The House of Dolls

by Hewson, David

  ‘Good . . .’

  ‘No, Theo! It’s not good.’

  Voice too loud in the little room with the cloying, acrid stink of dope. The barber glared at him across the beaten-up brown wood table.

  ‘God knows I’ve done things I don’t want to remember,’ he said in a low, angry voice. ‘But I never went around picking on women. We didn’t do that kind of thing, did we?’

  Not often, Jansen thought. Only on the rare occasion it was needed. Like now.

  ‘She’s going in there when?’

  ‘I left that to her.’

  Jansen pushed back his chair. Wondered where he’d go next. Not to Maarten’s shop. He didn’t like that idea at all.

  He held out his hand. The barber just stared at it.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Maarten said. ‘I owe you. If it comes to getting you out of town. Getting money. Passports. Putting you somewhere safe so we can make that deal with Robles work . . . I’m fine with that.’

  ‘Very generous,’ Jansen noted.

  ‘It’s what you’re due. But this other shit.’ He opened his coat, took out the weapon he’d shown Suzi Mertens, pushed it across the table. ‘Forget it.’

  The barber looked Jansen straight in the face.

  ‘I mean that. I’m old. We both are. I’m old, I’m tired and I want an easy life. Don’t want to spend it in jail for no good reason.’

  ‘Rosie’s good enough reason for me.’

  ‘And you think this is just for her? Not about the fact you lost? We lost. Or that she and Suzi screwed around behind your back?’

  ‘We didn’t lose,’ Jansen repeated. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Everything falls apart in the end, Theo. Nothing you can do to stop it. Me and Robles and that Lindeman creep tried to put together a deal to get you out of this. But you won’t take it, will you?’

  ‘When I’m ready. When I know . . . about Rosie.’

  The barber groaned, got up, looked at him and said, ‘Where are you going to go now?’

  Jansen laughed.

  ‘I own half of De Wallen. You need to ask?’

  ‘You don’t own as much as you think. If you walk into the wrong place they’ll give you up. The word’s out. You’re an embarrassment. Dangerous. Crazy.’

  ‘People don’t talk to me like that,’ Jansen said. ‘It’s not wise.’

  ‘Once upon a time maybe.’ The barber handed over a new phone. ‘I suggest you use this from now on. I don’t know if the one I gave you’s safe any more.’

  ‘Suzi . . .’

  ‘Suzi’s got that number. I’ve got it. No one else.’

  Jansen picked up the gun from the table, stuffed it into the spare pocket of his coat. Two weapons now. He felt like small-time muscle waiting on an opportunity.

  ‘If you change your mind and want to get out of town we can do that today,’ Maarten added. ‘Gladly. Right now. I’ll drive you all the way down to Spain myself . . .’

  ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ Jansen replied.

  A sour, judgemental scowl. He’d never have got that before. Then the barber was gone.

  5

  Vos and Bakker started to cycle to Waterlooplein. Halfway down Elandsgracht he stopped suddenly, excited by something he’d seen.

  ‘Croissants!’ he declared and dashed in to the cheese shop, came out with a couple, pushed his bike to the benches near the statues of Johnny Jordaan and his musicians. She sighed, joined him.

  ‘Aren’t we supposed to be working?’ Bakker asked.

  He pulled out the phone log someone had shoved in the postbox of Marnixstraat that morning. Together they went through it.

  ‘Best cheese croissants you can get round here,’ Vos added. ‘I like to have one every morning around eleven.’

  ‘It’s always good to have a schedule,’ she observed.

  Bakker looked at the croissant he’d given her. Still warm. Cheese crispy round the base. Perfect soft pastry. She picked at the thing, then finished it in a couple of bites. Purred for a moment.

  A couple of pigeons started to hang around, looking for crumbs. Then an old woman with a dog meandered past, said she hoped Sam was well and learning to be less excitable, got a smile and a salute from Vos in return.

  Cars and bikes. A sign in the little island between the narrow traffic lanes declared ‘The Pearl of Jordaan!’. On the next bench a couple of dodgy-looking men were smoking weed. A mother went past pushing a pram, snapping at a kid who was trying to pluck the strings on the double bass on one of the statues.

