After the Silence: Inspector Rykel Book 1 (Amsterdam Quartet)

by Jake Woodhouse

  ‘Yeah, crazy right? You’ve run this through missing persons?’

  ‘Yeah, but no match was found.’

  Jaap nodded, thinking about how much he should tell her. He’d always prided himself on reading people, and he got a good vibe from her. He took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m working a case at the moment, and I think Haak is involved.’

  He pulled out the diagram of the phone numbers he’d drawn for Kees earlier.

  ‘See this number here?’

  Tanya nodded.

  ‘I think this belongs to Haak, and I know from the phone company records that this phone was up your way on Sunday evening.’

  She stared at the paper for a moment.

  ‘The thing is, the guy who had this number here’ – he pointed to Friedman’s – ‘was also killed Sunday night, and it looks like all four were working on something together.’

  ‘Kidnapping?’ said Tanya

  ‘It could well be.’ Jaap thought of the Black Tulips.

  They smuggled women.

  What was to stop them kidnapping children, either for export or for the domestic market?

  ‘I’ve been working a case on this gang, the Black Tulips, and they smuggle in women for the sex trade. I’m wondering … Have you looked at the finances of the Van Delfts?’

  ‘No, I haven’t had time. But I knew they were having trouble paying their rent.’

  ‘Maybe you should get hold of them. If they didn’t adopt legally … well, maybe they bought the child? Could be why they were having cash issues?’

  ‘Bought?’

  ‘Well, how else are you going to get one, short of kidnapping?’

  Tanya breathed out. ‘I … It could be. And maybe they didn’t pay all the money owed, and whoever sold them the girl wanted her back …’

  Jaap watched as the emotions polluted her face.

  ‘That’s just sick.’

  The waitress appeared.

  ‘You want anything?’ Jaap asked Tanya.

  She shook her head.

  ‘We’re good thanks,’ he said.

  The waitress glared at him for a moment before leaving.

  ‘Which leads us on to Haak,’ said Jaap once she’d gone. ‘If these lot’ – he pointed to the sheet – ‘are smuggling in children, and distributing them, then Haak could be the bag man.’

  The scream of an espresso machine, a cat hissing in pain, made Tanya jump. Jaap looked over to where the barista, a young dark Latino type with an overly manicured beard, was foaming up some milk.

  He looked at the paper again. He wondered if the first number, the one who only communicated with Friedman, was Rint Korssen. Korssen had put money in Friedman’s legitimate business, but that didn’t stop them running something illegal on the side. And Korssen had talked about Russia; the Black Tulips had Soviet origins.

  ‘The trouble is, I think everyone who owns one of these is a target.’

  He told her about the phone with the speaking clock’s number on it and watched as she took in the news.

  ‘So Haak could have her and someone is trying to kill him?’

  ‘It looks that way …’

  Tanya sat still for a moment, staring down at the paper.

  ‘And there’s one more thing.’ He pulled out his phone and showed her the number he’d got from Andreas’ computer. ‘Recognize this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a number registered to Van Delft, I checked the address, on Zeedijk.’

  ‘Shit …’ She breathed out. ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘Listen,’ said Jaap checking his watch, ‘there’s a guy who might know how to get to Haak, want to come? I can tell you about the number on the way. Your bike secure?’

  ‘Yeah, the guy at the car pool let me park it there.’

  As they walked to the station Jaap filled her in on the number’s origin.

  ‘So what did Andreas want with them?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s what we need to find out,’ he replied as he signed out a car. ‘And I think you should get the photo of the girl to Interpol, check against their lists.’

  He glanced up and saw De Waart at the far end of the corridor just as he picked up the keys.

  ‘I want a word with you,’ called out De Waart.

  Jaap gave the keys to Tanya.

  ‘Get the car ready, this won’t take long.’

  She departed with a quizzical look at him; she’d picked up De Waart’s tone of voice.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Jaap as he turned back to De Waart.

  De Waart stepped closer, trying to use his bulk to intimidate.

  ‘I’m warning you,’ he whispered. Jaap could smell something rotten on his breath, ‘Stay out of my way.’

  ‘I’m not in your way De Waart.’

  ‘No? Then why do I hear you’re looking for that journalist?’

  Jaap cursed Niels, he must have a deal going with De Waart as well.

  ‘No harm done, I haven’t even spoken to them yet.’

  ‘Yeah, well, make sure you don’t, I don’t want you fucking this up for me.’

  ‘Just relax, all right?’

  They glared at each other. People were looking at them; further down the corridor someone shouted, ‘Go on, kiss him’, causing an explosion of laughter. A striplight was flickering overhead, the sound like an electric wasp.

  ‘Did you think I’d find out about your and Andreas’ little secret, is that why you did it?’

  De Waart let it hang, like his pestilential breath, which just wouldn’t dissipate.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Jaap, trying to keep his voice level.

