A Death in Rembrandt Square

by Anja de Jager

  If someone had shown me pictures of this house and this room beforehand, I would have said that the people who lived here would be the kind to cooperate with the police, especially if they had been the victims of a crime.

  I would have been very wrong. Ingrid might as well have been talking to a wall.

  ‘Do you know of anybody who might have wanted to hurt your husband?’ She directed this question towards Angela, leaving her no choice but to answer.

  ‘No, not really,’ she said.

  ‘Could it have had anything to do with Carlo Sondervelt’s murder?’ I asked.

  ‘Who knows?’ She glared at me. There was no other way to describe it. Part of me understood. If she was convinced that her husband had been innocent of the murder, her previous experience with the police, her previous experience with me, had been very bad, and therefore she wasn’t going to help me now.

  ‘Have you received any threats?’ Ingrid asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you know Sandra Ngo.’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked at her son.

  ‘We went to university together,’ Remco said. ‘I hadn’t seen her since I graduated.’

  It was the first time either one of them had volunteered any information. I latched on to it. ‘You were no longer in touch?’

  ‘We lost touch when I moved.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘What difference does it make?’ Angela interrupted me.

  ‘I moved to Dubai after I graduated.’ Remco seemed to have no objection to answering my questions.

  ‘You must be cold.’ I smiled. ‘Was it a shock to the system to get back to this kind of weather?’

  ‘He wouldn’t have been here,’ his mother said, ‘if his father hadn’t been killed.’

  ‘Yes, I’m very sorry about your father. I’m sorry for your loss. We’ll do anything we can to find out who did this.’

  Angela narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Nobody has talked to us before now. Even when you came to the hospital, you showed no interest in what had happened.’ Her voice had a sharp edge and was getting louder.

  ‘Mum.’ Remco put a hand on her arm.

  ‘Until recently, we thought this was a hit-and-run, a very sad accident, of course,’ Ingrid said. ‘Now that we’ve found evidence to suggest that that might not have been the case, we’re taking a different angle.’

  ‘So that’s why you’re asking us questions at last.’ Angela’s tone made it clear that this wasn’t a pleasant experience. ‘Those traffic cops only talked to us for a minute or so.’

  For his family, having me here only seemed to have created more resentment. This was why it was a bad idea for me to investigate this incident.

  ‘You still think he was a murderer who got hit by a car, don’t you?’ Angela got up from her chair. ‘He was innocent. He spent ten years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, because of you. He’s lived a completely peaceful life since. But you guys still have him down as a criminal.’

  I looked around me. This was a nice house in a respectable area. Sure, it was a bit out of the centre – it would take about twenty minutes to cycle into town – but it was pleasant and it had an impressive view.

  Angela glanced at her watch. ‘If you have nothing else to ask about the accident, or Ruud, can we finish this?’

  There were plenty more questions I wanted to ask, but most of them wouldn’t get an answer. There was only one that might. ‘Sandra Ngo said there was new information?’

  ‘Sandra believes us,’ Angela said.

  ‘Did you get any negative comments after the podcasts? Did anybody post saying they wanted to kill your husband? Anything like that?’ Ingrid asked.

  ‘No, the messages have all been supportive.’

  I knew of one group of people who must have found it hard to listen to the podcasts. Carlo Sondervelt’s family had initially cooperated with Sandra, but had pulled out quickly once they realised the direction she was taking in the first two episodes. She only had one objective, and regardless of what the title of the podcast was, it wasn’t to get justice. At least not for the victim. It was definitely worth paying them a visit, if only because they would be happy to see me. Sometimes that was a good enough reason.

  Remco looked down and rubbed a finger over the edge of the table, then reached out and picked up his phone, turning it round in his hands. When he realised that he had effectively removed his recording device, he quickly put it back.

  If I was going to let Ingrid deal with the family – and Thomas when he was back from holiday next week – I could take the Sandra Ngo angle. I remembered that small pause in the hospital before Remco had shaken Sandra’s hand. The mother had received her hug with much more warmth. Clearly not everybody was a fan. Sandra was a prickly personality, but I knew that at least she would be willing to talk to me. She might even share her information.

