Her interviewee laughed and adjusted the crotch of his trousers. Fat veins strained against the musculature in his bull neck. Over worked-out in the prison gym. A terrifying prospect for any victim, let alone a child. But at least he was laughing. She wanted to keep him onside; tease any latent information out of this brute.
‘I’ve got a source says you were involved in the Son of the Eagle’s network. You were sent down for a variety of offences, weren’t you?’ She skim-read his record once more. ‘Pimping Roma girls of thirteen from a B&B near Rotterdam docks. You had unlawful sex with the girls yourself and coerced them into going with truck drivers for money. Supplying class A drugs too. Starting kids of ten and eleven off as runners for you.’
Holding his hands aloft, the prisoner grinned. ‘I paid them well. They got better treatment off me than they did at home. You know how these kids are, don’t you?’
George closed her eyes, keeping her own teenaged memories of a disengaged, selfish mother firmly locked in Pandora’s Box. ‘Then you pressured them into prostitution. Kept them prisoner at the B&B when they tried to leave.’
‘I was dedicated to my work. Part of a big, well-oiled machine.’
‘Who ran this machine? I mean, the guy at the very top.’
The inmate leaned towards her so that she could see every blocked, black pore in his broken nose. Every split red vein in his otherwise sallow cheeks. ‘I know I’m in here for a long time,’ he said, as though he were sharing some confidence, as though a prison guard wasn’t standing by the door. ‘I get that. They got me banged to rights. But I’m not grassing.’
‘Your name was linked to the Son of the Eagle. You’ve just told me you’d heard of him, didn’t you? This is not a new police investigation into you. It’s a freelance criminologist trying to build a picture of who’s who in the…’
The man’s face was a blank screen, as though he’d punched the on/off switch and was now hibernating.
‘The Duke,’ George said. ‘Have you heard of the Duke? Runs the whole show from London but also has interests over here and in Germany. Further afield in South Eastern Europe too, if the Son of the Eagle’s reach is anything to go by.’
A change in the size of the man’s pupils told her he had indeed heard of Gordon Bloom.
‘Did you ever hear that a high-ranking policeman is connected to the Duke?’
Eyes narrowing. Darting off to the left. Silence.
‘Any top-brass cop ever used your services?’
Examining his bruised knuckles. Fingering a blocked hair follicle on his elbow. Silence.
‘Any rumours going round that someone high up in the force is involved in oiling the wheels in this big machine you were part of?’
When her interviewee’s furtive gaze honed in on the prison officer by the door, George saw a previously invisible subtext written in a tense, tight hand, hanging freely in the fraught air between them. She nodded. Put her papers together. Thanked the tattooed monster and left.
Franz Dinkels. Images. Click. In the quiet solitude of her living room, Marie revelled in the benefits of working on this tangle of subterfuge and potential libel from home. There was Franz’s pleasant round face on her monitor, care of a Google search. Coming up on a crime-writing blog he ran, where he and an American friend called Ned reviewed the latest thrillers from Europe and the US. One photo of Franz in a local newspaper, labelled simply as a researcher in the Berliner Polizei. No mention of him being charming or that he blushed in an endearing way whenever he talked about cases at work that had been cracked thanks to his hard work, trawling through a virtual Sodom and Gomorrah on the Internet. They shared a love of horror films. He, like her, was a semi-lapsed Catholic. One failed long-term relationship. Otherwise, plugging the lonely gaps with work and his hobbies. When, during one of their frequent Skype conversations, she had told him about the short affair with that posing prick Diederik, and how she had gained and lost a son inside twelve months, hadn’t Franz’s eyes become glassy with empathy? Hadn’t she seen him swallow hard when she had turned her favourite photo of Nicolaas towards the camera for him to see? An introduction of sorts. Nicolaas, smiling in his bouncy chair. About a week before that bitch, the BVM had taken him. Wearing a playsuit covered in zoo animals. A picture of health. Too robust to succumb to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. And yet he had.
Hastily, Marie clicked off the tab containing the images of the irrepressibly cheery Franz Dinkels, reminded that, as a sinner, she didn’t deserve happiness, so she might as well give up the ghost of ever finding love with a slightly overweight, empathetic man with a pleasant face who lived in Berlin. She glowered at the Breughel representation of the BVM in the hallway, just visible from where she had perched on her sofa.
