by J. M. Hewitt
“Jeanie, do you know where she went? Did Elian tell you anything before she left? It could be very important, if it wasn’t, do you think I’d risk my licence, my very livelihood by doing this?” Alex implores her, still trying to block her view of Noah who, in anyone’s opinion, is not the most professional appearing side-kick. Rather, he is exactly what he seems; a product of desperation bought in by a concerned boyfriend.
“No, she didn’t say anything to me, but I know you. I know you were good to her.” Jeanie takes an age as she scrutinises Alex and then with surprising speed she withdraws into her flat.
Alex watches as her door swings softly to a close and he turns to Noah. “Does that mean we can proceed?” he wonders out loud, and is about to put Noah back to work when Jeanie’s door opens again and she reappears.
“Save yourself some trouble,” she says and holds out a key ring with five keys hanging from it.
The key to Elian’s flat! Alex reaches out, thanking her profusely but she cuts him off.
“If this isn’t kosher, then I know where to send the police to find you.” Jeanie nods at his I.D card, still clutched in his hand. “Put the keys back through my letterbox when you’re finished.”
Alex darts forward and takes the key from her, holding on to her hand for a second. “You won’t regret this, Jeanie, and I’ll do my best to bring her home very soon.”
After her door closes again Alex turns to Noah. “Guess you’ve done your bit.”
Noah is looking at him, wide-eyed, and Alex sees himself not for the first time through this young man’s eyes. Noah has always seen Alex as someone who has plenty of money and a cool job but is still an old guy. Now Alex has his own issues, and like anyone, he’s not indestructible and he can still fall foul of the same problems as anyone else, no matter their class or status.
“I can help you, blud,” Noah says seriously. “I owe you anyway, seeing as I didn’t get you all the way in.”
Alex regards Noah, he feels that it would be right to let this street-kid in and show him the way it can be for adults, what hard work and determination can buy you. Probably all of Noah’s life he’s been pushed out and pushed aside. “Come on, then,” he replies. “A fresh pair of eyes can’t do any harm.” And together, they push open the door and enter Elian’s world.
13
THE DOCTOR
HOLLAND SPOOR
4.7.15 Daytime
Bram has another half dozen girls traipse through his office and each of them wants to discuss the shock of yesterday’s news of Gabi’s demise. Their opinions and theories differ but they all share one common emotion: fear.
“I could be next!” wails Agnetha, his final patient of the morning, plaintively.
Bram takes deep breaths to steady his nerves. “You could get another job,” he says in reply.
“Oh, like what?” she snarls. “Do you have any jobs going, doctor? Maybe you want to hire me as your receptionist.”
When he doesn’t reply she barks out a laugh, though there is no humour in it.
Bram sends her on his way and locking his office door he retreats to his chair by the window. He does his best for these girls, he really does, but all he gets in return is attitude and wisecracks. He knows he should be used to it after so many years, but it still hurts. Don’t they realise that he is the only one who takes care of them?
Bram opens his desk drawer and peruses the selection of brandy bottles. They are small; the kind that they serve on airplanes and Bram collects them. It’s unusual for him to allow himself a tipple in daylight hours, but he reasons that it has been a harrowing morning so far. He picks up the Hoppe Vieux and is just unscrewing the cap when he hears a sharp rap at the outer office door. Grumbling, he replaces the bottle.
It’s a young man, one who Bram doesn’t recognise but who is dressed in the uniform of the local police.
“Doctor Bastiaan?” The young man tilts his head to one side, reminding Bram curiously of a dog. “My name is Inspectuer Erik Fons, I wonder if you can spare a moment?”
Bram plasters a smile on his face and opens the door all the way; allowing the young officer in. “Is this about Gabi Rossi?”
“Yes, did you know her?”
Bram returns to his chair, gesturing to his guest to take a seat the other side of his desk. “Not so much, she was rather new, as I understand it, Constable.”
