Before the Dawn

by Jake Woodhouse

  ‘From where I’m sitting it looks like you’re making a bunch of shit up,’ says Tanya. ‘What about the informant, are you sure he didn’t set you up? Feed you false info? Or that they’d been fed false info to flush them out? Seems to me you’re not asking the right questions because you just want an easy solution.’

  ‘You’re changing the discussion. Right now I need to know why you let the man go.’

  He stares at her like he’s a robot. The standing joke is that anyone applying to work at IA has to undergo special training to remove any last vestige of humanity which may still be lurking in their biological shell. Tanya’s starting to think it’s not a joke.

  She stares back. They want to hang her? Fine. She’s just going to have to dodge the noose. Her chair creaks as her posture follows her mindset.

  ‘The reason I “let the man go” is that I suddenly had a really bad pain, and I couldn’t move for a few seconds.’

  Harry, up until now granite, stirs.

  Tanya looks at him. Oh yeah, you know what’s coming. He catches her eye. It’s clear he doesn’t want her to play that card.

  But backed into a corner even the friendliest dog bites, she thinks.

  ‘Pain?’ says Cremers, seemingly confused by the word. It’s like he’s never heard it before.

  ‘OK,’ Harry says, standing up, ‘I don’t think we need to take this any—’

  ‘What sort of pain?’

  ‘Well—’ Tanya stares at him ‘—maybe you better ask Harry about that.’

  Ten minutes later she’s walking out the station and getting into her car, free to go home, back to Amsterdam. She sits for a moment, the air thick and heavy, and tries to clear her head. She doesn’t want to think about the shit-storm she’s just stepped out of, Harry’s attempt to scapegoat her – because that’s what it was – blowing up in his face with IA now investigating why he’d allowed a pregnant officer on the operation in the first place.

  But by suppressing those thoughts she finds the old nature-vacuum thing is real, because her mind is now flooded with thoughts of the hospital.

  Because, unbelievably, she’s still not heard anything.

  So instead of heading straight for Amsterdam, she finds herself turning off for the hospital.

  The parking is just as bad, if not worse, than the day before, so she finds a place near the entrance which isn’t going to block any ambulances and parks up. She leaves the blue lights in the grille going.

  She presents herself, doesn’t take no for an answer, no matter how efficient the smile, and a mere twenty minutes later is sitting down in a consultation room with the exalted Dr Bruggen.

  Bruggen turns out to be a man in his early sixties, the buttons of his white coat done up out of sync. A fact that’s not inspiring her with a huge amount of confidence. He’s got a serious comb-over, probably a world record if he ever gives the guys at The Guinness Book of a call, and thick black-framed glasses like he’s a Bauhaus architect, not a gynaecologist in Rotterdam.

  ‘Right,’ he says pulling the scans out of a file.

  He peruses them, Tanya gets the feeling for the first time, and then puts them down.

  ‘It’s nothing to be worried about,’ he says.

  Which doesn’t make the last twenty-four hours any easier to bear, she thinks. But she doesn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m just a bit concerned with one of the heart valves, the mitral valve. It’s too small to see here really, but I’d like you to go to someone up in Amsterdam. A colleague of mine who’s good at this kind of thing.’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘Really, it’s nothing. I’m just being ultra-cautious. There’s a very rare defect which can occur, meaning the valve doesn’t form properly, and we just need to rule it out.’

  ‘And if you can’t?’

  He writes something on a bit of paper then turns to his computer, moving the mouse around and clicking a button. She wonders if he’s playing solitaire.

  It’s karma, she thinks, panic flushing her skin hot and cold at the same time. This is payback for Staal’s death. An eye for an eye.

  ‘Don’t worry, the nurse will give you a letter,’ he says, as if he’s not heard her properly.

  ‘So the pain I had, was that connected?’

  He shrugs like the human body’s a mystery to him. ‘Could have been anything, it happens. Can you go up to Amsterdam?’

  ‘I’m going there today,’ she says, her homecoming, the things she’s looked forward to for months now, feeling like a death sentence, a death sentence for her own child.

