The Girl Who Broke the Rules
Advancing in her pyjamas and dressing gown down the hall, the music thudded louder. The smells became ever sharper. Those tendrils beckoned her forwards; pulling her in towards the melee. On the other side of the door, beyond which she had been expressly told by Gretchen that she must not under any circumstances venture after lights-out, she beheld the writhing organism. A gathering, at least two-hundred strong, that stretched from one end of the vast, wood-floored drawing room to the other. Semi-naked men. Suited men. Men dressed as women. Women clad in outlandish, futuristic outfits. Some, barely dressed at all, breasts jiggling as they danced. Wearing incongruous hats. Dwarves carrying platters of food on their heads which some guests stuffed lasciviously into each other’s mouths. Pyramids of white powder, which most guests were snorting enthusiastically through small tubes. Dancing, smoking, kissing and more. The sort of thing the girl did not want to see and yet, driven by an eleven-year-old’s avid curiosity for all things grown-up, a scene she was compelled to gawp at and consign to memory. It was horrible. It was wonderful. She was not sure what it was.
To the left, beneath the apartment’s tall windows, with the towers of downtown Manhattan glittering in the background, the old guard sat in their off-the-shoulder dresses, sipping champagne with their stuffy-looking husbands. At odds in this uptown Babylon. She recognised them from the photos of her mother that often appeared within the pages of Vanity Fair. Lunching at Le Cirque with other thin, bouffant women.
But her mother was not seated among them. Where was she?
The girl’s gaze wandered to a far corner of the room. And there she was! Sporting enormous shoulder pads and a tiny, cinched-in waist, chatting animatedly to a man dressed in black, whose heavy spectacles and bushy white hair marked him out as some famous artist or other.
‘Mama!’ the girl shouted, advancing past a sweaty, topless man. He almost knocked the teddy bear clean out of her hand, as he danced with abandon with a sequin-encrusted he/she/it guest.
When her mother caught sight of her, her fury was self-evident. Instead of responding in their native tongue, Mama chided her in English; her transatlantic drawl made sluggish and clumsy with alcohol, the girl knew.
‘Veronica! You were told to go to bed and stay in bed.’
‘But I got woken up.’
‘Get back to bed this instant, young lady! You are very disobedient.’
Her mother grabbed her with bony, iron fingers. Dug her red nails in. The champagne stink of her rancid breath bore down on her. ‘Naughty little girl. What were you told?’
‘I miss Papa.’ The girl looked up at her mother with imploring eyes. Part of her acknowledged that she would rather be tucked in bythe homely, loving Gretchen. But she had needed to see what lay beyond The Door. And this was Mama. Her mother. She could not stem an instinctive, primal craving for maternal reassurance after a disconcerting dream, though she realised it would not be forthcoming. Mama took her parties very seriously. Mama had to look glamorous. Mama had to dedicate herself to her friends. It was expected.
‘Papa’s at Harvard,’ her mother shouted over the music, digging her nails in deeper. ‘You know that. He’s back next week. Then, we fly home.’ Her affected smile turned into something sinister, making the sinews in her thin, dancer’s neck seem taut and stringy. Speaking to her daughter through gritted, white teeth that seemed somehow sharper, nastier, reptilian. ‘But right now, little miss,’ the glossy brown tresses of Mama’s hair coiled and squirmed like the snakes on Medusa’s head that Veronica had peered at through parted fingers during the premiere of Clash of the Titans, ‘I am having a very important conversation with Andy, here, about my fundraiser for the Museum of Modern Art.’ Mama turned around and beamed warmly at the white-haired man. Gorgon’s head gone.
Back to bed, annoying little cunt. Veronica found herself being dragged by the belt of her dressing gown. The long walk of shame across the makeshift dance floor, past the great and the good and the downright rotten of New York high society, was punctuated by several photo opportunities. Red light. Hold the front page. And pose! Whenever a flashbulb popped in their faces, Veronica registered that her mother had instantly rearranged herself into a photogenic shape. Hand on hip. One foot forward. One to the side. Knee slightly bent. Easy smile. Arm draped around Veronica’s shoulder, as though she were a novelty prop. It had been the same on the red carpet at the premiere. The blinding glare of flashing bulbs, illuminating bleach-white grins of her mama and papa. Gretchen had shown her the photos in the gossip columns the following day, above a caption that identified their family trio as ‘mining heiress and former Broadway star, Heidi Schwartz, with plastic surgeon husband and daughter’. Veronica had recognised herself in one of the photos, trudging behind Perseus, looking downright glum. Too shell-shocked by the press attention to feel excited about being close to the star of the film.
