Chantal van Mierlo - Julia Menken

“So what’s your theory?”

“The lad wasn’t cooperating and so he decided to kill him.”

“And afterwards he took the time to cut huge chunks out of his body?”

“Perhaps.”

“That doesn’t tie in with what we saw at the crime scene. If he had planned on abusing the boy at that location and had ended up killing him in panic, he would have gone about things differently, we would have found some traces. Our perpetrator actually acted in a very careful and precise manner.”

“Who said he was panicked?”

“So you think it could have been a sadistic paedophile?”

“Or simply a paedo who urgently needed to destroy evidence. Perhaps there were several perpetrators.”

“A paedophile ring?”

“It’s quite common.”

Julia wrote a few things down in her notebook. She couldn’t exclude anything. She would talk it over with Rich, perhaps he could shed a bit more light on everything. She would call him as soon as she was done here.

“Are there any cases which could possibly be connected to this murder? Lost children, murders with serious mutilations?” Diego asked.

“Not for as far as we’re aware right now, but we’re busy comparing old cases,” Justus replied.

“You said there are some prostitutes active in the area,” Julia said.

Justus grinned, apparently by way of confirmation.

“Does the Rietgrachtstraat form part of the Spijkerkwartier?”

“It borders it,” Diego said.

“I thought prostitution in the Spijkerkwartier was no longer an issue?” she said.

“Yes, according to the mayor, but you go and have a look after sunset.” He let out a bitter laugh. "The Spijkerkwartier has long since been sanitised. The town has organised a so-called care zone in the Oude Veerweg, which basically means it’s a controlled streetwalking zone, complete with surveillance. It’s called De Baan, a dead-end road which prostitutes can only access with a pass.”

“So Arnhem is still supporting prostitution?” She knew some other towns had managed to eradicate it fairly swiftly: the streetwalking zones in Heerlen, Eindhoven, Rotterdam and The Hague had been gone for years.

“A phase-out policy is in place. No new passes are being issued, so no new women are coming into the area. There is a significant social workers presence at De Baan and a living room has been set up for the women too, where they can find shelter if necessary.”

“Wow, they’re being spoilt,” Justus said.

“These women are often addicts too. There is an exit programme, but those who are still there now don’t want to join,” Diego explained.

“So prostitution isn’t a punishable offence in Arnhem?” Julia asked.

“Not within the zone. But it is forbidden outside of De Baan. And picking up a prostitute outside of the designated area is a punishable offence too.”

“So all women who can’t get into De Baan are going to the Rietgrachtstraat. And nothing is being done about this?”

“Of course we’re alert, but we simply don’t have the capacity to monitor the situation on a continuous basis. They keep coming back. These women are often addicts.”

“Meth?”

“Most of them, yes. Heroin is still quite common too. The women at De Baan are a minimum of 35 years old, the old lot who were issued with a pass at the time. The young ones need to look for an alternative spot.”

“And is the problem purely limited to the Rietgrachtstraat?”

“That’s the main hotspot. They’re often seen hanging around the NS shunting yard, behind the Van Oldenbarneveldtstraat.”

“Isn’t Van Bree the local police officer there?” Justus asked.

“Yes, we need to get him on board too,” Diego said. “And I want to have a chat with the social workers stationed at De Baan, they may well have some more information.”

“They won’t know anything, as per usual. Why has that boy still not been reported missing? He was murdered yesterday and there doesn’t appear to be anyone who cares,” Justus said.

“Perhaps he’s not from around here?”

“We’ve notified Interpol of the case. They’ve already run a check against profiles of missing children abroad. Nothing.”

“And what about the school?”

“No one knows him in Arnhem. We’re going to have a look at the surrounding areas.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that lad was being abused by his own parents,” Justus mumbled.

“That’s quite an accusation.”

“I know that neighbourhood. You really don’t want to know what I’ve witnessed there already.”

*

Julia was sat behind her desk with a white notebook. She wiped the crumbs off the desk and put her lunchbox away. Diego had allocated her a room of her own. It was much smaller than her own office in Zoetermeer, but she didn’t need a great deal of space: a desk for her laptop and to make some notes, a comfortable chair and a table by the door, which she had used for her coffee machine. Her parents had given it to her when she had first moved out and the thing had been going for an amazing 20 years. The vending machine coffee was usually pretty dire. She only drank her own coffee and otherwise she’d really rather just have a glass of water.

She was logged into the National Police Murder & Sex Offences Group’s internal network and opened up the programmes which showed the solved murder cases statistics. Her work was supposed to be based on statistics. The programme allowed her to filter out certain things which had the same characteristics as this murder and would then search for similarities between all killers. Statistically there was every chance the perpetrator would satisfy these characteristics too. This would give her a foundation for her profile. That was the theory. But in practice this rarely worked. They had started building up a database two years ago, but the problem was capacity. The programme had remained in its infancy, as no one had the time to enter all the relevant data. This was a huge disappointment to her, as she had seen how effective the system was in the States.

She wrote down paedophile on an empty sheet. Below this she made a list of things she had noticed at the crime scene. It just didn’t add up. This wasn’t about sexual acts with the victim, he wouldn’t have had time for that. Unless the boy had already been with his killer for some time and had been specifically brought to the place to ‘finish him off’. She didn’t believe it was about sex where the killer was concerned: the boy had been slaughtered in broad daylight, someone could easily have witnessed it. And yet he had taken the time to leave the crime scene exactly as he planned. Perhaps the risk of getting caught had excited him the most. The missing body parts was a problem in itself. Why had the perpetrator taken them? Did he want a trophy? Or would he be sexually aroused by the memory of the power he’d had over the victim?

She drew tiny little figures in the corner of the sheet whilst she allowed herself time to think. The perpetrator was a sadist. But the hallmark of a sadistic murder was the torture the victims went through. So why had this murder happened so quickly? No screaming, no witnesses. The clothes had been neatly folded up, but all of the victim’s personal possessions had disappeared. What statement did the killer want to make?

She rested her head on her hands. She couldn’t move forward based on what she had right now. She needed to know more about the victim’s identity. Did the boy know his killer? What was he doing in the Rietgrachtstraat? The deeper she looked into the case, the more questions she was confronted with. And to make matters worse, they still hadn’t been able to find any witnesses.

She filled her mug, breathed in the smell of fresh coffee and left her room, looking for her detective colleagues. The room next to hers was home to Justus and his partner. She leaned against the doorframe. This room looked less impersonal than hers. There were various photo frames and plants on the windowsill, propped up by stacks of paperwork.