Little Sister

by David Hewson

  ‘They didn’t get a body?’

  ‘The woman gave a statement to the police. He went for a swim. She had a nap. He never came back. A month later they found some remains. He’s buried in a place called Seminyak. It seems he’d given up on the Netherlands. That was his new home.’

  ‘You’re happy with this?’ Vos asked.

  ‘The police say he’s dead. The embassy say he’s dead. The business went into liquidation after it happened. There’s no trace of any financial activity. Nothing to suggest it wasn’t him in the water.’

  ‘What about the money? Royalties? The Cupids must have—’

  ‘That would all go through the manager.’ Rijnders scowled. ‘Word was that Jaap Blom was a bit of a bastard. He kept his musicians on a basic wage, pocketed the rest, handed out some extras when they started to moan about talking to lawyers. Told them what to do, what to play, where. And if they even whispered about going solo . . .’ The detective put a pretend gun to his head and said, ‘Bang.’ Then he thought for an instant and added, ‘It’s just gossip, and the music world’s full of that, but people say Jaap could turn pretty nasty if anyone asked for too much. I know he’s a nicer-than-nice politician now. But word was he’d threaten to cut your fingers off back then. If you pissed him off.’

  Vos stared at the photos of Frans Lambert, in Volendam with the band, under a false name in Bali.

  ‘Maybe you should ask him,’ Rijnders said.

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  The night man scratched his chin.

  ‘What do you mean? Didn’t De Groot pass it on? Jaap Blom’s coming in here at nine fifteen. He heard we were scratching around The Cupids. Offered to help. I thought—’

  Vos picked up his phone and said, ‘I haven’t checked my messages yet. Thanks.’

  If Rijnders realized that was a lie he didn’t let on.

  Nine fifteen. Blom had to come through reception.

  Van der Berg was busy sifting through the thick file on Stefan Timmers. Vos called him off.

  ‘I want you to go back in time,’ he said.

  ‘May I know why?’

  ‘Not sure.’

  Van der Berg nodded.

  ‘I like it when we start this way. Let me guess. Ten years. Back to Volendam.’

  ‘No. Five. And I don’t know where.’

  There was an awkward silence then Van der Berg said, ‘Five. Well here’s what I know for starters. Some guy who was director of Marken before Veerman killed himself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Threw a rope round a tree in that wood close to where we found Simon Klerk. Put his neck in it. Didn’t I mention this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sorry. I saw it when I was nosing through the files. It didn’t seem relevant.’

  Vos shrugged and said, ‘Perhaps it isn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Van der Berg agreed. ‘Five years. Ollie Haas deleted those records.’

  Vos said, ‘The same month that missing drummer seems to have drowned in Bali. Under an assumed name.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  Five years. There was one other thing and neither of them was keen to mention it.

  ‘I think that’s what Irene Visser was running from,’ Vos said instead. ‘Not us. Not what happened in that farmhouse. Something different altogether. Perhaps if we—’

  He stopped. De Groot was marching through the office. Calm, relaxed, intent. Vos closed down the pages on Frans Lambert as the commissaris marched up to his desk. Then he related a summary of the case so far, the weapons, Klerk and Stefan Timmers.

  ‘Pretty obvious what happened,’ De Groot said. ‘They’ve got a thug for an uncle. If they wanted to kill that nurse . . .’

  There was still no sign of the sisters, and not the least intelligence from the streets about two blonde girls aged around twenty, hiding somewhere in the city.

  ‘Maybe they’ve upped sticks,’ Rijnders suggested, grabbing his car keys. ‘Gone back to Volendam—’

  ‘No one could hide there,’ De Groot said. ‘It’s too small. Too obvious. If you’re going to hide you go somewhere big. Somewhere you can be anonymous.’

  ‘They’re managing that,’ Vos agreed.

  ‘They’ve murdered two people,’ the commissaris added. ‘They need to.’

