose, though the icy conditions meant there was nothing unpleasant to smell. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Is Marianne de Koninck and her team on their way?’
‘Yep. Due any minute now.’
Van den Bergen nodded. Sniffed. Acknowledged the black dog lurking inside the tent, outside the tent, in the warmth of his car. Bearing down on him. Casting a long shadow over everything. He swallowed painfully, prodding at the swollen glands beneath his ears. ‘My throat’s on fire. Think I’m coming down with something. Just my luck, it will be Ebola. Grab me a coffee, will you?’
Van den Bergen withdrew his phone from his coat pocket and brought up his contacts list. Scrolled down to G. There was the number. George McKenzie. He sighed deeply.
CHAPTER 1 (#u858f87e4-89d4-5bab-b531-ef7959dea265)
Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, UK, 17 January (#u858f87e4-89d4-5bab-b531-ef7959dea265)
The slight man who sat facing her examined the fingernails at the ends of his slender fingers with an expression of intense concentration. George noted that they were always very clean and manicured. His lank, thinning hair hung sullenly over the shoulders of a faded blue sweatshirt. Dirty dark grey. Starting to recede at the temples. Perhaps his haggard, small-featured face might once have been attractive, given its delicate, perfectly symmetrical bone structure. George shuddered at this thought that had popped, unbidden, into her mind. She averted her gaze from his hands and focussed instead on her pad.
‘Cold, Georgina?’ Silas Holm asked. A smile playing on his chapped lips, he leaned back in his chair and looked up at the tall, arched windows of the Victorian building. The perfectly white expanse of snow-heavy sky outside was carved up by peeling painted bars that stretched ceiling-wards. ‘It’s that period of architecture,’ he said. ‘Terribly draughty because of the lofty proportions, you see. Doesn’t matter how much they crank up the heating.’
His gaze found her face and focussed sharply on it, now. George McKenzie knew this much without looking up from her notes. The prison officers said his manner was always one of an attentive vicar, listening with dedicated enthusiasm to the concerns of his adoring flock. It was unclear, therefore, whether Silas Holm was staring at George because he was genuinely engaged by their conversation or whether he was simply fantasising about what he could do to the only woman he was allowed to see on a regular basis, if he still had his liberty. Either way, the fact that he had noticed her shiver – almost imperceptibly, she had thought – made George feel very itchy. She started to arrange her pens in perfectly parallel lines on the desk. Then stopped herself. Reveal nothing about you as a person or the details of your life, her Cambridge University supervisor, Dr Sally Wright had told her. Not only was Sally the senior tutor of St John’s College – the Big Boss-woman in what was otherwise still a man’s world – but she was also the country’s foremost criminologist. If she didn’t know what she was talking about where handling dangerous psychopaths was concerned, nobody did. Dress dowdily. Be on your guard. Don’t get involved.
‘What’s with the tracksuit?’ she asked, deliberately steering the focus back onto her study subject. ‘Where are your tweeds? What did you do?’
Silas Holm gave a small sigh and a resigned smile. Rapped on his leg with his knuckles. The sound was hollow. ‘What could a harmless amputee like me ever do to warrant such a petty punishment? I ask you!’
‘Well you must have done something pretty bad to have your normal clothes taken away,’ George said. ‘It’s not like you’re in prison.’ She shot a questioning sideways glance at Silas’ nurse, who was seated at the end of the desk, within reassuring reach of this small but deadly psychopath.
Graham’s muscle-bound bulk heaved up and down beneath his T-shirt. Laughing heartily. He smoothed a hand over his shaven head. ‘Dr Holm. You are funny,’ he said. His Nigerian accent was pronounced. ‘You are lucky you weren’t transferred back to high dependency. Poor Kenneth! Why don’t you tell Ms McKenzie straight about your little set-to with him?’
The small-featured face of Silas Holm appeared suddenly sharp, grey, remorseless. His voice was clipped. Words came fast. ‘No. I don’t think I will. And I don’t think it warranted being singled out this way.’ The sneer that turned his mouth into a thin, drooping line and the way that he tugged at the sweatshirt with his fingertips marked out his disdain for the garment and that place. ‘The other men look up to me.’ He shuffled in his seat, straightening his posture. But something within him clicked and the friendly smile reappeared. Locked onto George’s face with those ice-blue eyes. ‘They come to me for wisdom, the men in here,’ he told her.
‘What sort of wisdom?’ George uncapped her pen.
‘I know about the world, of course! These oiks know nothing. Most of them are semi-literate at best. I, however, am a man of learning as you know. Before I was subjected to the indignity of coming to this dump, I was celebrated in my field of expertise!’ He leaned forward and stretched his fingers out towards George’s side of the desk.
‘Back up, Dr Holm,’ Graham said calmly.
Silas colluded; withdrawing physically but somehow clinging onto the intimacy he had implied was between them by winking and keeping his voice low. ‘I won the Evelyn Baker Medal from the Association of Anaesthetists, you know.’ Nodding. Matter of fact. Trying to impress.
The session was not progressing as she had hoped. George determined to get her study subject back on track. She tapped the pencil drawing that Silas had brought along to show her. It was the most recent work, contained within a sketch pad that was full of semi-pornographic images.
‘Tell me about this, Silas,’ she said, pointing to the perfectly executed illustration of a woman in a black gimp mask – only her heavily made-up eyes were visible. Startled, yet alluring. Her mouth was contained behind a brutal-looking zip. Her nose transformed into two miserly slits in the black leather. Oddly, she was hanging by her neck from a tree bough. Hanging as though dead, which made the focussed clarity in her eyes all the more alarming. Clad in what appeared to be a black rubber leotard with the breasts and vagina cut out. Two circles. One triangle. ‘Why have you drawn her with one leg?’
Her question was met with laughter. ‘Oh, come on! You know better than to ask that of me!’ Silas said, toying with a strand of his hair almost coquettishly. ‘Am I not famed for my specialist taste in erotica?’
His tone was so smug, so arrogant, that George could not stem her response. Neither could she keep the vitriol out of her voice.
‘Is she one of your victims, Silas? Is she the prostitute from Middlesbrough that you picked up, strangled, partially dismembered and then masturbated over? Oh no! Silly me. Perhaps she was the prostitute from Nottingham, whose arms were found in your freezer at home? Mother of four. First time on the streets because she owed a loan shark money from Christmas. Last time on the streets because you strung her up from the railings of a local school. Or maybe one of the four others that we know about.’
‘Ms McKenzie!’ Graham said, raising his eyebrows.
George’s red mist cleared and revealed a grinning Dr Silas Holm.
‘The trial was a shambles,’ Silas said, flicking his tongue over his narrow, discoloured incisors. ‘I’m putting together a case that I plan to take to the High Court. It was all circumstantial evidence and I intend to get out of this hellhole.’ He examined his fingernails again. Sighed. ‘Anyway, if you must know, that is a portrait of a famous Latvian beauty who stars in all the very best erotic horror films. Quality productions. I was quite a fan before coming in here. I think I got her eyes just right.’
Scratching away at her pad, noting down the salient detail of his response, George considered her next question.
‘Do you find your own artwork arousing?’
No response.
‘What is it about amputation that interests you sexually?’
No response. Silas was peering up at the bars on the windows. He seemed no longer to be listening.
‘Silas!’ George was careful to keep the impatience out of her voice this time. It was a difficult game of cat and mouse with Silas Holm. On the one hand, she found him repugnant, although he was always perfectly calm and charming when she visited, putting her in mind of a great white shark circling slowly, just beneath the surface of shallow waters. On the other, she needed his responses for her study. She knew how lucky she had been to gain access to this place and to secure the willing participation of men like him. Keep a lid on it, George. A psycho like him will never stay quiet for long.
‘In your opinion, Silas, did the pornography you used on the outside in any way influence the manner in which you killed your victims? The strangulation. The dismemberment.’
Seemingly bored now, Silas flung his arms behind his head and rolled his eyes. ‘Did you see that thing in the news about the eviscerated fishermen? That was quite a story. But Kenneth switched the television over to some tawdry soap. Most annoying.’
Dumbfounded. George stopped writing. Stared at him. ‘What has that got to do with your violent sexual proclivities and pornography?’
Silas stood and bowed with a flourish. ‘Always lovely to see you, Georgina.’ He picked up his sketchpad from the desk and nodded to Graham. ‘Lunchtime! I’m famished.’
The frustration of not having got what she needed abated incrementally, with each security door that clanged shut behind her, giving way finally to relief that she had completed another session with one of Broadmoor Hospital’s most infamous and dangerous residents, without sustaining any personal injury – physical, at least. Only once she had had her mobile phone returned to her at reception did she discover the text from van den Bergen. His words caught her breath.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_47db0512-57d5-5398-a246-3b12bb4a36e0)
Amsterdam, the set of a porn film, then, Sloterdijkermeer allotments, later (#ulink_47db0512-57d5-5398-a246-3b12bb4a36e0)
Watching the actress swig from her bottle of Evian was fascinating. She had such ridiculously full lips from too much collagen filler that merely drinking from a sports-cap looked like an obscene act. Her peroxide blonde hair hung in over-processed clumps down her back. Off camera, the cellulite on her thighs and backside was visible between the straps and buckles of the bondage gear. The inverted ‘T’ scarring beneath her bare breasts gave the augmentation away, of course, destroying the illusion of perfectly buoyant, round orbs. But despite the actress’ flaws, she was striking. Still young. The high cheekbones. The good skin. The bright eyes. Naturally white teeth and an otherwise perfectly worked-out body, with its sculpted obliques and defined triceps. This one was an ideal specimen. Healthy. And these porn actresses were such readily available raw material for a killer, whose job it was to hang out in a professional capacity on the sets of erotic film shoots. Easy pickings. Tarts with hearts of gold.
The actress approached, strutting in those ten-inch platforms. Smiling. Kisses on both cheeks, followed by something on the mouth that was overly familiar and tender.
‘Hey! How are you, darling? I didn’t see you there. Nice to have you on set.’
Her English was good for an Eastern European of humble origins. Though this woman was humble no longer. She was revered in her circle. Seemed almost a shame, but then, business was business.
‘We still going for that drink we talked about?’
Wide-eyes betraying excitement or was it the line of coke the actress had hoovered up as the director had shouted ‘Cut’ on the previous scene? She reached out with a manicured hand. Her caress was gentle. Flirtatious and promising.
‘Why not,’ she said. ‘When I finish here, right? Just you and me. I’d like that.’
She turned to walk away, poised to resume her position, artfully strung between two posts on some medieval-style wooden contraption that looked like the base of a trebuchet. Where did they get these ridiculous ideas from? The red stripes on her back looked livid.
‘Do those hurt?’
The actress looked back and smiled archly. Raised a plucked eyebrow. ‘Makeup, sweet thing. You should know that!’
No damage. That was good. And the space was prepared. Perfect.
Van den Bergen sat on a camping stool inside his gloomy cabin, which was situated on a prime plot in Sloterdijkermeer’s allotment complex. He had no intention of gardening, of course. Outside, the frozen ground was too unyielding to work, but the afternoon half-light and silence of a freezing cold super-shed was preferable to enduring another afternoon at the station, gawping into the existential void. Listening to that frog-eyed prick, Jaap Hasselblad, pontificate about the girl they had found.
‘This is a sex pervert. Mark my words!’ Hasselblad had announced. ‘Round up the nutters and serial jerk-offs. Bring them all in for questioning. We can’t have a dangerous woman-hating psycho on the loose.’
Just because he was the commissioner and had recently been on a criminal psychology refresher course, Hasselblad thought he knew everything. That uniform-clad, industrial strength arse-kisser had not done a day’s decent detective work in about fifteen years, van den Bergen mused. Why did he always end up with such utter morons above him?
He cracked open a can of Heineken and swallowed down a tablet for gastric reflux. Thumped himself on the chest as the beer winded him. No, Hasselblad’s field of expertise was drinking Kir Royale in Michelin-starred brasseries with slimeball politicians and the other top brass.
‘Guy’s a wanker,’ van den Bergen told the poster of Debbie Harry that was fastened to a damp wooden wall. Curling up in one corner and mottled with mould. ‘He’s no better than Kamphuis.’ He raised his can to the once universally adored singer. ‘Just me and you, kiddo. We don’t need them.’ Then, he turned to the mildewed photo of his father that sat on the table amongst empty pots, seedling trays and a split bag of ericaceous compost. ‘Five years.’ Made a contemplative clicking noise with his tongue and breathed out heavily. ‘Five years, now. Long time.’ A fleeting memory of his father, sitting in a chemo chair at the hospital, with the hopeful poison running into his wasted, sinewy arms through a drip. ‘Miss you, old man. I hope you’re somewhere better. Cheers!’
Van den Bergen drank the freezing lager and was surprised and angered by the tears that seemed to leak from his eyes unbidden. For the second time that day, he thumbed out a text to George, telling her the other dreadful thing that had happened. But as he was about to press send, the phone rang.
‘Van den Bergen. Speak!’
‘It’s Daan Strietman,’ a man said.
‘Who?’
‘Marianne’s colleague. Forensic Pathology. We met last May at her birthday party. Remember?’
Van den Bergen cast his mind back to a balmy evening, standing on the balcony at Marianne’s apartment, wishing he didn’t have to make small talk with her inane boyfriend, Jasper, who had brought that sap, Ad Karelse, along because George had been in England and Karelse was ‘lonely’. Boo hoo. What a pity. He had no recollection of a Daan Strietman. ‘No. Where the hell is Marianne?’
‘Norovirus. Listen, come and see me. I’ve finished the autopsy on your Jane Doe.’
‘And?’
‘Oh, you’ll be interested in this! I’ve never seen anything like it.’
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_860c1a7c-82fb-5adc-8ee0-edeefe0df255)
Soho, London, later (#ulink_860c1a7c-82fb-5adc-8ee0-edeefe0df255)
Are u coming back? the text demanded to know. I miss u. xxx
Ad had only been holed up at Aunty Sharon’s for three days, this time, and already he was moaning he was bored. He had British television to watch, for God’s sake. In all its multi-channelled, digital and Sky Plus glory. In fact, Aunty Sharon had a dish on top of her garage that was so big and contravened local authority regulations by such an excessive margin, that he could probably pick up broadcasts from outer space, if he used his initiative. How could he possibly be bored? Or he could simply go for a walk. Okay, so maybe a white boy going for a walk down the high street of Aunty Sharon’s South East London neighbourhood at dusk was not such a bright idea. But still…
‘Stop nagging, man!’ she told the phone. Typed out her response:
Missing u 2. Back by 9.x
One kiss. One was enough. The three were getting on her nerves. Always three, sent and expected in return. He was being demanding.
‘I’ve come over here especially,’ he had said; hurt visible in those sensitive brown eyes. ‘I don’t understand why you can’t take time off.’
What was there for him to understand? The bills didn’t pay themselves. After all, he had just turned up on her doorstep. A surprise wooing that she hadn’t solicited, using birthday money from his parents for the flight. Bet they didn’t know he was squandering it on his English girlfriend. That sour-faced cow, his mother, certainly wouldn’t have given the trip her blessing. Wonder what excuse he’d given them this time? Four years of excuses.
Ad would just have to suck it up.
In the confines of her store cupboard, George squatted on the floor and checked that the thick wad of notes she had taken from her morning meeting with Silas Holm was securely zipped away in the side pocket of her bag.
‘Holm’s such a perv,’ she told the mop.
She donned her polyester overalls and changed into her beat-up old sneakers. Filled the bucket with hot, bleachy water at the crackle-glazed Victorian butler’s sink, shoved a range of cleaning products into her deep pockets and emerged into the dimly lit fug of the club. The air was rank with heady, synthetic air fresheners, barely masking the cheap, over-perfumed smell of the girls; the floor sticky with spilled alcohol from the night before.
‘Ciao, bella!’ the manager said, checking his watch. He leaned in for a kiss, which George dodged.
