The Girl Who Broke the Rules (13 page)

George had stupidly left a chain hanging round her neck featuring her name in gold lettering. She didn’t like the adornment, but it had been a present from Ad. She might as well have been planning to board a flight to JFK from Gatwick with contraband liquids in her handbag.

‘Take it off, please,’ the officer instructed her. ‘You know the rules about jewellery.’

‘Sorry. I forgot. This is an impromptu vi—’

‘In here!’ The woman’s tone was now castigating. She pointed to the container, that already held George’s phone.

‘Fine.’
Frosty-faced cow.

The gates clanged open. Despite conducting research inside this infamous psychiatric hospital for a year now, George still felt jittery. She was on the inside; less than ten years since she had worn a standard issue tracksuit. Not inside these walls, but inside others like it. She willed her hands to keep from shaking. Clenched her fists tight. Keeping her clammy hands to herself, George was escorted across the deserted grounds to Silas Holm’s lair.

It was neat in that wing where the sex offenders lived. Quiet. Orderly. Utterly eerie. As usual.

‘You couldn’t bear to be apart from me, could you, my love?’ Silas Holm said. Smiling. Arms outstretched. His nurse, Graham, was sitting at his side. Alert. Poised, by the looks.

‘Come on, now. Sit down, Dr Holm,’ Graham said. ‘Show Ms McKenzie some respect, please.’

George took several screen grabs from the film out of her leather courier’s bag. Laid them on the table. ‘Silas, it would be very helpful if you could tell me the name of this actress.’ She pointed to the anodyne still she had texted to Katja without success. ‘This woman has very similar eyes to the woman in that drawing you showed me.’ She pushed the more violent images closer to Holm.

Silas Holm snatched up the pictures and started to grin.

CHAPTER 24

Amsterdam, police headquarters, later

‘For God’s sake, give her some eyes, will you?’ van den Bergen said, watching with awe as, with a series of clicks, Marie started to transform the photo of the first victim from a sorrowful shot of an enucleated cadaver to something that resembled a portrait of a living girl. At her side, Sabine Schalks watched, also clearly rapt by Marie’s digital artistry.

‘Do you think her skin should be darker?’ Marie asked.

Van den Bergen peered over the rims of his glasses and stared blankly into the middle distance. ‘Yes. Yes, definitely.’

‘And perhaps you could sort out her facial proportions so she looks like she’s sitting up,’ Sabine said. ‘She must have been lying down when rigor mortis set in. See how her face sags?’ The paediatrician pointed at the screen with a long, slender index finger.

‘Yep. No problem.’ Marie cut dark brown eyes from a model in a fashion shoot close-up, and pasted them into the composition. With a tweak here and there, she was done inside twenty minutes. ‘What do you think?’

‘Fantastic!’ Sabine exclaimed, clasping her hands together. ‘You’re a genius!’

Van den Bergen nodded. ‘Better than the sketch artist. Hasselblad would never have forked out for forensic facial reconstruction, the tight bastard.’ He clapped Marie on the shoulder. ‘This is our girl. We’ll get this in all the newspapers. See if anyone knows her. I want you and Elvis to show this picture round organisations that shelter refugees and trafficked women.’

He turned to Sabine, affording her an awkward smile. Thought better of it, when he realised Marie was watching him.

‘Right. I’ll leave you two to discuss paedophile rings. Can I make you coffee?’

‘Are you being funny, boss?’ Marie asked. ‘You? Make coffee? Since when?’

Sabine toyed with her pearl earrings and crossed her legs. The hint of a blush in her cheeks. ‘Am I getting special treatment, Chief Inspector?’ She looked up at him. Flicker, flickering eyelashes.

He swallowed hard. ‘Absolutely not. I always pamper my staff.’

‘What a fibber!’ Marie said. She rose from her chair. Beckoned Sabine to come with her. ‘I’ll make us both a drink, shall I? Best not to tempt fate. Last time the boss made coffee, he gave Elvis legionnaires’ disease.’

‘Slander!’ van den Bergen shouted after them. Marie and Sabine left him staring at the photoshopped girl. They could not have known that he was thinking of George. Remembering last time she had visited and stayed over in his spare room. They had shared burnt pepperoni pizza and a bottle of shiraz. Discussed the peculiarities of aggressive, under-educated young men in Britain’s Category A prisons. Spoke at length about van den Bergen’s descent from the pinnacle of culture as an art-school golden boy into a job as a uniform in the Netherlands police, booking drunks and responding to concerned neighbours, reporting wayward burglar alarms in Amstel. Reminisced about the time when George was chasing down ghetto back alleys to get away from a mother who had encased herself over time in a hard, unloveable veneer; lacquered with the colours of the Jamaican flag on a Saturday night. Laughed at the fact that neither he nor George could cook for toffee. He had sketched her afterwards, sitting on his sofa, while they talked about Charlemagne, the library in ancient Baghdad under Abbasid rule and the Silk Road. It was a good sketch. It was a great evening. He could not think of one other person he could spend six hours talking to and still feel there were too many things left unsaid by bedtime.

Was there someone out there who felt that way about these dead girls? One thing he knew for certain: if he didn’t succeed in identifying them, he didn’t have a hope in hell of finding their killer.

CHAPTER 25

Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later

‘How did you get them to agree to show me these?’ Silas asked.

His eyes sparkled with mischief. He reached down beneath the table and adjusted the crotch of his flannel trousers – back in his tweeds now, but not for long, judging by the look of horrified consternation on Graham’s face.

‘I cannot believe they allowed you to bring these in,’ Graham said. He grabbed Silas’ arm. ‘Hands on the table, Dr Holm.’

George looked apologetically at Graham. ‘It’s not just for my own curiosity, I promise you. These are tied to a crime scene. I can’t say more.’ She turned to Holm, whose cheeks were pink.

He licked his lips. That tongue flickering and reptilian emerging from his small mouth. Those ice-blue eyes, one-way mirrors revealing no soul behind them, staring down at the still taken from the point in the film where the hedge trimmer had just come into shot.

‘Who is she, Silas? Come on. Amputee erotica. It’s your thing, isn’t it?’

But he was transfixed and did not look up. George grew irritated. Gathered the stills up and shuffled them into a neat pile.

Silas Holm looked crestfallen. Cocked his head to one side and tutted. ‘You are cruel, Ms McKenzie. Denying an old man like me a little light entertainment.’

‘Tell me her name. Please.’ She was poised to write down whatever he said.

‘Let me keep the pictures.’ The directness of his stare had a manic quality to it.

There seemed to be no space between them. George touched the place on her collar bone where the gold chain normally lay. She looked over at Graham questioningly. It was no skin off her nose, to let him keep the images. And if it meant he would play ball…

Graham shook his head.

‘No,’ George said. ‘Sorry.’

Silas sighed dramatically and looked up at the tall ceiling. Pulled his lank hair behind him in a ponytail. Though his skin stretched tight over the sinews in his neck and over his prominent Adam’s apple, George could see it was beginning to crepe a little with age. He had the papery complexion of northern Europeans. Too pale. Almost translucent, betraying the network of thin, blue veins that ran just beneath the surface. Giving its owner the appearance of vulnerability. But the fallibility of the man’s skin bore no relation to the condition of the flesh beneath. Silas Holm must have had the strength of a man twice his size to have dismembered those women. George glanced over at Graham’s reassuring bulk and felt thankful for his presence.

‘You know, one of my favourite postings was with Médecins Sans Frontières,’ Silas said. ‘An anaesthetist can do such good work out there, in the kill zones of Africa.’

‘Why won’t you help me, Silas?’ George asked.

‘We had to leave the medical facility of course, when it was bombed. I spent a while at Dadaab refugee camp over the Kenyan border. Helping out, you know? I think that’s why they gave me the medal.’

She had one shot at this, goddamn it. Van den Bergen was relying on her. She could tell that Holm did know the actress. She had seen the recognition register in his face, as it lit up like a hopeful flare.

‘I know you’re an intelligent man, Silas. And I can tell that you’re playing me. But two women have been murdered and I think you can help.’

Those ice-blue eyes locked onto hers. He was studying her face. Her inclination was to look down at her blank sheet of notepaper but George girded herself to hold his gaze for as long as was necessary. To show him she was not intimidated.

‘Murdered? How?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say.’

Staring at the ceiling again, he rocked back on his chair. ‘Of course, the tour of Afghanistan was also very satisfying,’ he said. ‘It’s amazing how many soldiers lose an arm or a leg in a skirmish. That’s active service for you. I’m not a surgeon, but assisting those doctors as they operated on limbs that had been blown to smithereens was
very
informative.’

