The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows

by Riches, Marnie

  Treating him to an unpleasant smile that he hoped would make the fat bastard squirm, Van den Bergen shook his head. ‘Faked suicides. You and Hasselblad botched the investigation so badly with your wild goose chases that the Deenens ended up turning vigilante. Well done, Einstein!’

  ‘That chinless wonder Piet Deenen ruined everything I’d worked for?’ Kamphuis glared at Elvis, eyebrows shooting into his hairline in indignation. A flush of hot pink had returned to his face.

  Elvis touched his own chin and frowned. ‘People will do anything for family,’ he said.

  ‘He didn’t have it in him!’ Kamphuis shouted, throwing his hands in the air. ‘He’s a streak of piss!’

  Van den Bergen slammed his pencil onto his notepad with venom. ‘You take a good man’s children, don’t be surprised if he turns into the Devil himself and lays your world to waste, Olaf.’

  CHAPTER 59

  A village South of Amsterdam, Carlien Dekker’s house, then, Marie’s office, police headquarters, later

  Carrying the little girl to the car was a struggle. Marie clung on to her with difficulty, wincing as Lucy Deenen kicked and pummelled her.

  ‘Where will they take them?’ George asked, following behind.

  The social worker was already strapping a surprisingly malleable Josh into a car seat.

  Marie held Lucy’s head carefully and manoeuvred her into the booster. Smiling, though the toddler’s punches would surely come up in livid bruises.

  ‘They’ll go straight for medical assessment,’ Marie said, straightening up. She slammed the door and waved at the bawling, angry girl, then opened and closed her hand wistfully at her brother. She exhaled heavily, a fat tear escaping from the corner of her eye. Remembering Nicolaas. Chubby and warm in her arms as she had fed him in the middle of the night. The suck, suck, sucking noise that babies make and coos of delight at almost anything, unless he was hungry. He had always been a hungry boy. Still whingeing about cot death? Kamphuis’ words jabbed at the inside of her head, held there by the semi-permeable membrane of grief. No way out.

  The car pulled away.

  ‘Are you alright?’ George asked.

  Nodding, Marie blew her nose in a bid to conceal all traces of heartbreak. No need to stand there explaining to McKenzie. She would never grasp how deeply the loss of a child bit into the soul of a parent, devouring whole all the good that was left … could never fully comprehend the suffering the Deenens must have endured, as Marie did. Though George had been supportive in her own strange way at the time of Nicolaas’ passing – the gift of a USB stick containing Motown songs of love and loss; breaking into her apartment and cleaning it from top to bottom while Marie had been away; arranging Nicolaas’ funeral – she hadn’t yet grown a child inside her, let alone had one taken away.

  Distract her. Don’t let her see.

  Marie peered down at her phone. Read a new text from a colleague.

  ‘Dekker’s been picked up by the uniforms,’ she said, blinking hard, forcing a smile onto her face.

  ‘I’ve had one from Van den Bergen,’ George said, scrutinising her, as though she could read Marie’s thoughts. But some thoughts, McKenzie couldn’t read. Some thoughts, she must never read. ‘They’ve got a confession from Kamphuis. He caved before his solicitor even got a sniff in!’

  Marianne de Koninck marched smartly out of Dekker’s house carrying samples, clad head to toe in a white jumpsuit.

  ‘Hello, ladies!’ she said, smiling with those dazzling white teeth of hers, one of those ageing beauties who always looked like she showered every single day. Marie had never once seen her without a hair out of place, apart from when she was in the ungainly jumpsuit. ‘Damned good job!’

  ‘Who’d have thought after all this time?’ George said.

  ‘At least they’re safe,’ Marianne said. Another bloody childless career woman. What did she know? ‘Just a shame the parents won’t be able to enjoy their return. So tragic.’ She looked solemnly down at her overshoes. ‘Will the kids be fostered out?’

  Marie nodded. ‘Hopefully adopted when the investigation’s over.’ The pathologist clearly didn’t know about Van den Bergen’s secret allotment squatters, then. Her cunning plan fermented quickly inside her, ideas mushrooming until they started to force their way out. ‘By the way, did you ever pull any DNA from the Bijlmer man or the victims in Berlin and London?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’ A downturned mouth and a shake of the head from the pathologist told Marie everything she needed. ‘Even if your lot had someone, there’s not a shred of forensic evidence to get a ballpark match, let alone a conviction. Bit of a dead end, that case.’

