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Copyright
Published by Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2016
Copyright © Marnie Riches 2016
Marnie Riches asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © March 2016 ISBN: 9780008203993
Version 2018-01-24
Dedication
For Christian. May your salsa always be extra picante and your cerveza always cold.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue: Cambridge University Library, 30 March
Chapter 1: Amsterdam, an Apartment in Bilderdijkkade, 25 April
Chapter 2: Bilderdijkgracht, 27 April
Chapter 3: Hmp Belmarsh, Thamesmead, Southeast London, 27 April
Chapter 4: Mexico, Chiapas, 29 May
Chapter 5: Amsterdam, Police Headquarters, Then, Bouwdewijn de Groot Lyceum, Apollolaan, Then, Floris Engels’ Apartment in Amstelveen, 28 April
Chapter 6: Cambridge, Huntingdon Road, Then, Stansted Airport, 29 April
Chapter 7: Amsterdam, Mortuary, Later
Chapter 8: Amsterdam, Police Headquarters, Later
Chapter 9: Amsterdam, Van Den Bergen’s Apartment, Then, Melkweg Nightclub, Later
Chapter 10: Amsterdam, Melkweg Nightclub, Then, Leidsegracht, 30 April
Chapter 11: Amsterdam, Sloterdijkermeer Allotments, Later
Chapter 12: Amsterdam, Reguliersdwarsstraat, 1 May
Chapter 13: Amsterdam, Keizer’s Basement Nightclub, 14 May
Chapter 14: Amsterdam, Police Headquarters, 15 May
Chapter 15: Mexico, Chiapas Mountains, Then, the Border With Guatemala, 29 May
Chapter 16: Amsterdam, Academy of Architecture, Waterlooplein, Then, Police Headquarters, 18 May
Chapter 17: 35,000ft Above Germany, 20 May
Chapter 18: Czech Republic, Prague, Žižkov District, Later
Chapter 19: Amsterdam, Keizersgracht, 21 May
Chapter 20: Mexico, Yucatan Jungle, 30 May
Chapter 21: Amsterdam, Ijselbuurt, Then Keizersgracht, Later, 21 May
Chapter 22: Amsterdam, Police Headquarters, Later
Chapter 23: Amsterdam, Van Den Bergen’s Apartment, 22 May
Chapter 24: Mexico, Cancun Airport, 26 May
Chapter 25: Honduras, Tegucigalpa, Later
Chapter 26: Mexico, a Cancun Police Station, 27 May
Chapter 27: Honduras, a Barrio in the Mountains Above Tegucigalpa, at the Same Time
Chapter 28: Amsterdam, Onze Lieve Vrouw Hospital, 28 May
Chapter 29: Mexico, Yucatan Jungle, 30 May
Chapter 30: Mexico, Hotel Bahia Maya, Cancun, Then, the Yucatan Jungle, 30 May
Chapter 31: Mexico, Elsewhere in the Yucatan Jungle, at the Same Time
Chapter 32: En Route From Tegucigalpa, Honduras to Palenque, Mexico Via Guatemala, 27 May
Chapter 33: Amsterdam, Red-Light District, 30 May
Chapter 34: Mexico, Hotel Bahia Maya, Cancun, 1 June
Chapter 35: Mexico, Palenque Town in Chiapas, 28 May
Chapter 36: The Caribbean Sea, Just Off the Coast of Mexico, 1 June
Chapter 37: The Netherlands, a Warehouse in a Dockside Location, at the Same Time
Chapter 38: The Caribbean Sea, Off the Coast of Mexico, at the Same Time
Chapter 39: Mexico, Hotel Bahia Maya, Cancun, a Little Later
Chapter 40: Mexico, Chiapas Mountains, 29 May
Chapter 41: Groningen, Chembedrijf Corporate Head Office, 1 June
Chapter 42: Mexico, Yucatan Jungle, 30 May
Chapter 43: Mexico, Cancun Airport, 1 June
Chapter 44: Mexico, Hotel Bahia Maya, Cancun, Later
Chapter 45: The Middle of the Caribbean Sea, Later
Chapter 46: Mexico, Yucatan Jungle, 1 June
Chapter 47: Amsterdam, Paradijs Restaurant, Amstel, 2 June
Chapter 48: Mexico, Hospital Galenia, Cancun, 2 June
Chapter 49: Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport, 4 June
Chapter 50: Amsterdam, Van Den Bergen’s Apartment, at the Same Time
Chapter 51: Rotterdam, Dockside, the Port of Rotterdam, Later
Chapter 52: Amsterdam, Van Den Bergen’s Apartment, a Short While Later
Chapter 53: Amsterdam, a Houseboat on Prinsengracht, at the Same Time
Chapter 54: Amsterdam, Van Den Bergen’s Apartment, Then, the Red-Light District, at the Same Time
Chapter 55: Rotterdam, a Dockside Warehouse, Port of Rotterdam, a Short While Later
Chapter 56: Amsterdam, the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, at the Same Time
Chapter 57: Amsterdam, Onze Lieve Vrouw Hospital, 5 June
Chapter 58: Onze Lieve Vrouw Hospital, Moments Later
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
Cambridge University Library, 30 March
When the lights went out in the University Library stacks, George held her breath. Looked around in the murk. But all she could see from the vantage point of the rickety desk where she had been reading was the glow from outside. The setting sun, pregnant with demonic menace, reflected on the Cambridge spires some way off to the east of the library, making the jagged rooftops look like the gaping, reddened maws of giant prehistoric beasts. Behind her were only the long shadows cast by the bookshelves; row after claustrophobic row, stacked to the ceiling with dusty old books. Anyone could hide among them in this twilight. The arsehole that had been following her … could he be lying in wait?