‘Idiot,’ she reprimanded herself, catching her breath as grief washed over her anew.
It had been almost a year, and still the pain was constant and acute. She thought of Gabi and Piet Deenen, not even able to lay their children to rest; letting go of the bad memories and choosing to replay only the good, over and over, like favourite footage taken by an old Hi8 camcorder. Those poor bastards were trapped in a purgatorial sojourn that could last their entire cursed lifetimes.
Blinking away hot tears, she turned back to the financial records for Bloom’s companies. Money going into Mieke Hasselblad’s bank account. Everything in her name. But no evidence of a separate bank account in the Chief of Police’s name. No sign of any financial transaction occurring between the two men. Not a single thing in the name of Jaap Hasselblad. Clever. Records from an exclusive golf club outside Amsterdam, though, showing Bloom and Hasselblad were both members. Hell, there were even photos on the golf club’s website showing the two lifting a trophy together. A picture of middle-aged respectability in colourful argyle sweaters and pale golfing trousers.
Marie scribbled her thoughts onto a brand-new notepad – one that she would keep at home where prying eyes would not discover Van den Bergen’s covert investigation.
What is Bloom’s connection to Mieke Hasselblad? Did Mieke know Bloom first? If so, how?
The cabin felt cramped with three adults inside it. Van den Bergen stretched his long legs out in the direction of the door. Arms folded, he regarded Piet and Gabi as they hungrily devoured the ham baguettes he had brought for them. He’d also replaced the spent flask of coffee for his old tartan Thermos, full of tinned tomato soup, and brought two large bottles of Evian, which may or may not freeze solid before they could be drunk. Strange to see two fugitives sleeping in his and Tamara’s old camping gear.
‘My doctor tells me you both need blood tests to see what God-awful infections you’ve picked up on the street.’
Piet shrugged, and rubbed at the scaly skin on his nose. ‘None of that matters.’
‘Have you heard from Bloom? Any emails?’
‘No. Not a word.’
‘The guy’s full of shit,’ Gabi said. ‘I know him well enough. The City of London’s a small place. Bloom Group owned Pickwick Welcome, back when I used to do his PR. The guy’s a typical politician. He’s always been about the spin. He just wanted to get out of that railway arch alive. He won’t find our bloody children for us.’ She took a hungry bite from her baguette. ‘We should have killed him when we had our chance.’
Van den Bergen shook his head, torn between the policeman and the father that warred inside him. ‘No. It’s bad enough that four men are dead because of you. Killing Bloom would have been a huge mistake. If you’d cut the head off the monster, we’d never get to find how far its tentacles reach.’
Piet drained his cup of tomato soup too enthusiastically. Red smeared on the bottom half of his face made him look like a recalcitrant vampire who had substituted fangs for icicles, bleeding the ungodly dry through punctures in their wretched necks but eschewing their tainted blood in favour of Albert Heijn’s tinned best. ‘I don’t give a shit about the tentacles!’ he shouted. ‘I just want my children back. Dead or alive!’ Tears welled in his eyes. �
�I don’t care if I spend the rest of my life in prison. I don’t care that I was once an architect and a father and a husband and now I’m a murderer. I don’t give a flying fuck. I just want this nightmare to end. If I could die, I would. But for some reason, God just won’t let me go.’
Gabi looked blankly at Van den Bergen. ‘He’s right. It’s like we’re trapped on a shit ride we can’t get off. We need closure.’
Van den Bergen stood, stooping slightly to avoid banging his head on the low ceiling of his cabin. Once a place of solitude where he could go to ruminate in peace about the blind alleys that difficult cases and life in general led him down. Now, his special place had been contaminated by somebody else’s anguish. He fingered a packet of lavatera seeds on his shelf – seeds he planned to sow later in the spring, as the ground softened. Maybe have George help him thin the seedlings, when the first leaves put in a brave appearance. Hope, even in the dormant seeds and dead soil of winter. Warmer days not too far off. Maybe it would be in police work as it was in life.
‘I’m doing everything I can,’ he said, looking into the sombre faces of the couple. ‘Stay put. Call me immediately if you hear from Bloom.’
