The Girl Who Had No Fear

by Marnie Riches

  ‘Chief Inspector!’ the paramedic said, pulling at the sleeve of his raincoat.

  Turning around in irritation, Van den Bergen barked, ‘What? What the bloody hell do you want, woman?’ Saw the feverish excitement in her eyes. Became aware at that moment that the skin of Elvis’ cheek beneath his fingers, though deathly pale, was still relatively warm.

  ‘He’s alive!’ they said in unison.

  CHAPTER 56

  Amsterdam, the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, at the same time

  ‘Get over here,’ the Silencer said, staring at her intently down the barrel of his gun. ‘Drop the knife.’

  ‘What knife?’ George said, sticking out her chin. Her feet were rooted to the ground, both in defiance and simply because her legs had turned to jelly, having run half a mile from the tram stop. If you can get through a week with the transportistas, you can get through this, she told herself. Maritza was way scarier than this wannabe wanker. She would already have put a bullet in you by now. He’s not going to kill you straight away. He wants to play with you first.

  ‘The knife I can see reflected in the fucking glass of the door, you stupid cow.’

  He lunged forwards, reached around her torso, grabbing her wrist tightly, forcing her to drop the knife to the floor with a clatter. Pressed the gun to her temple – all in one smooth movement. Practised in the art of pouncing on and pinioning his prey, just like the crocodile that waits in ambush on the muddy riverbed to engage in a death roll with some gazelle that dares to drink by the water’s edge.

  ‘Walk, bitch,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Upstairs.’

  As they shuffled together to the back of the shop where the light from the street barely penetrated, past Jan’s counter with its heady stink of marijuana coming from produce on the shelves behind as well as the bushy, live plants that flourished in every corner, the Silencer reached into George’s anorak.

  ‘Get your hand off my tits,’ George said, stifling the urge to punch him in light of the cold steel pressed to her head.

  The Silencer laughed. Squeezed her breast playfully. Reached beyond it to withdraw the can of wasp killer from her inside pocket. He threw it to the floor. The meat tenderiser followed suit. As did the cheese wire.

  ‘Nice try,’ he said. ‘Were you expecting to come here and share a nice bit of Leerdammer, you crazy cunt?’

  She was completely unarmed. Not good.

  Trudging up the creaking back stairs to the rooms above, George bit back regret and disbelief that she should find herself facing death in a building that had always been part-haven, part-Achilles heel. All paths seemed to lead her back to the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop. Here was the place where she had sought cheap sanctuary as a student. Here, beneath this roof, she had found love with Ad. Here was the house her Aunty Sharon and cousins had stayed in when they had fled the murderous intentions of Gordon Bloom’s foot soldier. And yet, this was the same haven that had been infiltrated by the Firestarter. And now, the Silencer. The past connected with the present as if some strange wormhole had appeared in the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, merging the lives of Ella Williams-May and Georgina McKenzie.

  ‘What the fuck do you want with me, you old has-been?’ George asked, desperately trying to keep the panic out of her voice. ‘I thought you were locked up. Next minute, you’re filling the gap that Gordon Bloom left. Fancy yourself as a Duke, do you?’

  The Silencer punched her in the small of her back, shoving her up the stairs. ‘Gordon Bloom worked for me, you silly little whore! It wasn’t enough that you and that lanky bastard Van den Bergen put me in jail. I got out in five, thanks to a great lawyer. So, I was willing to let that go. I couldn’t find you at first, and I’d already put a bullet in him. But then, you two took out my top man in northern Europe, you pair of do-gooding shits, meaning I had to come out of my nice semi-retirement abroad. What Bloom started, I had to finish.’

  George tried to steal a glance at him over her shoulder but lost her footing, falling up the stairs. She put her hands out to save herself. Felt her wrist almost give way. Stifled the urge to cry out. ‘The Duke was your lackey?! Jesus. How high does the pyramid go? Who do you bloody work for, then?’

  ‘Get up!’ the Silencer shouted, kicking her in the behind. ‘Get in the fucking room before I put a bullet in your head. I’ve got a nice surprise for you.’

  Her mouth was dry. Her head was spinning. Nausea had a grip on her. On the other side of the door, she could hear muffled moaning.

  ‘If you touch one hair on his head, I’ll—’

  ‘You’ll what, exactly?’

