The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows

by Riches, Marnie

  George could guess why. But that wasn’t the issue. Money was.

  Dropping her empty plate into the sink with a clatter, she regarded Letitia the Dragon, who was smoking at the table, flicking her ash onto token-gesture leftovers, clearly unperturbed by her sister’s admonishing looks. George thought about the handbag that never left her mother’s side, even when she went to the bathroom. There was only one reason to guard a handbag that jealously.

  ‘I heard Leroy left you because you had a big win on bingo,’ George said.

  Her mother looked up, breathing smoke all over Patrice’s head. ‘I don’t know what the fuck half-arsed idea you got into your head, girl. I’m skint. I told Shaz. I ain’t got a single penny. He sold the fucking house from under me, that stone-cold wanker.’

  ‘You had a gambling problem, he told me,’ George said. ‘You cleaned him out. Then you hit the jackpot at Mecca Bingo and wouldn’t share it.’

  ‘I got sickle cell anaemic and pulmonaries.’ She thumped her chest, barely able to make a fist with those fat fingers and those nails. ‘That Leroy couldn’t cope with my illness. He didn’t care enough, cos he’s a selfish bastard. Like all men.’ She turned to Patrice, who was blithely licking the fingers of one hand and thumbing a text into his phone with the other. She sucked her teeth.

  ‘My son ain’t all men!’ Aunty Sharon said. ‘Don’t you be judging my Patrice.’ She slapped the phone from Patrice’s hand. ‘Manners at the table, bwoy!’

  ‘Ow!’ Patrice grimaced at the womenfolk around him, fingering the smattering of fluff above his top lip. George watched his Adam’s apple ping up and down inside his stringy neck. All arms and legs at that age. He stood, abruptly, scraping his chair on the highly polished lino. ‘I don’t need this crap. I’d sooner do homework than sit and listen to her.’ Flicked a thumb in Letitia’s direction.

  Aunty Sharon jumped out of her seat. Standing on her tiptoes, she clipped the back of her son’s head with a swollen hand. ‘Hey! Show some respect for your elder, you little rarseclart.’

  A knock on the back door. Insistent, meaning business. Glancing at the clock, George knew who it was calling time on this family drama, credits rolling on her deliberations.

  ‘Who the hell is this? I ain’t expecting no one,’ Aunty Sharon said, yanking open the kitchen drawer and pulling out a wooden rolling pin.

  George unlocked the door and ushered the shivering figure inside, relieved to see she was clutching a supermarket bag containing a rectangular object.

  ‘You’ve got some front coming here again,’ George said, pushing the women into the living room. ‘You’re testing my patience.’

  The woman removed her hood. Matted hair clung to her scalp. ‘I’m sorry. I had no option.’ Her eyes darted nervously this way and that. She bit her lip, and seemed genuinely remorseful, though that changed nothing.

  In the doorway, Aunty Sharon hovered, rolling pin at the ready.

  ‘Give us a minute, will you?’ George said.

  Alone now, she tried to snatch the bag from the woman’s filthy hands. Brittle, frost-bitten twigs, protruding from dirt-caked fingerless gloves.

  ‘Not so fast,’ the woman said, clutching the booty close. ‘Where’s the money?’

  Poking, accusatory finger. ‘If you ever do this again, I’m going to blow the whistle on you,’ George said, her voice shaking with a mixture of fear and venom.

  ‘Money.’

  Prickling around her lips. She stared longingly at the plastic bag that contained everything she had worked for for so long. If she screwed this up she was finished. She was unsure how to make this problem go away.

  It was a gamble.

  She visualised Letitia’s handbag. Bingo winnings. What if she was wrong and Letitia really was potless? No time for procrastination though.

  Marching into the kitchen, she spied the handbag by her mother’s feet. She snatched it up and ran into the living room. Letitia was out of the blocks like an overweight sprinter.

  ‘Give me my fucking bag back, you thief.’

  George swung the open bag high in the air out of reach. Lipstick, compact, mirror, Tampax, keys all clattering out onto the floor. Then her finger tested the zippy pocket. Notes fluttered down to the ground. Munificence from Mecca.

  ‘Bingo!’ said George.

