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Turning her attention back to Nasser’s blackened, hollow eye socket on the screen, she nodded. ‘Some evil wanker has orchestrated all of this with great skill and forethought.’ Sucked her teeth. ‘It must have been The Duke. That Gordon Bloom bastard denies it every time I go to see him in Belmarsh, but, of all the people I’ve pissed off, who else would have had access to guys with previous, that could be just whacked to order for their eye colour?’ She groaned with frustration and shouted, ‘Christ on a bike!’ in her native tongue.
‘What about him?’ A man’s voice coming from the threshold to the IT suite heralded the arrival of an interloper. A familiar, deep rumble. ‘Last time I heard, he’d been arrested for cycling under the influence. Gave us some bullshit about turning water into wine.’
George turned around as Marie furtively, hastily clicked her tabs shut. Van den Bergen’s long frame filled the doorway, leaning against the architrave with those long legs crossed in the way that caused a knowing, wry smile to curl the edge of George’s mouth upwards. ‘Are you trying to make a terrible joke in my general direction, Paul van den Bergen? Because you should pack that in, right now!’ She drank in the sight of him, noting the changes from the past few weeks since he had visited her in Cambridge. Looking thinner, healthy, well. Better colour from being outdoors, now the gardening season had started.
Rising to embrace her lover, she could smell on him a whiff of formalin from the mortuary and the remnants of VapoRub beneath his nose as she kissed him fleetingly on his dry, neglected lips. The difficult old bastard turned his head briskly to offer her his sharp-sand hard stubbled cheek, but in his grey hooded eyes, she spied a glint of mischief. ‘What was so urgent that I had to abandon my book launch to come over?’ she asked.
‘This,’ he said, pulling a large envelope out of his bag. Glancing over to Marie’s monitor, he started to lay out photo after photo of a man who appeared to be in his early thirties. Blond, almost handsome, slender in build and very much alive in the first three. Posing on a tropical beach with another man, his arm draped casually around his shoulder and a closeness evident between them that marked them out as lovers, George was certain. In the fourth photo, he was very dead and utterly unrecognisable. A photo of some bruising around the man’s armpits. Followed by further photos of three bodies in varying states of decomposition. Ragged, overblown effigies of the humans they had once been.
‘Floaters?’ George asked, fingering the prints and scowling at the grim portrait of a cadaver with opaque eyes and lips that had been nibbled away to reveal a deadly grin.
‘Precisely,’ Van den Bergen said, hanging his raincoat over the back of a chair and folding his long frame into another. ‘I thought there was a link between them, but I can’t work out what. We’ve got a twenty-year-old male – Alex Jansen.’ He took out his notebook. Wedged his glasses on the end of his triangle of a nose and peered through the lenses like an overtaxed teacher. ‘I’ve written something here and I can’t bloody read it.’
He passed the book to George, who stifled a grin.
‘A student vet on holiday from Utrecht University,’ she read. ‘Found in the Keizersgracht near Vijzelstraat. Seems to have fallen in after a party at his friend’s house nearby, where he was last seen alive.’
Van den Bergen’s grey eyes met hers for an instant and George felt warmed by the connection; the erotic promise that the evening might hold if he didn’t get called away on police business or they didn’t start arguing over something inane.
‘Then, there’s André van der Pol,’ he continued, taking the book from her. ‘Seventeen. Went to a nightclub – Church.’
‘A gay club,’ Marie offered, blushing. ‘Pretty full on, from what I’ve heard.’ She scratched at the angry threat of a spot on her chin. Eyes darting from her desk to the empty crisp packet. ‘My neighbour goes.’
‘Right,’ Van den Bergen said, sighing. ‘He wound up in the Singel. And finally Ed Bakker. Nineteen, from a wealthy family who were from Utrecht but who now live in Willemspark. He was out drinking with friends and seems to have gone into the Leidsegracht without leaving so much as a ripple. No witnesses for any of them. None that would come forward, anyway.’
