by J. M. Hewitt
A shadow falls across his table and Alex looks up, grateful for the interruption of Erik Fons who is armed with stacks of files that he’s bought over from the Hoofdbureau. Erik drops the files on the table and slumps into the seat opposite.
“Can I?” he asks, gesturing to the still warm cafetiere between them.
Alex passes him a cup and waits while Erik fills it, throws it back, and refills it again.
“You look tired,” comments Alex.
“Fucking shattered,” responds Erik. “But I need to get this put to bed.”
Alex understands instantly, he’s worked with enough police back in England to know that when something like this is going on it needs to be solved and closed down as quickly as possible. Not only are people’s lives on the line, but jobs are at risk too if the solution is not found quickly enough according to those higher up the ladder.
Erik takes three files off the pile and spreads them out so they are facing Alex.
“Three victims; Gabi, a working girl originally from Brazil found in an alleyway off Doublestraat, two nights later we found Cilla, another prostitute, this one was from the U.K. She was killed in her own shop front window. Amber, a local, was the one you saw today. She was murdered at her own home on Waldorpstraat. All three were strangled.”
“Were there any other similarities?” Asks Alex as he gazes at the mug shots of the three dead girls.
“Two of them had what appeared to be patches of skin removed, Gabi’s arm and Cilla’s thigh, but there is nothing like that on Amber.”
Alex leans back in his seat and taps his fingers on his coffee cup. “Do you have photos of the skin?”
Erik digs around in the top file and passes two Polaroid’s over to him and Alex studies them intently. The one on the girls arm is jagged, almost as though the knife bearer’s hand was shaking. The other one is neater, more square, carefully done.
“This was done first, right?” he asks, showing the photo of Gabi’s arm to Erik.
“Yes, as a matter of fact it was. How did you know?”
Alex picks up the second photograph, “This is much neater, this one was not his first attempt.” He throws the photos on the table. “What else have you got?”
Erik stacks the pictures together, places them carefully back in the file and shrugs.
“Nothing?” Alex’s tone is disbelieving. “Witnesses? Suspects?”
Erik remains impassive and Alex sighs and pours them both another coffee. “Tell me about this Lev that you spoke to.”
Erik starts to talk but is cut off by the sound of his mobile ringing. He looks at the screen. “Hoofdbureau - work,” he says to Alex as he answers.
In the quiet of the empty restaurant Alex can hear the operator on the other end.
“Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt you so late but sir, there’s been another one.”
Fons locks eyes with Alex and bangs his fist on the table. “Jesus Christ,” he exclaims loudly. “Who is it, and where?”
There’s an ominous pause on the other end of the line before the operator speaks again, quieter this time, but Alex hears his words clearly. “It was at the Episcopalian church off Wassenstraat, but sir … I’m sorry sir …”
The voice tails off and Erik barks impatiently down the phone. “What?”
“Sir, its Naomi Wilson,” the caller rushes to get his words out. “It’s your girlfriend, sir.”
42
ROLAND
March 14th 2000
I tried to edge away the moment the police car pulled up at the kerb. Smith though, damn him, had curled his fingers around the bottom of my shirt and I lurched back at his surprisingly strong grip.
I didn't recognise the officer, although, thinking about it, I'm not sure I even looked at him full on. I remember a big man, a broad shape, but still I was intent on inching away, taking myself out of this dreadful equation.
“What's happening here?” the officer barked. I jumped and dropped my chin to my chest.
Smith started up his racket again and I cringed and chanced a look at him. I wish I hadn't for I saw what the policeman must be seeing; a butt-naked, incoherent man, trying desperately to speak but forming no actual words. And as I stared, Smith began to rock back and forth, as though he was trying to stand up. Finally he went onto his knees and from there, he assumed a crouching position. I heard a sharp intake of air, then that same breath whistled out through clenched teeth. I knew that the officer, along with the small crowd that had gathered, was looking at the blood on Smith’s backside.
