The Girl Who Wouldn't Die Part 2

'Are you stupid, McKenzie?' he shouted.

George clenched her fist until her knuckles were pale. She slowly took the cigarette out of her mouth, toying with the idea of lighting it as some small act of defiance. But no. Sally had expressly told her to keep out of trouble. To keep a low profile. And there was something about van den Bergen that intrigued her. She didn't want him to think her an idiot. Reluctantly, she put the cigarette away.

'So, where do I come in?' George asked.

'Maybe you could make your article for The Moment about the bombing,' van den Bergen said. 'See if you can reel al Badaar in with a provocative piece. The Moment has an impressive international readers.h.i.+p, and these clerics and their disciples like mouthing off on the internet. If you get comments on your post, we can hopefully trace those. It's a long shot. But it's a shot worth taking.'

'What? You want me to spy? To be bait?' That fizz of antic.i.p.ation in George's stomach had really started to bite now.

'Let's say you'd be our student intelligence source,' van den Bergen said, smiling. 'Obviously, we'll give you full protection if we think you're in any danger.'

The last thing George wanted was a babysitter with a police badge. She looked hard at van den Bergen. Today he hadn't missed a patch while shaving. He had the good, lightly tanned complexion of somebody who spent time in the outdoors. The expressive lines around his eyes and mouth said he was close to forty, but a head full of prematurely white hair made him look nearer fifty if you didn't look too carefully. Beneath the tailored raincoat that he wore, the slightly frayed collar of his s.h.i.+rt was open slightly. She could imagine the wiry musculature of a man who was still in good shape. She pouted as she made these mental notes.

'I'll do what I can,' she said, already imagining the dressing down she would get from Sally. 'Do you think he'll strike again?'

Van den Bergen stood up and stretched out his hand towards her. The conversation was at an end. He was already at the door.

'I hope not,' he said. 'But with the person or people behind this attack at large, who knows?'

Joachim Guttentag returned to his room that afternoon in good spirits. He had scored some whizz and c.o.ke from his usual man in the morning, knowing it would make him the most popular boy at the party.

Smuggling illegal drugs over the border into Germany was never a problem for Joachim. Apart from a change at Utrecht, the Nederlandse Spoorwegen train journey from Amsterdam to Cologne was short and completely unremarkable. By the time Joachim changed to a train bound for Heidelberg, the danger of discovery would be long gone.

He dialled Klaus' number on his mobile phone. After three rings Klaus picked up.

'Are you packed?' he asked his more popular friend.

'Nearly,' Klaus said. 'Are we good now?'

'Yes.'

'I'm sorry about what happened. I didn't mean to ...' Klaus' voice was thick with contrition.

'Forget it. We'll work it out. Where are you? You sound like you're on a busy street.'

'Did you score?'

Joachim wondered why Klaus had ignored his question. There was definitely still unease between them after the argument. He could feel it. Perhaps the journey south would smooth things over. 'Yeah. Enough to last over Christmas, if need be. So, tonight at Maike's place in Utrecht?'

'Yes.'

'And then home by tomorrow lunchtime. A meal with my folks. See the boys in the evening.'

'd.a.m.n right. I've been sharpening my blade just for Gunter in Ghilbellinia, the fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' Klaus chuckled at the other end of the phone.

'The train leaves Amsterdam Central Station at 16.48,' Joachim said. 'I'll meet you at quarter past under the departures board, just to be on the safe side. Okay?'

The phone call ended. Joachim checked his reflection. He looked as well as could be expected for someone who would always be underwhelming. His mousy hair flopped onto his forehead as though it had given up. His skin had an unhealthy yellow tinge to it from too many late nights and cigarettes. He had still failed to put on weight despite eating an extra portion of frites with mayo every day. But his scars looked good. He fingered the one that ran from his left eyebrow to his jawline. It was the deepest. He had packed it to make sure it wouldn't heal without leaving a good deep schmiss a scar. It was the one that made girls want to find out more about this mysterious German stranger. Duellers nowadays were supposed to be discreet about their fraternity exploits; their obsession with sharp swords; their ostentatious wearing of the sash and cap. But if it made him more interesting to women ...

Joachim picked up his list from the neat, dust-free desk in his uncluttered room.

'Cola and snacks,' he said, flicking his finger at the paper.

