‘What do you mean, he’s out on confidential urgent police business? This is urgent police business. And I’m Dr McKenzie, the criminologist.’ George was aware that the pitch of her voice had risen by several notches. ‘I work for his damned team as a freelancer.’ Feeling her father’s inquisitive gaze fixed intently on the side of her face and having this stubborn jobsworth on the end of the phone, dropping the shutters on every word she uttered, George felt the will to live being squeezed out of her, leaving her drained and limp like one of Aunty Sharon’s empty piping socks.
‘Well, if you work for him, call his mobile,’ the receptionist from the police HQ said. Not a voice that George recognised. ‘If he’s given it to you.’
Sitting on the end of the sofa, watching her father eat lukewarm beans on toast, George tucked the blanket in around his feet so tightly that he emitted a disgruntled yowl and shrank away from her touch. She mouthed, ‘Sorry!’ at him and winked. Back to the receptionist. ‘Don’t you think I already tried that? I’ve tried Marie too. Nobody’s picking up. I want you to get word to him somehow that George needs to speak to him urgently.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t.’ The woman on the other end was starting to sound defensive. Perhaps one sentence away from quoting some kind of employee handbook.
‘You bloody well must!’
‘Please don’t speak to me like that. I don’t have to take your verbal—’
George ended the call, feeling like she needed to punch or bleach something, fast. She almost opted for the former, but her father had been traumatised enough without having to see his long-lost daughter using Van den Bergen’s beanbag as a punchball. The apartment felt oppressive and stale, unsurprising, given it had been locked up for a week.
Flinging open the patio doors and gulping the fresh air hungrily, George considered an alternative course of action. She stood on the balcony, sparked one of her Mexican cigarettes from Cancun’s duty free into life and exhaled deeply.
‘Those things will kill you,’ her father said.
‘So I’ve heard.’ George’s mind was elsewhere. She yawned absently and her blocked ears popped with an agonising squeak. ‘Minks!’ she said, snapping her fingers. She turned back to her father and smiled. ‘I’ll call Minks.’
Five minutes later, she was satisfied that a heavily armed police unit was being sent to the Prinsengracht, as a precautionary measure, to check out the preposterous notion that the infamous Rotterdam Silencer was hiding in plain sight on a slightly shabby, flower-festooned houseboat.
‘Good,’ she said, ending the call. Feeling like the last thing in the world she wanted to do was to go out. The craving for sleep was already weighting her eyelids down and making her thoughts sluggish. The ground heaved beneath her feet like the Caribbean Sea.
‘What’s good?’ her father asked, smiling benignly.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to nip out. I need to get some bits for the fridge and I’ve got to check on something. I won’t be long.’
Throwing the blanket off, her father swung his legs over the side of the sofa. His shinbones jutted sharply through his skin like long blades, all too visible in Van den Bergen’s unworn summer shortie pyjamas that he had tied tight with a dressing-gown cord. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said.
‘Don’t be silly,’ George said, trying to usher him back onto the sofa. ‘I’ll fix you a cup of coffee or a hot chocolate …’ Grinning bashfully. ‘Although I don’t really know how to make hot chocolate, but I’ll fix you one anyway. I won’t be more than an hour. I promise.’
Her father had already risen to his feet, however, and was pulling on the jeans he had been given by Gonzales, back in Cancun. ‘We’ve been apart for twenty-five years,’ he said. ‘I’ve just lost three years in the Yucatan jungle and escaped death by the skin of my teeth on a daily basis. Do you know how much I yearned for my little girl when I was over there?’
With unsteady bony fingers, he took off his battered old watch. Removed the back, teasing out a thumbnail of colour that had been sandwiched between the watch’s time-keeping mechanism and the cover. With a flourish and a proud smile, he showed her a dog-eared, stained photo of her when she had been about 3. All chubby smiling face, brush-like eyelashes and fat bunches on the top of her head, tied with blue bows. It was a head-and-shoulders shot that had been roughly clipped from a larger photo.
‘Letitia used to have the full version of this before she burned all the old photos,’ she said, handling the tiny image carefully in the palm of her hand. ‘London Zoo. The three of us. We were at the zoo. I remember. You and Letitia had had a full-on bust-up by the chimpanzees or some shit. Maybe it was the tigers. I’d been crying – I remember that much. But you cheered me up with an ice cream and the pair of you patched it up long enough to get some posh lady to take the picture of us with your old camera. She acted like she felt sorry for us, the patronising cow. But still …’
Her father smiled, pocketed the photo, slipping it deftly back inside his watch, as though he were still a prisoner at the mercy of men who had denied him any link with his former life as a free man, lest it gave him rebellious ideas. ‘Well, I’m here now. And you’re here. And I’m not letting you out of my sight until I’m sure this is all real.’
Standing in the middle of Van den Bergen’s eclectic thrift-shop jumble of a living room for some thirty seconds with her hand on her hip, George drank in the sight of her broken father. Mulling over whether to indulge him or draw the boundaries she so desperately needed to demarcate with everyone now – thanks to years and years spent apologising to and appeasing Letitia.
‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘I’m only nipping to check on a mate in the red-light district. It’s a couple of tram stops away. If you think you’re up to it. If you feel rough, just let me know and we’ll turn back. Right? Is that a deal?’ She grinned broadly and fluffed her hair out.
Her father nodded. Seemed to stand a little straighter, then.
As they pulled on raincoats by the front door, her phone rang. Lank hair, a dopey smile and Trotsky glasses appeared on her display. ‘Oh, Jan. What do you want, now? For God’s sake. I’m on my way.’ She pressed accept. ‘Hey, what’s up, you old hippy? I’m just coming over—’
‘Georgina McKenzie?’ the voice was familiar but George did not immediately place it. A heavy Rotterdam accent. The gnawing dread in the pit of her stomach told her something her brain was clearly missing. ‘Just the girl I’m looking for.’