  ‘The next episode of Right to Justice is going to be explosive,’ Angela said, as if she knew in which direction my mind was going. ‘You won’t like what Sandra has found out. It doesn’t make the police look good.’ She picked up a newspaper. ‘But then you hardly need Sandra for that. You guys make yourselves look bad without any help from anyone else.’

  The animosity was so thick in the air that I could almost taste it. I bit my lip to keep the words in. She had made up her mind about us and nothing I could do was going to change it. I thanked them for their time. Remco pressed stop on his phone. We left to go back to the police station.

  In the meantime, my files had turned up. It was very strange to see Ingrid studying my old paperwork. When I’d worked on this case, I had been the same age as she was now. ‘What do you think?’ I said.

  ‘There’s nothing that immediately jumps out at me,’ she said. ‘We should go talk to these people.’ She held up a file. ‘If anybody would have wanted to kill Ruud Klaver, it would be his victim’s parents, don’t you think?’

  I noticed that the pain on hearing his name wasn’t as bad as it had been. Maybe working on this case had cauterised the wound. Maybe this was good.

  Chapter 11

  An hour later, after we’d made sure someone would be there to talk to us, Ingrid and I set off on the two-hour drive to the Sondervelts’ farm, with the sat nav guiding us out of my beloved city and towards the heart of Gelderland. The weather had turned to drizzle. The wipers swiped the window at the lowest speed possible.

  ‘Do you think I’m making a mistake?’ Ingrid said before we had even reached Amsterdam’s ring road.

  I couldn’t see anything wrong with the route she was taking. ‘By doing what?’ I asked.

  ‘Leaving the team.’

  ‘Ah, that.’ I waited a few swipes of the wipers before I responded. ‘How honest do you want me to be?’ I adjusted my seat belt and sat up straighter.

  She laughed. ‘As honest as you want to be, without being mean.’

  I nodded. ‘I can do that.’ We had now left Amsterdam and were on the motorway east. ‘In my opinion, there are two things to consider. Moving out of our team and into Bauer’s team is one thing, but working with your boyfriend all day is another.’

  Large panels had been built along the motorway to protect the houses on either side from the traffic noise. They formed a truck-high barrier, and it felt as though we were driving through a corridor.

  ‘This isn’t about working with you,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I never thought it was. As long as it’s not about helping your boyfriend, then it’s all fine. You’re a much better detective than he is. I know – I’ve worked with both of you.’ The sound barrier ended and I glanced back. The landscape was relentlessly flat.

  ‘You know, I’m going to end up doing it just because Bauer asked me,’ she said. ‘After Wouter Poels left, they were a person short. There’s something special about being approached like that.’

  ‘You felt wanted. I get it.’ I turned on the radio. I was sure she understood that she was now leaving
us a person short instead. We drove without talking.

  ‘Let me know if you want me to drive for a bit,’ I said. It was the windscreen wipers with their hypnotic back-and-forth swipes that made it hard going.

  ‘No, I’m fine. So do you think I’m making a mistake?’

  I thought I’d got away with not answering the question, but this was why she was good at her job. Unlike her boyfriend, in my personal opinion.

  ‘I would have liked you to stay in the team longer.’ I smiled. ‘But I’m not sure if that’s for your benefit or mine.’

  ‘You’re a great mentor for me. How long did you stay in your first team?’

  ‘I didn’t move for the first couple of years. Sat at the same desk, with the same view, just different cases.’

  ‘Who was the senior detective?’

  ‘Barry Hoog.’

  ‘I don’t think I know him. Is he still there?’

  ‘No, he left years ago.’ I sometimes wondered who, apart from me, still remembered Barry. Even Thomas probably didn’t. Did Chief Inspector Moerdijk? If he did, he would have mentioned him to me, surely. I didn’t know if it was good or depressing that people’s memories were so short.

