The Girl Who Had No Fear

‘And you’ll also take care of this problem for me?’ he asked.

The farm workers and his own men had gathered along the edge of the airstrip now. Milling around awkwardly, suspecting what was about to happen, perhaps. Visibly squirming, lest the mayhem spill over from the group of absconded prostitutes, somehow tainting them.

The transportista nodded. ‘Claro,’ she said, gabbling something to her compatriots in rapid-fire Salvadoran Spanish.

The women slung their rifles across their backs and simultaneously drew machetes in some gruesome choreographed dance. Pulled the sacks from the heads of the bewildered trafficked girls who peered around to see where they were. Wide-eyed and mouthing, ‘No! No!’ when they caught sight of el cocodrilo. Begging for forgiveness, their pleas falling on his unsympathetic ears. Weak, corruptible bitches. Why would he ever spare them? Particularly when they were so easily replaced with the next truckload coming out of Guatemala.

There was something about the high drama of the Central Americans that appealed to him. It was amusing, all this pandemonium and Latin angst: screaming, now drowning out the high-pitched sound of the cicadas, as the girls understood the fate about to be visited upon them. Weeping from the farm workers, who grasped that this too might be their method of undoing, should they cross the mighty el cocodrilo and dare to take back their freedoms.

‘Now,’ he said.

The transportistas pushed the kneeling girls to the ground until they kissed the dirt with their tear-streaked faces. All bar one raised machetes in unison and, with one forceful blow, beheaded each runaway in almost perfect synchronicity. Amid the wailing of the onlookers, the girls’ heads rolled away from broken bodies that pumped out their life’s blood. Staring but unseeing. For them, at least, it was the end.

But as el cocodrilo turned to walk away from the scene of execution, he felt he was being watched.

CHAPTER 5

Amsterdam, police headquarters, then, Bouwdewijn de Groot Lyceum, Apollolaan, then, Floris Engels’ apartment in Amstelveen, 28 April

‘What do we know about our man in the canal?’ Maarten Minks asked. Neatly folded into his chair, he sat with his pen in hand and his pad open, as though he were poised to take notes. Van den Bergen could deduce from the shine on his overenthusiastic, wrinkle-free face that he was on the cusp of getting a stiffy over the discovery of this fourth body. Waiting for his old Chief Inspector’s words of wisdom, no doubt. Bloody fanboy.

‘Well,’ Van den Bergen began. Paused. Rearranged his long frame in his seat, grimacing as his hip clicked in protest when he tried to cross his legs. ‘It’s interesting, actually. His wallet and ID were still on him. No money stolen, so he couldn’t have been pushed into the water after a mugging.’ He took the smudged glasses from the end of the chain around his neck and perched them on his nose. Wishing now that he’d had the scratched lens replaced when George had told him to. Trying to focus on the handwriting in his notebook. Hell, maybe it wasn’t the scuffing. Maybe his sight had deteriorated since the last eye test. Was it entirely unfeasible that he had glaucoma? ‘Ah, his name was Floris Engels – a maths teacher at Bouwdewijn de Groot Lyceum in the Old South part of town.’

Minks nodded. Pursed his lips. ‘A teacher, eh?’

‘Yes. I checked his tax records. Head of department at a posh school on the expensive side of town.’ Removing his glasses, Van den Bergen stifled a belch. ‘IT Marie’s done some background research and revealed nothing but a photograph of him on the school’s website and a Facebook account that we’re waiting for permission to access. It’s unlikely he was some kind of petty crook on the quiet, as far as I can make out, but I got the feeling he might have been dead before he hit the water.’

‘And the number of canal deaths are stacking up,’ Minks said, lacing his hands together. That fervour was still shining in his eyes.

Van den Bergen could guess exactly what he was hoping for but refused to pander to his boss’ aspirations. ‘I’m going out there with Elvis now to interview the Principal and some of his colleagues. We’re going to check out his apartment too. Marianne’s doing the postmortem this afternoon. She says, at first glance, she thinks maybe there’s been some foul play.’

‘Excellent!’ Minks said, scribbling down a note that Van den Bergen could not read. ‘Lots going on. I really do admire your old school methodical techniques, Paul.’ The new Commissioner beamed at him. His cheeks flushed red and he leaned his elbow onto the desk. ‘Will you be disappearing into your shed for a think?’

