Reckoning Point

by J. M. Hewitt

  Alex dumps the car where it is and is out of the car before Erik has even unbuckled his seatbelt.

  Whether it is his purposeful stride or his natural finesse, nobody stops Alex and as he reaches the floor where the police are congregating he spots the open door of the apartment. He touches nothing as he glides through the door and stands inside the lounge area of someone’s home. All he can see is red; a red dress, red lipstick, red nails and deep, dark red blood.

  He sags against the doorframe, clutches at it to steady himself. A police officer shoves him roughly, talking at speed in a language that means nothing to Alex, but he gets the drift and pushes himself upright, still staring at the woman who is not Elian. Erik is there next to him, a questioning look on his face. Alex shakes his head, trying not to show his relief; after all, this was still a person, somebody’s daughter, wife or sister. He’s reminded of another body in another place in a time in the not so distant past. And suddenly it’s imperative that he finds Elian and takes her away from here before his nightmare becomes reality. The next body that he finds himself standing over could well be hers.

  He turns to Erik, puts a hand on his arm. “I’m coming back to the police station when you’re finished here, and you’re going to search Elian’s name in your database.”

  For once Erik doesn’t argue with him and Alex nods his satisfaction and stands back to let the team get to work.

  He watches through narrow eyes as they move around the apartment. When they finally move the woman Alex steps outside and looks across Scheveningen. His phone vibrates in his pocket, interrupting his thoughts and he pulls it out, ever hopeful that it will be her, his heart sinking as usual when it’s not.

  “Aunty, hello,” he manages a smile into the phone. “How are you?”

  “Fine, but you, have you found her?” Selina’s voice is filled with concern as she asks about Elian.

  “Not yet, but I think I’m getting closer.”

  “Your friend Luke called, from the lab. He said he’s not got your mobile number, he wants you to ring him.”

  Alex’s mouth goes dry. “Did he say why? Did he say he’s got some results for me?”

  Selina clicks her tongue, “No, he just left that message. And look, I’m starting to feel like your secretary here because I’ve also had your father on the telephone, he wants to know if you’d like to join him and your mother for a holiday,” Selina says. “I told him you were away on business; he wants you to call him, he said it was rather important.”

  Alex frowns. It’s unusual for his father to contact him, especially to request his company on a vacation. “He wants me to go to Portugal?”

  “They’re not at home, they’re in Majorca at the Olive Grove,” replies Selina.

  Alex is silent again. He and his parents are not close, they never have been. Though he doesn’t doubt their love for him they are more like distant family members and he can count on one hand the times he has visited them since they retired abroad a decade ago. He has been to their Majorcan holiday home, set in the orchards in the south east of the island.

  He shivers involuntarily; as the fog starts to hang over the North Sea it brings a chill along with it. Alex takes a deep breath, holds it and lets it out.

  A Mediterranean holiday has never seemed more attractive.

  If he goes, he’s taking Elian with him.

  But before he can, he needs to get the DNA results off Luke.

  And he hopes that once he finds Elian, he’ll finally be able to give her some good news.

  51

  FORTH MURDER

  A BASEMENT IN HOLLAND SPOOR

  11.7.15 Early hours

  Lev comes to very slowly and as he cracks his eyes open he can’t work out what’s wrong. Something is, but he can’t put his finger on it. He feels like he has been on a weeklong bender. His eyes are heavy, crusted and though he is cold he can feel his body covered in a sheet of perspiration.

  He looks around but it’s quite dark. He’s not in his chair, he’s sure of that. Wherever he is seated is hard, like a dining room seat, definitely not his comfortable recliner. He brings his hands up to brush his hair away from his eyes and then realises they are bound. Lev stares in disbelief and brings his hands close to his face, just about able to make out the rope binding his wrists. A surge of panic flows through his body and he tries to stand, bringing the chair with him. The rope is twisted around the legs and the arms, but his feet are not tied.

  He shuffles around, panting noisily and then screwing his eyes shut he slumps back down in the chair. The silence descends again and the only sound is his breathing.

  He thinks back in time. He remembers the pier, sending Roland out to get his stash. Roland took a long time, too long and Lev had gone to look for him. He had found him, but there was another man with him and … that’s all he can recall. Did they party? His stomach is cramping and he feels like he has a fever; all his usual pointers to a heavy night taking recreational drugs.

  As a trickle of sweat rolls down between his shoulder blades Lev hangs his head. Why didn’t he run as soon as he saw Roland talking so intimately with the stranger? He had been concerned about his passport and his money, but fleeing across the borders on foot would have been preferable to this. What good were his documents and cash now, unless the strange man was intending to rob him? But why bring him here? Why not just take all of Lev’s money once he’d passed out in a drink and drug induced slumber? No, this was not a common thief. This was something else, something much, much worse than a simple mugging.

  And finally giving in to the panic, Lev begins to sob.

  The man watches quietly from his position on the concrete steps. He knows that the Russian can’t see much, indeed the man himself struggles to see in the basement, the only light coming in from a narrow pane high up near the ceiling, but for him the other senses are much more interesting. He can smell the perspiration; he can hear the change in the man’s breathing.

