by David Hewson
‘My word . . .’
He stopped. The fat man opposite had leaned back in his chair and was gazing at him, amused.
‘What do you want?’ Kuyper repeated.
‘Bring me your handler. Your boss. Someone who’s what they seem. Not a fool who can’t see his own shadow. If I hear it from him then we’ve something to talk about. Otherwise be gone. The arrangements are made. We’re fleeing, man. You understand why?’
He thought about how Mirjam Fransen would relish this opportunity. As always she’d want to raise the stakes.
‘If I bring in someone they’ll want Barbone. The network.’
The shrug again.
‘If it’s in my interest I’ll give you what you want . . .’ A brief smile. ‘That’s a lot. Believe me. He’s still here. Others of his men too.’
‘You said they had your family.’
Khaled’s big head went to one side, amused.
‘What’s that proverb of yours? Out of sight, out of mind. Sometimes a man has to look after himself. No one else. There’s nothing I can do to help them now.’
Henk Kuyper pulled out his phone. He hadn’t called Mirjam Fransen directly in years. So he had to look up the number. Then, in a couple of seconds, he was through.
Just a minute out of Centraal Hanna’s phone rang. He could hear the tinny trill all the way down the carriage. Set to maximum volume. What else?
Brief conversation. She was staring out of the window, watching the grey city go past.
Two big men marched down the carriage. Black leather jackets. Grim faces. Could have been anyone. But they were looking. Vos’s eyes stayed on the newspaper. They strode past Hanna, went down the stairs at the far end.
You, Vos thought and wondered how much use that information might be.
It was another five or six minutes to Sloterdijk. Then four more to Lelylaan. After that another seven minutes or so to Schiphol. Then the train set off on the longer sections of the journey, through Leiden on to the south.
He knew how he’d approach this problem. And when he knew that he’d a pretty good idea how they would too.
Hanna came off the phone, seemed lost in herself for a moment, then called him.
‘They want me to leave the money under the seat and get off at the next stop. There’s a train like this back into the city in ten minutes. Fifth carriage. They say I need to go upstairs and they’ll call me there if they’re happy with the money.’
Sloterdijk. Three minutes away now.
‘Vos?’
‘Do it,’ he said.
‘Is this for real?’
‘Let’s find out.’
The pickup pair could be off the train the moment it called at the next stop and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
‘If they screw me around . . .’
‘Hanna. This is their game right now. We have to play it.’
They’d worked this perfectly. Whoever was running the operation would have people on the ground at Lelylaan checking to see if there was a police presence at the station. They could pull out before the girl was free.
Except . . .
Trains.
Too public. They’d surely want to keep her hidden until they knew they could release her without getting caught.
If any of this was serious in the first place.
‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ she asked.
‘As much as ever. Leave them the money. Cross the platform and wait for the train. I’ll be a little way along from you.’
‘If they . . .’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I heard you the first time.’
Van der Berg was on his second sticky bun. Crumbs were piling up all over the table.
‘Maybe we should stick with the murder case here,’ she thought.
‘The commissaris wants us to hang around with our friends from AIVD. What the commissaris wants—’
‘He doesn’t get,’ Bakker broke in. ‘Didn’t you notice? Mirjam Fransen’s running things now.’
He beamed and wiped away some crumbs.
‘She certainly thinks so, doesn’t she?’
‘And Vos?’
Van der Berg wasn’t listening. He was looking down the alley. Fransen was off the phone, summoning her team. They were leaving Smits’s office.
‘Something’s happening,’ Bakker said.
‘Something’s always happening.’ Van der Berg finished the pastry then swigged the dregs of his coffee. ‘Just a question of whether it matters.’
He got up quickly from the table and glanced at her.
‘Are we going?’
Bakker snatched at her bag.
‘Where?’
The AIVD people had called for their vehicles. Two black Mercedes saloons and a grey van.
‘Where they take us,’ he said.
The train lumbered into Sloterdijk station. Hanna got up and left by the front staircase. All she had now was the small shoulder bag. With her brown coat, new hair, new glasses she might have been going to the office.
Vos took his paper and left by the back steps.
No sign of the men in black leather jackets. He walked forward, past Hanna, up the platform. Watched as the train pulled out.
They were there, retracing their steps to the upstairs carriage.
Money delivered.
Now, if this was for real, the prize.
Ten minutes to kill.
On another day, in different circumstances, he would have been running this as a full operation. Teams of officers quietly watching, in plain clothes, rail uniforms, from carriages, platforms and bridges. Waiting outside in cars.
All that was beyond him. He could blame AIVD. Bad luck. Circumstance. But Vos wasn’t that kind of man. Mainly he blamed himself.
Hanna Bublik found a bench seat and sat outside in the cold bright day. He leaned against a lamp post and waited.
Bang on time the massive intercity train pulled into the station, brakes squealing, coughing smoke from beneath its slowing wheels.
Barely a handful of people ready to get on. Only three came off.
Fifth carriage.
She went upstairs. He took the seat at the end. The train seemed almost empty.
Hanna’s phone rang.
‘Mrs Bublik,’ a voice said.