She slammed the heavy bucket onto the floor and started to wring the mop out. Mop, mop, mop by his feet, almost soaking his hand-stitched loafers and brown Farah slacks. ‘Wotcha, Derek. Sorry I’m a bit late. I’ve been rushing around interviewing people. Part of my doctorate, you know?’
Out of earshot of the girls, who were already limbering up on the poles or else in the back, exchanging squealed gossip about the previous night’s punters whilst they back-combed their hair, Derek rounded on her. Grabbed her by the arm. Whispering sharply so that nobody else could hear.
‘Not fucking Derek! Giuseppe. I told you.’ His grip was sharp – the kind of grip George might have expected from a ratty-looking man who ran a titty bar.
Wanting to knock his ill-fitting toupee from his head but resisting, George pulled her arm free. ‘Get off! Just because you’re my boss and Aunty Sharon’s your barmaid doesn’t give you the right to manhandle me,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you were Derek when you were with Aunty Sharon. What changed?’
He stood poker-straight momentarily and eyed George. A thin-lipped mouth and puffy eyes from too many late nights and vodkas. Aunty Sharon said he had been a royal pain in the arse, but generous with it. Here, beneath the half-light of dusty crystal chandeliers, however, with no other employees within earshot, George didn’t like his expression at all.
‘Sharon was a long time ago,’ he said. ‘But me and her are still good mates. Only ’cause of her working here and being something more than a colleague to me that you got this job, right? And I’m running in different circles, now. So, if I say I’m Giuseppe de Falco and not Derek, then it’s Uncle Giuseppe to you. Like the other girls. Uncle Fucking Giuseppe. Same as Daddy Fucking Warbucks, but more Italian.’
‘Suit yourself, Uncle G,’ George said, sucking her teeth and steeling herself to desist from drowning his loafers with mop water.
When she sprayed the brass handrail of the staircase that led down into the club with anti-bacterial spray, she did so with venom. When she wiped the laminate fixtures and PVC upholstery, she applied the rough, hot cloth with something bordering on aggression. Polishing mirrors, dappled with greasy fingerprints and, in the VIP area, traces of coke. Wiping semen from the walls of the men’s toilet cubicles. Unblocking the women’s toilets that choked with stinking discarded tampons and paper towels. It was demeaning, backbreaking work. But the job earned her an honest crust, where her PhD funding wouldn’t quite stretch to trips to Amsterdam and the odd night of decadence inside London’s better clubs. At least the act of cleaning was therapeutic. Especially after spending a morning with Silas Holm. Especially for someone like George.
As she polished the metal pole on the main stage, she paused to check her phone again. Peered in the gloom at the glowing screen which offered up van den Bergen’s alarming, unanswered words.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_98100770-0cb3-5986-8603-c2b82ff5058e)
Amsterdam, mortuary, later (#ulink_98100770-0cb3-5986-8603-c2b82ff5058e)
‘Paul. Thanks for coming.’ The wholly unfamiliar man stood in the spot that Marianne usually graced, by the side of the steel mortuary slab.
Van den Bergen refused to shake his latex-clad hand. ‘It’s Chief Inspector van den Bergen. And I prefer to deal with Marianne,’ he said.
He looked this interloper up and down, though it was difficult to get the full measure of him in his scrubs. He looked young. Fresh face and shiny eyes. Certainly in his early thirties. And small. Though at six feet five, van den Bergen could see the top of pretty much everyone’s heads as they scrabbled about beneath him. Maybe the guy wasn’t small. But he definitely had the upright posture of a cocky little arsehole, van den Bergen decided, and he wasn’t the lovely Marianne de Koninck.
Daan Strietman smiled at him. ‘I’m her number two. You knew that, right, Paul? She introduced us at the party. Ha! You’re such a funny guy. You’re pulling my leg, now, aren’t you?’
‘No.’ Van den Bergen scratched at his aching hip. Fingered his scabbed-up knuckles. Hadn’t he just told this idiot he was Chief Inspector van den Bergen? Was this guy deaf? And where did this notion of funny come from? ‘I want number one. If I want second best, I’ll—’
Daan put his clipboard and pen down. Slapped van den Bergen across the back in a chummy style. ‘Look, your Jane Doe’s in good hands, big feller.’
‘But Marianne… She was at the scene this morning.’
‘I told you. She’s ill. Throwing her guts up. Forget Marianne. Okay?’
Van den Bergen noticed a pause before the okay, which meant Daan Strietman had finally decided that being challenged by a policeman was not okay, even if it was by a senior one. He smiled again. What was with all the smiling? Was this guy simple? The smile disappeared once the idiot noticed his scabbed knuckles.
‘Just give me the lowdown on my victim, Strietman. Okay?’
Now that she was on the slab, van den Bergen was hoping the girl would look like any other cadaver – a spoiled mannequin, devoid of any remaining trace of vitality; deserted by her humanity, so that only an abstract husk was left; dissected like an oversized scientific experiment. He would find it easy to give a corpse like that the once-over and then listen to the pathologist’s report. But she didn’t, this Jane Doe. Her elfin face, framed by the wisps of black curly hair that still remained – after her cranium had been removed to allow examination of her brain – was outlandishly at odds with those unseeing eye sockets, staring out at him. Ghoulish. Vulnerable. Her dark skin, which must have been a warm hue when she had breath in her body, was flat grey. But so slight was her build with those spindly little arms and legs, so lost did she look in the aseptic white glare of the mortuary’s overhead lights, that van den Bergen had to swallow an unexpected lump in his throat. He almost felt compelled to hug the girl, though she had been utterly disembowelled both by her murderer and by the process of the post mortem. George was slightly built like that. George’s skin was dark like that.
Feeling momentarily dizzy, he steadied himself on the steel sink at the dead girl’s feet.
Daan Strietman chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t have put an old hand like you down as squeamish! You want to sit?’
Van den Bergen glared at him. ‘I’m not squeamish.’ He pointed to his ear. ‘I have this balance thing. Sometimes it… Anyway. What did you find?’
‘You’re not going to believe this.’
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_8c9063eb-b212-52c2-8877-a2026194da37)
Soho, London, later (#ulink_8c9063eb-b212-52c2-8877-a2026194da37)
I did a really stupid thing & I can’t tell anyone else. I’m losing my grip. Call me. Paul.
George read the words out loud, as though giving voice to them would reveal the truth behind the cryptic, partial revelation. Should she call? She had been sitting on his text all day. Staring at her phone, as the train had carried her back from Broadmoor. Her heart told her to respond to this wonderful, troubled man. Didn’t she spend at least as much time with him during her trips to Amsterdam as she did with her boyfriend? Pottering at the allotment. Talking about music. Life, the universe and everything. Hadn’t their bond become the elephant in the room, whenever Ad questioned why she had grown distant and disengaged?
‘All right, darling? What you looking so shifty for?’ Aunty Sharon asked, grabbing her in a bear hug and planting a lipsticky kiss on her cheek.
‘Just a text,’ George said.
She made to turn the phone’s screen off and slip it into her back jeans pocket beneath her overalls. But surprisingly for a woman of small statue and large volume, Aunty Sharon was agile enough to reach around and snatch the phone right out of her George’s hand.
She gazed down at the screen, grinning.
‘Aunty Sharon! Gimme the phone, man.’
Her aunt brought the text back up and read the words. ‘Paul? Oh, yeah?’ Fixed her niece with a knowing look. Nudged her joyfully and a little too energetically, so that her flamboyant head attire wobbled – a sculpture fashioned from a scarf, the colours of the Rasta flag, intertwined with platinum blonde, curly hair extensions that looked incongruous next to her mahogany skin. ‘You two-timing that poor Ad with some geez named Paul? Girl, you’re harsh!’
George snatched the phone back. Jammed it into her pocket. Relieved that in the dingy light, Aunty Sharon would never suss she was blushing. ‘I’m not two-timing anybody. I told you about Paul. It’s just van den Bergen.’
‘The Dutch cop?’
George nodded. ‘He’s just a friend, yeah?’
‘Oh, really? That why you hiding your phone, then?’ For all George’s qualifications and finesse and Aunty Sharon’s lack of them, this one-time Jamaica Road rose in Betty Boop heels and laddered sparkly tights had the measure of her, all right.
George was searching for a way to change the subject, when three men entered the club. Two of them were tall, burly, wearing outmoded single-breasted leather jackets and cheap shoes. Cropped hair, dark eyes, olive skin. The third was small in stature and somewhat older-looking than the man-mountains that flanked him. Had the beady-eyed look of a coke-head, George swiftly estimated.
‘Get out the way and keep your gob shut,’ Aunty Sharon said, grabbing the bucket. Thrusting the mop into George’s hand. ‘Don’t attract no attention to yourself. Thems is bad news.’
As she ushered George behind the bar, the men escorted inside four bewildered-looking white girls, who were quickly divested of their fun-furs by a sycophantic, scuttling Derek. Beneath their coats, they wore either string bikinis or lacy lingerie, all covered only by sheer net babydolls, as if they had been provided with uniforms. Heavy makeup. Fluttering eyelashes and bouffant hair. Flawless, tight behinds, which only the really young could boast, George noted. On their feet they wore identical Perspex-soled platform shoes.
‘Jesus,’ George said, pretending to dust down the vodka and whisky optics that lined the walls when in fact, she was scrutinising the girls. ‘They don’t look much more than about fourteen.’
Walking uneasily in the vertiginous footwear, they advanced towards the main stage and came to a halt, as if awaiting instruction.
‘They’re crippled in them bloody stripper shoes, that’s for sure!’ Aunty Sharon said, wiping a wine glass with a tea towel. ‘They’re gonna end up with fallen arches.’
The sound system was not yet switched on. George could clearly hear the girls chattering nervously to one another in an Eastern European language. Could have been Russian. Could have been Polish. Who knew? Not George. They blinked fast. Flutter, flutter, butterfly lashes. Taking in their new surrounds, while their escorts spoke to Derek. Clapping him on the shoulder. Nodding. Smiling like old buddies at a reunion.
‘Listen that! See how they’re chatting in Italian?’ Aunty Sharon said, raising an eyebrow. She sucked her teeth long and hard.
‘That why he’s going round asking everyone to call him Giuseppe?’ George spritzed the till with anti-bacterial spray.
Aunty Sharon shook her head. ‘He’s into something, that scrawny fucking idiot. Well out of his depth. Them geezers been round here three or four weeks running, now. New girls every time. Young foreign girls. They dance for a night or two. Rake it in. Then they’re gone. Sometimes it’s African girls. Sometimes from the Far East. They don’t talk no English. Derek thinks cos his grandfather came from some tin-pot shithole outside Rome that he’s fucking mafia or something.’
‘Porn king that owns this place know?’
Aunty Sharon shook her head. ‘Nah. Don’t reckon so. These girls ain’t legal. He’d lose his bloody licence. Dermot Robinson ain’t that daft. But I’d put money on it that Derek’s on some kind of fiddle. Fucking Uncle Giuseppe. Rarseclart.’
The tallest man locked eyes with George. Started to walk towards her.
‘You!’ he said. Clicked his fingers, as though she were a willing waitress. ‘Come here!’
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_f042fc89-7338-5a74-9ab5-cd80ea3edc3e)
Amsterdam, mortuary, later (#ulink_f042fc89-7338-5a74-9ab5-cd80ea3edc3e)
‘Her vital organs are all but gone. Can you believe it? Kidneys, bladder, pancreas, liver… you name it,’ Strietman said. ‘Everything except the two biggies – her brain and heart. Hard to tell with so much of her missing what the actual cause of death was. I’d put my money on cardiac arrest. I’ll need more time to examine her brain properly.’ He gestured towards the girl’s groin area with his pen. ‘She shows signs of having had rough sexual intercourse either just before death or shortly afterwards. Difficult to tell. No semen, but we lifted a couple of pubic hairs that didn’t belong to her. There are some signs of a struggle – thumb prints to her wrists. Bruising to the left side of her face, as though she’s been struck, but not trauma like you’d expect from a blunt instrument. Maybe a fist. Beaten, then raped, I guess.’
‘Don’t guess,’ van den Bergen said. ‘The sex may have been consensual and the bruising part of rough play.’
Daan Strietman shook his head. ‘She’s been murdered! It’s got to be rape, hasn’t it?’
‘Has it? That’s for me to discern. Continue.’
‘Well, I’ve really never seen anything like it.’ The pathologist was smiling again. Almost feverishly. ‘I think we’ve got some kind of ritual sex murder on our hands, here.’
Van den Bergen peered inside the girl’s chest cavity where the ribs had been peeled back to reveal black, coagulated blood and a rag-tag confusion of muscle and sinew. ‘Have we, indeed? Ritual sex murder. Why do you say that?’
‘Well, her uterus is gone.’
‘Yes, along with pretty much everything else, you’re telling me. Any trauma to the genitals other than what you’d normally expect from intercourse?’
The sombre proceedings were interrupted by a woman, knocking at the door.
‘Knock, knock! Can I come in?’ she asked. A cheerful voice. Searching eyes. Looked over at Strietman and smiled. ‘Hello, Daan. They said it would be okay for me to come straight down here.’
‘Sabine!’ Strietman beckoned the woman inside. ‘Perfect timing! Paul, this a good friend of Marianne’s – a very well-respected paediatrician.’
Van den Bergen moved away from the slab and was leaned against a tall storage cabinet. Arms folded; long legs entwined around each other. Wasn’t sure about this interloper.
Strietman offered the woman a typing chair to sit on. ‘I felt I needed a second opinion from someone who knows more about children’s physiology than me, since our Jane Doe shows signs of aggravated sexual assault and has given birth underage.’
Sabine perched elegantly, with the perfect posture of a yoga enthusiast on the edge of her chair. Ran a manicured hand through her long, thick chestnut-coloured hair. Van den Bergen assessed she was in her early forties, but she had that youthful glow to her skin that said this was a woman who looked after herself. Expensive-looking clothes. Nothing flashy. Pale grey co-ordinated knitwear. Leggings that emphasised her long, slender legs.
‘Anyway. Formal introductions,’ Strietman said, clapping his hands together. ‘Paul, this is Dr Sabine Schalks. Sabine, this is Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen. There. Now we all know one another.’
Sabine examined the Jane Doe. ‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘There are signs of partial female genital mutilation, but the scar tissue is old, indicating that it was performed years ago and not related to this girl’s death. Your Jane Doe must come from an Islamic country. Possibly East African.’
Van den Bergen nodded. ‘Anything else?’
Sabine Schalks backed away from the body and sighed. ‘She’s definitely a victim of sexual abuse. She could only have been about thirteen when she was carrying her child. Tragic. Absolutely tragic. Worse still that she’s ended up in here.’ She turned to Strietman, eyebrows raised. ‘What are the other circumstances of her death, in your opinion?’
Strietman thumbed his chin. ‘She’s suffered what we call a catecholamine “storm”.’ The pathologist made exclamation marks in the air with his blue, gloved fingers. ‘Her body’s been flooded by catecholamines – hormones made by the adrenal glands – and that’s caused ventricular damage to the heart. It’s often related to an overdose of cocaine or psychedelic drugs. There are MAOIs in her blood.’ He turned to van den Bergen. ‘Know what those are?’
‘Monoamine oxidase inhibitors,’ van den Bergen offered. ‘Used to treat depression.’
‘How do you know that?’ Strietman’s eyebrows shot up. He studied the chief inspector with something bordering on fascination. As though van den Bergen himself was a subject to be dissected, weighed and pronounced upon.
Van den Bergen wasn’t giving this over-enthusiastic dipshit anything. He remained silent. Peered down his nose at the younger man. Shot a furtive glance at the paediatrician. ‘What the hell have anti-depressants got to do with ritual murder?’
The feverish grinning continued.
