A State Of Sin Amsterdam Occult Series Book Two, Mark Hobson [notion reading list txt] 📗

gratitude from him wouldn’t go amiss. I provided him with the money for the clinic, and supplied him with his volunteers for his crazy experiments. All he had to do in return was give us Nina Bakker.”

Johan raised one eyebrow, thinking to himself that his understanding of the word ‘volunteer’ must be different from hers. But he didn’t say this to her. Instead he asked: “Do you want me to tidy this mess up?”

Lotte looked at him. “What? No, it’s too risky. If anybody linked you with Visser.” She didn’t finish the sentence.

Somewhere, they heard the sound of a tap running, then splashing water.

“I’ll deal with it,” she told him.

She moved across the room and picked her mobile up off the coffee table. Quickly tapping in a number, she waited while the line rang at the other end. Somebody answered.

“Mr Trinh? It’s me. I’m in need of your services.”

Mr Trinh arrived thirty minutes later, looking all dapper as usual in his long, grey trench coat and black trilby hat, glasses perched on the end of his nose.

Mr Trinh never spoke much. He wasn’t one for pleasantries or small talk. His line of work didn’t call for friendly chats over a coffee. He didn’t even like to use first names. If possible, he preferred to arrive, complete the required task, and leave with the merchandise as quickly as can be, uttering as few words as he could.

Knowing how discreet Mr Trinh was, Lotte put up with his small oddities.

She let him in and pointed to the bathroom door at the end of the long passageway.

“He’s been taking a bath. He’s just getting dressed”

“Still alive?” Mr Trinh enquired, the tiniest of inflections in his voice giving away his surprise.

“Yes. I didn’t want to get my hands messy.”

With a curt nod, he went down the passage. Lotte watched him pause briefly outside the bathroom and remove a tiny scalpel from his coat pocket, and then she went back into the study, shutting the door.

A few minutes later, she and Johan heard the front door close.

Mr Trinh and Julian Visser were gone.

Amsterdam’s small Chinatown district was centred on Zeedijk, the narrow and busy road that followed the course of the old 16th century sea dyke. Originally part of the Nautical Quarter and lined with notorious taverns and brothels, during the 1960’s it became the hangout for junkies and dealers, a district riddled with crime and a no-go area for locals and tourists alike. However during the ’90’s the city council made efforts to ‘trendify’ the place, pushing the lowlife back into the red light district to the west, and offering tax breaks to any individuals willing to set up legitimate businesses there. The result was a flourishing area crammed with Chinese, Indonesian and Vietnamese shops and restaurants. The place cleaned up its act and the tourists flocked back in.

Yet like all such places, it could not quite escape its dark past.

Just behind the Toko Dun Yong supermarket was a long and shadowy street snaking off Zeedijk. It led to a tiny little doorway with peeling green paint. Set in the wall at the side of the door was a discoloured sign: Loon Fung Meat Processing Plant.

Mr Trinh reversed his small white van up the side-street until the rear door was almost flush with the green door, leaving just enough room for him to squeeze by but blocking off the view from any prying eyes. Taking a bunch of keys from the glove compartment he climbed out and unlocked the green door. Just inside was a wheeled sack cart. Taking it outside, he pushed up the rolling door at the rear of his van. Lying on the bed of the van, trussed up with cable ties, was the body of Julian Visser, with the gaping wound in its neck grinning at him like a second mouth.

Manhandling the corpse out of the back of the van and onto the sack cart, he turned and wheeled it back inside the meat processing plant, and after locking the door behind him and flicking a light switch on the wall, pushed it down the short hallway and through the heavy plastic curtain at the end.

On the other side was a square and windowless room. The floor was of bare concrete with several drainage gullies set in the centre, while over to the left was a large wooden cutting table normally used for butchering animal carcasses. A row of metal hooks hung from the ceiling on a racking system. Opposite the table were a pair of large stainless-steel machines with wide chutes on the top: one was for processing raw meat, the other was a bone grinder. In the corner was a door with a small wheel handle on the front – this was a walk-in refrigerator.

Mr Trinh removed his hat and coat and hung them on a hook just beside the plastic curtain. Then he slipped off his expensive shoes. He reached for a heavy-duty butcher’s apron and a pair of plastic wellington boots and gloves and put them on, followed by a plastic face-screen. Thus attired, he wheeled the corpse over to the cutting table and dragged it up onto the wooden top. Then he removed Visser’s clothes, folding them neatly and placing them on a counter.

Hanging on the wall within easy reach were a set of butcher’s tools, saws, bone cutters, meat cleavers, knives and so on, and he studied them for a moment, deciding which to use. Choosing one of the bigger cleavers he set to work, first removing the corpse’s hands and feet with single cuts. These he plopped into the meat processor.

Next, he carefully sawed through the top of the head to remove a semi-circular section of the skull. Using a long knife from the set of tools he cut through the brain stem – an awkward task that required reaching deep into the skull and twisting the soft and squishy organ until it came free. He carried the brain