Judas

by Astrid Holleeder

  “But it’s not enough. Wim has never spoken to him, so that’s not going to work,” I say. I tell Betty what I’ve been through with Wim this weekend, including the reason why Ros became a Crown witness: he was no longer going to be getting paid to keep quiet by his former friends.

  She’s taken aback but gets ahold of herself. “I would like to know if your loyalty has returned to Wim.”

  “It’s still the same, it’s not with Wim,” I reply. “If you want him convicted, you’ll need us.”

  “And that’s exactly what I don’t like,” she says, worried as always. “I still think it’s too dangerous.”

  “We are both still willing,” I say.

  Sandra’s First Meeting with the CIU

  IT’S VERY DANGEROUS FOR SANDRA TO BE INTERROGATED WHILE WIM IS still out there. He’s not living with her anymore, but his control is still very tight; he checks her whereabouts twenty-four/seven, and he will notice right away and get suspicious if she’s not around for a couple of hours. Sandra takes the gamble anyway. She has a credible story ready should he ask where she’s been.

  It’s September of 2014. We have agreed to meet at ten a.m. at the Bosbaan restaurant, and we’ll leave from there for the location where we’ll introduce her to Betty and her associates. Sonja and I are waiting for her at a table outside. When she arrives, the tension is palpable.

  “Are you still coming?” I ask her.

  “Yes, I’m coming.”

  After introducing her to our people, we leave her behind. A couple of hours later, we meet up again.

  Back at the Bosbaan restaurant, she walks to her scooter, and lingers there.

  “What’s she doing?” I ask Sonja.

  “What do you mean, ‘what’s she doing’?”

  “Why does she keep lingering there? The coffee is here. Can you tell if she’s carrying bugging equipment?”

  “As, are you mad or something? She’s just been with the cops. What are you on about?”

  “That may well be, but you can never be sure whether the Nose is playing games with us. He may have sent her. I don’t entirely trust her.”

  “No,” says Sonja, “you can trust her. We’re all so screwed up because of him; he makes us mistrust everyone.”

  Sandra comes back and I ask her, “What was it you were doing there?”

  “I just needed a moment to myself. It was all pretty intense today.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you honestly, San, when you do something like that, I think, What’s she doing and can I trust her? I hope you won’t hold that against me…”

  “No, I understand perfectly well. I still have the same with you two. That’s because I’ve always had to mistrust everybody; he plays people off against each other.”

  “I get the same feeling. Call me paranoid, but I am scared to death that you’re still on his side.”

  “Oh, my thoughts exactly. You don’t want to know how I felt when I got here this morning. I was so scared he might be here, too, that you two were in cahoots with him and that he would be here. I thought if that were the case, I would drop dead from fear, on the spot.”

  “Horrible, isn’t it? What he’s done to our trust in humans,” I say. “I’m afraid that’s our life. It is what it is.”

  Sandra is on the level as always.

  The Attempt in Amstelveen

  December 8, 2014

  SONJA HAD JUST LEFT, AND I WAS ALONE ON MY COUCH, DOZING OFF, when the phone rang. My secretary was sobbing, totally freaking out. “I thought it was you,” she cried. “My sister called me to see if I had seen the news yet, because they said that Holleeder’s sister had been liquidated. You have no idea how I felt—I really thought for a moment that you were dead. Damned media!”

  And she went on like that for a while.

  Francis had also called me before Sonja left, saying that a woman in Amstelveen had been liquidated and asking where Sonja was. But she was still with me, so it wasn’t her. It wasn’t Francis, and I had checked on Miljuschka right away, too.

  We don’t call each other all the time for nothing. It’s because we know that this can happen at any time. Whenever we hear sirens, see emergency helicopters, hear on TV that someone has been assassinated, we check that it’s not someone in our circle. We’ve been doing that ever since the first attempt on Cor. But whereas we used to count on it happening only to one of the men, we now bear in mind that it could also happen to one of us women.