Did this asshole think he was putting forward a case for winning the Nobel Prize? Or did he aspire to swap careers, trading his coroner’s stink and the solitude of the morgue for the lingering, heady musk of IT Marie’s three-day-old BO when they were pulling overnighters on a big case? Van den Bergen longed for the familiar sparring he enjoyed with the entirely sober Marianne. Wondered if George had read his text. He’d heard nothing. Yet.
Strietman expanded: ‘Well, Paul, MAOIs are used by spiritual drug users to increase the bioavailability of the hallucinogenic, DMT. In other words, MAOIs help them get a better psychedelic high. And this girl…guess what else she has in her blood!’
Van den Bergen swallowed down a fireball of gastric discomfort. ‘Tomato ketchup? Coriander? Anti-bacterial gel? I don’t know. Just tell me.’
‘MDMA.’ Strietman punched the air triumphantly with his pen. ‘Ecstasy.’
Groaning, van den Bergen removed his glasses and cleaned them on the bottom of his shirt. Replaced them and almost glimpsed a younger Elvis in this interloping pathologist. ‘The girl lives in Amsterdam, Daan. We’re at the European epicentre of ecstasy production. It’s entirely possible she went out and got bombed the night before this…’ he described the girl’s remains with a wave of his large hand ‘…happened to her.’
‘Daan might have a point,’ Sabine interjected. ‘Child abuse victims are often drugged by their attackers.’
‘No, Paul,’ Strietman went on. ‘She’s definitely been drugged, and that’s ultimately caused her heart to fail. There’s a puncture wound from a cannula in her arm.’ He lifted a grey/brown arm and displayed a tiny black mark, the top of which was encrusted with a small, dried bead of blood. ‘Abrasion up her nostril and the remnants of surgical tape, which suggested a tube has been put down her nose. Think about it! The missing organs. The sexual intercourse. The fact that she’s maybe of Eastern African origin, given the presentation of her genitals. Voodoo ritual killing. Ever hear about the torso of the African boy they found in the UK in the River Thames?’
‘Please stick to the medical facts and stop trying to play detective. That’s my job. What else have you got?’ van den Bergen asked, impatient now. Wishing he could somehow turn back time. That Marianne would get better and come back into work with her nice neck and strong runner’s physique. Wishing he didn’t find this new woman so attractive. This was neither the time nor the place to be checking out women. Keep your dick under control, you moron.
‘We’re waiting for more refined information to come back from the path lab regarding her blood,’ Daan continued. ‘But initial tests show hypernatraemia. Electrolyte imbalance. Dehydration. Consistent with ecstasy misuse. She’s undergone a caesarean delivery within the last twelve to eighteen months,’ Daan said. ‘The suturing style is unusual. Unidirectional barbed suture instead of bidirectional or traditional knots.’
Studying what was still evident of the scarring to the girl’s abdomen, van den Bergen grimaced. ‘That means nothing to me. Explain!’
‘She’s been delivered of a baby and sewn up by someone who clearly knew the theory of what they were doing. But I guess they weren’t very good with a needle and thread. The lumpy scar tissue’s a giveaway. I don’t think a qualified surgeon would do a bodge job like that in the Netherlands.’
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_b349ef3c-3244-5066-b5bb-a37180591b1b)
Amsterdam, private medical surgery, much later (#ulink_b349ef3c-3244-5066-b5bb-a37180591b1b)
The instructions told him to enter his user name, which he did. His password had been stored. Unsurprising, given how frequently he visited the website. He ordered five sterile suture packs – the budget ones – three blue disposable couch rolls, although he saved money by using a length twice if it hadn’t ripped, and a new scalpel. The blade on his other one had snapped off from the handle, despite still being pretty sharp. What a waste. Rummaging through the other supplies on the shelf in his surgery, he ascertained that he still had an adequate supply of syringes and needles. He was good for butterfly cannulas and tourniquets. Ah, but he was on his last speculum, so made a last-minute addition to his basket. Clicking on the checkout icon, he looked at the running total.
‘Fucking rip-off merchants!’ he told the screen. ‘Decimating my bottom line. What am I? A bloody charity?’ Took a large swig from the bottle of single malt. Swilled the hot, stinging liquor around his teeth before swallowing with a gasp.
It had been much easier when he could lift these supplies from the hospital in the normal course of duty. Nobody seemed to notice for a long, long time that stocks were depleting. Once they did, he was the last person to come under suspicion. Happy days, long gone.
He sighed. Took another slug of whisky. Pulled a scuffed-up credit card out of his wallet and typed in the details, which the website had not saved. At least business was brisk. The Pole was coming at 5pm. That was more cash, plus she would help him magic away the guilt.
The guilt. Oh, how he struggled beneath its weight. He hadn’t meant to do that to the girl. Noor had always been harmless enough. And she was some kind of hot with those narrow hips and big, brown eyes. But he had so little control over the monster within. The beast that had somehow, over time, made it from the shadows under his cursed childhood bed into his head. Just as the dragon, Ladon, had guarded the golden apples of Hesperides, the monster had always been his saviour. His downfall, too. When the monster wanted to take charge, he had no option but to submit.
The doorbell sounded shrilly. He put his wallet away and moved from the cold, damp surgery to the waiting room at the front. Peered briefly into the mottled mirror on the wall. Licked his fingers and smoothed his strawberry-blond hair down. Pulled his trousers over his gut. Undid the three heavy-duty locks and grinned at the leggy Pole, who was primping her fire-engine-red curls.
‘Hello, darling,’ she said. Pouting. Kissed him on both cheeks. Grabbed his crotch. ‘Botox time for Katja! My lips are pruning like an old man’s testicles and my forehead’s like a road map.’
‘You brought the money?’ he asked, eyeing her buoyant breasts in the tight top she wore beneath her puffa jacket. He had done an excellent job on those puppies.
She pushed past him and strode inside. With some effort, given the skin-tightness of her jeans and the length of those pink talons she called nails, the Pole levered an envelope out of her back pocket. Waved it under his nose. ‘It’s all there.’
‘You brought the whip?’
She giggled. Actually, it wasn’t a giggle. More of a cackle. He could tell she was looking forward to that bit, as a sweetener to take the edge off the pain of having her face poked and prodded with fine needles; filled with botulism until it was shining and tight. From inside her bulky jacket, she produced a black leather cat-o-nine tails. Swung it around her head so that it made a pleasing swishing noise, as it cut through the dank air. Slapped his behind with it playfully, though he was hoping that once her cosmetic surgical needs had been met, it would hurt enough to make his eyes water. Yes, that would be a tremendously rewarding punishment for the terrible, unpredictable way the monster was behaving at the moment.
‘A promise is a promise, darling. A fifty-euro reduction for the beating of your life. Seems a bargain.’ She set the cat-o-nine tails down on the waiting room coffee table as he locked the door. Removed her coat. Strode into the surgery at the back and sat on the crumpled blue covering on the examination couch. ‘Have you been a bad boy, then?’ She raised an eyebrow archly.
He snapped on blue latex gloves, took up his prepared syringe and ejected a sprightly fountain of the Botox solution from the end of the fine needle. ‘Appalling, my dear. A modern-day Caligula. Truly appalling.’
CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_b7c6828c-4f10-576d-b72e-437a6cfcaea9)
Amsterdam, police headquarters, 18 January (#ulink_b7c6828c-4f10-576d-b72e-437a6cfcaea9)
‘Okay. Jane Doe.’ Van den Bergen started to affix large photographs of the disembowelled girl to a pinboard: in situ, glittering with frost on the bench at the crime scene; detailed close-up shots, taken whilst on the mortuary slab. His senses were sluggish from taking too many codeine tablets before he’d even had breakfast. Fumbling with the tacks, he managed to impale his thumb on a sharp point. ‘Ow. Shitty little things. Give me a hand, somebody!’
Van den Bergen turned to scowl at the members of his team. They had assembled around the large table in meeting room four in order to be debriefed on the previous day’s autopsy. The air was heavy with curiosity and the smell of burnt rubber and cabbage.
‘Give them here, boss.’ Marie was the first to volunteer. Van den Bergen’s internet research specialist gave a sharp intake of breath as she levered the photos from his oversized clumsy hands. She started to pin them in a row at the top of the board. ‘Jesus. Poor woman. She’s been sliced open like a…a…boil in the bag sausage. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Thank you for that analogy,’ van den Bergen said.
Kees, one of the detectives who had been drafted in from a drugs case, nudged Elvis knowingly. Winked and grinned at Marie. ‘Squeamish, love?’ he asked, patting his stomach. ‘Bit too much for a girl like—?’
‘Hey, smartarse!’ van den Bergen said, mouth downturned with disapprobation. ‘You’d better not be trying to bait a senior member of my team, or I’ll hand you straight back to that fat prick, Kamphuis. See how much more fun you can have, rifling through piss-ridden crack dens in Bijlmer.’
‘You’re such a jerk, Kees,’ Marie said, miming masturbation. ‘I’ve seen more depravity in an afternoon on my work laptop than you’ve seen in all your born days, peering up Kamphuis’ hairy backside.’ She studied the board, wearing an expression that married sympathy with respectful sobriety. Took her seat slowly. Clearly mesmerised by the images. ‘Kind of glad I was still redecorating my toilet with that stomach bug when you guys got the call. It’s one thing to see photos…another thing entirely to find a body in that state.’ Kees was treated to a particularly pointed glare. ‘You’d better watch yourself, pal, or I might slip a little something in your sandwich when you’re not paying attention. Very contagious, that norovirus.’
Van den Bergen allowed himself an amused snort. ‘Pay attention, children!’ He clapped his hands together. ‘Now, our victim is about fifteen. Sixteen at most.’ He sighed involuntarily. Relayed Strietman’s findings.
Despite the fact that everyone was now eyeing him, rapt with attention, van den Bergen realised he had clammed up. He was sketching a cactus dahlia in the corner of his pad. Mind wandering elsewhere, thanks to yet another sleepless night. He grabbed at his stomach, still sore from the procedure.
‘Boss?’ Elvis said. ‘You okay?’
‘What? Yes. The only thing we can be certain of at this point,’ he said, focussing on Elvis’ greasy quiff. ‘Is that we’re looking for someone with surgical training.’ He pointed to the girl’s unfurled ribs and exposed abdominal cavity with his pen. ‘The prat standing in for Marianne de Koninck – Strietman – said she’s had…’ He grabbed his glasses which hung at the end of a chain around his neck. Perched them on his straight nose and squinted at his notebook. The writing was a blur. His eyesight was deteriorating rapidly. For God’s sake! If he’d have known his self-indulgence would have had such annoying after-effects, he would have found a better way of dealing with his demons. ‘…I can’t read a damn thing I’ve written.’ Thrust the book at Elvis. ‘Read this out, will you?’
Elvis held the notebook close. His lips moved as he tried to decipher the tight scrawl.
‘Well?!’ van den Bergen snapped, crossing his long, thin right leg over his left knee. Failing to wedge his sneaker under the table top because there was simply insufficient space for such a large shoe. Uncrossing his legs. Damn it, if he could get comfortable. Visualising his father’s feet, near the end. So sinewy and yellow, in carpet slippers that swam around his bony ankles. Five years.
‘Had you been drinking when you wrote this, boss?’ Elvis asked. He took one look at van den Bergen’s face and apologised quietly.
Over the years, Elvis – so nicknamed by van den Bergen because of his propensity for wearing the ridiculous King-like quiff – had gained in confidence. Rightly so. He had earned van den Bergen’s respect. But there were some lines the loyal little dipshit should never cross. Van den Bergen maintained his admonishing glare.
Elvis cleared his throat. ‘Okay. Says here, “Jane Doe was subject to a midline laparotomy and sternotomy”.’ He pronounced the medical terminology hesitantly, like a child trying to read long words in easy, phonetically distinct chunks. ‘What the hell are those? You’ve written, “Murderer knew exactly how to do it.”’
Van den Bergen nodded. Laced his fingers together behind his head. ‘The clinical terms refer to the way she has been cut open. Strietman says the technique used is the same sort of thing a surgeon would do when performing abdominal or heart surgery. The murderer has cut around the belly button, instead of through it.’ His junior colleagues’ faces were blank. ‘Apparently, the belly button is full of bacteria and surgeons cut round it to avoid infecting the patient. But I want to know…’ he ran his hands back and forth through his thatch of thick, prematurely white hair ‘…is why would a murderer take so much care, if the only goal was to kill his victim? Why the missing organs? What do we think about the drugging theory? Or ritual killing? Any thoughts?’
‘Ritual killing,’ Marie said, nodding slowly. ‘We haven’t had one of those before. Was that your idea, boss?’
Van den Bergen shook his head. ‘We have a stand-in pathologist with a very vivid imagination. Still, anything’s a possibility at this stage. The paediatrician Strietman brought in for an expert’s opinion seemed to think he may be onto something.’
Van den Bergen allowed himself a fleeting moment to savour the memory of Dr Sabine Schalks, as he had escorted her from the mortuary to the lift.
‘Sabine,’ he had said, stifling the inclination to touch her arm. ‘I’d love it if you’d come in and meet my detective, Marie. She does our internet research and has some experience with child pornography and paedophile rings. I think input from you would really help.’ He had given her a business card. ‘Will you pay us a visit?’
The paediatrician had smiled. It was a wide smile, showing perfect white teeth. He had admitted to himself that this was an attractive woman. Of his own age. No wedding ring. Potentially so easy. And yet, his heart belonged to a woman much younger.
The doors to the lift had slid open and Sabine Schalks had stepped inside. Pressed the button. The doors started to close. Disappointment setting in fast. But then, she had treated him to a glorious grin.
‘Nice line, Chief Inspector. If you wanted to go on a date with me, you could have just asked!’
Elvis interrupted the memory of this unexpected flirtation.
‘The murderer took her organs as trophies,’ he suggested, fiddling with the buttons on his leather jacket. ‘That’s common, isn’t it? Trophies, I mean. Like the Firestarter, with his test tube rack full of frozen fingers.’
The others nodded.
‘Maybe this perp wants to keep his victim unspoiled,’ Kees offered. ‘A clean-freak who can’t stand bacteria. That’s why he did the belly button thing.’
‘If he’s a medic or vet, he’s used to doing things a certain way,’ Marie said, ‘So, it stands to reason he’d open her up carefully instead of hacking her apart. Those guys train for years. Old habits, and all that…’
Sagely nodding, van den Bergen filled in the petals of his doodled dahlia with cross-hatching. ‘Any feedback yet from the door-to-doors?’ he asked. ‘Witnesses?’
‘Not a sausage,’ Elvis said in English.
‘Not even a boil-in-the-bag sausage.’ Kees winked at Marie, who thrust a middle finger skyward in response.
CHAPTER 9 (#ulink_1ffd2f44-3208-5fbc-b4ed-a7df8089f119)
Soho, London, Skin Flicks Media Group, later (#ulink_1ffd2f44-3208-5fbc-b4ed-a7df8089f119)
‘Yeah. Come up,’ the girl said through the intercom. ‘Top floor.’
The buzzer sounded. George pushed the heavy green door inwards and started to climb the stone stairs two at a time. The air was heavy with that smell of damp and neglect that you got in Victorian buildings. Peeling magnolia paint and ingrained dirt from who knew when. A musty tang that made her sneeze. She was careful to pull down the sleeve of her sweater and put it between the handrail and the naked skin of her palm.
Rhythmic, dance-music thump issued forth from the music business on the first floor. Stoking up the dust, no doubt. George covered her mouth with her free hand to avoid inhaling it.
Second floor up, two bearded white boys dressed in pastel-coloured jeans and ugly Fair Isle jumpers descended as she climbed. Talking about the tedium of a sweaty editing suite.
Pausing on the landing, struggling to catch her breath, she regretted the two cigarettes she had smoked in quick succession on the way from Piccadilly Circus through the narrow Soho backstreets.
Above her, a woman leaned over the balcony at the staircase’s summit. Lines etched deeply into a well-scrubbed face. Welcoming smile. Poorly dyed orange hair and a loose fitting jumper that draped over pendulous breasts. She looked like somebody’s mother.
