by David Hewson
He was getting very nervous.
‘I know what you’re saying. If we caught anyone up to that kind of thing we’d throw them out. Hard enough making a living as it is what with the rent and stuff . . .’
‘Throw them out?’ she asked. ‘You’d call us, wouldn’t you?’
He laughed.
‘And in the meantime . . . what? We’re supposed to keep hold of them? Just the two of us? Be reasonable.’
Vos pulled up another photo on his phone: Rob Sanders.
‘Seen the face.’
‘When?’
‘Er . . . recently. We don’t keep a guestbook you know.’
‘I want your CCTV. Last Tuesday.’ Vos nodded at the computer. ‘We’ll wait.’
‘What?’
‘We know for a fact one young woman was doped here on Tuesday night,’ Bakker said, pulling a memory stick from her pocket and waving it in his face. ‘So put the CCTV on here. Unless you think we should go back through all the date rape complaints we’ve had from De Pijp over the last year. See how many of them happened to stop by too.’
‘It’s not that kind of place! We’re just a bar, for God’s sake.’
She pointed at the computer.
‘Give us the video.’
‘I can’t. We don’t have CCTV. People come here to enjoy themselves. We’re not going to spy on them.’ He curled a lip. ‘We’ll leave that to you people.’
Vos flipped him a card and said to contact him if he or his brother thought of anything else he might want to hear.
They walked back into the bar. Vos looked up at the board on the wall and asked her what she wanted. She got the idea. They weren’t welcome. That meant they were going to stay.
Back behind the counter De Vogel groaned.
A virgin margarita for her, a cocktail with old tequila for him. They paid, almost twenty euros, no tip, then found two tiny stools by the window and placed their drinks on the ledge.
‘Don’t think Commissaris Chandra would approve,’ Bakker said, then took a sip.
‘Perhaps not,’ he agreed, unable to take his eyes off the green doors of Schrijver’s shop down the street. ‘Don’t you have something to do this evening? Washing? I don’t know.’
She put down the glass and stared at him.
‘I’m not leaving you here on your own. Don’t think that for a moment.’
The cocktail was good. Another night he might have two.
The van route round the city, dropping flowers for hotels and corporates, picking up more stock from the wholesaler, seemed to take forever. Bert Schrijver’s mind was working overtime and getting nowhere in the end.
It was always the same. He wanted to do something. To help. To make things better, for Annie and for Nina too. But knowing what the right thing was never came easy. All too often when he thought he was there the world turned and he realized all he had hold of was the familiar feel of failure.
Just do nothing, Bert. Make your life easy.
That’s what his father used to say with a sarcastic sneer whenever he saw his son in agony over some decision. Schrijver would never have plucked up the courage to ask Nina out in the first place if the old man hadn’t nagged him so much. That awkward, embarrassed courtship. The pregnancy. The marriage. Annie. Everything just happened, was never planned.
He turned into the parallel street at the back of the market and parked outside the rear doors. The photographers were gone. But Nina was there looking furious and with her a grim-faced Jordi Hoogland.
‘Shit,’ Schrijver muttered as he got out of the van.
Without waiting to hear what they had to say he walked through the storeroom, across the courtyard out towards the street. The doors were closed already. Just behind them, waiting to be stowed, was a line of buckets still full of flowers.
‘Where’s Adnan?’ he asked as the other two turned up.
Hoogland sucked in a quick breath and caught his eye.
‘We had to shut it up ourselves, Bert. I tried to tell you. He was a quick fix the day we needed someone. You can’t trust those sly bastards. I never meant—’
‘Where is he?’
‘Apparently he’s done a runner,’ Nina said, nodding at Hoogland. ‘With the day’s takings. Over a thousand euros if the stock’s anything to go by.’
And for Monday I’ve got a bigger order than ever, Schrijver thought. Bought only because the Syrian was shifting so much stuff.
‘I don’t get it. Adnan seemed a decent kid. I yelled at him a bit earlier. Caught me at the wrong time.’