‘Who’s there?’ she shouted, her voice quivering. Her breath steamed on the sharp air.
No answer.
She picked up a heavy Old High German dictionary that had been left behind on the desk by some undergraduate. Held it high above her, poised to bring it crashing down on an attacker’s head, should she need to.
The lights came back on suddenly, making her squint. She shrieked at the sight of a flustered-looking librarian, who in turn yelped at the spectre of a combative George, wielding the tome.
‘Dr McKenzie!’ the woman said, taking a step back and clasping her hand to her fleece-clad bosom. Almost tripping over her own feet, shod in the utilitarian leather flats that were popular with senior citizens and the bunion-afflicted.
Horrified, knees buckling with embarrassment and relief in equal measure, George set the dictionary down on the desk beside her. She smiled apologetically at her would-be victim. ‘Mrs McMahon. I’m so sorry. The lights went out. I got spooked.’ She clutched her purple mohair cardigan around her, shivering with adrenalin as much as the cold. ‘You know how it is.’
The ageing librarian pursed her lips and tapped on the face of her watch. Spoke with stretched out East Anglian vowels that belied her haughty attempts at received pronunciation. ‘It’s 7 p.m. The library’s closing in fifteen. And after all these years, a Fellow, of all people, should remember that the lights are on timers in the stacks.’
‘Sorry,’ George muttered, gathering her own books into a neat pile. ‘It gets pretty creepy up here when the sun goes down.’
Mrs McMahon looked her up and down, eyeing George’s ripped jeans and wild curls with obvious disapprobation. Clearly the type of old-timer who didn’t think the University academic staff should dress like the students. But then, unexpectedly, her pruned mouth stretched into a kindly smile. ‘Ah, well Spring has sprung! It’s only going to get lighter of an evening.’
George nodded. ‘Roll on summer, eh?’ Shovelled her books into her bag. Pulled on her duffel coat and slung her bag over her shoulder, glad of the librarian’s company on the long walk back down to the main entrance.
By the time she had left the imposing phallic bulk of the University Library, the glow of the sunset had been replaced by a melancholy full moon that cast an eerie glow on the car park. That feeling of being watched still hadn’t abated, George acknowledged reluctantly.
Unshackling her old mountain bike, she started the cycle ride back to St John’s College down Burrell’s Walk, feeling vulnerable as her malfunctioning bike lights flickered weakly in the darkness. No helmet, either. She was annoyed at her own negligence.
Anyone could pull me off my bike down here and not a fucking soul would be any the wiser, George thought as she pedalled hard enough to make her heart thump violently and the sweat start to roll down her back.
Scanning every dense evergreen bush for signs of the long-haired old rocker with those idiot mirror shades that covered his stalking, watchful eyes, George repeated the mantra in her head: If I see him again, I’ll kill him. Four sightings is more than just a bloody coincidence or paranoia. Nobody stalks George McKenzie and lives to tell the tale.
Suddenly, she was blinded by a dazzling headlamp probing its way down the secluded path. A throbbing engine made the ground beneath her tremble. She felt like she was being sought out by an enemy searchlight. This was it. Whoever was after her was on a motorbike. Heading straight for her. He was going to take her out. Fight or flight?
Wobbling and uncertain now, she steered her mountain bike into a bush, falling over painfully into the barbs of holly leaves. The motorbike was upon her. But its rider was not the long-haired rocker George was anticipating. In the saddle was a fairly elderly woman, wearing a crash helmet covered in graffiti, whom George recognised as an eccentric engineering professor from Robinson College … or was it Girton? Not her stalker.
‘Get off the path, you disease!’ George shouted after the Professor.
With a defiant middle finger raised in the air, just visible in the red glow of the motorbike’s tail-light, the Engineering Professor accelerated away.
George was safe, for now.
