Read Online The Girl Who Broke the Rules by Marnie Riches - Free Book Online Page B

shoes and buffed it uselessly with a cotton handkerchief. ‘I don’t need to remind you that I’m the commissioner, do I? You tow my party line.’
    Van den Bergen fingered the frayed collar of the shirt he had not yet had time to change. ‘Jaap, you embrace headline-grabbing sensationalism, and you’re going to end up with mass hysteria on your hands. We should announce there’s a murderer at large. Of course, we should! We—’
    ‘Not murderer. Serial killer.’ At that moment, Kamphuis was visible through the glazed partition, walking past Hasselblad’s office, taking a large bite out of an oversized syrup waffle. Notably, Kamphuis waved merrily to the commissioner. ‘On. The. Rampage.’
    Kamphuis and Hasselblad. Pair of pricks together , van den Bergen thought. Not a club I’d ever be invited to join. Not a club I’d want to fucking well join. ‘Look, we need to encourage the public to be vigilant. Yes. But the whole point of the press conference is to identify these women. Missing persons has thrown up zilch.’ He stared at the sorry-looking parlour palm on Hasselblad’s desk. Fingered the compost, which was utterly dried out. Moron never watered it. ‘Not a shred of clothing on either of them, let alone ID. No witnesses so far. How can I investigate murders with nothing to go on but two carved-up cadavers, some dodgy scarring from past surgery? A vague notion of their ages and ethnicities?’

    ‘Stick to the brief, van den Bergen!’ was all Hasselblad would say before barrelling out of his office and down the hall to where the nation’s media had been assembled.
    The reporters were rapt with attention, now. Waiting to hear what the infamous chief inspector had to say – the man who had solved the mystery of the Bushuis library and Utrecht synagogue bombings. A catcher of murderous psychopaths. One of Amsterdam’s most celebrated sons, when it suited them to deem him one. An abrasive, white-haired dinosaur who should hand in his badge, when it didn’t. Casting an eye over their hungry faces, he could almost see them silently deciding on today’s headline. Manipulative sewer rats, the lot of them.
    He cleared his throat. Finally, imagining George had placed an encouraging hand on his shoulder, his voice came.
    ‘Er, thank you for coming.’
    He started to talk about the victims, being careful to hold back the information that their organs had been removed and that they appeared to have been butchered by an expert. He deliberately omitted to deploy the phrase, ‘serial sex killer’. Steadfastly denied they were looking for a crazed pervert, when quizzed about it by a researcher for NPO 1 television.
    ‘We have yet to profile the perpetrator,’ he clarified. Watched the research guy’s face fall with disappointment. ‘At this stage, we have two female victims.’ He clicked the mouse button on a laptop Marie had set up for him and two artist’s impressions appeared on a large whiteboard behind him. He didn’t think much of the artist’s efforts. The pictures were guesswork, at best, hastily scribbled onto paper. ‘Two murders that share several similarities. But I wouldn’t label this as the work of a serial killer. Not yet.’
    He could feel Hasselblad’s eyes boring a resentful hole in the side of his face. He could almost hear Elvis’ and Marie’s jaws dropping with disbelief. All hell would break loose once the microphones were switched off and they returned to their offices. But he was safe for now. Hasselblad wouldn’t dare shed light on an internal disagreement in front of scandal-hungry reporters.

    ‘I need to know if anyone knows anything about these two women.’ He thought about the slight build of the victims. Their vulnerability. The black girl’s obvious youth. The white woman’s flawed, augmented breasts. Thought about George and Tamara. Spoke into the microphone in an impassioned way. ‘Husbands, family members, lovers, colleagues, friends. Somebody must be