by David Hewson
They followed him into the warehouse where the perfume of yesterday’s flowers mingled with the diesel from the elderly delivery van. He’d thought he might give a little speech but now it was upon him the words just weren’t there. Instead he found a set of keys and unlocked the dusty cabinet where he’d put Annie’s belongings one by one as she’d abandoned them over the years.
It was worth it for the look on the little girl’s face alone: joy, bemusement, shock. Annie too as Lia pounced upon the piles there, books and boxes of games, Lego and crayons, fur animals and a plastic pirate ship. Even a few dolls, not that Annie had ever liked them much.
Lia picked up a battered rag tiger and clutched it to her chest, beaming. Annie sat down next to her on the cold grey floor, cross-legged the way she did when she was a kid, and started sorting through the collection in the cupboard. Soon they were both at it.
Adnan and his wife came and watched, embarrassed. But grateful too. Then Nina joined them.
‘We don’t need this, Bert,’ he said after a while. ‘It’s kind but—’
‘We’ve no use for all this stuff,’ Nina broke in. ‘I’d forgotten it was even there. Annie too from the look of it.’
Bert Schrijver recalled a fragment of what he’d wanted to say.
‘I always used to think happiness was about what you got for yourself. That’s rubbish. For fools. Really it’s about what you give away.’
Annie was brushing tears from her eyes again. She got up from the floor, patted Lia on the arm and told her very sweetly to take anything she wanted. Then went back into the courtyard, phone in hand.
‘I have a suggestion for you and Mariam,’ Schrijver added. ‘Been thinking about it a lot ever since last night.’
The three of them waited. Their attention made him feel good. He wouldn’t hit the booze even if this whole pipe dream fell to pieces.
‘The truth is this place is on its last legs. If I don’t do anything about it, I’ll be bust by Christmas. This ship is heading for the rocks and for the life of me I don’t know how to turn it round.’ He smiled at Adnan. ‘Maybe you do. Maybe between us we can work something out.’ He nodded back towards the shop. ‘Annie isn’t using that room any more. I don’t believe she’ll ever come back. It’s not big but it’s better than what you’ve got. You move in there . . .’
‘Bert,’ Adnan said. ‘We don’t have money for rent. We don’t have much at all—’
‘I don’t want money.’ Schrijver tapped him gently on the side of the head. ‘I want what’s in there. You’re bright. You’re keen. Got ideas. And Mariam.’
That was the other part.
‘You can cook. You ran a stall, didn’t you?’
‘In Aleppo,’ she agreed.
‘It’s food. Good food. Different food, the kind no one else does round here. All that new crowd, they like stuff that’s different. They pay loads for a lot worse than you just ran up for next to nothing.’
Nina was nodding. She was quick too. She could see it.
‘Bert’s right. The flower stall could be half the size it is. We can put flowers on one side. Food on the other.’ A thought then. ‘Don’t know what the market bosses are going to say . . .’
Schrijver had run through that conversation in his head already.
‘The market bosses are going to say we’re helping people. A family of refugees who came here looking for something and are willing to work to get it. I’d like to see them argue with that.’ He looked at Mariam. ‘I can scrounge some second-hand kitchen gear from somewhere. For starters we can begin with what we’ve got. Tomorrow. The Albert Cuyp won’t know what’s hit it.’
He held out his hand, first to Adnan then to Mariam.
‘If you’re willing to take a chance on me I’ll do whatever I can to make it work. You can move in this afternoon. We’ll take the van round that place of yours and get your stuff.’
‘You don’t know us,’ Adnan said so softly it was hard to catch the words.
‘And you know don’t me. We’re equal there. But we’ve got a lot in common. Both of us are screwed if we just sit on our arses waiting for tomorrow to come.’
They glanced warily at each other.
‘Bloody hell,’ Schrijver said, shaking his head. ‘You dodge bombs and God knows what else to come all the way here. And now you can’t make up your mind over a simple thing like this. Who’d believe it?’
