Den Bosch intervened, pushing Van den Bergen back down hard so that his head hit the thick plywood pallet. Lights popped like sparks in his field of vision.
‘Not so fast, Van den Bergen. This is not the time for you to be getting cocky. It’s over for you. You’re the only reason why I’m still under police scrutiny.’
‘The British police are on to you. One of your vans got pulled over coming off a passenger ferry from the Hoek van Holland.’
Den Bosch grinned. Took his phone out of the breast pocket of his soiled denim shirt and deftly thumbed through several screens with only his left hand – gun still in the right, now pressed against Van den Bergen’s temple. He turned the screen to Van den Bergen. There was a picture of George on the lower deck of the Stena Line passenger ferry, looking as though she’d been cornered.
‘You think you’re clever, don’t you? You police types. Think you’re a cut above a simple businessman like me. But you’re wrong there, pal. What you fail to understand is that I’ve been doing my job – as a farmer and as a trafficker – for twenty years. I learned from the master…’ Phone in hand, he saluted his father. A Nazi Sieg Heil, of course. ‘And he learned from not one, but two masters.’
‘Two?’
Den Bosch looked at him as if he didn’t understand such a simplistic question. ‘Why do you think I killed Cornelia Verhagen? Because she and her interfering, judgemental old bastard of a father started a witch hunt against—’
‘Frederik!’ Baumgartner raised his voice. Not so gentlemanly now.
‘Why not tell him? I’m going to put a bullet in his head anyway.’ Den Bosch turned back to Van den Bergen. ‘Just because port police pull over a suspicious-looking van or truck doesn’t mean they’re going to find the cargo inside. Know what I mean? You lot only found those Syrians because my driver totally fucked up. He’d been on the marching powder. He was unreliable. But normally… How else do you think I’ve been bolstering Amsterdam’s illegal immigrant population for all these years?’ He turned to his horticultural cronies for support. ‘When that El Al plane flew into the Bijlmer apartment block back in ’92, only forty-three fatalities were reported. But I can tell you, mate…’ Phone away now, he poked himself in the chest. Slow movements. Definitely under the influence. ‘There were hundreds more, thanks to me. I’d just done my first shipment. Twenty, I was. Tender twenty. And I got paid a king’s ransom to bring a load of illegals in from whatever war-torn shithole was big in the news at the time. Sierra Leone, was it? Or Rwanda.’
‘Yugoslavia,’ Baumgartner offered. ‘Rwanda was in ’94. Remember? That was a good year. Genocide always pays well.’
Den Bosch withdrew a hip flask, taking a swig. Clearly enjoying himself, he waved his father away, focusing his attention on Van den Bergen. ‘Anyway. You’ve got fuck all on me, my friend. And now you’re a dead man walking. Except you’re not walking. And I’m going to split the hips on that black bitch you live with. Maybe I’ll have a go on your daughter, too. Do you think if I leave my seed in her dead body and she turns to compost that there’ll be a crop of Den Bosch plants?’ He started to laugh maniacally.
This guy’s completely crackers, Van den Bergen thought, trying to keep the despair at bay. Men like him make mistakes. You’ve got this, Paul. Ignore the taunts. He’s sick, but he’s not invincible.
His less heroic alter-ego had other ideas, however.
Jesus Christ. It’s not enough he’s going to kill me and everyone I ever gave a damn about. He’s going to defile them as well. I wish I could die now. I’ve had enough. Please let me go, God. If you’re up there, just let me die right now, so I don’t have to see or hear anything else.
He held his breath. He didn’t die. He wanted the truth. And he needed to give George time to switch off the noxious gas in the adjacent greenhouse. If she was still breathing.
Turning to Baumgartner to avoid Den Bosch’s taunts, he asked, ‘The Force of Five. They all left money to Abadi. Was that it? Did you want their money? Abadi threw himself in front of a tram because he was so petrified that someone in his life would find out he was helping the police to gather information about your son and his trafficking exploits. It was you, wasn’t it? He was frightened of you. You were a major influence in all of their lives. Kaars Verhagen, Arnold van Blanken, Brechtus Bruin.’
‘Of course.’ Baumgartner folded his hands primly over his shotgun.
