That should be enough; he should, by rights, be celebrating. He has the opportunity to get out. For good.
He could be comfortable – hell, he could even start to enjoy himself a little, leave this whole nightmare way behind. All the things he’d wanted to do in life but had somehow never had the time were now a possibility, and the feeling that he owes himself, that now is the time to Just Fucking Do It, is filling him with a kind of nervous joy.
But he also knows that Van der Pol and someone he’s conspiring with in the police are trying to kill Jaap Rykel. And he knows where it’s due to happen.
Hence the left or right decision.
A new life vs his old one.
He’s getting closer and he slows down, both sides of the argument waging ferocious war in his head. An ambulance screams past, going the opposite way.
Van der Pol’s trussed up in the boot. Kees had planned to drop him off at a police station on the way to the airport with all the evidence he’s collected during his time working for him, all the evidence he’s passed on to Smit and Smit never acted on.
As the fork comes closer Kees suddenly realizes the war in his head has been won.
Or lost.
Depending on your outlook.
He takes a slow breath in, calmly checks the rear-view, and indicates left.
Then, with seconds to go, he finds himself spinning the wheel hard, skidding the car across the small triangle of tarmac slashed with diagonal white lines.
94
Koen had insinuated that the investigation into the killing he and Haanstra had done wasn’t as rigorous as it might have been. Jaap’s starting to think he was right.
The file is pre-digital, so he has to go down to the archives, hoping that they have a paper copy. The old files are in the process of being scanned into the new database, but it’s slow work and not top of anyone’s priorities, so the current estimate for a completion date is sometime mid-century, by which time it’ll probably be useless.
Jaap sees an officer slowly sifting through a file and scanning it in, and wonders what he’s done to get such a bad posting. It soon becomes apparent that it’s his dynamic attitude and verve. ‘Sure, knock yourself out,’ he says when Jaap expresses an interest in finding an old file.
Jaap steps into the room, row upon row of shelving crammed with cardboard-backed folders. At the end of each row there’s a date range, and each row holds six months of police work. He locates the correct row based on the dates of the original arrest in Koen’s file.
It takes a while, Jaap suddenly appreciating just how quick searching on a computer really is, but finally he’s standing with the correct file in his hand. Diving in, he reads the whole thing quickly, closes it and puts the file back on the shelf.
‘Yeah, should have,’ admits the sergeant in charge of the station’s interview rooms when Jaap turns up a few minutes later and requests some footage from one of the cells.
He turns to his computer, clicks through a few files, and finds the one Jaap’s looking for.
‘Tell you what, I need a break. You want to watch this here whilst I go and get a coffee?’
‘Suits me,’ Jaap says.
The sergeant disappears on his noble hunt for caffeine and Jaap sits, clicks on the file.
It’s the interview he conducted with Pieter Groot and he hits play, fast-forwarding till he sees himself leaving the room. It occurred to him earlier he’s not actually reviewed the tape, and an idea had popped into his head which he couldn’t shake.
He slows it back down just as the door closes and the uniform’s got Groot under control, finally leaving him on his own in the cell. He fast-forwards again and suddenly the screen goes black for just a second. Again he slows the footage down to normal speed. He goes back to before the blackout, notes the time-stamp in the right-hand corner, then notes it again when the picture returns. There’s a full minute and a half missing. Just as the picture comes back he sees that someone was leaving the room, the only thing visible a section of leg and a shoe.
A shoe Jaap’s seen before.
His phone buzzes. He checks, seeing a text message from Borst. It says he’s got a lead on Bernard Kooy, and gives him an address to meet. Jaap pockets his phone, going back to the computer footage.
As soon as the door closes, Groot rips off his T-shirt, twists it up and starts shoving the tangled snake down his throat.
It’s one thing to be told about someone trying to kill themselves, Jaap thinks. Quite another to actually see it.
