“He’s someone we were watching, Joop. Part of the job.”
“Well, someone lightened your load for you. You won’t have to watch this one anymore.”
“Let me know when something worthwhile turns up,” Dewaal said. And to Eekhaut, “Come on, Chief Inspector. We have other things to do.”
“Chief Superintendent,” Joop said. “I heard about Breukeling. Really shitty business. But I also heard he wasn’t completely clean either. Used to be one of us, Breuk.”
“You heard correctly,” she said. “Let this be a warning to the others. I personally would have wanted things to turn out differently, but here we are.”
They walked down the stairs. Eekhaut had no more comments to make since he assumed she was unhappy about Joop’s remarks. They got into the car and drove off. She parked the car around the corner, where a couple of pink dildos were featured as this week’s sale item in a sex shop window.
She said, “How do you feel about this case? And try to forget Joop’s comments.”
“Someone had a problem with this Pieter Van Boer and solved it. Someone with a semiautomatic, a silencer, and just enough motivation to walk into a property in the middle of the morning and kill his victim in cold blood. He’s a professional. And he gets paid well to do this. We can safely eliminate the usual motives, like jealousy or greed.”
“My thoughts too.”
“What do you know about Van Boer?”
“There’s the problem. He was an informant.”
“An informant? One of yours?”
She nodded. “Yes, one of the Bureau’s. Occasionally, at least. If it suited him and when he had some sensitive information to share. We deal with the most unusual people, sometimes, Walter. We form unhappy alliances. But we have to. Some time ago, Van Boer told me he had an interesting lead. Some really sensitive info. And then, nothing. I didn’t hear from him for weeks. I know he works—worked—with the PDN.”
“CPN, PDN. Abbreviations,” Eekhaut said. “I’m not a local boy—I don’t know what they mean.”
“CPN is the Dutch Communist Party,” Dewaal said. “Small and toothless. Totally enthralled with the Marxist tradition but not happy with the excesses of state capitalism as in the former Soviet Union, which they call a deviation from the Marxist norm. They claim to be the real Marxists. They seem to have a very decent research center that at times reports on illegal and criminal dealings of government officials and the like. Van Boer wrote for their publications and magazines. Not under his own name. PDN is something entirely different. Partij Dierbaar Nederland, the Dutch right-wing party. Nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-Europe. Founded by Hendrika Van Tillo, former minister of justice, now without an official job. It used to be rather respectable a couple of years ago but then drifted to the far right. Speaks to a large audience nonetheless. The common man who fears his job will be taken by immigrants and who’s against Europe and globalization.”
“Like Vlaams Belang in Belgium.”
“Oh, your average homegrown nationalist party, yes. About the same thing, but somewhat different approach. PDN does its utmost best to be respectable while it is also populist. Especially Ms. Van Tillo. She has a lot of supporters. Very outspoken too, that woman. On television, she isn’t shy about silencing her opponents with cheap demagogic tricks and ideological, even racist slurs. Inflammatory speeches for the in crowd and supporters and provocative sound-bites for the news, especially the commercial stations. Dubious party financing too, but we can’t prove that. She gets loads of money from certain parts of the business community.”
“Is that what Van Boer was after?”
“I have no idea.”
“Why he’s now a corpse? Because he found out something he shouldn’t have?”
“I really don’t know. I have no leads. I hadn’t seen him for a while. No idea what he was after.”
“Because this kind of execution … this is no jealous girlfriend getting even. Few girlfriends walk around with a silenced nine mil.”
“And yet the girlfriend or whoever she was managed to escape, it seems. That’s less than professional.”
“We all make mistakes. Just consider the risk this murderer took. Unknown terrain, unknown situation.”
“You may be right.”
“Someone who is familiar with the neighborhood, perhaps.”
“The murderer? This is Amsterdam, Walter, not New York or Los Angeles. This isn’t a city where you can hire a professional assassin just like that, in a bar or whatever.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“And the PDN is certainly not into contract killers. They don’t do that sort of thing. They’re more subtle when it concerns their enemies. A little more subtle.”
