If we could both record our conversations with him, the extortion of Sonja—horrible as it was to endure—offered an excellent opportunity to link past to present and capture Wim’s past crimes in his present-time statements.
I bought Sonja some recording equipment.
“I usually attach it to the front of my bra, right in between my boobs. Then I put some tape over it, to keep it in place,” I said.
“Like this?” Sonja asked, and in one go, she was wired.
Sonja was ready to rumble.
Giving Out the Confidential Statements
“HOW SHOULD WE DO THIS?” SONJA ASKED. “AN ENTIRE WEEKEND IS a long time. We can’t stay away that long without him noticing.” Betty Wind had estimated it would take at least two full days to write down our statements. Getting away and staying away unnoticed for two entire days was a real issue: it would never work. Wim would notice immediately and become suspicious.
The day we were supposed to meet was a Sunday, but Wim didn’t do weekends; he didn’t differentiate between days, as he’d never had a regular job. Whether it was a Saturday or a Sunday, he’d be at my door just as early as any other day of the week.
Thus I couldn’t rule out running into him on my way to the meeting point where Michelle and Manon were going to pick us up. I’d tell him I had to respond to an urgent call from a client in Roermond in two hours, so I had no time for “a stroll” or a cup of coffee.
Then I’d drive toward the highway in case he followed me on his scooter, and then change direction to pick up Sonja.
I could get away with this fairly easily, since my job gave me some space. Things were more complicated for Sonja. She didn’t have a job to use as a front, and he came to her door at the strangest moments. Especially when he couldn’t get through to me, he’d drop by her house. She couldn’t give him a plausible explanation for her absence. Where would she go this early in the day?
We agreed that I would pick her up at Francis’s house, because Wim didn’t know where Francis lived.
Sonja would drive there at seven thirty a.m. and park her car there. Leaving her car at home would strike Wim as odd. Sonja, leaving without her car? Who with, and what for?
If she ran into Wim at this early hour, she’d tell him she was going to help Francis out just like the day before, because her daughter, Sonja’s granddaughter, Nora, was sick with a virus. He’d let her go then, scared that she might be contagious—his heart condition made him terrified of catching anything. We’d arranged that if he demanded that Sonja come with him immediately for one of his usual urgent errands, she would call me and I’d let my phone ring so she wouldn’t have to speak to me. On that cue, I’d call Francis to call her mother and urge her to hurry up because Nora was seriously sick. Francis would do this right away, without asking questions.
Our kids don’t ask questions. The word “him” is enough for them to know it’s serious. They know we never mention his name on the phone.
If he met me at Francis’s place or on my way there, I’d tell him I had already dealt with the urgent issue with my client so I wasn’t in a hurry anymore and was going to see Francis’s little girl, as she was so worried about her. This would match Sonja’s version of events.
We still had to come up with an explanation in case he saw us getting into a car with Michelle or Manon. I said I’d handle that by saying they were two of my basketball friends with whom I was going to watch a tournament. Sonja was just coming along; she didn’t have a social life of her own, anyway.
I often belittled Sonja in his presence, the same way he did. He liked to hear it, because it made him feel I was loyal to him, not to Sonja. That way, I remained worthy of his goodwill.
The scenarios we’d come up with would also be valid if we didn’t see him, but he saw us. This happened sometimes. He’d ask about your day with vague interest to check if your reply matched his observations. If your answers didn’t match, you were hiding something.
We were supposed to spend the night at the interview location. This would be a problem if he dropped by in the middle of the night. I often switch off my doorbell and he’s used to that, but that couldn’t be done at Sonja’s apartment. How would she explain not answering the door?
Fortunately, when we got back, we could check her security camera system—which registered anyone at the entrance—to see if he’d been there the night we were gone. If he had, she’d say she’d been knocked out by sleeping pills. He’d buy it.
The next thing we had to figure out was how to handle our phones. What should we do when he called? For he would definitely call, not once, but ten or fifteen times in a row if he didn’t get through to us.
I could get away with it rather easily by claiming I was working, but here Sonja was in a fix, especially if her phone was switched off for an entire weekend.
If she wasn’t home, he’d call her. “Where are you? What are you doing? Come over here, now!” It always had to be NOW!
“Wim, I can’t right now, I’m busy.”
“Busy? See you in a bit!” and he’d hang up and switch his phone off so you couldn’t call back and were forced to go, because if you didn’t show up he’d go haywire and start looking for you everywhere, making a scene.
So it would be best to avoid any form of contact so he wouldn’t be able to order us to come. We decided to switch our phones off. In between interviews, we’d check the situation and if things were getting out of hand and he’d called often enough to make him suspicious, we’d have to go home.
That’s just the way it was.
I couldn’t possibly tell people at the office I was going to make statements against my brother to the Justice Department, not only because, being criminal lawyers, we are always on the opposite side from the Public Prosecution, but also because I couldn’t burden others with this kind of secret. And of course, we couldn’t take the risk of anyone letting on to someone else what we’re doing, however accidental or well meant it might be. Nobody could understand how fatal just talking could be for us. It can’t be fathomed by any normal person.
