by David Hewson
‘Why? Why’d you just run away twice over?’
He shrugged.
‘Because I could. Because it was easier that way. No ties. No one to nag me. And besides.’ He ran his finger down her cheek. ‘What else could I do?’
‘Why come back then?’
‘I told you. I’m out of money. Nowhere else.’ He glanced across the canal. ‘Once we’ve fixed this mess I’ll make my own way. Put things back together.’
‘With her?’ she demanded. ‘Not me. Not ugly Bea.’
That accusation hurt him, and not for the first time.
‘I can’t fix everything,’ he whispered. ‘If we find some answers. The right ones.’
She pulled herself away.
‘You mean the ones you want to hear? I should never have let you back here, Frans. Back in my life. What was I thinking?’
She didn’t wait for an answer. Just went back into the house and found her real phone.
‘Bea?’
He sounded hurt. That pained bleat was a cry for comfort.
‘Too late,’ she whispered and began to make some calls.
82
Van der Berg went back into the office, checked the logs, tried to call Vos, got voicemail. Found himself a coffee, went to the restrooms, swallowed some mouthwash. They got funny if they smelled beer on your breath and he wasn’t in the mood to be sent home like Aisha Refai.
When he got back there was a message from De Groot demanding his presence.
One set of stairs. He took them slowly, peered through the window into the commissaris’s office then knocked on the door. Snyder and Ollie Haas were inside. It looked as if they were having a meeting.
Haas let him in. He stood in the middle of the room and said nothing. They looked at him. Finally De Groot said, ‘A report would be welcome.’
‘It would, sir,’ Van der Berg agreed. ‘What would you like me to say?’
‘That you’re getting closer to bringing in the Timmers girls,’ Haas said. ‘I know those bitches of old. We don’t want them out there. They’ve killed already. God knows who’s next.’
Van der Berg took a deep breath then pulled his notebook out of his pocket, licked his fingers and slowly turned through the pages. They waited, getting cross.
‘We have one lead,’ he said finally. ‘Vera Sampson. The Englishwoman who was killed. Her phone was used in Chinatown last night. All we have is a phone mast. It vanished first thing this morning. Either the battery ran out or they wised up and turned it off.’
He looked at Snyder and asked, ‘Do you really think they killed her? The sisters?’
The forensic man squirmed in his seat and kept quiet.
‘I’m asking out of curiosity,’ Van der Berg added. ‘It’s just that from what we’ve learned so far it seems much more likely that the other kid, Kaatje Lammers, was responsible. Just one person. Not two. From the knife marks.’
‘The fact one person wielded the knife doesn’t mean it wasn’t the sisters,’ Haas observed. ‘They work together. It was just one of them killed Rogier Glas.’
‘I never knew that,’ Van der Berg said. ‘But then I couldn’t find the report. Which one?’
De Groot muttered something inaudible.
‘According to Marken, Kim’s the more disturbed,’ Snyder said. ‘By far.’
Van der Berg screwed up his nose in puzzlement.
‘Why would that be? Triplets? Brought up together? Through all that dreadful nightmare? Why would one be worse than the other? I mean—’
‘This isn’t the time,’ De Groot barked. ‘Maybe if you tracked them down we could find out.’
‘True,’ Van der Berg said, then put his notebook in his pocket. ‘Anything else?’
‘That’s it?’ De Groot looked desperate. ‘I can’t get through to Vos. He’s out in Waterland somewhere. Is that really it?’
‘Pretty much. I’ll keep calling him. As soon as I know something, you’ll hear.’ He waved his notebook. ‘All three of you. I promise.’
Five minutes later he was back at his desk wondering what the prospects were for a beery detective kicked out of the police in his mid-forties. Not as rosy as Ollie Haas’s, he guessed.
The phone rang. He snatched at the handset. It was the dry cleaner’s round the corner asking when he was going to pick up the suit that had been ready for ten days now.
‘Soon,’ he said. ‘Very soon.’
