Sammy shrugged.
He was good at that.
I consoled myself with the thought that international regulation made it almost impossible to profit from illicit diamonds now – even those brought in by diplomatic pouch. Under the Kimberley Process, opportunities to sell on stones are incredibly limited if the stones’ non-conflict provenance cannot be certified.
I gripped the hand rail, remembering a diamond heist at the airport here, a year or so ago. A gang had held up a Swiss-bound plane on the runway, relieving it of fifty million dollars’ worth of gems. You couldn’t help but take an interest in these things in the squad room. With equal parts curiosity and envy, my mind had gone to how the detectives would have interviewed the insiders. (It had clearly been an inside job, given the speed and precision of the robbery.) Which inconsistencies in their stories would have come to light? Which tics and tells? The diamond insurers sitting behind these facades on Pelikaanstraat were assiduous in pressing the police to investigate, generous in making resources available… But the gang had only been caught when they’d tried to sell the stones on, having resorted to using the Internet. The police had raided a chalet in France, near the border with Switzerland. There they found the stones’ certificates and, not long afterwards, the gang itself.
The door of Cape Diamonds swung open and Lesoto appeared.
Sammy opened the car door for him. Lesoto was chuckling – like he couldn’t believe his luck.
‘Where now?’ I asked.
‘Am-ster-dam!’ he said. ‘We can drop you there, if this is helpful.’
I nodded; it would be.
‘Let me show you something.’ Out of a small felt pouch he produced a piece of pure brilliance, the like of which I’d never seen before. I took the hard stone from him and turned it between my fingers. It was the size of an acorn, perhaps twenty carats; it had to be worth many millions of euros. To my eyes, it looked flawless. Shards of light wheeled across the roof and seat backs of the Bentley. But it was the skill with which it had been cut and polished… The more I stared at it, the more the diamond turned everything else to dark around it, save for Lesoto’s eyes. Soon it was as if we were looking at it down a deep mine shaft.
‘It’s the Ghanaian Star,’ Lesoto whispered.
‘And this is a gift?
‘Yes.’
‘You’re going to make someone very happy.’
‘Yes. I am.’
16
THE WOMAN AT
THE ROYAL HOTEL
We sped across the dull low country of Flanders towards Amsterdam, the landscape a mud-brown blur. Lesoto snoozed, his heavy head nodding. Occasionally he’d wake with a start, surprise in his eyes, then relax and drift off again.
I couldn’t help but think about the precious stone in his inside pocket. It spoke to something in me. Man’s lust for treasure down through the ages, maybe? Or something closer, more familial? Much of what my dad got up to was never made clear.
It struck me that diamonds were a remarkably efficient and discreet way to move financial value around. More so than drugs, gold… anything.
I decided to call Liesbeth at the station. She picked up on the first ring.
‘Belgium, eh?’ she said, having apparently spoken with Stefan. ‘For a few days?’
I needed to be careful that neither Sammy nor the sleeping giant could decrypt my conversation. And I also needed to be a little careful about Liesbeth herself. Though she was a great team member and married to a good guy, her husband was a fast-rising prosecutor who was regularly in contact with my boss, Joost.
‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ I joked, ‘I’m back this afternoon. What’s this hotel incident?’
‘Ah yes, a Ukrainian lady was badly beaten up in one of the suites at the Royal.’
‘Who?’
‘Still trying to find that out. Haven’t located her yet.’
I shifted on the leather seat, trying to make sense of it. ‘Then how do you know this?’
‘A maid called the police using her own mobile phone. She found the victim in the suite this morning, barely conscious. The maid was Ukrainian, too. But by the time I got there, the victim was long gone.’
‘So… who’d booked the suite? What did hotel management have to say about it?’
Sammy’s eyes met mine briefly in the rear-view mirror.
‘They’re checking with their head office about client confidentiality.’
I mulled that over as we sped past the exit to Rotterdam.
Clearly an important guest, then.
‘You let them know they had to tell us?’
‘I… No. I wanted to talk to you first.’
‘Did you speak to the caller in person – the maid?’
‘No, I got the call report from the emergency-response phone operators. When I rang the hotel, the manager wanted it all handled by him. My guess is that our maid won’t enjoy stellar career prospects there now.’
‘Didn’t the victim need an ambulance?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘Hmm.’ I didn’t like the sound of this. ‘Should we both go and speak with them when I get back? What’s your feeling?’
She paused. ‘If the victim doesn’t step forward, and there’s no witness to the incident…’
If a tree falls in the forest…
Liesbeth sounded too much like her husband, assessing the chance of success at trial. Prematurely.
‘We have a reported crime.’ I estimated the journey time from the Rotterdam exit. ‘I’ll see you at the hotel at thirteen hundred.’
Sammy looked up and met my eyes again in the mirror.
*
We got back to Amsterdam so quickly that I even had time to grab my notebook before heading over to the Royal, so I asked Lesoto and Sammy to drop me near the police station – not remembering, until it was too late, that the police commissioner might be dropping by that day. Getting out of his unmarked vehicle, Joost watched us glide up to the end of the block. His bald head canted quizzically.
