Before the Dawn

by Jake Woodhouse

  It takes a few minutes for her breathing to normalize, and she cranks the tap on, cups her hands under it and splashes water over her face, sucks some into her mouth, letting the cool water dribble down her throat.

  Back in the bedroom, she collapses onto the bed, over the peak now, onto the slow come-down.

  It’s been so long, Tanya thinks. And yet it never goes away.

  Ruud Staal had abused her for years before she finally ran. She’d done her best to forget, fallen into the old cliché of burying herself in work – well it was either that or drowning her sorrows in drink, but Tanya had too much drive for that – and she’d gradually found a kind of unstable balance which allowed her to live.

  But expunging something from the mind is hard, Tanya discovered years later, when she found herself actively seeking out the man who’d caused her all that pain, driven by some force she didn’t fully understand.

  And she’d found him.

  The same night Jaap’s child had been killed and a bullet had flown through her hand as if it were no more solid than butter, she’d gone to confront him, convinced that it was the only way to finally break free from her past.

  Memories of that night are still vivid, the jumbled emotions as she’d stood outside Staal’s house and rang the doorbell, her hand throbbing hard, the makeshift bandage sticky with blood.

  It was her last chance, because she knew that the very next morning Staal was booked on a plane to Thailand, where he planned to spend the rest of his life.

  Presumably doing to others what he’d done to her.

  Tanya couldn’t let that happen. She just couldn’t.

  He’d been slow to answer, and with each passing second she’d felt the urge to turn and flee grow stronger and stronger until she was visibly shaking.

  She was still shaking when Staal finally opened the door just a crack, a suspicious eye roving up and down her body. Then it flared as recognition kicked in, and he tried to close the door.

  All these years later she’s not sure how she did it, but she’d managed to force herself in before he got the chain latch on. They’d stood in the hallway, facing each other. Tanya had felt a wave of sickness which threatened to knock her off her feet, sap strength from her muscles, and once again make her a victim of the man standing in front of her.

  And it was like he could read minds, because he caught her eye and a smile split open his mouth, widening further and further till Tanya wanted to scream.

  The rest of it’s hazy even now, but he’d attacked her and they’d somehow ended up in the front room, Staal on the ground, bleeding from a wound on his forehead. He was moaning, trying to say something, and it took her a few moments to understand.

  She had leant forward; maybe this was it, maybe he was apologizing for what he’d done to her, deeply sorry for everything, asking for her forgiveness. But as she got closer what he was saying registered.

  ‘Cunt,’ he’d whispered like it was a mantra which would keep him alive. ‘Cunt cunt cunt.’

  It was then she’d felt a hand on her arm, and turned to see Kees Truter standing there, taking in the scene.

  Seeing Kees – who’d somehow worked out what was going on and had decided to check up on her – had punctured whatever bubble she’d been existing in, and he’d got her out of there as fast as he could, clearing any potential evidence against her as he did.

  He’d told her it would be OK, that he’d made it look like the man had simply fallen, he was old after all, and hit his head on the coffee table on the way down. And even though she’d spent months expecting a knock on the door it seems he was right, the case was never pursued.

  She’d had panic attacks in the months afterwards, but they’d gradually tailed off until she hoped they’d disappeared for good, allowed her to finally put it behind her and think of starting a new life with Jaap.

  And yet, she’s just had one again.

  She gets up, suddenly ready to be busy, get on with the day, with her life, anything to distract herself. The attacks will become less frequent over time, she knows that, she has to believe that, in order to keep going.

  As she leaves her flat, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

  I can do this, she thinks. I can.

  27

  The whole world tilts dangerously to the left, the skyline tipping as if on scales.

  As the helicopter banks, Jaap looks out the curved glass at the shifting world below.

  Twenty-four hours ago he’d never been in a helicopter, now the novelty’s worn off. He’s got earphones clamped over his head like a vice, so there’s no escaping the pilot’s voice as it bursts into his ears, telling him they’re almost there. Really, he doesn’t need to be told, a huddle of police cars on the sparse land ahead indication enough.

