The Girl Who Got Revenge: The addictive new crime thriller of 2018. Marnie Riches

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       CHAPTER 3

       Van den Bergen’s apartment, a short while later

      Peering dolefully at the side of Van den Bergen’s wardrobe that she commandeered whenever she stayed, George saw only a phalanx of drab: nothing but washed-out jeans, black long-sleeved tops and her old purple cardigan, which was still going, despite the holes in the elbows.

      ‘How you going to wear any of that shit to the pool?’ Letitia screeched through the laptop’s monitor.

      George closed her eyes and bit her lip. The joys of Skype, bringing her over-opinionated mother, who was currently sprawled on Aunty Sharon’s sofa in South East London, straight into her lover’s bedroom in Amsterdam. There was Letitia’s round face – no make-up yet today, and the recently sewn-in ombré hair extensions made her look more like a spooked lion than Beyoncé – grimacing at the collection of casual wear.

      ‘I ain’t going to no fancy tapas bars with you dressed like a builder, lady.’ Pointing with her talons, which were green today. Head rolling indignantly from shoulder to shoulder. ‘Them tops is a fucking embarrassment. Sort it out! Get down the shops. Or don’t they have shops in Holland?’

      ‘I’m skint,’ George said, angling the laptop’s camera away from the contents of the wardrobe. ‘I’m saving for a deposit, remember?’

      ‘Skint, my arse. All that fancy shit you do for the university and that old lanky Dutch bastard you call a boyfriend has got you on the payroll over there?’ Her mother sucked her teeth, snatched up a packet of cigarettes from the coffee table and lit up with a dramatic flourish. She blew her first lungful of smoke towards her screen, clearly aiming for George’s image. ‘Your Aunty Shaz’s gaff not good enough for you?’

      ‘Maybe I want to get away from you.’

      The words had burst their way out before George had had chance to filter them. Damn it! She’d made a pact with herself not to rub her ailing mother up the wrong way, especially as Letitia had nearly lost her life prematurely at the hands of the Rotterdam Silencer himself.

      And there was her father, edging his way into the frame and waving timidly. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was planning to get away from him when they had only just been reunited after decades apart.

      ‘Not you, Dad!’ she said – in Spanish, for his ears only. ‘When I get my own place, you’ll always be welcome. There will be a bed for you, anytime. I meant Madam Gobshite. I need to put some distance between me and her when I’m in the UK.’

      Her father looked at the monitor with warm brown eyes. A wry smile softening a face that was still somewhat haggard after his ordeal, though his cheeks had begun to plump up, presumably thanks to Aunty Shaz’s incredible cooking. George’s stomach rumbled at the thought. Jerk chicken. Rice and peas. Goat curry. Bun. Jesus, I’ve got to learn to cook.

      ‘Don’t worry, my love. I’d worked that out,’ he said.

      But suddenly, Letitia’s grimace blocked up the picture. ‘Hey! Don’t you be thinking I don’t know you’re having a pop at me, you cheeky lickle rarseclart.’

      Her mother snapped her fingers at the camera, and even with the breadth of the North Sea between them, George winced inwardly at the castigatory gesture. She knew she was in the wrong for bitching so blatantly in front of her, and felt instantly guilty for it. Wouldn’t let on to that horrible old cow, though.

      ‘My internet’s down,’ she said, slamming the lid of her laptop shut. Ending a conversation that had quickly soured – though she had been trying her hardest to keep it sweet.

      Glancing at the clock, she just registered the fact that it was gone 11 a.m. and she still hadn’t heard from Van den Bergen when her phone rang. It was Marie on the other end.

      ‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘Has he forgotten his reading glasses again?’

      But Marie’s voice was thin and stringy, stretched to its limit with angst. ‘The boss has been rushed to hospital. You’d better come quick.’

      The taxi seemed to drive too slowly down the s100, though George could see from the driver’s speedometer that he was flooring it.

      ‘Please hurry!’ she said, reaching forward to grab the man’s shoulder. She withdrew her hand when she spied the navy jumper full of dandruff.

      They took a sharp right off the motorway and left the canal, speeding down Rhijnspoorplein. The clusters of high-rise office blocks blurred into the less densely built-up dual carriageway of Wibautstraat. A tram approached from the left and the lights were changing.

      ‘Put your foot down!’ she shouted.

      ‘No way, missy. Sit tight. I’m not going to kill us both to save thirty seconds.’

      The driver eyeballed her through the rear-view mirror. She could see from the stern promontory of his brow that he wasn’t going to yield. In sullen silence, she sat with folded arms, imagining Van den Bergen breathing his last in the high-dependency unit. Marie, being Marie, hadn’t gone into any great detail and had hung up all too quickly. George ruminated on what gut-wrenching drama might greet her when the taxi finally swung into Eerste Oosterparkstraat.

      The brutalist mid-century-modern block of the hospital sprawled on their left.

      ‘Drop me here.’ George thrust money at the taxi driver and sprinted into the Onze Lieve Vrouw Gasthuis, arriving at the information desk with a tight chest. ‘I’m looking for Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen,’ she wheezed, determining to quit the clandestine cigarettes she was still snatching when nobody was watching.

      The receptionist looked her up and down. The smile didn’t quite reach her eyes as she gave George the ward location and reminded her that it wasn’t currently visiting time.

      When George arrived on the specialist heart ward, she found Van den Bergen’s bed empty. Grabbing a passing male nurse by the arm, she was dimly aware of tears pricking the backs of her eyes. She shivered with icy dread. ‘Where’s the patient? Where’s Paul van den Bergen?’ she asked. ‘I’m his partner. Please tell me he hasn’t—’

      The male nurse looked down at her hand with a disapproving expression. He gently СКАЧАТЬ