She spoke with a calm voice. ‘I see the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.’
‘Good, let it come closer, slowly. You can do it; you’re in control of the time.’
‘It’s getting nearer.’
‘Good, Angela, when you can clearly make out the vehicle, take your foot off the accelerator.’
‘It’s close now.’
‘Both of you are practically standing still. You have a camera in your hand. Just take a photo. Use the flash, so you can see everything.’
Angela Faber did exactly what was asked of her. She meticulously described what she saw. Then she drove home, got out of the car and went back up the stairs.
‘I’m going to count from one to five,’ the therapist said next, ‘and when I get to five, you’ll be fully awake again, alert, and you’ll feel refreshed.’
By then Radjen and Esther had already removed their headphones.
Angela Faber had given a detailed description of the man who’d been frozen like a wax figure behind the wheel: Thomas Meijer.
But this was primarily about the person she’d seen in the back seat.
His mouth was open wide, as if letting out a primal scream, his eyes bulged, and he was waving his arms in a panic, just as Radjen had seen him do in front of the cameras during the interview at his villa, before he crash-landed on the carpet.
4
The slums of Cengkareng in West Jakarta, Serpong to the south-west of the city and Ciawi to the south were the first places where it began that evening. As if tacitly agreed, they emerged from the alleyways and streets of their kampongs to gather on street corners and junctions. Some wore white shirts; others had tied a simple strip of white cotton around their heads. There were both men and women, and, although they ranged widely in age, they all had the same look of grim determination in their eyes. Together they marched downtown.
By the time they’d converged on the first Army blockade in the city centre from all directions, they were in their thousands. They walked closely together, holding hands, afraid of what might happen, but they kept going until they were right in front of the barricades. These were manned by uniformed young men of barely eighteen or nineteen, who’d been ordered to aim their weapons at the protesters.
They’d stood facing each other in silence for some time. Until somewhere, at one of the barricades, a soldier lowered his gun. Others followed his example. And in the ensuing commotion, barbed-wire barriers were pushed aside. Not a single shot was fired.
News of the advancing demonstrators spread like wildfire. The wide boulevards of Jakarta Pusat filled with tens of thousands of sympathizers. Soldiers joined the protesters. And then it became clear that only a minority of the armed forces actually sided with Gundono.
Eventually they all congregated on Merdeka Square, an estimated three hundred thousand by now. A man climbed on to the roof of a black SUV and brought a megaphone to his mouth. Even before he had a chance to say something, his name was being chanted.
‘Hatta! Hatta!’
Meanwhile, Army units that had remained loyal to the President had regained control of the Parliament building and television studios. Special commandos had stormed Gundono’s compound. After a brief exchange of gunfire, they’d arrested him, along with the members of the military who’d backed him. Then the commandos searched every floor of the compound. Reliable sources had informed them that somewhere in the building a foreign journalist was being held hostage.
They’d managed to locate her in the subterranean vaults, among dusty temple statues, soaking wet and leaning on her left leg, her upper body tilted back a bit, ready to deliver a death-blow to her Russian nemesis.
The order given by the SWAT team commander hadn’t stopped her from doing it.
Nor had the laser-guided red dots on her head and heart.
It’d been the voice inside her head.
Satria’s voice.
A true Pesilat is someone with both a noble mind and a noble character.
She’d stopped in mid-air without extending her right leg. Her foot hadn’t hit Lavrov between the eyes.
The commander had stood right in front of her. He flipped up the bulletproof visor of his helmet and scrutinized her.
‘Sudah selesai.’ ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘It’s over.’
She knew that it wasn’t true.
It would never be over.
Her voice trembled as she spoke.
‘Nama saya adalah Farah Hafez.’ ‘My name is Farah Hafez. I’m a Dutch national, I’m a journalist.’
She uttered these words with the last bit of energy she could muster.
Then she slumped forward against his chest.
A stinging wind had got up – stinging because sand was mixed in with it, fine sand that found its way into her eyes, mouth and nostrils and shrouded everything in a gritty mist. Everywhere she looked was murky and grey.
A procession of gleaming Bentleys appeared out of the mist.
Sitting in the first car was her father. He was staring straight ahead, with a glassy look in his eyes, as if he didn’t want to see her. Her mother, in the second one, did meet Farah’s gaze, but with helpless despondency etched on her face.
‘Why aren’t you in the same car as Papa?’ she cried out in a halting, little girl’s voice.
Her mother may well have given her an answer, but she couldn’t hear it. The next vehicle glided past without a sound. Behind the window, she recognized dear Uncle Parwaiz, looking much better than he had when he died in her arms. She waved and blew him kisses. He smiled faintly at her before vanishing in the sandy haze.
The final Bentley glided by right in front of her. In the back seat was Aninda, in a panic, yelling and banging her fists against the window. Farah wanted to open the door, but just then the car accelerated. She ran after it, screaming, but couldn’t keep up. Then it disappeared from sight.
‘Calm down now.’
She opened her eyes and saw the face of an unfamiliar blonde woman sitting by her bedside in a large room with high, whitewashed walls. Rain beat against the windows.
