The blonde handed the napkin to Sam. He stood, indicating to the bouncer that he wanted to get out.
‘Tell me you’re not going there now,’ said the skinny guy.
‘The metro’s still running, right?’ asked Sam.
‘It’s worse at night, man,’ said the bouncer. ‘Even I wouldn’t go there now.’
But Sam remained standing and eventually the bouncer got up to let him out.
‘Thanks for your help,’ he said to the group. They stared silently at him and as he walked to the door, he could feel their eyes on his back.
Chapter 21
Bijlmer, Amsterdam
Of course he could have gone back to the hotel, had a good night’s sleep. Gone to Bijlmer in the morning.
He knew the people in the café thought he was insane to be going at any time. Given what they’d probably seen of human nature, it would have been sensible heeding their advice. But Sam didn’t feel sensible. He felt mad, as if a fire were burning in his stomach, fuelled by anger and a sense of denied justice.
When the Metro train pulled into Bijlmer ArenA, he briefly wondered what all the fuss was about. The station was a state-of-the-art building of concrete and steel, well-lit and spotlessly clean. But then he stepped outside and slowly the illusion ebbed away.
The wind had dropped and snow was falling, attempting to coat the neighbourhood with a sugary white layer. But it was clear that it would take more than a snowstorm to transform Bijlmer.
He’d studied the map on the napkin before getting off the train and knew he had to walk down a long straight road to the north of Bijlmer before he entered the estate. The bulk of it now lay to his right side, broad tower blocks that zig-zagged across the landscape, endless layers of walkways lit up by bright lights.
The odd car or lorry moved slowly past him, spraying arcs of icy sludge on to the pavement. The side of the road had been used as a dumping ground, a graveyard of the unwanted and discarded. A mattress, snow slowly obliterating its stains and the stuffing spilling from its ripped surface. The rusting skeleton of a shopping trolley, its frame bent and distorted. A small hill of rubble, topped with empty paint cans and tubes of filler. Sam side-stepped a dead fox, a shadow of blood stubbornly darkening the snow that was trying to cover it up.
There was clearly a desire to improve things for the residents of Bijlmer. In front of one tower block, the grounds had been landscaped, soft undulating mounds interspersed with young saplings, paths lit by street lamps. The ghost of a new playpark, equipment dusted with snow.
But the development had only gone so far. Large pockets were still ringed with wire fencing and hoardings, the surfaces daubed with angry messages sprayed in black.
A little later, Sam cut down a narrower road, heading for the ‘X’ marked on his napkin map. The snow was falling more heavily now, blurring the line between pavement and road. Only the odd parked car, ancient bangers no one would have wanted to steal, showed where one ended and the other began.
He passed more of the zig-zagging tower blocks, the occasional walkway appearing and disappearing in the gloom as lights blinked on and off. A distant scream in the darkness punctured the still night, followed by a man’s voice, ranting and shouting.
He was near the site of the crash now and saw, to his left, a gap in the snake of a building. Had the other tower blocks not been longer, it would have been impossible to spot the difference here, but Sam knew that this was the spot where a huge 747 had crashed.
It was the far building he was heading for, no more than a dark mass in what was fast turning into a blizzard. With a complete absence of parked cars, the pavement and road were no longer distinguishable. Sam moved in the direction of the building, hoping that the ground beneath the snow was solid.
Another cry went out. Somehow it sounded nearer, yet more muffled. The building in front of him was around twenty storeys high, a long hulk of concrete that might once have seemed a good idea to an architect or city planner. Now, cast adrift from an already isolated place, it was like a foreboding castle in an abandoned landscape.
Sam paused in the snow to plot his next move. He fished with a gloved hand for the napkin in his pocket and squinted at it in the half light. His feet had long ago numbed, his shoes wet through. Underneath his coat he was sweating, not just from the exertion, but from a fear he dared not acknowledge.
