The Girl Who Broke the Rules

by Marnie Riches

  Poor tragic Jesus, George thought, presiding over a travesty of biblical proportions. Looked down at the ornate silver coffin beneath his bleeding feet. Filled with Derek, whose body the police had finally agreed to release, now that the post mortem had been performed. Poor broken, dead Derek. Kept fresh for two weeks in an industrial fridge, so the police could make sense of his multiple injuries, concluding that he had been stabbed to death in a frenzied manner and strangled, before being hit by Eurostar, effectively affording Derek three modes of violent death in one – a hellish unholy trinity. Kept fresh, so that he could be interred in the good South East London soil inside his hideously expensive casket; bid arrivederci by his hundreds of friends and relatives to the off-key performance of ‘Ave Maria’ and ‘My Way’ by a semi-famous Bermondsey club singer, who was wearing an evening dress with the BHS label showing at the back. Kept fresh, while George returned from the other side of the North Sea, where she had left Ad sobbing beneath the departures board in Schiphol, promising her they could patch things up and that he would overlook her transgressions. Poor, forgiving Ad. How like Jesus he was. And how like Judas van den Bergen had turned out to be.

  ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to mourn the passing of Paul van den Bergen from the life of Georgina McKenzie. Though they were soul mates for some four years, spending long hours together, engaging in the intimacies of portraiture, gardening, failure to cook anything edible and crime-solving, the illegitimate consummation of their relationship displeased the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. A fiery throng of vengeful angels did cast Georgina into purgatory, where she has been tormented by the sight of her one-time friend consorting and cavorting in flagrante delicto with a long-limbed succubus of patrician origin.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you even liked Derek,’ Letitia said, shoving several screwed-up pieces of toilet roll into George’s hand. ‘Why you so broken hearted for?’

  ‘Fuck off, Letitia,’ George whispered loudly, blowing the hair from the auburn wig she was wearing out of her stinging eyes. She stared in disgust at the toilet roll. Threw it back into her mother’s lap.

  ‘I didn’t blow my nose on it, you cheeky cow,’ Letitia said. ‘It’s clean.’

  ‘Nothing that comes from you is clean.’ She winced and rubbed her hands on the skirt of her dress. Wiped her tears on the back of her arm. ‘And I don’t expect you to understand empathy.’

  George put her arm protectively around Tinesha, who flanked Aunty Sharon on one side. Patrice attempting badly the stiff upper lip of a solid young bruv on the other. Being a rock for his women folk, where Derek de Falco, his errant, weedy not-even-really-stepfather, had let them down.

  ‘Let it out, Tin,’ George told her cousin. ‘It’s okay.’

  Bawling, bereft Tinesha was almost certainly, like George, weeping for the things she had thought she deserved but which had been cruelly snatched away from her, though they had only ever, at best, dangled tantalisingly, just out of reach.

  ‘Let us pray,’ the priest commanded his flock.

  But the mournful Our Father murmurings of the lapsed-Catholics and non-believers in that congregation may never have reached God’s ears. Despite the police presence outside, there was a commotion at the back of the church. The creak and boom of the door. Slamming open and shut. Screaming. Turning around to see some black boy in a hoodie, running down the aisle. A gun in his hand. Scanning the congregation for someone. Police too slow to let the dogs off their leashes. Made it to the front row, where he stood, momentarily nonplussed. Wide-eyed and panting. Waving the gun to and fro between Sharon and Letitia.

  Sharon screaming uncontrollably. Tinesha shrieking. Letitia open-mouthed.

  ‘Which one of yous is Sharon?’

  ‘I ain’t no fat-arsed fucking Sharon,’ Letitia said. ‘Little dickhead.’

  ‘Police! Drop the weapon.’ The men in black, advancing slowly.

  In the sliver of a second before the boy pulled the trigger, George saw the muscles in his index finger tighten. Watched, as his nostrils flared. Biting his lip in concentration. Turning the gun to the side, like he was some badass, riding shotgun in an outlandish Compton drive-by, instead of being a kid who had been bunged a ton or maybe even a monkey by Luigi Gera to ice Derek’s loud-mouthed, sort-of widow. Brap, brap. You is dead, yeah?

