The Girl Who Broke the Rules

‘Just a text,’ George said.

She made to turn the phone’s screen off and slip it into her back jeans pocket beneath her overalls. But surprisingly for a woman of small statue and large volume, Aunty Sharon was agile enough to reach around and snatch the phone right out of her George’s hand.

She gazed down at the screen, grinning.

‘Aunty Sharon! Gimme the phone, man.’

Her aunt brought the text back up and read the words. ‘Paul? Oh, yeah?’ Fixed her niece with a knowing look. Nudged her joyfully and a little too energetically, so that her flamboyant head attire wobbled – a sculpture fashioned from a scarf, the colours of the Rasta flag, intertwined with platinum blonde, curly hair extensions that looked incongruous next to her mahogany skin. ‘You two-timing that poor Ad with some geez named Paul? Girl, you’re harsh!’

George snatched the phone back. Jammed it into her pocket. Relieved that in the dingy light, Aunty Sharon would never suss she was blushing. ‘I’m not two-timing anybody. I told you about Paul. It’s just van den Bergen.’

‘The Dutch cop?’

George nodded. ‘He’s just a friend, yeah?’

‘Oh, really? That why you hiding your phone, then?’ For all George’s qualifications and finesse and Aunty Sharon’s lack of them, this one-time Jamaica Road rose in Betty Boop heels and laddered sparkly tights had the measure of her, all right.

George was searching for a way to change the subject, when three men entered the club. Two of them were tall, burly, wearing outmoded single-breasted leather jackets and cheap shoes. Cropped hair, dark eyes, olive skin. The third was small in stature and somewhat older-looking than the man-mountains that flanked him. Had the beady-eyed look of a coke-head, George swiftly estimated.

‘Get out the way and keep your gob shut,’ Aunty Sharon said, grabbing the bucket. Thrusting the mop into George’s hand. ‘Don’t attract no attention to yourself. Thems is bad news.’

As she ushered George behind the bar, the men escorted inside four bewildered-looking white girls, who were quickly divested of their fun-furs by a sycophantic, scuttling Derek. Beneath their coats, they wore either string bikinis or lacy lingerie, all covered only by sheer net babydolls, as if they had been provided with uniforms. Heavy makeup. Fluttering eyelashes and bouffant hair. Flawless, tight behinds, which only the really young could boast, George noted. On their feet they wore identical Perspex-soled platform shoes.

‘Jesus,’ George said, pretending to dust down the vodka and whisky optics that lined the walls when in fact, she was scrutinising the girls. ‘They don’t look much more than about fourteen.’

Walking uneasily in the vertiginous footwear, they advanced towards the main stage and came to a halt, as if awaiting instruction.

‘They’re crippled in them bloody stripper shoes, that’s for sure!’ Aunty Sharon said, wiping a wine glass with a tea towel. ‘They’re gonna end up with fallen arches.’

The sound system was not yet switched on. George could clearly hear the girls chattering nervously to one another in an Eastern European language. Could have been Russian. Could have been Polish. Who knew? Not George. They blinked fast. Flutter, flutter, butterfly lashes. Taking in their new surrounds, while their escorts spoke to Derek. Clapping him on the shoulder. Nodding. Smiling like old buddies at a reunion.

‘Listen that! See how they’re chatting in Italian?’ Aunty Sharon said, raising an eyebrow. She sucked her teeth long and hard.

‘That why he’s going round asking everyone to call him Giuseppe?’ George spritzed the till with anti-bacterial spray.

Aunty Sharon shook her head. ‘He’s into something, that scrawny fucking idiot. Well out of his depth. Them geezers been round here three or four weeks running, now. New girls every time. Young foreign girls. They dance for a night or two. Rake it in. Then they’re gone. Sometimes it’s African girls. Sometimes from the Far East. They don’t talk no English. Derek thinks cos his grandfather came from some tin-pot shithole outside Rome that he’s fucking mafia or something.’

‘Porn king that owns this place know?’

Aunty Sharon shook her head. ‘Nah. Don’t reckon so. These girls ain’t legal. He’d lose his bloody licence. Dermot Robinson ain’t that daft. But I’d put money on it that Derek’s on some kind of fiddle. Fucking Uncle Giuseppe. Rarseclart.’

The tallest man locked eyes with George. Started to walk towards her.

‘You!’ he said. Clicked his fingers, as though she were a willing waitress. ‘Come here!’

CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_f042fc89-7338-5a74-9ab5-cd80ea3edc3e)

Amsterdam, mortuary, later (#ulink_f042fc89-7338-5a74-9ab5-cd80ea3edc3e)

‘Her vital organs are all but gone. Can you believe it? Kidneys, bladder, pancreas, liver… you name it,’ Strietman said. ‘Everything except the two biggies – her brain and heart. Hard to tell with so much of her missing what the actual cause of death was. I’d put my money on cardiac arrest. I’ll need more time to examine her brain properly.’ He gestured towards the girl’s groin area with his pen. ‘She shows signs of having had rough sexual intercourse either just before death or shortly afterwards. Difficult to tell. No semen, but we lifted a couple of pubic hairs that didn’t belong to her. There are some signs of a struggle – thumb prints to her wrists. Bruising to the left side of her face, as though she’s been struck, but not trauma like you’d expect from a blunt instrument. Maybe a fist. Beaten, then raped, I guess.’

