The House of Dolls

by Hewson, David

  ‘That’s it,’ Vos agreed.

  ‘You can get some forensic. I can’t spare any men. Those I gave you are being reassigned.’

  ‘No, no. Listen to me, Frank. This is important—’

  ‘Theo Jansen just busted out,’ De Groot said. ‘I don’t have time for dead cases. Got too many live ones on my hands.’

  ‘Just give me a chance—’

  ‘Is there anything there that connects with the Prins girl?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a no,’ De Groot responded. ‘You can have some people from forensic. They wanted to see you anyway.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About something you asked for.’

  ‘I need officers,’ Vos insisted.

  ‘You can have Van der Berg. Keep him sober if you can,’ De Groot said then hung up.

  11

  Wim Prins was at his desk going through some papers on De Nachtwacht when the PA came through and said a crime reporter from one of the dailies was outside demanding to speak to him.

  ‘Tell him I’m busy. He can make an appointment next time.’

  ‘It’s a woman and I don’t think she’ll go away.’ The PA was a middle-aged dragon he’d inherited. Didn’t like him much. ‘She says it’s about your daughter.’

  Prins closed his eyes.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She won’t say. Just that she has something you need to see.’

  ‘Like what?’

  The PA sighed.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier if you asked her yourself?’

  The journalist was called Anna de Vries. Somewhere short of thirty, smart, incisive face, self-satisfied smile. Not the least bit daunted in his presence.

  ‘We’re really busy here,’ Prins said. ‘Make this quick.’ She pulled out a voice recorder. ‘And put that away.’

  She shrugged, smiled, did as he asked. The PA came back with coffee and closed the door behind her. Anna de Vries wriggled on the chair in front of him. Short skirt. Pretty woman. Knew how to use it.

  ‘I decided to come to you first,’ she said. ‘Before the police. I want this to be your decision. Not mine.’ She stared at him frankly. ‘I haven’t even told my news editor about this. So . . .’ She put her hands on the desk. ‘Whatever you want to do that’s fine by me.’

  Then she got her briefcase and pulled out a plain brown envelope and an iPad.

  ‘Funny really. You go for weeks without anyone giving you a break. Then two turn up in one day.’

  She placed the envelope in front of him.

  ‘You should take a look at this first. I did. I printed them out for you. They turned up as an attachment in an email this morning. Your name at the top.’

  Seven sheets of paper. Laser printouts. A message that read, ‘Get a thousand five hundred euro notes. Put them in a small carry-on suitcase. Black leather Tumi. You’ve got a day. Then we’ll be in touch.’

  And some photos. Katja, no doubt about it. In the first scared in a plain grubby T-shirt, druggy eyes glaring at the camera. Eye shadow blurring around her cheek or maybe a bruise. In the second exhausted, dead-eyed, hair greasy. In the third . . .

  Prins rubbed his temple. Wanted to scream.

  Katja in her underwear, strapped to a chair, screaming as something – a whip maybe, even an iron bar – came down on her so quickly the movement was blurred.

  ‘Half a million euros,’ the reporter said quietly. ‘Wow.’

  ‘This has to go to the police.’

  Prins reached for the phone. Her hand came out and stopped him.

  ‘I haven’t finished.’

  She pulled out the iPad.

  ‘You know,’ Anna de Vries added, ‘I’m rarely embarrassed in this job. You kind of grow out of it. But right now . . .’

  She shielded her eyes theatrically then hit play. Sighed and turned down the volume when the grunts got too loud.

  Wim Prins reached over and shut the thing off.

  ‘Coalition politics.’ She wore a brazen grin. ‘It really does bring people together, doesn’t it? Heart-warming, in a sense. Though what your wife—’

  ‘What do you want?’

  She blinked.

  ‘Is that a serious question? I’m a reporter. I want a story. My story. No one else’s.’ She tapped her jacket. ‘Mine.’

  He waited.

  ‘If I could write this now I would,’ she added. ‘Your daughter. You screwing your deputy. Christmas come early.’

  The grin disappeared.