CHAPTER 50
Amsterdam, police headquarters, then the Deenen’s house in a village South of Amsterdam, 23 March
‘What do you mean we’ve got nothing?’ Kamphuis said. Derision dripping from his every syllable. It was hard to tell if he was delighted that Van den Bergen had apparently failed, or disgusted that his subordinate had left him looking like a limp prick with the balls surgically removed.
Distracted. Van den Bergen’s thought processes were codeine-blurred, despite his two-year-long abstinence from his old, pleasantly numbing friend. The fogginess this morning was a result of sharing a bed with George for more than a week, knowing that the ghastly Letitia was snoring on the sofa in the living room: a lazy sprawling sentinel, guarding the way to the kitchen, seemingly sleeping with one eye always open. Spikes of false eyelashes barring the way to any hope of freedom. Eavesdropping on every shared thought, every snatched, tender exchange. Storing information like a bank’s server in a secure warehouse.
Knowledge, innit? Intelligence, like. You never know when that shit comes in handy. He could hear her voice grating hard inside his head. Insisting this. Prophesying that. You mark my fucking words. I been to the school of hard knocks. Blah, blah, blah, got any rum, darling?
‘Paul!’ Kamphuis slapped his chubby hand on the meeting table. Not in his ceremonial uniform today. Pretending to roll up his sleeves and do, ‘proper police work’. The station’s central heating was on the blink, rendering the meeting room just a freezing cupboard with chairs, a table and Marie’s body odour. Rings of sweat beneath the arms of Kamphuis’ red shirt were white ghosts from another day. ‘Explain.’
Van den Bergen stopped scrolling through Twitter notifications on his phone. The trolls, still trying to intercept him on his fraught travels down the information super B road, could wait. What the hell had Kamphuis just said?
He shot a glance sideways at Elvis. Elvis grimaced and mimed moral outrage. Ah, yes. The update.
‘Jack Frost and the Krampus are one and the same guy,’ he said, wondering if the ache in his throat was a symptom of an impending throat infection. Had he caught something from the Deenens? ‘A serial killer who targets men involved with child-trafficking.’ Swollen glands. Yes. A bloody throat infection. Hoped he wouldn’t pass it onto Tamara and put her pregnancy in jeopardy.
Kamphuis leaned forwards. ‘You’ve been working this case for weeks. We’ve known about the connection for weeks. Is that the best you’ve got after all this time?’ Reminiscent of a stag trying to impale his opposite number on the end of his antlers.
‘Is it my fault Jack Frost hasn’t killed again?’ Van den Bergen he said. ‘We’ve followed every single lead. George and I feel certain—’
‘George and I! George and I!’ Kamphuis wittering the words in a high-pitched, mocking voice like a gossiping old woman. ‘George and I feel certain.’
‘Fuck off, Olaf,’ Van den Bergen said, scowling at the cocksure imperiousness of the Commissioner. Hamster-cheeked, buck-passing, Teflon piece of shit. ‘You might not want to hear it. Hasselblad doesn’t want to hear it. But it’s my belief that Jack Frost and the case of the missing Deenen children are connected. It’s all about an organized child-trafficking network. I gave you my interim report. I know you read it. But we’ve come to a dead end. For now.’
Van den Bergen folded his arms, hoping to put a barrier up to further confrontation. On the table, his phone pinged. He couldn’t resist checking the text that had just appeared from George.
Another dead end. Sorry. George. xxx
‘What’s so interesting? Why are you checking your goddamn phone when you’re supposed to be justifying your existence to me?’ Kamphuis poked himself in a flabby tit emphatically.
‘Georgina has been in prison, interviewing some sex offenders that may have had a connection to one or more of the dead men. When she unearths something new and relevant to the case, you’ll be the first to know. She was just texting me with an update.’
Kamphuis thumbed his chin repeatedly, aggressively, close to where he had cut himself shaving that morning. He pointed at Marie. ‘What’s she been doing for the past bloody year? Still whingeing about cot death?’
Marie said nothing, but her face flushed red like a lobster plunged into a boiling pan, screaming inside her, almost audible.
At that point, Van den Bergen fantasized about picking Kamphuis up by the crotch of his too-tight chinos and throwing him through the window into the canal below. Horrible bastard taking a cheap pot shot at a bereaved woman.
