The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die: The first book in an addictive crime series that will have you gripped. Marnie Riches
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too.’
‘Didn’t she live here with you?’
‘We’re too far out here, really. She wanted to be in the centre, near all her friends. Wanted to be independent, you know. They fly the nest and you never expect to get them back.’
Lydia sighed and wiped a stray tear with shaking, work-worn fingers.
‘I thought she’d do okay when she moved in with Dr Fennemans.’
Van den Bergen cocked his head to the side and held up his enormous hand. ‘Wait. What did you say?’
Lydia was still wringing her hands, except this time, van den Bergen noticed that she was toying with something purple and woollen. A purple bobble hat that he had last seen in Central Station.
‘You?’ George said, trying not to let the alarm show in her face. Despite the calming effects of the beer flowing through her veins, her heart was thumping hard against her ribcage. ‘What do you want?’
She had only just got to the communal door and put her key in the lock. The whole of the red light district was almost empty of punters, neighbours and passersby. Now that the early evening darkness and cold had cloaked everything in semi-silence and shadow, the canal was a black, stagnant blood vessel bisecting a dead street. So, the tap on her shoulder was wholly unexpected. Inexplicably, here was Fennemans, standing two feet away from her, smiling like a creepy fucking idiot beneath the streetlight. His nose seemed more bulbous than usual. Though his bouffant hair had lost some of its va va voom, she noted. And the shaft of yellow light from above revealed the dusting of dandruff on the collar of his overcoat. He smelled of rotten meat and cheese beneath an old fashioned fug of what George recognised as Paco Rabanne.
‘I was passing this way,’ he said, still smiling. ‘You Brits make a big deal out of Christmas Day, don’t you? So, I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.’
George took her key out of the lock and stood perfectly still. She stared at him, willing him to go away.
‘Can I come up for a drink?’ he asked.
George’s mind was racing. This was wrong in so many ways. Fennemans hated her. She hated him. This was her personal space. Her turf. He was encroaching.
‘How do you know where I live?’ she asked, taking a step towards to him so that the gap between them had closed uncomfortably. She was mindful of her body language. Careful to thrust her shoulders forwards and make herself look as threatening and large as possible. This arsehole was not to get any wrong messages. Happily, he took a step backwards.
‘I’m your tutor. I just …’ The childish smile had started to fall from his face.
‘Don’t come to my home,’ George said. She felt bolstered by the 8.5 percent alcohol content in not one, but six Duvel beers. Ordinarily, she knew she would have skirted around the issue and tried to politely brush Fennemans off. But now …
‘This is inappropriate. You’re not welcome here. It’s my space. Do you understand, Dr Fennemans?’
George stood her ground, balled fists on hips. His expression changed. The smile was suddenly replaced by something else. George couldn’t tell if it was weary resignation or annoyance. It was difficult to assess under the streetlight. But all the while she stood there, willing him to walk away without a confrontation, she was seized and held captive by a paralysing anxiety that she didn’t want him to know about. Then, with silence hanging opaquely between them, Fennemans dug one of his gloved hands into the pocket of his overcoat as though he was reaching for something.
When Ad opened the door to his Museum Quarter apartment in Sluitstraat, George pushed passed him.
‘Do you know Fennemans showed up at my place over Christmas? Offered me a half-smoked packet of cigarettes as a peace offering. I told him to fuck right off. Got any of that nice Leerdammer?’ she asked.
‘Oh, Happy New Year to you too,’ Ad said, clearly bemused.
George’s brain was whirring today, processing all the information that had come her way in the last week. Al Badaar’s still-untraceable comments. The Moment being denounced as a pro-terror virtual rag, thanks to her blogpost. The Jewish community in Utrecht, publicly decrying the local police’s inability to arrest a perpetrator. She felt like she was riding the rollercoaster right up to the top. It was a good feeling.
She heard Ad close the door behind her. Casting a glance around the anonymous-looking boys’ living room, her gaze rested momentarily on a card which sat coyly on a bookshelf by the flatscreen TV. It had Santa Claus on the front, blushing and receiving a heart from Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. It said, ‘Happy Christmas, Boyfriend’ in green, shiny lettering. Her rollercoaster became stuck half way up and she didn’t like the look of the drop to the ground.
George tried to marshal her thoughts. An empty food cupboard and hunger to see her friend had driven her here. Ask him about a sandwich. Ad always has food. Focus.
Ad reached out to take her coat.
‘Coffee?’ he asked.
‘Is that card from your girlfriend?’ she heard herself say before she could claw the words back. Damn.
Ad frowned incredulously as his flatmate, Jasper, shuffled out of his room. Jasper, normally so preppy and clean-cut, was wearing pyjamas and scratching himself. His blond mop of hair was dishevelled. He sported a day’s worth of stubble.
‘Happy New Year, guys,’ he said in English with a thick Dutch accent. He picked up the disgusting Santa card and waved it at her. ‘Mine,’ he said. He winked at Ad.
‘You came back yesterday?’ Ad asked him.
‘Never went home. I’ve been at Marianne’s until last night. House-sitting while she’s working round the clock on the bombings. The stuff she’s been telling me would give you bloody nightmares.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be at lectures?’
‘Med students don’t start ’til tomorrow. Anyway, I’ve got man-flu. It’s going round.’
‘What do you mean you don’t believe in sudden flu?’ Klaus said to the detective.
He watched the ratty little man with a quiff and leather jacket looking around his apartment. Joachim had been reported missing, and now the police had eyes for everything. Especially this fool. And the girl. Where had she gone? She said she needed to use the toilet but she had been five minutes and counting. Even women didn’t take that long to pee. He hoped she wasn’t snooping around his medicine cabinet. And fuck it if he hadn’t left his bedroom door ajar.
‘I mean, you two had arranged to travel to Heidelberg together,’ the detective said. ‘Via Utrecht. That’s what Guttentag’s mother told our colleagues in the Baden-Württemberg police.’
‘Yes, I’ve already answered their questions. At length.’
‘Imagine how Joachim’s parents feel. You’re supposed to be his friend, aren’t you?’
Klaus rolled his eyes and strode over to his Gaggia coffee machine. ‘I’m not going to grace that with a response.’ He started to grind some beans and then fixed himself an espresso. He didn’t bother to offer one to quiff boy in his ill-fitting Elvis get-up.
‘We’ve checked his phone records,’ the detective said. ‘You called him only an hour or so before you were due to meet, didn’t you? You were possibly the last person to speak to Joachim before he disappeared. What did you say to him?’
Klaus wracked his brains for the right thing to say. What would get this idiot to leave him in peace so that he could unpack