“But consider the possible point of interest. Party financing. It involves two sides: the one that receives and the one that pays.”
She grabbed the steering wheel. “You’re right. Let’s think about that.”
“What now?”
“The forensic lab will give us their results as soon as they’re finished, but I won’t hold my breath. A contract killer might leave traces we could link to someone in our files, but I don’t expect much in the way of real results. We have to assume this was an outside job.”
15
“I’M IN DEEP TROUBLE, Maarten,” Eileen said into her cell phone. She stood in Kalverstraat, partially behind a wall, with the afternoon crowds passing by—tourists and the various bizarre figures who were so prevalent in the center of Amsterdam. She wanted to go into the McDonald’s, hoping for invisibility among the young people, but maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. She felt totally alienated from people her own age. And she wasn’t going to eat anyway.
She had no good ideas left anymore. She was too visible wherever she went. The murderer could appear at any moment. She was sure he was hunting her, because she’d seen him and even more because she’d taken those documents. The center of Amsterdam wasn’t very large. A tenacious hunter would find her soon enough. Or maybe not. On account of the crowds. She hoped.
Maybe she had more of an advantage than she expected. The man had been alone. And he had committed a murder. He’d want to disappear. Precisely what she also wanted to do. Hence her call to Maarten, her brother, who lived on Brouwersgracht in a single room. She hoped he would take her in for a couple of days.
Maarten. Who usually lived in some universe far from anything earthly and who’d forgotten why the hell he had moved to Amsterdam. Or why anyone would want to live in Amsterdam in the first place. And he was the one she called for help. Not a good strategy.
She didn’t want to involve Maarten. It meant taking her problems to her brother. He wouldn’t be able to handle her problems, since he couldn’t even get his own life in order. But she was sure nobody had followed her, so they’d both be safe. Nobody knew where she was going.
She didn’t want to put Maarten in danger.
He seemed to be having one of his rare clear-headed moments. He seemed to be able to parse her sentences and grasp their meaning. “What’s the matter, sis? You don’t sound happy. Something wrong with Pop or Mom? Where are you? Damn phones!” A noise as if Maarten was shaking his cell phone. Cell phones were inventions from a future world, as far as he was concerned, one too complicated for him to understand.
“Maarten, listen to me. I have to crash somewhere. I can’t stay on the streets—”
“An argument with Pieter? Well, an argument with Pieter, why am I not surprised? That old fucker is just not right for you, sis. All that political … stuff. Communism, isn’t it? Why didn’t you leave him earlier? You should never have—What did you see in him, anyway?”
“Maarten! Pieter is dead!” She glanced up. Had somebody heard her? In the crowded street with people passing an arm’s length away from her? No, nobody paid any attention. She was a girl on a street corner with a phone to her ear, in the most photogenic city on the planet, where tall, beautiful girls like herself were plentiful. “Pieter
is dead, Maarten. He got shot. Shot, like, with a gun. By a man I have never seen before. That man was looking for something, a folder with documents. I took it. I got away. He would have killed me too.”
“A folder?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of folder?”
“That doesn’t matter. Maarten? Are you—” Lucid, she wanted to say. But she couldn’t use that word with Maarten. “Are you awake?”
“I’m … awake, sis. I understand what you’re saying. Pieter is dead. Did he have problems with, like, an ex-girlfriend or what? Or is it political? Pieter is involved … was involved with those political things, and you often hear that they … I don’t know.”
“I have no idea.” She managed to keep her voice calm, but she wanted to shout at him. Shouting wouldn’t help, though. Shouting never helped with Maarten.
“Maarten, a man with a gun killed Pieter. I returned from the bakery. He wanted to shoot me too. I escaped. He wanted to steal—”
“Who? The murderer?”
