Butterfly on the Storm

by Walter Lucius

  Now the three of them were sitting in a small room, listening to a recording of the call. Joshua took a sip of his aloe vera drink while Diba stirred the dregs of coffee at the bottom of his paper cup and brushed some biscuit crumbs off his lap.

  ‘The caller was clearly in a panic. She indicated she was somewhere in the Amsterdamse Bos, she didn’t know where, near water she said, so I thought near the Amstelveense Poel. She’d seen a child lying in the road. She didn’t sound drunk and then abruptly hung up.’ Evelien stated the facts in the level-headed way of someone who, through the years, had grown accustomed to all kinds of emergency calls.

  ‘Okay,’ Joshua said, ‘let’s hear it.’

  Evelien pressed the play button and they immediately heard the voice of a woman who was clearly more hysterical than confused.

  ‘I didn’t hit her. She was already there!’

  Then they heard Evelien’s level-headed response.

  ‘Calm down, ma’am, tell us where you are.’

  The woman didn’t seem to be listening to Evelien. She began to cry. ‘She’s just lying there. I think she’s dead.’

  ‘Do you know where you are?’

  ‘The … the … Amsterdamse Bos. On the … a road. I don’t know the name! Close to water.’

  ‘Can you tell me what you see?’

  ‘She’s over there. She’s bleeding from her head. I don’t dare come any closer. Oh my God. I didn’t hit her! I didn’t hit her!’

  ‘Ma’am, try to stay calm. I’ll send an ambulance. Stay on the line.’

  The woman didn’t respond. She continued to sob, was shrieking, kept crying. ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’

  In the background Joshua could hear the rain in the woods; it sounded tinny. Then Evelien’s voice again, calm but compelling. ‘Ma’am, are you still there?’

  There was noise and what sounded like a clap of thunder. Then Evelien’s voice again.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  No response. Only noise, as if the woman had dropped her phone.

  ‘Ma’am, are you still there?’

  Followed by a click. The connection was broken. They looked at each other.

  ‘Let’s hear it again,’ Marouan said gruffly, in between bites of another biscuit. Joshua, who wondered if the thunderclap could have been a gunshot, looked at Marouan with embarrassment.

  11

  ‘They’re boys you can play with,’ Farah whispered. ‘You know what I mean?’ She and Danielle Bernson were looking through the ICU window as the boy was being hooked up to a myriad of tubes and machines.

  ‘They’re poor kids. Poor in the most literal sense of the word. That’s why they’re for sale. Their destitute parents are only too happy to part with them for money. They’re boys with slender bodies. You drape them in women’s clothing. You put make-up on them and teach them to smile seductively. You give them shiny jewellery with little bells that tinkle when they’re dancing. Because dancing is what they’re meant to do, to impress your guests. And those guests are other powerful men, usually warlords, wealthy businessmen and government officials. They’re the men who get to enjoy these boys. First by just watching them, then by touching them ever so briefly as they whirl past. It adds to the excitement: the idea of your hand brushing past a dancing boy’s leg, and the prospect of caressing that very same leg in your own bed later on. And you know the boy will let you do as you please because he’s your plaything for the night. It’s an ancient Afghan tradition, which has now been brought to the Netherlands by a bunch of bastards.’

  ‘Now I see why those detectives asked us to keep things under wraps,’ Danielle said.

  ‘I suspect it’s for his own safety as much as anything,’ suggested Farah, who couldn’t keep her eyes off the boy. ‘The people who left him there must think he’s dead. If they find out he’s still alive and in this hospital, they’ll want to silence him. As soon as the boy can talk, he’s going to pose a very real threat.’

  ‘But what I don’t get is why they left him there. In the middle of the road. In that robe and all that jewellery. Why didn’t they dump him somewhere else?’

  ‘Something unforeseen must have happened.’ Even as she said it, Farah recognized the truth of her theory. ‘Something must have happened that threw everything into disarray.’

