The Girl Who Had No Fear

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‘You crack me up,’ Tom said, a wry smile on his face.

‘You’d be fit if you grew your nails and didn’t have a load of tats,’ George said, pointing at the inked roses and foliage that scrolled just beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt. ‘And got rid of that unhygienic bloody thing in your nose.’ Gesticulating with her chin towards his piercing.

‘Thanks,’ Tom said. ‘You are fit. But you’d be fitter still, if you didn’t blurt out the fucked-up contents of your head.’

George filled the bucket with soapy hot water. ‘You have no idea what’s going on in my head.’ She eyed his crotch and grinned.

‘Are you flirting with me?’ he asked.

Feeling like she’d overstepped an invisible line, George looked down at the bucket. Thought about Van den Bergen, spending long days trying to chase down bad guys in some seventh level of hell that only policemen, prison workers, criminologists and forensic pathologists occupied; spending long nights next to her in the bed that they shared, trying to scorch away the stench of death and corruption in the fires of their passion … when they weren’t at each other’s throats. Which she perversely relished. ‘No. I’m not flirting. Sorry,’ she said. Looked back up and tried her damnedest to wear an expression that was encouraging and friendly only. ‘But I do want to hear more about this Czech dude. He sounds nuts. What do you know about him?’

Tom shrugged. ‘Like I told you. He’s Nikolay. He’s a Czech drug lord. He’s a nutter who keeps Europe’s clubland stocked with cheap meth. That’s it.’

CHAPTER 14 (#ulink_db30fa4c-da9c-5971-88f8-d566d317c385)

Amsterdam, police headquarters, 15 May (#ulink_db30fa4c-da9c-5971-88f8-d566d317c385)

As Marie trawled through the drug-user forums, searching for mention of a Czech drug lord called Nikolay, George’s head started to throb. She read over her shoulder, wrinkling her nose only slightly at the smell of hair that had clearly not been washed for at least a week.

I had outa this world hard-core porn sex with my GF on this stuff. She let me do things to her she never let me before. It was the best high ever. You gotta dissolve the meth with water and shove it up your ass for a really great high. Better than smoking.

‘I can’t take any more of this,’ Marie said, minimising the screen.

George sat back in the chair. ‘Neither can I,’ she said. Yawned and stretched her arms, feeling the fatigue from night after night, working until the small hours, followed by day after day of dragging herself into the Dutch police HQ for debriefing, leaching the wellbeing and strength from her muscles. She sniffed her denim jacket and grimaced. ‘I’m sick of the smell of stale beer on everything. It gets everywhere. I’ve had it. Van den Bergen can bugger off if he thinks I’m doing another night.’

Tearing the wrapper off a bar of Verkade milk and hazelnut chocolate, Marie snapped off a row, offering it to George. ‘Poor Elvis has got it worse. No wonder he’s called in sick. I wouldn’t have lasted two minutes, having to cavort and make nice with a bunch of …’ She gave the impression of choosing a derogatory term from some sort of bigot’s lexicon that the religious memorised from childhood. ‘… sodomites.’ There it was.

‘Seriously, Marie? That’s very Dark Ages of you,’ George said. ‘And probably a sackable offence. Don’t let Van den Bergen hear you say ignorant crap like that. And I don’t want to hear it, either.’

Marie made a harrumphing noise. ‘Do you want some chocolate or not?’

George eyed Marie’s dirty fingernails. Shook her head emphatically.

Tutting, Marie rammed the chocolate into her own mouth. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said, chewing noisily.

‘Any news on Floris Engels’ apartment? The mystery lodger.’

‘Funny you should say that.’ Bringing up Facebook and logging into an account that had the anonymous blue and white silhouette of a generic man’s head, Marie clicked through to the ‘about’ page for Floris Engels’ account. ‘His privacy settings were on max and he’d left no legacy information, in the event of death. That’s why it’s been such a pain in the backside. You ever tried to contact Facebook’s admins?’

George shook her head.

‘It’s a nightmare,’ Marie continued. ‘We finally got permission to access his profile at the end of play, yesterday. And look!’ She pointed to the section that revealed Floris Engels was, ‘in a relationship with Robert Menck’. With one click, Menck’s name led to a photo of a dark-haired man with jutting teeth that emerged from a generous smile. Smartly dressed in bright colours, he stood in his profile photo with his arm draped around a man – judging by the height of the shoulder – whose head was just out of shot. ‘Van den Bergen’s gone with Elvis to Menck’s place of work. He lectures in architecture at Amsterdam University of the Arts.’