  ‘Do you want to show me what the men did, Imran? Use the dolls.’ the child protection officer said. A kindly woman with a soft voice in non-threatening surroundings. The room was brightly lit, though it was late in the evening. Comfortable, colourful furniture. Toys. These things had to be sensitively handled.

  Van den Bergen watched from the other side of the one-way mirror, dreading the outcome of the ghoulish session. Two nights in temporary accommodation under the supervision of experienced staff had flagged up emotional and physical problems with the two boys that seemingly extended far beyond what was normally seen in a drug-dealer’s underage foot soldiers. Now the older Imran used tragic puppetry to tell a shocking tale.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said to Elvis, thumbing his eyebrows, wishing George was there. ‘Why do we do this job again?’

  ‘Never gets any easier, does it, boss?’ Elvis ran a shaking hand through his hair. Quiff all but crushed by the hat. ‘Poor little bastard. What do you think his story is?’

  Looking down at his phone, Van den Bergen saw that he had an email pending from George. He wanted desperately to speak to her, but she would have to wait until later. Though she, of all people, would understand the plight of these children. ‘I would think they’ve been trafficked over here from some far-flung shithole, and now they’re being rented out to every perv in Bijlmer and beyond.’ With long fingers, he felt the length of his scarring. He stopped at the abdomen when he realised Elvis was frowning at him. ‘It hurts in the cold. Alright?’ He tutted loudly. ‘I’m glad Hasselblad turned the woman down for asylum. She’s these boys’ chaperone. No doubt in my mind. The way she claimed them as her sons. Full of shit. She said she was going to give us names of powerful men. Did she?’

  ‘No, boss.’

  ‘Did she fuck. George says traffickers often use women. Better people skills. Less likely to attract unwanted attention if they’re ferrying kids or girls to and from customers’ houses.’ He checked his watch. It was late. His stomach growled, but food could wait too.

  Relenting, he punched out a text to George.

  New development. Bijlmer man ran a paedophile ring. Trafficked boys of 8 & 6. NOW will you come? P.

  Five minutes later, he received a reply.

  Booking my flight, you pain in the arse. Make sure you pay me.

  CHAPTER 17

  Amsterdam, police headquarters, 30 May, the previous year

  The flashbulbs were blinding. Each one leeched away a little of his dignity, stripping him of any semblance of poise, exposing the raw, seething anger and grief beneath.

  ‘Mr Deenen! Piet! Who do you think took your children?’

  ‘Gabi! Gabi! Do you blame your husband for your children going missing?’

  Piet squinted at the paparazzi pitch-forked lightening, striking him through and through with its pointed glare. Husband to blame. Lackadaisical dad loses toddlers. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the disappearance of the two things he loved most in all the world – his gifts from god – had left Josh- and Lucy-shaped holes in his heart.

  On his left, the detective in charge of the case cleared his throat. He tapped the microphone. Television cameras rolled, silence engulfing the room as the press watched and waited. The Deenens were on show to the world, exposing their delicate, flawed underbelly. Gabi sat to Piet’s right, pale-faced but immaculately put together. Unmoving. She was staring intently at the policeman as he spoke.

  ‘The Netherlands police has launched a nationwide manhunt for Josh and Lucy. We will stop at nothing to find the Deenen children,’ he said. Grim-faced gravitas. He held the room in thrall. Turning to the cameras he said, ‘If you think you have seen the Deenen children or kn
ow anything of their disappearance, please call the witness hotline.’

  Heartbreaking photos of the children appeared on a screen behind him. There was a portrait of Josh that had been taken at nursery. Tiny pearl teeth framing a beguiling smile. Big blue eyes and short golden curls. His angelic appearance belied the challenging behaviour that drove them all to distraction on a regular basis and kept him and Gabi up at night, arguing, planning on how they might deal with his condition. But boy, was he beautiful. Then, Lucy. Tiny Lucy. Two-year-old perfection with cherubic cheeks and long dark lashes. The same blonde curls as her brother, though wispy because of her infancy. Her father’s dark eyes. Daddy’s girl, through and through. The thought that his perfect babies were gone, that he would never again stroke their brows and tuck them in at night or feel their dribble-kisses soften the hard stubble of his cheek …

  Hubbub in the room. Questions shouted from this media jury.