His deliberate slip of the man’s rank has the desired effect, Bram notes, as the young man flushes a deep shade of red. Almost the same colour as his hair, thinks Bram, nastily.
“Inspectuer,” clarifies Erik and looks back down at his notes. “So, she wasn’t registered with you?”
“Where’s Dennis? Is he delegating again?”
“The Commissioner is working alongside me.”
Bram stifles a smile at the Inspectuer’s tone.
Then, the Inspectuer says nothing more, he closes his notebook softly and leans back, regarding Bram.
“Gabi had just had her first quarterly check up, I would be expecting to see her again, but now …” Bram spreads his hands, holds them palm up and shrugs his shoulders.
Erik nods, says nothing and Bram slowly drops his hands, feeling a little like the shoe is now on the other foot, that this young man is interrogating him. That the tables have turned.
“It’s getting hot out there now, I would be most obliged for a drink of water before I go on my way.” It is Erik who breaks the silence first.
Bram puts his hands in his lap, hidden from view so the Inspectuer doesn’t see his clenched fists. After a moment, he remembers to rearrange his face into a welcoming smile and he stands up. “Inspectuer, you must forgive me. I’m not used to having refined company here. Of course I’ll get you water. Or perhaps your thirst could be quenched by something a little stronger?”
“Water will be fine, thank you.”
Bram goes to the waiting area, selects a glass and fills it from the tap, all the time trying not to mutter about the cop and his bad attitude. What is it with people coming here with their filthy personalities? What is that he – Bram – does for people to treat him this way, when all he does, as an upstanding citizen and doctor of this town, is help? Twenty years ago this young just-out-of-school cop wouldn’t have dared speak to Bram with an attitude. Twenty years ago, the cop would have known exactly who the doctor was, how revered he was, how important …
And as Bram stands and seethes quietly, a thought strikes him. It felt as though the young cop was interrogating him as a criminal rather than a character witness, and what’s he doing now, in Bram’s office? Is he looking around, prying into Bram’s files and notes? Slopping the water over the side of the glass in his haste Bram moves as speedily as his age will allow and bursts through the door into his office.
The Inspectuer is in his chair, his hands on the arms.
Bram looks at him, looks at his pose. He was in the process of getting up, Bram is sure of that as he passes him the glass.
Or – and a chill runs through Bram as the thought strikes him – rather than about to get up, the Inspectuer could be just sitting back down again.
14
ELIAN
SCHEVENINGEN
4.7.17 Daytime
Elian had been in a hurry to get back to her own building and write down Lev’s new address before it slipped from her mind like so many other things did these days. And as she had jogged over the tram tracks she remembered Brigitta and had slowed down to a walk. She shouldn’t have run off like that, chasing Lev all over town when Brigitta had made an effort to be so friendly. But Lev was the reason that Elian was here in the first place. The whole point of this trip across the North Sea was to locate him and make him pay for his part in the Chernobyl fiasco.
She had decided that she would go straight to Brigitta’s home and so, compromising, she had written Lev’s address on a receipt in her purse. Of course, when she had reached the apartment thoughts of Brigitta had vanished and she had gone straight home, only rem
embering her new friend the next day as she flicked through her notebook and Brigitta’s name pounced out at her. Now she stands outside Brigitta’s door, a day late, and feeling awful.
After knocking on Brigitta’s door without answer, Elian is about to give up when she hears a scratching sound from inside and then, the door is opened slowly to reveal Brigitta’s tearstained face. Elian blanches at her appearance, is the girl so upset at being jilted by Elian that she’s been crying about it?
“Are you okay?” Elian leans against the door. “I’m so sorry I left you, something … came up,” she finishes lamely.
“Come in. I just had some bad news.” Brigitta retreats into the flat and Elian hesitantly follows, relieved that it wasn’t her own actions that caused upset to her neighbour.
“I can go, if you want to be alone.” Elian stands awkwardly in the small lounge, noting now that there is another girl in there.