  The Silencer reached around her and pushed open the door to Inneke’s old room. The curtains were half closed, allowing only a shaft of glum light through from the street. He flipped the switch and the red light came on. There, beneath the devilish glow, George saw the sources of the muffled moaning. Not one, but two people, standing on chairs with nooses around their necks that had been rigged up from large hooks, hanging from an exposed joist in the ceiling. On the right side stood Jan – mouth taped shut, staring at her through the red light. His glasses on the floor by her feet. On the left side stood an overweight, shabbily dressed woman with matted, caramel-coloured hair extensions and puffed-up eyes where she had presumably been punched repeatedly over time.

  ‘Letitia!’ George shouted.

  Her mother emitted a series of desperate guttural noises that were masked by the tape. Tears rolling from her damaged eyes, splashing onto her bosom and the floor. A glistening rivulet of snot that had poured from her nose to her chin.

  The Silencer pressed his gun harder into George’s temple and gripped her upper arm behind her with such ferocity that she could feel only pins and needles in her fingertips.

  ‘You! You took my mother? My fucking mother, you bastard. You’ve had her all this time?’ George could feel every emotion vying for supremacy. Relief, disbelief, confusion. But wrath was the alpha, trampling on those other beta-emotions. She balled her free fist, feeling the fire track down her arm from her heart. Saw the pleading in Letitia’s eyes. Saw the vulnerability in Jan’s unseeing stare. They were the only things that stayed George’s hand. ‘And my landlord. An invalid and an old hippy, you low, morally bankrupt son of a bitch.’

  Beside her, the Silencer laughed, filling the air with the smell of stale whisky and cigars. ‘Your landlord sells great weed, but his coffee’s fucking poison. He deserves to die just for that. And your mother?!’ He spat at Letitia’s stockinged feet. ‘I’ve kept that mouthy cunt fed and watered for the best part of a year, waiting for my moment to come. I wanted to torture you good and proper, the way you tortured me.’

  ‘By kidnapping a pain in the arse from Southwark with a chain-smoking habit? Are you mental?’ At that moment, all George wanted to do was cut down her obnoxious mother and soap-dodging landlord, smothering the two with grateful embraces and kisses. She opted not to reveal a shred of this weakness to the Silencer. She felt certain it would be their undoing.

  But behind her gag, Letitia was clearly shouting abuse at George now, as opposed to begging for release from her captor. The fight in her hadn’t entirely gone, George was pleased to see. Not that fight was any use against a well-tied noose and a drunken psychopath with a loaded gun.

  ‘Wasn’t my father enough?’ George said, no change to her facial expression when she heard the dim tinkle of the door downstairs. Had the Silencer heard it? Or had the whisky and bloodlust dulled his senses?

  ‘Your father will be dead by now,’ he said, biting her ear playfully. No change to his behaviour. ‘I told Jorge to put a bullet in his head on the journey back from the Dominican. He was worth taking, though. He was more useful than that bitch, your mother.’

  The back stairs creaked. Oh my God. If it’s Van den Bergen, will he remember after all this time to step only at the sides of the treads?

  When another of the stairs groaned loudly in complaint beneath the newcomer’s weight, George coughed. Had the Silencer noticed?
No. He was now sucking on her neck like a starving vampire, intermittently telling her how he was going to kick Letitia’s and Jan’s chairs away and fuck her while they wriggled and jerked themselves to death. She could feel his erect penis pressing into her right buttock.

  ‘Do what you like,’ she said. ‘You’re the one with the gun, cocodrilo. Or should I say, Mr Bebchuck?’

  Another stair creaked. Closer this time. The door behind them was ajar. She had to keep this lunatic busy.

  Reaching behind her, she felt for the bulge in his trousers and began to massage him through the fabric. ‘I worked for the transportistas, didn’t I?’ she said, forcing a lascivious grin. ‘What makes you think I wouldn’t get off on you killing them two?’

  So tempting, just to grab at his penis and try to wrench the damned thing clean off. But George was buying time, and sex was always an acceptable form of payment with this kind of man. If he released her right arm so that he could undo his trousers, she would momentarily have two hands free. Could she possibly disarm him, then? Was the approaching person on the stairs friend, foe or simply a nosey customer, looking for the working girl who normally occupied this room?