  Now, his treacherous heart was thudding, thudding, thudding though it was broken, broken, broken. The tinkle of a pen struck against a glass. Ting, ting. Can I have your attention, please? Time for the father to say a few awkward words, though he had never guessed his moment in the spotlight, pronouncing on the fate of his children using cue cards, with all eyes trained on him, would see him clad in a mourning suit.

  ‘I, er …’ Piet spoke into the microphone. He felt tears threaten. How desperately he wanted to maintain his poise, had planned to be a rock for his wife.

  He put his arm around Gabi, hoping the warmth of her body would somehow melt free the words that were frozen in his craw, but felt her stiffen. He turned back to the microphone and the assemblage of journalists, remembering what he had been told by the media person: talk to the camera … appeal directly to the abductor.

  ‘Please give us back our children,’ he began. ‘Please—’

  Wracking sobs shook his body, stemming the flow of coherent words from his mouth. Overwhelmed by a sense of loss and emptiness, crippled by the guilt that he had not kept a watchful eye on his babies, he wished, at that moment, that he could just wake up from this nightmare and find it had all been the ungodly workings of an overburdened brain.

  Gabi’s sharp elbow jabbed his ribs. ‘Pull yourself together, for god’s sake,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘You’re not helping anyone.’

  But all he could see in his mind’s eye were his children playing on that fucking climbing frame. Laughing, squealing with delight, down the slide with their chubby legs in the air, Josh’s big boy nappy making his shorts look overstuffed. Didn’t matter so much when he was in the garden with his baby sister, but the nappy made him stand out amongst the other four-year-olds at nursery who maybe now only wore a nappy at night. It hardly mattered, for his were happy, carefree children, bearing his Deenen genes into a bright future.

  Gone.

  Dreams of a perfect family unit wiped out inside a five-minute window.

  He pictured them, now, ghostly white and silent. Lying with startling dead eyes in a wood somewhere. Defiled by whatever monster had taken them. Stockings around their necks, perhaps. Or else held prisoner in some dank basement, subjected to …

  ‘I can’t. I can’t.’ He pushed his own microphone away, and shook his head apologetically at the policeman.

  The sorrow was more painful than any torture he could ever imagine being subjected to. The dread weiged him down, four times the Earth’s normal gravity. How could he bear such agony and yet still breathe? He glimpsed the country’s press through the blur of his tears.

  Then he heard Gabi’s voice at his side. Loud and clear. Controlled. Grown-up. ‘I’m speaking to the person that has taken our children,’ she said. Commanding the full attention of those fickle, spying lenses. ‘Josh and Lucy are their names. They’re lovely children. Friendly and sweet-natured. Maybe you’re afraid right now. As afraid as Josh and Lucy. Maybe you didn’t mean to take them. I know you don’t mean them any harm. So, please do the right thing and hand them back. And if any member of the public has spotted Josh and Lucy or has any information they may think will help the police, please, please call the hotline so we can get our babies home.’

  A glance told him she was still pale, opaque, hard. A mother made from marble. He admired her. He knew that she must be suffering just like him, except Gabi always hid her distress.

  Flashbulbs. Poor Piet Deenen: the proverbial Dutch rabbit in the headlights. An outpouring of collective grief had already hit the newspaper headlines. The Netherlands up in arms that two of its perfect blond children had been taken. The old guard, complaining about permissive society. This country used to be safe, said outraged of Utrecht. Now, look at it! Our children can’t even be left to play safely in the gardens of the suburbs, said terrified of Tilburg.

  But things weren’t quite so black and white, once Piet and Gabi returned home and were alone in the kitchen.

  ‘Jesus. That was one of the worst experiences of my life,’ he said, putting the kettle on. He perched on the stool by the kitchen’s central island, head in hands. ‘I’ve never felt so powerless.’

  Gabi was staring down at her smartphone. Scrolling, scrolling. Glass of whisky already in her other hand. ‘Worse than losing our children?’ Clipped consonants, not taking her eyes off the small screen. ‘Don’t be fucking ridiculous! We had to do that press conference. It might get us the kids back. That was the whole bloody point.’ Finally she looked up, pinning him with unforgiving eyes. ‘The more publicity we get, the more likely someone will spot them and call it in.’