Gazing at the photograph of what was left of the unrecognisable nineteen-year-old boy, George imagined Danny Spencer – bones she had once jumped, by now in a cemetery in Southeast London, thanks to the ruthless change in fortunes the dealer had been dealt. Letitia, possibly floating somewhere in some tributary of the North Sea, becoming food for aquatic life and passing seagulls. This was a depressing, shitty line of work to be in.
‘They were all very young, apart from Floris Engels,’ Van den Bergen said. ‘But the three kids all had drugs and alcohol in their systems. Beer. Hash. Meth. MDMA.’
‘Partying hard,’ George said, closing her eyes. Remembering what it felt like to roll out of a nightclub in the small hours, full of intoxicating substances and drunk on expectation of what might yet come to pass before sun-up.
‘Other than that,’ Van den Bergen said, ‘I can’t find a connection between them. The parents all claim their dead children are angels. Their friends have got nothing but good things to say about them. No obvious commonalities, though, apart from them dying in the canals, stoned off their tits. In fact …’ He stretched in his chair until his hip clicked. Grimacing, he pressed two ibuprofen out of a blister pack and swallowed them down dry. ‘Maybe there isn’t a bloody connection and it is just coincidence, after all. But I inherited this case off Louis Beekmans, after Minks did a reshuffle.’ He rubbed at his prematurely white sideburns with a long finger.
‘Who the fuck is Beekmans?’ George asked.
‘Sudden heart attack. He’s just had a triple bypass,’ Van den Bergen offered by way of explanation. Put a hand over his sternum and belched noiselessly. Clearly feeling for ventricular abnormalities. His fingers wandered southwards along his torso to his scar tissue. His hooded eyes seemed to darken. ‘Anyway, his record-keeping wasn’t up to much and I have a hunch there’s some chicanery going on – especially now I’ve seen the bruises on our mysterious teacher, Mr Engels. When I get toxicology and bloods back, I’ll know more. My young and shiny-faced new boss, Minks, is pushing for a serial killer, because that’s what makes him feel tingly in his big-boy pants.’
‘And what do you think?’ George asked, surreptitiously grabbing his large hand and kissing it, as Marie reached into her desk drawer and withdrew another packet of crisps.
‘I think I want a fresh pair of eyes on it,’ he said, winking. ‘Me, Marie, here and Elvis have run out of steam for now. Feeling up to applying your criminologist’s mind to this mess, Detective Cagney?’
George thought about the tantalising opportunity to do a bit of digging on the side around the circumstances surrounding Nasser Malik’s death. Spending time with her argumentative ageing lover, instead of being wheeled out on the book-signing and lecture trail by Sally Wright and marking sub-standard essays written by lazy first-year undergraduates. Then, she thought about the pot she was saving for a deposit on a flat. ‘Will I get paid?’ she asked.
‘Maarten Minks has a fancy post-grad qualification from the London School of Economics,’ he said. ‘He’s the polar opposite of Kamphuis. Nothing he likes more than forking out for an expert opinion to check his expert’s opinion was expert enough. He can’t wait to receive your invoice, Georgina.’
CHAPTER 9 (#ulink_3f095325-b5c9-58f0-9611-0da3367a08f4)
Amsterdam, Van den Bergen’s apartment, then, Melkweg nightclub, later (#ulink_3f095325-b5c9-58f0-9611-0da3367a08f4)
‘Oh, you’re not going to start going on about your bloody mother again, are you?’ Van den Bergen asked over dinner. ‘I thought we’d decided she’d done her usual disappearing act because the prospect of playing the second-fiddle mother figure in the drama of someone else’s life didn’t appeal. Isn’t that Letitia all over?’
