The Girl Who Got Revenge

by Marnie Riches

  Approaching, he rang the bell several times, but there was no answer. It was as if he had merely imagined them.

  ‘I told you,’ Elvis said, peering up at the dirt-streaked windows. The pointing between the bricks was crumbling and the gutter near the roof on the three-storey building was cracked and coming away from the facade. ‘Me and Marie had the same thing. Nobody wants to talk round here.’

  ‘But it’s supposed to be trendy and vibrant, these days.’ Van den Bergen cast an appraising eye over the café that was several doors down from Den Bosch’s house. The windows were steamy. The lights were on. The sound of chatter and laughter spilled onto the busy street as three young men bundled out, wrapping themselves with scarves against the biting autumnal air. Business was booming in De Pijp. ‘Bohemian, and all that crap. I expected the people here to be more talkative. Let’s keep going.’

  Together, they worked their way down the street, knocking on doors only to be met by twitching net curtains or vehement denials – from the neighbours who did deign to open their doors – that they knew Den Bosch at all. Helpfully unhelpful, often in pidgin Dutch and in several different accents. The air was heady with the smells of cooking from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Van den Bergen could also smell bullshit very strongly indeed.

  ‘Are you telling me that not a single soul knows a successful businessman like Den Bosch on a busy street like this?’ he asked Elvis as they entered the welcoming warmth of the Wakker/Lekker café – its name a claim that its fare could both wake you up and be delicious. Van den Bergen yawned and his stomach growled. The smell of coffee and cake wafted around him like a timely greeting. ‘Den Bosch’s name is emblazoned on the side of those giant bloody trucks.’

  ‘Yeah. But you’d only see those on the motorways and at the docks, boss. Not locally. I’d never notice one in a million years unless I was looking for it specifically.’

  Donning his reading glasses, Van den Bergen looked longingly at the lemon cake, remembered that anything acidic was a no-no for hiatus hernia sufferers. And there was the small matter of being on duty.

  ‘Just a koffie verkeerd please,’ he said to the woman behind the counter.

  She looked at him blankly, forcing him to reappraise the menu, which only had the café’s offerings in Italian.

  ‘Latte. I mean a latte.’ Then he remembered that anything high in fat was discouraged too. Damn it. ‘With skimmed milk.’ He swallowed. Patted his stomach. ‘I’ve got a hiatus hernia.’

  He removed his glasses and treated the woman to a half-smile that was more of a grimace. Why the hell had he just shared that detail with her? Perhaps because the doc had said that thirty per cent of all over-fifties were afflicted, and she looked well over fifty. Maybe he was just looking for a connection with someone who understood.

  She laughed, hooking her no-nonsense grey bob behind her ears. ‘Me too, lovey. Me too. Haven’t we all? I’m a martyr to mine!’

  Hope surged inside him for the first time in days. But in his pocket, the blister pack of super-strength antacids he was forced to pop twice per day reminded him that there was little to be happy about. His body was crumbling. And then, the memory of Arnold van Blanken, expiring on the waiting room floor, returned, snuffing out every emotion except frustration. Here he was, saddled with the murder of a trafficked girl that he couldn’t solve; unable officially to investigate the murders of several old men that perhaps he could.

  ‘Do you know anything about Frederik Den Bosch?’ he asked, pointing to the lemon cake and indicating that she should serve him up a slice of it after all.

  Her friendly smile soured into mean, thin lips. ‘The farmer? Mr High and Mighty?’

  Van den Bergen placed his coins carefully on the counter. ‘Not keen?’

  She kept her voice low. Leaned in so that the rest of her clientele couldn’t eavesdrop. ‘He’s selfish. He always takes my parking space with that ridiculous Jeep of his and he obviously doesn’t give a hoot that I’m much older than him. It’s not like he doesn’t know I’ve got arthritis in my knees. We had a conversation about it years ago. Big turd.’

  Sensing that the café owner was rather enjoying offloading about her neighbour, Van den Bergen showed her his ID. Winked conspiratorially. ‘Go on. My colleague and I are both very interested in Mr Den Bosch. Anything you say may be of help to our investigation.’

  The woman glanced at the group of young people who were enjoying croissants and hot drinks by the window. She turned back to Van den Bergen and beckoned him and Elvis into the back room.