I cursed myself for not having asked Sammy to drop me a few streets away.
Still inside the Bentley, I turned to Lesoto and said, ‘Call me if you need help.’
All the while Joost was watching… waiting.
Damn.
IJ Tunnel 3 was one of several stations Joost was responsible for, but it was where he’d started out and he took a disproportionate interest in our affairs. Especially since I’d become a team leader.
‘I will be sure to tell Mista Lottman that you are a friend. A friend of Ghana,’ Lesoto said. To make matters worse, he climbed out of the Bentley, intercepted me and gave me a crushing hug. It was like trying to wrap my arms around a house.
Finally I walked over to the station entrance.
‘Joost,’ I greeted him.
‘A word?’
‘Sure.’
Joost waited for an explanation.
‘It’s a personal matter,’ I explained, ‘not police business.’
‘Really.’ He eyed the departing Bentley. ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can talk, shall we?’
He led me, not into the station, but rather to the Ibis hotel opposite.
It gave me a minute to think and plan. Before saying anything to Joost, I needed to report to Lottman, confirming that I’d carried out what he’d asked of me. I was still working out exactly what I wanted in return. It rather depended on how the next few minutes went.
Sonja, my usual waitress at the Ibis, was serving. I waved hello as Joost led me deeper into the restaurant in silence. The lunch trade was sparse and he was able to find us a quiet table with ease, the piped muzak giving us extra cover.
‘Not police business,’ he repeated. ‘A car with diplomatic plates. Just what the hell kind of business is that, exactly?’
�
��Like I said, it’s a personal matter.’
Perhaps Lesoto’s hug had given my assertion some credence. Joost considered my words. Maybe he imagined it to be connected with my past?
‘Perhaps we can talk about police business, then,’ he said.
‘Sure.’ I eyed my phone. I was going to be late for Liesbeth at the Royal after all.
‘Where’s your update on the Holendrecht case?’ The shooting in Southeast Amsterdam.
‘I’m sure you know more about that than I do at this point. The National Police Agency are running the case after all, aren’t they? There’s really not much for us to add.’
‘What about here in the precinct? What about Hals?’
Since the shooting of supergrass Zsolt To˝zsér, life had become a whole lot easier for the likes of Frank Hals, the local drug king. To˝zsér had grassed up Hals’s competitors and then ceased to be a direct threat himself.
‘It’s not getting any easier to go knocking on Hals’s door.’
Joost’s mouth twitched. ‘So what exactly are you working on, Henk? When you’re not sailing around in your friend’s Bentley?’
I ignored the barb. ‘Managing my team. We’re working on a range of cases.’
‘Such as?’
‘A serious assault on a guest at the Royal Hotel last night.’
Joost’s mouth twitched again, like he was about to say something but was holding back. I could tell that my arrival in the diplomatic vehicle had really thrown him, which wasn’t easy to accomplish with Joost. Finally he leaned in, his folded arms resting on the table.
‘I need your revised targets. To show all the work that’s going through IJ Tunnel 3, with exactly where you are in terms of your goals. We need to consider whether more’ – he searched for the words – ‘tightly defined goals might be in order.’
He sat back.
‘D’you not think we have enough goals already, for such a small team?’
‘The KLPD is doing more and more in precincts such as this one.’
The Korps Landelijke Politiediensten being the National Police Agency – the ones with the real resources to work cases such as Holendrecht.
‘Maybe they should have it all,’ Joost went on. ‘I’m reviewing the station’s future.’
Sonja arrived. ‘Would you both like to see a menu?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, numbed by my boss’s threat.
‘Something to drink then?’
‘We’re fine,’ Joost snapped, not shifting his gaze from me.
Sonja’s eyes widened as she left.
I thought to change the subject. ‘What’s going on over in Willemspark?’
Joost did a double take. ‘Huh?’
‘Diplomat found dead over there, I heard.’
‘What the hell’s that got to do with you? It’s not even your beat. That’s Bas’s case.’
Sebastiaan Bergveld had handled police informants while Joost was running IJ Tunnel 3 – there was a deep loyalty between the two men.
Joost paused, perhaps trying to work out whether the diplomat who’d died was connected to the one who’d dropped me off.
As I’d hoped.
‘Just be careful, Henk. There’s still time to open up an enquiry into the shooting of Zsolt To˝zsér.’
So he was laying his cards down.
I watched him get up and walk out of the restaurant, his scrawny form vanishing into the lobby.
I stood up myself, left a five-euro note on the table for Sonja and followed suit – at a safe distance.
*
‘Where were you?’ Liesbeth asked when I finally entered the squad room. Stefan looked up from his computer and nodded a hello to me.
‘Unavoidably detained. Did you go to the Royal?’
‘No need,’ Liesbeth said. ‘The hotel called me.’
‘And?’
‘They released the name of the beaten woman. Elena Luscovich.’
‘Go on.’
‘She’s an escort.’
‘Hmm.’ I went over to the little drinks machine, but it was still broken. ‘How do you know that? And how did they get her name?’
‘She arrived there around midnight. Hotel security required her passport before they’d let her up to the guest’s suite.’
