by David Hewson
‘If he’s serious he’ll be back with it before the day’s out. If he isn’t . . . this is about something else. I don’t—’
‘Jesus Christ!’ she shrieked. ‘Are you under the illusion this is a discussion or something? I told you. I ordered you. Tell Bijlmerbajes to take him to this damned appointment. When that’s done put him in the smallest, nastiest cell you can find and keep him there until he talks.’
Behind the wheel Bakker had heard the shrill voice rising from Vos’s handset.
‘I caution against that, Commissaris,’ Vos said.
‘Your caution’s noted. Just do it.’
‘We need to interview Annie Schrijver again. Properly this time.’
‘Is this a bad line or something? Did you hear me?’
He turned to Bakker and asked her to call Marly Kloosterman and tell her Commissaris Chandra had decided to comply with De Graaf’s request. Transport and an appointment needed to be arranged as soon as possible. Vos put his hand over the phone so Chandra couldn’t hear her caustic response.
‘Best do it outside,’ he said and waited until she’d climbed out of the car. ‘Yes, Commissaris. I heard. Annie Schrijver . . .’
‘You can’t interview her right now,’ she said and told him why.
He was speechless.
‘If she’s on TV making a personal appeal perhaps that will loosen a few tongues,’ she went on. ‘More than I ever will.’
‘We don’t identify rape victims.’
‘No we don’t. But they can identify themselves. She’s going public out of a sense of duty. Brave girl.’
‘I cau—’
‘Yes, yes, you caution against it. Let me remind you. We’ve got a killer out there. For all we know we’ll be facing up to another dead girl, another tattoo tomorrow.’
But only if she wakes, he thought.
Bakker was having a difficult conversation. He waved at her to wait until he could take over the call.
‘The media will crucify me over this if I’m not careful,’ Chandra added.
The words just came out.
‘But not if they’re drooling over an interview with a rape victim.’
There was a long deep breath on the line.
‘You know, Vos, I’ve been very patient with you. Right down to the damned dog. But I have my limits. Get that name out of De Graaf. Then find the bastard. You’ve got time before that happens. What do you intend to do?’
He’d worked that out already.
‘Braat was fired from the butterfly house at Artis. Someone led me to that party next door to the zoo on Tuesday night. We’ll stop there on the way back. Maybe there’s a link.’
‘You’re chasing butterflies?’
‘Unless you’d like us somewhere else.’
‘Happy hunting,’ Chandra told him and was gone.
He got out of the car and took the phone from Bakker as she mouthed at him, ‘Your friend wants a word.’
Marly Kloosterman sounded disappointed.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said when Vos took the phone. ‘I thought you were waiting to get a name . . .’
‘I thought so too. I’ve been . . . overruled. Commissaris Chandra has decided. Her mind’s made up and it’s not the sort you change. How quickly can you arrange it?’
‘The clinic will see him at the drop of a hat if he’s got the money. And he has.’
‘Try and arrange it for this afternoon. When he gets back we’ll talk to him.’
‘One condition,’ she added.
Nothing was ever easy.
‘Which is?’
‘I want you to come round to see my new houseboat. We can have a glass of wine on the deck. You can give me a few tips. It’s your fault I bought the damned thing.’
Bakker had her arms folded and was watching him.
‘My fault?’
‘Yes. You and your little dog. You always looked so snug in that place of yours. I guess that’s why I never got invited back. I was intruding.’
It all began the Christmas before. A party, police and prison staff, and suddenly, he realized, she was interested in him. A beautiful winter evening, frost on the pavement outside the Drie Vaten. He’d started a little coal fire in the barge burner. Then, the next morning, found the idea of closeness, of ties and the demands of another, too daunting to face.
A few difficult conversations had followed. After that nothing but a handful of meetings in the course of work, uncomfortable for him though Marly Kloosterman dealt with them gently, as if she understood.
‘I’d like that,’ he said. ‘I’ll try and do better this time round.’