‘You Georgina McKenzie?’ the woman asked.
‘Yes. Sharon Williams-May’s niece.’
George shook the woman’s hand as she finally reached the top step. Made a mental note to use some anti-bacterial gel on the way out.
‘I’m Marge, Dermot’s PA. Come in. He’ll see you shortly.’
George followed Marge beyond a steel security door which announced, by dint of an engraved brass plaque, that this was the London office of Skin Flicks Media Group, parent company of Skin Magazine, Skinclicks.com, Skin Licks Gentlemen’s Clubs and Skin Dicks Adult Toys. Spotlit, framed covers from Skin Magazine, hanging in a perfect line along the red crushed velvet walls, guided her down a narrow corridor. The covers featured an array of topless girls sporting disproportionately enormous pneumatic breasts on top of tiny, bony chests. All pouting lips, spidery eyelashes and big hair. The photographic trail opened out onto the reception area. Black carpet. More red velvet on the walls. Black leather sofas.
After some ten minutes, during which time George noted, with a degree of surprise, that the sofa she sat on smelled good and was soft to the touch – not like the hard, cheap crap Aunty Sharon owned, which had the fishy stink of a bad tannery – a white-haired, moustachioed man bordering on elderly leaned out of an office door and waved her into an office.
Smiling benignly. Red-faced. His gut overhung his baggy slacks by some margin. His legendarily large feet were clad in moccasins. George marvelled that this innocuous-looking man, who could be a semi-retired chip-shop owner, judging by his appearance, was one of the most successful creators of multi-platform erotica and related branded merchandise in Europe.
‘So, you work for me, do you?’ he asked, running an arthritic-looking hand through the thinning white hair.
‘Yes, Mr Robinson,’ George said. ‘I’m one of the cleaners at Skin Licks on Peter Street. My Aunty Sharon has been a barmaid there for ten years.’
Dermot Robinson appraised her through rheumy eyes and rubbed a purpling nose, both of which attested to late nights and too much scotch. ‘You could be a dancer with a body like that,’ he said, stretching out the vowels with his East End tongue. ‘Want a promotion? My girls earn good money.’
George opened her pad and clicked her pen into life. ‘That’s not what I’m here for, but it’s kind of you to offer. I’ve been keen to interview you for my PhD for over a year, Mr Robinson. Thanks so much for this.’
This unprepossessing Soho porn king crossed his enormous feet on his desk top and leaned back in his chair. Arms behind his head. A man at ease with the world and with women.
But not women like her.
George cleared her throat and read her first question aloud. ‘Your harder stuff. The SM magazines and websites that are subsidiary Skin Flicks brands – do you create the content to meet an existing demand, or do you think your content drives consumer tastes in erotica?’
‘You think I’m a dirty old man? That Skin Flicks is just my own personal fantasy?’ Dermot Robinson leaned over the desk as far as his gut would allow. Stretched his arms wide along the rosewood. Narrowed his eyes at George and tried to see what she had written on her pad. ‘You can put in your notes that this is a multi-million-pound business, love. You think it’s all budget home movies and readers’ wives?’
She shook her head avidly. ‘Not at all.’ Though she had seen the production values of many a porn film, and a sizeable proportion looked like they might have been recorded on amateur equipment. George had wondered if any of the Skin Flicks filming was done within the offices to cut costs.
‘My last film cost me over a million to make,’ Dermot said. ‘Think about it. All them staff. Location. Catering crew. Consultants for this. Advisers for that. Editing and post production.’ He pointed to a blown-up black and white photograph of him receiving an award in a dark and dingy-looking place. ‘See that? That’s me, getting a SHAFTA. Know what that is?’
‘Soft and Hard Adult Film and Television Awards,’ George said.
Dermot closed his eyes and nodded. ‘The stuff we do here is art. I got marketing people who market research my films to death before they even see a story board. What the punter wants, the punter gets. That’s why my products get picked up by the likes of X Broadcasting network in Canada. My films is seen all over the world, love. Internationally successful.’
‘But the violent content in some of them. Women being tortured. Some goes beyond standard BDSM, wouldn’t you say? Do men really want to see that?’
The Soho porn king rose and moved to his window, looking down onto Wardour Street below. Lord and master of all he surveyed, rolling up his sweater sleeves as though he were preparing for a fight with the entire West End. ‘Listen, darling, ain’t nothing been produced under my brand what’s not got artistic merit. I got good scriptwriters. Excellent camera men. Even medical people telling the directors what’s legit and what’s not. Looking after the health of my stars. And my legal team cost me a fucking fortune.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘You wouldn’t sleep nights if you seen my legal bills. Now the government’s banning all sorts of acts in UK porn. It’s gonna put the smaller guys out of business.’
He was side-stepping her questions. George checked her watch. Irritated. Drumming her pen on the pad. For a start, the SHAFTAs picture was hanging too high on the left by at least 5mm. And those feet. Robinson’s feet were preposterous. She knew he had starred in porn films himself back in the seventies. His shoe size reflected how well he was endowed in other areas. An erotic legend who was about as sexy as a bucket of cold sick, George reflected. She wanted to go. Her cleaning shift began in less than thirty minutes and she would be glad to exchange the luxurious black carpet of Skin Flicks’ head office for the smell of bleach in the store cupboard of Dermot’s titty bar.
No. Focus, George, she thought. You’re here to get the other side of the story. Don’t leave without it.
‘Do you think your erotica inspires men to commit sexually violent crimes against women, Mr Robinson?’
Dermot turned away from his view and stared at her in silence. ‘You understand the true nature of your average red-blooded male, love, you don’t need to ask that question.’
The phone rang, preventing George from asking her next questions. Dermot picked it up. Looked grave. Said, ‘OK. Jesus. Right. Well get another bloody girl in!’ and then hung up.
‘I’m going to have to cut our entertaining little tête-à-tête short, love,’ he said, scratching his moustache with a Biro. ‘Seems one of my actresses has gone AWOL. She was due on set two days ago. Now they’re telling me nobody’s seen the silly cow.’ He shook his head. ‘Can’t get the staff. You sure you don’t want a promotion?’
CHAPTER 10 (#ulink_f3448a56-17a3-56d6-a880-14a155722e03)
Amsterdam, Norderkerk, later, then, van den Bergen’s apartment (#ulink_f3448a56-17a3-56d6-a880-14a155722e03)
The actress, or what was left of her, was stretched across the rear seat of the Lexus. Having a wide car was very handy under these circumstances. After the bombing of the Bushuis Library, vans were still drawing the attention of the police. You were far more likely to be stopped and searched in one of those. Plenty of room for explosives in the back, if you had aspirations to becoming a terrorist. But a luxury saloon in black, with no changes to the manufacturer’s specifications, gliding along, observant of the speed limit and traffic lights…who would pay attention to a car like that? Certainly not the police. It didn’t scream, ‘drug dealer’ or ‘master criminal’. It was discreet. Elegant. Moneyed. The tinted rear windows also helped with anonymity. It wouldn’t do for a passerby to peer inside, even if the actress’ body was covered by a black tarpaulin. Obviously, lining the leather seats with plastic sheeting had been a necessary precaution, although the woman’s blood and bodily fluids had long since ceased to flow. No, this was definitely the most comfortable, logistically most effective method of disposal.
The actress had been a surprisingly good conversationalist in the end. A vivacious woman. Talking about her unusual line of work had proven fascinating. Discussing her childhood in her country of origin was an eye-opener too. And she had been an excellent lay, of course. Though she’d had enough practice in her professional life, so it had hardly come as a surprise that she’d known one end of an erogenous zone from another. She had emitted some wonderful sounds from that surgically enhanced mouth. Like a wounded animal. Vulnerable. Pliable. Submissive.
They had shared a fun evening together. Collecting happy memories was important.
It had almost been a shame to destroy that glorious body. Well, not so much destruction, really. More of a surgical deconstruction. But then, a pact was a pact, and those months of scoping the actress out had had to pay off. Obviously, there was a tremendous buzz to be had from the act itself. Getting it just right was an art of sorts. Preparing the correct environment. Actively managing her ventilation, fluid levels and organ functions to keep her in optimum condition for as long as possible, before removing the body parts. Then, finally allowing her to die. It was no small joy to feel like the techniques were being improved upon each time. Definitely better than the preceding efforts. Mastery would come eventually. In the meantime, it had been a job well done.
Now, there was just the disposal to take care of. The arrangement of the body and location in which it was left would be important to the way the police regarded the deaths and the investigative path that they took.
Pulling up outside the church, nobody was in sight. The terrible weather always drove people indoors. For a slightly built woman, the body of the actress was cumbersome. Dead weight flung over the shoulder, still obscured by the tarp. This final stage had to be deftly executed. Quickly now, with a beating heart, praying nobody was watching. It wouldn’t do to be interrupted or identified.
Whipping off the tarp at the last moment to reveal the shell that was once inhabited by an actress, famous within tight, specialist erotica circles. Admittedly, the end product didn’t look very nice. Empty eye sockets weren’t exactly a turn-on. But that was collateral damage, really. An unavoidable side-effect of the…what was it again? Oh, yes. Surgical deconstruction. That was a good one. Witty. Best to remember this woman the way she had been on the film set, and afterwards in bed. Happy memories only. Find the positives.
Of course, there was the hunt for the next subject to look forward to. And it would be imperative to keep an eye on that tall policeman who was heading up the case. The haunted-looking one with the white hair. Perhaps a little trip out to his apartment was in order. The view was astoundingly clear and uninterrupted from the street below…
At home, as the pan of pasta boiled, van den Bergen leaned over the kitchen worktop. Clutched at his stomach.
‘Jesus, help me,’ he implored a God he had no faith in whatsoever.
The pains were sharp tonight. Presenting near his kidneys. Perhaps he had kidney failure. Was that one of the symptoms? Maybe. He would Google it, although George had told him the internet was not his friend, as far as Googling illness was concerned. Every spasm, every ache, every blemish was cancer. Fast-forward to the apocalypse. He’d been that way for a long time. But now the five-year mark was upon him, it was worse. And, of course, he had something legitimate to worry about, given what he had stupidly done to his body.
He stared down at his phone, as if that had the answers. ‘Text back, goddamn it!’
Reflected in the shine of the grey tiled splashback, he considered the fragmented representation of himself that stared back at him. A scowling middle-aged man with sunken cheekbones and dark patches under his eyes. Glasses hanging at the end of a chain around his neck atop an old shirt that had a frayed collar. All wrapped up in a moth-eaten cardigan he’d had since 1995.
‘You’re a mess!’ he shouted at the grey cubist counterfeit. ‘Who would ever find you attractive? Not Andrea, that’s for sure.’ He conjured an image in his mind’s eye of his ex-wife. Happy now, with that balding prick, Groenewalt. Both of them living high off the hog thanks to the maintenance payments he still had to fork out from his modest chief inspector’s salary; atoning for a teen romance that outlived its natural best-before-date because of Tamara’s arrival. A marriage which had now been defunct for more than a decade. No, that hard-faced cow, Andrea, wouldn’t look twice at him any more. ‘Tamara thinks her dad’s some geriatric joke, too. And George…’
Feeling irritation bite, he dug his long finger inside the frayed hole in the shirt fabric and ripped along the collar’s edge. ‘Sort yourself out, van den Bergen. Get a fucking haircut!’
When the pasta pan started to spit water all over the hob, he flung it into the sink in temper, fusilli everywhere. Poured himself a glass of orange juice. Downed two codeine and winced.
He was poised to call George when his phone rang shrilly.
‘Van den Bergen. Speak!’
It was Elvis. Sounding hyper. As if Elvis sounded anything apart from bloody wired, like a kid on sugar. ‘We were just finishing up, boss, when we got a call.’
Involuntarily, he groaned down the phone at his detective. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Sorry, boss. I know you’re coming down with this stomach thing or something but—’
‘Spit it out.’
‘There’s another body. A woman. Left at the back of the Norderkerk.’
Van den Bergen sighed. Hastily grabbed a fistful of almost-boiled pasta from the bottom of the sink. Poised to down this makeshift dinner to keep the codeine company. ‘I’m on my way.’
CHAPTER 11 (#ulink_7c9876d6-ec81-528d-b9d9-08a6d9e58b23)
South East London, very late (#ulink_7c9876d6-ec81-528d-b9d9-08a6d9e58b23)
‘Hey. You’re back,’ Ad said, sleepily.
He rolled over, putting himself at the edge of the single bed, facing her. Flicked back the duvet, so she could clamber in and nestle into his bare chest. Groggy. He had only half-slept, of course. One ear constantly on alert for the key in the door. It wasn’t lost on him that she’d actually returned from work a full hour ago, and had sat downstairs with Sharon, swigging that drink they drank. What was it? Rum n Ting. Conspiratorial giggling about something or other. He only hoped he wasn’t the butt of their jokes. But how could he be? He’d been there for more than forty-eight hours and had only seen George for about three of those in a state of wakefulness. ‘Good day?’
‘Knackering,’ she said.
Failing to ask him about his day, which he had spent sprawled on Aunty Sharon’s fishy sofa, propped on overstuffed cushions that stank of baking and hairspray, watching some daytime soap on television called Doctors. Stuffing his face with fruitcake to stave off boredom.
George disrobed and pulled on a baggy T-shirt that sported some musician’s name. One of those English acts he didn’t recognise. Dubstep something or other. Maybe that wasn’t even a musician. He couldn’t keep up with George’s likes and dislikes. Deep house. Garage. Old skool. It was an entirely different language for a small-town Groningen boy like him; serving only to estrange, where once it had exerted a strong, magnetic pull. But still. She was a sight for sore eyes, even silhouetted against the landing light.
‘Come here, hard working genius. I’ve missed you.’ He had kisses for her, filled with desperation and longing and ardour and not a little disappointment. Here was his erection, pressed into her warm, voluptuous body. ‘Oh, I love you so much.’ A hand between her legs. He would show her how he had been thinking of her all day long. Surely, she must have given him some thought, in amongst her mysterious schedule of ‘research’ and ‘work’, none of which she ever expanded on.
George pushed him away. Treated him to a peck on the cheek. ‘Aw, I’m sorry, Ad. Do you mind if we don’t?’ Turned her back on him and shuffled to the other side. ‘I’m proper shattered. I’ve not stopped all day.’
In such a narrow bed, his knees inside her knees, his erection touching her bottom technically counted as spooning. Didn’t it? Spooning was what you did when you were in a comfortable relationship. He could definitely do spoons.
Deflating slowly, he asked, ‘How come you’re always back so late? Last night. You were even later. I asked and you never answered me.’
There was a pause. A considered intake of breath.
‘Sometimes new people turn up. Last night, there was a bit of a set-to between Aunty Sharon and the manager. Then, there was some mess to clean up. I had to work longer, is all. It’s one of those jobs. It’s complicated. I’ll tell you tomorrow.’
In the darkness, breathing in the musty smell of old wallpaper and eavesdropping on the soporific sound of passing cars, at odds with the disconcerting whistles of insomniac youths, roaming the local streets and up to no good (he knew he was beginning to sound like his mother), he decided privately that she was being evasive. He wasn’t even entirely sure what ‘one of those jobs’ constituted. Cleaning something or other, though he didn’t know where. He would quiz her about it over breakfast, before he left for the airport.
When her phone buzzed insistently at 2am and she left the bedroom to answer it, he made another mental note to quiz her about that over breakfast too.
CHAPTER 12 (#ulink_873ee109-b321-5b11-8131-eaad428ace57)
Manhattan, New York, 1981 (#ulink_873ee109-b321-5b11-8131-eaad428ace57)
Laughter trilled from somewhere along the hall, carried laterally to the sleeping, dreaming girl along with a rotten perfume of cigarette smoke and alcohol. Though it was ring-fenced beyond several thick walls, the tendrils of this throbbing organism – her mother’s own experiment in grafting rare cultivars with exotic pond life and social climbers, fed by hedonism and infamy – crept under her bedroom door nonetheless.