He watches right up until a uniform steps in with a tray of food and looks up, dropping the tray and dashing forward to save him.
He rewinds to the shoe, gets a screen grab just as he hears someone coming, looks up to see Smit walking through the door followed by the sergeant who’d gone to get coffee. Only he hasn’t found any, neither hand clutching a cup. He points to Jaap. Smit nods and strides over. Jaap quickly puts the screen grab into the trash can.
‘Do we have a problem?’ Smit asks. ‘Given that you’re no longer on the case and yet you’re still here?’
‘No,’ Jaap says. ‘I don’t think we do.’
‘In which case I need you to leave right now, before I have you arrested.’
Jaap puts his hands up, like, you got me. ‘OK, I’m on my way out.’
Outside he gets into his car and pulls into the street.
His mind is brutally calm.
He doesn’t notice the bike which pulls out after him.
It’s making sense now. So much is making sense he’s almost overwhelmed by it.
Ten minutes later, he still hasn’t noticed the bike when he indicates and leaves the road for the car park where he’s meeting Harry. The car park’s a large square of concrete bordered by low prefabs on three sides. Clouds churn in the sky, the thin wisps he’d seen earlier at the prison meshing together into larger forms, heaving like a hungover stomach.
He spots Harry’s car parked off towards the far left corner, parks nearby and walks up to it. He can see Harry sitting in the front seat.
He walks round the side.
And stops dead.
Harry is sitting at the wheel.
But his head’s wrapped in cling film.
A whooshing, hissing noise starts up. He’s aware of his brain trying to work out what it is.
But before it can, the side of his face detonates with pain.
He’s spun round like a scarecrow in the wind, then he’s falling.
As he goes down he sees the face of the man who hit him.
Bernard Kooy.
95
Kees pulls up just as everything kicks off.
He sees Jaap spiralling down, and, as he starts running, the guy who hit him – classic long biker beard and leathers – raises the baseball bat for a second hit.
The other man, Bernard Kooy, is standing slightly back. He hears something and turns just as Kees reaches him.
‘What—’
Even under normal circumstances Kees is not a great conversationalist, and right now he’s really not in the mood for wasted words. He launches forward, knocking Kooy down and lunging for the man with the bat, going in low, his shoulder ramming into the man’s waist. The man stumbles, lets go of the bat so his arms are free to break his fall. Kees is on it, has the bat in his hand. He swings hard, and gets the job done in one hit.
Bart would be proud, he thinks as he turns back to Kooy, who has managed to get up and is now grappling with Jaap, getting him into a headlock and forcing him to the tarmac, one knee bent like he’s proposing.
Kees steps up.
At the same moment Jaap gives way, dropping to the ground fast, surprising the man and managing to break from his arm. Jaap twists round, swings his hand up and onto the back of the man’s head, and slams it into the car’s bonnet. Kooy’s top teeth catch the edge.
Kees hears them break.
All of them.
Inside the car a man’s head wobbles, and falls out of sight.
/> Kees catches a glimpse of his head as it goes down. He can’t be sure, but it looks like it’s cling-filmed.
What the fuck?
Jaap’s still got hold of Kooy, blood all over his face.
Kees moves in and they have him cuffed in seconds.
They’re both breathing hard, and it takes a few moments before either can speak. Jaap’s face is already swelling up – by tomorrow he’s going to be unrecognizable.
‘I don’t even know where to begin,’ Jaap says, looking at his old colleague.
96
‘Long story,’ Kees says.
Jaap’s reeling, from Harry’s death, from the blow to his head, and now this.
‘Short version,’ Jaap says. They’re standing near Harry’s car, waiting for backup.
‘I’ve been working undercover in Van der Pol’s gang for just over a year now. Today was the day I was getting out. But I heard Van der Pol talking to someone on his phone, saying he needed to get rid of a cop. He even said they’d done it before. He sounded angry, but also maybe a bit scared, like it was a big deal to get whoever it was.’
