The Devil's Playground (5 page)

‘I used to go to prostitutes.’

It was later, they were drinking coffee and Suze almost

spilled her cup, it was just so sweet the way he’d said it.

‘Is there any adolescent boy here who doesn’t?’ she replied,

looking at him, wondering why he’d chosen this moment to tell her.

‘Not many, I think. We don’t really attach the same kind

of stigma to it as you do in your more enlightened land.’

So, he can be sarcastic, she thought — well, that was

progress at least, most of the Dutch men she’d met so far

had seemed to be severely lacking in any kind of charisma

or passion, but damn, did they look good.

‘I used to go see these twins, every fortnight or so for

about seven years.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘Hilda and

Helena, though of course those weren’t their real names. I

never knew their real names. They came from Belgium and

always worked together. I was about sixteen when I met

them.’

She took the cigarette from his hand and pulled two quick

drags before giving it back.

‘I had gone to whores before, yes, and while it was always

fun to fuck someone new, I never really got much pleasure

from it after that initial thrill. And then I met the twins

and, of course, sex suddenly had many new possibilities.

Permutations I had not conceived of, but which they took

me through methodically and diligently as if my fortnightly

visits were some kind of education, a what-do-you-call-it

cor … ?’

‘A curriculum.’

‘Yes, a curriculum to be followed. I never missed a lesson.

I would come on a Wednesday evening, pay my money and

spend the rest of the night learning from them.’

‘Sounds like a great education,’ Suze said, wishing life in

the States had been that uncomplicated.

‘Of course as time went on our relationship grew to be

more than that of client and whore. Like a fool I fell madly

in love with them.’

‘What, both?’ she asked, faking incredulity, though she

knew that this was the way all such stories ended.

‘Yes, both. While they were identical twins in every physical

way, psychologically they were two totally different people

and I guess that kind of turned me on. The fact that they

looked the same but weren’t.’ He pulled down the bedsheets

and moved closer to her. Some sadness had entered his face

and Suze was almost surprised, it was something she’d never

glimpsed in the four short months that she’d been seeing

him.

‘What happened to them? Do you still keep in contact?’

she asked.

He took another cigarette, lit it, and coughed. ‘No. They

were murdered two years ago. The police didn’t find the

killer, they never do in prostitute killings. Someone, a client,

had stabbed them both through the heart with a carving

fork. Decapitated them and swapped the heads around.

The police never knew. It was in the papers, I guess a

photographer had got to the scene before the cops. They

had different tattoos, that’s how I could tell. Christ, they

buried them in separate graves with the wrong heads loosely

reattached by the coroner. That’s what kills me, not so much

that they never found the murderer but that to this day

they’re lying underground with each other’s head.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘There’s nothing to be sorry about, that’s life. You Americans

apologize for everything, things you have no control

over, I do not understand that.’

‘I apologized for bringing the subject up.’

‘You didn’t know.’

*No, I didn’t.’

Suze was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her eyes stared into

the wall. She knew that if she stared long enough, the patterns

would begin to move, shift and squeeze into new designs.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. He thought perhaps the story

had disgusted her, made her think less of him and, in fact, in

the retelling he had glimpsed how it could look from another

side and he hadn’t liked what he’d seen.

“Your story reminded me of that girl they found last week.’

‘The canal killer?’ He’d been following the case for the

last eight months though it was something that he wouldn’t

admit to, even to her. Yet, perversely, he felt a twitch of

excitement, an uncalled-for snap of charge, every time he

opened the paper and saw that there had been another one.

In some way, he thought, at least this would bring the issue,

the danger, to the surface.

‘I just don’t really understand it.’ Suze shrugged and turned

back towards him. She saw that he was smiling. ‘Not here,

not with all the sex that’s legally available.’

‘I don’t think that’s quite what turns this killer’s crank.’

She laughed, surprised out of herself. ‘Where did you learn

that phrase?’ she said.

‘One of your American TV shows. We get those here too,

you know, like serial killers - you export the good and bad.’

She didn’t answer him. She was used to his little games

and, as an American abroad, she’d learned how she was

always a representative of her native country, embroiled in

all its horrors and wonders. She’d got so tired of defending

herself that she’d given up.

‘I once saw someone get killed,’ she whispered.

It came out without her planning. It was something she

rarely talked about and she was surprised to have found it

let loose in this setting, though she knew that there was a

bond between their bodies, a sort of carnal contract, that

allowed them to explore these things that you never could

with someone you really cared about.

‘Only one?’ he replied, smiling, to show that he didn’t

mean her any harm. That it was just his way of expressing

things. ‘I thought you were supposed to have seen something

like six thousand by the time you’re ten.’

‘That’s TV. This was real.’

He nodded, as if that made all the difference. ‘How old

were you?’

‘Eight,’ she said, and realized that she was going to talk

about it. She had promised herself not to. But she had

promised herself many other things too — in Amsterdam,

none of that meant anything any more.

‘I was in a gas station with my parents.’ She lit a cigarette

and sucked on it hard. *We were going to the Superstition

Mountains for a holiday. Outside of Phoenix. We were

buying food and gas for the trip when this man walked in

and marched straight up to the counter. My parents were

face deep in the soft-drink cooler but I saw it. I saw the

attendant’s startled look as the man pointed the shotgun at

him. Then everything exploded. The sound shook the racks

of sweets. I remember screaming. Brightly coloured wrappers

rainbowed the floor. The back wall exploded in blood. I can

still hear the sound it made. I ran to my parents. There was

another blast. More splatter. Glass breaking, heavy breathing.