The building ahead was barely illuminated. Whole floors were blacked out while others were partially lit. Were people living in there? Sam shoved the makeshift map back into his pocket and moved forward, heading for the far right of the building. It was here that the map had suggested there was an entrance. He needed to find the seventh floor where, according to Leyla, a handful of apartments had been knocked into one makeshift living space.
Sam approached the entrance and saw two figures huddled under a light. He could feel the blood thumping in his ears, his torso damp with sweat.
As he drew closer he saw, to his slight relief, that it was an elderly man and a young woman. The man was wearing a long overcoat. He had a mass of wild grey hair and pitted skin covered with several days’ worth of stubble. He was drawing on what looked like a joint. The woman was black, with hair pulled back in a tight pony tail. As Sam got closer, he realised that there was a child clinging to her leg.
They turned when Sam was just feet from them, his arrival muffled by the snow. If they were surprised to see someone out at this hour, they didn’t show it. Their eyes were dulled and disinterested and Sam moved past them unimpeded, nostrils filling with the herby, resinous whiff of marijuana.
In the dimly lit entrance, its walls scribed with graffiti, a strong stench of urine drifting up from the wet floor, he made out two lifts. But there were no lights to either side and he could tell they’d long ago broken and were probably never going to be fixed. To the left of the lift banks was a staircase.
The brief relief he’d experienced when he’d realised how little threat the two figures posed now evaporated as he began to mount the stairs. What light there’d been in the entrance was now snuffed out. Sam moved upwards with a hand on the wall for guidance. The surface he felt with his fingers was rough but somehow slick with liquid. He hoped it was melted snow or rainwater that had found its way in, but in his mind he had an image of a building that was, like him, sweating with anxiety.
He moved upwards, past the first and second floors, long galleries of concrete lit by the odd strip of lighting or glow coming from a window or doorway. Noise came at him in brief waves: pounding drum & bass, an argument between two men. His throat had contracted, the familiar sensation of claustrophobia slowly tightening its grip on him.
He turned a corner and placed his foot down on the next step when he felt something that made him freeze on the spot. He had brought his shoe down, not on hard concrete, but something softer, that gave under pressure. He glanced down. His eyes had become more accustomed to the darkness but all he could see was a mass of dark material stretched across his path. He leaned down to get a closer look, to see if there was a way round the lump, when he heard a groan. Sam reared back, his whole body rigid with fear. Desperate to put distance between him and the figure, he leapt over the body, moving up the stairwell at a pace.
If he’d had any illusions about the place up until this moment, they’d now been shattered. This was a building stripped of basic amenities, devoid of any sense of community. God knows what had happened to that person. They could have been mugged or simply collapsed drunk. One thing was for sure. In sub-zero temperatures, they’d probably be dead by morning. As soon as he found someone who wasn’t pissed or stoned themselves, he’d get help.
He moved on upwards, hands still tracing his route along the rough, damp walls. Finally he reached the seventh floor. He stopped, his heart now pounding. He was grateful for the sensation of physical exertion which had, for a brief moment, replaced his mounting terror.
Ahead of him was a long gallery identical to the ones he’d passed on the other flo
ors. He looked down at the white-out of the ground below, the horizon obliterated by the blizzard.
There were more lights on this floor than any other he’d passed – some sense of life, whatever that might mean. He inched forward slowly.
The first flats he passed had long since lost their doors and windows. The dull white of the storm suggested interiors but was soon swallowed up by the darkness. His feet crunched over broken glass. He smelt the acrid stench of burnt rubber.
Ahead of him was the first of the lights, a blaze by the block’s standards, flooding out of a window. He approached slowly, his mouth dry and knees weakening with every step. He’d come too far to give up but a large part of him longed to be back on the ground, running as fast as possible back to the Metro station.
