‘Can I help?’ he asks in that way people have when what they really mean is who the fuck are you? but don’t have the balls to actually say it. He tacks a little forced laugh on to the end of it.
‘No, I’m fine,’ I tell him as I step past the cleaners who seem in no hurry to get into the bungalow.
‘You can’t go in there,’ he calls out to me, though it sounds more of a squawk really.
I turn to look at him; he’s short and stocky and doesn’t seem to have much flexibility in his spine. His smile is a masterclass in insincerity.
‘I’m an old colleague of Joos’,’ I tell him. ‘I just need to see inside.’
‘You’re police?’ he asks, less squawky now, but still suspicious.
‘Exactly.’ I step through the front door.
The first thing that hits me is the heat. The radiators are on nuclear meltdown setting. The space is decent, though: a large living room looks out onto a garden at the back. Beyond that a field filled with small clouds fallen from the sky. Sheep, on closer inspection. The kitchen’s tiny, the bathroom has a sit-in bath, and the bedroom has a floor-to-ceiling bookcase and a single bed. The cover is pristine white and the whole thing looks unslept in. There’s a round white mat on the floor which is covered in black dog hairs. Thankfully, though, it’s cooler in here – the window’s half open. I scan the bookcase, mostly technical volumes and a shelf devoted entirely to the works of Ursula K. Le Guin. Moving on I find two entire shelves crammed tight with spiral-bound notebooks. I take one down and find it’s a diary of sorts. Flipping through it I can see the man was obsessive; there’s an entry for every single day, the writing cramped but precise.
‘Do you have some ID?’
Doorway. Mr Sincere. Behind him a security guard. Notebook back on shelf.
‘Yeah,’ I tell him, running my finger along the spiral spines, trying to work out which one I need. I pull one out, find I’ve miscounted, and try another. This one’s right, the date range covering what I need.
‘I really would like to see it,’ he says, taking a step into the room, the forced laugh at the end of each sentence really starting to grate now. He’s positively vibrating with some pent-up emotion.
‘It’s in my car,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll take you there once I’ve finished here.’
He snatches the notebook from me and puts it back on the shelf.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he says. I can see his inner child. And it’s a petulant snot-nosed little brat who would have benefitted from some boundaries being laid down in early life. The security guard steps in, his inner child’s the none-too-bright sort who hang around and protect people smarter than themselves. My inner child reckons it’s getting a bit cramped in here.
‘Bit cramped in here,’ I tell them. ‘Let’s move out.’
I step towards Mr Sincere and he decides to retreat, the security guard turning round and moving through to the living room. The second Mr Sincere’s through the doorway, I slam the door shut, lock it, and quickly find the notebook again. There’s a barrage of banging. I toss the notebook out of the window, then unlock the door.
‘Tripped,’ I say by way of explanation. ‘Fell against the door.’
Two pairs of suspicious eyes. I grimace and rub an elbow, just for show.
I’m escorted back to reception by both of them, one either side of me.
‘Did you eat breakfast here?’ I ask.
‘No.’
‘I’ve heard it’s good. Maybe there are some leftovers you could get.’
I feign heading back to the car park, but as soon as I’m out of their view I double round and find the notebook where I threw it. It’s splayed open on the grass, a breeze flicking pages as if it’s being speed-read by an invisible man. I pick it up, skim through until I find the date I’m looking for and start reading.
It starts out with a description of what he had for breakfast, details of a strange-shaped puddle he spotted on the way to work, and various other bits of minutiae that he seemed to think were worth recording. Then, right at the end of the page, I find it. Just two sentences. I read them several times, just to make sure I’m not misinterpreting them.
But unfortunately I’m not. I close the notebook, as if that will make what I’ve just seen disappear.
The dog warden’s van is parked next to the Stang. The man himself is leaning against his vehicle, sucking something strawberry-scented out of a vape pen, and playing a game on his phone. I’ve been trying to get hold of Jansen but his phone’s off. I try one more time as the dog explores the rim of the front tyre with his snout. Still no Jansen. I give the dog warden a short wave, get in and drive away. Then I stop, throw it into reverse and pull up by him.
‘Is that dog really going to be put down?’
‘’Fraid so,’ he says. ‘There are just so damned many of them, and no one wants a dog like this.’
I get out and check my phone for Carice’s number. She runs a hugely profitable business training police dogs and selling them to forces around the world. It can cost upwards of thirty thousand euros to train a top-level bomb-detection dog, and she’s damn good at it. She’s only five foot, but has a way with hard-bitten working dogs which doesn’t just border on the supernatural – it’s downright surreal.
‘Wassup?’ she asks in American, as I knew she would. Carice spent time in the US, somewhere in Michigan is as about as precise as I can remember, studying with one of the foremost working dog trainers in the world. Since then she’s always done a faux-American thing in the way that only a European can, dripping with irony and superiority. None of which hides the strong undertow of longing.
I tell her, exactly, wassup.
‘You with the dog now?’
‘Yeah.’
On the phone a riot of barking starts up. Carice yells No! and silence reigns.
‘FaceTime me; I’ll have a look.’
I get it going and show her the dog.
