The House of Dolls

by Hewson, David

  And at that he’d left her there with her mother. Stayed outside watching the traffic on the canal, people ambling to the rickety pavement tables of the Drie Vaten.

  ‘Dad?’ she said, climbing up onto the deck, putting on the pair of sunglasses she always wore outside. Her eyes had grown weak trapped in Lindeman’s basement. She was making her first hesitant steps back into the world. It would all take time.

  Her voice had altered too. A couple of tones lower than he remembered. Adult and knowing.

  Two cases were by the gangplank. This was a goodbye, a temporary one though painful still.

  ‘Why do you live here?’ she asked, pulling up another flimsy chair to sit beside him. ‘What’s wrong with a flat?’

  ‘I like my boat. I’m fixing her up. By the time you come back she’ll be finished. You’ll love her. When you go to sleep you hear the water. When you wake up you hear the ducks. It’s beautiful. I’ve never slept so well in my life.’ A shrug. ‘Not for the last few nights anyway.’

  Liesbeth had followed her up the stairs. She didn’t look any different. Still hurt. Still grieving for Prins he guessed.

  ‘You’ll never fix this thing,’ she said, eyeing the long street both sides of the bridge. ‘You won’t have time. De Groot’s going to make sure of that.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Vos agreed.

  Two seats booked onto the same flight Wim Prins tried to take, direct to Aruba. They’d stay in his villa there, the one Liesbeth had secretly visited while she was living with Vos. Anneliese knew nothing about that, any more than she realized Prins was her real father. Vos had demanded Liesbeth’s silence on those matters from the outset. She hadn’t argued.

  ‘Will you find the time to come and see us?’ Anneliese asked. ‘Mum says . . .’ She looked uncertain. ‘We’re going to stay there for six months or so. I need to get my head in shape. Being somewhere else . . .’

  ‘If the doctors say it’s a good idea . . . if you think so too . . .’ He touched her arm. ‘Come back when you’re ready. No pressure. I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘It would be good to see you,’ she said in that steady, determined way she’d had since she was little. ‘You look as if you need some sun.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. If there’s time . . .’

  It was a lie. They both knew it. He looked at his watch. The taxi would turn up at any moment. Vos got to his feet, smiled as she joined him.

  He put his arms round his daughter, kissed her soft cheek. She was tall and beautiful, summer shirt and new jeans. Hair cut short now, not the childish locks Lindeman had demanded.

  ‘You can always find me here,’ Vos said. ‘I will always love you. If you need me, just ask.’

  She took off the sunglasses. Blinked back tears. Perhaps the child in her thought he and Liesbeth would toy with a reconciliation. While the adult knew differently and always took the bleaker view.

  ‘I need a minute with your mother,’ he said. ‘Go and have a coffee over the road. It’s better than the stuff I make.’

  ‘I never said thank you, did I?’

  ‘You didn’t need to. I’m sorry it took me so long. I gave up. I thought I’d lost you. That there was nothing I could do.’

  ‘What changed things?’

  ‘Not what but who. Katja Prins I guess. And a very stubborn young woman from Dokkum.’

  ‘What . . . ?’

  ‘Another time,’ he said. ‘Not now.’

  Arms round his shoulders she reached up and kissed him again. Both cheeks. Love between them. The quiet yet fierce devotion of family. Something Pieter Vos thought he’d lost forever.

  Then she strode over to the Drie Vaten, sat at a table among the tourists, ordered a coffee. A couple of young men were eyeing her. She wasn’t just beautiful in his eyes. There was a charming, affecting, perhaps illusory innocence about her. It turned heads. Had done for the obsessive and lonely Michiel Lindeman, looking for his own private marionette to own, to shape, to adore, three years before. Sooner or later another man would come along. A good one this time he hoped. And not too soon.

  ‘You’re welcome to come and see us, Pieter,’ Liesbeth said. Arms folded. Face emotionless, impenetrable. ‘Make a change from this dump.’

  The dog sat upright, stared at her. Vos was sure he heard a low growl.

  ‘I like this dump. The Jordaan’s my home.’

