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

With the addresses of the houses safely recorded in his notepad, Van den Bergen made a second attempt at encouraging the reluctant residents to speak out about their enigmatic neighbour.

‘Jesus Christ!’ he said, as yet another hijab-clad woman refused to come to the door. He looked up at her as she shouted something in Arabic through the cracked glass of her first-floor window. ‘This is sending my acid into overdrive.’ He swallowed down the foul taste in his mouth.

Elvis stepped away from the front door, where he had been peering through the letterbox. ‘Let’s give it up, boss. Try one of the houses on another street and maybe come back later. See if Den Bosch shows. He won’t dare refuse to talk to us.’

Driving only one street away, so that he could keep his car within sight, Van den Bergen sighed heavily. Tried to get into a tight space and failed. Ended up at the wrong end of a long road.

‘Ever wish you’d just stayed in bed? Or at least did another job?’ he said, pointing his fob at the Mercedes and arming the alarm. He thought fleetingly and fondly of retirement, then remembered that he wanted to be the opposite of old Arnold van Blanken. He needed to be a working man, in his prime for as long as possible.

Elvis chuckled softly. ‘My mother’s dead. I nearly checked out in the spring, thanks to one trafficking bastard. I often think about doing something boring and safe, but this job is all I know.’

‘I guess it’s just me, then,’ Van den Bergen said, eyeing a group of youths who were hanging around too close to his car for comfort. He could see that they were scoping him out. Debating whether to pre-empt a clash and tell them to move along, he jumped when he felt a hand on his back.

‘Watch your car, mister?’ a shrill voice said.

Turning, he saw a small boy of about ten, dressed in a tunic and trousers that gave him away as Syrian, maybe, or Afghan. Van den Bergen stooped low so that they were face to face. The boy’s breakfast was still visible at the corners of his mouth.

‘Why aren’t you in school, young man?’

‘Ten euros to watch it. I’ll keep it safe, I promise.’ His Dutch was fluent but his Amsterdam accent was laced heavily with Middle Eastern flat vowels and clipped intonation.

Van den Bergen’s knees cracked as he crouched. He could see childish mischief in those shining dark eyes. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Not telling you, am I?’ The boy grinned, revealing adult teeth awkwardly pushing the milk teeth aside. One incisor was growing outwards, almost horizontally, poking through the boy’s full-lipped smile. ‘Go on, then. Ten euros. It’s a good price.’

Reaching for his wallet, Van den Bergen wondered how much a boy who never went to school, but who had been around long enough to pick up the regional accent, might know about a local landlord. ‘Here’s five for now. I’ll give you the other five later.’

The boy made to snatch the money, but Van den Bergen drew himself to his full height and held the cash at a height impossible for the kid to reach. ‘First, though, tell me if you’ve ever heard of a man called Frederik den Bosch.’ He waved the five-euro note close. Withdrew it. Felt bad for teasing.

‘That’ll cost you more.’ The boy glanced over at the group of youths. One of them shouted to him in their native tongue. Definitely an Arabic dialect. There was a clear connection between them.

‘Tell you what, I’ll give you twenty if you tell me what you know about Mr Den Bosch. And you won’t have to share the extra ten with those bigger boys. It’ll be our secret.’

The boy stole a surreptitious glance over at the older boys and nodded. ‘Give me the extra ten now. Behind the car, where they can’t see.’

‘Information first.’

Sighing, the boy began. ‘Den Bosch is nasty. He owns the house where I live.’ As they progressed slowly down the street, it was clear he walked with a pronounced limp.

‘Can we go there?’

‘Not while my brothers are watching.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Syria. Lots of us are from there.’

‘How did you get to Amsterdam?’

‘Are you a cop?’

Should he tell this astute child? He didn’t want to risk the kid clamming up. ‘Tell me more about Den Bosch. It’s him I’m interested in. Why is he nasty?’

‘He charges everyone in our house too much money, and my mother says it’s dangerous. Also, I don’t like his tattoos.’

The mention of tattoos piqued Van den Bergen’s curiosity. He exchanged a glance with Elvis. ‘What kind are they?’

The boy wrinkled his nose. ‘They’re scary. He’s covered in them, all up his arms. Skulls and symbols and demons. My uncle heard that Den Bosch goes to big gatherings where other men say horrible things about Muslims and immigrants like us. Marches that are on TV. That kind of thing. Uncle Jabril says that’s why he treats us so badly. He wants our money but he doesn’t like us. Den Bosch is nothing but a racist Kufar.’

Clearing his throat, Van den Bergen wondered how he could get the boy to say more about his arrival on Dutch shores without spooking him. Wary of offering him more money lest it be construed as coercion, he relied simply on a little boy’s innate need to brag. ‘I bet you were really brave when you came over from Syria, weren’t you?’

The grin told him everything. ‘Yes. My uncle says I’m brave enough to have fought with the rebels.’

‘I’ve seen boys like you on TV. Sailing the high seas on rickety ships and nearly drowning. Is that what you did? Did you sail across the Mediterranean?’

The boy chuckled. ‘Oh no. I can’t swim.’ He pulled up the left leg of his baggy trousers to reveal a deep, florid dent in his calf muscle. ‘I was hit by a big chunk of brick when I was little. A bomb went off at our school. It means I can’t do much sport.’

‘What about flying, then? Did you come on a plane?’

Shaking his head, the boy said, ‘No. I might have a bad leg but I’m as good as any grown man. I looked after my mum and my big brother when they got sick in the truck.’

‘You came in a truck? Maybe like the ones Den Bosch has.’

The boy clasped a hand over his mouth and glared at Van den Bergen as though his indiscretion were his fault. Snatching the money from his hand, the boy fled between the cars and disappeared down an alleyway with an uneven gait but impressive speed.

‘Shall we go after him, boss?’

Van den Bergen felt the corner of his mouth twitch upwards involuntarily. ‘Yes. We could give it a go. Let’s see where he—’

Poised to sprint after the boy, he stopped short when his phone rang shrilly in his pocket. It was the ringtone for Marianne de Koninck, who only ever called when something dire had landed on her mortuary slab.

‘Van den Bergen. Speak!’

‘There’s been another,’ she said. ‘Another old man. Heart attack. Tattoo. The lot.’

Staring up at the brass plate on the door of the elegant townhouse in Oud Zuid, watching her breath steam on the air, George thought wistfully about her family, who were undoubtedly now all sprawled by the pool in Torremolinos.

‘I could be swigging rum and Coke in the sun, you know,’ she said, glancing up at Van den Bergen. But he wasn’t listening. He was burping quietly and rehearsing his opening gambit. ‘And bouncing some young Spanish waiter off the walls of my hotel room,’ she added. No reaction.

Footsteps, behind the door, click-clacking on wooden flooring, by the sounds. Van den Bergen cleared his throat, fixing what approximated to a friendly, open smile on his face. All the anxiety surrounding his health and the candle perpetually burned at both ends, thanks to his job and his new grandfatherly responsibilities, seemed to have etched their way into his skin as permanent souvenirs of a life hard-led. In spite of her frustrations, George found she felt some sympathy for the contrary old fart. As the multiple locks on the other side of the door were undone, she squeezed his hand fleetingly. Planted a kiss on his knuckles, then faced forward, releasing him and shoving her hands in her pockets.