  Something bothered Vos. He couldn’t understand why two young women on the run would advertise themselves by standing outside Gert Brugman’s apartment, making sure they were seen looking just the way they were in Marken. Fugitives usually tried to disguise their appearance. They seemed to be flaunting it.

  He made a note to tell the patrols they had to take the description of the sisters with a pinch of salt.

  ‘I had a call from Jaap Blom,’ De Groot added. ‘He wants to come in with his wife and answer any questions we have. I told him it wasn’t necessary but he’s back up here for a while. I thought it would be polite.’ He gave Vos a sharp look. ‘My office, nine fifteen. Just the two of us. We don’t need to record it. He’s not making a statement.’

  ‘Fine,’ Vos said.

  ‘And try not to piss him off.’

  48

  Laura Bakker drove carefully all the way to Marken and found herself at the institution gates just after nine. There was a TV news unit parked outside, one camera hard up against the barrier, the other filming a reporter talking about the second tragedy to hit the institution in a week.

  She drew up, showed her police ID to security then went through to the car park. It was another perfect morning out by the water. Perhaps there’d come a time when she’d cycle out here. Even get Vos to join her. He needed the exercise. She craved the green open spaces of her childhood.

  But not now. There was a job to be done. On her own for once. Finally he was extending an invitation to her, one she’d been waiting for, the chance to prove herself.

  Climbing out of the car she found herself face to face with a short, ragged-haired girl with elfin features, beaming at her as if amused.

  ‘You’re a policewoman, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am,’ Bakker agreed. ‘Have we met?’

  ‘Oh no. I just saw you the other day. I’m an inmate here. They won’t let me talk to the likes of you.’

  Bakker introduced herself and shook her sweaty hand. The girl had been running by the looks of it. There was sweat on her young face and under the arms of her T-shirt.

  ‘Kaatje Lammers. Nutcase,’ she said.

  They were alone in the car park. Steam was coming from the ground-floor block she took to be the canteen. Veerman and the medical staff were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘We’re talking now, aren’t we?’

  The girl laughed and said, ‘Well spotted.’

  ‘Is there something—’

  ‘Is it true Irene Visser’s dead? You lot killed her last night? I heard the cooks talking. They won’t let me see the news . . .’

  ‘There was an accident. A car crash. No one killed her.’

  ‘Running away, the cooks said. From what?’

  Bakker’s phone started ringing. She rejected the call.

  ‘I don’t know. I wish I did.’

  ‘Did you ask her about Simon Klerk?’

  We tried, Bakker thought. The woman was evasive from the outset. And the fast-moving cycle of events – the missing sisters, Klerk’s death, the shocking scene in the farmhouse – meant the case had moved ahead of them, leaving everyone trying to catch up.

  ‘Do you think she had something to tell us?’

  ‘Everyone’s got a story,’ the girl said with a wink. ‘Question is . . . why should they tell it? To you lot? I mean . . . what good is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. We could sit down here and talk if you want.’

  Rapid footsteps sounded across the asphalt. Veerman was there, dark suit, dark face as usual. He looked furious.

  ‘What is this?’ he snapped. ‘I’m trying to deal with Visser’s death here. Talk to the staff. Try to e
xplain the inexplicable. And you just march in . . . where’s Vos?’

  ‘Vos sent me,’ Bakker said.

  Kaatje Lammers was loving every moment of this.

  ‘Why?’ he wondered.

  She glanced at the girl, who wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘We’ve reason to believe Irene Visser was planning to leave Marken in a hurry. I want access to her office. Her computer. Her papers. To people who worked with her.’

  ‘You can’t just march in here the day after she died and start turning the place over.’

  ‘I just want to have a look around. That’s all. I’ll do my best not to upset anyone. It’s all . . .routine.’

  Kaatje Lammers had her hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle.

  ‘I could start with Kaatje here,’ Bakker added. ‘You were one of Dr Visser’s patients, weren’t you?’

  ‘Star pupil. She had all sorts of people coming in to take a look at me. I’m special, you see. Genuine sociopath – I believe that’s the expression. Isn’t it, Director?’

