Angel in the Shadows

by Walter Lucius

  She kept walking and then, among the shacks of corrugated iron, concrete and musty wood, she discovered a dirty white art-deco building on the quay. There was a crowded restaurant on the ground floor where perspiring waitresses walked around with large, overloaded trays on their shoulders. The place was full of blaring television screens and ceiling fans that whirred like helicopter propellers.

  The handwritten sign dangling from the building’s first floor indicated a hotel. After climbing the worn teak staircase, Farah stood panting at the counter, where a bored receptionist, not a day over eighteen, was filing her nails. ‘That’s fifteen thousand,’ she barked in English without looking up. About one and a half euros. With her last bit of energy, Farah tried to arrange for bottles of water, fruit and some food to be delivered to her room. ‘No room service,’ the girl replied.

  Farah got the key to the room with ‘special view’, locked the door behind her, stripped the clammy clothes off her body and didn’t even bother to lift the mattress to check for dirt or vermin.

  She threw herself on to the bed, face down, and slipped into a deep, deep sleep.

  4

  According to the weather report Radjen Tomasoa was listening to as he drove through the deserted streets of Amsterdam towards Olympiaplein, it was an early-autumn storm. A low-pressure area was causing masses of cumulus clouds to blanket the country, with gusts of wind here and there up to 110 kilometres per hour. He drove along Apollolaan and, after the bridge over the Noorder Amstelkanaal, and the East Indies Monument, took a left past the local team’s football pitches. In the distance, to the right of the square, an ambulance and a police car had pulled up alongside the wide pavement. Once he’d parked, he saw her: smoking in the doorway.

  Esther van Noordt, a straight-talking brunette.

  As a single woman in her thirties, she led an independent existence and in the police corps was valued for her meticulousness, her commitment and loyalty. She had the rough-and-tough look of a rock chick. In her spare time, she was an avid rower and played bass in a heavy-metal band called Elysium Cop.

  As he approached her, she quickly took a last drag of her cigarette and stamped it out. She shook his hand and forcefully blew out the smoke in a long stream.

  ‘The forensics guys are still busy, Chief,’ she said, handing Radjen an extra-large white overall. ‘The wife called it in. An ambulance and patrol car were first on the scene. Initially they didn’t see any reason to notify the Murder Investigation Team. It didn’t look like a murder, just a normal suicide.’

  ‘To the extent that you can call any suicide normal,’ Radjen replied, struggling to pull the white suit over his huge body. He looked at her apologetically.

  ‘We’re not in a rush.’

  ‘When did they realize who he was?’

  ‘While waiting for the medical examiner. Like the forensics team, I thought it was advisable to wake you up. Given your involvement in the whole case and all.’

  ‘Thanks for the heads up.’

  To complete his metamorphosis, Radjen slipped on white plastic shoe covers.

  Esther pushed open the front door and accompanied him into the living room. He saw a plate holding a half-eaten sandwich and a cup of milk beside the computer and looked at Esther questioningly.

  ‘He was checking out rental properties on the Ghanaian coast.’

  Radjen Tomasoa gazed at the computer screen and saw the distorted reflection of a large, bald man in tightly fitting forensics garb. He looked around the room. Not a trace of violence anywhere. Each piece of furniture neatly in place, where it had probably stood for years. His gaze lingered on the wedding photo, in an ornate, gold-leaf frame, on the mantelpiece. The victim, young, with a shy expression, in his wedding tux, beside his young African bride. Radjen observed the man with the narrow, unremarkable face whom he’d recently met at the police station. Despite the festive occasion, the man’s smile was reserved, overshadowed by serious eyes behind oversized glasses.

  ‘The best day of your life.’ She was right behind him, looking over his shoulder at the picture.

  ‘No plans of your own, Detective?’ Radjen asked.

  ‘Enough plans,’ she said, smiling. ‘But that …’ she added, pointing at the wedding photo, ‘not going there.’

  ‘After you,’ Radjen said, and together they walked across the slate path towards the small green shed in the back garden with a double door and Plexiglas windows with yellow frames. The wind rustled the leaves of the towering sycamores and the mulberries, blowing them loose and scattering them all over the garden.

