The Girl Who Broke the Rules Read online

  When she saw them both arguing like that, in the foyer in front of everyone, George instinctively wanted to flee back upstairs. Pretend she had never witnessed the confrontation.

  Ad caught sight of her. ‘Bitch!’ he shouted. Spat in her direction.

  She gasped. Pushed aside the uniformed officers who had run to van den Bergen’s aid.

  ‘What did you fucking call me?’ she said, hand on hip. ‘Did you just spit at me, Adrianus Karelse?’

  Though he was caught in van den Bergen’s grip, his mouth and vitriol reigned freely. ‘You’ve been sleeping with the boss, eh? Smart move, George. I’m no longer of use to you any more, am I? Can’t help your precious career.’

  His eyes were wild. She had never seen him incensed like this. Hadn’t realised he had it in him. Had she made him like this? Then she remembered back to the beginning, when they had fought. Recriminations about her having hidden her past. Passive aggressive arsehole. Yes, he had always had this in him.

  ‘Go home, Karelse,’ van den Bergen said. Calm. Soothing voice, as though he were trying to charm a threatened cobra back into its basket.

  ‘Do you love him?’ Ad asked.

  It was too much. George turned and fled back upstairs. As she ran, she heard Ad still shouting behind her. ‘I can change! I can be more like him.’

  My God! she thought. He hasn’t even got the spine to dump me, even though I deserve it. I just can’t face him.

  For the next hour, her phone rang incessantly. She switched it off. Was forced to watch that sycophantic, upper-class Barbie cooing at van den Bergen. Nursing his bruised jaw where Ad had walloped him. Holding court, with Elvis, Marie, Kees and van den Bergen entranced; hanging on her every word. Made even worse, when de Koninck dropped by after she’d seen Strietman and was all, ‘Oh fancy seeing you here!’ like it was some fucking coffee morning at the Women’s Institute or some school reunion shit.

  Twelve o’clock. Her stomach already growling, George pulled van den Bergen aside. ‘Can we go for a sandwich and talk?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said. Looking down at his feet. Looking out of the window. Anywhere but at her. ‘I’m taking Sabine to lunch. I think you need to go home and sort things out with Karelse.’

  ‘Oh. Is that how this is?’ She felt at that moment like he had taken the pen from the breast pocket of his shirt and jabbed her repeatedly in her heart with its tip.

  Finally, his grey eyes met hers and she could see what lay behind them.

  ‘I care very deeply about you, George.’

  ‘But… Where’s the but?’

  ‘There’s no but.’

  ‘There’s always a but.’

  ‘But we can’t be lovers.’

  ‘There we go! I knew it.’ Hastily, she wiped away the tear that betrayed her anguish.

  ‘I was taking advantage of you.’

  ‘You love me.’ She held his chin gently. Tried to pull him towards her for a kiss. Didn’t care who the hell might be passing in the hall. ‘We’re dead right together.’

  He pulled away. Pushed her hand back down, though he caressed her knuckles as he did so. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, fuck you too!’

  Collecting her things. Snatching her bag. Not even taking time to put on her coat or say goodbye, she fled the station. On the street, she dialled Aunty Sharon. Pick-up after ten.

  ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘I’m coming home.’

  CHAPTER 73

  Amsterdam, hospital, 31 January

  Ruud Ahlers was suddenly aware that a terrible, repetitive noise was encroaching on his sleep. Beep, beep, beep without respite. Intolerable. He had been dreaming about being whipped by Katja. It had been a deeply satisfying corner of his mind to inhabit after what seemed to be an eon spent in the dark. Katja in hotpants and thigh-length boots. Not just a whip, but that cat-o-nine-tails that really bit into your skin. There had been a nice steak in the dream too. And a single malt. Lovely. But all of that was punctuated by the infernal beeping. What was it?

  ‘Ruud, darling. Can you hear me? It’s Katja! Wake up, honey.’

  The Pole’s voice. Was she talking to him in the dream or was this some sort of stage of wakefulness?

  ‘His eyelashes are moving,’ Katja said. Somewhere on his right.

  ‘Nurse!’ Another voice. That of a man. ‘I think he’s waking up.’

  Some kind of alarm went off. Bing, bing. Beep, beep, beep. Hiss. Hiss. It was like a synthetic orchestra, clanging away inside his head. His throbbing head. Presently, he realised his throat was on fire. Tried to swallow but there was something constricting his throat. An unyielding object. Choking. He started to thrash his hands around, as he struggled with his spit. Drowning in his own saliva, unable to bypass the thing in his oesophagus.

