I thought I might vomit.
I started talking, knowing that contradicting him is no use in these situations. Of course, yes. She is indeed too stupid to act alone. She can’t even transfer money electronically, let alone anything involving technical equipment. She’d have to be doing this with someone else. But who?
W: “With Peter. They thought of this together. They’re playing a game with me.”
Oh, God. I couldn’t have Wim suspecting me, but I didn’t want Peter to take the blame. I felt guilty. Poor Peter had no idea how deep in we were. Sonja and I had chosen this strategy, but beyond helping with the initial contact, Peter had nothing to do with it, and now he was going to get the blame.
A: “No, I don’t believe that. Peter wouldn’t do that.”
W: “What about Francis?”
A: “Certainly not.”
I felt these denials made him trust me more. I was clearly the only other person who could have helped her, but I didn’t take the bait of trying to divert attention away from myself.
He relaxed.
W: “You’ll see to it that I get those tapes. I’ll see you tonight.”
Thank God, I was safe—for now. As long as he can use me, I thought, I’m okay.
That morning had had such an impact on my nerves that I couldn’t handle using the bugging equipment that evening when I met up with Wim again to discuss the tapes. But the conversation is etched in my memory.
We took off from Sandra’s and walked through East Amsterdam.
A: “No, she says she has them [the tapes] in a safe place. And she’s not going to tell me where, because when push comes to shove, I’m with you.”
W: “What a fucking bitch. I knew it. Is she talking to the police?”
A: “How should I know? Why would she hide those tapes if she is already talking to the police?”
W: “She is talking to the police. I don’t care. You know what I’ll do to people who talk to the police. But with her, I’m going to take a different approach. I’m going to let her die really slowly. Really let her suffer. First her children, her grandchild, then her. I won’t have her shot. I’ll have her tortured. For days.”
A: “Well, she says that if something happens to her or her kids, the tapes will go to the police. So that wouldn’t be wise. It won’t be any good to you.”
W: “I don’t care. Is she abroad?”
A: “Why would she be?”
W: “I don’t know what she’s up to. She is doing this with Peter.”
A: “No, I don’t believe that. He wouldn’t dare.”
I had to deflect suspicion away from myself. I told him Sonja had betrayed me as well.
A: “She says, ‘I taped you, too. All the messages he gave, that you passed on, that he would have my children shot dead. Peter and me. I’ve got it all. And more, because I have been recording for a long time.’”
W: “So she’s going to hang you, too. The bitch. She’s going to hang you, too.”
A: “How? I only delivered the messages. I was merely helping. I’ll just deny that you told me. Then it stops with me.”
W: “She’s going to hang you. She’s a dirty traitor. How long has she been recording?”
A: “I don’t know. She won’t tell me. But keep thinking straight. Think about what you’ve said to her, what she can do with it. You never make a slip.”
W: “I just acted a bit angrily. But of course, I have no idea how long she’s been recording and whether she talks to the police. What she’ll say to them. I need those tapes. And I’ll get them. For sure. I’ll just drag her off the street and torture her until she tells me where they are. I’ll break every bone in her body. Cut her to pieces.”
A: “Get a grip!”
W: “Get a grip? I will! She had it coming. She should have expected this.”
A: “I’ll go search her house, see if I can find them.”
W: “Yeah, start searching. The fucking bitch. This has to be solved.”
I got the feeling that we’d overplayed our hand. He was so eerily relaxed; this wasn’t going the way we’d hoped. I had to turn things back, but how?
I went back to him.
A: “Well, I’ve spent hours with her, and I think she’s bluffing: she’s got nothing. She’s not well. She’s just threatening.”
W: “You think?”
A: “Yes, I know her like no one else. She can’t get anything done. She can’t even switch on a computer. She’s a moron.”
If I wanted to come across as trustworthy, I’d have to tear her down to the ground.
A: “But I get her, she’s afraid of you, afraid you will have her children killed. She hasn’t got a clue what to do next. It’s a leap in the dark.”
W: “She is scared, isn’t she? She should be.”
A: “I think she really regrets saying this. She was nervous as hell.”
W: “I understand. She knows what I’m like. Or she’s in it with Peter, she does have tapes, and they are playing games.”
A: “Well, I don’t see why.”
W: “You don’t know, do you? You don’t know what they’re up to.”
A: “Well, I think they’re bluffing.”
W: “Really?”
A: “I’m sure of it.”
W: “Well, we’ll see.”
Annulment
BY NOW IT HAD BEEN A YEAR SINCE WE HAD MADE OUR STATEMENTS to the Justice Department, but nothing had happened. Everything was the same. Meanwhile I’d had to intensify my relationship with Wim, and it felt like a noose was tightening around my neck. I could hardly breathe. All this time, I had told myself that the Justice Department would take action at some point, but I hardly believed it myself anymore.
Sonja, who had to suffer through all the threats, was just as frustrated.