Together, they stumbled away from the party, back down the hall, Veronica being dragged and at the mercy of her mother’s unsteady gait. Reeling. Bursting into her room. Harsh light on. Pyjama bottoms yanked down around her ankles.
‘Don’t…let… me…see…you…come…out…of…this…room…again!’ Mama said, slapping the words out onto her thighs with the flat of her hand like the drummer in a military tattoo. Yanked back up, once the skin was livid. ‘Horrible girl. Into bed!’
‘I’m so sorry, Mama,’ Veronica wept, climbing under her blankets and clutching her knees. Making herself as small as possible. Thumb in. Teddy next to her heart, at first.
‘You’re not sorry. You’re never sorry!’ Mama screamed. She removed her thick, red leather belt with its deep, jewel-studded buckle. Brought it down on her hard, so that it whistled through the still air and cracked as it made contact with her shoulder. The blankets provided a merciful barrier for its sting, at least. ‘Go to sleep! Go to sleep, you fucking pain in the ass!’
Veronica shut her eyes tight, though the tears leached onto her face and coursed freely into her ear. She was careful to hold her teddy protectively over her head, as the belt buckle found its mark again and again. The light of a Manhattan morning seemed a long way off.
CHAPTER 13
Amsterdam, police headquarters, then, a building site, 19 January
‘Are the rumours that it’s a serial sexual killer true?’ asked a woman he recognised as a big ticket reporter for de Volkskrant.
Where the hell had she got that? Who had opened their big mouth?
Suddenly the entire meeting room erupted with the probing voices of media representatives. On their feet, all demanding to have their questions answered. Hands in the air. Voice recorders pointed in his direction. The room was full to claustrophobic bursting point as it was, but the clamour made it all the more unbearable. Van den Bergen could feel sweat starting to trickle down his back. All eyes were trained on him. He had to address them. Opened and closed his mouth. But no words would come.
Hasselblad tapped the microphone. Brass buttons clinking on his commissioner’s jacket. Frog-eyes bulging. The PA system’s feedback whistled around the room, reinstating silence.
‘Chief Inspector?’ Hasselblad was staring at him expectantly. His best trick. Daring van den Bergen to challenge his authority.
Only moments before they had filed into the room for this press conference, van den Bergen had been trapped inside Hasselblad’s office, arguing vociferously about which line to take. They had been at it, on and off, ever since van den Bergen had come back with Strietman’s preliminary report.
‘Paul, I want them to know we’re after a serial killing sex pervert,’ Hasselblad had said, strutting up to the ornate mirror that hung next to a sizeable oil-on-canvas portrait, painted of him when he had taken up office and had been a good stone lighter. He checked his tie was straight. Held in his gut. Smoothed his shirt as he viewed himself sideways-on and nodded at his reflection. Satisfied. ‘You play down the depravity of these murders, and this department gets sod all kudos when you come to solve them. I get sod all kudos.’ He was still in socks. He marched back over to his rosewood desk, lifted up one of his already gleaming dress shoes and buffed it uselessly with a cotton handkerchief. ‘I don’t need to remind you that I’m the commissioner, do I? You tow my party line.’
Van den Bergen fingered the frayed collar of the shirt he had not yet had time to change. ‘Jaap, you embrace headline-grabbing sensationalism, and you’re going to end up with mass hysteria on your hands. We should announce there’s a murderer at large. Of course, we should! We—’
‘Not murderer. Serial killer.’ At that moment, Kamphuis was visible through the glazed partition, walking past Hasselblad’s office, taking a large bite out of an oversized syrup waffle. Notably, Kamphuis waved merrily to the commissioner. ‘On. The. Rampage.’
Kamphuis and Hasselblad. Pair of pricks together, van den Bergen thought. Not a club I’d ever be invited to join. Not a club I’d want to fucking well join. ‘Look, we need to encourage the public to be vigilant. Yes. But the whole point of the press conference is to identify these women. Missing persons has thrown up zilch.’ He stared at the sorry-looking parlour palm on Hasselblad’s desk. Fingered the compost, which was utterly dried out. Moron never watered it. ‘Not a shred of clothing on either of them, let alone ID. No witnesses so far. How can I investigate murders with nothing to go on but two carved-up cadavers, some dodgy scarring from past surgery? A vague notion of their ages and ethnicities?’
