‘I don’t think I’m allowed to talk to you. I signed a non-disclosure agreement. We all did. And they said if we ever spoke to anyone then we’d be sued for everything we had.’
‘You got an Instagram account?’ I ask Vermeer. ‘Or maybe Twitter’s the best place for this … Let’s see.’
‘Don’t be a fucking prick.’
The whip cracks again. If this was standard police issue, getting information out of people would get a whole lot easier. And quicker.
‘Ah … fuck that hurt. Do it again, baby.’
‘You want a go?’
Vermeer takes the whip.
‘You are going to talk to us,’ she says. ‘So why not do it now?’
‘I’ll talk to you once I’ve spoken to my lawyer.’
The whip whistles and cracks.
‘You have a lawyer? You do shift work forklift driving for a living. What do you need a lawyer for?’
He clears his throat and spits something onto the floor.
‘Honestly? It’s to protect me from people like you.’
A Very Dangerous Game
‘You’re sure you don’t need somewhere to stay?’
We seem to have reached an uneasy truce, maybe as a result of our success in finding Polman. Vermeer’s pulled the car over on Marnixstraat, the famous mechanical bridge just visible down the Brouwersgracht. Polman contacted his lawyer, but given the time nothing’s going to happen before the morning. So we’d left, making it very clear that if we don’t hear from him first thing tomorrow then the photo will be going to his wife. Jansen was still struggling with locating the last volunteer and Vermeer had told him to call it a night.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. Call me as soon as you hear.’
‘Will do.’
I get out and start down the canal.
‘Rykel?’
‘Yeah?’ I turn back.
‘You don’t think Polman’s the sort to kill himself over this, do you?’
As it stands we have no legal reason to detain him, so I’m not sure what option we have.
‘Think we’ll have to roll the dice on this one.’
‘Thanks, that’s comforting. See you tomorrow.’ She hesitates as if there’s something more to say, but then she nods and the car pulls away from the kerb.
I walk down Brouwersgracht towards Joel’s flat. The alarm/howl has been steadily increasing over the last hour or so, and it’s already strong enough to set me on edge. The moon rises above the rooftops, spilling milky light onto the ink-like canal waters. A moped buzzes over the bridge and I step into its exhaust plume before a soft wind rushes towards me, clearing the air. But I can’t enjoy it. Almost exactly twenty-four hours ago I was watching my life go up in flames. No wonder I’m keyed up, exhausted, but running on adrenaline all the same. And all the while the ringing in my ears, the alarm, which is really the black wolf, increases, narrowing down my world.
‘You look like absolute shit,’ says Joel when he opens the door to find me actually leaning against the frame. We Dutch are known for plain speaking, and Joel likes to keep that tradition up. But he ushers me inside and soon I’m shoeless, flopped on the sofa with a Volcano bag in my hand and an energy drink in the other.
‘You’re gonna love this one, just arrived from the farm today. We based this on some really amazing genetics I got hold of from the US. Crossed it with an old-school plant I’ve been keeping cuttings of until I found the right partner. I’m thinking of calling it Night Queen, after Mozart. The top Fs in the ‘Queen of the Night’ aria,’ he adds when I look blank. ‘As in, this will get you higher even than those.’
I take a long inhale, then blow it out slowly to fully get the flavour. Rinse. Repeat. This is what I needed earlier on, this would have meant I didn’t lose time. I shudder when I think what I did during those lost moments.
‘So, what do you think?’
‘What do I think?’ I wait for it, should be only a few seconds more and … there it is. The alarm’s turned off, like it was never there. I sometimes get scared that one day it won’t work any more. So far that day hasn’t come. I hope and pray it never does. I think back to the two episodes where I lost time. It’s because I hadn’t been keeping my cannabinoid levels up, I need to be careful. I find my head tipping onto the back of the sofa and I stare at the ceiling as I submit to the Night Queen’s rule. A huge breath swells in my chest then escapes into the room.