‘Who was he talking to?’
‘Yeah, I’ll get on to that. But first you’ve got to understand that—’
The sound of a gunshot, dry in the air.
Kees bucks, slumps against the car, and starts a lazy slide off the bonnet towards the ground. Once there he grunts and bends forward.
Jaap has his own gun in his hand. The action’s smooth, practised, all on autopilot. He can see the man who’s just shot Kees, running, head low. Jaap catches glimpses of him between cars. Another biker who must’ve kept back.
He’s heading for the road.
It takes one shot and the man’s down. Jaap swings back to Kees.
‘Kees, you OK?’
Kees grunts again. He’s slumped down, body folded, a hand clasped to his stomach. Jaap watches as blood seeps through Kees’ fingers.
‘Officer down!’ he yells into his phone once he’s managed to dial, fine motor skills obliterated by the adrenaline rushing through his system. ‘Gunshot. I need a medi-chopper here immediately.’
He leaves his phone on so they can trace his location and moves to help Kees. The blood flow’s bad. Really bad. Kees is breathing hard, in shock, his whole body convulsing.
Jaap presses his hand against the wound, trying to slow the blood down.
It’s not working. Blood seeps through his fingers. He presses harder.
Kees tries to speak. ‘In my pocket,’ he whispers, his hand fumbling for something. Jaap helps him, pulling out a passport. Jaap can feel something between its pages; he opens it up to find a SIM card.
‘It’s on there,’ Kees whispers. ‘What you need.’
Jaap clasps it, carries on trying to stop the bleeding. He feels the moment Kees passes out, his muscle tone changing, like an electrical charge has just been extinguished.
He’s still trying when he hears the whirr of the helicopter, still trying as he feels the strong downdraft, and still trying, through tears which are blurring his world, when the paramedics shove him aside and get to work.
97
Three years ago Jaap had been kneeling on a container ship’s deck, moored in Amsterdam’s docks. He’d been blindfolded, the freezing kisses of snowflakes on his face and neck. Beside him Tanya was slumped, bleeding from a shot she’d already taken to her leg.
Ahead, Jaap knew there was a man, standing with a gun, just about to pull the trigger, end it for ever. He tried in those moments to find some kind of peace, prepare himself for what was to come.
A gunshot rang out, muffled slightly by the falling snow.
Then he heard a noise ahead of him, like a body slumping onto a snow-covered deck.
Kees had worked out where they had to be, and had arrived just in time to save them both from the bullet.
Now, standing in the heat, his pulse racing, Jaap realizes that Kees just saved him for the second time.
Clouds weigh down the sky. The helicopter carrying Kees and two paramedics lifts off, as if struggling against their weight. They’ve done what they can, but Kees needs to be at a hospital.
Jaap watches the chopper as it shrinks away, in his hand the passport and SIM card Kees had given him.
The car park’s full, police everywhere, and the ranking officer is trying to grill Jaap whilst Borst’s body is being taken out of the car by his men.
‘So I’m still not getting it,’ says the man. ‘You say that—’
Jaap’s not in the mood. He walks away, towards the back of the ambulance where they’re just now loading Borst’s body.
He stands as first one door is slammed shut then the other, a familiar creeping loss taking hold of him. He wants to scream. But all he can think about is what Kees had told him, about the SIM he’s still got clasped in his fist. He opens it up and stares at it. Then he opens his wallet and puts it inside.
Everything is starting to merge together, to fit into one whole.
He can see clearly now.
This case has already claimed too many lives.
And he’s going to put a stop to it.
98
Amsterdam must be the only city in the world, which, when it needed a new town hall and a new opera house, decided to combine the two into one purpose-built building. They called it the Stopera.
The building was controversial, had been through many designs and setbacks, and finally came in several million guilders over budget. But since no one remembers what the guilder-to-euro rate was pegged at when the change happened it’s a non-issue.