‘Me too. Sorry if I was a bit needy.’
He didn’t remember her being needy at all.
The woman from the TV was called Lucie Helmink. She was one of the anchors for the nightly news, a station veteran of everything from chat shows to war zones, forty-seven though she dressed younger and, on the screen, looked it too. Den Hartog had worked with her before. It was often rewarding but never easy.
Now she stood with her crew in the hospital corridor, arguing about the way the transmission was going to be handled. Helmink had talked to the station about running it live in the next newscast. Den Hartog was adamant that wasn’t going to happen.
‘Why not?’ she asked, arms folded, eyes fixed on his.
Inside the room a make-up artist was working on Annie Schrijver, brushing her hair, trying to hide the blue streak, using powder to put some colour in her cheeks. A production assistant was bringing in bouquets of flowers to set around the room. The lights were ready, the cameras. Helmink said she was confident she could play this whole interview by ear, improvising questions as Annie Schrijver began to talk.
‘Because there’s a criminal investigation in train,’ Den Hartog said wearily. ‘If you go live there may be something she says we don’t want out there.’
‘And yet your new commissaris told us this morning this was all done and dusted? You’d got the guy?’ She leaned forward and tapped a bright red fingernail against the lapel of his grey suit. ‘Dead. If there’s no trial coming there’s nothing we can prejudice.’
‘Situations change,’ was all he said.
‘Not for me. Live broadcast’s got impact. We can key it into the news.’
Den Hartog looked at his watch.
‘Lucie, please. I can still throw you out of here and get in someone else.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Don’t test me. I’m not asking you to hold off for long. Just give us the chance to take out anything we don’t want out there.’
He was always surprised by how the TV people looked close up. All the hard glamour and star quality the screen gave them was gone. What was left was a tough, determined mask, seeking one thing only: ratings, a story that beat all the others. A win.
‘The longer I hold this back the more we’ll have to run with the package we did this morning with Chandra.’
Smart woman. She’d guessed the situation.
‘How long to edit the interview before you let it go?’ he asked.
‘Fifteen minutes. We can do it in the van here.’
‘Thirty,’ he insisted. ‘I may have to check some things with Commissaris Chandra first.’
‘Agreed,’ Lucie Helmink muttered then walked into the room.
The crew had put baffles over some of the medical equipment to deaden the noise, though it looked as if most of it was no longer connected anyway. Annie Schrijver was still under the hands of the make-up woman. Helmink stood back, stared at her and tut-tutted.
‘What’s wrong?’ Den Hartog asked.
‘She’s supposed to look sick. Like someone who’s just been through hell.’ A scowl then, a glance around the room. ‘Not some nightclub chick with nothing more than a hangover.’
Helmink told the make-up woman to stop.
‘Not finished,’ she objected. ‘The lights . . .’
‘You’re done. Leave it.’
An
nie Schrijver sat upright in the bed. She wore a hospital gown covered with a blue diamond pattern. There was a single line in her arm. An attractive young woman but exhausted, scared, confused. Den Hartog had prepared the way for the interview, through a long, persuasive discussion with her alone. Now she was Helmink’s.
‘You’re very brave, sweetheart,’ the TV woman said, pulling up a chair by the bed. ‘People will be saying that tonight. Not everyone has this kind of courage.’
‘Maybe I don’t.’
She had a flat, weak voice.
‘But you do. I can tell. Believe me. I’ve worked everywhere. Libya. Syria. Places you wouldn’t believe. I know what courage looks like. You’ve got it.’
‘I don’t know if I want to—’
Helmink began barking instructions at the crew. The cameraman was checking the lights. Ready to go. Everything was in motion.
‘No need to go into details,’ Den Hartog cut in. ‘We wouldn’t want them anyway. All you have to do is run through what we said. You went out for the night. Someone spiked your drink. That one little slip and . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Say what we agreed. You want women like you to be careful. To know the cost if they’re not. That’s all.’
