Working quickly, the driver splashed the liquid all around the floor and over the walls and curtains, doing the same inside the living room. Dumping the container, he remembered to scoop up the cardboard boxes and barcode scanner, and then backed outside. Taking out a cigarette lighter he flicked it with his thumb, watched the small flame for a couple of seconds, and then tossed it inside.
With a blast of hot air and orange flame, the flammable liquid caught light. The driver turned away, climbed back into the driver’s side of the van, and dumped the boxes back onto the passenger seat. Backing out through the gates onto Vondelstraat, he smiled over his shoulder.
“Let’s go home,” he told the girl.
Pulling the baseball hat even further down over his face, he slowly drove away into the foggy night.
Chapter 3
Aftermath
As was usually the case, the nightmare crept up on him. In it, he was strolling along a wide and empty beach. The sky overhead was a vast expanse of dark, broiling clouds, and a strong offshore breeze buffeted against his thin frame. The sea, a leaden and grey threatening presence, was whipped up into white-topped waves. It seemed to breathe, swelling up and down, and he was convinced it would swallow him whole.
Veering away, he headed towards the sand dunes, and it was as he approached them that he first saw her. Far off in the distance, nothing more than a small silhouette standing atop one of the sandy hillocks. But he knew it was her. It was always her.
In the dream he hesitated, but somehow he still drew near, as though something was dragging him forward, and when he glanced down he saw with mild curiosity that his feet floated above the sand.
Looking back up, he was just in time to see the person atop the sand dune shimmer and then disappear, and he looked about in a sudden panic. Moving into the dunes, he caught sight of her again, walking just ahead and disappearing around the next bend, and whenever he was close to catching up, she would fade away once more, only to reappear tantalizingly close but always out of reach.
Until finally he found himself on another open stretch of beach, but in this one the sand was black and the sky was red, like the most stunning sunset he had ever seen, and she was standing here as though waiting for him.
He knew exactly who she was even though she was wearing that same goat-skull over her head, the white bone and large horns exactly as he remembered them, every detail the same including the pentangle painted with blood on the skull’s forehead and the long flowing gown emblazoned with those weird symbols that she was wearing.
Her long blonde hair was whipped up behind her by the strong, gusty wind. Lifting her arms out she welcomed him forward to embrace her, and against his will, he was gliding closer, when suddenly she burst into flames. Her gown was afire and so too her arms and legs, and flames shot out from the top of her head making the goat’s eye sockets glow ruby red. The fireball flared out and he closed his eyes against its searing heat.
A gentle tapping on the car window woke Inspector Pieter Van Dijk.
The call about the fire on Vondelstraat had come through to his mobile just before 8pm, as he was setting off back home from Police HQ on Elandsgracht. Normally it would have been transferred over to one of the detectives just starting the night shift, but apparently someone had called in sick with gallstone problems, and as it was only a five-minute drive away they forwarded it to him. Strange, he would think later, how fortuitous events could come out of such small twists of fate.
When he arrived the building had been well and truly alight. The whole of the ground floor was ablaze, and flames were shooting out of the upper windows and part of the roof where it had caved in. The street was by then clogged with fire trucks and bystanders, and the surface of the road was a jumble of thick and twisting hosepipes, and so to keep out of the way Pieter had parked his car on the corner of Anna Van Den from where he had a good view of events. There was a nursing home right on the side street, and the elderly residents had their faces pressed up against the windows, enjoying the show no doubt.
He had stayed in his car watching as the firefighters tackled the huge blaze, slowly but surely bringing it under control, but at some stage he must have nodded off for when he snatched a look at his watch he saw it was now coming up to eleven o’clock.
Outside a female firefighter was knocking on the glass again, her small and mean mouth saying something. He wound the window down and asked her to repeat herself.
“I said it’s ok for you to come and take a look now.”
Pieter glanced past her and saw that the fire had been extinguished. The building looked to be a blackened shell, and water was still being hosed onto it to cool and dampen the smouldering ruin, but for now, the drama seemed to be over. He climbed out of his car.
The firefighter shoved a yellow hard-hat into his hands, told him to put it on, and once he’d done so, instructed him to follow her down the street.
The smoke from the fire seemed to have made the fog even denser and the strong acrid smell scratched at the back of his