“Yes,” she said. Yes, she was talking about the murderer. Pieter had stolen something as well, but she wanted to keep the story simple. “The man had taken Pieter’s documents. I have them here. Maybe Pieter had to die on account of those documents.” No, she was certain of that. But she avoided explaining the whole story to Maarten.
Don’t complicate things.
“You have to get out of there,” he said, lucid for once. “Where are you?”
“In Kalverstraat. I’m staying away from the apartment. But all my things are there. Clothes and … the cops will be there, too. What can I do?”
And she thought, That’s the way things turn out. I end up asking Maarten for advice. He was always the one without any plans for the future, only living in the present. Today I want him to help me, although he can barely help himself. I’m asking him for help, and he was always the one who needed help from all of us.
“What do you intend to do?”
Oh, she thought, he’s playing that game again. Reversing the question. “Get as far away as possible from the apartment and the murderer. Somewhere where people don’t know me. Somewhere safe.”
“Where is it safe, Eileen?”
“Maarten!”
“I’m just asking. What has Pieter done? What was he involved in? One of his crazy schemes? And what about you? Are you safe? No, apparently not. I don’t know what you should do. Go to the police. Give them those documents. Whatever it is, get rid of the problem.”
You don’t know anything, Eileen thought. If things were that simple, Pieter would have gone to the police. With that list. But he didn’t want to. He must have had very good reasons not to involve the police. And his reasons, she thought, should be good enough for her.
Was she safe? She was not. The man crossing the Kalverstraat and walking in her direction could be the assassin, as far as she knew. Or a plainclothes police officer. The young woman at the other side, watching a shop window, could be stalking her. Behind that window, inside the shop, the murderer could also be observing her and waiting for a single instant of carelessness on her part.
No, she was not safe.
And why involve Maarten in all this?
She hadn’t reached the end of her list of options. No, it wasn’t that. There simply hadn’t been a list. You go to your family first. It remains in the family.
16
“MR. TARKOVSKI,” VAN GILS said in Dutch. “We’d like to ask you some questions concerning the details of your employment here in Amsterdam.” Eekhaut, who was accompanying Van Gils, kept silent, as had been agreed between them.
“As you wish,” Tarkovski said.
Both police officers had properly identified themselves. Tarkovski was familiar with one of them already. The one who had spoken with Mr. Keretsky, together with the female Chief Superintendent. The man who had asked Mr. Keretsky all those wrong questions.
They were meeting in the offices of Gilinski BV, on Keizersgracht, one of the many companies Tarkovski managed on Keretsky’s behalf. It was, in a way, his favorite. The import of diamonds from Russia and Mongolia. Few people ever wondered if there were any diamond mines in Russia or Mongolia. It didn’t matter—uncut diamonds didn’t have serial numbers. All you needed was a collection of documents proving where they came from, and documents were plentiful in both countries. Even official ones. In Russian and Mongolian and written in Cyrillic script.
The company was also his favorite because it had a real shop window: twelve meters of street-level frontage from end to end, heavily secured, displaying the finished products of the diamond trade—necklaces, watches, tiaras, rings. Most of it was window dressing, although behind the window was a real shop in which three neatly dressed young Dutch men sold jewelry to actual customers at totally inflated prices. But none of that had anything at all to do with the real operations at Gilinski BV.
Such was the world of Keretsky: glamor, pretense, and phony shop windows. Behind them, a shady world and real money, lots of money. But Keretsky was definitely moving into legal transactions after his money had been laundered. He was respectable, although he still occasionally traded in guns to embargoed countries that paid him with uncut diamonds, for instance.
“I am, how shall I put it, the manager of a number of companies owned mostly by Mr. Keretsky,” Tarkovski said now. “I manage his interests. I am a businessman. You’re probably aware of the sort of interests we have in the Netherlands. And you are equally well aware of our successes. We’re very happy to be here, Mr. Van Gils.”
“I’m sure you are,” Van Gils said. He tried to loosen his tie a bit. He didn’t care much for ties, which he considered a necessary evil that he got rid of as soon as he was no longer on duty. “Where have you been the last couple of days? You were probably very busy, with your boss around.”