  What that was remained a mystery, of course. But Farah liked mysteries. The bigger the mystery, the greater the challenge. She decided to go back to the scene of the hit-and-run and its immediate surroundings. The forensics team was probably done by now and had undoubtedly reopened the road.

  She didn’t usually cover this kind of a story. This was the work of detectives. But she wasn’t looking for perpetrators. What she was interested in was unravelling cause and effect, following in the boy’s footsteps and establishing a chronology of the night’s events.

  She was all too aware of the important role Danielle had played in the matter so far. She’d saved the boy’s life. That in itself was an added incentive for Farah to delve into the case. Doctors save lives, journalists uncover facts, police arrest perpetrators. A highly functional trinity.

  Farah understood why the boy had such a big impact on her. It had to do with her buried past, with the country and the culture she’d severed all ties with. Or so she thought. But what kind of emotional attachment could Danielle Bernson have to this unknown boy? What was behind her refusal to hand him over in the trauma room? Why hadn’t she sped off to the next emergency with her Mobile Medical Team and let the trauma surgeon on-call operate on the boy? Farah decided to ask her as politely as possible.

  ‘I gather you needn’t have done that operation. You were on ambulance duty. So why did you?’

  Danielle smiled, but it was a defensive smile and her tired features twisted into a grimace.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’d rather not talk about it.’

  ‘But you saved his life,’ Farah probed. ‘So you must care?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Danielle said. ‘But it remains to be seen whether he’ll pull through. The next few days will tell. And even when he does, what’s to become of him? Are we supposed to keep quiet about him? What are his prospects? Does he have family?’

  ‘For the time being we’re his family,’ Farah said.

  Danielle looked at her with what seemed like genuine surprise.

  Meanwhile, out of the corner of her eye, Farah saw the ICU nurse flashing Danielle a reassuring smile and giving her a double thumbs-up from behind the glass. The doctor visibly relaxed. ‘One of our most reliable people,’ she said. ‘The boy’s in good hands.’

  ‘Last night I drove to the place where he was hit,’ Farah said. ‘The forensics team was working on the tyre tracks. It turns out that more than one car was involved. And not far from where you found the boy, a station wagon was torched. The fire brigade recovered two bodies.’

  Danielle looked away and leaned against the window for support. ‘Please spare me the details,’ she said wearily. ‘My sole concern is the boy.’

  ‘I understand,’ Farah said, ‘it’s your job and everything, but …’

  ‘No,’ said Danielle, her face now drained of all colour, ‘you don’t understand. This is about more than just my job. It’s …’ Her voice cracked.

  That’s what happens when you’re a doctor, Farah reflected. She’s so busy saving lives she’s oblivious to her own pain. Danielle’s pain must be considerable, and no doubt dating back much further than last night.

  ‘Do you have children?’ Farah asked.

  ‘No,’ Danielle said bluntly. ‘I don’t want any children. The vast majority of people seem destined to hurt each other as much as they can. I don’t want to bring a child into this world who might grow up to become a victim or, God forbid, a perpetrator.’

  You’ve experienced things you don’t want to talk about, Farah observed. You’ve been places where you’ve seen things you’d rather forget. Like me.

  They were silent for a while and just when Farah thought Danielle might walk
away, the doctor put a hand on her arm.

  ‘You’re right, it doesn’t make sense not to talk to you about what I saw. Tell me, what do you want to know?’

  ‘What position did you find him in?’

  ‘He was lying in the right lane, but most of his injuries were on his left side. He was hit by a car coming from the left, no doubt about it. The bumper hit his left leg. The impact must have thrown him on to the bonnet, after which he banged the left side of his head against the windscreen. He then rolled across the bonnet before ending up on the other side of the road, which is how I found him.’

  Farah saw another look of doubt flash across Danielle’s face.

  ‘I’m only telling you this because …’

  ‘I know,’ Farah said. ‘You’d better get some sleep. Your job is done for the night.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’m only just getting started,’ Farah said with a smile. She turned around and walked to the lift. Before the doors even closed, in her mind she was already in the middle of the woods, searching for traces of the boy who’d run barefoot among the trees. She knew where he had fled to. Now she had to figure out where he had fled from.