  ‘You got a media blackout out of Marnixstraat, didn’t you? I could fill the first six pages. Except I can’t write a damned word. Thank you.’

  ‘What . . . do . . . you . . . want?’ he asked again.

  She did a rat-tat-tat with her fingers on the brown envelope.

  ‘I want you to get your daughter back. Safe and well. Really. What you do about this . . .’ She nodded at the iPad. ‘That’s up to you. I haven’t shown it to a soul. Like I said, not even my boss. It’s just you and me, Wim. Take the photos and the note to the police by all means. This . . .’ Her finger stroked the little screen. ‘I think it can stay between us for now.’ A pause, the grin. ‘If you’re cool with that.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Are you being deliberately dense here? Do what you need to do with Katja. Fix it. Then, when it’s over . . . when the blackout lifts . . . you talk to me. To me and no one else. The big story.’ Her hand swept the room. ‘How you won back your junkie daughter. How your family’s going to survive. Get stronger.’

  Prins waited.

  ‘How you went off the rails for a while. Lost it. Margriet Willemsen’s a man-eater. Are you the only mug in this city who doesn’t know that? It’s her career that’s on the line. Not yours. Not if you come clean. Not if we handle this properly.’

  She picked up the iPad, put it back in her case.

  ‘I know we’re all meant to be good Protestants. But there’s a Catholic streak in all of us. We can forgive anything pretty much. So long as someone confesses. It’s good for the soul. Don’t you think?’

  Wim Prins felt sick.

  She got to her feet, took out a business card, scribbled something on the back, threw it on the desk.

  ‘That’s my private number. My address too. Not far away. If you’d rather talk there . . .’ He checked the card. An apartment block near Spui. ‘Your decision. Call—’

  ‘No one else has seen this? Any of it?’

  ‘Didn’t I just say that? I want this story. I’m not showing it round the office. Not until it’s time.’

  When she was gone he called Marnixstraat. De Groot sounded agitated.

  ‘How are they going to get in touch?’ the commissaris asked.

  ‘Search me.’

  De Groot didn’t speak for a moment. Then, ‘I’ll send someone round to get what you have. We’ll run it through forensic to see if we can work out if it’s genuine or not.’

  ‘There are pictures. I know my daughter.’

  ‘I meant a genuine kidnapping. Not extortion. Either way they’ll get back to you. Fixing a meeting. I need to know—’

  ‘Is that it?’

  A pause on the line.

  ‘No that’s not it. We do have other things right now. Or haven’t you heard?’

  Prins listened to the news of Jansen’s escape and felt guiltily grateful for a moment. At least the police wouldn’t be throwing hard questions at him.

  Next he called Margriet Willemsen and said, ‘We need to talk.’

  12

  The Begijnhof was a courtyard of tall houses behind busy Spui. An odd anachronism in the busy modern city: a Catholic community for women going back centuries. Silent, peaceful, remote except for the stream of tourists who found their way in through the little arched doors on the street. Not quite a nunnery but not far off.

  Neatly clipped grass, trees, pigeons feeding in the centre. A few
tourists wandering past the tidy lawn. Theo Jansen sat in a top-floor apartment close to the window, feeling his rough chin and cheeks.

  The beard had disappeared thanks to Maarten’s careful work. So had the long white hair. His skin was red and sore. His mind made up.

  The woman in the room was two years younger than him. Dyed brown hair too long for her and a pleasant, lined face. She wore a fawn dress, old-fashioned, a plain brown sweater over it. Only a faded tattoo on her right wrist spoke of another life.

  ‘Did she see you much lately?’ Jansen asked.

  ‘I was the enemy, wasn’t I? The woman to be forgotten. The one who abandoned you.’

  ‘You had your reasons. It wasn’t a life for everyone. I never . . .’ Jansen fought hard to remember how they came to part. The world was so fast and anxious then. His hold on the drug and nightclub lines was far from secure. He could have been dead in the gutter just as easily as any of those he’d killed. ‘I never thought you’d go. And when you did . . .’

  This next was true. He had to believe it.