  ‘Not now,’ Veerman said. ‘There’s no time.’

  ‘I’ve got all the time in the world!’ Kaatje cried. ‘What you talking about? If she wants a chat—’

  ‘Kaatje’s being transferred,’ Veerman broke in. ‘To sheltered accommodation in the city. Dr Visser agreed this yesterday. I just need you . . .’ He was struggling with something. ‘We’ve got to go through some papers first.’

  There was a brief silence. Then Kaatje Lammers slapped her cheek, opened her mouth wide and said, ‘Stupid me! How could I forget something like that? See!’ She tapped her skull, grinning. ‘All wrong up here.’

  ‘Then why are they letting you out?’ Bakker asked.

  Kaatje shrugged and looked at Veerman.

  ‘These are clinical decisions,’ he said. ‘I don’t intend to discuss individual cases with the police. Do I have to call your superiors and explain that?’

  He summoned a uniformed guard walking out of the canteen and told him to show Bakker to Visser’s office.

  ‘You can interview who you want, but only with my permission,’ he added. ‘And I will be present. We’ll get your things, Kaatje. Sign those papers. Then I’ll find you a car.’

  ‘Great.’

  The girl wandered off with him, waving her fingers at Bakker as she walked.

  Fifteen minutes later the gates of Marken opened. A black Mercedes took her beyond the iron barrier for the first time since her incarceration. She sat upright in the back, waving at the camera crew through the car window.

  49

  Back in the city Kim Timmers crouched in front of the TV set watching the live news, mind alive with possibilities.

  She followed the black car as it edged out of the familiar Marken gates, saw the dark-haired grinning figure in the back. Mouthed one delighted word, ‘Kaatje.’

  Mia was upstairs trying to deal with Vera. The day ahead looked empty and boring.

  Those trapped in Marken went to one of only three places: the outside world, another hospital, or the safe house in Amsterdam, the place they were headed when Simon Klerk drove his yellow SEAT up the lane with other ideas. She had to recall the timing now. It was early Monday evening that they left the island. Now it was Thursday morning and the world seemed no clearer at all.

  Mia was no help. The Englishwoman was getting more awkward by the hour. Soon she’d be mobile and there’d be decisions to make.

  She thought of Kaatje Lammers, smiling in the back of the car. When Kim got cold feet about anything in Marken Kaatje was always there to put some steel into her spine. She was more fearless, more ruthless than either of them. A sight more sneaky too.

  An excellent ally. A partner in crime.

  The world. A hospital. Or that house.

  It was a guess but that was all Kim had. She found the bag they came with. Inside was the address Simon had given them. A quiet place near the museum. No locks on the doors. No bars on the gate.

  The note went into her pocket then, quiet as a mouse, she let herself out, map in hand, working out the geography of the city as she walked.

  Twenty minutes later she was there, a narrow curving road of tall houses not far from the Rijksmuseum. A black car that looked like a taxi turned up not long after. As Kim watched, a security guard from Marken got out of the passenger seat, went to the back door and helped Kaatje Lammers out. She had a bag like the one Simon Klerk had given them. A child’s one with Disney characters on the side.

  Kim stayed in the shadows of some bushes on the far side of the street. A friendly-looking man came down from the hostel and said hello to Kaatje, taking her bag. A complete stranger. A halfway house they called it. Somewhere you could be free some of the time.

  Kaatje stopped on the steps of the red-brick building, turned, smiling, looking sweet the way she could. Kim walked out into the bright day and stared across the road. Their eyes met. It took a moment for the figure opposite to recognize her. Then Kaatje’s smile grew bigger and she did that subtle wave with her fingers, a tiny gesture she used a lot.

  She mouthed something and vanished inside.

  One word, easy to read.

  Later.