“As, we are being played for fools,” she said. “He must know somebody, somebody in the Justice Department, who protects him. Fuck them. I quit. It’s worse with them than without them. Every day I hope they’ll do something, and every day I’m disappointed. It stresses me out.”
She was totally right. They weren’t doing anything, and they couldn’t explain why it was taking so long. We’d been exposed to danger for more than a year, and they were leading us on. Maybe it was time to back out, focus on controlling the damage.
We talked to Peter about it, and he agreed with us: the Justice Department showed no decisiveness whatsoever, and the risk our statements would leak remained real. He supported us in our decision to annul the statements. We’d rather be alone in this than not taken seriously.
We scheduled a so-called exit talk. Betty said she couldn’t share with us why everything was taking so long, that she wanted us to “stay aboard,” but that she understood that we’d lost faith. She would give the order to annul our preliminary statements.
I immediately doubted our decision. Were we not running a greater risk of our statements leaking the moment we had them annulled? If the Justice Department thought we would still cooperate, the responsibility of a possible leak was clearly still with them.
Besides, these statements also provided me protection by justifying my many meetings with him. I wanted to continue recording what he told me without being seen as his accomplice by the Justice Department.
In the end I felt it was best to hang on to the preliminary statements and the contact with the CIU. That way at least one judicial department would be aware of the true reasons why I kept seeing him. Should I be arrested because of him, at least I would have witnesses on my side.
A couple of days after the exit talk, I called to ask if they had annulled the statements yet.
“No? Good. Don’t do it. Maybe someday they will come in handy,” I told Manon.
I’ll Kill Him
THE BELL RANG. AND THERE HE WAS AGAIN.
I felt all the energy drain from my body. I felt so tired. I wanted out, but I was so deep in. This would never come to an end.
We walked down Maasstraat, and during his monol
ogue, he laughed about how he had frightened Sonja again. “She’s so scared, really scared.”
I walked next to him and looked at that grin on his face. Somebody who enjoys hurting others so much has no right to keep on living, I thought.
Enough is enough.
I am going to kill him.
Sonja was at the gym. They also had a physiotherapy practice, where I had my first appointment.
Sonja was having coffee, and she joined me.
“Today I am going to blow him to pieces,” I told her. “I’m getting my weapon later.”
“Don’t say that. You are doing no such thing. You can’t do that to Mil, to the little ones. They will lose you.”
But even that didn’t outweigh my feelings, which screamed for an end to all this. I didn’t want to depend on others anymore, didn’t want to keep looking for another way to stop him. “I’ll do it myself. I should have done it much earlier.”
Liquidate or be liquidated was an essential part of our lives. Cor was Wim’s target; Wim was the target of Mieremet, Endstra, and Thomas van der Bijl, among others. We lived with that imperative, and it had taught me what was needed to avoid liquidation and what was needed to execute one.
Know where somebody is going to be, and know when. It’s impossible to wait for hours on a street corner until someone arrives at his house; it’s too conspicuous. And being conspicuous means running the risk of attention from the police or vigilant citizens, and the possibility of being recognized later. It should be done relatively quickly. Arrive, do the job, and leave.
In and out, as Wim said.
Knowing where the target is and when sounds obvious. But it’s not easy, and it’s the reason so many liquidations rely on betrayal. That betrayal is often by someone close: somebody says where the target lives, where he goes, what his habits are, the locations he visits regularly, and when he goes there.
The where and when was never my problem: I saw Wim when he wanted. Every day I had the opportunity. All I had to do was show up for an appointment, get near to him, and take him off-guard. For an untrained shooter like me, that last part was the most important.
I know how to handle a weapon, but I can’t shoot to kill from five meters away. I would have to be as close to him as possible and, without him noticing, put the gun to his stomach and pull the trigger.
I needed the element of surprise so he wouldn’t have a chance to resist. A shot in the stomach wouldn’t ensure a fatal end, but it would take him so much by surprise that I’d have time to fire my fatal shots. That’s how I had thought it out, and, by way of practice, had visualized it.
“You shouldn’t do it,” said Sonja.
“I don’t know why not,” I replied.
I really had no reason not to do it. It was as if I didn’t have a moral compass. Just like him.
When I thought about it, I felt no repulsion or fear. I felt nothing at all. I thought it self-explanatory: he was a malignant growth that had to be removed. I understood he was capable of killing because he didn’t have that moral compass, either. The only thing that had stopped me all this time was my daughter’s words: “Mom, I don’t want a killer for a mother.”
She apparently had a moral compass and absolutely didn’t want this. I tried to understand her, but I honestly couldn’t grasp it, rationally or sensibly. Sonja understood Miljuschka very well. She didn’t want it, and couldn’t do it, though it would be more logical for her to do it. It was about her husband, her children.
It was a discussion we’d had before. I thought she should stand up for her children, whatever it took. But she couldn’t.
“I’ll do it,” I said, ending our conversation. “At home there’s a bag of clothes for you to bring me when I’m at the police station.” I would not try to get away with it; I’m not like him. I would take responsibility and turn myself in. I realized that I would go to prison, but that prospect was way more attractive than to go on living with him.
