‘It’s certainly an option,’ Joshua said, keeping a close eye on the security guys. ‘But it won’t look good on their CVs. Why were you called out?’
The two men looked at each other.
‘C’mon! We don’t have all day!’
‘Complaint about two foreign types walking about on the property.’
‘Foreign?’ Joshua said. He pointed to his ID. ‘You see what that says? Dutch, right? Or am I mistaken?’
‘No, you’re not mistaken,’ said security tough guy number one with a look of dismay.
‘I’ll need the number of the caller,’ Joshua said. ‘And then we’ll thank you for your assistance.’
The security guys contacted their dispatch, gave the number to Joshua and were relieved to be on their way a few minutes later. Diba decided then and there to call the Public Prosecutor. He wanted to arrest Angela Faber as soon as possible; they now had enough evidence. The phone she’d just contacted the security company with was the same phone used to report last night’s accident.
13
This was literally the difference between night and day, Farah thought as she drove into the Amsterdamse Bos. Last night she’d driven through these woods like a woman possessed and had beaten a hasty retreat after the discovery of the two bodies in the station wagon. Now she was slowly traipsing around the same woods, feeling like a night owl blinded by the morning sun.
That changed when she saw a lorry pulling out of a narrow path and turning on to the road. She gasped when what was left of the station wagon, which had been loaded on the trailer, glided past like a dark, shadowy ghost ship. This had to be the lane that the fire engine had turned into last night.
From this point, it had taken her a couple of minutes to get to the section of the road cordoned off by the forensics team. How fast had she been going? Sixty, seventy maybe. With half an eye on her speedometer, she noticed that up ahead the road curved gently. Last night she’d seen the glow of the forensic lamps among the trees, thinking that maybe they were working in the middle of the woods. But having taken the bend, she realized she’d been wrong. Following that same bend now, she watched closely for anything familiar.
She slammed on the brakes as soon as she spotted a scrap of tape around a tree. The forensics guys had been a big help last night with their confidential information. And now the shoddy way in which they’d left the crime scene helped her out again.
Farah parked her car on the soft shoulder. When she switched off the engine, she could hear birds. A woodpecker rapping against a tree somewhere. Beyond it, the constant roar of the traffic on the A9 sounded like a distant ocean. This woodland didn’t exactly strike her as the ominous setting where only a few hours ago a child had been bleeding to death on the road. But she soon stumbled across the chalk smudges on the tarmac, proof positive that it had.
She recalled Danielle’s words. The boy had been hit from the left, banged his head against the windscreen, rolled across the bonnet before landing on the tarmac. The car that had hit him must have approached from the opposite direction on the left side of the road.
Looking around, she imagined the boy standing here last night. Where might he have come from? She decided to head deeper into the woods.
Here the terrain rose up gently while the trees were closer together, with an occasional low shrub. After a while she made out the contours of a house on top of the hill. She approached it with caution. It was an old manor house, half-covered in ivy and purple wisteria. Here and there, the coarse, once-white plaster was covered in green moss or crumbling, with small grey chunks falling off. The shutters in front of the big, tall windows were sealed tight. A balcony on top of the large bay at the front offered a view of the drive. All the paint had peeled off the rotten timber railings. At the top of the façade she read the date of construction: AD 1912.
A shiver ran down Farah’s spine, as if the strips of sunlight that fell indirectly on to the walls and the closed shutters held no warmth, only coldness. Strange how the sound of distant traffic and the birds she’d heard earlier appeared to have faded here, swallowed up by a vacuum of silence. But this was an eerie silence. A muted cry, a soundless shrieking. It reminded her of the fearful figure in the Edvard Munch painting, opening his mouth in a grotesque way to utter a primal scream that was inaudible, yet so loud it penetrated every fibre of your body.
Farah knew she was a lot more perceptive than the average person. She registered things that others failed to notice. She also firmly believed that the things you saw or heard could be influenced by your subconscious. What you perceived was what you wanted to see, wanted to hear. All of a sudden she doubted whether the boy had actually spoken when he’d been wheeled into the Emergency Department. Had she perhaps heard her own voice when she’d seen him lying there helpless on that stretcher? Had the cry simply been her own cry? And was the chill she felt here simply something frozen inside herself?