  Without any of the consideration she might give the situation if she had more time, George grabbed the underside of the pew and high-kicked the boy’s hand. Caught him squarely with the steel toecap of her boot. But the gun went off.

  CHAPTER 76

  Amsterdam, hospital, later

  Marie glanced into the side-room where Ahlers was recovering. Van den Bergen was seated on one side of the bed, finally taking Ahlers’ statement. Elvis, on the other with the recording equipment. She could hear the boss’ rich, deep voice even through the glass. She had been listening to the interview as it had unfolded.

  ‘So, you were approached by a consortium of traffickers, after your public fall from grace.’

  ‘Yes. That’s right. The go-between was an Italian man. But he wasn’t the big cheese. He made it clear from the outset that he worked for someone higher up the food chain.’

  Ahlers’ croaky voice. Propped in bed, looking pale and as though he might have lost a good half stone over the last fortnight, thanks to his new diet of slops.

  ‘Can you give me the big cheese’s name?’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Do you know it?’

  ‘Yes. But I’m not about to blab that.’

  Then, Elvis’ voice. Thin and stringy. Irritated. ‘For Christ’s sake, Ahlers! You promised you would tell us everything in return for protection. And need I remind you we’re talking about a drastically reduced sentence in a minimum security facility? Stick to your side of the bargain, will you?’

  But van den Bergen had continued undeterred. ‘Can you give me the name of the Italian, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ Elvis asked.

  ‘Is it Luigi Gera?’ van den Bergen said.

  Ahlers had been shaking his head a little too energetically for a man who was recovering from having had an oesophageal stent inserted into his throat. ‘How do you know Gera?’

  Van den Bergen had crossed his long legs and treated Ahlers to one of his grim, downturned smiles. ‘Perhaps you’re not the only one who’s had enough of being the fall-guy for this network of scumbags.’

  Marie had known, of course, that van den Bergen had been referring to McKenzie’s aunt, over in London – a barmaid in a strip club, no less – who had been sitting on information about people traffickers that, had she spoken up sooner, could have saved the life of her ex-lover – the manager of said titty bar. What a classy family that McKenzie was from. No wonder she was so uptight about cleanliness. It must have been difficult coming from the upper echelons of British society and having to mingle with the unwashed, clog-wearing Dutch proletariat.

  Van den Bergen speaking again: ‘We believe Gera and his men are near the top of this trafficking ring and that the murderer – yes, we know it’s not you, so stop gargling spit and making like you’re going to asphyxiate – is another surgeon.’ He leaned forward, his triangular nose almost touching that of the Ahlers. ‘Do you know who the surgeon is?’

  No answer. Rapid, noisy breathing and more gurgling. Marie thought Ahlers sounded like her mother’s blocked waste disposal unit. A frustrated sigh from Elvis.

  ‘Okay, who bought the baby from Magool? I want a name.’

  Ahlers spoke. But Marie failed to hear the name. The biggest, baddest looking beast of a man she had ever seen loomed into view at the end of the corridor. Clutching a gun. A long, thin silencer on the end. Moving quickly towards her. Twenty paces. Ten. Five. She did not even have time to draw her own service weapon. A blow against her temple with the butt of the weapon sent her reeling to the ground. Instantly dizzy and vomiting over her hands as she tried to push herself back up.

  Dimly,
she saw the man enter Ahlers’ room. Point the gun, as van den Bergen fumbled to draw his Walther P5. Elvis frozen in shock. Blip, blip, blip. Three muffled shots fired. Men down?

  ‘Help!’ Marie shouted. ‘Help me! Kees!’

  The man with the gun emerged from the room. Stopped by her head. Huge feet in smart leather shoes. She hadn’t the energy to look up at him.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, puttana,’ he said, before he kicked her sharply in the face.