“This is Amber,” Brigitta gestures towards the blonde, pale girl sitting on the sagging couch.
Amber flicks red-rimmed eyes at Elian and nods at her. “Did you know Gabi?”
Elian looks at Brigitta who has paused on the threshold to the kitchenette. “Elian’s not working, she’s just moved here.”
“Who’s Gabi?” asks Elian, directing her question to Brigitta as Amber dissolves into tears.
“She was our friend. She died yesterday.” Brigitta shuffles to the sink. “Do you want a drink?”
Elian looks from one girl to the other. This meeting was supposed to be about Brigitta helping her, Elian, and listening to her troubles, but now it seems like she has her own problems, and Elian, though currently friendless and lonely, still has enough social niceties left to know when to back off.
“No, you’ve got enough on your plate,” she says, smiling to ensure Brigitta won’t think she’s offended. “I’ll get back to my place.”
Brigitta shrugs and comes back to stand in front of Amber. Elian backs towards the door and turns around. “If you need anything, just let me know. If there’s anything I can do.”
She thinks she sees gratitude in Brigitta’s eyes as she leaves, but she’s not sure. And as she lets herself into her own apartment she feels suddenly very lonely indeed. She hadn’t realised just how much she had been looking forward to spending time with another girl near to her own age. She ponders upon Brigitta’s choice of words to Amber; that Elian is not working. And she realises that she doesn’t mean she’s holidaying here, but rather she’s not a working girl, which Brigitta and Amber clearly are. And perhaps the tragic Gabi was also. The realisation of this fact doesn’t mean anything to Elian, that they are doing a job that is legal under Dutch law pulls no judgement from her. Who is she to judge, when her own mother was giving her wares away for free all those years in the dead red forest in Chernobyl?
For a moment she thinks about going down to the internet cafe on Strandweg and sending an email to Sissy, her aunt still living in the exclusion zone. But she’s not ready to talk to her yet, there’s still anger inside and too many other things to think about and to plan. She lets her mind settle on Alex and a very real pain claws in her chest at the thought of him. Could she call him? It’s a bad idea, she tells herself. He would implore her to come home and eventually she would relent. But it’s such an appealing option. Knowing him the little she does, he would probably come here, wrap her up in his arms and she would let him, for there really is no other place that she wants to be. But then later he would start on at her, asking her about the clinic and the tests and has she been yet and has she had the results yet? She glances over at the table where she put the doctor’s card that Brigitta gave her and she retrieves it, props it next to her coffee cup and makes a promise to herself that she will make an appointment with him. Maybe it would be a good thing, for once she has got all that mess cleared up she can concentrate solely on Russian Lev. And then once that business is over with, maybe, just maybe, she can go home to London. To Alex.
To stop herself caving in and contacting him she locks her door from the inside and throws the key along the floor, allowing herself a small ping of satisfaction as it lands against the far wall under her bed. She heaps her new clothes on the chair, on top of the dirty ones and then, with nothing else to do, she climbs on the bed, pulls the curtains and weeps quietly and uncontrollably under the covers.
15
LEV
1058 GEVERS DEYNOOTWEG
5.7.15 Afternoon
Lev spots the police tape on his third visit to the new apartment on foot. He pauses, remembers that the alleyway where the tape flaps forgotten in the breeze is familiar, and he stands at the top of the road, looking down, wondering what happened.
“One of the local working girls died.”
Lev starts, he hadn’t heard anyone come up behind him and he turns to the stranger.
“Damn shame,” says the man says and shakes his head. “It’s a damn, sorrowful shame, when something like this happens it spoils it for the punters who can behave themselves.” The man who, by appearances, seems to be soon leaving middle-age behind him straightens up. “Not that I’m one, you understand. No, I’m happily married; those girls are not a patch on my wife.”
Lev makes soothing noise and says a vague goodbye as the gentleman tips his hat to Lev and moves on.