‘He saw his chance and took it,’ Hoogland said. ‘They’re all like that. Steal the shirt from your back while you’re trying to help them.’
Schrijver started to pick up the half-empty buckets of flowers and drag them back into the storeroom. Nina came to help. Then Hoogland too.
‘He seemed a real nice lad,’ Schrijver said again. ‘If you don’t trust anyone . . .’
‘That’s you,’ Hoogland told him. ‘Decent. Honest. Generous. Just the sort they go for. I’m gutted I ever found the little sod.’
‘Not your fault,’ Schrijver murmured. He looked at Nina. ‘How’s Annie?’
‘She’s having a drink with a couple of her market mates round the corner in the square. I thought it would be good for her. Didn’t want her in that Mariposa place.’
He couldn’t believe it.
‘She’d go back there? After all that’s happened?’
The look came then. The one that said: You really don’t understand a thing, do you?
‘This is where she’s from. You can’t expect her to run and hide. Not in her nature.’
Jesus, he thought. The young. They brought it on themselves.
‘You need to tell the police about that Syrian,’ she said.
‘No.’
She lugged in the last of the roses, put her hands on her hips and stared at him, open-mouthed.
‘What?’
‘I said no. Those poor bastards have been through enough already. Put me in their shoes I’d nick the clothes off your back if I had to. He’s got family. They looked lovely. I’m not having him going to jail and them homeless. Got enough on my conscience without that.’
Hoogland nodded.
‘Police wouldn’t do a damned thing anyway. Except give him more of our money to live off. Don’t know where he’s staying either.’
That didn’t ring true.
‘How can I have him on the books if he doesn’t have an address, Jordi? I know you’re always running jobs for cash. But you said he had the documents—’
‘Yeah. Like he told me. But I didn’t check. Did you? And let’s face it . . . if we knew how to find him he wouldn’t be running off with all your cash like that, would he?’ He balled a big fist. It looked bruised and bloody already. ‘Want me to look? I’ll get it back. Let him know he can’t pull those tricks round here.’
Nina shook her head and said she was going home. Before she set off she looked hard at Schrijver and said, ‘We’ve got enough on our plate without your mate going round beating up thieving foreigners. Haven’t we?’
‘Always a wise woman,’ Hoogland replied with a sarcastic salute.
When Nina left, the two men tidied away the spent flowers and put them in the recycling bins. Another week over. No money made. Schrijver felt bad about that. Adnan looked a bright lad and he wished he hadn’t bawled him out. That temper was costly sometimes. Now it had left him back in the hands of Jordi Hoogland, with his stupid hair and ridiculous leather clothes.
He went and turned off the lights in the office then closed the door to Annie’s room, wondering when it would get used again. Maybe he ought to give the whole thing to the Chinese woman and let her decide.
Hoogland was shuffling about in his big boots, awkward for once.
‘I feel really bad about this, Bert. I was the one who brought that little shit in here.’
Schrijver thought he’d check the books later. Perhaps there was an add
ress. He could go round, stay calm, try to reason with him. But Hoogland was right. If it was real, he wouldn’t have walked off with the money.
‘Shut up, will you? I was the one who asked you to find someone.’
Hoogland pulled a wad of notes out of his pocket. A big load.
‘Water under the bridge. I did well out of here. Went down the docks and did a night shift. Bit of toing and froing round the market. Bloody hard work. Happier with you.’
Schrijver said nothing. He was looking at the notes.
A nervous tug at the ponytail then, ‘Anyway, Bert. How about we pretend we’re young again? You and me go out and blow this lot getting shit-faced. Do you a power of good to wake up tomorrow with a stinking hangover. Take your mind off things.’
Schrijver reached out and extracted the fifty dollar bill from the middle of Hoogland’s wad. Then waved it in his face.
‘Wonder where that came from?’ Hoogland said, stashing the rest. ‘Some sod must have . . .’
They’d never fought before though sometimes it had been close.
Schrijver swiped him with the back of his right hand. Then when Hoogland was still reeling from the shock he punched him hard, straight in the face, blood coming from the man’s nose as he fell back towards the plastic buckets and trays they used for the flowers.