  She didn’t appreciate that.

  ‘And now Aruba’s going to be yours,’ he added.

  ‘I want to be somewhere warm and sunny. Somewhere we can be happy. Liese needs that as much as I do.’

  ‘It’s best you stay there.’

  She cocked her head to one side, puzzled.

  ‘If that’s what I want. Wim’s estate here needs sorting out . . .’

  ‘The bank can do that. You should leave it to them.’

  ‘What happens about Bea?’ Liesbeth asked. ‘Does that go down on Wim’s file too?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘I was married to him. Remember?’

  She’d asked so few questions. A part of him wished it could stay that way.

  ‘I’ll leave that open for now.’

  The dog got up and walked to the bows, sat there, back to them, posing for the snapping cameras of a pleasure boat cruising down the canal.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he didn’t kill Bea. You did.’

  The same frozen expression. Not a flicker in her eyes.

  ‘And there I was,’ she said blithely. ‘Thinking you were getting better.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. Someone had wiped down the seats of her car.’ Vos’s attention strayed to his daughter. Sofia had come to sit with her, probably to make sure none of the men did. The two of them were sipping coffee. Chatting. ‘Forensic thought it happened when it went in for a service a few weeks before. I got Van der Berg to check. The garage didn’t use wipes on that model. The seats were leather. They needed polish.’

  ‘You expect me to believe—?’

  ‘The wipes were very specific. Bigger than the kind you buy in a shop. Exactly the same size as the ones we have in forensic. Where you were working at the time.’

  ‘That’s it?’ she asked. ‘The best detective in Amsterdam. That’s all you have?’

  ‘It’s a start. Or it will be if you come back from Aruba. I don’t want Anneliese staying more than six months either. Not unless she comes here and tells me to my face that’s what she wants.’

  ‘You arrogant bastard . . .’

  ‘Wim knew all along, didn’t he?’ Vos had thought this through. Kept it to himself. ‘De Nachtwacht was a part of that guilt, I guess. Thinking he could clean up the city and atone for something on your conscience. I guess it wasn’t so hard for him to jump from the plane—’

  ‘He was a coward. Weak. Just a man. That bitch stole my daughter. While you were pissing about going crazy in Marnixstraat, getting nowhere. She took Liese to that privehuis. It was her fault—’

  ‘No. Lindeman seized her. No one else.’

  ‘Bea started this! Are you listening? Are you still asleep?’

  Her voice had got too loud. A young, concerned face watched them from a table outside the Drie Vaten.

  ‘I just wanted to know,’ Liesbeth said more quietly. ‘Wim was at his wits’ end with the woman. I didn’t set out to kill her. She laughed in my face. Said she’d known about me and Wim all along. What she did to Liese was her revenge. Not on me. On my daughter.’

  That hadn’t occurred to him. It should have, Vos realized.

  ‘And you just happened to have a gun. Some wipes from Marnixstraat forensic to clean up afterwards.’

  ‘I’d worked it out, Pieter.’ She prodded him in the chest. ‘While you were getting nowhere. I knew.’

  A white taxi was edging along the Prinsengracht, the driver looking out for someone.

  ‘Come back and I reopen the whole thing,’ Vos promised. ‘I’ll use every officer I’ve got until I see you in court
. Believe that if you believe nothing else.’

  She smiled, waved to Anneliese outside the cafe. Shouted in a calm and friendly voice, ‘Ready?’

  Looked at him, still beaming then asked, ‘And break your daughter’s heart twice over? I don’t think so. If you were going to do it, you’d do it now. Don’t fuck with me. You’re not up to it. You never were.’

  She held out her arms. The promise of a final embrace.

  ‘Make a pretence. For her sake. Not mine. Bea’s dead and buried. So is Wim. Liese’s alive and I won’t let anything in the world hurt her. You can count on that.’

  The briefest of hugs, a cold peck on the cheek. Then he lugged their bags to the road. Held his daughter in his arms one last time, whispered fond words in her ear, kissed her and watched them go.

  He was still standing there, lost in his thoughts, his doubts, when a cycle bell rang.

