by Cathy Ace
As for Hannah herself? She was a conundrum. She’d appeared to be open and honest with us, and her assessment of Pieter had seemed to be spot on. But beyond that? A teenage pregnancy, a failed marriage, a lost limb? There are some people in this world to whom tragic or bad things seem to happen with greater frequency than to the rest of the population. There appears to be no explanation for it, but, when you dig deeper, you can often see a pattern of poor choices, of genes leading to ill health, or of styles of upbringing that lead people down certain ill-advised paths. It’s usually about the choices—whatever conditioning they might be based upon. Hannah seemed to take responsibility for her bad decisions, and I knew that was why I had warmed to her. But she’d still made them. Maybe her perception of people and their actions should therefore be viewed with caution too. Then again, she’d seemed to hit the nail on the head with her assessment of Pieter.
Willem Weenix, Jonas’s best friend, had a questionable start to a successful business career, and that wasn’t unusual. His family situation suggested a fair level of normalcy. However, there were his run-ins with the police to consider—and not just in decades gone by.
I couldn’t assess Dirk van der Hoeven, but thought about his widow; if Marlene’s grasp on reality had always been tenuous, could her rants about someone killing her husband and now Jonas be seen as just that—the ravings of a woman lost in her own world? I made a note to check if Bud would ask his contacts if they could look into Dirk’s death too, so we’d have more than what Pieter had told us to go on.
Pieter van Boxtel had made my skin crawl. I spent quite some time trying to work out exactly why that was, and all I could come up with was his manner, which reeked of the lascivious nature Hannah had suggested. Maybe the presence of the brooding Helga had made more of an impression upon me than I’d first thought. Upon reflection, I wondered if a cleaning lady should have smelled so strongly of cheap scent. That was what had set me off, I knew it.
I felt excited to meet the remaining members of Jonas’s Group in just a few hours. Then I looked at the bed and clambered back into it. The clock told me it was 5:17 AM, but my body wasn’t even sure what day it was. All I knew was I had to sleep.
Morning in Amsterdam
AS I NIBBLED ON BREAKFAST pastries, and sipped strong, dark coffee, I told Bud about the thinking I’d been doing the night before. He agreed with me on all counts, and added his own ideas.
“Since I put out all those calls earlier on that you asked me to make, I’ve been thinking: I had a slew of briefings on drug trafficking when I was here,” he said in a low voice. “That’s why I came. Rotterdam is a major gateway for drugs and other contraband into and out of Europe. It’s not a new problem, and it will never go away; technological developments help, but it all comes down to people in the end. And people can be bought—which is why smuggling is a problem that will never be solved. I know the patterns we would look for—the types of groupings of people who would come together to allow for efficient trafficking, and it makes me look at the Group of Seven in a different way than you are likely doing.”
“How so?”
“Money man? Pieter the accountant; you need one to move, hide, and launder the money. Transport man? Johannes, who worked on the metro project; worth their weight in gold, a good logistics guy. Means of getting stuff into the country, then distributing it? Dirk with his antiques store, and Willem with his art supplies; their setups would allow for import, export, and local distribution. Government connections to allow for cover-ups, and getting to the people whose palms need to be greased? Greta van Burken. See?”
I was taken aback. “What about Bernard—a draftsman? And Jonas himself—an art-obsessed night watchman? What roles did they play in all this? Did they plan it all? Make the connections?”
Bud shook his head. “That’s where my theory falls apart a bit—I don’t know. Yet. Jonas traveled a lot, so he could have been sourcing drugs, or making sales pitches. I don’t know about Bernard, but it’s a pattern.”
He seemed keen for my support, so I gave it. “You could be right, of course. Drug trafficking rings aren’t my thing; they’re yours, so I bow to your expertise in the field. And you’re right, I think what I’m grasping for is an elusive pattern in all this. When I found those loose bricks last night, and then the box, I thought we might have found a physical clue that could help us navigate a path through all this mush, which is what it is right now. I can’t believe the box was empty, but I’m sure someone else did what we did with those bricks—though it might have been Jonas himself, I suppose. The puzzle is, why hide an empty box?”
