The Girl Who Broke the Rules (46 page)

This Veronica hadn’t come from the street. This Veronica had never had to defend herself in a women’s prison full of desperate inmates. This Veronica had never peddled drugs in a high rise and got up after a kicking, giving back as good as she got. George did. George had. George always would.

‘Time to teach you a lesson in manners, man-tiefing bastard.’

The van came into view as George rounded the corner in an otherwise deserted industrial estate. These places all look the same, wherever they may be in the world, George knew. Hastily built breeze-block units with brick fascias. Steel shutters on the plate glass shop fronts and doors at night. No security roaming this one, though George didn’t give a shit. She had the law on her side and van den Bergen’s life to fight for.

He’s still alive. I know it. But what if I’m too late? What do your guts tell you, George? They tell you he’s still breathing.

A long-wheel-based Mercedes Sprinter. Shaft of light shining beneath the largest of the shutters. Shutter up over the door. But what was this? As she crept forwards, George spotted something unanticipated. Plumes of smoke rising on the far side of the van. Making as little noise as possible, she slid up to the vehicle and peered beneath the undercarriage. Spotted a pair of men’s shoes and trouser legs. The wheels of a car, out of sight where she crouched. The distinctive fat, white
B
in the middle of shining alloys. A Bentley. She held her breath, close enough to be heard by the man, should he have been paying attention to the noises in that deserted place.

No way in through the front door. Retreating with feather-light steps, she ebbed into the shadows until she was able to walk without fear of discovery. Round the back. There was always a loading bay. Wasn’t there? Time running out. But here was the back of the unit, she was sure. A harsh white beacon slicing upwards through the black night sky from the skylight in the roof. She flattened herself against the wall. Security light clicking on at her approach. With crab-like movements, edged sideways. Tried the door. Locked. Produced her skeleton key but the lock was too sophisticated. Shit!

George looked up at the shaft of light emanating from inside.

Only one way in. No time for vertigo, now.

Clambering onto an industrial-sized dumper that stood against the wall, outside the unit, she started to hoist herself up the drainpipe. Biceps screaming in complaint.
Get up that fucking pipe, woman. Don’t look down!
Heart beating so hard, she wondered if the smoking man at the front would hear it.

Crawling along the roof. Would it even take her weight? Pigeon guano squelching beneath her hands and knees. She gagged. Swallowed down the urge to vomit. The light coming closer, closer, now. Clenching her teeth, as though that would make her quieter. Slipping around. She was too high up. How the hell could she even get into the unit?
You’re a fucking idiot, McKenzie. You haven’t thought this through.

Then, she peered into the skylight. Saw the scene below.

Van den Bergen almost unrecognisable with tubes going in; tubes coming out. Machinery all around him, filtering, aspirating, monitoring him. A livid, blood red line down his middle. Veronica in green scrubs, bent over his abdomen. Busy about her victim. Opening the line wider, wider. Cutting. Slicing.

George clawed at the Perspex.
No. No
. Mouthing the words. Tears forcing their way out of her eyes and onto her cheeks. Watching this monster thrust her hands in van den Bergen’s stomach.

Suddenly she was gripped in the jaws of anger. A rabid dog savaging its prey. It shook George about. And her trepidation was punctured. And her sadness flung aside. George was consumed whole. Only naked fury remained.

On that slanting Perspex roof, she stood, jumped. Veronica Schwartz peered up, askance, trying to spy what caused the din. Jumped again. Creaking plastic, weakening screws.

George crashed through the skylight, yelling as she fell. A battle-cry. No time to die. Landing some twenty feet below on the table that held an array of shining surgical tools. Buckling beneath her, but breaking her fall.

‘You!’ Schwartz said in English, quick to slash with the scalpel.

But George was quicker still. Prepared. Adrenalin pumping. Feeling no pain. Out with the can of hairspray in her right hand. Lighter in the left. Old dogs had taught her some novel tricks. She sprayed the choking lacquer stink into Schwartz’s eyes. Flicked her lighter into life. A budget drug-store flame-thrower.

Schwartz clasped her gloves to her face, screaming. Stumbling backwards, taking the drip stands with her in a tangle of tubing and rubber shoes. Clattering to the concrete ground. Ripping the cannula out of van den Bergen’s motionless arm. A glint of something silver in George’s peripheral vision.