‘But Ed Sijpesteijn’s missing and I know that Hendrik van Eden was somehow involved with a Nazi officer called Bruno Baumgartner.’
Recognition in the psychiatrist’s eyes. ‘How do you know that?’ He wore a wry smile.
‘Cornelia Verhagen knew about the box of letters and invoices, didn’t she? That’s why you killed her. But I don’t understand why it mattered. Hendrik van Eden wasn’t your father. Bruno Baumgartner must have been. You have his name.’
André Baumgartner stood. ‘I’ve had enough of this cross-examination. If I wanted to tell the police all my bloody business, I’d have answered their queries and turned myself in.’ He picked up a hoe that was stuck into the earth and raised it above his head with naked determination in his eyes. Staring straight at Van den Bergen.
The last thing Van den Bergen saw before the blade of the hoe came down on his head was the glimmer of movement in the furthest corner of his peripheral vision. Reflected in the glass of the greenhouse, he was certain he spied George. Big hair. Furious expression. Doc Marten boots, creeping closer, closer—
CHAPTER 36
The Den Bosch farm, at the same time
George covered her mouth when the hoe made contact with Van den Bergen’s head. She blinked back tears, heart in free fall at the thought that the man she truly loved had been killed. The blood drained from her limbs and she started to slide, slide, slide down the glass wall of the giant greenhouse.
Thanks to the cover of the five-foot-tall lily trees, they hadn’t noticed her arrival. She could hear them talking and laughing. Lighting cigarettes and swigging from Den Bosch’s hip flask. Baumgartner’s voice was the most commanding. The others fell silent when he spoke.
‘A good night’s work, boys. That’s the way we deal with threats. We give them short shrift. The police can’t put you behind bars if all the witnesses are under the sod or in a boar’s belly.’
He was sitting on the end of the horticultural trolley with his back to her. Van den Bergen’s body lying on the pallet at an awkward angle. Head skewed improbably. Hands tied behind his back. George was put in mind of the C. S. Lewis book she had devoured over and over again as a child, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Van den Bergen was Aslan, lying shaved of his mane, cold and inanimate on the stone table, while Jadis, the White Witch who made it always winter and never Christmas, celebrated with her foul and pestilent cronies. A nightmarish scene from a fairy tale. Except this was reality. And George was no Lucy Pevensie.
‘I thought you were going to tell him about Hendrik,’ Den Bosch said, swaying slightly. ‘I nearly did. I had to bite my tongue, there.’
‘You need to watch the drink,’ Baumgartner said, wagging a castigatory finger in his direction. ‘If he’d somehow escaped…and you’d let slip that Hendrik was my biological father, I wouldn’t have been pleased.’
‘What difference would it make?’ one of the farm workers asked.
Baumgartner grunted as he stood. ‘It’s complicated. Bruno Baumgartner was my father, as far as I’m concerned, even though we were largely estranged. It was my mother, Anna, who brought me up. What a woman she was. A beauty, certainly.’ He squeezed Den Bosch’s shoulder affectionately. ‘You have her eyes. ’ Turned back to his captive audience of farm workers. ‘My poor Mama endured years of being ostracised. Hendrik van Eden hounded her out of Amsterdam. He publicly shamed her as a Nazi collaborator, telling anyone who’d listen that she betrayed Jews to the German SS in return for fine silk dresses and trips to the Berghof in Bavaria, hobnobbing with Hitler and Eva Braun. He was jealous, you see. Bitter
that Bruno had wooed her away from him. She had to run away to ’s-Hertogenbosch with me – only a baby. That’s where Frederik takes his name from.’
‘They know, Dad.’
‘Ach, my mother brought me up to believe my German Papi was a hero of epic proportions, despite being branded a war criminal and being packed off to prison. Even when the locals shaved her head to shame her for collaborating, she still held a candle for him.’ His shoulders sagged. A consummate actor, enjoying delivering this performance.
‘Listen how he finds out Hendrik is his father,’ Den Bosch said, slapping his thigh as though some excellent joke were about to be cracked. Just a normal telling of tall tales around the campfire, except Van den Bergen lay dead on that damned trolley and Cornelia Verhagen’s body was already starting to spoil in the adjoining greenhouse. ‘This bit will kill you.’