She sat up in bed and ran a hand through her hair. It was so clean, so carefully brushed it looked wrong.
‘My mum’s OK with this?’ she asked. ‘Dad too?’
Helmink glanced at Den Hartog, a look that said: Your question, not mine.
‘They’re behind you every step of the way,’ he told her.
‘So why aren’t they here?’
‘Soon,’ he said. ‘Can’t have too many people in the room. Just say it in your own words. How women like you need to avoid getting into the same . . .’
He was hunting for the right word when she cut in bitterly, ‘Mess. Same stupid fuck-up as I did, you mean?’
‘No language, darling,’ Helmink warned her. ‘Looks awful if we have to bleep things out. Please. We want sympathy here. You are a victim after all.’
She didn’t get a response to that. So Lucie Helmink looked at the crew, the camera, smiled, checked her face in a mirror by the bed, grinning to make sure her teeth were OK.
‘Let’s get this started,’ she said. ‘We don’t have all day.’
There were rules about prison transport but they didn’t apply to a dying man. Two nurses and a private ambulance were all that would be needed to ferry Vincent de Graaf to and from the private clinic in the Zuidas. The place was ready to make an appointment that afternoon once they knew they could name their price. Within an hour he’d be out of Bijlmerbajes. A visit to a consultant, perhaps another two hours for scans. Then back to meet his end of the bargain.
Marly Kloosterman stayed in the room as he struggled into outside clothes: baggy khaki chinos, loose white shirt, bright blue nautical sweater, all from the time he was brought into the medical wing from the sex offenders’ block.
‘You might at least give a man some privacy,’ he grumbled, fighting with the zips, the buttons, the effort.
‘I’m your physician while you’re here. It would be remiss of me to leave you to your own devices.’ She watched him sweating as he tried to pull the sweater over the scraps of grey hair on his shiny bald head. ‘I can help if you want.’
‘No,’ he said with a quick savagery. ‘I don’t need help from the likes of you. Every minute I’ve been here you’ve enjoyed watching me. Every second.’
She sighed and took a seat.
‘That’s very unfair, Vincent. It’s part of my job. As far as I’m concerned you’ve received the best treatment money could buy. If you feel otherwise I can find the complaints forms. Let you file—’
‘As if they’d listen to me.’
‘Oh, we all listen to you. Don’t have much choice, do we? Given you whine every minute of the day.’
‘When do I go?’
A glance at her watch and she said, ‘Presently.’
He got the sweater over his chest and struggled to pull it down, panting with the effort. Exhausted, he sat down on the bed, trying to get back his breath.
When he finally managed it he glared at her and said, ‘I hate to spoil your fun, Dr Kloosterman, but you can leave me now. I’ll wait on my own.’
‘You mean you don’t want company?’
‘Not yours, thanks.’
‘Shame.’ She didn’t move. ‘When you get back . . . when Vos comes to meet you . . . what are you going to tell him exactly?’
He placed a skinny finger against his nose.
‘That’s between him and me.’
‘Not really, Vincent.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean if this is just a game . . . if you screw him around the way you’ve been screwing us ever since you set foot in this place . . . there will be consequences.’
He laughed and looked at himself. The machines, the lines, the medication by the bed.
‘What do you think I care for consequences?’
‘So you are going to give him a name?’
‘Definitely,’ he said, nodding his head. ‘On my life. Any more questions?’
‘Only one.’ She walked up, looked into his dim, glassy eyes. ‘Do you ever think about them? All those women. The ones you killed. It wasn’t just three, was it? We both know that. Then all the lives you ruined along the way. Women who never quite knew what happened to them. Only that it was disgusting and somehow you managed to make them feel it was down to them. Their fault. That they’re the ones to feel guilty and bear the blame.’
He scratched his neck, screwed up his face and said, ‘I hate to disappoint you but . . . no. Can’t say I do.’
‘Then why do we hear you screaming through the walls at night?’
He laughed.
