Black Widow Read Online Free PDF Page A

way that happened, sometimes.
    There was a little blood on his bloated face, too. One of the eyes had been pressed back into its socket. The other was missing, the optic nerve dangling free like some parasitical worm. She got down on her knees, to see if the eyeball had fallen beneath the bed, but there was nothing there save dust.
    There was a knock at the door. An oversized head appeared, followed soon after by a less imposing body. ‘Ah, if it isn’t my second or third favourite detective inspector. Looking good, Tanja!’
    It was Erik Polderhuis, the medical examiner. He was pushing sixty, but didn’t look, or act, it. Outside of work, he was known for his determination to form romantic attachments with girls who were precisely half his age. But the maths never held true for long, and so it was that he’d never been able to settle down. His hair was blonde, whilst his blue-grey eyes, so cold, might have been scooped directly from the North Sea. Somewhat paradoxically, there was a great warmth in his smile. He had various faults, most of them founded in a sense of mischief, but it was also true that he had an eye for detail. Tanja was actually rather fond of him, although she would never admit to it.
    ‘Erik,’ she acknowledged. And then, as a green-faced Pieter reappeared, ‘This is Detective Kissin. He’s from the Vecht.’
    ‘Shit,’ Erik sympathised. ‘Tough break.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Was that you I saw just now, losing your breakfast?’
    Pieter nodded unhappily. ‘Yes. But it won’t happen again.’
    Erik didn’t seem to hear this promise. ‘Well, try not to throw up
on
the victim, please. Or fart unnecessarily.’ He knelt down beside the bed. ‘So what’s going on with this poor bastard?’
    Whilst Erik went to work, Tanja carefully picked her way through the pile of clothes. The trousers were grey, skinny-fit Girbaud; whilst the shirt was from Turnbull & Asser. Not necessarily an indication of wealth in themselves (maybe these were his pulling clothes; maybe he wore supermarket fashions, mostly), but the contrast with the cheap surroundings was marked.
    She went through his pockets, finding a packet of cigarettes (Marlboro Lights – the equivalent of shooting yourself in the head with a low calibre bullet, she supposed), a packet of condoms (
Cardinals
, a Dutch brand, rumoured to be the best available), a Zippo lighter, and a wallet (croc skin?).
    She opened the wallet. She found an ID card, complete with a photo:
Mikael Ruben, North Holland IT Solutions
. It matched the name on a selection of bank cards. The colour was gold in each case, but again, that was hardly an indication of superior status nowadays. Tanja had a gold card herself, and she was far from rich.
    There was also a receipt, from a bar, timed and dated to the night before.
The Den
on Enge Lombardsteeg. It didn’t ring any bells, which was odd, as she was sure she’d visited all the places on that street, at one time or another. Anyway, Ruben had ordered two lagers, by the look of things. Hardly a skinful; he would have known what he was doing.
    ‘Well, I think it’s safe to say he was tied up,’ Erik declaimed. ‘Cuffed, in all probability. See? Around the back of the bedpost? The wood is a little splintered, doubtless where he struggled to free himself. It would take metal, or something similarly hard, to do that.’
    ‘If it weren’t for the business with his eyes,’ Tanja noted, ‘I might be tempted to suggest that he was caught up in a sex game, that his death was an accident.’ She shrugged. ‘But as it is –’
    Erik nodded. ‘Yes, you’re probably right. Throttling a man to within a centimetre of his life in pursuit of the ultimate ejaculatory high is not in itself indicative of murderous intent. But running off with his eyeball probably is.’
    ‘Christ,’ Pieter groaned.
    ‘Would you rather wait outside?’ Tanja asked, her impatience rising.
    Pieter shook his head determinedly, and dropped down on his