There was nothing illegal about ‘escorting’ in Amsterdam. I wondered if she’d tipped the staff. The higher-end escorts working properties such as the Royal could earn ten thousand euros for an overnight stay. More, even.
‘Did they give a description?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve managed to track her down?’
‘Not yet. Still thinking about how to do that.’
‘See if she’s legal, paying taxes… ?’
‘She might have professional insurance.’
‘Maybe.’ Some escorts insured their physical condition against unforeseen events.
‘But first, I was hoping that the maid might help.’
I nodded; Liesbeth was on the right track, as ever. Both the maid and the victim were Ukrainian.
Which reminded me that another beneficiary of the To˝zsér brothers’ demise was a middle-ranking Ukrainian hoodlum called Malek, located on the edge of the Red Light District. But it was too early to involve him.
‘What about the actual hotel guest?’
‘No dice.’
‘Huh?’
‘Hotel won’t give out the name.’
Classic. Anonymity and security always went to the client.
‘They say we need a warrant,’ Liesbeth went on.
‘Then we get a warrant. Make them understand we’re not just filling out forms with this one. We want to know what happened in that hotel suite. And we’ll want to know if it happens again.’
Liesbeth gave a little salute. ‘Yes sir.’
I turned to Stefan. ‘What are you working on?’
‘I’ve just finished the Holendrecht report.’
‘Good. Now let’s take a trip over to Willemspark.’
17
PARK LIFE
Willemspark lay to the south-west of us, a little outside the canal belt. Flanked by a large, popular park, the houses there are substantial and finely detailed, the streets quiet. Willemspark is home to Amsterdam’s wealthiest families and dignitaries. Old money, as opposed to the stuff sloshing around my beat. It’s all relative in this city, where prices and rents have become stratospheric. The whole central area is turning into a playground for the rich and privileged.
The dead diplomat, Lars Pelt, was a senior adviser to the Norwegian ambassador and had lived on leafy Koningslaan. We parked a block away from his address.
The afternoon was bright and hazy, the air soft. Tulips stood in the large gardens.
I lit a cigarette. Technically it qualified as after lunch, though I hadn’t in fact eaten yet. My stomach rumbled as I thought of Rem Lottman in Brussels, probably on his fourth or fifth course by now. I needed to call him and give my field report regarding Lesoto.
‘What are we doing over here?’ Stefan was wearing his bemused look.
‘I’m not exactly sure yet.’ Perhaps I was being led astray by the diplomatic angle, with Lesoto fresh in my mind, but sometimes you have to follow your nose in this game, see where it leads you.
I was heartened to see the capable figure of Wester at the door of the brick and stone house. The former custody sergeant from IJ Tunnel 3 had been moved – reluctantly – to Sebastiaan Bergveld’s beat in Willemspark. ‘Resource reallocation’, Joost had termed it.
‘Hoi oi,’ he said. ‘Didn’t expect to see you over in this neck of the woods.’
I shook his hand firmly. ‘How are you, Wester?’
‘Oh, surviving.’
I knew the feeling. ‘Is Bergveld here?’
&nbs
p; ‘No, he’s gone off for another meeting with the big cheese.’
‘Joost?’ He was everywhere all of a sudden.
Wester nodded.
‘We were just passing,’ I said, trying to see inside the house. ‘Dead Norwegian diplomat, eh? Is Larsson the medical examiner on this one?’
‘You’d need to talk to Bergveld about all that.’
I stepped aside as a woman appeared from the shadows of the doorway.
‘Hullo,’ she said in a very proper English accent. Her blue eyes held mine for a second. Then she walked briskly past, out onto the street. She wore an expensive-looking, fitted tweed jacket and skirt.
‘Who’s she?’
‘Her name’s Lucy something-West. Channing-West, I think it is. I wrote it down someplace…’
‘But who is she? What’s she doing here?’
‘She’s an art insurer over from London.’
‘Something was stolen?’
‘A very valuable painting.’
‘That’s why Pelt died? He disturbed the burglar?’
‘We don’t know yet. You’d need to speak with Bergveld about it. Assuming you two are on speaking terms now.’
‘Actually, that’s why I stopped by. It’s time to smoke the pipe of peace. But I’m sure I’ll catch him again soon.’
I wanted Wester to characterise my presence here that way, should Bergveld become aware of it and ask.
I watched the young English woman walk along the street. She was looking up and down as though searching for a cab. I suddenly thought to offer her a lift, but a taxi miraculously appeared, a Mercedes from the prominently liveried Amsterdam Executive Cars swerving over to her side of the street.
We were all watching. ‘I imagine she often has that effect on drivers,’ I said, running my hand over my stubble.
Wester chuckled.
‘You know the amazing thing? It’s a Verspronck that no one even knew existed. A study for Girl Dressed in Blue. Can you believe that?’
‘You’re kidding me.’
Everyone in Holland knew the Girl Dressed in Blue.
I should qualify that: everyone above a certain age. It had once featured on the back of the twenty-five-guilder bank note – my father had given me one, when I was a boy.
The Harbour Master Page 11