himself upwards into her.
Her words slipped out, unchecked.
‘You’re a butcher,’ she said. ‘I have to charge less because of you.’
The fat pig showed no remorse. He did not even open his eyes to look at her. Merely smiled, gripped her tightly by the hips and ground her pelvis harder towards him. ‘Nonsense. I’m a master craftsman. Black skin just scars more.’
Afterwards, they had squabbled over the fee. He snatched up the euros he had given her at the start and stuffed them under the bulk of his body.
‘Come and get it, little Noor!’ he said, starting to laugh. Glee in his eyes.
What was this? Some kind of perverse game? Wasn’t it enough that he had cut her baby out of her in that cold, damp back room he called a surgery and stitched her back up like an old sack? Fury flared within her.
‘Give me my money back!’ she said, trying to roll him over to reach the notes.
He grabbed her by the wrists and pushed her away so that she fell against the wall. Suddenly, fear snuffed out the flames of her anger.
‘What made you think I would pay, you dumb bitch?’ He pulled the foreskin back down on his flaccid, spent manhood. A sea slug stuck to his thigh. ‘You owe me. You’ll always owe me.’
She rose to her feet. Backed into the corner, folding her arms over her naked chest. ‘I already paid through the nose!’ she said, wanting to show this beast that she wouldn’t be trifled with. Wanting him to see that she wasn’t a defenceless little girl. But she knew her body language betrayed her and she was annoyed by the waver in her voice. ‘Give me the cash or I’ll report you to the authorities!’
He smiled brightly. ‘An underage, illegal Somali immigrant, working as a whore? Report me, a pillar of the community? I don’t think I’ll be losing any sleep on that front, little Noor. Do you?’
He was already dressed. Stuffing the notes back into his wallet, now. Magool steeled herself to step forward and snatch it from him. But the doctor sensed her intentions, leaned in and punched her hard in the face.
Her cheek stung. Tears sprang from her eyes against her will. She failed to swallow them back.
‘Get out, then! Go on! Fuck off and don’t come round here again. Ever.’
But as he opened the door, he looked back at her. A pause that perhaps betrayed the flicker of remorse in those bloodshot blue eyes. He reached inside the breast pocket of his overcoat and retrieved the leather wallet. Pulled out a twenty. Threw it at her.
‘No hard feelings?’ he said.
She picked up the money from the threadbare brown carpet. Pushed it back into his hand.
‘Stick your money up your ass, sharmuutaa ku dhashay! You need this more than me,’ she said, bundling him out the door and locking it behind him.
Waiting until the clatter on the stairs and the glazed door slamming marked his departure, she crouched in her small room and clutched her knees. Allowed herself to weep, but not for long. Cursed him and vowed she would get even one day. Somehow.
Her thoughts turned to her shared bedsit.
Enough for one night. It was time to shut up shop and go home. Get her shit together so that, tomorrow, she could face a new day. Hell, the weather was terrible anyway.
Outside, the mixture of hail and snow bit into her flesh. Her jeans and even her padded coat seemed to provide no protection from the unforgiving elements. Peering ahead down the street, it was as though she were watching whiteout static on the old black and white TV her parents had in their shack back home. And it had looked so picturesque from inside her booth. It would be an arduous walk back.
At first, she had not noticed the dark Lexus sliding slowly alongside her. She walked ahead of the car, pulling her hood further down over her eyes; following what she saw at her feet as a guide to which direction home lay in. But when the car edged forward and remained at her side, she lifted her hood to see if it was a familiar punter, hoping she might reconsider, retreat and reopen the shop.
The Lexus stopped. The driver’s window opened just enough for her to see who was behind the wheel.
‘You?’ she said. Hard to keep the incredulity out of her voice.
‘Get in!’ the driver said.
Magool clutched her shoulder bag across her chest defensively. ‘I said I never wanted to see you again.’
‘Look, it’s a storm out there. It’s warm in here. I’ll drive you home. You’re wringing wet.’
‘No thanks. I’ll walk it.’
‘Come on! Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve got heated seats.’ Placatory tone. Friendly eyes. The driver’s face and body language were benign. ‘Get in, for God’s sake!’
By now, she was quaking with the cold. Beyond uncomfortable. Despite sensing that the driver’s concerned gesture was off key, Magool walked round to the passenger side. Opened the car’s heavy door and registered the sting between her shoulder blades, as she sank back into the luxurious, leather heated seat…
The snow had stopped falling by the time Magool Osman returned to the red light district. Her makeshift bed was a bench beneath the windows of the Old Sailor Café Bar at the junction of Oudezijds Achterburgwal and the cobbled alley of Molensteen. Fittingly opposite the Erotic Museum, and ironically within spitting distance of her compatriots in their relatively safe, red-lit booths. But she had been dropped off after her final ordeal in the small hours, when only the water rats and the ghosts of Amsterdam’s Golden Age roamed those streets. The darkest hours before an unforgiving, wintry dawn.
Just after 6.30am, Magool’s empty eye sockets stared blankly up at Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen. With a cracking hip, wishing he had had time for breakfast and a coffee before leaving home, he crouched to get a better look at this young woman:
Dark skin. Diminutive stature. Completely naked. Frozen solid, with a dusting of ice that still sparkled like fake diamond dust beneath the harsh light in the makeshift forensic tent.
He thumbed his white stubble in contemplation of her corpse; once a thing of beauty, now defiled and incomplete. It was as though the girl had been unzipped from her throat to her pubic area, revealing all the fragile matter that lay beneath. Chest framed by the white stripes of her ribs, which had been split down the sternum and levered apart. Where once her lungs must have breathed in this sharp, Amsterdam air; where once her stomach might have digested a moreish meal; where once her kidneys and liver might have filtered celebratory wine…now, there were but gaping holes, frozen blood and a mere suggestion of the life and hope that had once inhabited such a young body.
Elvis, one of van den Bergen’s two most loyal protégés, moved the flap of the tent aside. He entered the scene, wearing white plastic overshoes.
Van den Bergen rose to his full height. Noticed the alarmed grimace on his subordinate’s face.
‘Stop gawping, Elvis,’ he said. ‘Show some fucking respect for the dead.’
‘Sorry, boss.’ Elvis covered his nose, though the