He collected his wallet from his desk and shoved his feet hastily into his trainers. He had just enough time to run to the Albert Heijn on the corner before he left. Kiosks in the train station were so much more expensive and Joachim was a careful sort. Klaus was right. Why should he put his father's money in the pockets of the Blacks and Arabs?

As he slammed his door shut, he realised he had left his jacket on the end of the bed. It didn't matter, though. He would be back within ten minutes, tops.

It was an ordinary beginning to what would almost certainly be an ordinary journey home at the end of the semester except that, under the bright lights of his local Albert Heijn supermarket, Joachim felt like he was being watched.

As he gathered his shopping and entered the alley that led back home, he just had time to register a stinging sensation in his neck before everything went black.

Chapter 3.

South East London

Ella Williams-May stared intently at the flickering old TV set, willing the night to pa.s.s without incident. A dark-haired actress was bouncing up and down on naked actor, Richard Gere's lap. Officer and a Gentleman. The movie was so old that the quality of the picture would have been fuzzy even on a top of the range HDTV. But her mother liked Richard Gere and late-night pre-Christmas television was all about the repeats.

'Turn it up,' her mother said. 'I can't hear it.'

Ella tutted and turned the volume up a fraction.

'More,' her mother said.

'But we won't be able to hear if they come,' she said.

'Like I'm bothered tonight?' her mother said. 'I should be out partying, not babysitting you. It's nearly Christmas, anyway. Can't see anything happening tonight.'

Her mother dragged hard on her cigarette and exhaled through her nostrils. Ella thought she looked like a dragon when she did that. Let.i.tia the dragon. With her s.h.i.+ning long claws painted in rainbow colours; studded with diamante; always fake.

Let.i.tia the dragon took a swig from her gla.s.s of vodka and orange, rose from her sagging armchair and s.n.a.t.c.hed the remote control from Ella.

'Louder, I said,' she barked. 'Who's the b.l.o.o.d.y parent in this house?'

Ella said nothing. Ella knew they should keep it low. Ella knew there could still be trouble.

Richard Gere's friend had just hanged himself when trouble started.

Low voices out back. Dark shapes moving beyond the fence. Then, a broken bottle on the back path. Smash. Footsteps running away quickly. Whistles.

Ella grabbed her hockey stick.

'Kill the lights,' Let.i.tia shouted, her cigarette twitching between her shaky fingers.

Loud knocking at the front door, then ...

'Don't go,' Ella said. 'It'll be-'

Let.i.tia slid silently into the kitchen at the front. Ella followed, keeping low; creeping stealthily. She raised her head above the windowsill but Let.i.tia was already standing tall, flailing her arms around, shouting.

'Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds set fire to my house!'

Ella rushed to the front door ahead of Let.i.tia. The door was open now, flames bubbling up the council's standard-issue red paint, quickly extinguished with a pot full of liquid flung by Let.i.tia. Let.i.tia always had something fun in the pot standing by the door, ready to throw when the occasion demanded. Now the door reeked of petrol and p.i.s.s. Gla.s.s on the floor out front. And, by the gate, an intact c.o.ke bottle with a singed rag stuffed in the neck that had failed to ignite properly.

'Petrol bomb! They petrol bombed us!' Ella said, transfixed by the tableau before her.

She ran inside, heart thudding. She picked up the phone.

'Don't call the police!' Let.i.tia shouted. 'Are you mad? Think I wanna be labelled as a gra.s.s?'

Ella ignored her and dialled 999. She held the receiver to her ear and squatted in the lounge where the flickering screen of the TV was the only source of light. Richard Gere was smiling now. Talking without sound. Lips moving. Carefree. Smart in his uniform. In the seconds she waited to be connected, she heard their voices again at the back. She could see them through the net curtains, moving below the streetlight.

'Which service do you require, please?' the woman at the other end asked.

'Police. Quick. They're here,' Ella said.

The gate clicked as they crept into the garden. Right up the back path; brazen now. Ella could see their hooded silhouettes as they skulked by the door. She fired the details of her name and address at the woman on the phone.

'Come quickly!' she shouted.

Too late. Ella screamed.

It takes more than one go to smash an entire window in with a crowbar. The crowbar doesn't do a clean job and gla.s.s is much harder to break than people think. Danny and his boy smacked the window hard, twice, and left only small shards stuck to the white UPVC frames. They had had a lot of practice lately.

Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy, the sirens are calling, Ella thought.

Their trainer-clad feet pounded away, accompanied by laughter and whistles. Down through the twists and turns of the alleys they would run, like rats hastening to the sewers. Always knowing where to go to ground. Ella knew this much.

Let.i.tia was standing by the back door, staring down at the wreckage on the carpet.

'How can they do this? Nearly Christmas, man. Look at the f.u.c.king mess. And now the cops are coming. I told you not to b.l.o.o.d.y ring them.'

Ella stared at the gla.s.s strewn at her feet. She looked around at the dismal living room. Sagging three piece suite, peppered with cigarette burns and food stains. Scratched coffee table. Old stereo, a relic from the early nineties. Drunken, balding Christmas tree, perched in the corner like a sad, old glittery tart at a c.r.a.p party. There was nothing left to steal. There was nothing left to break. She shut her eyes and swallowed hard. She thought about her just-in-case hammer under her pillow. Then she kicked the despair aside.

'I'll help,' Ella said, grabbing a dustpan and brush from the cupboard under the sink.

The wail of sirens heralded the approaching police but something caught Ella's eye. She looked up from sweeping the gla.s.s, wondering what the bright light in the back was. The tree. The tree, the only attractive growing thing in Ella's garden, was a prunus kanzan standard council issue that bore racemes of pink candyfloss blossom in May. There was something different about it now.

Ella edged closer so that the icy wind whipped through the empty window frame and made her ironed hair slap up and down on her shoulders.

In the small garden, the tree looked like a bright Christmas message from the Ku Klux Klan. Fire licked along its slender branches. A flaming cherry tree, blooming unnaturally early. Ella spied the dark figure standing behind the fence, admiring his handiwork. One of Danny's boys.

Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy, I hate you so.

Twelve sleepless hours later and Let.i.tia was holding a black bin liner open.

'Stuff that s.h.i.+t in the bag. Come on! Quickly,' she said, staring at Ella.

Ella put the handbags into the bin liner one at a time.

'Grab a pile, for Christ's sake. We ain't got all day.'

Ella looked up, checking that they weren't being watched.

The factory where her mother worked was cavernous. Cardboard box high-rises stretched up to the double-height ceiling, looking like an oversized 3D model of the housing estates in Deptford. Each box was stuffed full of flashy Taiwanese handbags.

'There's no one there. I checked,' Let.i.tia said.

'Are you sure?' Ella's heart was pounding. She scanned the walls for CCTV cameras.

''Course I'm f.u.c.king sure.' Let.i.tia started to grab handbags herself and piled them in fast. 'Everyone wants one of these,' she cooed. 'That is some proper bling. Fiver a pop. Easy money, man.' One of her false nails flipped off and flew across the floor. 'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks! My Christmas nails. That's your fault.' She treated Ella to a withering glance.

Cold fear roiled around Ella's insides, making her wince. A storm was coming. Let.i.tia had broken a special occasion nail. She knew she needed to do something; say something fast if she was to head off her mother's emotional hurricane.

'You just hold the bag, Mum. I'll work faster, yeah?'

As she stuffed the handbags into the bin liner, her breath came short. She had to get done. Had to get out before they got copped. First Danny's boys, now this. She hated this life. Last thing she wanted was a criminal record for the sake of PVC ghetto c.r.a.p adorned with zips and diamante. Let.i.tia didn't see it that way.

'h.e.l.lo!' A man's voice. Cheery but questioning.

Let.i.tia looked up. 'Out the back with the bags,' she said.

'Who the h.e.l.l?' Ella said.

'Now!'

Ella knew the drill. She grabbed both bin liners and flung each one out through the opening that gave way to the loading bay below.

As she did so, she could see Let.i.tia coming out of the back room. Wheeling the mop bucket before her now. Swinging her ample a.r.s.e from side to side the way the older men like. Singing softly.

'Oh, morning, Fred,' she called.

'Let.i.tia. You nearly gave me a heart attack. Didn't expect to see you until after New Year, love.'

'Making up time, you know. I got an hospital appointment early next week. Can't afford to be short on money.'

'I've got a flask. Would you like a nice cup of tea?'