  He’s not bought anyone here in a while. Usually he gets his business done on the streets. That’s the good thing about being constantly overlooked by society; you can live in the shadows and get away with … well, with murder.

  He gets up from the stair and makes his way over to the Russian. The man hears him and freezes, his eyes flicking left and right. The man raises his hands and with one quick motion he slips a hessian sack over his captive’s hair, yanking it down so it rests upon his shoulders.

  Lev squeals at the touch of the rough material and the man clamps his hands to the sides of his captive’s face. Lev quietens immediately and the man leans forward and speaks.

  “Are you going to be quiet?”

  Lev nods his head and the man pats his shoulder.

  Lev trembles and tries to calm his breathing. Every time he gulps in air he sucks the sack into his mouth and he coughs repeatedly as quietly as he can.

  He hears footsteps receding, then, they return. This time, they are accompanied by something shuffling. He can hear the sounds of someone else now, not the man who put the sack over his head, but someone else, someone who is crying.

  Lev’s heart sinks to the soles of his shoes as it strikes him that the crying is a familiar sound. He doesn’t speak, he barely breathes. He waits.

  Minutes pass. He feels the man behind him once more and Lev tenses his body. He hears the flick of a switch and even through the sack is over his face Lev can tell that the light has changed. He feels a hand grip the bottom of the sack and air swirls around his face as it is removed.

  Lev blinks, waits for his cloudy eyes to clear. When they focus he looks first at his surroundings. They’re in a basement, stone floor, brick walls, one tiny window. A bare but bright bulb hangs from the ceiling, casting a light around his prison.

  His captor is behind him. In a chair, six feet away, trussed and tied just like Lev, sits a crying, shaking, snotty nosed Roland.

  The man moves around Lev to stand behind Roland. Roland jerks in his chair, fresh tears streaming
down his face. Lev swallows as he looks at the stranger who was with Roland at the pier.

  This isn’t going to end well, he thinks. Not if this guy is letting me see his face.

  And he looks at the man, really takes his appearance in. He’s of medium height, average build, but he moves slowly. His age is impossible to determine. He’s not young, but not ancient. He’s normal. Everything about him screams ‘normal’. Except a normal man wouldn’t put his hands on Roland’s thin, white neck and squeeze.

  Lev feels the surprise wash over him, this man’s strength, that’s not normal. Roland isn’t a small guy, but even if he was a giant he’d be no match for the determined guy who is strangling him.

  Towards the end, Roland bucks violently in his chair, but his sudden vigour is short lived as his face turns a strange puce colour.

  Lev is no stranger to death. He has seen it many times before, both natural and violent. But all those times he has been an onlooker, safely waiting in the wings at the edge of the arena. Now he’s very much in the spotlight, centre stage. At risk.

  And as the man let’s go of Roland, causing the young man’s head to flop forward onto his chest, Lev looks straight at the guy.

  The man smiles and for a terrible moment Lev thinks he’s next. But the man simply turns tail, and makes his way slowly back up the concrete staircase.

  Lev holds his breath, his mind full of instruments of torture that he’s going to return with.

  But in the silence of the room, Lev hears a key turn in the door and what sounds like a bolt being slid into place.

  And then he’s alone, left in the basement, with just Roland’s dead body for company.

  52

  ELIAN

  THE BEACH and later, GEVERS DEYNOOTWEG

  11.7.15 Sunrise

  After her meal with Brigitta, Elian found that sleep eluded her. Too many thoughts were racing around her mind, almost as though they had been tied down inside her brain and only now the rope binding them had been cut, allowing them to jump around in her head. In the early hours, when it was still pitch black outside, she had got up and come down to the beach.

  The promenade is still lit, though the bars and clubs have long since locked their doors. There’s a glow on the horizon which she knows is the sun beginning to rise. To her left a container ship is crawling on a long journey, emerging from the Hook, probably going from Rotterdam across to her homeland.

  And as she watches the ship she contemplates on what she has begun to think of as her ‘old life’. She had - still has - an apartment in an affluent area of London. But it was just that; an apartment; it hadn’t been a home since her aunt Sissy had left it. She has money back home too; a bank account that was paid into by a benefactor who is still a mystery. She had a job, a position at the magazine that Alex’s detective agency was a front for. Although she’d been missing from her place of employment for well over a month now, there was probably a new person sitting at her desk these days. Elian has no idea what – if anything – Alex had told them in her absence.

  Elian gets to her feet and decides to walk by Lev’s apartment. There won’t be anyone around at this time of night, but despite that thought, she’s glad she pulled on her black jeans and dark hoodie, all the better to conceal her.

  As soon as she turns the corner onto Gevers Deynootweg she sees the police cars. There are a lot of lights on the upper floor of the apartment building, and men in white suits move to and fro across the walkway. Excitement builds in her. They’ve found the body! She looks to his apartment, number 1058, but the door is closed and the rooms beyond are in darkness. She looks at the other neighbouring homes; all of the lights are on. Men and women are standing in clusters, talking, gossiping, no doubt sharing theories and their own thoughts on what happened. Do the police not think it strange that Lev is not out there? But why would they? Maybe they think the apartment is not let, but surely they’d check with the landlord.