Is he taking the piss, Van den Bergen wondered? But then he remembered that Maarten Minks was neither Kamphuis nor Hasselblad. This smooth-skinned foetus had been fast-tracked straight out of grad school. At least Van den Bergen’s long-range vision was good enough to corroborate that there was a raft of diplomas hanging above Minks on the wall behind his desk. A framed photo of him posing with the Minister for Security and Justice, the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and the bloody Prime Minister. No sign of a naked lady statue or stupid executive toys. This youthful pretender to the policing throne was all business. But he could think again if he thought Van den Bergen was going to discuss the shed. ‘Do you have any suggestions regarding the shape the investigation should take? Any priorities I should know about?’

‘See how the autopsy pans out. But if there are any similarities with the other floaters, I think we need to consider …’

Here it was. Van den Bergen could feel it coming. He shook his head involuntarily and popped an antacid from its blister pack onto his tongue.

‘… that a serial killer is on the loose.’

When he strode out to the car park, Elvis was already waiting for him, leaning up against the BMW 7 Series he had got the new Chief of Police to cough up for when they had broken the news to him that he was going to be overlooked for the role of Commissioner, yet again. Even the top man didn’t have a vehicle like Van den Bergen’s. But then, nobody else had legs quite as long as his, so they could all suck it up.

‘Get off the car, for God’s sake,’ he said. ‘I’ve just had it valeted. I don’t need your arse print on my passenger door. And don’t smoke near it. The ash sticks to the paintwork.’

‘Sorry, boss,’ Elvis said, exhaling and stubbing his half-spent cigarette out on the ground with the heel of his cowboy boot.

Van den Bergen scrutinised his pale, blotchy face. The signs of his psoriasis flaring up again, the poor bastard. ‘Are you up to this?’ he asked, unlocking the car with his fob. ‘You look peaky.’

‘I was up all night with Mum,’ Elvis said. Digging a nicotine-stained index finger into his auburn sideburns – totally at odds with the ridiculous dyed-black quiff that earned him his moniker. Even that was starting to thin a little, these days, now that he was very comfortably on the wrong side of thirty.

His detective opened his mouth, presumably to say more. Van den Bergen plunged into the driver’s seat as quickly as his stiff hip would allow. Slammed the door shut, trapping Elvis and his earnest confessions outside. Programmed Floris Engels’ address into his sat nav.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly through recalcitrant, tight lips, when Elvis buckled in. ‘I just can’t—’

‘It’s okay, boss. I get it.’

‘Just book leave when you need it.’ He waved his hand dismissively, switched on the stereo and enjoyed the rather less awkward silence of Depeche Mode at a volume loud enough to drown out Elvis’ attempts at conversation about his mother’s condition.

‘Floris Engels,’ Elvis said, poking at a photograph of the dead man that he’d laid on the head teacher’s desk. A flattering shot of him taken from the sideboard in his flat. Average-looking but tanned, well dressed, smiling. A shot of him dead on the canal side, his ghoulish face swollen to almost twice its normal size. He knew Van den Bergen was scrutinising his every move for signs of exhaustion. One false move and he’d be put on compassionate leave. It was the last thing he wanted. ‘Tell me and the Chief Inspector here everything you know about your Head of Maths.’ He crossed his right leg over his left knee, as he’d seen the boss do. Assumed the position of a relaxed and confident man with nothing to prove.

‘Well, Floris is—’ The head teacher was suddenly preoccupied by his hairy fingers. Frowned. ‘Was a very well-respected member of my staff.’ His voice shook with emotion.

Elvis tried to memorise everything about the man. Discreet gold jewellery. Expensive, pin-stitched suit befitting the head of a fee-paying school that catered for Amsterdam’s bekakte bourgeoisie – the chattering classes – where the darling Lodewijks and Reiniers and Petronellas of wealthy parents could receive their top-drawer educations in wood-panelled, exclusive splendour. Even the dust in the air smelled expensive at Boudewijn de Groot Lyceum. Elvis’ psoriasis itched beneath his leather jacket.

‘And?’

Closing his eyes, the Head pushed the photographs away. ‘Floris started working here three years ago. He is …’ His brow furrowed. ‘… was always impeccably polite, got great results from his pupils. Popular among parents. He was a model teacher.’

‘What kind of man was he?’ Elvis asked, wishing the Head would make eye contact with him. It irked him that he kept looking over at Van den Bergen even though it was he who was asking the questions.

