Judas

by Astrid Holleeder

  Sandra’s house with the garden facing south was the main reason he held on to her. A house in Amsterdam, close to his contacts, was useful to him; he could stay there when he needed to see them instead of having to drive back and forth to his apartment in Huizen.

  In March 2012, Sandra asked me if I knew someone named Mandy. It was a question I could not possibly answer truthfully. We were there to keep the calm in Wim’s harem, not to stir up unrest.

  But over the years, Sandra had won not just my sympathy but also my respect. Sandra had been a gangster girlfriend her whole life and never had to earn money; she’d just had to spend tons of it. Until now. The house arrest Wim had imposed on her meant that since Sam’s death, she’d lived in isolation, totally controlled by Wim. At the same time, with him in prison, she’d been less under his influence, and it was clear to her where she had ended up. Her capital had become his capital. She had nothing left, and as a result could expect nothing from him. She’d have to find a job. But how and where? She secretly took a course to become a nail stylist. When she was almost done, she told Wim what she’d done and that she was ready to work. He was livid, but she calmed him down, arguing that she needed a regular income. He had no legal income, so how could he provide for her?

  Wim, who wasn’t too keen on providing for her anyway, agreed. As long as she understood that in addition to her job, she’d have to be available to Wim twenty-four hours a day. Should he hear sounds on the phone other than the ones at her job, or should she not pick up the phone, or if she was seeing another man, he’d make life hell for her. But she held her ground.

  I found it sad to see how Sandra was abused and dismissed. It would have been better for her if she had a life of her own, but that’s not the way Wim works with women. Once you’re his, you’ll never get rid of him unless he wants to get rid of you.

  I decided to tell her the truth about Mandy, but only if she promised me she wouldn’t tell Wim or let on that she knew. Not even in an emotional moment during a fight or while making up. Sandra swore on her kids that she wouldn’t. I took a risk by telling her the truth. Not many betrayed women could have stayed silent, but Sandra kept her promise. And this occasion increased our trust in each other.

  Later, Sandra asked me to confirm what Wim had snapped at her in anger: that he had had Sam killed. “Do you know anything about that?” she asked, trembling with emotion.

  Now that she was asking me straight out, I thought I couldn’t keep quiet, I couldn’t do this to her any longer. But I wasn’t going to discuss it with her, not inside the house, at any rate, not out loud, and certainly not before I frisked her for bugs. I thought I could trust her, but she could still be in cahoots with Wim, or she could still want to do him a favor in a moment of weakness.

  “First take off your sweater and bra,” I said, and frisked her for equipment. I searched her trousers, but there was nothing there. “Come on, let’s take a walk,” I said, and took her outside.

  “And?” she asked.

  I stood in front of her and nodded. That’s all I had to do.

  Sandra called me. Wim had totally flipped out at her youngest son, Mitri. He had left her house ballistic and had even left his key. She sounded very upset. “I have agreed to meet your brother at Café De Omval. Will you please be there, too?”

  “He called me, too,” I said. “I’m on my way. You come in later. I’ll have a word with him first,” I said.

  Several months earlier, Wim had left her. “It’s all due to that fucking kid,” he told me. “Fries eggs during the day, the whole house smells, and I have to be in it. Every time I come in, he’s there in the living room, on his PlayStation. He irritates the hell out of me, that fucking kid. Just like his dad.”

  But despite his swearing never to return, he’d always be back in her house in a matter of days, lying on her couch waiting for her to finish work, pretending nothing was wrong, and ordering her to give him a foot massage. She just couldn’t get rid of him.

  He stood there waiting for me at the café. Next to his scooter, with that aggressive look. He started raging as soon as I reached him.

  “You know what he does, that weasel? He jeopardizes my life! He is such a little liar, always lying.”

  “So what’s happened?”

  “So he’s sitting there in the living room, like he’s a king. And he’s wearing this Excalibur T-shirt. I look at him and think: Excalibur? It was a new shirt. Know what that means? That he’s been around the Hells Angels! And you know what that means? That they’ll find out where I am, that they’re getting information from him. Know how dangerous that is? Through that fucking kid! The weasel. I’ve really had it. He’s out.”

  “Wim, slow down a bit. He’s a kid; you can’t really throw him out, can you? Where’s he going to go?”

  “I don’t care, to his aunt’s. Let him sleep on the street, but he’s got to go.”

  “No, that’s impossible. And he’s not going to say anything about you. That kid knows he shouldn’t talk.”

  “Listen, they will just question him. He won’t even notice. He’s with them. He really has to go. Thinks he’s smart.”

  “Okay, what now?”

  “Now I’ll have Sandra come over and I’ll tell her that he’s got to go.”

  “You can’t ask a mother to do that. He’s her child.”

  “When he’s out late, he’s not a child, and now all of a sudden he is? He’s not a kid. No, he’s leaving. I’m not leaving there, I’m not going to be chased out by a little brat. As, it’s a lovely house. I can sit in the garden all day long. I’m right in the center of everything. I’m not leaving. If she doesn’t kick him out, she’ll have to live with him somewhere else. I want to keep that place.”

