The Girl Who Broke the Rules

Behind her, Dr Sally Wright slammed her hand down on the desk top. ‘I will not authorise it. Do you hear me? Because I cannot authorise it. You’ve been told to stay put. After last time. Your track record for staying out of trouble is not exactly unimpeachable, is it, Ms McKenzie?’ She looked over the top of her winged glasses, fixing George with a gaze so unyielding that she felt silenced like a rebuked child. ‘That is my final word on the matter.’

George folded her arms, flung herself back onto the chaise longue and dug her short nails deeply into the plush velvet covering. Stared into the glowing embers of the fire that heated only two feet directly in front of it, leaving the rest of that cavernous old room feeling like a morgue. ‘But if anyone can swing it, you can.’ She kept her voice small. Flattery was the only weapon left in her arsenal, though she knew it would not work.

Sally lit a cigarette and coughed wheezily. Her throaty, rasping voice was punctuated by bouts of choking. ‘I know I could swing it. Theoretically. Not for nothing am I the senior tutor of St John’s College, Cambridge. I got MI5 to agree to you visiting for weekends, didn’t I? Study leave for half a year is, however, an entirely different kettle of fish.’ She started to type on her keyboard, cigarette hanging out the corner of her pruned mouth as she spoke. Studied indifference, George knew. Then, pausing dramatically, her eyes sought out her protégée once more. ‘But I do not wish to swing it. Capisce?’ Sally inhaled deeply. The hacking cough started up anew. She thumped herself in the chest. ‘Because the last time you went gallivanting off to Amsterdam for the year, you nearly wound up dead and could have taken half of Trinity Street with you. Stay put, young lady! My rules. Good reasons.’

George took the sucker punch.

Dragging herself over the hump of the narrow stone corridor that was the Bridge of Sighs, traversing the sluggish, inky, almost frozen River Cam and negotiating the frost-dusted backs, she acknowledged that she had lost this bout with Sally. Trudging up towards the monolithic brick phallus that was the University Library tower, George resolved that she would come back fighting in round two. I will not go down and stay down. Got to get the hell out of this beautiful prison. Got to help Paul.

‘Stop torturing yourself, you donkey,’ she said under her breath, as she cleared the library’s security and climbed the stairs to the silent, gloomy stacks, where under the timed lights, she would find what she was looking for.

CHAPTER 19

Amsterdam, police headquarters, later

‘No. Sorry. Didn’t see a thing.’

One by one, the doors had all slammed in van den Bergen’s face. Same lines, almost verbatim, from neighbours who differed in age, gender and ethnicity but who all had that upper-middle-class Museum Quarter/Old South thing in common. Nobody seemed to be neighbourly. Everyone kept themselves to themselves. Unfortunately, the woman, whose Koninginneweg house faced onto the back of the building site, was away on business, according the cleaner.

Van den Bergen slammed his pad onto the meeting room desk. ‘What have we got?’ he asked Elvis, Marie and Kees.

‘Nada,’ Elvis said. ‘Absolutely zilch. Not a single eyeball on our man. Nobody heard the back door being forced. I mean, Christ! Nobody saw someone dragging a double mattress over a fence. I can’t even see how it’s possible to get a mattress from the street into the back of that house. Our guy must be a damned magician.’

‘Unless I was wrong, and the mattress was already in situ,’ van den Bergen said.

Kees shuffled out of his bright red anorak and draped it over his chair. Ruffled his mousy, thinning mop. Rolled his white shirt sleeves above his brown jumper, as though he were about to reveal something breathtaking. ‘About my hunch…’

Van den Bergen sighed. Rubbed the tiny remnants of scabbing on his knuckles, which had given way to new skin beneath. ‘Go on. Let’s hear it.’

‘I think the builder’s our man.’ Kees smiled triumphantly, treating the team to an eyeful of his jutting tombstone teeth. ‘Well, one of our men. Old Iwan.’

It was all the chief inspector could do to stifle a groan. ‘Do tell us, Mr Leeuwenhoek! Why is, “Old Iwan” our man?’

Kees folded his arms; his smile gone, now. Clearly not the reception he had been expecting. ‘He’s got access to the building,’ he began, counting the facts off on his fingers. ‘He pukes all over the crime scene, meaning his DNA is everywhere anyway. So chances are, if we find his DNA on the mattress, it’s inadmissible in court. The perp uses builders’ tools in the film. His mate’s got a van. And there was something about the guy. I dunno. He’s got one of those tattooed sleeves down his arm. Pentangles and skulls and shit. My detective’s intuition is just screaming that we should look into him.’