  As George climbed into the steamed up pool car to get out of the cold, Marie trailed Marianne to the forensics van. She watched her load the samples from Dekker’s house. She smiled benignly as Marianne went round to the driver’s seat for something, leaving the rear unattended. It took Marie only seconds to slide some unused samples bags and a pair of tweezers into her coat pocket.

  Feeling distinctly that, despite the freshly falling sleet, today was looking up, Marie grinned. She was almost tempted to thank the BVM for divine inspiration. She knew exactly how to put things right.

  Switching on the computer in the privacy of her office, Marie clicked on the Skype icon. She could see the call was going through. Would he pick up? Twenty seconds in, his face filled the screen.

  ‘Franz!’ she said.

  ‘Marie!’ he said.

  Warm smiles on both sides. She was tempted to stroke the screen, but settled instead for toying with her earrings. He opened his mouth to speak. They both began at once.

  ‘Thanks so much for the bank stuff,’ she said.

  ‘Did you nail your suspect?’ he said.

  There was some blushing. Some, ‘you go on!’ and ‘no, you go on!’ It was like being back at school but better, because Franz Dinkels was contained in a screen and couldn’t hurt her. Then again, she had a plan, now. Maybe it was time to start taking risks again.

  ‘I might be coming over to Berlin on business,’ she said, biting her lip, praying that he wouldn’t balk at the prospect and hastily end the call.

  Chuckling. A look of undisguised delight on his face. ‘Oh, really? When might you be coming?’

  Marie checked her work diary. She knew Van den Bergen would require all hands on deck now that the Deenen case had been solved, with revelations on Jack Frost’s murderous spree pending. She knew she could bag herself a free week with a bout of seasonal flu, though.

  ‘Er, day after tomorrow?’

  She dared to look up, hopeful that Franz’s enthusiasm would still be present and correct. He was wearing a flowered shirt today. She liked it.

  A glazed look. Busy hands as he clicked onto other screens, presumably checking his online diary. This was it. This was the bit where he would say he had back-to-back meetings all day and shrug and maybe say he was sorry to have missed her. She was already being pulled under by that sinking feeling.

  ‘Are you around in the evening?’ His face flushed pink.

  ‘I have a meeting late afternoon, but yes. I am, as it happens.’

  It was a sign. She had paid her penance and now it was finally time to be rewarded for a life, quietly lived, bringing sinners to their knees before God and a jury in a court of law.

  Knowing that Kamphuis and Dekker were in custody, that Van den Bergen and Elvis were interviewing Kamphuis’ wife, and that George had gone back to the boss’ flat to sort out ‘parent shit’, Marie cycled over to the Commissioner’s grand house. She had been careful to conceal her identity – shoving her red hair beneath a black beanie hat; dressing in loose-fitting, androgynous clothing she had found at the back of her wardrobe – leftovers from her grieving period. She checked the coast was clear and snuck around to the back of the house.

  ‘Smartarse McKenzie’s not the only one with a skeleton key,’ she whispered to the first stars to stud the midnight blue of the early evening sky. She clic
ked open the lock of Kamphuis’ back door with ease, overshoes on her feet, blue, latex gloves already covering her hands. Sample sacks and tweezers were at the ready.

  Within forty-two of the longest minutes of her life since Nicolaas’ death, Marie had what she needed.

  ‘Still whingeing about cot death?’ I’ll give you something to whinge about, you fucking bastard.

  CHAPTER 60

  Amsterdam, Sloterdijkermeer allotments, later

  ‘I knew we’d find them,’ Piet Deenen said, looking down at the photos of his grubby children on George’s phone. Those precious little faces he had thought he would never see again, but which he had never stopped dreaming about. Praying that against the odds, they would be returned to him, safe and sound. Cherubic cheeks that he had willingly murdered for, in the hope that he would get to kiss them once more. Josh and Lucy. His beloved babies were back. He closed his eyes, momentarily. ‘Thank you, God. Thank you.’

