The Girl Who Broke the Rules

by Marnie Riches

  Silas smiled and shook his head. ‘Too dangerous for you, my princess.’

  ‘You’re so thoughtful,’ she had said, marvelling that she had found an all-consuming love like this – his was a beautiful, illuminating soul in a world of sham and material misery.

  On the journey, he had talked animatedly about his work, assisting the emergency medical teams near the border, who operated on the victims of landmines.

  ‘You must try to be brave when you see them,’ he had said, steadying her when the train jolted over intersection points. ‘There are thousands of them. Mostly men, but women and children too.’ Feverish, as he described their injuries to her. ‘Some of them have no legs at all. Some have lost arms. They get about on crutches or little carts with wheels. Last time I was over here, I saw people begging on the streets of Phnom Penh. They only had torsos, some of them. It’s dreadful.’ He had a tear in his eye, but there was something behind the show of sadness that bordered on excitement and fascination. Veronica knew enough by now of her lover’s sexual proclivities to know that his interest in amputees went beyond the realm of the medical. Still, turning a blind eye to the quirks of this exceptional man was the least she could do. He felt like something so much better than family.

  She looked out at the sweltering green tangle as the train carved its way through jungle, over rickety bridges that traversed ravines and across the flats of swamp-like rice paddies. Cambodia was the polar opposite to New York or London or Berlin. It was beautiful and dreadful all at once.

  During their journey, he explained how the Vietnamese military had used the landmines to push the Khmer Rouge over the border into Thailand, and how the mines ran as a lethal barrier along the entire length of the border.

  She had worked as a nurse, there. Smelling and touching for the first time in her life the filth and stink of ordinary people. Watching Silas administer forgetful anaesthetic to the injured, who writhed in agony, carried by relatives onto the operating table. The surgeons’ nimble fingers cut and sutured with great skill. Talking French or English or German. All European doctors, earning the shine on their halo before disappearing off back to their own promised lands of private practice and an excellent pension scheme. Veronica felt, as a novelty, a certain reverential regard for her father, who performed the odd ground-breaking cosmetic procedure for the truly needy and disfigured, in amongst the arse-lifts and lipo for the narcissists of Knightsbridge and the Upper East Side who refused to accept the inevitability of decay.

  It had been their second week in the small, makeshift hospital. The sun had still been strong and the heat had bounced off the dirt. Strolling back to their humble, bombed-out accommodation, arm-in-arm, they had walked through a thicket. Some fifty metres ahead, a woman had carried a fat bag of clothing on her head. A T-shirt hanging out of the load was a giveaway. Washing day.

  ‘Let’s get a shower and then take an early dinner,’ Silas had said. ‘I quite fancy sitting out front with a beer or two.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Veronica had said, patting his arm.

  ‘And I’ve got something for you. A gift.’ From his shorts pocket, he took out a small package wrapped in Cambodian newspaper. Covered in the elegant scrolling calligraphy of Khmer.

  ‘For me?’ Veronica had smiled. Started to unwrap the gift. It was a clay figurine. Local art, showing a female figure, missing her arms. It was underwhelming. ‘That’s very thoughtful. Thanks.’

  ‘I’m going to buy some new pieces for my collection, while we’re here,’ he had said. ‘The Cambodians show exquisite skill in their clay work. We should visit a workshop when we get a day off.’

  ‘I’m not sure—’

  The explosion had knocked her to the ground. Before she had fallen, she was aware of a cloud of red mist colouring the space where the woman with the bag of washing had been standing. Her ears ringing with tinnitus. Some way off, the woman had screamed. Babygros and underpants hanging from the trees. Dazed, Veronica had noticed Silas was no longer by her side. Had he been injured?

  She looked up to see that he had run to the woman’s aid. Caught up with him, to find him kneeling next to the dying woman, masturbating. An unsettling light in his glazed eyes. A faraway look that she had sensed was focussed on something in the past.

  ‘Silas! For fuck’s sake. Help her!’

