Reckoning Point, стр. 43
It’s a lot quieter here than it is on the beachfront and she shivers and pulls her coat tighter around her and quickens her pace.
As she walks, she thinks back to her meeting with Doctor Bastiaan. Despite feeling incredibly uncomfortable, it went better than she could have hoped. He hadn’t gloated and he was unlikely to act upon what were, after all, just his suspicions. And why would he? She hadn’t done anything illegal.
Just immoral, she thinks, sickened.
And of course, she knows deep down, it’s not really the Doctor that she is upset with. It’s herself. It was her own stupid mistake because there was no incident with a dirty needle. There had been another man, a man who meant nothing to her, but in a moment of drunken loneliness, a man who she had left the bar with in Rotterdam. The bar had been a big mistake in the first place, it was Toffler, an underground house and techno music venue and Naomi didn’t know why she’d ended up there. She had only left Scheveningen and Erik the evening before, so it wasn’t like she’d spent continuous evenings alone. The man, whose name she never even asked, looked out of place too, and after making eye contact several times they had gravitated towards each other and left the club. There had been no conversation, and they had only reached the seedy, industrial end of Delftseplein before he took her hand and pulled her halfway down the alleyway entrance of an old abandoned unit. She hadn’t protested, she hadn’t thought of Erik, not then. She had thought of nothing as she hitched up her prim, knee-length skirt and wrapped her legs around the stranger.
It was purging, at the time. It was a release of anger at the amount of time she spent away from home, of only having a shot in hell at being able to do something like that with Erik because of their conflicting schedules, of the amount of strict talks she gave to her clients and then seeing them with the same infections the very next month. And as she encouraged the nameless, faceless stranger to fuck her harder, she realised – too late – the only person she was punishing was herself.
And afterwards, when he had asked to see her again and she had laughed at him and walked away, she went fully into nurse mode, unable to believe what she had done. Not even during her single girl college years had she behaved like that. For a few evenings, as she sat in her hotel room, she tried to tell herself that her drink may have been spiked. She toyed with the idea that it was technically rape, but was unable to dismiss the memory of hiking up her own skirt and guiding him in. And now there was the heinous thought of infection. He could have been anyone and he could have also been with anyone. But it was done now, the tests were done, and she would just have to avoid being intimate with Erik until the results were back. And that shouldn’t be a problem, if Erik is as busy as he usually is with his work, it won’t be an issue at all to put off having sex with him.
She is walking beneath the imposing walls of the old Episcopalean church when she is aware of the dimming headlights of a slow moving car reflecting on the brickwork in front of her, and then, footsteps approaching from behind. She pauses, she’s not sure why, it’s not like pedestrians are unusual here, but something makes her hesitate. She turns to her right, ready with a smile, anticipating … something, a question, somebody in need of directions, perhaps? But the man – for now she can see it is a man – is still walking directly at her. She tries to shuffle back and feels her heels sinking into the grass that surrounds the church and then her back is against the wall, and as she feels the rough brick at her spine she has a flash of a terrible memory when she was pushed up against another wall, but that time was at her own wishes. And despite her later regret, at that time it was welcome.
As this man comes at her she turns her face, feels hands gripping her neck. Dropping her bag, she claws at his wrists, tries to turn her head back to look at him because she has a sudden realisation that she knows this man and she can’t believe that he would be doing this to her, but before she can speak his name, he pulls her forward and then, with a strength that belies his build, he rams her back into the wall. Her head connects with the brick and she bites down painfully on her tongue. She can taste blood in her mouth, but has no time to think about that, as the man brings his other hand to her throat, and begins to squeeze.
41
ERIK FONS & ALEX HARVEY
THE CARLTON BEACH HOTEL
9.7.15 Midnight
Alex sits by the window in the hotel’s restaurant and gazes out into the black night. The Smuggler’s Grille technically closed at 11pm, but Alex had slipped some Euros across to the pretty Dutch barmaid and smiled winningly at her. She had flirted back with him, leaning on the counter and asking him questions coquettishly. He had replied in his usual charming manner as Inspectuer Fons was coming over, as he didn’t want the barmaid to change her mind about letting them use the restaurant, but her actions irritated him. Elian would never behave flirtatiously; she wouldn’t play games or