Before the officer could speak I became aware of other noises. Feet slapping, breath rasping. I moved a foot along the pavement away from Smith and looked down into the gutter. Mark’s designer sneakers came into view and I swear I stopped breathing.
“This is my friend,” Mark said in tight, clipped tones. “What the fuck is happening?”
I flinched as he swore at the officer.
“This is your friend?” The policeman didn't seem too perturbed at Mark’s use of the F-word or his hostile manner.
“Yes, he’s been very ill.” Mark lowered his voice. “Stomach issues. He’s in my care and he shouldn't be out here.” Mark spun around and fixed his glare on me. “You were supposed to be nursing him.”
My mouth flapped uselessly and I was struck with a sudden, terrible feeling of what it must be like to be Smith.
“Look, this doesn't ring true,” an older woman, arm in arm with a frightened, mousey looking younger girl, stepped up. “I don't mean to interfere–”
“Then fucking don't,” hissed Mark. His tone was short and sharp, and as I glanced up and caught the flash of anger in his eyes, I understood when the women backed up a step.
Smith, seeing his only allies retreating, moaned and squirmed on the pavement.
“What's all this?”
The tone was mild but authoritative, and instantly recognisable. I closed my eyes, but not before I'd seen the patent shoes stop in front of me. They were polished to within an inch of their life, and I knew exactly who they belonged to.
Something squeaked. I thought it was Smith. Then I realised it was me. I risked a glance at Mark, who had suddenly gone very pale.
The Colonel had arrived.
And now the shit really was going to hit the fan.
43
ELIAN & THE DOCTOR
GEVERS DEYNOOTWEG, SCHEVENINGEN
9.7.15 Midnight
As soon as the door closes on the apartment next to Lev’s, Elian darts out from her hiding place and runs down the stairs, not caring that the clattering sound of her footsteps is very loud in the dark night. Once on the street she skips over the tram tracks, legs pumping as she runs towards the Holland Casino. She swerves to the right, past the Palace Hotel and the fountain and only when she races through the pedestrian area and finds herself just to the left of the sea does she stop running.
She leans over, hands on her knees, the crashing sound of the sea on the shore slowly bringing her back to the present. Because that’s where she is, right now, here today. She’s not back in Chenrobyl in the middle of the Red Forest, she’s not chained in an underground tunnel or locked up in a caravan. But she has witnessed … what? Russian Lev moving a body? Because that’s certainly what it looked like, and who was that man with him?
In all the procrastinating that she’s done since she came here, all the trumped up ideas she had about punishing Lev, deep down, she doesn’t think she ever expected to catch him in the middle of … What did she catch him in the middle of, murder? Disposing a body? But why were they putting it in the next door apartment?
She’ll have to go to the police, there’s no doubt about it. But what if she’s wrong? What if her fucked up brain is deceiving her again, like it has so many times since she came here? Did she see Lev with a body? Or was it a flashback, a half-dream from her own traumatised mind?
Elian moves back down the cut through and onto Gevers Deynootweg. She sits down in an empty shelter, noting the abs
ence of the trams, trying hard not to look in the direction of Lev’s apartment down the street.
She thinks on, trying to formulate a plan. If she goes to the police she’ll have to give her details. People back home will have reported her as missing by now, Alex, or his aunt Selina. Maybe Alex has told her own aunt, Sissy. Right now she could be back in London, searching fruitlessly for her. But would that be so bad? If someone were to find Elian right now, then all this could be out of her hands and–
No, she came here to confront Lev herself and if she doesn’t, if that one piece of control is taken away from her, then she knows that she’ll never be able to recover from what happened to her in Chernobyl. She needs that control. She needs a sliver of power if she is going to get better.
She pushes herself upright, willing the fight and the anger to come back to her, and just as she begins to walk back to Lev’s apartment, a car pulls up a little ahead of her and she hears her name called.
