The Girl Who Broke the Rules Read online

  ‘You know who the killer is, don’t you?’ she asked him. ‘You know who butchered those people and scooped them clean.’

  Nodding. He knew all right. Smiling. ‘An empty vessel makes the most noise, Georgina. What do those bodies tell you? What is the nature of your murderer’s fetish?’

  Graham and the security guard turned to them both. Poised to break them apart like ill-fated lovers. ‘Let go of his hands, Ms McKenzie. Get off her, Dr Holm! Hands behind your back. Back in your seat!’

  The baton was out. The cuffs were hanging at the end of the security woman’s hand in readiness. Yanking Silas’ right arm away and up between his shoulder blades. It must have hurt like hell, but he didn’t even wince. Still looking at George, his eyes softer now. Playful and warm.

  ‘Roni de Zwarte,’ George said. ‘Is she linked to the killer? Find her, find him, right?’

  Silas Holm winked. ‘Clever, clever Georgina. Just one step away from illumination. Be careful to take that step in the right direction.’ He was bent over the table now, as the security officer cuffed him. Dragged him into an upright position. ‘Or you might be too late…’

  Graham took hold of Silas and started to march him towards the door. ‘I’m sorry, Ms McKenzie. You’re going to have to leave.’

  ‘Too late for what?’ George shouted.

  CHAPTER 82

  A secret location near Laren, later

  Sabine checked the clock. Watched the second hand and counted backwards as the anaesthetic kicked in. Ten, nine, eight. Van den Bergen was out cold at seven. Now, he was hers. She looked down at his long, wiry body. In such excellent shape for a man of his age, despite the white hair. Regarded his penis, lying hapless and flaccid between his thighs, though it had been a thing of majestic proportions two nights ago. And he had known what to do with it. The last time she had enjoyed a man like that…well, she hadn’t enjoyed sex with a man in many a year. Van den Bergen had been considerate and artful. Like Lepiks, it was almost a shame to use him. But he knew too much and The Duke was waiting for a new organ delivery.

  ‘Supply and demand, Paul,’ she said.

  The chief inspector’s face was unrecognisable, contorted as it was by the intubation up his nose, the mask over his mouth, the tube down his throat. Never mind. On with business.

  As a general surgeon who had retrained as a paediatrician, after years spent patching people up in the war-torn dustbowls of the world, Sabine tackled even the steepest of learning curves with enthusiasm. She had perfected the art of pulmonary artery catheterisation by now. Administered a cocktail of hormones and steroids to halt complications in their tracks. Check his oxygen levels and his body temperature. As soon as she started to remove the major organs, his brain would die and that was where the real challenge lay. That’s where it all went to pieces quickly, without aggressive donor management. Cardiovascular collapse. Diabetes insipidus. Hyperchloraemic acidosis. Hadn’t she screwed up little Noor’s heart by being taken unawares by the catecholamine storm? She tutted, remembering the panic. A wasted major organ. Eventually, she had got it right but not without failure first. Still, setting up and managing your own intensive care unit with zero support staff was a tall order. And she had been relatively new to this donor harvesting gig when she had killed Noor. General surgery did not prepare a doctor for this specialist activity. Paediatrics certainly didn’t.

  The first few experiments had ended up having to be incinerated in her kiln. Very messy. She had scattered the ashes in the garden onto her rose bed, but really, although the garden was big, she didn’t need that much bloody ash. The gardener had started to ask questions. But there was no way she was going to start digging shallow graves for the redundant cadavers in quiet corners of farms or woodland. She was certainly as strong as any man. Hadn’t she dragged that mattress through the loose panel in the fence of her Koninginneweg house to the building site and up the staircase to the attic? But she was no gravedigger! It had therefore been a wise move to start leaving the bodies for the police to find.

  She started to sing ‘Message in a Bottle’ by The Police. Vaguely reminded of her childhood nights in that apartment in Manhattan – stifling and sweaty in summer, freezing in winter – where there had been such lavish parties. Block it out. Ding dong, the bitch is dead.

  Busying herself with ventilation management, now, to ensure van den Bergen’s lungs were kept in good shape. Ah, she felt satisfied in her work. She was good at this now. Prepared to administer methylprednisolone to reduce the cytokine release before harvesting his liver.