The Head shrugged. ‘I told you. Polite. Hard-working. Bright.’

‘No,’ Van den Bergen said, doodling absently in his notebook. ‘That tells us what kind of employee he was.’ Scratching away with his biro at a miniature sketch of his granddaughter. Finally he looked up at the Head. Put his glasses on the end of his nose and peered at the brass-embossed name plate on the desk that marked him out as Prof. Roeland Hendrix. ‘Who was Floris the man, Roeland? Did you see him socially? What was his home life like? I can see from public records that he hasn’t been married and that his parents are both dead. Did he have a girlfriend? Kids somewhere?’

Elvis checked his watch. Wondered if the carer was making his mother the right sort of lunch. Carby snack with the meds. Carby snack with the meds, he intoned, wishing his thoughts would somehow travel across town to his mother’s dingy little house. He’d left all the ingredients out on the side in the kitchen. Mum kept gunning for the shitty cheap ham the carer had snuck into the fridge at her request. But he had prepared her a chickpea and bean pasta salad with rocket. Meds three-quarters of an hour before meal.

‘Come on, Professor Hendrix,’ Elvis said. ‘I bet an intelligent man like you has got the measure of all his employees.’

The Head shrugged. Toyed with the silk handkerchief in his top pocket. His nails had been varnished.

Elvis touched the stiff gel of his quiff and wondered if it made him hypocritical to think ill of the Head’s immaculate ponce-hands. Hid his own nicotine-stained fingers inside his pockets.

‘Honestly? I know nothing about Floris at all,’ the Head said. ‘He was a completely private man. Kept himself to himself. An enigma, you might say. I invited him, along with other teachers, to dinner parties and soirées, but he would never come and always managed to sidestep any digging into his life outside work. And I did try. To dig, I mean.’

Van den Bergen rearranged himself in the leather armchair. His bones cracked audibly as he did so. Jesus. Is that what a lifetime of supervising door-to-doors in the rain did for a man? Elvis shuddered.

‘Where did he work before here?’ he asked.

‘He came from the Couperus International Lyceum in Utrecht. Glowing references. He’d been there for ten years.’

The Head glanced at the grandfather clock that struck in the corner of the room. Stood abruptly. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help, gentlemen.’

All the way to the unprepossessing apartment in Amstelveen’s Brandwijk, Van den Bergen imagined himself shaking and shuddering his way to a premature end with Parkinson’s like Elvis’ mother. The bullet hole in his hip had been causing him great pain, of late, with all the damp. Were there any signs of tremors in his movement? George would be able to tell him. By the end of the week, she would be back in Amsterdam. In the meantime, he made a mental note to visit the doctor’s to rule out some debilitating degenerative disease.

Curtains twitched as he parked up outside the three-storey block, with its garden view and balcony. This was perhaps the most suburban, nondescript place in the world, Van den Bergen mused. A place where nothing ever happened. Except something had happened to one of its residents.

‘What do you make of this, boss?’ Elvis said, running a latex-clad finger along the spines of the books on the bookshelves. Five boring-looking academic tomes about physics. Fall of Man in Wilmslow – a book Van den Bergen vaguely recognised as being about Alan Turing. The rest were interior design and architecture textbooks. Several British fiction titles among them that Van den Bergen had never heard of.

‘He was a maths teacher, so the physics stuff fits,’ he said. Casting an eye over the mid-century-style furniture in the apartment, he realised it was more Ikea repro than genuine Danish antiques. But there was a strong design element to it. That much he could see. Nothing like his thrift-shop dump, which was still reminiscent of a garage sale no matter how many times George scrubbed through. ‘Somebody here knows their décor onions. No photos of women anywhere apart from this.’ Using a latex-gloved hand, he picked up the portrait of a woman who was roughly in her sixties. Perhaps Engels’ mother. She had the same hazel eyes, judging by the school’s online profile picture of him.

Movement suddenly caught the Chief Inspector’s attention. Or was it a shadow? With his heartbeat picking up pace and his policeman’s instincts sharpening, he turned towards the doorway, beyond which lay the bedroom.

‘Is somebody in here with us?’ he whispered to Elvis. Mouthed, ‘In there.’ Pointed to the bedroom.

Elvis shook his head. Continued to look at the books.

