The Girl Who Wouldn't Die Part 4

He could see her blanch and he liked it. She would struggle and that would make it even more worthwhile.

Then, moving in for the kill, as he had done on previous occasions. Pouring too much wine at dinner. Seeing her giddy, her guard down. Licking his lips as he spied her Lolita's chest, the buds of a late bloomer, just sprouting. Detonating the bomb in good time.

'Janneke, we need to talk seriously for one moment about the end of term tests. You know, the external examiner has told me that she might have to fail you.'

The shock and sorrow in her eyes. But he had already worn her down throughout the first term and a half by marking her artificially low. Making her believe that she was nothing without him. Homeless, penniless, mentorless.

'Terrible, isn't it? But you know, I could persuade her to look more favourably on your work.'

The hand on the knee, moving up her firm thigh to her lovely cotton panties. The look of realisation crawling across her pretty face.

'Do you wax?' he had asked.

By that stage, he'd had enough waiting. She was his until the end of the academic year. Who the h.e.l.l would take her word against his anyway?

Now Fennemans checked his watch. When the designated time came, let her come and count it. He would emerge from the hiding place. The boot would be on the other foot. Feeling for his pocket knife, he rehea.r.s.ed in his head how he would hurt her. Hold the blade to her kidney. Threaten to report her for blackmail and extortion. Get the money back so he could make the same-day repayment that was a condition of the loan. Get even. Slate clean. A brilliant and foolproof plan.

George wiped over the keyboard on her laptop and switched it on. It clicked and whirred into action, greeting her with a merry tinkle. She flung herself into her straight-backed chair.

'I don't like you doing this,' Ad said, perching on the edge of the threadbare chaise longue. He pushed some woollen wadding back in where it had spilled out like fat from a whale carca.s.s.

George looked round and sighed heavily. 'Look, I'm going to do it. You can either ignore me and leave ... or help. Which is it going to be?'

She opened her Hotmail and stopped listening to Ad's lecture about cyber safety. In her inbox was an unread message from Sally. Her mouth went dry. It's been weeks. She opened it.

From: [email protected] 11.35 To: Subject: Your mother h.e.l.lo George, I hope you're enjoying the sights and smells of Amsterdam!

Two things: First, I've had a letter from your mother asking you to make contact with her as a matter of urgency. I know how you feel about this but I'm just letting you know that I have a number for her if you change your mind.

Secondly, I've had a Dutch detective asking questions about you. His name is Paul van den Bergen. He said he was looking to enlist a student to help him on a case. Under the circ.u.mstances, you should decline.

As always, when you respond, please ensure your email connection is secure https:// Best wishes Sally Dr Sally Wright, Senior Tutor St John's College, Cambridge Tel ... 01223 775 6574 Dept. of Criminology Tel ... 01223 773 8023 Her mother. George briefly allowed herself to drown in the pain. Count backwards. Five, four, three ... Then she fought the floodwaters back, salvaging poise from the heartbreak like reclaimed land. She deleted the message from Sally and turned to Ad.

'Well?' she asked. 'Are you my partner in part-time espionage?'

Ad groaned and stretched. His sweater lifted up as he did so and George caught a glimpse of his navel hair. Milkmaid's territory.

'Okay,' he relented. 'If it makes you happy.'

Van den Bergen was walking in long strides down Damrak to Central Station, with his junior detective, Elvis, trotting at his side.

'So, n.o.body living opposite saw anything. All those people. It's a joke,' Elvis said.

'Do you think curtains are a good Christmas present for someone who's just moved in with her boyfriend?' van den Bergen asked, wis.h.i.+ng Elvis wouldn't swing his leather-jacket-clad arms in such an idiotic manner when he walked.

'Did you keep the receipt?'

Van den Bergen's hip clicked rhythmically as he loped towards the departures board. He grunted. Same s.h.i.+t, different year. An afterthought of a gift that Tamara never wanted. A rejection that his ex-wife would gloat over until next year. Those were the joys of fatherhood now. But he had more important things on his mind.

'The bombing is tied to the Social and Behavioural Sciences faculty,' he said, peering up at the flickering, changing destinations.

'Weren't you there with Vim Fennemans the other day, boss? Didn't you recruit one of his students as an informant?'

'Platform Ten. Fast train to Maastricht.' Van den Bergen started stalking briskly towards the platform. 'Even if this mosque terror cell checks out, we need to start looking into the university people that regularly frequented or were involved with Bushuis library,' he shouted over his shoulder at Elvis, still clutching Tamara's ugly curtains in their anonymous Hema bag.

When he barrelled into a middle-aged man with a paunch, he was at first annoyed and then surprised.

'Fennemans!' he said, noting that Fennemans quickly slipped something s.h.i.+ny into his pocket and was looking furtively over at a woman in a purple bobble hat. 'What a coincidence. Funny how you keep cropping up!'

