The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die (36 page)

‘Her room’s just up here.’

Van den Bergen’s heart thudded. He scanned the white concrete blocks of the modern courtyard.

The ageing porter knocked on an anonymous-looking door. Van den Bergen towered over him, praying George would open it. He wasn’t a religious man but he had decided long ago that praying when the odds were stacked against him couldn’t do any harm.

No response.

‘Open the door,’ van den Bergen said.

Alf looked at him with scorn clear in his eyes.

‘Please,’ he added.

Jangling of keys. Fumbling with the lock.
Come on, for Christ’s sake, you bumbling prick!

The door was flung wide. Van den Bergen pushed Alf aside and entered the small room.

‘Oh, my Lord!’ Alf said, clasping his hand to his mouth.

What van den Bergen saw made his stomach contract with fear.

‘Do not enter the room,’ he barked at the porter.

A dress on a hanger was hung up on the side of a wardrobe. The mirror in the bathroom beyond was still partially steamed up, as though somebody had showered recently. He checked the bathroom. Empty. Back in the bedroom, a bag had been unpacked carefully onto the desk. But a mirror on top of the modest dressing table was cracked. A stool was upturned. A lamp lay smashed on the floor beside the bed.

On the floor were clumps of something brown and shiny. What were they? One of the clumps stuck to a pen that he fished out of his breast pocket. Screwed-up, discarded strapping tape. He scanned the carpet. He found five small shreds of cardboard.

Van den Bergen immediately recognised the fall-out from packaging up a large object.

But the bed … The bed was what really caught his eye. The bed was a mess.

‘Blood,’ van den Bergen said simply as he touched the small, dark patch towards the bottom of the duvet. It was viscous between his fingers. Not enough to be somebody’s life’s blood. There was a spatter pattern at a peculiar angle and a bloody handprint that looked like a man’s, judging by its size. Had George been standing on the bed and then been injured? Had she injured her attacker? Van den Bergen could only guess. Blood on the pillow too.

‘Have you got a walkie talkie?’ he asked wide-eyed, uncomprehending Alf. ‘Chase your police. Tell them to get a forensics team down here immediately. And trained police dogs. This is a crime scene.’

His eyes scanned the rest of the bed and settled on a smear of thick, white liquid. He leaned down and sniffed it. He looked bitterly at George’s dress, hanging limp and crumpled on the wardrobe. He felt the duvet with the back of his hand. It was still warm.

‘Stay here,’ he told the shaking porter. ‘Don’t cross that threshold. Don’t let anybody in until the police arrive.’

Van den Bergen stepped outside the room. Not five metres away he saw a small drop of blood on the ground. Further down the walkway, he knelt to the ground, tracing his finger along narrow, parallel tyre marks. He looked around. Students walked with purpose, chattering and laughing in the early morning cold. But there were no cycles. These were not the markings of bike or tricycle tyres. Too close together to be a wheelchair.

Then he realised what had made the tyre marks. Brandon Saddiq. Janitor. Less like a Cambridge University porter and more like a train station porter. A man who carried things around using a trolley. A man who wheeled heavy boxes to public places, unremarkably, noticed by nobody. Cardboard boxes.

‘My God. He’s going to blow her up!’

Breathing ragged now. Trying to focus on his surroundings. It was difficult for Ad without his glasses. Power tools on the walls. Gardening implements hanging from hooks. The smell of petrol.
I think I’m in a garage. Where the hell am I? What happened? Why am I naked?

Slowly, Ad tried to reconstruct what he had been doing before he had woken up in this strange place. Astrid. The walk to the bus stop. A vague recollection of a man with a scarred face. There it ended. No more memories.
Got to get to a phone. Where’s my phone?

Ad swung his legs over the side of the slab he had been lying on and fell to the floor. Jelly limbs did not want to obey his brain. Slowly, he pulled the warm urine-filled catheter out of the end of his sore urethra. It stung hot. He started to crawl along the floor using only his left hand, squinting through the blinding pain in his head, trying to find a door. On a low shelf within a steel shelving unit, he noticed a blow torch and a pair of boots that seemed familiar to Ad. They were distinctive. Doc Marten, red, eight hole boots. But his brain felt like it was caked in mud. The stink of petrol overwhelmed every thought. He couldn’t place the boots.

