The Harbour Master

by Daniel Pembrey

  ‘I kid you not,’ Wester said. ‘But you didn’t hear that from me.’ He paused. ‘There’s a question about the provenance, whether it changed hands during the war. Oh look – here comes Bergveld.’

  Bergveld was walking towards us in his latest designer jacket, a light-brown suede number that ended mid-thigh. His expression turned from surprise to confusion and then rage. Stefan slunk away towards our car. Bergveld’s eyes stayed on me, steeling for a confrontation, his chest puffing up; he was just about to open his mouth when my phone rang.

  PRIVATE NUMBER.

  ‘I’m sorry, I need to take this.’

  ‘Henk?’ the voice on the phone said.

  Lottman.

  Bergveld shook his head in exasperation and stormed off towards Wester.

  ‘How did it go this morning with our Ghanaian guest?’

  ‘Plain sailing. Nothing to report. We met him at the airport, went to a diamond house in Antwerp, then drove to Amsterdam.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ He sounded relieved.

  I was about to mention the stone that Lesoto had shown me when Lottman asked, ‘There were no problems?’

  ‘None at the airport.’ What problems had he been expecting? ‘Lesoto had a couple of gripes about the way he’d been welcomed through immigration, but’– I thought of the two guards eyeing us – ‘that was all.’

  ‘Well, that’s good then. And how were things left?’

  ‘Er… not in a great way for me, to be honest. Joost happened to be getting out of his car when Lesoto dropped me back at the station in a diplomatic Bentley. I didn’t say anything to Joost, only –’

  ‘Don’t worry about your boss.’

  Easy for Lottman to say, sat there in Brussels.

  ‘Did Lesoto mention where he was going on to?’

  ‘No, but I told him to call me if he needed anything. I think he mentioned that he would be speaking with you. I’m sorry, I was somewhat preoccupied by Joost watching me.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Look, about Joost –’

  ‘You did the right thing,’ Lottman cut in. ‘Could you let me know if Lesoto does contact you?’

  I couldn’t bring Joost’s name up a fourth time, dammit. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Willemspark. The death of a diplomat, Lars Pelt.’

  ‘Ah, what’s going on with that?’

  Lottman knew about it already?

  ‘I don’t know yet, it’s not my case. Belongs to Bas Bergveld.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘It appears that a valuable painting was stolen.’

  ‘Yes, most unfortunate. I’m late for a meeting. Let’s stay in touch.’

  With that he hung up, leaving me pondering his last four words. Had my usefulness to him already expired?

  Stefan was waiting in the unmarked police car. ‘You drive back,’ I told him, handing him the keys. ‘I want to clear my head. I’ll see you at the station.’

  ‘OK, boss.’ Stefan nodded and shifted over to the driver’s seat.

  I walked along Willemsparkweg towards Museumplein, using up my after-dinner cigarette quota. If Lottman wasn’t going to help me with Joost, I needed another plan, and fast. Dammit. I wish I’d told Lottman where the hell to go when I’d been sat out in the Rotterdam sun with Petra.

  I realised my phone was ringing again…

  Throwing the end of my cigarette away, I checked the caller ID and answered it.

  ‘Nadia.’

  ‘Dad, sorry it didn’t work out at the weekend in Rotterdam.’ I could hear outside noise and hubbub on her end of the line.

  ‘Yes, we were sorry too that you couldn’t find the time for us.’ I checked myself. ‘But these things happen.’

  Increasingly frequently, I left unsaid.

  ‘So, my passport is set to expire in the next few days, and I didn’t get the chance to renew it…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, I was hoping to go away this weekend.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Dubrovnik.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Is there any chance… Do you know anyone who could fast-track a passport renewal?’

  I puffed my cheeks and blew out air sharply.

  ‘OK, Nadia, let’s just have a chat about it, shall we? Where are you?’

  ‘In town.’

  ‘Me too. Let’s meet at the café in the Rijksmuseum.’ I could see its gold-and-grey towers glinting.

