The House of Dolls

by Hewson, David

  A bright scream, a black shape flying past him, bursting through where the windscreen had been. An explosion. The airbags triggered, in front and right of him, the one from the wheel rising into his chest with a blow like a gentle giant’s punch.

  He could just see Miriam Smith’s broken frame bounce on the battered silver bonnet then fly off into the mass of flowers, taking down stems, taking down their pretty heads, rolling somewhere out of view.

  Fragrances.

  Sweat and blood and diesel. The sweet asthmatic smell of flowers.

  Sounds. The airbag wheezing. The car creaking.

  Menzo glanced at the mirror, barely able to move. She had the only weapon the car carried. He was trapped, defenceless.

  And the white van was there, a smoky wisp of something coming out of the front grille. Two shapes climbing from the cab.

  He fought against the airbag and the seatbelt. Gave up.

  A face at the window, gun in hand.

  ‘Theo?’ Menzo asked, screwing up his eyes.

  The man looked so different. Everything that seemed to define him before, the genial beard, the flowing hair, the smile, was gone.

  No answer.

  ‘I didn’t touch her,’ Menzo pleaded. ‘Rosie. I wouldn’t do that.’

  The other one had walked forward into the field of felled tulips. He came back dragging a bloody, mangled body. Opened the back door, threw Miriam Smith’s shattered frame onto the bench seat. Menzo looked. Her mouth was open. Her eyes too, but dead and blank.

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered, still fighting against the seatbelt.

  Theo Jansen popped a bullet through the airbag. The thing burst. The slug disappeared somewhere near the pedals. Menzo took a deep, scared breath.

  The second guy had gone to the van and returned with something. A plastic carboy. He came back and took off the top.

  A familiar smell. Petrol swamping the scent of the field.

  ‘I didn’t touch Rosie. I swear—’

  Jansen bent down and put a shell through Menzo’s right knee. The Surinamese hood screamed in agony. Then the man outside the shattered window crashed a shot into Menzo’s left.

  Blood and shrieks. A pain so keen it numbed his frightened mind.

  The petrol smell was getting worse. Menzo managed to turn his head, saw the second guy shaking the carboy’s contents around the cabin of the Mercedes, on Miriam’s bent body. On the seats. The carpet.

  Finally on him.

  ‘I didn’t . . .’ Menzo muttered. The world was closing in on him. It stank of fuel and tulips, had the colour of blood and flowers.

  Theo Jansen moved away from the door. He stood among the tall blooms lighting a cigarette. The other one threw the carboy onto the passenger seat and moved out of sight.

  Jimmy Menzo watched the lighter move up to Theo Jansen’s mouth, raise a small red flame there.

  Watched him flick the unsmoked cigarette through the air, turning, turning all the way.

  25

  Anna de Vries stood in the bar for thirty minutes. Wim Prins didn’t show. She texted a return to Prins’s summons.

  Three words: Where ARE you?

  Watched the screen. Nothing. This was pathetic. Like waiting on an unfaithful boyfriend. She knew what that felt like too.

  De Vries enjoyed being a reporter. It was a job that kept her on her toes. Something new every day, especially since she came on the crime beat. That meant hanging round with curious people. Lawyers. Detectives. Criminals from time to time.

  The most interesting thing: if you took away their professions they mostly looked the same. Men seeking something to make them whole. Give a little meaning to their small lives.

  And yes, she thought. Always men. Even in the police the women usually stayed away from the harder, bleaker side of the city. Which was where the stories lay and always would.

  Another fifteen minutes. Nothing on the phone. Anna de Vries got bored, found a quiet dark corner, took out her iPad. Slyly watched the video that had turned up unannounced in her inbox that morning.

  Prins and the Willemsen woman in bed. It looked as if she was in charge there anyway. Finally a woman got to run things, even if it was handing out a little pleasure to the boss.

  She turned it off. De Vries had carefully copied the files she’d been sent into her private account then shift-deleted them from the office address. Every local copy was gone. This was hers alone, sent from a fake ID to the newspaper email address printed at the foot of all her stories.

