Darkness Falls (Kate Marshall, #3)(26)
“Are you awake?” Tom whispered, his mouth close to Hayden’s right ear. Hayden moaned, and his eyelids fluttered. Tom sat up and peeled the gaffer tape off Hayden’s mouth from each edge and then pulled the oropharyngeal airway out of his mouth. Hayden swallowed, wincing.
Tom slapped him hard across the face and sat back, enjoying the thrill of hurting this tall, strong athlete. He slapped him again, harder. Hayden opened his eyes.
“Where am I?” he croaked, struggling to focus.
“You’re in heaven, or hell. It depends how willing you are to make me happy.”
14
Kate got up early the next morning for a swim and then had breakfast with Jake. They didn’t mention what had happened the night before, and he was enthusiastic to start work clearing out the shop and sorting everything for the dive and surf hire.
The delivery of bed linen arrived at ten, and after Jake had helped stack it in the office, he went downstairs to work in the shop, and Kate turned her attention back to Joanna Duncan.
The day before, she’d emailed Dr. Trevor Paulson about Famke van Noort, who had worked for him and his wife as an au pair. She found a reply in her in-box that was short and to the point. Dr. Paulson said he had lost contact with Famke after she went back to the Netherlands in 2004. He included Famke’s last known address in Utrecht and said that he was now retired and he’d told the police everything he knew, which wasn’t much, and to please not contact him again.
Kate googled “Famke van Noort, Utrecht.” Results came up for a “Frank van Noort” and an “Annemieke van Noort” on LinkedIn. Annemieke also had a Facebook profile, but the privacy controls were locked. There was only one “Famke van Noort” on Facebook, but on closer inspection, she was listed as “Famke van Noort (van den Boogaard),” which meant that “van Noort” was her married name. And this Famke van Noort was twenty-two, which meant that she’d been only nine or ten years old when Joanna went missing.
Kate tried a search through Google Netherlands, and lots more Famkes came up on LinkedIn, but none with the same name and right age. Just as Kate started googling the address in Utrecht, Tristan rang.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
Kate told him about the email from Dr. Paulson, and about her search. “I’m going a bit cross eyed from all the ‘Van’ surnames: ‘Van Spaendonck,’ ‘Van Duinen,’ ‘Van den Berg.’ There’s even a ‘Famke van Dam,’ as in Jean-Claude.”
“Ahh. Good old Jean-Claude Van Damme. I remember watching Universal Soldier when I was thirteen and realizing I might be gay. Did you know that van in Dutch means from the?”
“I didn’t know that,” said Kate, with one eye on the search results generated by the address in Utrecht.
“The actor James Van Der Beek’s name translates as James ‘from the creek,’ which is a weird coincidence, as he was Dawson in the TV show Dawson’s Creek . . .”
“I can’t find anything about our Famke. All I have is an email for an accountancy firm in the building where she lived,” said Kate, picking up her pen and noting it down.
“Listen. I’m ringing to say that I won’t be able to make it after work,” said Tristan. “Two of the caretakers are off sick and I have to help out moving chairs and desks for the exams tomorrow.” Kate could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“That’s a pain in the ass.” She clicked on another link and started reading. “Did you know that the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world was Olivier van Noort, and he was also from Utrecht?”
“What’s that got to do with Famke?”
“Van Noort could be a name associated with Utrecht.”
“And Utrecht might be teeming with Van Noorts,” said Tristan.
“This is the problem with searching online. There’s too much information, and most of it is bollocks. We really need to find her because she’s Fred’s alibi for the day Joanna went missing.”
“If she lied back then, do you think she’ll tell the truth to us?”
“I don’t know. I just want to talk to her. Often, it’s the small details, the little bits of information that people don’t think is relevant or important, that lead to something bigger,” said Kate.
“Okay, good luck. Sorry again I can’t help,” said Tristan.
“Good luck with exam prep. See you tomorrow.”
When Kate came off the phone, she wrote a short email to the accountancy firm that had its offices in the same building as Famke’s last known address. She knew it was a long shot, but she explained who she was and why she wanted to get in contact with Famke. Kate had been given the email address for Marnie, Joanna’s old school friend, and she sent an email, asking if they could meet.
After lunch, Kate started looking into David Lamb and Gabe Kemp, and for a couple of hours, she felt like she was chasing the same rabbit down a hole. Then she came across something, buried deep in the twentieth page of Google search results for “David Lamb.” It was a JustGiving fundraising page from 2006. A woman from Exeter had put up a crowdfunding page to raise money for a small community garden in town, which was to be called Park Street Garden of Memories. It was one of the donations that caught Kate’s eye.