silent. And as though her bitter words had never been spoken, she reached into the back pocket of her jeans. ‘I got two quid here. Get a pint of semi-skimmed at the shop and some chocolate for yourself.’ She smiled at Ella.
Mad cow.
Ella walked quickly through the back streets. She scanned the streets for Them. Daylight didn’t guarantee anything. There was an older guy up ahead dressed in expensive designer gear. He was being taken for a walk by a Doberman and a Staffordshire bull terrier. Instinctively, Ella folded her arms and quickened her pace. Don’t make eye contact. Keep away from the dogs.
As she neared the man, she allowed herself quick scrutiny of his face. Nobody she knew but almost certainly a dealer. Gold teeth. Diamond studded watch. Patterns shaved into his hair. The dogs started to bark and rear up on their stubby hind legs.
‘Get down!’ the man shouted. He looked her up and down. He winked. ‘Don’t worry, love. They’re harmless.’
Shying away from the trio, Ella broke into a run. The shop was near. The shutters were down over the window. A cock and balls spray-painted on them. But the open sign hung in the shatterproof glass of the door. Through bulletproof Perspex, she exchanged cash for milk and a Mars bar.
Voices outside. She peered nervously over to the seating area. Tonya and Jez: two of Danny’s ‘boys’.
‘There she is,’ she heard the girl say.
‘Oi, sweetheart!’ the boy shouted to her.
Ella looked round. Jez held a flaming branch in his hand. He threw it towards her like the devil’s javelin. It landed a few feet away, still burning. ‘See you later, gorgeous!’
Ella sprinted back to the house. Her hands shook as she fumbled with the key in the lock. She flung the boarded door wide and slammed it shut. Lock. Bolts. Safe. For now.
In the lounge she heard a man’s voice. Older by the sounds. She walked through to the kitchen, still shaking and put down the milk.
‘Miss Williams-May, Letitia, can I call you that? We’ve been watching you for weeks. We’ve got it all on camera.’
Another voice spoke. Younger this time. ‘You’re going down, love.’
Then the first one again. ‘Unless …’
There was muffled, clandestine conversation between the three that smacked of tacit agreement.
Ella walked into the lounge. Two large men in plain clothes sat on the sagging sofa. She could tell instantly that they were some kind of police. You just knew, didn’t you? They seemed to fill the room, and her mother seemed to have shrunk.
Letitia looked over at Ella. Tears were standing in her eyes. She wiped them away hastily and lit a cigarette.
‘Ella, make these nice detectives a cuppa, love,’ she said. ‘They need a favour from you.’
He had watched her leave.
The skeleton keys in his possession made light work of the locks. Inside her bedsit, her well-scrubbed lair, he took his time. Touching her things. Licking her toothbrush. Smelling her clothes. Holding her satin knickers like a glove while he pleasured himself onto her pillowcase, imagining her still lying on the bed.
Finally, he left her a souvenir from his visit. A symbol of his potency and poetry. A courtship ritual signifying that he was coming closer to the time when he would take her. He placed a match in the middle of the floor. From the door, there was no way she could miss it.
‘So he wants you to spy? Like a cyber special agent?’ Ad asked, flushed and wide-eyed behind his glasses.
‘Sort of,’ George said, pushing through the drizzle and hoping it wouldn’t put her cigarette out. This cycle back to town after the second lot of end of semester exams was beginning to feel like an interrogation.
‘Are you going to do it? Sounds dangerous to me.’
‘How’s it dangerous?’
‘Luring bloody terrorists to your door.’
‘It’s just online, Ad. They can’t find me.’
‘Don’t be so sure. These Al Qaeda type guys aren’t stupid. Your name will be all over that blog.’
George fell silent. Even if Amsterdam was full of overseas kids, dipping their toes in louche Dutch waters, finding an Englishwoman amongst the students wouldn’t be that hard. She’d told van den Bergen yes. She’d been lured by the thrill of being needed. How had she been so stupid? Daft tart.
They were past Roeterseiland now, back in the centre where Christmas trees stood in every shop window, festooned with tinsel and fairy lights. Closer to home, the narrow old buildings leaned inwards as though they were trying to get a better look at one another. On the canal, a glass-roofed barge full of tourists chuntered past. George could hear the monotone of the guide speaking over the PA. She felt certain they would be freezing their tits off.
Ad broke the silence.
‘How come you’re not going home for Christmas?’ he asked.
‘My folks are dead,’ George said.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the look of surprise on Ad’s face. He opened and closed his mouth. ‘I’m so … sorry. You never told me,’ he said.
George swallowed hard. She reminded herself that she was under no obligation to tell him anything. It had only been one kiss and he’d regretted it afterwards. He had the Milkmaid.
‘You never asked,’ she said.
George locked her bike against the railings and looked up. Inneke’s curtain was closed. Katja was standing topless at the adjacent first-floor window. Her red light was on, giving her a slightly demonic glow. George waved at her. Katja grinned back, pushed her boobs together and pouted in Ad’s direction. She pulled a strap of her thong up and down on her tanned hip. George shared a silent guffaw with her Polish neighbour as she took in Ad’s crimson-faced look of horror.
‘She’s only winding you up,’ she said. ‘Come on up.’
Inneke’s departing punter pushed past them on the stairs as George led the way to the top.
‘Can’t you get a different room?’ Ad asked. ‘It’s not right, living here.’
‘What’s not right about it?’ George asked as she pushed her key into her door. ‘It’s a decent size, it’s dirt cheap and it’s central.’
‘But strange men, coming and going at all hours. Your neighbours …’
‘Are brilliant,’ George said.
She
