by David Hewson
Vos threw the pictures on the table in front of her.
‘I’m talking about your sister, Hanna. Your father. When we went to the Amstelpark he was there, driving the train. Convenient place to be, I guess. He said he saw me there with my daughter when she was little.’
‘Pieter . . .’
He held up a hand as she approached.
‘Hear me out. I know that was a lie. Ten, fifteen years ago he was in the police. He didn’t come to Amsterdam until a few weeks ago. When he was getting ready to find the people he blamed for Hanna. To kill them. With you.’
She sat down. Bakker returned and declared the boat empty apart from the three of them, no sign of another visitor at all.
‘You saw that picture in my place,’ he added. ‘You told him about it.’
She picked up the photo of him and peered at it.
‘What a clever man you are. When it comes to catching people like me.’
Vos couldn’t think of a thing to say.
‘My dad lost a daughter. I lost a sister. A husband too.’ She scowled. ‘He couldn’t take it when I went . . . off the rails for a while. Hanna was my blood. He wasn’t.’
‘Where’s your father?’ Vos asked. ‘This is important. Before he does any more harm.’
‘Harm?’ She was on her feet again. All the small cuts and bruises on her neck, her arms, her fingers, the short line of stitches at her neck seemed to grow larger with her anger. It must have been a fierce struggle though not the one they’d been led to believe. Lucas Kramer was the one fighting for his life, not her, and a doctor surely knew where to find that fatal artery. ‘It was justice. The thing you were supposed to deliver and didn’t.’
‘Which is why you picked me—’
‘I’m sorry I screwed with your feelings. Honestly.’
The patrol car had turned up outside, two uniform officers were climbing out. He asked Bakker to tell them to wait there until he called.
They were alone together in a place he’d been thinking about a lot, not that he belonged here.
‘How did you know?’ she wondered.
He held up his phone and showed her the email, the photo from Het Parool. A bed. A line of family pictures.
She rolled back her head and sighed.
‘God, it’s always your emotions that kill you in the end, isn’t it? I’m a fool. I so . . . want . . .’ Her eyes were on him. ‘Well. No point now . . .’
The words drifted away. He found the message she’d sent that morning and read from it, ‘Shattered pieces do not mend each other.’
‘Nothing ever puts us back together, does it?’ she said. ‘It’s just a forlorn hope.’
She walked to a black lacquer set of drawers by the TV. Bakker slipped in to listen, got there first, checked it.
Letters, bills, magazines. Marly Kloosterman waited until she was allowed to touch things. Then she retrieved a plastic folder with what looked like a handwritten letter inside.
‘There’s something you need to see.’
He was funny. He was wry. An engaging man, more interested in her own opinions than his. As for the police . . . he shrugged, frowned and said he’d been a humble traffic officer, handing out speeding fines, clearing up after accidents, never seeking advancement or anything different. When she pressed him for a reason the smile vanished and he said, simply, there were reasons.
A divorce perhaps. A death. She didn’t want to ask and believed that there’d have been no quick answer if she had. With some of the others she’d have thought straight off: he’s married. Then, depending on the circumstances, decided what to do. Not now. Pieter – she’d yet to ask his second name – was surely what he seemed, a solitary, contented lowly former officer looking for amenable companionship. Older than she’d hoped for but no less interesting for that.
Then he’d said with a smile, ‘But I know you, don’t I? From somewhere . . .’
Perhaps, she agreed, and told him who she was. He’d probably seen her on the TV. The newspapers had made quite a fuss when she arrived too.
‘Commissaris?’ he asked, pretending he was scared. ‘I’m having drinks with the big boss? Oh dear . . .’
‘Not your boss. We’re equals here.’
He shook his head.
‘I was never equal to that kind of job. It requires someone . . . special. Not a man with big boots and . . .’ He tapped his forehead. ‘A tiny brain.’
After that he asked the questions no one ever did. About how she’d struggled up the police ladder. The personal costs of private ambition. The ways she’d deflected the occasional obstacles of prejudice and sexism and turned them to her advantage. She couldn’t remember talking so freely since she arrived in Amsterdam. Two glasses of the Marsanne, a wine not as good as he thought perhaps, helped.