83
The mansion where Jaap and Lotte Blom lived was a ten-minute drive from the modest timber cottages of Volendam, home to Bea Arends and once a family called Timmers. Only a strip of rich pasture separated the two communities but the contrast between the two could scarcely be more marked.
Edam was an ancient, genteel place. Tourists wandered through the town’s pretty streets buying souvenirs. The shiny red-waxed cheese had made its name famous throughout the world. But the busy farmers’ market from which they were sold had ceased to function almost a century before. Now it was nothing more than a holiday attraction, revived once a week during the summer months to bring in visitors.
Not that most of the locals needed the money. Selling trinkets to foreigners was a sideline at most, a minor economic ripple from the brash commercialism of its more raucous neighbour. Artists, musicians and business people fleeing the pressures of Amsterdam made up a large part of the modern population. The Bloms were, in many ways, typical of the new Edammer: wealthy, influential and barely connected to the bustling, more proletarian town just down the coast.
Vos and Bakker couldn’t get near to the address so they had to park outside the centre and walk in along a sluggish canal. She kept checking the map on her phone. After a minute they could see the back of the Blom property across the water. There was a long garden and a large and ornate summer house, glass, wood and wrought iron set by the water surrounded by palms and pampas grass. Blom sat inside, hunched over a computer monitor, absorbed.
A white iron pedestrian bridge led across the canal. After that they found themselves in a narrow cobbled cul-de-sac with tall buildings on both sides.
These red-brick houses, with their careful cream mortar, looked plain from the street. But he’d been out here before and knew the façade was deceptive. Behind they could be huge, especially if they owned gardens stretching down to the green and dreamy waters of the canal. Blom’s house had to be worth millions. All from the modest beginnings of the Palingsound and The Cupids in particular.
‘Money,’ Bakker said, getting the picture straight away. She pressed the doorbell. ‘You can smell it here.’
His wife answered, cigarette in mouth, casual white shirt, loose jeans, bare feet. Not quite the politician’s partner.
Before they could speak she asked, ‘Is there news?’
‘Of what?’ Bakker wondered.
‘Of those sisters you’re supposed to be chasing. What else?’
Vos said they needed to speak to her husband.
‘No news then?’ she snapped. ‘What do you people do for a living?’
Just a quick word with her husband, Vos repeated. Bakker was sighing very audibly, the way she did when people were obstructive.
‘About what?’
‘I need to confirm something,’ Vos said. ‘Won’t take a minute.’
‘Wait here,’ she said then closed the door.
Bakker balled a fist and shook it at the shiny brass knocker: a lion, roaring.
‘He’s a politician. He’s supposed to help people, isn’t he?’
Vos was barely listening. He was wondering why Lotte Blom was so interested in the Timmers girls.
The door opened. Blom was there in a too-small green polo shirt and pink Bermuda shorts. He was sweating. There was the faintest hint of drink on his breath.
‘Can we come in?’ Bakker demanded.
‘What is this?’ He looked behind him, scared. ‘Lotte’s really pissed off with you two. I told her we wouldn’t get pestered again.’
‘We’re not pestering,’ B
akker snapped. ‘We’re investigating several homicides and the possible abuse of minors.’
Vos intervened.
‘This really isn’t a conversation for the doorstep. Please.’
He relented. They walked through the house. It seemed to go on forever. Rich wood floors, tapestries, paintings, antique furniture, everything polished and spotless.
Blom led them out into the garden. They stood by one of the palm trees. He lit up a small cigar and puffed on it nervously. They could see his wife watching them from the kitchen window, smoking too.
‘There’s a discrepancy,’ Vos told him. ‘I just want to get it clear in my own head.’
‘What . . .discrepancy?’
He didn’t mind where he blew the smoke. Laura Bakker did, waving it out of her face with an angry sweep.
‘Where does the money go? From the band?’
Blom groaned.