  Traffic was light and we made good progress for the next hour. After a while, we reached the first of the rivers that cut the Netherlands horizontally in half. The rain stopped. The sky was still endless and grey, but at least the wipers could be put to sleep. In the distance, the IJssel calmly flowed west. I looked at my watch.

  ‘Do you want to stop and stretch your legs for a bit? We’re close and we’re early.’

  ‘Sure.’ Ingrid parked in a small car park alongside the motorway. I was grateful for some fresh air. A railway bridge spanned the water, its length twice that of the width of the IJssel. It left plenty of room for the river when it was going to flood, which it inevitably did a few times a year. Even now, the water level was high. The rainfall of the last weeks had raised it, but not yet to the point that it was going to burst its banks.

  Three white wind turbines slowly and elegantly milled the air. The clouds tore apart for a second and the unexpected sunlight made the water sparkle, dusting it with glitter. I could follow the bends of the river, edged with grass and the deep grey of the autumn sky.

  ‘Do you cook?’ I asked Ingrid.

  ‘Cook?’ She frowned. ‘Of course I cook.’

  ‘Do you cook for your boyfriend?’

  ‘I do, but he’s not a big fan. He says my cooking is too healthy – a bit like rabbit food.’

  ‘Rabbit food?’

  ‘Not enough meat. Why do you ask? Don’t you know how to cook?’

  ‘I do. I’m just not very good at it. And he is.’

  ‘That’s great, then he can cook for you all the time.’

  ‘He does.’ That was exactly the problem.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘you still haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘And I thought I was dodging it so successfully.’ I turned from watching the water. ‘Okay, here’s my honest opinion. I would personally be worried about spending twenty-four hours a day with the same person, however much I liked them. Or loved them. Working cases together can put a huge strain on a relationship. I’ve seen it with other people.’ The wind gusted my hair in front of my face and I tucked it back behind my ear. ‘But even if your relationship blows up, your career will be fine. I guess it just depends on what’s important to you.’

  ‘You always say things I don’t expect. I thought you were going to say that it would be great for my relationship but damaging for my career.’

  ‘You wanted me to be honest, didn’t you?’

  She put a hand on my arm. ‘Thanks, Lotte,’ she said. ‘For believing in me.’

  I wasn’t entirely sure how she had drawn that conclusion, but she seemed happy so I didn’t correct her.

  ‘You think my career will survive and I know my relationship will.’

  I bit my lower lip and nodded slowly as I stared out over the river in front of us. People only heard what they wanted to hear anyway, and I could comfort myself with the thought that I’d been honest, and not mean, exactly as she’d asked me to be.

  ‘Thanks for not being annoyed with me too.’

  ‘Annoyed? It just means I don’t have to save your life any more. It’s all fine by me.’

  She laughed.

  Obviously Thomas and I had had a discussion about what we were going to do now that we would be another person short. We could do with two replacements, but budget cuts meant that we would be lucky just to get one.

  We got back in the car. Once we had left the motorway, we took two more turns until we were driving along a narrow road through kilometres of farmland, passing a house every hundred metres of so. When we got to the right number, I saw an ENTRY STRICTLY FORBIDDEN sign. I checked and double-checked the address. The sign wasn’t a handwritten cardboard placard but a proper government-issue street sign in blue and white, with the precise number of the article of law that any trespassers would be breaking printed underneath it. I definitely wasn’t going to get out of the car. People who had signs like these might keep big dogs.

  ‘Maybe you can get that traffic cop to replace me.’ Ingrid’s voice had a teasing edge.

  ‘Don’t start. He’s got no chance.’

  The drive was edged on both sides by tall poplars. There must be a farmhouse somewhere, but we could only follow the path, which was no more than a double track shaped by car tyres, as it bent to the right and disappeared behind the trees.

  ‘Why do you say he’s got no chance?’ Ingrid asked.

  ‘I’ve got nothing against people who want to do their job for a long time. I’ve been in CID for almost a decade myself. It’s just that when someone is desperate to move and can’t do it for years, there’s often a good reason.’