He picks up the box containing the beer glasses that he picked up in an open air market in Paleis and trudges on his way. He needs to get a bicycle, he thinks as yet another cyclist whizzes past. He’d move up and down these streets a lot quicker, and he’d blend in with the locals too.
Almost upon the seafront he stops again and sets the box down to buy a Metro newspaper from the seller on the strand. It’s on the front page, the death of the girl, and he feels his mouth set in a grim line.
Gabi. Her name was Gabi.
He rolls the newspaper up and sticks it under his arm. Picking up the box he moves on, quickening his pace to get back to the apartment as fast as he can.
When he is ensconced in the safety of 1058 he spreads the paper out on his new table and reads it carefully. It’s in Dutch which although he has trouble speaking, he can read if he concentrates. Gabi Rossi, a Brazilian national who moved to Europe only months ago. The Metro reports that although her cause of death is as yet unknown, she was stabbed, and anyone who had any dealings with Gabi two nights ago should come forward to the police in the Hoofdbureau, purely as a witness and to help them piece together Gabi’s last movements.
Lev shakes his head and pushes the paper away.
His thoughts are interrupted by a tentative knock at his door and Lev leaps up and over to the window. Pulling the curtain aside slightly he peeps out. There’s man at the door, not the police, Lev notes gratefully, but someone he doesn’t recognise. He opens the door cautiously, takes in the big, bullish bald-headed man and steps back in surprise as the man breaks out a smile and a greeting in English.
“My name’s Roland Van Brom, I came to introduce myself. I live in this block.”
Lev presses his lips together and regards Roland. There’s something a little familiar about him, and also something a little off. Roland is a big man, but his almost comical under bite and the childlike way he puts his hands behind his back and bounces up and down gives Lev the notion that this man is on the lower end of the IQ scale. But that name … that rings a bell too. And before the thought is even fully processed Lev remembers. Roland Van Brom was one of the men charged as an accomplice in the Monaghan murders that happened in this very apartment. Lev introduces himself to his visitor with a smile, opens the door wide enough for Roland to enter and ushers him into the lounge.
He cracks open two cans of Baveria and passes one to his guest, who looks in turn both anxious and thrilled to be here.
While Roland drinks his beer down, Lev studies him, thinking of what he had read about this man in the library archives. Van Brom had come from a single parent family. His mother had smothered him with love after Roland was bullied from a you
ng age. Then he’d begun hanging around with the Monaghan brothers and somehow had latched onto Mark Braith, a local hard nut who was rumoured had killed his mother’s boyfriend after the violent deaths of practically all the male members of his immediate family. From the reports that had been made over a decade before, it was clear to Lev that Braith was the dominant, and the younger, naive and slightly simple Roland, was too scared of Braith to do anything other than what he was told. And how is Roland taking it, being back here, in this very room where his other friends were slaughtered? Lev tilts his head and studies Roland. Roland, in turn, darts his eyes around the room, his gaze lingering on points, perhaps replaying history, perhaps remembering.
“It must be a little strange being here,” comments Lev, handing Roland another beer from the cooler.
“Yeah, my friends lived here,” replies Roland and when he tips back his can to drain it, Lev notices the tears that shine in his eyes.
“Gabi,” says Roland suddenly, and the sudden change of subject and the unlikely name that comes from Roland’s lips startles Lev.
“W-what?”
Roland strokes the front of the newspaper from where Gabi’s tanned, pretty face looks out at them. “She was my friend. But she’s gone now, too.”
Lev rubs his hands on the arms of his chair, aware that his palms are moist.
“Did you see Gabi often?”
Roland shrugs, leaving his shoulders up around his face for a little too long. “Not really, I’m not really allowed to see the girls down there, but sometimes they’re nice to me.”
Lev wonders who tells Roland that he’s not allowed to visit with prostitutes, his mother or carer? Or is it part of his parole release? He knows that Roland got less than ten years for his part in the massacre that took place here; after all, it was clear to anyone that Braith was the mastermind and Roland nothing more than a puppet on a string.