‘Move towards him,’ she tells me.
I move forward. The dog stops being interested in the tyre and turns to look at me, ears alert. But he stands his ground, doesn’t back away even when I’m up real close.
‘He’s fine,’ she says after a few seconds. ‘Bit of a punk, but not too bad. Confident body language. It’s the nervy, neurotic ones you need to be wary of.’
‘So you’ll take him?’
‘Take him? I thought this was about you taking him.’
‘Me? I don’t know anything about dogs.’
‘It’s easy. Just remember not to treat him like a fur-baby, and don’t let him get away with anything you don’t want him to do. If you get really stuck, you can bring him out to meet me. Gotta go, I’ve a bitch in heat and one of the young males is getting a bit fruity.’
She’s gone, leaving another very loud No! ringing in my ear.
The guy hands me the leash. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘You’ve just saved a life.’
He’s in the van and away before I can change my mind. The dog’s nosing at my pocket again. Seems like he might make a natural drug dog. Maybe he’ll come in handy.
I open up the passenger door and the dog jumps in without me having to prompt him.
‘Good boy,’ I say.
He gives me a look which says don’t patronize me. Or maybe I’m misreading it. After all, I don’t know anything about dogs. As the Stang’s engine bites and we’re both pushed back in our seats I wonder just what it is I’ve got myself into.
As I hit the A9 again I find out. Apparently the dog likes to bark at cars as we pass, and as I tend not to be a slow driver there are a lot of cars to bark at. Carice had said not to let him get away with anything I didn’t want him to do, and this barking is driving me insane. Not to mention the very real threat of permanent hearing loss. So I try out my best No!, which only results in him barking more. It worked for Carice, but clearly I’m missing something. This is not good.
I try Jansen again. This time his phone’s on and he answers.
&nb
sp; ‘Back yet?’
‘Yes, sir, just walking into the station right now. What’s that noise?’
‘It’s a pet cat.’
‘I didn’t know they barked, sir.’
‘Neither did I. Maybe I should take it to a vet. Listen, I’ve got something for you. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in half an hour.’
Halfway through the journey, just as we’re pulling into Amsterdam, the dog gives up looking out of the window and curls up on the seat. His ribs expand, then he lets out a massive sigh.
I might have just saved a life, but does that make up for my mistake?
Because from what I can see in Wilders’ notebook, the odds that I did are starting to look overwhelming. A mistake that has had deadly consequences and could have led directly to the death of Marianne Kleine.
Disturbance in the Force
‘That’s not allowed in here,’ the desk sergeant tells me as I’m trying to sign in.
‘He’s a highly trained dog,’ I tell him. ‘It’ll be fine.’
‘Yeah? So why’s he peeing on that chair?’
I turn to see the dog cock-legged. He swings his head round. From the way he’s holding his mouth, teeth visible, I swear he’s grinning.
‘I dunno. I don’t know anything about dogs.’
Jansen saves the day and this time we go to the canteen, leaving the desk sergeant muttering that the last time he checked his contract it didn’t say anything about mopping up dog piss.
‘What’s this about, sir?’
‘I’m not going to tell you unless you stop calling me “sir”.’
‘Okay, s—’
‘There, not too hard is it?’
Once I’ve taken him through everything he gets his phone out.
Five minutes later we’re in the incident room upstairs and I’m telling the story again, this time to Vermeer. The dog takes a liking to her instantly, rubbing against her leg and nuzzling her hand. She pushes him away.
‘So Robert Huisman’s alibi could be false?’
‘It was never corroborated properly; doesn’t actually mean it is false. But given how Marianne Kleine died it’s starting to look like a very strong possibility.’
‘You liked him for it at the time?’
‘Look at it this way, on character alone you’ve got a small-time dealer funding his own habit, and he and a friend tricking women into having sex with them on camera. What’s not to like? I was sure he was the one, until the alibi surfaced. At which point there wasn’t much we could do.’
‘So this all hinges on the report not being done properly. Any evidence of that?’
I pull out Wilders’ spiral-bound diary, open it to the right page and slide it across the desk in a rather showy way. She reads it then passes it over to Jansen.
‘So the day Wilders was doing his report on the video tape happens to be the very day he gets a call saying his sister was rushed to hospital and he left early. And as a result he didn’t complete the full report, like the verifying of the time stamp?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Lucky for him he died this morning, otherwise I’d have him brought up on a disciplinary.’ She picks up the notebook again. ‘What did Wilders die of?’
The chances of his death being related to this crime are slim to none, but I’d checked anyway. Seems Vermeer has as suspicious a mind as I do.
‘Heart attack apparently. I did ask for the full report, just in case.’
‘Jansen,’ Vermeer says, turning to him, ‘run Huisman through the system. I want to know everything about him.’
‘And Akkerman too,’ I tell him. ‘You potentially fake an alibi for a friend, starts to make it look like you might actually be involved yourself.’
Vermeer gives Jansen the nod.
Once he’s gone Vermeer cranks up the charm.
‘If this turns out to be significant, it’s a pretty major fuck-up.’