‘It’s not that bloody amusing.’ Baumgartner’s jubilant expression curdled. ‘I lost a kidney. That’s no walk in the park, you know. My remaining one was already scarred to hell. I needed a transplant. Mama wasn’t a match. Turned out my SS hero father wasn’t either. I was only thirty at the time. I thought I was going to die. When you were thirty, young man, you were living high off the hog with not a care in the world, apart from the danger of the police catching up with you. You’ve never known suffering.’
Den Bosch looked suddenly contrite. George watched his clumsy body language, thinking about how she might feasibly take him out with a limited cache of makeshift weapons at her disposal. She was definitely going to kill the bastard tonight, though. No matter what.
‘So let me guess,’ the farm worker said, taking a hit from the hip flask. ‘You tracked down Hendrik and hey presto! There’s a match.’
Baumgartner nodded. ‘Exactly. Turns out he was my biological father all along. We hit it off from the word go, and I decided his betrayal of my mother was water under the bridge.’
‘Your mother was a bit of a slag,’ the farm worker said. ‘Was she fit?’
The seventy-five-year-old psychiatrist was up and at his throat like a greyhound bursting from its starting gate to catch the rabbit. ‘What did you say, you piece of shit peasant?’
Suddenly, it was mayhem. The two other farm workers were trying to pull Baumgartner off their friend. Den Bosch joined in the fray, raining down punches, not caring where they might land.
‘Don’t you dare insult my family!’ he yelled.
Father and son fought against employees on the payroll. Nobody paid the slightest heed to George creeping forward to lift a hefty bag of compost.
As George swung the bag into Den Bosch, the men scattered. Caught by surprise at the sight of a mere woman coming back from the dead. Den Bosch’s knees gave way. George whipped out the Compeed she’d stowed in her pocked, deftly plastering them onto his eyes. He tried to peel off the super-adhesive blister plasters.
‘I’m blind!’ he screamed. ‘My eyes!’
The farm workers were fumbling for their guns with shaky bourbon hands. Too slow. Like Charles Bronson with premenstrual tension and her own Death Wish to match, George spun her makeshift deodorant in its stocking. It whistled through the air, hitting the worker who had insulted Anna Groen on the temple with such speed and ferocity that he sank to the ground. Out cold. Two down, three to go. George fumbled with her umbrella but it refused to be reassembled into a decent weapon. She was out of ideas.
André Baumgartner’s sudden presence behind her took her by surprise; the sharp scratch of a syringe against her neck even more so.
‘Hands in the air, Dr McKenzie, or I’ll pump a nice air bubble straight into your carotid artery.’
CHAPTER 37
The Den Bosch farm, at the same time
‘You’re going to kill me anyway,’ George said, glancing down at Van den Bergen. Certain she could feel her heart breaking. Though he appeared to be out cold, his colour was still good. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Shut your mouth and walk,’ Baumgartner said.
He pushed her further in amongst the ranks of tall lily trees, where the scent was so pungent that George felt almost intoxicated. Her legs felt leaden, but her mind whirred into action.
Keep him talking. Marie and Elvis are bound to be on their way. They’d better have brought the fucking cavalry with them.
‘If Hendrik was your father, then why did you kill him and his friends?’
‘Move it. And less talk, you interfering little cow.’
The needle stung as it dug into her. He’d almost certainly punctured the skin. Any deeper and she’d be in real trouble. ‘I just want to know what turns an intelligent man into a cold-blooded killer, Dr Baumgartner. You took an oath to first do no harm. But you killed your own father. Was it revenge for your mother? All that ridicule she endured after the war?’
Ahead, she could see a clearing had been prepared. Two men, clearly of South-Eastern European or Middle Eastern origin, wearing filthy clothes, were leaning on spades. Just beyond them, she glimpsed a grave. They spoke to one another in Arabic, inclining their heads towards her.
‘Help me!’ she said in their tongue. As the adrenalin coursed through her, vocabulary she had learned years ago and forgotten started to come back to her. Synapses flaring with ideas. Do or die. ‘The police are coming. I will make sure you get free of this bastard and get Dutch citizenship. But you’ll need to help me.’
