The Girl Who Had No Fear

by Marnie Riches

  Her father’s eyes opened. The first thing George saw in them was fear.

  ‘Help!’ he shouted in Spanish. Focusing on Van den Bergen. ‘Get her out of here!’ Then, repeated the demand in English.

  Taking a step back, George swallowed hard and wiped away her tears in defiance with the back of her hand. Feeling the rejection bite like the venomous sting of a hornet. A flurry of aggressive words jostled their way to the tip of her tongue, but she realised her anger had no place here. He simply hadn’t recognised her. She clasped a hand over the fake tattoos. People believed what they had been conditioned to believe. Why should he see her ink as anything but the real deal? ‘It’s me, Papa,’ she said. ‘It’s Ella. I wrote you a letter. Did you get it?’

  His face softened. His consternation in his face was replaced by a broad smile. He held his hand out to her. Spoke in English.

  ‘I did,’ he said in a hoarse voice. ‘It kept me going, right to what I thought was the very end.’

  He squeezed George’s hand with a weak grip. His skin was too warm and clammy. George forced herself to maintain the contact, savouring the physical closeness after all these years yet itching to scrub her hands under a scalding hot tap. After all she had witnessed and endured over the past week, she was certain she might never feel clean again. That kind of dirt might be indelible, though the ink on her skin would surely wash off eventually.

  Sitting beside her long-lost father, George drank in the detail of his face. Imagined him fatter. Younger. Not so different, after all, on closer inspection.

  ‘I tried to find you when you were a teen,’ he said, reaching out to touch her hair. ‘Even though your mother asked me not to. I did. I scoured the internet week after week. But I just couldn’t track you down.’

  ‘Ella Williams-May disappeared,’ she said, wishing he would leave her hair alone. It needed a good wash and some Moroccan oil on it, for a start. ‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the flight home.’

  ‘Home?’ He angled his face towards her, frowning inquisitively.

  Van den Bergen approached the bed, filling the room with the smell of sport deodorant and oranges. He crouched by the bedside. ‘We need you to come to Amsterdam to testify, Mr Moreno.’

  ‘Call me Michael,’ her father said.

  Nodding, Van den Bergen’s mouth remained a grim line. ‘The meth you were shipping to the Dominican … The meth being produced in that jungle lab has killed a number of young people in my city, giving them fatal lead poisoning. Kids in New York too. But my concern is the bodies that have been found floating in my canals. The Dutch police have just got hold of irrefutable forensic evidence …’ He glanced knowingly at George and winked. ‘That ties your el cocodrilo to Nikolay Bebchuck, otherwise known as the Rotterdam Silencer. These are all the pseudonyms of the man who had you kidnapped – Stijn Pietersen. He’s a Dutch national and we have reason to believe that’s he’s currently on Dutch soil. We know he’s been purchasing precursor chemicals from China through a Dutch multinational to service his labs in the Czech Republic and Mexico. Last night, when I’d finished taking your statement, George told me about all the violence. His gun-running and people trafficking.’

  ‘I’m living proof of that,’ her father said, patting George’s hand as a tear tracked along the contours of his thin face.

  George wanted to envelop him in her arms but felt she couldn’t. Not yet. She was overwhelmed by a sense that their roles had been reversed, where her father was now the vulnerable one who needed looking after, and she was now his capable guardian. She was aware of tears pooling in her eyes for all that had been lost but willed them to be absorbed back into her body. Van den Bergen was talking about the case. The time to interrupt him with an outburst of mixed feelings about her childhood would come. But that time was not now.

  ‘Pietersen has the monopoly on the crystal meth market and he’s long overdue a prison sentence that will put him behind bars for good.’ Van den Bergen pulled up a chair from the corner of the room and folded his tall frame into it. Leaned forwards, placing his elbows on his knees. Speaking with the gravitas of the Chief Inspector that he was, rather than something approximating to a son-in-law who was inappropriately too old for a woman in her twenties. ‘We’re going to need you. If you don’t mind.’

  Michael turned to George, studying her face. She realised she had no way of knowing what this man was thinking. Though he was her father, they had only just met for the first time in almost twenty-five years. He had no idea that Van den Bergen was her partner in more than just crime. He knew precisely nada about George. She knew absolute zero about him. But she sensed that he had a good soul.