  ‘I never wanted Rosie to be parted from you. I hoped . . .’

  ‘What, Theo? That we could stay friends?’

  They met when she was a student, working in one of his bars, desperate for money. A bright girl. Always ready to answer back. Never scared of him, unlike everyone else in those days.

  ‘Suzi. That was what I did. What I do. I didn’t know anything else.’ He looked at her, saw the combative, beautiful young woman he’d fallen in love with. ‘I couldn’t run away. Reinvent myself. Or . . .’ He waved outside. ‘Turn religious or something.’

  He scratched his bare head and found it hurt.

  ‘And I never knew you were a Catholic either.’ Jansen wagged a finger at her. ‘If you’d told me then maybe none of this would ever . . .’

  She was crying. He got up, put his arms round her. Kissed her dyed hair and found it didn’t smell the way it used to, of flowers and dope smoke.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Suzi whispered. ‘I keep thinking it’s just a bad dream. I keep hoping . . .’

  Her arms fell round his waist and didn’t meet the way they once did. He was fat and old. All the same they stayed there for a long while. Then she wiped her eyes with her sleeve and he went back to his chair, sipped at the lukewarm coffee. She’d heard about Rosie’s murder on the radio. There was nothing he had to tell her that wasn’t public knowledge already. Their daughter was a headline. Thirty seconds on the news alongside the tale of the attack outside the Prinsengracht court. A coming gang war was the real story. People feared for themselves, not a bunch of criminals.

  ‘Thanks for taking me in,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where else I’d go.’

  ‘What if they know about me? This is the Begijnhof. It’s for women. I can have you here for a little while as my guest. I’ll tell them you’re my . . . cousin. That’s it.’

  Another wipe of her face with her sleeve. This place was a sanctuary of a kind. A prison almost, but a gentle one. Suzi lived in the Houten Huys, the wooden one, split into apartments like the others. A sign on the door said it dated back to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Jansen saw it on the way in and wondered what Amsterdam was like in those days. How different really.

  ‘When will they bury her?’ she asked. ‘May I go?’

  ‘I don’t know. It depends on the case. If Pieter Vos was in charge like I asked then maybe . . . not long. He’s a decent man.’ Jansen remembered the look on Vos’s face when they argued. ‘He knows this kind of pain. But that bastard Mulder . . .’

  ‘Why? Why Rosie?’ she asked and that he found the hardest question of all.

  After a while Jansen hung his head, rubbed his own eyes, said, ‘I can’t imagine. Me? Fair game. Why not?’ He pushed the coffee aside and wished she kept a bottle of jenever. ‘Rosie was never a part of the business.’

  She stared at him.

  ‘Not much anyway,’ he added.

  It was impossible to explain. To apologize. To do anything except quietly set about an act that would appal this woman, someone he’d once loved. The idea of vengeance would have been beyond her even when they were together. Now, in the quiet sanctity of the Begijnhof where she prayed twice a day . . .

  ‘I won’t stay long,’ he promised.

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Maarten. Remember him?’ Jansen rubbed his cropped skull. ‘He’s a barber now. I set him up in the shop when he wanted out of the business. Pretty good. He can talk to some people. They’ll scoot me out of the city. If I get a passport from somewhere we can drive down to Spain. I’ve got a villa there.’

  He tried to smile at her.

  ‘You could come and see me if you like. It’s near Malaga.’

  Her face was stony and full of doubt.

  Jansen said, ‘I was going to do that with Rosie when they set me free. We’d agreed. It was what I told the judge. I gave up everything.’ He saluted, like a Boy Scout. ‘I became a good boy, finally.’

  ‘Then why did you escape, Theo?’

  She always was this sharp, while time and prison had blunted his own innate cunning.

  ‘Because if they put me back in Bijlmerbajes Jimmy Menzo’s going to kill me there instead.’

  That cold, judgemental stare. The one that said: liar. Now he remembered why they’d fallen apart, not noisily, not with ill-feeling. It was over a simple and mutual lack of trust.

  ‘What do you want of me?’ she asked.

  ‘A bed for a couple of nights. A beer or three . . .’

