Before the Dawn

by Jake Woodhouse

  The answer, discovered fairly early on, was lurid reporting. The more lurid the better. Which was when the police suddenly found themselves not only fighting crime, but fighting to keep themselves out of the headlines. Panic at the top led to the hiring of a series of PR consultants who guzzled massive amounts of public money just to show the police how to make themselves look better in a world which suddenly seemed intent on destroying them.

  But Jaap doesn’t like dealing with the press for a more personal reason: he’d once been forced into a press conference by Smit to announce the successful completion of a murder case, just as the news came in that another body had been found. They were on live TV; Jaap had looked like an ass. The event had done little to endear either the press, or Smit, to Jaap.

  Someone calls his name and he looks across the office to see one of the uniforms who’d taken Groot away.

  ‘All yours,’ he says.

  Smit’s down by the cell, looking through the small glass window.

  Jaap flips into stealth mode, gets close behind Smit before opening up.

  ‘Lawyer in with him?’

  Smit jumps. Sure it’s childish, but at the same time Jaap finds it hugely gratifying. Smit turns and glares at him. They have a long and rich history of antipathy, but Jaap finds he suddenly no longer cares.

  ‘Said he didn’t need one.’

  ‘Really?’ Jaap says, his hand on the door handle already.

  ‘Really. He was strongly advised, but he still refused. So go in there and destroy him.’

  Jaap goes in. He’s planning on using the Routine.

  The Routine is simple: move into the room like you own it, ignore the prisoner totally, like they’re not even a speck of shit on your shoe. Pull out a chair, stop halfway to inspect one of the legs, pull it out further. Test it, make sure it’s not going to collapse the moment you sit on it, check that there’s no wobble. Sit on it. Get up and move it a centimetre to the left. Test it again. Think for a minute. Decide it’s OK. If you’ve got a toothpick, then a quick bit of dental hygiene won’t go amiss.

  Basically do everything you can to ramp up the tension and fear in the suspect’s mind without actually acknowledging their presence.

  But Pieter Groot’s got other ideas.

  ‘I killed her,’ he says before Jaap’s even had time to get to the chair.

  Jaap sits down before answering, studying his face. It’s collapsed in on itself, a face that even before the spread of whatever internal sickness had turned him into a killer, would look defeated.

  ‘Both of them, you mean?’ Jaap says, pushing photos of Heleen and Kaaren across the table.

  Jaap has to check there’s no one in the room firing off a Taser, because Groot looks like he’s just had the two prongs jammed into his flesh and the power whacked on high.

  ‘What do you …? No, not her!’ he says, staring at the photos, his eyes expanding as if he’s being pumped full of gas. ‘No no no, I only killed the other one …’

  Jaap looks at Groot, his skin now translucent like wax. ‘You didn’t kill Heleen Elders, on Vlieland?’

  ‘I … no … I—’

  ‘The two women were killed in the same way and you expect me to believe that you only killed one of them?’

  Pieter Groot doesn’t answer, he’s just shaking his head from side to side.

  ‘You’ve just admitted to me in a formal interview which is being recorded that you killed Kaaren, so why not admit what we both know, that you killed Heleen as well? It’s not going to make any difference to your sentencing. You’re going to prison. That’s a fact. You are going to prison and nothing can change that. So why don’t you tell me why you did it, why you killed Heleen first, and then Kaaren?’

  Groot’s shaking his head more violently now, back and forth.

  ‘Where did you get the scopolamine?’

  But Groot’s done talking, he’s rising up out of his chair, flailing like he’s engulfed in a swarm of stinging bees. He throws himself against a wall.

  Jaap’s up, grabbing Groot by his T-shirt, and finds himself screaming in his face. ‘You’re gonna tell me, right here, right now, where you got the scopolamine.’

  The door opens behind him, a rush of uniforms taking over, prising him off Groot.

  He steps out of the room, trying not to hear the wail coming from Groot, a muezzin on speed. It gets cut off abruptly as the sound-proofed door slams shut.

