Marnie Riches - The Girl Who Got Revenge - The addictive new crime thriller of 2018

‘Excuse me, ladies!’ he shouted to them, trying to keep the friendliness in his voice and the weariness out of it.

But they had already slammed the door.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Like that, eh?’

Approaching, he rang the bell several times, but there was no answer. It was as if he had merely imagined them.

‘I told you,’ Elvis said, peering up at the dirt-streaked windows. The pointing between the bricks was crumbling and the gutter near the roof on the three-storey building was cracked and coming away from the facade. ‘Me and Marie had the same thing. Nobody wants to talk round here.’

‘But it’s supposed to be trendy and vibrant, these days.’ Van den Bergen cast an appraising eye over the café that was several doors down from Den Bosch’s house. The windows were steamy. The lights were on. The sound of chatter and laughter spilled onto the busy street as three young men bundled out, wrapping themselves with scarves against the biting autumnal air. Business was booming in De Pijp. ‘Bohemian, and all that crap. I expected the people here to be more talkative. Let’s keep going.’

Together, they worked their way down the street, knocking on doors only to be met by twitching net curtains or vehement denials – from the neighbours who did deign to open their doors – that they knew Den Bosch at all. Helpfully unhelpful, often in pidgin Dutch and in several different accents. The air was heady with the smells of cooking from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Van den Bergen could also smell bullshit very strongly indeed.

‘Are you telling me that not a single soul knows a successful businessman like Den Bosch on a busy street like this?’ he asked Elvis as they entered the welcoming warmth of the Wakker/Lekker café – its name a claim that its fare could both wake you up and be delicious. Van den Bergen yawned and his stomach growled. The smell of coffee and cake wafted around him like a timely greeting. ‘Den Bosch’s name is emblazoned on the side of those giant bloody trucks.’

‘Yeah. But you’d only see those on the motorways and at the docks, boss. Not locally. I’d never notice one in a million years unless I was looking for it specifically.’

Donning his reading glasses, Van den Bergen looked longingly at the lemon cake, remembered that anything acidic was a no-no for hiatus hernia sufferers. And there was the small matter of being on duty.

‘Just a koffie verkeerd please,’ he said to the woman behind the counter.

She looked at him blankly, forcing him to reappraise the menu, which only had the café’s offerings in Italian.

‘Latte. I mean a latte.’ Then he remembered that anything high in fat was discouraged too. Damn it. ‘With skimmed milk.’ He swallowed. Patted his stomach. ‘I’ve got a hiatus hernia.’

He removed his glasses and treated the woman to a half-smile that was more of a grimace. Why the hell had he just shared that detail with her? Perhaps because the doc had said that thirty per cent of all over-fifties were afflicted, and she looked well over fifty. Maybe he was just looking for a connection with someone who understood.

She laughed, hooking her no-nonsense grey bob behind her ears. ‘Me too, lovey. Me too. Haven’t we all? I’m a martyr to mine!’

Hope surged inside him for the first time in days. But in his pocket, the blister pack of super-strength antacids he was forced to pop twice per day reminded him that there was little to be happy about. His body was crumbling. And then, the memory of Arnold van Blanken, expiring on the waiting room floor, returned, snuffing out every emotion except frustration. Here he was, saddled with the murder of a trafficked girl that he couldn’t solve; unable officially to investigate the murders of several old men that perhaps he could.

‘Do you know anything about Frederik Den Bosch?’ he asked, pointing to the lemon cake and indicating that she should serve him up a slice of it after all.

Her friendly smile soured into mean, thin lips. ‘The farmer? Mr High and Mighty?’

Van den Bergen placed his coins carefully on the counter. ‘Not keen?’

She kept her voice low. Leaned in so that the rest of her clientele couldn’t eavesdrop. ‘He’s selfish. He always takes my parking space with that ridiculous Jeep of his and he obviously doesn’t give a hoot that I’m much older than him. It’s not like he doesn’t know I’ve got arthritis in my knees. We had a conversation about it years ago. Big turd.’

Sensing that the café owner was rather enjoying offloading about her neighbour, Van den Bergen showed her his ID. Winked conspiratorially. ‘Go on. My colleague and I are both very interested in Mr Den Bosch. Anything you say may be of help to our investigation.’

The woman glanced at the group of young people who were enjoying croissants and hot drinks by the window. She turned back to Van den Bergen and beckoned him and Elvis into the back room.

In a space that was otherwise stacked high with boxes and cluttered with shabby, broken seating that had reached the end of its useful life, she gestured that they should sit on beat-up armchairs, arranged in a sociable group. Wakker/Lekker’s proprietor was a woman who liked to hold court on a regular basis, Van den Bergen assessed.

She wiped her hands on her flowery apron, her face flushed. ‘Why are you investigating him? Can you tell me?’

Clearing his throat, Van den Bergen considered his words carefully, sensing that this might be a woman prone to hyperbole and conjecture. ‘One of Mr Den Bosch’s trucks was stolen and I’m afraid the port police found cargo on board that shouldn’t have been there. We’re trying to find out more about Den Bosch, and why his truck might have been used to commit some very serious crimes.’

‘Drugs!’ Her eyes brightened. ‘Was it drugs?’

‘No. Please, Mevrouw. Tell me if there’s anything else you know about Frederik Den Bosch. His other neighbours seem reluctant to speak to us, but I can tell you’re a fine, upstanding Dutch citizen.’

She nodded vociferously. ‘I am. You bet. But he’s not, that overgrown ferret. Everyone thinks he’s a pillar of the community, but what he’s doing with those houses is wrong.’

‘What houses?’ Van den Bergen had already opened his notebook and was poised to write. At his side, Elvis sat silently observing the woman’s body language.

‘Didn’t you know? He owns three houses on this street alone, and about five on the next. Stuffs them to the rafters with immigrants. It’s a disgrace.’

‘Oh?’

She closed her eyes. ‘Rammed in there like shrink-wrapped sausages. That’s why they won’t talk to you. They’re all afraid. And he lets his properties go to rack and ruin. Have you seen the state of them? All bust guttering and filthy windows. Slum landlord – that’s what Den Bosch is. And they’re all illegals, I reckon.’

‘Why? What makes you say that?’

Shrugging, she splayed her fingers and examined her spotless short nails. ‘They’re shifty. They don’t speak Dutch. I live above my café, see. I can see them when they arrive in the middle of the night. They don’t bring anything more than a small case or a rucksack. And I may have dodgy knees and a hiatus hernia, but I’ve got an excellent memory for people’s faces. So I can tell the new ones, even by the light of the street lamp.’

Van den Bergen wrote furiously in his notepad, sensing that here was something to go on. ‘How frequently do new people arrive?’

She cocked her head thoughtfully. Glanced through the open doorway to check no other customers were standing at the counter. ‘Every few weeks. You get men. Women with children. All sorts. They all come from those Muslim countries. I know that because of the way the women dress. They’re always wearing those burka things, or have got their heads covered, at least.’ Rubbing her knees, she tried to glimpse what he was writing. ‘All I know is that he must have thirty living in each house. It’s not on, you know. It’s unsanitary. And they leave rubbish strewn on the street. The bins are overflowing every week with stinking nappies.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘You want to talk to environmental health about that, you know. He wants locking up, he does. Expecting the rest of us respectable residents to put up with that mess. And the people in there! Imagine kiddies having to live in that filth and with all those strange men! It’s not right.’