36
The editorial assistant Danielle was transferred to sounded just as bored and arrogant as the other people from IRIS TV she’d had on the line up until then. It took some effort to stay calm as she explained yet again that she was calling about the case related to Dennis and Angela Faber.
‘Are you from the police?’
‘No, I’m a doctor.’
‘What do you have to do with the case then?’
‘Everything.’
‘Can you be more specific?’
‘I have important info.’
‘What kind of info?’
‘Confidential info. I’m only interested in talking to the person in charge.’
‘Hold on.’
Muzak.
‘This is Jessica speaking.’
‘Who?’
‘Jessica Zomer, from The Headlines Show. With whom am I speaking?’
‘Danielle Bernson. I’m a traumatologist at the WMC and I …’
‘Sorry, ma’am, but does this have anything to do with the item in today’s broadcast?’
‘No. Uh, well. I …’
‘Could you be a bit clearer, ma’am?’
Danielle exploded.
‘Listen, Jessica, I think it’s best if you put me through to your editor-in-chief!’
‘Hold on.’
By now Danielle was like a tightly strung violin, and rather nervous because she realized what she was about to do was morally reprehensible. But she saw no other way.
‘Alexandra Mons, editor-in-chief, The Headlines Show. How can I help?’ This was the resolute voice of a woman who was used to doing ten things at a time, or so it sounded. She probably had a phone to each ear and two laptops in front of her, while she was also keeping an eye on eight screens in the control room.
‘You’re speaking to Danielle Bernson. I’m calling you in connection with the hit-and-run of an unidentified boy in the Amsterdamse Bos and the arrest of Dennis Faber. I’m the doctor who was first on the scene.’
There was a long silence. On the other end of the line she heard the rapid ticking of a keyboard, an instruction to zoom in and a schedule being communicated. Followed by a mechanical ‘Yes?’ directed at Danielle.
‘Mrs Faber was picked up as a suspect in the hit-and-run of the boy.’
‘Mrs Faber was released,’ Alexandra Mons replied curtly.
‘That’s right. But what everyone has overlooked is the fact that her emergency call made it possible for me to save the boy’s life.’
The ticking on the other side of the line suddenly stopped. It sounded like people were whispering in the background. Alexandra had muffled the phone with her hand, but Danielle thought she heard her say ‘wait a minute’ to somebody. Then the conversation took a more positive turn, ‘Continue, Ms Bernson.’
‘Reputations have been damaged by the erroneous intervention of the police. I think the record needs to be set straight.’
‘And what would you suggest?’
‘I’m no PR expert. I’m a doctor. But I could arrange access for the Fabers to visit the ICU, with a camera crew in tow. Perhaps a short item about how Mrs Faber heroically performed her civic duty and thanks to this a boy’s life was saved. As far as we know the boy has no family.’
There was a pause on the other end of the line before Alexandra Mons asked the obvious question.
‘What’s in it for you, Ms Bernson?’
‘I’m only interested in the truth. Ever heard of something called Bacha Bazi?’
‘No. Does it have something to do with the boy?’
‘The boy was probably abused by older men. It’s some kind of traditional Afghan ritual. The boy is a victim of a child trafficking network. You ask what’s in it for me? I want the story made public.’
‘So it’s a matter of killing two birds with one stone. Angela and Dennis Faber are rehabilitated and the boy’s story gets out. Is that what you’ve got in mind?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Well, Ms Bernson. It’s very clear to me. In fifteen minutes I have a meeting of my editorial staff about tonight’s broadcast. I’ll certainly run your idea by them. As soon as I know more, I’ll call you back. Later in the morning. Agreed?’
Danielle’s mind was racing.
‘There’s also interest from other broadcasters. So if you think it’s something for your viewers, best not to waste too much time,’ she bluffed.
Less than fifteen minutes later, her phone rang.
‘Dr Bernson, you’re speaking to Cathy Marant. I’d like to discuss a few matters with you, and then I’m prepared to make you an offer.’
37
Joshua Calvino tailed Farah’s Carrera into the woods and followed her example by parking on the right shoulder, the same spot where she’d left her car the day before. He blamed himself for not returning to the scene of the crime earlier. But the previous day’s developments, the apprehending of the Faber couple, the commotion caused by this, the overtime and all the paperwork related to questioning them simply delayed this part of the investigation.
He hadn’t slept last night. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. He wanted to spend every second looking at her. At her body, which couldn’t lie still for a minute. He just wanted to keep listening to her irregular, at times rushed, breathing. She slept as if constantly switching from trotting to sprinting. He’d felt her relax when he drew nearer and carefully put his arm around her. And as he lay beside her, he realized it was best not to delude himself. Everything told him that Farah Hafez was a woman who was only passing through.
She stepped out of her car and he did the same. The early morning sunlight cut through the trees. There was no traffic on the woodland road. Joshua crossed to the other side a few paces behind her. Silent, but with his head awash with emotions and snap decisions. The most important of these was pure self-preservation. He wasn’t about to lose himself in a relationship that would leave him marked for life. He wasn’t going to fall for this woman who was traipsing through the woods a few steps in front of him. He would arm himself, protect his independence. Even more so than in past years.