These filthy, skinny, frightened-looking men were the only secret weapon she had left. If they had any loyalty to Den Bosch, it was game over. But if she was right and they were trafficked slave labour, trying to win their loyalty with the promise of a visa was worth a punt.
Two sets of desperate brown eyes turned to her. Had one nodded imperceptibly? Had Baumgartner noticed?
‘What are you saying to them, you sneaky little bitch?’
‘I told them you’re a shit doctor and that I wouldn’t come to you if I had an itchy arsehole.’
He jabbed the needle further into her neck. Warm blood spilling in fat beads, seeping into the collar of her top. ‘I’m an outstanding psychiatrist, missy. And my father died of natural causes, if you must know.’
‘Don’t try to tell me that Arnold van Blanken, Kaars Verhagen and Brechtus Bruin all coincidentally died of heart attacks.’ She did her damnedest to slow his pace. Buying time while the workers exchanged glances.
‘Kaars Verhagen is to blame. You want a culprit? He’s your man. He had to go and find a box full of correspondence between my German father and Hendrik. Verhagen threatened to expose Hendrik as a Nazi collaborator.’
‘It wouldn’t have bothered you! Have you seen the state of your son? And why would his grandfather be getting his tits in a tangle over something that happened seventy-odd years ago?’
‘Hendrik van Eden spent his entire adult life being celebrated as one of Amsterdam’s most beloved sons,’ Baumgartner said. ‘He practically had the keys to the city. Why do you think he died of a heart attack?’ There was fury in his voice. ‘Kaars found invoices for Hendrik’s trafficking endeavours. Him and those other busybodies threatened to expose him to the national press. Can you imagine the embarrassment that would have caused? The shame? The stress was enough to kill Hendrik. And I vowed I’d get my revenge. I was with him as he breathed his last on a sticky supermarket floor, squinting beneath the god-awful fluorescent lighting. I swore to him that I’d take out every last one of those interfering, do-gooding sons of bitches. Hendrik’s heart had given up, so I’d make sure theirs would too. And I did. And I hope it damn well hurt like hell at the end.’
‘They trusted you with their healthcare and you betrayed that trust. You’re a snake.’
At the edge of the grave, they came to a halt. With the panic constricting her throat, she wondered if she’d even be able to scream. Arms encircled her from behind. Den Bosch?
‘Before you go, I’m going to have a little fun with you. I did promise Van den Bergen I would.’
George could feel his erection pressing into
her back.
If you’re on the premises, Marie and Elvis, now’s the time to fucking step it up, guys.
She tried to wriggle loose. ‘Get off me, you fascist monster! If you’re going to kill me, get on with it. But don’t think you’re sticking your crappy excuse for a dick anywhere near me.’
Mouthing the word ‘Now!’ in Arabic at the workers, she hooked her Doc-Marten-clad foot around Den Bosch’s ankle, trying to destabilise him. They scuffled, and she edged him towards the deep hole that was intended as her final resting place. It only seemed to fuel Den Bosch’s ardour.
‘I love it when you lot struggle. You’re so primitive.’ He grabbed her breasts from behind.
‘Fucking pervert. Can you Nazis only get it on when you’re being watched by your parents and you’re sticking it in black women? Bet you wish you were hung like a black guy, don’t you? Sorry, but my genetic superiority’s not going to rub off on you, pal.’
Mustering all the strength she had, she wrong-footed Den Bosch, treated him to a ferocious backwards kick from the heel of her boot that was worthy of a mule and hauled him over her shoulder. He was dead weight, but she was so buoyed by fury that he toppled over like a ragdoll. Falling, falling, to land broken and screaming at the bottom of the grave.
‘My leg! You’ve broken my leg, you bitch!’
‘Diddums,’ George said. ‘An eye for an eye, and a leg for a leg. Twat.’
As she spat on him in the grave, Baumgartner and Den Bosch’s cronies, who had been watching, rapt, as though their struggle had been particularly good daytime TV, suddenly sprang into action. Baumgartner plunged his syringe into George’s shoulder.
But he was too late.
The Girl Who Got Revenge Page 26