With Ad gone, George thundered down to the back yard. Darkness had fallen now. She wedged the door open so she could see under the light cast by the bare bulb in the corridor. Fifteen minutes and a handful of ash, cigarette b.u.t.ts, coffee grouts, snotty tissues, one used condom, one portion of rotting take-out jerk chicken, an entire ball of hair and a bout of dry-heaving later, she returned to her room with the only spent match she could find amongst her detritus. Filip had definitely used it. She remembered him lighting his cigarette with it afterwards.

She washed her hands thoroughly in scalding hot water, dried them on her wash-worn Margate tea towel and held the charred match up against the one she had found on the carpet. The one from the carpet was a full inch longer and twice as thick.

'Someone's been in my room,' she told her reflection in the window.

She wedged one of the straight-backed chairs under the door k.n.o.b, like she'd seen people do in films. Turned every light on. Went into the kitchenette and grabbed a bottle of cheap red wine by the neck, holding it like a weapon. Pulled every door open fast. Large store cupboards. Wardrobe. Empty. Behind the sofa. Nothing.

'You're just imagining it,' she said aloud, swigging hard at the cheap wine. She held one fist against her head and clenched her eyes tight shut. 'Filip must have dropped it out of his pocket.'

Fully clothed, she grabbed the laptop and clambered into bed. There was her half-written blogpost. At last, the words gushed through the tips of her fingers onto the worn, s.h.i.+ny keys of the laptop. It was a congratulatory piece; she was devil's advocate now, heralding the Bushuis library bombing as a political triumph against the West. She invited al Badaar himself to leave a comment; to sow the fertile political seedbed of the university's undergraduate population with doubt.

Pressing the publish b.u.t.ton, she knew she would never be asked to write for The Moment again. Now, let's wait and see ...

Chapter 5.

Amsterdam, 24 December

It was fiendishly early. With such a lot on his mind, he hadn't slept a wink. Dawn had not yet broken, but he could put off preparations no longer. Today was the day.

He looked down at Joachim's unconscious body, lying on the slab. Running a finger along his forearm up to the cannula that stuck out like an angry surgical thorn, he marvelled that Joachim was so sinewy. His skin was almost the colour of the urine that had gathered in a catheter bag attached to his p.e.n.i.s. He flicked the warm, heavy bag. It needed to be changed. Last one.

It was time to unhook him now. He pulled out the needle, which had carried saline solution and sedative into Joachim's body since the s.n.a.t.c.h. Checked the clock on the wall. He had precisely two hours to get his houseguest prepped and in situ before the sedative wore off. That was okay. The box was already a.s.sembled.

Padding to the kitchen, he made himself a coffee. His secret workshop was cold. He needed his fingers to be warm and nimble. Attaching plastic explosive to a man's body and rigging the wiring was a fiddly job.

He returned to the workshop and began a.s.sembling the things he needed from his shelving units. A roll of thin,14-gauge electrical wire, wire cutters, gaffer tape, disposable mobile phone and the other intricate components that a home-made bomb required. Everything was brightly lit by the harsh overhead strip lighting. Freezing concrete beneath his sock-clad feet. Cold air on his skin. Hot coffee in his stomach. His senses were in overdrive now. When his probing gaze fell upon his bolt croppers, that was when he started to get really excited.

He took Joachim's index finger and wrapped a plastic tie tightly around the base as a tourniquet.

'Think of it as signing my guest book,' he said to the sleeping Joachim.

When the bone in Joachim's finger cracked under the pressure of the bolt croppers' blades being squeezed together, he thought it sounded just like the walnuts his mother liked to crack open in front of the television during winter. Seeing the severed finger that ended abruptly with a red fleshy cross section marbled with yellow fat, skin, muscle and a nub of bone nestled within ... he held it up to the light to get a really good look ... that made him think of the strings of raw sausages in the butcher's shop window from when he was a child. He liked sausages, though his father would never allow him to have them in his presence.

As he opened the deep freeze and put Joachim's finger into a vacant hole in the test-tube holder, he chuckled to himself. Funny how even the strangest of things could spark off wistful childhood memories.

In the morning, George awoke with a hangover that measured eight point nine on the Richter scale. There were fifty-four comments on her post already. Angry comments. Wis.h.i.+ng her dead. Telling her to get back to England with the other stinking foreigners. But there, amongst the vitriol, was exactly what she had hoped for.

Allah is great. We are unified against the immorality and greed of the West. The Maastricht Brothers in Islam will continue to tear down the walls of your universities until Christianity's unholy teachings are expunged and only the word of Allah is left. Abdul Youssuf al Badaar.

George sucked on her cigarette, staring at the statement until the words looked jumbled on the screen.

She pulled her mobile phone out from under her duvet and punched van den Bergen's number into it. After three rings he answered.

'What?' he barked.

'Have you read my blog?'

There was a brief pause the other end. 'Yes.'

'So? Did I do well?' George smiled and kicked the duvet off.

'Great. Thanks. Look, I'm busy with forensics. I'll be in touch.'

The phone went dead.

'He put the phone down on me. The cheek of it!' George stared at the mouthpiece of her mobile.