  People were really frightened, and I got several messages and phone calls inquiring if we were still alive. It was a weird experience; for a moment I thought I had an insight into the future. I was a living witness to the news of my own death, or Sonja’s. I was witness to the grief my death would cause a lot of people.

  To Sonja and me, it was a very awkward situation, and it happened at a time when we were well aware that this could be our fate if it became clear we had testified against Wim.

  And then he called.

  He laughed. “Ha-ha-ha-ha. The press thought it was Sonja, didn’t they? Well, it could have been.”

  “That makes you laugh?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s funny, right? It could happen to her.”

  He was such an imbecile. Such a twisted mind. Talking like that, over the phone, no less, he had a nerve.

  I can’t remember the rest of the conversation, I was so mad. I do remember him calling Sonja to ask if she really was alive.

  The malevolence of this man never ceases to amaze me.

  December 9, 2014

  The next morning, he came to my door early. “Call Sonja, tell her to come over.”

  I called her and asked if she wanted some coffee.

  He wanted to step up the pressure on his extortion scheme, and yesterday’s event came in very handy. We were inside waiting for her.

  S: “Morning. Looking cozy, this early.”

  W: “We’re going to buy you a bulletproof vest later.”

  S: “Oh, get lost. Really?”

  W: “Sure.”

  S: “Why can’t you act normal, you idiot.”

  W: “Well, what do you think?”

  S: “What?”

  W: “You think this can’t happen to you? That this Boellaard, who is a psychopath who walks around with a gun…if he is having a bad day, that he won’t kill you? He also shot dead that customs officer. He’s just an imbecile, right? You make it all seem so easy with your friend Peter. But that’s the reason why I should buy you a bulletproof vest. You are seriously in danger.”

  He used his familiar trick: I only want to help.

  This time he was trying to scare us with his associates, Meijer and Boellaard, unaware that we’d already worked things out with them. They wanted money from the film, too, and tried to get it from us. We told them loud and clear that there was nothing there except for Cor’s debt and that they should take it over because it was about their Heineken kidnapping. I had really had enough: these guys were trying to extort a defenseless woman and her children and at the same time as invoking their intense friendship with Cor. What kind of a friend are you, to do that to his wife and kids? Take over Cor’s debt from the period that you made money with him; be a real pal, or a man at least. That did it; the two men lost the appetite for pursuing their plan.

  S: “I’ll go and see that guy.”

  W: “Who?”

  S: “Boellaard.”

  W: “What will you do? Are you being smart?”

  S: “No, I’m not being smart.”

  W: “You’re being smart. You think he’ll go for that?”

  S: “I’m not being smart. But why would this guy hurt me?”

  W: “Because you’ve got the film dough, Box. And because they feel they’ve been had and didn’t care for the movie, either. We’ve discussed this more than a hundred times. And you can pretend to be really tough about all this, saying, ‘I’ll go and see him…’”

  S: “I’m not playing tough!”

  W: “Because if you are playing tough,
it’s your responsibility, right, and what happens then is also your responsibility, because you are not going to get me into trouble because you think you’re acting tough.”

  S: “I’m not acting tough.”

  W: “It’s all right to be tough, but yesterday you weren’t all that tough.”

  S: “But I—”

  W: “If they come for you tomorrow and blow your brains out, then what? I’ll have to take care of it. You and your Peter. It could happen, I’m telling you. Because do you really think…See, these people are afraid of me…Do you really think they are two morons who don’t have the guts to do anything? Really, Son, they shot at the police, everything. They killed that customs officer. Do you really think they’re crazy? That they’ll do what you tell them to do because you say like…”

  S: “Do as I tell them?”

  W: “Because you say… ‘Get lost, because I’m Sonja Holleeder.’”

  S: “Nothing like that. I didn’t say that.”

  W: “You didn’t? But what are you saying?”