  ‘How’s your mother?’ he asked, smiling weakly at her. The glimmer of fond reminiscence in his eyes.

  ‘Oh,’ George said. ‘About that …’

  CHAPTER 49

  Amsterdam, Schiphol airport, 4 June

  As the plane touched down in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, Van den Bergen undid his seat belt before they had even come to a standstill.

  ‘What’s the rush?’ George said, tugging at his belt as he pulled on his raincoat.

  She was all sleepy from the long flight. Still holding hands with her dad. As if he had time for that kind of oversentimental crap, no matter how valid it may be.

  ‘Elvis is still missing,’ he said. ‘He’s been gone too long.’ He checked his watch. The working day had not yet begun. But the time that had elapsed since he had received the email containing the gruesome photo of Elvis did not bode well for the boy’s safety. ‘If my detective is dead because I wasn’t here to supervise the investigation into his disappearance, I’ll never forgive myself.’ Abruptly, he leaned down and kissed George full on the mouth, clasping her face in his hand.

  He sensed that Michael was watching him. An intelligent man like that had worked out quickly enough the nature of his and George’s relationship. But at nearly 50, Van den Bergen was not about to make excuses to any man for his romantic commitment to a woman young enough to be his daughter. The heart wants what it wants. Those had been George’s words.

  Dropping the keys to his apartment into her lap, he proffered his hand to Michael. Shook it in a businesslike fashion, careful not to crush those starved, fragile fingers inside his oversized shovel. Dark circles under his eyes said he hadn’t slept in ten years, but then the doctors had said he was dangerously anaemic as well as generally malnourished and almost certainly likely to suffer from PTSD once he started to process what had happened to him. Poor bastard. It was a miracle he was alive at all. ‘Get some rest, Michael,’ he said in English. ‘George here will take good care of you. But don’t let her cook if you want to see your next birthday.’

  George thumped him playfully in the thigh. ‘Twat!’

  ‘Make your dad comfortable at my place,’ he said, ignoring the Tannoy announcement that demanded all passengers should remain in their seat until the aircraft had come to a complete standstill. ‘Fill the fridge. It’s on me. There’s cash in the spaghetti jar. I’ll be back when I’m back.’

  A flash of his ID card ensured he was first off the plane, no questions asked. Van den Bergen arrived back in Amsterdam Centraal Station, emerging beyond its Renaissance Revival redbrick façade into dank drizzle and a stiff wind that was blowing inland from the North Sea. He inhaled the choking diesel fumes from the sightseeing barges that whipped over to him from the canals like some pollutant greeting, relieved to be back on familiar ground. This was his turf. This was a place where a guy could wear a light jumper and a raincoat and feel comfortable, most of the year round. This was home. But Elvis was missing.

  A cab took him to the police headquarters on Elandsgracht.

  ‘Well?’ he said to Marie, slamming open the door to her office.

  She had been sitting with her back to him, intently poring over what appeared to be programming language on her computer screen. Now, she clasped her hand to her chest. Her normally flushed face blanched.

  �
��God, you gave me a fright, boss.’ Her eyes were suddenly glassy. Unexpectedly, she sprang to her feet and embraced Van den Bergen in a bear hug. ‘We’ve got to get him back.’

  ‘And I think I know where we can find him.’ A man’s voice came from behind the door. ‘If you’ve finished slamming the door onto my knees.’

  Van den Bergen detached himself from Marie and pulled the door closed to reveal Ad Karelse’s idiotic face smiling at him.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, Karelse?’ he said, eyeing his erstwhile love rival up and down. Noticing the slight paunch that had appeared since they had last met, face to face. He no longer wore glasses, which gave his face an odd imbalance and made his nose look too long. And to think George had once considered him a pretty boy.

  ‘Where’s George?’

  Hope emanated from every pore in the spineless prick’s body. Except Van den Bergen realised that Karelse was anything but a spineless prick, given he had opted to risk his life to spy on the Rotterdam Silencer’s clandestine business lunch.

