It was hard to determine to whom the terrified screams in the background belonged, but George was certain they were coming from Jan. The call was from his phone, after all. She was glad that her father couldn’t possibly have known the dreadful sound of despair that was filtering into her left ear.
‘Come to the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop and come alone,’ her caller said. ‘If I spot any police, you’ll pay in blood.’ He hung up.
At that point, it was clear that this was no prank on Jan’s part. And it was clear whom she had just received this sinister demand from.
The Rotterdam Silencer. Stijn Pietersen had her friend.
George grabbed her father’s arm. ‘You’ve got to stay here, Papa.’
Ignoring his protests, she ran through to the kitchen area and hurriedly grabbed whatever she could fit in her anorak pockets in a kitchen where the homeowner was certainly no avid cook: a vegetable knife, cheese wire and a meat tenderiser. She grabbed an old can of wasp killer for good measure.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ her father asked, leaning limply against the architrave of the kitchen door.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, kissing him fleetingly on his stubbly cheek. ‘A friend’s in trouble. Big trouble.’ She glanced at her phone. Low battery. ‘Do me a favour. If I’m not back in two hours, call the police and ask them to go to the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop in the red-light district. Tell them it’s a matter of life and death.’
Her father’s brow wrinkled with lack of comprehension. ‘Call them now, then!’
Shaking her head, George pushed past him and hastened to the front door. ‘No. It’s too dangerous. Seriously, Dad. Don’t call them now.’ With a wave, she slammed the door behind her and headed to the tram. No swift way of getting into town.
‘Come on, for fuck’s sake,’ she said, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited. Repeatedly, she dialled Van den Bergen’s number. Straight to voicemail every time. After five attempts, she left a message. ‘If anything happens, Paul … oh, about fucking time. It’s here! I’ve got to go. Love you.’
As she entered the busy front carriage of the tram, she was so preoccupied by thoughts of Jan’s safety, she had not caught sight of the man who had surreptitiously slid into the rear carriage, just before the doors had shut.
Willing the driver to go faster, she checked her watch repeatedly. Jan needed her. Jan was at the mercy of the Rotterdam Silencer, who had a hard-on for hurting her, clearly. The strange turns of events since her mother’s disappearance all made sense now. The eyeball at Vinkeles and her mother’s phone. The threatening yet cryptic emails. Her father’s abduction. The sight of the long-haired old biker who had kept appearing in her peripheral vision. And now, Jan. Stijn Pietersen, whom she had testified against all those years ago, hated her. He was hell-bent on revenge. He had in all likelihood killed her poor, annoying mother. He had stolen the liberty of her father. Today was the day. He was finally coming for her.
She wrapped her hand around the handle of the knife in her anorak pocket and acknowledged the mounting fury that mushroomed inside her. Those elderly passengers and mothers with babies in strollers who were giving her the evils as they reacted to her still-visible faux tattoos, shrinking away from her, were within her blast zone, now.
‘What are you looking at, you nosey bastards?’ she said.
They became suddenly interested in the world outside the tram’s windows.
Finally, she alighted on Damrak, walking briskly across the chewing-gum-spattered paving of Dam Square through the hordes of tourists who prevented her from sprinting. Hurried past De Bijenkorf on her left, the white stone spire of the national monument on her right, down to the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky and left onto Warmoesstraat, where she started to run. Running, though her sullied lungs screamed that they could not keep up with her noble intentions.
‘I’m on my way, Jan. Hang tight, you daft old hippy,’ she said aloud, gasping for breath; forcing herself to break into a run once more, holding her makeshift weapons close to her body in case they came tumbling out of her pockets.
Feeling like she had been kicked in the chest with a stitch that snatched the breath away from her, George emerged from the warren of backstreets to the canal on which the Cracked Pot was situated. Here, the lights in the shop windows had turned from white to neon red and pink. Flashing displays told her that live sex shows would accept her euros in return for a smorgasbord of erotic delights – some of them, participatory. Fag Butts’ Gay Porn offered her a fisting from a rubber forearm or a half-hour in a cubicle where she could watch an extreme hard-core mini-movie and engage in whatever the hell she liked with whomever she desired in relative privacy. But George was interested in none of those things.
As she sprinted the final 100 metres towards the Cracked Pot, she imagined the red light, reflected in the canal’s flat, unfathomable waters was Jan’s blood. She took out her knife and hid it up her sleeve, praying she didn’t slash her own wrist by accident.
The glazed door to the coffee shop above which she had once lived showed the CLOSED sign. No red lights shone in the rooms above, which had once belonged to her neighbours, Inneke and Katja, but which were now normally occupied by a couple of girls from the Ukraine. The windows in her old attic room showed no signs of life within.
With a trembling hand, breathing fast and shallow enough to make her light-headed, George tried the handle. It gave. The bell tinkled. She walked into the dark shop.
‘Welcome, Ella. Or should I say, Georgina? Or should I say, Jacinta?’ the Rotterdam Silencer said in that sing-song accent of his.
Scanning the space – so eerily unfamiliar without any lights on – George could not see him. Only the wonky-eyed figures of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley on the glow-in-the-dark murals seemed to glower at her now. She held her hand behind her back, allowing the handle of the knife to slide down into her palm. Except she had inserted it the wrong way up and could not now turn the blade around inside her sleeve to face downwards. Shit! Where was the Silencer? And why could she no longer hear Jan?
Then, a glint of something shiny. Metallic.
Gun first, Stijn Pietersen emerged from the booth where he had been sitting, patiently waiting for her to appear; watching her enter the shop and looking around. She shuddered at the thought.
As he advanced towards her, he grinned nastily – his teeth appearing overly white and sharp in that mahogany-tanned face. Crocodile’s teeth set into brown leather. George realised she was his next meal.
‘Come in, dear,’ he said, breathing whisky fumes that she could smell from the door. ‘I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Do you have any final words?’