‘Stick to the brief, van den Bergen!’ was all Hasselblad would say before barrelling out of his office and down the hall to where the nation’s media had been assembled.
The reporters were rapt with attention, now. Waiting to hear what the infamous chief inspector had to say – the man who had solved the mystery of the Bushuis library and Utrecht synagogue bombings. A catcher of murderous psychopaths. One of Amsterdam’s most celebrated sons, when it suited them to deem him one. An abrasive, white-haired dinosaur who should hand in his badge, when it didn’t. Casting an eye over their hungry faces, he could almost see them silently deciding on today’s headline. Manipulative sewer rats, the lot of them.
He cleared his throat. Finally, imagining George had placed an encouraging hand on his shoulder, his voice came.
‘Er, thank you for coming.’
He started to talk about the victims, being careful to hold back the information that their organs had been removed and that they appeared to have been butchered by an expert. He deliberately omitted to deploy the phrase, ‘serial sex killer’. Steadfastly denied they were looking for a crazed pervert, when quizzed about it by a researcher for NPO 1 television.
‘We have yet to profile the perpetrator,’ he clarified. Watched the research guy’s face fall with disappointment. ‘At this stage, we have two female victims.’ He clicked the mouse button on a laptop Marie had set up for him and two artist’s impressions appeared on a large whiteboard behind him. He didn’t think much of the artist’s efforts. The pictures were guesswork, at best, hastily scribbled onto paper. ‘Two murders that share several similarities. But I wouldn’t label this as the work of a serial killer. Not yet.’
He could feel Hasselblad’s eyes boring a resentful hole in the side of his face. He could almost hear Elvis’ and Marie’s jaws dropping with disbelief. All hell would break loose once the microphones were switched off and they returned to their offices. But he was safe for now. Hasselblad wouldn’t dare shed light on an internal disagreement in front of scandal-hungry reporters.
‘I need to know if anyone knows anything about these two women.’ He thought about the slight build of the victims. Their vulnerability. The black girl’s obvious youth. The white woman’s flawed, augmented breasts. Thought about George and Tamara. Spoke into the microphone in an impassioned way. ‘Husbands, family members, lovers, colleagues, friends. Somebody must be missing someone close to them. If there is anybody out there that can help or who thinks they might have witnessed the abduction of or attack on women who resemble these sketches, call the hotline in confidence.’
Iwan watched the live press conference on NPO’s breakfast news bulletin, as he sawed open a crusty bun with the sharp bread knife. Into the soft, doughy innards of the cob he stuffed several slices of kielbasa and cheese. But his girl had bought him that cheap shit sausage from Lidl and the cheese was Dutch. It looked right but didn’t smell right. Nevertheless, with large unthinking bites, swilled down with strong coffee, he manfully made short shrift of the first disappointing meal of the day. That he got the food to stay down at all with such a stinking hangover was a miracle. It had been a good night – early on, at Stefan’s, drinking Tyskie and playing cards. Then, later on…better still.
‘The boys are outside,’ Krystyna shouted from the kitchen.
The honking horn of the van signified that it was time to get to work. 6.57am. By lunchtime, he should feel fine. He picked his plate and cup up from the scarred pine table and swapped it for the lunch bag that Krystyna gave him. Grabbed her slender frame around the waist and pulled her close for a kiss.
‘Get off! You stink!’ she said, giggling. ‘Go and work the beer off. Go on! You’ll be late.’
Engine running, outside.
‘Come on, Iwan!’ Stefan said, leaning nonchalantly out of the driver’s window. ‘Get a bloody move on, you pussy.’
He lit a cigarette but was forced to flick it out the window half-smoked because the pitch and roll of the van, with its sagging suspension, made him seasick.
‘You’re green!’ Michal said. ‘And you ducked out early! Lightweight!’