He laughed then. And so did they.
‘You’re a kind man.’ It was Mariam. ‘Adnan told me that and he knows people.’
‘I’ll help you move then.’
There were tears forming in her dark, deep eyes. She walked back into the courtyard rubbing them. Her husband followed and put an arm round her.
Nina did the same to the big man next to her.
‘You do come up with surprises sometimes, Mr Schrijver. I must say that.’
‘Last chance for us. First for them. Here, anyway. Got to take it. Both of us.’
Annie marched back in. There was something in her face he hadn’t seen since before she’d vanished. Strength. Determination.
‘They told me what you said.’ She nodded back towards the family gathered in the yard. ‘I think you’re right, Dad. I think it’s a good thing to do.’
‘If you want to be a part of it somehow—’
‘I’m off now,’ she cut in. ‘Something to do. See you at home later, Mum.’
‘Everything all right?’ Schrijver asked.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the little girl clutching the ancient fur tiger to her.
‘It will be,’ Annie said then left.
Vincent de Graaf. Start there, he thought. He’d been in the prison sick wing for months under Marly Kloosterman’s care, aware from an early stage that he was dying.
‘Did he change much in that time?’
‘You mean the Kübler-Ross model?’
‘The what?’
‘The five emotional stages of dealing with death. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.’
That was new to him.
‘Standard stuff,’ she said. ‘Works usually. For normal people. Vincent wasn’t normal but then you know that. The denial part – you can’t be serious, I feel fine – didn’t last long. He was very sick. The anger was there to start with. I guess it began the moment you sent him to jail.’ She wondered about the rest. ‘I never felt he was depressed. That was something for other, lesser people, rather beneath him. Maybe that nonsense about offering you a name in return for visiting the clinic counts as bargaining. I don’t know.’
‘Acceptance?’
She rolled the sausages over on the grill. There were four of them, she pointed out. Nearly ready. He had to eat something to get an answer.
‘One,’ he said and she found a couple of bread rolls.
‘He accepted the idea he was about to die more readily than any patient I’ve ever known. He was in jail. For life. He hated it. I think he’d have killed himself if he could. So maybe he didn’t mind. Equally . . . if someone offered him the chance to get free one last time I think he’d have done anything for that. He did, didn’t he?’
She picked up the sausages, placed two in a bun and wouldn’t let him argue.
‘He talked though. Quite a lot. About how much he enjoyed what he did. The old cliché, how rape’s more about power than sex . . . he said that was all wrong. For him. It was the sex he liked. They were unconscious, weren’t they? No great stretch to feel a sense of control over someone who doesn’t even know what you’re doing to them. That . . .’ She waved a barbecue fork in his direction. ‘That was what turned him on. There was a sexual charge in having a young woman stretched out before him. Someone he and his sidekicks owned. Could do with what they liked. He started to tell me a few things on that front from time to time. I told him to shut up or I’d walk out.’
‘Did he ever hint he had another accomplice? One we never caught?’
She stared at him, the smile gone.
> ‘Of course not. I’d have been on the phone to you straight away. Mostly he just talked about the . . . pleasure of it all. I’ve never met anyone so lacking in the slightest sense of guilt or conscience. I never want to again. If they send me another in Bijlmerbajes it’s time for a career change. Maybe it is anyway.’ She sighed and offered him some mustard. ‘I’ve been thinking about that for a while. One of the overseas medical charities. Somewhere a long way away. Where I feel I’m actually achieving something. Keeping the likes of De Graaf alive may have fulfilled my Hippocratic Oath but I’m not sure it did a great deal for humanity.’
Whether you worked in the police or a prison you had to maintain some distance between the criminals you met along the way. Their victims too. It was never easy. He hadn’t realized how much that struggle had affected her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I never thought about that. It must have been depressing. You had every right to hate him.’
A flash of anger crossed her face then.
