Reckoning Point Read online

  RECKONING POINT

  J.M Hewitt

  © J.M. Hewitt 2019

  J.M. Hewitt has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  First Murder

  1

  ALEX

  2

  THE DOCTOR

  3

  ELIAN

  4

  LEV

  5

  ROLAND

  6

  ALEX

  7

  THE DOCTOR

  8

  ELIAN

  9

  LEV

  10

  ROLAND

  11

  ERIK FONS

  12

  ALEX

  13

  THE DOCTOR

  14

  ELIAN

  15

  LEV

  16

  ROLAND

  17

  ERIK FONS

  18

  ALEX

  19

  THE DOCTOR

  20

  ELIAN

  21

  SECOND MURDER

  22

  LEV

  23

  ROLAND

  24

  ALEX

  25

  THE DOCTOR

  26

  ERIK FONS

  27

  ELIAN

  28

  LEV

  29

  ROLAND

  30

  ALEX

  31

  NAOMI WILSON

  32

  THIRD MURDER

  33

  ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY

  34

  ELIAN

  35

  LEV

  36

  ROLAND

  37

  NAOMI WILSON and THE DOCTOR

  38

  ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY

  39

  ELIAN & LEV

  40

  NAOMI

  41

  ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY

  42

  ROLAND

  43

  ELIAN & THE DOCTOR

  44

  ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY

  45

  ELIAN & THE DOCTOR

  46

  ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY

  47

  LEV and ROLAND

  48

  ROLAND

  49

  ELIAN

  50

  ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY

  51

  FORTH MURDER

  52

  ELIAN

  53

  ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY

  55

  ELIAN AND THE DOCTOR

  56

  ROLAND

  57

  ERIK FONS AND ALEX HARVEY

  58

  ELIAN AND LEV

  59

  ROLAND

  60

  THE COLONEL

  61

  THE DOCTOR & LEV

  62

  ERIK FONS AND ALEX HARVEY

  63

  ROLAND

  64

  ELIAN, ALEX, LEV, THE DOCTOR and ERIK

  65

  THE COLONEL

  66

  ELIAN, LEV, BRAM, ALEX AND ERIK.

  67

  ELIAN, ALEX AND ERIK.

  Prologue

  First Murder

  Near Doublestraat

  3.7.15 Late at night

  Four windows, four girls all in varying states of undress. He stands tall, arching back ever so slightly to get the best view.

  Rita is in the first window and he knows that she can see him down here in the street. She smiles coyly, hooks a thumb in the ‘v’ of her underwear but he doesn’t see what her next trick is, his gaze has already moved on.

  It’s not that he doesn’t like Rita, rather the fact that he has been with her several times recently and a lot of people have seen him. If Rita should suddenly become missing in action fingers might be pointed.

  No, for what he needs to do tonight, it must be someone who is not known to him. There can be nothing to bring it back to his door.

  Gabi Rossi hurries down the street, taking care that her spiked heels don’t get stuck in between the cobblestones. There’s a chill in the air, a cold front coming off the North Sea and she pulls her thin coat tighter around her and turns up the collar, thinking wistfully and not for the first time about Brazil, her home country.

  The weather is the only thing that she misses about Bangu Rio. Here in Scheveningen, her home may be small and one that she shares with four other girls, but it is a palace compared to the favela where she was raised in a steel shanty shack.

  And it’s safe here in Holland. And just as she is musing on the fact that she’s not known even a hint of trouble in the three months she has been here, she hears a rough footstep on the road behind her and what sounds like the chink of a chain.

  She stops walking and looks behind her down the deserted alleyway. A damp mist has rolled in from the coast and she squints into the gloom. There, a hundred yards away, there’s definitely someone standing next to a dumpster. He is unmoving and seemingly looking towards her, silent and still. And the whole scene seems strange, because this is a happy place. Even in her job when some of the punters want something unusual or bordering on the perverted, it’s never sinister. On the other hand, some of her punters might be timid, unable or unwilling to voice their desires. But this guy, he’s neither exuberant nor shy. He’s just standing, staring her down, observing.

  Carefully, not making any sudden movements, she slips her feet out of her shoes. The cold cobbles draw a gasp from her and she backs up a couple of steps. He still hasn’t moved, but now he takes his hand out of his pocket, drawing out a length of chain, presenting it to her, holding it as though it is a fine wine.

  “Filho da puta,” Gabi swears in a whisper and after a beat, she turns and runs, leaving her shoes right where she slipped them off.

  Lev leaves the slightly more upper class area of Geleenstraat and heads over towards Doublestraat. He stops under a bridge, pausing to light a cigarette when he hears the slap of bare soles on the street behind him.

  The girl runs into him and when he reaches out a hand to steady her she smacks it away with a scream.

  “Hey, lady–” he begins and is taken aback when she does an about-turn, leaps towards him, almost into his arms.

  She clings to him, sobbing into his coat.