Elian jumps, quite literally, at the sound of her own name against a man’s lips. Who knows she’s here? Nobody except Brigitta, that’s who. And then her heart leaps as she catches sight of the figure of a man sitting in the driver seat. She runs the few yards to the car, tears threatening at the thought that he cared enough to find her and as she leans down and looks through the window her heart sinks like a stone.
“Oh, Doctor Bastiaan,” she says. “It’s you.”
Doctor Bastiaan had braked hard when he spotted her, sitting waiflike in the tram shelter. What was she doing out so late? And on her own – doesn’t she know what has been happening lately? He feels an unexplainable surge of anger towards the young girl, but he has rearranged his expression into a caring, but concerned, fatherly smile.
“What are you doing out here so late?”
She shrugs, looks both ways down the street and then he gets it. There’s only one reason why she would be out here at midnight. She’s a working girl. All of the lines that she fed to him back in his surgery were lies. He looks at her outfit; a tight T shirt and a tiny pair of shorts. She’s wearing old sneakers on her feet, he noticed as she jogged up to the car and to him she looks more like a child than a whore, but, he thinks, maybe that’s her game. Some men like the idea that they’re with a child. His blood boils at the very thought.
“What are you doing out so late?” she asks him, looking through at his window again.
“I don’t sleep much these days,” he responds. “Would you like a lift anywhere?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t live far from here, I’m going home soon. I couldn’t sleep myself so I thought I’d take a walk.”
A likely story, he thinks as he tries to keep his expression neutral. And then he remembers what date it is. “Elian, your test results should come in the morning. Would you like to come along to my surgery tomorrow?”
She looks embarrassed and relieved in equal measure. “Yes, I shall, thank you. Will I have an appointment for the MRI scan, too?”
“It might have come through, but I do still think your memory issues are due to your emotional trauma, rather than a physical symptom.”
At this she looks annoyed and Bram clenches the steering wheel hard so his face doesn’t show his irritation. How can she be pushing for a medical scan, all the while she’s out here, working, giving herself up to anyone for a few Euros?
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” he says, as placidly as he can manage.
She steps back from the car and he drives off, looking at her once in his rear view mirror; a tiny shadow looking lonely on the empty street.
Elian doesn’t return home straight away. She sits back down in the shelter, looking down the road for the doctor’s car which has long gone. A different plan is formulating in her mind and she rubs at her temples, wishing she had her notebook with her so she could write it down before the thought slips away.
And, this time when she gets up, she’s off and running again, only this time in the direction of home. She slips past Brigitta’s door quietly, not wanting her friend to spot her and distract her. When she slips into her own apartment she pulls her faithful notebook out of the kitchen drawer and grabs a pen. Writing rapidly, she scrawls down everything she can remember from the evening, from the address of Lev’s apartment to the mustard colour of the sheet that was covering the bulk that they were carrying. Lastly, she writes an instruction to herself in the notebook, to tell the doctor what she saw tonight.
She’s pleased with that, she’ll be handing it over to someone else, it won’t be her responsibility. And the doctor has nothing on her, no personal information or phone number. She thinks back, did she give him her address? She can’t recall, but it doesn’t matter. But then, if she gives the doctor all of the information she won’t be able to confront Lev herself. She won’t get the control that she so desperately needs.
It occurs to her that she’s exhausted and she needs sleep. She can’t remember the last time that she ate either, but it’s too late for that now.
She stares at the words that she’s written in the notebook and finally, she adds a question mark to her instruction.
Now she must sleep. Things always look clearer in the morning.
44
ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY
THE CARLTON BEACH then, later, BRONOVO HOSPTIAL
10.7.15 Early hours of the morning
When Alex heard the operator say the words ‘it’s your girlfriend, sir’, he thought at first that he had misheard. But in what seemed like slow motion, the mobile phone slipped from Erik’s grip and crashed onto the tabletop. Alex snatched it up.
“Hello? Are you still there?”
The voice that came through was puzzled. “Sir?”
