The Girl Who Got Revenge: The addictive new crime thriller of 2018

CHAPTER 9

Amsterdam, the home of Kaars Verhagen, 10 October

‘You know…’ The old bastard wheezed fitfully, collapsing back into his wheelchair by the kitchen window. The timorous morning sun shone on his face, making the papery crumple of skin look almost translucent.

He imagined he could see through the network of blue veins to the bones beneath. Not long now till the blood would slow to a standstill, thickening and turning black.

‘The problem with life is you’ve got to die sometime.’ There was a volley of barking coughs. He sat in silence while the filthy old liar coughed up gobs of blood-streaked phlegm into a handkerchief. ‘Even at my age, you’re never ready for death.’ More wheezing, as if the speech had sucked all the air out of those decayed lungs, leaving nothing but the vacuum of thwarted instinct behind.

‘That’s why it’s important you take your medication, Kaars. Come on.’ He moved over towards the wheelchair and took the prongs from the oxygen tubing out of the old man’s nose. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll hook you back up in a second. Take the pills.’ The hiss and grind of the oxygen machine droned on in the background: the monotonous soundtrack to the quiet drama that was about to unfold. He dropped the tablets into that shaking, liver-spotted hand – the hairs on the back of it the only indication that this ancient man had ever enjoyed a prime.

Kaars Verhagen struggled to swallow down the medicine with the tepid water. Perhaps he’d choke to death! That wouldn’t do.

‘Come on now, Kaars,’ he said, banging the old man on the back. ‘Don’t choke. That defeats the object!’ He grabbed the glass of water impatiently from Kaars’s trembling hand and forced the pathetic old fart to sip again. ‘That’s right!’ he said, keeping his voice concerned and calm. ‘Just swallow.’

Finally, with the pills safely in his stomach, Kaars turned to him. Rail-thin now, even his appreciative smile looked like an effort. ‘I know I’m a goner,’ he said. ‘But I appreciate the treatment on the side. They’d written me off at the hospital. Too frail for experimental trials or extra chemo, they said.’ His words were swallowed by another big choking bout of coughing. His milky eyes looked fit to burst from his skull. ‘When you get to my grand age, they think you’ve had more than your three score and ten. Way more. They won’t fight for you. But you’ve fought for me.’ Tears came, then. He held his scrawny arms out, expecting a hug. It was only fair to reciprocate.

‘There, there. It’s the least I could do. A man like you could have another ten years of life. More! You’ve always had the constitution of a horse. You all did. Amazing, when you think how many never even made it to adulthood.’

Patting his back and breaking free of the hug, Kaars waved him away. His colour had started to wane. The sheen of sweat indicated that the final super-high dose of anthracycline was taking effect. Surprised that the duplicitous bastard had struggled on thus far, he said a silent prayer that sheer exhaustion or kidney failure wouldn’t take him first. It had to be his heart. Had to. It was the only way.

The old man started to cough violently again, dry-heaving when the cough finally subsided. ‘I must get Cornelia round. This damn building work needs finishing before I die,’ he said. ‘I’m worried she’ll be left with a mess.’ Their eyes locked. The old man’s were pleading. ‘If she needs some moral support, or help with the builders, you’ll pitch in, won’t you? Promise me you won’t leave her to tackle all that alone. I need to know there’s a man around I can trust. You’ve become that man.’

‘I’m just at the end of a phone.’

It was a non-committal response, and that was all the old fart would get from him. Why should he let the fucker die with a mind free from care?

Kaars Verhagen grimaced. He was pointing at some half-built stud wall, the skeleton timbers describing a new doorway wide enough to accommodate his wheelchair. Though he opened his mouth to speak, the words did not come. Now, he was gasping for air. Clutching at his arm and frowning, as though something had occurred to him that was just beyond his comprehension.

‘I feel…’

Falling from his wheelchair to the floor, Kaars curled up into a ball. With that bald head – hair only just growing back after months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment – he looked like a foetal bird inside an egg. Gasping. Moaning.