‘Do you have any idea how long it would take me to answer that question? It goes in multiple directions. Some into family trusts. Some abroad. Some to me. To my wife.’
‘None to Gert Brugman, the only living band member?’
‘I bought Gert out a few years ago. Very generously. He needed the money. I was doing him a favour.’
Bakker broke in, ‘Were you having an affair with Irene Visser?’
Blom sucked on the cigar then threw it into the bushes. His eyes were on the kitchen window.
‘You really have been fishing, haven’t you? Is that a good use of your time? Does De Groot know?’
Vos said, ‘It’s a simple question. If—’
‘My private life’s no business of yours.’
Bakker was starting to get mad.
‘You said you never went to Marken. But you were having an affair with Irene Visser. Going there for so-called charity visits. Getting the run of the place . . .’
He turned and glared at her. The politician had retreated and they saw a different man. Thuggish. Dominating.
‘I don’t have to take this kind of crap from you.’
‘If you want me to repeat it,’ Bakker told him, ‘we can have your wife in on this conversation. Give you a witness.’
‘Laura . . .’ Vos began.
She waved away the smoke again and stepped back.
‘Who told you this?’ Blom repeated.
‘That’s irrelevant,’ Vos replied. ‘Is it true?’
He was watching his wife standing at the window again.
‘I think you should leave. I need to talk to De Groot.’
Bakker was wandering down the garden, towards the canal and the fancy summer house. There was a big laptop on the desk, the lid down. Next to it sat stacks of DVDs and what looked like connected hard drives.
Vos said, ‘You told us their mother was threatening you. That she said if you didn’t give her a contract she’d go to the police and tell them someone connected with The Cupids had been abusing their daughters.’
He nodded.
‘Freya just craved fame. It wasn’t only about money. She needed . . .adulation. Never a good reason to do something. It was a complete fabrication. If there’d been anything in it she’d have given me a name, wouldn’t she?’
‘It’s not true though, is it?’ Vos butted in. ‘You’d given them a contract already. It wasn’t the band she was threatening to expose. It was you.’
Blom waited a moment then laughed.
‘Is that meant to be a joke? Where do you get these fairy tales?’
‘We’ve a statement from someone who was close to The Cupids at the time. They were heard talking about it. Your name was mentioned. If—’
‘This was ten years ago!’ Blom snarled. ‘Dead and buried. Like Rogier and Freya and that brute of a husband of hers.’
‘And their daughter,’ Vos added. ‘Little Jo. When we find her sisters we’ll ask them.’
‘Do that. In the meantime you can get the hell out of here. I told you the truth. I don’t know who you spoke to in Volendam but half of those mean bastards hate me anyway. I got out of that dump. I made something of myself. Are you surprised they’re jealous?’
A sound then and Vos knew what it was. Bakker had got to the summer house, opened the creaky door and was about to step inside.
She was still on the step when Blom got there and dragged her out with such force she stumbled down to the lawn.
‘What the hell is this?’ he roared. ‘Who gave you the right to pry into my home?’
Vos helped Bakker to her feet. She wasn’t looking him in the eye.
‘What’s in there?’ she yelled, pointing at the laptop and the DVDs. ‘What are you looking at? More kids? Someone else Irene Visser fixed for you?’
Lotte Blom marched down the steps into the garden, cocked her head to one side and said, ‘Irene Visser? The woman from Marken? What—’
‘If you go now – right now – I may overlook this,’ her husband cut in. ‘Just the once.’ He pointed at the back door. ‘On your way.’
His wife stared at them in silence.
It took a while to get Bakker out of the garden, then through the house into the street outside.
She stood there, hands on hips, breathless, furious.
‘He’s lying! For God’s sake. He’s lying through his teeth. We need a warrant—’
‘A warrant? On the grounds he’s got a computer?’ Vos waved his car keys. ‘We’re going.’
‘He lied to us about Irene Visser. About Freya’s contract . . .’