‘Marie here has been investigating the finances of Jack Frost’s victims, of course,’ he said. ‘And looking for paedo porn sites connected to the dead men – anywhere pictures of the Deenen children could crop up. Cross-referencing names that recur, in case Jack Frost was known to all four men. Perhaps he worked with them. Perhaps he’s a hitman employed by a rival criminal network. These are the theories Marie is looking into.’
Marie was pressing so hard on her pad with her fine-liner that Van den Bergen noticed the nib disappearing entirely into the barrel. A large black blot leaking outwards from the point of contact in an almost perfect circle.
‘And him?’ Kamphuis scowling at Elvis.
Elvis attempted to fasten the button of his leather jacket. Failed. ‘I’ve been speaking to informants who know what’s what and who’s doing who in Bijlmer.’ He patted his quiff, unencumbered by a hat now that the sub-zero temperatures were starting to climb again. An endangered hair species, reintroduced into the wild.
‘And?’ Kamphuis barked.
‘I’ve got nothing.’ Still fiddling with his button, his slightly shaking hand almost gave the game away. Van den Bergen made a mental note not to entrust Elvis with lying again; he was bloody terrible at it. ‘Jack Frost is like a ghost, man. But I’ll keep trying.’
Without warning, Kamphuis thumped the table. ‘You’re a useless bunch of bastards. Do you know that? Useless!’ Pointing a nicotine-stained finger at Van den Bergen. Pointing.
Since when had Kamphuis started smoking, Van den Bergen wondered? Was the stress finally getting to him, now that he was clinging on near the very top of the greasy pole? His twitching eye said yes. Olaf Kamphuis was feeling the heat.
‘The bodies are piling up and there’s not a damn thing the Dutch police can do about it. This is a chance for us to make a real name for ourselves here. And what happens? You fail to solve your last case. You fail to solve this case! Instead, you’re bringing some hair-brained theory to the table that our icicle-wielding serial murderer is sitting reading Where the Wild Things Are to Josh and Lucy Deenen in some paedo sex dungeon somewhere. Do you know how that sounds?’ Hi eye, twitching repeatedly, put Van den Bergen in mind of a hummingbird beating its wings. ‘Far-fucking-fetched! That’s how it sounds.’
&n
bsp; Kamphuis stood, short arms spread wide along the table’s edge, playing a big, angry boss but putting his Chief Inspector in mind of Samwise Gamgee. Fat little Hobbitses wants the precious. Turd.
But something had registered deep inside Van den Bergen’s subconscious. A glimmer of a thought, coming fast into focus from the brain’s primordial soup. A memory of the book left on Josh’s nightstand. Everything in his bedroom intact since the day they were taken. A favourite book, written in English, his father had said. Bought from Waterstones Piccadilly in London when Josh had been Lucy’s age.
Where the Wild Things Are. Maurice Sendak.
And yet, Olaf Kamphuis had never been to the Deenen’s house. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Yes. That was it. Where the Wild Things Are was fairly famous, wasn’t it? Although Van den Bergen had no memory of ever having read it to his own daughter when she had been small.
The journey to the Deenens’ house was easier, now that the roads were all but clear of snow. Sun broke through the clouds as he pulled up outside the empty house. The front door was secured with an extra padlock, since the couple were presumed dead and the estate was being dealt with by solicitors trying to trace a beneficiary in the absence of their children or a will – the house being contested jointly by Piet’s mother and Gabi’s uncle.
Making short shrift of the locks, Van den Bergen stepped gingerly inside the musty house. Drank in the sense of abandonment that oozed from every bland wall. Everything left intact. The spectre of family laughter and times well-enjoyed seemed to hang in forgotten corners, along with dusty cobwebs. Hollow, cold and empty. Damp, after a hard winter of minimal heating and no ventilation. Inhospitable. Making a mockery of the Deenens’ return to the Netherlands for a better life. A dream crushed during a short window of lapsed attention on an idyllic summer morning.
Swallowing down the unwelcome lump of vicarious grief in his throat, Van den Bergen took the stairs two at a time, focusing on the Maurice Sendak picture book in his mind’s eye. On Josh’s nightstand. It had been there after the disappearance. It had been there, as he’d glimpsed the boy’s room on subsequent visits. This was surely just a misplaced hunch. An overtired Chief Inspector, past his prime, imagining things.
The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows Page 29