The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die (5 page)

‘Are you going to do it? Sounds dangerous to me.’

‘How’s it dangerous?’

‘Luring bloody terrorists to your door.’

‘It’s just online, Ad. They can’t find me.’

‘Don’t be so sure. These Al Qaeda type guys aren’t stupid. Your name will be all over that blog.’

George fell silent. Even if Amsterdam was full of overseas kids, dipping their toes in louche Dutch waters, finding an Englishwoman amongst the students wouldn’t be that hard. She’d told van den Bergen yes. She’d been lured by the thrill of being needed. How had she been so stupid?
Daft tart.

They were past Roeterseiland now, back in the centre where Christmas trees stood in every shop window, festooned with tinsel and fairy lights. Closer to home, the narrow old buildings leaned inwards as though they were trying to get a better look at one another. On the canal, a glass-roofed barge full of tourists chuntered past. George could hear the monotone of the guide speaking over the PA
.
She felt certain they would be freezing their tits off.

Ad broke the silence.

‘How come you’re not going home for Christmas?’ he asked.

‘My folks are dead,’ George said.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the look of surprise on Ad’s face. He opened and closed his mouth. ‘I’m so … sorry. You never told me,’ he said.

George swallowed hard. She reminded herself that she was under no obligation to tell him anything. It had only been one kiss and he’d regretted it afterwards. He had the Milkmaid.

‘You never asked,’ she said.

George locked her bike against the railings and looked up. Inneke’s curtain was closed. Katja was standing topless at the adjacent first-floor window. Her red light was on, giving her a slightly demonic glow. George waved at her. Katja grinned back, pushed her boobs together and pouted in Ad’s direction. She pulled a strap of her thong up and down on her tanned hip. George shared a silent guffaw with her Polish neighbour as she took in Ad’s crimson-faced look of horror.

‘She’s only winding you up,’ she said. ‘Come on up.’

Inneke’s departing punter pushed past them on the stairs as George led the way to the top.

‘Can’t you get a different room?’ Ad asked. ‘It’s not right, living here.’

‘What’s not right about it?’ George asked as she pushed her key into her door. ‘It’s a decent size, it’s dirt cheap and it’s central.’

‘But strange men, coming and going at all hours. Your neighbours …’

‘Are brilliant,’ George said.

She walked inside. That morning, she had cracked open the bleach; expunging the nasty taste of a heavy weekend by scrubbing at non-existent dirt with a toothbrush. The tight deadline for
The Moment
had driven her to the launderette with her dirty clothes and soiled bedding. Now her room was tidy. It smelled strongly of lemons.

So, when she caught sight of an unstruck match in the middle of her dark grey carpet, she frowned. It had not been there before. Definitely not. She picked it up and examined it. Large-sized cook’s match. Pink head.

‘What’s that?’ Ad asked.

‘Nothing,’ she said. She scanned the room quickly and thoroughly. The locks hadn’t been forced. Nothing had been stolen. Maybe Filip had dropped it in the bed and it had fallen from the duvet cover. Maybe.

And yet, hadn’t she looked at her carpet before she had closed her door, congratulating herself on finally getting a stubborn wine stain out? Had there been more oversized matches in the overflowing ashtray?
Check the trash later.
She pushed the mystery aside and shut it inside her paranoia box.

‘You bring me the money, you lump of shit!’ the girl shouted down the phone.

Her voice was hard and sour. She sounded older. Two years older now, he could hear how experience and too many cigarettes had stripped the alluring freshness from her voice.

‘I know you can get it, Fennemans. I know all about your seedy social life and the scumbags you hang out with. I want it in that fucking left luggage locker at two pm.’

‘That’s a ridiculous demand. I can’t get it that quickly,’ Fennemans said, almost choking on his words.

‘I’ll call the police. I’ll get off this phone right now and call—’

‘Okay. Okay! But make it three.’

‘Two thirty.’

‘Fine.’

After his morning constitutional, Fennemans had opened his front door to find post on the mat. He had bent to gather up the mixture of brown and white envelopes. Some junk mail. Bills mostly. But what was this? A personal letter. Handwritten on good stationery. No postmark. He had presumed it had been hand-delivered.

