I’m staring at my face, the reflection of toilet stalls behind me. The alarm’s so loud in my head I can’t hear anything else. I find I’m washing my hands in the tepid water. My body freezes but my heart still pumps. How did I get here? I don’t remember coming here. I’m sweating hard, trying to piece it together. I’d been talking to Beving. But then the memory stops. I don’t recall what happened next and yet here I am. A toilet flushes, a stall door opens and a female officer steps out. I see her look of shock register in the mirror.
I’m only just recovering when Vermeer catches me in the corridor.
‘You look terrible.’
‘I’m fine,’ I tell her. I’ve been on this slope before, and it’s slippery as hell. ‘What have you got?’
‘Figured we could take a ride out to see Klaasen.’
‘Why? I already saw him. He’s in no state to tell anyone anything.’
Plus, I’m still feeling fragile. I’m not sure I can handle going back to prison again. Especially after what happened last time.
‘So you say. But we’ve now got nothing. Huisman’s a bust and Kleine’s killer is still out there.’
‘I’ve got something.’
‘What?’
I tell her about my talk with the nurse, the sheet of photos and the possible threat she’d been given when she asked a few questions. I then fill her in on the recruitment agency.
‘Why didn’t you say that before? Jesus. Let’s go.’
Which I take to mean she’s interested. Down in the car pool the sergeant slides a key over. Whilst Vermeer’s signing for it I pick it up.
She turns to look at me. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Thought I’d drive.’
‘I saw the size of that … what do you call it?’
‘Dab.’
‘Right, I saw the size of that dab you took, so if you think I’m letting you get behind the wheel of a car, far less getting in beside you, then you’ve clearly got fewer brain cells left than I’d given you credit for.’
‘Whatever, I’ll let you drive then.’
‘Damn right you will.’
I toss the key over. She snatches it mid-air.
Soon we’re off and I stare out at the streets, the cars, buildings, the people that make up this city. It’d always felt like home, until everything went wrong. Then it felt like an alien landscape, a place I’d somehow travelled to with no purpose, and no way back. Until, after months of medications and doctors and therapies, which hardly made a dent in it, Joel persuaded me to try a different approach. I resisted, but eventually things got so bad I decided I had nothing to lose. I remember that first time. Really, it was amazing. I’d had an alarm going off in my head for years, constantly putting me on edge, priming my already exhausted body for action even when it wasn’t needed. No wonder I couldn’t sleep, no wonder I’d broken down and they’d diagnosed me with PTSD. And yet that one simple thing, a few puffs from Joel’s vaporizer, and that alarm shut off, like it had never been there. I still can’t believe it. I’ve come to see that the alarm is the black wolf. That’s what I’m fighting against, that’s what cannabis helps me with.
‘You do know that production is still against the law, don’t you?’ Vermeer finally says.
I never thought I’d say this, but …
‘Fuck the law.’
‘You’re a police officer.’
‘Yeah, and, I say again, fuck the law. No one has the right to tell you what you can and can’t ingest. Least of all a plant.’
‘Hey, chill, man,’ she says in her best stoner-stereotype voice. ‘Loosen up.’
‘Well, we can’t all be little miss perfect. And anyway, what about the drink?’
‘What about it?’ she snaps back.
‘You sank two high-strength cocktails in quick succession and then stormed a building where there was possibly a madman on the loose. And you didn’t even look tipsy.’
She looks across at me, raises her eyebrows as if to say oh really but stays silent.
‘Let me ask you this, how many times have you been called out to a disturbance where alcohol was involved?’
She doesn’t answer.
‘Hundreds, right? Probably thousands. And then ask yourself how many times you were called to a disturbance caused by cannabis?’
She still doesn’t answer. Well, fuck it. She can sit there on her little high horse. Maybe she can come back to me when she’s been in this game as long as I have, see what she feels like then, when the sheer volume of bad shit has seeped into her and is festering inside, threatening her very core. Who knows, she may find moral judgement’s trickier then.