  12

  At central dispatch earlier that morning, Diba had listened to the caller’s message several times and had agreed that it wasn’t a gunshot they were hearing but a thunderclap. Joshua, in the meantime, based on the caller’s number, had discovered the probable identity of the woman: the phone was registered to one Angela Faber. He immediately went to tell Diba.

  ‘Okay! When I say The Game of Love, you say?’

  ‘That I’m not interested in your taste in music, Calvino,’ Diba snapped at him. Which is when Joshua explained that perhaps it had escaped him that celebrity and TV host Dennis Faber was already in his third season putting the relationships of all sorts of couples to the test for an audience of millions. The Game of Love was a huge hit on IRIS TV, the commercial network. And Angela Faber, the woman who’d made that call last night, was none other than Dennis Faber’s wife.

  ‘The fact that Angela Faber reported the incident doesn’t necessarily make her a suspect,’ Joshua said, thinking aloud.

  ‘No,’ Diba grumbled, ‘but what really looks bad is that she drove away; left the boy there all alone. And don’t get me started on what she was doing in the Amsterdamse Bos in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Not much, I think …’ Joshua said.

  ‘Is that what you think? Not much?’

  ‘That’s what I think.’

  ‘Well, kid, good to know you’ve really thought this one through.’

  ‘I haven’t thought it through yet, but something tells me we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’

  ‘And what exactly is that “something”, Mr Mastermind? Perhaps you could enlighten us, the humble earthworms of this world, with your age-old wisdom?’

  ‘I think Angela Faber happened to be driving by, saw that child lying there, and …’

  ‘Go on …’

  ‘I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right. If you ask me, it seems much too obvious to just focus on this one woman.’

  ‘Yeah, Calvino, but I’m not asking. You brought it up. What is that? Something they teach you at police academy? To run off at the mouth in the presence of others? Get a life, Cal. This is the real world! You’re a detective, not a daydreamer, damn it!’

  ‘Fine, and in the real world you just drove past the Fabers’ house, you ill-tempered toad,’ Joshua said. Once again he regretted sharing his thoughts.

  After Diba had turned the car around, they drove through a gleaming wrought-iron gate into the grounds of a country-style residence with a thatched roof.

  ‘Amsterdam School,’ said Joshua reverently.

  ‘I don’t give a damn where you went to school,’ Diba snapped at him again.

  ‘The house,’ Joshua said. ‘The architectural style: Amsterdam School.’

  ‘You chose the wrong profession, Cal, you should have been a professor in crapology,’ said Diba while breaking somewhat too hard, causing a spray of tiny pebbles around the car.

  Joshua got out and headed towards a carport supported by oak pillars to have a look. One car was parked there, a dark-brown Citroën DS in mint condition. Joshua walked around it. These cars hadn’t been made in more than thirty-five years. They were collector’s items, fancy ‘magic carpet’ models complete with semi-automatic gearbox and hydro-pneumatic suspension. Five metres in length. Literally rose to the occasion as soon as you turned the key in the ignition. A perfect specimen like this cost a tidy penny. It undoubtedly belonged to the man of the house.

  Joshua jotted down the license plate number. As he walked back towards the house, he saw Diba peering through one of the curiously wide windows, which were supported in the middle by two carved arms. They seemed to be pushing the window further up.

  ‘Hansel and Gretel, all grown up,’ Diba muttered. ‘They might have well-paid jobs and drive expensive Citroëns but they still live in bizarre fairy-tale houses. Get a load of those windows. Who in their right mind comes up with stuff like that?’

  Joshua paused before the monumental structure and stared at the front of the house with the thatched roof moulded around it, like an over-sized pageboy hairdo.

  Diba impatiently rattled the antique bell, while Joshua was reflecting on the fact that all the materials used to build this house were natural: brick, iron, wood and straw. In stark contrast, the woman who appeared at the door was anything but natural. She must have been young and beautiful once, with appealing imperfections. But by now all of these had been overly nipped and tucked. Resulting in a lifeless layer of plastic-looking skin, a dark veneer, tightly stretched over her face and body.

