The Girl Who Wouldn't Die Part 12

'You never told me you had such charming friends,' Astrid said. 'I like the look of them much better.' She linked him and put her head on his shoulder. 'You've got to be careful who you hang out with while there are terrorists on the loose. And to be honest, I never did like that English girl. I'm glad you've ditched her as a friend.'

'Yes, my love,' Ad said, wishing he could go straight round to the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop.

Remko Visser came out of The English Bookshop on Lauriergracht, whistling. It was a cold, late Sat.u.r.day afternoon. The light was already failing fast and streetlamps were popping into life to augment a dwindling sun, wreathed in thick cloud as it was. Rain fell steadily, making the lenses in Remko's gla.s.ses steam up. But he felt good. He had just picked up Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin. It was in English but he'd had it recommended to him by George. He'd been waiting for it to come into the shop for a while.

He thought about going round to his parents' house to cadge dinner but then he realised they were going to an Aufruf at the synagogue for somebody's engagement after the Sat.u.r.day service. They were probably still lingering with their cronies, p.r.o.nouncing loudly about the bride-to-be and possibly fighting over the last bit of pickled herring or fish ball.

Maybe a kebab on the way home, then. Yes, a nice falafel. With garlic sauce and extra chilli.

He made his way towards the Herengracht and started to amble along it, drinking in the smell of diesel as a motorboat chugged by. The jolly tinkle of bicycle bells made him think fondly that spring was not too far away now. It was still getting dark early but, h.e.l.l, optimism cost nothing, did it?

This feeling of well-being was amplified when a beautiful blonde girl wearing a bright pink duffle coat walked towards him. Her ponytail danced high on her head. She had bow-shaped lips and slim ankles, although he couldn't tell if she was flat-chested or well bosomed underneath the coat. He smiled at her as she pa.s.sed, but she didn't see him.

When he reached the Hartenstraat bridge, he felt a sudden pang in his chest. Ratan. He remembered Ratan on the night of the party, grinning like a lotto winner, covered in Rani's lipstick. Only three weeks ago and now the world was on its head. Joachim was dead too. He hated Joachim. Klaus was okay. At least he was a bit charismatic. He had the sense to keep his mouth shut when Joachim had been sounding off about Jews and blacks. But Remko knew the pair of them were both arrogant p.r.i.c.ks, really. Still, Joachim didn't deserve to die. He felt interminably sorry for the sallow-faced, gangling dork. n.o.body in the faculty believed he and Ratan had been suicide bombers for a fundamentalist Muslim cause.

Suddenly, the ca.n.a.l looked bare and desolate. The trees were still without their leaves. He realised that spring was still a long way off. Remko shivered and pulled the zip of his anorak up to his chin.

He continued to walk, hood on now and head bent against the wind that drove the rain into his face. Presently, he felt curiously self-conscious. He looked at the reflections in the windows of the shops and houses but saw nothing out of the ordinary; nothing apart from a Remko-shaped man walking with his hood up, carrying a bookstore bag in heavy rain. He glanced behind him, intuiting a malign presence. Definitely n.o.body there. He picked up his pace. Home was not far now.

When he felt something heavy sting the back of his head and sank to the ground like a large stone hitting the bottom of the ca.n.a.l, the only two things that he was aware of were, firstly, that it was odd to be hit on the head in Oudespiegelstraat, even if it was a small alleyway, and secondly, that his attacker was both strong and nimble to be capable of dragging him inside- Remko Visser pa.s.sed out and did not wake up until agony and the strange smell of burning petrol, flesh and plastic roused him. By then, it was too late.

Chapter 13.

Later

Fennemans arranged the hothoused tulips in a charming blue gla.s.s globe vase that he had picked up from a junk shop. The tulips were yellow. He liked the colour scheme.

'Very Swedish,' he said.

Sat.u.r.days were often empty and lonely for Fennemans, but the memory of his meeting with Saskia, and the news that the university's costly legal machine was already cranking up on his behalf had filled him with the same warm, happy feeling that he often got from standing in a shaft of strong sunlight on a radiant, crisp winter morning.

'You know we all care so much about you, Vim,' she had said.

The skin on the hand with which she had patted his arm was loose and wrinkled now covered in freckles and the start of liver spots. Those blue eyes that had once looked so sharp, almost crystalline, were now ringed with white; the skin above and beneath them was as baggy as h.e.l.l.

'You're such a good friend after all these years,' he had said, tucking a stray lock of her coa.r.s.e, grey hair behind her ear. His eyes travelled down to the spare tyre that now represented the span of her hips, where once her bones had jutted out, framing a flat, taut stomach. The clinging fine-knit sweater she was wearing for their meeting only accentuated the unsightly spread.

She blushed. 'It wouldn't do to lose our best scholar to a pack of lies, now, would it?' she said. 'Poor Vim. So vulnerable. So easy to malign.'

'I know, Saskia,' he said, shaking his head and putting his hand on her knee. 'We sensitive ones are always easy prey for predators like van den Bergen and, in my case, grasping little girls looking for attention.'