  And now, back in the sweat-drenched stink of Phnom Penh, in the privacy of their concrete ‘hotel’, which was no more than a squalid tumbledown shell, whose original inhabitants may or may not have been buried alive in Pol Pot’s Killing Fields, Veronica was faced with a dilemma.

  ‘Come on,’ Silas said, ferociously tugging on his erection. Breathing the stench from the diesel-powered generators and putrefying vegetable waste strewn along the street below in and out and in and out through flaring nostrils. ‘Squeeze her neck. It will be easy for a strong girl like you. Put her out of her misery.’

  ‘And what if I don’t?’ she asked.

  ‘You will,’ he said. ‘You love me.’

  ‘I won’t. I can’t,’ she said. ‘Just let her go. She doesn’t even understand a word you’ve been saying. All she knows is you’re some kinked john.’

  Silas continued to masturbate, slowing down, now. Savouring the prostitute’s anguish, perhaps.

  ‘Silas, you’re acting crazy. Stop.’

  When Silas Holm put his hands around the neck of the young girl he had paid for pleasure by the hour; when he had choked the life from her twitching body, Veronica wondered in earnest if Papa had been more intuitive than she had hitherto given him credit for. When Silas had thrown the dead prostitute into the dumpster at the back of the hotel under cover of darkness, Veronica wondered if she would be next.

  CHAPTER 67

  Amsterdam, mortuary, 29 January

  ‘This is the worst thing I’ve seen in years,’ Marianne de Koninck said, looking dolefully at the girl on her slab. A blind, blonde angel, probably fair of face when whole, with the red and white of her ribs peeled back like ghastly wings put there by the devil himself. ‘The poor little mite can’t be more than eleven or twelve. Look what the beast has done to her. I know she’s been treated in exactly the same way as the other victims, but…’ She shook her head. Exhaled sharply and clicked off her voice recorder.

  Van den Bergen hugged himself tight. Ran his hand over his stubble and closed his eyes. Perhaps this was it. The end of the road for him as a policeman. It was a hateful job he did, year in, year out, though by God, he did it well. But he was no longer sure he could find the light in amongst so much darkness. It was just overpowering.

  ‘Somehow it seems worse this time,’ he said. ‘Right?’

  Until now, he had been averting his gaze from the child’s body. Staring at some of the surgical equipment. The tiles on the floor. Anything but the girl’s remains. He turned to George, who was sitting in silence on the other side of the mortuary. ‘What sort of monster does this to a child, George? Tell us.’

  But George appeared to be crying. Rigid in her chair, her stillness punctuated only by intermittent heaving, as she sobbed noiselessly. Van den Bergen felt an incredibly strong urge to walk over to her. Put his hand on her shoulder. Show her he cared and that he would make it all better. But he couldn’t. It was impossible to make her unsee what she had seen. He had failed to protect her. And he knew, if he embraced George and Marianne saw the close physical rapport that they shared, the pathologist would realise that they had become more than just colleagues.

  His musings were interrupted by a familiar face, beaming at him from the threshold of the mortuary entrance.

  ‘Sabine! Come in! Come in!’ Marianne beckoned her friend inside. She turned to van den Bergen. ‘Given the fact we’re dealing with a child victim, I wanted to get Sabine in again to give the girl the once-over. What she doesn’t know about the physiology of children, isn’t worth knowing.’ Turned to George. ‘Have you met Dr Schalks?’

  George had folded her arms high on her chest. Sat bolt upright in
her chair. ‘All right, Sabrina? Your reputation precedes you,’ she said, sounding as though the words were sticking just a little in her throat. Notably, George did not offer the newcomer more than a nod in greeting. And he guessed she had deliberately called her by the wrong name.

  Van den Bergen sat on his hands to disguise the fact that he was squirming in the presence of his young lover and the attractive, middle-aged paediatrician who had recently engaged him in several bouts of professional flirtation. Hadn’t she showed up at reception for him, bearing a tray of cakes? He had told George and the others that a grateful mugging victim had left them for the team. Hadn’t she called and invited him to her fundraising gala dinner in aid of the hospital she was building in Kosovo? He had opted to make a donation of fifty euros to the cause instead. It was all he could afford – on every level.

