A Cold Death in Amsterdam (Lotte Meerman Book 1)

by Jager, Anja de

  ‘They were shouting,’ the kid said. ‘She was having an affair. She said: “You’re never here, you’re always at work.”’

  ‘Your aunt and uncle?’ The detective steepled his fingers and rested them against his bottom lip.

  ‘Right. And then he said: “Don’t blame me for this. You’re the one doing it.” This went on for a bit. But then he said: “If you don’t stop seeing him, I’ll kill him. You know I’ve killed someone before.”’

  My eyelids felt heavy. I wrote down: Ferdinand van Ravensberger said he killed someone, to keep myself awake. With a blue pen I drew concentric circles on my notepad then squares around them with a pencil. My watch said I’d been in the observation area for five minutes. I’d stay another five, I decided. I’d heard the main line; I could report back on the information we got from Ben and let that be it. I needed to get through the paperwork on the Wendy Leeuwenhoek case and make sure everything was in order before it went to the prosecution.

  ‘Ferdinand van Ravensberger said that?’ André Kamp tapped his fingers against his bottom lip.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Six years.’

  The detective pushed his chair back and got up. He stayed to the right, to keep my line of sight clear. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘In the hallway. I’d been to the loo.’

  My colleague stepped close to the glass and looked over my head at himself. He adjusted his already straight tie and winked. I couldn’t tell if it was at me or at the kid via the mirror. ‘Did you flush?’

  The kid screwed up his forehead in puzzlement, leaned back and folded his arms. ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘Let me put it like this: did they notice you were there?’ My colleague kept looking at the kid indirectly. Without the wall between us, he would stand in my personal space. I got a close-up of his tie with a red-brown stain of spilled meatballs, today’s special in the canteen, surrounded by small water-damage creases, signs of futile scrubbing in the men’s toilets.

  The kid’s face relaxed and he raked a hand through his curls, fitting them around his fingers like rings. His other arm stayed motionless by his side, strapped in large bandages. ‘I don’t think they did. Well, I flushed, I’m sure, but at first they didn’t know I was there . . .’

  The door behind me opened with the soft click of a light switch. I pretended to be concentrating on what was going on in front of me and didn’t look round. Someone pulled up the chair beside mine – someone who smelled of cigarettes.

  ‘Hi Lotte, can I join you?’ Stefanie Dekkers asked.

  I nodded because I didn’t know how to refuse. I wasn’t surprised that someone from the Financial Fraud department was interested in Ben’s uncle. She sat down and moved her chair forward. Her high-heeled shoe kicked my foot. ‘Sorry.’

  My sturdy boot, fit for the weather, came off better than her black leather shoe, the type you wore if you didn’t walk anywhere. I was sure her husband drove her to work. I glanced at her sideways but didn’t meet her eyes. She kept her knees together and to one side to accommodate her tight pencil skirt. The waistband vanished between rolls of flesh and the swell of her hip was cut in two by the line of underwear digging in.

  ‘Congratulations on closing the Wendy Leeuwenhoek case.’ Her voice was like a mobile phone going off in the theatre. We hadn’t exchanged more than a hello in the last ten years. I shifted my coffee mug out of her way.

  Stefanie moved her chair closer to mine and confided, ‘I knew you’d be great at looking at some of these old cases. Even at university you had that eye for detail, getting stuck into the nitty-gritty . . .’

  I kept staring at the window. I didn’t move, didn’t give her a centimetre of space. ‘You used to call me anal.’ I locked the grooves of my molars together.

  She made a gesture with a manicured hand, her wedding ring locked safely in place by protruding flesh. ‘I want my photo on the front page. Like the Wendy Leeuwenhoek case did for you.’

  Why on earth would she want that? For me, that photo and that front page stood for all the mistakes I’d made. I shook my head and switched my eyes from the interview room to my notepad. I filled in another circle. My long plait dangled like a length of dead rope over my shoulder. I pushed it back with my pencil and then rubbed my hands clean and dry on my tweed trousers.

