The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die (14 page)

‘Are you listening, darling?’ she asked.

Ad had, however, been thinking not of Mrs Kooper but of Klaus Biedermeier, who had just walked into the café, presumably fresh from the flower market as he was clutching a large bunch of roses wrapped in green paper.

Klaus strode confidently over to a group of well-dressed, loud students. Ad recognised them as mainly law students. They were all members of
het corps
– the conservative student fraternity, comprised predominantly of the sons and daughters of solicitors, judges, surgeons and politicians. Right-wing old money.
Jasper was right when he said the toffs hang out here
, he thought.
Now, how am I going to play this?

Klaus gave his bouquet with a flourish to a very blonde girl wearing pearls, who blushed, said something and caused great jollity among the group. Ad strained to hear their conversation above Astrid’s gossip about Lies Oostendorp’s wedding dress choice.

‘We thought you weren’t coming,’ one of the men said in English laced with a Rotterdam accent. He was big. He looked like he rowed or lifted weights or just ate too much
stamppot
.

Klaus pulled out a chair loudly enough to make the other diners turn around. He straddled it in a manner that said he owned the space and tucked his hands behind his round, blond head. When he spoke, all Ad heard was Klaus saying – also in English but with a clipped German accent – ‘market’ and ‘most beautiful girl, ha ha ha’. He proceeded to turn his back to Ad and hold court with his cronies. Ad could no longer hear what was being said, much to his chagrin. His ears zoned back into Astrid’s excited chatter.

‘… enjoyed it so much at church on Sunday,’ Astrid said. She frowned and waved her hand in front of Ad’s face. ‘Are you listening to me at all?’

Ad looked into her questioning eyes and stroked her cheek. ‘Yes, love. Every word.’ A plan started to take shape, quickly sharpened by the oxygen that his pounding heart was speeding to his brain. He reached out for Astrid’s hand. ‘Hey, come with me. I want you to meet someone,’ he said.

‘Oh, you’re not going to introduce me to one of your intellectual nerdy pals, are you?’ she said. ‘Not another of those foreign students. They all reek of garlic and I can’t understand a single word of what they say.’

‘You might like this one,’ Ad said, pulling Astrid towards his target and wondering if Herr Biedermeier would sniff out his subterfuge, even with a perfect Aryan girlfriend on the arm.

The journey across the café was tough. His common sense told him to sit back down and mind his own business, keep Astrid away from a possible killer. But in a disobedient corner of his mind lurked the insistent voice of George
. Cosy up to Klaus. See what he and his Nazi friends get up to.
He thought about Ratan’s severed foot and decided that the small risk to Astrid of just saying hello to a suspect was worth it. After all, he could protect her. Couldn’t he?

Ad could feel his cheeks burning hot as he approached the large gathering that now seemed to be hanging on Klaus’ every word. One by one, the well-heeled law and accountancy students all looked up at Ad until, finally, Klaus himself turned around. He was smiling. It made his white scars, like hairline fractures over his cheekbones, change shape. They etched a new, relaxed pattern on his face. When Klaus spotted Ad, however, his smile faltered. The scars settled into their usual map of haughty condescension.

‘Well, if it isn’t Karelse, our little lefty freedom fighter.’ As he said this, Klaus looked Astrid up and down with the sharp-eyed scrutiny of a hungry cheetah sizing up a meal. ‘And who is this?’

Ad made the introductions. He felt sure he detected in Klaus a hint of admiration … or was it jealousy? Astrid was a very beautiful girl. Nobody ever failed to be wooed by her dazzling smile or the winning, soft tones of her voice. Everybody loved Astrid. Mostly.

Klaus, suddenly the German gentleman, pulled out his chair and offered it to Astrid. He picked a pink gerbera from the little glass vase on the table and gave it to her. ‘Fräulein,’ he said with a flourish. He clicked his fingers at a waiter. ‘What will you have to drink?’

Astrid’s face turned quickly crimson, in contrast to the blonde girl holding Klaus’ roses, whose face was turning quickly green, presumably at the Prussian prince’s treatment of the interloper.

Ad placed a protective hand on his girlfriend’s shoulder. ‘We’re not stopping for a drink just now,’ he told Klaus. ‘But I wanted to come over and pass on my condolences about Joachim.’