The woman gave her a glass of water and a tablet.
‘You’re safe. Here, drink up.’
‘What is it?’
‘A tranquillizer.’
Farah took only the water and gulped it back. She looked around the room and saw the official portrait of the Dutch royal couple.
‘Where am I?’
‘In our guest residence,’ the woman said. She took back the glass. ‘I’m Sabine. I work for the Dutch Embassy’s Economics Section. We’ve had contact with your Editor-in-Chief in the Netherlands.’
‘Edward …’
‘Mr Vallent informed us about the investigation and your status. And Mr Hatta was prepared to mediate between us and the Indonesian authorities. Everything has been taken care of now. We consulted our staff doctor, who has given you a clean bill of health and declared you fit to travel. A special flight has been arranged for you, and this is scheduled to leave in the afternoon. Are you hungry?’
Farah shook her head and wiped away her tears.
Half an hour later she was sitting on the embassy’s covered veranda, which overlooked a large walled garden full of exotic flowers and palm trees. It was raining harder now. She’d been given new clothes – exactly the right size, though not quite her style. In front of her stood an untouched plate of sandwiches, a cup of coffee and a glass of fruit juice. Next to it lay a copy of the Jakarta Post. Its front page had a picture of Baladin Hatta addressing the Indonesian Parliament, which had met for an extraordinary session.
A substantial majority of MPs had decided to postpone the vote on the Sharada Project until a special Parliamentary Commission led by Hatta had reviewed its financing. Minister Gundono had been detained on suspicion of orchestrating a coup. Valentin Lavrov was being treated in a private hospital for what an AtlasNet spokesperson had described as ‘cardiac arrhythmia’.
Edward had tried to phone her several times. Sh
e hadn’t answered. At this point, she had nothing to say to anyone, not even to him. The only person she wanted to talk to was the woman who could no longer respond.
Aninda’s death hadn’t been a twist of fate, she realized, but the outcome of a choice she’d made that morning when the children came into the museum, when Aninda had saved her for the second time in twenty-four hours. By returning to the Waringin Shelter with her again, she’d not only implicated Aninda in her mission, but also marked her out as a potential target. It had been an impulsive choice, the umpteenth she’d made. And this time it had actually claimed a life.
She was suddenly startled by the young embassy woman, who’d sidled up to her and put a plastic folder on the table.
‘Your ticket and your new passport,’ she said. ‘The authorities wanted to keep the old one. It was fake.’
She looked at the woman in surprise. ‘The passport … how did you get it?’
‘The woman who was also held hostage in the compound –’
‘Aninda.’ This was the first time since the incident that she said her name out loud.
‘She was the one who led us to the Waringin Shelter.’
‘She was my friend,’ Farah said. ‘Could you take me to her? I’d like to say goodbye.’
‘We don’t think that’s a good idea,’ the woman said guardedly. ‘For your own safety, you understand?’
‘My own safety,’ echoed Farah, who’d risen to her feet and clasped the woman’s arm, ‘means nothing to me. Please take me to her.’
The woman hid her confusion behind a neutral expression. Without taking her eyes off Farah, she freed herself from her grip. ‘We don’t want anything to happen to you while you’re still in Indonesia … Your friend will be brought here.’
‘I beg your pardon. I don’t know what you mean.’
‘What I mean is –’
But Farah no longer heard a word the woman was saying. She was looking over the embassy worker’s shoulder, and what she saw made her gasp.
The rain wasn’t letting up, and in the hallway adjacent to the veranda a door had opened and closed. Three people had entered. What must have been another embassy employee escorted a young woman holding a child by the hand on to the veranda. When an unexpected gust of wind blew a large white curtain to and fro, the man took hold of it to clear the way for the woman and the little boy.
Standing there, Aninda and Rino looked at Farah as if they’d arrived on another planet and she was their sole landmark.
All Farah could do was to wrap her arms around Aninda and pull her close to her chest. They’d stood there for a long time, until Aninda told her what had really happened the night of the coup. She too had been taken blindfolded to the compound. On the commander’s orders, she’d been placed against an outside wall. At that point she’d been convinced they were going to shoot her. The man had paced around nervously with his phone in his hand. The soldiers had been even more nervous. The five young men had been told to release the safety catches on their weapons and to form a firing line. But when the order to shoot had come, they’d emptied their rifles into the air. Seconds later, the commandos had stormed into the courtyard.
The embassy woman interrupted Aninda. The car taking Farah to the airport was waiting outside. It was time to go.
‘From now on, I’ll carry you with me wherever I go,’ Farah had said to Aninda, pointing to her heart.
On the plane, she unfolded the drawing Rino had given her. The piece of paper was full of brightly coloured stars with children’s faces.
5
Ewald Lombard had been cremated in the morning with only family and close friends present and the last guests had now left the Blaricum villa. In her black dress, Melanie Lombard was sitting beside the fountain in the middle of her garden. Radjen watched her from a distance. She was so lost in thought she didn’t seem to notice him. Yet he was sure that she was aware of his presence. Only once, when he’d approached her and was standing very close by, did she look at him.