  After donning protective clothing, Sabine proceeded to examine the girl’s corpse. Van den Bergen couldn’t help but be impressed by her cool demeanour. Really professional. Tears standing in her eyes at the end, though.

  ‘Where was the girl found?’ she asked.

  ‘On Middenweg. In a little thicket of trees,’ van den Bergen said. ‘Right by the New East Arboretum. It’s a very public place. Lots of traffic. Right on a tram route. I have no idea how our murderer came to dump her body there without being seen.’

  He recapped all that he and George had discovered so far.

  Sabine raised an eyebrow. Looked alarmed. ‘People trafficking? England as well? Hasselblad told me you’re looking for a serial killer with an interest in paedophilia.’ Turned to Marianne. ‘And I thought you said, Daan Strietman—’

  A tight-lipped Marianne nodded, not bothering to conceal her displeasure. ‘I’ve got five bodies in the fridges still need autopsies performing on them. My number two gets arrested in the middle of bloody flu season on trumped-up charges.’

  A certain ingrained loyalty resonated within van den Bergen. Though privately he had nothing but disdain for Hasselblad, he would not publicly undermine the authority of his superior. ‘Only time will tell if they’re bona fide charges or not, Marianne. I’ll be looking into it now I’m back. We can’t rule out the possibility Strietman is involved somehow if it’s a trafficking ring,’ he said. ‘Especially since he’s been linked to the Valeriusstraat builder. I have questions that still need answers, as far as that mattress goes. How did it get there? Whose blood is on it? And I want to know why the forensics report on Linda Lepiks’ place has conveniently gone astray. Let’s not jump to any conclusions, shall we?’

  Sabine finished examining the girl. Hooked her hair behind her ears, as she scanned Marianne’s preliminary report. Tutted. ‘This girl’s been raped repeatedly – by several different men. I’ve seen this level of abuse before in living victims, of course. But all those missing organs… Maybe it is ritual killing by a member or members of a paedophile ring. It’s not unheard of.’

  ‘Haven’t you been listening?’ George said. ‘This is about trafficked people. Trafficked organs.’

  Sabine folded her arms and stood a little straighter. ‘I think it’s wholly plausible that ritual satanic—’

  ‘Violent sex offenders and serial murderers often dress their brutality up as something to do with satanic worship,’ George said, raising her voice. ‘But the ritual side is almost always superficial and for dramatic effect.’ She blinked repeatedly at the paediatrician.

  ‘What do you know?’ Sabine asked. ‘I thought you were an assistant.’

  Narrowed eyes said George was disgruntled. ‘Oh, I know, all right. This is a complex case. The backdrop to these murders is almost certainly gangland trafficking. But the killer himself – recruited for his surgical abilities, in all likelihood – is a different kettle of fish. He’s shown escalating sadistic behaviour. Taking more of the organs with each victim we find. The term for it is conducting “in vivo trials”. Maybe now, he’s perfected his technique. But what’s he doing it for really? Business…or pleasure?’

  Sabine turned away from George back to the dead girl. ‘The contents of her stomach – still in situ, thankfully – have not been digested yet.’

  Marianne nodded. ‘Yep. Pitta bread, lamb meat, salad. She’d had a kebab shortly before death.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Sabine said, snapping her fingers and pointing. ‘Perhaps she’d been brought in on a flight from Turkey.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ George shouted, causing everyone to turn to see what had caused such an impassioned response.

  She wheeled her typing chair rapidly from side to side. From the left to the right to the left to the right. Playing with some forceps. Open, shut. Open, shut.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Sabine said.

  George glanced over at the girl’s body. ‘You can buy a kebab on any street in Amsterdam. Why the fuck would this girl necessarily have come from Turkey? She’s white, for a start. Lily-white. So, unless she’s an abducted holidaymaker from Bodrum – and I doubt that, since it’s off season and school term time – then she’s got to be local, or at least, northern European. Anyway, a flight from Turkey takes hours. She’d have digested food during that time, right? And I never went on a plane that served up a nice kebab as your in-flight meal. Have you?’

