The Girl Who Got Revenge

by Marnie Riches

  ‘So you’ve drawn a blank on these mystery deaths that don’t seem to me to be terribly mysterious at all.’

  ‘There’s still the question of the high doses,’ George said. ‘Who might have prescribed these tablets, if Saif Abadi didn’t?’

  Baumgartner stood, making it clear the meeting was at an end. ‘My dear, there are countless practices across this city alone. And then there’s the internet, where any old fool can buy what he hopes will be the key to a few more years in pill form. If these poor gentlemen finally met their end because they refused to take Dr Abadi’s measured advice and sought false hope elsewhere, then I’m afraid that was down to them. Free choice, as individuals.’

  George collected up the photos, put them in her bag and rose from the chair. Pins and needles in her bottom would have her hobbling back to the smelly old pool car. She forced herself not to grimace with the pain. ‘Tell me, Dr Baumgartner. What services do you offer in these fine rooms?’

  ‘I’m a psychiatrist. I help the genuinely mentally ill as well as the terminally deluded. Tell me, Dr McKenzie, what kind of “doctor” are you?’

  He actually did the quotation marks with his fingers. George clasped her hands together tightly, so tempted was she to pull his fucking fingers off.

  ‘Criminology, Dr Baumgartner. It’s my job to know criminals. And I don’t need to be a “shrink”’ – she did the fingers back at him – ‘with a fancy office and an extortionate hourly fee to know if their behaviour is down to mental illness or terminal delusion.’ She snorted gleefully and pointed at her nose. ‘I can smell bullshit a mile off.’

  To her chagrin, Baumgartner placed his hand on her shoulder as though they were long-lost friends or close colleagues. ‘Ah, a bullshit doctor,’ he said, chuckling. Walked her to the door, holding it open for her like the charming old bastard he was. ‘I haven’t met one of those before. Be careful though, Dr McKenzie. Shit sticks.’

  CHAPTER 18

  Amstelveen, Tamara’s house, then the mosque near Bijlmer, later

  ‘Come on, sweetie,’ Van den Bergen said, pushing the buggy containing his granddaughter at speed through the anonymous identi-streets of Amstelveen. ‘Let’s see if we can shake off this weirdo and maybe even find your arsehole of a daddy.’

  He estimated that they had been going for a good ten minutes. Pausing by a thick bush that bordered an alleyway, he peered into the adjacent road. Nobody there. The sense of being watched had abated. Good.

  ‘Thank God your daddy can’t be bothered to do the garden,’ he told a gurgling Eva, who was entirely unaware of the strange set of circumstances in which she was embroiled. ‘Thanks to his lazy-arsed ways, all that wilderness swallowed the sound of my ringtone completely!’

  Taking out his phone, he dialled Elvis. Careful to check the volume was no longer on max. Elvis answered after five irritatingly long rings that had Van den Bergen swallowing down a glob of stomach acid.

  ‘Boss. What’s up? Are you coming to see the imam with me?’

  ‘Shortly. Listen. I’m in a bit of a pickle and need to find someone. He’s not answering my call. It’s my dick of a son-in-law. He’s supposed to have gone to help a friend out in a café, but he left carrying his guitar and didn’t look dressed for any kind of work I know. Do me a favour. See if you can get one of the guys to triangulate his phone signal, pronto.’

  On the other end of the line, Elvis barked with laughter. ‘Really?!’

  Van den Bergen growled, realising the ridiculousness of the situation. Minks would have his balls nailed to the noticeboard in HQ’s reception if he found out his chief inspector was using official resources to track down his errant son-in-law. Bad enough he was using work time to babysit. Maybe George was right. The thought rankled.

  ‘Forget it. I’ll text you as soon as I’ve…’

  He ended the call, flushed hot with embarrassment. Should he call Tamara? No. He didn’t want to interrupt her job interview, which had seen her take a train to Utrecht at the crack of dawn for a ‘breakfast’ slot. That would be unfair. Could he take the baby to the mosque? Absurd! Any imam who was getting into bed with a funder of neo-Nazis was not a bona fide imam. He was an unknown quantity. And unknown quantities were bad news.

  ‘Damn it!’

  He tried Andrea. Nothing but an earful of abuse from her for him having called her while she was at work. Like his job – hunting traffickers and serial murderers – didn’t bloody matter!