  Now, this would all have to be very quick if she were to retrieve as many of van den Bergen’s organs as possible successfully. Scalpel at the ready. All the tools to hand. She clicked on her stereo; echoing and metallic, the music bounced off the unadorned walls of the industrial facility she rented, using a manufacturer of pickles and preserves as a front.

  What a coincidence! The Police CD had still been in the machine. Sending an SOS that would sadly not reach the world.

  ‘Ready to die, Paul?’

  CHAPTER 83

  Stansted airport, Essex, later

  ‘Fuck it!’ George grimaced at her phone. No bars. She had been cut off in the midst of a call to Marie. Van den Bergen had apparently not showed at his own daughter’s wedding.

  Enshrouded by darkness, the lights in the train carriage sputtered. Then, came back on. Harsh yellow, reflecting her in the black of the window as they slowed to a crawl in the tunnel.

  ‘Come on!’ she said, checking her watch. Rechecking.

  Would she make that flight she had booked so hastily on a maxed-out credit card? Still not there. Feeling dizzy at the thought. They would be telling passengers to go to gate on the overhead displays by now. Shit.

  The train shot out of the tunnel. Her phone started to ring. Aretha Franklin exclaiming that he made her feel like a natural woman. Except that meant it was Ad. And he no longer did.

  ‘Why the hell have you been ignoring my calls, George?’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Sharon said you were attacked after the funeral. Are you okay? Why wouldn’t you call and tell me? I’ve been worried sick!’

  She glanced round at the other passengers, wondering if they knew she was being dressed down by the boyfriend she had been skipping out on. ‘I’m coming back. All right? I meant to ring you. I did. Honestly. I’ll come over to yours but I need to go straight out again. I’ve got something I need to do.’

  ‘George, this is ridiculous,’ he said. ‘The last time we had this distance between us…do you remember? It was just before I was abducted by the Firestarter and shot by that dick with plucked eyebrows. But we got past that didn’t we?’

  Pulling into Stansted, George pulled her hastily packed bag from the overhead luggage rack. The Firestarter. Something was tugging urgently at the back of her mind. The beginnings of an idea. Mr Flaming Hot Coals had had several monikers, forged using adaptations of his real name and wordplay.

  ‘Look, we really need to talk,’ Ad said, unaware that George’s synapses were whirring and flashing into life like overloaded circuitry.

  Roni de Zwarte. What are the possible permutations of that name? Roni. Short for Ronald. Ronald fucking McDonald. Not McDonalds. A woman’s name. Veronica. De Zwarte…

  ‘Oh, and I might need to borrow your car,’ she told Ad absently.

  Cut him off. Checking the time. If she ran, she’d make the gate. As long as there wasn’t a queue at the check-in desk. Brain ticking over. Thrumming, in fact, like the engine of an Aston Martin. George pushed to the front of the queue amid protest and tutting. Flashed the police station ID van den Bergen had given her. Kept her finger over the words ‘assistant’ and ‘temporary’.

  ‘The gate has closed for your flight, I’m afraid,’ the girl said. Thick orange foundation and immaculately scraped-back hair. Red lippy on her teeth. Coffee breath said she hadn’t eaten all day.

  Tapping on the shoulder.

  ‘Young lad
y. You may not just push in.’

  George saw red. Turned round to find a smartly dressed white man of about fifty glowering at her. Incensed that his patience had been short-changed by a black girl in shabby student clothes, bumping him down a place. George waved her ID in his face like a gun.

  ‘Police, arsehole. Button it and back off!’

  Turned back to the check-in girl, who was fingering her walkie talkie as though she hadn’t yet decided whether to help George or call security.

  Heart pounding. Thoughts still cascading into a pool of possible scenarios, which she took out and dried off, one by one. De Zwarte meant black. Negro. Schwartz in German. Veronica Black?

  ‘Sorry, Miss McKenzie.’ Looking down at the ID and her passport. ‘Like I said. The gate’s closed. Take-off in fifteen minutes. You’ll have to go back to the desk and rebook your flight, I’m afraid.’