‘Bollocks!’ Elvis said, rocking back on his chair. ‘Poor guy was shaking like a leaf. He was genuine.’

‘Kees, you’re such a dick,’ Marie said, shaking her head. ‘We’re looking for someone who can wield a scalpel, not a pickaxe.’

Van den Bergen pushed his chair out from the table. Drummed his pad with his Biro and bounced his right foot on his left knee. ‘No. Kees has got a point. It’s far-fetched, but we do need to check into the Poles’ alibis. That building site is simply not accessible from the back. You’ve got two parallel rows of terraces with no alleyway between. The gardens are all fenced off and overlooked. How did that mattress get in there? One of the builders might be covering for someone. Kees, it’s your hunch. You get on it.’

Van den Bergen caught sight of Marie rolling her eyes, but opted not to challenge her. ‘Marie. Footage?’

She jumped. A flush of red crawling up her neck. ‘I’ve examined it in detail, boss,’ she said, toying with her pearls. ‘It’s not a film of a murder.’

‘What absolute crap!’ Elvis said.

Holding up his hand, van den Bergen silenced his scoffing sidekick. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s a porno flick,’ Marie said. ‘Shot on a quality camera. Professionally edited. Only thing that’s missing is the bum-chicka-wow-wow soundtrack. All that gore you can see…’ She smiled wryly and sipped from her plastic cup of coffee, as though she were savouring the undivided attention of the men. ‘It’s special effects. The footage on the camera’s memory disc is basically a kinky slasher movie.’

‘You certain?’ van den Bergen asked, recalling the horrific scenes that had appeared so convincing.

‘Yep,’ Marie said. ‘If anyone knows the difference between genuine snuff and horror CGI, it’s me. I love horror films.’

Though it was done surreptitiously, van den Bergen noticed Kees nudge Elvis.

‘The blonde’s an actress,’ Marie clarified. ‘She’s probably walking round the supermarket right now, doing her shopping. Fit and healthy with a fat wad of cash in her back pocket, while old perverts all over Europe are tugging themselves senseless over her on-screen demise.’ She turned to Kees. ‘I saw that! I have got the gift of sight, you know.’

Kees said nothing. Pulled the wide-eyed face of the innocent.

Van den Bergen nodded. Clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth repeatedly, while he absorbed this revelation. ‘Do you know who she is? The actress.’

Marie shrugged. ‘Never seen her before. Never seen porn this violent before that wasn’t actual snuff.’ She handed a small disc to him. ‘I made copies and filed the original with the other evidence.’

Opening his laptop, van den Bergen loaded the film up. Watched with utter absorption as the blonde filled the much larger screen. Paused it, once the actress was spread-eagled and naked on the bed. Pointed to the undersides of her ample breasts with the chewed bottom of his Biro. ‘See that?’

The others leaned in closer, their breath on the back of his head.

‘What?’ Elvis asked.

‘I saw this scarring on the mortuary slab with my own eyes. It’s not like the scarring you normally see from shoddy boob jobs. It’s too distinctive not to be from the same surgeon’s hand. I’d put money on it that this actress is our second Jane Doe.’

CHAPTER 20

Amsterdam, 20 January

‘I’m ill, Paul,’ she said through the half-open letterbox. ‘Just leave me be!’

Van den Bergen took a step backwards on the landing and examined Marianne de Koninck’s eyes through the rectangular gap. They were red and puffy.

‘Please open the door. We need to talk.’ He thrust the tulips closer to the door, so that she could inspect his gift. As though this were some kind of entry code to her apartment.

The flap of the head pathologist’s letterbox clattered shut. He heard her sigh behind the door. A chain being removed and a bolt being drawn back. The door opened about six inches. He could see she was wearing a fleecy all-in-one with a dressing gown on top. Furry slippers on her feet. He had imagined she would wear elegant lace-trimmed silk to bed. Perhaps that was wishful thinking.

‘I’m contagious,’ she said. Her short hair was dishevelled. Split on one side, as though she had slept in the same position for several days without washing it.

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ van den Bergen said, pressing the tulips into her hands and stepping inside.

At the breakfast bar of her expansive kitchen island, he warmed his hands on a cup of espresso that she had fixed him using a shining steel coffee machine. It was a sleek place, all right. Aubergine gloss cupboard fronts; the worktops, some sort of glittering man-made composite. He ran his fingertips along the edge, as though a grand piano’s keys were embedded into it. A dining area with Perspex table and chairs to seat eight flowed into the adjacent austere and fashionable living area. This was the sort of pad a man like him should own. Uncluttered. Full of gadgetry. Somewhere to entertain. But then, van den Bergen liked his vintage thrift-market tat and bookshelves full of old vinyl. And, he realised, that not only was Marianne full of surprises, but she didn’t have to pay maintenance to an ex. What he had noticed on entry, however, was that only women’s shoes sat in a rack on the polished parquet.