Pushing through the door, Ad saw that he was in a house. The floors were polished planks, covered by expensive rugs. The furniture, fuzzy until he got up close, was antique. A chair with heavily carved legs. A spindle-legged table with a potted fern on top. He was in a hallway with blurry stairs just a few metres away. If he could crawl to the stairs, he could sit himself up, get his bearings.

But where in the world was he? He had been in somebody’s garage. Where was the car that belonged there? Car.

Click.

They were putting a patrol car outside his parents’ house. All at once, Ad remembered van den Bergen’s voice.

‘
No heroics. They don’t bloody suit you anyway. Do I make myself clear?
’

Click.

He was in the killer’s house, now. He had been abducted. Those boots next to the blow torch. He recognised those boots. He had last seen them on Remko’s feet. Jesus.

Ad wanted to scream but knew he must not under any circumstances make noise. The killer had to be close by. And yet, he must have made quite a lot of noise scrabbling around, trying to get out of the garage. Was the killer watching him silently from a vantage point? Ad squinted up the stairs but saw only a landing, brightly lit by the sunlight coming through a small square window. He peered past the wooden newel post of the banister. He could see right through to the blurred shapes that indicated an orderly living room. Empty. Silent. Nobody was watching from there.

His heartbeat was sluggish. He felt like he was going to vomit again or pass out.
No. You can’t pass out. This bastard is going to kill you. You’ve got to get out. Get to a phone. Call the police. Then find George. Make sure she’s safe.

The front door was five metres away.
Stand up. Come on. You’ve got to try.

On trembling legs, Ad stood, swaying, fighting nausea; grappling with intense, pounding pain. He gingerly raised his fingers to the back of his head and felt stickiness. Dark red fingertips. Further down, the skin on his neck was rough with dried blood.
I’ve got a head injury. I’ve vomited. I’ve got to get to a hospital.

He stumbled to the door, tried the handle with shaking hands.
Locked. Damn, damn, damn!
How could he be so close to freedom and find the way was barred? Could he shout for help? There had to be another door. He could try that … if the house was empty.

Steeling himself, he went back into the garage. He tried the garage up-and-over door. Locked. He switched on the light, which flickered into over-bright life, making him wince.
Arm yourself.
He found a claw hammer, stained and clutching what appeared to be a human molar stuck between the claws.
Oh, God. That’s disgusting.
He plucked the tooth out with the fingers of his left hand and set it carefully on the shelf next to Remko’s boots. Then he realised he needed clothing. Looking around, feeling his way, he came across his own clothes in a neat pile on a musty old chair. His shirt and jacket were still slightly damp with blood but his jeans were acceptable. He put them on, falling twice. But no shoes. What size was Remko?
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Remko’s boots were a little large but they would do. Ad fumbled with the laces, handicapped by his missing finger. He just needed a coat now.

Stumbling from room to room, peering at fuzzy shapes and colours, Ad realised that the house was indeed empty. No phones anywhere. He would check the back door. If the worse came to the worst, he would somehow smash a window and climb through it.

Hammer held high in his left hand, he entered the kitchen. He didn’t know much about kitchens, but even without his glasses, he recognised that it was state of the art. Sleek, shiny, lots of steel appliances. It smelled of kitchen cleaning solution. Disinfectant.

He spied an American-style fridge freezer wedged into a purpose-built nook. Realising he was desperately thirsty, he put the hammer down and opened one of the large doors. Expecting milk or juice, he blinked hard as his eyes and brain worked together to make sense of what he was looking at. He had opened the freezer. Arranged in test-tube holders, rammed in next to frozen chips and pizza, were human fingers. Ad moved in close to be sure. He stared blankly at the fingers, still blinking hard, as though blinking would help him formulate sensible thoughts about what he saw. He looked at the stump on his hand. He looked at the fingers. It didn’t compute. He closed the door and backed away from the fridge freezer, breathing quickly through flared nostrils.

Ad cocked his head and listened. No traffic. No city noises. Only birds and the distant rhythmic rumble of a vehicle – possibly a tractor. Was he in the country? He peered through a window. Saw a blur of green, stretching to a flat horizon. Above it hung grey skies. His suspicions were confirmed.
I’m in the middle of nowhere.