  And when the girl was found, one way or another, she’d give Wim Prins a few moments of peace then hit him with the ultimatum: an exclusive revealing everything, the affair, his future, the state of his marriage. Either that or Anna De Vries would take the crueller option, and put the whole thing, video and all, online.

  A moment of amusement.

  That would happen anyway. Just not from her. Directly.

  They got what they asked for in the end.

  A look at her watch. Another five minutes gone. The bastard wasn’t going to show.

  Then her phone squawked and vibrated.

  ‘About time,’ Anna de Vries said and looked at the picture message on the screen.

  Blinked, trying to understand what she saw.

  She knew the young woman staring blankly out from the little screen, pale, drawn, scared. Had checked her picture in the files. It was Katja Prins.

  Underneath a short message.

  Can you hear me howling, Pieter? Don’t you care?

  Fumbling, uncertain fingers. Drink getting in the way. Anna de Vries tapped out a quick reply:

  Katja. This is Pieter’s friend. I can help. Where are you?

  And waited.

  26

  Back in the apartment in the tall wooden house in the Begijnhof Theo Jansen headed straight for the shower. He stank of sweat and blood, smoke and flowers. The white van was a burned-out wreck a couple of kilometres from the field where they’d left Menzo. Maarten had fixed fresh transport. That was now in an underground car park in the city, waiting to be found.

  She’d looked at him when she first opened the door, said nothing.

  Got some towels when he’d asked. Clothes, newly bought that afternoon.

  Afterwards Jansen put on the cheap blue chinos, shirt and sweater, bagged the old clothes, slunk into the night, walked out from the quiet courtyard, dodged through the shadows of the street. Found a restaurant waste skip, left them there.

  When he got back she asked, ‘Do you want something to eat?’

  He shook his head, didn’t look at her, sat down, turned on the TV.

  Nothing on the news except mention of an incident on the outskirts of the city. A car crash in a remote field. Fatalities.

  Jansen turned off the set. It would take a while. The police would be there now. Wondering how to scrape Jimmy Menzo and his girlfriend from what was left of their saloon. In an hour the news would be out.

  She brought a beer anyway, sat down on the stool beside him.

  After a while she asked, ‘Do you feel better now?’

  No answer.

  ‘Did this finish something, Theo?’

  ‘You don’t know where I’ve been. What I’ve been doing,’ he said, recalling the way she threw this shit at him back when they were together. ‘You never did and never wanted to.’

  He stared at her and knew there was no affection in either of them at that moment.

  ‘But you always wanted a piece of what I got, didn’t you?’

  She didn’t blink. Didn’t smile or frown. Just scratched the old tattoo on her wrist. Maybe prayer did this to you, he thought. Removed the fury, the passion, the hunger. Put a kind of living death in its place. A sense of acceptance. A quiet and pious admission of defeat.

  ‘Back then I did,’ she said finally. ‘Not now. I don’t want anything. Except . . .’ She toyed with her long brown hair. The dye was good. It almost looked natural, the same colour he’d loved when they were both in their twenties. ‘
I want you to forgive yourself. Even if you can’t forgive me. Or anyone else for that matter.’

  He told himself he didn’t understand a word she said. That they were the ramblings of a Catholic lured back into the fold, swallowed by comforting false promises and fairy-tale illusions.

  That locked behind the doors of this small apartment in an old and tall wooden sanctuary called the Houten Huys it would be easy to live on dreams.

  ‘Do you have Skype?’ he asked.

  Maarten the barber had found the number he’d asked for.

  ‘I call friends in Italy sometimes,’ she said and went to a drawer, pulled out a cheap USB phone.

  Jansen got up, smiled, put a big hand to her skinny arm.

  ‘I won’t be here long. No more than I need.’

  ‘That’s what worries me,’ she said.

  He took the phone and plugged it into the computer. Some tricks he’d learned of late. He would only speak in person to Maarten and leave it to the barber to deal with anyone else. And even Maarten had no idea where he was staying, could communicate only through a single mobile with a ripped-off SIM inside it.

