by J. M. Hewitt
“Shall I pull up here?”
Alex interrupts his thoughts and Erik looks up to see the car pulling into the emergency parking bay. He’s out of the car and running through the entrance. A couple of his colleagues are there, and they grab his arms as he continues to run blindly. He grapples with them, he can see them talking but can’t hear them and then Alex is there, pulling at his arm, tugging him away.
“Erik, is that her? They’re now bringing her in …”
Erik turns around. Two paramedics are wheeling her in behind him; he sees the hair, the high cheekbones, the closed eyes.
Naomi …
He darts over, racing to keep up, shouting at the paramedic to tell him what happened, what’s wrong with her, will she be okay?
And as Naomi vanishes through the double doors along with hurried, promised words from the paramedic that he’ll be back as soon as he can.
Erik steps up to the door and looks through the porthole window. They’ve taken her through to a bay, and the last thing that Erik sees before the curtains are yanked closed, is the first paramedic pumping hard on Naomi’s chest, and the doctor who has joined them reaching for the paddles of the defibrillator.
45
ELIAN & THE DOCTOR
HOLLAND SPOOR
10.7.16 Early morning
Elian rides the tram to the surgery. She’s missed rush hour and she takes a seat on the left hand side row. It’s cloudier today with a sky the colour of gunmetal, and as the woods flash past they seem eerie and desolate. She shivers and looks down at her notebook that she’s bought along with her.
She’s not made a decision yet whether to tell the doctor what she saw last night. Already the images, so clearly imprinted the previous evening, are fading and she’s glad she wrote down her witness account.
Idly, she pulls her pen out of her bag and turns to a fresh page. She writes Alex’s name, stares at it and then hastily scribbles it out, closes the book and stuffs it back in her bag. She can’t allow sentimentality now, not yet, although it may be too late for rebuking herself and her emotions. Last night, as she walked back to her apartment, she was sure she saw him driving a car. It whizzed past her in such a blur and took off around the corner so fast she couldn’t get a good look. But of course it wasn’t Alex. Alex isn’t here. He doesn’t know that she’s here because she purposefully covered her tracks so he couldn’t find her. Because when she goes back to him she wants to go back as herself, healed and healthy, not the broken down girl that left him.
And then a terrible thought strikes her; what if he’s not searching for her? What if he’s not waited? What if he’s moved on with one of the many, beautiful, more age appropriate women that he could get with the click of a finger? What if he’s not given her a second thought since she left London?
She takes a deep breath, knowing that it’s a distinct possibility. But it’s something to ponder upon another day. Today she has more pressing business.
Doctor Bram Bastiaan is waiting for Elian’s arrival. For today he has put aside her actions of last night and his assumptions of her working girl activities. For even if she does work the streets, or did, it’s not too late, she can be saved. He can save her.
He hears the doorbell ring and stands up sharply. With a quick look in the mirror he appraises his reflection. He’s dressed down today; a checked shirt, beige slacks and loafers. He feels strange not being in a suit, but he’s confident that his appearance is that of a younger, more ‘with it’ man.
“Elian!” he greets her enthusiastically as he opens the door. “Do come in, please.”
And she has also dressed more appropriately, he notes as he looks her up and down, a peasant blouse, jeans, and the ever present sneakers that are scuffed and stained with sand from the beach.
“Did you hear about another attack?” she blurts before he’s shown her into his office.
He nods, sympathetically, he hopes, “Young Naomi Wilson. Such a shame, such a bright and promising future that lady had.”
Elian blinks at him. “They found her, then?”
“Pardon me?”
“They’ve found her body, in the apartments on Gevers?”
Bram isn’t sure he understands and he rubs his hands over his face. “What are you saying, Elian?”
She puts her hands on his desk and leans forward, her voice goes up a notch with impatience. “There was a body, at least, I think it was a body. The Russian guy took it out of his apartment, near where you saw me last night. Him and another man took it out of his apartment and into the one next door.”
Bram sits back and thinks for a moment, unsure of what the girl is talking about. Gevers Deynootweg wasn’t near the church where Naomi was found. Maybe he should arrange an MRI scan for Elian. Or, he thinks, maybe I’ll check out her story for myself.
“Do you have my results, doctor?” Her voice is timid again now, back to how he feels is her natural state. Back to how she should be.
“Elian, my dear,” he says as he reaches for her file. “I’m so very happy to tell you that all of your fears were unfounded. You are as healthy as you were the day that you were born.”
Elian stares at the doctor, not quite believing what he’s telling her. It strikes her that if she’s as healthy as she was on the day that she was born, then that wasn’t very good at all, considering that she was born from a mother addicted to Heroin and God knows what else. Then her heart leaps as she remembers, the doctor doesn’t know that, he has no idea of her history. She’s healthy!
“Let me see,” she demands and practically snatches the paper out of his hands, scanning it, believing it with her own eyes.
