The Copycat

by Jake Woodhouse

  ‘Well, what does it matter? And once again you seem to be floundering, just like you did when you were in charge of investigating my Lucie’s death. I’ve half a mind to throw you out right now.’

  I shift in my seat and wait for him to see the reality of the situation: he’s in a wheelchair and I’ve got a large dog. Throwing me out is not on the menu today. I notice he’s gripping the arms of his wheelchair with scalloped knuckles.

  ‘I’m just trying to get to the truth, sometimes that takes me on tangents. But sometimes those tangents are what get the case solved.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ he finally asks.

  ‘The details of your daughter’s death were kept out of the press, only a handful of people knew them, aside from the killer himself.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we now have a second killing which exactly matches the first. How did they know?’

  ‘Coincidence.’

  ‘How many times did you accept a coincidence like that in your courtroom?’

  ‘There are a million ways I can think of. He could have told someone. He could’ve bragged about it in prison for a start. Seems to me you should be checking anyone he might’ve been in contact with there.’

  ‘We’ve done that, and it turns out Klaasen can’t have told anyone because he was beaten to a pulp the very day he arrived in prison. Brain damage. Very bad brain damage. Vegetable-type brain damage.’

  ‘What a terrible shame.’

  Deadpan.

  It’s like he already knew.

  I’d long wondered about the sudden appearance of the heroin addict witness at just the moment we needed him. It had bugged me so much that a couple of weeks after Klaasen had been convicted I was passing by the building where Lucie had been found and on a whim I went to the heroin addict’s flat, only to find a family of Sudanese immigrants who had no idea what I was talking about, blank faces staring at me.

  But now I’m wondering could Muller have had something to do with it? A grieving father making sure the man he thought responsible was put away? It seems like a stretch, and yet … Could it be? And if so, if he had that kind of power and reach, arranging Klaasen’s beating wouldn’t have been too difficult.

  He is staring at me. I get the sense he’s almost willing me to accuse him of it, daring me to. Or am I misreading him?

  Somewhere in the house a phone rings, an old-fashioned mechanical chime, and something streaks across the lawn behind Judge Muller. For a second I think it’s Kush, but I can feel him resting his chin on my foot.

  ‘Something up, inspector?’

  I suddenly get the feeling he knows everything, knows that I know that he arranged Klaasen’s beating. The room starts closing in, paranoid thoughts kicking off, the voices coming to life. I need to get out of here. I need to move now. But before I can Kush raises his head and lets out a long, spine-tingling howl, like a wolf standing on a ridge in front of a rising moon. I listen to it as it tails away, and realize the panic is subsiding now too. Kush rests his head back down on my foot.

  A moment of weird reality – did that just happen? Muller is giving no indication anything out of the ordinary took place. The clock ticks like it always has, like it always will.

  Was that just in my head? Did I imagine it?

  I blink and carry on. Because really, what else can you do?

  ‘I’m still not clear on –’

  ‘You don’t look like the sort of person who likes to be given advice,’ Muller says, still staring at me intently. ‘But I’m going to give it to you anyway. Sander Klaasen killed my Lucie, no one else, do you get that? No one else but that evil bastard, and it has nothing to do with DH Biotech or this Kleine you think I knew, or anyone else, and, I swear, if you’re going to carry on, then I’ll …’

  It costs him, but he manages to cut himself off. He knows threatening a police officer is not a smart move, even if there are no witnesses. I guess he could be worried I’m recording him.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I think it’s time you left,’ he says, the anger reined in. But it’s still there, underneath, hidden like the disease slowly eating him from the inside out. ‘Go back to your houseboat and drop all this.’

  Outside I let Kush off the leash and lean against the car. In a way I can understand Muller’s anger and reluctance to have the case brought up again, and maybe my earlier thoughts were wrong, maybe it’s as simple as him having nothing left except the certainty of knowing his daughter’s killer is in prison paying some kind of price. To entertain the thought that the killer may still be out there would take that certainty away. Grief can be irrational. I’m suddenly not quite sure why I’d come, and yet as I drive away, the house flickering between the trees again, glimpses of a parallel universe, I get the feeling there was something in what he’d said that was important. Only I don’t know what it was.