  2

  Sam came running down the gangplank, yapping wildly, dashed to the bike, put his feet up against her legs.

  ‘You forgot, Vos. I don’t believe it.’

  He felt slow and stupid. A tall young woman on a modern bike with a basket on the front. Her red hair was long and down around her shoulders, carefully combed. She wore an old-fashioned print dress, white and green, cut just above the knee. Pale brown leather sandals, not heavy black boots. And a pair of modern sunglasses which she pushed back from her nose as he watched, then planted on her head.

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘I should have known, shouldn’t I? We agreed. Remember?’

  ‘You look . . . different. The clothes. Auntie Maartje?’

  ‘She doesn’t make everything I wear. I’m off duty.’ Slowly she repeated the last two words. ‘Do you even know what that means?’

  He recalled a promise: she could take Sam for a ride and a walk somewhere. At the time he’d been trying to turn down an offer of a beer from Van der Berg. Hadn’t given it much thought.

  ‘Vondelpark,’ she said, stroking the dog’s head after she leaned her bike against the rail. ‘If that’s all right . . .’

  The little terrier’s tale was wagging like an overworked metronome. She picked him up, kissed his head, got licked in return, placed him in the basket on the front.

  ‘That’s new,’ he said, pointing to the handlebars.

  ‘De Groot’s confirmed me in post. I got the letter yesterday. A present to myself.’

  ‘Good news,’ he said, nodding sagely.

  ‘As if you didn’t know. Not that he had much choice. I’d have caused such a stink if they booted me out. After all that nonsense with Katja and Mulder. Ooh . . . you can’t begin to imagine . . .’

  ‘I can actually.’

  She stroked the dog.

  ‘Are you all right? You look distracted.’

  ‘Never better,’ he said, aware she was staring at his threadbare blue shirt, the worn jeans, old trainers. A thought. He pulled up his jeans and pointed. Two matching socks. Bright red.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘It’ll be evening dress next.’

  ‘It’s a start.’

  ‘Do you want to come to the park too?’ she asked, hovering over each word like an adult talking to a child.

  Vos pointed to the boat.

  ‘Work to do here. Lots of it.’

  ‘Will it ever be finished?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Will you?’

  He hesitated then said, ‘Is anyone?’

  A nod towards the Drie Vaten.

  ‘Besides . . . there’s some washing waiting for me over there.’

  ‘That is truly shameful.’

  A sheepish grin.

  ‘I know. Don’t let him eat crisps.’ He pulled an old supermarket carrier from his pocket. ‘Make sure you clean up . . .’

  She reached beyond the dog into the basket and showed him a brand-new pack of something called poop scoop bags.

  ‘Last chance ever, Pieter Vos,’ Laura Bakker said, pulling down the sunglasses. ‘I won’t ask again.’

  He shrugged, smiled a wan smile. Watched as she muttered something under her breath then set off along the canal.

  Sam did something he’d never seen before. Instead of facing forwards, enjoying the wind in his fur, he turned and looked at the woman pedalling him to the park. She was chattering to him as she cycled slowly along the Prinsengracht, red hair flying over her shoulders, lost to everything but the dog.

  Vos glanced at the run-down, battered boat.

  Then the Drie Vaten serving up the first cold beers of the day.

  Tugged at his too-long hair.

  Scratched his cheek. Felt briefly torn.

  The Killing

  by

  DAVID HEWSON

  Based on the original screenplay by Søren Sveistrup

  ISBN 978-1-4472-1395-6

  Through the dark wood where the dead trees give no shelter Nanna Birk Larsen runs . . . There is a bright monocular eye that follows, like a hunter after a wounded deer. It moves in a slow approaching zigzag, marching through the Pineseskoven wasteland, through the Pentecost Forest.

  The chill water, the fear, his presence not so far away . . .

  There is one torchlight on her now, the single blazing eye. And it is here . . .

  Sarah Lund is looking forward to her last day as a detective with the Copenhagen police department before moving to Sweden. But everything changes when a nineteen-year-old student, Nanna Birk Larsen, is found raped and brutally murdered in the woods outside the city. Lund’s plans to relocate are put on hold as she leads the investigation along with fellow detective Jan Meyer.