“He was around the whole time, yes,” Tarkovski said. “And then your colleagues interrogated him, concerning things that were …” And then, in English, “He’s here to protect his interests in some of his financial involvements. You do read the newspapers, I’m sure, Inspector? You do read your own files too, I would dare to speculate.”
Van Gils replied in Dutch, “We’re aware of a meeting, yesterday at the Renaissance Hotel, between Mr. Keretsky and a Dutch entrepreneur, Monet. Were you present, Mr. Tarkovski?”
“I was,” Tarkovski said, in Dutch again. “Part of my job. Whenever Mr. Keretsky is in Holland, I am his personal assistant. It is a matter of trust. I also prepare the … these talks, yes? The circumstances. Renting a meeting room, taking care of catering, bringing people together.”
“That conversation was strictly confidential, I assume?”
“You will not read a word about it in the papers, Inspector … would you care to repeat your name, please?”
“Van Gils.”
“Ah, yes,” Tarkovski said. “Van Gils. And your colleague here has a distinct Flemish accent, does he not? He seems a bit out of place, lost even. A bit like myself, I’d say.”
“How many people work for you here in the Netherlands, Mr. Tarkovski?” Van Gils asked, not perturbed by the Russian’s remarks. “For you and Mr. Keretsky.”
“How many people? Hard to say. A considerable number of companies, doing very diverse things. How many people in all? Hundreds, I’d dare say. They come and go, you know how that is.”
“No,” Van Gils said, “I don’t. Tell me.”
“Hard to find reliable colleagues these days.”
“You recruit Russians mostly?”
“Of course! We help our fellow countrymen find jobs. Not illegal, is it? Free market and all that. We take care of our own people. Even if they fled communism, Mr. Van Gils, they remain Russians. Some have lived here for quite a bit of time, have become as Dutch as any of you—well, except for your Flemish colleague here. That’s why they work for us. After a sort of, well, an oath, really.”
“An oath? To whom?”
“To the company, of course.
A pledge of honor to their employer. Who did you have in mind? Putin?”
“Anything seems possible,” Van Gils said. He quickly glanced at Eekhaut, who seemed to have no questions so far. All routine, Van Gils had told Eekhaut, although he knew that no conversation of this sort was ever routine. And he knew the Belgian had been a problem earlier with Keretsky. Now, however, he just listened.
“In Amsterdam,” Tarkovski continued, “a large number of Russians originate from Moscow. There’s this … tradition. People from Moscow move to Amsterdam. Those from Saint Petersburg choose Rotterdam.”
“You’re from Saint Petersburg. You’re in the wrong city, then.”
“I see you did your homework. You’re right. Mr. Keretsky and I do come from Saint Petersburg, where he first employed me. We’ve been working together for a long time. There’s a mutual trust—”
“You have no problems with the local Russians?”
“No. There’s enough mutual respect. Do you have problems with Dutchmen from Rotterdam or from Leiden? You don’t. You’re all Dutch. Same with Russians: we share the same culture and language. All brothers. Unless we talk football. Saint Petersburg has a better team than Moscow, although they dispute that.”
“Yes,” said Van Gils, “I’m sure they do. Where were you yesterday evening?”
“At a party. Here in Amsterdam. Plenty of people who know me. Why?”
“Just a routine question,” Van Gils said while glancing in the little black book he used to jot down a few notes. The black book was purely for show. Generally, he just made doodles, nothing more, but no suspect knew that. Van Gils used his memory. His experience was that it made people nervous when you took notes.
Eekhaut leaned in toward the Russian. “Mr. Tarkovski, what are your chances of ever returning again to Russia?”
Tarkovski frowned. “Back to Russia, Mr…. Eekhaut? I travel to Russia whenever I please. I have a passport. I can travel tomorrow, today even. If I have a ticket. But getting a ticket is easy. Russian travel companies are very efficient.”
Absinthe Page 11