“A puzzling box? You love it, don’t you,” grinned Bud.
I shot to my feet. “How stupid of me. A ‘puzzling’ box? A ‘puzzle’ box, that’s it! It might not be empty, just hiding its contents.”
“Sit down, Cait,” said Bud, glancing around. “Finish your breakfast. And that coffee—it’s very good this morning, better than yesterday.”
I nodded my agreement—I’d blamed my taste buds the day before, but maybe the coffee really hadn’t been that good after all. I shoveled my food into my face, making Bud stare, glugged to the bottom of my cup, and said, “Ready?”
“Just like Marty when he goes squirreling,” said Bud, rising. “Can’t wait to get back to that box now, can you?”
The elevator took forever to arrive, then seemed to stop to disgorge passengers at every single floor, until finally we were back at our room. I pulled the long, wooden box from the drawer where we’d placed it the night before and opened it again. The wood had faded over the years and was a pretty even tone of mid-brown; the varnish was aged and a little worn, but the interior base was definitely a different texture, and seemed too shallow for the overall dimensions of the box.
“I think it’s got a false bottom,” I said gleefully, “but we’ll have to work out how to access it. I bet there’s a secret compartment.” I suspected Bud’s smile was more indulgent than enthusiastic, but he let me fiddle with the box, my reading cheats perched on my nose, my patience running out as the moments passed. There wasn’t a single mark or indentation I could see on the entire box, inside or out, except the s on the lid, and I’d run my fingernails along that a dozen times. “I’m usually pretty good at this sort of thing,” I bleated, then Bud reached for the box, and I conceded defeat.
Resorting to his own pair of cheats, Bud turned the box much more slowly than I had. Eventually he said, “We established last night that the key Jonas sent to us in Canada didn’t fit this lock, right?” I agreed. “The end of the key was too big, right?” Again, I agreed. “Tell you what,” he continued, pulling the key from his pocket, “Let’s see what happens if we do this.” He placed the end of the key in direct alignment with the too-small keyhole and pushed against the entire metal fitting. The whole of the keyhole device disappeared deep into the box, and there was a satisfying clicking noise.
“My hero!” I shouted, seeing that the base had popped up. “What’s inside?” I suspected that I sounded like a five-year-old.
Bud pulled out a long envelope. “Looks like a letter,” he said.
“Another one? Is there a name on it?”
“Nope.”
“Open it!”
Bud ripped open the end of the long envelope, and pulled out a many-times-folded concertina of stiff-looking paper. I saw Bud’s eyes dart back and forth as he began to read. They grew wide. His eyebrows rose and his mouth made a little “O” shape. It was frustrating to not know what he was seeing, so I leapt up and peered over his shoulder.
The material looked like real parchment, and I suspected that was what it was. It was certainly impressive, as was the handwriting. In the letter we’d seen back in British Columbia, Jonas’s cursive handwriting had been rounded, and sort of friendly-looking. This was a letter created in copperplate script, which ebbed and flowed in a stately pattern a
cross the surface of the dried animal skin, the rough, wide strokes of some of the letters suggesting it had been written with a malleable but sharp writing instrument. A quill? And with what? Was that red ink, or…?
“Is that blood?” I said aloud.
Bud sighed. “I have a horrible feeling it might be. Look, where it’s wider you can see a brownish tint, like rust. I don’t think red ink does that.” We exchanged the sort of look that wouldn’t be expected of two people who’d seen more than their fair share of cadavers. There was something so creepy about the ancient-looking document that Bud removed all but the essential number of his fingers from it.
Writing materials aside, the thing was a work of art; it was difficult to focus on what it said because of how wonderful it looked. I knew it made no sense, but to my inexperienced eyes it seemed as though it could have been created hundreds of years earlier. I turned my attention to the meaning of the words, rather than their form, and read.
