CHAPTER 68: South East London, mortuary, later
CHAPTER 70: Amsterdam, Nieuw West area, then, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 71: Amsterdam, Ad’s apartment, then NOS TV studios, then police headquarters, 30 January
CHAPTER 72: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 73: Amsterdam, hospital, 31 January
CHAPTER 74: Amsterdam, police headquarters
CHAPTER 75: South East London, 14 February
CHAPTER 76: Amsterdam, hospital, later
CHAPTER 77: Soho, London, later
CHAPTER 78: Laren, the Netherlands, 15 February
CHAPTER 79: Cambridge, St John’s College, later
CHAPTER 80: Laren, the Netherlands, 16 February
CHAPTER 81: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later
CHAPTER 82: A secret location near Laren, later
CHAPTER 83: Stansted airport, Essex, later
CHAPTER 84: Amsterdam, then Laren, later
CHAPTER 85: A secret location near Laren, later
CHAPTER 86: A secret location near Laren, moments later, then, the Laren house
CHAPTER 87: A secret location near Laren, later
CHAPTER 88: Amsterdam, hospital, 18 February
CHAPTER 89: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later
CHAPTER 90: Amsterdam, hospital, later
CHAPTER 91: Soho, London, later
CHAPTER 92: Berlin, Germany, 23 February
CHAPTER 93: Amsterdam, hospital, later
CHAPTER 94: Amsterdam, women’s prison, 28 February
CHAPTER 95: Amsterdam, the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, then, the hospital, later
Amsterdam, red light district, 16–17 January
The jagged pain between her shoulder blades was fleeting. Magool flinched. Breathed in sharply at the unpleasant sensation. She loosened her seatbelt. Wriggled in the passenger seat to look behind her.
In the dark, there was nothing to see.
Then, she tried to reach behind to feel the leather. But her hands would not move. She stared down at them, bemused. They felt neither leaden nor numb. It was simply as if they no longer existed. And yet, there they sat, chapped from the cold, bitten nails, primly folded over her wringing-wet, jeans-clad thighs.
Frowning, aware of her accelerated heartbeat, she tried to lift her legs, move her feet, wiggle her toes. Nothing. Why was her body not obeying her brain? She looked askance at the driver.
‘I can’t move,’ she said in Dutch. ‘What’s going on?’
The driver stared resolutely ahead. Peering through the windscreen of the car as hail rattled onto the glass, accompanied by fat snowflakes. Swept by the wiper-blades into thin white columns on the windscreen’s periphery that grew thicker and thicker with every second that passed; white screens closing slowly on the real world.
‘Hey! Stop the car! Something’s wrong, I’m telling you. I can’t feel a thing.’ With difficulty, Magool could still turn her head – enough to see the side of her driver’s face. ‘Did you hear me?’
Silence enveloped her, and she realised her words had not sounded at all except inside her head. Through the windscreen, she could just about make out the white-dusted cobbles of the road. The snow, illuminated by the bright, triangular shafts of the streetlights, came down like yellow-gold icing sugar, falling through a sieve. But where the hell were they going on this beautiful, foul night? Not towards her apartment, she was certain. And what was happening to her?
She started to loll forward, held in her seat only by the belt. The driver reached out and with a large, strong hand,