  When his granddaughter started to cry, throwing her dummy from the buggy, he plucked her from her straps and held her close to his chest. Cradled her delicate little head inside his large hand and kissed the fluff that sprouted from her glorious-smelling scalp. She was hot again.

  ‘Sh-sh-shh, little darling!’ he said softly. ‘Opa’s left holding the baby, but he doesn’t mind one bit.’

  As they hastened back in the direction of Tamara’s house, he wondered if he could go through all this again at his age and in his condition. Broken nights. Changing nappies. He’d have to retire and let George take the breadwinner-reins, of course. No way would he force her to ruin her burgeoning career when his was in slow decline anyway. Wasn’t this why she was so grumpy? She’d finally realised that, nearing thirty, her clock was starting to tick. Perhaps this was the commitment she sought. A child. But his granddaughter was not his child. She was Numb-Nuts’s.

  When he returned to Oud Mijl, the sleepy street showed no sign of a green Jaguar or the mystery man who had trailed him there. He stopped dead outside a house four doors down from Tamara’s, staring at a scene that had caught his attention.

  ‘I’m sure that’s the back of his head,’ he muttered, contemplating the contours of a scruffy bastard who was sitting at a table full of middle-aged women and one old man, playing cards.

  Opening the gate, he pushed the buggy up the path to get a closer look. The bright light shining overhead illuminated every detail of the motley group’s activity. Van den Bergen welcomed the surge of indignant rage when he saw the pile of cash in the middle of the table. Every player had their eyes down, concentrating on their cards. Until Numb-Nuts threw something onto the table. He’d folded.

  Van den Bergen thumped on the window. Numb-Nuts turned round when the others pointed out their irate audience. The stricken look on his pale face said everything.

  ‘Got you, you cheeky little fucker!’

  The memory of Numb-Nuts begging for forgiveness in that kiddy-detritus-strewn kitchen buoyed Van den Bergen all the way back to HQ to pick up Elvis. His son-in-law’s pleading resounded merrily in his ears, as though it played on a joyous loop on the car stereo, all the way to the mosque:

  ‘Please don’t tell Tamara. Please. For our daughter’s sake. If she found out that’s why there’s no money left in the account, she’d divorce me. Really, Paul. She would.’

  The lying, scabby-faced toad had had crocodile tears in his eyes. He had actually clutched his hands together in supplication. A ruin of a workshy, faux-hippy turd, who in sucking dry the family finances with his gambling addiction had relinquished any remaining vestiges of manly moral fibre that might have kept his spine together.

  ‘I don’t like you,’ Van den Bergen had said, cuddling his granddaughter, stepping from one foot to another in a bid to soothe her. ‘I never have. I don’t think you’re fit to lick my Tamara’s shoes clean. You’re a sponger. I knew it the moment I met you, Mr Trainee Bloody Rockstar.’

  Numb-Nut’s face had blanched to a satisfying shade of grey. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Big words said in a small voice.

  Now, though, Elvis encroached on Van den Bergen’s memories.

  ‘How are we going to play this, boss?’

  ‘How do you think? The guy lets extremist clerics in to poison the minds of his young flock, if the papers are to be believed. I’m not pandering to the ego of some pro-terror shit-stirrer who’s happy to have people’s children brainwashed and sent to early graves. We play it straight!’

  Manoeuvring his Merced
es into a miserly parking space with the deftness and confidence of a man whose morning had taken a turn for the triumphant, Van den Bergen privately acknowledged that being tailed by some oddball in a Jaguar would require further consideration, but right now he had to shelve his concerns and focus on Abdullah al Haq.

  As they entered the foyer of the mosque, Van den Bergen removed his size thirteen loafers.

  ‘Exactly how may I help you?’ the imam asked, examining his card with interest. He stroked his beard, but otherwise there was no reaction – no obvious guilty conscience. Cool as a cucumber.

  ‘I believe you know Frederik den Bosch,’ Van den Bergen said.

  ‘Do I?’

  Elvis stepped forward. Held out a grainy photo of the two men’s apparently clandestine meeting that had taken place the previous evening.

  ‘You’d better follow me.’

  At that time of day, in between prayers, the mosque was empty, echoing and vast. Van den Bergen caught a glimpse through an open fire door of a vaulted white space that could no doubt accommodate thousands. It was impressive. In contrast, the imam’s office was a riot of colour and clutter – floor-to-ceiling shelves were filled with books, the spines of which glittered with gold-leaf Arabic lettering, and on the floor lay a patchwork of glorious Persian rugs. The imam took a seat behind an incongruous plain IKEA desk. He sat with his hands laced together on his lap. Looked at them expectantly.