  In a space that was otherwise stacked high with boxes and cluttered with shabby, broken seating that had reached the end of its useful life, she gestured that they should sit on beat-up armchairs, arranged in a sociable group. Wakker/Lekker’s proprietor was a woman who liked to hold court on a regular basis, Van den Bergen assessed.

  She wiped her hands on her flowery apron, her face flushed. ‘Why are you investigating him? Can you tell me?’

  Clearing his throat, Van den Bergen considered his words carefully, sensing that this might be a woman prone to hyperbole and conjecture. ‘One of Mr Den Bosch’s trucks was stolen and I’m afraid the port police found cargo on board that shouldn’t have been there. We’re trying to find out more about Den Bosch, and why his truck might have been used to commit some very serious crimes.’

  ‘Drugs!’ Her eyes brightened. ‘Was it drugs?’

  ‘No. Please, Mevrouw. Tell me if there’s anything else you know about Frederik Den Bosch. His other neighbours seem reluctant to speak to us, but I can tell you’re a fine, upstanding Dutch citizen.’

  She nodded vociferously. ‘I am. You bet. But he’s not, that overgrown ferret. Everyone thinks he’s a pillar of the community, but what he’s doing with those houses is wrong.’

  ‘What houses?’ Van den Bergen had already opened his notebook and was poised to write. At his side, Elvis sat silently observing the woman’s body language.

  ‘Didn’t you know? He owns three houses on this street alone, and about five on the next. Stuffs them to the rafters with immigrants. It’s a disgrace.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She closed her eyes. ‘Rammed in there like shrink-wrapped sausages. That’s why they won’t talk to you. They’re all afraid. And he lets his properties go to rack and ruin. Have you seen the state of them? All bust guttering and filthy windows. Slum landlord – that’s what Den Bosch is. And they’re all illegals, I reckon.’

  ‘Why? What makes you say that?’

  Shrugging, she splayed her fingers and examined her spotless short nails. ‘They’re shifty. They don’t speak Dutch. I live above my café, see. I can see them when they arrive in the middle of the night. They don’t bring anything more than a small case or a rucksack. And I may have dodgy knees and a hiatus hernia, but I’ve got an excellent memory for people’s faces. So I can tell the new ones, even by the light of the street lamp.’

  Van den Bergen wrote furiously in his notepad, sensing that here was something to go on. ‘How frequently do new people arrive?’

  She cocked her head thoughtfully. Glanced through the open doorway to check no other customers were standing at the counter. ‘Every few weeks. You get men. Women with children. All sorts. They all come from those Muslim countries. I know that because of the way the women dress. They’re always wearing those burka things, or have got their heads covered, at least.’ Rubbing her knees, she tried to glimpse what he was writing. ‘All I know is that he must have thirty living in each house. It’s not on, you know. It’s unsanitary. And they leave rubbish strewn on the street. The bins are overflowing every week with stinking nappies.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘You want to talk to environmental health about that, you know. He wants locking up, he does. Expecting the rest of us respectable residents to put up with that mess. And the people in there! Imagine kiddies having to live in that filth and with all those strange men! It’s not right.’

  With the addresses of the houses safely recorded in
his notepad, Van den Bergen made a second attempt at encouraging the reluctant residents to speak out about their enigmatic neighbour.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said, as yet another hijab-clad woman refused to come to the door. He looked up at her as she shouted something in Arabic through the cracked glass of her first-floor window. ‘This is sending my acid into overdrive.’ He swallowed down the foul taste in his mouth.

  Elvis stepped away from the front door, where he had been peering through the letterbox. ‘Let’s give it up, boss. Try one of the houses on another street and maybe come back later. See if Den Bosch shows. He won’t dare refuse to talk to us.’

  Driving only one street away, so that he could keep his car within sight, Van den Bergen sighed heavily. Tried to get into a tight space and failed. Ended up at the wrong end of a long road.

  ‘Ever wish you’d just stayed in bed? Or at least did another job?’ he said, pointing his fob at the Mercedes and arming the alarm. He thought fleetingly and fondly of retirement, then remembered that he wanted to be the opposite of old Arnold van Blanken. He needed to be a working man, in his prime for as long as possible.

  Elvis chuckled softly. ‘My mother’s dead. I nearly checked out in the spring, thanks to one trafficking bastard. I often think about doing something boring and safe, but this job is all I know.’