Then the inevitable. The invitation. He lived in a boat a short walk along the river. Would she care to see it? No strings attached. No expectations. Just a pleasant cup of coffee and then he’d call a taxi home.
‘I wondered when you’d ask,’ she told him, though when she walked it was a little unsteadily. Wine at lunchtime. Never a good idea.
A thought as they left and he paid the bill in cash. She looked at him and asked, ‘You are discreet? A woman in my position—’
‘Must be careful.’ He gestured with his arms. ‘I believe I am discreet. A decent man. But you must judge for yourself.’
‘I’m good at that. Assessing people,’ she told him and linked her arm in his, for support as much as anything. They walked along the path, away from the city, talking idly of the weather and the news, of politics and the state of the world. There was only a jogger or two down the narrow shingle track by the sluggish green water. On the right the fields were interspersed with bungalows and houses, vast gardens, swings and benches, fields with animals behind. It was hard to believe she was in Amsterdam at all. Then a cyclist tore towards them, shiny athletics gear, face and burly arms gleaming with sweat, yelling at them to get out of the way.
She did. He stood there, hand up, stopped the man and the briefest argument occurred. Curt, sure of himself, a big fist in the biker’s face he read out a lesson about politeness and courtesy then let the mortified cyclist go on his way.
‘I apologize,’ he said. ‘The modern world forgets itself at times and an old fool feels it falls to him to remedy matters. I’m very bad at looking the other way. You should know this. One of my many faults.’
‘A fault?’ She laughed. ‘We need more like you. And me. People who care. Say what needs to be said when others won’t. Do you know . . . ?’
She was about to say something about Marnixstraat and the officers there. Words that were somewhat unfair, she realized. She was a stranger in that place. They had been allowed to become set in their ways. Turning round a staid ship set in its ways was never going to be easy. The job had to be done by an outsider and there would always be casualties during the change. Not now. But soon.
‘Do I know what?’
‘I forgot what I was about to say. Where are we going?’
There was a ramshackle barge in front of them, scruffy and old. Beyond it sat two rowing boats, one old and fading white, the other more recent and bright yellow. A scruffy chap in ragged blue overalls stepped out of the barge, doffed his cap and said, ‘Good day to the two of you.’ He had a fishing rod in his hand. ‘You will wish me luck I trust, Toine.’
The man with her saluted him and said, ‘Tight lines.’
A smart cruiser was moored on the opposite bank in front of some rough ground covered in low scrub. There wasn’t a soul on the footpath next to it.
‘Mine,’ he said proudly. ‘I hope you’ll like it.’
They walked to the yellow rowing boat. He held out his arm to help her. Jillian Chandra sat on the narrow bench seat. As he unhooked the rope from the bank she said, ‘He called you Toine, didn’t he?’
‘Crazy,’ he said, rolling a finger round his ear. ‘A nice chap but truly, he’s not with it
most of the time. You must excuse me.’ He pulled out his phone and turned it on. ‘My daughter sometimes calls round now.’
He whistled a short refrain, an old song she dimly recognized but couldn’t name. Then dipped the oars into the water and began to propel them to the other side.
Half the story Vos had guessed already. But not the letter. A suicide note from her younger sister, posted the day she threw herself off a tower block in Leiden.
The week before their father had been shot in an abortive police raid in Rotterdam, so badly wounded the doctors wondered if he’d survive. A final twist of the screw. The handwriting told a tale itself: careful, feminine. But there was a slant to it that spoke of anger and desperation, a need to get the details down before they vanished forever.
Hanna had been in Amsterdam with friends from Leiden for the weekend. A bar somewhere. Too many drinks. Separated from her group and then someone offered to help. A cocktail too along the way.
The next part he could barely read. She was half-awake for some of the time they assaulted her, desperately trying to pretend otherwise for fear of what they might do. Then the blackness fell and the next morning she woke cold and hurt in bushes in the Vondelpark, too ashamed to tell anyone, to do anything except make her way back to Leiden and a life that was forever changed.