  ‘Tell us about your relationship with Den Bosch,’ Van den Bergen said.

  ‘I barely know the man.’

  Elvis tapped a bitten fingernail on the photo, which he’d placed in front of the imam. ‘You two seemed on very familiar terms last night. I took this photo and I saw you with my own eyes. So don’t try to pass off your meeting as some chance encounter.’

  The imam shrugged. ‘I know many people. I’m a cultural leader in a cosmopolitan city.’

  ‘Why are you fraternising with a neo-Nazi?’ Van den Bergen asked. ‘What would your flock think about that?’

  ‘Den Bosch is merely a business acquaintance. I’m not his keeper,’ the imam said.

  Van den Bergen noticed the man’s left lower eyelid beginning to flicker. But, otherwise, his earnest expression remained immutable.

  ‘Business? What kind of business?’ Van den Bergen started to draw Eva’s chubby little hand in his notebook, carefully crosshatching the contours of her palm with his biro.

  ‘He supplies my Islamic centre directly with vegetables at a cut price. You’d be surprised how much food we need to cook up for various Eid celebrations.’

  ‘Did you know he’s a practising fascist?’ Elvis asked. ‘Or that he’s a slum landlord? I’ll bet a few of his tenants attend this mosque. How many Syrians come here? Or Afghans?’

  The imam folded his arms defensively, as Van den Bergen had seen him do on television, when quizzed about the radicalisation of young men inside the city’s mosques. This was a man used to dodging confrontational media bullets. It appeared he had clicked into that mode now.

  ‘I told you, what Mr Den Bosch does in his spare time has never been the subject of discussion,’ the imam said, closing his eyes, as if lecturing a naive student. ‘The price of his produce has, however. I have a community to lead and feed. That said, I thank you for bringing his beliefs to my attention. I will seek a supplier elsewhere. The rally outside my mosque last night was blasphemy.’ He looked heavenwards and shook his head. Turned his focus back to Van den Bergen. ‘But I resent the implication that I pimp my community out to ruthless landlords.’ He raised an eyebrow. That lower eyelid was still pulsating.

  ‘Did you know a Den Bosch truck is at the centre of a trafficking investigation?’ Van den Bergen asked. ‘A twelve-year-old Syrian girl is dead and the other passengers who were crammed like produce into the back of that truck are fighting for their lives in hospital. We’re thinking maybe Mr Den Bosch is transporting more than tomatoes in his fleet of heavy goods vehicles. Maybe he’s trafficking people from some war-torn location in the Arab world to Amsterdam. Swelling the ranks of your congregation.’

  The imam swallowed hard. He scratched beneath his pristine crocheted mosque hat and sniffed hard. Sweat stains were blossoming beneath his arms, turning the fabric of his tunic a dark brown. ‘What a terribly racist suggestion,’ he said. ‘I’m offended. Do you think all Muslims are terrorists?’

  Flustered, Van den Bergen lifted his pen from the paper. ‘I wasn’t talking about terrorism. And I can’t possibly see how I’ve offended you. I was talking about people trafficking.’

  ‘You’re implying I’m involved somehow. But no matter.’ Seemingly calm, the imam opened a notepad that lay in his in-tray and took the lid off a Mont Blanc fountain pen. ‘Can I have the name of your superior officer, please?’ He set the pen down, never taking his eyes from Van den Bergen’s. ‘Oh no. Hang on. No need. I know the chief of police personally. I’m sure he’ll be intrigued to hear about two of his subordinates bringing thinly disguised racial harassment and defamation to my door.’

  Van den Bergen’s biro ran through the sketch of Eva’s hand, puncturing the thick paper. He felt every muscle in his face stiffen. Suddenly, the spectre of the Jaguar driver outside Tamara’s door cast a shadow on the imam’s office, and the imam himself seemed to suck all of the heat from the room, leaving him shivering beneath his slightly sicked-on work suit.

  ‘Thank you for your time,’ he told the imam.

  He marched back to the foyer as quickly as his stockinged feet would take him and reclaimed his shoes.