I walked up the stairs to my appointment with the physiotherapist. It was the last thing on my mind, but the man was always swamped, and I was there with Sonja’s help. She’d explained to him that I desperately needed treatment, and he had specially squeezed me into his busy schedule. No way I could cancel.
After my appointment, I’d pick up a weapon, a small revolver, just right for me. I would have to avoid any police stops, or they might find the gun before I had used it.
I knocked on the physiotherapist’s door.
“Hello,” a tanned, muscular man said. “Are you Astrid?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m Vincent. Please sit down.” He gestured to the treatment table.
I did, and he asked me where it hurt. “In my calves,” I said.
“Your calves are your second heart,” he said. He felt them. “I see why you hurt. There’s a lot of tension in them.” His hands started the treatment, and I could hardly stand the pain.
“Astrid, you’re at a crossroads in your life. Your calves keep you from going a certain way, and that tension creates your pain. Maybe you should follow an entirely different road.”
I thought, What is he on about? He can’t know what I’m up to, can he? “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Maybe you should let go of everything happening in your life right now and look at it from a different perspective. We are all energy. And sometimes this energy is disturbed by the energy of others.”
Stay with your own energy, he was saying. Don’t let it get distorted.
I felt caught. Why was he talking about this? Was he trying to tell me in a roundabout way that he knew what I was up to and that I had to give up on it? I got the jitters. “I’m just a bit tired,” I said. “And I am so busy.”
“You’re tired because others take away your energy. You don’t have to solve everyone’s problems.”
Wow! That last one hit me. I had to be crazy. Why do I make such an effort to help others? To help Sonja, Peter—why? Let everybody solve his or her own problems.
Vincent had, just before the fatal moment, changed my mind.
Sonja was waiting for me downstairs. I went to her.
“I’m not doing it. I’m not going to prison just because I so desperately want to solve things for everybody. You don’t do anything, the Justice Department doesn’t do anything. It’s not my problem. He’s your husband; they’re your children. You solve it. If he threatened my child, I’d do it immediately, but it’s your call.”
“I’m glad,” Sonja said. “I’m glad you won’t do it.”
She was sincerely happy. She’d rather have the terror continue, not being able to do what was necessary to end it. I didn’t understand her. How different she was from Wim and me.
I drove home. I had been on the verge of killing my brother, something I should have dreaded. But it felt righteous. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. You hit me, I hit you back.
Now, in hindsight, I think, I wish I’d done it. I would have been free sooner, I would have gotten maybe nine years and been out in six for good behavior. Young enough to build a new life.
Now I’ve got a life sentence, whether he’s ever convicted or not. The regret will go on forever.
Sandra and the Women
WOMEN PLAY AN IMPORTANT PART IN WIM’S LIFE. HIS MOTHER, HIS SISTERS, and his girlfriends—all the women in his life have a function.
I’m his sounding board, Sonja is his jack-of-all-trades, and Mom is, well, the mother; if he feels like he wants it she has to take care of him like a child. The part his girlfriends play depends on what Wim needs at any given moment. A car, a scooter, a house, or a financier.
Wim has at least four women, and they all want to believe they’re the only one. He rotates between them constantly. He tells them he’s in danger of being liquidated and that he can’t stay in one location for too long. He has to leave, for his safety. And as a loving woman, you’re not going to make trouble, are you? You don’t want him to get hurt, do you?
That h
e might have more than one woman never occurs to them. It’s sad to behold, all these women he deceives, all wanting to understand him and sympathize with him. Often lovely women, totally brainwashed by him.
Even when they catch him and see the reality for what it is, he somehow manages to make these women believe that they shouldn’t have doubted him in the first place.
How could they be so nasty to him? They should be thankful that they can still apologize to him.
We’re also living with all his different women. He has been using us for ages to be able to continue his polygamist lifestyle.
My mother was trained not to let her behavior arouse my father’s jealousy. At the beginning of each relationship, Wim’s girlfriends have no idea what he expects from them, but he teaches them quickly.
Their first lesson is: Wim is jealous. Without any reason, they often protested, but Wim didn’t think so. It wasn’t that he was jealous—they behaved like sluts, and he wasn’t going to accept that.
The second lesson: When Wim is jealous, he can barely control his aggression. He screams and hits. They wouldn’t accept that! But…maybe Wim was right, and it was their fault. So they stayed with him.
The third lesson: To control his anger, they had to steer clear of any situation that might make Wim jealous. So in his presence, they were transformed from spontaneous girls with a worldly outlook into nervous types who only had eyes for him. If they walked beside him, they didn’t look around; they watched the ground. Whenever they went out for dinner or a drink, they sat opposite Wim so he could make sure they would only look at him and nobody else. No, looking at other men was not allowed, let alone talking to them.
The sooner the girls learned what was and wasn’t allowed, the better. It was always heartbreaking to see such a girl getting scared when she found out she’d apparently done something wrong and had to deal with the consequences.
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