  ‘What do you think?’ I ask Kush.

  As reward for breaking me out of the rising panic, and I don’t know if that was a coincidence or it was something he did on purpose, I’m letting him ride up in the front seat with me.

  He just looks at me, panting, tongue hanging limply from his mouth. He stays silent all the way to Amsterdam.

  Back at the station I delve deeper into DH Biotech, Muller’s outburst having the opposite effect on me to that which he’d intended. And yes, he had meddled with the investigation the first time round, and on the drive back I’d come to believe that he’d somehow got to Klaasen in prison, but that’s not going to stop me. He was once a powerful man, but I doubt he retains enough of that to interfere with this investigation. But then again, how does he know I live on a houseboat? Odd, to say the least. I shake it off and turn to the papers in front of me.

  ‘You Rykel?’

  I look up to see a young uniform standing in the doorway. He’s eating a packet of crisps.

  ‘Me Rykel.’

  ‘Beving wants to see you.’

  Upstairs Beving tells me to close the door behind me.

  ‘I get the feeling you’ve been avoiding me,’ he says.

  ‘Been busy. On the case.’

  ‘You’ve not forgotten our agreement then? I was thinking maybe you had.’

  ‘Not forgotten, just nothing to report.’

  He eyes me suspiciously, before reminding me that it’s only because of his good grace that I’m here at all. Once I get out of there I head back to what I was doing before being interrupted.

  DH Biotech was formed in 1981 by the Swiss biochemist Didier Hoffman. Hoffman, like his far more famous namesake and discoverer of LSD, Albert, had initially worked for Sandoz. But, for personal reasons, he’d eventually left to strike out on his own. There’d been a lawsuit at the time, his old employer saying he’d taken research that they owned with him, but a court of law found in favour of Hoffman. After that the firm grew rapidly, partly because Hoffman had set up a division to oversee clinical trials for other pharmaceutical companies and help them navigate the FDA approval process – necessary for access to the very lucrative US market – which allowed him to continue his research, the reason he’d become a biochemist in the first place. When he was twelve his father had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Watching the pain and deterioration over the next fifteen years was probably what drove Hoffman towards investigating novel ways to at least slow the disease’s progress, if not halt it entirely. His area of research was based on a particular part of the immune system, the over-activation of which held, he believed, the key. None of which is really making anything clearer for me. I’m starting to think Muller was right, it is a coincidence. Just one that’s hard to swallow. I turn to Marianne’s father, Pieter-Jan Kleine, and start reading up on his background when a voice startles me from behind.

  ‘I’ve got the culprit, sir.’

  I turn to see Jansen standing at the door, pointing to Kush who I see has wandered over to Jansen’s desk just on the off-chance. I call Kush over, and he reluctantly stops sniffing around the clo
sed drawer and comes across with a very teenager-like slouch. He glances at Jansen as he passes him but doesn’t stop.

  ‘Look, about the shoes, I’ll –’

  ‘It’s all right, sir. I got over it. But I wanted to say I just had a phone call. Someone did pick up some mail from the charity’s PO box.’

  ‘Did they follow them?’

  ‘Got an address right here.’ He hands me a slip of paper. It’s some kind of clinic on a street in Amsterdam-West, an affluent neighbourhood.

  Vermeer walks in. I bring her up to speed.

  ‘Think we should check it out.’

  ‘I agree,’ she says.

  We pass some kind of political demonstration outside the Taibah mosque. A small group of neo-Nazis are holding up placards, the general gist of which isn’t what you’d call welcoming. One says FOREIGNERS GO HOME, another is simply a picture of a turban with a lit fuse poking out of the top. Some of them look round at the sound of the siren.

  ‘What is wrong with these people?’ Vermeer asks.

  I don’t really have an answer for that.