  *

  The Rijks was mobbed with tourists but I managed to find us a table for two at the café in the new atrium. The entire museum had been renovated over many years, at vast expense, and it had only recently reopened. It resembled an international airport.

  Nadia caused a small stir as she walked into the café. She’d certainly grown up of late. Gone was the nose ring and student garb; her hair (once red) was now a rich chestnut brown. She wore a dark jacket, leather handbag and designer jeans – every inch the elegant young Amsterdammer.

  I didn’t notice it at first. It was only as she set her bag down that the ring on her middle finger glinted at me. Nothing like Lesoto’s jewel, certainly less than a carat, but a rose-coloured stone, brilliant-cut, and probably worth a decent percentage of my annual salary. What did it mean to wear it on her middle finger?

  ‘Hi,’ she said, giving me a quick hug.

  A waitress approached in smart black uniform. ‘What would you like?’ she asked.

  By now I was famished.

  ‘Some tea,’ Nadia said. ‘No, make that water. Sparkling.’

  ‘Anything to eat?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘And for you?’ the waitress said to me.

  ‘Make it a bottle of water, two glasses.’

  ‘Nothing to eat?’

  I ordered the Farm Hen Salad, whatever that was.

  ‘So… Dubrovnik?’ I asked as soon as we were alone again.

  ‘Yes,’ Nadia replied. ‘Just a weekend trip.’

  ‘Hmm. Who with?’

  ‘Sergei.’

  ‘Sergei?’

  ‘My friend.’

  ‘And what does this friend do?’

  She sighed. ‘He works in films. Film investment.’

  ‘What kind of films?’ I asked. ‘What kind of investment?’

  Nadia was saved from needing to answer by the arrival of the drinks.

  I checked my phone. Two missed calls from Stefan.

  Soon the food arrived. I made a start on my late lunch, glancing again at the stone on Nadia’s finger. Had my daughter turned into some kind of gangster’s moll?

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘about the passport renewal – are you able to help with that?’

  ‘If it was some kind of emergency,’ I said between mouthfuls, ‘possibly. For a weekend away at the seaside?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, reaching for her bag.

  ‘Hold on, Nadia.’ I grabbed her hand, encouraging her to stay. ‘Just give your mum a call, would you? She was quite cut up, not seeing you at the weekend.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I already did, actually, and it sounds like she didn’t see so much of you either, with your jaunt to Brussels.’

  She’d got me there. I picked at a piece of food between my teeth – a piece of nut.

  ‘Do you still have time to work on the website with her?’ I asked, referring to the news website they’d started together last year.

  ‘I really need to find my own way with my career now,’ she said. ‘But, of course, if mum needs help…’

  ‘That’s a fine-looking stone on your finger.’

  She shrugged. ‘Sergei gave it to me.’

  ‘Right. Do you know if it’s OK?’

 
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean, OK?’

  ‘Legit.’ Finally I managed to free the piece of nut from between my teeth. ‘A conflict-free diamond.’

  ‘Jesus, Dad!’ She was on her feet again. ‘That’s hardly a question I can ask now, is it? Oh, thanks so much for the lovely gift, can I just see the paperwork for it?’

  ‘I’m just asking.’

  ‘Well… don’t!’ She rolled her eyes at me, and then strode off.

  18

  NEW GOALS

  ‘Boss, there’s a problem,’ Stefan said when I returned his call.

  What now? I thought. A server cleared my table.

  ‘Joost rejected the Holendrecht report.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said we need some kind of result from the case, locally. To meet goals.’

  ‘Just back up there, Stefan. How did Joost even get hold of the report? I haven’t seen it yet!’

  ‘He called and asked me to email it to him –’

  ‘You emailed it to him?’

  ‘I copied you in on –’

  ‘I hadn’t even reviewed it!’

  ‘I tried to call you.’ His voice trailed off. ‘Twice.’