You who are reading this: I have chosen you because you are of strong moral fiber and an upright person. You have a task ahead that will require you to exercise your judgment and your sense of right and wrong. I no longer possess this ability. I lost myself many years ago in this respect. I have made decisions that were maybe foolish, but I believe I made them for the right reasons.
Art is the embodiment of culture, history, mankind’s societal and moral memories. To destroy it is a sin, if sin exists. I no longer even know that. There is beauty in all art. We must look hard to see it, but it is there. Who are we to judge what is good and what is bad? We can respond to art with our hearts or our heads. I choose to respond with my heart. I have chosen, and I have acted. This has been my life’s work. I will be judged by those left behind when I am gone.
But you? I charge you with making decisions that mean you will be judged now, while you live. I am sorry I was too weak to do that myself. The journey will be long and will forever change your life. Take care about the paths you choose.
—Jonas de Smet
We were both quiet for a moment. “It’s a bit melodramatic,” I said eventually. “Especially if that is blood.”
“I was thinking ‘ominous,’ but ‘melodramatic’ works too. Hang on a minute, though—how did Jonas even expect us to find this? I know he sent me the key, but he didn’t give us any clues about the location of the box. Let’s be honest: it was pure chance we were in his studio at night, and you spotted the protruding bricks in the candlelight. It was a fluke. With all the meticulous planning he did, and with all the detailed instructions he sent via Menno, you’d have thought he’d have given us that one additional piece of information, wouldn’t you?”
My mind was racing. “Maybe he did, but Menno didn’t pass it on? It’s possible that Menno was searching Jonas’s house for this very box, and he could have even found its hiding place. What if he’s the one who left the mess on the floor in the attic? But, without the key, to him it was just an empty box, so he put it back where he found it.”
“Why would he put it back?”
“So we could find it.”
“If he had information about its location, why didn’t he pass that on to be sure we would find it?”
I paused. “I don’t know,” I replied honestly.
“I don’t like that he didn’t tell us he’d been to Jonas’s after the poor man died,” added Bud, sounding exasperated.
“Me neither. All we can do is ask him about it. If we tell him we found the box, and just show him the empty version, not this letter, he might tell us something. We can at least confront him with what Hannah told us about him being there. By the way, we should head out if we’re going to get to Hannah’s in time to present her with her portrait, have coffee, invite her up to select a painting, and get to the Café Americain in time to meet Greta. It’s all going to be a bit of a rush, so arriving at Jonas’s early would be a good idea. We have to wrap up the paintings for Greta too. Thank goodness the two for her are both relatively small.”
“You’re right,” said Bud, checking his phone for messages.
I knew what he was hoping for. “I can’t imagine medical records are going to be that easily accessible. You only made those calls an hour ago, and it is Saturday, after all. Though maybe the sort of contacts you have—which I can only imagine are quite high up and probably with all sorts of security clearances—can make the impossible happen.”
Bud shook his head slowly as he said, “Okay, stop digging. I only managed to reach one guy. He’s pretty well-connected; his name is John, and that’s all you need to know.”
I smiled sweetly, rather than triumphantly. “Well, possibly not even he would be able to conjure up autopsies on Jonas and Dirk van der Hoeven this quickly. Let’s get going, and make sure you’re on the alert for a vibration in your pocket.”
Bud mock-saluted me and said, “I’m going to put this letter, and the box and key, in the room’s safe before we leave. I don’t think we can be too careful with all this stuff. We still can’t be sure what it means.”
My insides were squirming, because I was pretty excited that we were going to be working to find out what it all meant, but I tried to hide it from Bud, as I still couldn’t fathom his uncle’s role in…well, whatever was going on.
Woman with Loose Hair
HANNAH MUST HAVE MISSED OUR arrival at Jonas’s house, because no curtains twitched at her window as we entered. By the time we knocked at her door, we’d already bundled up the paintings destined for the others and had placed them on the stairs ready to go, and we were carrying Hannah’s portrait.
