Black Widow (15 page)

‘What’s your maximum magnification?’ he asked as he bent down to study a microscope.

‘Less than it could be,’ Visser answered shortly. ‘Of course, I’ve asked for a STEM, but unfortunately the budget won’t stretch to it.’

‘And your resolution?’

‘Adequate,’ Visser replied.

‘So what are we talking, point-two-five microns?’

Visser ran a hand through his grey hair. ‘You are interested in microscopy?’

‘Well,’ Pieter answered, ‘I like to keep an eye on things.’

‘Is that a pun?’

‘If it is, I didn’t mean it.’

‘It’s point-two, actually,’ Visser sniffed as he turned his attention back to Tanja. ‘So, I’ve found a few small things.’

He reached into a drawer, to carefully remove two slides. He placed the first into a microscope, and invited her to take a look. She saw a fine strand of pale hair.

‘We found a few of these on the bedclothes,’ Visser advised. ‘We think it’s Asian.’

‘How can you tell?’ Tanja queried.

‘Hair is basically comprised of strands of protein. The way they are laid down varies a little from region to region.’

‘Right,’ Tanja acknowledged.

‘We also think it’s dyed,’ Visser added.

‘A fair proportion of the hotel staff are Asian,’ Pieter noted. ‘It probably belongs to one of the cleaners.’

‘Well that’s something to look into,’ Tanja said. ‘But you haven’t found any pubic hairs, Karl?’

‘Some,’ Visser answered. ‘But they all belong to the dead guy.’

‘Oh? So what else have you got?’

Visser popped the other slide into the machine. ‘Some sort of dog hair,’ he advised as Tanja peered through the scope, seeing a darker strand. ‘Also found on the bedclothes.’

‘Do you know which breed?’

‘Well, I can have someone look into it, if you want, but don’t hold your breath. It’s bound to be a mongrel.’

Tanja stood, and turned to Pieter. ‘Make a note to find out if Ruben had a dog.’

‘There was no sign of it at his flat,’ Pieter noted.

‘True. All right, let’s ask the hotel if they have any policy regarding pets.’

Pieter frowned. ‘It isn’t much, Detective Inspector.’

She nodded. ‘Welcome to the wonderful world of police work, kid. We deal in crumbs, and hope we don’t starve.’

She might have extended the lecture, but at that point her phone rang. It was Wever. ‘Tanja? Where are you?’

‘Downstairs. What is it?’

‘What do you think? There’s been another murder. Seems our Cougar Killer has struck again.’

*

Gus had a thing about tits. If they were silicon-based, so much the better. He found the natural world a bit understated; it could always be improved upon. A car, for instance, was much better than a horse. Similarly, a nice pint of lager had more going for it than a glass of water. So why settle for small breasts, when bigger ones were so readily available?

He slowly peeled back the covers, that he might gaze on the really rather excellent boobs of his latest conquest, the lovely Greta Mach. It was a great name, which offered up all sorts of literary possibilities. When he finally got round to doing his autobiography, he would make reference to their lovemaking breaking the sound barrier. Gus kisses Greta; boom, there’s your Mach 1. Gus latches onto nipple – boom! Mach 2. And so on. He could hardly wait.

As for the rest of it, well, she was a fifty-year-old lawyer, or a dental nurse, something like that. But he thought he would probably call her a housewife. It hardly mattered.

They’d met in the chatroom that Sophia Faruk had put him onto. An hour after making first contact, they were downstairs in The Den. An hour after that, she was sucking him off in the back of her hot-hatch, a Renaultsport Clio 197 F1 team R27. Good car; he approved. Gus was very precise where cars were concerned. And bikes! He had a Ducati, a 916. Not the newest, but still the coolest. They had an example in a design museum somewhere, which pretty much said it all.

Anyway, Greta claimed to have known Mikael Ruben. More than that, she’d slept with him, the last time some two weeks before.

‘What was he like?’ Gus had asked before she’d fallen asleep.

‘Oh, not as big as you,’ she’d answered in her soft voice, which nevertheless carried with it the threat of considerable mischief. ‘Or as hard!’

‘Yeah? Glad to hear it! But I meant, what was he like as a man.’

Greta had seemed perplexed by the question. ‘What is a man, but an expression of strength? And where is the focus of that strength?’