  CHAPTER 77

  Soho, London, later

  ‘What do you mean, you want to work?’ Dermot Robinson asked, sipping brandy at the bar of his club. Packed with de Falcos and the gritterati of Bermondsey, tonight, laughing and knocking back Jägerbombs behind a cordon for VIPs. A rare visit from the Porn King himself, but seeing as it was Derek’s wake…

  ‘Just give me the fucking mop and bucket, Mr Robinson,’ George said, pulling the irritating wig from her head. Unleashing her own hair beneath, which she had pinned into a tight bun. ‘Please.’

  ‘You’re shaking, love. Have a drink instead. Comfort your poor aunty.’ He snapped his fingers at the barman, brought in for the evening from one of the other clubs to give Sharon a night in which to drink to the memory of her ex. ‘Give her a sherry or something, Al.’

  ‘I don’t want a sherry,’ George said, dragging on her e-cigarette with trembling hands. ‘Thanks. But no thanks. I need to clean. You said you’d keep my job open for me.’

  ‘I lied. We got a replacement. You’ve been gone too long.’

  ‘Just for tonight. I need something to do with my hands. You know? It’s all got too much.’ Would a man like Dermot Robinson understand her need to wrestle order from chaos by means of limescale-removing bathroom cleaner and anti-bacterial surface spray?

  ‘What’s too much? Some black kid shooting the head off a giant flower teddy bear at a funeral? Or you been doing more of that porn studying over there?’

  He laughed into his glass. Looked up at the dancers on the stage, naked but for the tiniest of thongs, winding their lithe bodies around the brass pole. His girls. His stage. His pole. Covered in weeks’ worth of neglected sticky finger marks, George could see.

  ‘You’re going to rot your brain, girl,’ he said. ‘Take it from one who knows.’

  ‘I’ve been working with the Dutch police on serial murders. Remember I called your PA, Marge, to see if she’d heard of Linda Lepiks?’

  He nodded. His mood suddenly sombre. ‘One of my actresses has been missing for over a month. Then, Derek gets killed and I find out the scheming fuckwit has been letting some wops from Rome pimp out their underage whores in here.’ He poked the bar emphatically. ‘My fucking club, part of my empire that I built in my name with my sweat and tears. I wanna find my missing girl. If them wops took her, I want them dead. While that girl was working for me, she was my property. Know what I mean?’

  And there it was. Ownership. Like her ex-teen-squeeze, Danny. Like his small-time-henchman-turned-big-time-psychopath, Jez. Like Ad. Like her old Dutch tutor, that manipulative sex-pest, Fennemans. Men, claiming ownership over women’s bodies. Nothing like the man she loved – van den Bergen – who steadfastly refused to accept even temporary tenure of hers.

  ‘You think your mates in the police can find my girl?’ he asked, eyeing George’s heavy boots.

  ‘Give me the mop and bucket and I’ll see what I can do,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘What exactly you got on your feet? Thought you girls all wore fuck-me shoes with a nice dress. What you call them, then?’

  ‘Don’t fuck me shoes.’

  In the course of the evening, mopping around the feet of the mourners who now didn’t look too mournful at all with a few inside them, George found herself getting more and more irritated by her situation. She hated walking away from unfinished business and she knew that was exactly what she had done in coming home. Derek’s funeral had just been a cover for the deep, deep hurt of having that stupid, lanky old sod reject her, choosing Dr Lovely Legs, Friend to the Dying Children, instead. Hiding in her cupboard, surreptitiously smoking a real cigarette, blowing her exhaled smoke out through the old Vent-Axia fan that sucked the vapours of evil from the club and spat them into a back alley somewhere off Peter Street, she checked her phone. Her in-box was at capacity, piled high like an EU sugar mountain with sickly sweet texts from Ad. Swimming in acidic emails from Sally, like an appellation d’origine non-contrôlée wine-lake, demanding she make contact. Nothing from van den Bergen. Typical. But here was one from Marie.

  Hit-man took out Ahlers this morning and wounded Kees. I got assaulted – fractured cheekbone. VdB told me to warn you to keep a look out for unfriendly Italian faces. Murderers are not Strietman & Buczkowski. Marie.