  She laughed at that and the sight cheered him.

  ‘Some fresh herring and sausage. And cheese. And . . .’ He got up and kissed her hair again. ‘. . . your company.’

  The sudden tears formed two shining rivulets down her pale cheeks. He wished they weren’t there, that there was something he could do.

  ‘God knows I’ve missed that and I wish Rosie were here to enjoy it too.’

  ‘Beer and herring,’ she said getting up. ‘I’ve got the cheese.’

  She looked stiff. Old. Not ugly old like him. Good old. A different kind of beauty, more impressive by far than the eye-catching, flirtatious allure that first trapped him.

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said, and reached out and touched his bristly chin. ‘You look nice without that stupid beard and hippie hair. Like a new man.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘But you’re not, are you, Theo? New?’

  He glanced out of the window, trying to avoid her eye.

  ‘I’ve got to see Maarten later. About money and that passport.’

  She nodded, expecting this.

  ‘I won’t involve you,’ he promised. ‘I won’t do anything to bring trouble to your door.’ He thought about this and knew he meant it. ‘Lord knows I’ve done that enough already and I don’t deserve your forgiveness. Do I?’

  ‘No,’ she agreed as she went for her coat, picked up her purse, looked through the money in it. ‘But then if you only forgive the worthy . . . what’s the point?’

  13

  Van der Berg turned up with the forensic team. A heavyset man of forty-five with a pock-marked face and fading salt and pepper hair. He smelled of aftershave strong enough to cover the fragrance of beer to come. An old and unsuccessful trick.

  ‘Crazy out there,’ the detective said after they put on white bunny suits. ‘Theo Jansen back on the streets.’ They were in the first-floor room with the double bed, the chandelier, the sheets and towels. Everything pink and smoke-stained. ‘All this . . . What the hell’s going on?’

  Vos asked how Jansen got out.

  ‘Theo was on his own,’ the detective said. ‘Hit some uniformed kid in the toilet. Got his gun.’

  The forensic team were taking photographs. Vos turned to the team leader, pointed at the bare floorboards and said, ‘Forget about pictures for now. I want luminol.’

  Then he went to the high window and started to draw the heavy curtain.

 
; ‘It’s a little early for that,’ the forensic man replied.

  ‘Katja Prins could still be alive. I don’t have time.’

  The officer in the white suit looked ready to argue then thought better of it.

  ‘Let’s do this properly then,’ he said.

  He opened up the curtain. Talked to his team. Told the three cops to wait outside while they went about their work.

  On the landing Van der Berg handed over the report Vos had asked for earlier.

  ‘Did you look at it?’ Vos asked.

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  Vos shrugged, went into a corner, began to read.

  They watched him. Watched as he walked downstairs out into the cold, dull day. Lost in something they couldn’t begin to guess.

  ‘What was it?’ Bakker asked.

  ‘Something he asked for about his kid’s case. Technical report. I don’t know.’ Van der Berg scowled. ‘I don’t care what Frank de Groot says. Pieter shouldn’t be doing this. It nearly killed him before.’

  ‘Do you expect him to sit at home on that stupid boat twiddling his thumbs? Or in the Rijksmuseum staring at a doll’s house?’

  He glowered at her.

  ‘I went there a couple of times. Tried to get him out of that place. For a beer or something. Do you think that’s what he was doing? Looking at a piece of wood?’

  ‘What else?’

  The old detective gave her a kindly glance, just short of condescending.

  ‘It wasn’t the house he kept staring at. It was the dolls. I don’t know if he thought there was some kind of answer there. Or if his girl was like that or something . . .’ He leaned against the smoke-stained wall. ‘He wouldn’t talk to me about it. Look . . . this is fine if it all works out. But what if it doesn’t? What if we lose the Prins girl too? And we still don’t find out what the hell’s going on?’

  He had a lugubrious face, one that smiled easily, but not for long. Van der Berg looked at the wall, drew a long line in the smoke dust. Pink wallpaper underneath.

  ‘Something here doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘You worked on Anneliese’s case?’