She blinked. It wasn’t Cem Yilmaz. Just the same words.
‘I left the money,’ she murmured.
‘I know.’
There was amusement in his voice.
‘I’ve done everything you asked,’ she pleaded.
‘I know that too.’
He was toying with her. Enjoying it.
‘Where’s my daughter?’ she asked.
No answer.
‘Where?’
Gagged and trapped it wasn’t easy to breathe inside the holdall. The thing was old and smelled of dust and mould. Natalya clutched her chest, lying on the thin blanket, still in the pink jacket that was getting filthier by the hour.
Sounds.
She tried to analyse them.
A car engine. No, bigger than that. A van perhaps. Muffled voices. A radio playing pop music. Roads. Bumpy. Slow to begin with, as if they were locked in city traffic. Then faster as they escaped the jams.
There was such a distance between her and the world now. She’d no longer any idea how many days had passed since those strange events when they went to see a man with a long white beard surrounded by strange, funny creatures with black faces who kept handing you spicy sweets from nets with long handles.
It might have been a dream. Or an odd nightmare, like the one with the monster. That seemed gone too. It was as if her life was winding down, shrinking into itself, intent on becoming nothing at all.
How long now?
Fifteen minutes. More. Then they came to a halt.
Metal doors clanked open. She heard a brisk breeze. The whine of a distant plane. Voices. Two men talking, low tones in a language she couldn’t follow.
It was
about her. Of that she was sure. Not that she knew how.
When they dragged out the bag she banged her head on something. A wheel arch maybe. It was hard. Hurt.
She whimpered.
‘Quiet!’ a man yelled in Dutch.
Natalya Bublik, eight years old, not afraid, just concerned, curious too, curled up more tightly inside the stinking holdall.
They were carrying her. Two men. The bag in their arms.
She wondered where.
Shaking and rattling back towards Centraal station. Other trains joining them as the lines converged.
‘Where?’ Hanna asked again.
‘Look around you,’ he said.
She did. An elderly woman. A teenager with a pair of earphones clamped round his skull. Vos in the corner, pretending not to see her.
‘For the love of God I gave you the money. Where?’
‘Little girls play games. Why shouldn’t we? Hide and seek. Good day, Mrs Bublik.’
She slammed her fist hard against the window. Vos was staring at her now.
Hanna marched over, told him what she’d heard.
‘Is he saying she’s on the train?’ she asked.
Head turning, one way, the other. People starting to look.
‘Where do I start?’
‘Hanna . . .’
He had his own phone out now. Pressing a button.
‘Not here,’ she muttered. ‘How big’s the train?’
‘Hanna . . .’ His hand was on her arm. She barely noticed. ‘I’ll have officers waiting in the station. We’ll go through every carriage. If Natalya’s here . . .’
‘If . . . ?’ Her bright eyes glared at him. ‘If . . . ?’
Such a short journey. They were slowing down already. The vast canopy of Centraal started to enfold them. Vos made a rapid call to control, got straight through to the station office. Told them to have a team waiting on the platform.
‘You never thought they’d let her go, did you?’ she snapped. ‘You think she’s dead.’
She was ready to storm off, one way or the other.
‘We’ll search the train,’ he said. ‘We’ll search the train. If we’re lucky—’
‘People like me don’t get lucky, Vos! Haven’t you noticed?’
The few passengers in the carriage shuffled down the stairs. Uniform officers milling around the grey platform as it appeared.
All the mundane activities of Centraal. Announcements. Farewells on the concourse. People lost and bored, some with the dead-eyed look of the reluctant traveller, others excited at the journey ahead.
‘We’ll find her,’ Vos said.
Bakker got into the van without asking and Van der Berg followed. She smiled at two stony-faced AIVD officers in the back.
Then they headed across the city, past Centraal station where blue lights were flashing on a line of patrol cars parked outside, on to a quiet cobbled street. She saw the name: Rapenburg. Looked at Van der Berg. He shrugged. This was new to him too, and the two AIVD men weren’t about to enlighten them.
They came to a halt outside a plain, pale brick terrace house. Still just the two black Mercedes and the van. Seven AIVD officers checking their weapons, earpieces in. Bakker and Van der Berg shuffling their feet trying to look inconspicuous.
Fransen pulled the team together behind the van, glared at the two police officers as if they didn’t matter, then briefed the group.
Short and to the point. Khaled was inside. The real one this time. He was with Henk Kuyper and ready to offer a deal. Negotiate safe passage for him from the incident in Leidseplein and the Bublik kidnapping. Then he’d give them the Barbone network on a plate.
‘Do you believe him?’ Bakker asked.
‘Doesn’t matter if I believe him or not,’ Fransen said. ‘He thinks we’re about to sit down for a nice polite conversation.’ She tapped the weapon of the tall, hatchet-faced AIVD officer next to her, failed to notice he didn’t like that. ‘He’s wrong.’
She glanced at each of her men in turn.
‘Ready?’
Van der Berg walked to the door. His finger hovered over the bell.
‘No,’ Fransen said. ‘We do this our way. I want an entrance.’
She looked at the tall officer, the one whose gun she’d stroked. Still missed the fact he clearly wasn’t impressed.