The sight that greeted him at the window was not what he’d expected. A woman, white with a bob of black hair, was stirring a steaming vat over a portable camping stove. The ‘kitchen’ around her was a mass of wooden crates, slabs of timber propped between them acting as shelves, which sagged under the weight of food in boxes and cans. Behind her he glimpsed more space, candles illuminating small pockets in the darkness, mattresses on the floor.
Just then, the woman looked up. It took her a moment to take in what she was seeing, the reflection of the glass perhaps distorting her view of Sam, and then she screamed.
Suddenly she was joined by three other women. The first one pointed at Sam with an accusatory finger. The others stared out of the glass at him, eyes narrowing, and then they moved. Seconds later, a door a little further down was flung open, a rectangle of faint light laid down on the dark walkway floor, and the three women were charging out, abuse pouring from their mouths in what sounded like Dutch.
Sam stepped back, hands raised. ‘I’m not here to cause trouble.’
‘Fucking pervert,’ spat one of the women, who was thick-set with short red hair. ‘You know the rules. No guys on this floor.’
‘I don’t know any rules,’ managed Sam. But the thick-set woman was suddenly right in front of him. Sam glanced down and realised too late that she was clutching a short knife, which she held just beneath his jawline.
‘I’ve come to find someone,’ he stammered.
‘You’re a fucking perve. We should throw you over the edge.’
‘I’m looking for an African woman. A friend of mine.’
‘Show him who’s boss, Ruby,’ said one of the others.
‘She’s called Zahra.’
Sam sensed the tension drop a fraction, though the knife was still at his throat.
‘Zahra Idris,’ Sam managed to splutter out. ‘She’s from Eritrea.’
‘The rules are simple,’ said Ruby. ‘No men allowed on the seventh floor.’
‘She’s in trouble. We both are. I need to talk to her.’
‘She’s safe here,’ said one of the others, prompting a sharp look from Ruby. Until that moment, Sam hadn’t been certain she was even in the building.
‘My girlfriend was attacked. She’s in a coma. I think Zahra can help.’
Sam thought that mentioning the plight of another woman might soften Ruby. He was wrong.
‘Fuck you,’ snapped Ruby. ‘It’s your problem.’
There was a pause, during which Sam considered his likely fate. At best, an escort from the building. At worst, a knife across his throat and his body flung from the balcony.
But then he heard a voice. It was coming from a group of women that had gathered at the open doorway. It was soft, yet commanding.
‘Leave him.’
Chapter 22
Bijlmer, Amsterdam
The stoned old man at the corner of the building shrugged when Wallace asked for help. So Wallace pulled out his wallet and opened it to reveal a wad of English cash. The woman giggled in a manic way. The man became more alert.
‘I’m looking for a friend,’ said Wallace. ‘Another Englishman.’
‘Yeah,’ drawled the old man. ‘Me and Anita saw another guy earlier.’
‘Where did he go?’
The old man moved his head lazily in the direction of the stairs. ‘Up there.’
‘And what’s up there?’
The old man paused. Wallace knew it was time to pay. He opened his wallet and pulled out a twenty-pound note.
‘What’s this worth?’ asked the old man, staring suspiciously at the note held out before him.
‘About thirty Euros.’
The old man grunted his approval and snatched the note from Wallace.
‘Up there?’ he said, taking up where they’d left off. ‘There’s not much up there. This place is just somewhere to get stoned. Or maybe disappear for a while. There’s a commune on the seventh floor. But your guy won’t be there.’
‘Why’s that?’
The old man chuckled and this set the woman off, her giggle a high-pitched, childish sound that set Wallace’s teeth on edge. ‘No guys allowed,’ he said. ‘The place is run by ex-hookers who used to work in the city. They don’t like men.’
‘And is it all hookers up there?’
The old man sniffed in a slightly hurt way.
Wallace opened his wallet again and handed over another twenty-pound note.
‘No,’ said the old guy, once he’d taken the money. ‘Immigrants too.’
‘Any Africans?’
The old man’s face scrunched up, as if he were attempting some feat of thinking the joint severely impeded. ‘Thought you were worried about your friend.’