She looked back at the grand manor house strangled by vines. If only she could grab a crowbar and pry open the shutters, lift the doors out of their frames and force her way into the dusty rooms where she expected to find silent ghosts aching to tell their stories. Once the boy was well enough to talk he’d tell her about this house. She was sure of it.
She was standing on the lawn in front of the house. The gravel on the drive was covered in moss. The world seemed to be holding its breath. But then the silence was shattered by a low-flying plane on its way to nearby Schiphol Airport.
She’d just made up her mind to head back down to the main road when she tripped over a tree stump. A low-hanging branch hit her face as she fell. About to scramble to her feet, she spotted something dark red on the mossy ground: a piece of shiny copper in the shape of a crescent moon. The red was dried blood. Her hand was trembling as she went to pick it up. It was an earring.
She looked around, taking in the dark outline of the house and the gentle slope down to the road where the Carrera was parked. She picked up the earring with a handkerchief and held it tightly in her hand. By the roadside, she rang Joshua Calvino.
14
Still on the grounds of the imposing Faber residence, Joshua tried to dissuade Diba from rushing into calling the Public Prosecutor to issue a warrant for Angela Faber’s arrest. Diba was convinced Angela Faber was the prime suspect in what he now saw as vehicular manslaughter. As far as he was concerned there wasn’t a man alive, let alone an individual atom, who could still have any doubt about her guilt.
Angela Faber had done it.
And Diba was a shark that smelled blood – obsessed, he threatened to strike out at his prey. In his anger, the only thing he knew for sure was that last night a woman had run down a child with her car and left the scene of the accident.
‘And what’s more, she’s such a stupid cow that when she sees us snooping around her house, she uses her stolen phone to call her security firm!’
When Diba began to pant excitedly, Joshua interrupted him.
‘She’s probably not the only one involved.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly what I said, not the only one. In the sense of, “there are others!” ’
‘You’re talking crap again, Cal. I want facts! Facts, not theories!’ Faithful to form, Diba was spouting off while making theatrical gestures.
‘What do you think? Did Angela Faber take this gas guzzler out for a spin last night?’ Joshua asked, pointing at the DS in the carport.
‘Highly unlikely.’
‘Okay. At least we’re in agreement about something. The vehicle involved in the accident must have been a different one. And that car was probably damaged during the collision or – now pay close attention, I’m saying “or” – during the evasive manoeuvre. Agree or disagree?’
‘Uh, hello Cal, I’m not a moron and this isn’t twenty questions!’
‘Agree or disagree?’
‘Damn it, I agree!’
‘And did we come across another damaged car on the grounds? I d
on’t think so. Or am I suddenly blind?’
‘I agree with that too! I don’t see any other car.’
‘It could be somewhere else?’
‘Somewhere else,’ Diba repeated sarcastically. ‘Good work, Sherlock. Very impressive. Only I don’t see where all this is leading.’
‘It’s leading to the question of why Dennis Faber is so willing to back up his wife’s story. Wanna bet he’s going to lie through his teeth about everything?’
Diba stared at him with a glassy expression.
‘I bet that’s why Dennis Faber isn’t driving his car this morning. He wanted to get his wife’s damaged vehicle repaired as quickly as possible. Give me a few minutes and I’ll prove my theory,’ Joshua said.
‘And then?’
‘A few minutes,’ Joshua repeated. ‘That’s all I need. If I don’t come up with something substantial, you can go ahead and request a warrant to arrest Angela Faber.’
‘Okay, five,’ said Diba with an exaggerated sigh. He looked at his watch and strode over to a bunch of rhododendrons to wait.
