The Girl Who Broke the Rules (45 page)
Read The Girl Who Broke the Rules Online
Authors: Marnie Riches
She Googled Heidi Schwartz. Found another archived obit from a glossy.
Daughter, Veronica, tried to save Heidi’s life.
A failed bone-marrow donation that had hastened her own leukaemia-stricken mother’s death. There was the Frida Kahlo moment of Veronica Sabine Schwartz – a patrician heiress, internationally set to jet off to London, where she would work through her bereavement whilst studying medical science at UCL.
So what did
Veronica Schwartz, medic
throw up?
Schwartz helps landmine victims in Cambodia.
‘Oh, my days!’ George shouted, squinting at a photo of selfless Veronica in her scrubs, standing outside a medical tent, rigged with a jungle backdrop, holding the hand of a smiling one-legged Cambodian boy. At her side was a young and remarkably handsome Silas Holm – trim under the scrubs, full head of short, dark hair, a tan, clean white teeth. Two whole legs. ‘Now this makes sense! Silas, you dark horse.’
‘Are you okay, miss?’ the elderly man at George’s side asked.
‘Just eat your fucking peanuts and mind your own, mate,’ she said, engrossed.
Google revealed more, three search engine pages in –
Schwartz heiress marries South African doctor, Thomas Schalks
– though George didn’t need to read the accompanying words. The bride’s face in the photograph was enough. It hadn’t changed, though the teen glower and chubbiness had gone from it. The dead eyes had grown more lifeless still. High cheekbones, the hair and the turned-up nose remained the same.
‘You murderous, stuck-up, man-stealing bitch. You’re gonna rue the day you tried to fuck with George McKenzie.’
‘Give me the bloody key, Ad!’ George said, dumping her small carry-on case in the hallway. Ignoring Jasper who was standing in the doorway to the living room, waving.
‘What? This?’ Ad said. Dangling it before her. Closing his fingers around it. Gone, like some cheap magician’s trick at a children’s party.
‘Please!’ Looking at his hand only. Avoiding meeting that probing gaze of his. She knew he was trying to spy the truth behind her own eyes. But this was not the time for honesty.
‘You’re going to him, aren’t you? Van den Bergen. You want to borrow my car so you can drive to his and spend the night with him?’
‘It’s a matter of life and death.’ She jumped up to grab the key out of Ad’s hand, but he held it easily out of her reach. He was just too tall.
‘You’re on a provisional licence!’ he said.
‘I can drive fine.’ She pushed past him. Grabbed her full can of hairspray from the bathroom. Shoved it in her deep coat pocket. Had noticed Jasper’s car keys on the kitchen table as she had walked past the doorway. Made for her quarry, swiping them lightning quick with a pickpocket’s hands. Neither man noticing. ‘Suit your fucking self, Ad,’ she said, heading out the door. ‘If van den Bergen dies, it’s on you, honey. I’ve got places to be.’
Tears welling in her eyes as she made for the car park. Wiped them away angrily. Held the fob out, pressing the button to see which car unlocked. When a white BMW Z4 blipped at her, she allowed herself a smile. Ad, hammering his palms against the living room window upstairs. Shouting something at her. Jasper out the corner of her eye, sprinting across the car park.
She got in. Fired up the roadster. Backed into the car behind with a jolt. The sound of shattered glass hitting the tarmac. An alarm crying out. Whoops. Jasper almost upon her now, wearing a look of pure horror. Mouthing ‘No’ as if in slow motion, while she stole his baby.
‘Too late, motherfucker.’ She kangarooed out of the car park, almost mowing down the car’s owner as she went.
What Ad hadn’t realised was that George had stolen enough cars in her time to know how to drive. Within minutes she had mastered the car’s gears and brought the snarling engine to heel beneath her booted foot. Ignoring the ringing phone. Chewing up the motorway, topping a hundred mph, to the Laren address Marianne de Koninck had offered up over the phone, knowing Marie and Elvis were on their way to Koninginneweg. One of them had to be on the money.
‘Jesus,’ she said, parking some way along from the country house. Headlights snuffed out. Looking up at the high walls and tall metal gates. CCTV cameras directed at the surrounding curtilage. ‘It’s Fort Knox.’