Good. Causing pain was a definite bonus. But he was certain it was happening. This was it.

‘Are you okay, Kaars?’ he asked, amused by the hollow intent of his words.

The old man stretched out a thin arm towards him, clearly begging for help. The mucus in the back of his throat rattled. His breath was shallow, almost imperceptible. His eyes clouded over.

Pushing the old man’s pyjama collar aside, revealing the lion tattoo as he did so, he checked that his work here had been successful. Sure enough, no blood flowed beneath his fingertips as he felt for a pulse. Kaars Verhagen was gone.

Wiping the place down for prints was easy, though he had to be extra vigilant that he left no footprints in the dust. The unfinished building work coated everything in a persistent layer of grime. A quick scatter of the debris that had been left behind in a dustpan would soon sort that. Leaving was a consideration, though. This was a busy area. Not like the others. Would he be seen?

No. He was the grey man.

Pulling his average and unremarkable raincoat closed against the wind and drizzle, he unfurled his average and unremarkable black umbrella and walked away at an unremarkable speed into the dank morning.

CHAPTER 10

Amsterdam, Den Bosch’s house in De Pijp, later

‘No answer,’ Van den Bergen said, peering through the letterbox. ‘He’s not at his business premises. Not at home. Shit. Where the hell is he?’ For good measure, he thumped on the front door a fourth time. The paintwork was surprisingly shoddy for a man with company finances as robust as Den Bosch’s.

Elvis placed a placatory hand on his arm. ‘We can come back, boss.’ His nose was red and his eyes were watering against the stiff wind. ‘In fact, without a warrant, we’ve got no option.’

Van den Bergen batted him away. ‘Are you patronising your superior officer?’

Smiling. Elvis was bloody smiling. He was all Zen since he’d discovered the joys of love and a second chance at living.

‘No. But there’s no point sweating it. He could be anywhere. We know next to nothing about him. He puts hardly anything on Facebook and he’s not on any of the other social media sites. There’s no way of proving he’s got anything to do with the trafficked Syrians.’ He dug his hands deeper inside his leather jacket and scanned the street. ‘We’re grasping at straws.’

‘We’re being thorough. In a case without leads, we have nowhere else to go.’

Two flamboyantly dressed students ambled by, chatting too animatedly about someone called Kenny who’d drunk so much that he’d puked in some girl’s mouth. Van den Bergen thought about his baby granddaughter and shuddered at the thought that, one day, some chump might vomit into her mouth in some student fleapit of a bar in De Pijp. Across the way, two women clad in burkas scurried into a run-down house, glancing over their shoulders. One was carrying a large tartan shopper – the kind Van den Bergen had seen people fill with washing. The other clutched at bulging bags. Neither were old.

‘Excuse me, ladies!’ he shouted to them, trying to keep the friendliness in his voice and the weariness out of it.

But they had already slammed the door.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Like that, eh?’

Approaching, he rang the bell several times, but there was no answer. It was as if he had merely imagined them.

‘I told you,’ Elvis said, peering up at the dirt-streaked windows. The pointing between the bricks was crumbling and the gutter near the roof on the three-storey building was cracked and coming away from the facade. ‘Me and Marie had the same thing. Nobody wants to talk round here.’

‘But it’s supposed to be trendy and vibrant, these days.’ Van den Bergen cast an appraising eye over the café that was several doors down from Den Bosch’s house. The windows were steamy. The lights were on. The sound of chatter and laughter spilled onto the busy street as three young men bundled out, wrapping themselves with scarves against the biting autumnal air. Business was booming in De Pijp. ‘Bohemian, and all that crap. I expected the people here to be more talkative. Let’s keep going.’