  He takes a few moments to breathe, to really get some air into his lungs, try and work out why it’s happening again, why he has a man admitting to one death, but not another. Cold unease seeps through him.

  As soon as he’s out of the cell he calls Tanya but her phone goes straight to voicemail. Then he tries Arno, gets the same. He leaves messages, asking to be called back instantly. Then he dashes up the stairs, he has too much energy to walk now, and heads for his desk, finding someone’s left a large photocopier right by it.

  ‘What’s this?’ Jaap asks the room at large.

  ‘Broken, there was this guy taking it away.’

  ‘So why’s it here?’

  ‘Dunno,’ says the officer who’d answered, looking like he wished he’d kept his head down. ‘Maybe he went to get something?’

  Jaap starts shoving it away from his desk just as Smit appears round the corner and catches a foot on the copier’s corner.

  ‘Fuck!’ he yells, looking down at his shoe.

  Jaap follows his gaze, sees the fresh scratch on the patent leather.

  ‘What are you doing?’ demands Smit, inspecting the damage, then spitting on his finger and rubbing the mark. It doesn’t go away.

  Just then a man dressed in grubby overalls appears and, oblivious to both Jaap and Smit, starts to haul the photocopier away.

  They watch him go then Smit turns back to Jaap.

  Jaap’s never much liked Smit’s face.

  But he likes it even less now, because he can tell it’s bad news.

  ‘My office, ten minutes.’

  34

  ‘Tanya Vandermark,’ she says, bending down and looking through the passenger window.

  It’s taken her longer to get there than she’d hoped, her phone running out of reception several blocks away. As she finally found the road she saw a cell tower – constructed in a pathetic attempt to disguise it as a tree – being felled.

  Arno leans over and opens the door, then offers his hand once she’s in.

  Tanya thinks of Jaap’s comment just before clasping it – awkwardly, given the angle. He looks younger than she’d imagined. On his wrist she notices a tattoo, a circle of intertwining thorns.

  ‘So, tell me about it,’ she says.

  He points to a house across the street, a detached property in a row of detached properties. Front gardens all neat, flowers looking like they’d been colour-matched, as if the whole thing was controlled by some committee hell-bent on making the place look nice. And safe. It’s the kind of place an ad agency would set an advert for washing powder.

  The sun beats down, tarmac shimmers.

  Arno hands her a photocopied sheet. In the top left corner there’s a passport-sized photo.

  ‘This is the guy that lives there, he’s called Stefan Wilders. He was renting a cottage in the same holiday camp Heleen’s cottage was in. And he was seen by a kid leaving the beach where she’d been killed round about the same time.’

  ‘You think he did it?’

  He shrugs. ‘Jaap says he’s got the killer, but maybe Stefan Wilders saw something? Might help get a conviction if he can ID the killer.’

  Tanya thinks it unlikely. The news had exploded onto every platform earlier in the day, she’d seen it scrolling across a screen in the motorway stop she’d made on the way out of Rotterdam. The media was frothing like a crazy person, the news of a young girl being killed on a holiday beach just the kind of story to whip them into a manic frenzy of indignation heaped on wild speculation. In other words, the chances of Stefan Wilders not having heard the ne
ws is basically zero. And if he had heard then surely he’d’ve come forward already.

  ‘It’s a weekday, why’s he going to be here, not at work?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s kind of tragic. His wife died not long after their kid was born, rare type of brain cancer, so he stays at home with their baby.’

  Tanya doesn’t think about her own baby or the hospital. She doesn’t. Because on the drive up from seeing Dr Bruggen she made the decision that she’s not going to worry about it at all. It’s fine, she’ll go and see the specialist and it will all turn out to be nothing more than an overcautious medical professional. So she tries to funnel her mind away and it slips down a related route; assuming everything is OK and she gives birth to a healthy child she realizes that she’s still going to want to go back to work. She wonders if Jaap will turn into the house-husband type. She gets a glimpse of him meeting her at the door with an apron and a baby slung on his hip.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Ah … nothing,’ she says. ‘If you’re ready, let’s go and ask him what he knows.’