‘Take it down,’ she said.
And then the ram was smashing the door to pieces.
Ten minutes after the train had pulled into Centraal every carriage had been cleared. No young girls looking for their mother. No one who looked in the least suspicious.
Hanna Bublik had the air of defeat about her. Angry and final.
Vos stood with her by the platform. He’d checked with De Groot finally. Heard the news about Smits’s murder. Mirjam Fransen thought she had a lead. But it was to Barbone, not the kidnap. Nor was she offering any details, though Bakker and Van der Berg were along for the ride.
‘At least they’ve got something,’ the commissaris grumbled. ‘I’m sorry. It was worth a try.’
‘We haven’t finished . . .’
‘We’ve lost the girl, haven’t we?’ De Groot said in a soft and mournful tone. ‘I hate saying it. God knows—’
‘No,’ Vos interrupted. ‘You don’t know that. Neither do I . . .’
‘Pieter. I appreciate your concerns.’
‘This is about money, Frank. It has been ever since they handed Natalya over.’
Silence. De Groot was listening. Then he asked, ‘So?’
‘So you don’t destroy something of value. You realize . . .’
Bought and sold. Mother and daughter. Laura Bakker had said that and it was true.
‘You realize the value of your asset,’ Vos added.
De Groot made sympathetic noises, nothing more.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Vos told him and went back to Hanna Bublik.
She was crying. The way hard, brave women did. The tears stood in her eyes. She wiped them away with the sleeve of her new brown coat. Acted as if she should have been ashamed. Wouldn’t let them roll down her cheek.
‘You have to tell me, Hanna.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘The money. Where did the rest of it come from?’
She thought for a second then said, ‘A pimp. I said I’d work for him.’
‘Name?’
One moment’s hesitation then she said, ‘Cem Yilmaz. He’s—’
‘Turkish,’ Vos broke in. ‘Lives in Spooksteeg. Likes to pretend he’s legitimate.’
‘Isn’t he?’
This woman could spot a lie a mile off.
‘As far as I know,’ he replied.
‘I think he had someone break into my apartment and steal some of my things. He’s been trying to force me to work for him. I wondered . . .’
She closed her eyes, was in pain for a moment.
‘I wondered if it was him. If he maybe had her . . .’
‘Why? You have to be specific. If I’m to get a warrant . . .’
‘I don’t know! No good reason. I said no to him. Lots of times. He doesn’t like that. He . . .’
She unbuttoned the coat, dragged up her jumper, lifted the dressing and showed him the raw scar on her shoulder.
The initials in an odd script: CY.
Then pulled the sweater down again.
Marnixstraat had a small team that specialized in human trafficking. A bright, brave woman called Lotte de Jonge ran it. Vos called her, cut through the small talk, and asked if Yilmaz had any contact with people-smuggling organizations.
For a few seconds he heard nothing but the sound of a keyboard.
‘Just checking. To make sure. We’ve never even heard a whisper he’s got a trafficked girl on his books. He’s too smart to get involved directly.’
‘How about kidnapping?’
It was out of her area but she was on the system anyway. Nothing there she said.
He put Lotte de Jonge on hold and went back to Hanna.
Ran through what had happened between her and Yilmaz again. It was too flimsy to get any kind of warrant, even if there was time.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘What about his people? Who’ve you met?’
A shrug.
‘There’s an old creep who collects the rent. Jerry. I think he works for him.’
‘What’s his—’
‘I don’t know his name! He’s about a hundred years old.’
She was close to giving up. He couldn’t allow this.
‘A man like Yilmaz distances himself from anything dangerous. He’d use intermediaries. If you met him with someone. Anyone . . .’
‘He had a friend,’ she said and wiped her face with her sleeve. ‘More than a friend. They were wrestling.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Dmitri.’
‘I need more than Dmitri,’ Vos pleaded. ‘A last name.’
‘I don’t have a last name. He was Russian. I’m sure of it. He had these horrible tattoos.’
She fought to remember.
‘There was a pair of eyes on his stomach. A skull in a basket on his chest . . . A bleeding heart inside a triangle. That was across his back.’
He relayed that to the woman on the other end of the line.
‘Jesus,’ De Jonge said. ‘That sounds bad.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s Russian jail code. The skull means he’s killed someone. The eyes . . . he’s gay. The heart . . .’
The keyboard sounded as if it was working overtime.
‘The heart?’ he prompted.
‘Just checking. It means he’s a paedophile. I think I’ve got a match. Someone on the European system with those tattoos. Let me send you a photo.’
The picture was on the handset almost instantly. An obvious prison mugshot. Cyrillic writing underneath. Vos showed it to Hanna. She looked at it, nodded.
‘Who is he, Lotte?’ he asked.
‘As bad as they come. Dmitri Volkov. Thirty-seven. Male prostitute. We’ve intel he moves kids around for a few cells. Never been able to prove it, of course.’
Hanna was watching him. Aware something was happening.
‘Don’t suppose you know where Dmitri lives?’ Vos asked.
‘I can try to find out,’ she said.
A beep on Vos’s line. He looked at the incoming call. Switched to it.