  ‘I guess it’s just me, then,’ Van den Bergen said, eyeing a group of youths who were hanging around too close to his car for comfort. He could see that they were scoping him out. Debating whether to pre-empt a clash and tell them to move along, he jumped when he felt a hand on his back.

  ‘Watch your car, mister?’ a shrill voice said.

  Turning, he saw a small boy of about ten, dressed in a tunic and trousers that gave him away as Syrian, maybe, or Afghan. Van den Bergen stooped low so that they were face to face. The boy’s breakfast was still visible at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Why aren’t you in school, young man?’

  ‘Ten euros to watch it. I’ll keep it safe, I promise.’ His Dutch was fluent but his Amsterdam accent was laced heavily with Middle Eastern flat vowels and clipped intonation.

  Van den Bergen’s knees cracked as he crouched. He could see childish mischief in those shining dark eyes. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Not telling you, am I?’ The boy grinned, revealing adult teeth awkwardly pushing the milk teeth aside. One incisor was growing outwards, almost horizontally, poking through the boy’s full-lipped smile. ‘Go on, then. Ten euros. It’s a good price.’

  Reaching for his wallet, Van den Bergen wondered how much a boy who never went to school, but who had been around long enough to pick up the regional accent, might know about a local landlord. ‘Here’s five for now. I’ll give you the other five later.’

  The boy made to snatch the money, but Van den Bergen drew himself to his full height and held the cash at a height impossible for the kid to reach. ‘First, though, tell me if you’ve ever heard of a man called Frederik den Bosch.’ He waved the five-euro note close. Withdrew it. Felt bad for teasing.

  ‘That’ll cost you more.’ The boy glanced over at the group of youths. One of them shouted to him in their native tongue. Definitely an Arabic dialect. There was a clear connection between them.

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll give you twenty if you tell me what you know about Mr Den Bosch. And you won’t have to share the extra ten with those bigger boys. It’ll be our secret.’

  The boy stole a surreptitious glance over at the older boys and nodded. ‘Give me the extra ten now. Behind the car, where they can’t see.’

  ‘Information first.’

  Sighing, the boy began. ‘Den Bosch is nasty. He owns the house where I live.’ As they progressed slowly down the street, it was clear he walked with a pronounced limp.

  ‘Can we go there?’

  ‘Not while my brothers are watching.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Syria. Lots of us are from there.’

  ‘How did you get to Amsterdam?’

  ‘Are you a cop?’

  Should he tell this astute child? He didn’t want to risk the kid clamming up. ‘Tell me more about Den Bosch. It’s him I’m interested in. Why is he nasty?’

  ‘He charges everyone in our house too much money, and my mother says it’s dangerous. Also, I don’t like his tattoos.’

  The mention of tattoos piqued Van den Bergen’s curiosity. He exchanged a glance with Elvis. ‘What kind are they?’

  The boy wrinkled his nose. ‘They’re scary. He’s covered in them, all up his arms. Skulls and symbols and demons. My uncle heard that Den Bosch goes to big gatherings where other men say horrible things about Muslims and immigrants like us. Marches that are on TV. That kind of thing. Uncle Jabril says that’s why he treats us so badly. He wants our money but he doesn’t like us. Den Bosch is nothing but a racist Kufar.’

  Clearing his throat, Van den Bergen wondered how he could get the boy to say more about his arrival on Dutch shores without spooking him. Wary of offering him more money lest it be construed as coercion, he relied simply on a little boy’s innate need to brag. ‘I bet you were really brave when you came over from Syria, weren’t you?’

  The grin told him everything. ‘Yes. My uncle says I’m brave enough to have fought with the rebels.’

  ‘I’ve seen boys like you on TV. Sailing the high seas on rickety ships and nearly drowning. Is that what you did? Did you sail across the Mediterranean?’

  The boy chuckled. ‘Oh no. I can’t swim.’ He pulled up the left leg of his baggy trousers to reveal a deep, florid dent in his calf muscle. ‘I was hit by a big chunk of brick when I was little. A bomb went off at our school. It means I can’t do much sport.’

  ‘What about flying, then? Did you come on a plane?’

  Shaking his head, the boy said, ‘No. I might have a bad leg but I’m as good as any grown man. I looked after my mum and my big brother when they got sick in the truck.’