The Police were in attendance, reggae beats syncopating badly with the even rhythm of her dream. Sting’s voice ushering her towards wakefulness. De Do Do Do, De Da Da Daddy’s home: sitting with his legs crossed in the modest garden of their large Mayfair townhouse, reading a medical journal in summery warmth. Watching him intermittently, revelling in his presence, she frolicked with her mother’s beloved terrier, Rudi, beneath the whippy branches of their small maple tree. Helping Gretchen to pour into glasses the cloudy lemonade, which, standing on a chair, she had helped to make and which she and her father would now drink together.
Except Daddy wasn’t home. And the thud, thud, thud of Blondie’s beating glass heart pushed sleep further and further away from the girl on unforgiving waves of sound, until she realised that this was neither their London house, nor their Berlin residence, nor the villa in Juan les Pins.
More laughter. Men’s this time. Deep and throaty. Glasses clinking.
Consciousness had taken a hold of her fully, now. The comforting dream had slipped beyond her recall. Soft Cell were complaining, instead, of having to endure ‘Tainted Love’. Staring at the high ceiling of that New York apartment, she considered that she might have liked that music, given half a chance. She was at an age, after all, where she had just started to take an interest in the charts. Top of the Pops on their television in London. American Billboard’s Hot 100. Full of new, exciting bands. Boys with lipstick, wearing black. Cheap-looking, stubby keyboards sporting mysterious names like Roland and Yamaha, that were a world away from the grand piano in the music room, at which she sat for hours every week, having Mozart drummed into her reluctant fingers by that stern old hag, Frau Bretschneider. Both instrument and teacher had been imported all the way from Berlin, like Mother’s favourite dinner service. But Mother and her friends were greedy. They had claimed the youthful synthesised beats as theirs. Though in truth, some of Mother’s younger friends had created those songs, thereby distorting even the soundtrack to her childhood with her mother’s notorious celebrity and her cronies’ sycophancy. How she’d like to run away, get away from the pain it drove into the heart of her.
Advancing in her pyjamas and dressing gown down the hall, the music thudded louder. The smells became ever sharper. Those tendrils beckoned her forwards; pulling her in towards the melee. On the other side of the door, beyond which she had been expressly told by Gretchen that she must not under any circumstances venture after lights-out, she beheld the writhing organism. A gathering, at least two-hundred strong, that stretched from one end of the vast, wood-floored drawing room to the other. Semi-naked men. Suited men. Men dressed as women. Women clad in outlandish, futuristic outfits. Some, barely dressed at all, breasts jiggling as they danced. Wearing incongruous hats. Dwarves carrying platters of food on their heads which some guests stuffed lasciviously into each other’s mouths. Pyramids of white powder, which most guests were snorting enthusiastically through small tubes. Dancing, smoking, kissing and more. The sort of thing the girl did not want to see and yet, driven by an eleven-year-old’s avid curiosity for all things grown-up, a scene she was compelled to gawp at and consign to memory. It was horrible. It was wonderful. She was not sure what it was.
To the left, beneath the apartment’s tall windows, with the towers of downtown Manhattan glittering in the background, the old guardsat in their off-the-shoulder dresses, sipping champagne with their stuffy-looking husbands. At odds in this uptown Babylon. She recognised them from the photos of her mother that often appeared within the pages of Vanity Fair. Lunching at Le Cirque with other thin, bouffant women.
But her mother was not seated among them. Where was she?
The girl’s gaze wandered to a far corner of the room. And there she was! Sporting enormous shoulder pads and a tiny, cinched-in waist, chatting animatedly to a man dressed in black, whose heavy spectacles and bushy white hair marked him out as some famous artist or other.
‘Mama!’ the girl shouted, advancing past a sweaty, topless man. He almost knocked the teddy bear clean out of her hand, as he danced with abandon with a sequin-encrusted he/she/it guest.
When her mother caught sight of her, her fury was self-evident. Instead of responding in their native tongue, Mama chided her in English; her transatlantic drawl made sluggish and clumsy with alcohol, the girl knew.
‘Veronica! You were told to go to bed and stay in bed.’
‘But I got woken up.’
‘Get back to bed this instant, young lady! You are very disobedient.’
Her mother grabbed her with bony, iron fingers. Dug her red nails in. The champagne stink of her rancid breath bore down on her. ‘Naughty little girl. What were you told?’
‘I miss Papa.’ The girl looked up at her mother with imploring eyes. Part of her acknowledged that she would rather be tucked in bythe homely, loving Gretchen. But she had needed to see what lay beyond The Door. And this was Mama. Her mother. She could not stem an instinctive, primal craving for maternal reassurance after a disconcerting dream, though she realised it would not be forthcoming. Mama took her parties very seriously. Mama had to look glamorous. Mama had to dedicate herself to her friends. It was expected.
‘Papa’s at Harvard,’ her mother shouted over the music, digging her nails in deeper. ‘You know that. He’s back next week. Then, we fly home.’ Her affected smile turned into something sinister, making the sinews in her thin, dancer’s neck seem taut and stringy. Speaking to her daughter through gritted, white teeth that seemed somehow sharper, nastier, reptilian. ‘But right now, little miss,’ the glossy brown tresses of Mama’s hair coiled and squirmed like the snakes on Medusa’s head that Veronica had peered at through parted fingers during the premiere of Clash of the Titans, ‘I am having a very important conversation with Andy, here, about my fundraiser for the Museum of Modern Art.’ Mama turned around and beamed warmly at the white-haired man. Gorgon’s head gone.
Back to bed, annoying little cunt. Veronica found herself being dragged by the belt of her dressing gown. The long walk of shame across the makeshift dance floor, past the great and the good and the downright rotten of New York high society, was punctuated by several photo opportunities. Red light. Hold the front page. And pose! Whenever a flashbulb popped in their faces, Veronica registered that her mother had instantly rearranged herself into a photogenic shape. Hand on hip. One foot forward. One to the side. Knee slightly bent. Easy smile. Arm draped around Veronica’s shoulder, as though she were a novelty prop. It had been the same on the red carpet at the premiere. The blinding glare of flashing bulbs, illuminating bleach-white grins of her mama and papa. Gretchen had shown her the photos in the gossip columns the following day, above a caption that identified their family trio as ‘mining heiress and former Broadway star, Heidi Schwartz, with plastic surgeon husband and daughter’. Veronica had recognised herself in one of the photos, trudging behind Perseus, looking downright glum. Too shell-shocked by the press attention to feel excited about being close to the star of the film.
Together, they stumbled away from the party, back down the hall, Veronica being dragged and at the mercy of her mother’s unsteady gait. Reeling. Bursting into her room. Harsh light on. Pyjama bottoms yanked down around her ankles.
‘Don’t…let… me…see…you…come…out…of…this…room…again!’ Mama said, slapping the words out onto her thighs with the flat of her hand like the drummer in a military tattoo. Yanked back up, once the skin was livid. ‘Horrible girl. Into bed!’
‘I’m so sorry, Mama,’ Veronica wept, climbing under her blankets and clutching her knees. Making herself as small as possible. Thumb in. Teddy next to her heart, at first.
‘You’re not sorry. You’re never sorry!’ Mama screamed. She removed her thick, red leather belt with its deep, jewel-studded buckle. Brought it down on her hard, so that it whistled through the still air and cracked as it made contact with her shoulder. The blankets provided a merciful barrier for its sting, at least. ‘Go to sleep! Go to sleep, you fucking pain in the ass!’
Veronica shut her eyes tight, though the tears leached onto her face and coursed freely into her ear. She was careful to hold her teddy protectively over her head, as the belt buckle found its mark again and again. The light of a Manhattan morning seemed a long way off.
CHAPTER 13 (#ulink_095585f3-11aa-5d7b-b94b-cf1d26e9b8a0)
Amsterdam, police headquarters, then, a building site, 19 January (#ulink_095585f3-11aa-5d7b-b94b-cf1d26e9b8a0)
‘Are the rumours that it’s a serial sexual killer true?’ asked a woman he recognised as a big ticket reporter for de Volkskrant.
Where the hell had she got that? Who had opened their big mouth?
Suddenly the entire meeting room erupted with the probing voices of media representatives. On their feet, all demanding to have their questions answered. Hands in the air. Voice recorders pointed in his direction. The room was full to claustrophobic bursting point as it was, but the clamour made it all the more unbearable. Van den Bergen could feel sweat starting to trickle down his back. All eyes were trained on him. He had to address them. Opened and closed his mouth. But no words would come.
Hasselblad tapped the microphone. Brass buttons clinking on his commissioner’s jacket. Frog-eyes bulging. The PA system’s feedback whistled around the room, reinstating silence.
‘Chief Inspector?’ Hasselblad was staring at him expectantly. His best trick. Daring van den Bergen to challenge his authority.
Only moments before they had filed into the room for this press conference, van den Bergen had been trapped inside Hasselblad’s office, arguing vociferously about which line to take. They had been at it, on and off, ever since van den Bergen had come back with Strietman’s preliminary report.
‘Paul, I want them to know we’re after a serial killing sex pervert,’ Hasselblad had said, strutting up to the ornate mirror that hung next to a sizeable oil-on-canvas portrait, painted of him when he had taken up office and had been a good stone lighter. He checked his tie was straight. Held in his gut. Smoothed his shirt as he viewed himself sideways-on and nodded at his reflection. Satisfied. ‘You play down the depravity of these murders, and this department gets sod all kudos when you come to solve them. I get sod all kudos.’ He was still in socks. He marched back over to his rosewood desk, lifted up one of his already gleaming dress shoes and buffed it uselessly with a cotton handkerchief. ‘I don’t need to remind you that I’m the commissioner, do I? You tow my party line.’
Van den Bergen fingered the frayed collar of the shirt he had not yet had time to change. ‘Jaap, you embrace headline-grabbing sensationalism, and you’re going to end up with mass hysteria on your hands. We should announce there’s a murderer at large. Of course, we should! We—’
‘Not murderer. Serial killer.’ At that moment, Kamphuis was visible through the glazed partition, walking past Hasselblad’s office, taking a large bite out of an oversized syrup waffle. Notably, Kamphuis waved merrily to the commissioner. ‘On. The. Rampage.’
Kamphuis and Hasselblad. Pair of pricks together, van den Bergen thought. Not a club I’d ever be invited to join. Not a club I’d want to fucking well join. ‘Look, we need to encourage the public to be vigilant. Yes. But the whole point of the press conference is to identify these women. Missing persons has thrown up zilch.’ He stared at the sorry-looking parlour palm on Hasselblad’s desk. Fingered the compost, which was utterly dried out. Moron never watered it. ‘Not a shred of clothing on either of them, let alone ID. No witnesses so far. How can I investigate murders with nothing to go on but two carved-up cadavers, some dodgy scarring from past surgery? A vague notion of their ages and ethnicities?’
‘Stick to the brief, van den Bergen!’ was all Hasselblad would say before barrelling out of his office and down the hall to where the nation’s media had been assembled.
The reporters were rapt with attention, now. Waiting to hear what the infamous chief inspector had to say – the man who had solved the mystery of the Bushuis library and Utrecht synagogue bombings. A catcher of murderous psychopaths. One of Amsterdam’s most celebrated sons, when it suited them to deem him one. An abrasive, white-haired dinosaur who should hand in his badge, when it didn’t. Casting an eye over their hungry faces, he could almost see them silently deciding on today’s headline. Manipulative sewer rats, the lot of them.
He cleared his throat. Finally, imagining George had placed an encouraging hand on his shoulder, his voice came.
‘Er, thank you for coming.’
He started to talk about the victims, being careful to hold back the information that their organs had been removed and that they appeared to have been butchered by an expert. He deliberately omitted to deploy the phrase, ‘serial sex killer’. Steadfastly denied they were looking for a crazed pervert, when quizzed about it by a researcher for NPO 1 television.
‘We have yet to profile the perpetrator,’ he clarified. Watched the research guy’s face fall with disappointment. ‘At this stage, we have two female victims.’ He clicked the mouse button on a laptop Marie had set up for him and two artist’s impressions appeared on a large whiteboard behind him. He didn’t think much of the artist’s efforts. The pictures were guesswork, at best, hastily scribbled onto paper. ‘Two murders that share several similarities. But I wouldn’t label this as the work of a serial killer. Not yet.’
He could feel Hasselblad’s eyes boring a resentful hole in the side of his face. He could almost hear Elvis’ and Marie’s jaws dropping with disbelief. All hell would break loose once the microphones were switched off and they returned to their offices. But he was safe for now. Hasselblad wouldn’t dare shed light on an internal disagreement in front of scandal-hungry reporters.
‘I need to know if anyone knows anything about these two women.’ He thought about the slight build of the victims. Their vulnerability. The black girl’s obvious youth. The white woman’s flawed, augmented breasts. Thought about George and Tamara. Spoke into the microphone in an impassioned way. ‘Husbands, family members, lovers, colleagues, friends. Somebody must be missing someone close to them. If there is anybody out there that can help or who thinks they might have witnessed the abduction of or attack on women who resemble these sketches, call the hotline in confidence.’
Iwan watched the live press conference on NPO’s breakfast news bulletin, as he sawed open a crusty bun with the sharp bread knife. Into the soft, doughy innards of the cob he stuffed several slices of kielbasa and cheese. But his girl had bought him that cheap shit sausage from Lidl and the cheese was Dutch. It looked right but didn’t smell right. Nevertheless, with large unthinking bites, swilled down with strong coffee, he manfully made short shrift of the first disappointing meal of the day. That he got the food to stay down at all with such a stinking hangover was a miracle. It had been a good night – early on, at Stefan’s, drinking Tyskie and playing cards. Then, later on…better still.
‘The boys are outside,’ Krystyna shouted from the kitchen.
The honking horn of the van signified that it was time to get to work. 6.57am. By lunchtime, he should feel fine. He picked his plate and cup up from the scarred pine table and swapped it for the lunch bag that Krystyna gave him. Grabbed her slender frame around the waist and pulled her close for a kiss.
‘Get off! You stink!’ she said, giggling. ‘Go and work the beer off. Go on! You’ll be late.’
Engine running, outside.
‘Come on, Iwan!’ Stefan said, leaning nonchalantly out of the driver’s window. ‘Get a bloody move on, you pussy.’
He lit a cigarette but was forced to flick it out the window half-smoked because the pitch and roll of the van, with its sagging suspension, made him seasick.
‘You’re green!’ Michal said. ‘And you ducked out early! Lightweight!’
Iwan just puffed out his cheeks in response. Wiped away the cold sweat on his face. Stared blankly out of the window, as shabby, 1970s apartment blocks on the poor outskirts of town gave way to grand red- and grey-brick buildings – some converted into elegant apartments, some still four-storey family homes for the very rich. Here, the streets were tree-lined, with chi-chi delis and boutiques on every corner. He was working. He was earning. Life was good. It was just a hangover. He wouldn’t vomit. He was a man. Men didn’t vomit.
The van pulled up in Valeriusstraat, outside the building site. Scaffolding encased the neglected façade, with its cantilevered bay window on the second storey and the balcony above. At the very top, on the fourth floor, the stepped gable bore down on them. He peered up at it and shuddered. Shook his head.
‘You’re such a superstitious old woman!’ Stefan said, punching his shoulder.
‘This place is haunted,’ Iwan said. ‘I’m telling you.’
The gable window was dark, but his fevered imagination conjured up a ghost from the past eyeing him from above. Perhaps a Jew, sheltering from the Nazis. Maybe a sick or deformed child from Amsterdam’s glory days gazed down at him. Some merchant’s dirty secret, locked in the attic. Protruding from the gable was a beam with the hook on the end – so useful for hoisting materials up to the top floor. But Iwan imagined it was a witch’s finger, beckoning him up to the top, so he might plunge to his death.