  ‘Who needs restaurants?’ he asked. ‘When you’ve got . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes! Best cheese croissant ever. OK?’ She tapped the phone log. ‘What about this?’

  It was for the office landline in Willemsen’s office. One call to Mulder. Ninety seconds. Nothing else.

  ‘Not much there, really. We’ll need to scare a bit more out of them than that.’ A grin. ‘Are you up for it?’

  She balled up her napkin, took his and the bag from the cheese shop, disposed of them carefully.

  ‘I believe so,’ she said and they cycled on to Waterlooplein.

  He let Bakker lead the way, big boots clumping into the council offices. Before Vos could say a word she’d asked for Margriet Willemsen. The day was getting brighter. Summer waving in the distance. The flea market outside was busy with tourists and locals. Everything seemed so very normal. Whatever normal was.

  The receptionist came back and said Willemsen was busy in a meeting. She could fit them in around one in the afternoon.

  Vos nodded and leapt over the security gate, waved his police ID at the flapping, worried guard. Checked the department list by the lift doors. He’d been here before. The executives worked on the top floor. Where else?

  Bakker was right behind him. No one argued.

  Willemsen had occupied Prins’s old office. She was in the seat by the window with the view out to De Wallen, rooftops and church spires, red and brown, black brick and golden in the sunlight. Alex Hendriks opposite her when they marched in ignoring the squawks of the secretary who’d followed from reception.

  ‘This is a meeting?’ Laura Bakker asked and pulled up two chairs next to Hendriks.

  Vos smiled and said, ‘It is now.’

  Bakker took out her voice recorder and notebook. Hendriks got up to flee for the door.

  ‘You can stay,’ Vos ordered. The council man groaned, sat down.

  Willemsen looked furious.

  ‘This is outrageous.’ She picked up the phone. ‘I’m calling De Groot. You can’t just walk in here—’

  ‘If you like,’ Bakker cut in, ‘we can discuss this with De Groot in the room. At Marnixstraat. He sent us.’

  Vos looked at her. Nodded in agreement.

  ‘Sent us straight here,’ he added. ‘No stopping. Or you go to jail.’

  Then he held up the call log. Official city council stamp at the top. No arguing.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ she demanded.

  ‘A good fairy pushed it through the door this morning,’ Bakker said.

  Willemsen lost it then. Stormed about confidential documents. Breach of trust.

  When she calmed down a little Vos asked about the call to Mulder.

  A pained sigh then Willemsen said, ‘He was our link man at Marnixstraat for De Nachtwacht. Don’t you know that?’

  ‘That’s why you called him?’ Vos asked.

  ‘Yes. We had a meeting coming up. Why else?’

  He hesitated for a moment then said, ‘This is a little delicate.’ Looked at Hendriks. ‘But anyway . . . You were sleeping with Klaas Mulder. You were sleeping with Wim Prins.’

  A furious silence.

  ‘Probably around the same time if the dates on the videos are to be believed,’ Bakker added. ‘I don’t mean simultaneously. As far as we know. Just kind of . . . a little while apart.’

  Margriet Willemsen blinked and asked, ‘What videos?’

  Vos smiled, waited for a moment then said, ‘You d
on’t know? One on the iPad Mulder took from the reporter he killed two nights ago. That was you and Prins. Another got sent to Prins at home. That was you and Mulder.’ He scratched his cheek. ‘Bit of a mix-up there perhaps . . .’

  She didn’t look flustered. Simply puzzled.

  ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

  Bakker scowled.

  ‘Anna de Vries was in here on Tuesday. She had that on her iPad. She told him. And he never—?’

  ‘Wim said nothing about it to me,’ Willemsen insisted. ‘I never talked to the woman. Neither did Mulder as far as I know.’

  ‘You slept with both of them!’ Bakker cried.

  A shake of the head. Every last black hair in place. Willemsen looked confident.

  ‘What’s my private life to you? Or anyone?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ Alex Hendriks announced and got to his feet. Vos let him leave. Willemsen watched him go. Eyes boring into his back.