  50

  Jaap Blom looked every inch the politician. Trim, smart in a sleek grey suit, a full head of blond hair that almost didn’t look dyed. He was at ease as he walked into De Groot’s office and found a seat for his wife. Lotte Blom fitted the picture too. An elegant woman, more casually dressed than her husband in black trousers and a white silk shirt. She was perhaps a good ten years younger than him though both possessed the timeless, suntanned look of the wealthy so Vos found it hard to tell. Politics was Blom’s world now but there remained a patina of show business glamour about the couple, Jaap with his yellow locks and masterful manner, Lotte with her perfect black hair set in a Loren cut to match her dark Mediterranean features.

  Vos recalled the last time he’d seen Gert Brugman, trying to entertain a bored and rowdy audience in one of the Jordaan music bars. Time had been kind to this pair in a way it had never reserved for one of the musicians who surely helped put them where they were now. He recalled Rijnders’ words about Blom’s management style and reputation. It wasn’t difficult to see a powerful, controlling individual behind the politician’s mask. Perhaps intimidating if the occasion warranted it.

  Lotte Blom said, ‘I told Jaap you people had been around in Volendam asking questions about The Cupids. And that horrible thing that happened. After all these years. I thought you might want to talk to us.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ Vos asked.

  Blom took a seat next to his wife and nodded at De Groot.

  ‘All that stuff on the TV,’ Lotte Blom went on. About the Timmers girls. How you idiots set them free—’

  ‘That wasn’t us,’ De Groot intervened. ‘We knew nothing about their release. Had we been asked—’

  ‘It was a medical decision,’ Vos said. ‘They wouldn’t have consulted us anyway. I don’t understand, Mrs Blom. Why are you here?’

  ‘Did I not say?’ she asked with a wave of her tanned and neatly manicured hand. ‘Jaap’s in The Hague most of the time. Working all hours, not that anyone appreciates it. I prefer to keep house for him in Edam. It’s quieter. So I hear what you’re up to.’

  Only a few kilometres separated the elegant and upper-class town the Bloms made home from the more rowdy and working-class Volendam. Vos could appreciate word would get around. He still didn’t think they’d made that much noise.

  ‘My wife heard you were reopening the case,’ Jaap Blom cut in. ‘The family. Poor Rogier’s death. All that crap the papers tried to push his way. He just loved kids. That was all. I don’t spend as much time up here as I’d like. So we thought . . . while I’m here I’d make myself available. In case I can help. So?’ He gestured with his open hands. ‘Any questions?’

  ‘We’re not reopening the case,’ De Groot told him.

  ‘In the sense that it was never closed,�
� Vos added. ‘We still don’t know who murdered Gus, Freya and Jo Timmers.’

  ‘Do you have new information?’ Blom asked.

  ‘We’re trying to find the surviving Timmers girls,’ he said very carefully. ‘It wouldn’t be proper for me to discuss an investigation in progress—’

  De Groot leapt in quickly.

  ‘Mr Blom has some responsibility for justice issues within the House of Representatives. He’s not someone who’s just walked in off the street.’

  ‘All the same . . .’

  Blom stared at Vos and said, A good friend of mine died that night. Another vanished and I still don’t understand why. As for Gert . . .he was a mess anyway. But what happened then marked us all. Cost me a damned lot of money too.’ He checked himself at that. ‘Not that money’s important. I made that band. Put them together. Told them what to play and fixed it so it sounded good. Kept them in the charts longer than they deserved, too, when we shifted the sound a bit.’ He winced and pulled at his hair. ‘Not that you hear some of that later shit on the radio any more, thank God. Just the old stuff. The originals.’

  ‘As I said,’ Vos replied, ‘our focus is on finding Mia and Kim Timmers. And trying to understand what happened to Simon Klerk. And their uncle.’

  Lotte Blom snorted.

  ‘Huh! Stefan Timmers? I grew up in Volendam. I can tell you about him. An out-and-out criminal. A thug for hire. Gus was scared of him. Everyone was. As for Freya . . .’

  Her husband was squirming in his seat.

  ‘What about her?’ Vos asked.

  ‘She’d do anything men wanted to get her own way. As for what happened—’

  ‘Love, love,’ Jaap Blom said, putting a hand on her arm. ‘Enough. They’re dead. Whatever they were like—’