He crossed himself and followed his workmates inside.
‘We’re going to get you plastering out the top floor today,’ Stefan said. Laughing raucously.
The others joined in. Iwan might have retorted with something witty, had he not felt like he was dying. All he could manage was a ‘Ha ha. Very funny.’
‘You think I’m joking?’
‘Stefan! Come on, man. No!’
Stefan pointed to the giant sheaf of plasterboards that were stacked in the hallway. ‘Top floor. Board and skim by the end of the day. Take Pawel up there with you. He’ll fight the ghosts off.’
Iwan groaned. Picked up his drill case from the cupboard under the stairs. Collected the bucket containing his trowel and saw.
‘You seen the rest of my tools?’ he asked the others.
They replied that they hadn’t. He shrugged. They’d be around. Trudged to the top. There was a strange smell on the air. Something more than just dust, damp and rotten wood. The precise nature of the scent eluded him. Never mind. He’d have a cigarette and a coffee from the flask Krystyna had made him, first. Fuck Stefan!
As he passed beneath the threshold that marked the smaller of the attic rooms, he heard Michal shout downstairs.
‘Someone’s been in! Back door’s been jemmied, by the looks.’
‘Anything taken?’ Stefan shouted between floors.
Iwan backed onto the landing and bellowed down the stairwell, ‘My drill is still here. They’d have taken that. You sure you’re not still pissed, Michal?’
‘Nothing missing here,’ Stefan shouted. ‘Have a good look round, lads. Then, screw the door shut for now. Can’t have cats or squatters getting in.’
Iwan nodded. Sighed. Progressed beyond the threshold, traversing the smaller ante-room that would be divided into a hallway and en suite to a master. Entered the main room. The one with the window. The one he had been dreading entering. He dropped his drill case and bucket. Screamed. Then, he vomited over the steel toecaps of his boots.
CHAPTER 14 (#ulink_ec0ea42c-7edc-5668-8d30-4e2595e17524)
Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#ulink_ec0ea42c-7edc-5668-8d30-4e2595e17524)
Van den Bergen was sitting in the disabled cubicle on the top floor. Clutching at his spasming stomach. Contemplating the frenzy of excitement that had been almost palpable during the press conference. Imagining the dressing-down he was going to get from Hasselblad when he eventually emerged from his hideaway. His throat burned as though he had swallowed razor blades. Maybe he wasn’t coming down with a throat infection. Perhaps he was just hoarse from talking to George for ninety minutes or more, in the freezing cold of the small hours. Last night. Seemed a lifetime ago now.
‘Paul, you’re driving me mad,’ she had said. Whispering at almost normal pitch above the noise of what could have been an extractor fan. Her voice sounding tinny, as though she were in a tiled space like the bathroom. ‘Just spit it out. What the hell have you done?’
He had sighed. ‘I’m struggling. I’ve been…you know? And I took these…’
‘What? What did you take, you silly bastard?’
‘Too many codeine.’
There had been a silence that he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to breach.
‘You telling me you OD’d?’
He had nodded, though she couldn’t see him, sitting as he was on the end of his bed in his pants and his frayed work shirt. Head in his left hand, staring dolefully at his bare feet.
‘You okay? Paul? Speak to me!’
‘They pumped my stomach. I’m fine, now,’ he had lied.
In the ensuing silence, he had held the phone close against his heart and let out a silent sob. Glad that nobody was watching. Took a deep breath and returned the phone to his ear. ‘It’s all getting on top of me. I—’
‘For God’s sake, Paul, get some help. Go to Narcotics Anonymous or something. See a doctor. Anything. But acknowledge you’ve got a problem.’
‘Come over.’
‘How can I just drop everything and come running? To Amsterdam! It’s not round the corner. And you’re not the only one with commitments. I’m in the middle of a PhD. I’ve got Ad here, for Christ’s sakes!’
‘Oh?’
It had not been his intention to let that out, and especially not in that piqued tone. An indicator of how he felt about Karelse. Nearly four years on, and his resolve to keep his misgivings about George’s boyfriend to himself had morphed into regular, semi-naked scorn.
‘Stop! Before you start, just bloody stop!’ George had warned him.
So, he had quickly changed the subject and told her about the first dead girl, then the gruesome discovery of the second earlier that evening. An equally troublesome scenario, where a woman’s mutilated body had been found naked, dumped in a public place. And yet, nobody had seen a thing. Not yet. She didn’t have enough face left to make an ID possible. Strietman had bleated on about ritual sex killings yet again. Worse still, Hasselblad agreed.
‘What are the similarities?’ George had asked.
Van den Bergen picked at his toenail and recalled the second victim’s body on the slab. ‘Unzipped from neck to vagina. Disembowelled. Organs removed. Signs of rough sexual intercourse and lacerations on her back commensurate with a whipping. Similar scarring on her breasts that suggest maybe the same guy had given her a breast augmentation as performed the caesarean on the first girl.’
At the other end of the phone, it was easy to detect George’s immediate interest. The silence and quickening of her breath said it all. Two unidentified women. Mutilation. Probable sexually motivated murders. After all these years, van den Bergen knew which buttons to push to get her intellectually fired up. He certainly knew better than that loser, Karelse, who wouldn’t know finesse if it was a silk-clad fist, punching him in the face. That mamma’s-boy had no mastery of the subtle art of manipulation. You needed years of wisdom to really get a feel for that. If he could only get George hooked on the case, perhaps she’d come over. Visit. Stay a while. But her silence continued for a couple of beats beyond what might pass for curiosity.
‘You think you can lure me over there with this?’ George asked.
Not so subtle. How the hell did she know? Maybe he was losing his touch.
‘I’m not trying to lure—’
‘I’m hanging up, Paul. Go see your doctor.’
‘But George, you could work as a profiler. You always said you’d love to do that. We could be a team.’
‘You don’t need me to solve this case! You’re a pro.’
‘It’s the perfect opportunity for both of us. Think about it!’
‘Tell me you’re not going to try any more funky OD bullshit.’
He gave her silence this time. Hated himself for not responding. As manipulation went, he knew this was low.
‘Hanging up. Night.’
The line had gone dead and he was left in the oppressive loneliness of his bedroom, clutching the phone to his cheek, as though the smooth warmth of the casing were her face.
Checking the phone’s display now, in the privacy of the disabled cubicle, he contemplated sending her an apologetic text. Started to type one out with his thumb. Was just about to send it when the door to the top-floor men’s toilet smashed against the wall.
‘Boss!’ It was Elvis. Could see his brothel-creeper shoes under the door.
Van den Bergen closed his eyes. Saw his father, sitting in the chemo chair, hooked up to the drip, reading a well-thumbed thriller. ‘Tell Hasselblad he can bloody well wait.’
‘No, boss. You’ve got to come down quickly. We’ve had a call. Some Polish builder working in the Museum Quarter reckons he’s found a murder scene.’
CHAPTER 15 (#ulink_a72afdba-e499-5f97-8b35-da91e18e7ad8)
Amsterdam, Valeriusstraat building site, later (#ulink_a72afdba-e499-5f97-8b35-da91e18e7ad8)
‘The blade of the scalpel is broken,’ van den Bergen told Elvis. ‘Make a note of it. Get a photo, Marie.’
As Elvis scribbled feverishly in his pad, Marie moved closer on van den Bergen’s right. Pointed the digital camera at the broken surgical instrument, lying on the floor. With a bleep and a flash of light, it was captured, along with the other oddments in this gruesome montage. A woman’s blood-stained thong. A butcher’s cleaver. A hammer. A chisel. A cat-o-nine tails.
Van den Bergen squatted, close to the ground. Eyeing the blood-soaked mattress. He touched it tentatively, feeling that the wadding that lay beneath the surface was still damp.
‘There must be litres of blood on here,’ he said. ‘Someone’s life’s blood.’
‘But no body,’ Elvis said. ‘Could this be where our second victim died?’
Van den Bergen continued studying the mattress in silence. It was one of those heavy, pocket-sprung jobs like his own. Good for a bad back like his. Weighed a tonne. ‘Who the hell would have the strength to get a double mattress to the top floor of one of these old houses on their own?’ he mused. Shook his head and pursed his lips. Slid a codeine from its blister pack in the inside pocket of his coat and deftly swallowed it using only the spittle in his mouth. It lodged in his throat. His heartbeat sped up. He felt his eyes bulge. Last thing he needed was to choke to death at a bloody crime scene. Heartbeat calming slowly, once he had painfully gulped it down. Sixth one this morning and the medication hadn’t even started to take the edge off. Although, he couldn’t remember what the doctor had said about codeine reacting badly with his anti-depressants. What had he said? Racked his brains. Nothing.
‘Maybe the mattress was here already,’ Elvis suggested.
Van den Bergen shook his head. ‘No way. Didn’t you notice imprints in the dust all the way up the stairs? More than just footprints from the builders. I put my money on drag marks. Dust from downstairs on the sides of the mattress. See?’ He used his pen to point out a film of white that had become ingrained in the jacquard fabric of an otherwise filthy, greying mattress. ‘This has been brought in from elsewhere, so maybe we’re looking for two men. A team.’ He turned to Kees. ‘Right. We need to dust for fingerprints. Get on it!’ He turned to Marie. ‘And get forensics to go through the whole place with a fine tooth comb. What’s the ETA on Strietman?’
‘Any minute now,’ Marie said.
‘Good.’ He gestured towards the video tripod standing tantalisingly at the foot of the mattress. The camera that sat atop it was pointed right where any action would have taken place. ‘Can we get the camera running? See what’s on it, if anything.’
‘It’s got to be a recording of the murder,’ Elvis said, excitement visible in the high colour that crawled up his neck and into his cheeks.
Van den Bergen stood, hip cracking. Thoughtful. ‘Hmn.’ He strode to the window and peered down at the builders, all leaning against the side of their transit van, smoking. Pale-faced. The guy who had made the discovery… ‘What’s the name of the builder who was first on the scene?’ he asked Marie.
‘Iwan Buczkowski, boss.’
‘That’s right.’ …Iwan Bucz-whateverhisbloodynamewas had thrown his breakfast up all over the floorboards, contaminating the room; not just with his own DNA, but also with the acrid stench of stale alcohol and rancid stomach acid. Van den Bergen hated a contaminated crime scene. He remembered cleaning his father’s bathroom, after the chemo had made the old man sick. He hated vomit.
‘You’re growling, boss,’ Elvis said. ‘You told me to tell you when you did that.’
Van den Bergen swung around to face the younger detective. ‘What do you see of this building from the street?’ he asked.
Elvis frowned. Fingered the dyed-black hair that he had artfully sculpted into a quiff, earning him his moniker, together with the oversized red-brown sideburns. ‘It’s a building site. Empty house, right? Exactly the sort of place you could commit a murder and be left undisturbed.’
‘Not really,’ Marie interjected. Examining the camera carefully with latex-gloved hands. Blushing. ‘Valeriusstraat is quite a busy road.’
‘Correct,’ van den Bergen said, narrowing his eyes as he peered into the attic room opposite. ‘Houses either side with multiple occupancy.’ He strode to the wall and knocked on the brick. ‘Party wall.’ Turned to Elvis. ‘Get statements from the neighbours. If someone heard screaming or shouting on the other side of this wall, I want to know about it. There must have been some commotion.’
‘Unless the victim was gagged,’ Kees said, dusting the chisel on the floor with grey powder, using a fine bristled brush.
Thinking about the two disembowelled women, van den Bergen reflected on the fact that Strietman had found hallucinogenics in their bloodstream. ‘Or drugged. Most importantly, though, there are signs on the safety fencing marking this place out as a building site. Men coming in here every day to work. These Polish guys are renowned for their work ethic. They start early. They leave late. Whoever left all this shit lying around was either stupid or had intended for it to be discovered.’
‘No body, though,’ Marie said. ‘Just a blood-soaked mattress and what appear to be murder weapons. How could you get a butchered corpse out without being seen?’
Van den Bergen shrugged. ‘If you can get a mattress into a building site unseen, you can get a body out, too. Our perp—’
‘Or perps, plural,’ Kees said.
‘Or perps, if there are two involved, are stealthy and strong. Let’s see if another body shows up in the next couple of days. Or maybe this mess will be linked to our second Jane Doe, as Elvis has so astutely suggested.’
Kees lifted a print off the chisel, using a strip of clear tape. Held it up to the light. Smiled triumphantly. ‘Got one! It’s a beauty, too. Clear as a bell.’
Below, the sharp honk of a horn alerted van den Bergen to the forensics van. It pulled in between the builders’ vehicle and his own Mercedes. More honking, warning the group of rubber-necking neighbours and passersby to move it.
The scientists started to clamber out. For a fleeting moment, van den Bergen was hopeful that Marianne de Koninck would be leading them. How long could norovirus last after all? Surely she was back on the job.
His hope soon dissipated when he spotted Strietman’s head from above. Noticed with some satisfaction that, despite his relative youth, the pathologist’s hair was starting to thin. A circle of pink scalp, the size of a one cent coin, had already punctured the thicket of blond, short curls. Van den Bergen ran his hand through his own hair and grunted with approval. One thing he had inherited off the old man that he could be thankful for, at least. Even if his hair had turned snow white by his late thirties, he had plenty of it.
As the forensics team donned their protective jumpsuits over their own clothes on the pavement below, van den Bergen walked away from the window in disgust. Sighed heavily.
‘Bloody Strietman. Again,’ he said.
But before van den Bergen could go into disgruntled overdrive, Marie looked up. Her eyes seemed to glitter. Her florid face was even more flushed than usual.
‘You’re not going to believe what’s been caught on this camera, boss,’ she said, breathless, wearing a crooked smile that was somewhere half way between bemusement and horror.
CHAPTER 16 (#ulink_96bcd907-d2b4-5ec2-8361-1560cb67b868)
Stansted Express, East London, later (#ulink_96bcd907-d2b4-5ec2-8361-1560cb67b868)
George gave a half-hearted smile for the camera. One of Ad’s arms territorially around her shoulder, one extended. His face pressed up against hers. She could feel his stubble burn against her cheek. He smelled of Aunty Sharon’s soap. Ad clicked the button on his phone, capturing the two of them in a selfie on the Stansted Express. Made to kiss her but she had already shuffled squarely into her seat, leaving more space between them than was strictly acceptable for lovers.
‘What do you think?’ he said, showing her his photographic efforts.
It was a photo that showed only hangdog disappointment in his brown eyes. Boredom in hers. ‘Yeah. Nice.’
‘Something to remember this trip by.’
In her head were layers of competing voices. Good George apologised profusely for what she knew must have been an utterly soul-destroying trip for her boyfriend, the highlight of which had been Aunty Sharon’s rum-laced fruitcake. Bad George just wanted to tell him to sod off. Sod off for turning up unannounced. Get lost for thinking she’d drop everything to play happy housewife. Shove it up his arse, if he thought he could demand sex at a time when she was utterly overworked, overwrought and so overexposed to the sex industry that all she had the inclination to do was masturbate furiously while thinking of someone she definitely shouldn’t have been thinking about.
‘You going to come over to see me soon?’ Ad asked, studying his ticket, as though her answer was written there.
‘When I get some money together. Yeah. Course.’ Van den Bergen’s name was on the tip of her tongue, as usual, but she was careful not to mention him. She eyed the table. It was covered in somebody else’s crumbs. Held her breath and counted to ten. There was nothing with which she could wipe the surface. ‘Let’s move to a clean table,’ she said.
‘No need,’ Ad said, taking a tissue out of his pocket and wiping the crumbs into the aisle. He remained silent for several uncomfortable beats, then asked, ‘Who were you speaking to in the middle of the night?’ Pushed his glasses up his nose.
It was inevitable. She didn’t like lying to Ad. Keeping quiet about the clandestine call would have been what Sally called ‘being economical with the truth’, but now he’d expressly asked… ‘Van den Bergen. He’s not well.’