He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. He felt the heat from her skin. As far as he was aware, within the university at least, only he had ever been able to thaw Professor Saskia Meyer's arctic exterior.

'I'll make sure no expense is spared on any legal work that needs to be undertaken,' she said. 'And the Executive Board will stand behind me in upholding your reputation, my sweet.' She caressed the inside of his thigh, smiled wryly and opened the door for him to leave.

Another chaste kiss on the forehead was all he had needed to seal that deal.

'Adieu, darling Saskia,' he had said, putting his hand dramatically over his heart.

As he had turned to leave, he shuddered to think the two of them had spent all those sweaty afternoons engaged in clandestine f.u.c.king in her bohemian old apartment. It was a long time ago now. Perhaps it had been the thrill of having an affair with his supervisor that had made it possible for him to get it up for her.

'Thinking of you, Vim!' she had shouted after him, blowing a kiss.

As he put the blue vase onto his kitchen windowsill in the dusk half-light, he realised quite how sweet the relief was. He really was invincible. And now, the banging from below reminded him that he had matters to attend to. Not such an empty Sat.u.r.day after all.

Poised to fight, when George had turned around, there was nothing out of the ordinary to see. A gaggle of giggling teenaged girls, some lost tourists, a dog without a collar sniffing its pee on a lamp post and a limping man, making his way past the slick-haired tout, Hans, into the live s.e.x show next door. Nothing. Her only attacker had been her own sneering terror.

George marched upstairs with her bunch of tulips. She had squeezed them so hard that some of the stems were beyond hope. She slammed her door behind her and double-locked it. She wedged a chair beneath the k.n.o.b and drew the curtains. Then came the cleaning. She scrubbed her already clean kitchenette. All day long.

Now her dry fingers stank of bleach, as she dragged hard on her spliff. Jan sat next to her in a booth downstairs, nodding sagely at nothing in particular while his number one hippy helper looked after the cash register. Outside, angry rain lashed in torrents against the shop-front window.

'I was hoping the inspector guy would have called me,' she said, pa.s.sing the spliff to Jan. 'I've ruined my reputation for him. Trying to help, you know? Everything's gone to s.h.i.t. My head's a mess.'

Jan took off his steamy gla.s.ses and cleaned them on the edge of his batik T. 'The pigs use you up and spit you out.'

George was just about to tell Jan what she thought about Paul van den Bergen when Inneke and Katja walked in, both wearing civvies. Tight jeans. Hooded tops. Anoraks over the arm. They were barely wet.

Jan looked up. 'Ladies! Ladies! Is this not peak time for businesswomen such as yourselves?'

Katja pointed to the lashing rain. 'Business is slack as a pensioner's f.a.n.n.y.'

'We made an executive decision,' Inneke said. 'Half an hour's downtime with you and early home.'

Inneke and Katja slumped into the booth, either side of George and Jan. George could smell s.e.x and coconut oil on Inneke. She wondered if she showered before she kissed her kids good morning.

Katja looked over at George and flashed her with a trout pout smile. 'You okay? You look like you spent a penny and lost a dollar.'

'It's lost a pound, found a penny,' George said, feeling sourness push her internal pH value down to pure acid. 'I've had a weird day.'

'You got any beer in this place, Jan?' Inneke asked.

Jan summoned hippy helper to bring over the emergency Heineken.

For an hour, the four of them shared their woes. Jan's arthritis and maintenance payments to his ex. Inneke's wrangles with the kids' school and payments from her ex. Katja's lopsided nipples and unsavoury client demands. Finally, George told her neighbours about her possible stalker and the matches.

'Part of me thought it was the guy who stayed over,' she said. 'I've not returned his calls. But maybe it's someone far worse ... Maybe doing that blogpost has attracted the wrong sort of attention.'

'Sounds to me like this bomb thing has got you paranoid, honey,' Katja said. 'Looking for danger where there is none.'

Inneke straightened up in her seat, coddling her can of Heineken. 'No, Kat. She's right to be suspicious,' she said.

George looked at her with the overly a.n.a.lytical eyes of the very stoned. 'What do you mean?'

Inneke sniffed conspiratorially. 'I mean, Amsterdam's a funky place these days. All sorts of s.h.i.t going down all the time. Weirdoes and wackos having a pop at the girls. Girls coming in from odd destinations.'

'Oh?' George said, inclining her body forward.

Katja seemed to cotton on. She was all nail extensions now, flapping her hands like a drag queen drying his varnish. 'Yes! Inneke's right. Back in November, Saeng, the Thai girl who rents s.p.a.ce above f.a.g b.u.t.t's Gay p.o.r.n, had a nutcase.'

'What happened?' George asked, relighting the spliff and considering Katja through a purple cloud of smoke.

'Oh, it was terrible,' Inneke said.

'This trick gets the hump when she says no to him,' Katja continued. 'He brings out a hip flask. Pours vodka down Saeng's gullet. Sets it alight. She goes up like a torch.'