  Opened his eyes. Bleary. Bright lights and machinery. Digital displays and the smell of rotting tulips in a vase of furred water. Something partially obscuring his face. What was it? A mask. An oxygen mask. He grabbed at the regalia and tugged it away from his face.

  ‘Calm down, Dr Ahlers,’ a nurse said, leaning over him. ‘We’ll look after you. Don’t touch your breathing apparatus, now.’

  How the hell had he got here? Clearly he was in hospital. His burning neck brought the memory back in high resolution. Standing on his bed in that ghastly cell. Home-made noose around his neck. He had jumped.

  But not died. Christ. How did he feel about that? Disappointed?

  No. Bloody elated! He was alive.

  ‘I’m alive!’ he tried to shout, although the tube in his throat prevented the sounds from coming out as more than a gurgle.

  ‘He’s going to make it!’ Katja standing over him. Red curls, framing her face like the halo of a fallen angel. Tears leaking from her eyes in ghoulish black streaks of eyeliner and mascara. A clockwork orange ticking timebomb, as Ahlers remembered why he had attempted suicide. The Gera brothers. The Duke. The Butcher. Shit. He was done for. Or was he?

  He must have passed some kind of test. The gods had seen fit to spare his life. They had a different fate in store for him than an eternity spent crawling through the cleansing fire of the underworld, never to return to the sunlight above. Now, a new challenge faced him, where he must repay their mercy in whatever currency they deemed fit. His story had taken on mythological qualities. He was Jason, seeking the golden fleece; Theseus, slaying the Minotaur. Beautifully fitting.

  To his left, he spied one of the detectives. The one with the quiff whom they called Elvis. That was it. He knew what form the repayment would take.

  Mustering all the energy he had, he ripped the tube out of his throat.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ he croaked. ‘Cut me a deal and I’ll tell you the lot.’

  But his words were little more than gurgle as blood bubbled inside his oesophagus.

  ‘Oh my God! He’s spitting blood. Get the doctor!’ Katja started to scream.

  CHAPTER 74

  Amsterdam, police headquarters

  ‘How can you let your freedom slip through your fingers?’ van den Bergen asked Strietman.

  Silence. Strietman sat in his chair. Hands in his lap. Eyes cast downwards but seemingly looking at nothing. More dishevelled than ever.

  ‘Marianne is absolutely certain you’re innocent,’ he said, opening the folder of photographs. Laying five out, one by one. A girl of about five. A boy of about eleven. Another boy of roughly seven. A girl with a boy, possibly pre-pubescent. A boy, no more than three. ‘She thinks there’s more than meets the eye to all this.’ He tapped the photographs with a long finger. Wanted to slap Strietman’s face. Force him to make eye contact. ‘You’re refusing to give these so called “cast iron alibis”. You’ve turned away your defence lawyer. What the fuck is wrong with you?’

  Silence. The glimmer of a tear in Strietman’s eye.

  ‘Buczkowski won’t speak either.’ Van den Bergen leaned over the table so that he was encroaching on the pathologist’s space. ‘Hasselblad wil
l see your heads roll for this, loose ends or no loose ends. He’ll find a way of making it stick, you know. He’s all about the stats and the glory. But I’m not Hasselblad. And I’m not so sure. I have to be certain before I take your scalp. Do you understand me, Daan?’

  Tight-lipped silence. He wished he could have discussed this with George before she had stormed out. She had said the killer was a narcissist. Before him, he saw only a broken man.

  How would George have approached Strietman? She would say that things are not always as they seem. She would look into the whys. Why did Strietman have an interest in dead men in body bags and children? But van den Bergen acknowledged he was no psychologist. His brain functioned in a different way. He was a man who put complex jigsaw puzzles together, working on the picture he could see, not on the underlying structure that was hidden from view. Think more like George. Why is Strietman concealing his alibi? Is it that he doesn’t want to incriminate someone or is he ashamed of having met someone in particular? Come on, van den Bergen. What guilty secret would have made you clam up at Strietman’s age?

  Sketching a picture of a reclining George from memory, as he and Strietman both sat facing each other in a stale interview room in complete silence, van den Bergen remembered how he had kept news of his paintings being exhibited in small galleries from his father. He had never introduced his father to any of his arty friends, for fear of the ridicule that would come from such candour.

  Dead men. Abused children.

