by J. M. Hewitt
“She was a lovely lady. It’s not fair, is it Mister Braston?”
Bram heaves a sigh at the whine in the boy’s voice and doesn’t bother to correct him on the hash up he has made of his name. He stopped correcting him years ago. He stopped speaking to Roland years ago too, but the boy never seemed to notice, and whenever he sees Bram he chats away as though they are old buddies. They are old something, but buddies definitely not.
“See you later, Roland. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
“I saw him, you know.” Roland’s words, shouted into the sunny afternoon, stop Bram in his tracks, though he doesn’t turn around.
“What?”
“He’s a very bad man, and I shall tell the policeman when he gets round to talking to me.”
Bram reluctantly moves back to Roland. “Are you trying to b e funny? And why would the police speak to you, boy?”
Roland looks almost proud as he sticks his chest out. “They always do, when something like this happens. They always speak to me.”
Bram utters a laugh, taps his cane on the ground and this time, as he moves away, still laughing, he doesn’t look back.
He walks on through the streets, nodding a greeting to those who hail him, all the while thinking about what the boy Roland had said. Had he seen something? He wouldn’t dismiss the idea immediately, for the boy is always running around Schev and den Haag, especially the back streets where the girls hang around after finishing their shifts in their windows. And the girls are not stupid, if they see Roland has some money they will gladly exchange their favours for payment.
But no, Bram comes to the conclusion that Roland knows nothing. He is a simple boy, he never even fully realised the extent of what happened over a decade ago, in spite of being in the very epicentre of the crime. No, this recent activity is not something Roland has any idea about.
It takes Bram almost two hours to walk from his home to the promenade of Scheveningen and he recalls ruefully when he used to be able to do the trip at a jog in less than an hour. Those days are long gone and Bram wonders if he is at a point in his life where he should rely more on his car. It sits disused for sometimes weeks at a time because Bram has always enjoyed walking, keeping an eye on the neighbourhood on his daily and nightly strolls, but it’s getting to a point now where he doesn’t move as fast as he once did in his youth. He doesn’t often worry about it, mainly his customers come to him, but he needs to keep an eye on the area for himself. He could take the tram, but like bicycles, Bram also finds public transport distasteful.
He cuts through Strandweg and takes a seat outside Bora Bora, nodding his head as a waitress pops up and offers him a coffee. The beach resort is at the height of the season and he watches as everyone goes around their business. The groups of families that trickle in and out of the Sea Life Centre, the scantily clad men and women who lie prone on the beach and the elderly couples, those of similar age to Bram, walking up and down the prom, hand in hand. Bram has never married, never even come close. He has dedicated his life to his work. Sometimes he thinks about all the women that he takes care of, and it amuses him to regard them all as his family. Like a real family, sometimes they upset him, sometimes he has to put them in their place and teach them right from wrong. Occasionally he contemplates how different his life would have been if he had married and had a family of his own. This is a fleeting thought and one that Bram doesn’t ponder on for long. This is his place and he nods as if confirming it to himself now, as he studies the waves that gently lap at the sand.
He thinks of the beachfront as a veneer, shining and welcoming, and Bram utters a laugh under his breath. Just a few streets away, hidden behind the facade this place is so very different. Here one would find discarded candy floss wrappers, back in Doublestraat they are replaced with used needles and condom packaging.
Bram sips at his coffee as he glances at his watch. The latest health reports will be arriving at his office soon; he should get back to look over the test results. It’s his job to keep the streets clean and the girls healthy. And it’s a job he takes very seriously indeed.
20
ELIAN
SCHEVENINGEN PIER
5.7.15 Late afternoon
There’s maintenance work being carried out on the pier and Elian can tell once it is completed it’s going to be quite something. She hangs around the entrance, looking at the featured art work in the doorway. It’s an old wartime torpedo, with the words ‘drop a love bomb’ in English, scrawled on it in yellow paint.
“Elian.”
She turns at the sound of her name and is relieved to see Brigitta coming through the doors towards her.
“Hi, I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Elian says, standing awkwardly, unsure of how to greet this girl who is practically a stranger.
“It’s good to get out, Amber’s driving me crazy,” replies Brigitta. “Come on, let’s walk.”
As they stroll down the external part of the pier, Brigitta points out the bungee jump located at the very end. “Fancy it?”
Elian lets out an involuntary shudder, “No, thanks.”
Brigitta laughs.
“What happened to your friend, Gabi, wasn’t it?” Elian asks eventually.
Brigitta’s face noticeably darkens. “The papers say she was stabbed, but she was strangled to death in an alleyway up the road.”
A woman in a shallow grave who had began to decompose but who still wore the clothes she was killed in. The memory strikes Elian so suddenly that she stops walking and reaches out to clutch the handrail to steady herself. It’s a memory that she didn’t remember until now and it’s not the first time this strange recall has happened to her.
“You want to sit down?” Brigitta’s concerned face looms and Elian nods and allows herself to be led over to the seating area.
“I’m sorry, you were talking about your friend …” Elian tails off guiltily.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened to you,” says Brigitta kindly, pulling a pack of Memphis cigarettes out and offering one to Elian.