It was kind of creepy, knowing that Gus had occupied a space which had once been filled (albeit less comprehensively) by a dead guy, but a little creepiness was good. Gus had also asked Greta if she might have any idea as to the identity of the woman Mikael had left with, but she’d been unable to help. Or unwilling. There was a code of silence, of sorts, which Gus had yet to crack. But he would. He planned to meet Sophia, soon.

His phone rang. It was his editor. ‘Go,’ he said.

‘Gus?’

‘You got him.’

‘Look, there’s been another killing. Same method as before.’

It took Gus something less than half a second to process the information, and recover from the cold chill of possibility it sent up his spine. ‘So? I’m on Tourism now. I only reported on the first murder because it took place in a hotel, and I happened to be nearby.’

Miriam sighed. ‘Gus, this is shaping up to be big news.’

‘Tourism is big news,’ he countered. ‘The city relies on it. And I’m quite enjoying myself, you know? I spent most of yesterday on a canal boat. I’ve never felt so relaxed.’

‘Gus, we need you back on Crime. You’re fearless; we need that. And you’ve more contacts than everyone else put together.’

‘You were quite rude about my contacts, before,’ he pointed out.

‘I’m sorry. I was wrong. Cover the story. Everything will be forgiven.’

‘Everything?’ he pressed.

‘In time, yes.’

‘And it’s carte blanche on expenses?’

‘Yes. Fine.’

Gus clenched his fist. But his voice remained calm. ‘Oh, all right, then.’

*

The desk clerk of the Hotel Oosterdok was sitting on a chair when Tanja and Pieter arrived. A uniform was offering her a cup of tea, but her hands were shaking too much to keep hold of it.

‘That poor man,’ she kept saying, over and over.

‘We’ll come back to her,’ Tanja said to Pieter, as she leant over the desk to examine the roster.

‘Hester Goldberg,’ she read, tapping the name with her finger. ‘And… Jim Gungeon?’

‘Is that how you pronounce it?’ Pieter wondered as he looked over Tanja’s shoulder. ‘It looks foreign. French, maybe.’

‘I think it might be a pseudonym,’ Tanja said. ‘If I remember correctly,
gungeon
is Jamaican slang for marijuana.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘We had a cultural exchange a few years back. One of our officers spent some time in Kingston. We got a Jamaican in return. Leroy. Nice kid.’

Pieter nodded. ‘Right. So maybe this Jim Gungeon had been smoking beforehand. Smokers have a habit of celebrating their lifestyle, don’t they?’

‘I’ll ask Polderhuis to check it out.’ She looked along the length of the counter. ‘Christ, but this place is primitive. No credit card machine.’

‘Some people prefer it that way, I suppose.’

‘Yeah. Anyway, looks like we’ll find him in room fourteen.’ She glanced at a plan, crudely taped to the desk. ‘Upstairs. First floor.’

They were greeted at the top of the landing by Nelleke van Wyk, who suffered them to cross the inner cordon, but only after they’d put on their white suits. The Scene of Crime officer drummed her fingers onto her clipboard, waiting with a precise show of impatience for them to get changed. In contrast to Tanja, Pieter donned his suit without complaint. And to his surprise, Nelleke seemed to appreciate it. She even favoured him with a little smile. She was quite pretty, he noticed.

But it was only a brief aside, and his smile slipped as his nerves reasserted themselves. He’d responded with all the good humour he could muster, before, when the others had laughed at him for throwing up. But his pride had been hurt. What if it should happen again? They’d already received word that the victim had been mutilated in the same fashion as Mikael Ruben. It hardly helped that he’d seen it before.

There was a door at the end of the corridor, leading out onto the fire escape. The door was open. Taking care not to touch the handle, Pieter looked out, seeing that the hotel backed onto some fairly low-rent properties, most of which seemed derelict.

‘You think she escaped through here?’ he said to Tanja.

‘Maybe,’ his partner replied. ‘Or maybe she’s playing games. Maybe she just walked out through the front door again. Did you see how dark it is down there? It must be even worse, at night.’

‘It seems an arrogant way to behave.’

‘Of course it is, Kissin. Taking another person’s life is the height of arrogance, wouldn’t you say?’

Pieter followed Tanja into the room. Not for the first time, he was struck by the notion that there was more going on in her head than she liked to let on.

He could only guess how hard it must be for her. He’d heard a few more things in the canteen. Whatever Tanja thought about it, the consensus was that she was
not
to blame for the Butcher’s escape. For all the graphic brutality of the crimes, the actual leads had simply been too tenuous. But, of course, Tanja couldn’t accept that.