There were names she’d heard when they were talking about what to do with her. De Graaf was one she’d recognized when he went to jail, Sanders another. And then a third who’d found his way to prison too: Braat. But there was a fourth, a man who’d hurt her more than the rest. He was quieter, more violent, even though he hadn’t been there long. She never caught who he was, not that it mattered anyway because by the time she’d plucked up the courage to approach the Leiden police the woman in charge had rebuffed her. By then the drugs were taking hold. It had been more than two years since she was attacked. Why wait? Why would anyone believe her now? Who was really talking? Her? Or the drugs?
‘She could have come to us,’ Vos said.
Marly Kloosterman glared at him.
‘Hanna was too scared to set foot in Amsterdam. She didn’t dare. If the police wouldn’t listen to her in Leiden . . . why would it be any different here?’
He thought of their brief relationship the year before.
‘You might have told me.’
‘I thought so too for a while,’ she said wistfully. ‘But you never called. Never phoned me back when I left a message. We needed someone we could trust.’ She reached for a bottle of mineral water and took a swig. ‘Then one day Jef Braat got free.’
Vos mumbled an apology, unable to find the right words. She listened, nodded, shrugged.
‘Dad was pissed off with you. But really . . . what could you have done? Vincent wasn’t talking. Braat was too scared. So Dad did what he’d learned. What he knew best. Hung around in De Pijp until he found Jef Braat. And his new friend. Made out he had the same kind of . . . interests. Worked his way inside.’
She picked up both photos, captivated by them, smiling to herself.
‘The American . . . ?’ he asked.
The smile vanished.
‘Greg Launceston was a lunatic. Braat was a loose cannon. We should have guessed when he got that job in Artis. Kramer must have found it for him. Then regretted it. We weren’t going to get a last name from either of them. Only Vincent and he was dying. I left him that phone. Dad fixed the messages. Made him think his friend of old was going to set him free for one last trip. No mention of a name, of course. He wouldn’t expect it.’
She closed her eyes, rolled her head around as if it was stiff and painful.
‘Vincent was all we had left. I lied when he said he didn’t feel pain by the way. He did. A lot.’
The photos went back on the table.
‘Sadly I couldn’t be there when Dad got Lucas Kramer’s name out of him. If only. I’d have stuck that cannula in him gladly. But I was owed. When it came to it Lucas Kramer was mine. It was so easy too. A creature like that would have swum that damned canal if he thought a woman was waiting for him on the other side.’ She looked at him and smiled very deliberately. ‘Just for the record he didn’t attack me. Didn’t get the chance. He thought it was all just sweet and fine. One more trophy for his list. This . . .’ Her hands went to the wound on her neck. ‘This was me.’
She clapped her hands.
‘There you have it. I won’t give you my father. Even if I had any idea where he is. Dad was always very strict about that. If you don’t know you can’t tell.’
‘You phone him though,’ Vos said.
‘No. He always calls me. Withholds the number. I don’t have one for him. Again . . . he learned it from you.’
‘Oh, that’s right,’ Laura Bakker retorted. ‘Blame us. Blame anybody but yourself. What about Annie Schrijver? She did nothing to hurt you. She was a victim too. She nearly died.’
Kloosterman laughed at that.
‘Oh, please. I’m a doctor. Braat and the American had dragged her off to the boat by the time Dad turned up. He dealt with those two. I kept her sedated for a day. That was all. We didn’t want her harmed. We saved her. Why do you think Dad got Pieter out to Zorgvlied to find her in the first place?’
Bakker punched the air.
‘I’m sure she’s going to feel really grateful.’
‘Are you serious? One more idiot hanging round bars, messing with strangers, thinking the sky never falls. That kid needed a lesson. I hope she got it.’ A thought then. ‘I wish my kid sister had been that lucky. Anyway. It’s finished now.’
‘It’s not finished,’ Vos said.
