by J. M. Hewitt
“Did you see Gabi the night she was killed?” It’s a stab in the dark, but if anyone comes looking for Lev, he wants to be able to point the finger elsewhere and Roland, it would seem, is an excellent decoy.
“Don’t know, maybe.” Roland is shy, smiling a little now.
It’s unnerving but Lev lets him finish his second beer in silence and as he crumples the can in his large, bear-like paws, the young man stands up.
“Where do you live, Roland?”
“Along this floor at the very end, number ten-four-two,” recites Roland. “Will you knock on my door one day? I don’t get many visitors.”
“Yeah,” Lev claps Roland on the shoulder as he shows him out. “I’ll see you soon, buddy.”
Once Roland has ambled off down the walkway Lev goes inside and returns to his chair and his beer. Roland, with all his mental inadequacy and obvious loyalty, could be someone to keep onside. He could turn out to be someone very useful to know.
Very useful indeed.
16
ROLAND
30th January 2000
I felt guilty; I hadn’t seen much of my Irish friends through the month of January. They were okay, they were not short of mates, but my new wonderful life was down to them and I’d abandoned them. And my life, for the first time ever, had suddenly become wonderful. My initial impression on Mark had been wrong. He wasn’t evil, he was magical. He was boss. But I still missed my friends, and as I had a free morning - I wasn’t needed by Mark Braith until after lunch - I rose early, dressed hurriedly, and made my way across to Zevenhuizen. The building where Miles worked came into view as I strode down the road and I hurried along, my head freezing as I’d forgotten my hat.
As I passed the nice, homely looking lawn out front, the noises started and I clamped my hands over my ears and broke into a run. I always hated the sounds that accompanied this place. As I made my way towards the pink building I looked neither left nor right. To my relief, Miles was outside the entrance, having a cigarette, sucking at it cautiously, trying to avoid getting his bloodstained gloves on the butt of the fag.
“Rolley,” he called as he saw me approaching. “Long time no see.”
I stared into his face, tried not to look at his gloves or the red spattered mess down the front of his plastic apron.
“You come to pick up some dinner for your ma?” he asked.
I replied, no, but then he laughed and I realised he was joking. I never felt foolish when I didn’t get Mile’s jokes; he never seemed to laugh at me like everyone else did.
“Come on, let’s get a brew,” he said, and threw his cigarette down the bloodstained drain.
I followed him into the staff area and while we walked I chanced a look around. Employees walked around, greeting Miles with a wave or a cheery greeting. They seemed oblivious to the death that occurred around them. Maybe they were used to it. Maybe after you worked here long enough it became essentially what it was; a job.
“Do you not feel sad working here?” I asked Miles as he flicked the kettle on in the staffroom.
“Sad?” Miles looked over at me as he grabbed two mugs and set them on the side.
I grimaced at the red mark on the handle of one of the mugs, and prayed he wouldn’t give that one to me.
“You mean because of the animals?” he continued, “they don’t feel a thing, honestly, son, you don’t need to worry about that. You can watch, if you like. Put your mind at ease.”
Watch. Yeah, right. I’d rather die, and I told him as much. But he laughed, and for the first time ever in our friendship, it felt like his mirth was directed at me.
Miles thought he was so much harder than me, but he didn’t know everything about me. He didn’t know I’d been working for Mark Braith all this month, that I was practically Mark’s right hand man, his soldier. His wing man.
“Go on then,” I said and with my head held high I looked him in the eye. “I’ll watch.”
Miles paused, mug halfway to his lips and he narrowed his eyes. I held his gaze firmly.
“All right, come on then,” he said.
He flicked the dregs of his tea into the sink and stalked out of the kitchen, leaving me no choice but to follow him.
We moved swiftly through connecting doors, and the noise got louder and louder with each room that we moved through.
“In this one,” Miles said, holding the door open for me at the same time as he pulled a mask up over his mouth.
I edged through the door and looked around. A huge conveyor belt circled the room. On it, plump, squat chickens sat, shaking and squawking. As they turned the corner they seemed to seek me out with their beady eyes and they glared, accusingly, before being swept past me.
Miles gestured me to follow and I forced my unwilling feet to shuffle behind him. The conveyor belt twisted around the corner. The chickens were even louder at this point, and I soon saw why. As soon as they reached this corner they were plucked off the belt and placed upside down in shackles.
“They can only stay in the rack for one minute,” said Miles, raising his voice to make himself heard above the vocal poultry.
There was another man, a dark skinned guy, and he moved quickly down the shackle line, tucking in a wing, adjusting a head. When he laid his hands on them, the birds quietened, as though he had calming properties.
From here the process was fast. I kept my eye on the chicken at the front. It swept on a sudden downward turn toward the water. The head went under and when the chicken came back up it was deathly still. The dark skinned man caught a hold of the head, leaned in close and then with one, fluid movement, drew his knife just underneath the beak. A hole opened up and the bird’s head hung precariously by what seemed a thread of white feathers.
I looked up, Miles wasn’t watching the bird; he was looking at me.
You bastard, I thought, as I saw his mouth twitch in a smile.