  He tilts his head up so he can see her through the glasses, which are way down his nose. Tanya can see a rich curly thicket of nose hair which would be white if only nicotine didn’t stain so well.

  ‘Excellent,’ he says, eyes swimming behind the lenses like fish in bowls. ‘Excellent.’

  On her way out she gets a glimpse of the screen.

  The fucker was playing solitaire.

  31

  Below him Amsterdam’s opening up like an old lover. He even spots their houseboat on Bloemgracht as they make their approach to the station.

  Jaap’s worked out of the building since it was commissioned in ’96, and he never knew it had a helipad on the roof. As they near it Jaap can make out two uniforms waiting to take his charge.

  The roof isn’t that large, but the pilot brings them down with skill, and Jaap gets out, taking Pieter Groot with him. He’s cuffed behind his back, but he’s shown no fight at all. Jaap keeps seeing in his mind the way he brought his wrists up, like he was offering himself up for sacrifice. The uniforms take Groot, the helicopter pilot gives Jaap a casual salute, then takes off, the downdraft almost enough to scoot him off the roof.

  But he stays. The uniforms are going to process Groot, and Jaap’s in no real hurry to start the interrogation. He feels like he could use a rest, feels like he needs to take some time off. A few years perhaps.

  He walks over to the edge of the roof, a small wall no more than three feet high running round the perimeter. Looking north he can see the helicopter, nose dipped, powering away. Higher in the sky a languid plane smudges the blue with a white line.

  Jaap watches the vapour trail as it slowly expands, dissipating into nothing. He’d once arrested a murderer who believed in chemtrails, believed that chemicals were being sprayed on everyone as part of some massive mind-control conspiracy, and that the killing he’d perpetrated – the brutal stabbing of a fairly minor player in local government – would reveal to the world the true extent of their enslavement. Last Jaap heard the guy was still in jail, and a whole movement of crackpot conspiracy theorists took his conviction as positive proof that the government was fucking them, and had made him the figurehead of their internet community of truth-seekers.

  A jangle of birdsong explodes in the treetops just below him, evaporating any further thoughts of the craziness of things.

  His gaze swings round until he can see the roof of his houseboat. It makes him think of Tanya. With any luck he can get this done so they can spend the evening together, make the time to be just a couple expecting their first child. For a second he feels like shouting out, an intense rush which he realizes must be a kind of joy.

  His phone massages his leg. He doesn’t want to check it, too wrapped up in the moment. But old habits are nigh on impossible to kill.

  ‘I may have something,’ Arno says. ‘The guy you have, he wasn’t the one who videoed Heleen, no one recognizes him, but I’ve found someone who fits the description of the man who did, got CCTV of him at the ferry port. Got his plates as he drove away on the mainland. I’m outside his address now.’

  Jaap’s thinking about Groot’s silence since the arrest. He’s not said anything, his eyes surveying a world Jaap can’t see. It has to be him, he has to be the one who killed Kaaren and possibly Heleen. Frank had also confirmed that Groot wasn’t at work when Nadine had been killed.

  And yet he’s been wrong before.
/>   How many murderers are there in this case? he wonders. What’s the link?

  He fills Arno in on Groot’s arrest before asking if Stuppor knows Arno is on the mainland.

  ‘Uh … not exactly. I took the day off and …’

  I was right about him, Jaap thinks. He is like me.

  I’ll get someone local to go with you, this has to be official. If you’re not happy with his answers then bring him in. Send me the address and sit tight until they get to you.’

  Jaap waits for him to agree, then kills the call. A text comes in from Arno giving his exact location. Jaap only has a dim awareness of where Warmond actually is. Once he’s found it on his phone – a small town just north of Leiden – he starts towards the door leading into the station. He’ll get a local inspector to meet Arno. But just before he descends he has another thought. He calls Tanya. She answers.

  ‘Are you near Leiden?’

  ‘Just passed it, why?’

  Jaap hesitates for a second, he doesn’t want to jeopardize their evening by making her late. But it shouldn’t take more than an hour at most. There’ll be plenty of time, he thinks.