George eyed her burnt mushroom risotto. It put her in mind of cerebral matter served up in a vintage dish. She put her spoon and fork together and pushed the plate aside. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘I don’t see you for weeks and you’re on my case the minute I set foot through the door. You asked me over, remember?’ Scraping her chair aggressively along the wooden floor, she walked into his kitchen and flung the dish on the side. ‘Not the other way round. And don’t give me that bullshit about you, Marie and Elvis running out of steam, because you’d only just inherited this bloody case. Face it. You’ve just been looking for an excuse to get me over here!’
She was aware of him moving from the dining area towards her. Kept staring at the splashback tiles, waiting to see if he was coming in to offer some placatory gesture or merely gunning for an argument at closer range. When his arms slid around her waist, she smiled. Turned around and craned her neck to look up into that familiar, handsome face. Appraising his large, hooded grey eyes, topped with those dark eyebrows. The sunken furrows either side of his mouth were back now that he had started to return to fitness. His skin, so sallow over the winter months, was now lightly tanned and reflected time spent outdoors.
‘You look well. Being a grandfather agrees with you. Give us a snog, old man,’ she said, smiling as she ran a finger over his stubble. ‘And you’d better grow a goatee or something while I’m here, because I can’t do with scouring my lips off on your five o’clock shadow.’
‘Don’t you like my risotto?’ he asked, kissing her neck gently.
‘You’re a shit cook.’ Stroking the soft navel hair beneath his top, she ran her fingers delicately over the long lump of his scar. ‘But I missed your hot stodge so badly.’ Giggling, George unzipped the fly to Van den Bergen’s work trousers and dropped to her knees. Yanked down his disappointing grey jersey underpants to deal with the contents, which were wholly non-disappointing. Van den Bergen groaned as she took him into her mouth. Brought him almost to the point of no return with a tongue normally sharpened on the egos of Wormwood Scrubs wide boys, overinflated Cambridge Fellows or Peckham’s finest players in their low-rise G Star Raw.
Van den Bergen buried his hands in her mass of curls, encouraging her steady rhythm. But George broke off, as he began to thrust too lustily, kissing her way up his abdomen. Teasing him with her abstemiousness so that he might afford her the same pleasure with that wry, acerbic mouth of his.
They never made it to the bedroom but they did engage in a clumsy, desire-driven tango to the sofa, where George flung her clothes on the floor, climbed astride his long, lean frame and hungrily lowered herself onto him. First, she relished his tongue on her. Then, she slid her body sinuously down towards his groin, manoeuvring him inside her. With his hands caressing her breasts, the lovers locked onto a familiar fast track that shunted and rocked them all the way to the end of their urgent thrill ride.
‘Jesus. I needed that,’ George said, pulling her pants and jeans back on. She clambered back onto the prone Van den Bergen and kissed him passionately.
‘You’re balm for the soul,’ he said, wrapping his arms around her and cradling her head on his chest.
His heartbeat loped steadily along. A comforting sound. She drank in his scent of warm skin, testosterone and sport deodorant. Committed it to memory.
‘I need a smoke and your hip bones are digging in me,’ she said, rising. ‘You’re a shit mattress.’
Taking the box of tissues from the sideboard and throwing them into his lap, she stumbled to the balcony to spark her e-cigarette into life. Exhaled her smoke and what was left of her tension onto the Amsterdam night air. Listening to the animated chatter of the neighbours in adjacent apartments to the side and below. A slice of Dutch life. Those clean-living citizens knew nothing of the depravity and violence that George and Van den Bergen saw week in, week out. Good. There needed to be some innocence in the world still. And there had to be more to life than death.
‘Do you know what? I fancy going dancing,’ George told the full moon.
When she returned to the living room, the steady buzz of snoring coming from the sofa told her she was either going to bed or going clubbing alone.
Melkweg draped itself along the edge of the Lijnbaansgracht, like an elegant old burgher with bragging rights to its slumberous, low-rise canal-side position. Dwarfed by the outsized glazed boxes of the modern theatre that it sat next to, the five-storey townhouses behind it and the ugly apartment block in front. In the daytime, George had walked past this place and barely glanced up at it. At night, with the neon lights that shouted this was where the hip-hop, R&B and deep house happened reflected in the almost still canal water, the whole scene was transformed into something Van Gogh might have painted on acid, had he lived in modern times.