  ‘Have the damn table,’ I told two tourists who were hovering with a waitress. I stood up.

  ‘What?’ Stefan said.

  ‘Not you. What else did Joost say?’

  ‘He asked me to direct him to the part of the report about Frank Hals.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And… I’m sorry, what’s the question?’

  ‘What’s the answer, Stefan? What does the report say about Hals?’

  ‘Nothing. We never spoke to Hals, did we? I didn’t know what to include, so I didn’t include anything.’

  ‘Okay.’ I was breathing more easily now. ‘What else?’

  ‘Er… Joost said if we don’t get a result with Hals, he’s shutting the station down.’

  Jesus. Joost bypassed me and told Stefan this?

  *

  I tried to call Lottman, who didn’t pick up, but I got hold of his assistant. He was in a ‘council session’. Not Amsterdam City Council now; rather, the Council of Europe, as I had to keep reminding myself.

  I walked around the museum’s big atrium in a slow circle, trying to figure a way out of all this. Perhaps if I could track down Lesoto and engineer some sort of incident, I’d have the pretext to engage Lottman, give him the update he’d requested and force his intervention with Joost. In theory, finding Lesoto shouldn’t be too difficult. How many giant African men were rolling around central Amsterdam in a maroon-coloured, diplomatic Bentley?

  But I needed a plan for Frank Hals, too, in case Joost did prevail. Joost was a seasoned politician. He wouldn’t be issuing threats if he weren’t confident of being able to execute them. But from where did his confidence stem?

  Maybe he knew that Hals and I had history, and was taking this opportunity to needle me over it.

  Frank Hals was truly an Amsterdam institution. He lived on a houseboat of sorts, down in the harbour. Not the kind of houseboat that Petra and I lived on, but a clipper from the days of the spice trade. Strictly speaking it wasn’t even a legal residence, but after three decades his right to inhabit it had somehow been grandfathered in by the city. That was Hals: nothing about his life was quite legal, but it couldn’t be shown to be illegal either.

  ‘Are you coming in, sir?’ the man at the security gate to the museum proper asked as I passed by him again.

  ‘Sure. Why not?’ I almost flashed my warrant card, but managed to swap it for my museum card in time.

  Hals had started off as a free spirit. We’d met at demonstrations in the early 80s, protesting the displacement of people around town as businesses and city government began taking over and developing different locations – for example, Waterlooplein, and the new city hall there. Freshly demobbed from the army, I might have seemed an unlikely candidate for such protests, but somehow they spoke to me, my background overseas and the constant moving around. Being moved around, I should say.

  Sometimes I wondered what would have happened if Petra hadn’t come along when she did.

  But just as my life had stabilised and found a fair current, so Hals’s life began to drift off course. He’d built up a chain of coffee shops, initially in the Red Light District, and later across the city. The irony was how defensive he’d become over his investments. Over time, his personality had soured like a lemon.

  It had been a difficult decision to investigate Hals in connection with the Holendrecht shooting, but investigate him we had to, as he was known to have become vicious in his dealings with those who crossed him.

  He’d shown this during his trial a few years ago. It was common knowledge that Hals grew weed in the hull of his ship. It could easily be spotted on heat maps of the eastern part of the harbour; he must have installed hydroponic grow lights below deck. In 2008, he went to court accused of cultivating marijuana for resale. His lawyer, the notoriously sharp Vincent van Haaften, successfully argued that the entire crop had split from a single plant thirty years before – and that this single plant had been acquired for personal use. One of the witnesses at the trial was never seen or heard of again.

  I jogged up the stairs to the Gallery of Honour.

  Joost’s message was clear enough: With an informant such as Zsolt To˝zsér at our disposal, we could have got Hals. Now To˝zsér’s dead. So what’ve you got instead, old Henk?