It only took a moment for her beaming face to appear after we knocked, and she beckoned us in with warmth and grace. We entered directly into her living area, which was narrower than Jonas’s because of the extra width taken by the stairs leading to his upper rooms plus the set leading to hers. In fact, her living room was tiny; as landlord, Jonas had retained the larger quarters for himself.
The décor was unexpected; much like the woman herself, the exterior belied the interior. Her apartment was seventeenth-century brick on the outside, but sixties chic on the inside. Her love of eye-boggling patterned wallpaper, abstract art, monolithic lamps, primary colors, velvet throws, and shag carpets was beyond question, and the number of records that lined one wall further marked her as an avid collector of vinyl LPs. It was like taking a step back in time to the swinging sixties, in all their groovy glory. I tried not to think of miniskirts and Twiggy, but failed; then I took one look at Hannah and realized she was no Jean Shrimpton…though she might have been comparable in her day, if the photographs on the sideboard were anything to go by.
I pounced. “Are these of you?” I asked. Hannah smiled proudly. “Beautiful,” I said.
“No more than a girl back then. I was seventeen in that one.” She smiled coquettishly. “T’ought I knew it all, didn’t I? What an eegit I was. No wonder they were able to take advantage.”
“You mean men?” I asked.
“Anyone who wanted to. Mind you, it was looking like that what got me my job, and then I turned it into a career.”
“You must have picked up the Dutch language incredibly quickly to be able to work in a brown café,” I observed.
“Turned out I have an ear for languages,” said Hannah, sounding delighted. “Easiest t’ing in the world to listen and learn. I didn’t speak the lingo at all when I got here, but I was pretty good six months later. It’s a funny old language, Dutch, but the rhythms and patterns are pretty close to English. Many people spoke English even back then—the well-educated ones, in any case. Not that we had a lot of that type at our place.”
“The bar you ran was traditional?” I pressed.
Hannah beamed. “Proper wood fittings, good stained glass, and always full of a cloud of smoke it was back then. Not allowed now, of course.”
I’d noticed the
aroma of cigars when we’d entered, and wasn’t surprised to see ashtrays all about the room. I wondered if she’d light up while we were there—I hoped not; having managed to kick the habit myself I was always grateful that back in Canada it was easy to avoid smokers, but I knew my willpower was still pretty poor whenever I caught a whiff of tobacco smoke on the air.
“I’ve brewed up fresh-ground coffee, but I bought the pastries. Don’t bake. Never did. Leave it to them who’s good at it, I say. Give me two minutes. Make yourselves comfy. Don’t get a lot of visitors anymore, but I cleared a couple of chairs for ya.”
Hannah bustled off to the minute kitchen; there being no door to separate the two areas, I sneaked a peek inside her tiny workspace, which, despite the fact that you couldn’t have swung a mouse in there let alone a cat, managed to house a full-sized cooker, as well as a washing machine and a small refrigerator. Bud and I didn’t chat, but I let my eyes take stock of the rest of our surroundings. I judged most of the furnishings and décor to be original to the sixties; I couldn’t help but wonder what it might all be worth, given the desire for “mid-century modern” that had become apparent as Bud and I had hunted down inexpensive furniture for our new home.
Placing a battered old tray bearing a pot of coffee, mismatched mugs, and plates on a low table in front of us—which looked as though it had been extruded from one piece of vivid orange plastic—Hannah announced, “Lemon tarts. Me favorite. Hope you like ’em. Help yourself to coffee and so forth. My serving days is behind me.”
She sat in a slightly ragged, mustard-upholstered armchair and immediately lit a small cigar, which sent blue smoke wreathing upwards. “If you’ve got ’em, light ’em,” she said, then proceeded to munch her way through a tart while taking puffs on her cigar between mouthfuls. It seemed she wasn’t going to compromise her habits just because she had guests. Wiping her mouth after the tart, and stubbing out her cigar, she turned her attention to the painting we’d brought. It had been propped up against her collection of vinyl, facing us, the whole time. She’d completely ignored it. Finally, she seemed ready to comment.