As her breathing and pulse slowed to an acceptable rate, she continued her journey with nothing more than a dented ego. She checked her watch, realising she was running late. No time to stop off at college to grab a coffee with Sally Wright in the Fellows’ Drawing Room to discuss the imminent publication of their criminology tome. She’d have to make straight for the station if she were to catch the train to London. Aunty Sharon was expecting her before she went out to work. The bed in Tinesha’s old room had been made up as usual, making George’s regular scheduled early-morning journeys to HMP Belmarsh to conduct her research among its violent inmates that bit easier.
The cycle ride along Trumpington Street was uneventful, with the Fitzwilliam Museum, spotlit in the darkness, the only thing of note, apart from the couple making for Browns restaurant. George ploughed on to the left turn at Lensfield Road, pedalling past the three-storey Victorian houses that comprised student accommodation, mainly owned by Downing College. It was only once she had reached the junction with Hills Road, where she paused to get special fried rice from the Chinese takeaway opposite the big Catholic church, that George felt certain a car had been following her. A VW Golf that she had noticed pull in as she had pulled in.
Was that the long-haired rocker behind the wheel?
She blinked. Blinked again and peered with narrowed eyes into the darkness. Considered approaching, throwing her scalding rice into the driver’s face.
But what if she was wrong, as she had been with the motorbike on Burrell’s Walk? What if she was going mad and merely imagining that Bloom, the now-incarcerated transnational trafficking crime boss, known by his contemporaries as ‘The Duke’, had sent someone after her? As if he hadn’t already tortured her enough.
‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers,’ she muttered under her breath.
With her foil container of food swinging in its plastic bag from her handlebar, she pedalled with as much haste as her out-of-shape legs could muster to Cambridge train station, praying the busy, brightly lit main road would afford her some safety.
Finally, leaving her bike locked in the overcrowded bike racks, she boarded the train to King’s Cross. Two minutes to spare. And she even found a seat with a table.
When persistent beeping heralded departure and the doors slid shut, George’s body was flooded with almost jubilant relief.
‘Jesus, man. This is bullshit,’ she told her laptop as she booted up. ‘I’ve got to calm down.’ She breathed in deeply; breathed out slowly. Conjured an image of her missing mother, Letitia, imagining her happily ensconced in a high-rise somewhere, maybe in Den Haag or Bruges or Southend-on-Sea, using some gigolo as a sticking plaster to nurse the wounds left by having been given a bad prognosis by that Dutch consultant. For all George knew, Letitia was bending this younger lover’s ear about her ‘pulmonaries’ and ‘sickle cell anaemics’ while she pounded his body with her middle-aged bulk. George reassured herself that the enucleated eye in the gift box in Amsterdam’s Vinkeles restaurant had just been a prank, care of Gordon Bloom, designed to freak her out and make her think that her mother was dead. Somehow, he’d got hold of Letitia’s phone. People got mugged all the time, didn’t they? She reminded herself that the emails from her father were crap, sent as a wind-up by one of Bloom’s lackeys, no doubt. She hadn’t genuinely heard from her father in over twenty years. Mommie Dearest, Letitia, had seen to that. Why would he start contacting her now?! This was the stance George preferred to take when she could feel herself being pulled into a downward spiral of nihilism and anxiety: Brush it under the carpet. Hope for the best.
Good. Let’s crack on, you paranoid arsehole.
Clicking her emails open, chiding herself for being so foolish and uptight, George scanned the new arrivals in her inbox. But in among the late essays from second-year undergrads and correspondence from her editor about the forthcoming book and some bullshit about having to reapply to the Peterhulme Trust for research funding, there was one unread email that made her curse out loud; an email that caused the coursing, hot blood in her veins to slow to an icy trickle – another missive, ostensibly from her estranged father.
From: Michael Carlos Izquierdo Moreno (Michael.Moreno@BritishEngineering.com)
Sent: 30 March
To: George_McKenzie@hotmail.com
Subject: I’ve still got my eye on you.
CHAPTER 1
Amsterdam, an apartment in Bilderdijkkade, 25 April
The naked, dark-haired man dropped the tiniest amount of liquid into the drink using a syringe. He flung the syringe down onto the granite kitchen worktop. Treated him to a smile that was loaded with promise. Lips, a little on the thin side, perhaps. But his kindly eyes were long-lashed, at odds with his almost gaunt face and bull neck. Floris tracked the thick cords of sinew that flanked the man’s Adam’s apple down to his collarbone, beneath which the curve of his pectoral musculature began. He had the ripped torso of a body builder. This dark-haired stranger was everything he desired at that moment, all right. Floris anticipated how he would feel inside him. Tried to remember where he had put his lube and condoms.
He took a deep breath. Was he ready for this?
He peered down at his almost painfully erect penis. Half an hour since he had taken the Viagra and he was good to go. Yes, he was ready.