  They make their way across the street, only to find no one’s home.

  In the garden two doors down an old bow-legged woman stalks a rosebush with a bottle of insecticide and a look of intense determination.

  They wait.

  Then they wait some more, eventually starting to head back to their cars when Arno motions to her. She looks up to see Stefan Wilders turning into the street with a cluster of shopping bags. They watch as he makes it to his front garden. Tanya crosses the street, Arno on her heels. She calls out to him and he turns on the doorstep.

  Tanya’s shocked by the complex emotions which swirl across his face. She might be reading this wrong, but she’s sure they settle into a kind of relieved fear. Which makes no sense.

  ‘Stefan Wilders? I’m Inspector Vandermark, I just wanted to ask you a few questions.’

  Stefan’s a head taller than her, dressed in combat shorts with pockets stuffed like hamster cheeks. He’s wearing a black T-shirt, a universe of sweat under each arm and a galaxy of dandruff on his shoulders. He also badly needs a shave, the designer-stubble thing not doing him any favours. At least in Tanya’s view.

  ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Let me just offload this stuff. You want to come in?’

  They do.

  He puts down the bags and searches a pocket for his keys.

  As the key nears the lock a baby squawks from upstairs and Tanya instinctively glances up.

  At the same moment Stefan slams his body back, right into Tanya, knocking her off balance, her foot catching on something behind her. She goes over backwards, tailbone taking the brunt, right into a patch of flowers. The surprise and shock of it grips her lungs tight.

  Stefan’s ducked inside, the door slamming shut just before Arno’s shoulder hits it hard. He tries again.

  ‘Round the side,’ Tanya manages to say once she’s sucked in enough air to make her lungs function properly again, pain lighting up her whole spine till it practically glows.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Just go!’ she says, her voice stronger now, struggling to her feet.

  ‘Fuck,’ Arno says, hesitating before deciding on the left.

  Tanya’s on her feet and can feel the adrenaline taking over, killing the pain more effectively than any drug. She starts out round the opposite side to Arno as a voice in her head tells her she shouldn’t be doing this, she should be calling for back-up.

  She’s wavering between following Arno and dashing back to the car to get her radio, when she hears the shatter of glass.

  And a scream.

  Which sounds like Arno.

  She runs faster, rounding the house. The pane on a large bifold is missing, Arno’s lying in a glittering sea of glass and blood. She sees him getting to his feet, a massive cut down his right arm bleeding badly. Behind him Stefan’s running across a large lawn, a shard of glass stuck in his right calf making him limp like a gangsta rapper.

  He reaches the fence, a head-height wooden slatted job, and starts trying to climb, his feet scrabbling as he hauls himself up.

  She sprints across the lawn, reaching him just as he has one leg over, riding the fence like a horse. She lunges for his foot, grabs it, and, working on the principle that innocent people don’t assault police officers, yanks down hard.

  He screams, head thrown back, and now he’s riding bronco. She yanks again. Underneath his second scream she hears something else. A crack, like wood splintering.

  Arno’s voice flies out at her from behind, but she can’t make out the words.

  The fence starts to topple towards her.

  She releases Stefan’s leg, tries to back-pedal, but it’s picking up momentum now.

  Everything slows down.

  The sun in the sky darkens as Stefan’s form moves towards her.

  Seconds before impact she knows she’s fucked up.

  He hits hard, and for a blinding, crushing moment she thinks she can hear bones snap. It occurs to her that she might never be able to breathe again.

  Seconds later the pressure releases. She’s dimly aware of Arno hauling Stefan off.

  Something’s wrong. She knows it, but she doesn’t know what it is.

  Arno has Stefan a few feet away now, shoving him to his knees. Stefan’s facing her, she follows the direction of his gaze.

  Now she knows what’s wrong.

  Her gun has been knocked out of her holster. She tries to move but Stefan slams his head back, knocking Arno full in the face as he’s ducking to get his cuffs.