‘Don’t guess,’ van den Bergen said. ‘The sex may have been consensual and the bruising part of rough play.’

Daan Strietman shook his head. ‘She’s been murdered! It’s got to be rape, hasn’t it?’

‘Has it? That’s for me to discern. Continue.’

‘Well, I’ve really never seen anything like it.’ The pathologist was smiling again. Almost feverishly. ‘I think we’ve got some kind of ritual sex murder on our hands, here.’

Van den Bergen peered inside the girl’s chest cavity where the ribs had been peeled back to reveal black, coagulated blood and a rag-tag confusion of muscle and sinew. ‘Have we, indeed? Ritual sex murder. Why do you say that?’

‘Well, her uterus is gone.’

‘Yes, along with pretty much everything else, you’re telling me. Any trauma to the genitals other than what you’d normally expect from intercourse?’

The sombre proceedings were interrupted by a woman, knocking at the door.

‘Knock, knock! Can I come in?’ she asked. A cheerful voice. Searching eyes. Looked over at Strietman and smiled. ‘Hello, Daan. They said it would be okay for me to come straight down here.’

‘Sabine!’ Strietman beckoned the woman inside. ‘Perfect timing! Paul, this a good friend of Marianne’s – a very well-respected paediatrician.’

Van den Bergen moved away from the slab and was leaned against a tall storage cabinet. Arms folded; long legs entwined around each other. Wasn’t sure about this interloper.

Strietman offered the woman a typing chair to sit on. ‘I felt I needed a second opinion from someone who knows more about children’s physiology than me, since our Jane Doe shows signs of aggravated sexual assault and has given birth underage.’

Sabine perched elegantly, with the perfect posture of a yoga enthusiast on the edge of her chair. Ran a manicured hand through her long, thick chestnut-coloured hair. Van den Bergen assessed she was in her early forties, but she had that youthful glow to her skin that said this was a woman who looked after herself. Expensive-looking clothes. Nothing flashy. Pale grey co-ordinated knitwear. Leggings that emphasised her long, slender legs.

‘Anyway. Formal introductions,’ Strietman said, clapping his hands together. ‘Paul, this is Dr Sabine Schalks. Sabine, this is Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen. There. Now we all know one another.’

Sabine examined the Jane Doe. ‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘There are signs of partial female genital mutilation, but the scar tissue is old, indicating that it was performed years ago and not related to this girl’s death. Your Jane Doe must come from an Islamic country. Possibly East African.’

Van den Bergen nodded. ‘Anything else?’

Sabine Schalks backed away from the body and sighed. ‘She’s definitely a victim of sexual abuse. She could only have been about thirteen when she was carrying her child. Tragic. Absolutely tragic. Worse still that she’s ended up in here.’ She turned to Strietman, eyebrows raised. ‘What are the other circumstances of her death, in your opinion?’

Strietman thumbed his chin. ‘She’s suffered what we call a catecholamine “storm”.’ The pathologist made exclamation marks in the air with his blue, gloved fingers. ‘Her body’s been flooded by catecholamines – hormones made by the adrenal glands – and that’s caused ventricular damage to the heart. It’s often related to an overdose of cocaine or psychedelic drugs. There are MAOIs in her blood.’ He turned to van den Bergen. ‘Know what those are?’

‘Monoamine oxidase inhibitors,’ van den Bergen offered. ‘Used to treat depression.’

‘How do you know that?’ Strietman’s eyebrows shot up. He studied the chief inspector with something bordering on fascination. As though van den Bergen himself was a subject to be dissected, weighed and pronounced upon.

Van den Bergen wasn’t giving this over-enthusiastic dipshit anything. He remained silent. Peered down his nose at the younger man. Shot a furtive glance at the paediatrician. ‘What the hell have anti-depressants got to do with ritual murder?’

The feverish grinning continued.

Did this asshole think he was putting forward a case for winning the Nobel Prize? Or did he aspire to swap careers, trading his coroner’s stink and the solitude of the morgue for the lingering, heady musk of IT Marie’s three-day-old BO when they were pulling overnighters on a big case? Van den Bergen longed for the familiar sparring he enjoyed with the entirely sober Marianne. Wondered if George had read his text. He’d heard nothing. Yet.

Strietman expanded: ‘Well, Paul, MAOIs are used by spiritual drug users to increase the bioavailability of the hallucinogenic, DMT. In other words, MAOIs help them get a better psychedelic high. And this girl…guess what else she has in her blood!’