  ‘Two men you were involved with are dead,’ Vos said when Hendriks had left the room. ‘We need to understand why.’

  ‘I’m a single woman. What I do outside of here is my business. Not yours.’

  ‘That reporter could have destroyed you,’ Bakker said. ‘One story from her . . .’

  Margriet Willemsen laughed.

  ‘This is Amsterdam. Not whatever cow patch you grew up in. People don’t give a shit who I sleep with.’

  ‘You know something about this,’ Bakker insisted, a little of the confidence knocked out of her voice.

  Willemsen thought for a while then looked at Vos.

  ‘Maybe I do. They’re saying Wim killed his wife. Kidnapped his daughter. I had a fling with Mulder. That’s all it was. But I can tell you. Those too were close. They went out together. Drinks. Parties.’

  ‘There was a privehuis on the Prinsen,’ Vos asked. ‘Three years ago . . .’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I don’t hang around brothels. Mulder and Wim were close on De Nachtwacht. Much more involved than I ever was. To be honest Wim was obsessed with all that for some reason. I never did understand why.’

  A thought, seemingly stray, then she added, ‘Wim would be really mad if he thought someone had a video of us. He had a terrible temper. I can tell you that.’ The steady, confident smile. ‘I don’t. Ask anyone.’

  She glanced at the clock on the wall.

  ‘I really do have meetings. If I could help I would. But . . .’

  6

  It took ten minutes for her to calm down enough to summon him. Then she called Hendriks back into the office. Watched him take a seat. A small man. Scared and lost. And still there was something she didn’t get.

  ‘What do I do with you, Alex?’ she asked.

  He blinked at the bright sun beyond the window, kept quiet.

  ‘Really? You cause so much trouble. So much unnecessary pain.’

  Hendriks bowed his head, looked briefly mutinous.

  ‘I’ve apologized for the videos. I didn’t expect them to get out of here. Someone stole them. They were just . . . insurance.’

  ‘You mean blackmail?’

  ‘If that’s what you want to call it. Not that I used—’

  ‘You sent Marnixstraat that call log, didn’t you?’

  Hendriks shrank into the seat, stayed silent.

  ‘You sent them a call log because you think I’m responsible.’

  ‘I didn’t say—’

  ‘You think I called Mulder and got him to deal with that woman.’

  ‘Deal with? She was murdered.’

  She laughed.

  ‘If you believe I’m capable of that . . . aren’t you being just a bit, well, slow?’

  ‘This city doesn’t belong to you, Margriet! Any more than it belonged to Wim. To any of you.’ A finger stabbed at his chest.

  ‘It’s ours.’ A wave at the window. ‘Everyone’s. You can’t come in here and tell us how to live. What to think. What to feel.’

  She wanted to scream at him. Instead, calmly, she said, ‘You don’t think Wim would have got anywhere with De Nachtwacht, do you? It was his pet project. An obsession for some reason. We went along with it to get a seat at the table. That’s all. For Christ’s sake, Alex. You didn’t need to spy on us. It was never going to happen. Not with me around.’

  ‘So I gather,’ Hendriks replied without thinking. Then realized. Twitched, nervous on the seat.

  A long silence between them. At the end Margriet Willemsen said in a tense, taut tone, ‘You’ve been under a lot of pressure. I don’t think you cope well. The best thing for all of us would be for you to resign. Right now. Just clear your desk and go.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I do. I’ll sort out the severance. Don’t worry. It’ll be generous.’ A glance at the window, then at him. ‘Go home. Wait there. I’ll send round someone from human resources. Straight away. We can do this subtly.’ A frank look. ‘Nothing need go on your record. You get the pay-off. I’ll find you something elsewhere. Just be supportive. No more cameras. No more leaks. No more screwups . . .’

  ‘I won’t be th-threatened,’ Hendriks stuttered. ‘Not by the likes of you.’

  ‘And what exactly am I, Alex? Please. Do tell.’

  He didn’t answer. Got up. Unsteady. Walked out the same way.