George stood under a hot shower, watching the tiny beads of water clinging to the gla.s.s like glittering strings of binary code. Van den Bergen's rejection and the prospect of spending another Christmas accompanied only by a bottle of wine and a large bar of chocolate held her spirits down. And Ad would be tucked up with the Milkmaid by now.

'G.o.ddammit. I hate Christmas!' she shouted at the mildewed shower tray sealant.

When she returned to her room, she flung her heavy wash bag onto the bed, accidentally knocking her pillow off. Groaning, she picked up the pillow and noticed a greyish stain on the burgundy fabric.

'That's odd. This was clean on after Filip,' she said, frowning.

She scratched at the stain and gave it a tentative sniff. Dried though it was, the smell of s.e.m.e.n was still instantly recognisable.

En route to his destination, he had a little extra job to do.

From his vantage point, parked right outside, he could see the jaunty fairy lights twinkling on a Christmas tree within. An advent candle shone on the windowsill. Merry Christmas, cheating b.i.t.c.h.

He looked back at Joachim's box. No sound. No movement. He had five minutes. That was all he needed.

Wearing black overalls and with blue plastic overshoes stuffed into his pocket, he opened the glove compartment to the van and pulled out the hunting knife and clipboard.

His tread on the block paving was so light that nothing heralded his approach. Pulling on his overshoes. Rapping on the door's flimsy woodwork with a sure fist. Clipboard in hand. ID at the ready.

When the door was opened, her eyes flicked absently over the ID card in his hand.

'There's a possible gas leak?' she asked.

Still, she had not looked at him properly. She seemed distracted. Her scrutiny finally turned to his face. She balked.

He left her no time to react further or speak. Pushed her inside, spun her round and dragged her along the hall into the house with a strong arm around her neck. Knife at the throat.

'Make a sound and I'll puncture your carotid artery. I want the money. Take me immediately to the money. Don't try anything heroic. I want all of it. If you try to fight, I'll kill you. Understand?'

She nodded. He held her tightly to him in this tango of terror. Then he noticed from the sudden warm feeling against his leg that she had urinated. Stupid cow.

The tip of his blade had pushed its way into her throat enough for a bead of blood to have appeared.

'Count it,' he said as she waved the wad at him. He didn't look at her face. Only at the money.

'Please don't kill me,' she said in a whimpering, simpering girl voice.

Ordinarily, of course, he loved being begged by a woman but he didn't have time for that sort of nonsense today.

'What did I say about making a sound?' he asked.

With the envelope full of money in his top pocket and his overshoes stuffed back into his overalls, he was back in the van and pulling out of the drive before the girl had bled to death.

Van den Bergen took off his gla.s.ses, rubbed his tired eyes and stared blankly at the screen. Cardboard shreds. Clear evidence of plastic explosive and a mobile phone detonator having been used. Several molars containing fillings that weren't from Europe. And a body part.

He started to chew on his Biro thoughtfully. De Koninck, the forensic pathologist, might eventually be able to track the dental work down to a specific country. Shreds of card intermingled with the human remains meant nothing to him though. Not yet, anyway.

In his peripheral vision, he could see Chief Inspector Olaf Kamphuis pulling on his coat and waving to one of the secretaries. He started to lumber over towards him. Van den Bergen could not stifle a groan.

'I'm leaving,' Kamphuis said, chins wobbling. 'I'll be back tomorrow evening to see how things are going.' He ran a finger around his s.h.i.+rt collar and gave van den Bergen's feet a venomous stare. 'Am I going to have the pleasure of firing you for incompetence, Paul? Remember, I have the full weight of the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations behind me. It would be quite a Christmas present.'

Van den Bergen gnashed his molars together and considered a response. Kamphuis did love his games.

'I think the payout for constructive dismissal is quite hefty these days, isn't it? That's a very generous Christmas present you have in mind, Olaf. Too kind. Don't choke on the ginger biscuits, now, will you?'

Kamphuis laughed wryly. 'Very good, Paul. Touche, you big, lanky a.r.s.ehole. See you tomorrow.'

With Elvis out for burgers and IT Marie gone for the evening, van den Bergen found himself alone in the office. Alone, baffled yet again by his job and utterly hacked off. His phone rang. It was his counterpart in Utrecht, Teun van der Putte.

'Yes,' he snapped.

'Paul? Get your a.s.s over here immediately. There's been another bomb.'

'Jesus. I wonder where that is,' Ad said.

George felt his heavy breath on her hand. He smelled of deodorant and warm skin. When his knock came at her door, she had been poised to hit this unexpected visitor, thinking it might be her e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. intruder. The Stalker. She turned the words over in her mind, sampling how they felt, buckling under their ominous weight. But it had just been Ad, abandoning his early train back into the fluffy, baby pink arms of the Milkmaid. He had come bearing yuletide pity and a gift in a small, carefully wrapped package.

Happiness burned inside her with the white hot brilliance of magnesium held over a flame. Ad had a gift for her. He had delayed his return to Groningen. For her. She untied the blue ribbon and peeled back the expensive paper with trembling fingers.