‘I don’t like you putting so much energy into him,’ Ad said, thumping the table. The other passengers looked at the two of them, askance. ‘Sorry.’
George sucked her teeth. Shook her head. ‘You should be, mate. You telling me you never catch up with the Milkmaid when you’re back home? Seriously!’
Ad blushed. Opened his mouth once, twice. ‘Don’t start. That’s not what I meant.’
‘That’s exactly what you meant,’ she retorted. ‘You said the words now. Don’t act like you can just suck them up. Time travels forwards in the universe, Adrianus. Not back. Face it, you’re jealous. And what of? A forty-odd-year-old with a painkiller addiction? Van den Bergen’s my friend. I get him. He gets me. That’s all. A friend. My friend. How many times I have to tell you, for Christ’s sake?’
George looked out of the window – anger simmering, but just keeping a lid on it. The train to Stansted airport rattled and swayed through East London. Not George’s familiar turf but not dissimilar. Same disappointing back gardens, full of broken plastic kids’ climbing frames and slides. Washing on the line that had been forgotten. Dog shit lurking in the long grass, no doubt. Bare bulbs glowering out of single-glazed windows. A glimpse of high streets as they chugged through the postcodes, stopping only in Tottenham Hale. Tags spray-painted on the walls by gang members long since grown up or inside; once colourful, now faded and flaking. Cash your gold. Send money worldwide. Southern Fried chicken. Legal services: We speak Urdu, Gujarati and Punjabi – living in grand Victorian buildings that might have once been pubs, by the looks. Women wearing full burka, carrying bulging plastic bags with coriander hanging out the top. Small kids running on ahead in their puffa coats. Chatting shit like they hadn’t a care in the world on this dismal, pissy weekday in January.
George noticed it all in a bid to avoid looking at Ad. Every time he clasped her hand, she found a reason to let go. Scratching her nose. Fluffing up her curls. Pretending to wipe the window with her sleeve so she had a better view of the grey urban scene that was unfolding on either side of the train. But this really wasn’t the way she wanted his trip to end. In a bid to bridge the yawning chasm that was growing between them, she put her head on his shoulder for the rest of the journey.
The airport, still the most glamorous thing in that drab eastern England locale, was bustling with grey-suited businessmen, wheeling small overnighter suitcases with purpose and very shiny shoes. Kids with backpacks gazed up in awe or perhaps just bewilderment at the branches of the steel structural trees that supported the airy roof canopy. It was an airport George liked and loathed in equal measure. Happy when she was setting off for Amsterdam. Bereft, as she returned, leaving love far behind on the other side of the North Sea.
Beneath the ‘Departures’ sign that marked where the soulless lounge ended and where the inner sanctum of passport control began – with the promise of duty free Toblerone and a view of the planes beyond – Ad kissed George until his glasses steamed up. A passionate kiss that she couldn’t quite return with the same level of enthusiasm, though she tried.
‘I love you, you know that, don’t you?’ he said.
She nodded. Felt like a shit of the highest order. ‘I love you too. I really do.’ She said the words. They sounded correct. Looked into those eyes that had once all but electrified her.
‘You have to come. Seeing you every now and then, like this…’ He clutched her hands and kissed her knuckles tenderly. She stroked the stump where his index finger had once been. ‘It’s not enough. It’s tearing us apart. You’re here. I’m there.’
George blinked back a tear, though she wasn’t sure why it had appeared. Couldn’t articulate the grief she felt. ‘Ad, I’m in the middle of a bloody PhD. My research project… It’s groundbreaking. It’s going to make my name. I’ve got a job, however mundane. This is serious, man. This is my career. I can’t just drop it and come running.’
She rubbed an imaginary speck of dirt on his cheek. That beautiful pale olive skin. She had been so hot for it once. Ran her hand gently over his soft, shorn dark hair. He looked deflated. Defeated. But then, suddenly brighter.
‘Ask for study leave. Go on. I bet you can do it.’
‘Think I haven’t already asked Sally a million times? Think I wouldn’t be in Amsterdam if I could swing it? Six months here. Six months there.’ She shook her head.
Ad grabbed her chin. Lifted her face so that she had no option but to meet his gaze. ‘Ask again. For us.’
She looked up at the departures board. ‘Your gate’s been up for ages. Go on! Else you’ll miss your flight. Aunty Sharon said you’re costing her a fortune in cake and Sky subscription as it is. Go!’ A smile was easy, now he was hoisting his rucksack on his shoulders. Guilt weighed heavily on hers.
He walked towards security. Took one last look at her over his shoulder.
‘Ask. For us,’ he repeated.
‘I’ll ask for us,’ she said. And for van den Bergen, she thought.
CHAPTER 17 (#ulink_65c81af1-f387-5440-b2a9-283f5e4bd8da)
Amsterdam, Valeriusstraat building site, later (#ulink_65c81af1-f387-5440-b2a9-283f5e4bd8da)
‘Run it again,’ van den Bergen said, as Marie clicked the stop button on the camera.
‘I don’t think I can bear to keep watching this,’ Elvis said, leaning forward between the driver’s and passenger seats.
‘Wimp,’ Marie said, digitally spooling back to the beginning, forcing the others to watch the brutal scenes backwards and at four times the speed of live action on the camera’s tiny preview screen.
Van den Bergen peered over his shoulder at Kees. ‘Don’t you throw up in here. Do you hear me?’ The young detective’s face looked like putty. He had wedged himself right into the corner on the rear passenger side, as though the supportive structure of the vehicle would provide him with an emotional bolster. ‘You’re a policeman, for God’s sake. If you can’t control yourself, get out.’
‘Need…air. Sorry.’ Kees opened the door to the Mercedes and stepped onto the pavement. Icy air whipped into the cabin.
‘Close the bloody door!’ van den Bergen yelled. With a hefty thunk, just the three of them remained. ‘Useless turd.’
He felt suddenly claustrophobic. Though the smell of the leather seats and the wool carpet of the slip-mats was still pleasantly strong – the E class, a perk of being a chief inspector with impractically long legs, was only two months old – it was not strong enough to mask Marie’s stale sweat and Elvis’ appalling cologne. He would have to valet the interior at the weekend or else go to the allotment and bring the honest scent of earth and pine back home with him. He remembered his father, sitting in a deck chair in the allotment, enjoying the morning glories and the summer sunshine. He had been near the end. The old man’s clothes swam around his skeletal frame. Not now! Not now!
Marshalling his thoughts, van den Bergen turned to Marie. ‘Go on. Play it.’
There was the blonde woman. She was dressed in a PVC catsuit, which clung to her body like a shining, black second skin. Slim and honed like a gymnast but for disproportionately large, orb-like breasts that sat high on her chest. Hair tied severely into a high ponytail. Smiling at the camera with lascivious, crimson-lipped promise. Smoky made-up eyes with black false lashes. She was probably a high-cheekboned natural beauty underneath all the paint. Clutching at a cat-o-nine tails. Swish, swish. Whipping it provocatively between her own legs. The picture was of a high quality, though there was no sound. The setting was a large bedroom that could have been anywhere, its focal point, a brass bedstead framing a mattress that had been wrapped in a red satin sheet. There were no windows to gauge the age of the building in which this took place. The bare walls were painted black. And there was no other star of this movie. Only the blonde woman.
It began with auto-erotic scenes, where the woman played mischievously to the camera. Slowly peeling away the PVC. But with a series of obvious edits, the action degenerated quickly into something that was more akin to a horror film. The woman was on her back. Naked, spread-eagled and strung by her wrists and ankles between the posts of the iron bedstead. Subject to all manner of sadistic acts – all perpetrated by someone just off screen, using the sort of implements one would find in a builder’s toolbox – and culminating in dismemberment with a hedge trimmer, which, despite having seen the film four times already, still made Elvis squeak and squeeze his eyes shut.
Marie turned the camera off. Placed it on the dash. Exhaled heavily. Hooked her red hair behind her ear and started to finger a scab on her cheek.
‘What do you think, Marie?’ van den Bergen asked, turning to his almost perfectly composed passenger. ‘You’re my internet-nasty expert. Looks very much like a recording of a murder. Snuff porn, maybe? Could the mattress in the footage be the one upstairs in this house, minus the sheet?’
‘Whatever it is, it’s disgusting,’ Elvis said, pulling a box of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. ‘Just…just…horrible.’
‘Not in here!’ van den Bergen said, eyeing the cigarettes venomously. ‘Let Marie speak.’
Marie blushed. Tugged at the turtle neck of her green jumper. ‘Well, it’s certainly not a recording of either of the Jane Doe murders we’re looking at. Both of those women were at least left their limbs.’
Van den Bergen scrutinised Marie. How the hell did this girl even sleep at night? She had never once taken up the force’s offer of counselling, to help her do the job she did. He sighed. It was a damned crummy profession they were in. Briefly, he felt a pang of nostalgia for his time as a fine art student. Ancient history, now.
‘I need to see this on my big monitor, boss,’ Marie said. She bit her bottom lip; looked through the windscreen at the builders, who were now talking to Kees. ‘It’s certainly not continuous footage and if it is snuff…’ she inclined her head in the direction of the building site ‘…it definitely hasn’t been recorded in that attic with a camera just stuck on top of a tripod. There are close-ups, for a start. From different angles. Someone was walking around the room while they were filming. Maybe there was a second camera man.’
Elvis leaned forward again, blasting van den Bergen with a whiff of peppermint. He chewed gum noisily. Clack, clack, clack. ‘What’s the bet another body turns up in the next couple of days? I think Hasselblad’s right. We’ve got a serial killer on our hands.’
Van den Bergen grimaced. ‘You sound like a Friesian cow chewing hay, do you know that?’ But though Elvis irritated him, his focus did not waver from Iwan Buczkowski. Speaking on his phone. Leaning with one arm above his head against the van. ‘Somebody was behind the lens. Some depraved bastard wielded those tools and that hedge trimmer. The print Kees lifted belongs to someone.’
Just then, Kees walked around the bonnet of the car and rapped on the glass, driver’s side, with the edge of his notebook.
At the push of a button, the window slid down with a satisfying whir. ‘You knock on my car like that again, and I’ll knock you all the way down to traffic detail,’ van den Bergen said. ‘What do you want?’
Kees leaned in. His putty-pallor was gone now, and had been replaced by flame-cheeked enthusiasm – almost palpably buzzing. ‘Been quizzing those builders a bit more. Getting chatty, like.’
‘And?’
‘I’ve got a hunch, boss, and you’re gonna wanna hear it.’
CHAPTER 18 (#ulink_329cd21e-5ce1-5565-bb46-3240a178134a)
Cambridge, St John’s College, later (#ulink_329cd21e-5ce1-5565-bb46-3240a178134a)
‘Let me go,’ George pleaded, folding the wrapping paper from the jaunty poinsettia plant she had brought her supervisor into tight, ever-shrinking squares.
‘Absolutely not,’ Sally replied. She carried the gift gingerly, as though it were radioactive material, and plonked it into a ceramic plant pot holder at the side of her computer. Murmured something inaudible that had a sour tone to it. Turned to George, hooking her battleship-grey, bobbed hair behind her ear. ‘And don’t think you can bribe me so easily! I see through your pot-plant charms, young lady.’ Her pointing index finger was nicotine stained, but her fingernails were the same bright red as the plants’ leaves. She sat imperiously in her typing chair. Queen on her academic’s throne. The large, oak desk wedged a physical barrier between them, leaving George feeling like she had been abruptly banished from court.
George blushed. Bit back her irritation. Crossed and uncrossed her legs. ‘Come on, Sally! It’s a bona fide request. An Overseas Institutional Visit. You had no problems with me doing the internship in Westminster. You’ve never taken issue with me divvying my time between here and—’
‘That’s entirely different. It’s London. The two things are not comparable. Especially not in your bloody situation.’
George quietly mused that it was a good job Sally didn’t know about her gig as a cleaner in a Soho strip club. The shifty Italian chaperone for those young pole dancers whom Derek had been clucking around had only asked her for a double whisky and a private lap dance. But he had got pretty nasty when she had turned him down. No, her brush with a man who was clearly something far more sinister than just an ageing wide-boy was exactly the sort of thing Sally didn’t need to hear.
Sticking her finger defiantly through the rip in her jeans, George searched all the admissible arguments filed away in her brain as to why Sally should sanction overseas travel. She downloaded the sure-fire winners. ‘I study the effects of pornography on violent offenders, for Christ’s sake! I’d be a visiting scholar in a city that’s one of the biggest players in Europe’s porn industry. Amsterdam, man! My funding body would agree immediately.’
‘No, I said. And don’t “man” me!’
‘But think how cool it would be, if I could just hop on the overnighter to Prague to do some qualitative research there as well. Porn was totally banned in the Czech Republic under Soviet rule. Now they’re going mental with themselves. Imagine how revealing that would be about the effects of pornography on sex crimes. A breakthrough study with your department’s name on it!’ George was willing Sally to relent. For Ad’s sake. For van den Bergen’s sake.
‘Nice try, you persistent little bugger! The phenomenon has already been studied, as you well know. Diamond, Jozifkova and Weiss. I know you’ve done your homework, so don’t pretend to be a fool and don’t try to take me for one, either.’
George threw her hands up in the air. Stood and walked over to the mullioned window that looked onto the frosty courtyard below. Her breath steamed on the air. ‘Jeeesus! I’m a boring PhD student doing dry academic research. What the hell could happen to—’
Behind her, Dr Sally Wright slammed her hand down on the desk top. ‘I will not authorise it. Do you hear me? Because I cannot authorise it. You’ve been told to stay put. After last time. Your track record for staying out of trouble is not exactly unimpeachable, is it, Ms McKenzie?’ She looked over the top of her winged glasses, fixing George with a gaze so unyielding that she felt silenced like a rebuked child. ‘That is my final word on the matter.’
George folded her arms, flung herself back onto the chaise longue and dug her short nails deeply into the plush velvet covering. Stared into the glowing embers of the fire that heated only two feet directly in front of it, leaving the rest of that cavernous old room feeling like a morgue. ‘But if anyone can swing it, you can.’ She kept her voice small. Flattery was the only weapon left in her arsenal, though she knew it would not work.
Sally lit a cigarette and coughed wheezily. Her throaty, rasping voice was punctuated by bouts of choking. ‘I know I could swing it. Theoretically. Not for nothing am I the senior tutor of St John’s College, Cambridge. I got MI5 to agree to you visiting for weekends, didn’t I? Study leave for half a year is, however, an entirely different kettle of fish.’ She started to type on her keyboard, cigarette hanging out the corner of her pruned mouth as she spoke. Studied indifference, George knew. Then, pausing dramatically, her eyes sought out her protégée once more. ‘But I do not wish to swing it. Capisce?’ Sally inhaled deeply. The hacking cough started up anew. She thumped herself in the chest. ‘Because the last time you went gallivanting off to Amsterdam for the year, you nearly wound up dead and could have taken half of Trinity Street with you. Stay put, young lady! My rules. Good reasons.’
George took the sucker punch.
Dragging herself over the hump of the narrow stone corridor that was the Bridge of Sighs, traversing the sluggish, inky, almost frozen River Cam and negotiating the frost-dusted backs, she acknowledged that she had lost this bout with Sally. Trudging up towards the monolithic brick phallus that was the University Library tower, George resolved that she would come back fighting in round two. I will not go down and stay down. Got to get the hell out of this beautiful prison.Got to help Paul.
‘Stop torturing yourself, you donkey,’ she said under her breath, as she cleared the library’s security and climbed the stairs to the silent, gloomy stacks, where under the timed lights, she would find what she was looking for.
CHAPTER 19 (#ulink_622533ca-1971-50d8-8b47-9e6a964bbd37)
Amsterdam, police headquarters, later (#ulink_622533ca-1971-50d8-8b47-9e6a964bbd37)
‘No. Sorry. Didn’t see a thing.’