She turned around.
‘I rang you from here yesterday.’
He suddenly felt like he was approaching an inevitable end, a point where everything from their very first meeting until this moment would be erased and he would return to being his old predictable self.
When he’d bumped into her last night in the Spiegeltent at the festival downtown he’d been surprised by his own behaviour, his openness and lightheartedness. It was such an inexplicable moment that Einstein would have probably had a theory about it. Time, gravity and energy had played on his feelings. All his positive particles had collided, taken over, and he’d become a better version of himself.
His instincts, his inherent need to control a situation, hardly ever allowed this. He preferred to avoid surprises in his everyday life; he believed in the logic of cause and effect. This didn’t mesh with a scenario filled with unpredictable developments. Immense, disruptive emotions were not allowed. Control kept him sharp. That’s why he was so good at his job: he was a pro at analysing. Everything had a reason, nothing happened just like that, and everything ordinary mortals considered coincidence was nothing more than an uncommon, but not necessarily inexplicable, collision of unique circumstances.
So the boy injured in the hit-and-run hadn’t ended up here by a quirk of fate. There were explanations for this turn of events. Vile but logical explanations. And he would find them, even though he didn’t have a convincing explanation right now. Barely twenty-four hours ago there was a burnt-out station wagon with two charred corpses here, and then this woman appeared – he immediately knew she’d turn his life upside down. Now the latter frightened him. He couldn’t find any more logic in what had happened between them since they’d first met.
She stood still. ‘This is the spot.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Very sure.’
Some of the branches nearby appeared to be broken. There was blood on the earring. Someone had made the boy’s earlobe bleed, or perhaps a branch had wounded him. That must be it. The boy had been running. And when he was fleeing, the earring got caught on something and was ripped from his earlobe. The forensics team should be able to find traces of blood here.
He suddenly realized how foolish this whole morning expedition was. Besides the fact that he and Farah were currently contaminating the forensic evidence in the area where the boy had probably run with their own footprints, he’d soon be obliged to explain in one way or another how the earring had ended up in his possession. Finding the earring had made Farah an official witness in this case, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she was also a journalist. He didn’t want her to become caught up in this whole affair in this way. It had to be prevented, only he wasn’t sure at this moment how.
‘You can see the villa from here.’
He followed her guiding finger. Semi-hidden by the foliage was the dreary outline of a dilapidated building with closed shutters.
‘Can you show me how you walked to get here?’
She nodded. At the top of the hill, about fifty metres from the villa, she stopped again. She shivered.
‘What is it?’
‘Don’t you feel it?’
He looked at her questioningly.
‘You go ahead without me,’ she said. ‘I’ve been there once; that’s enough.’
He walked on alone, slowly looking around. On his guard. In front of the villa was a patio with black and yellow tiles. Is that what he thought it was? He squatted to get a closer look. Drag marks mixed with streaks of dried blood. He carefully took a step back to avoid contaminating the evidence on the patio with his footprints. In the fine gravel beside the house, he saw that the trail continued and met up with other marks, which seemed to originate from the side of the villa. At the point where the two sets of marks came together, the gravel was scattered. Joshua could tell that a car had been parked here. This was where the two bodies had been lifted into a vehicle.
Joshua saw the burning station wagon again, in living colour in front of him. He kept an eye on Farah, who was following his every move from a distance and he nodded in her direction. Had she simply over-reacted to the chilly atmosphere surrounding the building? Maybe she had a sixth sense for things that other people don’t normally pick up. With a gift like that and his analytical ability, they’d make the perfect investigative team. He immediately put the thought out of his head and walked back in her direction.
‘Someone was dragged out of the house,’ he said. ‘Someone who was injured. A second victim collapsed there. They were dumped into a car.’
‘The station wagon?’
‘There’s a number of tyre tracks running through each other. One of them could certainly be the station wagon.’
‘So it’s related to the boy?’ she asked.
‘It seems to be,’ Joshua said as he looked around. ‘I have to put some things into motion here.’
‘What things?’
‘The forensics team needs to go over this entire area. We also need to find a way to get into the house. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was full of evidence.’
‘Do you still need me now?’
Of course, he wanted to say, not only now, but for always. Except he could only muster a detached, ‘No, not for now.’
‘Then I really need to go,’ she said with something of a tired glance. ‘I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.’
He wished he could do something, could say something to show he didn’t want her to go. Or that he’d go with her and leave that cursed house for what it was. But she beat him to it.
‘This is much bigger than we actually realize, right?’
He wasn’t sure if she was talking about what had happened between them, or about the investigation.
‘You could be right. In any case, I’ll have to indicate in my report that you found the earring.’
‘Of course,’ she replied with a frankness that made it clear to him that they’d been talking about the case the entire time.
