The Girl Who Broke the Rules
Read The Girl Who Broke the Rules Online
Authors: Marnie Riches
The Girl Who Broke the Rules
MARNIE RICHES
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Publishers
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HarperCollins
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins
Publishers
2015
Copyright © Marnie Riches 2015
Cover design © Lizzie Gardner
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Marnie Riches asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9780008138349
Version: 2015-07-28
Contents
PROLOGUE: Amsterdam, red light district, 16–17 January
CHAPTER 1: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, UK, 17 January
CHAPTER 2: Amsterdam, the set of a porn film, then, Sloterdijkermeer allotments, later
CHAPTER 3: Soho, London, later
CHAPTER 4: Amsterdam, mortuary, later
CHAPTER 5: Soho, London, later
CHAPTER 6: Amsterdam, mortuary, later
CHAPTER 7: Amsterdam, private medical surgery, much later
CHAPTER 8: Amsterdam, police headquarters, 18 January
CHAPTER 9: Soho, London, Skin Flicks Media Group, later
CHAPTER 10: Amsterdam, Norderkerk, later, then, van den Bergen’s apartment
CHAPTER 11: South East London, very late
CHAPTER 12: Manhattan, New York, 1981
CHAPTER 13: Amsterdam, police headquarters, then, a building site, 19 January
CHAPTER 14: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 15: Amsterdam, Valeriusstraat building site, later
CHAPTER 16: Stansted Express, East London, later
CHAPTER 17: Amsterdam, Valeriusstraat building site, later
CHAPTER 18: Cambridge, St John’s College, later
CHAPTER 19: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 20: Amsterdam, 20 January
CHAPTER 21: Cambridge, Mill Road, later
CHAPTER 22: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 23: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later
CHAPTER 24: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 25: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later
CHAPTER 26: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 27: Amsterdam, mortuary, 21 January
CHAPTER 28: Amsterdam, red light district, later
CHAPTER 29: Amsterdam, van den Bergen’s car, later
CHAPTER 30: Amsterdam, later
CHAPTER 31: Amsterdam, mortuary, later
CHAPTER 32: Amsterdam, Ruud Ahlers’ apartment, later
CHAPTER 33: Amsterdam, van den Bergen’s car, then Ahlers’ apartment, moments later
CHAPTER 34: London, 1985
CHAPTER 35: Amsterdam, police headquarters, 22 January
CHAPTER 36: South East London, Aunty Sharon’s house, later
CHAPTER 37: Amsterdam, the Quick Bite Café, later
CHAPTER 38: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 39: Amsterdam, Ahlers’ private surgery, later
CHAPTER 40: Amsterdam, the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, red light district, later
CHAPTER 41: Over the North Sea, 23 January
CHAPTER 42: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 43: Amsterdam, van den Bergen’s car, en route to Rotterdam, later
CHAPTER 44: Amsterdam, Ad’s apartment, later
CHAPTER 45: Rotterdam Port, later
CHAPTER 46: Amsterdam, police headquarters, 24 January
CHAPTER 47: Amsterdam, mortuary, later
CHAPTER 48: Amsterdam, van den Bergen’s apartment, 25 January
CHAPTER 49: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 50: Hamburg, Germany, 26 January
CHAPTER 51: Katwijk asylum seekers’ centre, Netherlands, later
CHAPTER 52: Rotterdam, Port Authority, later
CHAPTER 53: Amsterdam, Ad’s apartment, later still
CHAPTER 54: Berlin, Germany, 1989
CHAPTER 55: Over the North Sea, then, Ramsgate, England, 27 January
CHAPTER 56: Soho, London, later
CHAPTER 57: Ramsgate, later
CHAPTER 58: Soho, London, later
CHAPTER 59: Somewhere in Kent, an industrial estate, later
CHAPTER 60: Ramsgate, seafront B&B, 28 January
CHAPTER 61: Somewhere in Kent, a field, later
CHAPTER 62: Kent, on a train, then Amsterdam, mortuary, later
CHAPTER 63: South East London, later
CHAPTER 64: Amsterdam, police headquarters holding cell, later
CHAPTER 65: Ashford, Kent, later
CHAPTER 66: Cambodia, 1992
CHAPTER 67: Amsterdam, mortuary, 29 January
CHAPTER 68: South East London, mortuary, later
CHAPTER 69: Amsterdam, later
CHAPTER 70: Amsterdam, Nieuw West area, then, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 71: Amsterdam, Ad’s apartment, then NOS TV studios, then police headquarters, 30 January
CHAPTER 72: Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
CHAPTER 73: Amsterdam, hospital, 31 January
CHAPTER 74: Amsterdam, police headquarters
CHAPTER 75: South East London, 14 February
CHAPTER 76: Amsterdam, hospital, later
CHAPTER 77: Soho, London, later
CHAPTER 78: Laren, the Netherlands, 15 February
CHAPTER 79: Cambridge, St John’s College, later
CHAPTER 80: Laren, the Netherlands, 16 February
CHAPTER 81: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later