Dear Dr Bastard,

If you don’t give me €10,000, I am going to tell the police about what you made me do. Call me immediately to arrange a meet.

Janneke

A sweat had broken out on his top lip. He re-read the words. €10,000? That kind of money wasn’t easily come by. What he did have spare, he spent on his … hobbies.

He had fixed himself a double gin and tonic to steady his nerves. Downed it in three gulps. Felt the alcohol spark warmth in his stomach. But it still hadn’t taken the edge off his anxiety. This was unexpected. The matter of Janneke had been dropped as it had been with Rosa Bianco; silence supported by those he could rely on within the university. Blind eyes duly turned. He had started to feel untouchable. And now this …

‘Bitch!’ Fennemans shouted at the wall. ‘I’m going to nail you to the wall. Nobody crosses Vim Fennemans and gets away with it.’

His fine mind had whirred into action. Reluctantly, he had pulled his mobile phone from his coat pocket and made the call to the only person he knew who would have that amount of cash knocking about at short notice. A person who would not take kindly to him forfeiting the repayment.

With his soul remortgaged yet again to the devil and the loan agreed, Fennemans had remembered how Janneke was in her freshman year. A slip of a thing in hotpants with bare legs and pumps, looking all of fifteen despite being a voting adult. She’d come to him for advice on accommodation. Worried that she had moved in with hard-drug users who had stolen her stereo to pay for their next hit.

It had been so easy.

‘Oh, poor Janneke. Don’t think twice about it.’ There, there. A friendly pat on the shapely knee. ‘I’m looking for a tenant. The girl I had before has dropped out of college unexpectedly. Why! I’d charge you much lower rent than you’re paying now and I’m hardly ever at home. You’ll have the run of the place.’

At first, he had engineered chance collisions as she came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel.

‘Ha! Silly me. I should have known you were in there.’ The thrill of planning his seduction was almost as satisfying as the act itself.

Then, making sure she saw him naked. By accident, of course.

‘Oh, I didn’t realise you were home. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’

He could see her blanch and he liked it. She would struggle and that would make it even more worthwhile.

Then, moving in for the kill, as he had done on previous occasions. Pouring too much wine at dinner. Seeing her giddy, her guard down. Licking his lips as he spied her Lolita’s chest, the buds of a late bloomer, just sprouting. Detonating the bomb in good time.

‘Janneke, we need to talk seriously for one moment about the end of term tests. You know, the external examiner has told me that she might have to fail you.’

The shock and sorrow in her eyes. But he had already worn her down throughout the first term and a half by marking her artificially low. Making her believe that she was nothing without him. Homeless, penniless, mentorless.

‘Terrible, isn’t it? But you know,
I
could persuade her to look more favourably on your work.’

The hand on the knee, moving up her firm thigh to her lovely cotton panties. The look of realisation crawling across her pretty face.

‘Do you wax?’ he had asked.

By that stage, he’d had enough waiting. She was his until the end of the academic year. Who the hell would take her word against his anyway?

Now Fennemans checked his watch. When the designated time came, let her come and count it. He would emerge from the hiding place. The boot would be on the other foot. Feeling for his pocket knife, he rehearsed in his head how he would hurt her. Hold the blade to her kidney. Threaten to report
her
for blackmail and extortion. Get the money back so he could make the same-day repayment that was a condition of the loan. Get even. Slate clean. A brilliant and foolproof plan.

George wiped over the keyboard on her laptop and switched it on. It clicked and whirred into action, greeting her with a merry tinkle. She flung herself into her straight-backed chair.

‘I don’t like you doing this,’ Ad said, perching on the edge of the threadbare chaise longue. He pushed some woollen wadding back in where it had spilled out like fat from a whale carcass.

George looked round and sighed heavily. ‘Look, I’m going to do it. You can either ignore me and leave … or help. Which is it going to be?’

She opened her Hotmail and stopped listening to Ad’s lecture about cyber safety. In her inbox was an unread message from Sally. Her mouth went dry.
It’s been weeks.
She opened it.

From:
[email protected]
                         11.35

To:
[email protected]

Subject: Your mother

Hello George,

I hope you’re enjoying the sights and smells of Amsterdam!