He tried the back door. Locked
.

As he galvanised himself to smash the glass with the hammer, he heard a vehicle out front. Thrumming engine. Pulling up. Footsteps. Ad lumbered to the front of the house and peered through the bevelled glass. He could make out a blue smudge that could have been a small blue van. A man was approaching the house.
It’s the killer. He’s come back. Christ, I’ve got to get out of here.

Ad couldn’t think fast enough. Where could he go? Upstairs? Back into the garage.

Knocking at the door.

It’s not the killer. It’s someone else. A delivery man, maybe. He can help. Shall I shout?

‘Help!’ Ad’s voice was croaky. ‘Help me!’

A face peered through the glass. Then there was a key in the lock. The door opened abruptly inwards, knocking Ad to the ground.

Ad’s hope of escape had begun to solidify. The moment the visitor had put a key in the lock, he felt that hope crumble.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ the man said in English. He peered down at Ad with a questioning face.

‘Is there an address on it?’

‘How should I know? All I did was report the obstruction.’

‘Aren’t you the head porter, sir? What if it’s a delivery for a college member?’

‘Look, officer, it’s in Trinity
Street
, not Trinity
College
. I can’t be responsible for boxes left on a public highway, can I? It’s a security risk. Shouldn’t you be calling the SAS or something? Al Qaeda and all that.’

George became aware of the conversation at the same time as the throbbing in her jaw and a desperate ache in her hips and knees. She was freezing cold. Her hands were tied behind her. She was kneeling in a box, judging by the exchange between the two men. Left by Jez. Which could mean only one thing.

Panic overwhelmed her. In her head, she screamed, ‘Get me out of here!’ but with tape over her mouth, she managed only muffled protest. Her instincts told her to rock from side to side to alert the two men to her predicament. But she looked down and in the dim light of her cardboard confinement, she could make out small packages strapped around her person.

Is this what it had come to? She was a human bomb. A madman’s revenge on the world.

George started to weep. Carefully, though, because she was sure if she moved she would somehow trigger the explosives. She attempted more muffled screams but the two men were now busy arguing. They didn’t seem to hear her.

‘I need you to calm down, sir. I’m not trying to verbally abuse you.’

‘Bloody right, you’re not. I’m taking down your number.’

Beyond the bickering men, she could hear the whirr and click of bicycles changing gear, footsteps and excited gossiping girls nearby. They didn’t know about her. They didn’t know it was all about to end.

Resigned now.

George thought of her mother. Oddly. Unexpectedly. If only she had said something to her in the Copper Kettle about how she had loved her as a child. How she wished dearly they could claw back that innocent time; that bond. Letitia in her fun fur. So close and yet so far.

And Ad. George knew, now she was going to die, that she loved him more than anything else. He had penetrated the defensive wall that she had so carefully built. But she would not be able to tell him. She just prayed that he would get away, go to ground, be safe.

Suddenly, she was aware that she was clothed.
How did that happen? Didn’t he rape me?

George knew she should be preparing herself for the end, but instead found she was checking various areas of her body for signs of intrusion. She felt normal in those intimate places. Only her inner thigh stung from his toxic bite.
Bastard.

It was at this point that George’s temper unexpectedly took her fear hostage. How dare Jez violate her? How dare he track her down to her safe place and take everything from her? Her future. The safety of these passersby.

She started to rock back and forth. She reasoned he had jostled her around to get her there in the first place. It was her only chance.

Suddenly, screams around her. Police car sirens. Heavy, thunderous footsteps.

‘Get back. This is a terror alert. Clear the area.’

More screaming. The sound of dogs barking. Sniffing near her. Snuffling.

Then: ‘Get out of the way, you idiots!’ A Dutch voice. An older man’s authoritative voice.

Frenzied growling.

‘Get that fucking dog off me. If you don’t all want to die, move it.’

Tearing at the cardboard by her left ear. A shaft of light blinded her abruptly. George blinked. Above her was van den Bergen’s flushed face, framed by strong fingers that were busy peeling back the thick, corrugated walls of her musty prison.