Joshua rang the station and asked one of his colleagues to run a plate number. The Citroën in the carport was indeed registered to Dennis Faber and he’d been fined twice last year for speeding. Joshua inquired further about where Faber had purchased the car, called the dealership and asked if there were other cars registered to Mr or Mrs Faber. After Joshua had received confirmation that nine months ago a Citroën Picasso had been purchased for Angela Faber and that it had indeed been brought into the shop for repairs that morning by her husband, Joshua jumped into the Toyota and urged a flabbergasted Diba to do the same.
Fifteen minutes later the two detectives, waving their IDs, entered the Citroën dealership in Amsterdam-Zuid and headed straight for a bright-red Citroën Picasso, sitting on the ramp, with a substantial dent on the right side of the bonnet and a smashed headlight.
‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ Diba said with a cheesy grin. ‘You have to keep your eyes open, Cal, trust your instincts. Always be ready for the unexpected, so you can jump right in!’
Joshua recognized this as another amazing aspect of his older sidekick’s personality. The entire trip to the dealership, he’d moped like a misunderstood child, but now that success was imminent, Diba wasted no time claiming responsibility for the action. Joshua had long ago lost interest in always pointing out Diba’s shortcomings, not only because of how taxing it was, but also because he saw that Diba wasn’t up to working as a detective much longer. The man was weighed down by his past. Calvino gave him six months at most. After that he would take early retirement for medical reasons or simply drop dead – without a single bullet in sight.
Diba, in the meantime, had the forensics guys on the phone.
‘Immediately – no, now, immediately, you hear me?!’ Over the years Diba had become more and more afraid that people weren’t taking him seriously and often ended up shouting, which was counterproductive. When Joshua heard him ranting he walked out of the garage, called Forensics himself and calmly explained what was going on. Yes, Detective Diba’s bark was worse than his bite, but they were this close to arresting two people possibly involved in the hit-and-run of that child. It was important to establish as quickly as possible that the damage to the red Picasso matched the damage that had been detected in the Amsterdamse Bos last night.
‘You missed your calling, Calvino,’ the forensics guy on the line chuckled. ‘You should have been a diplomat. You’d undoubtedly get the Middle East peace process back on track.’
‘Thanks for the compliment,’ Joshua sighed. ‘So when can I expect you?’
‘We’ve already got one foot out the door!’
Diba came into the showroom with a self-satisfied expression on his face. ‘Arranged! I read them the riot act. I’ll wager a bet that we have this case wrapped up by this evening and then yours truly is on his way to Morocco the day after tomorrow.’ He dragged Joshua in the direction of the luxury models. Big, shiny cars which neither of them could ever afford on a detective’s salary.
‘What is it about that place?’ Joshua asked.
‘Which place?’
‘Morocco.’
‘Why do I always go there? Jesus, man, homeland, do you know what that means, you poor excuse for an Italian? And three bloody beautiful weeks without you. That’s reason enough. Get a load of this.’
They were staring at a black Citroën C6 Exclusive. Joshua checked the price tag. The amount was astronomical.
A young salesman came running towards them, rubbing his hands. Damn, they had no time for this nonsense. He returned to the shop to meet the forensics team and glanced over their shoulders as they compared their reports and the photos from last night to the damage on the Picasso.
They were all examining the glass fragments found by the tree in the Amsterdamse Bos against the Picasso’s shattered headlight when Joshua felt the phone in his jacket pocket vibrate.
‘Can you talk?’
Until now, Joshua had associated her with the shouting of helmeted firefighters among scorched trees in the night and the sterile silence of a hospital at the crack of dawn. Now he heard birds in the background and a summer breeze rustling through the trees. But she sounded glum. He paused.
‘Shall I call back later?’
‘No, it’s okay. Tell me.’
‘I’m at the scene of the hit-and-run. And I found something. Something that was no doubt overlooked.’
‘What do you think we overlooked?’
‘An earring.’
He had scrutinized the contents of the plastic bag containing the boy’s things. Bloody rags, two anklets with bells. No shoes or sandals. Two bracelets, also with bells. A few rings. A string of beads. And one earring.
‘Can you describe what it looks like?’ he asked.