  ‘Do you come from a religious background, Daan?’ he asked, observing the pathologist from beneath sharp hooded eyes.

  Strietman looked up. ‘Yes, actually,’ he said. ‘My parents used to be members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. The congregation near The Hague. Why?’

  ‘Used to be?’

  ‘They were asked to leave.’

  Van den Bergen felt instinctively like he had just removed the lid off the can of worms. Wriggling out. Headed for the floor. Strietman’s forehead was shining with sweat.

  ‘Oh. How come?’

  Silence. How would George play this?

  ‘You know,’ van den Bergen said, shuffling in his seat. Attempting to cross his legs in a manner that said casual and open to idle chat. ‘My own father was a religious man. A Calvinist. And terribly right wing. Believed men were men, and women should be grateful. That kind of bullshit.’

  Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, Strietman cocked his head sideways, as though he were at least open to listening.

  ‘I was an artist. Still am, really, though only in an amateur sense.’

  ‘You sketch very well,’ Strietman said, nodding towards the picture of George on the notepaper.

  ‘Hmn. I could never talk to my old dad about my art. He thought I was a pansy and one of life’s losers. Never passed up a chance to belittle me.’

  More nodding. A half-smile in sympathy, by the looks.

  ‘What’s your father like, Daan? I bet he’s a hard-line old bastard if he’s in some strange religious sect.’

  ‘Oh, he’s made my life a misery over the years.’

  Hands unfolded on the table top. But Strietman’s eyes put van den Bergen in mind of a crystal blue lake that turns to the colour of sludge when heavy clouds roll in at speed. He sensed great sorrow in the pathologist.

  ‘Is that so?’ he said. ‘Strietman, were you with another man the nights of the murders? Is that why you won’t give us your alibis?’

  ‘I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Fear in those eyes, now. Hands folded again. White knuckles.

  ‘What on earth are you ashamed of, Strietman? Being gay in Amsterdam of all places. Are you mad? This city is the spiritual bloody home of gays.’

  Strietman stood abruptly. ‘How dare you!’

  ‘Did your father abuse you? Is that what these horrible photos are about? Or would you rather keep schtum, and we brand you a paedophile? Do you know what they do to paedophiles in prison?’

  Slumping back into his chair, Strietman began to weep openly. ‘You don’t understand! You have no idea of the pain!’

  ‘Who were you with on the night of the murders, Strietman? Who are you hiding? Someone else who has a problem being open about their sexuality? Are the paedo photos for his benefit?’

  ‘No! No! No!’ Strietman yelled. Spittle flying from his mouth in anger. His face flushed red. Drumming the table with his fists.

  ‘You’re going to go to prison, and your father’s going to have a field day, Strietman. Do you want to give the old bastard the satisfaction? You’re scared to fall short in his bigoted, child-abusing eyes, and that’s why you’ll continue to pay for his violence instead of him. Are you happy to let us all think you and your mystery lover rape children? Because that’s the kind of stereotypical prejudice about gay men that went out of fashion in—’

  ‘We don’t! I don’t. It’s all lies. I’m writing memoirs about my experiences. About child abuse. That’s why I’ve got the pictures. It’s research, you smug, judgemental bastard. I can show you the file on a USB stick. I didn’t want to share it.’

  Van den Bergen’s heart beat fast and strong. He felt alive. The air in that room didn’t seem so stale or oppressive any more. ‘So, what is the identity of this lover you’re protecting? If he gives a fig about you, he’s hardly going to want you to take the rap for serial murder, is he?’

  Strietman clenched his fists and rubbed his eyes. ‘Buczkowski!’ he shouted. ‘We’ve been having an affair since he fitted my damn kitchen. He didn’t want his girl to know. He’s a practising Catholic and feels he owes the church for saving him from bad habits. And I’ve got a thing for pictures of dead men in body bags. There. Skeletons all out of the closet, you bully.’

  Van den Bergen grinned broadly, visualising in his mind’s eye Kees Leeuwenhoek, his Jedi master, Kamphuis, and that pushy, ambitious prick, Hasselblad, all swinging from the gallows when the media got wind of this witch hunt.

  ‘Just clarify for the tape, Daan,’ he said, pointing to the microphone. ‘Did you kill Magool Noor, Linda Lepiks, an unidentified Filipino man, Ewa Silbert and three unidentified African men in Britain?’