'Jesus,' Jan said.

'She'll not work again,' Katja said, shaking her head solemnly. 'Think she's in some kind of rehab for burns victims now. Skin grafts and all that s.h.i.t.'

George grimaced. 'Poor girl. Did they get the lunatic?'

Inneke shook her head. 'No. n.o.body could remember him coming or going. Saeng wouldn't give a description.'

'Why the f.u.c.k not?' George asked, wiping imaginary dust off the ring-pull of the beer can.

Katja flicked ash that was hanging precipitously from the spliff in the direction of the chunky terracotta ashtray, missed and dropped a shower of black s.m.u.tty flakes all over the table. George mused that it looked like a lesser Pompeii. She steeled herself to refrain from asking hippy helper for a cloth.

'Well,' Katja said, leaning in, pa.s.sing a wet-tipped spliff on to Jan, 'the guy threatened he'd find her if she blabbed. I heard she's going back to Thailand. She's outstayed her fortnight's holiday visa by five years anyway.'

'No,' said Inneke, 'she's going to London.'

'Would she get into the UK?' George asked, eyeing the spliff's wet tip nervously as Jan dragged deeply and pa.s.sed it to her.

'A couple of English guys fake Dutch papers for girls if they've got the right money. Get them over on an EU visa.'

George nodded and looked at the spliff in her hand. To smoke, or not to smoke? Her choice was heavily laden with responsibility and import. Not to smoke. George knew that the tip would feel cold and damp between her lips from another person's spit.

'Inneke?' She pa.s.sed it on. Kissing was one thing but cold, second-hand spit was another thing entirely.

Inneke coughed as she inhaled the hot smoke. 'That's the other thing,' she said. 'You talk about Saeng getting hold of a dodgy visa. Well, these bombings ... We've noticed girls coming in from the Middle East in the past year. Really young too.'

'Unusual,' Jan said, proffering his pouch of tobacco to George, who began to roll a fresh joint. 'Muslim girls? A long way from home here. Spiritually, I mean.'

George spread the damp, fragrant tobacco along her runway of paper a blank foil for the green chunks of Californian gra.s.s that would light the way for take-off. Up, up and away. 'Why do you say "these bombings" and then mention Middle Eastern girls?' she asked Inneke. 'Middle Eastern from where?'

Inneke sipped her beer and glanced at her watch. 'Well, you know. The bombers are meant to be Al Qaeda, aren't they? And these girls ... I've heard they're from Taliban land.'

'Afghanistan?' George asked.

Inneke nodded. 'Yeah. That sort of place. A few of us have tried making conversation with them on the street. In the summer. You know, when it's hot and we hang out.'

'And?'

'Well, they don't speak. They're drugged. That's pretty obvious. They have an older woman as chaperone. Indonesian Tom says rent's paid by some intermediary guy that n.o.body ever sees. Speaks Dutch on the phone with an accent. I've heard rumours that those English dudes provide them with paperwork. A month at most and they're gone. The girls down the way say they're going to the UK.'

'Mules maybe?' asked George. Her brain had started to effervesce with the logistics of such a conspiracy. She liked the poetry of it and at the same time hated the politics of it. Eastern girls coming west. Trading a prison of the mind for a prison of the flesh, carrying dope like a platter of poisoned dates; a sickly sweet offering of Eastern hospitality. Then, selling their virtuous Muslim souls for asylum in infidel London.

'Yes. Mules,' Katja said. 'Definitely. Then who knows? If they can't get paperwork, maybe stowaways on board-'

'Ships that pa.s.s the Hook of Holland in the night,' George muttered. 'So you think the bombing is some kind of Talibanesque retribution on the Netherlands, allowing itself to be used as a conduit for Afghan prost.i.tutes and drugs?'

'Why wouldn't it be?' Katja asked.

'Because I have a theory that it's right-wingers,' George said.

'A slur campaign?' Jan said.

'Precisely. Or a red herring. Pin the tail on the Muslim donkey. Maybe. Might be a neo-n.a.z.i response to girls from the Middle East pa.s.sing through. Dunno.'

'Are you going to tell Captain Pig, the detective, about your neo-n.a.z.i thoughts?' Jan asked.

'Let's just say I'm looking into it,' George said, trying to blow a smoke ring and failing. She thought wistfully of Ad. 'I have a man on the job.'

Chapter 14.

12 January

'You okay?' van den Bergen asked. 'Don't puke in the car. It's just been valeted.'

George was slumped in the pa.s.senger seat of Paul van den Bergen's car, irritated by the way the slip mats weren't properly aligned. She had spent the rest of her weekend holed up in her room, using cooking wine as a panacea to acute anxiety and loneliness. She knew that asking to meet van den Bergen was attention-seeking behaviour, but she didn't care. She wanted to feel needed and safe.

'Posh wheels,' George said.

Van den Bergen gave a hollow laugh. 'Perk of the job. Anyway, they had no option. It's the only thing I can fit my legs into.'