Vos calmed her down and told her the truth: they only had the word of Bea Arends for that. In spite of what he’d said that didn’t even amount to a statement.
‘So this has been a complete waste of time! We’ve no idea where the Timmers sisters are. Not a clue who’s telling the truth or not.’
He set off for the bridge over the canal, as mad with her as she seemed with the world.
‘I need the toilet,’ Bakker declared as they reached the steps. ‘Where’s the nearest?’
‘How would I know? Do I look like a tour guide?’
She pointed back towards the centre of town.
‘Over there. I’ll see you at the car.’
Fine, Vos said. He called Marnixstraat as he crossed the canal and walked back to where they’d parked. That was an awkward conversation too. There was something Van der Berg wanted to say but wouldn’t.
By the water opposite the gardens along Blom’s road a couple of elderly men were seated on deckchairs, sipping at beers.
As he ambled by wondering when Bakker would turn up one of them pointed across the green water and said, ‘Would you look at that? What is the world coming to?’
Vos muttered a quiet curse then turned to see.
She was a tall and fit young woman, if clumsy sometimes. Already she’d scaled the garden walls of the first two houses. Now she was stepping through the ornate, Chinese-style lilies and bonsai trees of the third.
‘Laura!’ he yelled across the canal. ‘Get out of there.’
She waved at him then careered into what looked like an expensive ceramic pot holding a tall bush full of red flowers. It crashed to the ground and shattered, sending soil and shrubbery everywhere. She jumped over it and walked on. One more wall to go and then she was back in Blom’s place.
The summer house was empty. She stopped at the door, looked across at him. Shrugged and mouthed a single word, ‘Sorry.’
Then she stepped inside and went for the laptop. The back door of the house was opening already. He heard Jaap Blom’s furious shout rise over the canal.
84
Henk Veerman went home, packed hand baggage, looked under the bed and retrieved the two USB drives there. One stolen. The other carefully updated over the years. That second had been his quiet insurance. His get-out-of-jail card should it be needed.
He sat on the bed and thought of his wife, innocent of everything. There’d been a moment during that last illness when he’d thought perhaps she knew. The suicide of the Koops girl, Hendriks han
ging himself not long after . . .
There were plenty of clues that all was not well inside the remote and private institution of Marken. Men outside Waterland had started to notice and worry. In spite of his promotion he’d felt far from safe.
But she’d never asked him outright. Instead she faded before his eyes while the guilt and shame grew inside him. What hurt almost as much as her painful, agonizing decline was the knowledge that a part of him still argued none of this was his business, his fault.
I only work days.
He’d wanted to scream when he told Jonker that. He’d said those words so often in the past.
I only work days so whatever you and your friends get up to when I’ve gone home doesn’t touch me. I did nothing. Therefore I am innocent.
The truth was bleaker and more painful.
I did nothing so I’m as guilty as the rest.
Worse than them maybe. For acting out of deliberate, considered cowardice and self-interest instead of thoughtless, brazen pleasure. Perhaps that was what destroyed Hendriks, a decent, weak man, like himself, willing to turn a blind eye to those who thought themselves superior to the rest.
Acquiescence.
It was what kept them in their jobs. And the thing that destroyed them in the end.
Veerman checked his phone. He had the numbers he needed. Then he went to the downstairs computer and looked at flights out of Schiphol that evening. There was one to Istanbul. Outside the EU. A place where it would be easy to hide for a while, maybe sailing on a wooden gulet around Bodrum. That was one of the pipe dreams he and his wife had shared.
He bought a one-way ticket then hooked the USB drive into the back of the computer. There was so much material there, gigabytes and gigabytes of it. It was going to take an hour or more to upload.
Did he have that long?
Did he have a choice?
Veerman poured himself a tumbler of Scotch then sat and watched the progress bar crawl slowly left to right.
85
Bakker was inside the summer house, seated in front of the laptop. Jaap Blom stood over her, face red with fury. Lotte Blom was watching in silence, arms folded.