Someone else entered the room and Miles looked over at the newcomer. He greeted him, and as he turned away to shake hands with this man, I edged away.
I gulped the air outside, but still I fancied that I could taste small white feathers. I patted myself down, gasping now.
I didn’t understand what had happened back there. I didn’t mean to the bird, I mean between Miles and me. I don’t know why he made me watch the process, but suddenly, it felt like I was back in school all over again.
17
ERIK FONS
SCHIPHOL MORGUE
5.7.15 Mid-morning
Erik thinks about his visit with Doctor Bram Bastiaan as he makes his way to the morgue at Schiphol. He was a strange man. He was rather rude, but Erik finds that people who are established in the community and are of a certain age are. And Erik knows that the doctor is long established here. It’s like a club, a club that the commissioner Dennis Daalman could be in as well, sharing a similar personality trait to the doctor. No doubt the doctor was attempting to belittle Erik, that much was clear, with the ‘accidental’ reference to him as a constable. But there is more to his behaviour than that, something that Erik can’t quite put his finger on. He had noticed a file on the doctor’s desk and was attempting to lean over and take a look when he had re-entered the room, almost catching Erik in the act.
It had been an unplanned visit, one suggested by the commissioner himself, who knew Bram and the work he did of old. But as a flying visit, it had been an interesting, albeit short one, and Erik had made a mental note to look in on the doctor again in the coming days.
Now Erik is waiting outside the mortuary ringing the bell to announce his presence, hoping that Cobus will be the Pathologist in attendance today, as he had suggested earlier.
“Fons.” Cobus appears on the other side of the glass door, mouthing Erik’s name as he unlocks it. “Come in, I’m about ready.” He looks around. “Are you on your own?”
Erik feels a notch of annoyance that everyone seems to be looking over his shoulder for Dennis. “Just me,” he replies, through clenched teeth.
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“Come on, this way.” Cobus leads Erik down the corridor and into an unlocked room.
Gabi is already out on display, uncovered and naked and Erik’s gaze goes straight to the ugly wound on her left arm. “Do you know the cause of death?” he asks Cobus.
“Yes, let me walk you through it all. I found no external marks suggesting intravenous drug use, anywhere on the body. No broken bones, old or new, a weight of 57kg, height 182, healthy female. Blood and urine shows no alcohol in the system, nor drugs or poisons. Heart and lungs all as expected and the undigested food in her stomach helps put the time of death at around 3 a.m. There’s an anomaly in the cornea which suggests strangulation and there is a small trauma at the back of the head, but nothing life threatening and certainly not anything that impacted on the brain causing death.”
“What about the blood?” Erik inquires, snapping on the gloves that Cobus handed him.
“This injury to the left arm, it’s a strange one,” Cobus raises his eyes to check that Erik is listening and continues. “That was done before the point of death occurred, and I’m pretty sure she was consenting.”
“What?” Erik looks from the girl to Cobus, sure he has misheard him.
“It’s so carefully done. Whoever done this to her has tried to remove a layer of skin. If she was against this, there’s no way it would be this neat.”
“Maybe she was restrained? Tied up?” Suggests Erik.
Cobus shakes his head in the negative. “No ligature marks, nothing to suggest that she was bound in any way. Moving on, the actual cause of death, Erik, this will be it.”
Erik steps up to the table, puts his hands on the girl where Cobus leads him, trying not to notice how damn cold the marble-like texture of her skin feels through his latex gloves.
He hears the sharp breath that he draws in as he gazes at the marks on the girl’s neck that stand out lividly on her pale skin. There are seven of them, and he doesn’t need Cobus to tell him that these are fingerprints. “Can we get a match off them?”
Cobus shrugs. “I doubt it, look how big they are. The man was almost certainly wearing gloves. Not latex ones, either. If the perpetrator wears only one pair sometimes the prints show through, but I’ll bet these are leather ones.”
“Anything else to go on?”
“He’s likely right handed, see the ones on this side are more pronounced?” With that, Cobus lays Gabi gently back and covers her with a sheet. “I’ll get Patty to type up the report later today, we’ll have it with you by tomorrow. Any questions?”
Erik shakes his head, removes his gloves and puts them in the flip-top bin by the door.
Cobus walks Erik back to the entrance and as he unlocks the door he roots in his pocket and hands Erik his business card. “I know what these things are like, if you think of anything you want to clarify, just call me, anytime.”
Erik takes the card and puts it in his inside pocket, waving a farewell to Cobus and walking back to his car.
Once in the driver seat he leans back against the headrest. The wounds on Gabi’s neck and the strange patch of missing skin on her arm were a shock to see. An untrained eye could detect the utter violence that caused her death. And it leaves him with a very uneasy feeling that this death, this isn’t a one off.
18
ALEX
GREAT TITCHFIELD STREET, LONDON
4.7.15 Lunchtime
Alex notes that his helper, Noah, is unusually quiet as they search the flat. For that, he is grateful and not that surprised. In company and in public Noah is all for show, but once he has been with Alex for a while, he calms down, and Alex never fails to see the man that this boy could be, given half the chance.
“You all right there, Noah?”