  ‘Atlantis,’ he said aloud, reading a plaque above the shed door. Like the window frames, it was painted yellow and looked like sandstone. Forensics were busy inside, securing whatever evidence they could find.

  From the doorway, Radjen stared at the man he’d just seen as a shy groom in the photo. He was wearing grey silk loungewear. With his head in a noose and his tongue between his teeth, he dangled about thirty centimetres above the ground in the neon-blue light cast by a total of seven aquariums.

  ‘How long has he been up there?’

  ‘Hard to know,’ Esther said. ‘Rigor mortis usually sets in within an hour or two of death: starts at the jaw and then spreads to the rest of the body. Within eight hours he’d be quite stiff.’

  She carefully lifted up his silk jacket, pressed a spot on his abdomen that was getting dark and examined the slight change in colour. Patting the jacket back in place, she then ran her hand along the slanted zip pocket. ‘Given that the bruises are still responding to touch, it means he’s been hanging here for less than six hours.’ She grabbed the man by his waist, turned him towards Radjen and shone a torch on his face. ‘Look at the skin around his mouth.’

  Radjen Tomasoa reluctantly took a step forward as she demonstratively ran a finger of her gloved hand over the purplish skin around his lips.

  ‘Abrasions,’ she said.

  ‘From what?’

  ‘Tape, I suspect.’

  ‘Could it be from anything else, maybe something earlier?’

  ‘These are recent, Chief. Something damaged the skin around his mouth. After death you see it quickly, because it discolours.’

  She looked at Radjen with the impatient look of a seasoned professional who’d already drawn her conclusions and was now awaiting the agreement of her superior.

  Clearly, she was way ahead of Radjen. He looked at the peak of the shed and estimated the distance. Two metres seventy. The man in the noose was around one metre eighty. That meant there were about ninety centimetres of room for a hanging. The rope was stretched; looked like it was made of cotton. There was also no trace of violence here; only the stepladder he’d stood on was out of place.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before,’ Esther said, sounding impatient.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘With a hanging, the rope always closes off the neck veins and stops blood circulation. And the head always ends up dangling loosely, either to the right or left. But that’s not the case with our friend here. His head is hanging down, as if he’s contemplating his navel.’

  She turned to Radjen, who thought he heard a note of triumph in her voice. ‘First suicide case I’ve come across with a broken neck.’ She seemed convinced she was right. ‘It’s the noose,’ she said, pointing to the knot under the man’s chin. ‘Normally, it’s on the other side.’

  Radjen’s interested look gave her the encouragement to continue. ‘Hanging means suffocating yourself. And suffocation is a slow and painful process. People who do themselves in like this wildly kick the air. That’s the natural reaction. Our man didn’t do that. The moment the stepladder disappeared from under him, his head rolled back so hard that his neck broke from the force of the noose.’

  ‘You typically see this with people put to death,’ Radjen said.

  ‘Correct. The executioner fastens the noose around the neck in such a way that when the condemned person falls through the hatch, the C2 cerv
ical vertebra snaps in half like a matchstick. A quick, painless death. I bet we’re looking at a hangman’s fracture here, Chief.’

  Radjen again estimated the distance between the beam and the floor. The length of the fall was important. It had to be far enough to cause the necessary force for a fatal cervical fracture. But neither could the fall be too great. Otherwise the victim would be decapitated by the noose. He looked up at the rope again, at the way it was tied. Nothing here was in line with just plain suicide.

  Length of fall, professional knot.

  He’d even donned his best PJs for the occasion.

  Completely inconsistent with the half-eaten sandwich beside the computer displaying Ghanaian seaside villas.

  Esther’s voice had the timbre of alcohol and cigarettes. ‘This hanging was planned, deliberate. Not a rush job. Why would you walk away from your computer midway through a sandwich while looking at dream locations to take your own life in the shed out back?’

