The Girl Who Wouldn't Die Part 13

Just the rumble of his voice felt like a hammer hitting her repeatedly at the base of her skull.

'It's very ... there's a strong smell of leather in here. I don't like ...'

She pressed the electric window b.u.t.ton in the door panel of his gleaming black Mercedes E Cla.s.s. The window slid down obediently, allowing the biting wind to whip the Monday morning smells of ca.n.a.l water, p.i.s.s from a nearby public urinal and the weekend's abandoned kebab garbage into the German precision-engineered haven. She had walked all the way over to Westermarkt for the meet. It didn't smell any different on this side of town, she noted. Should I mention the stalker? she wondered. No. I don't need a father. I can deal with it myself.

'So tell me,' she said, fixing her attention on the side of his head. He had nice-shaped ears. 'Any leads?'

Van den Bergen thumbed his goatee. George noted that he still had a strong jawline for a man of his age. No signs of jowling. She liked that too. He smelled of sport deodorant and was dressed casually for a change in jeans, which made his long legs look even longer, and a black polo s.h.i.+rt. It made him appear younger and less formidable in the absence of padded shoulders.

'Not a one,' he said. 'My boss insists I bag him a cleric. We've pulled in a couple of copycat fundamentalist bloggers. One was a kid with mental health issues. The other ... well, it was just a dead end.'

He smacked the dash three times. 'f.u.c.k it!' he said. 'The real perpetrator is running rings round us. I don't know how he's doing it. We thought we'd be able to trace the comment on your blogpost but we couldn't. I can't believe this b.a.s.t.a.r.d has IT Marie stumped!'

George sighed heavily, wis.h.i.+ng she could light a cigarette. She looked up at the fabric ceiling of the car and shut her eyes tight. 'My instincts tell me ... I've got this hunch about right-wingers. I really think you should arrest-'

Van den Bergen glared at her, irritated. 'Leave the investigation to me, okay? I'm only filling you in as a courtesy.'

'Thought I was your student eyes and ears,' George said, holding back the urge to poke him hard in the chest. 'You'd still be trying to ID those body parts if it wasn't for me.'

George could just feel acerbic words trying to burn their way out of her mouth when van den Bergen's mobile phone rang. He pulled it out of his breast pocket. There was a brief and clipped exchange with someone who was clearly a superior.

'Yes, I'm not far from there. Straight away. Of course.' He rang off and looked at George with narrowed eyes. 'I've got to go.'

'Homicide?'

'You can get out now.'

His implied rejection felt like a stinging slap.

'No,' she said, wondering how he would react.

He leaned over her and opened the car door for her in that impressive way that older men with long arms do.

'Please yourself,' she said, not wanting him to see how much it smarted.

Ad walked with purpose and determination towards Amsterdam's Central Station. It was a dry morning but freezing cold. The biting wind howled up the main thoroughfare of Damrak. He clutched Astrid's hand, guiding her past the neon plastic smorgasbord of shop signs.

It was 6.12am. Astrid's Intercity train to Groningen departed Amsterdam Central at 6.26am precisely. With a change at Hilversum, she would be back in Groningen by 8.52am, allowing her to be in work by 9.30am on the dot. It had been the same routine for almost three years and Ad had made sure that Astrid had never missed the train.

He readjusted her heavy, pink weekend rucksack on his shoulder and momentarily let go of her hand to wipe sleep from his left eye. Astrid s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back and squeezed it hard.

'I'm going to miss you, honey bunny,' she said.

He felt her trying to manoeuvre him round so that she could catch his eye but Ad could only think of the twelve minutes she had before the train doors shut irrevocably for departure.

'Yes,' he said. 'Come on, we're late.'

He lengthened his stride and pulled her sharply to the left to dodge the second number 5 tram of the day, travelling from Central Station to A'veen Binnenhof. The palatial facade of the station with its red brick and neo-Renaissance spires was just beyond Prins Hendrikkade now. He pulled Astrid over the bridge. The dark green water was filled with queues of empty gla.s.s-topped cruise barges, waiting to choke the day's eager tourists with diesel fumes. He checked his watch again. 'Faster,' he said.

Standing on the platform, Ad slowed his breathing to calm his beating heart.

'Made it,' he said.

He put the rucksack on the ground between them and held her hands. She was pink-cheeked and out of breath.

'I've had a lovely weekend,' he said. 'Thank your mother for the cake.'