CHAPTER 82: A secret location near Laren, later
CHAPTER 83: Stansted airport, Essex, later
CHAPTER 84: Amsterdam, then Laren, later
CHAPTER 85: A secret location near Laren, later
CHAPTER 86: A secret location near Laren, moments later, then, the Laren house
CHAPTER 87: A secret location near Laren, later
CHAPTER 88: Amsterdam, hospital, 18 February
CHAPTER 89: Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, later
CHAPTER 90: Amsterdam, hospital, later
CHAPTER 91: Soho, London, later
CHAPTER 92: Berlin, Germany, 23 February
CHAPTER 93: Amsterdam, hospital, later
CHAPTER 94: Amsterdam, women’s prison, 28 February
CHAPTER 95: Amsterdam, the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, then, the hospital, later
Keep Reading
Acknowledgements
Amsterdam, red light district, 16–17 January
The jagged pain between her shoulder blades was fleeting. Magool flinched. Breathed in sharply at the unpleasant sensation. She loosened her seatbelt. Wriggled in the passenger seat to look behind her.
In the dark, there was nothing to see.
Then, she tried to reach behind to feel the leather. But her hands would not move. She stared down at them, bemused. They felt neither leaden nor numb. It was simply as if they no longer existed. And yet, there they sat, chapped from the cold, bitten nails, primly folded over her wringing-wet, jeans-clad thighs.
Frowning, aware of her accelerated heartbeat, she tried to lift her legs, move her feet, wiggle her toes. Nothing. Why was her body not obeying her brain? She looked askance at the driver.
‘I can’t move,’ she said in Dutch. ‘What’s going on?’
The driver stared resolutely ahead. Peering through the windscreen of the car as hail rattled onto the glass, accompanied by fat snowflakes. Swept by the wiper-blades into thin white columns on the windscreen’s periphery that grew thicker and thicker with every second that passed; white screens closing slowly on the real world.
‘Hey! Stop the car! Something’s wrong, I’m telling you. I can’t feel a thing.’ With difficulty, Magool could still turn her head – enough to see the side of her driver’s face. ‘Did you hear me?’
Silence enveloped her, and she realised her words had not sounded at all except inside her head. Through the windscreen, she could just about make out the white-dusted cobbles of the road. The snow, illuminated by the bright, triangular shafts of the streetlights, came down like yellow-gold icing sugar, falling through a sieve. But where the hell were they going on this beautiful, foul night? Not towards her apartment, she was certain. And what was happening to her?
She started to loll forward, held in her seat only by the belt. The driver reached out and with a large, strong hand, pushed her up against the window.
‘Don’t want you to hit your head, do we? Try to relax, Noor. It won’t hurt.’ Her captor had finally spoken in a kindly voice. ‘I’ve given you a very strong spinal block. The syringe was rigged in your seat. But try not to worry. I promise you, I know what I’m doing.’
Magool wanted to scream. Her brain shrieked for help; phantom hands hammered on the window each time they passed a figure on the street, huddled in dark winter clothes, braving the blizzard. Unaware of the young girl who was imprisoned in the same vehicle that had just splattered their work trousers with virgin slush.
With only her mind unfettered, she considered the sequence of events that had brought her to this terrible place.
Standing in her booth, she had watched with fascination when the flakes began to waft down from the heavens. Pink sky overhead, as though the very neon lights of Amsterdam’s red light district were reflected in the snow clouds hanging above her in the night sky. It was the first time she remembered ever having seen snow. The mangroves that clung to the coastline like grasping old men’s hands; the turquoise splendour of the Indian Ocean; the baking heat of her homeland – they were all half a world away. Now, the hail came down among the snow, making the same musical rattling noise against the glass door of her booth that the tropical rains of the Gu and Dayr wet seasons had made on the corrugated iron roof of her family’s shack.
Just hours earlier, watching that snow, Magool had felt something bordering on elation. She was finally safe. On these crimson-lit streets, she was Noor. Different girl. Different continent. Different life. Magool resolved, there and then, as the hail pounded against the glass door to her booth, to look upon her parents’ selling her and her infant brother to the al Shabaab militia men as an act driven by desperation, not greed. They had thought, perhaps, that she and little Ashkir would both have a good life in that exotic, far-off place they called Italy. Hadn’t the soldiers promised?