The man winked. Pushed the drink into his hand.
‘Go on, then. Get a little Gina down you,’ he said, caressing Floris’ navel hair. Starting to kiss his neck.
Floris stared into the bubbles of the now-narcotic lemonade, fizzing upwards to greet him. Rising and popping. Rising and popping. Like the men at this party. G wasn’t normally his drug. Sex parties weren’t normally his thing. It had been Robert’s idea. Robert, who had earlier been full of assurances that he’d have his back. Now, Robert was elbow-deep inside some big blond bear, off his face on mephedrone.
‘I’m not sure,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve already taken a couple of things.’ He closed his eyes to savour this stranger’s touch. Nagging doubt started to creep in. Should he have stayed at the club? Familiar turf. Familiar faces. Familiar routine. He could stick to his boundaries there. Now, he was in uncharted territory, wondering if he should drink from this possibly poisoned chalice.
‘Go on. Everyone else has had some. It makes you horny as hell. And more relaxed.’ The stranger pointed to his own sizeable engorged cock. ‘You’ll need it.’
Floris batted away encroaching thoughts of the end-of-term marking that was sitting on his kitchen table in his apartment. Pushed aside the stress that came with disgruntled parents who couldn’t quite believe their perfect progenies could perform so badly in their tests. Nearly the holidays. Fuck them.
‘Drink!’ the other man said. Insistent. Excited. ‘I want you.’
What the hell was his name? Hell, it didn’t matter anyway. Abs. That’s what he would call him, on account of the six-pack. Abs.
Floris drained the glass. Started to reciprocate the man’s sexual advances, feeling suddenly bolder and wanton, though he knew it would take longer than that for the G to kick in. On the worktop were four lines of mephedrone. His new mate broke off to snort two. Gasped and grinned. Indicated that he should follow suit.
‘Why not?’
Not the first time for Floris. Not with miaow miaow. That, at least, was his regular weekend treat. Now he was in the mood to party. He glanced over to the living area – a sickly feast for the senses. At least twenty men, maybe more, caught up in a writhing tangle of tanned, toned bodies in that slick, studio apartment in Amsterdam’s Oud West district. Their lascivious grunting and shouted instructions still audible above the thump, thump, thump of the sound system. The smell of aftershave, sex, poppers and lube on the air. Punctuated by laughter of those who were taking a break and having a smoke on the balcony.
‘Come on,’ Abs said, taking him by the hand and leading him towards the naked throng of tumescent revellers.
Abs was less skilled with his hands and mouth than anticipated, but Floris didn’t care. He had promised himself he would be more daring. Had promised Robert he would try harder to be more sexually adventurous to keep their relationship fresh. And this was as good as it got, wasn’t it? Being screwed roughly by a hot guy whose name he couldn’t remember. Cheek by jowl with other rutting casual lovers. All of them utterly uninhibited, like something out of a gay porno flick.
Except Floris was starting to feel sleepy. And sick.
He tried to make eye contact with Robert, who was blowing his blond bear with clear enthusiasm.
‘Rob,’ he began. ‘I don’t feel good.’
Except the words hadn’t come out properly. And he was struggling to catch his breath.
What was Abs doing?
Floris tried to look behind him at Abs. Make eye contact. Tell him that he was feeling weird. Tell him that he was no longer enjoying this. Was Abs even wearing a condom? Floris couldn’t remember. He hadn’t even asked if the man was taking PrEP or what his HIV status was. Shit. That was no good. The last thing he wanted was an unsafe encounter. He needed to extricate himself from the situation, fast. Get out of that apartment. Get some air.
But his clarity of thought was slipping away. Breath coming short, he found himself gasping for air, as if oxygen was suddenly in scant supply. His heart pounded uncomfortably in his chest; so hard that it blended with the rhythm of the thudding dance music that played on the stereo and the unforgiving rhythm of Abs as he took him roughly and remorselessly. Only dimly aware of what was happening to him, in a still-lucid corner of his mind he at least realised he had been given a dodgy dose of drugs. Was he going to be sick? The wave of nausea was suddenly intense and unbearable. Was he vomiting or just dreaming it? Fear somehow managed to reach in amongst the dull-witted drowsiness and pulled out the single, unwelcome, sharp-edged incontrovertible truth that he, Floris Engels, might die that very night.
Then, everything went blank.
CHAPTER 2
Bilderdijkgracht, 27 April
‘Pull him from the water,’ Van den Bergen said, standing beneath the golfing umbrella in a vain attempt to shield himself from the torrential spring rain. Shifting from one foot to another at the canal’s edge, he registered that his toes were sodden where the rainwater had started to breach the stitching in his shoes. Damn. His athlete’s foot would almost certainly flare up. George would be on his case. That much was certain.