Together, they worked their way down the street, knocking on doors only to be met by twitching net curtains or vehement denials – from the neighbours who did deign to open their doors – that they knew Den Bosch at all. Helpfully unhelpful, often in pidgin Dutch and in several different accents. The air was heady with the smells of cooking from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Van den Bergen could also smell bullshit very strongly indeed.

‘Are you telling me that not a single soul knows a successful businessman like Den Bosch on a busy street like this?’ he asked Elvis as they entered the welcoming warmth of the Wakker/Lekker café – its name a claim that its fare could both wake you up and be delicious. Van den Bergen yawned and his stomach growled. The smell of coffee and cake wafted around him like a timely greeting. ‘Den Bosch’s name is emblazoned on the side of those giant bloody trucks.’

‘Yeah. But you’d only see those on the motorways and at the docks, boss. Not locally. I’d never notice one in a million years unless I was looking for it specifically.’

Donning his reading glasses, Van den Bergen looked longingly at the lemon cake, remembered that anything acidic was a no-no for hiatus hernia sufferers. And there was the small matter of being on duty.

‘Just a koffie verkeerd please,’ he said to the woman behind the counter.

She looked at him blankly, forcing him to reappraise the menu, which only had the café’s offerings in Italian.

‘Latte. I mean a latte.’ Then he remembered that anything high in fat was discouraged too. Damn it. ‘With skimmed milk.’ He swallowed. Patted his stomach. ‘I’ve got a hiatus hernia.’

He removed his glasses and treated the woman to a half-smile that was more of a grimace. Why the hell had he just shared that detail with her? Perhaps because the doc had said that thirty per cent of all over-fifties were afflicted, and she looked well over fifty. Maybe he was just looking for a connection with someone who understood.

She laughed, hooking her no-nonsense grey bob behind her ears. ‘Me too, lovey. Me too. Haven’t we all? I’m a martyr to mine!’

Hope surged inside him for the first time in days. But in his pocket, the blister pack of super-strength antacids he was forced to pop twice per day reminded him that there was little to be happy about. His body was crumbling. And then, the memory of Arnold van Blanken, expiring on the waiting room floor, returned, snuffing out every emotion except frustration. Here he was, saddled with the murder of a trafficked girl that he couldn’t solve; unable officially to investigate the murders of several old men that perhaps he could.

‘Do you know anything about Frederik Den Bosch?’ he asked, pointing to the lemon cake and indicating that she should serve him up a slice of it after all.

Her friendly smile soured into mean, thin lips. ‘The farmer? Mr High and Mighty?’

Van den Bergen placed his coins carefully on the counter. ‘Not keen?’

She kept her voice low. Leaned in so that the rest of her clientele couldn’t eavesdrop. ‘He’s selfish. He always takes my parking space with that ridiculous Jeep of his and he obviously doesn’t give a hoot that I’m much older than him. It’s not like he doesn’t know I’ve got arthritis in my knees. We had a conversation about it years ago. Big turd.’

Sensing that the café owner was rather enjoying offloading about her neighbour, Van den Bergen showed her his ID. Winked conspiratorially. ‘Go on. My colleague and I are both very interested in Mr Den Bosch. Anything you say may be of help to our investigation.’

The woman glanced at the group of young people who were enjoying croissants and hot drinks by the window. She turned back to Van den Bergen and beckoned him and Elvis into the back room.

In a space that was otherwise stacked high with boxes and cluttered with shabby, broken seating that had reached the end of its useful life, she gestured that they should sit on beat-up armchairs, arranged in a sociable group. Wakker/Lekker’s proprietor was a woman who liked to hold court on a regular basis, Van den Bergen assessed.

She wiped her hands on her flowery apron, her face flushed. ‘Why are you investigating him? Can you tell me?’

Clearing his throat, Van den Bergen considered his words carefully, sensing that this might be a woman prone to hyperbole and conjecture. ‘One of Mr Den Bosch’s trucks was stolen and I’m afraid the port police found cargo on board that shouldn’t have been there. We’re trying to find out more about Den Bosch, and why his truck might have been used to commit some very serious crimes.’