A minute it must have lasted. Less maybe. Had Schrijver thought about it he might have been worried but all the anger and the pain inside came out and Jordi Hoogland was unfortunate enough to bear the brunt of it.
He stopped the blows when they were amidst the upturned buckets, Hoogland’s hands upturned. Surrender and it wasn’t half the fight Schrijver had expected.
‘What the fuck have you done, Jordi?’
Hoogland’s right eye was swollen, closing.
‘A favour for you. A big one. Here.’ He took out the wad of notes and dropped them next to a bunch of expiring tulips. ‘Have the bloody money. That’s not why I did it. Don’t even want any.’
Still no straight answer.
‘Did what?’
‘Did what was needed. Punched that little scumbag’s lights out. Taught him a lesson. What his place is here. Not running round like he owns you. Like he’s got a better idea how to run this shop than us.’
There it was again.
‘Us? You’re not part of this. You never were. I only gave you work because you were there. I felt sorry for you. Don’t you even get that?’
Hoogland struggled out from underneath him, wiping his bloody face with the sleeve of his torn and tattered leather jacket.
‘What I get is you’re a loser, Bert. Always were. Always will be. Biggest I ever met. You lost Nina. You lost Annie. And now you’re going to lose this place your old man left you . . .’
Schrijver’s fist came back and it was all he could do not to hit him again.
‘Get out. Don’t come back. Don’t ever come near me or mine, or anyone who works here, again.’
The man in leather made the yapping sign with his fingers and said, ‘Yeah, yeah.’
Schrijver dragged him by the arm across the courtyard, pulled the shop doors to one side and held them open.
‘They put you inside for beating up immigrants,’ he said. ‘Worse than picking on your own. Should be too. Coward’s way. For pity’s sake he was half your size and if—’
‘Oh.’ Hoogland was swiping his nose again and laughing. ‘Like you care? Like it matters what Bert Schrijver, the biggest clown in the Albert Cuyp, thinks about a bloody thing? Don’t kid yourself, mate. We all know what you are. The only one who doesn’t is you.’
‘Get out.’
Hoogland was staring at him, grinning through the blood.
‘You really are the dumbest, Bert. Don’t have two brain cells to rub together.’
‘If you don’t want me to kick your arse again just fuck off out of here and don’t come back.’
Again the grin. Hoogland nodded towards the door to Annie’s room, the partitioned storage area, flimsy wooden wall around it, windows at the top. He walked over and picked up one of the flower pallets, placed it by the door, turned it over and stood on it. Schrijver could see now. When Hoogland did that he could peer through the narrow window at the top.
‘Not a clue what that girl of yours gets up to while you’re out running orders round the place. Just me here having to watch her. And listen.’
He grabbed Hoogland by the grubby collar of his leather jacket and pulled him off the box. Still the market man couldn’t stop laughing.
‘Big dumb Bert Schrijver. Everybody’s fool. Maybe you should ask her.’
A couple of punches, faint, weak sorry ones. He got Hoogland to the door and kicked him outside. The street was half-empty. Lines of the young were walking along the pavement, headed for the Albert Cuyp nightlife, something that didn’t even exist when he was their age.
Then, hurrying from the short road that led to the square on Gerard Doustraat, he saw her. She looked as if she’d been crying as she walked down the market with that fierce, determined gait she had.
‘Annie!’ he yelled.
Bakker saw him first. A shambling, slumped figure, head down, hood up, sidling nervously towards the Schrijver place. He had something in his hand.
She nudged Vos’s elbow so hard the expensive cocktail spilled down the front of his jacket.
‘Laura—’
A long finger, pointing.
‘That’s Rob Sanders over there.’
The figure across the road stopped by a Vietnamese noodle shop, phone to his ear, looking as if he was checking out the menu. Not convincing.
By the time Vos called control Bakker was outside by the door, leaning on the frame, telling a hipster with a glass of fruit drink that looked positively botanical exactly what she’d do if he didn’t stop blocking the view.
