The Girl Who Got Revenge: The addictive new crime thriller of 2018. Marnie Riches
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it to adulthood.’
Patting his back and breaking free of the hug, Kaars waved him away. His colour had started to wane. The sheen of sweat indicated that the final super-high dose of anthracycline was taking effect. Surprised that the duplicitous bastard had struggled on thus far, he said a silent prayer that sheer exhaustion or kidney failure wouldn’t take him first. It had to be his heart. Had to. It was the only way.
The old man started to cough violently again, dry-heaving when the cough finally subsided. ‘I must get Cornelia round. This damn building work needs finishing before I die,’ he said. ‘I’m worried she’ll be left with a mess.’ Their eyes locked. The old man’s were pleading. ‘If she needs some moral support, or help with the builders, you’ll pitch in, won’t you? Promise me you won’t leave her to tackle all that alone. I need to know there’s a man around I can trust. You’ve become that man.’
‘I’m just at the end of a phone.’
It was a non-committal response, and that was all the old fart would get from him. Why should he let the fucker die with a mind free from care?
Kaars Verhagen grimaced. He was pointing at some half-built stud wall, the skeleton timbers describing a new doorway wide enough to accommodate his wheelchair. Though he opened his mouth to speak, the words did not come. Now, he was gasping for air. Clutching at his arm and frowning, as though something had occurred to him that was just beyond his comprehension.
‘I feel…’
Falling from his wheelchair to the floor, Kaars curled up into a ball. With that bald head – hair only just growing back after months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment – he looked like a foetal bird inside an egg. Gasping. Moaning.
Good. Causing pain was a definite bonus. But he was certain it was happening. This was it.
‘Are you okay, Kaars?’ he asked, amused by the hollow intent of his words.
The old man stretched out a thin arm towards him, clearly begging for help. The mucus in the back of his throat rattled. His breath was shallow, almost imperceptible. His eyes clouded over.
Pushing the old man’s pyjama collar aside, revealing the lion tattoo as he did so, he checked that his work here had been successful. Sure enough, no blood flowed beneath his fingertips as he felt for a pulse. Kaars Verhagen was gone.
Wiping the place down for prints was easy, though he had to be extra vigilant that he left no footprints in the dust. The unfinished building work coated everything in a persistent layer of grime. A quick scatter of the debris that had been left behind in a dustpan would soon sort that. Leaving was a consideration, though. This was a busy area. Not like the others. Would he be seen?
No. He was the grey man.
Pulling his average and unremarkable raincoat closed against the wind and drizzle, he unfurled his average and unremarkable black umbrella and walked away at an unremarkable speed into the dank morning.
Amsterdam, Den Bosch’s house in De Pijp, later
‘No answer,’ Van den Bergen said, peering through the letterbox. ‘He’s not at his business premises. Not at home. Shit. Where the hell is he?’ For good measure, he thumped on the front door a fourth time. The paintwork was surprisingly shoddy for a man with company finances as robust as Den Bosch’s.
Elvis placed a placatory hand on his arm. ‘We can come back, boss.’ His nose was red and his eyes were watering against the stiff wind. ‘In fact, without a warrant, we’ve got no option.’
Van den Bergen batted him away. ‘Are you patronising your superior officer?’
Smiling. Elvis was bloody smiling. He was all Zen since he’d discovered the joys of love and a second chance at living.
‘No. But there’s no point sweating it. He could be anywhere. We know next to nothing about him. He puts hardly anything on Facebook and he’s not on any of the other social media sites. There’s no way of proving he’s got anything to do with the trafficked Syrians.’ He dug his hands deeper inside his leather jacket and scanned the street. ‘We’re grasping at straws.’
‘We’re being thorough. In a case without leads, we have nowhere else to go.’
Two flamboyantly dressed students ambled by, chatting too animatedly about someone called Kenny who’d drunk so much that he’d puked in some girl’s mouth. Van den Bergen thought about his baby granddaughter and shuddered at the thought that, one day, some chump might vomit into her mouth in some student fleapit of a bar in De Pijp. Across the way, two women clad in burkas scurried into a run-down house, glancing over their shoulders. One was carrying a large tartan shopper – the kind Van den Bergen had seen people fill with washing. The other clutched at bulging bags. Neither were old.
‘Excuse me, ladies!’ he shouted to them, trying to keep the friendliness in his voice and the weariness out of it.
But they had already slammed the door.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Like that, eh?’
Approaching, he rang the bell several times, but there was no answer. It was as if he had merely imagined them.
‘I told you,’ Elvis said, peering up at the dirt-streaked windows. The pointing between the bricks was crumbling and the gutter near the roof on the three-storey building was cracked and coming away from the facade. ‘Me and Marie had the same thing. Nobody wants to talk round here.’
‘But it’s supposed to be trendy and vibrant, these days.’ Van den Bergen cast an appraising eye over the café that was several doors down from Den Bosch’s house. The windows were steamy. The lights were on. The sound of chatter and laughter spilled onto the busy street as three young men bundled out, wrapping themselves with scarves against the biting autumnal air. Business was booming in De Pijp. ‘Bohemian, and all that crap. I expected the people here to be more talkative. Let’s keep going.’
Together, they worked their way down the street, knocking on doors only to be met by twitching net curtains or vehement denials – from the neighbours who did deign to open their doors – that they knew Den Bosch at all. Helpfully unhelpful, often in pidgin Dutch and in several different accents. The air was heady with the smells of cooking from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Van den Bergen could also smell bullshit very strongly indeed.
‘Are you telling me that not a single soul knows a successful businessman like Den Bosch on a busy street like this?’ he asked Elvis as they entered the welcoming warmth of the Wakker/Lekker café – its name a claim that its fare could both wake you up and be delicious. Van den Bergen yawned and his stomach growled. The smell of coffee and cake wafted around him like a timely greeting. ‘Den Bosch’s name is emblazoned on the side of those giant bloody trucks.’
‘Yeah. But you’d only see those on the motorways and at the docks, boss. Not locally. I’d never notice one in a million years unless I was looking for it specifically.’
Donning his reading glasses, Van den Bergen looked longingly at the lemon cake, remembered that anything acidic was a no-no for hiatus hernia sufferers. And there was the small matter of being on duty.
‘Just a koffie verkeerd please,’ he said to the woman behind the counter.
She looked at him blankly, forcing him to reappraise the menu, which only had the café’s offerings in Italian.
‘Latte. I mean a latte.’ Then he remembered that anything high in fat was discouraged too. Damn it. ‘With skimmed milk.’ He swallowed. Patted his stomach. ‘I’ve got a hiatus hernia.’
He removed his glasses and treated the woman to a half-smile that was more of a grimace. Why the hell had he just