‘But it is. And you’re out of time. Take me to Marnixstraat. Find me a lawyer. I’m done talking.’
Bakker shook her head and said, ‘She really doesn’t know.’
‘Know what?’
Vos checked his phone. Nothing new from Van der Berg.
‘The acting commissaris your sister talked to in Leiden was Jillian Chandra. The locals wanted to take the case. She was the one who told Hanna to get lost. Chandra’s gone missing. We can’t trace her.’
Marly Kloosterman thought about that.
‘Is this some kind of joke? Chandra’s been in the papers. On the TV. If she was the one Dad would have mentioned it.’
Vos waited, let it sink in.
‘It’s true. She kicked your sister out of the building in Leiden. It was no great secret the other officers there were appalled. Your father could have found that out easily. And he never told you. Why do you think that was?’
Marly Kloosterman glanced around the cabin.
‘I’ve nothing more to say.’
Laura Bakker got close to her.
‘He’s out there. With the police officer he blames for Hanna’s death. Why do you think he’s hunted her down just like the others? For a friendly chat?’
There was a trill from the phone on the table. Marly picked it up, looked at the number, looked at them.
‘Vos knows, Dad. Run and keep running. I love you.’
Before he could snatch the handset she lobbed the thing through the open windows. It turned round in the bright afternoon then fell with a splash into the grey-green waters of the canal.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, staring at the ripples it left behind. ‘For some things anyway.’
‘Dry cleaning,’ he said and pocketed the phone as they reached the bank. ‘I’ll pick it up later.’ The cruiser looked just about big enough for one. The rear deck had a single chair and an umbrella on it. Thick grey curtains covered the windows. The yellow rowing boat he tied up next to a gangplank near the prow.
She felt giddy and had to hold on to his arm to stay upright when he helped her onto the bank.
‘That wine . . .’ It was funny. She never drank much usually. ‘I shouldn’t at lunchtime.’
‘Come inside. Sit down. I’ll make you a coffee.’ A thought then. ‘Do you fish? I mean, angling. Rod and line and hook. Like my crazy friend on the other bank.’
The question made her laugh.
‘Of course not. Do you?’
He held her arm as she stepped unsteadily onto the boat.
‘Oh yes. Ever since I was a child. In the sea. On the river. Lakes. Anywhere there are fish.’ The door to the cabin had a heavy padlock on it. He unlocked the thing and placed it in his pocket. ‘No point in throwing your bait into a stretch of water without them, is there?’
‘A man needs a hobby,’ she said, leaning against the handrail.
The river here was deserted. Only the scruffy boat opposite to see them. The odd man she’d spotted there was gone.
‘It’s not a hobby. It’s a calling.’
Carefully, making sure she didn’t trip, he led her inside. The cabin was small and cramped and poorly lit. Instead of opening the curtains he turned on a dim yellow overhead light. She sat down heavily on a low bench seat beneath the far window by the sort of small table she associated with caravans. There was a newspaper there, a small laptop, a cardboard box full of mobile phones.
‘A calling?’
‘One must prepare, organize, devise strategies. Understand the tides if it’s the sea, the currents if it’s . . .’ He waved at the closed curtains. ‘A stretch of water such as the Amstel. Then you prepare your weapons according to the prey. No point in trying to catch a perch on a pike rig, is there?’
‘The coffee. I feel a little—’
‘Once you identify your target you choose your line, your hook. Then position yourself on the bank or . . .’ He nodded at the stern. ‘The boat. And choose your bait.’
Chandra found it hard to keep her eyes open. She didn’t feel sick. Didn’t feel drunk. Just hopelessly incapacitated. If this turned wrong somehow, if he wasn’t the man he appeared, there’d be no way she could fight back. At that moment she doubted she could even reach the door.
‘The bait,’ he repeated, leaning down to look at her very carefully, ‘is important. It must be appropriate, right for the thing you want to catch. Without it your prey will never come near.’
His right hand, so strong, so gentle it had seemed to her, took her by the chin. Then with his left he opened her failing eyelids and stared at her, much as a doctor might.