  We forge on, passing the AMC, the hospital Hank’s in. I try not to think about that. Two minutes later we’re parked across the road from a two-storey structure, all steel, glass and angles jutting into the sky. It contrasts with the other plots which have single-storey houses, all blocky and identical. There’s no name plaque, nothing to indicate what’s inside.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘I don’t know. But Huisman gave them what must have been a huge amount of money for him, so let’s go and ask them.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ Vermeer gets Jansen on the phone and puts him on speaker. He’d been tasked with running the address whilst we headed over, and it seems he’s had some luck.

  ‘It’s a private rehab clinic. Basically a front for a Hollywood religion, the one with that actor? They prey on the needy and sick, bring them in, and induct them into their belief.’

  ‘Why is Huisman donating to them?’ Vermeer asks.

  ‘I don’t think he’s donating.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘When I knew him Huisman dealt heroin, but also used it himself. I reckon it’s become a problem in the intervening years. What if the money wasn’t so much a donation as a fee?’

  ‘You think Huisman kills Kleine then checks into rehab? He goes on a self-improvement kick right after killing someone?’

  I look at the building again. Hiding in plain sight is usually better than running. I should know. If I’d run after Station Chief Smit’s disappearance, it would have been like raising a massive red flag. As it is, I stayed and so far no one’s come knocking. Though I can’t share this with Vermeer.

  ‘Could be. Or he just worked out a secretive rehab clinic would be the perfect place to hide out. Worth paying money for. In either case, I think there’s every chance he’s still in there right now.’

  Just as I get out of the car my phone rings. Nellie de Vries. Oh god. I can’t deal with this now. I’m about to leave it when I think about her sitting at home calling me, willing me to pick up.

  ‘Uhhh … I’m going to need a minute.’

  Vermeer looks at me like, Really? Now?

  I nod, my pained expression not all fake.

  ‘Meet me in there when you’re done,’ she says as she walks off across the street.

  I answer the phone. ‘Hey, what’s up?’

  ‘Jaap, they’ve approved my request.’

  She doesn’t need to say what that request is. The ground doesn’t feel stable and my throat’s tight.

  ‘When?’ I finally manage.

  ‘Don’t know yet. They have to set a date, which they’ll let me know in the next couple of days.’

  She sounds oddly emotionless but I know that’s just because she’s holding it all in. Not least because one of the emotions she has swirling around is probably a tiny sense of relief, even if she’s not admitting that to herself. Yet. I tell her I’ll be there, and that we can meet later if she wants. She says she’ll let me know.

  Vermeer returns. ‘They’re insisting on a warrant.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘Client confidentiality. Which is bollocks. And the thing is, it’s going to take hours.’

  She gets on the phone and starts the process. I glance across at the building and wonder if there’s another way. By the time she’s finished on the phone my plan has been worked out.

  ‘How about we get something to eat whilst we’re waiting?’

  Glass

  The place is busy, a blur of talk, the clatter of an open kitchen, and a mix of smells which make me realize just how hungry I actually am. Vermeer’s choice, a place on Cornelis Schuytstraat which I’d never been into before. On the outside it looks tiny, but once inside you notice it stretches all the way to the back of the building and spills out into the courtyard as well. A small army of waiters and waitresses wheel platters of food and trays of drinks around at a startling rate. Right now one of them, a girl with a severe undercut, deposits our food in front of us with surprising grace and is gone before we can even thank her.

  I’d opted for the burger made from some rare-breed cow, which had been, according to the menu, massaged daily and had Bach’s Forty-Eight played to it during the day and the Goldbergs every night, whilst Vermeer had ordered a pot of mussels. The menu had given a choice, native or Scottish. Being a good Dutch woman she’d gone native.

  ‘You don’t want any bloody foreign ones,’ she says as she lifts the top off and releases a cloud of steam. She waits till it disperses and starts picking through them, slurping the yellow-orange flesh out of each shell and discarding them into a rapidly growing pile.

  ‘I still think we should dig a bit further into DH Biotech. Seems too much of a coincidence that both the victims’ fathers have links there.’

  ‘Coincidence? From what I’ve seen so far I think Huisman’s much more interesting. He was Lucie Muller’s boyfriend, he’s clearly a shitbag, and you yourself said you’d liked him for it at the time.’

  ‘I know, it’s just …’

  Vermeer’s phone rings. She wipes her hands before answering.