‘I think it’s fucking awesome.’
With the alarm shut off muscles in my body start releasing their tension, and they melt away over the next few minutes whilst Joel fixes some food and I just lie here, absorbing the music Joel has put on his vintage hi-fi system, all silver fronts with twisty dials and polished hardwood cases. The track’s one I recognize, ‘Lost Dog’. Which makes me think of Kush. My mind starts singing along, substituting ‘lost’ with ‘burnt’. For a moment I panic I’ll not be able to make it stop, but then my brain shifts and it’s gone.
By the time Joel brings over a white platter with what looks like a huge amount of cheese, all different types, I’m calming down. And even getting a bit hungry. The platter has four indents which are each filled with a different style of mustard, ranging from light yellow to mahogany brown. Cocktail sticks abound. The only thing missing is miniature flags on each one.
‘Good stuff,’ he says, clearing some space on the table and placing the platter down close enough for me to do hand-to-mouth without any extraneous movement. ‘But she’s a hungry tyrant; we’re definitely gonna need all this.’
‘Long live the Night Queen,’ I say. I skewer a bit of cheese, dab it in the darkest of the mustards, and hold it up in the air. Joel does the same. ‘May she reign forever and ever.’
Then I cram it in my mouth. I can’t even remember the last time I ate. The deep caramel notes of the cheese and the spicy pungent hit of the mustard seems like the best combination ever. Time slips by, and when the platter’s clear and we’re on our third bag I finally feel relaxed enough to tell Joel about the boat, and everything that’s happened since. He listens quietly, only getting up to start the fire about halfway through, though obviously thinking it was maybe a little insensitive he sits back down again without lighting it. Joel’s never been the best listener, he just can’t help getting into the conversations himself, but tonight he’s quiet, taking in what I’m saying. By the time I’m finished – how long has it been? – my throat’s rasping dry so I crack open the can he’d handed me earlier and finish it in two long draws.
‘Fuck, man, that’s rough,’ he’s saying as I crush it in my hand.
He’s been relaxed, lying back on the sofa. But now he shifts upright.
‘You know cannabis doesn’t make me paranoid, right?’
‘Me neither, why?’
‘Because all this stuff you’ve been telling me, about the Biotech company …’ He pauses and bites his lip. ‘Okay, it’s like this. You know I was in that world for a while, and frankly the longer I stayed in it the more spooked I got.’
‘Why?’
He picks up a used cocktail stick and rolls it between his fingers.
‘What is it that any drug company needs? Sick people, right? But not just any sort of sick people; if you die of a heart attack, you’re no longer any use to them. But what if you get some disease which only kills you much slower? Now that’s what they want, because that gives them something they can work with, possibly years and years where you can be consuming medication. Expensive, patented medication. Doesn’t cure you. In fact, most of the time it just gives you other problems, though thank God in heaven they have another pill for those as well. You go to the doctor because your knees hurt and in two years you’re taking ten different pills and you’ve basically become a cash cow. And you’ve probably laid down the foundations of a real problem.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that. I’m flushing my whole prescription each month. Must be costing the health service a bomb.’
‘Exactly. And some of
the things you’re prescribed have extremely low efficacy, as you found out. The bar of proof for a drug to be approved for any condition is so low as to be pretty much meaningless; placebo is about as effective. But no one tells you that. They dress everything up in complicated trial data and routinely ignore studies which didn’t have the outcomes they want because they need to make money. But it doesn’t stop there. Once they have drugs approved they’re forever lobbying to have the criteria for prescription lowered to widen their potential market. All damaging side effects people report are pretty much swept under the carpet as being statistical anomalies, until the thirty years on their patent is starting to run out. Then they start crafting a narrative where the odd study shows that Drug A wasn’t quite as effective as previously thought. More and more of those build up until a few years before the patent finally expires and they release Drug B, which is significantly better than Drug A. Look at aspirin, hailed as a wonder drug, prescribed liberally for pretty much anything, then demonized when the patent was up and they introduced paracetamol. Paracetamol was much safer, they said; aspirin was really bad. Only now there are studies starting to creep out which show that in actual fact paracetamol is far worse than aspirin, and causes all sorts of damage to the liver. So, yeah, maybe at first I thought I was being paranoid, but I saw enough evidence, over and over, that this is exactly how they operate.’