  ‘No. I bloody well did not and neither did Iwan Buczkowski. We went out to dinner, went clubbing and spent the night together on all of those dates you’ve been haranguing me about. We’ve got witnesses. There. I’ve said it. Happy now?’

  ‘Very. Thank you.’ Banged his chest. ‘I think you’ve just cured my stomach acid.’

  CHAPTER 75

  South East London, 14 February

  ‘The car’s waiting for you, Ms Williams-May,’ the man from the funeral place said. All dressed in black, looking like an emissary of Death himself.

  Aunty Sharon nodded. Lifting her sunglasses just enough to dab her eyes with a large man’s hanky. Poignantly embroidered with a blue D. Collecting her handbag from the worktop. Peering inside, though it wasn’t clear she was actually looking for anything. George felt sure she was just going through the motions. Keep busy. Keep it together. By her side, Tinesha and Patrice clung to one another. Weeping openly, the poor bastards. Fat tears rolling down Tinesha’s cheeks. Reluctant moisture brimming in Patrice’s eyes – still bereft, though Derek had not been his father.

  Leaning against the fridge, Letitia stood with Leroy. Arm in arm, with her flashy ring glinting under the shitty hundred-watt light, as though this were the time and the place to flaunt her romantic success.

  ‘You looking well smart, love,’ she said, straightening Leroy’s tie, though it didn’t need to be straightened. Reaching up on tippy toes to kiss his chin, almost taking his eye out with her downmarket department store fascinator. All petrol-coloured feathers and something akin to close-weave chicken wire. Looked like she’d mugged a cockerel.

  Leroy on the other hand looked uncomfortable in his suit. A plain, ageing man with cropped hair and a double chin. Dry skin around his mouth where he had shaven and acne on his neck.

  ‘You suit that hundred-pe
rcent silk tie and matching hanky I got you.’

  ‘Yes, love.’

  ‘Lilac’s your colour. Goes with your skin, innit?’ Letitia looked over at her sister, who was pulling a thin black veil over her face. ‘Shame you not got a fella to help you through this, Shaz. I’d lend you mine, but this fine brother’s taken, I’m afraid.’

  George sucked her teeth dramatically. ‘You’re a fucking piece of work, do you know that? You really think this is the time or place to pull that sibling rivalry bullshit, when they’re all grieving? Why have you got to be such a bi—’

  Aunty Sharon grabbed George’s arm. ‘Leave it, darling. Let’s go. Derek’s waiting.’

  Uniformed police stood on the steps of the church. Legs akimbo. Kevlar vests bulking them up. Menacing. Two German shepherds obediently watching at their masters’ sides, smelling fear in the mourners. Reminding those who filed in wearing suits they might have purchased only for court appearances and funerals, that they had come to say goodbye to a murdered man. Little Derek de Falco, who had tried to run with the big boys and got left for dust to dust. Protecting their witness, Aunty Sharon, who might never have been more susceptible to Mr Gera’s unsubtle art of persuasion to shut her fucking fat black mouth, should he show up in person to pay his disrespect.

  George had been careful to modify her appearance. It wouldn’t do to provoke déjà vu in the wrong people.

  Inside the church, though her feet were warm in her incongruous winter boots, the rest of her shivered in her best dress, normally worn with heels to formal dinners at college, where she would sit making the sort of chit-chat only academics made, dining on salmon en croute, prepared en masse, rehydrated to eating-point thanks to sauvignon blanc in copious quantities. Those were happy occasions for George. Derek’s funeral was not.

  Strippers in their daytime clothes lined the pews, there. Dermot Robinson, looking sombre near the front in a double-breasted black overcoat. Thin black tie. Row after row, filled with wailing women of Italian descent, dressed in black, all mourning the loss of their cousin/brother/uncle/great uncle/second cousin, twice removed/something or other by marriage. Elaborate floral displays packed into every nook. Blood red roses spelled ‘Derek’. Crysanths in white paid tribute to ‘DAD’. Lilies from the relatives who had made a bob in the restaurant trade. Got themselves a bit of class. Unlike the girls from Skin Licks, who had clubbed together to get their Uncle Giuseppe a teddy fashioned from carnations, wrapped in purple ribbon. There was barely room for the priest to stand in his pulpit. Late-comers, genuflecting before the crucifix that hung over the altar; a forlorn-looking Jesus, clearly unhappy with the thorns and the nails and the general ennui that came with simply hanging there, dying painfully to save a bunch of ingrates who wouldn’t know a moral existence if it came up and slapped them in the face with five thousand wet kippers.