We cross the bridge on the tree-lined Spaklerweg. An old man shuffles through his own gravitational field, twice as strong as our own. A kid on a scooter is nearly sucked into his orbit as he goes past. Ahead and to the left the Bijlmerbajes prison’s six dismal towers poke the heavy sky and ten minutes later we’re parked by an anonymous concrete building with a corrugated-iron roof painted bright red. Amongst the anonymous cars parked there is a silver-grey Maserati with red-leather seats.
A man’s leaning against the wall next to the only door having a conversation on his phone. ‘I swear, if he makes me work on that again I’m going to walk. I didn’t do a fucking degree to end up doing this kind of menial shit.’ He listens for a few moments before speaking again. ‘No, seriously, I think I’m going to hand in my notice. Let’s see how that old prick gets on without me.’ His eyes flick towards us as we pass, before he dives back into his rant.
Inside, the receptionist has never had anything so exciting as the police turn up. Soon we’re being ushered through an open-plan office towards a door in the far wall, leaving a trail of intrigue in our wake. Beyond it, we discover, is a corner office which has no windows, no ventilation, and no one inside. The receptionist promises that Sven Hertogs will be there shortly. You can just tell she’s itching to rush around and tell everyone that we’re here. Shortly after, a man steps in, looks at us as if in surprise, then sits down behind his desk. He’s fifties, slightly overweight, and is wearing a shirt which has seen better days. As has his face, which is liver-spotted to quite an alarming degree.
‘You’re the police, are you?’ he asks somewhat redundantly.
‘A man of true perception,’ Vermeer says, flashing her badge. ‘He’s with me,’ she adds, jerking a thumb in my direction.
‘I’m with her,’ I say, jerking a finger back.
The man looks between us, like a marriage counsellor facing his most daunting challenge yet. His tongue swipes his lips.
‘Sven Hertogs. So what’s this about?’ He addresses himself to Vermeer.
‘He’ll tell you,’ she says, and I wonder about the wine broker soon-to-be ex.
Hertogs turns to me and I lay out exactly what this is about. He listens, fiddling with his nose as if we can’t see what he’s up to. When I’ve finished he says, ‘I’m not sure how I can help. I can’t give out the volunteers’ details without our client’s permission. Data protection.’
I’m about to tell him that I don’t much care for data protection but Vermeer beats me to it.
Hertogs shrugs. ‘Sorry, nothing I can do. You need to speak to whoever the trial was done for. Which company, out of interest?’
‘Listen,’ Vermeer says, leaning forward, ‘we’re investigating a very serious matter. We would really appreciate your help.’
‘Hands tied. I’m sure you know that. So unless you have a warrant …’ He shrugs.
Vermeer starts to help him understand the situation, but I can tell Hertogs is going to be stubborn. I make going-to-find-the-toilet motions and head out, leaving Vermeer to it. In the outer office I notice the I’m-going-to-quit guy is back at his screen. Maybe he’s just waiting for us to finish with his boss. But really, if you’re going to quit, you just walk in and do it regardless. He looks up when I approach.
‘Can I have a word? Outside.’
The office stares at us as
we walk out, their minds spinning at all the sudden drama. Once we’re in the car park I tell him what I need.
‘Why would I do that? I’d get fired for starters.’
‘I thought you were going to quit?’
‘Well … I –’
‘Was this what you wanted to do, with your life I mean? Work for a prick at some menial tasks just so he can afford that?’ I point to the Maserati.
He looks affronted at my question, but then lowers his eyes and shakes his head. ‘No, not really …’
‘So I think you should quit, and do what it is you want. You’ve only got one life, live it. And, just as a parting gesture, a little fuck-you to Mr Hertogs, you could get me those names.’
He stares at me for a few seconds, then his face slowly breaks into a grin.