I take a few moments to try and absorb it all.
‘If this is all true, then how come no one else has brought it to light?’
Joel does his best Really? Are you serious? face.
‘People’ve tried, believe me. But they’re always silenced somehow. We’re talking a multibillion-euro industry here; they can buy whatever they want. They’ll rake up stuff from your past to discredit you. If you’re a doctor, they’ll find an old patient who “remembers” you touching them inappropriately. If you’re an ex-employee, they’ll come at you with whatever they can, threaten you with whatever they think will make you back down. People have had their kids watched, and some woke up to find dead animals on their doorsteps. And the thing is, you’ve been poking around, and then your houseboat mysteriously gets torched. How many arson cases do you get a year in central Amsterdam?’
I don’t know the figure, but I do know it’s extremely low compared to rural areas where it’s more common. Torching someone you don’t like’s house when it’s in the middle of a field is one thing, doing it in a city as compact as Amsterdam, where the houses are jammed together so tightly, is quite another. But still. Was it a warning? I suddenly think of what the nurse Stephanie Dekker said, about her visit from the man in pinstripes. And that makes me think of Muller. He’d been trying to warn me off as well, though I’d thought it was for another reason. What’s more, I realize with a thud of my heart, the description of the man Dekker had given could actually apply to Muller. I’m feeling less calm all of a sudden, the Night Queen losing her hold over me.
‘I’m just saying that you need to be really careful, okay?’ Joel says finally. I suddenly hear the fire investigator’s question: you got any enemies? ‘Poking round a company like that, particularly if they had a bad failure and are already hurting, is a very dangerous game.’
Bloemgracht is not on the route between Joel and Sabine’s, and yet I find myself here anyway. I’ve texted her to say I’d be there soon and that I didn’t have my keys. Hopefully she doesn’t mind staying up a little longer. There’s a lingering sooty smell as I near the burnt-out wreckage. With each step the air becomes more dense, and the houses on either side of the canal seem to stretch up and curl in to loom over me, blocking out the sky. The street lights are out, they must have been damaged in the fire, and it feels desolate and empty. I sit right on the edge of the canal, feet dangling over the water, and stare at the hull. I’m right in the centre of one of the most densely populated cities in Europe, and yet I feel totally alone.
My thoughts are jumbled but eventually twist round to what Joel had said earlier. Could this have been a warning to stay away? Why else would someone want to burn down my houseboat? Earlier I’d managed to brush it off, clear it from the forefront of my mind. But pushing things away like that seems to be counterproductive, because it had lurked, waiting for its moment to push its way back. And just to add to all this, hadn’t Muller told me to go back to my houseboat? At the time it’d struck me as odd. Now it’s looking downright sinister.
I reach out, just able to touch the hull across the short gap. My fingers come away black with soot. I trace a diagonal line with my forefinger right across my forehead. I do another one. And another. The reality settles in. Joel was right, this was a warning. And the only people who would want to warn me off are DH Biotech. The question is, what are they hiding that they’re so scared I might find out? It’s looking like people died because of them; is that it, is that what they’re afraid I might find?
‘What are you hiding?’ I ask the night just as I get a sense that all of a sudden I’m not alone. There’s a presence behind me. I tense, fully expecting a blow or a shot.
I slowly turn my head. There’s something there.
It’s … a black wolf.
My heart’s hammering in my chest before I realize that … it’s Kush. Standing there. Alive.
He’s looking at me as if trying to figure something out.
