Wolf Angel, Mark Hobson [best free ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗

Right the way down the end of that alleyway, which is quite long and straight, and then puff, they had vanished. Like those street magicians.”

                                                               Oude Kerk

After taking their details they thanked the couple and strolled back across the small bridge.

“What do you make of that then?” Pieter asked the police sergeant

“About them moving so fast? Or the ages of the suspects?

“Both.”

“Well more likely the guy was more shaken than he says and just took longer to gather his wits and react, so they were away and around the far corner before he knew what’s what. As for them being teenagers, nothing surprises me in this city anymore, so I guess it’s feasible. Either that or we have a gang of homicidal dwarfs roaming the streets.”

Pieter shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets as he turned things over in his mind.

“But at least we have an exact time for the murder,” Beumers added optimistically. “Assuming they saw what they saw.” He glanced at his superior as they walked. “Are we linking this one with the other boss? Officially?”

“Only semi-officially for now. Going off the victims, a prostitute and someone having a night of fun in the red light district, I’d say that it’s a strong likelihood that they are linked.”

“Like vigilantes? Someone cleaning up the area? Doing what the city council have been promising to do for years now? I fucking hope not, what a clusterfuck that can of worms could turn out to be. I hate fucking politics.”

As they stepped down off the bridge and cut across the corner to head back to the hive of activity around the urinal, Pieter saw one of the forensic techies push through the small cluster of onlookers that had started to gather, commuters on their way to work. The white-clad spaceman fairly bounced across to them, evidently excited about something. He thrust out a clear-plastic evidence bag, waggling it right in Pieter’s face.

“We’ve found something. On the ground just outside the pisser.”

Pieter took the bag and peered at the tiny object inside.

“It’s a miracle the street cleaner didn’t suck it up, otherwise we’d never have been any the wiser.”

Inside was a small silver signet ring. Around the edge of the ring was some writing, in fancy script. On the front a skull and crossbones above the letter W.

Pieter decided to take the small evidence bag back to HQ as he had a hunch on who might be able to offer some help regarding the signet ring. In the meantime he asked Beumers to get the owner of the small corner café to open up and show him their camera footage, if they had any.

Daan Beumers was in luck on two counts. The café owner, Mr Saleem, was all too keen to help as he had a young cousin who was due to pass out at the police training academy over in Eindhoven in a few weeks. And yes, they did have security cameras which filmed 24hrs per day, one of which covered the street and bridge outside. Perfect!

Mr Saleem showed him how to fast-forward or pause the footage on his small laptop in a backroom, and then left him alone to get ready for the lunchtime trade in a few hours. Leaning forward over the monitor Daan raced through the early stuff which showed the usual evening revellers, until he reached the timeframe in question. He watched from shortly before 2am just on the off chance that the camera may have caught the suspects before the murder, but alas nothing of interest stood out. But as the clock in the top right corner clicked over to 2.05am he saw quite clearly in the sharp black and white footage the young couple, Henrietta and Maarten, hove into view as they crossed the bridge from the Oude Kerk side. He watched them stroll across hand-in-hand and then saunter to the bridge handrail, where Maarten fished out his extendable selfie-stick from somewhere and lifted it and the attached mobile high into the air, snapping a pic as the lovebirds smooched and cuddled.

Both of them turned to glance at something, which was annoyingly off camera, and then suddenly stumble quickly away in alarm. And in the next instant, there was a dark blur, more of a smudge on the camera, as some shadow or whatever raced by them in a flash.

Daan sat up rigidly in the chair. “What the fuck?”

For several seconds he didn’t move, just stared open-mouthed at the screen, which now showed the young couple staring at something, again off camera, with similar expressions of shock on their faces.

Snapping out of his paralysis, Daan quickly paused the footage, then ran it back to watch the sequence again. And once more watched the bizarre shadow – for that’s what it appeared to be – race by at ridiculous speed. Exactly as they had described.

Again he ran it back. But this time he tried to pause it at the split-second that the blurry thing was on screen, toddling the film back and forth until he had the best shot possible. Then Daan sat back in his chair and stared at what was on the screen in front of him.

It was the unmistakable figure of a child, but dressed in either a black coat or a fucking weird-looking hooded cloak. And within the hood, too indistinct and out of focus to see much, was a pale face. And where the mouth should be a horrible black maw, below a pair of deep shadowy eye sockets.

Floris de Kok worked in the basement level at Police HQ. He was a civilian worker, but unlike his colleagues who worked in the large office pool on the ground floor, he preferred the peace and quiet down here. The privacy also meant he could avoid the