  ‘Busy.’ Forcing himself to do the gentlemanly thing, Van den Bergen stuck out his hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  But Karelse returned the gesture only with a sneering, disdainful expression. The old wound ran deep, clearly. ‘I didn’t do it for you.’

  They had reached a social etiquette impasse. There was no point in trying to build any more of that bridge.

  ‘Where do you think Elvis is?’ Van den Bergen asked, swiping aside the pile of empty snack wrappers, knick-knacks and stationery that covered Marie’s desk to perch on the edge. ‘And why haven’t you told us this earlier?’

  Karelse remained standing with his arms folded. Staring at Van den Bergen, as though he was trying to slice him from top to toe with two beams of pure vitriol. ‘I’ve been up since 4 a.m. I couldn’t sleep. I went into the office early and started to trawl through old accounting archives.’ He turned to Marie. ‘Hacking the system from the inside is easy for me.’ Smiling as though Marie would be impressed by his bullshit. ‘And I couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Spit it out,’ Van den Bergen said, drumming his fingers on the sticky desk. Trying his damnedest not to wrinkle his nose at the smell of stale cabbage and onions in Marie’s lair.

  ‘I have a Dutch delivery address for InterChem GmbH that was used several times for chemicals ordered from Chembedrijf back in 2010. In Rotterdam.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you just phone this information through?’ Van den Bergen stood, feeling momentarily woozy. Jet lag, probably. Or possible deep-vein thrombosis thanks to a long-haul flight. Another thing to get checked out for. But that could wait. He took two steps closer to Karelse, looking down at him. There were only thirteen centimetres between them, but each one counted.

  ‘Well, I got the first train out of Groningen. I wanted to deliver the news to George personally. Maybe help her look for Elvis.’ Karelse seemed to puff out his chest and broaden his shoulders. He shifted his feet to stand with legs astride like that posing idiot Poldark, whom George made Van den Bergen watch on TV whenever he visited her in England. ‘But she’s not here.’ He could see the Adam’s apple in Karelse’s throat pinging up and down. Disappointment dulling the shine on his hopeful young man’s face.

  ‘No. She’s not. So, give me the address, and you can go home.’

  ‘I risked my safety and my job to get you evidence!’ Karelse shouted, looking over at Marie for tacit approval that came in the form of the briefest of nods. ‘I spent a fortune on a lunch I didn’t even enjoy and got you a sound recording, a glass and some money. Bram Borrink recognised me, for God’s sake! I had to string him some bullshit about having lunch to celebrate my dad’s memory on the first anniversary of his death.’

  ‘Very nice,’ Van den Bergen said. ‘Congratulations on doing your civic duty. We’ll reimburse you for your lunch. Address!’ He raised his voice loud enough to make Karelse shrink back. Felt guilt wrapping its fingers around his stomach, squeezing hard until acid erupted upwards into his gullet.

  CHAPTER 50

  Amsterdam, Van den Bergen’s apartment, at the same time

  ‘Come on, Papa,’ George said, plumping the cushions on Van den Bergen’s sofa. Arranging them so that they were perfect diamond shapes. She tweaked the corners until they stood stiffly to attention. ‘Come and get comfy on here. It’s nicer than the guest bed. I’ll make you some coffee and see what’s in Paul’s fridge. Sod all, probably, knowing him.’

  Her father took her by the forearm and kissed her knuckles. Patted the back of her hand affectionately. Things she remembered him doing all those years ago when she had been a small girl in dungarees, covered in paint, with Plasticine under her fingernails.

  ‘I still can’t believe I’m out of there,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it’s you!’

  George considered his stooped frame. He seemed so much smaller than she had remembered. She smiled and yawned. ‘Believe it. Come on. Sit down. I’m knackered, so you must be dropping. We’ll have a bite to eat and then let’s both have a good kip.’

  Helping her father to the old vintage sofa, George went into Van den Bergen’s bedroom, pulled a heavy sweater from his wardrobe and took the just-in-case blanket from the end of the bed. Insisted that her father wrap up warm, given the abrupt change in temperature from the balmy tropical climate of Mexico to the chill of an Amsterdam attempt at summer.

