by David Hewson
‘Leaving for where?’ the girl screamed, waving the blade at them. ‘If I’m getting banged up for good who the fuck gives you the right to walk away like nothing ever happened? Huh?’
‘No one,’ Mia murmured and didn’t listen to her rants any more.
Head down, cowed for once, Kim did as she was told. They picked up the bag. Mia checked the money again. All told it was just over a thousand euros. Then she held open the front door and let her sister out.
Kaatje stood in the hall, wild-eyed, brandishing the knife.
‘Good luck,’ Mia said and noticed they didn’t get the finger wave now.
Out in the narrow street she looked up and down. Left or right. It didn’t really matter.
‘This way.’ Kim was pointing back towards the city centre. She put a hand to her sister’s cheek. There were tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. You’d be better off without me.’
‘No,’ Mia said, starting to walk where Kim wanted. ‘I wouldn’t. I’d be as good as dead.’
Behind them the front door slammed.
66
Evinrude.
Her uncle’s boat was nothing like this. But Laura Bakker had grown up on a farm. She was familiar with machinery, its capabilities and its dangers too.
All she required was an opportunity.
Sara Klerk cut the engine. To Bakker’s relief the shotgun stayed where it was.
‘You won’t sink easily, will you?’
‘No,’ Bakker replied. ‘I’m a witch. We float.’
‘Not for long.’
Somewhere in the distance was the drone of an engine. High in the sky. Further off what sounded like the high-pitched whine of a speedboat. She wanted to think these were the sounds of hope. But you couldn’t rely on anything except yourself in the end.
The cruiser slewed to a halt, bobbing gently on the Markermeer’s steady waves. Sara Klerk looked at the back of the boat. Close to the transom was a modern anchor, two pivoting flukes around a long shank. Small, portable, convenient. And unattached to any chain. Maybe it came with the cruiser. But if the boat simply shuttled between Marken and the Flamingo Club’s slipway it was never going to be needed.
Sara Klerk winked at her, and went for the thing.
The noises outside were still distant but Bakker thought she could make them out more clearly. The chop-chop of a helicopter. The frantic wail of a high-powered boat.
Still no time to waste.
Sara Klerk was by the outboard when Bakker moved. She lunged to her feet and fell towards the wheel and the throttle. The cockpit was cramped. One attempt only and then the woman would be back.
Her elbow caught the throttle and opened it wide. Then she jabbed at the wheel and turned it fully to the left. The cruiser roared and bucked like a horse that had been kicked, rearing to one side.
Bakker found herself falling hard to the cockpit wall, banging against the shotgun, tumbling to the floor. Last chance now.
A scream. Not hers. She looked up and saw Sara Klerk fling away the anchor, struggle to hold onto the boat deck, lose her grip and fall head first over the side.
Visions of the outboard turning on the woman in the water, of blood in the grey waves, and opportunities lost. The noise from the sky was louder. Something else was getting near. She clambered to her feet, got her chin to the throttle, eased it back down. Winded, the boat lost its momentum and fell back into the waves.
There was a blue police speedboat approaching from the coast side. The blast of rotors deafened her as the helicopter came to hover overhead. Bakker lurched towards the stern, steeling herself for that red stain through the choppy foam wake she’d left behind.
It wasn’t there. Just an angry desperate woman, flailing at the waves.
She looked up at the helicopter and nodded, mouthing, ‘I’m fine.’
One minute later the boat came alongside. Three officers there, uniformed, two of them recovering a furious Sara Klerk from the water. Then the third leapt over onto the cruiser, looked Bakker up and down and said, ‘Are you all right?’
‘I will be when you get this stupid rope off me.’
He did that. She told him to take the cruiser and touch as little as possible. Then she climbed onto the police boat. The Klerk woman was sitting in the stern like a drowned rat, both terrified and furious.
She rushed over and said, ‘Sara. Sara. Will you please look at me?’
A guilty look, regret and trepidation.
‘I think we need to talk,’ Bakker told her. ‘Don’t you?’