  ‘What do you mean delayed? That’s not good enough. I need it now. Yeah? Really? How about this, I don’t care. I need that warrant and you’d better get it to me.’ She hangs up and goes back to her mussels.

  ‘They’re saying another couple of hours.’

  Which gives me the opening I need.

  ‘How about we go and see Marianne Kleine’s father in the meantime?’

  She slurps down another couple of mussels, discarded shells tinkling as they hit the bowl.

  ‘All right, anything to make you happy.’

  ‘It’ll make me ecstatic.’

  When we get back to the car we’re met with the sorriest dog in the world, sitting in the back seat with a mournful look which could haunt even the stoniest soul. He perks up when I let him out and toss the remainder of the burger I’d slipped out of the bun onto the ground. On its way down I notice it has a slice of gherkin stuck to the charred flesh. It’s gone in a flash, a greasy stain on the concrete the only evidence it’d ever existed at all.

  I let Kush into the back and slide into the passenger seat, only to find Vermeer wiping down the steering wheel. She looks at me like it’s my fault. We move off and Kush sits up, his head almost between ours. He’s panting, then stops suddenly. I turn to look at him just as he burps loudly. The car smells of gherkin the rest of the way.

  The doorbell rings and rings. Vermeer turns and shrugs. We’re at Kleine’s property in Vinkeveense Plassen, a massive lake turned into a water sports complex just off the A2. Sporadic plots of land on the shore have been built on with the kind of properties only affordable to those living off the interest of their interest of their interest. To get to it we’d had to abandon the car and walk across a vast flat lawn dotted with large specimen trees, their leaves yellow against a grey sky. Eventually the house itself appeared
, a two-storey oblong much like a gigantic shoebox, clad with wood silvered by the weather.

  ‘I’ll walk round,’ I tell Vermeer.

  She nods and keeps her finger on the bell.

  I skirt the building. The path is laid with woodchips and lined with grasses and clusters of late-flowering plants. The place is immaculate, nothing is out of place, not even a leaf or petal. He must have a team of gardeners to keep it like this. But it also seems empty somehow, lacking. I turn the corner and reach the long section facing the water. The side of the structure we’d approached had the odd window and an imposing front door, but this side is pretty much just glass, massive panels two storeys high giving Kleine views over another lawn which stretches away until it reaches the water itself. A flagpole stands naked right at the water’s edge, and a wooden jetty juts out over the water, which today is as steel-grey as the sky. At the end of the jetty the two curved metal poles of a ladder arch off the wood and into the water below. They’re like smooth slinkies caught in motion.

  Turning back to the building it strikes me that with the lights on inside at night you could sit out on the water in a little boat and see pretty much everything that went on inside. As I walk round I wonder if that ever bothers him. Or did, before his daughter was killed. I can’t imagine this overt luxury is bringing Kleine much pleasure now. I step closer to the glass to take a look inside and see a moving head. My heart goes into overdrive until I realize it’s just my reflection. Stupid, I tell myself as I try to slow my heart back down. I can faintly hear the bell still ringing inside, an on–off rhythm which tells me Vermeer is a) stubborn, and b) still round the other side. I take the opportunity and reach for my vape, wandering across the lawn down towards the water’s edge.

  A breeze flutters my face. When I look down the water’s surface is choppy. Further out I can see a lone windsurfer standing on his board, hauling the sail out of the water. I hit the button on the vape and wait for it to warm up, watching as he gets the sail upright. It bulges with the wind and he’s off, leaning further away from the board as his speed increases. I check my vape. It’s not hot. I hit the button again; the LED telling me it’s heating up comes on, then turns off. Battery dead. At this rate I’m going to have to go back to smoking joints, but not only would that mean burning through roughly four times the amount of cannabis, because combustion is so wasteful, I really hate walking around with my mouth tasting like an ashtray. I pocket the damn thing, noticing the windsurfer’s nowhere to be seen now, and head back to the building, the sun choosing this exact moment to break out from the cloud and light the glass up. I reach the window and cup my hand to kill the reflection when I’m right by it.