  Tears spilled freely onto the screen and his lap. He didn’t care what they thought of him. These were the most welcome tears he had ever cried, washing away months of torture in a seventh level of hell that seemed to have been created just for him … punishment for being a weak husband and a lacking provider for his children. All over, at last! His worst nightmares had been just that – nightmares. Now he had only to contend with his conscience.

  At his side, Gabi sat stiffly, still wrapped in her sleeping bag like a caterpillar, a glazed expression on her face. She had said nothing beyond, ‘Oh!’ since Van den Bergen and George had entered the cabin, bearing the sensational news. All emotion trapped inside behind a plug of disbelief, perhaps. Silently, Piet hoped that this was not symptomatic of her reverting to the Gabi she had been. The Gabi who had put up a front so unassailable that he had always struggled to get through to the woman behind. The Gabi whom the trolls had labelled ‘monster’ and ‘machine’. Murder and physical suffering had seemed to be the only solvents to successfully breach that invulnerable veneer. Only time would tell.

  He was transfixed again by the photos of his children.

  ‘We don’t think they’ve been interfered with,’ the Chief Inspector said, ‘which is great news. But the extent of any emotional damage will need to be assessed before they’re placed with a foster family.’

  ‘Foster family?’ Gabi said. Her voice was cracked. Sudden ferocity, breaking her silence. ‘Fucking foster family?’

  She turned to George, pinning her to the cabin wall with an angry stare. Full of a mother’s indignation, although Piet suspected that their actions were always going to have consequences. His tears felt like they were falling inside him, now; drip, drip, dropping into a deep well of sadness.

  George, however, merely stood against the wall, arms folded in that mildewed, wooden prison amongst the frost-hardened allotments. She shrugged and seemed detached, as if she were elsewhere in the privacy of her own thoughts.

  ‘Between you …’ Van den Bergen said, grunting as he crossed and uncrossed his legs, scowling at Gabi ‘… you’ve killed four men. This is the Netherlands. We’re an open-minded society but we draw the line at letting serial killing couples go free so that they can play happy families.’

  The enormity of the policeman’s words registered with Piet. He had paid a father’s penultimate sacrifice, stopping short of offering up the very breath in his body – he had relinquished his liberty to secure his children’s safety. ‘Jesus! What have we done?’ he said.

  ‘This is so unfair!’ Gabi yelled, looking to George for solace.

  ‘Life’s unfair, Gabi,’ George said, shrugging. ‘Shit things happen to good people and utter bastards get away with …’ The bitter irony of her intended speech steamed above them in the freezing air.

  ‘Get away with murder!’ Piet said, softly. Stroking the forehead of Josh’s image on George’s phone.

  Shrieking, tantruming, childlike outrage, as though, just like Josh and Lucy, it was the only way she could alleviate her frustration, Gabi lunged at Van den Bergen. Latching onto his shoulders. A very angry caterpillar. ‘The Commissioner steals our children and then sabotages the investigation. Our lives …’ Naked fury in her eyes. ‘Can you imagine the nightmare that our lives have become? Branded as shitty parents, at best. Kid-killers at worst! Imagining our son and our daughter lying in shallow graves, garrotted and forgotten. Violated! Having to fake our own deaths and be beaten up and pissed on by drunks and bullies on the street. Do you know how frequently men try to sexually assault female rough sleepers?’ She held up her fist for Van den Bergen to see. Pink scarring on her knuckles. Purple shadows beneath her eyes that were the remnants of more than just late nights.

  The Chief Inspector took her hands into his, looked apologetically down at them, then placed her hands back onto her lap. ‘I’m so sorry, Gabi.’

  ‘You promised you’d get the children back!’ she said, a lioness’ ferocity still there in tone, though the volume was dimmed.

  ‘And I did. But I didn’t promise I could keep you out of jail.’

  ‘Kamphuis caused all this!’ She thumped the table so that potting compost spewed from its fat sack onto the tabletop. ‘And Hasselblad! They’re the ones who should take the wrap for those dead perverts. Your Chief of Police let this all go on in the first place, if Bloom is to be believed. All we’re guilty of is doing the world a favour in the course of trying to find our children! Underwood, Lazami, Vlinders, those fucking German animals … All of them were evil bastards!’