  From the spiteful puckering around the corners of her mouth and the wrinkles on her manicured hands, Joshua could tell that Angela had to be well past forty. She had mid-length platinum-blonde hair and was wearing bleached jeans, Palladium sneakers and a low-cut pink T-shirt sprinkled with silver sequins that provided a perfect view of her supersized silicone knockers.

  Tragic, Joshua thought. What was the point of fighting all of nature’s laws, only to be ‘the girl next door’ for ever?

  ‘Mrs Faber?’ he said with the most reassuring smile he could muster.

  ‘Yes?’ she replied hesitantly.

  ‘My name is Joshua Calvino and this is my colleague Marouan Diba. Police detectives. We’re investigating an incident that took place in the Amsterdamse Bos last night. We believe that you called it in?’

  He saw that she was startled.

  ‘Me? Call? About what?’

  Diba threw Joshua a telling look. Then he turned towards Angela Faber and asked if they might come inside. It would be easier to talk. Joshua saw her catch a whiff of what must have been Diba’s body odour because she recoiled slightly.

  ‘I have no time,’ she said, agitated. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Is that your car, ma’am?’ Joshua pointed to the Citroën under the carport.

  ‘Uh, well … No.’ She nervously picked at her fingernails.

  ‘Oh? It’s not your car?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘May I ask where you were last night between eleven and one?’

  ‘I was at home.’

  ‘Alone?’

  Angela Faber ran her fingers through her hair and Joshua glimpsed a bruise on the right side of her forehead.

  ‘With my husband,’ she said in a strained tone.

  ‘So you didn’t make that call?’ said Diba, who now seemed to have discovered how badly he smelled and winced.

  ‘I don’t know what you … I don’t know anything.’

  ‘Ma’am, this phone is registered under your name.’ While Joshua read the numbers aloud, Angela Faber stared at him as if she were being sentenced to death. But she stuck to her story.

  ‘My phone was stolen a few days ago,’ she said, as though prompted by someone.

  ‘Fortunately by a th
ief who’s a Good Samaritan,’ Joshua said, smiling politely.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He steals your phone and then uses it to save a life.’

  ‘Oh, after that accident,’ Angela Faber blurted out.

  ‘How do you know it was an accident?’

  ‘You said so?’

  ‘I said it was an incident, ma’am. Not an accident.’

  ‘Oh, I must have misunderstood.’ Her gaze drifted over his shoulder. When Joshua turned around, he saw a vehicle from a private security company driving through the gate. Joshua turned back to Angela Faber and gave it one last try.

  ‘It would help if you were candid. It’s important for us to know what you saw.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen anything and I didn’t make that call. I was at home.’

  ‘Yes, with your husband,’ said Marouan impatiently.

  ‘He’ll confirm that, right?’ Calvino said.

  ‘Of course he will,’ Angela Faber said as she started to close the door.

  ‘And where can we find your husband?’

  ‘At the Westergas Studios,’ she replied before shutting the door in their faces.

  Out of the security van stepped two rugged tough guys with undoubtedly cast-iron tough-guy bodies, who puffed out their chests and approached Marouan and Calvino with purpose.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said one of the tough guys as if he was a CSI TV detective, ‘you do know you’re on private property?’ It wasn’t so much a question, as a warning to a good listener.

  ‘Do you have some form of identification we could see?’ said the other tough guy who didn’t want to be outdone in toughness by his colleague.

  Joshua saw that Diba was about to lose his temper. He managed to get his partner’s attention with a nod and indicated it would be better if he stayed calm. Meanwhile, he reached for his ID.

  ‘Sorry we wasted your time, gentlemen,’ Joshua grinned after flashing his ID and seeing the disconcerted reaction of the security duo.

  ‘And what’s more,’ Diba added triumphantly, ‘you’re both guilty of obstructing a criminal investigation.’ He glanced at Joshua with a mocking smile. ‘What should we do with these two? Take them in for questioning?’