The students at the table all looked down at their laps. Klaus seemed to remember his grief. Ad tried to make a mental note of every physical change as he responded to mention of Joachim’s death. His eyes seemed to darken. His shoulders drooped slightly. His lips narrowed to a line. Was this grief or was he merely a great actor?

‘Yes,’ Klaus said. ‘Thank you. It’s difficult for me to put my sorrow into words right now.’

Ad couldn’t work out if the stilted, formal ring to Klaus’ words was a symptom of there being no substance to his grief or just a symptom of being a German, speaking English haltingly. But the show of emotion seemed too pat on the heels of his exhibition of chivalry and jollity.

Klaus thumbed his chin, as if considering something. Then he said, ‘The police won’t release Joachim’s remains. It’s screwed up. Joachim wasn’t a terrorist. And no way was he secretly rubbing shoulders with a bunch of towel-heads. So we’re having a memorial service for him. If you want to come …’

Ad nodded, looked at his watch and motioned to Astrid that it was time for them to leave. ‘I’d like that very much,’ he said.

‘But don’t bother bringing the English loudmouth. I notice you’ve not been with her the last week.’

Ad stifled a smile. George’s expulsion from class offered itself as a fortuitous and vital piece in the new jigsaw, which depicted Ad as a fledgling right-winger and Klaus as his potential new guru. It seemed too easy.

‘We’ve fallen out,’ he said.

‘Over that disgraceful, pro-Muslamic blogpost that everybody’s talking about?’ Klaus asked.

His sharp blue eyes seemed to be searching for the truth in Ad. But Ad knew he was not a natural liar. He hoped that Klaus wouldn’t see that his hands were shaking slightly.

‘Yes. I suppose so. I realised she wasn’t …’ He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Surrounded by all those preppy law students whose soft, cashmere exteriors almost certainly concealed hearts already compacted into stone, he felt like he needed to leave. Quickly. Before Astrid contradicted him.

Klaus nodded. He’d clearly said enough. ‘Good. Good. Interesting,’ Klaus said as he looked at Astrid and smiled. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

Ad was not entirely sure he could rely on his legs to carry him out of the café but when he got outside, he felt triumphant and kissed Astrid, silently thanking her for her unwitting bravura performance.

‘You never told me you had such
charming
friends,’ Astrid said. ‘I like the look of them much better.’ She linked him and put her head on his shoulder. ‘You’ve got to be careful who you hang out with while there are terrorists on the loose. And to be honest, I never did like that English girl. I’m glad you’ve ditched her as a friend.’

‘Yes, my love,’ Ad said, wishing he could go straight round to the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop.

Remko Visser came out of The English Bookshop on Lauriergracht, whistling. It was a cold, late Saturday afternoon. The light was already failing fast and streetlamps were popping into life to augment a dwindling sun, wreathed in thick cloud as it was. Rain fell steadily, making the lenses in Remko’s glasses steam up. But he felt good. He had just picked up
Memoirs of a Revolutionist
by Peter Kropotkin. It was in English but he’d had it recommended to him by George. He’d been waiting for it to come into the shop for a while.

He thought about going round to his parents’ house to cadge dinner but then he realised they were going to an
Aufruf
at the synagogue for somebody’s engagement after the Saturday service. They were probably still lingering with their cronies, pronouncing loudly about the bride-to-be and possibly fighting over the last bit of pickled herring or fish ball.

Maybe a kebab on the way home, then. Yes, a nice falafel. With garlic sauce and extra chilli.

He made his way towards the Herengracht and started to amble along it, drinking in the smell of diesel as a motorboat chugged by. The jolly tinkle of bicycle bells made him think fondly that spring was not too far away now. It was still getting dark early but, hell, optimism cost nothing, did it?

This feeling of well-being was amplified when a beautiful blonde girl wearing a bright pink duffle coat walked towards him. Her ponytail danced high on her head. She had bow-shaped lips and slim ankles, although he couldn’t tell if she was flat-chested or well bosomed underneath the coat. He smiled at her as she passed, but she didn’t see him.