  Piet nodded. A glimmer of hope that they could somehow convince Van den Bergen to side with them. Be lenient. Cut them a deal. Wasn’t that how the police dealt with informants in big cases? Didn’t they almost qualify as super-grasses? ‘She’s right. Seems we’ve been fortunate with Josh and Lucy. From what you say, they’ve just been neglected for a few months by some heartless accountancy bitch with an axe to grind.’ He offered a half-smile to his wife. ‘I’m glad I didn’t pay her bloody invoice! She must have been helping Kamphuis to cook up this terrible—’

  ‘Underwood,’ George said, bemused, her raised eyebrow saying she realised she had latched onto an unexpected detail.

  Whoops. Feeling the heat in his cheeks, Piet attempted to steamroller over her moment of dawning realization. ‘What about the children who are still out there, being groomed and abused? Eh? I set some of those kids free! And I uncovered a huge trafficking ring you might never have found if I hadn’t gone on the rampage. It’s a disgrace.’ He shook his head, hoping he could dislodge her train of thought with every ninety-degree twist, as though he were an Allen key and she were a piece of flat-pack furniture he was trying to dissemble. ‘You’ve got two corrupt policeman and a crime lord who are going to get away with the whole damn shebang. But that’s fine, because we’ll take the fall, like the idiots we are.’

  ‘Woah!’ George said, holding her hands in the air, taking a step towards him, rotating her index finger. ‘Scroll back to the bit about Underwood. Are you talking about Trevor Underwood? The escaped paedophile? The man whose phone you brought to my Aunty’s house?’

  In the corner of the cabin, now pressed against the wall, Gabi blushed.

  Van den Bergen cocked his head to the side, frowning. He crossed those long legs of his, bouncing his right foot on his left knee. Agitated.

  ‘What happened with Trevor Underwood?’ George asked, gripping the Chief inspector by his shoulder. It was as though there was a silent, telepathic transfer of data between the two.

  When Gabi started to examine her fingernails, bright red in the face, she hardly needed to explain what had happened. The caterpillar was out of the bag.

  ‘He’s in a carpet. In a skip. In fact, he’s probably still frozen stiff and covered in snow. It was an accident. Self defence.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Gabi!’ Van den Bergen shouted. ‘And you want me to somehow pin your murders on somebody else or just let them drop? You’ve got to be fucking joking!’

  ‘Please don’t let us go to p
rison, Paul!’ Gabi cried, tears welling in her eyes. Grabbing at the big policeman’s arm. ‘Invent a fictitious hit man. Pin it on whoever the fuck you like, but just let us go home to our children. Please!’

  He stood, an impressive statue of a man, impervious to his wife’s pleading. ‘No, Gabi. I’m a cop. I’m a straight cop. The answer is absolutely not.’

  CHAPTER 61

  Amsterdam, Bijlmerbajes prison complex, 30 March

  ‘How’s my bail application going?’ Kamphuis barked down the phone. ‘And why the hell haven’t you been in to see me? I’m climbing the sodding walls in here.’

  His solicitor was on the other end, the slimy, overpaid bastard, coming back with some answer he could barely hear over the incessant chummer and wolf-whistling of the other prisoners – block-headed arseholes standing behind him in a disorderly queue. Tattoos of their names on their necks, as though they didn’t have the mental capacity to remember what they were called. Scum. Here he was. Languishing at the bottom of the barrel. And there was Hasselblad, still safe in his Chief of Police’s office. Fucking liberty.

  ‘I’m going to struggle to get bail granted, Olaf,’ his brief said down the crackling line. ‘Carlien Dekker has told Van den Bergen everything in return for a reduced sentence.’

  That much he heard alright. Resentment brewing inside. He wanted to slap his mistress – the fair-weather, disingenuous bitch. Too quick to spread her legs for any man she thought could profit her in some way. As if she needed it! Hasselblad’s sloppy seconds. He should have known better than to go there. Old whore. Should have stuck to boning the office juniors in the archive store.