  “Well, Wim, it’s not that easy. How are you going to rent that place?”

  “She should keep it in her name!”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Oh, so he’s won? But he won’t. You know what I’ll do.”

  Sandra arrived, and Wim immediately started yelling at her. She couldn’t say a word, overpowered by his verbal violence. She tried to walk away three times, but Wim shouted her back.

  “Sssht, Wim!” I said. “Take it easy. Cops are driving by—you don’t want them to stop!”

  “I don’t care,” he shouted. “Let them stop! I’ve had it, Assie. So I have to hit the street because of a fucking kid. Wait and see. His turn will come. Then I’ll do him, just like I did his dad.”

  I froze and looked at Sandra.

  To Wim, I did my best to encourage the thought that it was for the best that he didn’t go back to Sandra’s house. They would never get back together.

  “Know what it is, As? Sandra has really changed since I got out. Before, she could think like a criminal, but that’s gone since she started working. That woman has gone mad. I just think it’s a waste of that house. Now I have to find another bitch where I can spend time in the garden during the day.”

  Wim easily resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn’t live with Sandra any longer, but he didn’t forget what Mitri had “done to him.” He would get what was coming to him.

  Sandra knew Wim well enough to be terrified. “I don’t know what he’s up to now that he’s not here with me,” she told me. “When I see him every day, at least I can check his mood, estimate what he’s up to. He’ll definitely harm Mitri, and then he’ll come to the door with tears in his eyes, telling me how sorry he is and asking if he can help me. I’m sure of it!”

  I tried to comfort her. “I’ll keep an eye on him for you, and if he’s going to do something to Mitri, he’ll tell me and I’ll just tell you.” She was right, of course; Wim was not letting it rest.

  “Wim, you can’t pop Sandra’s kid,” I told him the next time he brought up “the fucking kid.” “That woman has done so much for you all these years. You really can’t do this.”

  “Okay, because of Sandra I won’t do it,” he said. “But I’m not giving up on this, I really
can’t. He offended me to the bone. He’s still going to get it. Not yet, because Sandra will think it’s me. But in a while. In town he’ll run into the wrong person, who’ll beat the shit out of him.”

  I told Sandra that for now Wim wouldn’t hurt Mitri because that would be too conspicuous, but that she should be on her guard. She was shattered. “He’s killed my husband, taken all my money, and now he’s threatening my child,” she said. “How brilliantly this man has insinuated himself into my life and done so much damage.”

  “You’re not the only one. He’s left a long trail of damage. We feel he has to pay for what he’s done.”

  “Me, too!” said Sandra.

  “And we’re really going to make an effort,” I said.

  “How do you mean?”

  I doubted if I should tell her, but I took the gamble: “I’m going to testify against him,” I said.

  “Then you won’t live long,” she said immediately.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of his rats?”

  “I will keep being afraid of them, but I’m starting to know the people I’ve talked to a little, and I think they’re okay. I’ve been working on it for a long time, and it hasn’t leaked yet, so…” Very carefully I asked her, “How would you feel about it?”

  “You mean, do I want to commit suicide, too?”

  “Yes, something like that.” I smiled.

  “Well, why not? I always wanted to die young and pretty,” she said.

  Sandra was a weird chick, but she had a very strong character. When she said she’d do something, she did it.

  That night, we took a stroll with Sonja along the Bosbaan. We were walking along there, the three of us, when a man walked up to us. He laughed at us and said, “The Three Musketeers!”

  We looked at each other, scared.

  I said, “What was that? Was it a cop? Did they bug us?”

  “Nah,” said Sonja, “that’s impossible.”

  “But he’s right,” said Sandra. She put her arm in the air, pretending to hold a sword, and shouted, “One for all, and all for one!”

  “One for all, and all for one!” Sonja and I repeated after her. It had been a long time since we’d last laughed. Her cynical humor was a welcome addition.

  Fred Ros

  I GET A CALL FROM MICHELLE, AND SHE ASKS IF WE’VE GOT TIME TO​ TALK to Betty. She’d like to see us tomorrow, but I’ve got commitments and I don’t feel like showing up there whenever they see fit. I’ve made time for them on so many occasions, totally reorganized my schedule, and it has gotten us nowhere.

  “No, Friday doesn’t work for me. Sometime next week, maybe.” Could we come on Monday, because they’d really like to see us. I wonder why the hurry all of a sudden. It has been eighteen months now, and I’ve never noticed any sense of hurry before.

  So we make a plan to meet on Monday, September 15, 2014.

  September 12, 2014

  On Friday morning, we find out that Fred Ros, the man who was convicted of killing Thomas van der Bijl, has made statements about that murder, among others. He points to Dino Soerel as the direct contractor, but adds that Willem Holleeder was behind it.

  Now I understand why Betty wanted to see us, and I understand the hurry.

  It’s a big news story, but I don’t hear from Wim.

  He doesn’t call me till after noon, and he wants to meet at the Viersprong in Vinkeveen. I assume then that he knows about the Ros statements. I get in the car and drive to meet him. I hide my equipment in my clothes; I want to record what he has to say about this.