  ‘I could use a hand with something.’

  ‘Sure, what is it?’ she says, her voice faint over the background hum of car interior.

  He tells her.

  ‘Jeez, he sounds like you,’ she says. ‘Need me to hold his hand?’

  ‘Yeah—’

  ‘Is he fit?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know … he did say something about genital herpes though.’

  ‘Hands off then.’

  ‘Hands most definitely off.’

  32

  Really, it’s not so bad.

  At least that’s what Kees tells himself as he gets out of the car, tentatively putting a bit of weight on his bandaged leg. He’d been told to rest it, but Van der Pol had requested to see him. Kees doesn’t think Van der Pol’s the kind to take much heed of a sick note, even if the scared doctor had been willing to write one.

  He’d been driven by the same guy who’d been with him since last night, and he still doesn’t know what his name is. All he knows is he has a shaved head, a full lumberjack beard and that he looks like he can turn a human into mincemeat with one hand alone. And despite it all, despite the pain and the fear, Kees is feeling something else deep in the pit of his stomach. Something triggered by what he saw on TV, the man they’d been to see two days ago now, shot by the police, and who turns out to be responsible for the killings which have had the nation buzzing for months. He’s got to call Smit, but so far Lumberjack’s not left him alone for one second.

  And now this summons.

  It’s a tranquil spot, a lake somewhere with a bench metres from the water’s edge and a beat-up old motorhome parked beside it. The motorhome’s windows have orange net curtains.

  Kees is back to bipedal now, a triumph of evolution, and the beard directs him to the motorhome itself. Tiny bolts of intricate lightning flash through his leg for the ten or so metres, but he makes it across, forehead beaded from the strain. The door opens and he struggles up the steps, watched by everyone inside, no one rushing to his aid, no one saying, let me help you with that, or just putting an arm out for him to grasp.

  Nice, thinks Kees. I took a bullet for you shit-bags.

  The interior has been ripped out, a long low bench riding along one side the only furniture. Van der Pol’s sat on that. Everyone else stands.

  Kees glances around, seeing these are Van der Pol’s right-hand men, the long-timers, people who over the years have proved themselves loyal, each gaining a part of the country to run. Rumours about these guys are crazy. The one Kees had heard repeated most often was that once a year Van der Pol would take them on the equivalent of a corporate away-day. Only Kees is sure they don’t go paint-balling or fire-walking, and they sure as hell don’t attend a vegan yoga retreat in the Atlas Mountains.

  Truth is, no one really knows what they do, but Kees has no doubt it’s sick.

  And here he is, in a motorhome in the middle of nowhere, with all of them.

  Kees gets the feeling they’ve all been talking, but stopped now that he’s here.

  Van der Pol motions to the bench next to him. Kees makes it over and lowers himself down, on the one hand glad – it takes the weight off – on the other less so, proximity to Van der Pol not high on his bucket list.

  ‘So,’ Van der Pol says once Kees is settled.

  Light filters through the net curtains, turning everything orange.

  ‘Last night,’ Van der Pol continues, ‘tell us what happened.’

  ‘We got lucky,’ a man called Axel Hof says. He’s shorter than Kees, with military hair and a face unlikely to inspire a painter. Kees has seen him work, and knows he’s one of the most brutal of the men in the room. Which is saying a lot. ‘We heard the police were onto us about an hour before, gave us just enough time to contact the other side, get them to make the switch. Whilst the cops were busy being heroes the real deal went down fifty kilometres away.’

  This is news to Kees, but not, seemingly, to the rest of the motorhome. It also means he took a bullet for literally nothing. No reason. He was just a decoy. He’d been told there were kilos of meth in there, he’d given it up to Tanya to make sure it never made the street.

  ‘The firefight …’ Hof says as Van der Pol just stares at him, ‘I don’t know why that happened, we’d agreed to make the whole thing clean, just hand over the bag of rats and get out of there, but then one of them started firing.’

  ‘I told them to,’ Van der Pol says.