  But phones gave you away. The first thing the police did these days, before setting foot outside fearful of the rain, was check the masts and the location of suspicious calls. Not Pieter Vos. That man was different. The others . . .

  Jansen wondered if the rest of Marnixstraat had any idea what had happened the day before. How hard they’d tried. Rosie was dead. He was alive and a fugitive. In a way he made a better, an easier target.

  Skype wasn’t a real phone at all. They could track down which Internet provider was used to place it. Maybe even a city. But nothing more than that, not unless they got hold of the computer itself, and there were ways round that too.

  He’d learned those in prison, taught by one of his foot soldiers serving time for a credit card scam.

  It was a cheap laptop, recent. Jansen created a new account, logged on, got Skype running, typed in the bogus account details he’d used from time to time back when he was free. Still nine euros in credit. Enough.

  Checked the list of numbers Maarten had got him.

  The one he wanted was top of the list. Jansen dialled, listened.

  A quiet, thoughtful voice, almost young, answered, talking to someone before turning to the phone and saying, ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is Theo Jansen, Vos. We need to talk.’

  27

  He took the call standing next to Laura Bakker in a floodlit field. Stink of smoke, charred flesh and the faintest scent of flowers. Vos snapped his fingers at her when he heard Jansen’s voice, pointed at the phone, mouthed the word, ‘Trace.’

  Waited a moment then asked, ‘Did you get your beer? Too early for the new herring, Theo. Sorry.’

  A forensic team was working in the mangled shell of Menzo’s Mercedes. In their white plastic suits they looked like busy ghosts flitting through a nightmare made real.

  ‘Don’t waste your time,’ Jansen said. ‘You won’t trace me. I’m not that stupid.’

  ‘You broke out yesterday. Chances are we’d have set you free before the end of the week. You tell me.’

  A roar down the line. He could see Bakker on the phone to control, talking rapidly.

  ‘If you’re going to shout,’ Vos said when the volume died down, ‘we can end this now. I’m busy. I guess you know that.’

  ‘Busy finding who murdered Rosie?’ Jansen asked.

  Vos walked away from the car. They were starting to move the bodies. It was messy. There were things he didn’t want or need to see.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s Mulder’s job. I thought I made that clear. These are hectic times. They seem to get more—’

  ‘That clown put me in jail! You think he’s going to find the bastard who killed my daughter?’

  ‘Mulder’s not the only one . . .’

  ‘This morning. All you wanted to talk about was your girl. And the Prins kid. Not me. Not my girl.’

  Vos tried to think back, realized that was true.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was preoccupied. I’ve been out of this for a while. It’s not easy.’

  Vos put a hand to his hair. It felt too long now. The job was returning with each passing minute. He couldn’t try that trick of throwing his ID card at De Groot again. No one would believe him. Any more than he’d believe it himself.

  ‘I’m struggling,’ he said and stepped back to let through a team of forensic people lugging two gurneys. Bakker was off the phone, shaking her head. No wonder Jansen was happy to talk. He wasn’t going to be tracked through a simple call. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Silence. Maybe Jansen was gone. Bakker came and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Theo?’ Vos asked. ‘Seems we found a white van burned out a few kilometres away. There’s a crew on it now. We’ve put up alerts at the airports. The border people. Everywhere. You’re not getting out of the city . . .’

  ‘Who says I want to leave?’

  ‘We should meet,’ Vos continued. ‘Just the two of us. I’ll buy you a beer. As many as you want. Then we’ll call a car. You can bring Michiel Lindeman along if you like. I’ll make sure you get somewhere decent in Bijlmerbajes.’

  Nothing.

  ‘No one’s going to mourn Jimmy Menzo,’ Vos added. ‘Plenty of people will say you did the city a favour. Maybe Wim Prins.’

  ‘Jimmy took the Prins girl too?’

  Vos struggled for an answer.

  ‘I don’t think so. I hope not. If he did we’re really screwed, aren’t we?’

  Jansen grunted something then said, ‘He told me he never laid a finger on Rosie. It was nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Did he tell you anything else?’

  ‘He didn’t have time.’