It’s hard to disagree with her assessment. And it happened on my watch. Though it’s not strictly speaking my fault. Hank de Vries was the one in charge of that particular piece of evidence, and he reported to me that it was solid. I didn’t go and check his work; we were equals, and he was a good cop. I can’t believe this is happening.
Jansen walks back in with a laptop. The dog, which has been lying at Vermeer’s feet, gets up and wants to check out what Jansen is carrying. It jumps up and puts its front paws on the table. Vermeer brushes it off without even looking at it. Claws hit the floor.
‘Nothing on Akkerman, but I’ve got Huisman’s file. Arrest for heroin possession two years ago, then nothing.’
‘Known address?’
‘None.’
‘Get Roemers onto it,’ Vermeer tells him. ‘I think it’s time we had a chat with Messrs Huisman and Akkerman.’
‘When you find either of them I should be there,’ I tell Vermeer as Jansen disappears again.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve interviewed them before, and it’ll unnerve them if I suddenly turn up on their doorstep.’
Deep in space planets spin and photons speed through nothingness and black holes suck matter into their mysterious cores. And still Katja Vermeer stares at me.
‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ she finally says. ‘Thank you for your help, though. It’s appreciated.’
She gets up and heads for the door.
‘C’mon. You wouldn’t have this if I hadn’t brought it to you. I can help.’
She stops and stands with her back to me for a few seconds, as if trying to make up her mind. She turns and looks at me.
‘Before I let Jansen contact you I read your file.’
So it’s come to that, has it? People reading my file before dealing with me. And I’m not even sure just how much is in there. Though I’m sure there’s enough.
‘Then you’ll know I’m serious.’
‘I know you’re trouble.’
‘Is it true you made a grown man cry?’
A flicker of a smile. It’s not much but it’s something I can work with.
‘You want me to beg?’ I ask.
There’s that flicker of a smile again. Or maybe it’s an unconscious twitch.
‘No. Wouldn’t make any difference anyway.’
‘Look, if this turns out to be related to the Muller case, then I want to be involved.’
‘I thought you were about to officially leave the police? You’ve cut your deal, you’ll get your early retirement and you can go off and do whatever it is you do. We asked you to go over the file, but that’s it. Leave this to the professionals.’
The door closes behind her and the dog stands watching it in case it opens again, his tail gradually winding down from a full wag to being still. I think of the interviews Hank and I had done with Huisman, the feeling we’d both had that he was the killer, then the alibi which made it impossible, even though it went against our instincts. Something I’ve learnt over the last year is that ignoring your instinct occasionally isn’t going to do you any harm. But ignoring it again and again and again can land you in a very dark place. And right now my instinct is trying to tell me something. I’m just not sure what.
‘C’mon,’ I tell him. ‘We’re not wanted here. Let’s go and see Nellie.’
Nellie de Vries turns her head to look out of the window onto the IJburg, the vast waters separating Amsterdam from Amsterdam-Noord. I follow her gaze. A cargo ship looms on the horizon, dwarfing the ferry that runs between IJplein and Centraal station. Above it all a plane dives fearlessly towards a bank of cloud. I watch as it emerges unscathed on the other side.
At my feet the dog stirs as if he’s just felt a disturbance in the Force.
Which he probably has, given what Nellie’s just told me. The words she’d uttered creep through me like a kind of cold death.
She still lives in the same house she and Hank bought back in the early 2000s, when they both knew the future held nothing but joyful opportunity, a place where nothing bad would ever happ
en. It’s a floating structure, purpose-built and tethered to a quay at IJburg, part of a range of artificial islands constructed to ease pressure on Amsterdam’s ever-expanding housing crisis. We’re in the large downstairs, an open-plan area with views out over the water, sitting at the table where Hank and Nellie had eaten for years, where now she eats alone.
On the kitchen surface behind her is an empty bottle of wine. If you stare through it, the tiles beyond become curved, magnified. I suddenly know that in the bin there are going to be many more bottles. Some inspector I am, I think to myself, not having spotted that earlier. I’d always thought she had the kind of fragility only the truly strong allow themselves to show the world. Now I’m not so sure.
‘When?’ is all I can manage, the word catching in my throat, the cold creeping further through me.
‘They said it will be put before the committee and I’ll have an answer the next day. If it’s approved, then it has to take place within four days or another application will have to be made.’
Jesus. I’ve lost people; it feels like more than most. But their deaths all happened. I’ve never had to face the decision Nellie’s been wrestling with for months now. I wonder about the first time the idea popped into her head. Did she hate herself for even thinking it? How did she gradually come to decide it was time?
Nellie’s a paediatric neurologist, working with the worst cases of childhood epilepsy, including two of the most devastating, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. We’re talking kids who have twenty to thirty fits a day, kids for who the standard medications simply don’t work. Frustrated, she researched heavily and has for the past three years been treating with a phenomenal success rate. The prescription is cannabis, small doses of which reduce the frequency of episodes down to a couple a month, sometimes less. Say you have the choice of watching your child fit upwards of thirty times a day, or a couple of times a month, what are you going to do? Unsurprisingly her waiting list is over a year long now, with desperate parents bringing their children from countries all over Europe.
The Copycat Page 7