‘Hate him? Don’t be ridiculous. And even if I did I’d never have let him know. That would have made him so happy. I told you before. I work there in the belief we’ll get a chance to change people. Bring them back to being something close to a safe and decent human being. Responsible, even. It’s a slim chance sometimes but I never met anyone I thought beyond that hope. Until that man came along. He took immense and measured delight in the pain of others. A studied, intelligent form of pleasure. Nothing cheap or nasty or vicious. It was an intellectual pastime. A game. Like chess. Or backgammon. Except the pieces were naked women he’d rendered unconscious.’
She shrugged and took a bite of the roll.
‘Besides . . . hating is for children and sickos. What I did hate was something intangible. The fact we couldn’t change him. That he was just . . . elemental. One of those things. Like the weather. Hating Vincent de Graaf would have been as stupid as developing a loathing for cancer. Or death.’
Vos took a bite of the sausage. It was a bit fancy for him. Complex. Sophisticated. Unexpected. Like Marly Kloosterman.
‘I could go and work in Africa maybe. Feel I’m changing something.’ A glance at him. ‘Doing my bit.’
‘I’m sorry, Marly. I shouldn’t have come. I thought maybe he’d let slip something. A word, a hint . . .’
‘Vincent de Graaf was a very cautious creature. From what he said you’d never have caught him if it wasn’t something stupid that sidekick of his did. The tattooist, I think.’
‘Jonker. Ruud Jonker.’
‘Killed himself, didn’t he?’
A body hanging in a dilapidated shop in the market.
‘Definitely. I’ve been over the files again. There’s no chance it was anything else.’
‘That’s the only man he ever mentioned. Sorry.’
‘I shouldn’t have wasted your time.’
He needed to be back in Marnixstraat. There were no answers here.
‘Pieter.’ Her hand went out to his knee and stayed there. ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry. We don’t need to rush. We don’t need to do anything at all. Not until you’re ready.’
He couldn’t frame the words.
‘There is a chance you’ll be ready at some stage, isn’t there?’
His phone rang. It was Annie Schrijver.
‘Vos here.’
A pause. She was in the street somewhere. He could hear the traffic.
‘You’re the one who found me?’
‘I am.’
‘Thanks. I never said that. Sorry. I’ve been a bit of a cow all round really.’
Marly Kloosterman got the message it was a private call and went inside the cabin.
‘You’ve every reason, Annie.’
‘What with lawyers and tantrums and everything . . . I’m amazed you want to waste time on me at all.’
He put down the food and went and stood on the gangplank. Across the canal people were erecting tents and laying down a dance floor by the side of the zoo.
‘There are things I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I’m sure there are things you don’t understand too. Perhaps if we shared them we’d begin to see—’
‘You can’t blame Rob for this. You’re not the only one who’s saved me, you know.’
A glimmer in the dark.
‘I did wonder.’
There was the sound of a bell. A tram. She was surely not far away.
‘Here’s the deal,’ she said. ‘I’ll come and talk to you. Two conditions. I get to see Rob. You can listen. I want you to listen.’
Vos closed his eyes. Allowing a witness to meet someone who might be charged with her rape would surely damage if not jeopardize any prosecution. Jillian Chandra would never allow it. If she knew.
‘Agreed. But you need to talk to me and me alone when you turn up. Call me on this number when you get there.’
‘Second . . . I want you to bring in Jordi Hoogland. Dad’s old mate. If he was a mate. More a bloody parasite as far as I could see.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I asked for it. Because after we’ve talked to Rob I think you’ll want to speak to him.’
‘I need more than that, Annie. To bring a man in.’
‘Well, that’s all you get. Take it or leave it. If that bastard Hoogland’s not there you can forget about the whole thing. Because he’s behind this somehow. I swear it.’
Kloosterman had come out of the cabin and was putting more food on the barbecue. Perhaps expecting him to linger.
‘Any idea where he might be?’