The surgeon steadied herself. Deadly focus in eyes that stared out of a bloody, scorched face. She snatched up a long-nosed silver pistol that had been lying on a chair. Waving it at George, now.

‘Put the hairspray down, Georgina!’ she said. Ice cold voice. Seemed not to feel the agony of having been burned. Gesticulating towards the chair where the gun had been. ‘Go on!’

Stalemate. George stood, holding the spray and lighter in front of her. Unflinching. Trying to take in the surreal scene before making a decision. In addition to the medical equipment, and van den Bergen, split open like an edamame bean on the operating table, George noticed a steel trestle table, on top of which was a small empty plastic bag, a rolled-up fifty-euro note and a credit card. She caught the scent on the air. Above the pungent stench of alcohol, blood and shit, she could smell something else. Sex.

Schwartz and the man outside. Partying inside, while van den Bergen lay prepped for death. The surgeon was high. Her reactions would be skewed. Good.

Towering above her, Schwartz clicked the safety off the gun.

‘I said, put down the spray, you black midget.’

George sucked her teeth, long and low; raising an eyebrow like this standoff was child’s play, though her head was swimming and her heart thundered inside her chest at a hundred and eighty bpm. ‘Fuck you, chicken tits. Put the gun down or I’ll torch you again. Your kind crisps up real nice like a suckling pig.’

Schwartz’ scorched face became a sinister mask of hatred. She pointed the gun at George’s heart. Pulled the trigger. The gun went off.

The full metal jacket bullet punched into George. Sent her careening backwards into the table that held the coke paraphernalia. The aerosol can uselessly bursting into a cloud of Albert Heijn’s super-hold above her head. Tinnitus buzzing in her ears from the deafening thunderclap that ricocheted off the breeze block walls. Agony all at once, she dropped the spray and lighter. Gasped, clutching her chest. Blood oozing warm between her fingers.

‘No signs of life, here,’ Elvis said. ‘Any texts from George?’

Marie looked down at her phone. ‘No reception. Damn.’

They trudged around to the back of the seemingly empty country house. Peering into blackness through locked doors and windows. Scenarios where she would have to explain her father’s death to the newly married Tamara played out in Marie’s mind, until her phone suddenly vibrated in her pocket. She took it out, lighting up the screen – the only illumination in that dark place apart from Elvis’ torch. A text, sent by George ten minutes earlier. It had only just reached her phone. Two bars.

VdB being held in industrial unit north of Laren. Need backup. Come asap

She showed it to Elvis. ‘No address,’ she said. One bar.

‘Get onto Google maps. Better pray that wi-fi connection holds up,’ he said, just as the last bar of reception disappeared.

CHAPTER 87

A secret location near Laren, later

Standing over her, Schwartz smiled. ‘I told you I’d shoot.’

George started to shake. Feeling the energy drain from her like a wounded character in
Grand Theft Auto
. But the bullet seemed to have missed her heart. Maybe. She was still breathing, wasn’t she? Just. Grey-faced, she was sure. Everything prickling, as though the world was about to fade from view. Willed herself to stay.
Get up. Get on your feet, girl.

Vaguely aware that a door had slammed shut somewhere within the unit.

‘Roni! What the fuck—? My God! What happened to your face?’

A man’s voice behind her, now. Sounded alarmed. Speaking English like a toff. George, back on her knees, craned her neck to see the newcomer. A finely dressed middle-aged man who looked like a hedge fund manager, but for the diamond in his tooth and the milky white stain on the crotch of his dark grey gabardine trousers. Stockily built. Shorn dirty blond hair. Scalp shining pinkish under the bright lights.

He swiftly made for George, grabbing her from behind in a headlock.

‘Let me go!’ she cried weakly.

Hand over her mouth, holding her in a vice-like grip. His fingers reeked of cigarettes and pussy.

‘This is the snooping little cow I tried to finish off in London,’ Schwartz said. Putting the gun down onto the operating table, beside the sleeping form of van den Bergen. Dabbing at her livid, shining face with some kind of surgical wipe. She kicked George in the stomach with a foot the size of a man’s. ‘
Untermensch
. You’re scum.’