Iwan just puffed out his cheeks in response. Wiped away the cold sweat on his face. Stared blankly out of the window, as shabby, 1970s apartment blocks on the poor outskirts of town gave way to grand red- and grey-brick buildings – some converted into elegant apartments, some still four-storey family homes for the very rich. Here, the streets were tree-lined, with chi-chi delis and boutiques on every corner. He was working. He was earning. Life was good. It was just a hangover. He wouldn’t vomit. He was a man. Men didn’t vomit.
The van pulled up in Valeriusstraat, outside the building site. Scaffolding encased the neglected façade, with its cantilevered bay window on the second storey and the balcony above. At the very top, on the fourth floor, the stepped gable bore down on them. He peered up at it and shuddered. Shook his head.
‘You’re such a superstitious old woman!’ Stefan said, punching his shoulder.
‘This place is haunted,’ Iwan said. ‘I’m telling you.’
The gable window was dark, but his fevered imagination conjured up a ghost from the past eyeing him from above. Perhaps a Jew, sheltering from the Nazis. Maybe a sick or deformed child from Amsterdam’s glory days gazed down at him. Some merchant’s dirty secret, locked in the attic. Protruding from the gable was a beam with the hook on the end – so useful for hoisting materials up to the top floor. But Iwan imagined it was a witch’s finger, beckoning him up to the top, so he might plunge to his death.
He crossed himself and followed his workmates inside.
‘We’re going to get you plastering out the top floor today,’ Stefan said. Laughing raucously.
The others joined in. Iwan might have retorted with something witty, had he not felt like he was dying. All he could manage was a ‘Ha ha. Very funny.’
‘You think I’m joking?’
‘Stefan! Come on, man. No!’
Stefan pointed to the giant sheaf of plasterboards that were stacked in the hallway. ‘Top floor. Board and skim by the end of the day. Take Pawel up there with you. He’ll fight the ghosts off.’
Iwan groaned. Picked up his drill case from the cupboard under the stairs. Collected the bucket containing his trowel and saw.
‘You seen the rest of my tools?’ he asked the others.
They replied that they hadn’t. He shrugged. They’d be around. Trudged to the top. There was a strange smell on the air. Something more than just dust, damp and rotten wood. The precise nature of the scent eluded him. Never mind. He’d have a cigarette and a coffee from the flask Krystyna had made him, first. Fuck Stefan!
As he passed beneath the threshold that marked the smaller of the attic rooms, he heard Michal shout downstairs.
‘Someone’s been in! Back door’s been jemmied, by the looks.’
‘Anything taken?’ Stefan shouted between floors.
Iwan backed onto the landing and bellowed down the stairwell, ‘My drill is still here. They’d have taken that. You sure you’re not still pissed, Michal?’
‘Nothing missing here,’ Stefan shouted. ‘Have a good look round, lads. Then, screw the door shut for now. Can’t have cats or squatters getting in.’
Iwan nodded. Sighed. Progressed beyond the threshold, traversing the smaller ante-room that would be divided into a hallway and en suite to a master. Entered the main room. The one with the window. The one he had been dreading entering. He dropped his drill case and bucket. Screamed. Then, he vomited over the steel toecaps of his boots.
CHAPTER 14
Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
Van den Bergen was sitting in the disabled cubicle on the top floor. Clutching at his spasming stomach. Contemplating the frenzy of excitement that had been almost palpable during the press conference. Imagining the dressing-down he was going to get from Hasselblad when he eventually emerged from his hideaway. His throat burned as though he had swallowed razor blades. Maybe he wasn’t coming down with a throat infection. Perhaps he was just hoarse from talking to George for ninety minutes or more, in the freezing cold of the small hours. Last night. Seemed a lifetime ago now.
‘Paul, you’re driving me mad,’ she had said. Whispering at almost normal pitch above the noise of what could have been an extractor fan. Her voice sounding tinny, as though she were in a tiled space like the bathroom. ‘Just spit it out. What the hell have you done?’
He had sighed. ‘I’m struggling. I’ve been…you know? And I took these…’
‘What? What did you take, you silly bastard?’
‘Too many codeine.’
There had been a silence that he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to breach.
‘You telling me you OD’d?’
He had nodded, though she couldn’t see him, sitting as he was on the end of his bed in his pants and his frayed work shirt. Head in his left hand, staring dolefully at his bare feet.
‘You okay? Paul? Speak to me!’
‘They pumped my stomach. I’m fine, now,’ he had lied.