  While Nanna’s family struggles to cope with their loss, local politician, Troels Hartmann, is in the middle of an election campaign to become the new mayor of Copenhagen. When links between City Hall and the murder suddenly come to light, the case takes an entirely different turn.

  Over the course of twenty days, suspect upon suspect emerges as violence and political intrigue cast their shadows over the hunt for the killer.

  Praise for The Killing

  ‘As gripping as the TV series. It will keep you pinned to the very last page’

  Jens Lapidus

  ‘David Hewson should be commended for writing such a page-turner of a book . . . The Killing has enough twists and turns to satisfy not only any avid follower of the series but also readers that are coming to it first time around’

  shotsmag.co.uk

  The Killing II

  by

  DAVID HEWSON

  Based on the original screenplay by Søren Sveistrup

  ISBN 978-1-4472-1694-0

  Thirty-nine steps rose from the busy road of Tuborgvej into Mindelunden, with its quiet graves and abiding bitter memories. Lennart Brix, head of the Copenhagen homicide team, felt he’d been walking them most of his life.

  Beneath the entrance arch, sheltering from the icy rain, he couldn’t help but recall that first visit almost fifty years before. A five-year-old boy, clutching the hand of his father, barely able to imagine what he was about to see . . .

  The bark of a dog broke his reverie. Brix looked at the forensic officers, white bunny suits, mob hats, marching grim-faced down the rows of graves, towards the space in the little wood where the rest of the team was gathering . . .

  It is two years since the notorious Nanna Birk Larsen case. Two years since Detective Sarah Lund left Copenhagen in disgrace for a remote outpost in northern Denmark.

  When the body of a female lawyer is found in macabre circumstances in a military graveyard, there are elements of the crime scene that remind Head of Homicide, Lennart Brix, of an occupied wartime Denmark – a time its countrymen would rather forget.

  Brix knows that Lund is the one person he can rely on to discover the truth. Though reluctant to return to Copenhagen, Lund becomes intrigued with the facts surrounding the case. As more bodies are found, Lund comes to see a pattern. She realizes that the identity of the killer will be known once the truth behind a more
recent wartime mission is finally revealed . . .

  Carnival for the Dead

  by

  DAVID HEWSON

  ISBN 978-0-330-53783-4

  In Venice the past was more reticent. Beyond the tourist sights, San Marco and the Rialto, it lurked in the shadows, seeping out of the cracked stones like blood from ancient wounds, as if death itself was one more sly performance captured beneath the bright all-seeing light of the lagoon.

  It’s February, and Carnival time in Venice. Forensic pathologist Teresa Lupo visits the city to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her beloved bohemian Aunt Sofia. But from the moment she is greeted off the vaporetto by a masked man dressed in the costume of The Plague Doctor, Teresa starts to suspect that all is not well.

  The puzzle deepens when a letter reveals a piece of fiction in which both Sofia and Teresa appear. Even more strange are the links to the past which gradually begin to surface. Are the messages being sent by Sofia herself ? Her abductor? Or a third party seeking to help her unravel the mystery? The revelation is as surprising and shocking as Sofia’s fate. And Teresa herself comes to depend upon the unravelling of a mystery wrapped deep inside the art and culture of Venice itself.

  Praise for Carnival for the Dead:

  ‘Atmospheric and engaging . . . the central mystery is every bit as intriguing as ever and the unravelling of the solution has the satisfying precision that we know the author delivers so adroitly . . .’

  Daily Express

  ‘Complex and cunning’

  Sunday Telegraph Seven magazine

  ‘The Byzantine complexity of Carnival For The Dead is a measure of Hewson’s inventiveness . . .’

  Sunday Herald

  Praise for The Killing

  ‘Turns television gold into literary gold’

  Daily Telegraph

  ‘Hewson is a highly regarded crime writer in his own right . . . for those who missed watching Sarah Lund and the Danish police in action, I believe they will get a great deal of pleasure from reading about them’