  ‘You came in a truck? Maybe like the ones Den Bosch has.’

  The boy clasped a hand over his mouth and glared at Van den Bergen as though his indiscretion were his fault. Snatching the money from his hand, the boy fled between the cars and disappeared down an alleyway with an uneven gait but impressive speed.

  ‘Shall we go after him, boss?’

  Van den Bergen felt the corner of his mouth twitch upwards involuntarily. ‘Yes. We could give it a go. Let’s see where he—’

  Poised to sprint after the boy, he stopped short when his phone rang shrilly in his pocket. It was the ringtone for Marianne de Koninck, who only ever called when something dire had landed on her mortuary slab.

  ‘Van den Bergen. Speak!’

  ‘There’s been another,’ she said. ‘Another old man. Heart attack. Tattoo. The lot.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Amsterdam, Oud Zuid, Kaars Verhagen’s house, 12 October

  Staring up at the brass plate on the door of the elegant townhouse in Oud Zuid, watching her breath steam on the air, George thought wistfully about her family, who were undoubtedly now all sprawled by the pool in Torremolinos.

  ‘I could be swigging rum and Coke in the sun, you know,’ she said, glancing up at Van den Bergen. But he wasn’t listening. He was burping quietly and rehearsing his opening gambit. ‘And bouncing some young Spanish waiter off the walls of my hotel room,’ she added. No reaction.

  Footsteps, behind the door, click-clacking on wooden flooring, by the sounds. Van den Bergen cleared his throat, fixing what approximated to a friendly, open smile on his face. All the anxiety surrounding his health and the candle perpetually burned at both ends, thanks to his job and his new grandfatherly responsibilities, seemed to have etched their way into his skin as permanent souvenirs of a life hard-led. In spite of her frustrations, George found she felt some sympathy for the contrary old fart. As the multiple locks on the other side of the door were undone, she squeezed his hand fleetingly. Planted a kiss on his knuckles, then faced forward, rel
easing him and shoving her hands in her pockets.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the woman said. She had only opened the door a fraction. Her voice was hoarse and timorous, her eyes red-rimmed. Her hair was dishevelled and greasy. George had her pegged as the grieving daughter.

  Van den Bergen showed his ID. ‘Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen. This is my colleague, Dr Georgina McKenzie. We’re here about Mr Kaars Verhagen. And you are?’

  ‘Cornelia. Cornelia Verhagen. This is my father’s house. Was.’ Tears welled in her eyes and her lower lip began to tremble. ‘You’d better come in.’

  Inside, the double-fronted house smelled of plaster dust and new timber. But George caught a whiff of a medicinal top note and stale urine coming from the downstairs toilet as they passed from the hallway to a study that faced onto the quiet street. Packing boxes were strewn about, half-filled with books. Here, the air was mustier, heavy with decades of memories. Cornelia Verhagen gestured for them to sit on the old leather sofa, which squeaked beneath their weight.

  ‘Sorry for your loss,’ George said.

  Cornelia blew her nose loudly, nodding as if quiet acceptance was all that was left. ‘Thank you. My father was very old and very ill. I knew he had to go someday, but it still came as a shock.’ Her voice started to break. She tapped her chest as if trying to encourage a breaking heart to keep beating. ‘Silly, really. Sorry.’

  ‘No need to apologise, Mevrouw.’ Van den Bergen leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The furrows in his brow gave him an air of solemnity and respect.

  ‘It’s Doctor. Not Mrs.’

  ‘Sorry. I know from my own father’s death that even when you know it’s coming, it still hurts like hell.’

  Cornelia frowned. Wiped her nose with a pristine white handkerchief. ‘My father died of natural causes. A heart attack, in the end. Hardly surprising given the months and months of treatment and trials he endured. So why did they order a post-mortem and why are you here? There’s not a problem, is there?’ She sat up straight. Folded her arms over her bosom. ‘I wasn’t with him at the end, you know. I was at work. I teach. Anyone will tell you where I was all day.’ Alarm registered on her pinched features. ‘But I did find him in the evening.’ She looked to George, presumably for womanly understanding. ‘You know what it’s like with parents. I always go round just before bed to check on him and make him some tea. It looked like he’d passed away when he was having his morning coffee. Nothing untoward whatsoever.’