  Outside, Asian men were scrubbing at the pavement with buckets full of hot, soapy water and stiff yard brushes, trying to remove the blood from the slaughtered pigs. Van den Bergen wrapped his arms around himself and strode to the car, wondering if he’d caught his granddaughter’s virus in record time. Was it even possible?

  ‘Get in the car,’ he told Elvis. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

  Squealing away from the place in the comfort of his Mercedes, with his heated seat on full whack, Van den Bergen exhaled deeply.

  ‘Well?’ Elvis asked, then immediately sneezed with gusto, leaving a shower of spittle on the dashboard.

  ‘For God’s sake, Elvis! Use a damned handkerchief or open the bloody window. You’re like a fucked trumpet.’

  ‘Sorry, boss. But what did you think of the imam? His story about the cheap veg?’

  ‘He’s a goddamn liar,’ Van den Bergen said, speeding back towards HQ and the generous supply of ibuprofen in his desk drawer. ‘Get surveillance on that place, on him and on Den Bosch. Twenty-four hours. I want to know exactly what those two are up to. And when we get in, I want to see Abadi. I’m going to have to let the asshole go, but first I’ve got a proposition for him.’

  CHAPTER 19

  Amstelveen, Tamara’s house, later

  ‘For God’s sake, Dad!’ Tamara whispered down the phone. ‘You ruined my job interview completely. I had to leave halfway through because Willem wouldn’t stop calling me. It was so embarrassing, the way they looked at me. I won’t hear from them again. That’s it! An opportunity buggered. The first job interview in a month, too!’ She remembered the disapproving looks that the interview panel had exchanged with each other as her phone rang, time after time. If only she’d switched the thing off. But then if anything had happened to Eva while she’d been out… ‘And then you land this bombshell on me! Thanks a fucking bundle.’

  ‘Calm down! You’re shooting the messenger. I didn’t gamble away your life savings. My damned life savings. But we’ll sort this. We will. I will.’

  ‘You’re a bastard. Bastard, bastard, bastard! Why the hell didn’t you warn me?’

  Tamara didn’t really know why she was calling her father, half shouting at him in vitriolic whispers down the phone. None of this was his fault. Deep down, she knew that.

  ‘Take a deep breath. You don’t mean that. How am I a bastard, precisely? I’ve done nothing but indulge you from the minute you met that workshy prick
with his misplaced musical ambitions. Didn’t I tell you when you brought him back to mine for lunch that he was a waste of space? Didn’t I? But you told me to butt out and keep my opinions to myself. And God knows, Tamara, I’ve bloody well tried. The times I’ve bitten my tongue…’

  He was right, of course. He’d seen through Willem immediately, where she had been blinded by what she thought was love but had really just been relief that someone fancied her enough to stick around for more than a month or two. Willem, with his cool hair and ethno-tat clothing and ballads he’d said were about her, performed in her mother’s kitchen to rapturous applause from everyone but her father. Hadn’t Dad just sat there, bouncing his enormous right foot on his left knee, grimacing and checking his phone or watch, like a harbinger of romantic doom on a time limit?

  Tamara stroked Eva’s brow as she lay in her cot, finally off to sleep. A miracle, since the argument had sent her spiralling into near hysteria. Mummy and Daddy screaming hard enough to shake the house on its sturdy foundations.

  A single tear fell onto her daughter’s hand, causing the baby girl to jerk suddenly in her sleep.

  Allowing grief to envelop her like a damp, rough blanket, Tamara backed away from the nursery and padded downstairs. In the kitchen, she could let some of the pain leach out without disturbing her daughter’s rest.

  ‘Why, Dad? Why?’

  On the other end of the phone, her father’s no-nonsense, gruff rumble softened to the vocal equivalent of the warm stroopwafels he’d placated her with as a child when she worked herself into a frenzy during some parental meltdown or other: Mum, throwing crockery at Dad just because she could; Dad, glowering in the corner – his silence just as deafening as Mum’s apoplectic shrieking. Now, Dad’s cinnamon-caramel words of solace poured over her.

  ‘Willem’s a dick, sweetheart. I always said it. Listen, we all make mistakes.’

  ‘History repeating itself, you mean? Except Mum married an artist and you turned out to be a rock.’ She couldn’t keep the stutter and heave out of her voice. She was seven years old again, but with the responsibilities of an adult, bringing up a baby and an overgrown man-child. ‘How could I have been so blind?’ Her shoulders shook as the hiccoughs kicked in and the sobs really took hold.