Van den Bergen strode briskly into the bedroom, his plastic overshoes rustling as he crunched on the shag pile rug underfoot. Held his breath. Scanned the neat, masculine room for intruders. There was nobody there but a whiff of aftershave hung in the air. Or was he imagining things?

‘I need to drink less coffee,’ he muttered, running his fingers over the pistol in its holster, strapped to his torso.

He flung open the wardrobe doors to reveal immaculately presented suiting; ties, pants and socks stowed in colour co-ordinated compartments, perhaps specifically designed for ties, pants and socks. Jumpers and tops stacked in neat piles on shelving. One set of shelves containing sombre colours. The other, less conservative combinations of teal, pink, yellow …

‘Different sizes on the right side of the wardrobes to the left,’ he said. ‘Two men. Our victim and a lover.’

Elvis pulled open the drawer to the bedside cabinet. ‘This is always the most revealing place in anyone’s bedroom,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an asthma inhaler, hair putty and a men’s health magazine from 2002. What about you?’ He smirked.

‘Proton pump inhibitors, floss and Tiger Balm,’ Van den Bergen said, grimacing at the contents Elvis had revealed. ‘Jesus. It’s like the storeroom in a sex shop. Look of the size of those bloody dildos. And what the hell is that?’ He pointed to a black rubber string of balls, growing progressively larger in size.

‘Anal beads, boss.’ Elvis guffawed with laughter.

‘And that fucking thing?’ He pointed to what appeared to be a stainless-steel egg.

‘You jam it up your—’

Van den Bergen held his hand high. Thought of George’s middle finger inside him and blushed. A world away from this little haul in terms of adventurousness. ‘Stop. You’re making my prostate twitch.’ He considered his intermittent suffering with haemorrhoids and snorted with derision at the anal beads. Appraised the carefully made bed and the dust that was beginning to settle on the bedroom furniture. ‘Any sign of post addressed to somebody else? Check the kitchen. Everybody puts post in there.’

Elvis left the bedroom. Nobody had reported Floris Engels missing. There had been no evidence of a suicide note in the man’s clothing. Who and where was his partner?

‘Nothing,’ Elvis said. ‘Weird.’

‘Unless he’s left in a hurry and taken any documentation with him.’ Van den Bergen thumbed at the jowls that were beginning to burgeon on his previously taut jawline, deep in thought. Jumped when a door slammed shut within the apartment.

‘There is someone in here with us!’ he shouted. He ran into the living room, gun in hand, trying to glimpse whoever the visitor was. ‘Hello?!’

CHAPTER 6

Cambridge, Huntingdon Road, then, Stansted Airport, 29 April

‘You just keep a lookout,’ George told Aunty Sharon, shouting above the gusting Cambridgeshire wind. Her pulse thudded in her neck as she calculated how long it would take Sally Wright to grind and wobble her way up the hill to the student house on the Huntingdon Road. Surely a chain-smoker like her would asphyxiate before she’d be able to scale Cambridge’s infamous Castle Hill on a sit-up-and-beg bicycle. Calm down, George. Chill your boots. You get in. You get out. You get gone. ‘I’ll be down in ten. I’ve only got a couple of bits to get. Honk if you see an angry white woman with a bad fringe. Okay? Honk!’

This was a flying visit to Cambridge, precipitated by two texts she had received the evening she had returned to Aunty Sharon’s after interviewing Gordon Bloom in Belmarsh. Relieved to find that she was not, after all, being followed through the Catford backstreet by anything more sinister than an inquisitive cat and her own burgeoning paranoia, she had hastened to her aunt’s house, walking straight through to the kitchen. She had put her bag squarely on a kitchen chair, so it had aligned with the edges. Rearranging it until it was just right. The routine had been like every other evening.

‘All right, love,’ Aunty Sharon had said. ‘I’ve made goat curry. Fancy it?’ She had lifted the lid on a simmering pan, the contents of which had smelled like heaven but had resembled diarrhoea. George had embraced her aunt, barely circling her chunky middle. Had kissed her on the cheek, feeling whiskers that hadn’t been there twelve months earlier. But at least Aunty Sharon had ditched the raggedy extensions and had covered her desperately stressed natural hair with a decent wig.

Beneath her apron, Sharon had already been wearing her clothes for the club, where she served watered-down shots to the pissed denizens of Soho’s Skin Licks titty bar.