  Stefanie picked up my pen from my notepad and turned it over and over between her fingers. ‘I want you to get Ferdinand van Ravensberger for me,’ she said. ‘I don’t care what on.’

  I used my pencil to draw a square around the circle. I wanted to get out of the observation area but I couldn’t leave as Stefanie’s chair blocked the exit.

  She pointed at the observation window with my pen. ‘He was holding up a petrol station and got unlucky when a police officer walked in. But then you know that,’ she laughed, ‘because you shot him.’

  The coffee did somersaults in my stomach.

  Behind the window, the interrogation continued. ‘So your uncle said he’d killed someone. You remember this exactly?’ André Kamp pulled back the chair. ‘You were pretty young at the time.’ He sat down.

  The kid’s eyes followed the detective. He didn’t break eye-contact. ‘It was a traumatic experience for me. Especially when my aunt noticed me over my uncle’s shoulder. He turned round and looked this pale green colour, as if he was about to be sick or something.’

  I tried to ignore Stefanie’s close proximity by picturing Ferdinand van Ravensberger with a face the colour of the interrogation-room walls. It was hard. I’d only seen him tanned on TV or in the serious black-and-white of the financial pages.

  ‘So I didn’t say anything. I just walked away,’ the kid said.

  ‘Did he ever mention it again?’

  ‘My aunt did, the next day at breakfast. My uncle wasn’t there, probably sleeping through his hangover, and she said: “You know he was just joking, don’t you?” And I said: “Didn’t look like a joke to me.” So she said: “Maybe joke is the wrong word. It was just a threat. He’ll never kill me and he’s never killed anyone else.”’

  Stefanie rested her left elbow on the shelf and pivoted her body towards me. ‘We’ve been trying to get Ferdinand van Ravensberger on tax evasion and money laundering for ages. When we found out the kid was his nephew we put the screws on a bit. After all, he took a shot at you.’ She tapped with my pen on the edge of my notepad. The smell of stale tobacco was oppressive. ‘You get all the excitement. I’m surprised you’re here, watching your handiwork.’

  I wanted to snatch my pen back but instead I extracted my paper and pretended to take notes, writing random words with my pencil. The tip snapped. ‘So why didn’t you ask the kid about Van Ravensberger’s financial setup? Much more your thing,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what we wanted. But he kept talking about this murder.’

  I had to stretch to peer over Stefanie’s shoulder in order to keep watching the interview.

  In the room, André Kamp was saying, ‘Your aunt tells you he’s kidding, but you don’t believe her.’

  ‘He’s killed someone,’ the youth insisted.

  The detective tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling. Then he faced Ferdinand van Ravensberger’s nephew again and scratched his greying head. ‘Problem is, you don’t believe your aunt and I don’t believe you.’

  I positioned the pointless pencil on the notepad, parallel to the lines, and muttered, ‘The kid already told me that in the hospital. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Ferdinand van Ravensberger killed someone, for Christ’s sake.’ Stefanie threw my pen down. It collided with the pencil and dropped onto the floor.

  Now I removed my eyes from the window and turned to her. ‘His nephew says he killed someone. Different thing.’

  Stefanie pushed her chair back. ‘He shot at you. You’re angry – I understand that. But we’re working on this for the next two weeks. Didn’t your boss tell you?’ I watched her get up. At the door she tu
rned and added, ‘Oh, and Happy New Year,’ before snapping it closed. I tore off the page of circles and squares and threw it in the bin.

  The office was still empty when I got back upstairs to my desk. I picked up a file from the stack on the floor, my fingers caressing the dark green cardboard before I flipped it open. When I heard Hans Kraai’s heavy footsteps come down the corridor, I took a long last look at my favourite photo and said goodbye to the little girl before I closed my file and put it back on the floor. I then logged on to the police computer to see if Ben’s Uncle Ferdinand had any prior form.

  Two hours later, having drawn a blank with Van Ravensberger, I was working on the Wendy Leeuwenhoek report.

  ‘I’ve got you one,’ Stefanie said from right behind me.

  I jumped in shock. I hated having my back towards the door. People could sneak up on you. Hans Kraai, who was lucky enough to have the window seat, sniggered.