Needing to feel the bass throbbing through the soles of her feet and reminding herself that there was no shame in going clubbing alone, George pushed to the front of the queue and marched up to the door.
‘Not so fast, girly!’ a bouncer said, putting his beefy arm out in front of her as a barrier to entry.
George was aware of the complaints of the scantily clad teens standing behind her that she had jumped the queue. Speaking English and clearly on some sort of parent-funded mini-break, judging by the cut-crystal public school accents. Ridiculing her attire of ripped jeans, studded high-tops and the size and shape of her arse.
Turning around, George quipped, ‘Have you fucking finished, children?’ She sucked her teeth at them, taking in every detail of the taut white skin on their waxy faces and the glazed look in their stoned eyes. ‘Or do you want me to tip off the bouncer here that yous are all underage and off your tits already?’
The group of dissenters fell silent, glancing nervously at one another. George flashed her membership card at the bouncer. Perhaps he saw some of the thunder in her expression.
‘Sorry, miss. Go ahead.’ Respectfully ushering her inside.
‘That’s more fucking like it,’ George said under her breath. ‘Dick.’
Inside the giant laser-lit space, the crowd heaved as one writhing organism. The smell of dry ice and alcohol was thick on the stifling, sweaty air. Music throbbing rhythmically like a beating heart. George imagined she could see sound travelling in waves from one side of the venue to the other. Losing herself in the middle of the dancefloor, she closed her eyes. Started to dance. Tried desperately to shake the feeling that she was being watched. In here, of all places, she could hide in plain sight. Wearing an invisibility cloak of young clubbers, she could free herself from surveillance. Because surely, whoever had sent that email from her father and stolen her mother had set out with the nefarious intention of getting to her. Whether her parents were lying dead somewhere or not, she was the target. She had received the eye. The metaphor that said her every move was being scrutinised. And what she hadn’t told Van den Bergen, for fear of pissing in his new-grandfather’s chips, was that she had had another email, purporting to be from Michael Carlos Izquierdo Moreno. Daddy Dearest. The image of the email started to take shape in her mind’s eye. Along with it, a memory of her stalker. She’d omitted to tell Van den Bergen about him, too.
Stop fucking obsessing, George told herself. You came here to drown all that shit out and hide from the eye for a couple of hours. Listen to the music. Let the bass heal you. Nobody’s watching in here.
Trying to dispel the mounting tension, she forced herself to dance to the compulsive, lazy beat of a hip-hop track. Shaking her thang. Arms in the air. Except she couldn’t relax. Her movements were out of sync with the rhythm, embarrassing the ghosts of her ancestry who almost certainly, as stereotype demanded, had had all the moves. Adrift in a sea of gyrating kids, all at least seven years younger than she was, she realised she had become stiff-arsed, like some middle-aged housewife from Staines. The music started to irritate her. Then, she got annoyed at the misogynistic lyrics.
And skanky Nasser Malik is in a fridge in a Maastricht morgue. Am I going to end up in a fridge in a morgue, with Van den Bergen grimacing at my cadaver?
Forcing her way to the bar, she decided she would get a cheap beer and just people-watch for a while. Wait for her mojo to return. But the queue for drinks was five deep and George lacked the height of the Dutch. Perching at the end of the bar, she realised a peacock of a boy in a tight T-shirt, who clearly had cash to splash, had ordered a large round of bottled Belgian beer. Waving his €50 note, he was too preoccupied with barking orders at the harried barman to notice George swipe a single bottle of Hoegaarden.
‘Thanks, arsehole,’ she said under her breath, grinning.
Perching upstairs on the balcony, George watched the revellers below, debating whether she should just go back to Van den Bergen’s flat and admit that she was getting too old for this. Maybe Van den Bergen was making her feel prematurely too old. Fifty wasn’t far away for him, after all, and then there was his granddaughter, little Eva, on the scene now.