  It’s only a few hours since a cataclysmic series of knocks crashed into his unconscious state and brought him back to the real world. He’d been in a haphazard dream, constantly shifting from one thing to another, but he remembers part of it, the feeling that there was something wrong with his heart, a slow failure which could prove to be fatal.

  Before he was fully awake he’d found himself being driven through the pre-dawn to the chopper which the commissioner had arranged for him.

  The flight itself – they’d taken off just as the sun was busy cracking the horizon they’re flying towards – had given him time to think, to try and absorb just what had happened yesterday. He’d spoken briefly to Arno, who confirmed that Brouwer couldn’t have been responsible for Heleen’s death. What’s more, Arno continued, clearly having been working through the night, it turned out Brouwer was visiting a friend on Terschelling, something he did once a week like clockwork. In other words, he hadn’t been running from anyone. It was doubtful he even knew Heleen was dead, if he’d missed the radio broadcast, which Jaap has to admit is possible. So Brouwer was clearly guilty of the mutilation – there was a long history of messages between him and Heleen going back two years – but not her murder.

  All of which, Jaap thinks, leads to what? Who is doing this?

  And then there’s the electric ping he keeps feeling in his stomach whenever Kamp’s denial comes into his head. Which is often.

  On the ground ahead there are cars, people, and a triangular area, taped off between three trees, all the accoutrements of a classic crime scene.

  And in the centre lies a body, looking like a dark stain spilt on pristine ground. They’re banking again, swinging round the site as if the body’s the centre of a whirlpool and they’re being sucked in.

  Figures are looking skyward now, and as the turn deepens Jaap glimpses an airbase huddled up against a band of trees running north–south. Deelen airbase, the pilot told him earlier, was once used by the Nazis when the Netherlands had been occupied during the war, but was now a training ground for helicopter pilots. The pilot trained there himself before shipping out to Iraq where, he’d told Jaap, he’d not even been scrambled once.

  ‘We could land there,’ the pilot says, pointing in the general direction of the base itself. ‘Easier to set down. I’m sure they can get you a car?’

  They’re on their second circle now, the figures no longer watching.

  Jaap doesn’t see the point of having a helicopter unless it takes you door to door. He shares this opinion with the pilot.

  ‘OK,’ the pilot says as he breaks the circle and looks for a place to set down.

  ‘Not too close,’ Jaap says. He doesn’t want some forensic chewing his ass off because his mode of transport kicks up a cascade of dust and debris. It’s not rained for three weeks now, and it’s starting to show. Much of the Netherlands is built on reclaimed land, the water table high, so the soil will stay wet even if it never rains again and the sun shines 24/7. But here inland is different, the ground already cracking like dried-out skin on an old man’s heel.

  The pilot’s looking for a suitable spot and Jaap thinks about all four deaths, all in open locations – a contrast to where he�
�s spent his career, in Amsterdam, the tight alleyways a million miles from the expansive beach on Vlieland, or the openness of the land here, part of the Hoge Veluwe National Park.

  He’d checked up on his destination during the journey. The land had been bought in 1909 by a wealthy industrialist couple who wanted a country estate where they could invite guests to blast away at various species of animal because, really, what could be more fun? They’d built a house large enough to show off their ever-growing collection of contemporary art, and their guests had hunted by day and partied by night, even as storm clouds gathered over Europe.

  Like most parties, this one ended up with a colossal hangover. Worsening economic conditions meant they eventually had to relinquish the estate, donating it to a foundation which turned it into a national park. The only shooting allowed these days was done with cameras.

  They suddenly drop fast, and he’s thankful his departure was too rushed for breakfast. De Zoet had seen him off, and handed him a brown paper bag which Jaap has yet to open.

  Dust balloons round them as one rail touches down gently, as if testing the ground is solid enough before fully committing with the other. The motor whirrs down the octaves, a high whine settling out into lower beats as the blades slow from a single entity to individual parts.

  Jaap pulls his headgear off, hands it to the pilot and springs out, ducking instinctively even though the blades are well above head height.