  ‘That’s a shame. Isn’t it?’

  A long pause then Theo Jansen said, ‘You don’t think he killed her, do you?’

  Vos moved back to the narrow lane. The bodies were coming out now. By the line of cars and police vans tulips nodded their heads slowly in the floodlights and the breeze like baffled witnesses to an inexplicable tragedy in their midst.

  ‘Come in, Theo. Let me buy you that beer.’

  ‘Why?’ Jansen snapped and Vos knew he was losing him. ‘Because we’ve lots to talk about? We’re the same now. That’s what you said. So maybe I will call again. Maybe not.’

  Then hung up.

  28

  Anna de Vries waited close to the bar in Singel. She’d put the video and Wim Prins to the back of her mind. This was a better story all round. The disgraced politician’s fugitive daughter, pleading for help.

  Why?

  She knew the stories. How Katja was a dumb Amsterdam schoolgirl who went off the rails after her mother committed suicide.

  There were plenty of places to get lost in the city if you were looking. Anna de Vries could see the spread already. Page after page. All she needed was to find Katja, talk to her, get her somewhere safe, bring in the newspaper lawyers, let them negotiate something with the police.

  Once the piece was written. Once the exclusive was put to bed.

  De Vries stood in the cold street near the canal, getting frantic waiting for an answer.

  She’d need pictures. A solid, reliable photographer. There was a freelance on the paper’s books. A quiet, discreet man who took paparazzi shots on the side. She made a quick call, found he was at a loose end, put him on the alert.

  ‘Where?’ the photographer asked. ‘When?’

  ‘I’ll get back to you in a few minutes,’ De Vries promised. ‘I need to talk to someone first. When she’s happy. Then I’ll call.’

  He didn’t like that much. But he wanted the job so she could live with it.

  Twenty minutes after that first message the brief exchange began.

  Katja writes, Who are you?

  Anna writes, Pieter’s friend. He’s worried about you. He wants to help. Can we meet?

  Katja writes, Too scared.

  Anna writes
, We can take you somewhere safe.

  Katja writes, They’ll kill me.

  The woman in the skimpy raincoat shivered, wondered what she was getting into.

  Anna writes, No one’s going to hurt you, Katja. That’s a promise.

  She leaned back against the damp grimy wall. Felt excited. A little scared too. The crime beat was a good one. Produced plenty of front page stories. Brought her into contact with people on all sides of the law. But mostly it was pursued in the bright light of day. Not in the shadows of the rainy city at night.

  Katja writes, Slaperssteeg. After the Oude Kerk. Go to the end.

  Anna writes, How do I find you?

  Katja writes, I’ll find you.

  She put away the phone, started to walk. Thought about texting again and asking the obvious question . . . How?

  But her mind was made up by then. That run-down part of De Wallen was less than ten minutes away. It wasn’t somewhere she’d usually go at that time of night. But this was her story and it was there for the taking. Like Katja Prins.

  29

  They got back to Marnixstraat at nine thirty. Vos was insistent she go home, get some rest. Bakker wasn’t in the mood.

  Standing in reception he asked, ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘After what we’ve just seen . . .’

  ‘Where do you live anyway?’

  ‘You asked! Finally, you asked!’

  He nodded, waited.

  ‘Near Westermarkt.’

  ‘Sounds swanky.’

  ‘You haven’t seen it . . .’

  ‘I’ve a dog who needs a walk.’ He tugged at his hair. ‘Sofia’s going to have to keep him for a while.’

  Mulder’s team had drawn a blank on Theo Jansen. There was no new development in Rosie’s murder, nothing on Katja Prins since the apparent ransom demand.

  ‘If you buy me a beer and sandwich,’ she said, ‘I’ll walk Sam with you.’

  ‘I like that idea,’ Vos agreed.

  They cycled down Elandsgracht side by side through fine drizzle. He talked quite brightly to begin with, of the Jordaan, the years he’d spent living in the neighbourhood. But as they drew closer to his houseboat, just ten minutes from her home, Pieter Vos’s answers became shorter, until he barely responded to her questions at all.