‘This also means the police will want to officially question you. About what brought you here in the first place and what you found,’ he added somewhat sternly.
‘Damn it, Joshua, is that really necessary?’
‘Standard procedure,’ he answered uneasily.
‘That’s some way of saying, “thanks for all your help.” ’
He felt every muscle in his body tense up. Why hadn’t he said something to Tomasoa yesterday? He’d acted on impulse, which had resulted in a stupid mistake. He’d concealed the fact that a journalist was also involved in the case and that she was the one who’d discovered an important piece of evidence. He’d never hear the end of this once Tomasoa knew. Diba had gone along with him, but when push came to shove he could blame Calvino.
He felt threatened and he knew why. Normally he had a good overview, knew exactly what he was doing. But since he’d literally stretched out his hand to a sopping wet journalist in the middle of the night, he hadn’t been himself. Even yesterday, during their visit to her editor, he’d played the cool cop in his Gucci shades. An exaggerated form of showing off. It’s one thing to do that as a teenager, but as a seasoned detective? He’d gently stood her under the shower last night, to make her feel like he understood what she was going through. But at the end of the day he wasn’t interested in the woman’s troubles as much as the woman herself.
38
The Carrera sped down the A4 at 130 kilometres per hour, on its way to The Hague.
Farah was driving on autopilot. She was thinking of Joshua Calvino and wondering whether there was a significant other. She hadn’t asked. In fact, she’d asked very little. She knew hardly anything about him, and certainly not what he felt for her. If it had been a combination of pity and lust, she’d certainly not felt any pity, more a respectful compassion. And as for the sex, she was the one who’d taken the initiative. At most, she could reproach him for responding so highly efficiently.
It surprised her that the owner of that beautifully restored barge wasn’t only an inventive lover, but also a good listener. He felt like a soulmate. She’d never experienced anything like it before, and it made the memory of her first encounter with Paul, thirty years ago, all the more vivid. She’d only been a child, but she clearly remembered the intense confusion she’d felt afterwards.
Paul had been the very first boy she’d had erotic fantasies about. After that encounter, her thoughts and emotions stirred until they found release in an explosive rush. Her young girl’s body had started burning and every movement hurt. She was confined to bed with a fever for three days and three nights. The doctor thought it might be a virus. Her mother sat beside her, dabbing her forehead and wrists with damp cloths. Farah remembered the look of despair in her mother’s eyes and the words she muttered that first night. ‘To kho ne bachem, ami tu kho ne.’ Not you too, sweetheart. Not you too. Farah didn’t know what she meant, but the words resonated with an intense sadness. It took a whole week before she’d fully recovered and she was able to rejoin her father under the apple tree in the early morning. She’d decided not to reveal the real cause of her ‘illness’ to her parents, but somehow or other her mother seemed to know. It was the look in her eyes. A look of recognition.
She started at the sound of her ringtone. David. In an impulse to confess everything that had happened last night, she answered straightaway.
‘Where were you last night?’ He sounded hoarse.
‘I’m sorry. I really am,’ she said dejectedly.
‘You really missed something, darling. We’ve been given the green light for the Verne Project. It’s a done deal!’
Thank God, she thought to herself. No awkward questions, no reproaches or melodrama.
‘That�
�s great, love,’ she reacted, sounding forced. She tried to muster a little more enthusiasm. ‘Congratulations!’
‘What’s up?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You sound different.’
He was on to her. David had crossed the ball, now all she needed to do was head it in. Tell him. Tell him!
‘I didn’t get much sleep.’ At least that wasn’t a lie.
‘Why? Feeling guilty?’ He still sounded upbeat.
‘I spent practically half the night at the hospital. The boy suffered a ruptured spleen.’
‘Heavy. Now what? Are you on the road?’
‘Yes, I’m on my way to The Hague. For the general pardon.’
‘Please drive carefully, I’d like to have you in one piece tonight. We’ll celebrate. I want to set off in three months’ time, so we’ve got some decisions to make. You can sublet your flat now. We’re off!’
She’d never heard David sound so elated before. Oh darling, she thought, I need to tell you something. I screwed another man last night and it was divine.
‘Edward wants me to do a press conference this afternoon. I don’t know what time it finishes.’
‘That’s fine, sweetheart,’ he said happily. ‘We’ve been blessed by the gods. What matters now is that we make the right decisions, you and me. Keep me posted about your whereabouts. Hey, Farah?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve really missed you. I’ve become something of a Farah junkie. And I want to be hooked on you for the rest of my life.’ He laughed exuberantly.
‘I love you too,’ she replied mechanically, and then hung up. All of a sudden she felt like stepping on the gas and overtaking everything and everyone at full throttle, faster than the speed of sound, faster than the speed of light, to arrive somewhere without memories, without sweet temptations and, above all, without betrayal.
Part Two
* * *
GHOST
Everything around him seemed to be spinning while he himself remained still in the centre. But perhaps that was just an illusion too.
Butterfly on the Storm Page 15