  Squatting beside him, she stroked his untidy, wispy hair. Examined that almost unfamiliar face that was so reminiscent of hers and yet so different. Was Michael Carlos Izquierdo Moreno a good man or a bad man? He had seemed like a king to her when she had been but a child. ‘It seems strange to be tucking in a grown adult. Not to mention my long-lost papa,’ she said, hoping he couldn’t sense the emotions that curdled inside her.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Letitia,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘I wish I could have seen her.’

  ‘Don’t you be sorry for her,’ George said, rising and making for the kitchen. Camouflaging with the brisk efficiency of a hostess her deep-seated fears that her mother might be dead. ‘Whatever she’s doing right now, she won’t be feeling a shred of remorse about how she’s treated you or me over the years. She won’t be worrying her selfish arse about me scouring half of Europe to find her. She’ll be shacked up somewhere, reinventing herself and having the time of her life.’ She opened the food cupboard doors and found some baked beans she had brought from London. Half a sliced loaf in the freezer. Food of the gods.

  ‘Do you really think she just upped and left?’ her father shouted from the living room.

  Had she been wrong to string him a line on the plane about Letitia having taken herself off in some rebellious exercise, designed to give the two-fingered salute both to her diagnosed illness and her family? Was keeping the gift-wrapped eyeball and the bogus, threatening emails secret respectful of her father as a grown adult? She had merely wanted to spare him any further anxiety after his horrendous ordeal.

  ‘Yeah,’ George said, pleased she wasn’t able to make eye contact from the kitchen. ‘Knowing her? I’d put money on it!’

  Taking out the cream cleanser, George filled the sink with a kettle full of boiling water and started to scrub away at Van den Bergen’s already clean worktops. She noted the image of herself reflected in the glazed tiles of the splashback. A portrait of an El Salvadoran transportista whose mind was forever sullied by murder and whose skin would be forever blighted by ink. She removed her long-sleeved T-shirt so that she wore only a bra. Took the scrubbing sponge, emptied a large blob of cleaner onto it and started to rub at her skin where the tattoos still told the tale of her collusion in the deaths of those trafficked women on the airstrip. These painted arms had not wielded the machete but she had done nothing to stop the others. Sometimes doing nothing was sin enough.

  Scouring while the kettle boiled and the beans simmered on the hob, scrubbing until the pain made her eyes water, George’s attempts at expunging her guilt were interrupted only b
y her phone ringing shrilly on the side.

  The display said it was Jan, her former landlord from the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop in the red-light district. His photograph lit up her phone’s screen with a dopey hippy grin and frazzled marijuana eyes behind Trotsky glasses.

  ‘Jan,’ she said, stifling a jet-lagged yawn. Feeling the kitchen floor rise and fall beneath her. She hoped to fuck he was quick.

  ‘Hey, George. How’s tricks?’ His greeting was nothing out of the ordinary. His serious tone rang alarm bells.

  Clutching the phone to her ear with her hunched shoulder, she wrestled the frozen bread into the toaster. Stirred the beans. Ignored the smarting skin on her arm where the cream cleanser was already drying into a white film. ‘Well, actually, Jan, I’ve just got off a long-haul flight and I’m dying to—’

  ‘You know that guy Stijn Pietersen? The ugly one who was in all the papers when that cop of yours locked him up … Long time ago. I remembered you telling me you’d had a run-in with him once as a kid.’

  George turned the hob off and glowered at her reflection in the tiles. ‘Yes. Go on.’

  ‘Well, you know how I am about never forgetting a face.’ Jan started to wheeze inexplicably with laughter, as was his wont. Always one irrelevant comment away from weed-giggles.

  ‘Come on, Jan. What is it?’ George took a cloth, wet it under the tap and started to wipe at her raw skin. ‘I’m on tenterhooks here.’

  ‘He looks completely different at a glance, you see. He’s got some dumb bleached hair and a face like a keg of Duvel. But it’s him. I swear it.’

  ‘Stijn Pietersen? Are you telling me the Rotterdam Silencer is—’

  ‘Yeah, man. On a houseboat in Prinsengracht. I was taking a walk near the Anne Frank museum, watching all the tourists queue around the block. And there he was, on the deck. It’s not the first time I’ve seen him either. But this time, I crossed the road and walked over to him, just to make sure.’