Chantal van Mierlo - Julia Menken

She filled her coffee machine with mineral water and shut the filter holder. There was no other way. She couldn’t afford any more rest whilst the perpetrator was still a free man.

“I want you to come with me to De Baan,” Diego said when she entered his office. The room was slightly more spacious than the room occupied by Justus and his partner, with a round meeting table and a metal cabinet pushed against the wall. “It’s a care zone at the industrial estate where prostitution is tolerated. We’re going over there to talk to a social worker. He has set up a project with the prostitutes, perhaps he can tell us a little more.”

She nodded. “Rich called me last night. I drove down there. He found some injuries which are difficult to explain. You’ve probably already got the report in your mailbox.”

“What kind of injuries?”

“The victim had a cut in his abdominal wall which looked very professional, like an incision used for c-sections.”

“And what does that tell us?”

“Combined with that missing gluteal muscle, it could mean that the perpetrator pushed an object out of the rectum.”

Diego didn’t say anything for a moment, the look on his face reflected the aversion she had felt when Rich had told her. “So abuse after all?”

“Yes, but he hasn’t found any further evidence of this. There is literally nothing logical about this case.” She massaged her temples, it felt like her head was wrapped in cotton wool. She had taken half a Seresta last night, which probably hadn’t been a good idea, as she couldn’t get rid of that drowsy feeling, despite the coffee. But going to bed without a sleeping tablet had been unthinkable after her visit to the autopsy room. She drank the rest of her lukewarm coffee in one gulp and told herself to get straight on with a second dose of caffeine as soon as she was back in her own office.

“Here it is.” He pointed at his screen and clicked on the document Rich had sent him. “Right. I’ll take that with me to today’s meeting.”

She knocked on Rens’ door on her way back to her office. He shared his room with two colleagues. Rens greeted her with a smile. He appeared to be the only one who accepted her presence without prejudice.

“Have you managed to find anything else?” she asked.

“I don’t think that laptop has ever been used. The last signal from his phone was from the Rietgrachtstraat, the place where he was found.”

“But the phone itself hasn’t been found.”

“No, the perpetrator probably switched it off and took it with him. I think he must have removed the battery. Then it doesn’t leave behind any trace.”

This was important information for her profile. Another piece of evidence which served as proof the perpetrator knew exactly what he was doing.

*

It was warm in the meeting room. She tried to concentrate on Diego’s words, who was explaining what was in Rich’s report to the rest of the team, but her thoughts constantly wandered off. She needed to call Daniel, she hadn’t spoken to him for two days, as she was getting home and leaving again whilst he was sleeping.

“What progress have you made, Justus?” Diego asked.

“We still have a few gaps to fill, but we are trying to put together a reconstruction of Brian’s day. He had complained of back pain following a fall out of a tree. He had called his dad in the morning to say he couldn’t go to school. His dad convinced him to go in anyway and to go and see the GP after school. He hadn’t made an appointment, but we are working on the assumption he had planned to go.”

“Why are we assuming that?” Julia asked.

This resulted in a contemptuous look from Justus, who ignored her question and continued with his story. “He had arranged to meet up with his friend Boris before school. They smoked a few cigarettes together.”

“Was this a school friend?” she asked.

“No, he is one of the neighbours’ lads. Brian then went off to school, but he got there too late, didn’t arrive until the second lesson.”

“Did the school notify his dad of his absence?”

“Yes, they spoke to him and he subsequently called him on his mobile, but at that point he had already arrived at school and was waiting for the second lesson to start. He told his dad he’d missed the bus. His last lesson of the day was PE and he had asked his teacher if he could go because his back was bothering him so much,” Justus said.

“So that could have been something else too,” Julia noted. “This pain could have been caused by an object stuck in his bowels.”

“Boris, the victim’s friend, told us he and Brian had been throwing stones the previous day and that Brian had been hit,” Justus said.

Julia wrote it down. It sounded like boys mucking around, but it still didn’t sit easy with her. Her line of work meant she was all too familiar with the statistics. It was very typical of petty criminals: they simply rolled into it as children because of a lack of supervision, boredom and the absence of any clear future vision.

She tried to imagine what Brian’s life must have been like: his dad was never at home, his mum had passed away at a time in his life when he had still desperately needed her. Brian certainly hadn’t had a warm nest.

“He wasn’t allowed to go home early, but he didn’t participate with the PE lesson either. A classmate saw him get on the bus after school and said he, as always, sat down on the back seat and played with his mobile,” Justus said.

“Did the door to door enquiries result in anything?” Diego asked.

“A witness came forward who saw him sitting on a bench, at the intersection of the Rietgrachtstraat and the Westervoortsedijk. The witness thought he looked like he was waiting for someone.”

“That is very odd.”

“Yes, especially as he had been planning on going to the doctor’s surgery and that’s somewhere completely different. The surgery is a nine hundred meter walk from his home.”

“So how on earth did he end up in the Rietgrachtstraat?” Julia asked. The crime scene was nowhere near where Brian had been planning on going. What had he been involved with, what had he planned on doing that afternoon? Had someone wrongly made him believe they could be trusted, perhaps offered a sympathetic ear for his problems? Had he been looking for affection and had ended up in the arms of a paedophile?

“It looks like he himself had taken the initiative to go there. He got on the bus after school and didn’t need to change over anywhere. That bus would have near enough taken him to his front door. Plus he could have got off one stop earlier if he had wanted to go and see the doctor.”

“But he never arrived there,” Julia noted.

“It looks like he got off the bus much before this and then walked across to the Rietgrachtstraat, or someone took him there,” Justus said.

“Does anyone know where he got off? Surely that must be something we can find out.”

“We thought so too, but he got off without checking out.”

“There is a second witness, a woman with a dog. She walked past him and he took a moment to stroke her dog. He was still on his own at this point. She said she saw two men with him when she looked around a little later on.”

“Any descriptions?” Diego asked.

“No, she only saw them from a distance, so no clear description unfortunately.” Justus looked around the room, his face not giving any emotion away.

“No other witnesses?” Diego asked.

Justus shook his head. “That’s all we’ve got for the time being. He was found by a couple of boys walking home from school at around 15.30 hours.”

*

She breathed in the fresh air, which smelt of the approaching autumn after this morning’s heavy downpour. Wet, light coloured leaves from the maple trees were stuck on the concrete tiles. She had really only been planning on briefly popping out for a breath of fresh air, but the dreary sight of the courtyard had made her decide to go for a little stroll towards the park.