  “There was a man. I left my shoes …” is all she can manage to say.

  Lev glances back the way she came and can see nobody in sight. “You really shouldn’t be walking out here on your own,” he says.

  She seems to make a quick recovery, pushing him away from her and looking up at him with a sneer.

  “You think I can’t take care of myself?”

  Well, no, he thinks. Or you wouldn’t be crying into my coat. But he doesn’t say it.

  “As you were then,” he says, holding out his hand in a gesture that says ‘after you’.

  With a final glare at him she walks away, treading gingerly over the cobbles.

  He looks around once more, noting that this area between the two red light districts is deserted; a wasteland.

  He puts his hand in his pocket, runs his thumb down the sharp edge of the blade that nestles there. And with a smile that is akin to a leer, lighting up his face, he sets off after the girl.

  1

  ALEX

  SOHO WHISKEY CLUB, OLD COMPTON STREET, LONDON

  3.7.15 Lunchtime

  Alex Harvey stares down at the
shot glass, swirls the amber liquid around and bringing it up to his face, he inhales deeply. Pausing just for a second he closes his eyes, throws it back and slams the empty glass back on the bar.

  “Another, sir?” the bartender discreetly removes the glass and simultaneously wipes the ring of condensation away from the walnut counter.

  Alex nods and moments later a fresh glass of Macallan single malt is placed in front of him.

  In the dark recess of his mind he knows that if he is planning to get hammered, a good old Johnnie Walker would be marginally less expensive, but now, in the darkness and relative anonymity of the Soho Whiskey Club, the money doesn’t matter.

  If she was here, they’d be drinking gin, Bombay or Gordon’s, none of this fancy shit. She always turned her nose up when he got flashy, which was hard for him to accept, having always enjoyed the finer things in life. But, he thinks morosely, he can’t ignore how good his life was when she was with him, when she bought him down a peg or two, when she made him look at the world from ground level.

  She’s been gone ten days but to Alex it feels like ten years. One day she was there, recovering from the awful, horrifying ordeal in Chernobyl the month before. She had been quiet; of course she had, after all she had suffered unthinkable torture at the hands of that psychopath, she had been lucky to escape with her life intact. Not that it was intact, not with the invasive clinical procedures and tests she still had to endure, of which he had no idea if she had arranged or gone through with.

  They were not partners; they had enjoyed a one night stand that had looked like it was in the process of looking very likely to lead to something more, something special, so all Alex could do was hover on the fringes of her life, letting her know he was there to be her support, but without crowding her.

  And then, ten days prior, she had upped and left. No note and no forwarding address. Not even a telephone call or text to say she was safe.

  He snorts with laughter, earning a glance from the bartender. He tries to control himself and buries his head in his hands as he feels his mirth turning into a sob that catches in his throat. It’s the drink, he tells himself, because in a sober state Alex Harvey would never allow himself to get anywhere near crying, not over a girl. Not over anything. Ever.

  And now, instead of feeling morose, he is annoyed. It’s so ironic; she has now done to him what her own aunt – the woman that raised her – had done to her. And she should know better than anyone what abandonment feels like.

  Idly he wonders if she has gone back to Chernobyl. It is secure now, what with Niko the psychopath and Fat Arnja, the corrupt policeman, dead and all. Once again the village of Pripyat would be a harmonious, albeit not medically safe, place to be. And her family are there, Sissy, the aunt that raised her from birth, Klim, the man that may or may not be her biological father and his friend or partner, (that part was never really clear to Alex,) Sol.

  Alex raises his hand; a miniscule gesture that captures the attention of the bartender and immediately he is there, pouring another Macallan.

  As Alex drinks it, slower this time, as he tries to organise his thoughts. Maybe he should contact Sissy and see if she has turned up there. To hell with giving Elian time and space, he has needs too, he has never let himself feel this way about anyone before, and Alex is damned if he’s going to give up on her easily. Because his whole personality might have been turned upside down by her, and inside out, but that part, the determination, that is still intact.

  He slams the glass down again, the remnants of the fire burning its way down his throat, and slaps a wad of notes on the counter.

  I’m coming for you, Elian. And this time when I find you, I’m not letting you go.

  2

  THE DOCTOR

  HOLLAND SPOOR

  3.7.15 Early hours

  The doctor is called Bram Bastiaan and he works out of his small home next to the Holland Spoor. He is registered with the GG&GD Municipal Health Service but is mostly left alone out here, which suits him just fine.

  This is his patch; the three Red Light Districts (RLD’s) belong to him, or rather the girls do, plus the Tipplezone, although as business there is mainly conducted from cars he isn’t able to pay too much attention to what goes on. But the other streets, especially the two slightly lower quality ones – Poeldukesestraat and the Holland Spoor – those are his territory. And it makes what happened there a few hours ago very troublesome, very troublesome indeed.

