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

running over a gravel yard, the strong smell of brine and the sea calling to her.

She stood there for a few seconds to get her bearings. She’d had no real plan on what to do if she ever reached outside, she had never really thought that far ahead and the whole thing had happened so quickly that she was dazed. Perhaps in her mind she had this idea that there would be people around and that she could fling herself into the nearest pair of arms crying for help. But the reality was different.

The place was deserted and desolate, and it was exposed to the elements with a freezing wind buffeting over a huge expanse of water, and snow was driving hard into her face. She was dressed in leggings and a hoodie and her running shoes, and after a few seconds Nina was shivering from the cold.

Behind her there came more shouting and she glanced back in time to see Tobias emerge from the building, which she now saw was nothing but a dilapidated shack with wooden walls and a tin roof with a tiny chimney pot on the top, with a lean-to on the side and a yard full of rubbish and a long greenhouse with most of its windows smashed and brown dead plants inside.

Tobias saw her and came tottering towards her, his arms flapping and tears streaming down his face.

Nina turned and fled.

The yard sloped down to a three-barred gate and she quickly climbed over and found herself on a dirt track, which was frozen hard and difficult to run on. It branched in two directions. The left went past a junkyard full of old rusty cars and boat keels, with a large crane boom towering above. The right path followed a rocky shoreline towards an empty concrete jetty and then further along it curved back to the left in a square shape, like some kind of small inner harbour. From somewhere behind her, she could hear the sound of cars whizzing by at high speed – a motorway by the sound of it. But to go that way would mean running back into the yard, back towards the house.

Then she spotted about fifty yards in front of her a small motor-launch tied up to a wooden pile on a narrow pebble beach. It was little more than a fisherman’s rowing boat with an outboard motor, but it might be her salvation if she could get there in time.

Nina sprinted forward, her arms pumping hard. Onto the pebbles, which slipped and slid under her feet, slowing her progress.

“No!” she heard Tobias shouting. “NO!!”

She heard the fury in his voice, and it terrified her. If he caught her… She refused to think anymore and put all of her efforts into reaching the boat. If she considered the outcome of Tobias catching her, then she would just collapse in defeat.

Already he was gaining. She could hear him breathing hard through his nostrils, was sure she could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck.

With just a few yards to go her foot became entangled in a twisty length of seaweed and it seemed to snake around her ankle, and her foot was caught fast and down she went, hitting the beach so hard that she was winded.

Nina stretched out her hand and touched the wooden boat with her fingertips, a cry of dismay escaping her lips. Then Tobias was on her, kneeling on her back and bearing down with his full weight to pin her flat to the ground.

“Bitch,” he whispered, with his mouth close to her ear.

Scooping her up in his arms and flinging her over his shoulder he carried her back up the beach, over the track and through the gate, then back across the yard, into the house.

Nina screamed and screamed.

Pieter felt his mobile phone vibrate in his breast pocket. He fished it out with his cold fingers and saw that it was Dyatlov calling from the command vehicle.

Swiping the screen he said: “Yes? Do we have her?”

Dyatlov’s strong Russian voice came over the line. “Sorry boss. The place is empty. No sign of Nina Bakker or the creep who took her. It’s the wrong place.”

Pieter felt his head sag down onto the cold earth of the dyke, all the strength going out of him.

“I’ll meet you by the entrance,” Dyatlov added, and signed off.

They crossed over the narrow wooden footbridge and went towards where a vehicle track swept through the entrance gates into the gravel yard, close to the propane tank. Dyatlov led him over to the smashed-in front door, which had come off its hinges. The men of the assault team were loitering about, smoking cigarettes and joking as they came down from the adrenaline high, and Pieter avoided eye contact with them.

He’d been so sure. So sure that they would find Nina.

Inside, the place was quiet and calm. A hush had descended, and it was cold, as though the bungalow had not been heated for some time.

They stepped into the kitchen. There was a large table in the centre, with places set for three people: plates, knives and forks, glasses filled with curdled, smelly milk, chairs tucked under the table. Everything was neat and tidy but covered with a thin coating of dust. There were cobwebs strung around the lampshade. It looked like nobody had been here for quite a while.

“We found this on the table.”

Dyatlov thrust a newspaper into his hands.

It was dated from May of that year, and the headline on the front read: MASSACRE AT WEEPING TOWER.

There was a large photo of the spring atrocity emblazoned over the cover.

In the bottom corner, a second image, this one a tiny grainy picture of himself at the crime scene, snapped by a member of the press.

Someone had drawn a ring around it in black felt-tip.

Tobias roughly manhandled her back down into the basement, his heavy boots stomping down the steps, and when she realized where he was