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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shook his head. ‘There’s a delay. He wants to see you,’ he said. ‘Urgently.’
George’s heartbeat sped up. ‘Me?’
‘In his office.’ Ad rubbed his shorn head and grinned. ‘Don’t flirt with him now, will you? You know you’re his favourite girl.’
George made a retching noise and made for the stairs, remembering how only last week she had been subjected to yet another of Fennemans’ punishing bouts of public ridicule. He had whipped her term-end essay from the top of the pile with a flourish and held it in the air for all to see.
‘Behold, class,’ he had shouted, like a lesser Caligula, felling her in public for sport, with the glimmer of an erection in his depressingly tight trousers. ‘This is what happens when you think too highly of yourself and show little regard for rules. I gave McKenzie here a FAIL. A big, fat FAIL. In red pen. See? And why?’ The dramatic pause of a deluded despot, of course. ‘Because this little lady here thinks she can hand in essays late.’
Eleven minutes late. But too late for him.
George climbed the stairs with deliberate sluggishness. Sighed resignedly when she reached the door that bore the sign, ‘Dr Vim Fennemans, Head of Faculty’. Knocked twice and walked in.
Fennemans was sitting bolt upright behind his desk, a peculiar shade of grey. George realised why.
Senior Inspector Paul van den Bergen was wedged into an armchair just behind the open door. His long grey-trousered legs stuck out; George narrowly missed tripping over his brogue shoes in the small office. Jesus, he must have size thirteen feet.
‘Ah, Little Miss McKenzie,’ Fennemans said. He looked at his watch pointedly. ‘So glad you could join us today.’
She watched van den Bergen closely to see what those sharp grey eyes told her. Did he see Fennemans for what he was?
Van den Bergen cleared his throat. He stood up and held out his hand to George. She shook it. Warm, dry palms. A firm grasp. He looked at her directly.
‘Ms McKenzie,’ he said. ‘I saw you on the morning of the explosion. I gave you my card. Thanks for coming.’
Why had this man sought her out? How had he managed to trace her after the most fleeting of exchanges in the midst of mayhem? George’s racing mind was stalled by the sound of Fennemans scraping his chair on the linoleum floor.
‘Sit down, girl!’ Fennemans said.
He had put on his smart shiny jacket, George observed. He looked like he had had a blow-dry.
‘Your hair’s looking positively bouffant today, Dr Fennemans,’ George said.
Fennemans thumbed the flaking skin on his earlobe. A smile formed a thin, translucent veneer over a thick layer of venom. ‘Mr van den Bergen here thinks you may be able to help his investigation into the explosion. He thinks you—’
Van den Bergen leaned forward. ‘Do you mind if I explain what I think, Dr Fennemans?’ he asked.
He stared at Fennemans until the faculty head folded his hands over his belly in a gesture of temporary defeat.
‘How can I help?’ George asked. Excitement started to fizz in her empty stomach. She hoped van den Bergen couldn’t detect the stale smell of marijuana clinging to her coat.
‘You’re top of your class,’ van den Bergen stated. He pulled out a notebook. ‘In your third year of a Social and Political Science degree at St John’s College, Cambridge University, England,’ he read. ‘A prized exchange student on a scholarship. Outstanding results, excellent languages: English, Spanish, some Arabic – you know, I like your English accent when you speak Dutch – special knowledge of the politics of Muslim unrest in the Middle East and terrorist factions in the West. Your Cambridge supervisor says you have the finest analytical mind she’s seen in years. Not a bad track record for someone who’s only twenty.’
My Cambridge supervisor? George swallowed hard, desperate to know exactly how much he had found out about her in the space of two days. She tried to regulate her ragged breathing.
‘Detective,’ Fennemans said, standing up. He started to leaf through some periodicals stacked on a shelf. ‘You may have read the highly regarded article I recently had published in The Volkskrant Magazine about tensions between Israel and Palestine. There’s nothing McKenzie here can offer you that I, as Head—’
‘I’m a senior inspector. Sit down, please.’ Van den Bergen crossed his legs and flung an arm loosely over the side of his armchair, as though he were making himself feel right at home in Fennemans’ space.
George did her best to hide a nervous smile.
Van den Bergen flipped over the page on his pad and fixed George with a steely gaze. ‘You’re a blogger,’ he said.
‘Yes. I’m just writing a guest post for The Moment.’
‘A student rag,’ Fennemans interrupted. His voice sounded strained. ‘In my opinion, Inspector, you should know McKenzie lacks the experience and discipline to—’
Van den Bergen held a hand up to Fennemans. Leaned in towards George. She felt like Fennemans had been shut off behind soundproof glass.
‘Listen, Ms McKenzie, I have to catch a Muslim cleric, allegedly operating a terrorist cell out of a mosque in Maastricht a.s.a.p.’
‘Abdul Youssuf al Badaar,’ George said. ‘Yeah, I read the news.’
Van den Bergen nodded. ‘Problem is, he’s not a Dutch citizen, so we can’t trace him easily. No tax or social security records connected to him. No address. No Europol or Interpol information. Nothing but a name, an online confession and a photo. And the fundamentalist websites where he’s posted his claim to fame are all hosted in the Middle East, so there’s a mountain of red tape for us to cut through to get the identities of web authors.’ Van den Bergen stared down at his broad, square palms as though he were looking for clues there. He looked up and locked eyes with George. ‘But personally, I’m wondering why a terrorist has targeted a student library in Amsterdam of all places. Does al Badaar have an inside contact or followers within the student population? Who was the suicide bomber?’
George absentmindedly reached for a cigarette and poked it into her mouth. Fennemans clapped his hands together and pointed to a ‘No Smoking’ sign on the door.
‘Are you stupid, McKenzie?’ he shouted.
George clenched her fist until her knuckles were pale. She slowly took the cigarette out of her mouth, toying with the idea of lighting it as some small act of defiance. But no. Sally had expressly told her to keep out of trouble. To keep a low profile. And there was something about van den Bergen that intrigued her. She didn’t want him to think her an idiot. Reluctantly, she put the cigarette away.
‘So, where do I come in?’ George asked.
‘Maybe you could make your article for The Moment about the bombing,’ van den Bergen said. ‘See if you can reel al Badaar in with a provocative piece. The Moment has an impressive international readership, and these clerics and their disciples like mouthing off on the internet. If you get comments on your post, we can hopefully trace those. It’s a long shot. But it’s a shot worth taking.’
‘What? You want me to spy? To be bait?’ That fizz of anticipation in George’s stomach had really started to bite now.
‘Let’s say you’d be our student intelligence source,’ van den Bergen said, smiling. ‘Obviously, we’ll give you full protection if we think you’re in any danger.’
The last thing George wanted was a babysitter with a police badge. She looked hard at van den Bergen. Today he hadn’t missed a patch while shaving. He had the good, lightly tanned complexion of somebody who spent time in the outdoors. The expressive lines around his eyes and mouth said he was close to forty, but a