They are standing in the vast lounge and Noah looks over at Alex. “This chick is loaded, right?”
Alex shrugs. “Something like that. I’m going to make a start in the kitchen, you check the bookcases, anything that looks interesting, any names or locations, actually, anything that is written down, you bring them to me.”
He watches Noah begin to bring the books down and flip through them carefully, much more carefully than Noah usually handles items, he thinks with a wry grin. His smile fades as Alex recalls the first time he was here, doing much the same as Noah is doing now, but with a lot less care and absolutely no regard for Elian and her feelings. How things change, he thinks, how I changed, in such a short space of time. And Elian done that to me, she changed me.
He snaps to attention, knowing that he is verging on the very line of thinking that he has promised himself not to do. He’s here as a detective, doing a job as though someone is paying him, emotionless and with a hard shell. Because if he lets his feelings into this then that won’t be any help to anyone, least of all Ellie.
Alex moves into the kitchen, pausing at the pine table that has been in this flat for around twenty years. He thinks of Sissy’s story, of how she was summonsed here under false promises of collecting government compensation for the Chernobyl fallout, only to find a newborn baby awaiting her instead. And he thinks of Elian’s birth mother, a woman he never actually met, but who led him to Elian by hiring him to bring the killings in Chernobyl to an end. He lets himself mourn for a moment, not for himself, but for Elian and her real mother, Afia, the drug addict who could have led such a different life if she had been a little stronger. But she was strong when it mattered, at the end, setting Elian free from the clutches of Niko, and then ending his poisoned, rotten life. She had paid the ultimate price; sacrificing her own life in order to kill Niko and ensure Elian could go on and thrive and live. But she isn’t thriving, or enjoying her new found respect for life, was she? She’s out there, somewhere, running, hiding.
Alex takes a deep breath, holds it, releases it, and moves away from the pine table and all the thoughts it conjures up. There’s work to be done, and he’s the only one who can do it.
His mind is determined and focussed until something else becomes glaringly obvious to him. The tin. He spots it straight away, nestled between the jar of Italian coffee and a cookery book of Eastern European recipes. He remembers that tin and the secrets it contained and probably still does. He remembers the first time he looked inside it and how she caught him and threw him out.
It hits him then, the hopelessness again, starting as an ache in his chest, spreading heat throughout his body, culminating in a rage which he sees through a red mist and he grabs the tin, hurls it over arm across the kitchen where it bounces off the tiled wall and lands in the sink.
“Dude!” Noah’s voice breaks the fog and Alex passes a hand across his face.
“I’m all right,” he replies, his tone weary.
“No, come here, I found something.”
Putting the tin back in its position on the shelf, Alex walks down the hallway. In the lounge he finds Noah hunched over the small end table. Edging closer, he looks over Noah’s shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“I found this notebook, look. The pen has been pressed hard, ay?” Noah has placed a blank piece of paper over the top page and is shading across the sheet with a pencil. Faint lines appear. Lines that Alex realises are words.
“Fuck!” he exclaims and claps Noah on the back. “Nice work.”
A lopsided grin lights up Noah’s face and Alex smiles ruefully. Noah isn’t used to praise. Alex sits down as Noah hands another sheet over which contains words he has already deciphered.
“Bella Vista,” he reads. “What is that?”
“I’m guessing a hotel, it says ‘62 a night’,” replies Noah, tapping at the sheet with his pencil. “And she wrote this too, but I don’t know what it means. It’s foreign, right?”
Alex reads the next words, written in block capitals, underlined three times so hard that the third line ends in what can only be the page tearing underneath the pen. “Lev Aliyev.”
It means nothing to Alex and he doesn’t know if it is a name or a place, but it sounds lik
e the kind of words he saw and heard in Chernobyl. He writes it next to the hotel name on the page, already planning to call Sissy or Klim in Pripyat and ask them if it means anything to them.
And as Noah goes back to working on the notebook, Alex sits back, clutching the sheet of paper. The rage of only moments ago has gone, faded away to be replaced by hope and determination.
The Bella Vista and the strange other words are Alex’s first clue to the whereabouts of Elian.
I’ll find you, he promises under his breath. I’ll get you back home.
19
THE DOCTOR
HOLLAND SPOOR
5.7.15 Late afternoon
Bram stands next to the flapping police tape and cranes his head to look down the alleyway. He has bought his cane out this afternoon. Though his joints only usually play him up in damp weather, he has missed an entire night’s sleep and his legs are tired and aching. He could have napped before the start of his evening surgery, but there is too much going on and as an upstanding member of this community, he feels that he should put in an appearance, make it known that his support is available, should either the authorities or his girls need it.
“Mister Braston!”
Bram hears the call and groans inwardly, knowing who it is before he even turns around. He taps his cane on the floor, wondering if he can move on and pretend not to have heard. But it’s too late; the boy is upon him, standing too close with a ridiculous smile on his big round face.
“Oh, hello, Roland.” He forces a smile.
Roland plucks at the police tape, his face serious now. “You heard about Gabi?”
“Yes, I did.” Bram edges around Roland in an attempt to escape. “It’s very sad, very sad indeed.”