In the ensuing silence, he had held the phone close against his heart and let out a silent sob. Glad that nobody was watching. Took a deep breath and returned the phone to his ear. ‘It’s all getting on top of me. I—’
‘For God’s sake, Paul, get some help. Go to Narcotics Anonymous or something. See a doctor. Anything. But acknowledge you’ve got a problem.’
‘Come over.’
‘How can I just drop everything and come running? To Amsterdam! It’s not round the corner. And you’re not the only one with commitments. I’m in the middle of a PhD. I’ve got Ad here, for Christ’s sakes!’
‘Oh?’
It had not been his intention to let that out, and especially not in that piqued tone. An indicator of how he felt about Karelse. Nearly four years on, and his resolve to keep his misgivings about George’s boyfriend to himself had morphed into regular, semi-naked scorn.
‘Stop! Before you start, just bloody stop!’ George had warned him.
So, he had quickly changed the subject and told her about the first dead girl, then the gruesome discovery of the second earlier that evening. An equally troublesome scenario, where a woman’s mutilated body had been found naked, dumped in a public place. And yet, nobody had seen a thing. Not yet. She didn’t have enough face left to make an ID possible. Strietman had bleated on about ritual sex killings yet again. Worse still, Hasselblad agreed.
‘What are the similarities?’ George had asked.
Van den Bergen picked at his toenail and recalled the second victim’s body on the slab. ‘Unzipped from neck to vagina. Disembowelled. Organs removed. Signs of rough sexual intercourse and lacerations on her back commensurate with a whipping. Similar scarring on her breasts that suggest maybe the same guy had given her a breast augmentation as performed the caesarean on the first girl.’
At the other end of the phone, it was easy to detect George’s immediate interest. The silence and quickening of her breath said it all. Two unidentified women. Mutilation. Probable sexually motivated murders. After all these years, van den Bergen knew which buttons to push to get her intellectually fired up. He certainly knew better than that loser, Karelse, who wouldn’t know finesse if it was a silk-clad fist, punching him in the face. That mamma’s-boy had no mastery of the subtle art of manipulation. You needed years of wisdom to really get a feel for that. If he could only get George hooked on the case, perhaps she’d come over. Visit. Stay a while. But her silence continued for a couple of beats beyond what might pass for curiosity.
‘You think you can lure me over there with this?’ George asked.
Not so subtle. How the hell did she know? Maybe he was losing his touch.
‘I’m not trying to lure—’
‘I’m hanging up, Paul. Go see your doctor.’
‘But George, you could work as a profiler. You always said you’d love to do that. We could be a team.’
‘You don’t need me to solve this case! You’re a pro.’
‘It’s the perfect opportunity for both of us. Think about it!’
‘Tell me you’re not going to try any more funky OD bullshit.’
He gave her silence this time. Hated himself for not responding. As manipulation went, he knew this was low.
‘Hanging up. Night.’
The line had gone dead and he was left in the oppressive loneliness of his bedroom, clutching the phone to his cheek, as though the smooth warmth of the casing were her face.
Checking the phone’s display now, in the privacy of the disabled cubicle, he contemplated sending her an apologetic text. Started to type one out with his thumb. Was just about to send it when the door to the top-floor men’s toilet smashed against the wall.
‘Boss!’ It was Elvis. Could see his brothel-creeper shoes under the door.
Van den Bergen closed his eyes. Saw his father, sitting in the chemo chair, hooked up to the drip, reading a well-thumbed thriller. ‘Tell Hasselblad he can bloody well wait.’
‘No, boss. You’ve got to come down quickly. We’ve had a call. Some Polish builder working in the Museum Quarter reckons he’s found a murder scene.’
CHAPTER 15
Amsterdam, Valeriusstraat building site, later
‘The blade of the scalpel is broken,’ van den Bergen told Elvis. ‘Make a note of it. Get a photo, Marie.’
As Elvis scribbled feverishly in his pad, Marie moved closer on van den Bergen’s right. Pointed the digital camera at the broken surgical instrument, lying on the floor. With a bleep and a flash of light, it was captured, along with the other oddments in this gruesome montage. A woman’s blood-stained thong. A butcher’s cleaver. A hammer. A chisel. A cat-o-nine tails.
Van den Bergen squatted, close to the ground. Eyeing the blood-soaked mattress. He touched it tentatively, feeling that the wadding that lay beneath the surface was still damp.