Eyeing the younger men that buzzed nearby, all sweaty from the dancefloor with their going-out-best clobber clinging to their firm bodies, George’s attention was pulled in the direction of a dealer, stealthily palming a baggie of white powder onto a boy of about eighteen. The dealer could have been a clubber. Nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the tattoo just visible in the stubble of his hair. Like Nasser Malik’s tattoo. Suddenly George had become distanced enough from her own woes to really notice what was going down.
‘It’s snowing in Amsterdam,’ she muttered.
Pushing the clubbers aside, she walked up to the dealer. He smiled down at her. A greedy, rotten-toothed smile of a seasoned junkie, earning to fund his own addiction, no doubt. Either that, or he had really shocking dental hygiene, George mused. She suppressed a full-blown grimace. Ensured there was space between them in this packed temple to hedonism.
‘What you got?’ she shouted above the music, careful not to come too close to his ears. They were greasy-looking with hardly any lobes, punctured by an oversized stud. She shuddered. ‘You got any good coke or E?’
‘Coke? No, love.’ His eyes darted everywhere. Checking for the long arm of the law, no doubt. ‘Crystal meth, miaow miaow, G. Might be able to get you some E by the end of the night.’
‘I’ll leave it thanks,’ George said, backing away. Annoyed with herself, she realised she had started to lose touch. The inevitability of being closer to thirty than twenty. Too much clean living.
As George hastened out of Melkweg to wake the sleeping Van den Bergen and tell him her theory about the canal deaths, she failed to notice that she was followed home.
CHAPTER 10 (#ulink_6a295fbb-6446-52a9-8901-eb132025b2e8)
Amsterdam, Melkweg nightclub, then, Leidsegracht, 30 April (#ulink_6a295fbb-6446-52a9-8901-eb132025b2e8)
It had been a long walk from the gay sauna in Nieuwezijds Armsteed to Melkweg, but Greg Patterson had agreed to hook back up with his friends for a drink and a dance before the night was out. A shame not to, since this was supposed to be Sophie’s twenty-first celebration.
‘I’ll not be long,’ he’d promised her, squeezing her hands as they all stood in the busy, cobbled square – a crossroads between the respectable Amsterdam and the red-light district. His mind had been elsewhere, contemplating the sauna and the sensual overload that awaited him in the steam of the cubicles. ‘I said I’d nip to this place to get something for my mum.’
James and Poppy had exchanged a fleeting but meaningful glance with one another. Making morality judgements about him, no doubt.
‘What? At nine o’clock at night?’ James had asked. Nudging Poppy. Jesus. The wanker was so obvious and rude.
‘You guys go!’ Greg had said, ignoring the rank prejudice that had flown just beneath Sophie’s radar. Typical hetties. ‘I’ll meet you later.’ He waved dismissively. Smiling benignly. He had pulled the sleeves of his best jacket down against the chill in the evening air. D&G. It had cost him all of his Christmas money off his mum and dad. ‘Melkweg, right? I’ll be there by midnight. I’ll text so we can find each other. Okay? I promise!’ He had kissed Sophie’s hands, the feathers from her bright red boa tickling his nose. Perhaps he could persuade her to lend him that for Club Church, once the others had all toddled off back to the hotel. Greg had an itinerary and he had intended to stick to it. He had pecked his friend chastely on each cheek. ‘Have fun, birthday girl!’
Her chubby face had been flushed pink with effervescence. Centre of attention, for once, instead of being just the dumpy girl on their languages course, whom the straight guys all ignored in favour of Giselle. Giselle was the worst person Sophie could have chosen to be BFFs with. Giselle, who was dainty like a gazelle but had all the personality of a medium-sized snail. Giselle had been hanging back, texting some beau or other, obviously. Chewing gum and smoking at the same time. Looking too cool for school, as though it had been killing her to be in Amsterdam for something as ordinary and unglamorous as fat Sophie’s birthday.
