Chantal van Mierlo - Julia Menken

She breathed in deep. “I wanted to talk everything through with you again. I feel like I have drawn a complete blank, I can’t come up with any image of the perpetrator. The investigation team is thinking along the lines of a paedophile ring.”

“That’s why I’m calling you so late. I still have the lad over here. I discovered something strange that I wanted to show you.”

“What’s that?”

“I think the team may well be onto something.”

It was far too late. She literally felt drunk with fatigue. But still: whatever Rich wanted to show her couldn’t wait.

“This is starting to feel like a scene from some sort of horror film,” Julia said to Rich when she entered his office. The porter had let her in and even though she only needed to go down a couple of flights of stairs to get to him, she felt her heart in her throat. She told herself this was mainly down to sheer tiredness. The offices were all shrouded in darkness, with the exception of a few slumber lights. The deathly silence in particular was making her feel very ill at ease.

Rich laughed. “Come on, it’s the same as always, just a little darker.” He held a bag of M&M’s out in front of her. “Fancy any?”

“No, thank you.” She wouldn’t even have been in the mood for chocolate if it hadn’t been the middle of the night. “What did you want to show me?”

He leaned forward and threw the yellow bag onto his desk. “I want to release his body in the morning, but there are a few things worth noting.”

“Did you call Diego?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“I can’t just do this on my own, Diego is in charge of this investigation. My role is merely one of an advisor.” She doubted whether Diego would be coming all the way over here from Arnhem tonight, but informing him first would have been the right thing to do.

“Then you report to him in the morning, he can call me if there’s an issue.” He handed over some protective clothing and a face mask. “Put this on, then we’ll go and take a look.”

He pressed a few buttons on a sound system at the door before entering the autopsy room. Music started blaring through the room.

“Why do you always play Mozart?”

He looked at her and laughed. “Because I never listen to classical music.”

She followed him whilst frowning. “You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”

“The things I see here on a daily basis,” he gestured around the room with his hand, “it’s pretty hard core. Here I am Doctor Richard Galvez, child pathologist. But when I eventually go home I need to leave everything behind, otherwise I would literally never sleep again. All the misery stays with Mozart, this is another world.” He gestures all around him. “I leave this world behind once I step outside. The switch is flicked when the music goes off. Then I’m simply Rich again.”

She nodded, but her thoughts were off in a different direction altogether: Brian was laid out on the table, right in the centre of the room in the glow of the bright swivel lamp which made his skin look like grey marble.

“Look,” Rich said and pointed at the stomach, just above the fleshy wound near the pubic bone. “This is a Pfannenstiel incision. Or rather a bikini cut.”

“You mean like the opening made with a Caesarean section?”

“Exactly. I initially thought the cut had been accidental, possibly done when the perpetrator had been removing the genitalia, but it actually goes right through the tissue. Very precisely done.”

“By a doctor?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“What could the perpetrator possibly want with that?”

“The fact is that he wanted to open up an abdominal cavity. I don’t have a theory for it, that’s your job. But I do think it’s quite striking, especially combined with the removed gluteal muscle.”

“Oh come on, Rich. You wouldn’t have asked me to come down here if you didn’t suspect something. Why do you think he’s done this? Help me out here.”

“Of course anyone can see it’s rather a big mess down there and it’s therefore difficult to establish whether or not he has been abused. But it’s possible that someone wanted to take something out of him.”

“Something out of him?”

“Suppose there was an object stuck in his rectum. Something that had to come out. You can’t get to it from the outside. Removing the gluteal muscles, combined with the cut at the front, would allow you to push something out of the bowels. Like you’re squeezing a tube.”

“How bizarre. Why would someone want to do that?”

“No idea. My mind isn’t sick enough to come up with a watertight explanation for any of this, but some evidence of abuse could have been left behind in the bowel, which needed to come out.”

“An object which could help identify the perpetrator.” She massaged her temples. No. This was all moving way too fast. She shouldn’t be drawing any hasty conclusions, otherwise she’d be in danger of missing important clues.

“I’ll be including it in my considerations.” She breathed in deep. “Do you think there is any other possible explanation?”

“He wanted to remove an organ from the abdominal cavity.”

“But nothing’s missing.

Rich nodded. “That’s right. All organs are still there.”

“Did you find any traces of sperm?

“No.”

“Can you possibly have another very specific look for traces of abuse? Including things which could have happened less recently?”

He nodded.

*

She had really only just gone to bed when she got up the next morning. She had got into the car without coffee and driven to Arnhem. She arrived before seven thirty, as she wanted to make sure Diego was informed about Rich’s findings before he got to work.

Four hours sleep really wasn’t enough. She massaged the muscles in her shoulders and pushed two paracetamols out of the strip and washed them down with a big gulp of water. She really had to get rid of that headache, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to concentrate. She returned the bottle of water to the centre console, grabbed her bag and got out of the car. From the corner of her eye she could see Diego walking towards her alongside another man. She had to speak to Diego before Rich called him. He was in charge of the investigation and he certainly shouldn’t be feeling bypassed.

She raised her hand by way of a greeting and walked over to him. Fortunately the other guy shot off when he saw her. The man had tight little curls which were pressed against his forehead with gel. The smell of aftershave was burning inside Julia’s nose.

Diego rubbed his forehead. “I feel like I’m going mad. The press. Even at half past seven in the morning they are right there.”

So Diego knew this man, a journalist by the sounds of it. The press. Always the press. Journalists were rude enough to disrupt police work, anything for a scoop.

She thought about Nele.

Five years and three months ago.

The press had never left her alone during the investigation into Nele’s disappearance either. When it became apparent the case had gone horribly wrong, they had done everything they could to name and shame Julia.

They entered the building in silence. She had to tell Diego about her nocturnal visit to the child pathologist, but she didn’t know where to start. She walked through the corridors towards their office with him.

“Can you join me in my office for a chat for a moment?”

She nodded.

“I’ll go and get some coffee.”

“No, thank you. I’ve got my own coffee.”

He raised one eyebrow and turned around.

She walked over to her desk and put her bag down. She felt shivery, as if though she was coming down with something. She was just incredibly tired. The only thing which helped was to simply keep going, try to get through the day without collapsing.