  S: “What am I saying?”

  W: “Yes, how do you see things? Because when you get killed, I have to act.”

  I was so glad to have these recordings because they show exactly how he goes about things and the reason why the Justice Department can never catch him. He uses somebody else’s name, so he can use as his alibi that he only wanted to give a warning. He won’t say that he’s the extortionist or the killer. No, it’s always somebody else, people who don’t even know they’re being used as his alibi. The conversation continued on the street, where he publicly berated her.

  W: “Why do you have to screw up my life with that Peter of yours? What have I done to deserve this? I have to go to court. I have to go to jail because you and your friend Peter decided that. You’ve had me sign something, I don’t even know what. I really don’t. Doesn’t really matter…But don’t go acting tough with your ‘I’ll go and see him,’ you and your big mouth.”

  S: “No, but I mean—”

  W: “No, because you know, you can’t do anything.”

  S: “No, I can’t.”

  W: “You know, you have no idea what you have caused. That is just a sleeping cell. Because anything can happen. And you can go on acting tough…”

  S: “I’m not acting tough. But I don’t think they’re going to hurt me.”

  W: “You know what it is? Whether they’re Cor’s friends or not, it’s one big misery because of your behavior. Everybody feels cheated, and they are ganging up on me, for you, because you and your friend Peter made that movie. And everybody was looking forward to that movie, and hoped to make some money. And you’re walking like a priss…”

  S: “I’m not walking like a priss…”

  He knows himself well, and he knows when to accelerate, slow down, pull the reins, or loosen the reins. He never loses control; he only scares people to achieve his goal. Because later on, after we leave Sonja behind—savagely berated—he says, when I point out to him the judicial status of the film rights, he says, “But, As, I don’t care about the judicial aspect. Judicially it’s totally sound; the thing is, people feel they’ve been had.”

  He was extorting, and the tragic murder of a woman with children in Amstelveen—he used that event to intimidate his victim.

  Wim Arrested After Statements Made by Ros

  SONJA AND I ARE IN AMSTELVEEN MALL WHEN MY PHONE RINGS.

  “Wim has been arrested based on statements made by Ros,” I hear someone say.

  The impact of the message was so huge that I can’t remember who called and what else this person said. I just remember, “Wim has been arrested.”

  Finally!

  Since my last meeting, on November 27, 2014, we haven’t heard from the Justice Department and I have lost hope that he’d ever be arrested.

  But now what?

  Are they going to use our statements and—more important—does he know yet that we’ve testified against him?

  By the time Michelle calls, we are feeling very tense and insecure. CIU wants a meeting on December 17 to discuss if they could use our statements.

  This is the moment for us to decide. Are we going to testify against him publicly? If we decide to do it, we can’t go back to how things were.

  Now that it’s all so real, I start doubting. I wonder if I can do this to him: no more prospects of freedom. Getting old and dying within the confines of prison walls. Alone, without family and friends.

  I decide to ask my therapist for advice.

  “You must be crazy,” she says. “Why would you do that, testify? You’re messing up your whole life! Everything you’ve worked so hard for. You shouldn’t do it. You couldn’t live with yourself if you did.” That last remark hit me right in the heart; I don’t know if I can live with myself if I convict my brother for life.

  At the last moment, I call off the meeting. I’m in doubt. Almost two years I’ve been waiting for this moment, and now I’m not sure.

  That afternoon I tell my best friend—who has been a witness to my life for twenty years—what my therapist has said and that I therefore had called off my meeting with Betty.

  “That woman is out of her mind,” he says. “She doesn’t get it, the misery you’ve lived with for so many years. Easy for her to say. I’m not saying that you should or shouldn’t—that’s your call. But I know your life, I’ve seen it up close, and your life sucks, big-time. It couldn’t be any worse. And if you feel guilty about what you’ll do to him, just listen to the tapes every now and then. Then you’ll know exactly why you did it.”

