Free The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die by Marnie Riches Page B

lonely divorcee and—’
    ‘She’s in great shape for an older woman,’ Jasper said, grinning at Ad.
    ‘So, have they found anything else interesting?’ George asked. She wanted to press hard for information. She could feel the burn of curiosity inside. She needed facts like a fix. She realised, suddenly, this was more for her than just idle interest or the novelty and flattery of being needed as an informant by the police.
    Jasper picked up the cafetiere of coffee and poured himself a fresh cup. ‘Only thing I know is they found shreds of cardboard at the scene,’ he said. ‘Nobody can work out why. They thought maybe it was debris from the offices but Marianne was working in Utrecht and apparently it’s the same score there. Cardboard. Weird eh?’
    George looked at Ad’s furrowed brow as he listened to his flatmate.
Cardboard. A placard? A box? Detritus from the bomb site?
    ‘Did they find any human remains there? In Utrecht?’ she asked. She didn’t think for a moment that Jasper would know any more at such an early stage.
    ‘A head,’ he said.
    Ad spurted his mouthful of coffee all over his plate. George snatched up some kitchen roll and started to dab at the coffee-splashed tabletop with it. She stared at Jasper, open-mouthed. Dumbfounded.
    ‘They’ve found an almost unscathed head,’ Jasper said as though it was the most ordinary observation in the world. ‘Must have been blown clean off like the foot in Bushuis. Blunt trauma. But everything else was incinerated or just blown to smithereens by the blast and fire.’
    George winced and put her kitchen roll down. She tried to imagine the force that was strong enough to rip a man’s head from his body.
    Jasper leaned forward. His face was bright pink with what she presumed was excitement. His breath smelled of coffee and sore throat. Clearly, there was more …
    ‘And get this,’ he said. ‘The Utrecht bomber was white.’

Chapter 8
3 January
    ‘A dead white bomber changes everything,’ George said. ‘I want to get in touch with Marianne de Koninck. Ask her about the head … Do you think Jasper will give me her number?’
    ‘I think you should bow out gracefully from this thing,’ Ad said. ‘Van den Bergen’s been using you. Let him choose somebody else to spy for him.’
    It had been Ad’s idea to cycle down to
de hortus
– the botanical gardens. He thought she was looking overwrought. Thought the change of scenery would do her good. His treat. Now they stood side by side in the butterfly greenhouse. George breathed in deeply, wondering if this was the sort of private place where he might cross the line and kiss her again. She stared at a giant blue butterfly sitting on a glossy fat leaf of a breadfruit tree. It flapped its shimmering wings and she entertained the notion that the tiny disturbances it created in the humid air were somehow responsible for the chaotic whirl of thoughts and emotions that churned inside her; in equal parts intrigued by violent death; consumed by desire for Ad; in fear of her stalker.
    Ad kicked at the ground. ‘You’re not listening, are you?’
    George looked at him. Imagined his delicate-featured head detached from his shoulders. She pushed the ugly thought away.
    ‘Come on. I’ll buy you cake at the orangery,’ Ad said.
    Arm in arm, they brushed past the oversized leaves of a Chilean giant rhubarb, stretched out towards them in supplication like a beggar’s hands. Past the man who had been standing in the plant’s shadow, observing them for the last fifteen minutes. As George followed Ad back outside from the warm and tropical damp into the cold January air, in the furthest reaches of her peripheral vision, she thought she saw someone staring straight at her. She turned around quickly. There was nobody there.
    In the orangery’s airy café, George pushed a large piece of chocolate fudge cake around on her plate. Ad was chatting away about the first essay assignment of the year for Fennemans. But