  Nodding contritely, he ran his fingers along the cold, smooth Corian of the worktop. He looked around at the luxurious proportions of the room. Just a damn room, after all. Bricks and mortar. Perhaps he could do a deal with God. ‘I’d give all of this up to have them back. Every last thing we own.’ He bit his lip. An architect’s folly, moving to this house, demanding this space.

  As if Gabi had sniffed out the strong odour of guilt, she tapped her wedding ring on the counter. ‘If we’d stayed in London, none of this would have happened.’ Her lips thinned to a straight line.

  ‘Are you blaming me?’ Piet asked. ‘You’re not seriously blaming me?’

  Thumping the worktop, the fury behind Gabi’s eyes had an energy all of its own, smashing together the particles of her being in some kind of violent reaction. He found himself shrinking away from her.

  ‘I wanted to stay,’ she said. ‘I had a good job.’

  ‘You were made redundant!’

  ‘Do you think I couldn’t have found another?’ Her words resonating around the room. The air rancid with bitterness. ‘Do you think I wanted to work in some shitty charity? Doing marketing in some suburban hellhole in Holland?’

  Piet stood abruptly, wiping the hot tears that streamed in rivulets down the sides of his face. ‘That’s not on, Gabi. This is … Jesus. We made the decision to come home—’

  ‘Your home. Not my home!’

  ‘You said yes, for Christ’s sake. A better quality of life, right? That was the whole reason we came back. And my mother. Who the hell did you have left in London?’

  Gabi took a loaf of bread out of the bread bin and started to carve in to the loaf too fast, too aggressively. She cut her thumb and a fat bead of red immediately oozed.

  ‘Is that my fault too?’ Piet asked, clicking the kettle back on.

  ‘Fuck you!’

  He was contemplating a sharp retort when the phone rang. It was the detective on the line. Hopeful smiles on the both of them, as though they had never shared a whisky-sour word.

  ‘Well?’ Gabi asked. Blinking hard. Eyebrows buoyed upwards on a warm jet stream of optimism.

  Inside, Piet’s heart turned hopeful somersaults. ‘Someone’s spotted the kids! Some gypsies in a campervan, parked up at a service station near Maastricht.’

  CHAPTER 18

  Berlin, Zoological Gardens, 9 March, present

  ‘Well, isn’t this nice?’ Marianne de Koninck said, as the three of them sat penned
in together in the back seat of the unmarked Volkswagen Passat. The car was driven by a lumpen-faced uniformed female officer of the Berliner Polizei. They were under the stewardship of one of Berlin’s finest detectives, according to the rumours on Van den Bergen’s Europe-wide grapevine. They bounced along the perfectly paved and gritted Berlin road from their terracotta contemporary Lego-block of a hotel just off Potsdamer Platz towards Tiergartenstrasse and the white expanse of the Tiergarten beyond.

  George poked her ear, still blocked from the flight, and looked askance at the pathologist. ‘Are you taking the piss?’ she said.

  Sandwiched in the middle, Van den Bergen looked beyond uncomfortable. Legs bent in extraordinary fashion, he had gallantly placed himself between a vengeful George and a superficially friendly Marianne. George just wanted to reach beyond her lover and deck the flint-faced bitch who had introduced her man to his almost-murderer.

  ‘Can we not do this in front of our host, for Christ’s sake?’ Van den Bergen said, staring at her with those hooded grey eyes. Full of castigation, frustrated passion and a myriad other conflicting emotions, no doubt. Daft old bastard.

  She wanted to kiss him, there and then. Grabbed his hand surreptitiously and held it tight, sandwiched between their thighs where nobody else would spot the connection.

  ‘I’m not here to start a thing with you, Georgina,’ the pathologist said, gazing ahead. She spoke in a calm voice, as though she had the higher moral ground. ‘I know why you’re being hostile. I understand you’re being prickly out of some kind of loyalty to Paul. But guilt is only yours if you choose to accept it, and I don’t choose to accept it, I’m afraid.’