  ‘Georgina’s got a point,’ van den Bergen said, moving discreetly over to her chair and holding the back so she was forced to stop fidgeting. Placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, to show he was on her side. ‘I’ll get my team to look into missing persons in the Benelux countries, France, Germany. Maybe Europol knows something. Dead porn stars and immigrant fishermen are one thing, but the murder of a European child who has been abducted, forced into sexual slavery and eventually used as part of a supply chain for black market organs suddenly takes this to a different league. That’s the stuff of international news headlines.’

  ‘We’re looking for a sociopath,’ George said, though it seemed only van den Bergen was now listening, as Sabine engaged in an entirely different, altogether personal conversation with Marianne about her failed love life. She shouted over their chatter. ‘A sophisticated, skilled individual who likes to kill and has no conscience whatsoever.’

  A rogue tear rolled down George’s cheek. While the other women weren’t looking, gossiping away as though they were on a nice coffee break at a seminar, rather than talking in the presence of a murdered child, van den Bergen put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry you have to see this. I forget you’re—’

  She took his hand into hers surreptitiously. He felt he could almost see the essence of her being in those sorrowful, passionate, dangerous eyes.

  ‘It’s fine. This is what I do, now. I realise it’s going to take years to really harden to it though. The things that killers do…’

  He chuckled and withdrew his hand. ‘Oh, you never harden to it. Not if you have a soul.’

  CHAPTER 68

  South East London, mortuary, later

  The doors to the lift opened. Sharon stepped out gingerly into the dark corridor. Noticed the shiny, navy-blue linoleum floor, wondering how they got it so sparkling. One of those buffer machines, most likely. Funny the things you thought of when there was crap all over the fan and your heart was teetering on the brink.

  ‘You okay?’ the copper asked.

  He had a kind face. She was normally distrustful of his ilk, but given the circumstances, his bulk was somehow comforting. Those Ds were always built like brick shithouses – as had been the uniforms who had shown up on her doorstep. All hissing walkie talkies and big hats and Kevlar vests. It was like fucking RoboCop at your door. Hope the neighbours couldn’t see. Except, bugger the neighbours, because something had gone wrong, obviously. Bad news, always, when a squad car rolled up outside your house, and the coppers’ mugs were respectful and solemn like they were at church.

  ‘My Patrice been in trouble?’ she’d asked, barely able to breathe her way through the fear that seemed to crush the air from her lungs. ‘You come about my son? Cos he’s a good boy, you
know.’

  ‘No. Nothing like that, Ms Williams-May. Can we come in?’

  When they had told her, the tears took a good twenty minutes and a sweet cup of tea to appear. She felt she had to conjure the memory of Derek and instruct her heart to break. Detached from the announcement. Shock, they called it. How could she break the news to her baby girl, if it did turn out to be her dad?

  ‘How comes you’re sure it’s him?’

  ‘We found a wallet on the deceased,’ the lady copper had said. ‘But we’ll need you to ID him. If it is Derek de Falco, you’re down as his next of kin.’

  Now, the end was near, and now she faced the final curtain. Derek had always said he wanted a Frank sonata at his funeral. Maybe the poor bastard’s wish was going to come true. Half of Soho and Bermondsey, sitting in a cold hall at the crem or lining the pews in The Most Holy Trinity RC Church or wherever it was he got sent as a kid. Floral tributes making everyone sneeze. Readings and a world of hypocritical shit. She would have to arrange it all. Jesus. She could barely put one foot in front of another, but the moment of truth had come.

  Followed the policeman to the viewing room or whatever they called it. There was a body under a white sheet. She could already tell it was him from the size. Grief struck her down and her heart was no longer teetering. Worse, when she saw his battered grey face.

  ‘Stupid fucker, Derek de Falco!’

  She hadn’t expected her sorrow to be tinged with anger. Hot tears pouring onto her décolletage, wishing Letitia was there to hug her and tell her it was gonna be all right, like she had when Mum had gone for the belt.