  Twinkly-eyed fucking check-in girl. I would like to deck your idiotic orange face with a well placed bunch of fives. The next flight’s not for hours. Van den Bergen is going to end up unzipped like the others.

  A flash of the teeth. A demure expression. Van den Bergen wouldn’t thank her if she got herself arrested and his kidneys ended up in a cool box, bound for the highest bidder on whatever version of eBay it was that international criminal networks used. ‘Please. It’s an emergency, miss. Police business. I have to get that flight. There are lives at stake.’ Bordering on flirtatious. Everybody liked to be flirted with. ‘I love your eyes, by the way. What colour would you say they are? Green? Pearl blue?’

  ‘I’ll radio through.’

  Last passenger on. Angry faces because she had delayed take-off by ten minutes. Seatbelts on. She had only minutes before she would have to switch her phone to safety-mode. Started to Google.

  Veronica Black. Some large-chested porn starlet, by the looks. An author with four stars on Goodreads. Nope. Neither women were Roni de Zwarte. Veronica Negro. Following on Twitter. A housewife from Spain maybe. Not Roni de Zwarte. Veronica Schwartz. Google threw up so many, with different versions of the spelling. Some with a T. Some without.

  ‘Madam, would you mind turning off your phone?’ the air stewardess asked.

  George looked up. ‘Sure. Sorry.’

  The plane started to gather speed. Hurtling down the runway. She wondered if van den Bergen was safe. No way on God’s earth would he have missed his daughter’s wedding. Had always eulogised about her. Tamara inherited the best of me and her mother, thank God. Tamara is so clever. Tamara deserves better than that workshy soap-dodger, Numb-nuts.

  Up, up and away. East Anglia fell away below her and, within minutes, they were above the sea. Her ears popped. Seatbelt signs off. She could use the in-flight internet, as long as she paid with her credit card first, of course.

  Veronica Schwartz. Several pages bore no fruit, though she didn’t know for sure what she was looking for. Then, just as she feared she would have to abandon the search, she came upon an archive piece from an old society magazine. Miss Manhattan.

  City mourns Heidi Schwartz, first lady of modern art.

  The death of a socialite, 1989. Retrospective photographs of a thin, flamboyant woman. Always with a young, exotic-looking man of dubious sexual orientation on her arm. Except in a family shot, linking arms with her young daughter on one side. Tall, grumpy-looking father on the other. The leathery kind that had spent too much time on sun-beds and supplemented the shortcomings of his dick with a hairweave. But it was the daughter that caught George’s eye. Long legs. Hair like a horse that screamed good breeding and money. A chubbier face back then. Miserable as hell, under close scrutiny, despite the fixed smile. Downcast expression otherwise. Dead behind the eyes. George knew about family love. George knew about family loathing. Everything about the photo screamed false, false, false.

  She Googled Heidi Schwartz. Found another archived obit from a glossy.

  Daughter, Veronica, tried to save Heidi’s life.

  A failed bone-marrow donation that had hastened her own leukaemia-stricken mother’s death. There was the Frida Kahlo moment of Veronica Sabine Schwartz – a patrician heiress, internationally set to jet off to London, where she would work through her bereavement whilst studying medical science at UCL.

  So what did Veronica Schwartz, medic throw up?

  Schwartz helps landmine victims in Cambodia.

  ‘Oh, my days!’ George shouted, squinting at a photo of selfless Veronica in her scrubs, standing outside a medical tent, rigged with a jungle backdrop, holding the hand of a smiling one-legged Cambodian boy. At her side was a young and remarkably handsome Silas Holm – trim under the scrubs, full head of short, dark hair, a tan, clean white teeth. Two whole legs. ‘Now this makes sense! Silas, you dark horse.’

  ‘Are you okay, miss?’ the elderly man at George’s side asked.

  ‘Just eat your fucking peanuts and mind your own, mate,’ she said, engrossed.

  Google revealed more, three search engine pages in – Schwartz heiress marries South African doctor, Thomas Schalks – though George didn’t need to read the accompanying words. The bride’s face in the photograph was enough. It hadn’t changed, though the teen glower and chubbiness had gone from it. The dead eyes had grown more lifeless still. High cheekbones, the hair and the turned-up nose remained the same.