  7

  Suzi Mertens was waiting when Vos and Bakker got back to Marnixstraat. A serious, pretty woman with a sad, drawn face. Drab brown coat and dress, like an off-duty nun. She’d asked for Vos by name at reception. Said nothing else except that she’d wait.

  They listened to her in an interview room. After five minutes Vos stopped the conversation, called for a third officer. Issued the warning and turned on the voice recorder for the rest of her story.

  It made a kind of sense. The privehuis was hers and Rosie’s. Theo Jansen knew nothing about it, even when they closed it and sold on the property through the Thai woman, passing it to Jimmy Menzo.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Laura Bakker asked.

  ‘Because Rosie wanted to.’

  ‘Why?’

  No answer.

  Vos turned off the recorder, nodded to the third officer, asked her to go. When it was just the three of them he asked, ‘What made you break up with Theo?’

  ‘I hated watching him change and never notice.’

  She kept wringing her hands. Looking at the frosted-glass window bright with the sun.

  ‘I just wanted a normal life. A family. Someone . . . you could talk to round the table. Take your kid to the beach. Pick them up from school.’ The fingers moved more frantically. ‘Wasn’t much, was it? But Theo . . . Every day was a battle. A war. Anything we wanted he’d buy. Whatever we asked for. But we didn’t get him. Not after Rosie was born. We weren’t family. Just something else he owned.’

  ‘You could have taken her with you,’ Bakker said.

  A short, cold laugh.

  ‘You think so?’

  She put her hands on the table, aware she was fidgeting. Recovered something of herself.

  ‘What happened in the privehuis?’ Vos asked.

  A shake of her head.

  ‘I honestly don’t know. Rosie dealt with everything. She said it was best I wasn’t involved. One day she closed the place down. Said we could sell it on to someone else and let them deal with it. You didn’t argue with Rosie. She was like her father that way. It was pointless.’

  ‘They were young girls,’ Bakker said with a sudden vehemence. ‘Little more than children. Older men grooming them.’

  ‘I never knew,’ Suzi Mertens answered very easily.

  ‘But Rosie did,’ Vos said. She didn’t answer.

  ‘You live in the Begijnhof,’ Bakker said. ‘Do you pray in the church there? Ask for forgiveness—?’

  ‘I did my best!’

  Her sharp voice echoed round the room. They waited.

  ‘I did my best,’ she said again more gently. ‘Something went wrong. Rosie was proud of
that place. She said they got interesting customers. Businessmen. Politicians. Movie stars sometimes. People with money. And class.’

  ‘They were paedophiles,’ Bakker told her. ‘Abusing young girls who couldn’t protect themselves. While you made money out of it—’

  ‘I didn’t set the rules,’ the Mertens woman interrupted. ‘I didn’t go there.’

  ‘You knew though, didn’t you?’ Bakker said grimly. ‘You had an idea something funny was going on.’

  Suzi Mertens stared at Vos.

  ‘Rosie said she had people from the police among her regulars. So I assumed I wasn’t the only one who turned a blind eye.’

  ‘Anyone with a name?’ Vos asked.

  ‘He killed her, didn’t he?’

  ‘Mulder . . .’ Laura Bakker whispered.

  ‘Is that why he did it?’ Suzi Mertens asked. ‘To keep her quiet? I’ve got the right to know. So has Theo. Why do you think he sent me here?’

  ‘Where is Theo?’ Vos said.

  ‘I’d tell you if I knew.’ She waited. ‘Is that why Mulder killed my girl?’

  Vos got up. Warned her she’d be cautioned for hiding Theo Jansen on the run. Charged when the station got round to it.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t,’ he agreed.

  8

  Alex Hendriks didn’t wait to get his coat. After he left Margriet Willemsen’s office he took the lift downstairs, walked straight out into the cold Amsterdam morning, stood for a long while among the office workers and tourists, watching the boats on the canal, the hawkers in the market.

  A ten-minute stroll back to his bachelor flat. Along the Amstel, across the Skinny Bridge into Kerkstraat.

  There he’d wait for the embarrassed drone from human resources. The council rarely fired officers, and never senior ones in his experience. But there was a process to be followed. He’d written it himself.