  ‘Let’s wait for the pathologist’s findings,’ Radjen said inattentively. He heard how tired he was in his own voice. Saw it in the way Esther looked at him. She smiled. As if she understood that it wasn’t only exhaustion or lack of sleep.

  ‘He was important, right?’

  ‘As important as witnesses get.’

  The fish in their blue tanks darted erratically past underwater ruins, making Radjen wonder if they’d been fed since their owner’s death. He threw a last glance at the two forensics investigators, who were impatiently waiting to proceed, turned and walked back along the slate path, took a deep breath and silently looked around the garden. He was frequently surprised by how much lush nature was hidden behind the façades of Amsterdam.

  ‘I think you’re right.’ He said it softly. Softly and slowly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, speaking just as quietly as he had.

  ‘Because you’re right?’

  ‘No, that I didn’t take into account how important he was for you.’

  It was almost 2.30 in the morning. A rattling garden gate distracted Radjen. He walked over to it, took out a handkerchief, wrapped it around his right hand and pushed down on the handle. It led to a long, tiled alleyway that was deserted.

  There was moisture in the air. Their breath condensed. He turned towards Esther. ‘What do you smoke?’ he asked.

  ‘Gauloises Blondes.’

  ‘Not really my brand, but give me one anyway.’

  She pulled out a crumpled blue pack. He could taste the cigarette before he brought it to his lips, and he immediately got a whiff of lighter fluid from the Zippo as she flipped it open and the flame appeared.

  He inhaled deeply. He hadn’t smoked for six months.

  ‘We’re in violation, Chief,’ she said, grinning, as she also lit a cigarette.

  He tipped the ash into his open palm. ‘Where’s the wife?’

  She turned her head and blew the smoke in the direction of the bedroom window on the first floor.

  ‘There’s a policewoman with her.’

  They entered the hallway via the living room, and went upstairs. On the cramped landing, they wormed their way out of their white overalls.

  Esther cautiously opened the door to the bedroom. There she sat. The smiling bride in the photo, now newly widowed, in a state of shock on the edge of the unmade bed. A prisoner of her own despair. A police officer, an appropriate distance away, in the corner of the room.

  ‘Mrs Meijer,’ he thoughtfully said and waited until she looked up at him. ‘My name is Radjen Tomasoa. I’m the Chief Inspector of Police. I want to express my condolences.’

  Her hand was warm and limp. ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  He knelt down and looked directly at her. He saw how red and swollen her eyes were from all the grief and panic.

  ‘This must be a particularly difficult time for you, ma’am. But I still want to ask you some questions. In connection with the investigation.’

  Her eyes were now focused on his. Her voice was calm, despite the desperation her entire body exuded.

  ‘You don’t have to call me ma’am. My name is Efrya, Efrya Anane Konadu Meijer.’

  ‘Can you tell me, Efrya, in your own words, what happened?’

  ‘Mr Tomasoa …’

  ‘Radjen …’

  ‘I woke up. From the wind. The door downstairs. It was banging. Sometimes he leaves it open. When he goes to the shed, he often forgets … just forgets to shut it behind him … I went downstairs. To the living room … But … he wasn’t there. I knew … there was something …’

  She was silent for a moment. Staring straight ahead, as if imagining herself standing in the empty living room again, looking into the garden.

  ‘Efrya?’

  When she gazed back at him, her eyes were blurry with tears. ‘He went out to the shed just about every night. He could spend hours there. With all the things he’d built himself.’

  ‘The island of Atlantis,’ Radjen said softly.

  ‘He believed in it. “One day,” he said, “I’m going to take you there. To Atlantis.” ’ She wiped her eyes dry with a tissue.

  ‘You were in the room …’

  ‘I went outside. In the shed … I found him.’

  Efrya closed her eyes. As if returning to the very moment she found him hanging there. Radjen imagined the silent scream she’d let out.

  ‘We were going to do this together, Radjen. When the time was right. Together. We’d promised each other. We’d never leave the other behind.’

  She dabbed at her tears with the tissue clutched in her hand. He saw her face change: her taut features relaxed. It was as if she’d turned her eyes inward, trying to find strength in what she now told him in a trusting whisper. ‘He’d promised it would stop. It couldn’t go on like this.’