Astrid smiled at him with white teeth that were perfect, like small, evenly sized pearls. 'Are you coming home in a fortnight? It's Dad's fiftieth. He's having a party.'

Ad swallowed and looked at the clock. 'You'd better get on. They're going to close the doors.'

He leaned forward for a kiss. Astrid had always been a proficient kisser. In the beginning, they kissed with sweet-sixteen gusto. Sore lips, saliva and hard tongues. He had taken this to be pa.s.sion, especially when she had let him fondle her b.o.o.b under her jumper. As the years progressed, she had refined her kissing technique to be deft and clean. Tongue moved in, locked with his. Tongue moved out. Done. Still, he felt a visceral wrench as she boarded the train. Her jaunty hair arrangement bounced in its clip as though it was waving goodbye.

'I'll call you and let you know when I've got a free weekend,' he said.

She leaned over the threshold and kissed his cheek. 'Let me know how you get on with Klaus, darling. He seems great. You should definitely go to that memorial for your friend.'

Ad felt a jolt of realisation as she treated him to another pearly smile. She really was a Dutch beauty, like one of his mother's scentless baby-pink cultivar roses in bud.

She straightened up and groaned as she picked up her rucksack with both hands, although Ad knew it was not too heavy for a girl who was five foot nine and about ten and a half stone. Astrid thought it was unfeminine to lift heavy things when there was a man around.

'Have fun at work,' he said. 'I love you.'

'I love you too, honey bunny.'

As the train pulled away, Ad felt a void in the pit of his being that could only be filled by one thing.

When George rounded the corner between Keizergracht and Leliegracht, she spotted van den Bergen's car and then the inspector himself. Harried, frowning, chatting confidentially with another police officer. He was gingerly handling what looked to be a wallet with latex-gloved hands. Uniforms were cordoning off the area around an unprepossessing-looking large refuse bin. A young uniformed officer vomited on the ground, while a policewoman rubbed his back sympathetically.

'What's in the bin?' George muttered. She breathed in sharply.

George felt the bin drawing her like a magnet to its macabre contents. She knew instinctively it would be something unpleasant. She thought of chicken carca.s.ses from the dinners her mother had made when she was a child. Things in bins that were once alive were never put there in good shape.

Van den Bergen spotted her and scowled. 'Go home,' he mouthed.

She watched him as he peered in the bin, balked and said something to his colleague. His colleague spoke into a walkie talkie. Suddenly three uniforms approached George, the only early morning spectator so far, apart from the curtain-twitching neighbours.

'This is a crime scene, Miss. Please back up to Keizergracht,' one said.

'I want to talk to van den Bergen,' she said.

'No,' the officer said.

Just as she was about to turn and leave, she heard heavy footsteps and felt a large, strong hand grip her shoulder.

'Wait,' van den Bergen said.

She spun around to meet him, heart suddenly picking up to a thunderous hundred and sixty beats per minute. He looked regretful, almost wistful.

'I need to tell you a name and see if you recognise it,' he said.

'What?' she asked, hearing the waver in her own voice.

'There was a wallet in the bin. Undamaged, so put there after ... no money missing. Might not be the victim's but-'

'Tell me!'

'Remko Visser,' van den Bergen said.

'Oh, G.o.d.' George's face went instantly cold and numb.

'George-' van den Bergen began.

'Let me see him,' she said, shaking.

'No. There's not much ... Forensics will ID him.'

'I have to see.' She turned back towards the bin and pushed past van den Bergen. He reached out and grasped air as she broke into a sprint.

With van den Bergen on her heels, George glanced up at the surrounding apartments. It was such a public place.

She steeled herself to peer over the rim just as she felt van den Bergen grab at her coat. All she caught was a s.n.a.t.c.hed glimpse of blackened remains and an overpowering toxic stench on the air.

'Get back!' van den Bergen shouted through gritted teeth. He yanked her away from the bin, almost dragging her to the ground. 'I'll put you under arrest if you ever try to contaminate my crime scene again!'

George opened and closed her mouth but nothing came out. Her knees felt like jelly. Remko. Was he rammed in there like an over-roasted suckling pig at Trinity May-Week Ball? Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it wasn't him after all.

'Nice try!' van den Bergen growled as he frog-marched her back towards his car. George could feel his hot breath against her ear. 'Aren't photographs gruesome enough for you? You have to see the real thing?'

He paused momentarily by a group of uniforms, still clutching the back of George's sheepskin coat in an iron grip. The uniforms turned towards him deferentially.