  Stefanie stood too close to me. She tipped my chair by resting her weight on the back of it. ‘Coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m rather busy.’ I gestured with my hand at the papers.

  She looked over my shoulder. ‘Wendy Leeuwenhoek. I see.’

  I shuffled the papers together in a single pile and started reading the top one, pencil in hand, to check for any spelling mistakes, typos or inconsistencies.

  Stefanie threw a pink folder on my desk. ‘Here’s one that’s possibly linked to Van Ravensberger.’

  The folder landed against my papers and knocked them sideways, causing my pencil to make a long scratch. I gave the folder back to her and used my eraser to remove the line. Taking her file, she planted herself opposite me at the empty desk belonging to the third member of our team, Thomas Jansen, who was still on his Christmas break.

  She started talking but I turned the page over and the rustling drowned out the sound of her voice. As soon as I read about Wendy that voice was no competition anyway. I tuned it out until it was no more than the whining drone of a mosquito, annoying but unimportant. I went through three more pages of my report.

  Then she said the word ‘Alkmaar’ and I looked up from my papers.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I knew that would interest you – Moerdijk’s old murder case, before his promotion, before he became your boss.’

  I didn’t correct her.

  ‘Don’t look at his stuff,’ Hans Kraai put in. ‘That’s a minefield. Do you want to be the one to prove him wrong? Career-ending move.’

  ‘But you get to work closely together with him,’ Stefanie turned to Hans and lectured him with a pointing finger, ‘so he notices how good you really are.’

  Hans shook his large head. ‘No way. Not worth the risk.’

  ‘A murder in Alkmaar? When was this?’ I asked.

  ‘More than ten years ago.’ She riffled through the pages. ‘Twelve years – 2002.’

  I held out a hand for the thin pink folder on Otto Petersen’s death and quickly flipped through it. ‘He was shot?’ I asked.

  Stefanie pulled her hair behind her head with both hands. ‘Yes. Just one hour after he was released from prison.’

  ‘Where? Outside the prison?’

  ‘No. Outside his house.’

  I grinned at Hans. ‘Must have been the wife then, nothing to do with your Ferdinand.’

  ‘She had a perfect alibi,’ Stefanie said, unsmiling.

  I was reading and talking at the same time, trying to see what would get me the information I needed first. ‘What was he in for?’

  She lifted her eyebrows. ‘You don’t remember him?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘He was the head of Petersen Capital. We busted them for fraud.’

  I shrugged; finance never was my area of interest.

  ‘They were the darlings of the financial industry for years, a high-flying investment fund putting up all these wonderful returns, but it turned out it was all bogus. Millions of euros disappeared. They never found the money . . .’

  ‘And Van Ravensberger?’

  ‘One of the investors Petersen embezzled.’

  I nodded. ‘Get me the rest of the files on this.’

  ‘They’re in my office. You can fetch them yourself.’

  ‘You want this done, right? So bring me what you’ve got. I’m going to talk to the boss.’

  Chief Inspector Moerdijk was writing with his head bent low over his desk. I stood in the doorway for a second before knocking on the doorframe to get his attention.

  ‘Hi, Lotte,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Not too annoyed about having to work with our friends from the Financial Fraud department, I hope.’

  I took a seat. I wouldn’t describe Stefanie Dekkers as a friend. ‘It’s fine.’

  CI Moerdijk was an efficient man. Even his body didn’t have a gram of redundant fat, not one extra layer where none was needed. His white hair and thin frame gave him the look of a zealot, the type who would, centuries ago, have been a firebrand preacher, but who in today’s society worshipped at the temple of athletics. He was a serious marathon runner and triathlete. He claimed running gave him time to think, but I suspected that running allowed him to forget.

  ‘You’re done with the Wendy Leeuwenhoek files? You haven’t forgotten you’re taking the evidence to the prosecution office tomorrow, I hope.’