‘Nice place,’ he said.

‘Cake?’

She offered him a slice of apple cake that had been all but eaten. There was an empty plate on the kitchen island, bearing telltale crumbs. A used fork next to it. Comfort eating, van den Bergen assessed.

‘Where’s your boyfriend?’ The dimpling in Marianne’s chin told him everything he needed to know. ‘You and Jasper split up? That what all this is about?’

The pathologist nodded and sighed, wiping away the threat of a tear. ‘Bastard upped and left me for some nurse his own age.’

Making sure he did not betray the satisfaction that lurked just beneath the surface of his empathic expression, he patted her hand. Moved around the island and enveloped her in a stiff hug, which he immediately regretted. All those years, he had wondered if their professional rapport would translate to a physical one. It didn’t. There was no chemistry between them, whatsoever. And it was clear from the backwards step that she took that she thought so too.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said, retreating to his bar stool. Baffled that disappointment did not stir within him.

Marianne looked up to the spotlit ceiling with sorrowful, watery eyes and sniffed. ‘Do yourself a favour, Paul. Never fall for a younger woman. You’ll spend your life wondering how the hell she could fancy you, with your deteriorating eyesight and decaying body. Then one day, she’ll just up and leave for someone firmer. Honestly, they just eat you up and spit you out.’ She started to cry. Angry sobs with tears soaking the collar of her dressing gown. ‘He took my bloody stereo!’ Her words started to break into hiccoughs of sound, as though she were speaking down a phone line with intermittently poor reception. ‘I wouldn’t…mind but…it was m—my…birthday…present…a—and I…gave him the god—goddamned…money to…pay for it.’

Van den Bergen’s coffee had long gone cold before he could turn the subject to the case. ‘Look, Marianne,’ he said, spreading his fingers wide. He related what he knew so far about the murders.

‘So, what has all this got to do with me?’ Marianne asked. Her tone was sour. ‘Aren’t I allowed to take some sick leave? I’ve got a perfectly capable—’

‘I don’t trust Strietman,’ van den Bergen said. ‘Sorry. The guy’s just not you. He comes over like a crap crime noir film, full of theories and gum-shoe fucking interpretations.’

Marianne rubbed her face and groaned. ‘Daan Strietman is highly qualified, Paul. Yes, he loves his job—’

‘I don’t need Dick bloody Tracy or…’ He struggled to think of an illustration that would suit his purposes, but in truth, he hadn’t seen more than a handful of films since Tamara was at that age where the cinema had seemed a suitable activity for a father who saw his daughter every second weekend. ‘…I don’t know. Just Dick bloody Tracy. I need a pathologist who gives me straight facts.’ He withdrew a sheaf of paper from the inside pocket of his raincoat. It made a hefty thwack as he slammed it down emphatically on the worktop. Pulled his reading glasses up from their resting place on his stomach, at the end of their chain, and pushed them up his nose. Started to read the reports from the autopsy, giving extra emphasis to the hyperbole and melodrama with which Strietman had studded his otherwise dry medical observations.

‘Give me those sodding print-outs, you annoying old bugger!’ Marianne leaned over the island and snatched the sheaf up. The suggestion of a half-smile playing on her lips. Eyes darting from side to side as she skimmed the pages.

‘Intrigued?’ van den Bergen asked, staring at her from over the top of his half-moon glasses. ‘We should get the forensics back from the building site any time now. I’d prefer it was you who delivered the results to me.’

‘Look, I’ll come in tomorrow. We’ll see what we see.’

CHAPTER 21

Cambridge, Mill Road, later

George saw nothing but a green and grey blur as she rattled across Parker’s Piece. Teeth juddering. Eyes streaming. Cycling on her rusting sit-up-and-beg diagonally across, from the University Arms towards Mill Road with aching legs that were out of practice. Every time she hit a bump in the giant criss-cross of tarmac that cut through the huge green square, her Sainsbury’s bags, full of tins that she vowed she would cook with, as Ad had shown her, bashed painfully against her shins.

‘Fucking man!’ she complained aloud, garnering a bewildered look from the pimple-faced boy (a fresher, by the looks) who approached from the opposite direction, only feet away from her now. ‘Not you, tit!’