‘Oh, that? Bad dreams. I keep having this nightmare that I’m trapped in some hellhole with a bitch of an ice maiden who takes enormous pleasure sticking needles in me day in and day out. Understandable in the circumstances.’
‘Very funny.’
He tried to sit more upright.
‘You know, Marly, ordinarily I wouldn’t consider a woman of your age. There’s nothing left to . . . spoil. But for you I’d happily make an exception.’ He glanced at his skinny frame. ‘Not personally you understand. But it could be arranged. Just ask—’
‘You’re not going to tell him a damned thing, are you?’
He hesitated for a second then said with a grin, ‘The appointment’s booked. Nothing you can do to stop it now. Vos is an unusual man, don’t you agree? He likes to see the best in people. Extraordinary if you think about it.’
She retreated to the door without a word then leaned on the bell. One of the male nurses came in pushing a hospital wheelchair. There were grey blankets folded neatly over the back and an oxygen kit on the seat.
‘We’ll let you know when it’s time to leave,’ she said on the way out. ‘If you disobey one word the nurses tell you they’re under orders to bring you back here instantly. No clinic. No appointment. No possibility of a rerun. Do I make myself clear?’
His right hand rose in a salute.
‘I promise not to run away, dear doctor,’ Vincent de Graaf said, then hobbled over, found the wheelchair, sat in it and closed his eyes.
Bakker had returned to the car, still upset at something. Vos asked what was wrong.
‘Is that what monsters look like?’
He’d called ahead to Artis and got through to the keeper of the butterfly collection. His name was Lucas Kramer. The man had grunted something inaudible when Vos mentioned Jef Braat then said he was happy to speak if they met him in the butterfly house. They were still dealing with problems in the stock records. Braat’s legacy from the sound of it.
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Monsters look like you and me. Like the person sitting next to you on a tram.’
‘The way he asked if I had a tattoo . . .’
‘Let it go. You’ll meet much worse.’
‘He
knew,’ she murmured.
‘Knew what?’
‘I do have one.’
Vos couldn’t think what to say. Laura Bakker was a conservative, level-headed woman, without the least concern for fashion. The last person he’d expect to get a tattoo.
‘None of my business,’ he said.
‘A boyfriend wanted me to do it. Something . . . personal between us. I just went along with it. Don’t know why.’ She shook her head and looked out of the window. ‘It’s like we’re conditioned. Programmed not to think. A man asks. A woman complies.’
‘We’ve all done something stupid when we’re young, Laura. You put it down to experience. Consign it to the distant past. Friesland. When you were a kid.’
She started up the Volvo and they set off back into the city. The events of Wednesday night remained sharp in his memory. There was surely something there he’d missed.
‘This isn’t the distant past. It happened six months ago,’ Bakker said. ‘Not in Friesland. Here.’
Vos sighed, looked at her, said, ‘Sorry.’
There was something in the way he did it that made her laugh.
‘No. I’m sorry. I’m being stupid. It’s just a little tattoo. A humming bird. No need to know where. What does it matter?’ They were on the long straight road to Artis. Not far from the impromptu party where the panda girl had dispatched him to Zorgvlied two nights before. ‘Marly Kloosterman really likes you. Were you two once . . . ?’
‘No. At least . . . not any more. Not ever really. I’m not good at all that. Never was.’
‘Relationships,’ she grumbled. ‘More trouble than they’re worth. You get pressured into feeling . . . if you don’t have one there’s something wrong with you. And there isn’t.’ She caught his eye. ‘Is there?’
Vos pointed out the lane by the canal that led to the staff gates into Artis. Marly Kloosterman’s new houseboat had to be nearby. He wondered what it was like. Whether she enjoyed living there on her own, a bright, lively woman, sociable in a way he’d never be. Divorced too and he couldn’t for the life of him imagine how any sane man could fail a woman like that so much he’d come to lose her.
He and Bakker never talked about their private lives. It was easy for him since he didn’t have one. The subject wasn’t off-limits.