  ‘Aren’t you helping him out?’

  ‘He wants to see how we work, and I’m letting him. I’m not helping him.’

  ‘That’s mighty altruistic of you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, there you go.’

  As soon as we turned the corner, the farmhouse came into view. Its thatched roof was pulled low over the house like a dark woollen hat, coming down as far as the ground-floor windows. The open shutters were freshly painted in white and green. The walls were white. All it needed was some fluffy sheep and it could be on a postcard you’d send to your grandparents from a holiday in Gelderland. There were probably no dogs.

  We got out of the car. The leaves of the poplars applauded as the wind rushed past, and the white grit of the path muttered its displeasure at being disturbed.

  I rang the doorbell, and when the door opened, there was Carlo Sondervelt’s father. It was ten years since I’d seen him last, at Ruud Klaver’s trial. He had been grateful at the verdict and I remembered that he’d offered a prayer to the ceiling of the courthouse when the judge ruled Klaver guilty.

  Chapter 12

  Jelte Sondervelt smiled widely as he invited us in. It was so different from the way Angela Klaver had greeted us that it immediately buoyed my spirits. He wouldn’t be this pleased to see us if he’d had anything to do with Ruud Klaver’s murder.

  Jelte had aged more than I would have thought possible in ten years. He was probably not even sixty yet, but his face was deeply scored with lines. We followed him to the front room, where his wife, Anke, was waiting. Photos of their son, forever frozen in time, and of their granddaughter with her mother, the key witness, lined the walls.

  A magazine from the Evangelische Omroep, the main evangelical broadcasting station, lay in the centre of the table, next to a plate of chocolate biscuits. The front cover showed a picture of a prayer leader, dressed casually in a purple shirt, above the quote: It starts with honesty. You’re allowed to complain in life. I could see a Bible on the bookshelf. I wondered if they’d become more religious after their son had been killed, and had turned to God in their hour of need. I didn’t know whether that meant that they had accepted what
had happened. After all, the Bible was full of stories about wrath and revenge. My own mother was deeply religious, and she was definitely not one to let bygones be bygones. She’d only forgiven my father for divorcing her about thirty-five years after it had happened, and even then grudgingly.

  ‘I saw that Ruud Klaver had died,’ Jelte said, ‘and Anke and I wondered how long it would take for you guys to turn up here.’ He pushed a glass of water towards the middle of the table. ‘Only one day was the answer.’

  ‘I’m sorry, we just need to ask a few questions.’

  ‘Like where I was on the evening of the accident?’

  ‘If you could tell us, that would be great.’

  ‘Of course. It was Nancy’s birthday. We were all together. We had a Chinese meal.’

  ‘The whole family?’

  ‘The four of us: me, Anke,’ he gestured to his wife, ‘Nancy and Wietske.’

  ‘Okay.’ I made a note. In the back of my mind, I thought it was rather convenient. If they’d had something to do with Ruud’s accident, that would be a tough alibi to discredit.

  ‘You could just have called,’ Jelte said. ‘You didn’t need to drive all the way out here.’

  ‘I also wanted to see how you’ve been. Since that podcast aired, I mean. Sandra Ngo came here, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. She came with her assistant a few weeks ago.’

  ‘It was a month ago now,’ Anke corrected him.

  ‘Okay. Yes, a month ago.’

  ‘She had an assistant?’

  ‘Dennis or something.’

  ‘Dennis?’ Surely Sandra hadn’t turned up here with Ruud Klaver’s son. ‘A young guy? Was he wearing glasses?’

  ‘Glasses? No, he was about fifty and had a bald head.’

  That was a relief. ‘How did you feel about that? That she was asking all these questions?’

  ‘I felt that it was unnecessary, of course. Carlo’s murderer had been locked up, he’d served his time, we’d moved on.’

  ‘And now she was talking about it again.’

  ‘Yes, claiming you guys had the wrong man. I followed the last series and it was fascinating, but I know the police didn’t make mistakes like that in this case.’ He smiled at me warmly.