Tarkovski said nothing.
Maybe he didn’t like those places without a winter. He was Russian, after all. Maybe he didn’t want to fuck a woman. And so on.
But Eekhaut knew the message had hit home. Hard.
“I’d really like to know a bit more about Parnow. We don’t know all that much about him. He’s a blind spot. A void. And he’s dead. It means he can’t go to trial. And he can’t be a witness either. He can’t go to prison for the rest of his natural life for multiple murders. You wouldn’t care anyway, since he was no friend of yours. At least I assume he wasn’t. At least that’s what I understand so far. What was he, then?”
“Ex-military.”
“Mmmm. That explains a lot. Ex-military. But not the type that spent his time behind a desk. No, he was the operational type. Boots on the ground guy. And a murderer as well. The girl recognized his face. He killed Pieter Van Boer. Case closed. A murderer. Like the rest of the scum that was waiting for us on the highway. But I’m sure they were no friends of yours, Andreï. I’m very confident of that because they had guns, and you didn’t. But, you know, a judge won’t make that distinction. You were part of an armed assault against police officers, and that’s the same as carrying a gun.”
“They weren’t friends of mine.”
“Exactly. They all worked for Keretsky. Like you do. Well, there’s the catch. Keretsky is safe in Russia. Keretsky doesn’t have anything to do with common criminals. He’s a very nice man and completely clean. And when he comes back to Holland, there’s no reason for us to arrest him. Even the thought that we would want to arrest him would be ridiculous. He has a lot of friends, all in the right places, too. I can’t even blow my nose when he’s around for fear of getting suspended.”
Tarkovski said nothing.
“And so he’s untouchable, your big chief. But I’m not interested in Keretsky. What I’m interested in, Andreï, is the man who asked Keretsky to clean things up here in Amsterdam. Don’t tell me Keretsky is the man who gave the orders about Van Boer and Eileen and the list and everything else. There’s somebody else. And you know who I’m talking about, don’t you, Andreï?”
Tarkovski’s one good eye spoke whole chapters. He clearly didn’t like the direction this conversation was going, even if it wasn’t a conversation. This suited Eekhaut best. Tarkovski was beginning to feel the heat. Eekhaut would keep up his side of the conversation. Time is on my side, he thought. For this once, it was.
“You’re faithful to your boss, aren’t you, Andreï? Too bad your boss is in Russia and I can’t get to him. But you’re aware of all this. I’m not asking you to betray him. I want to know the name of the man behind the operation. Your operation, Andreï. The man so intent on recovering the list that Van Boer and others had to die.”
“You know very well who you’re talking about,” Tarkovski said.
“Help me refresh my memory, Andreï.” Eekhaut waited for a moment. Then he said, “I’ll make you a proposal. You tell me the name of the man in the background and sign a confession. And I make sure you’re out in a week or so, so you can return to Saint Petersburg or wherever you choose.”
Tarkovski inspected him intently. His one eye spoke of a longing for Russia, home, parents.
“Your parents will be happy to see you again,” Eekhaut said. “In good health and as a free man.”
Prinsen, against the wall by the door, didn’t react. He probably didn’t know what to make of this proposal and the unusual terms the Belgian was concocting. The proposal wouldn’t become reality, not in a hundred years. But that wasn’t his problem.
“You can guarantee that?” Tarkovski said. He was whispering now, as if he wanted only Eekhaut to hear him.
“I can.”
“Can I think this over?”
“No. The moment I get up and walk out of that door and somebody else takes my place, you will be questioned the rest of the day and night until you’re willing to confess to anything they can think of, but by that time the deal is off.”
Tarkovski hung his head.
“I want to go back to Saint Petersburg,” he said.
Eekhaut pushed a writing pad in his direction. “And now,” he said, “we’ll do this by the book. Go ahead, refresh my memory.”
56
PRINSEN WALKED OUT. ANOTHER detective took his place in the room with the young Russian. He didn’t know what to think of Eekhaut. Or perhaps he did. He knew exactly what to think of Eekhaut. The Belgian was mad. He was bonkers. Making promises to a suspect, knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep them—that was not supposed to happen. Not here, not in the Bureau. Here the game was played correctly. If you were a cop working the streets, you didn’t bother about the promises you made. Nobody expected you to keep them. But in this operation? This was the AIVD, and your opponents were of a special breed. Not the sort of people who take a broken promise lightly.
As for Tarkovski, he would soon have a top lawyer at his side, a Dutch lawyer of Russian descent, probably. And the man would get Tarkovski out of here, on bail, if he was any good.
Prinsen returned to his office and looked at Van Gils’s desk. The empty desk. Which would probably remain empty for a while.
His own desk wasn’t empty. New dossiers continued to pile up. New information, things he would have to read. Was this what he had in mind when he came to work here? When Aunt Alexandra asked him to join her department? How had that happened? A phone call, an invitation, a job description. Had it happened because he was brilliant or had his aunt selected him for personal reasons? But she hadn’t been interested in their blood ties. She wanted somebody to confide in.
It meant that he was here because she knew she couldn’t trust the rest of the team.
