a toothbrush. The tight deadline for The Moment had driven her to the launderette with her dirty clothes and soiled bedding. Now her room was tidy. It smelled strongly of lemons.
So, when she caught sight of an unstruck match in the middle of her dark grey carpet, she frowned. It had not been there before. Definitely not. She picked it up and examined it. Large-sized cook’s match. Pink head.
‘What’s that?’ Ad asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said. She scanned the room quickly and thoroughly. The locks hadn’t been forced. Nothing had been stolen. Maybe Filip had dropped it in the bed and it had fallen from the duvet cover. Maybe.
And yet, hadn’t she looked at her carpet before she had closed her door, congratulating herself on finally getting a stubborn wine stain out? Had there been more oversized matches in the overflowing ashtray? Check the trash later. She pushed the mystery aside and shut it inside her paranoia box.
‘You bring me the money, you lump of shit!’ the girl shouted down the phone.
Her voice was hard and sour. She sounded older. Two years older now, he could hear how experience and too many cigarettes had stripped the alluring freshness from her voice.
‘I know you can get it, Fennemans. I know all about your seedy social life and the scumbags you hang out with. I want it in that fucking left luggage locker at two pm.’
‘That’s a ridiculous demand. I can’t get it that quickly,’ Fennemans said, almost choking on his words.
‘I’ll call the police. I’ll get off this phone right now and call—’
‘Okay. Okay! But make it three.’
‘Two thirty.’
‘Fine.’
After his morning constitutional, Fennemans had opened his front door to find post on the mat. He had bent to gather up the mixture of brown and white envelopes. Some junk mail. Bills mostly. But what was this? A personal letter. Handwritten on good stationery. No postmark. He had presumed it had been hand-delivered.
Dear Dr Bastard,
If you don’t give me €10,000, I am going to tell the police about what you made me do. Call me immediately to arrange a meet.
Janneke
A sweat had broken out on his top lip. He re-read the words. €10,000? That kind of money wasn’t easily come by. What he did have spare, he spent on his … hobbies.
He had fixed himself a double gin and tonic to steady his nerves. Downed it in three gulps. Felt the alcohol spark warmth in his stomach. But it still hadn’t taken the edge off his anxiety. This was unexpected. The matter of Janneke had been dropped as it had been with Rosa Bianco; silence supported by those he could rely on within the university. Blind eyes duly turned. He had started to feel untouchable. And now this …
‘Bitch!’ Fennemans shouted at the wall. ‘I’m going to nail you to the wall. Nobody crosses Vim Fennemans and gets away with it.’
His fine mind had whirred into action. Reluctantly, he had pulled his mobile phone from his coat pocket and made the call to the only person he knew who would have that amount of cash knocking about at short notice. A person who would not take kindly to him forfeiting the repayment.
With his soul remortgaged yet again to the devil and the loan agreed, Fennemans had remembered how Janneke was in her freshman year. A slip of a thing in hotpants with bare legs and pumps, looking all of fifteen despite being a voting adult. She’d come to him for advice on accommodation. Worried that she had moved in with hard-drug users who had stolen her stereo to pay for their next hit.
It had been so easy.
‘Oh, poor Janneke. Don’t think twice about it.’ There, there. A friendly pat on the shapely knee. ‘I’m looking for a tenant. The girl I had before has dropped out of college unexpectedly. Why! I’d charge you much lower rent than you’re paying now and I’m hardly ever at home. You’ll have the run of the place.’
At first, he had engineered chance collisions as she came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel.
‘Ha! Silly me. I should have known you were in there.’ The thrill of planning his seduction was almost as satisfying as the act itself.
Then, making sure she saw him naked. By accident, of course.
‘Oh, I didn’t realise you were home. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’
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 hell 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 rehearsed 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 carcass.
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
Subject:
