The House of Dolls

by Hewson, David

  ‘Liesbeth,’ he repeated. ‘We found Anneliese’s blood—’

  ‘Are you happy?’ she shrieked. ‘Can you sign off the death certificate now? Mark the case closed?’

  ‘No. I can’t. I don’t know what happened. I’m trying to find out.’

  ‘Why are you pushing this shit at me? I did my best. I was there when you weren’t. Not every minute. Every fucking second. But I was . . .’

  ‘This isn’t about blame,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel that. I don’t think you do either.’

  She wouldn’t look at him. Gulped at the coffee.

  ‘What’s it about then?’

  ‘The truth. Honesty,’ Vos said with a shrug. ‘What else have we got?’

  ‘You sound like Wim. Begging for votes. Talking in easy riddles that mean nothing—’

  ‘There’s a procedure,’ he broke in.

  ‘What procedure?’ she hissed.

  He folded his arms, kept his eyes on her.

  ‘Something we go through in every case. DNA. We’ve got Anneliese’s obviously. Now we’ve got Katja’s.’

  Alongside the tears welling in her eyes there was anger and fear.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what a drop of blood says,’ Vos added. ‘She’s my daughter. Ourdaughter. I guess . . . I was out working a lot. At night. Pretty boring when I was around too. And Wim . . . with all that money . . . a wife who didn’t love him . . .’

  Half hunched, clutching at the coffee cup, she glared at him.

  ‘I stayed with you because I couldn’t marry him,’ she said. ‘Is that what you want to hear?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘And you never suspected, Pieter? Not once. If you’d asked me . . . if you’d just noticed I wasn’t around when I should have been . . .’

  ‘Then you’d have left me,’ Vos said and had to ask himself: had he realized this all along? Had a part of him silenced that troubled, suspicious voice for fear of the consequences if he listened to it?

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Did they know they were half-sisters?’ he asked. ‘Did Anneliese have any idea Wim was her real father? This could be important. I’m trying to understand . . .’

  ‘No.’

  He waited and when she said nothing asked, ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Yes.’ A pause. ‘I mean . . . I didn’t tell her. You couldn’t. Wim . . .’

  ‘He knew?’

  The coffee cup went flying. Not at him. Just at the wall, at the world.

  ‘For Christ’s sake! Do you think this is easy? I never knew. I didn’t want to. She could have been yours. I wish to God she had been. Maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe . . .’

  ‘Is it possible Bea knew?’ he asked. ‘Could Anneliese have found out from her?’

  She shrugged, looked at him.

  ‘You don’t even want to face it now, do you? I don’t know what Bea thought. I wondered sometimes if she suspected. She looked at me in the law office and—’

  ‘This is important. If Anneliese knew—’

  ‘Liese,’ she said sharply. ‘That’s what she was called. She wasn’t a child any more. Liese. A teenager. Getting inquisitive. Getting . . . devious too.’

  ‘Liese.’

  He’d no idea why he never shortened her name. It hadn’t seemed necessary somehow. And now that simple, easy omission seemed to condemn him. He wasn’t a bad parent. Just a neglectful, distracted one.

  ‘I didn’t think . . .’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You were too busy saving other people. You’re so good at seeing into the lives of strangers, aren’t you? But you couldn’t see what was happening in front of your own nose. In your own home.’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Or if you could,’ she added, ‘you didn’t have the courage to mention it.’

  Her frail hands touched his chest.

  ‘If you’d said something. If I’d seen I’d hurt you . . .’

  Silence between them for a long moment. Then she said, ‘I hated the way you worked and worked. It made me feel small and unimportant. When you did come home you only paid attention to her. Never me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I guess I don’t show things . . .’

  ‘You didn’t notice, Pieter. Don’t make excuses.’

  ‘Perhaps not. If I can find Katja . . . If that takes us to what happened with Anne . . . with Liese . . .’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Liesbeth Prins said in a flat, defeated voice. ‘Don’t you know it? Can’t you feel it?’

  ‘No. I can’t.’

  ‘Not until you see her corpse? You never left this place, did you? Not in your head. I stopped wishing for that long ago. I didn’t want to go mad. Not like you. That was too easy.’

  He nodded.

  ‘If there’s something else I should know . . .’ Vos said.

  ‘I couldn’t control her that summer. You were hardly there. She wasn’t at school. I was working part-time in forensic here. You got me that, remember? I wanted something to do. I said we needed the money.’ She laughed. ‘That was a lie. I was just bored. Sick of nannying an ungrateful teenager and watching you come home exhausted every night, too tired to talk.’

  Vos remembered now. She was on the payroll in Marnixstraat for just a few months that summer, filing, doing clerical work on the top floor for a while.

  ‘You never saw it,’ she said. ‘But she was running wild. Getting back late. Wouldn’t say where she’d been. Who with.’

  ‘You could have told me.’

  Liesbeth Prins laughed, and it was so sudden, so unexpected the sound chilled his blood.

  ‘Why? You’d have given her some money and told her to go and buy some new clothes. Please . . .’ She reached out for his fingers. ‘You were a soft touch. Always were. For her. For me when I bothered to ask.’

  She must have seen something in his face.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Here I am shattering all your illusions again. How many times do I have to say this before you get it? We weren’t the perfect family, Pieter. Wouldn’t have been even if I hadn’t been screwing around with Wim. Life’s not like that. All neat and tidy . . .’

  ‘No,’ he said and took away his hands.

  She bit her lip, thought over what she wanted to say.

  ‘One day I saw her with this girl. They looked so alike. I kind of recognized her. I didn’t know where from. Wim and I . . . we were always discreet. It was never that house of his. Of . . . ours now.’ She shrugged at that. ‘So I followed them. All the way to Vondelpark. Watched them buy ice cream. Sit down. Look . . . beautiful and happy.’

  A bitter, sour look.

  ‘Then along came Bea. And she sat there too. Not like me. An outsider. The enemy. It was as if she was one of them. Another kid. Part of the deal. Whatever it was. I never knew . . .’ Her finger traced a circle in the spilled coffee on the table. ‘I never dared ask. And then a few days later Liese was gone.’

  ‘You could have told me . . .’ he repeated.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. I didn’t want to open that can of worms. Besides . . . You all said it was those gangsters getting their own back. Or some madman. I’d nothing to tell. Still don’t.’

  ‘Did Bea see you?’

  A quick, grim laugh.

  ‘Oh yes. I went over there and introduced myself. Liese wouldn’t even look me in the eye. Bea did though. Crazy bitch.’

  ‘You could have told me.’

  She stared at him, puzzled.

  ‘How? Why?’

  Almost two decades together. And still a gulf between them. Invisible walls, dark secrets beneath.

  ‘The place we found her blood . . . the privehuis . . . was on the Prinsen. Opposite Amstelveld. You know it?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Her blood?’

  ‘Not much,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she was killed there. But this place . . .’

  ‘I didn’t follow her. I didn’t spy on her. She was a teenager. What good wou
ld that have done? I’m not like you. Always looking for something to put right. The world’s broken. You can’t put it back together. No one can.’

  Vos didn’t know what to say. Then Laura Bakker saved him.

  Walked in, didn’t knock, came straight to the computer, turned on the screen, started fiddling with the keyboard, said, ‘You’ve got to see this. Something’s happening. I don’t . . .’

  ‘Don’t what?’ he asked when she didn’t go on.

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  She looked at Liesbeth Prins.

  ‘I think you should leave,’ Bakker said.

  But by then the feed from the CCTV camera was up. Figures milling round the crossroads between Zeedijk and Stormsteeg. The occasional crackle of a police transmission over the radio channel.

  ‘Where’s Wim?’ Liesbeth Prins asked. ‘I can’t see him.’

  Vos glanced at his watch. Twenty past eleven.

  ‘Ten minutes to go,’ he said.

  ‘He’s always early, never late,’ she whispered. Looked at him and said, ‘I’m sorry. All the things I did . . . just happened. I never asked for them. Never wanted them really.’

  ‘You should leave!’ Bakker said more loudly.

  But Liesbeth Prins’s eyes were locked on the screen.

  ‘There’s that little man from the council,’ she said, placing a finger on a figure moving slowly across the cobblestones. ‘The one who works for Wim.’

  Vos wasn’t watching. He scribbled a note, passed it to Bakker, told her to check it out with intelligence.

  12

  ‘What the hell’s he doing here?’ Theo Jansen grumbled as he sat down in the back room of Maarten’s shop.

  The place was still closed. The barber looked harried and tired. Nervous at the two men who’d joined him in the apartment, sipping at instant coffee, eyeing each other warily.

  Michiel Lindeman had come willingly when Maarten went back to him. The reluctance of the previous day was gone. There were reasons. Jimmy Menzo was dead. Control of the entire city was in the balance.

  ‘He’s here because I invited him,’ Lindeman said without a blink. ‘Because he’s needed.’

  Short, muscular, thirty-five or so, dark-skinned, shifty eyes, Max Robles smiled too much, laughed too much. Had been a go-between when Jansen was dealing with Menzo before. As trustworthy as any Surinamese hood could be.

  ‘I’m not sure I need you,’ Jansen told Lindeman. ‘The likes of him . . .’

  ‘Jesus, Theo. A touch of gratitude wouldn’t go amiss,’ the lawyer replied. ‘You’re a criminal on the run. A murderer. Any of us could go down just for being in this room with you.’ Jansen sniffed, didn’t have anything to say. ‘Do you think you can get choosy now?’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Maarten intervened. ‘Let’s deal with this calmly. There’s business on the table. Some practical problems to solve. We need calm heads.’ He glanced at Jansen in a way he would never have done before. ‘From everyone. OK?’

  ‘Theo.’ Robles was beaming as usual. Big white teeth. Vast hand extended across the table. ‘Last night you popped my boss. I’m here like Mr Lindeman asked. Don’t that show goodwill?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Jansen answered. Then nodded at Maarten. ‘Did you shake him down for a gun when he turned up?’

  Robles laughed. So did Maarten. Then the barber pulled a small pistol out of his trousers, showed it round the table.

  ‘Why am I here?’ Jansen wanted to know. Then listened.

  It was Lindeman talking mainly. Of the need for a peace. Of pressing business decisions to do with money and supply lines. And how Theo Jansen could stay the titular king of Amsterdam from afar. In a day or two when the heat died down they could put him in a car south, down to Belgium. Fix a private plane from Ostend. The same place Jimmy Menzo had flown to the previous Monday.

  After that . . .

  ‘Anywhere you want,’ Maarten said quickly. ‘Anywhere.’

  Eight per cent of the action for nothing at all. The day-to-day work would be down to the remnants of Menzo’s men working under Max Robles, alongside any willing troops from Jansen’s former ranks.

  ‘That’s a lot of money for sitting in the sun,’ Jansen said.

  ‘True,’ Robles agreed. ‘But what’s the alternative?’

  No one spoke.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ he went on. ‘We carry on fighting. You and me. And then the Turks come in. The Serbs. God knows who else. They’re sniffing round already. Getting above themselves.’ He tapped his index finger three times on the table. ‘There’s a black hole out there and someone’s going to fill it. Either we let them know their place or we’re gone.’

  ‘Two days ago you tried to kill me,’ Jansen said.

  The swarthy man opposite him nodded, said, ‘Yeah. That was rude, wasn’t it? But think about this. Jimmy and Miriam are dead. So are those two kids who came for you. If we’re willing to forgive and forget—’

  ‘Someone murdered my daughter,’ Jansen broke in. ‘I don’t forgive that. I don’t forget it either.’

  ‘No,’ Robles said. ‘I’d feel the same. Honestly.’ He held out his hand again. ‘It wasn’t us. We’d nothing to do with that. Jimmy didn’t used to talk to us when he went down to Ostend with Miriam. That was their private time. I guess even he didn’t know till he got back.’

  The hand stayed in front of him, steady as a rock.

  ‘Shake on that if you believe me,’ Robles said. ‘If you don’t we’re all wasting our time.’

  Jansen didn’t move, just said, ‘Someone killed her.’

  ‘Not us,’ Robles replied and the good humour was gone from his voice. ‘Why would we? Jimmy wanted you dead.’ He looked round the table, nervous for the first time. ‘Here’s the truth. He and Rosie had a deal. They talked, two weeks before you were due back in court. If you got out, went away, didn’t try to get back in the game . . . that was it. No more nonsense.’

  ‘So why’d he try to shoot me?’ Jansen snorted.

  And still the big dark hand stayed over the table.

  ‘Because he didn’t think you’d listen,’ Robles answered. ‘Jimmy could be stupid sometimes. But on that . . . I think he was dead right.’ He waved his hand. ‘If I take this away it doesn’t come back. We both suffer. Think about it.’

  Theo Jansen rose from the table, faced him, furious, going red.

  ‘Who killed my daughter?’ he roared.

  It was Lindeman who spoke first.

  ‘Whoever’s snatched the Prins girl,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘Not to me it isn’t,’ Jansen told him. ‘Who—?’

  ‘I don’t know who!’ Lindeman yelled.

  So loud it surprised Jansen. The lawyer was one of the most composed, collected men he knew. He’d never heard him raise his voice before.

  ‘Someone screwing with everyone,’ Lindeman added. ‘With you. With Prins. I don’t know . . . with Pieter Vos too. Why else did they dump her in that boat next to his? Someone’s trying to get him back and—’

  ‘Rosie had nothing to do with the Vos girl,’ Jansen cut in. ‘None of us did.’ He looked at Robles. ‘Did we?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ the man from Paramaribo agreed.

  Lindeman sighed, folded his arms, waited for Jansen’s attention.

  ‘Jimmy sent those kids of his round to that privehuis,’ the lawyer pointed out. ‘He must have known something—’

  ‘It was just insurance,’ Robles cut in. ‘He wanted them dead and some money back from that place. It had been sitting on the books ever since he got it. A privehuis didn’t interest Jimmy much. Not enough return in a game like that.’

  Jansen didn’t look convinced.

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Robles insisted. ‘Believe it or not. Your choice.’

  ‘The truth?’ Jansen looked at the three of them. ‘What do we know from Marnixstraat? I had men there. Menzo must have some too. The same ones for all I know . . .’

  ‘They’re struggling
like the rest of us,’ Lindeman said carefully. ‘It looks like Prins could be in the frame for something. I don’t know what.’

  ‘Wim Prins?’ Jansen asked. ‘Mr Clean? Your old partner?’

  ‘Sometimes you think you know people,’ Lindeman said with a shrug. ‘Sometimes you’re wrong.’

  Jansen grunted something, took the hand in front of him. Shook it.

  ‘Find me who killed Rosie,’ he said, ‘and you can have anything you want. Take the eight per cent. Split it between you for all I care.’

  The three of them looked interested.

  ‘I’ll make some calls,’ Robles said. ‘Talk to people.’

  ‘You do that,’ Jansen agreed. He nodded at the barber. ‘Maarten can reach me when you’ve got something.’

  Outside again he was desperate for a beer. Jansen looked at his watch. One minute to eleven thirty. There was a bar round the corner, quiet and discreet.

  He strode towards the door. There were a couple of uniformed cops down the street. One of them looking his way.

  Theo Jansen crossed the road, walked on, back towards the alley that led into the Begijnhof. He felt a stranger in his own city and that was new.

  13

  Klaas Mulder sat in the near-empty Cafe Oost-West stirring sugar into a sludgy double espresso. Happy with the disposition of his men. Not so pleased the officer he had closest to him was Koeman, someone who never quite possessed sufficient respect for his superiors.

  ‘So what happens?’ Koeman asked. ‘If we snatch whoever’s turned up for the money? How does that help us get this poor kid free?’

  ‘The poor kid should have been inside long ago,’ Mulder retorted. ‘We’re not dealing with a schoolgirl here.’

  Koeman tugged on his moustache.

  ‘Sorry. I’m struggling for the relevance of that remark.’

  Mulder walked to the window, surveyed the cobbled intersection between the streets.

  ‘And where the hell is Prins?’ Koeman asked. He looked at his watch. ‘He’s got five minutes to show. If this was my girl I’d be—’

  ‘It’s not,’ Mulder said. He peered at a diminutive middle-aged man in a smart brown coat standing outside the Chinese restaurant opposite. ‘Who the hell’s that? Get a picture of him. Run it through intelligence.’