That’s why the weekend was the safest possibility for me. On weekdays, there’d often be crises that required my attention, and if people at work couldn’t reach me, they’d panic, and everyone would start to wonder where I was and why I didn’t get in touch with the office. Although the work would continue over the weekend, at least the office telephone wouldn’t ring.
But Michelle and Manon said it would have to be Sunday and Monday; there was nothing to be done about that. This was incomprehensible to me. I felt I shouldn’t be the one adjusting to their schedule; they should adjust to mine. I was giving them something, but I wanted to do it safely and without raising all kinds of questions at the office.
It was the first time I was dealing with the difference between civil servants and entrepreneurs, and it wouldn’t be the last. Meeting on weekends was often a no-go, and so were weeknights. It had to be office hours all the time, and the moment it was five p.m., an internal alarm clock seemed to go off and people wanted to leave.
The plan was set. We would leave from the designated location on Sunday at eight in the morning. I asked a colleague to take my urgent client calls on Monday, so people at the office wouldn’t be questioning my whereabouts.
Amstelveen, across from shopping mall Westwijk. They were already there when we drove up. I parked my car in a residential area so it wouldn’t stand out; after all, it would be there the whole weekend, and who knows whether Wim would speed by on his bike. He went everywhere on that thing, and he’d always show up where you least expected him.
“Good morning, early birds! It’s a long drive to where we’ll be taking your statements, so make yourselves comfortable,” Michelle said cheerily.
My God, how perky, like this was some kind of field trip. They didn’t have the slightest notion of the pain it cost us to get away unseen, not a clue of how difficult this trip was for us.
I felt extremely grumpy all of a
sudden. It happens three times a year at the most, but when it does, it’s bad. I looked at Sonja, and she could see it in my eyes right away.
“You will behave, you hear me?” she snapped at me.
But that wouldn’t be easy. Once I’m in one of these moods, I can’t just shake it off. I tried analyzing where this had come from so suddenly; maybe it was a premonition not to go through with this.
I shot a let’s-go-back-glance at Sonja. She shook her head and I understood: No, we’re pushing through. Behave.
She was right. I had to try to pull myself together.
In times like these, the only thing that can change my foul mood for the better is food.
The love of food is a major thing Wim and I had in common. We had our special places for all things edible, and it didn’t matter if we had to drive the extra mile to get them. We’d drive across the city, to the Rivierenbuurt quarter to get the best pastry, to the Jordaan for the best sausage roll, and to the Gelderlandplein shopping center for the finest fruits.
I pulled out the buttered cheese sandwich I’d brought with me.
Meanwhile, Sonja was chatting with the girls and diverting their attention from me. I declined their friendly attempts to start a chat with me, gesturing that I couldn’t talk with my mouth full. I wasn’t up for chitchat yet.
An hour and a half later, we arrived at the location where our interviews were to take place. To our amazement, we were confronted with two more civil servants from the Special Witness Protection Program. I hadn’t seen that coming: another set of interviewers, two men. They introduced themselves, and I immediately dubbed them Columbo and Briscoe.
I hadn’t thought about the way the statements would be taken. If I had, I might have anticipated this. But I certainly wasn’t prepared for another set of interviewers. What were these strangers doing here?
We were used to Michelle and Manon—they were young, pleasant people—but these two were typical police officers, from Amsterdam at that. I already envisioned them leaking at Café Nol on Westerstraat after a night out drinking.
I did not feel like doing this at all. I could see that Sonja was having the same reaction; she looked at me and shook her head no. She would not talk to these people, for sure.
I took her aside.
“As, I’m not sitting down with these two men. I don’t know them. I just won’t.”
I felt exactly the same way. My mood, just slightly lifted by the cheese sandwich, dropped all the way down again.
“Where are the restrooms?” I asked.
“Through that door.” Columbo gestured. Sonja sauntered out behind me to deliberate.
“This was not what we agreed on, right? Two more people. It’s not how it should be.”
“No,” I said, “I’m not happy about it, either, but the damage has been done now. They’ve already seen us.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not talking to those two guys. It doesn’t feel right; they look like proper cops. I’ll shut down.”
“I get it,” I said, and then, reluctantly, “I’ll talk to them then. We can’t throw in the towel at this point. Maybe my mood actually was a bad omen. But you told me to push through, so there’s no going back now. We should have done that at the beginning. We can hardly say we won’t talk to them and tell them to take us a hundred and fifty kilometers back to Amsterdam. They’ve booked rooms, installed equipment, made time for us. It would be extremely rude, Box. You can’t stop the leaking anyway; you can only hope it won’t happen.”
Sonja did have a point, though, and I didn’t understand why Betty had organized things this way. How can you expect two people who’ve kept their silence all their lives to tell their life story to complete strangers? This would be the first time in our lives we would be speaking about our misery.
We walked back.
“Sonja will go with the ladies, and I’ll talk to you,” I told the men.