It’s in Dutch, but there are three columns with English words next to the Dutch; low, moderate and high. Nothing is recorded in the two latter columns and in low, 0% is marked in all of them.
It’s really true. She escaped Niko with her life and her health. She clutches the paper to her chest and swallows down a sob, before a sobering thought enters her mind.
“And my head injury, the nightmares and the memory loss, what about that?”
He reaches across the desk, takes the paper from her and smoothes it out before placing it in her file.
“I have no doubt that your memory function will continue to get better, until your problems have receded to none. You’ve had a traumatic episode, but I’m confident that with counselling–”
“No.” She holds her hand up to stop him talking. “I don’t need any counselling or therapy. I just need to get home and get over it.”
His small, dark eyes are boring into her and she shifts uncomfortably.
“I’m sorry, doctor. You’ve been so helpful.” Tears that can’t be stopped appear suddenly, rolling down her face and she swallows again, trying to stifle her emotions.
He passes over to her a hanky, asks her if she’d like to use his bathroom, and she nods and hurries into the small room to try and compose herself.
She washes her face and stares at her reflection in the mirror. She feels drained and very tired, but oh so relieved. And the body in Lev’s apartment block has been found. Surely it won’t take them long to reach Lev now? They’ll interview everyone in the building, certainly the deceased’s immediate neighbours, surely?
It’s over, she thinks, Very nearly, almost over.
Lev will be caught.
She is healthy and disease free.
She can go home. To Alex.
It’s with a spring in her step that she returns to the surgery, offering her thanks and money to the doctor, both of which he waves away. Impulsively, she hugs him, and as she collects her bag from where she left it on her chair, she smiles to herself. She must be getting better already; a few days ago she wouldn’t have volunteered a hug to any man.
With a cheery wave she’s on her way, so happy, that every part of her seems lighter. Even the tote bag that she carries on her shoulder seems lighter than it did when she went into the surgery.
Safely ensconced in his o
ffice with the door securely locked, Bram opens the little brown notebook that he took from Elian’s bag and, pouring himself a whiskey, he settles down to read.
46
ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY
BRONOVO HOSPITAL
10.07.15 Late morning
The scrape of a chair leg on linoleum floor and the slow, steady, insistent beat of machinery pull Erik to consciousness. He blinks, the sun is beating down on his back and he has a moment of blessed ignorance. Then it crashes down on him.
Naomi, attacked and left for dead.
Alex, the British cop racing them in Erik’s car to the hospital.
Naomi, paddles thrust upon her chest; her top crudely hacked away.
He gasps, sits bolt upright and looks wildly around. He has fallen asleep in a chair at Naomi’s bedside and he looks across at the heart monitor, momentarily reassured that he’s not looking at a flat line. He transfers his gaze to her face, wax-like and pale against the robin’s egg blue of the crisp, hospital sheet.
He cranes his head and sees Alex talking to a doctor outside the room and feels a momentary rush of gratitude. The Englishman is here, despite them not really knowing each other or getting off to the best start. He catches Alex’s eye, beckons with his head for him to come in. The doctor follows, busies himself with checking Naomi’s vital statistics.
“Thanks for coming back,” Erik mutters to Alex.
“I haven’t left yet, I’ve been familiarising myself with your cases,” replies Alex, and Erik sees the stack of files under his arm. “I thought since it got so close to home you might want to get this case cracked.”
Erik thinks about Alex’s words. To tell the truth he hadn’t even cast a thought towards the killings since he heard about Naomi. But now Alex has mentioned it, Erik wants the perpetrator caught. And, he realises, he wants to get him himself. He allows himself to think about it for a moment, plays it through his mind, catching him, cuffing him, and before he reads him his rights, drawing back his fists and smashing–
“Erik?” Alex has sloped across the room and is waving his hand in his face. “Dude, you need to sharpen up a bit.”
Alex drags over a chair and spreads the files out on the bed, ignoring the look of horror on Erik’s face that he is effectively using his comatose girlfriend as a table.
“Where are your men at on the CCTV?” he asks.
“I haven’t heard any news on anything new yet,” Erik replies, rubbing at his eyes and dragging one of the files towards him. “All of these previous attacks occurred at points where CCTV doesn’t cover.”
“So what does that tell you?” Alex asks, gazing at the photographs of the three victims.
Erik visibly pulls himself together, blinking rapidly and pouring himself a glass of water from the bedside table. “That it was luck, or that the killer knows the area very well.”
“Yes, exactly, so who is on your radar so far?”
Erik picks up the file nearest to Naomi’s right foot, pausing to cover up her exposed skin on her ankle with the sheet. Alex swallows, this isn’t only close to home for Erik, this could have been him sitting by Elian’s bedside. Hell, for a while in Chernobyl, it was him.
“This is who we have spoken to, so far. The Russian, the one who bought you here, Levart Abramov. I spoke to Bram Bastiaan, he’s the doctor who takes care of the girls here in Scheveningen. We’ve tracked down as many people as possible who had known contact with the victims, but that’s not many, they are mostly tourists, just here for a weekend.”