  This is news to everyone.

  ‘Shit … why?’ Hof asks. ‘I’ve got three of my crew arrested. They’re going to be out of action for months now, possibly years, depending on how hard the judges decide to hit them. That’s three guys not earning and—’

  ‘Chill,’ says Van der Pol, raising a hand and channelling a stoned reggae master. ‘I wanted there to be a shoot-out so the cops were kept busy.’

  This doesn’t make any sense to Kees. Nor to any of the others, by the looks of things.

  Van der Pol clearly doesn’t care. He’s not an elected leader. This is not the Democratic Republic of Van der Pol.

  He winks at Kees.

  Kees’ balls sack tightens.

  ‘I’ll get you replacements,’ Van der Pol says to Hof, like this is the last he wants to hear of it.

  ‘But I’m going to need to pay them regardless. If I don’t then I’m going to be exposed.’

  ‘Maybe you’re better off without them, sounds like they’re not that loyal.’

  ‘Loyal? Fuck. You think they’ll be getting poled in the shower and thinking of loyal? No way. I’ve gotta stand by them or I’m in shit.’

  Kees feels the others all tensing, the motorhome itself holding its breath, waiting to see what’ll happen.

  Van der Pol is still, silent, like a viper waiting to strike.

  Then he laughs. The space eases off.

  ‘We’ll find a solution which protects you,’ he says.

  Hof senses he’s stepped over the mark but got away with it. He thanks Van der Pol, seems about to say something else, presumably apologize, but Van der Pol waves him off.

  ‘But we’re not here for this, fun as it’s been,’ he says. ‘We’re here because yesterday we found out we’ve been compromised. Someone ratted.’

  He takes in all their faces, one by one.

  Kees feels the gaze on his is the longest.

  He has an overriding urge to swallow. That and the urge to get the fuck out of there as fast as possible.

  ‘Luckily,’ Van der Pol says, the heat of his gaze now elsewhere, ‘I’ve got someone in the police. Have done for years. He’s the one who told me about last night, allowed us to make the switch in time. And now he’s working on finding out who they have here. I reckon we’ll know in the next forty-eight or so, and when we know we’re going to have a bit of fun.’

  He’s looking at Kees again.


  General laughter round the motorhome. Because this motherfucker is funny.

  Kees’ nuts are now pulverized.

  ‘One more thing,’ Van der Pol says. He nods to a man next to Hof.

  Kees sees the blade in his hand, short and serrated. The man steps forward. Kees is getting ready.

  Then the man swings round and plunges the knife into Hof’s stomach.

  Again and again and again in a sticky frenzy.

  Even some of the crew start to look a little uneasy.

  Kees becomes aware of Van der Pol talking again. He tunes in.

  ‘Chill,’ he’s saying, as if shushing a baby to sleep. ‘Chill.’

  33

  Downstairs the station’s buzzing, though he’s not sure if it’s to do with the result he’s got, or something else. He checks in on Pieter Groot, finds he’s still being processed, so heads to his desk and makes a start on the notes which will end up as his final report.

  His desk phone interrupts him. He answers and immediately wishes he hadn’t, because the voice drilling into his ear is that of Michiel Berk, the chief crime reporter for De Telegraaf. Berk has the persistence of a junkie chasing heroin, only with far less charisma.

  ‘Hear you’re in charge of the cling-film killer?’

  ‘No, I’m not in charge of it.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, sorry. Try the press office,’ Jaap says as he puts the phone down. He knows that was stupid, it’ll only make Berk push harder, but he doesn’t want to deal with it.

  The phone rings again. He whips it off the cradle, taps a button, and leaves the headset on the desk.

  When he’d started his career the police didn’t care much about their image, mainly because the press still reported on them with a fair amount of reverence. But over the last fifteen years or so that reverence has slipped away, the teddy-bear press turning into a snarling grisly. Newspapers have gone into decline, the smart ones have switched models and now live to drive traffic to their website, trying to convert clicks into cash. And does deferential get you web traffic? The few who tried that found out pretty fast that it doesn’t.