  Stefan lurches forward, reaching for the weapon.

  Fear kick-starts her; she’s moving towards it as well.

  But Stefan is there. He has it in his hand.

  He points it right at her.

  Eyes lock.

  They’re blue, she notices, and the left one has a tiny imperfection in the iris, a smudge of yellow. Behind him Arno’s getting up, hands on his face, a torrent of blood gushing from what must be a smashed nose. Behind him the house, the broken patio door the only thing out of place.

  This is it, her mind tells her over and over. This is it. This is it.

  All she can think about is the baby in her stomach, growing there with an imperfect heart.

  Stefan’s mouth is moving but she can’t make out the words. He’s saying something over and over again. She starts to make sense of it.

  ‘I had to do it,’ she thinks she hears. ‘I had to protect her.’

  Then Stefan turns the gun round, bites down on it, his eyelids screwing tight.

  When the gun goes off, her eyes are closed.

  She feels warm spray all over her face and neck.

  35

  Jaap’s watching Smit’s mouth move. He guesses that means he’s still talking, forming words – there’d been no reason to go through the funny sequence of movements otherwise – but for some reason he can’t hear them.

  Because Smit started off with a word-grenade which exploded in Jaap’s head and now his ears are ringing in the aftermath.

  His mind keeps going over what he’s been told, that Pieter Groot’s not lying, he couldn’t have killed Heleen as he had a rock-solid alibi for the time of her death.

  Frank’s crew had been working hard on background, and found evidence which planted him miles away at the time of the murder.

  ‘Are you listening?’ Smit asks, the ringing tapering away from Jaap’s ears.

  ‘No,’ Jaap says, ‘I’m not.’

  They’re in Smit’s office, sun layering through the window to Jaap’s left. He looks down, one foot is in the light, the other in shadow.

  ‘Least you’re honest,’ replies Smit. ‘I was asking, what now?’

  Which is the question.

  Jaap’s mind goes into overdrive, thinking of possibilities, a bright anger forming in him. He leaves the room, ignoring Smit’s call, and walks down the corridor. By the time he reaches the stairs he’s running, down three flights, to where Groot’
s being held.

  ‘OK,’ he says as he kicks the door open and walks in, the anger more than bright now, it’s blazing, ‘you’re going to tell me what the fuck is going on. Right now.’

  But Groot’s got other plans. He may be cuffed and restrained, in a cell, facing a life in prison. He doesn’t have much control over his life, or what’s left of it. The one thing he does appear to have control over is whether he’s going to talk or not.

  And it becomes clear that he’s decided he’s not saying another word.

  36

  Jaap’s spent the last fifteen minutes walking the streets, trying to make some sense of things. Usually cases follow a logical progression of sorts, you accumulate evidence which leads you in a certain direction, then you accumulate more and it clarifies things. This case is the opposite, each step, each new bit of information, only seems to complicate matters, throw him further and further off balance.

  ‘Boss wants to see you,’ says the desk sergeant as Jaap walks back into the station.

  ‘You haven’t seen me,’ Jaap says, walking past him.

  He’s at the top of the stairwell, heading back down to Groot, when his phone goes off. Arno.

  ‘Turn up anything?’ Jaap asks.

  ‘I … yeah, we’ve—’ Arno’s voice crackles through the speaker. Jaap moves out of the stairwell, hunting for better reception.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Listen, don’t freak out but I’ve got some news. We found the killer, he’s dead. And Tanya’s OK, she really is, but they’re taking her to hospital just in case and—’

  ‘What? Tanya? What happened? Fuck. Where are you?’

  The desk sergeant’s watching him closely now.

  ‘She’s fine, really. Just a precaution. We’re going to the AMC at Bijlmer.’

  ‘I’m going there now, how long?’

  ‘Twenty.’

  Jaap’s running down the stairs, past Groot’s cell and on to the car pool.

  This is his fault. He’s not been paying proper attention.

  And the result is he’s put her in danger.