49
ELIAN
SANTOS ARGENTINIAN
10.7.15 Evening
Elian peruses the menu and realises that she is hungrier than she can recall being, at least since she came here. She knows there have been a lot of meals skipped since she returned from Chernobyl, but with the weight of her at-risk health off her mind, she’s suddenly ravenous.
“Everything looks so good,” she murmurs.
Brigitta, seated opposite her, smiles. “You seem happy.”
It’s all the encouragement that Elian needs. She snaps the menu closed and leans across the table. Lowering her voice, she says, “The tests, they were all okay. I’m in the clear!”
Brigitta reaches over and clasps Elian’s hands. “I’m so happy for you, you must be so relieved.”
Elian nods. “I feel like I’m just waking up, I feel … new, like I’ve been born.” She stops and looks down at the table, embarrassed as she’s not usually deep or emotional.
“Nobody can blame you for feeling like that, you should feel that way,” Brigitta summons a passing waiter. “Now we shall celebrate with margaritas I think.”
As Brigitta places their drinks order Elian sits back and contemplates. It’s not simply the clean bill of health that has made her feel so revitalised. For as long as she’s been able to think for herself she’s been worried. Concerned that she had been placed in England under false documents, always wondering who her real family were, scared that someone was going to find out all about her past and call her on it. And then, the happiness vanishes as though a cloud has covered the sun that is her heart. Her problems are not all gone; there’s still Lev and his misdemeanours, and there’s still no getting round the fact that Niko is very likely her biological father. No matter how healthy she is, there is a very real chance that she is still born from a murderer and a rapist; she’s still the seed of the very man that so violently attacked her.
“Hey, chicky,” Brigitta says, clicking her fingers in Elian’s face. “Wake up, drinks are here!”
Elian summons a smile and sips at her margarita as she reopens the menu. There’s nothing she can do about Niko, if he is her flesh and bone and blood. But she can still stand and watch as they lead Lev out of his apartments in handcuffs. That’s all she has now, the only power that remains.
“Brigitta, did you hear about another attack on a girl last night?” she asks.
Brigitta nods sagely. “It was Naomi Wilson, she’s a nurse around here, she looks after us, a bit like Doctor Bastiaan but she’s more mobile. She’s also the girlfriend of the Inspectuer of our very own police force.” She snorts and says, scathingly. “Maybe now they’ll try a bit harder to find that motherfucker.”
“But why kill her? She’s a nurse, all the other girls have been … you know.” Elian tails off, unsure of the correct term to use when describing Brigitta and her friends.
Brigitta seems not to have noticed Elian’s discomfort as she leans even closer, her eyes wide and shining. “Oh but she wasn’t killed, she’s in the hospital but she’s alive and breathing. When – or if – she wakes up, maybe she’ll be able to tell the police who the bastard is.”
Elian frowns, thinking back to the previous evening. There was no way that whoever was wrapped up in that sheet was alive. Maybe they had been knocked unconscious, came to and manage to escape for help.
“Where was she found?”
“The Episcopalian Church,” replies Brigitta, gesturing with a jabbing hand towards the streets behind Elian with her stirrer. “It’s a couple of miles down that way.”
But it makes no sense. Elian knows what she saw. Or does she? Self doubt creeps in as she replays the previous evening in her head. Did she see it? Is she remembering correctly or is her mind and memory playing up again?
“What happened? Was it the same guy, or just a morbid coincidence?” Elian wonders aloud.
“It’s got the Scheveningen Street Strangler all over it,” says Brigitta and laughs at the expression on Elian’s face. “Oh, you didn’t know? The media have got a name for him now, the Street Strangler.” She sniffs unappreciatively. “It could have been worse, better than Hooker Hacker or Call Girl Killer.”
“Jesus Christ,” Elian pulls her hands through her wiry hair.
“All right, come on girl, let’s order already!” Brigitta throws the menu at Elian, opens her own and studies it intently.
Elian looks down at the menu that has landed on her lap, and realises that her appetite has dissipated once again.
50
ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY
BRONOVO HOSPITAL and 1056 GEVERS DEYNOOTWEG
10.7.15 Late night
The tension in the small hospital room is palpable and Alex can’t think of a single thing to say. Erik’s words spin around his head, ‘we haven’t had sex in months’. It’s on the tip of Alex’s tongue to ask Erik what he means, but it’s obvious what he means, and it’s excruciating.
So Naomi has cheated on Erik, a one night stand or a full-out affair, who knows? Who cares? Except Erik definitely cares, Alex can see how torn he is by the look on his face. Half of him is wracked with agony, wanting no doubt to lay into Naomi and ask her how she can do this to him. But he can’t let rip at her, she’s comatose, unable to respond or to shout back or tell her side of the story.
And he doesn’t even know Erik well enough to comfort him properly. Not that it’s in Alex’s nature to comfort. If Erik were one of his true friends, his life-long