“All right, let’s get started,” Columbo said, and Sonja and I went to two separate interview rooms.
Prior to our interviews, we had to sign an agreement stating that we wouldn’t discuss the making of our statements or their contents with others. If we did, all agreements would be void, and the Public Prosecution Service would be entitled to use our statements and their contents without our consent. Meaning we couldn’t discuss this procedure with anyone; we couldn’t even talk about this life-altering process with our children or mother. It’s not as if we would do that at this point, since “they can’t tell what they don’t know,” but our children would definitely have to tell us how they felt about our action at some point: if they didn’t agree, we wouldn’t go through with it.
These were the thoughts that went through my mind when Briscoe cleared his throat. “Astrid, this is the tape on which we’ll be recording the interview. Are you ready? We’ll start the tape now.”
The Threatening of Peter
AFTER MAKING OUR STATEMENTS, SONJA AND I WERE TOTALLY DRAINED.
For two days, we’d gone through memory hell. The grief about Cor that we’d been suppressing out of fear for the last ten years turned out to be as intense as on the day he’d died. The denial that our brother was his murderer had been blocking our mourning process: every single day we’d had to make sure not to betray him through our behavior, actions, or the things we said for fear of a repetition of what he’d done to Cor.
After two days, we didn’t just feel exhausted and empty; we were also glad we’d finally told the truth.
We expected Betty to snatch the statements from the hands of her employees the very same day and to start reading them immediately. So two days later I called and asked her if she thought the statements provided enough relevant evidence to use against Wim. We needed to know. If not, we wanted to get off this emotional roller coaster as quickly as we could.
She said she wanted to discuss it with us in person, and we made an appointment for May 1, 2013.
Before we got there, though, the next catastrophe occurred.
April 25, 2013
I’ve been out and I had my phone switched off the entire evening because I didn’t want him bugging me. The mere sight of his number on the display makes me feel tense.
On my way home, I switch my phone on to check if anything crazy has gone down. The missed calls come flooding in. Wim has called a number of times; I know something is up. Sonja has called, too, confirming my suspicion.
I don’t return Wim’s call, knowing I’ll have to show up somewhere right away.
I call Sonja. She’ll probably know what’s going on.
Sonja answers the phone and tells me Wim went berserk. “Why this time?” I ask.
“First he called to bully me, and then he drove over to Peter’s house to threaten him.”
It was unusual for Sonja to be speaking negatively about Wim. We usually don’t badmouth him over the phone. This worried me right away. “Okay, and now?”
“Peter has filed a report.”
“Oh, God, that’s not smart. Does Wim know?”
“I don’t think so,” Sonja says.
“This is going to be bad.”
I know there’s no way he’ll put up with this. For him, talking to the police calls for the death penalty. Peter doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into.
How am I going to solve this?
April 26, 2013
The morning after, Wim calls me early and says in his usual manner, “Meet me at the Maxis store in Muiden.”
He doesn’t know I’ve already heard what happened last night, and I am well aware that my seeing Wim is of vital importance to Peter. I get in my car and drive to Muiden.
When I get there, he’s waiting for me. He knows Sonja calls me whenever there’s trouble, so I say right away:
A: “Did you fall out with Sonja?”
W: “And with Peter. I went to his place last night.”
A: “Yeah.”
W: “He’s called Stijn Franken all stressed out because he feels threatened.
”
A: “Yeah.”
W: “I went over to his house last night to tell him: Listen, you’re not using my name, you’re not using my character, you’re gonna take it out and if you don’t, you’ll see what I’ll do to you. His bitch was there, too, and he said, ‘I feel threatened.’ I said, I don’t threaten, I just do what I say. I’m done with you, you’re taking my name out, my character. I will fuck up that movie, I’m fucking done with it.”
Wim was after Peter about the American film being made based on Peter’s book. He was being played. How could they put him in a movie everybody is profiting from without talking to him first? He should get money out of it, too. I try talking Wim down.
A: “Why don’t you talk to Peter again?”
W: “If I go there and he says no, I’ll just gun him down. Another one bites the dust.”
I’m starting to sweat bullets. If he finds out Peter talked to the police and filed a report, it would only add to his list of reasons to kill Peter.
I’m really worried about Peter. I have to let on that Peter might file a report, so Wim can get used to the idea and won’t blow up entirely if he gets the message.
A: “What if he files a report?”
W: “Well, he’ll just have to do that.”
He is confident that Peter won’t have the guts to actually do it; he knows how much he scares people. Nobody dares talk about him to the police, and those who do come to regret it.
What was Peter thinking, filing a report?
Meanwhile, I’ve been talking to the police for quite some time now. Once again, I’m afraid he’ll see it written all over my face.
Right now, his focus is entirely on Peter, so he isn’t paying attention to me. Not in the least, since I’m the one actively trying to work out the situation in his best interest.
I try to get Wim to talk to Peter. He refuses. It’s all on Peter, and that’s what he’ll say if the police interview them.
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