Elian declines the cigarette and wonders where to start her story. “I was in Europe, last month, helping a friend out. I was kidnapped and … attacked. My memory has suffered since, I can’t remember stuff clearly. I couldn’t even remember your name or that you’d come over before until I found it written down in a notebook. I’m struggling, I guess, and I don’t really know what to do.” Elian tails off with a shrug, embarrassed.
Brigitta drags deeply on her cigarette. “Attacked how?”
And that is the part that Elian doesn’t want to confess, but Brigitta is so open and honest and Elian thinks back to when she met her outside the gym, when she was sure that she couldn’t shock this girl, no matter what she told her. “I was raped,” she says and realises belatedly that her voice ended in a squeak when she said the word and also, that it is the first time she has said it aloud.
“Have you been tested?”
Elian almost laughs out loud at Brigitta’s response and immediately she thinks of Alex again. But Brigitta is deadly serious and Elian shakes her head.
“You need to, that’s your first priority, even if he used protection. Did he use protection?”
Again, Elian shakes her head, no.
“And you’re here alone? What happened to the friend you were with at the time?”
“He’s back in England. He doesn’t know I’m here,” replies Elian, eyes downcast.
“And why are you here? I can think of better places to run away to.”
Elian scratches at the wooden table top and thoughts of Lev fill her mind. She doesn’t answer.
“Well, the first thing to do is visit the doctor, take the tests. He can give you some ideas on the whole memory problem too. It might be PTSD, you know.”
“What?”
“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” replies Brigitta, patiently. “It’s when you’ve suffered–”
“I know what it is! How are you such an expert on the subject?�
��
Brigitta shrugs and drops her cigarette to the floor where she grounds it out with her heel. “I was at university for a while, in Utrecht. I studied Medicine and Psychology. I started doing this job as a way to pay my fees and then, well, I dropped out.” It’s Brigitta’s turn to look embarrassed and Elian gives her a sympathetic smile.
“I will go to the doctor, I have his card,” she says determinedly. “He’s a good doctor, is he?”
Brigitta shrugs. “He’s discreet. He’s a bit weird, but he knows what he’s talking about. I’ll come with you, if you like?”
It’s an offer made with ease and without agenda and it feels like a weight has been lifted from Elian’s shoulders. And although she doesn’t think she’ll take Brigitta up on her offer, suddenly, she doesn’t feel quite so alone.
“Thanks, I do also want to look into the self defence class, if you have the time to spare maybe we could go together?”
“Yeah, I’m keeping a low profile, work-wise for a bit.” A shadow crosses Brigitta’s face and she tips another cigarette out of the packet. “It’s probably a one off, this thing with Gabi, and the streets are filled with coppers, but still, I’ve got enough put aside to have a few days off.”
“Does it happen much?” Elian asks in alarm. “Murders, or attacks on girls who work here?”
Brigitta shakes her head vehemently, her brown hair flying around her face. “No, it’s really unusual. Although …”
“Although, what?”
Brigitta leans in, so close that Elian can smell the tobacco as she speaks. “A lot of girls go missing, and people say they got fed up and they moved to Amsterdam or back to wherever they came from, once they’d made enough money, you know? But, some people say they’ve been done away with, that the government wants this place ‘cleared up’, and if they ever dragged the canal, they’d find all the remains of all the girls that we all thought just went home.”
It’s a dark themed fairytale that Elian can tell has been told many times before, an urban legend just like the ones that are found all over the world. But she can’t help but think of the people who went missing in Chernobyl and how the residents were under the impression that they too, had simply upped and left. But all the time, when their family thought they were building another life in a safe environment, away from the effects of the nuclear disaster, they were still in Chernobyl, buried deep under decades of decaying forest.
Brigitta is laughing at her own dark humour, swaying on the bench as she lights her cigarette. Elian hesitates before trying to join in her mirth, but her laughter is forced.
It can’t be happening again. Not to her, not in an area that’s not even close to Chernobyl. And besides, the one responsible for all the slayings there is dead. That much Elian is sure of, after all, Sissy identified his body herself. Elian tries to reassure herself that the death of Gabi is a one off, just a tragic but accidental death, the like of which happens everywhere at some point.
It can’t be Niko. He’s dead. Sissy saw him dead. She repeats the thought in her mind, all the while trying to ignore the other thought that attempts to push through.
But Lev isn’t dead. He’s very much alive. And he’s here, but more than that, he’s been here before…
21
SECOND MURDER
HUNSESTRAAT
5.7.15 Late at night
Cilla Holden studies the man as he explains what he wants to do to her and tries not to show her distaste. Instead, she nods her head, injects a murmur now and then so he knows she is listening to him. When he is finished, she appears to be thinking over his offer.
“And you say it’s not much different to getting a tattoo?” she asks him.
The man, a normal, slightly older than middle-aged guy, nods enthusiastically.