I’m up and moving towards him and his tail starts to twitch gently, then he moves forward, maybe deciding that he does know me after all.
Which is when I see he’s limping badly; he can’t use one of his front legs. He’s holding it up, and as I get close I can see fur ripped open to reveal a fleshy gash.
In the end I carry him all the way to Rozengracht where the first two taxis refuse to take me but the third tells me to hop in whilst he looks up emergency vets on his phone. Kush is in a bad way. He’s barely moving, the wound worse than I thought now I can see it properly in the cold light coming from a spot by the rear-view. But he’s alive. He’s alive and I’ve found him. Or rather, he found me. The taxi driver decides the best place is the animal hospital on Leuvenstraat and soon we’re plunging south through the city, the traffic light. Kush is panting hard now, his tongue hanging like limp fabric. It’s only when we pull up outside the place I realize I have no money. The driver waves it off. He has a dog himself he says. Least he can do. I thank him and lift Kush out.
Before he was panting hard, now he’s hardly breathing, his body slack. I burst through the doors and a woman in scrubs looks up from behind her desk. She comes round and quickly inspects Kush, who hardly seems present.
‘It looks like he may have a broken bone,’ she says. ‘And he’s lost a lot of blood. We’ll need to operate. Can you carry him through to the back?’
I scoop him up, afraid suddenly that it’s too late, and follow her quickly through to a room where she instructs me to lay him on the table. She’s called another vet, an older woman with hair like Leah’s, who listens to the first woman whilst doing her own quick assessment.
‘We’ve got it from here,’ she tells me. ‘But I’m not going to lie to you, it’ll be touch and go. Leave your details at reception and we’ll get back to you as soon as we know more.’
‘How long?’
‘It’s going to be hours before we really know anything.’
I reach out and stroke his head, smoothing his ears down. He twitches slightly. I follow her back to the reception where she takes my details. I write down my number, and what is now my old address, but stop when it comes to the credit card details.
‘I’ve got a bit of a problem. I came out without my wallet.’
She looks at me as if trying to make a decision.
‘Just bring the details with you when you come back tomorrow. You will be coming back for him, won’t you?’
‘If you can save him, I will.’
She puts a hand out onto my forearm. ‘If anyone can, she can.’
It’s only as I leave the building I catch sight of my reflection in a
dark window.
Three smears of black right across my forehead.
DAY ZERO
* * *
Junk
The ginger and white cat freezes, tail shooting for the clear sky. Its back arches, fur rising like there’s a force field of static electricity. I follow the aim of its gaze along the roof’s spine and spot another feline, black with a white bib, holding the same pose. It’s like Goya, the two felines in an immortal stand-off. They’re so still now they might as well be statues.
Coffee’s brewing, toast’s in the toaster, radio hosts are still discussing the acid attack, and I’m sitting by the window at Joel’s getting my insides acquainted with a Red Bull. As soon as I woke I called the animal hospital and left a message. I’ve been checking my phone compulsively ever since, but I’m not exactly getting swamped with callbacks.
‘So you went there and she wasn’t in?’
Joel’s one of those annoying people who sleeps like a rock and then wakes full of positivity for the day ahead. Mind you, he’s flying to Berlin for a trade fair where his company has a stand for three days, and then he’s heading down to the farm in Spain. Maybe that has something to do with it. Contrast that with what I’ve got planned and I’m starting to see why he can whistle whilst preparing breakfast.
‘Thing is, by the time I’d left the animal hospital it was near enough midnight; she must’ve got bored and gone to bed.’
Though it’s strange, because she hasn’t answered any of my texts. Maybe she’s pissed that I managed to lose her keys. Maybe she just decided that she doesn’t like me. At this stage I can hardly blame her. I tap out another message but then delete it.
‘Busy day?’
‘Interviewing someone, trying to work out who burned down my houseboat, also trying not to think about all that stuff you told me last night. You’re not serious about how dangerous they are?’
The Copycat Page 24