Free The Wrong Girl by David Hewson

help now?’ he asked.
    She looked at the little room and the ripped brown envelope.
    ‘Nothing I can think of. Apart from the obvious.’
    ‘I’ll get Natalya back. We’ll give them whatever they want.’
    ‘Including money?’
    ‘If it comes to that.’
    There didn’t seem anything left to say or ask. When he was gone she got her clothes, the cheap condoms, the gels, put them in the little plastic washbag that came with the beauty kit her husband bought her the last Christmas he was alive. Then she walked up Oude Nieuwstraat until she found a spare cabin, called the number for the rental guy, paid for three hours. That took half the money she had left.
    The tiny booth was too hot from the electric fire. It smelled of damp and sweat from whoever had it before.
    She stripped down to her cheap gold satin bra and knickers then perched on the high stool in the window. There to discover what she should have known. No one wanted a weeping whore, at any price.
    Across the city Natalya Bublik sat where she was told, arms round herself in the pink jacket she’d hated from the outset. The only fixed points in her small life at that moment were sounds: the gentle lap of water against a wooden hull, the occasional screech of a bird, the rattle and hoots of trains pulling in and out of Centraal station.
    Black Pete was still in the boat. Maybe two of them, beyond the locked wooden door. She’d do whatever they wanted, everything they said. Because somewhere, deep in the soft, formless depths of her memory, was an echo of this strange sequence of events. In a story her mother told her. Or a half-forgotten, deep-buried recollection hidden inside the nightmare that kept returning, that of a shadowy monster rolling up the stairs.
    Real or imagined there was a message here, one she would not forget.
    Do not move and do not speak.
    Be nothing. Do nothing except wait and watch and think.
    Then one day you will be invisible. And in that single precious moment slip free.

2
    Hanna Bublik was waiting for Vos when he showed up at Marnixstraat the next morning. Sam trotted along beside him on a lead. Sofia Albers had to go out of town to see her sick mother. Someone in admin could look after the dog until she got back.
    ‘What kind of policeman brings his pet to work?’ she asked as the little terrier sat at her feet, bright eyes begging for attention.
    ‘Sam’s not a pet. He doesn’t like being left on his own.’
    The dog put a paw on her leg. Same clothes as the day before. Fake designer jacket, nylon masquerading as leather. Cheap jeans. No make-up on her thin, lined face. Poverty hung around this woman and she didn’t like it.
    ‘Down, boy,’ he said gently and passed the lead over to the genial clerk from the back office who’d come out to greet them.
    She watched the woman walk Sam away, chattering to him.
    ‘I promised Natalya a dog. When we get our own place.’
    ‘Then I’m sure she’ll get one someday.’
    He found some coffee. Bakker turned up. She’d started to dress less conspicuously now she was settling into Marnixstraat. No more home-made suits from her aunt back in Dokkum in Friesland. Today black trousers, a blue jacket, a plain jumper underneath. Her red hair tied back tightly behind her head. A look that said: professional. And . . . I’m here to stay.
    The three of them went into an interview room together. The voice recorder stayed off.
    ‘So you know nothing?’ Hanna said when he had briefed her on the investigation.
    ‘No,’ Vos insisted. ‘We know he took your girl by mistake. We know she’s still in the city. We’re looking for some associates of the man who was shot.’
    ‘Nothing,’ she repeated.
    ‘Hanna,’ Bakker said. ‘This is the most important inquiry we have at the moment. We’ll do everything we can to bring Natalya back.’
    ‘And he’ll call,’ Vos added. ‘He has to. They want something. As long as they do . . .’
    The lost look on her face silenced him.
    ‘Do you know