Once it’s done I walk in on Vermeer and tell her she’s wasting her time. She glares at me but is smart enough to read between the lines. As we’re leaving I see the young man walk into his boss’s office. I feel a slight tinge of guilt. So I leave out the part about me egging the man on to quit his job when I tell her what I’ve got. We sit in the car and stare at the list: twelve volunteers, some of whom, according to Stephanie, would have died.
From the looks of it two men share the same surname, presumably brothers. As Vermeer drives I get Jansen on the phone and dictate the names to him, asking for background on all of them. I’m just finishing when we pull into the AMC car park where I’d accosted Stephanie. It takes us over twenty minutes to track down the records office, buried deep in a basement corridor which seems to stretch out forever. If it wasn’t for the detailed instructions the strangely jovial man at the front desk had given us I don’t think we’d have made it.
The nasal guy I’d spoken to on the phone isn’t quite as brave in person. He tries his best, but Vermeer just steamrolls him and soon we’re sitting down at a desk with the promise of the papers we’d asked for landing imminently. He disappears into a locked room with a double-glazed porthole and returns a few minutes later.
‘Here,’ he says, handing over a light blue folder.
Vermeer takes it and opens it up. Inside are three sheets of names, and a time and date next to each one. The period starts at midday on the day of the trial and ends forty-eight hours later. Another column has a reference number made up of two letters and four numbers.
‘I thought hospitals were supposed to try and keep people alive.’
‘Based on this they’re not doing too well.’
We scan through them, circling each name on the original list. By the time I put down the pen any exhilaration we’d felt on finding their details has faded away.
‘So many?’ Vermeer asks. ‘So many ended up dying?’
I stare at the list again. I can’t believe it either. I pull out the photos. Stephanie had said six of them had been given the experimental drug.
And it’s starting to look like FAA673 killed five of them.
It’s now hours later and we’ve just visited five of the seven people who’d either received the placebo or had been the lucky one who had survived the drug. The way it’s worked is this: by the time we’ve finished with one Jansen’s generally managed to track down the name and address of the next. And he’s just given us the name of the sixth; we’re heading there now.
So far none of them have wanted to speak to us, beyond saying that it had been a terrible experience and that they’d put it behind them. We’d been unable to force the issue and had left, crossing off faces from the sheet as we go.
The sixth is called Bastiaan Polman and we try his home, only to be told by the woman with a podgy face who answers the door and claims to be his wife that he is working late today. She’s in the middle of putting the kids to bed, but she gives us the address of a company out in Westpoort, where massive ocean freighters stacked with shipping containers glide overland via the North Sea Canal before reaching the Amsterdam docks proper.
‘I did get called to a disturbance involving cannabis once,’ Vermeer says as she turns the engine on.
I’m still angry at her holier-than-thou attitude, so it’s my turn to stay silent.
‘Turned up to find this guy had got really stoned but didn’t have anything to eat in his flat. He called us because he was desperately hungry, thought we might be able to help.’
‘Yeah, it’s dangerous stuff.’
She looks across at me and shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything more.
The drive out there is industrial, painfully so, the horizon dotted with mournful wind turbines that aren’t moving, even though a series of tall oblong flags lining the car park are fluttering dramatically on their poles.
The warehouse is busy, despite the hour. One whole side of the structure itself is open loading bays for large trucks to reverse into. Once in place a swarm of electric forklifts appear to unload the shrink-wrapped pallets and deposit them somewhere deep in the building. It could be a nature documentary on an unusual species.
We park up and go through the motions only to be told that Bastiaan Polman had been due to be working the last shift today, but that he called at the last moment to say he couldn’t. As per company policy this was possible, as long as he arranged his own cover with another employee. Which he has. We get that man’s name and ten minutes later he appears. He’s short, with a rounded belly and face to match. At first he doesn’t want to tell us why Polman wasn’t able to make it, but once we’ve made it very clear to him that if he doesn’t tell us we’ll just have to go and ask the wife, he spills his not inconsiderable guts.