67
In the red-brick building behind the Rijksmuseum the administrator looked at the alert on the monitor system.
One hour and fifty minutes gone. They had to have some leeway. Even this one. He’d been through the skimpy documentation Marken had sent. That alone was enough to recall the kid.
What bugged him was a simple truth. Calling the police was an admission of failure. A step backwards. One that sometimes was hard to reverse.
Her file was in front of him.
‘Kaatje, Kaatje,’ he whispered. ‘Where are you? And what are you doing?’
That wasn’t his call now. It was down to Marnixstraat.
68
Vos stayed on the phone all the way into Volendam. The helicopter was heading back to the mainland. The police boat seemed busy.
Then he heard the news and it pushed him back into the seat, eyes closed, breathing deeply.
‘For pity’s sake, Pieter,’ Van der Berg moaned, negotiating the labyrinth of narrow lanes that led to the waterfront.
There were lights flashing ahead. Police cars and vans lined the crowded waterfront. An ambulance was waiting, a stretcher out of the back.
‘She’s safe,’ Vos whispered.
‘Oh!’ Van der Berg slapped the steering wheel. ‘Boy do you know how to break things.’
‘Park over there,’ Vos ordered, pointing at a gap between the ambulance and a marked van.
‘I thought for a moment . . .’
The words failed him. He found somewhere to dump the car.
‘Perhaps we underestimate our young lady from Friesland,’ Vos said, opening the door. ‘Or I do.’
When they got out the harbourside was crowded: police officers, medics, locals gawping, most of them with their phones out ready to take pictures. Vos thought about trying to clear the area then realized this was impossible. It was a public event, like it or not. Ahead he could see the blue police boat manoeuvring past the outer wall. A small white cruiser was following close behind. It seemed such an ordinary scene set against the silver line of the lake. Then a figure stood up in the back of the police boat, tall and upright, red hair blowing in the wind.
Vos found himself waving, Van der Berg too. She seemed too busy to wave back.
He looked around. Volendam. He still hadn’t got the measure of this place. It was a holiday town of sorts, made from fishing, now mostly built on tourism. A place apart from the city just thirty minutes away by car. They were strangers to these people and would remain that way. What he needed was some local insight.
A minute later the patrol boat moored at the quayside and the cruiser joined it moments after. Vos pushed his way through the crowd and got to the gangplank as a couple of dock workers were pushing it out to the craft.
Laura Bakker came off first, surprised to see Vos and Van der Berg standing there, holding their arms out wide.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
The big detective came up and gave her an awkward hug. Vos, unable to bring himself to do the same, dropped his arms and said, Actually we were wondering that about you.’
Her hands went to her hips.
‘I’m fine, thank you. I was in control here, you know.’
‘We sent out that patrol boat and helicopter to rescue—’
‘Rescue?’ she cried. ‘Rescue?’
Two of the officers from the boat led Sara Klerk, cuffed and despondent, to the custody van by the quay.
/>
Bakker ticked points off on her fingers as she told them what she’d got out of her on the way back. The woman had long suspected that her husband was having sex with inmates at Marken. On Monday night he phoned her from the abandoned farmhouse. Kim and Mia Timmers had turned the tables on him when he took them there. They’d pulled a knife, stripped him naked, tied him to a chair.
When he got free he called home. A furious row ensued. She hired Stefan Timmers to take her out there and frighten the life out of her husband.
‘She claims Klerk turned violent when they got there,’ Bakker continued. ‘It’s bullshit. He was naked, for pity’s sake. She hired Timmers to kill him. Then they buried the body in Marken to make it look like it had something to do with the girls and came back to the farmhouse to clean up.’ She pushed aside her hair in the gentle marine breeze. ‘Sara reckoned Stefan demanded more money and attacked her when she said no. There was a struggle. The gun went off.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t believe a word—’
‘Stefan Timmers was shot in the back,’ Van der Berg pointed out.
Bakker smiled.
‘Well there you go.’