  Part V

  Women Floor Holleeder

  2015–2016

  Prison Visit

  2015

  PETER CAME BY. HE HAD THE FRED ROS STATEMENTS WITH HIM. THEY revealed that Ros had heard who it was that had spoken about the whereabouts of Cor to his killers. A video made of the moment right after Cor’s death had appeared on the Internet. According to Ros, the informant could be seen in the footage. Apparently he was one of the two people seen running around.

  Sonja and I have always wanted to know who the informant was. We knew this footage and started watching immediately. There were indeed two people running around: Adje, Cor’s half brother, and Bassie, a friend. Could it have been one of them? And which of the two? Ros gave no definite answer. We found it hard to imagine.

  Adje was out of the question, but with Bassie, something awkward was going on. It was Bassie who was driving Cor around that day. He picked up the car just at the moment Cor was shot on the pavement. Bassie said getting the car out took a bit longer because two other cars blocked it.

  We’d stopped thinking Bassie was a suspect after Wim once told me smilingly that he’d given him a hiding in public because he “had betrayed Cor.” This display was a typical diversion on Wim’s part. By publicly blaming him for “giving Cor away,” Wim proved his own innocence. We assumed Bassie was innocent, too, a victim of Wim’s manipulation tactics.

  But now we were in doubt again.

  “If we want to know who the informant was, we’ll have to get it from Wim,” I said. Sonja and Peter nodded in agreement.

  If Wim would tell us, it would mean that he knew the killer. But then, it wouldn’t be enough just to talk to him. How could I prove what we had discussed during that visit? Wim could easily deny the contents of that conversation.

  The only solution was to record the conversation. But how? Wim was in a guarded prison: how could I smuggle my bugging equipment in? To enter the Penitentiary Institution in Alphen a/d Rijn, you have to pass through a metal detector, and there was metal in the recording equipment, even if only a little.

  “How will you do it?” Sonja asked.

  “I’m going to remove as much metal as possible,” I said, and I stripped the equipment. I bought a handheld metal detector to check whether the remaining metal would set off the detector. It did. I had to hide the last bit of metal in a place that wouldn’t get noticed.

  “Son
, get us some condoms.”

  Sonja came back, and I wrapped the stripped device in toilet paper and put it in the condom.

  “Here, put it in your vagina and we’ll see if it still goes off.” Sonja went to the bathroom, and when she came back, I moved the metal detector in front of her crotch to see what would happen. There wasn’t a sound! I made the same tampon for myself and tested it. It remained silent again.

  “That’s a good sign, at least,” I told Sonja, “but I don’t know how they’ve adjusted the metal detector at the prison.”

  In my experience as a criminal lawyer, I knew conditions could vary. In some prisons, I pass the detector with keys in my pocket without setting it off, while others react to the underwire in my bra. I had some experience with this prison, but they could adjust the scanner any day and there would be no way to tell. We couldn’t afford to be involved in a riot at the entrance in case they found metal on us.

  “We have to wear pants with an iron button near the crotch,” I said. “That way if the scanner goes off, we can tell them that’s the cause. But there shouldn’t be too many buttons, or the pants will set it off for sure; then we won’t get in. Look in your closet.”

  We tried on all the pants and tested them with the manual metal detector.

  “I’m wearing these,” said Sonja.

  “Yeah, those are good. I’ll wear these, then.” They were jeans. I wasn’t too happy about them, because I don’t like jeans and never wear them.

  “You think he’ll notice me wearing jeans all of a sudden?” I asked Sonja.

  “I guess, but we don’t have many options. They’ll have to do.” Okay, so much for the pants. Now for the shirt to stick the equipment on or in. Finding a shirt that could disguise the equipment wasn’t easy; for days I had been experimenting with various items of clothing. I was used to going outside with him to talk, and I always wore a coat. This time I could hardly sit there wearing a coat; it would be too conspicuous.