‘It’s Sunday, isn’t it? Sleeping off last night if I know him.’
She read out an address. Vos scribbled it on his pad.
‘An hour,’ he said. ‘Call when you’re in Marnixstraat. I’ll come out and meet you.’
‘Got to go,’ he said.
She looked up from the grill, disappointed.
‘That’s a shame.’
He glanced across the canal.
‘Your party . . .’
‘Starts at four. Goes on for hours, I suspect. Come along later if you get the chance. No need to dress up really. All in a good cause.’
Something in her face must have told her he thought that unlikely.
She came over and he never knew who moved first. Just that before he realized they were in each other’s arms, so close, and then they kissed, tenderly, with all the odd reluctance of strangers.
Marly Kloosterman pulled back laughing, blushing.
‘I’m terrible at this. Really. You’re not the only one who’s been out of the game for a while.’
He wanted to ask why. It seemed strange that she should ever be alone.
Her eyes strayed to the cabin.
‘If you had the time. Jillian Chandra need never know . . .’
Vos sighed.
‘Or you could head off to work. It’s OK.’ She was amused and he was glad about that. ‘I know you have to. Another day.’
He took her hands, kissed her again, touched the soft fair hair at the nape of her neck, remembering this was what closeness felt like.
It was a long and pleasurable moment. And then she watched him walk to the dockside, back towards the trams. A wave, a look back, a smile and he was gone.
Ten minutes later her phone beeped with a message.
Do we still have a date?
She thought about the answer.
It’s not a date. I thought I made that clear.
A second or two. Then . . .
But you are coming?
If only Vos had stayed. If only her frank invitation had won him over. She’d have been happy to have wasted an hour or two that way.
Or do you have something better to do?
Sunday afternoon. He must have guessed she didn’t.
So long as you understand. It’s not a date. It never will be.
A smiley emoticon came back then . . .
Just a pleasant drink, Doctor. I ask no more. I’ve got my costume. What are you?
She’d thought about picking up something from the fancy dress place the day before. Then decided against it.
Marly Kloosterman MD. That’s all.
A picture of a grey vulpine head came up on the screen, long fangs extending from a grinning mouth.
Grrrooowwwlllll! Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, Marly?
She didn’t have to think much about that one.
Not me.
Back in Marnixstraat Sanders had fallen silent again. Jillian Chandra was getting more and more nervous about when she’d need to release him.
‘And who the hell is this Hoogland character you’ve picked up?’ she asked.
He was downstairs in a room on his own, furious at being dragged out of bed for no apparent reason by the uniforms who’d come calling.
‘He works for Bert Schrijver,’ Vos explained. ‘Or used to. He’s known the family a long time. We’ve never ruled him out. He’s hung around De Pijp for years. I’d put money on the fact he must have bumped into Ruud Jonker and Jef Braat at some stage. Same kind of bar crowd.’
That didn’t impress her.
‘God, you sound desperate. Don’t do anything that’s going to set another bunch of lawyers on us.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ he replied and then his phone buzzed. Vos glanced at the number. ‘I have to go.’
He was out of the office before she could object. Annie Schrijver was where he’d said, by the tram stop.
The depressed, damaged victim he’d seen in the hospital was pretty much gone. Out in the street, in black denims, trainers, a shiny red jacket, blonde hair brushed, tidy, the blue streak fading, she looked like one more young city woman out for the afternoon.
‘I want to see Rob first,’ she said.
Vos led her round to the back entrance into the station. Chandra’s office overlooked the front. They might have been spotted already.
‘This is . . . unorthodox, Annie. To say the least. So stick with me. OK?’
She stood back and looked at his scruffy clothes.
‘You’re trouble, aren’t you? Are you sure you’re police?’
‘I am. For now.’
They took the stairs to the first floor. Two uniforms were in the interview room with Sanders, one of them reading the paper. Vos went into the empty observation area, called Bakker and told her to meet him there with coffee. Four cups.