  It is the darkest hour now, that strange time between ink-black night and dawn and he moves over to the window and looks outside. The mist, though thinner than it was a couple of hours prior, is still hanging low over the canal. Visibility is poor, even more so to his sixty year old eyes and he knows that if he wants to find out if his memory and vision served him correctly, he is going to have to go out there, before the day truly breaks and the residents and tourists come out.

  Although it is summer it is damp and the fog has bought a chill along with it, so Bram pulls on his heavy woollen coat and black scarf. He peers in the mirror hanging above the small sink in the corner of the room and smoothes down his grey, thinning hair, before clamping his black fedora in place on his head.

  It is cold outside, and eerily deserted at this time of night. Bram pauses on his doorstep, looks both ways down the street and then walks down across the road towards the canal. The water is dark and murky, not a ripple in sight. He shivers, shoves his hands in his pockets and begins to walk to where he was earlier, the only sound the clicking of his boots on the cobbles, resonating off the tall buildings that surround him.

  It doesn’t take long to reach Doublestraat and he stops short a few metres from the dumpster where he had been only hours before.

  Her shoes are still there, placed on the cobblestones, toes pointing towards him, unmoved and not replaced back on the lovely feet of the owner.

  He moves past them, making sure to give them a wide berth, as though the girl will suddenly appear standing in them, shouting at him in her usual rough, disrespectful way.

  Soon he is at the bridge and as he stands in the shelter of the concrete structure he looks around him. Nothing here, so he walks on, looks left and right, squinting down the alleyways that branch off the main road. Click, click, his boots keep in rhythm with the beat of his heart, drumming out a warning on the pavement, ensuring he keeps moving on, knowing for some unfathomable reason that he will find the shoe owner eventually.

  And there, what is that? A sudden silence befalls the night as a hint of light catches his eye and he stops walking. He checks left, right and behind him before moving into the narrow alley. Halfway up he stops by the pile of six or so garbage bags sitting outside and hands on knees, he peers closer.

  It is a foot, pointing obscenely out from between the black sacks and he rights himself, looks behind him again, then up at the building, making sure no lights are on, taking care that no one is watching him.

  He plants his left hand on the wall, raises his right foot, and with his boot he knocks the black bag on top to the floor. The bag isn’t done up tightly, and a landslide of old food leftovers and rubbish falls into the street. He freezes, and once he is sure that no glass bottles or tin cans are going to announce his presence, he turns his attention back. Her face is exposed now, glassy eyes with a note of fury and fear in them gazing unseeingly up at him. He inhales sharply, blinks down at her and shakes his head in an almost disappointed manner. He lets his eyes travel down her body, catches a glimpse of something, a colour, out of contrast with the white of her body and the black of the bags. He topples another bag with his foot, leans down and squints, wishing he had bought a torch or even a match to strike that would help his night vision. Getting as close as he dares he studies her right shoulder. It is blood that he sees, and to his aging eyes it looks like someone has attempted to skin this girl.

  Bram straightens up, puts his hands on his fedora as if to reassure himself it is still there. So he was right, about the weird patch of skin.
He breathes out noisily through his nose. These girls, what they allow to be done to them, all for a few crumpled, dirty, Euro notes. With his lips pressed tight together and with one fleeting glance at the dead girl, he turns tail and hurries back to his home.

  3

  ELIAN

  SCHEVENINGEN

  3.7.15 Morning

  From his hands sprout all sorts of weapons; a length of pipe, a horseshoe, a knife - all deadly in their own particular way. Elian lurches forward, knowing that she can’t fight him; her only chance is to outrun him. But her feet and legs are stiff and ungainly, slow moving and awkward. She looks behind her, sees him gaining on her and she tries again to move, but it’s like walking through quicksand or mud. She lets out a scream of frustration and as she does so she hears something banging, like the sky is falling around her ears–

  She wakes up, still caught in a scream, belatedly realising her legs do work, and she kicks against the covers, crawls down the bed and it is only the thump of the hardwood floor that properly brings her out of sleep and into consciousness.

  She lies on the floor panting, eyes wide, the blanket entangled in her legs and listens to the sound of her heart thumping in her chest.

  And as the dream recedes she frowns; the banging is still happening. Through the fog her brain tells her it is the door, the door to her apartment. Someone is outside, knocking. And with limbs that feel a hundred years old she makes her way to the door.

  It’s her neighbour, a young girl not much older than Elian herself, and she looks pissed off as she flips her long, brown hair over her shoulder.

  “It’s not even seven in the morning,” snaps the girl. “You know I work nights, right?”

  Elian stares blankly at the girl, trying to remember her name. Bridget? Bridie?

  “Look,” the girl’s tone softens. “If you’re having problems go to a doctor, you want the number of my guy?”

  “Your … guy?”

  “My doctor!” Her neighbour clicks her tongue impatiently and digs around in her pocket, finally pulling out a card and pushing it in Elian’s hand. “He’s good.”