Two things: First, I’ve had a letter from your mother asking you to make contact with her as a matter of urgency. I know how you feel about this but I’m just letting you know that I have a number for her if you change your mind.

Secondly, I’ve had a Dutch detective asking questions about you. His name is Paul van den Bergen. He said he was looking to enlist a student to help him on a case. Under the circumstances, you should decline.

As always, when you respond, please ensure your email connection is secure – https://

Best wishes

Sally

Dr Sally Wright, Senior Tutor

St John’s College, Cambridge Tel … 01223 775 6574

Dept. of Criminology Tel … 01223 773 8023

Her mother. George briefly allowed herself to drown in the pain. Count backwards. Five, four, three … Then she fought the floodwaters back, salvaging poise from the heartbreak like reclaimed land. She deleted the message from Sally and turned to Ad.

‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Are you my partner in part-time espionage?’

Ad groaned and stretched. His sweater lifted up as he did so and George caught a glimpse of his navel hair. Milkmaid’s territory.

‘Okay,’ he relented. ‘If it makes you happy.’

Van den Bergen was walking in long strides down Damrak to Central Station, with his junior detective, Elvis, trotting at his side.

‘So, nobody living opposite saw anything. All those people. It’s a joke,’ Elvis said.

‘Do you think curtains are a good Christmas present for someone who’s just moved in with her boyfriend?’ van den Bergen asked, wishing Elvis wouldn’t swing his leather-jacket-clad arms in such an idiotic manner when he walked.

‘Did you keep the receipt?’

Van den Bergen’s hip clicked rhythmically as he loped towards the departures board. He grunted. Same shit, different year. An afterthought of a gift that Tamara never wanted. A rejection that his ex-wife would gloat over until next year. Those were the joys of fatherhood now. But he had more important things on his mind.

‘The bombing is tied to the Social and Behavioural Sciences faculty,’ he said, peering up at the flickering, changing destinations.

‘Weren’t you there with Vim Fennemans the other day, boss? Didn’t you recruit one of his students as an informant?’

‘Platform Ten. Fast train to Maastricht.’ Van den Bergen started stalking briskly towards the platform. ‘Even if this mosque terror cell checks out, we need to start looking into the university people that regularly frequented or were involved with Bushuis library,’ he shouted over his shoulder at Elvis, still clutching Tamara’s ugly curtains in their anonymous Hema bag.

When he barrelled into a middle-aged man with a paunch, he was at first annoyed and then surprised.

‘Fennemans!’ he said, noting that Fennemans quickly slipped something shiny into his pocket and was looking furtively over at a woman in a purple bobble hat. ‘What a coincidence. Funny how you keep cropping up!’

With Ad gone, George thundered down to the back yard. Darkness had fallen now. She wedged the door open so she could see under the light cast by the bare bulb in the corridor. Fifteen minutes and a handful of ash, cigarette butts, coffee grouts, snotty tissues, one used condom, one portion of rotting take-out jerk chicken, an entire ball of hair and a bout of dry-heaving later, she returned to her room with the only spent match she could find amongst her detritus. Filip had definitely used it. She remembered him lighting his cigarette with it afterwards.

She washed her hands thoroughly in scalding hot water, dried them on her wash-worn Margate tea towel and held the charred match up against the one she had found on the carpet. The one from the carpet was a full inch longer and twice as thick.

‘Someone’s been in my room,’ she told her reflection in the window.

She wedged one of the straight-backed chairs under the door knob, like she’d seen people do in films. Turned every light on. Went into the kitchenette and grabbed a bottle of cheap red wine by the neck, holding it like a weapon. Pulled every door open fast. Large store cupboards. Wardrobe. Empty. Behind the sofa. Nothing.

‘You’re just imagining it,’ she said aloud, swigging hard at the cheap wine. She held one fist against her head and clenched her eyes tight shut. ‘Filip must have dropped it out of his pocket.’

Fully clothed, she grabbed the laptop and clambered into bed. There was her half-written blogpost. At last, the words gushed through the tips of her fingers onto the worn, shiny keys of the laptop. It was a congratulatory piece; she was devil’s advocate now, heralding the Bushuis library bombing as a political triumph against the West. She invited al Badaar himself to leave a comment; to sow the fertile political seedbed of the university’s undergraduate population with doubt.