  The room was still but for the heavy breathing of the Silencer. It was as if her world had frozen in this macabre scene of her nearest and dearest, hanging from the ceiling, wearing baffled expressions while their future murderer masturbated himself against her hand.

  ‘Take it out,’ George said, surreptitiously winking at Letitia. ‘I want you in my mouth.’

  ‘Good girl,’ the Silencer said, starting to move rhythmically against George. ‘Young Danny always said you were hot stuff.’

  Ignoring the searing pang of grief that mention of her dead ex-lover evoked, George bit back her revulsion and waited for the Silencer to move. He had to let go of something. Either her, or the gun. Lying on top of a cabinet next to the bed in the room, she spied a bullwhip, a cat-o’-nine-tails and a giant purple dildo. They would have to do. She felt hope surge inside her. Another creak on the stairs. She coughed again.

  In the fraction of a second when George felt the Silencer’s hand release its grip on her upper arm, she flung herself across the room. Grabbed the cat-o’-nine tails. Flicked it with all the power she could muster at the Silencer’s now-exposed erect penis. He screamed, firing a bullet into the ceiling so that a shower of white plaster and dust fell onto them.

  At the same time, a man barrelled headlong into the room, spraying an aerosol into the Silencer’s face. Her father.

  The Silencer dropped the gun, clasping his hands to his eyes, screaming. Sank to his knees. But George’s father stood over him, emptying the can of wasp killer over his nose and mouth.

  ‘Die, el cocodrilo!’ he shouted in Spanish. ‘Die like the vermin you are.’

  ‘Enough Dad, you’re gonna kill us all,’ George shouted.

  She snatched up the giant purple dildo. It whistled as she swung it like an erotic baton onto the back of the Silencer’s head – hard enough to knock him onto the floor. Grabbing the bullwhip, she straddled the writhing trafficker. Yanked his arms behind him, while he coughed and spluttered. Tried to bind his hands with the end of the whip. Perhaps she could hog-tie the bastard.

  ‘Go back and find the knife,’ George said. ‘I dropped it near the door. Cut these two down. Call the police.’

  But her father was transfixed, looking up at the struggling Letitia with his hand over his mouth against the stinking chemical fug of insecticide.

  ‘Do it!’ she yelled. ‘And get a bloody window open before we all asphyxiate.’

  He nodded. Clattered back down the stairs. Beneath her, the Silencer began to flex his body back and forth like a crocodile in captivity, trying to free itself from the constraints of its human master.

  ‘I’m going to fucking kill you, bitch!’ he yelled, punctuating the sentiment with a coughing fit.

  ‘Keep still, you twat!’ she shouted, searching the floor for the discarded gun. She spied it underneath the bed. A judgement call. Shift her weight on this wriggling quarry, or go for the gun? Getting the gun meant she won.

  Arching her back, she let go of the whip momentarily. Reached for the gun. Banking on being quick enough. But she no longer had enough purchase on the Silencer’s body to keep him pinned down. He flicked his legs out from under him with such force that both chairs beneath Letitia and Jan toppled.

  ‘No!’ George screamed, seeing her mother and ex-landlord writhing at the ends of their nooses like butterflies trying to free themselves from their chrysalises. ‘Papa!’

  The Silencer was trying to get to his knees though his hands were still loosely tied behind his back. She snatched up the pistol and took another hefty swipe at his head with the butt. Drop-kicked him in the groin. He crumpled back to the ground, his eyes unfocused and skewed.

  Grabbing the lower legs of both her mother and Jan, using every ounce of strength she could muster, she pushed them back upwards in a bid to loosen the pressure on their necks.

  ‘I’m coming! I’m here!’ Her father rushed through the open door, holding the knife.

  ‘Cut them down,’ George cried. ‘Please don’t let it be too late.’

  CHAPTER 57

  Amsterdam, Onze Lieve Vrouw Hospital, 5 June

  ‘Ah. Here he is,’ a familiar, deep rumbling voice said on the other side of the room.

  Elvis opened his heavy eyelids and waited patiently until his brain slowly made sense of his surroundings. The room was overly bright and austere. There were several scents on the air. A medicinal smell of cleaning fluid, unwashed skin, oranges and cabbage. The sound of medical machinery in the background, bleeping. A Tannoy announcement somewhere further away that Dr Awaad should report to the paediatric ward.

  He was in hospital. Was he with his mother?

