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 circumstances, 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, nobody 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, wishing 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 shit, 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 shiny 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 butts, 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 knob, 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, shiny 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 button, she knew she would never be asked to write for The Moment again. Now, let’s wait and see …
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 penis. 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 snatch. 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 assembled.
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 assembling 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