Barely able to suppress the urge to punch this self-aggrandising animal, George unfurled her fist and clicked her fingers instead. Snap, snap, ricocheting around the sparsely furnished room. Regained his attention.

‘You want some nice juicy details about some new psychopath on the block who’s doing the stuff you can only dream of now?’ she asked. ‘Is that the way this rolls? If I tell you, will you give me the actress’ fucking name? Right?’

Running a fingertip along those thin lips, Silas Holm nodded. Van den Bergen didn’t need to know, did he?

George relayed as much information as she had been given and watched with disgust as Holm’s expression transformed from one of polite indifference to incontrovertible relish. His grin revealed those incisors. Described by a thick outline of yellow scum, they put George in mind of the teeth of a cartoon villain and made her want to set about him with a stiff toothbrush and scouring powder.

Holm sighed. Looked wistful. ‘Masterful,’ he said. Raised an eyebrow. ‘Unzipped? I like your metaphor. Although obviously, I can’t condone that sort of thing, because, as I said,
I’m
innocent.’ He held his slender hand aloft and spread his fingers, as though studying the empty space between them. ‘My trial was pure conjecture and defamation.’

‘Name,’ George said, thumping the table.

CHAPTER 26

Amsterdam, police headquarters, later

‘Linda Lepiks,’ George said on the other end of the phone. ‘Latvian porn actress. That’s the name of the woman in the horror porn flick.’

‘You’re amazing!’ van den Bergen said, smiling for the first time that day. ‘You know I need you here, don’t you?’ On a fresh page in his notebook, he sketched the outline of George’s face. Got her left eye too high up. Struck a line through the lot but still found himself smiling.

‘Paul, I asked. Sally said no.’

‘Is she the boss of you, George?’

‘Yes. No. Oh, come on! Don’t try child psychology on me, you manipulative—’

Van den Bergen set his pen down. Squeezed the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Conjured an image in his mind’s eye of the second victim on Strietman’s slab. ‘Look. I’m putting money on it that Linda Lepiks is our second victim. Dental records should prove me right or wrong. Marianne’s back in the lab tomorrow. Thank God.’

‘And?’

‘Well, if one of our victims is a porn actress, that adds credence to a theory that’s being pushed that these murders are sexually motivated killings.’

‘You know my involvement with this case could make my PhD research sing, don’t you?’ George chuckled. ‘You’re so fucking crafty, old man!’

‘Less of the old, thank you. I can still show the likes of Elvis a thing or two about stamina and flexibility.’ He was flirting. He knew he was flirting. It was inappropriate, given the circumstances. He needed to stop right there. Allowing himself only the flicker of a wry smile, he said, ‘Why don’t you go back to Sally, and ask again? I’m going to email her right now and tell her if she doesn’t let you come over here, I’m going to clap her into handcuffs and put her behind bars for obstruction of justice.’

‘Kinky,’ George said.

Balls.
She
knew he was flirting. He had been too obvious. Stupid old fart. George had Karelse. She would never look twice at someone twenty years her senior. And yet. And yet…

‘Will you come, George?’

‘If I thwart Sally—’

‘Please. I need your insight.’

George went quiet, as though she were pondering something. Then, she said, ‘Fuck it. I’ll need you to give me a job though. I’m totally skint, man. Filing. Making coffee. I’m not bothered, so long as I can cover my overheads.’

Van den Bergen leaned back in his desk chair and crossed his legs. Bounced his right foot triumphantly up and down on his left knee. Hoped his team wouldn’t catch sight of their boss, grinning like a fool in the confines of his office.

‘How soon can you get over here?’ he asked.

CHAPTER 27

Amsterdam, mortuary, 21 January

Four bodies lay on their respective slabs, spotlit by the bright theatre lights that hung above them. The first cadaver was an old man. With his mouth open and his eyes closed, he could almost have been sleeping, were it not for the fact that his lips, earlobes and fingertips were bordering on violet and the rest of his skin was yellow. The second, already in the process of being dismantled and weighed by Strietman, was an obese woman. It was difficult for van den Bergen to tell how old she was because of the bulk that stretched her now-grey facial skin taut. Strietman’s cranial saw buzzed merrily. There was an unpleasant sucking sound as he removed the top of her head. Two others were covered by sheets.