Turns out Polman has a deficient home sex life and is sometimes forced to supplement. And tonight he’s supplementing at a brothel located a quick and convenient twenty minutes’ walk from his place of work. Soon we’re back on the road, hoping that we can catch Polman, quite literally, with his trousers down.
‘You ever been to one?’ Vermeer asks me.
‘Really, you think I’d be the type? What about you?’
‘There are times you’ve just got to put yourself in the hands of a professional.’
‘Sometimes I just can’t read you,’ I tell her.
She smiles but doesn’t say anything else.
We arrive at the address. It’s a classic brothel above a dry cleaner’s and we’re in quickly and talking to the surly Eastern European with a face like a blade. Then we’re moving down a badly lit corridor. We stop outside the last door on the right and listen. There’s a kind of groaning going on, a rhythmic creaking, the occasional soft gasp. I push the door and we walk in.
It’s far from sexy. A single bare bulb hangs from the ceiling. Along one wall is an assortment of bondage gear. On the bed is a man, ankles bound, wrists tied above his head to the metal bed frame. He’s lying on his side so that the fat Asian woman sat on a wooden chair next to the bed, dressed only in panties and a bra, can slowly jerk him off whilst reaching over and giving him the odd whip. Pink lines in pale, hairy flesh. Like I said, it’s far from sexy.
‘Jansen was talking about a sad handjob,’ I say, and the man jumps.
‘I’d say this is a classic example.’
We walk round so the man can see us. I pull out my phone and snap a photo despite his verbal protests. The fat Asian woman doesn’t seem to get the situation; she’s just carrying on, not bothered by the audience as if the world’s a bewildering nonsense to her anyway. Which it must be to anyone whose primary mode of employment is the use of her hand to rub a man’s cock whilst the other whips their backside. This was probably not a profession mentioned in those well-meaning career advice lectures you had at school. Mind you, nowadays you probably need a degree even for this.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘Police,’ answers Vermeer, ‘and assuming you’re Bastiaan Polman we need to ask you a few questions. And, you, stop that and get out.’
The woman stops.
‘This is legal, so I don’t have anything to say. And who told you to stop? Carry on.’
‘Get out,’ Vermeer tells the woman.
She stops again and stands up.
‘Sit down,’ Polman tells her before directing himself at me. ‘I’m not talking to anyone until I’ve come.’
He’s on coke; you can see it in his eyes, and from the aggression and false bravado.
The woman’s caught between authorities.
‘Just go,’ I say to her.
She makes her decision and starts to leave.
‘Hey, come back,’ he yells. ‘Come back and finish –’
Last night I lost my boat, and my dog died a horrible death. Today I’m standing in a brothel where the man lying on the bed in front of me potentially has some information that I need to know. Only he is refusing to speak until he’s been jerked off by someone. I grab the whip off her as she walks past me and crack it hard across his buttocks.
‘That’s police brutality,’ he gasps once the scream dies down in his throat.
‘You’ll have a hard time proving that.’
I show him the photo I’d taken.
‘Wife like to see this?’
He shrugs.
‘Maybe your colleagues, your boss? Maybe we’ll put it on the internet and it’ll go viral somehow. You’d like to be famous? I’m sure your kids will love having a famous dad.’
Polman hears his future; it’s filled with laughter and mocking voices. He tries out a death stare but in reality we all know he’s beaten.
‘So given that this is as unpleasant for us as it is for you, how about we just get on with it? Sound like a plan?’
Vermeer kicks things off. ‘We have reason to believe you took part in a clinical trial at the AMC. Is that right?’
His eyes flit between us and a quick flick of the tongue moistens his lips. Good.
‘I was,’ he says cautiously. ‘But it turned out I just got the placebo.’
‘Yes, we know that. But we want to know about it, about what happened during the trial itself.’
At this stage all the previous volunteers we’d spoken to had said pretty much the same thing, namely they didn’t want to talk to us. No amount of cajoling had made any difference, and we weren’t in a position to legally force anything.
The Copycat Page 23