‘Oh my days, Aunty Shaz! I could eat a scabby horse on toast. I only had a bag of cheese balls all day. Bring it on. It smells bloody gorgeous.’ George had flung herself onto another kitchen chair, contemplating how empty the house had felt with her cousin, Tinesha, long departed to live with her boyfriend, and Patrice who was more out than in, now that he was in the upper sixth. Once again, George – past the point where she had been the fresh young thing, out on the tiles all night long and now having reached the age where her contemporaries were married with children – had only her own company to look forward to, as the evening had stretched ahead of her. Hadn’t one of the new male Fellows at college jokingly referred to George as a spinster? Some long-legged floppy-haired arsehole in a pseudo-intellectual tweed jacket, originally from Eton. Tim Hamilton. Dickhead. He’d stared at her tits when he’d said it. George had batted the thought aside. ‘You go to the community centre today? Any news?’

Sharon had shaken her head and had plonked too much rice onto a plate with a giant serving spoon. ‘Nah, love. Nobody’s seen her. Nobody’s heard nothing on the grapevine. Not a fucking sausage. Even that nosey old cow Dorothea Caines didn’t have a clue, and I had to eat one of her rock-hard cupcakes to find that much out.’ She had put her hand on her hip and had grimaced. ‘She’d not sieved the flour. Can you get over it? I mean!’ She’d made a harrumphing noise. ‘Talk about taking one for the team. My God! If the Black Gang or Pecknarm Killaz or whatever the fuck those gangsta rarseclarts call themselves used her cupcakes as missiles, all there’d be left of Southeast London would be fucking craters. Craters, darling!’

Nodding, George had forked her curry into her mouth with the enthusiasm of the semi-starving. Surreptitiously grabbing at her spare tyre beneath the table, thinking it time she had a chat with Aunty Sharon about portion size, now there were fewer of them in the house.

Sharon had been unaware of George’s dietary preoccupation. She had been waving the spoon at her with dangerous intent. ‘I’d take that Dorothea Caines out like a fucking ninja if we was going head-to-head in a bake-off.’ Droplets of curry had spattered the dated splashback tiles.

‘So, still no news of Letitia. Or my dad?’ George had asked, feeling irritation prickle at the roots of her hair. Same questions. Every. Single. Day.

Her aunty had fallen abruptly quiet, sniffing pointedly. Her eyes had become glassy without warning. ‘Sorry, love. If anyone had seen your mum knocking around on the estate, that do-gooding righteous witch Dorothea would be the first to hear it and crow about it. Honest. Your mum’s evaporated into thin air, like.’ She had reached out and had grabbed George’s hand, squeezing it in a show of solidarity. ‘Nothing on your dad, either.’

Noticing the curry and grains of rice stuck to Sharon’s index finger, George had pulled her hand away, stifling a sigh.

As she had crawled into Tinesha’s old bed and had pulled the duvet up to her chin, she had thought about this impasse she had reached. An unwelcome tear had tracked along her cheekbone, running into her ear. Annoyed, she had poked at it, wondering if Letitia had been thinking about her; if she had even still been alive.

‘Like fuck she is,’ she had said to floral curtains, backlit by the yellow streetlight.

She had wondered yet again if there had been even the slightest possibility that her father had sent the untraceable emails, courting contact with her; saying he was watching her.

‘Not after nearly twenty-five years of silence. No way,’ she had told the glowing numbers on the old ticking alarm clock.

With sleep beckoning her towards yet another fitful night of tossing, turning and imagining the gruesome fate of her possibly enucleated mother, she had been jolted wide awake by her phone vibrating with two new emails. The first had been from Marie.

Police in Maastricht have found a man who may be of interest!

The second had been from Van den Bergen.

Come back to Amsterdam. I need you for something.

Now, Aunty Sharon was wedged behind the wheel of her old 53-plate Toyota Corolla, parked badly on Huntingdon Road, peering up with a puzzled look at the tired Gothic student house that loomed above them. Yellowing chintz curtains at the window and a broken pane of glass in the 1960s replacement front door.

‘You live here?’ she asked, curling her lip with clear disgust. ‘In that dump? You having a laugh with me?’

George frowned. Shook her head dismissively and tutted. ‘Save it, yeah? Beggars can’t be choosers. Now remember. If you see Sally Wright—’

‘What about Sally Wright?’ Sally Wright asked, emerging from behind the overgrown privet that bordered the end-of-terrace. She clapped her hands together in George’s face. ‘Ha! Got you, you sneaky sod!’