The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows: A gripping thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Marnie Riches

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       CHAPTER 11

       Amsterdam, apartment in Bijlmer, then, police headquarters, later

      ‘We’re not interested in whether you’re legal or not,’ Van den Bergen said. Shouting at volume as though his audience were communally deaf. Might as well be, judging by the silence. Holding his hands up in the hope of demonstrating to the cowering gaggle of eight men, one woman and two children that he meant them no harm. It was hard enough to inspire any kind of trust in the residents of Bijlmer. Now that the two uniforms had shown up as backup for what was potentially a combustible situation, he could see the naked scepticism on their faces.

      He turned to Elvis. ‘Tell them, for God’s sake! Tell them we don’t give a shit about their status.’

      Elvis shrugged. ‘I don’t know Arabic, boss!’ He sighed heavily. ‘Does anybody here speak Dutch? English? French? Come on! Vous … Oh, fuck it. I can’t speak French either. Nobody?’ He pointed at the two white men. ‘What nationality are you?’

      Kneeling with their hands in the air, as though they were about to pray to the Netherlands Police for absolution, or, at least, asylum, the two men spoke in what sounded like Russian. Polish, maybe.

      Feeling the agitated lava of his stomach acid spurt into his gullet, Van den Bergen stalked towards the boy from the playground. ‘You!’ he said. ‘You understand what I’m saying, don’t you? Imran, right?’ The boy peered sullenly down at the board game. English Monopoly. Pieces strewn over the dirty mattress. Metal car, iron, top hat. Half-eaten remnants of lunch on a plastic plate. A piece of pitta bread on Trafalgar Square. He remained silent, looking intently at the younger boy who was building a house out of Community Chest cards.

      Van den Bergen knelt and tried to gain the boy’s attention. ‘It’s okay, Imran. I just want to ask you some questions about the man that died. The man in playground.’

      The woman lurched forwards. Prodded Imran in the back. Said something in her native tongue, though the tone was castigatory, Van den Bergen could tell.

      ‘Is this your mother?’ Van den Bergen asked.

      Imran shook his head at the same time that the woman nodded.

      ‘Mother. Yes. Yes,’ she said, breaking into an unfamiliar and excitable string of consonants and vowels. Clasping the boy to her chest. Kissing the top of his head.

      ‘Chief Inspector!’ one of the uniforms shouted from another room. ‘You’d better come and see this!’

      Backing towards the bedroom, quickly assessing whether Elvis was at risk or not from the jittery, diasporic occupants of the apartment, he poked his head in on the scene in one of the bedrooms. A dark-skinned man lay on a squalid, single camp bed, clutching at his stomach. His nether regions were wrapped in soiled bandages, a foetid stink on the air of infection. Beside his cot, balanced on top of a stool, was a cardboard vegetable tray from a supermarket. Filled with blood-caked plastic bags containing white powder.

      ‘Call for an ambulance,’ Van den Bergen told the uniform. Eyeing the bloody ooze that had contaminated the sheet beneath the man’s body. Sweat rolling from his brow, the whites of his eyes on show as he trembled and winced. ‘I think we’ve got ourselves a flat full of drug mules. Looks like some cargo has burst inside this poor bastard’s stomach.’

      Back in the living room, Van den Bergen glanced at the soiled mattresses that the boys sat on. He cast an appraising eye over the visibly jumpy men in the room, shared a knowing glance with Elvis, then turned to the second uniform.

      ‘Contact social services, as well. Tell them I’ve got two at-risk kids. And get the van. This lot are coming down the station for questioning.’

      ‘Death by snow,’ Marie said to her flickering screen, momentarily catching sight of her face, reflected on its shining surface. Despair etched in parallel lines onto her forehead, their depth and permanence accelerated by the world of Internet filth that Marie inhabited, as her police specialism dictated. Blot it out. She refocussed on the Google list.

      ‘Snow-related deaths. Ice as a weapon. Right. Come on, Google. Come on, Europol database. You’re my best girls. Don’t disappoint me.’

      Marie was happy to be alone. The silence was comforting. There was no expectation for her to make polite conversation with Elvis and the boss, although she rarely did these days, in any case. She could just concentrate on the information that came whizzing down the fibre-optic cables to her machine. A world of pain. A world of hate. But, a firewall of gigabytes and machinery that put a couple degrees of separation between her and the places where the world was truly broken.

      As the results appeared on the various search engines, she slurped from her lukewarm coffee. Pulled the collar of her top wide, sniffing and wondering if it had another day in it. Probably not. She knew what the other detectives said about her, although she had never heard Van den Bergen or Elvis complain about the smell. That George could be cutting, though. But then, she had a problem with OCD and was okay otherwise. It was the admin-bitches Marie couldn’t stand. Other women were always the worst.

      ‘Harpies,’ she said, staring at the wall whilst visualising the cows upstairs. Kamphuis’ harem. She looked fleetingly at the photo of the six-month-old boy on her desk. Swallowed hard. The world at this end of those fibre optic cables was broken too.

      Her focus returned to the Google list that went on for page after page after page. Jack Frost was not the only damaged soul using snow and ice to kill. Mother Nature had previous. She was the Queen of the psychopaths. Avalanches. Ice falling from a great height that could take out an entire car. Frozen corpses scattered along the base of K2’s North Face; marble-white near-perfection in perpetuity, only broken in the parts that had trifled with the mountain on the way to the bottom.

      Marie skimmed over Marianne de Koninck’s forensic report again. Conical wound. Water permeating the surrounding cells. No trace of a blade.

      ‘Got to be an icicle. What else could it be?’ she muttered.

      Her practised, analytical gaze scanned the contents of story after story. Page after page. Deftly click-clicking her mouse, until she happened upon what she had half hoped СКАЧАТЬ