‘My condolences on the loss of your husband,’ he said. He was getting rather adept at these kinds of platitudes.
She responded with a melancholy smile. ‘It’s strange,’ she said, ‘what the sudden absence of someone with whom you’ve spent the most important part of your life does to you.’
She gestured to the bench opposite her. Radjen sat down.
‘When I felt you watching me, for a split second I thought it was him. My husband often did that – watch me from a distance. It made me uncomfortable. But as you stood there, I realized for the first time that I’m even going to miss that.’
She stared at him. Somewhere behind those dark-brown eyes he suspected there was a vulnerable woman. But she still had that protective layer around her, a second skin, like impenetrable armour.
‘I take it you haven’t come here to talk about the loss of my husband.’
‘No,’ Radjen said, ‘that’s correct.’
‘I see it in your face.’
‘Really?’
‘A different man is sitting across from me. The last time you were a bundle of nerves. Probing, probing. But not now. You have … some kind of clarity. You’re finally completely grounded.’
She looked around.
‘And where’s your sidekick? I don’t see her, but I imagine she’s somewhere close by.’
‘She’s waiting in the car.’
‘Thoughtful of you.’
He neglected to mention that Esther was in the car wearing an earpiece, coupled with the wireless mini-recorder given to him by Laurens, which was in the inside pocket of the sports jacket he was wearing. The end justified the means. He wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Melanie, and Esther’s presence would have made that conversation virtually impossible.
Actually, he didn’t like this kind of deception. He was old school, accustomed to following protocol: arrest, transport to the bureau, lock up, a phone call to the lawyer, recite the required warning (‘You have the right to remain silent’), followed by an interrogation that usually lasts hours. This was how things generally went. But today he’d fashioned his own reality. A ninja reality. Still, with every second that passed, he began to feel more and more uncomfortable. He rubbed his forehead. The bump had already shrunk.
‘Does it hurt a lot?’ she asked.
‘The painkillers seem to work,’ he said. ‘Kind of you to ask.’
He couldn’t keep himself from looking at her. She was like a fire you kept staring at, yet slowly but surely you grew sadder and sadder.
‘You know how I got this,’ Radjen said.
‘Frankly, I’m not very good at guessing,’ she replied.
‘You don’t have to guess,’ Radjen said. ‘You already know.’
A bit of everything that was once contained in Pandora’s box was in the look she now gave him.
‘You were on the other side of the door,’ Radjen said.
She ran her hand through her hair and looked up at a group of migratory birds, after which she looked back at Radjen. This time a bit agitated.
‘You’re quite the philosopher, Inspector Tomasoa. At any rate, I trust you mean “door” figuratively.’
She leaned towards him, with that same melancholy smile, and placed her hand on his knee.
‘My dear inspector with your impenetrable gaze, I have tried to make it clear to you that we’re not on opposite sides of that door. Look at us now, both with our own lives, our own sorrows. Somehow we’re connected, you and I.’
He felt the warmth of her hand through the fabric of his trousers, and the strange thing was that for a fleeting second he was inclined to believe her. And for that second he was even able to convince himself he’d come here in a personal capacity. To express his condolences, to apologize for having given her such a hard time the last few days. Then he’d bid Melanie Lombard goodbye, leave her behind in the garden, get into the car and make it very clear to Esther that this was to stay between them, and finally they’d drive away with th
e intention of never returning to this place again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But I meant it quite literally. You and I were both at the same place at the same time. On either side of a door that you slammed in my face.’
She pulled her hand from his knee and sat straight-backed.
He looked at her the way he’d looked at so many others at moments like this. Through the eyes of a detective. And he used the detective jargon that was appropriate for these kinds of circumstances. Business-like, without any further ado.
‘Melanie Lombard van Velzen, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murdering Thomas Meijer.’
Her eyes had a cold-hearted glare, but her answer sounded gentle, even vulnerable.
‘Arrest me based on what evidence, my dear? A door slammed in your face?’
‘A footprint,’ Radjen replied. ‘One that was a major headache for our forensics people. Not only because it was very difficult to make a clear cast of the print, but because they then had to get access to the client lists of orthopaedic shoemakers in order to find a match.’
He paused to see her reaction to what he’d just said and then continued. ‘Since your sailing accident you’ve had prescription shoes made by the same firm.’
Her smile remained, despite her dark gaze.
‘And that’s not the only evidence,’ Radjen said. ‘As you know, we searched your home for the prepaid phones you promised to give us. We came across two in the villa. But it didn’t look like they matched each other. You used one for contacting your husband, as you stated earlier. But the other, which I found in your nightstand, was interesting too. A corresponding device was discovered by our forensics team amid all the stuff in Thomas Meijer’s shed. I don’t know how it got there, but it was lying at the bottom of one of the aquarium tanks. Of course it was important for you to get your hands on that device, because it was the only evidence that could lead us to you. It was your misfortune that I was on the other side of the door that evening.’
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