The wallet opened and one more note was handed over. Wallace wished he could have got a receipt. He wanted this cash back from Tapper.
‘Yeah, lots of Africans.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially, as if this were man-to-man stuff, not for his companion’s ear. ‘A few of those hot women from Somalia. You know, tall with beautiful faces.’
Wallace had no idea where Zahra Idris was from. But that description fitted her.
‘What’s it like up there?’
The man looked puzzled.
‘I mean, let’s just say my friend is up there. Could someone like me get in and pull him out? Or would I need a bit of help?’
The old man looked Wallace up and down. ‘You’re a big guy. You look like you can take care of yourself. But there’s a lot of them up there. A lot of angry lesbians, women built of concrete.’
Wallace knew he could go up there himself, but he doubted he’d get in, let alone deal with Keddie and Zahra Idris, if indeed she was there.
‘I know some guys,’ said the old man. ‘They could help out.’ He paused, then smiled broadly, his remaining teeth brown and rotten at the gums. ‘For a price.’
Chapter 23
Bijlmer, Amsterdam
Candles lit the table, casting dark shadows across Zahra’s face. Behind her, the space was difficult to quantify. A brazier was lit somewhere in the distance, and Sam could see a handful of figures gathered round it. There were other lit candles. Sam made out clusters of bedding and areas partitioned by drapes, rough edges of walls where a bit of impromptu demolition had opened up a room.
It was a fraction less cold in here than outside. He got the impression there was a water supply of sorts, and enough power in the building for the few lights he’d encountered on his way up to the seventh floor. But that was probably a generator, not something provided by a utility company. No, this place was effectively on its own. A safe haven for women escaping some form of persecution or exploitation. Or, seen from another viewpoint, a hellhole of unimaginable poverty just outside an affluent European city.
Seated at the far end of the table, Ruby was jabbering on about rules. She’d been talking for twenty minutes. But she had at least accepted Zahra’s assurances that Sam was no threat.
She finally wound up. ‘You’ve got half an hour to talk. But I’m listening in.’ She fixed her small eyes on Sam. ‘After that, you’re leaving. Understood?’
Sam lifted the palms of his hands in assent. After the reception committee and Ruby’s
monologue, he had the message loud and clear. Men were not welcome. The fact that it was now the middle of the night and a blizzard was raging outside was immaterial.
‘How did you find me?’ asked Zahra.
Sam told her about his visit to the Red Light District, and the people who’d directed him to Bijlmer.
‘And what about you, Zahra? How did you get here?’
She massaged her forehead. There were bags under her eyes and the skin around her nose and mouth was dry and flaky. ‘I went to Harwich. Did what I’ve done so many times before, found a way into the back of a container. It was easier than Calais. Less guards.’
Sam had been right about the port. And her abilities.
Zahra’s face darkened. ‘I’ve only been here a few hours, Sam. I need to sleep. Why did you come?’
‘I didn’t tell you the last time we spoke – I didn’t get the chance. My girlfriend was attacked shortly after the riot at Creech Hill.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I believe it’s the same man who attacked Fitzgerald.’
Zahra’s eyes flared briefly. ‘And the man who threatened me at Creech Hill.’
‘What do you mean?’
She told Sam about the events leading to the riot.
Sam listened, felt his pulse quicken. When she finished, he took a breath, tried to calm himself. ‘All the more reason to speak to the police.’
‘I told you, I’m not talking to the police. Maybe now you understand why.’
At the other end of the table, Ruby bristled. ‘All you’re doing is upsetting her. She came here to get away from this shit.’
Sam swung round. ‘Let me spell out “this shit” for both of you. Because of it, my girlfriend is in a coma, a man is dead and my life is in danger. And Zahra is the only person who can identify the attacker.’ He turned to her. ‘I know you can’t remember why the man in the suit terrified you. But you can at least help bring this thug to justice.’
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