The call must have gone out instantly to a car in the vicinity. From somewhere back in the main drag leading up to the Heineken Experience and the Singelgracht came the rise and fall of a familiar wail. Sanders twitched, dragged his hood around his head more tightly and looked around.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Vos moaned. ‘A siren?’
Bakker was scanning the street.
‘Our friend Rob’s not alone,’ she said and pointed.
A hundred metres along Annie Schrijver was marching towards him.
Bakker had started to move when Vos put out a hand stop her.
‘We walk,’ he mouthed, and walk they did. Steadily, keen not to alarm anyone. To begin with anyway.
Then a marked police car came screeching round the corner, sliding on the greasy asphalt, lights flashing, klaxon blaring.
Vos and Bakker ran out into the road, dodging the sweepers and the piles of trash.
There was a shout. A loud, aggressive male voice. Bert Schrijver yelling his daughter’s name over and over.
‘Too late,’ Bakker muttered and in that moment the hooded man began to run. Straight away she was after him, red hair flying behind her, elbows working, legs pumping. She followed as Sanders raced south, pushing through the growing night crowds.
Vos tried to keep up. So did Annie Schrijver. But Sanders was too quick and so was Bakker. In a few moments the chase was joined by the two young uniforms from the car. Soon they were out of the market altogether, headed towards Sarphatipark, a patch of green in the midst of De Pijp’s crowded streets and alleys.
At the end of the road, by the iron railings that marked the park edge, another police car pulled up, two more uniforms leaping out. Closing in they followed the fleeing figure, faster even than Bakker as the hunt led down the winding path into the heart of the tiny oasis, a place for lovers and dog walkers, the odd bum stopping for a smoke.
By the time Vos and Annie Schrijver got there, exhausted and out of breath, the four uniforms were circling their target in front of an elegant monument surrounded by fountains. The waters rose and fell. The tulips around them had seen better days. The uniforms were nervous, twitchi
ng, uncertain about what to do. Bert Schrijver turned up and put his strong arms around his struggling daughter.
Vos stopped, short of breath, then watched as the officers pounced, one taking Sanders down to the pavement, knee in the back, the other seizing his arms, getting out the cuffs.
Annie Schrijver flew from her father’s grip, trying to get to the man on the ground. Vos just managed to get hold of her and keep her back.
‘What is this?’ she yelled, at Sanders, no one else, voice breaking, furious. ‘What is it now, Rob?’ Something flew from her hand. A phone, landing on the ground in front of the fountain wall. ‘You say you want to talk—’
‘And then you call the police,’ Sanders yelled back, trussed now, incapacitated. ‘Thanks for that.’
Vos stepped between them and said, ‘We were here anyway. Looking for you. Annie never knew. It was just luck. Bad or otherwise—’
‘Bullshit!’
She was crying. Sanders couldn’t look at her.
‘It’s not bullshit,’ Vos insisted. ‘It’s true. Not a word I can use about much at the moment. Unfortunately.’
Annie Schrijver stared at him, angry tears in an angry face, no words left.
Her father came up and tried to pull her away. Bakker was onto control telling them Sanders was coming into custody.
‘Annie . . .’ Schrijver begged, trying to pull her away.
‘You don’t get it,’ she muttered. ‘None of you.’
‘No,’ Vos agreed. ‘We don’t. We can’t. Not until you tell us.’
She glared at him and there was that familiar, uncompromising look in her eyes he knew so well. The one that said: You’re police and we don’t trust you. Because you refuse to understand. You won’t believe a word we say.
‘Who are you to talk?’ she snapped. ‘That lawyer says you fooled me into making an idiot of myself in public. She’ll take you to the cleaners for that. If you want to speak to anyone, speak to her.’
Then she shook herself free of her father, turned on her heels and walked away, past the dying tulips, past the locals watching puzzled and shocked at this sudden intrusion into their peaceful little world.
With a long and miserable face, Bert Schrijver followed, trying to catch up with her. There were more marked police cars turning up at the park entrance. Soon the place would be swarming with uniforms.