“Do they have people looking after them? I mean, like pimps, people they pay for protection?” asks Alex.
“Not so much, their employment is legal here so there’s no real need for that.”
“And is there any link between the girls, other than their work?”
“Nothing that stands out,” answers Erik. “And Naomi, now her … apart from working with them, she’s the polar opposite of the other victims.”
“So it could be an opportunist,” says Alex. “Except for Amber, he went into her home.”
Erik rubs at his face, is about to retort when the doctor who was on duty last night comes into the room. He glances at Erik, then towards Alex. By the way he’s holding Naomi’s file open Erik can tell he has some news.
“It’s okay, go ahead,” he says.
The doctor, a German by his name badge, stands at the other side of the bed and, looking to Erik for all the world like he is about to perform a sermon, begins to speak.
“Miss Wilson is currently in an induced coma, that is to say, in order to try and mend the damage done by the manual suffocation, we have put her under. She lost consciousness during the assault, but there is no fracture to the hyoid bone. More tests are needed, but right now we are confident with the brain activity that is showing on the reports.”
“So she’ll be okay?” Even as Erik says the words he feels foolish, he, better than anyone, knows that the doctor won’t make any promises or guarantees on the outcome.
Alex, however, seems to take the doctor’s words as a good sign, and he slaps Erik on the back with a grin.
“And lastly, the good news and yar, there is some,” he smiles, almost playfully at Erik, his tone so changed by his cheery expression that his German accent is suddenly a lot more pronounced. “I can confirm that the baby is absolutely fine and there is no reason to believe that would change, whatever the outcome of Miss Wilson’s condition.”
Alex is behind him again, practically hugging him now, and the doctor peers over his spectacles, beaming.
“I–I didn’t know she was pregnant.” At Erik’s words Alex’s hand falls from his shoulder, as though sensing the sudden atmosphere in the room.
“Yes, not far along,” the doctors says with a note of caution. “Only around three weeks or so, so it is very, very early. But it is there, it is fine.”
They wait in silence while the doctor makes some slight adjustments to the I.V drip and then retreats from the room.
“It’s good news though, right?” Alex’s voice brings him back to the present.
Erik can’t look at him, can’t face him, so he stares at Naomi until the bruised indents in her neck get too much and finally he looks away, staring unseeingly at the wall.
“We haven’t had sex in months,” Erik hears himself say, bewildered.
And then nobody says anything, and the only sound in the room is the beeping of the machines that are keeping Naomi and her unborn child alive.
47
LEV and ROLAND
1058 GEVERS DEYNOOTWEG and SCHEVENINGEN PIER
10.7.15 Lunchtime
Lev wakes to another bright day. The sunshine bathing him in warmth is confusing to him. Does it never rain here? Is the land not cast in shadow like it so often was in the forest in Pripyat? He can hear the joyous sounds of children on the beach, the water lapping at the shore. He blinks and rubs his eyes. The water isn’t that close to the apartment. Looking around he groans inwardly; Roland is still here, and the water he can hear is the boy washing his hands at the sink.
He looks at the back of the young man, knows that he should really get his shit together and get out of this godforsaken town. Roland can’t be trusted, he’s so easily influenced that Lev has no doubt he would break at the slightest amount of pressure applied to him.
As Lev stretches his cramped body and curses himself for falling asleep in the armchair, he realises the cravings are back. He thinks for a moment, trying to identify whether it is the blood or the drugs that he wants more of. And seeing as the drugs are much more easily accessible, he reaches for them.
“What are you doing, Roland?” Lev rasps as he studies his rapidly diminishing haul.
“Tidying up,” replies Roland, coming into view out of the kitchen area.
Lev sniffs the air which holds a distinct smell of bleach and cleaning products. He feels a wave of nostalgia and links it with his old friend Niko’s caravan. The memory brings a smile and an unexpected feeling
of homesickness. He looks down at the floor where Joy met her sorry end.
“You done a good job, Roland,” he says graciously and not without surprise.
Roland looks pleased with the compliment and Lev wonders if he was too harsh on the boy. For if Roland has not only remained by his side but also cleaned up the evidence, maybe he can be useful after all.
“I need you to do something for me,” Lev says, rifling through his pockets and digging out a wad of notes. “I need some more stuff to get me through a couple of days while I figure out what to do. Can I trust you to get it for me?”
Roland seems happy to be entrusted with a special job, and nodding, he takes the notes from Lev and waits while Lev writes down exactly what he wants.
Roland jogs down the steps and makes his way through to the beach. He keeps a hand at his pocket, patting at it every so often to make sure Lev’s money and list hasn’t fallen out. He’s so pleased to have the opportunity to do something for Lev. After all, he hasn’t really had a proper friend since Miles went and got himself killed. His team of pals had been broken, they’d all gone; ‘six feet under’, as his mother put it.