The boy continued on his way, leaving George to ruminate over what a liability van den Bergen was, and how Ad was not much better. She had been back in Cambridge less than twenty-four hours. It had been her intention to do a little quiet reading, although she had admittedly gone off piste by selecting a criminology book that dealt with trafficked women, working as slaves in Britain’s sex industry. But she did, at least, have noble intentions of typing up her notes from her interviews with Silas Holm and Dermot Robinson. Van den Bergen had ruined all that with the email.

From: Paul van den Bergen06.27

To: [e-mail]

Subject: Victim ID

I’m attaching a video we pulled from a camera found in a crime scene. Marie says it is horror porno, but nobody can ID the film or the actress. You might know. Let me know a.s.a.p. if you’ve got ideas.

Come back to Amsterdam. It’s almost time to pot up the dahlias.

Paul.

PS: There’s something else I need to tell you.

She had deliberately not switched on her phone until she was in the supermarket and it had gone nine. Ad-avoidance. Ad had already left four messages, sent six texts and attempted a further three calls – all missed. Wanting to discuss the trip and her behaviour. Insisting he had to tell her what was on his mind and how they could sort things out and how he really didn’t speak to Astrid any more, despite George’s misgivings, and how he could come to terms with her hygiene obsession and that van den Bergen was absolutely not the only one who understood psychological problems. Being assailed by a defensive Ad was bad enough. But here, van den Bergen had sent her a video she did not have the credit to download. Her phone’s monthly contract was almost at its limit. Plus, it had been accompanied by a message that was both tantalising and tugged at her already compromised heart. What did he need to tell her, exactly?

‘Incorrigible arsehole!’ she said, as she cycled the length of Mill Road.

It felt like a five-mile hike. She would have liked a cigarette at the end of it with the fresh, ground coffee she had just bought. But she had sworn to both Ad and van den Bergen that she would stick with the e-cigarettes. They weren’t the same.

She turned into Devonshire Road. Opened the door to the terraced house she shared with another PhD called Lucy. Lucy was a tall, long-limbed rich girl who spent most of the time at her undergrad boyfriend’s place, four or five miles away, up in Girton College. Given the frequency with which George shuttled back and forth from London and Amsterdam, she and Lucy had met only a handful of times in a term. Probably just as well, since Lucy was a slovenly little shit, who didn’t know one end of a toilet cleaner bottle from another. Lucy had left a scum ring around the bath on three occasions, early on in the tenancy, rendering George apoplectic with rage. But Lucy had left a mess in the toilet only once. George smiled at the memory of threatening leggy, entitled Lucy with a beating, using the toilet brush as a weapon. No. Lucy didn’t come home very often, now. Though a note on the kitchen table said she planned to return tomorrow evening, and could George please leave the heating and hot water on? No. Fuck her. George didn’t have the money to subsidise Lucy’s preferred twenty-six degrees of tropical in winter. It wasn’t the Costa del Salcombe. She could put another sodding ten-ply cashmere jumper on.

Coffee on, and George picked up van den Bergen’s email on her laptop. Watched the video nasty, whilst chugging on her e-cigarette. Peered through her fingers as she reached the climax.

‘Jesus, man. That’s some fucked-up shit, right there,’ she told the screen.

The film was high resolution. Perhaps owing to the fact that the close-ups were all of body parts and implements, rather than focussing on her face, and that the lighting was sharply directional, George found she was struggling to place the actress. Certainly, despite having notched up some serious hours watching hardcore violent pornography until revulsion and outrage had turned to numb indifference, she did not even recognise the tasteless niche genre.

She captured the woman in a freeze-frame. Leaned in close. There was something about the woman’s eyes that seemed startlingly familiar, though she could not articulate why.

‘She looks like Katja with a wig on,’ she said aloud, swigging coffee from her special Amsterdam mug. ‘Is it Katja?’ Scroll back. Freeze. Scroll forward. Freeze. The woman flickered in slo-mo through her erotic cabaret. ‘Fucking looks like her, as well.’

How long ago had her erstwhile neighbour, Katja, gone into porn flicks – boosted from prostitution, where she had rented a humble room above the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, directly beneath George’s attic bedsit, to the small screen? A step up the erotic career ladder, because giving a blow job to that prick the Firestarter had catapulted her from being a fifty-euro-a-trick nobody to being a sex-industry celebrity.

Sweat beaded instantaneously on George’s forehead. She pulled out her phone and dialled Katja.

Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. No answer. Then…

‘George, darling!’ Her voice was sluggish, as though George had woken her.

‘You alive?’ George asked, breathing deeply to slow her heartbeat.

‘Yes. Last time I looked, honey.’

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