“This is Alex Harvey, I’m currently with Inspectuer Fons, I’m here from the MET Police in London,” Alex says, wondering how many more times he’s going to tell that lie before this is over. “Can you repeat that for me?”
The young man on the other end of the telephone is English, most probably a trainee recruit from the MET himself, but thankfully he is too young or too nervous to question Alex’s rank.
“Another woman has been found, you are familiar with the unexplained deaths I take it, sir?”
Alex raises his eyebrows at being called ‘sir’ himself. “Yes, I’m discussing it with your inspectuer right now, can you repeat what you told him?”
The young man at the other end lowers his voice, as though he is imparting some gossip instead of reporting the murder of the inspectuers own partner. “It’s the Inspectuer’s girlfriend. She has her ID on her, she’s well known in these parts and she would have been identified without it anyway. She was found on Wassenestraat at the Episcopalian Church, they’re transferring her to the Bronovo Hospital as we speak.”
Alex grabs a pen off the table and scrawls it on a napkin. He wonders what Erik’s girlfriend does if she’s well known to all of his colleagues. “Bronovo,” he repeats and looks up at Erik. “Is this nearby?”
Erik, still motionless and his face a mask of horror, doesn’t appear to have heard him.
Alex gets up from his chair and wanders over to the now deserted bar. He pours a generous slug of whiskey for Erik and speaks quietly into the handset. “I take it the morgue is at this Bronovo, can Erik see her, or rather, should he see her, if you know what I mean?”
There is a silence at the other end of the line before the operator comes back, speaking loudly in Alex’s ear. “Sir, Bronovo is a hospital. She’s not dead, sir, Naomi survived the attack.”
Alex starts; looks at the whiskey that was intended for Erik and then throws it back himself. Hanging up the phone he crosses the room and lays a hand on Fons’ shoulder.
“We’re going to the hospital, mate,” he says, grimly. “Your girl isn’t dead, she’s still alive.”
Erik feels like a fire has been lit beneath him as he goes over Alex’s words again and again as they race out of the hotel and head for the car. The single most awful moment of his life has
passed, and now he is almost euphoric; joyous.
“What condition is she in?” he shouts to Alex as he hurls himself into the driver’s seat.
“I don’t know, they didn’t say. Look, do you want me to drive?”
Erik looks at his shaking hands as he fumbles and misses the ignition keyhole. He flexes his fingers, wincing painfully; they seem so stiff and unyielding.
“Could you?” he asks, hating the pitiful tone in his voice, but imagining Alex to be a capable and proficient driver, especially if he’s used to driving around London on his police duties.
They switch over, and as Alex pulls away Erik clutches at the dashboard.
“What did he say? On the telephone, I mean,” asked Erik.
Alex’s concentration is on the road but he glances over at Erik. “He didn’t give me much information, just that she survived and is at this hospital. But Erik, you need to tell me where I’m going.”
Erik jerks upright and from between clenched teeth he directs Alex the short distance to the hospital. As they pull around to the brightly illuminated Accident and Emergency entrance, Erik wonders why Naomi was at the Episcopalian Church. He knows of it, it’s not too far from their shared home, but Naomi isn’t a church-goer. She’s not got a religion or faith at all. And why didn’t she go straight home, because to get to the church she would have walked past their house? He bangs his fist on the dashboard, bets that she’d got a call from one of the Scheveningen girls, in need of something or other. He’s told her so many times not to give out her personal number but she still does. The girls call her all the time, wanting medication or a sympathetic ear. Once she had a call from a working girl who had run out of condoms! Erik had wrestled the phone from her grasp and told the woman never to call Naomi again with a pathetic reason like that, before hanging up on her. That little scene had led to their first fight as a couple. Sadly, it hadn’t been their last. And he curses himself now, because he more than anyone should understand that her work and her girls are Naomi’s life. How many times has he, Erik, taken a call whilst off duty and gone off in the dead of night? Why does he believe his work is more important than hers? And he promises himself, if – no, when – she gets through this, he’ll be different. He’ll be supportive and affectionate and–