  George emerged from the cupboard, still smoking. Scanned the room too quickly in panic. Scanned it again and again like an unreadable bar code. They were all unfriendly Italian faces. The extended de Falco clan had split to sit one side of the VIP area, whilst a gathering of two – Aunty Sharon and Letitia – sat the other. Was a murderer among them?

  Cleaning would not expunge this fear so easily, now. Ahlers was dead. A man she had broken bread with was dead. A sleazy arsehole, an abuser of the vulnerable, but a friend of Katja nonetheless. He had welcomed her into his home, perhaps with the intention to fuck her but apparently not with the intention to murder her. And he had been whacked. Like a two-bit informant in a gangster film.

  There was safety in numbers. She made a beeline for Letitia’s chicken hat.

  ‘Where’s your fiancé?’ George asked her mother, swigging from Sharon’s glass of rum. ‘He jilted you the minute he got a whiff of an altar?’

  Letitia was all folded arms and heaving breasts. ‘Think you some fucking comedian? He took Tinesha and Patrice home, actually,’ she said. ‘Cos my Leroy is well caring.’

  ‘This ain’t no place for children,’ Aunty Sharon slurred. ‘Not my children, anyways.’ She hiccoughed and downed her drink. Foisted the glass into George’s bleach-dry hands. Gave her a twenty. ‘Get another round. One for yourself. Come and sit with your Aunty Shaz, love.’ Slapped the banquette affectionately. Knocked her hat to the floor but seemed not to notice.

  George returned from the thronging bar, her small hands struggling to encase three potent drinks. Downed a large gin and tonic quickly, sucked up through a straw. Gasping as sharp bubbles pushed their way out of her nostrils. Alcohol on an empty stomach. Instant hit. At Aunty Sharon’s behest, chased it down with another. Then a glass of wine.

  Letitia eyed George critically through false lashes. Sipping her Tia Maria and green BOLS. ‘Where you been the last couple of hours?’ Sniffed the air near her. With those incongruous caramel blonde tresses that hung like doggy ears either side of her head, she put George in mind of a beagle trying to pick up the scent of the fox’s lair. ‘You ain’t been fucking cleaning, have you? In a posh dress?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ George stared absently at the dancers, wondering what it was about sex workers that had particularly appealed to the murderer. Perhaps he came into regular contact with working girls and porn stars. Used their services. Perhaps the killer was here right now. Had a Skin Flicks actress not gone missing? Scanned the drunken, leering faces in the packed club. Most of the women from the funeral had gone now. Mainly men; their tongues hanging out at flesh they hadn’t seen that firm and blemish-free for decades. Felt suddenly uncomfortable as though she were being watched. ‘I needed to do a shift, anyway. All this flying back and forth… Paying towards rooms in three different places. I’m potless.’

  ‘Better ways to earn money if you’re skint,’ Letitia said. ‘You, of all people, should know that. Or you grown a conscience nowadays?’

  ‘Stick it up your arse, Letitia.’

  ‘Bet you could earn ten times what you get, cleaning other people’s shit up, by dancing.’ Winking. Nodding towards a Chinese girl who had just enclosed her thighs around the top of a pole and was now corkscr
ewing slowly down to the ground. Straight, black hair sweeping the floor.

  ‘What the fuck would I want to take my clothes off for?’ George asked, palpably drunk. The room spinning. Her head pounding with the beat of the dance music.

  ‘You scared the punters wouldn’t pay to watch you dance?’ Gave her daughter the once-over. ‘Actually, I don’t think they would. You far too fucking frumpy. I seen them posh white women dressing like you in Waitrose one time. Bet they got some pig ugly, raggedy old undies on under them pensioner clothes. Bet you do too.’

  Without fully understanding why she did it, but feeling that festering resentment and the compulsion to shock her mother might underpin her actions, George lifted her dress over her head and strutted unevenly in her underwear and boots to the stage.

  ‘Come back!’ her mother yelled. ‘I didn’t mean it. Get back here, girl! You making a fucking spectacle of yourself!’