Jaap had requested an urgent meeting with Commissioner Bergsma, and had been told he’s at the Stopera for a meeting, but Jaap can see him as soon as it finishes.
The building itself nestles in a kink in the Amstel. Tourists amble, bureaucrats hustle, and musicians from the orchestra, on a break from rehearsal, cluster into small factions and bemoan their lives.
The rail is hard against his forearms. He’s leaning on it, peering down at the Amstel’s water rippling below. But he’s not really seeing it.
He’s spent the last few hours going over everything, checking out all aspects of his theory. He wasn’t surprised when it all came together.
His face throbs. Earlier he’d caught a glimpse of it in a car window. He’d barely recognized himself.
The commissioner’s made time in his schedule to see Jaap, but when he’d arrived ten minutes ago a secretary had told him they’re running late and that she’d come out to get him when he was ready. Jaap’s using the time to work out exactly what he’s going to say, get it all straight in his own head, prepare for the scene.
Because what he has to say will be received like a hand grenade tossed into a pre-school nursery.
Much of it’s still unknown, and probably won’t ever be verified, but the gist of it is clear. Haanstra had worked for Van der Pol as an enforcer, just as Harry had said. Jaap doesn’t know if the original impetus to film the beatings was Haanstra’s idea, to prove to his boss he’d actually done what he’d been tasked with, or Van der Pol’s for the same reason. But at some stage one of them had hit on the concept of selling the videos, and had built up a business doing just that, finding a willing clientele on the darknet, people willing to pay real money to watch others die.
More recently, though, Haanstra had decided to go self-employed, a decision that Van der Pol, when he’d discovered it, had not taken well and which had prompted Van der Pol to go after him.
To add to the insult, Haanstra had set up on his own with the help of some of Van der Pol’s crew, Kooy in particular for the supply of scopolamine and help with logistics, and the odd bit of freelance work when he needed some intimidation. Kees had talked about him and another gang-member going to visit Francesco Kamp the day before the botched arrest. It’s clear to Jaap that Haanstra kept the threat alive in the minds of the men he’d picked out to be killers, stopped them going to the police.
So far it all mad
e sense, but Jaap knew there was more, something else which had been pulling at him like an underwater current, something underneath which wouldn’t let him go.
The dying prisoner, Koen, had hinted at it, asking why the investigation which had put him away hadn’t delved deeper, why the officer in charge hadn’t followed up on the man who’d been videoing the killing and had run away.
Jaap, wondering about police collusion, had checked the names of the officers in charge, neither of which he knew, and neither of which had turned up in connection with any other crime committed by Haanstra.
But it had made sense when he’d gone higher up the chain.
Made sense and not made sense at the same time.
Because it looked like Van der Pol wasn’t acting alone. Van der Pol, and by extension Haanstra, had had help.
‘Heard you had a bit of trouble,’ Smit says, leaning on the rail next to him. Jaap can smell his aftershave. ‘Whoa, that’s nasty. You need some ice. Or a new face.’
‘I’m meeting with the commissioner,’ Jaap says, watching a waterbird swoop in to land on the water in front of him. Ripples spread out, an ever-widening triangle as it moves forward on the water.
‘I can see that,’ Smit says. ‘But I’ve got something to show you first.’
He holds out a file. Jaap continues to watch the bird, bobbing its head into the water, over and over, like it couldn’t believe what it could see under the surface, a whole new world it’d not known existed.
‘So how far back were you working with Van der Pol? I heard you got some good clearance rates early on in your career. Must have been useful. But I think it was more than that. I know it was much more than that. You’ve been colluding with Van der Pol for years.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I think that you were still involved, but you didn’t trust Van der Pol fully so you embedded Kees to keep an eye on him for you. That’s why you’ve not arrested him with any of the info Kees got you, it wasn’t an official undercover operation.’
Smit puts a hand in his pocket, the other still holding out the file.
Before the Dawn Page 30