She told them about the Flamingo Club. Sara Klerk had got the original set of keys out of her husband at the farmhouse. He’d been planning to take the sisters there but decided they didn’t have time.
‘We need forensic in that shack,’ Bakker added. ‘Looks like a treasure trove to me. A fun palace for whoever was involved. And . . .’
Simon Klerk’s phone came out, still inside the evidence bag. There was just enough charge for her to show them some of the video.
‘We’ve got to talk to this kid. Her name’s Kaatje Lammers. Nutcase. They let her out of Marken this morning.’
She closed her notebook.
‘That’s all I can think of for now. Can we go to a cafe? I need the loo. Could use a coffee too.’ She beamed at them both. ‘But thanks for thinking I needed rescuing. I appreciate that.’
Vos called Marnixstraat to order a team to the Flamingo Club then asked for an alert to be put out for Kaatje Lammers. Sara Klerk could find herself a lawyer and spend the night in a cell.
The three of them walked into the first cafe they found and ordered coffee. There was a smokehouse next door. The persistent aroma of oak and fish came through the open windows. Bakker excused herself and went into the loos. There she stumbled into the first cubicle, sat on the toilet, let her head fall down, her hair all over her hands, wondered whether she was laughing or crying or something of both.
She’d no idea how long she’d been there. So many images ran through her head. Blood swilling through the grey waters of the Markermeer. A bed in a wooden cabin hidden from view. A battered penguin that must once have been a much-loved child’s toy.
For a second she thought she might throw up. Then there was a sudden loud knock on the door.
‘Are you OK, miss?’ asked a female voice outside. ‘Your friends are worried about you.’
‘I’m fine,’ she cried. ‘I’ll be there in a moment.’
She finished, went to the mirror, wiped her eyes, her face and combed her long red hair. When she got back to the table her coffee was cold so they ordered another one.
To her relief they didn’t ask a single question. Van der Berg’s big hand came out and grasped hers. Then Vos reached out and took her fingers too.
She smiled, laughed, couldn’t think of a word to say.
Then it came to her.
‘So now we go back to Marnixstraat?’ she said. ‘We can—’
‘No, Laura,’ Vos cut in. ‘Now we take you home.’
69
The uniform patrols didn’t take much interest when the halfway house phoned in a report about a missing girl who’d broken the rules. Then the call came in from Vos in Volendam and someone matched up the names.
Kaatje Lammers.
The tag showed the last place she’d been where a GPS signal was still visible. A location in Vinkenstraat.
Two officers cycled down there, one male, one female. They banged on the door of the nearest house. It fell open to their touch. Walking inside they found the place empty until they reached the kitchen. There sat a weeping young woman in a red shirt and long blue jeans.
‘Kaatje?’ the woman officer asked. ‘Kaatje Lammers.’
Eyes streaming, pink with tears, she nodded from the table.
‘You’re over time on your tag, There are rules—’
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Kaatje cried, her thin voice breaking. ‘Those two sisters. Kim and Mia. They’re wicked. I wanted to come back but they wouldn’t let me.’
‘The Timmers girls?’ the man asked. ‘They’re here?’
‘They were. They’re . . . monsters. They said I had to stay here. Or else. And then. And then . . .’
She closed her eyes. The woman officer came and put an arm around her.
‘It’s all right, Kaatje. You’re safe. There’s nothing wrong. Lots of people break the tag rules. It’s not the end of the world. We’ll just go back to the hostel. Our people will want to talk to you in the morning.’
The girl didn’t move.
The woman tried to comfort her. Hands together across the tablecloth.
Kaatje sobbed and looked up. The puddle was growing, enough to form a scarlet drop that fell from the ceiling like a bloody tear, splashed on the white cotton, spreading out over the fabric.
The man was rushing for the steep staircase. The woman was recoiling from the table, staring above them, at a single red spot getting bigger by the minute.
‘They did it,’ Kaatje said through her tears. ‘Kim and Mia. Monsters. They made me watch. They did it. Not me.’
70
When the Timmers sisters walked out of Vera’s house they followed the direction the streets seemed to lead, straight into the centre of the city. Amsterdam was still strange to them and grew stranger with every footstep. They passed women in red-light cabin windows, writhing in their underwear, wriggling fingers at curious men wandering down the street. Dope smoke seemed to work its way out of coffee shops on every corner. There were windows full of sex gear and bar after bar.
Men got curious from time to time. They ignored them, wandered on. Though once, when a drunk got too persistent Kim turned on him with a sudden shocking violence. And that was that.
They bought chips and ate them by a canal. Everything here seemed unreal and distant. Threatening too. From time to time they saw police, stern figures in uniform watching everything, looking for reasons to intervene.
But they surely sought two golden-haired angels, not a pair of scruffy tramps, one black-haired, one red-purple, lugging a single bag between them.
Next to a coffee shop Kim tugged at her sister’s arm and said, ‘We could . . .’
‘No,’ Mia said. ‘We can’t. How can you even think of it?’
Three streets on and they realized they were in Chinatown. The smells, the garish windows, the foreign voices click-clacking on the street. They turned down a narrow alley, getting lost, getting confused.
Beneath a sign that said simply, ‘Hostel’, a man with an Oriental face came up and said, ‘What you looking for, girls? You tell me.’
He was short, not much older than them. You had to trust someone, Mia thought. Just for a while.
‘A bed for the night.’
He laughed.
‘One bed? Two girls?’ He winked. ‘Just the two of you? Nobody else coming?’
‘Just us,’ Kim replied with a grunt and he didn’t argue then.
Forty euros for the pair of them. He wouldn’t bargain. The room was tiny and smelled of cigarettes and dope and sex.
Someone was screwing noisily along the landing. Drunks congregated outside a bar across the lane.
They didn’t get undressed. Just crawled beneath the old bedclothes and hugged one another. Mia had stolen Vera’s phone. She hadn’t quite known why but now it buzzed.
A message: Where are you?
&nbs
p; Mia typed: Who is this?
You know who.
No. We don’t.
Kim watched beneath the sheets, hands trembling alongside her sister’s.
Little Jo.
Jo’s dead.
Kim whimpered at that.
I’m a friend. Where are you? Where’s Vera?
Vera’s home. We’re somewhere safe.
A long pause, then . . .
Nowhere’s safe. Don’t you know that yet?
‘Screw this,’ Mia cursed and phoned the number instead. It just rang and rang. Not even voicemail.
Then came another text.
We do it this way, sisters. No other. Where are you?
A moment it took her then with fumbling fingers she replied.
The same place you are. Everyone. Hell.
Mia turned off the phone. They hugged each other. They cried. Eventually, her damp face in her sister’s neck, Kim whispered, ‘There’s nowhere left, is there? They’ll keep us apart—’
‘There’s home. There’s always home.’
Green fields. The smell of the Gouwzee. That recurring memory of the mother duck leading her chicks across the road.
Kim lifted her head and wiped her damp eyes with her sleeve.
‘We can’t go there.’
‘We have to,’ Mia said.
71
Sometimes the fog cleared.
Sometimes it got thicker.
Sometimes the world went both ways and then it was hard to know where to turn – and who to believe – at all.
It was the following morning and Frank de Groot was demanding to know where the Timmers case stood.
In a Marnixstraat interview room Sara Klerk had signed a confession. Three doors along Kaatje Lammers had tearfully told how Vera Sampson, a former Marken nurse from England, was murdered in her own home by the Timmers sisters while she watched in horror, unable to stop them.
Outside the window it just looked like another summer day. Traffic building up on the street, people wandering down Elandsgracht going shopping. A few people were walking their dogs. Vos had taken Sam for a stroll first thing, his head full of riddles and improbabilities. Thinking back now he’d no idea where the two of them had wandered. Along the Prinsengracht he guessed but he couldn’t remember a thing about the route. Just that he’d dropped off the wire fox terrier at the Drie Vaten at the end, to Sofia Albers as usual. The American was there for breakfast. Maybe that relationship was going somewhere.