  He heads towards the only man not in uniform, but clearly the one in charge. Leadership’s in the way the body’s held, not the flimsy, and fakeable, covering.

  ‘Jesus,’ the man says when Jaap gets close. ‘You must be the fucking cavalry or something.’

  Jaap shrugs as if it’s nothing, as if he spends his days being ferried around the country in his own helicopter, and holds out his hand.

  ‘Jaap Rykel,’ he says.

  The man in front of him clearly got the memo about dairy. Jaap is six-two but this guy’s off the chart, the top of his cowboy hat damn near scraping the sky. He’s at least ten years older than Jaap, with a face that hasn’t seen much of the inside of an office. His sunglasses are the mirrored lenses of a seventies airline pilot. In them Jaap catches a glimpse of himself, his body hourglassed, head too big, the dry landscape stretching out behind him.

  Jaap wonders if he’s going to be like Stuppor, the pissed-off obstructive local. He doesn’t seem to be making many friends at the moment.

  But the man smiles suddenly, shoots his hand out to take the shake, removing his sunglasses with the other. In a swift motion he has them folded up and hooked onto the front of his shirt.

  ‘Frank Ploumen,’ he says. ‘Just glad you could make it. Shall we?’

  They walk over to the nearest stretch of tape, shadows still long on the ground. Frank has the habit of blowing air out of his nose in occasional puffs, as if trying to dislodge a fly. Jaap expects Max to appear at any moment. He catches a glimpse of a nightmare future where all he ever does is roll up to dead bodies, Max appearing again and again, only under the sheet he whips away each time there’s a different body.

  He shakes it off, ducks under the tape held up by Frank and takes the vinyl gloves offered to him.

  Yesterday he’d hoped Heleen was the last dead body he’d have to deal with, and now, before he could tie that up and quit, there’s another.

  They make it over and Jaap crouches down, the still, inland air pungent with the bacteria already eating the body from the inside out, breaking it down into simple molecules which will slip back into the crazy carbon cycle some people call life.

  If he’s honest he’d prefer the beach. At least there was movement there, both to take away the smell and to give a feeling of life. But here it’s still, way too still.

  A shadow flickers across the ground, over the body and away. Jaap glances up to see a bird hanging a tight right, bringing its wings up to soften its landing just on the far side of the body.

  Once terrestrial, it tucks its wings and glances around with a jerky head. Before Jaap can stop it the bird jabs the body’s face. Jaap shoots his hand out and the bird retreats, gives him the head-cocked one-eyed stare, then insolently flaps its wings and takes off slowly.

  ‘Bitch needs to show you some respect,’ Frank says.

  He may not spend time indoors during the day, but by the sound of it he spends his evenings watching American box-sets. Frank does a double snort with his nose for emphasis as Jaap processes what’s in front of him.

  The girl’s head is encased in a clear plastic bag, gaffer tape wrapped round and round the neck making the seal tight.

  The inside of the plastic’s beaded with condensation, distorting the view of her features.

  She’s dressed in white jeans, covered with long patches of dust and one knee torn, as is the skin beneath, the wound clogged with powdered soil and dry grass. Her top’s a blue hoody, two tassels of orange-and-white cord used to tighten the hood both frayed at the end. One of them lies across a breast, the other on the ground like a poisonous snake in wait.

  Her wrists have been tied, then released, and just like in Vlieland the marks are thin, with no trace of what they’d been tied with. Classic indicator of cable ties.

  ‘Give me a minute would you?’ he says to Frank, who’s been standing a few feet to his left.

  ‘Sure,’ says Frank. ‘We think we’re close to getting someone, just waiting for something to be confirmed. Take whatever you need, I’ll let you know once we’re ready to go.’

  Jaap waits until he hears the scuff and rasp of his footsteps recede.

  The sun’s on him now, he can feel its warmth, its power. The source of all life, but no longer for this girl, no matter how long she stays out here, or how strong the sun becomes.