‘Aw, it will be rubbish without you, Greg. Come on.’ Sophie had clasped at his sleeve, looking at him with undisguised adoration. ‘Don’t just bugger off on me.’
It wasn’t the first time that this had happened. A nice girl like Sophie, falling for him. Believing that he was available and fair game because he was friendly and listened and understood. Not like the straight lads, who couldn’t give a stuff. She did know he was gay. But perhaps she believed she could turn him. He had often seen the optimism shining in her eyes. He should have drawn his boundaries more clearly, but didn’t want to disappoint her. And he was hardly going to ram his sexual proclivities down her throat like the cock of some guy from Grindr on a wet Saturday night in Leeds.
‘See you later, Soph. Enjoy!’
And that had been that. Feeling anticipatory, he had taken himself off to a gay bar and partaken of some traditional Dutch courage – four glasses of strong Belgian beer, though the clientele had been a little too old for him. Finally, he had meandered down to the sauna, hoping that his slightly disappointing pecs and one-pack would pass muster with the guys there who spent more hours on their bodies per week than he spent in an entire term. The drugs had helped. He had allowed one of the men to booty bump him with some crystal meth. The high had been intense. He had never felt so horny.
As the high had begun to wane, he had snorted the couple of lines of mephedrone that had been offered to him by some guy called Hank or Henk or some bloody thing beginning with an H. This was the kind of trip he had hoped for. And those were the elements of his Amsterdam adventure that he wouldn’t be relaying to Sophie once they were back in halls.
Utterly fucked dry, he had traversed town, ready to drink some more and dance with the sad hetties. Just after midnight, as he entered Melkweg, his confidence was beginning to slide into the shadow of a comedown again. He needed more gear. Needed to get higher. Observing the crowd of writhing men and women, he felt out of his depth and estranged. These were not his people. But then …
‘Greg!’ Sophie shouted, waving avidly. Flapping her feather boa. Her polyester shift dress looking crumpled with dark rings around the armpits.
He couldn’t hear her, but he could see her mouth moving. The others were with her, swaying their bodies uselessly to some R&B track. Giselle was being frotted by some local, built like a brick shithouse, by the looks. Pushing him away but enjoying every minute of the attention, no doubt.
Reluctantly, Greg started to make for their group. But then, he spotted a wraith of a man moving in amongst the clubbers. Older, dressed far better than the kids in designer casual clothes, he had the tell-tale shifty eyes and swift hands that Greg sought. People were approaching this cuckoo in the nest, but looking the other way. Stopping. Standing. Engaging in some awkward exchange. Leaving with their hand in their pocket. A dealer.
Bypassing Sophie, he made for the wraith. He could feel the dealer weighing and getting the measure of him as though he were nothing more than a lump of raw product waiting to be graded and cut for more profitability. ‘What have you got?’ he asked. ‘Tina? Gina? Miaow miaow?’
The wraith answered him in English, spoken with a rolling Amsterdam accent. Clearly used to dealing with tourists from across the North Sea.
Ten minutes later, Greg had downed the glass of water containing his drug of choice. Expecting to feel ready to party, as he moved back into the stifling heat of the crowded dancefloor, he started to feel like he was being watched. A wave of nausea almost knocked him to the ground.
‘Are you okay?’ Sophie bellowed, putting her arm around him.
He shrank from her touch. Didn’t want to be that close. Nodded. His mouth prickled. Was he about to faint?
‘I’m going outside,’ he said.
No idea whether she had heard him or not, Greg felt panic draw him towards the exit, as though, like a bad marionette, some puppet-master controlled his movements and impulses with a yank of a string. Too many people. All watching him. Had to get away. Go where it was quiet.
