“What are you doing out so late?” she asks him, looking through at his window again.
“I don’t sleep much these days,” he responds. “Would you like a lift anywhere?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t live far from here, I’m going home soon. I couldn’t sleep myself so I thought I’d take a walk.”
A likely story, he thinks as he tries to keep his expression neutral. And then he remembers what date it is. “Elian, your test results should come in the morning. Would you like to come along to my surgery tomorrow?”
She looks embarrassed and relieved in equal measure. “Yes, I shall, thank you. Will I have an appointment for the MRI scan, too?”
“It might have come through, but I do still think your memory issues are due to your emotional trauma, rather than a physical symptom.”
At this she looks annoyed and Bram clenches the steering wheel hard so his face doesn’t show his irritation. How can she be pushing for a medical scan, all the while she’s out here, working, giving herself up to anyone for a few Euros?
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” he says, as placidly as he can manage.
She steps back from the car and he drives off, looking at her once in his rear view mirror; a tiny shadow looking lonely on the empty street.
Elian doesn’t return home straight away. She sits back down in the shelter, looking down the road for the doctor’s car which has long gone. A different plan is formulating in her mind and she rubs at her temples, wishing she had her notebook with her so she could write it down before the thought slips away.
And, this time when she gets up, she’s off and running again, only this time in the direction of home. She slips past Brigitta’s door quietly, not wanting her friend to spot her and distract her. When she slips into her own apartment she pulls her faithful notebook out of the kitchen drawer and grabs a pen. Writing rapidly, she scrawls down everything she can remember from the evening, from the address of Lev’s apartment to the mustard colour of the sheet that was covering the bulk that they were carrying. Lastly, she writes an instruction to herself in the notebook, to tell the doctor what she saw tonight.
She’s pleased with that, she’ll be handing it over to someone else, it won’t be her responsibility. And the doctor has nothing on her, no personal information or phone number. She thinks back, did she give him her address? She can’t recall, but it doesn’t matter. But then, if she gives the doctor all of the information she won’t be able to confront Lev herself. She won’t get the control that she so desperately needs.
It occurs to her that she’s exhausted and she needs sleep. She can’t remember the last time that she ate either, but it’s too late for that now.
She stares at the words that she’s written in the notebook and finally, she adds a question mark to her instruction.
Now she must sleep. Things always look clearer in the morning.
44
ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY
THE CARLTON BEACH then, later, BRONOVO HOSPTIAL
10.7.15 Early hours of the morning
When Alex heard the operator say the words ‘it’s your girlfriend, sir’, he thought at first that he had misheard. But in what seemed like slow motion, the mobile phone slipped from Erik’s grip and crashed onto the tabletop. Alex snatched it up.
“Hello? Are you still there?”
The voice that came through was puzzled. “Sir?”
“This is Alex Harvey, I’m currently with Inspectuer Fons, I’m here from the MET Police in London,” Alex says, wondering how many more times he’s going to tell that lie before this is over. “Can you repeat that for me?”
The young man on the other end of the telephone is English, most probably a trainee recruit from the MET himself, but thankfully he is too young or too nervous to question Alex’s rank.
“Another woman has been found, you are familiar with the unexplained deaths I take it, sir?”
Alex raises his eyebrows at being called ‘sir’ himself. “Yes, I’m discussing it with your inspectuer right now, can you repeat what you told him?”
The young man at the other end lowers his voice, as though he is imparting some gossip instead of reporting the murder of the inspectuers own partner. “It’s the Inspectuer’s girlfriend. She has her ID on her, she’s well known in these parts and she would have been identified without it anyway. She was found on Wassenestraat at the Episcopalian Church, they’re transferring her to the Bronovo Hospital as we speak.”
Alex grabs a pen off the table and scrawls it on a napkin. He wonders what Erik’s girlfriend does if she’s well known to all of his colleagues. “Bronovo,” he repeats and looks up at Erik. “Is this nearby?”
Erik, still motionless and his face a mask of horror, doesn’t appear to have heard him.
Alex gets up from his chair and wanders over to the now deserted bar. He pours a generous slug of whiskey for Erik and speaks quietly into the handset. “I take it the morgue is at this Bronovo, can Erik see her, or rather, should he see her, if you know what I mean?”
There is a silence at the other end of the line before the operator comes back, speaking loudly in Alex’s ear. “Sir, Bronovo is a hospital. She’s not dead, sir, Naomi survived the attack.”
Alex starts; looks at the whiskey that was intended for Erik and then throws it back himself. Hanging up the phone he crosses the room and lays a hand on Fons’ shoulder.
“We’re going to the hospital, mate,” he says, grimly. “Your girl isn’t dead, she’s still alive.”
Erik feels like a fire has been lit beneath him as he