When he reached the Hartenstraat bridge, he felt a sudden pang in his chest. Ratan. He remembered Ratan on the night of the party, grinning like a lotto winner, covered in Rani’s lipstick. Only three weeks ago and now the world was on its head. Joachim was dead too. He hated Joachim. Klaus was okay. At least he was a bit charismatic. He had the sense to keep his mouth shut when Joachim had been sounding off about Jews and blacks. But Remko knew the pair of them were both arrogant pricks, really. Still, Joachim didn’t deserve to die. He felt interminably sorry for the sallow-faced, gangling dork. Nobody in the faculty believed he and Ratan had been suicide bombers for a fundamentalist Muslim cause.

Suddenly, the canal looked bare and desolate. The trees were still without their leaves. He realised that spring was still a long way off. Remko shivered and pulled the zip of his anorak up to his chin.

He continued to walk, hood on now and head bent against the wind that drove the rain into his face. Presently, he felt curiously self-conscious. He looked at the reflections in the windows of the shops and houses but saw nothing out of the ordinary; nothing apart from a Remko-shaped man walking with his hood up, carrying a bookstore bag in heavy rain. He glanced behind him, intuiting a malign presence. Definitely nobody there. He picked up his pace. Home was not far now.

When he felt something heavy sting the back of his head and sank to the ground like a large stone hitting the bottom of the canal, the only two things that he was aware of were, firstly, that it was odd to be hit on the head in Oudespiegelstraat, even if it was a small alleyway, and secondly, that his attacker was both strong and nimble to be capable of dragging him inside—

Remko Visser passed out and did not wake up until agony and the strange smell of burning petrol, flesh and plastic roused him. By then, it was too late.

Fennemans arranged the hothoused tulips in a charming blue glass globe vase that he had picked up from a junk shop. The tulips were yellow. He liked the colour scheme.

‘Very Swedish,’ he said.

Saturdays were often empty and lonely for Fennemans, but the memory of his meeting with Saskia, and the news that the university’s costly legal machine was already cranking up on his behalf had filled him with the same warm, happy feeling that he often got from standing in a shaft of strong sunlight on a radiant, crisp winter morning.

‘You know we all care so much about you, Vim,’ she had said.

The skin on the hand with which she had patted his arm was loose and wrinkled now – covered in freckles and the start of liver spots. Those blue eyes that had once looked so sharp, almost crystalline, were now ringed with white; the skin above and beneath them was as baggy as hell.

‘You’re such a good friend after all these years,’ he had said, tucking a stray lock of her coarse, grey hair behind her ear. His eyes travelled down to the spare tyre that now represented the span of her hips, where once her bones had jutted out, framing a flat, taut stomach. The clinging fine-knit sweater she was wearing for their meeting only accentuated the unsightly spread.

She blushed. ‘It wouldn’t do to lose our best scholar to a pack of lies, now, would it?’ she said. ‘Poor Vim. So vulnerable. So easy to malign.’

‘I know, Saskia,’ he said, shaking his head and putting his hand on her knee. ‘We sensitive ones are always easy prey for predators like van den Bergen and, in my case, grasping little girls looking for attention.’

He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. He felt the heat from her skin. As far as he was aware, within the university at least, only he had ever been able to thaw Professor Saskia Meyer’s arctic exterior.

‘I’ll make sure no expense is spared on any legal work that needs to be undertaken,’ she said. ‘And the Executive Board will stand behind me in upholding your reputation, my sweet.’ She caressed the inside of his thigh, smiled wryly and opened the door for him to leave.

Another chaste kiss on the forehead was all he had needed to seal that deal.

‘Adieu, darling Saskia,’ he had said, putting his hand dramatically over his heart.

As he had turned to leave, he shuddered to think the two of them had spent all those sweaty afternoons engaged in clandestine fucking in her bohemian old apartment. It was a long time ago now. Perhaps it had been the thrill of having an affair with his supervisor that had made it possible for him to get it up for her.

‘Thinking of you, Vim!’ she had shouted after him, blowing a kiss.

As he put the blue vase onto his kitchen windowsill in the dusk half-light, he realised quite how sweet the relief was. He really was invincible. And now, the banging from below reminded him that he had matters to attend to. Not such an empty Saturday after all.

Poised to fight, when George had turned around, there was nothing out of the ordinary to see. A gaggle of giggling teenaged girls, some lost tourists, a dog without a collar sniffing its pee on a lamp post and a limping man, making his way past the slick-haired tout, Hans, into the live sex show next door. Nothing. Her only attacker had been her own sneering terror.