  He reaches out, gently picking up the hem of her hoody to see she doesn’t have a T-shirt on underneath. He holds it slightly higher, his eyes having to adjust to the interior shadow.

  Her stomach is untouched. No cuts at all.

  He releases his fingers, the fabric settling slowly as if in respect for the dead.

  Jaap hadn’t expected to see cuts, he’d understood that was coincidental to the killing, but he’d had to check nonetheless. Because right now he feels like he’s grasping for something which can make it all make sense, but is slipping through his fingers like liquid silk.

  Frank’s on the phone so Jaap decides to take a walk, get a feel for the area, but just as he’s ducking under the tape his phone goes off.

  ‘Hey, finally caught you,’ Tanya says when he answers, her voice competing with a background hum doing something to his insides. It’s always the same, a subtle repositioning of all the atoms in his body, like each one glows a little brighter.

  ‘Yeah, I’m kind of busy these days. Flying round the country, you know how it is.’

  ‘My hero,’ she says in an awed voice.

  ‘So, Rotterdam’s done?’

  ‘Nearly, but it didn’t end well. I’ve got to debrief this morning. I’ll tell you about it when you’re back. Which will be …?’

  Jaap looks out across dry earth to where the body is being fussed over by a forensic.

  ‘I’m not sure, this case is … well, it’s nasty.’

  ‘You’re OK?’

  ‘I’ll be fine, I just want to …’ He doesn’t need to finish, Tanya knows what he wants. The same as any investigator on a case. He wants to find out why. ‘Listen, I’ve got to go, when do you reckon you’ll be back?’

  ‘Uh … probably this afternoon.’

  ‘Great, you can get some rest—’

  ‘Look, I’m pregnant, I get it,’ she says, ‘but I’m not a fucking invalid, OK?’

  The problem with wanting a woman like Tanya, Jaap thinks, is that you’ve basically got to handle with care. ‘I know. I’m sorry—’

  ‘People keep telling me to rest, you know? It’s all this over-the-top concern—’

  ‘Hey hey hey, I’m sorry, OK? Forget I said it.’
r />   ‘Yeah, OK,’ she says after a few moments. ‘Sorry. I got a bit worked up, had some stuff go wrong on this case … I need a case of my own.’

  ‘Take mine.’

  ‘Maybe I will, I never get cases where I’m flown round the country in helicopters. I’ll let you know when I’m back. Remember to call me, OK?’

  Twenty minutes later Frank’s taken him through everything he knows. The victim is Kaaren Leegte, a twenty-five-year-old retail assistant at a jewellery store in Hoenderloo. She’s not currently in a relationship, and has no criminal record. Which doesn’t surprise Jaap, because if she did then she wouldn’t be working at a jewellery store.

  ‘So this is where I’m at,’ Jaap says. ‘We’ve already had three other killings in which scopolamine was used, and each victim also died from suffocation in remote areas. Kaaren’s death fits the pattern. Day before yesterday I went to arrest the man who we thought killed the first two victims, and, well, you heard the news.’

  Frank nods. ‘The press are loving it; murder suspect shot by a senior police officer? They’re coming in their pants.’

  ‘What they don’t know is that just before Kamp died he admitted to having killed one of the victims but not the other, which is when I get a call about the third body out on Vlieland, which Kamp could have been involved in, because he’d ditched the surveillance team long enough to do it. Only now there’s yet another body, and she was killed well after Kamp died. You see my problem?’

  Frank whistles, then shakes his head. ‘Any chance it’s all coincidence?’

  ‘All killed in wide open spaces, suffocated, and all testing positive for scopolamine? I’d love to think that was the mother of all coincidences. But I’m not sure I believe it. There is something linking all these deaths. I just don’t know what it is.’

  Frank’s phone rings. He answers, listens, then gives a few orders.

  ‘Right, it’s on,’ he says to Jaap. ‘We got CCTV of a car leaving the road the victim’s house is on, and the timing matches up. Just had confirmation of the owner, we know where he is. And given what you’ve just told me, it looks like it’s going to be your arrest. Maybe this is going to be the missing link.’