Darkness had fallen in earnest. Good. Though it was remote, there was always the chance a nosey neighbour would witness her intrusion and raise the alarm. She had some climbing to do. George left the heavy bulk of her sheepskin on the passenger seat. Pulled her black hood over her hair. Shoved the tin of hairspray in the pouch at the front of the hoodie. Big bunch of keys from her places back home within reach in her jeans pocket, along with her lighter. Breath coming short.
‘Let’s do this.’
Brisk walking to the perimeter wall, George prayed silently to a god she didn’t believe in that there would be no dogs. Grabbed a sturdy ivy climber and shinned up it to the top, dropping into a deep border on the other side. Her fall had been cushioned by something prickly that almost refused to release her from its grip. Holly. But she was barely aware of the burning scratches. Her mind was on van den Bergen only.
Crunching on the gravel drive was unavoidable. No lights came on. The huge house with all its gabled windows upstairs and leaded lights downstairs was in complete darkness. No cars out front but deep grooves in the gravel, made by a vehicle with a long wheel base.
Something was off about the place.
Walking round the far side of the house. The security light clicking on was the only source of illumination. At a set of single-glazed French doors, George selected her skeleton key from her bunch of keys. Gained entry easily and silenced the alarm after four goes on the keypad, trying out various significant dates Marie had texted to her. In the end, it was the death date of Sabine’s mother, Heidi, that had worked: 0307.
As she padded noiselessly through the house with the stealth of a panther, she realised nobody was home. When she switched on the light to the panic room, she knew van den Bergen had been there. A roll of duct tape sitting on a console that held three computer keypads. A used syringe next to it. On the floor, an overturned chair with traces of the sticky silver tape still on it. A small pool of blood on the carpet. And there was the real giveaway: van den Bergen’s glasses. The chain that he wore around his neck broken. The lenses smashed where they had been trodden underfoot perhaps during a struggle.
George felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Read a text from Marie.
He’s not at Valeriusstraat.
Wracking her brains, she considered what she would do if she were a surgeon, harvesting the organs of abducted victims in secret. She would need somewhere quiet. An operating theatre where no prying eyes would reach.
‘Try the garage,’ she whispered, remembering how Ad had been held captive in the garage of a country house. Hooked up to a drip for days, awaiting his turn as the Firestarter’s next human bomb in a cardboard box.
She found the door through the utility room. Could this be where van den Bergen lay, at the mercy of a psychopathic surgeon? Adrenalin coursing through her veins, she shook as she took out the can of hairspray. Held it in her left hand as she opened it with the right. But there was only darkness on the other side of that door. Breathing out heavily with relief, she switched on the light. A large black Lexus, the red light of its immobiliser flashing lazily on and off. So, something else had made those deep indentations in the gravel outside. A van.
‘But if he’s not here, where the hell is he?’ George said, scanning the contents of the garage, as she combed her brain for salient thought. Time was running out. In the corner of the garage, next to the draining board of a sink, she spotted an old filing cabinet. Broke into it with practised ease. Started to rifle through the folders until she found what she was looking for.
‘Bingo!’ It was the lease on an industrial unit, some five miles away.
A secret location near Laren, later
‘What do you mean, I’m not delivering my side of the bargain?’ Veronica had screamed down the phone. ‘I’ve got the chief inspector heading up the investigation on my operating table right this minute. If it wasn’t for constant interruption by that jumped-up little prick, Gera— Who the fuck does he think he is to talk to me like that, by the way?’
The Duke went quiet on the other end of the phone. ‘Have you finished?’ he had asked.
She had been seething at his arrogance.
Have you finished?
As though she were still a child to be silenced. Gagged by her mother’s ridicule. Censored by her father’s disapproval.
Have you finished?
‘No. And if you don’t like hearing what I’ve got to say, find yourself another stooge who’ll keep you in black market organs and stolen babies.’
His voice had been placatory on the other end. ‘There’s no need to be like that, Roni. Nobody could replace you.’ Beautifully spoken English that got her every time. Reminded her of Silas in the beginning, except this was a real alpha male.
Outside, she heard a car pull up. Held her breath. Looked down at the sleeping van den Bergen. Still intact, but fully prepped for surgery. Not long now.
‘I’ve got a surprise,’ he said down the phone.