There was no time to think about it now. Not with Pieter’s external senses clamouring for his brain’s attention. There was a smell, much stronger than before, of emptied bowels. He took a deep breath. A mistake; he felt the bile rise in his throat.

He choked it back. Just as long as he could get through this initial phase –

The victim was lying on the bed, in a pool of his own mess. He must have had a fairly big meal at some point before the murder. And a lot to drink.

But it was the ruination of the eyes which held Pieter’s attention. Again, the blood loss seemed minimal, implying that the damage had been done post-mortem. A person didn’t bleed much when his heart had stopped beating. And, again, there were those same ligature marks about his wrists, and throat. His bloated face suggested he’d been strangled.

There was a tattoo on his shoulder, depicting a scarlet devil. The letters MUFC lay beneath it.

‘What does it mean do you think?’ Pieter asked.

‘Manchester United Football Club,’ Tanja answered immediately. ‘Of course, they are known in English as the “Red Devils”.’

Pieter supposed he should have felt a little embarrassed at his ignorance, seeing how he was a man and so on. But he wasn’t much of a football fan. He’d always struggled to get on with team sports. And whilst he’d watched the odd game in his time, he was generally happier with a documentary.

‘You’re keen on football, ma’am?’

‘Yeah,’ she answered. ‘Though not as keen as I used to be, to be honest. I used to have a Feyenoord season ticket.’

‘Why Feyenoord?’

‘I worked in Rotterdam for a few years.’

‘Right.’ He pointed at the body with his chin. ‘So you think he might be English?’

‘Not necessarily. Manchester United has plenty of foreign fans. I believe there’s a chapter in Amsterdam.’

Whilst Tanja proceeded to go through the dead man’s clothes, Pieter took out his notebook, to sketch what he saw – this time in plan. The room was even pokier than the last, and much dingier. There was just about room for the bed, and a chair, and a tiny bathroom (complete with dripping shower; it seemed the killer had taken time to use the facilities again), but that was it. The grubby window offered a view of nothing more picturesque than a dockside crane, and the stern of a container ship. An abandoned warehouse lay in between, its insides slowly being torn apart by parasitical shrubs.

Tanja had the victim’s wallet. ‘James Anderson,’ she read aloud from a bank card. ‘Sounds English to me. And what’s this – keys. For a room at the EuroHostel.’ She continued to rummage through his pockets. ‘And a Nokia – there goes your theory that we are dealing with a homicidal phone thief, Pieter.’

‘Did I say that? Anyway, we can probably assume that this wasn’t where he’d been intending to stay.’

Tanja nodded. ‘We’ll head over to the EuroHostel. Perhaps he was travelling alone. But perhaps not.’

Sketch complete, Pieter stowed his notebook back in his pocket. It wasn’t much of a depiction. For some reason he couldn’t seem to grip the pen properly.

Not one, but two murders: it was hard not to be affected by the enormity of it. If he spent another thirty years in the job, he might never be involved with a more significant case. And yet here he was, a complete rookie, with only a cantankerous partner to see him through.

Pieter supposed that Wever would now feel obliged to call in a profiler. Tanja might have looked upon the idea with suspicion, if not actually outright hostility, but Pieter thought they could probably do with all the help they could get.

Tanja made a couple of phone calls as they left, to Karl Visser, and Erik Polderhuis. Karl was already on his way, whilst Polderhuis would be there within the hour. Tanja told Karl what she wanted, whilst also asking Erik to investigate the possibility that the man had been smoking weed beforehand.

Tanja stowed her phone in her bag. ‘So what do we know,’ she said, ‘about serial killers? And female serial killers at that?’

‘It’s a bit early to be calling her that, ma’am, isn’t it? Three murders is the established benchmark.’

Tanja raised an eyebrow. ‘Is it? Well, well. But if you really think that our friend is going to stop at two, then you’re mad. So –?’

Pieter shrugged. ‘Well, female serial killers are a rarity, so it’s harder to pigeonhole them. But their motivation seems to be different to men’s. More prosaic, you might argue. It tends to be for personal advancement, more than anything. Money, that sort of thing.’

‘No evidence of that in this case, though. Anderson still has cash in his wallet.’

‘Right.’

‘So why kill these men?’ Tanja asked. ‘Why rip their eyes out?’

‘I don’t know, ma’am.’