‘Drugs!’ Her eyes brightened. ‘Was it drugs?’

‘No. Please, Mevrouw. Tell me if there’s anything else you know about Frederik Den Bosch. His other neighbours seem reluctant to speak to us, but I can tell you’re a fine, upstanding Dutch citizen.’

She nodded vociferously. ‘I am. You bet. But he’s not, that overgrown ferret. Everyone thinks he’s a pillar of the community, but what he’s doing with those houses is wrong.’

‘What houses?’ Van den Bergen had already opened his notebook and was poised to write. At his side, Elvis sat silently observing the woman’s body language.

‘Didn’t you know? He owns three houses on this street alone, and about five on the next. Stuffs them to the rafters with immigrants. It’s a disgrace.’

‘Oh?’

She closed her eyes. ‘Rammed in there like shrink-wrapped sausages. That’s why they won’t talk to you. They’re all afraid. And he lets his properties go to rack and ruin. Have you seen the state of them? All bust guttering and filthy windows. Slum landlord – that’s what Den Bosch is. And they’re all illegals, I reckon.’

‘Why? What makes you say that?’

Shrugging, she splayed her fingers and examined her spotless short nails. ‘They’re shifty. They don’t speak Dutch. I live above my café, see. I can see them when they arrive in the middle of the night. They don’t bring anything more than a small case or a rucksack. And I may have dodgy knees and a hiatus hernia, but I’ve got an excellent memory for people’s faces. So I can tell the new ones, even by the light of the street lamp.’

Van den Bergen wrote furiously in his notepad, sensing that here was something to go on. ‘How frequently do new people arrive?’

She cocked her head thoughtfully. Glanced through the open doorway to check no other customers were standing at the counter. ‘Every few weeks. You get men. Women with children. All sorts. They all come from those Muslim countries. I know that because of the way the women dress. They’re always wearing those burka things, or have got their heads covered, at least.’ Rubbing her knees, she tried to glimpse what he was writing. ‘All I know is that he must have thirty living in each house. It’s not on, you know. It’s unsanitary. And they leave rubbish strewn on the street. The bins are overflowing every week with stinking nappies.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘You want to talk to environmental health about that, you know. He wants locking up, he does. Expecting the rest of us respectable residents to put up with that mess. And the people in there! Imagine kiddies having to live in that filth and with all those strange men! It’s not right.’

With the addresses of the houses safely recorded in his notepad, Van den Bergen made a second attempt at encouraging the reluctant residents to speak out about their enigmatic neighbour.

‘Jesus Christ!’ he said, as yet another hijab-clad woman refused to come to the door. He looked up at her as she shouted something in Arabic through the cracked glass of her first-floor window. ‘This is sending my acid into overdrive.’ He swallowed down the foul taste in his mouth.

Elvis stepped away from the front door, where he had been peering through the letterbox. ‘Let’s give it up, boss. Try one of the houses on another street and maybe come back later. See if Den Bosch shows. He won’t dare refuse to talk to us.’

Driving only one street away, so that he could keep his car within sight, Van den Bergen sighed heavily. Tried to get into a tight space and failed. Ended up at the wrong end of a long road.

‘Ever wish you’d just stayed in bed? Or at least did another job?’ he said, pointing his fob at the Mercedes and arming the alarm. He thought fleetingly and fondly of retirement, then remembered that he wanted to be the opposite of old Arnold van Blanken. He needed to be a working man, in his prime for as long as possible.

Elvis chuckled softly. ‘My mother’s dead. I nearly checked out in the spring, thanks to one trafficking bastard. I often think about doing something boring and safe, but this job is all I know.’

‘I guess it’s just me, then,’ Van den Bergen said, eyeing a group of youths who were hanging around too close to his car for comfort. He could see that they were scoping him out. Debating whether to pre-empt a clash and tell them to move along, he jumped when he felt a hand on his back.