‘I think there’s someone here.’
‘I know there’s someone there.’
The visitor had a key. Footsteps in the reception area. She held the scalpel high ready to strike.
‘Guess who!’ on the other side of the door. That English accent. Public-school breeding.
She breathed a sigh of relief. It was him.
‘You bastard! I thought it might have been the police.’
They kissed passionately, as she dragged him inside by the collar of his cashmere coat. He eyed the tall chief inspector on the table.
‘That’s van den Bergen?’ he asked, staring at the policeman’s penis. ‘He’s thinner than I expected.’
The Duke had grabbed Sabine from behind and slid his hand into her loose-fitting green trousers. Smelled of L’Egoiste aftershave and cigars. ‘Gera and his boys have got to lie low. I’ve come instead.’
Veronica had laughed. Turned around and started to undo his belt; unzipping his trousers. ‘As if you’d run your own errands. Admit it. You missed me.’ Encased his erect penis in her latex-gloved hand and started to masturbate him slowly.
He had produced a baggie of white powder from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Waved it in the air. ‘Can’t hurt to mix a little pleasure with business.’ Looked over at van den Bergen. ‘He can wait a while, can’t he?’
It had never been her intention to get waylaid like this, but she was already so wired at the prospect of opening van den Bergen up. The temptation of doing a little marching powder and letting The Duke fuck her hard up against the wall had been too great to resist. Though he was a good four inches shorter than she, his muscular legs were strong enough to bear her weight. And she was lithe enough to wrap her long legs around him; her arousal intensified at the sight of van den Bergen, out for the count on the operating table. Yet, time was ticking by. She didn’t want to have the chief inspector under for too long, lest it put an unnecessary strain on his heart.
The Duke had come too early with a grunt. Withdrew. Let her legs fall to the ground and yanked up his trousers quickly.
‘You selfish jerk,’ she had said. ‘What about me?’
He laughed, revealing the diamond stud in his tooth that was totally at odds with his upper-class persona. Good boy gone bad. Took out a gun from his coat pocket. A long-barrelled AMT Hardballer. Pointed it at her vagina. ‘This is always hard,’ he said.
‘That loaded?’ She had bitten her lip and narrowed her eyes at him. Thrilled by the prospect of something new. A risk. An erotic gesture masquerading as an act of violence.
Backing to the operating table, she had pushed van den Bergen’s legs out of the way; opened her own to receive the cold barrel of the gun.
‘Oh, you’re a very naughty girl, Roni.’
‘I’ve always been one to break the rules.’
Sore but satisfied now, enjoying the prospect of having an appreciative audience for a change during the harvest, instead of being on her own or having that seedy little lowlife who masqueraded as her assistant in Kent, she turned her attention back to van den Bergen.
‘I’m going to perform what’s called a midline laparotomy now,’ she told The Duke. ‘Know what that is? That’s where I cut him open from his ninth thoracic vertebra down to his umbilicus. Then I cut from his umbilicus to his pubic symphysis. Hold your nose. It always stinks to high heaven. And no passing out!’
She pressed the number 22 scalpel into van den Bergen’s skin and began to cut.
A secret location near Laren, moments later, then, the Laren house
Killing the lights of the Z4, George coasted into the industrial estate using momentum, rather than gas. Wanting to make as little noise as possible. Apprehension was lodged high in her throat, a precarious stopper holding all the grief inside at the prospect of being too late to save her friend; her lover. Images of van den Bergen opened up and emptied out like the other victims flickered in her imagination like an uncensored, unwanted slide show of the macabre. His expressive grey eyes, so large and full of melancholy or else mischief, packed in ice inside a cool box.
George admonished herself for allowing such notions into her head.
‘Can that crap, you wimp. Paul needs you to be strong. You can take this stuck-up streak of piss.’ Psyching herself up for a confrontation with a killer who was a good seven or eight inches taller than her. But she had stood up to the Firestarter, hadn’t she? And if Sabine
had
been her backstreet attacker in London, she had been made short shrift of by none other than Letitia. ‘I ain’t so fucking vulnerable, Veronica Schwartz or whatever your name is. I come from a long line of ferocious bitches.’ Puffing air hard out of her cheeks. Checking she had her discreet makeshift weapons on her person.