And the man who’d come in with the shotgun collapsed on

the floor, the gun shearing away from him and clattering on

the linoleum.’

‘Shit, you have a good memory,’ he said, not sure what

else there was to say, not even sure how much of it was true

though there was a seriousness to her now.

‘I didn’t understand what was happening. I screamed but

I think I enjoyed it too. To a certain extent. Or maybe I only

remember thinking that, maybe that happened afterwards, I

don’t know. But there was something there. The smell of

the gun, that sharp tang following the blast, like a glimpse

into another world, the sound and noise and fury, something

that was appealing to me, not knowing what it really meant,

what it signified. It was spectacular.’

‘What happened afterwards?’ he asked, finding himself

turned on by this side of her.

She moved away from him, looked at the wall, waiting for

the patterns to change. ‘I don’t want to talk about that,

Wouter.’

‘But you brought it up.’ He sounded exasperated she

thought, wondering why he was so fascinated though she

had to admit it was a fascinating thing, seen from the outside.

‘Let’s not spoil this moment,’ she whispered.

‘But this is why you’re so interested in Charlotte, no?’ He

saw her flinch slightly. He didn’t like it when she tensed

herself up this way. It was like a closing of doors, a folding

into herself that left him on the outside. But she liked to talk

about Charlotte Salomon. It was why she’d come here. To

write about the Jewish painter who died in the poison

showers of Auschwitz.

‘No, it’s not. That’s just cheap psychology. I like her art.

That’s all,’ she replied, but even as the words left her mouth

she could feel their uselessness hanging in the stale after

sex air.

‘And I suppose your work with the Council has nothing

to do with it either?’

She smiled, saw that he was playing with her, little postcoital

murmurs and teases. She enjoyed him most when he

was like this. When the walls of seriousness came down.

‘The Revised Council of Blood, it’s called. I wish you’d get

the name right,’ she replied, almost sticking out her tongue

but then thinking better of it, giving him a friendly kick

instead.

‘Big name for a debating society.’

He liked to tease her about it because she never told him

anything. It was one of the few secrets they kept. She knew

that to speak about the Council would be to betray its basic

beliefs. She knew too that he wouldn’t understand the full

scope of it and that words, uttered from her mouth, would

just be a reducing of things, a way to disfigure their intentions.

-. ‘It’s more than a debating society, I told you that. We have

a purpose, a goal.’

ŚYou keep its secrets like they were gold.’

We all need to keep secrets from each other, Wouter,

otherwise life would just be way too damn predictable.’

Like the secrets you have to keep when living with divorced

parents, she thought. You know the ones. Not saying

that yes, Mum might be drinking too much because you

don’t want to hear your father saying again what a worthless,

aimless woman she always was and not telling her that yes,

Dad has a new girlfriend and yes, she’s another of his students

and then listening to your mum spill forth her own repressed

years and rages. No, secrets were good. They kept the world

apart, discrete and manageable. Sometimes the less people

knew about each other the better.

That evening she taught him how to fashion stronger knots,

how to not let the pegs slip off and how to restrain himself

until the final moment. He followed silently, afraid of his

own pleasure, but the American girl seemed to enjoy it so he

did what she wanted and, while he was fucking her, he

pretended that she was one of the twins, untied and looselimbed,

wrapping herself around him — but when he opened

his eyes to look at her face all he could see were the badly

spaced stitch marks that went around her neck.

The detective wanted him to go to Amsterdam to identify

the body. He’d made it clear that Jon’s assistance would be

of great benefit to the investigation. He’d made it sound as

if the whole thing depended on his arrival.

Jon put the phone down. His head rattled with blood,

pounding in his ears like a fist. He took a deep breath, feeling

the air press against his ribcage.

Jake was dead.

That was what the detective had said. Found face-down

in a park with a copy of the book that Jon had lent him.

Murder, the detective had said.

He grabbed his lighter and lit a cigarette. There was a

high-pitched buzzing in his left ear, a kiss of feedback. His

hands were shaking, he was out of breath. The room got

^darker as if someone had just sucked the air out of it. He

drew in the smoke and felt a light coating of sweat form all

over his body, sticky and cold.

Amsterdam.

That city again.

It was ridiculous. He had his project to finish. They were

launching tomorrow and he hadn’t started subbing it yet.

The dead screen glared at him. There was so much still to

do. There was no way he could go. It was crazy. He knew

that if he didn’t get it in on time he’d be out of a job. Dave’s

phone call had made that clear. It was crazy. Just pack and

go. It terrified and thrilled him at the same time. The same

feeling he’d had when peering over the rim of the Grand

Canyon one summer, staring down into the swirling abyss

of rock, that wonderful tingling of pull and release, the

welcome, wilful surrender to forces outside yourself. But no,

he couldn’t think like that. He’d promised Dave. He couldn’t

give it all up just to chase a ghost.

It had been just over a week since he’d seen the old man and

yet it seemed as if he’d only left yesterday. He could still feel

him occupying certain spaces in the flat, still remember the

way he’d had to change the espresso machine filter from a

single to a double. The way space takes on a new dimension,