And these others were aware of the reasons behind her choice. Or at least they’d made assumptions.
And the Belgian had been brought in for nearly the same reason.
So he and Eekhaut had at least one thing in common.
57
“POLITICS IS YOUR PROBLEM,” Monet said furiously into his cell phone. He had been called away from a works council, where he’d wanted to bring down his wrath on the union representatives. He didn’t like meetings with the works council or the boards of any of his companies. And he surely didn’t like unions. Furtively, he glanced around. There was nobody in the vicinity. He could vent his frustration unhindered.
“I’m fed up with this bullshit, Kees,” he continued. “I see on the late news there’s been a battle—I have no other word for it—in a parking lot by the highway, and three people were killed. Bloody hell, Kees, in Holland! The press is all over this, blames it on organized crime, but you and I know what’s really going on. I didn’t order this! I didn’t sign on for a full-fledged war with the AIVD or whatever. This was that young Russian’s idea, Andreï, whatever his name is. He had to go all out on this and bring in an armored brigade …”
“We’re not sure if this is connected to Andreï, Mr. Monet,” Kees Vanheul said. “We don’t have any details yet. Tarkovski was supposed to arrange matters in connection with—you know what—but that was all he had to do. Make sure the thing was settled.”
Vanheul sounded frightened. Good, Monet thought. I hope you shit your pants, Vanheul. That will teach you to think twice before calling me again on an open line.
But Vanheul had plenty of reasons to sound scared. Calling Monet and talking openly about the matter was one of them. They both knew their calls could be monitored. But he was sure the likelihood was slight. Any demand for a tap had to pass through the office of the prosecutor, and Vanheul had his man in that office. He would know if his own phone or Monet’s had been tapped.
At least, he hoped.
And they hadn’t implicated themselves anyway.
He hoped.
But Monet didn’t seem to care who was listening in. He said, “Let me spell this out as clearly as possible for you, Vanheul. The list is now out of our reach, as long as it’s in the hands of the AIVD.
And I don’t trust those people. I’d like to have them taken off the investigation and have it in the hands of people who are more … sympathetic to us. But that’s not going to happen. My political enemies have given special privileges to Dewaal and her Bureau, and they’re out of control. Your politicians need to do something about that. Why can’t they? Why not limit the power of the whole AIVD? Do we live in a police state or what?”
“The AIVD is directly accountable to the department of justice and to the minister. There’s no way to change that.”
“Then why don’t you call people in that department? Why did you call me? Doesn’t Hendrika still have connections? It’s her former ministry, isn’t it? Oh, I know what her problem is. She’s more interested in her current political career. She wants to concentrate on her supporters. As if that will help her save her career when the list goes public.”
“That won’t happen, Mr. Monet.”
“I sincerely hope not, Kees. Because if that happens and I get implicated, a lot of other very nasty things will suddenly surface. I want you to understand that. I want Van Tillo and the Party to understand that. It’s time to stop this, Kees. Make that list disappear.”
“I can assure you that this is exactly what we all want.”
Monet broke the connection. The day when you and the witch you work for disappear from the face of the earth, I’ll be truly happy. He hated Van Tillo. Giving her and her party money had been a good investment, nothing more. He occasionally needed her support, back when she was minister, and even now. He needed export licenses that were sometimes hard to come by, especially for products that were on somebody’s blacklist. And he occasionally needed work permits for what he officially called “foreign nationals.”
Having a few politicians around always proved handy. How had Holland become rich? Because entrepreneurs had been given a free hand to do what they did best: trade. That’s what it had done in centuries past. These days, unions were making up the rules. Always demanding higher wages, which meant companies could no longer compete with foreign rivals. He was against a guaranteed minimum wage, as he was against the whole idea of unconditional basic income. Where was the sense in that? Giving people money to do nothing? What society had ever done that before? And why was this country giving free rein to drugs and pornography? Society needed rules, his rules. Those of Van Tillo and her ilk.
58
“THE COMMISSION OF INTERNAL Affairs will suspend you for this,” Dewaal said. She looked unhappy.
“The Commission of Internal Affairs can get buggered, or whatever it is you say here in the north,” Eekhaut said. “This is a signed confession by Andreï Tarkovski, in English—or at least in his personal version of English—accusing Dirk Benedict Monet of conspiracy to commit murder. What’s going to be the problem? This Monet fellow too big for you?”
“Big enough. If we take him on, the newspapers are going to have a field day. But will I get the prosecutor to sign a warrant for his arrest? Based on this confession, by a Russian without any credibility? And I’m not even mentioning the way the confession was obtained. So really, no, I don’t think I’ll get my warrant.”
“It’s a confession, boss. It doesn’t say how it was obtained. This is about murder. Several murders and conspiracy to commit a kidnapping. And illegal political financing. And connection to criminal activities. If this doesn’t weigh enough for the prosecutor, what will?”
Dewaal leaned back in her chair. She had been angry, but that anger left her now. She calmly considered the situation. “Implicating Monet and Van Tillo,” she said. “Seems unlikely we can pull this off, but it is not impossible.”