  I glanced down the corridor to the gallery’s focal point, the massive Night Watch, Rembrandt’s iconic band of local militiamen. But it wasn’t why I’d come up here. I wanted to see the painting a third of the way down on the right-hand side, almost as popular in its own way here in Holland: Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck’s Girl Dressed in Blue. And that reminded me of other things about Frank Hals, which I didn’t even want to think about. Rumours that he’d developed an unhealthy interest in young girls.

  The heads of other visitors parted and there she was: one of the seventeenth century’s most enduring mysteries. Who was the girl in blue? No one knew anything about her. Perhaps she’d lived in Haarlem like her portraitist, or perhaps not.

  The fascination with the painting is attributed to the way in which the adorable-looking girl is also a little adult lady, there in her Sunday best. I got closer, trying to prevent the other visitors crowding into my sight line.

  I beheld her feathery fair hair, rosy cheeks, curiously drooping mouth and glassy, dark eyes. A chill passed through me; now there was a new mystery attributed to her – Lars Pelt’s death.

  A Norwegian diplomat killed by burglars seeking a priceless artwork.

  A Ghanaian giant rolling around town with a huge diamond.

  A high-class Ukrainian escort, badly beaten up by a protected guest at the Royal Hotel.

  Not to forget the ever-present Frank Hals, just offstage…

  What couldn’t be bought or obtained in this town, by one means or another?

  *

  Back at the station, I could see Joost in one of the conference rooms – and he was with someone. The blinds were drawn; I couldn’t tell who the other person was. ‘Who’s Joost in with?’ I asked Liesbeth.

  ‘I don’t know, I just got back here myself.’

  ‘Coffee?’ I got up and went over to the drinks machine to see if it would give me a better view. It didn’t. I could only see the hem of a brown jacket.

  ‘The machine’s not working,’ Liesbeth said. ‘Don’t you want to know where I was?’

  ‘Does anything work around here?’ I got back to my desk and sat down heavily in my roller chair. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘The Royal Hotel.’

  ‘Good. And?’

  ‘They still won’t reveal the name of the guest.’

  I sighed.

  ‘Th
ey said that their lawyers advised them not to.’

  ‘You told them we’d get a warrant?’

  ‘Yes, only…’ She paused. ‘A warrant requires probable cause of a crime committed.’

  ‘Er… a beaten woman?’ I turned my palms up incredulously.

  ‘But for a crime to have been committed, it has to be proven.’

  ‘Liesbeth, I’m not looking for a philosophical discussion or your prosecutorial advice on this. Get. The. Warrant.’

  ‘But what if the suspect has immunity from prosecution?’

  I hesitated. A diplomat?

  ‘Why assume that?’ I said.

  ‘Why else would the hotel be going to all this trouble?’

  ‘The crime happened on Dutch soil. In our precinct. No one is above the law.’

  ‘But do you really want to spend the resources on this – to have to secure authorisation?’

  I sighed again, exasperated, and eyed the conference room. ‘Then what do you suggest?’

  ‘I think I should focus on tracking down the maid – and through her, the victim.’

  ‘Fine.’

  I was mentally preparing a parallel approach when I heard my name called.

  *

  Sebastiaan Bergveld was with Joost, I was shocked to discover. He was smiling at me, his eyes perfectly calm under his floppy, blond fringe.

  It was like a reunion of the station’s old guard. Had I been invited along as the entertainment? I nodded at them like none of it fazed me.

  ‘Take a seat Henk,’ said Joost. ‘I’m just reviewing the station’s goals in depth, and yours in particular.’ He slid a piece of paper over to me.

  Our eyes locked.

  ‘I invited Sebastiaan along as an independent observer.’

  I almost laughed.

  ‘As I’m sure you know, Internal Investigations likes such transparency.’

  This was fucking unbelievable. ‘Internal Investigations?’

  Bergveld just kept grinning that grin.

  I glanced down at the page and saw a series of numbered points. Frank Hals’s name appeared more than once.

  ‘What is this about? The Holendrecht case?’

  ‘It’s about many things,’ Joost said. ‘Primarily it’s about a lack of progress here at IJT3 towards goals.’