  When I see him, he’s in very high spirits, and I ask him:

  A: “Do you know yet?”

  W: “What?”

  He doesn’t know.

  A: “That Ros has testified.”

  W: “Oh, fuck. Fucking hell. Oh, that’s bad. I don’t even know the guy.”

  I’m disappointed at him saying that he’s never spoken to Ros. I want to record something useful. At the same time, it’s clear that he’s not happy with the news about Ros. He wants to know where I got it from.

  A: “It’s on the Internet, everything.”

  W: “What?”

  A: “That he is a Crown witness who has testified against you. He testified against Soerel, Akgün; he talked about liquidations, Cor, Nemic, and eh…what’s his name, Thomas.”

  W: “Cor, Nemic, Thomas.”

  A: “Yes.”

  W: “What did he say about me? I’ve never spoken to this man.”

  A: “I don’t know.”

  He wants to see what’s on the Internet; but as always I have my cell phone switched off when I’m with him. He lets me switch it on, and I read to him from my screen.

  A: “He also made statements about the killings that aren’t part of the Passage file and also mentions the name Willem Holleeder. He’s said to be involved in the assassination of his former companion Cor van Hout in 2003. Holleeder has been linked to at least three liquidations but was never prosecuted.”

  W: “So he talks about Cor? Is that what they’re trying to get me for?”

  A: “Well, obviously. I’ll switch it off now.”

  W: “I’ve never talked to him.”

  A: “Well, good.”

  W: “In prison I told them that I did not want to be in a cell near him.”

  While Wim was in prison in the Penitentiary Institution in Rotterdam for extorting Endstra, Fred Ros was put in the cell next to him. Ros was being held in connection with the Passage case, the same one for which he’d now become a Crown witness, after an appeal. Wim immediately asked for a transfer to another prison.

  W: “When he was put next to me in prison, I said at once, I have never spoken to this man, and I have no intention to at this stage.”

  He is so clever. From the beginning he has avoided the danger Ros could present. He instantly suspected him of working with the Justice Department as an informant. He wanted to prevent at all costs that Ros could say he had spoken to him, and from the moment Ros was moved into the cell next to his, he never set foot outside of his cell.

  W: “I have an appointment with Stijn, tomorrow at three. He has received some statements.”

  He now understands why Stijn asked him to come over and is irritated at Stijn for not bringing this up immediately. Stijn had mentioned a box of statements coming in, but he never said they were Ros’s. Surely this can’t wait! We need to see him at once.

  We drive there, although we haven’t been able to reach Stijn to tell him Wim wants to see him now, and there is a good chance Stijn is no longer at his office because it’s late.

  And he’s not there.

  We call his partner, Chrisje Zuur; maybe she knows where he might be or where we can reach him. But she can’t help us. Wim will have to wait, and these circumstances make him very tense.

  To reduce the tension a bit, we start scanning the Internet for more news. He wants to know more about the contents of Ros’s statements, but we can only find generalities.

  We drive back to my house and end up in Beatrixpark. Wim is afraid of being arrested. We talk mainly about Cor’s assassination. For years there has been speculation about who was riding the motorcycle. I tell him I recall him saying that Ros wasn’t the one. Wim confirms that.

  I try to put him at ease. If Ros wasn’t riding that motorcycle, how can he make a statement about the liquidation? He wasn’t there, was he? How could he incriminate Wim?

  Wim keeps going on about how he’s never spoken to him.

  W: “At one point I said, ‘I want to speak to the warden.’ So I spoke to him, and I said, ‘You have put this Fred Ros here [in the prison cell next to his]. I have never spoken to him, and I’d like to keep it that way.’”

  A: “So you don’t have a problem. Others can say what they like about you.”

  He trusts my legal judgment and has calmed down, but his unease about the possibility of arrest remains.

  September 13, 2014


  The Ros case is a crisis situation to him, so he’s back the next day. “I see you’re still here,” I say, referring to the fact that he’s not been arrested yet.

  He asks me to see Stijn Franken with him. Stijn apparently had gotten a sense of Ros’s statements. At his office, Stijn appears to be less optimistic than I am pretending to be about the repercussions for Wim, and, understandably, much more careful about what he says.

  He wants to take his time rereading the statements.

  September 14, 2014

  The next day Stijn, Chrisje, Wim, and I meet at a hospital somewhere in the Gooi area. We can speak freely there.

  Wim walks and talks with Stijn. I walk and talk with Chrisje. “He’s just lucky, again,” I tell her. “This Ros thing is going nowhere.”

  After further reading of the statements, Stijn is also convinced, but Wim remains tense. He had a girl make a reservation at a hotel so he can choose where to sleep. I tell him not to take any chances, but that I don’t expect an arrest because it would have already happened by now. They have no reason whatsoever to wait—if they have a strong case.

  September 15, 2014

  Wim is convinced now that he’ll get away with it. “God is with me,” he tells me. And he only sees Ros as an advantage. After his earlier panic, Ros had become “exactly what [he] needed.”

  I get the distinct impression that he has made a pact with the devil.

  That same day, Sonja and I meet with Betty. She asks if we are aware that Ros is testifying against Wim. Of course we are.