  Elian’s mouth sets in a firm line as she crosses the tram tracks and approaches the building. She imagines Lev cowering inside and the bitter taste of revenge fills her up. Yes, that’s exactly how it should be. After all, wasn’t she the one cowering inside the caravan, shackled in her chains, scared of what Lev and Niko were planning to do to her? This is the reckoning point, her justice, Lev’s judgement day.

  She skips up the stairs, not caring about making a noise this time, marching determinedly down the walkway, past the onlookers and rubberneckers. One of the forensic team’s men says something to her in Dutch, and when she ignores him he calls out to an officer. The officer, a tired looking middle aged man, catches her arm.

  “Hey, get off me,” she spits and wrenches her arm away.

  “Madam, you cannot go along here, this is a crime scene,” he replies patiently and blocks her path.

  Elian stands, arms folded and glares at him. “Have you been inside there?” She nods towards apartment 1058 and the officer eyes her uneasily.

  “Because that Russian who lives there, he’s responsible for this. I saw him!” She sees the policeman’s eyes widen and bites down on her lip.

  As much as she wants Lev to be caught and punished for all of his misdeeds, she doesn’t want to have to be in the centre of the trial. No, once Lev is arrested, her plan is to be out of here, flying back home so she can finally start her own life.

  “Just check it out,” she snaps as she retreats back the way she came.

  She hurries down the metal stairs, glancing back to make sure the officer isn’t following her.

  As she trots down the last flight she swings around the banister, darting glances behind her and then she lets out an ‘ooof’ as she connects with something solid. Panicking, she pushes away but an arm shoots out and grips her wrist with surprising strength.

  “Elian!”

  The voice is familiar, and when she rights herself and looks at him, she lets out a sigh of relief.

  “Hello, Doctor Bastiaan,” she says, still looking back and up to the third floor to make sure she’s not being followed.

  “What are you doing out here, at this time of morning?” he asks, still holding her arm.

  She shrugs free, moving across the road, giving him no choice but to follow. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d take a walk on the beach.”

  “The beach is that way,” the Doctor says, smiling as he matches her long strides. “What’s happening up there? Is it something to do with what you told me the other day?”

  Elian remembers blurting out about the body and the Doctor’s confusion and her own subsequent bewilderment. Now she understands, the two women were separate attacks, but Lev is likely responsible for both.

  She doesn’t know what to say to the doctor, she doesn’t know how to answer him. And why is he always here? His surgery is across town, yet somehow, for some reason, he’s always happening upon her here on Gevers. And she can’t ask him however, because he could turn her thoughts around and say exactly the same to her. So she says nothing, and before long they’re back on the beach, walking together and the silence is uncomfortable to say the least.

  “I was actually hoping that I might bump into you today, Elian,” he says as the pass the pier.

  “Oh, why’s that?” she asks, warily, hoping he’s not going to start pressuring her to go to therapy or counselling again.

  “You left something at the surgery the other day, I thought it might be important so I wanted to return it to you.”

  He stops walking and she too pauses, reluctantly turning to face him.

  He reaches into his overcoat, and it strikes her that even though the sun isn’t up, the night is still warm, they are in the height of a summer heat wave, and he has no need to be wearing a coat of that weight and thickness. And instantly she’s transported back in time, when she first encountered Klim, before she knew who he was, and the heavy leather coat he wore and the ridiculous woollen hat even though it was the middle of summer.

  Pangs of something close to nostalgia a
nd fondness cling to the memory of him, surprising her because he was unreachable, not like the kind Sol or the clinging Sissy. But she suddenly longs for him, for his calm and quiet nature, and his straight-talking ways.

  Blinking, she brings herself back to the present, back to the doctor and in the dim light of the pier lights she frowns at what he is presenting her with.

  “It’s an address book, yes?” he asks as he pushes it into her hands. “You left it on your chair when you came to the surgery to get your results.”

  She accepts it, feeling the familiar weight of the book that contains her innermost thoughts and memories. Clutching it to her chest she feels the heat in her face.

  He has read her notebook, he knows it’s not an address book. He sat in his dark office and read every single word about every single act that was forced upon her.

  And she hadn’t even noticed that it was missing.

  I’m getting complacent, she thinks to herself. Since my health is okay and Lev is almost done with, I’m not being careful anymore.

  “But that’s not the only reason I wanted to speak to you, I got news of a cancellation at the medical centre, you can have your M.R.I scan if you still want it?”

  “Oh,” Elian’s heart leaps. “Really, doctor?”

  He smiles kindly and pats her arm. “And I shall accompany you there, young lady. The machine can be noisy and a little traumatising, especially for those that suffer with claustrophobic tendencies, but I’ll not be far away.”

  Elian tries to return his smile but knows it looks more like a grimace. She’s trying to think of a way to politely refuse his offer of chaperoning her, but he’s reaching into his pocket again and he produces a small card. She squints at his scribbled handwriting.