  I imagined giving my files and report to the prosecutor, chatting about the murder and talking about the upcoming trial – and it made me feel as if a rat was gnawing at my stomach. I knew then that I wouldn’t be able to talk about it, not even about the parts I’d put in the report. I couldn’t go through with it – couldn’t face going to the prosecution office tomorrow. I was too tired; it would be too hard. I was in no fit state to lie.

  ‘Yes, it’s done,’ I said. Maybe when my report had left my desk, I would finally stop thinking about that little girl and about the errors of judgement that had brought me such unwanted recognition.

  ‘Good, good. You’ve made sure it’s watertight?’ the CI asked.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘So you can start on Van Ravensberger?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much in it, but Stefanie Dekkers has come up with something.’

  ‘Anything promising?’

  ‘Otto Petersen . . .’

  ‘One of my old cases?’ His voice rose in the middle of the sentence, turning it into a surprised half-question. ‘One of my early ones.’ He screwed the top on his fountain pen and put it down. ‘Think it’s got legs?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it hasn’t. But if you want me to work with Stefanie for two weeks, I might as well have a look at some of the things she suggests.’

  ‘Sure. I don’t think I looked at Van Ravensberger for that at all.’ He took his glasses off and dangled them from one hand. ‘I can’t remember all of it, but I would have remembered him.’

  ‘He was an investor.’

  ‘In Petersen Capital?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  The chief inspector pursed his lips. ‘OK, why not. We looked at some of the other investors, especially after the Alkmaar police made such a mess of it. You don’t expect these local forces to be up to much, but . . .’

  ‘Who worked on it?’ I managed to keep my voice neutral as if I wasn’t that interested in finding out the answer.

  ‘Can’t remember. Anyway, read what’s in there. Petersen has been dead for over ten years. He can wait,’ he pointed at his paperwork. ‘This can’t.’ He unscrewed the top of his fountain pen again. ‘Thanks, Lotte.’ He gave me a quick look. ‘Are you OK with this? Working on this, I mean?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘The shooting—’

  ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ He looked at his screen again.

  ‘There won’t be a problem – he shot at me first.’

  ‘Yes, good for the case review but . . . Anyway. As long as you’re OK with it.’ His eyes went back to his paperwork and I was dismissed. I knew what he was thinking: that I was angry and
upset with being shot at. But I knew I’d made the kid do it. I didn’t feel angry or upset. I felt guilty.

  Her years in the Financial Fraud department had made Stefanie more efficient than I remembered. She’d left a stack of files by the side of my desk. I started to go through them. She was right: Otto was killed just one hour after he’d been paroled. I flicked through the papers until I found the photos. I liked starting with the photos. The body had been found on the path two metres from his own front door. There was no weapon. The crime scene was clean of footprints or any debris. The CI’s report contained the statement from Karin Petersen, Otto’s wife. She’d claimed to have been waiting outside the prison when her husband was shot. I turned over the pages until I found the text of the interview with the prison guard. He’d remembered Karin and confirmed her story: she was there at Otto’s time of death. I made some notes with my pencil. I wanted to double-check this. Why was she at the prison when her husband had already been released and was on his way home in Alkmaar?

  Hans passed by the back of my chair on his way out. He said goodbye and gave the threatening weather as an excuse for leaving early. I nodded, only raising my eyes from the reports to check my watch. It was just after half past four. When he’d gone, I stared out of the window and watched the clouds hang over the canal. They were so heavy they barely floated. Gravity would pull more snow out of them before the day was over.

  I searched for the report from Alkmaar. It didn’t seem to be there. I turned page after page in the files. Finally I found it somewhere in the middle: six pages stapled together in the top left-hand corner. An insult to the dead man, this staple. Was this not important enough to warrant a proper cover? I scanned the pages: a technical report, one page describing who called in the murder, some photos – and that was that. This was first-day stuff. The CI must have taken the investigation over quickly. I went back to the CI’s papers and checked the date he made the first notes. Otto Petersen was killed on 17 April 2002. The CI’s first report was dated 3 August 2002. Almost four months. What had happened in between? I found official requests for more information from the CI. No response from Alkmaar. In total there were five attempts by the CI to get additional files from them, but no sign that anybody ever replied.