“Of course it’s not impossible. But Monet first. We bring him in first, and we find the link to Van Tillo afterward. Soon enough.”
She sat upright again. “But there’s only Tarkovski’s confession, Walter. A suspect who himself has been part of the aforementioned criminal activities. Any lawyer worth his fee could reduce this case to kindling.”
“And so what? Monet gets his moment in the spotlight, he loses all public and private credibility, and—”
She pointed her finger at him. “No! We can’t do that. The political implications of this case go way beyond Monet. Do you think I care about Monet?”
“I know enough about police work to know politics always lurks around the corner.”
“You knew that before you led Tarkovski to this confession, Walter. And you got him to confess without his lawyer present. One deadly sin after another!”
“I didn’t force him to confess.”
“Oh, Jesus. Right! You made him a promise you knew wasn’t going to happen. He’ll go to prison, and you know that. What will you do? Help him escape and put him on a plane to Russia?”
“We’re the police, Alexandra. And they are scum. We owe them nothing. I’ll lie and I’ll steal if I have to, as long as I get the scum behind bars. And that includes Monet.”
“I’ll have you sent back to Brussels, Eekhaut!”
“You could have done that right away. From the first day. But then you’d have to fill out thirty-seven forms and sign them all. That takes a while. If they want me back.”
She calmed down. “Fine. You can stay. For a while. Let’s step back a minute and see what we have.”
“Not much. A confession, a motive.”
“Monet has no motive. He has no reason to have Van Boer killed.”
“His name is on the list.”
“Along with a few hundred other names, all indirectly implicated in this matter. They don’t want the list to become public either. Monet had no more motive than any of them. Have you seen the list? The names probably mean nothing to you, but there are a lot of midsize Dutch companies. And we can’t use the list anyway.”
“We can’t?”
“We have to give it back to Van Tillo. She has too much influence. And she wants our promise that no copies have been made.”
“So we lose exhibit A.”
“That’s right.”
“And Tarkovski’s testimony? What about that?”
“Not much value on its own. We send a few people to prison because of what happened on the highway, but they’re mere soldiers. They’ll do time and get paid for it. It really does look like your friend will to be on a plane back to Russia soon, but not because you promised him.”
“I wanted to keep him, actually. Started to like him. And that seemed mutual. I’m not going to let him walk just like that.”
“Can’t say I’m sympathetic, Walter. Keep that in mind when you mete out loyalties.”
“Still, it felt like we had a moment there, Alexandra, back there behind the car with bullets flying all around.”
“That’s exactly the sort of moment I’d prefer to avoid. Much as I want to avoid damage to my Bureau.”
“Does that mean some crimes go unpunished?”
She nodded, slowly. “Some crimes will always go unpunished.”
“Do I tell that to Eileen Calster?”
“You’ve said too much already to Eileen Calster. I suggest you keep your distance.”
She knew he was right, but she wasn’t going to admit it, he thought. “And what’s the story she tells her parents? About Pieter’s murderer, and the murder of her brother for no reason at all, only because some Russian psychopath was given free rein? That the psychopath, Parnow, killed their son because that’s the sort of thing he does? And we couldn’t catch him, and now he’s dead, and that’s the story Eileen will have to tell her parents?”
“That will do, Inspector! That will bloody well do! I can’t solve all the injustice in the world, and neither can you. Now leave me. I have a lot of work to do.”
It pleased him to hear she was using his rank again. The affection had been short-lived. Police matters took the upper hand.
The phone on her desk buzzed. She answered it and signaled to Eekhaut, who wanted to leave. “Send him to my office,” she said into the phone.
“What now?” Ee
khaut asked.
“Tarkovski’s lawyer is on his way. Stay for a minute.”
“Really? I’m not very good at handling lawyers. I can’t even stand to be in the same room as them. I certainly have no problem with lawyers defending victims. But otherwise—”
“In this case,” Dewaal said, “you’re going to conduct yourself like this man’s best friend. Because I need you to witness this conversation.”
“Oh,” he said.
“That’s right: oh!”
A knock on the door interrupted them. Eekhaut opened it. A man in his forties with a fashionable crewcut inspected both officers for a moment before entering the office. “Chief Superintendent Dewaal?” he asked Eekhaut, who made a slight head movement toward the real Dewaal, while enjoying the confusion.
“Oh, excuse me,” the man said. “My name is Siegel. I’m a lawyer, and I assume my client, Mr. Tarkovski, is in one of your cells?”
Dewaal shook his hand. She didn’t ask him to sit down, indicating the conversation would be brief and to the point. “Interrogation room, actually. We hardly use those cells. Criminals go straight away to Amsterdam CID or prison. But we have Mr. Tarkovski as our guest, on account of some details we wanted to straighten out.”
“And what is he accused of?”
“You know very well what he is accused of, counselor. The prosecutor must have talked you through this. Murder, possession of a firearm without a license, conspiracy to commit an abduction, conspiracy to commit murder, resisting arrest, attempted manslaughter of a police officer. Quite a busy bee, your man.”
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