One by one, the doors had all slammed in van den Bergen’s face. Same lines, almost verbatim, from neighbours who differed in age, gender and ethnicity but who all had that upper-middle-class Museum Quarter/Old South thing in common. Nobody seemed to be neighbourly. Everyone kept themselves to themselves. Unfortunately, the woman, whose Koninginneweg house faced onto the back of the building site, was away on business, according the cleaner.
Van den Bergen slammed his pad onto the meeting room desk. ‘What have we got?’ he asked Elvis, Marie and Kees.
‘Nada,’ Elvis said. ‘Absolutely zilch. Not a single eyeball on our man. Nobody heard the back door being forced. I mean, Christ! Nobody saw someone dragging a double mattress over a fence. I can’t even see how it’s possible to get a mattress from the street into the back of that house. Our guy must be a damned magician.’
‘Unless I was wrong, and the mattress was already in situ,’ van den Bergen said.
Kees shuffled out of his bright red anorak and draped it over his chair. Ruffled his mousy, thinning mop. Rolled his white shirt sleeves above his brown jumper, as though he were about to reveal something breathtaking. ‘About my hunch…’
Van den Bergen sighed. Rubbed the tiny remnants of scabbing on his knuckles, which had given way to new skin beneath. ‘Go on. Let’s hear it.’
‘I think the builder’s our man.’ Kees smiled triumphantly, treating the team to an eyeful of his jutting tombstone teeth. ‘Well, one of our men. Old Iwan.’
It was all the chief inspector could do to stifle a groan. ‘Do tell us, Mr Leeuwenhoek! Why is, “Old Iwan” our man?’
Kees folded his arms; his smile gone, now. Clearly not the reception he had been expecting. ‘He’s got access to the building,’ he began, counting the facts off on his fingers. ‘He pukes all over the crime scene, meaning his DNA is everywhere anyway. So chances are, if we find his DNA on the mattress, it’s inadmissible in court. The perp uses builders’ tools in the film. His mate’s got a van. And there was something about the guy. I dunno. He’s got one of those tattooed sleeves down his arm. Pentangles and skulls and shit. My detective’s intuition is just screaming that we should look into him.’
‘Bollocks!’ Elvis said, rocking back on his chair. ‘Poor guy was shaking like a leaf. He was genuine.’
‘Kees, you’re such a dick,’ Marie said, shaking her head. ‘We’re looking for someone who can wield a scalpel, not a pickaxe.’
Van den Bergen pushed his chair out from the table. Drummed his pad with his Biro and bounced his right foot on his left knee. ‘No. Kees has got a point. It’s far-fetched, but we do need to check into the Poles’ alibis. That building site is simply not accessible from the back. You’ve got two parallel rows of terraces with no alleyway between. The gardens are all fenced off and overlooked. How did that mattress get in there? One of the builders might be covering for someone. Kees, it’s your hunch. You get on it.’
Van den Bergen caught sight of Marie rolling her eyes, but opted not to challenge her. ‘Marie. Footage?’
She jumped. A flush of red crawling up her neck. ‘I’ve examined it in detail, boss,’ she said, toying with her pearls. ‘It’s not a film of a murder.’
‘What absolute crap!’ Elvis said.
Holding up his hand, van den Bergen silenced his scoffing sidekick. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s a porno flick,’ Marie said. ‘Shot on a quality camera. Professionally edited. Only thing that’s missing is the bum-chicka-wow-wow soundtrack. All that gore you can see…’ She smiled wryly and sipped from her plastic cup of coffee, as though she were savouring the undivided attention of the men. ‘It’s special effects. The footage on the camera’s memory disc is basically a kinky slasher movie.’
‘You certain?’ van den Bergen asked, recalling the horrific scenes that had appeared so convincing.
‘Yep,’ Marie said. ‘If anyone knows the difference between genuine snuff and horror CGI, it’s me. I love horror films.’
Though it was done surreptitiously, van den Bergen noticed Kees nudge Elvis.
‘The blonde’s an actress,’ Marie clarified. ‘She’s probably walking round the supermarket right now, doing her shopping. Fit and healthy with a fat wad of cash in her back pocket, while old perverts all over Europe are tugging themselves senseless over her on-screen demise.’ She turned to Kees. ‘I saw that! I have got the gift of sight, you know.’
Kees said nothing. Pulled the wide-eyed face of the innocent.
Van den Bergen nodded. Clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth repeatedly, while he absorbed this revelation. ‘Do you know who she is? The actress.’
Marie shrugged. ‘Never seen her before. Never seen porn this violent before that wasn’t actual snuff.’ She handed a small disc to him. ‘I made copies and filed the original with the other evidence.’
Opening his laptop, van den Bergen loaded the film up. Watched with utter absorption as the blonde filled the much larger screen. Paused it, once the actress was spread-eagled and naked on the bed. Pointed to the undersides of her ample breasts with the chewed bottom of his Biro. ‘See that?’
The others leaned in closer, their breath on the back of his head.
‘What?’ Elvis asked.
‘I saw this scarring on the mortuary slab with my own eyes. It’s not like the scarring you normally see from shoddy boob jobs. It’s too distinctive not to be from the same surgeon’s hand. I’d put money on it that this actress is our second Jane Doe.’
CHAPTER 20 (#ulink_58b4427d-03f2-531b-aac2-389cd1a9e9b1)
Amsterdam, 20 January (#ulink_58b4427d-03f2-531b-aac2-389cd1a9e9b1)
‘I’m ill, Paul,’ she said through the half-open letterbox. ‘Just leave me be!’
Van den Bergen took a step backwards on the landing and examined Marianne de Koninck’s eyes through the rectangular gap. They were red and puffy.
‘Please open the door. We need to talk.’ He thrust the tulips closer to the door, so that she could inspect his gift. As though this were some kind of entry code to her apartment.
The flap of the head pathologist’s letterbox clattered shut. He heard her sigh behind the door. A chain being removed and a bolt being drawn back. The door opened about six inches. He could see she was wearing a fleecy all-in-one with a dressing gown on top. Furry slippers on her feet. He had imagined she would wear elegant lace-trimmed silk to bed. Perhaps that was wishful thinking.
‘I’m contagious,’ she said. Her short hair was dishevelled. Split on one side, as though she had slept in the same position for several days without washing it.
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ van den Bergen said, pressing the tulips into her hands and stepping inside.
At the breakfast bar of her expansive kitchen island, he warmed his hands on a cup of espresso that she had fixed him using a shining steel coffee machine. It was a sleek place, all right. Aubergine gloss cupboard fronts; the worktops, some sort of glittering man-made composite. He ran his fingertips along the edge, as though a grand piano’s keys were embedded into it. A dining area with Perspex table and chairs to seat eight flowed into the adjacent austere and fashionable living area. This was the sort of pad a man like him should own. Uncluttered. Full of gadgetry. Somewhere to entertain. But then, van den Bergen liked his vintage thrift-market tat and bookshelves full of old vinyl. And, he realised, that not only was Marianne full of surprises, but she didn’t have to pay maintenance to an ex. What he had noticed on entry, however, was that only women’s shoes sat in a rack on the polished parquet.
‘Nice place,’ he said.
‘Cake?’
She offered him a slice of apple cake that had been all but eaten. There was an empty plate on the kitchen island, bearing telltale crumbs. A used fork next to it. Comfort eating, van den Bergen assessed.
‘Where’s your boyfriend?’ The dimpling in Marianne’s chin told him everything he needed to know. ‘You and Jasper split up? That what all this is about?’
The pathologist nodded and sighed, wiping away the threat of a tear. ‘Bastard upped and left me for some nurse his own age.’
Making sure he did not betray the satisfaction that lurked just beneath the surface of his empathic expression, he patted her hand. Moved around the island and enveloped her in a stiff hug, which he immediately regretted. All those years, he had wondered if their professional rapport would translate to a physical one. It didn’t. There was no chemistry between them, whatsoever. And it was clear from the backwards step that she took that she thought so too.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said, retreating to his bar stool. Baffled that disappointment did not stir within him.
Marianne looked up to the spotlit ceiling with sorrowful, watery eyes and sniffed. ‘Do yourself a favour, Paul. Never fall for a younger woman. You’ll spend your life wondering how the hell she could fancy you, with your deteriorating eyesight and decaying body. Then one day, she’ll just up and leave for someone firmer. Honestly, they just eat you up and spit you out.’ She started to cry. Angry sobs with tears soaking the collar of her dressing gown. ‘He took my bloody stereo!’ Her words started to break into hiccoughs of sound, as though she were speaking down a phone line with intermittently poor reception. ‘I wouldn’t…mind but…it was m—my…birthday…present…a—and I…gave him the god—goddamned…money to…pay for it.’
Van den Bergen’s coffee had long gone cold before he could turn the subject to the case. ‘Look, Marianne,’ he said, spreading his fingers wide. He related what he knew so far about the murders.
‘So, what has all this got to do with me?’ Marianne asked. Her tone was sour. ‘Aren’t I allowed to take some sick leave? I’ve got a perfectly capable—’
‘I don’t trust Strietman,’ van den Bergen said. ‘Sorry. The guy’s just not you. He comes over like a crap crime noir film, full of theories and gum-shoe fucking interpretations.’
Marianne rubbed her face and groaned. ‘Daan Strietman is highly qualified, Paul. Yes, he loves his job—’
‘I don’t need Dick bloody Tracy or…’ He struggled to think of an illustration that would suit his purposes, but in truth, he hadn’t seen more than a handful of films since Tamara was at that age where the cinema had seemed a suitable activity for a father who saw his daughter every second weekend. ‘…I don’t know. Just Dick bloody Tracy. I need a pathologist who gives me straight facts.’ He withdrew a sheaf of paper from the inside pocket of his raincoat. It made a hefty thwack as he slammed it down emphatically on the worktop. Pulled his reading glasses up from their resting place on his stomach, at the end of their chain, and pushed them up his nose. Started to read the reports from the autopsy, giving extra emphasis to the hyperbole and melodrama with which Strietman had studded his otherwise dry medical observations.
‘Give me those sodding print-outs, you annoying old bugger!’ Marianne leaned over the island and snatched the sheaf up. The suggestion of a half-smile playing on her lips. Eyes darting from side to side as she skimmed the pages.
‘Intrigued?’ van den Bergen asked, staring at her from over the top of his half-moon glasses. ‘We should get the forensics back from the building site any time now. I’d prefer it was you who delivered the results to me.’
‘Look, I’ll come in tomorrow. We’ll see what we see.’
CHAPTER 21 (#ulink_688488cc-035c-5bac-9bbc-fa3ceac004f2)
Cambridge, Mill Road, later (#ulink_688488cc-035c-5bac-9bbc-fa3ceac004f2)
George saw nothing but a green and grey blur as she rattled across Parker’s Piece. Teeth juddering. Eyes streaming. Cycling on her rusting sit-up-and-beg diagonally across, from the University Arms towards Mill Road with aching legs that were out of practice. Every time she hit a bump in the giant criss-cross of tarmac that cut through the huge green square, her Sainsbury’s bags, full of tins that she vowed she would cook with, as Ad had shown her, bashed painfully against her shins.
‘Fucking man!’ she complained aloud, garnering a bewildered look from the pimple-faced boy (a fresher, by the looks) who approached from the opposite direction, only feet away from her now. ‘Not you, tit!’
The boy continued on his way, leaving George to ruminate over what a liability van den Bergen was, and how Ad was not much better. She had been back in Cambridge less than twenty-four hours. It had been her intention to do a little quiet reading, although she had admittedly gone off piste by selecting a criminology book that dealt with trafficked women, working as slaves in Britain’s sex industry. But she did, at least, have noble intentions of typing up her notes from her interviews with Silas Holm and Dermot Robinson. Van den Bergen had ruined all that with the email.
From: Paul van den Bergen06.27
To: George_McKenzie@hotmail.com (mailto:George_McKenzie@hotmail.com)
Subject: Victim ID
I’m attaching a video we pulled from a camera found in a crime scene. Marie says it is horror porno, but nobody can ID the film or the actress. You might know. Let me know a.s.a.p. if you’ve got ideas.
Come back to Amsterdam. It’s almost time to pot up the dahlias.
Paul.
PS: There’s something else I need to tell you.
She had deliberately not switched on her phone until she was in the supermarket and it had gone nine. Ad-avoidance. Ad had already left four messages, sent six texts and attempted a further three calls – all missed. Wanting to discuss the trip and her behaviour. Insisting he had to tell her what was on his mind and how they could sort things out and how he really didn’t speak to Astrid any more, despite George’s misgivings, and how he could come to terms with her hygiene obsession and that van den Bergen was absolutely not the only one who understood psychological problems. Being assailed by a defensive Ad was bad enough. But here, van den Bergen had sent her a video she did not have the credit to download. Her phone’s monthly contract was almost at its limit. Plus, it had been accompanied by a message that was both tantalising and tugged at her already compromised heart. What did he need to tell her, exactly?
‘Incorrigible arsehole!’ she said, as she cycled the length of Mill Road.
It felt like a five-mile hike. She would have liked a cigarette at the end of it with the fresh, ground coffee she had just bought. But she had sworn to both Ad and van den Bergen that she would stick with the e-cigarettes. They weren’t the same.
She turned into Devonshire Road. Opened the door to the terraced house she shared with another PhD called Lucy. Lucy was a tall, long-limbed rich girl who spent most of the time at her undergrad boyfriend’s place, four or five miles away, up in Girton College. Given the frequency with which George shuttled back and forth from London and Amsterdam, she and Lucy had met only a handful of times in a term. Probably just as well, since Lucy was a slovenly little shit, who didn’t know one end of a toilet cleaner bottle from another. Lucy had left a scum ring around the bath on three occasions, early on in the tenancy, rendering George apoplectic with rage. But Lucy had left a mess in the toilet only once. George smiled at the memory of threatening leggy, entitled Lucy with a beating, using the toilet brush as a weapon. No. Lucy didn’t come home very often, now. Though a note on the kitchen table said she planned to return tomorrow evening, and could George please leave the heating and hot water on? No. Fuck her. George didn’t have the money to subsidise Lucy’s preferred twenty-six degrees of tropical in winter. It wasn’t the Costa del Salcombe. She could put another sodding ten-ply cashmere jumper on.
Coffee on, and George picked up van den Bergen’s email on her laptop. Watched the video nasty, whilst chugging on her e-cigarette. Peered through her fingers as she reached the climax.
‘Jesus, man. That’s some fucked-up shit, right there,’ she told the screen.
The film was high resolution. Perhaps owing to the fact that the close-ups were all of body parts and implements, rather than focussing on her face, and that the lighting was sharply directional, George found she was struggling to place the actress. Certainly, despite having notched up some serious hours watching hardcore violent pornography until revulsion and outrage had turned to numb indifference, she did not even recognise the tasteless niche genre.
She captured the woman in a freeze-frame. Leaned in close. There was something about the woman’s eyes that seemed startlingly familiar, though she could not articulate why.
‘She looks like Katja with a wig on,’ she said aloud, swigging coffee from her special Amsterdam mug. ‘Is it Katja?’ Scroll back. Freeze. Scroll forward. Freeze. The woman flickered in slo-mo through her erotic cabaret. ‘Fucking looks like her, as well.’
How long ago had her erstwhile neighbour, Katja, gone into porn flicks – boosted from prostitution, where she had rented a humble room above the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, directly beneath George’s attic bedsit, to the small screen? A step up the erotic career ladder, because giving a blow job to that prick the Firestarter had catapulted her from being a fifty-euro-a-trick nobody to being a sex-industry celebrity.
Sweat beaded instantaneously on George’s forehead. She pulled out her phone and dialled Katja.
Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. No answer. Then…
‘George, darling!’ Her voice was sluggish, as though George had woken her.
‘You alive?’ George asked, breathing deeply to slow her heartbeat.
‘Yes. Last time I looked, honey.’
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