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Once she’s cried it out she lies there for a long time.
She feels calmer, cleaner somehow.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, she knows she’s forgiven herself. All the fear and anger and guilt she’s carried for years has gone.
She was put in a bad situation, and she’d done what she had to do.
She’s done blaming herself. That’s past. All that matters now is the future. All that matters is the baby, and her and Jaap and the future they’re going to build together.
She feels a blossoming of expansive hope.
Rain hammers on the houseboat’s roof, and she’s suddenly struck by how beautiful it all sounds, like some kind of natural symphony full of contrapuntal lines and percussive riffs. She listens to it, lying there, breathing quietly, losing track of time.
By the time she gets up she’s just starting to wonder where Jaap is.
In the kitchen she finds a clean glass and pours herself an orange juice. There’s hardly any left so she’ll need to pop out and get some later. Or Jaap can get it on his way back.
Thinking of which, where is he?
The rain’s harder now, if that’s possible, streaming down the windows in thick, ever-shifting rivulets. As she heads back to the bedroom to get her phone to call Jaap, find out when he’s going to be back, she glances out of one of the landward portholes.
For a moment she thinks she sees someone, a figure keeping to the shadows.
By the time she gets her phone the rain has intensified, hiding the figure from view.
If they were even there at all.
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He’s standing there like there’s no rain.
In his pocket he has the passport Kees had given him. Kees had planned on a different life, a better one, only it hadn’t worked out.
Jaap knows he could use it, get away with it, his face so swollen that no one’s going to question the similarity or otherwise of the photo.
Because although he’s done all he can to make sure Smit’s death isn’t traced back to him, he’s been an inspector long enough to know that there’s always something the killer overlooks. Someone will eventually work it out, and then they’ll come for him.
It might be the day their child is born, it might be a year from now, two. It might take five or more, but some day there’s going to be a knock on the door, and he’ll have to answer for what he’s done.
And he doesn’t know if he can put Tanya through that. Not on top of what she’s been through already.
Better to make a break now.
He spots her again, walking past the window, carrying something he can’t make out towards the kitchen, her movements fluid, familiar.
The pain’s sharp.
If he goes he’s not sure it’ll ever leave him.
But what choice does he have?
He had to do it to protect her. At the same time knowing that he’d end up hurting her as well.
The rain’s hiss intensifies, dulling his view of the houseboat, of Tanya. Of his life.
He knows this is it, the moment when everything changes, two futures spiralling out in front of him.
His phone starts to ring. When he gets it out he can see it’s Tanya calling, rain spattering the screen.
He’s still for a few more moments, before he wills himself to move.
Acknowledgements
My thanks go to Simon Trewin at WME, and at Penguin Emad Akhtar, Rowland White and Sophie Elletson. Thanks are also due to Eugenie Todd, copyeditor extraordinaire. In Amsterdam I’d like to thank G.H. for exposure to the rouge horticultural arts, and T.P. for technical insight into the workings of the DarkNet.
The Animal for keeping my feet warm during many long hours of writing.
And most importantly Zara, for the continuing journey.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published 2017
Text copyright © Jake Woodhouse, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover images © Samet Guler/Shutterstock.com and © Yooniq Images/Alamy
ISBN: 978-1-405-92264-7
Before the Dawn Page 32