  Trying to turn, he realised he was in a neck brace. He was the patient. Not her. The muscles in his lower back were on fire. His bottom was almost entirely numb. The tingling in his toes reminded him he was cold. Swallowing was agony.

  ‘I—’

  The words wouldn’t come. He smacked his lips until a redhead appeared by his side, holding a glass of water, trying to position a straw on his tongue. The smell of cabbage came with her. Her signature scent. Good old Marie.

  ‘Here you go. Have some of this,’ she said, smiling. ‘I brought you a cake. I know you don’t like cake, but I baked it myself. And if you don’t like that, I got you a twelve-pack of crisps.’

  He took a tentative sip. Realised he was parched. Then, drained the glass, though the water scratched like shards of broken glass on the way down.

  ‘You had us all worried for a minute there,’ the rumbling voice said.

  A tall figure loomed behind Marie. Long and lean and topped with a shock of white hair. His face came into focus. Unsmiling. Large hooded grey eyes framed by the dark bows of his eyebrows.

  Elvis winced by way of greeting. ‘It hurts everywhere,’ he said, his voice cracking.

  ‘I’ll ask the nurse to give you more painkillers, shall I?’ Marie asked. She stood, scraping her chair on the vinyl floor. Left the room, reaching up and patting Van den Bergen’s shoulder as she did so.

  Van den Bergen took a seat, folding his long frame so that he would fit by the bedside. Elvis relished the fatherly presence. Wished his mother was there to comfort him.

  ‘Do you remember anything?’ Van den Bergen asked, leaning forwards so that Elvis didn’t have to move his head to see him clearly.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘There were some guys in an alleyway. They went after my informant and then came for me. They knocked me out. Next minute, I’m in a warehouse and …’ He allowed the terrible memories to flood through him like fast-acting poison. Wishing he could unthink those thoughts. When the tears came, he had no energy or inclination to stem their flow.

  ‘We’ll get you counselling, Dirk,’ Van den Bergen said, patting his hand. ‘You don’t have to talk about it now.’ He reached into his
cardigan pocket and brought out a blister pack of some medication or other. Popped two bright red pills into his hand and swallowed them down with a gulp of Evian from a vending machine bottle. ‘And that bastard Stijn Pietersen has been silenced for good. He’s back behind bars, thanks to George and her dad. He’ll go down and stay down, this time. Even the most expensive brief in the world won’t get him off. But there is something I need to tell you, I’m afraid.’

  Almost too weary to listen to his words, Elvis started to drift off to sleep. He registered the mention of his mother but that was all. Opened his eyes again, sensing somebody was in the room apart from Van den Bergen.

  ‘Did you hear any of what I just said?’ Van den Bergen asked.

  ‘Eh?’ Elvis smiled at the handsome Arne, who was now standing at the end of his bed, bearing a bunch of really horrible orange and yellow flowers.

  ‘Your mother …’ his boss began, standing and offering a curt smile to the newcomer. He turned back to Elvis. Opened his mouth to speak. Seemed to think better of it. ‘It’ll keep,’ he finally said. ‘Main thing is, we got the bad guy. That’s all that matters. Live your life, Dirk. It’s spread out before you now like a feast. Eat your fill, son. And savour every mouthful.’

  CHAPTER 58

  Onze Lieve Vrouw Hospital, moments later

  ‘Why the hell can’t I get a frigging decent cuppa tea in this shithole?’ Letitia said, pushing the cup back towards George with such unveiled disgust that the contents slopped onto the pristine hospital sheet. Turning to her sister and sucking her teeth slowly, she scratched at her matted hair-extensions. ‘Are you hearing this, Shaz? Fucking Liptons, innit? I ain’t drinking that pisswater after I’ve been locked up like some dog what’s got rabies with my dodgy pulmonaries and sickle cell anaemics. On a houseboat. A boat, like some fucking vagrant. By a man whose name is “stain” but spelled wrong. Stain, I axe you! For a full year, though!’ She widened her eyes, which was a feat in itself, considering how swollen they still were. ‘I get seasick when it bloody rains too hard. That bastard left me on my own for a month at a time with nothing but a freezer full of bread and forty-six tins of ham. Ham! And it was from some shitty bargain bin supermarket like Lidl. I don’t even fucking like ham, do I, Shaz?’