Well, she thinks, tattoos are something she knows all about, already having over a dozen in various different places on her body. She’d had the first one, a Chinese symbol, when she was sixteen. Back then it had been unusual, but now every second person seemed to have one similar to hers, and then the jokes started, the oh so funny; ‘but are you sure it means peace and love, because it looks very much like egg fried rice in Cantonese to me.’ She’d left it a while, years in fact, and then Amy Winehouse had come on the British music scene, and Cilla knew exactly the kind of exterior she wanted to emulate. She reinvented her life, modelling herself on the pop icon, adding tattoos and black hair dye and even going to far as to have that ever so slightly unclean look. Then, she had upped and left Brighton, went across the sea on a DFDS ferry from Dover to Dunkirk. And the clients here loved her look. So this guy, the one who was smiling winningly at her, trying to persuade her to let him cut her, who didn’t seem threatening, well, she was considering his request.
“All right,” she replies haltingly. “But not too much, and not anywhere that it’s going to show, okay?”
Feeling secure now she has set down some ground rules, she leads him inside, locks the door and snaps her curtain closed. The man hesitates, still looking at the window.
“Come on then, tell me how you want me,” she says, and he looks over at her now naked form, appearing to forget his concern that he had noticed the curtain isn’t closed entirely.
His mouth goes slack and his eyes are hazy, she notes, with a self-satisfied smile.
Later, as she daubs at the red raw patch on her thigh, she curses that she let him do it. It wasn’t the fact that it was painful, although it was, but not more than she can stand, but she’s going to have to cover it with a bandage or something. It’s oozing blood the same way that a graze to the knee would, and it’s going to be an inconvenience to conceal it.
She hasn’t even opened her curtain all the way to announce that she is open for business when she hears the door handle turn.
“I’m not open!” she yells, swearing as she hastily fixes a large plaster to her thigh before turning around to see who the visitor is who has now entered the room. “Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here?”
He walks in, and she knows him so she doesn’t protest, though his action needles her. She looks up from tending to her leg as he walks past her, over to her window, and he pulls the curtains together so they are firmly closed.
He walks back again, still not looking at her, still not speaking, and for the first time she feels a flicker of fear as he locks the door.
She stands up and faces him. “You shouldn’t come in here, we need to agree a price, I need to say–”
He holds a hand up and her words trickle away to silence.
“Do you want me to look at that?” His words are gentle, kindly, and she relaxes a little at his tone.
“No, it’s all right,” she says and moves over to him. “But you really shouldn’t come in and lock my door before we’ve talked. You know that’s not how we do things.”
He moves so fast that she doesn’t know what has hit her. He has hit her, but it was so quick she’s not sure if it was his fist or if he was holding something else. She feels blood spurt from her nose but before she can react his hands are gripped vice-like around her throat. She feels his gloves, and it occurs to her that it’s not good that he is wearing gloves. And then, as the darkness covers her completely, she has no other thoughts at all.
22
LEV
1058 GEVERS DEYNOOTWEG
6.7.15 Mid-morning
Lev is sleeping on the sofa when his door his busts open and half a dozen cops pile in. They stand, motionless, parting in order to let a red-haired man walk through them. Lev struggles to sit up, his mind churning as to what he could have possibly done to have his new home raided. But before he can move off the couch the red-haired guy plants a hand on Lev’s chest, a silent order to remain where he is.
He speaks rapidly in a stream of Dutch, too fast for Lev to comprehend.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand!” In his panic Lev responds in his native Russian and the guy backs off and exchanges a glance with the other officers before repe
ating himself in English.
“I’m Inspectuer Fons, these are my colleagues. We need to ask you some questions about your whereabouts last night.”
Lev breathes out. “Oh, okay. What do you want to know?” He sits up, moving back as far as he can out of reach of the Inspectuer.
“Why don’t you tell me everything you done yesterday evening?”
Lev glances at his door, hanging now from only one hinge, and hopes he won’t get charged for the damage. “I had a late supper at a place down the beach, then I took a tram to the town, had a couple of beers in a pub there, The Fiddler, I think it’s called.” He pauses and swallows; his mouth suddenly very dry. “I went across town and er, spent some time with a girl and then I came home.”
The man called Fons nods as Lev runs through his itinerary. “And what time did you get home?”
Lev coughs. “I don’t know, eleven, maybe?”
“Are you asking us or telling us?” Fons smiles, but it’s anything but friendly.
“It was around eleven.” He shifts on the sofa. “What’s this about Inspectuer?”
“Do you know the name of the girl you spent time with, or where she was located?”
“It’s next to a loading bay or something, under a red awning down a passageway. I don’t know her name. She’s tall, white. Black hair.”
The inspectuer turns away and Lev hears him mutter something to his colleague.
“What’s your name?” He turns back to Lev.
“Levart Abramov,” he replies instantly, giving his long dead mother’s maiden name.
“And you’re from …” Fons trails off, eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer.
“Georgia,” Lev says, again without hesitation. He doesn’t worry that they might check out his story, his roots were once in Georgia, and the soviets are so tight at giving out information that Lev knows he can be out of here by the time the first email has been responded to by his former government’s authorities. “Inspectuer, what’s this all about?”