  She began to sob.

  Radjen nodded to Esther, who put her arm around the crying widow.

  His body was still half asleep. His muscles stiff. Kneeling was too tiring. He stretched his legs while bending over.

  ‘Efrya, we’d like you to come with us. We’re going to police headquarters, where you can tell us more.’

  Like an inconsolable, displaced child, Efrya let herself be guided from the room. Radjen stayed behind in the bedroom by himself.

  His eyes focused on the bed. Here a woman had slept beside her husband. He imagined them. Entwined. Each with their dreams, their expectations. The man and woman in the photo on the mantelpiece downstairs. The man who woke up. Crept downstairs in the dark. Sat down in front of his computer. Ate a sandwich, drank some milk. Looked at villas on a Ghanaian beach. And then died. In his own fantasy world, Atlantis.

  The man who could’ve helped him unravel a case. A case that had started with a young boy who was a hit-and-run victim on a dark woodland road.

  The man who’d been driving was now hanging in a noose.

  Radjen went downstairs and outside, where he saw the police van driving off with Efrya Meijer inside. He approached Esther van Noordt.

  ‘We’re going to solve this together, Van Noordt. You and me. See you at the station.’

  He turned and headed to his car without waiting for her reply. He had enough unanswered questions of his own.

  5

  Ulitsa Petrovka owed its name to the Vysokopetrovsky Monastery at the top of the hill, but other than that the street had nothing whatsoever to do with religious affairs and all the more with worldly matters. The street was jammed with Porches and Ferraris, which were double-parked in front of high-end department stores such as Petrovka Passazh and TsUM, restaurants and nightclubs. But Paul and Anya were largely oblivious to all this. Their eyes were on the robust nineteenth-century building with the triangular colonnade that housed Moscow’s police headquarters: 38 Ulitsa Petrovka.

  In the Potemkin Hospital mortuary where the air-con had been out of order for days and Olga of the Communications Department would’ve liked to usher them out the door as quickly as possible, they stumbled upon more clues that so
mething about the Seven Sisters hostage-taking wasn’t quite what it seemed.

  A woman who was most likely Estonian was supposed to have passed for a Chechen rebel. And this woman had allegedly shot a video of Farah on her mobile – footage that could prove she hadn’t given her recorded statement voluntarily.

  Together with the photos Paul had taken, this material could be instrumental in clearing Farah’s name. But, in order to get hold of it, they’d have to find a way into the depot, where the confiscated possessions of the hostage-takers had been taken.

  The depot at 38 Ulitsa Petrovka.

  The bust of Dzerzhinsky, the notorious founder of the Soviet Union’s first secret police force, took centre stage in front of the main entrance. The bust reminded Paul and Anya of something they’d known all along: without help, they’d never get past the front door.

  Via Petrovsky Bulvar, the street behind Ulitsa Petrovka, they entered a bar that did what bars are supposed to do: give you the feeling it serves the greatest drinks in the world. But the best thing about it was the absence of a shaven-headed, shiny-suited Neanderthal at the door. And so, among smart, Western-looking young Russians of means, expats and a handful of heavily made-up blondes eager to expand their male network, they could meet up with Viktor Antonovich in anonymous luxury. In his thirties, with a crewcut and an inscrutable gaze, he was waiting for them at one of the round tables. According to Anya, he was able to do what they couldn’t: smuggle a terrorist’s mobile out of police headquarters.

  Paul estimated Viktor at over a hundred kilos, much of which was muscle. The emblem of the Moscow division of the paramilitary force OMON, a red bison, graced his right bicep. His face looked as if a hundred-tonne T-42 tank had just rolled across it, and Paul saw the butt of what might be a Makarov pistol sticking out of a holster.

  Anya made a beeline for him and shook his hand. Viktor was one of those men who’d let people smash furniture on his back during his Army training, who’d lie down on a bed of glass shards and nails while a mate did a Cossack dance on his bare chest. When a man like that shakes a woman’s hand, it always looks vaguely ridiculous.