‘A copper crescent with some sort of precious stone.’
‘Where did you find it?’
‘Halfway between the house and the road.’
‘What house?’
‘There’s a manor house here. Very large and very old. It’s boarded up but I have a hunch the boy was there last night.’
‘You should be a detective, Farah Hafez,’ Joshua said. He wondered how she did it. Apparently she’d gone to the scene of the crime and just like that, out of nowhere, had found evidence indicating that the boy had wandered about in the woods.
‘How did you find the earring?’
‘Well … I sort of stumbled across it.’
‘But you didn’t touch it?’
‘I picked it up with a handkerchief and wrapped it up. There was blood on the earring.’ She was silent for a second. ‘It’s his, right?’
Joshua hesitated. ‘Sounds like it, yes.’
‘He was in that house last night, I’m sure of it.’
‘Listen. I can meet you later this afternoon. Then I’ll take a look at the earring and we can talk. Okay?’
‘All right. Can you leave that partner of yours out of this?’
With pleasure, Joshua thought, but he said, ‘That’s going to be difficult. We’re a team, Diba and me. I have to tell him, even if you don’t like him.’
‘I understand.’
‘And for the time being, let’s not go announcing this to the world, okay?’
‘We’re only talking about an earring.’ He could tell from her breathing that she was smiling.
‘Meaning, you won’t write a story about it?’
‘Is that what you’re afraid of?’
‘I’m not afraid of anything, but it’s far too early to get excited.’ In more ways than one, he needed to remind himself.
There was a pause. ‘You know where our office is located, right? The AND building on the waterfront?’
‘I’ve got your number,’ he replied. ‘I’ll call you as soon as we arrive.’
When he hung up, the senior forensics officer nodded in his direction. The initial results of their investigation showed that the Picasso was
the same car that had left slivers of glass, traces of paint and a matching bumper impression on the tree in the Amsterdamse Bos last night. Secondary result: no traces of blood. The probability that the Picasso had hit the boy was next to nil.
Joshua nodded distractedly and thought of Farah Hafez. It was inauspicious that at the very beginning of an investigation a journalist was already one step ahead of him.
15
The first film Marouan Diba ever saw in a cinema was Le Casse. French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo steals diamonds from a Greek villain and is then chased by the Egyptian Omar Sharif, who plays the chief of police. Diba was just a kid, but from that moment on he was sure of the three things he wanted in life: wealth, Belmondo’s bravado and a job as a detective.
Over the years he’d had to face the harsh reality that his first two wishes were rather difficult to combine with the last. Detectives weren’t heroes, but cops with an average income. And since he couldn’t accept the miserable status of his job, the dime-a-dozen lifestyle and the run-of-the mill house that came with it, he still steadfastly pursued wealth and the je ne sais quoi of a second Belmondo. An ambition that was as unrealistic as actually owning this Citroën, in which he had finally adjusted the seat correctly to fit his body.
The windows of the C6 Exclusive, which opened and closed without a sound, had a chromium-plated frame, said the salesman, grinning from ear to ear. According to him, scores of other innovations gave this car its unusual elegance and dynamic presence. Qualities Marouan would have loved to have attributed to himself.
And did the gentleman want to try the hi-fi system, which boasted six speakers and a subwoofer? From the passenger side, a CD was popped into the slot in the dashboard. My god, thought Marouan as he sank into the cushy beige leather, what a cheesy way to sell an expensive car.
The double-glazed side windows glided shut, turning the car into a soundproof bubble. With the first chords of a smooth, easy-listening jazz combo, he was suddenly wrapped in a majestic cocoon. Alone. He thought back in time and imagined himself once again behind the wheel of a luxurious rented convertible. Together with his brother and a few friends, cruising through Marrakesh on a summer’s evening, with only the stars to light their way. His brother shouted at every passer-by that they’d been abducted by a Khilqa, a strange creature from another world. He pronounced the Arabic q gutturally as if to accentuate the contempt he felt for his westernized brother. Marouan Diba, a stranger in his own country.
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