Greg Patterson resolved to walk slowly down towards Club Church, hoping by the time he had got some fresh air, he would be good to go again. Six minutes, Google had told him. At this time of night, the towpath by the Leidsegracht had been clear of other pedestrians. Only the silent hulking shapes of parked cars stood between him and the gently lapping canal.
‘I’m going to be sick,’ he said to the streetlight, leaning against it for support. Wishing, now, that he had asked Sophie to come outside with him. Dry-heaving, he said a silent prayer that this gruesome feeling would pass; that he’d return home to see Mum and Dad and his room in halls and his gaming console and his books and Nana and the dog. Shit. What have I done? Memories of the sauna inserted themselves into his view of the cobbles and the notion that he might vomit on his new shoes. The laughter among strangers. The booty bump. The absurdly hot sex. So much fun that he now regretted having. Idiot.
There was a sound of footsteps. Good. Thank God for that. Greg was hopeful that the night-time stroller might come to his aid, should he need it.
When the still, black water rushed up to meet him, Greg was taken by surprise, not just by the freezing chill but that he had fallen in at all. Flailing his arms, trying to kick his way back up to the surface, he cried out. A muffled plea that only he heard, as the bubbles containing the last of his breath rose uselessly to the surface. His foot was snagged. His lungs were full. And then all was dark.
CHAPTER 11 (#ulink_889a2b6f-5a3f-55c6-95e3-50265178a67d)
Amsterdam, Sloterdijkermeer allotments, later (#ulink_889a2b6f-5a3f-55c6-95e3-50265178a67d)
Sitting in a deck chair on the small decking area by his shed, Van den Bergen relished the warmth of the mid-morning sun on his face. It felt like somebody had inserted a key into the bullet hole in his hip and had tried to wind him up. But aside from the incessant, nagging ache that he had tried and failed to calm with strong ibuprofen gel, he reasoned that he was faring a damn sight better than young Greg Patterson.
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke emoted out of the battery-operated CD player that George had bought him for Christmas. Wailing that the witch should be burned. The melancholy in his voice seemed fitting.
‘How many’s that now?’ he muttered, opening a foil-wrapped pile of ham sandwiches and biting into the top one hungrily. Not bothering to sweep the crumbs off his gardening dungarees. It felt like an act of rebellion. If George saw he was eating without having washed his hands first, he would never hear the end of it. Compost beneath his fingernails from repotting his petunias into larger containers. But not all of his fingers smelled of compost and leafy growth. He sniffed his middle finger and remembered their reunion on the sofa the previous evening. Smiled. Frowned. Remembered he was supposed to be thinking about more serious matters.
‘Five,’ he said to the allium globemasters that had just blossomed into giant purple balls on the end on their thick, green stems. ‘Five damned floaters.’
He belched. Ham played havoc with his stomach acid. Why did he never learn? His throat had been sore of late. Maybe he had oesophageal cancer. Swallowing, he realised it was more uncomfortable than yesterday. Or perhaps he just needed a cup of coffee from his flask to wash down the sandwich.
Checking his phone for an email from Marianne de Koninck, he thought about Greg Patterson’s body on the canal side at 5 a.m. that morning. Leaving George, warm in his bed, to stand in the drizzle beneath the umbrella, yet again. Next to Elvis, who had refused to share the umbrella, yet again. Marianne’s number two, Daan Strietman, had found a lump of frothed mucus and vomit in the boy’s throat. Later, during the preliminary examination at the morgue, he had confirmed recent rough intercourse and blistering inside the boy’s rectum – apparently a common side effect of taking liquid crystal meth anally via a syringe.
Grimacing at the florid pink flesh that hung out of his sandwich, Van den Bergen folded his lunch back up, levered himself out of the chair with a grunt and flung the packet onto the deck chair.
His phone rang. Looking around the allotment, he couldn’t make out where the noise was coming from. Peering inside the shed, it wasn’t on the potting table. Debbie Harry hung limply on the wall, looking clueless. She was no bloody use. It wasn’t in the trug of compost, with his trowel. Ringing. Ringing.