  ‘You murderous, stuck-up, man-stealing bitch. You’re gonna rue the day you tried to fuck with George McKenzie.’

  CHAPTER 84

  Amsterdam, then Laren, later

  ‘Give me the bloody key, Ad!’ George said, dumping her small carry-on case in the hallway. Ignoring Jasper who was standing in the doorway to the living room, waving.

  ‘What? This?’ Ad said. Dangling it before her. Closing his fingers around it. Gone, like some cheap magician’s trick at a children’s party.

  ‘Please!’ Looking at his hand only. Avoiding meeting that probing gaze of his. She knew he was trying to spy the truth behind her own eyes. But this was not the time for honesty.

  ‘You’re going to him, aren’t you? Van den Bergen. You want to borrow my car so you can drive to his and spend the night with him?’

  ‘It’s a matter of life and death.’ She jumped up to grab the key out of Ad’s hand, but he held it easily out of her reach. He was just too tall.

  ‘You’re on a provisional licence!’ he said.

  ‘I can drive fine.’ She pushed past him. Grabbed her full can of hairspray from the bathroom. Shoved it in her deep coat pocket. Had noticed Jasper’s car keys on the kitchen table as she had walked past the doorway. Made for her quarry, swiping them lightning quick with a pickpocket’s hands. Neither man noticing. ‘Suit your fucking self, Ad,’ she said, heading out the door. ‘If van den Bergen dies, it’s on you, honey. I’ve got places to be.’

  Tears welling in her eyes as she made for the car park. Wiped them away angrily. Held the fob out, pressing the button to see which car unlocked. When a white BMW Z4 blipped at her, she allowed herself a smile. Ad, hammering his palms against the living room window upstairs. Shouting something at her. Jasper out the corner of her eye, sprinting across the car park.

  She got in. Fired up the roadster. Backed into the car behind with a jolt. The sound of shattered glass hitting the tarmac. An alarm crying out. Whoops. Jasper almost upon her now, wearing a look of pure horror. Mouthing ‘No’ as if in slow motion, while she stole his baby.

  ‘Too late, motherfucker.’ She kangarooed out of the car park, almost mowing down the car’s owner as she went.

  What Ad hadn’t realised was that George had stolen enough cars in her time to know how to drive. Within minutes she had mastered the car’s gears and brought the snarling engine to heel beneath her booted foot. Ignoring the ringing phone. Chewing up the motorway, topping a hundred mph, to the Laren address Marianne de Koninck had offered up over the phone, knowing Marie and Elvis were on their way to Koninginneweg. One of them had to be on the money.

  ‘Jesus,’ she said, parking some way alon
g from the country house. Headlights snuffed out. Looking up at the high walls and tall metal gates. CCTV cameras directed at the surrounding curtilage. ‘It’s Fort Knox.’

  Darkness had fallen in earnest. Good. Though it was remote, there was always the chance a nosey neighbour would witness her intrusion and raise the alarm. She had some climbing to do. George left the heavy bulk of her sheepskin on the passenger seat. Pulled her black hood over her hair. Shoved the tin of hairspray in the pouch at the front of the hoodie. Big bunch of keys from her places back home within reach in her jeans pocket, along with her lighter. Breath coming short.

  ‘Let’s do this.’

  Brisk walking to the perimeter wall, George prayed silently to a god she didn’t believe in that there would be no dogs. Grabbed a sturdy ivy climber and shinned up it to the top, dropping into a deep border on the other side. Her fall had been cushioned by something prickly that almost refused to release her from its grip. Holly. But she was barely aware of the burning scratches. Her mind was on van den Bergen only.

  Crunching on the gravel drive was unavoidable. No lights came on. The huge house with all its gabled windows upstairs and leaded lights downstairs was in complete darkness. No cars out front but deep grooves in the gravel, made by a vehicle with a long wheel base.

  Something was off about the place.

  Walking round the far side of the house. The security light clicking on was the only source of illumination. At a set of single-glazed French doors, George selected her skeleton key from her bunch of keys. Gained entry easily and silenced the alarm after four goes on the keypad, trying out various significant dates Marie had texted to her. In the end, it was the death date of Sabine’s mother, Heidi, that had worked: 0307.