Michael Grant [Michael Grant] - An Artful Assassin in Amsterdam

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HUNGER

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PLAGUE

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David Mitre thrillers

A SUDDEN DEATH IN CYPRUS *

AN ARTFUL ASSASSIN IN AMSTERDAM *

* available from Severn House

I t was quite an original murder attempt. I approved of the ambition if not of the practicality. Id probably have approved even more had I not been the intended victim.

It was not some panic move, some spur of the moment thing, a sudden outburst. No, this was deliberate; calculated not improvised, unique, interesting, unusual. You could say it had a local vibe to it as it used the geography of the urban terrain to effect. This was not a method of murder you could use anywhere else, aside from Venice.

Bespoke murder, locally sourced and no doubt carbon-neutral.

I was in Amsterdam, where Id been lured aboard a thirty-foot open boat by a woman I was seeing an Englishwoman named Tess who was beautiful, in her late thirties with red hair, quick wit and talent. We had struck up a conversation in a coffee shop of the Amsterdam variety, where I had been mildly high and had stared a bit too long at her diamond earrings.

I no longer steal jewelry or anything, really but in the same way that a long-retired carpenter will still gaze fondly at a nice piece of hardwood, seeing the rocking chair within, I had automatically calculated the likely street value of Tesss diamonds. The earrings were yellow gold, diamond-studded hoops, not ostentatious, but not the sort of thing you picked up at the flea market, either. Twelve grand retail.

Being somewhat baked it had taken me two minutes of staring to accomplish an analysis Id normally have done with a glance. Tess mistook my interest in her ears for interest in herself and well, one thing led to another, as it will do when both parties are of diminished capacity and one partys hotel (hers) was conveniently right next door.

Tess had recently divorced. Cause of divorce: adultery. Her husbands, not hers shocking, I know and she had run away to Amsterdam with a few of her female friends to show the faithless bastard that whatever he could do, she could do and twice as hard.

It turned out that Tess had more than just the earrings. She had a sweet little green velvet-lined jewelry case in her hotel safe. Combination: 6909. I had seen her punching in this number with a bit of purely accidental side-eye, and while she was using the facilities Id given in to the natural curiosity anyone might have and had opened the safe. And looked at her green velvet box containing rough estimate again a hundred and seventy-five to two hundred large in gold, diamonds and emeralds. Her now-tragic engagement ring alone was worth a good fifty Gs.

And I dont want to brag but I took none of it. I did not even take one of the diamond-and-emerald pendant earrings despite knowing that a woman who finds herself missing a single earring will assume it was lost, not stolen.

Nor did I photograph the pieces so I could have a paste knock-off made which I could use to replace Tesss jewelry so she wouldnt notice the switch until I was well away.

I didnt even use my phone to make a digital copy of her NFC thats Near Field Communication hotel-room key card despite the fact that even I can make the app work pretty well. Mostly.

How virtuous was I? So virtuous I didnt even ensure that her hotel-room window locks were jammed and the blocks removed so as to effect an easier second-story job later.

I did none of those things, which, frankly, was an amazing display of maturity, morality and self-restraint.

For me.

I did shoot front and back pictures of all her credit cards, but that was not for use now, it was for possible use later, emergency use. Only emergency. Taking the credit card pics was pure reflex, and it wasnt really a crime unless I used them.

Do you need a refill, David? Tess called to me from the stern where the women were gathered. I was in the bow looking Byronic while also signaling chilly irritation.

A refill? You tricked me aboard this hellish boat, which I, quite naturally, assumed meant a romantic evening cruise preparatory to horizontal (and vertical, if I was feeling energetic) fun later. Instead I am the sole male in a gaggle of women. I am being used as a prop, Tess, dehumanized, treated as an object by you and your drunken friends. Pointed at. Leered at. Laughed at. Youre damned right I need a refill. I said none of that.

Im fine, I sniffed.

Yes, you are, an unrecognized female voice said, eliciting laughter and even a Woo!

Tess was smart and accomplished, a songwriter of all things, responsible for several lucrative songs in what I think of as the mawkish crap genre of love songs for the sort of women who really need to reassess what actual men are like if they are not to suffer a lifetime of romantic disappointment.

I liked Tess. But I liked her a bit less now that I realized the night-time canal cruise she had arranged involved her friends, and their friends, all female, most British, all divorced or broken up, and all drunk in that rowdy, belligerent-yet-horny way women at the upper limits of the MILF category can be.

It may seem ungallant of me to feel aggrieved, but I was on a boat with seven mojito-powered women, each of whom had excellent reasons to despise my sex. This event was a sort of riff on what the Brits call a hen party, which generally involves half a dozen beastly drunk women, one of whom is to be married; they are typically young women at that melancholy point in life when they are still capable of optimism about the hairier sex. Poor things. This party was a sort of alt-hen party with years of real-world experience of men.

And there I was: a man.

Tess of course thought the whole thing terribly funny. Twice Id heard her say, No, Davids not like that at all, which she modified by adding, of course, Im not married to him, hah hah hah.

To which one of the loutish creatures had said, Too right. Your Davids not a marrying man, hes the rumpy-pumpy sort.

Rumpy-pumpy. Those very words. With accompanying seated pelvic thrust.

Also, your David? Im not fond of possessive pronouns attached to me by people other than me.

I was in need of more alcohol, especially as the night had clouded up and the temperature had dropped toward uncomfortable, but the on-board selection was heavy on the flavored vodkas (a crime the Hague really must address), gin, the inevitable Baileys, a lot of rum and a wide array of mixes and garnishes meant to distract from the lousiness of the booze. This bar rested atop the only superstructure, a blocky pedestal amidships which also supported the wheel, behind which stood the boats skipper, a Dutch woman who I hoped did not share in the drunkenness of her passengers. The skipper could be seen smiling in discreet appreciation of what I can only describe as virulent anti-male bigotry.

One whiskey, just one, decorated the boats bar, the eternal Jack Daniels, and that had been dangerously depleted following a round of Jack and cola shots for the harpies in the stern.

What I would like to know is whether hes actually any good at the rumpy-pumpy?

Thats a translation. The original was, Wha ah dlike a know is (hiccup) is he acthly goo at pumply-rumply? Pumply. Rumpy-rumpy. (Giggle.) Fucking.

This from a woman I knew to be a bank vice president in the City. Compensation package north of three million a year. Better than two hundred employees under her control. Regular appearances on Sky News. God only knew what baubles she had in her hotel safe.

Tesss answer was inaudible to me since I was in my bow perch as far from them as I could get without walking on water, maintaining my stoic dignity. But I heard the response: loud, braying laughter with a lascivious edge to it.