Holding steady, though the kick winded her and made the blood seep faster from her wound, George resolved to show no fear. No weakness. No pain. Fixed her adversary with a stare that could strip the flesh from those elongated aristocratic bones.
I am not going to die here. And neither is van den Bergen. Not at the hands of this child-murdering skank.

The Englishman dragged George to her feet. One of her arms was pinioned by him across her chest, stemming the flow of blood from the gunshot wound. But her other; her right arm hung loose.
Big mistake, dickhead.

Surreptitiously, she reached into her jeans pocket. Arranged her keys into a makeshift knuckleduster – one key between each finger. Had to be quick. Right arm flung upwards, praying her fist would make contact with the Englishman’s face. The jagged keys found their mark. Soft tissue yielded.

The man screamed. Dropped to his knees. Mortise key in the eye. Blood rolling down his cheek, dripping onto his crisp clothes. A scene from a horror movie.

‘Give me my fucking keys back, man!’ George pulled the knuckleduster free with a revolting squelch. Punched him again as hard as she could. Again.

He clasped his hands to his face, still screaming. ‘Kill her, Roni! End the bitch.’

George kicked him in the neck with her steel toecap. He fell silent and still.

Schwartz lunged for the gun by van den Bergen’s head. Shot at George again. Missed, plugging the concrete floor, throwing up a residue puff of grey. Held the long pistol in front of her. Arm wavering. Those things weighed a ton.

But George had run out of tricks. She knew she was bleeding to death. On the operating table, van den Bergen was every colour apart from good. Blue around his lips, his earlobes. His fingertips purple. The chasm down his middle had filled with blood that was so rich, it was almost black. How long did he have? His heartbeat was frenetic, coming through on the monitor in a flurry of beeps. The alarm going off. Oxygen monitor clipped to his finger, protesting that his brain was dying.

‘Save him!’ George yelled at Schwartz. ‘Save Paul, and kill me. Take my organs.’

Her strength was failing her in earnest. Her hoodie drenched in a circle of warm blood, rapidly turning cold. Skids of red on the floor, where she had trodden a path that led to her own demise. But George was aware of several things. The Englishman was either dead or out cold. A persistent, wailing sound broke through above the beeping of those infernal monitors. If she could distract Schwartz even momentarily, she might take this killer down with her.

The chair. First thing inmates went for when a riot broke out. Whatever furniture ain’t nailed down.

‘The cops are coming,’ George said, peering hopefully over Schwartz’ shoulder.

It was a childish trick, but Schwartz was high. Fell for it. Turned momentarily.

George snatched up the chair and used whatever strength she had left in her broken body to bring it crashing down on her opponent’s outstretched hands. The gun flew from Schwartz’ grip, sliding across the floor to the opposite side of the room. Raised the chair again. Smashed it against Schwartz’ singed head. Wood, splintered into pieces. Schwartz’ eyes rolled to reveal the whites. She slumped towards the floor, falling against the rubber mattress of the operating table. Grabbing on. Glazed expression. She was fading. But George took no chances. She picked up a large shard of corrugated Perspex from the shattered skylight and drove it into the surgeon’s shoulder, pinning her to the operating table.

Van den Bergen’s heart monitor flat-lined. But it was too late for George to do anything. She had blacked out.

CHAPTER 88

Amsterdam, hospital, 18 February

‘There she is!’ Marie said, smiling.

George opened her eyes blearily. Focussed on the large yellow-headed spot on Marie’s chin. Jesus. Is this what being alive held in store for her? She closed her eyes again, but remembered van den Bergen. Lids shot open.

‘Where’s Paul? Is he—?’

‘He’s in intensive care,’ Elvis said, standing just beyond Marie.

Tears welled in George’s eyes. ‘But he was blue! He was dying. Will he live? Will he be…all right?’ Looking hopefully at Marie. Reaching out to take her hand and thinking better of it. Putting her hand beneath the thin hospital blanket.

Marie chewed her bottom lip. ‘It’s touch and go. He’s got a perforated bowel. Schwartz was coked off her head. She cut too deep. It’s developed into peritonitis. They’ve got him on strong antibiotics but—’

George felt tears stab at the backs of her eyes. ‘Tell me he’s not going to die. Tell me I didn’t kill him.’