'Get forensics here! Get a f.u.c.king tent round that bin. Now! And police that b.l.o.o.d.y cordon. I can't have every Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry trying to get a look at what's inside.'

The uniforms dispersed like a group of scalded children caught chalking rude graffiti on the playground tarmac.

'Get in the car!' van den Bergen demanded as he pressed his fob to deactivate the car's alarm.

George's breath came short. She felt nauseous but she did as she was told. She glanced back over to where some uniformed officers were now busy trying to erect a forensics gazebo around the bin. Others had begun knocking on doors of neighbours, notepads in hand. A grey-faced old woman sat sobbing on her doorstep. Perhaps she had made the foul discovery.

George was certain van den Bergen was going to bawl her out. She sat and waited.

'What are your thoughts? Initial first impressions?' he asked, calm as stagnant water and just as opaque.

George frowned. 'What? Aren't you going to give me an ear-bas.h.i.+ng?' She quickly processed a theory. 'If it's Remko ... He's Jewish. Anti-semitism could be a possible motive,' she said.

Van den Bergen nodded. 'But that might not be Remko and this is not a suicide bombing.' He stared straight into her eyes. Suddenly George felt like a bicycle being stripped down to its composite parts. 'The wallet may have been tossed in the bin by a mugger,' he continued. 'Remko might be in bed at home, sleeping off a hangover. My officers are trying to get hold of him now.'

George reached for a cigarette and jammed it into her mouth without asking. Lit up. Inhaled. 'But what if it is him?' she asked.

'This is an arson incident or probably the victim died by some other means and the perp set fire to the evidence. The other two are bombings. Organised. Terrorism.'

'This isn't about suicide bombers!' George said, the exasperation coming through in her voice. 'I've been telling you all along. Ratan and Joachim are victims, not perpetrators.'

'So if this is Remko, how do you know there's a connection between him and the other two?'

George wanted to give van den Bergen the 'are you totally stupid?' look but then she realised he wasn't and she shouldn't. He was not Fennemans.

'They're all politics students,' she said. 'That's the common denominator.'

'But Ratan and Joachim were exchange students. Remko's not. What's the motive then?'

George pictured Klaus Biedermeier and imagined why he would target those three men in particular. 'Ratan was Indian. Remko's a Jew. If it's a neo-n.a.z.i doing this, then Joachim just got in the way. But the personal connection's still there to Biedermeier. Klaus gets sudden flu and stands Joachim up. Too convenient.'

Van den Bergen opened a window in the car and cleared his throat. 'But again, the other two were explosions.'

'And this is burning.' George polished the gear stick with the woolly cuff of her coat as she thought. 'Maybe it is just about fire.'

'A ritual?'

'Cleansing, maybe.'

'So what would you do next, Cagney?'

'Why are you interested in what I think?' George asked. 'You told me to leave the investigating to you. You're the experienced detective.'

'What would you do next?'

She looked up into van den Bergen's ageing, handsome face and saw sparkling curiosity in those grey eyes.

'I'd forget about al Badaar for now.'

'If Visser was Jewish, that fits with the bombing of a synagogue and the death of two other infidels. It could still be Islami-'

'You asked me what I'd do, remember? I'd go back through homicide records here and in southern Germany. I'd look for connections with the far right and Klaus Biedermeier. The guy's a first-cla.s.s a.n.u.s. I'd go to Heidelberg and have a chat with his pals. See what he gets up to on his home turf.'

'And?'

'I'd look for a link in the murders to arson or possibly biblical rituals. Fascism is supposed to be faithless, but some of those neo-n.a.z.is justify their hatred by alluding to the Lutheran bible. I mean, what do these Heidelberg frat boys get up to? All that hocus pocus funny handshake c.r.a.p. Maybe it's got its roots in some kind of religious lunacy or playing with fire instead of swords.'

George shrugged. Van den Bergen nodded slowly.

'Write another blogpost,' he said to her. 'Do something provocative about ethnic cleansing.'

'No! Why? The editor of The Moment has black-balled me now anyway, thanks to you.' She folded her arms and sucked her teeth. Being branded as politically 'off' smarted.

'I want to see what comes back. I'll have our guys monitoring responses at our end. I think our man is hiding in the student community. I agree with you there. But we need to draw him out. Maybe you could post comments on other current affairs blogs. Ones that get a lot of hits.'

George sighed. 'I'll think about it.'