  ‘You wiped his laptop, to hide whatever fucked-up shit you were both into.’

  ‘You’ve totally lost it.’

  For a moment Jaap thought they were going to end up in a brawl.

  He felt his muscles tense in readiness, his palms itched to slam into De Waart’s chest, push him back against the wall. They stood for a moment like two wild beasts sizing each other up before lowering their heads and cracking horns. Jaap remembered the morning hexagram’s message to withdraw.

  Then De Waart stepped back.

  ‘If I find you messing around in this,’ he called out as he moved away, his limp causing his left foot to drag over the scuffed floor tiles, ‘I’ll have you fucking crucified.’

  30

  Tuesday, 3 January

  15.17

  As Kees pressed the button, a peal of soft bells floating from within, he could sense his nose beginning to drip – it was getting colder, the air now felt like something out of an Alaskan winter – and he was just wiping it away when the door opened to reveal a tall woman, just as he’d imagined one of Korssen’s lady friends would look like.

  She extended her hand and he tried to surreptitiously wipe his own clean on his leg before clasping her warm, fragile fingers, her nails a flurry of red lanterns.

  And then he was over the threshold and the door closed behind him, the hallway warm, dark, and scented with something rich and exotic, perfume drifting in plush waves past his nose. He followed her up the stairs, and if he couldn’t stop himself from admiring her figure, the slender legs merely hinted at under the scarlet dress which clung to her hips and plunged right down in a huge curved ‘V’ exposing the creamy skin of her back, then so what, he was human.

  Flesh and blood.

  They reached the first floor, where she led him into a room as lavish as her scent, pointing to a deeply upholstered leather chair. He sat, watched by the woman, Heleen de Kok, who had remained standing but had leant on the edge of a table, her legs placed in such a way that a slit – which he hadn’t noticed before, in the left side of her dress – opened and revealed, like curtains parting at the theatre, the star of the show, her thigh.

  He looked around, partly in an attempt to tear his eyes off various parts of her, and took in the picture on the wall, a massive oil painting of a woman being fucked by a swan.

 
; There was a strong smell of pot.

  ‘So, you’re a friend of Rint’s?’ she asked, her voice sultry.

  ‘No, but I need to ask a few questions.’

  She raised an eyebrow, and it was like she was on stage, an actress, fully aware of how to communicate with the smallest physical gesture.

  ‘Oh, but you’re not here to arrest me, are you?’

  The phrase, accompanied by a tilting of the head and holding out her two arms, delicate wrists together, forcing her cleavage – framed by a cascade of blonde curls – into his view, was meant to sound coy, but she couldn’t hide a sliver of uncertainty.

  ‘I just need some information, so there’s no need to carry on with the act.’

  She looked at him for a moment, a cat watching a mouse, then crossed to the chair opposite and sat down, still with elegance and the knowledge of how to make a man look at her, but with less obvious show.

  ‘I’m sorry, when you mentioned that Rint had given you my number I misunderstood.’

  ‘That’s okay, I need to check something with you, and I wanted to do it face to face.’

  And what a face – he was already glad that he’d made the effort. Kees watched as she settled back, crossing one leg over the over, the slit in the dress opening, and her hand closing it back up.

  ‘So what is it I can do for you, officer?’

  ‘Inspector. You can tell me where you were the night before last.’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy, I was with Rint, at the Hotel De L’Europe.’

  ‘Until what time?’

  ‘Well, we left around half twelve, and then we came back here.’

  ‘And what time did he leave?’

  ‘It wasn’t that long after to be honest, he’d drunk quite a lot and … well, you know how it is, how alcohol can have a dampening effect.’

  He smiled in spite of himself; the very fact that Korssen had to use a prostitute – a very high-class one, but a prostitute nonetheless – was funny, but that he then wasn’t even able to perform was too good.

  Do you get a discount for that?

  She smiled as well, two kids sharing a secret behind an adult’s back, and then they were both laughing, and it felt good, made him feel free, uplifted. He hadn’t laughed for what felt like months, and so what if it was partly the residue of pot in the air and he was sitting here with a prostitute when he should have been out chasing after murderers?

  So what?

  ‘So,’ he started after he’d managed to stop laughing, ‘what time did he really leave?’

  ‘It was no later than half one, that’s when I went to bed.’

  Korssen had said he’d left the event at one, then come here.

  He’d been lying.

  Kees looked at her, mirth making her even more attractive. He’d never paid for sex, had always enjoyed the conquest, the feeling of power it gave him when the woman gave in.

  As they inevitably did.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She looked him in the eye and started to giggle again, her hand covering her mouth like an oriental courtesan.

  ‘Totally,’ she said when she managed to stop. ‘I charge in quarter of an hour blocks.’

  Kees looked at her.

  He wondered how much cash he had left in his wallet.

  31

  Tuesday, 3 January

  15.51

  ‘… and you think you can just barge in here? Yeah? Big fucking cop? Fuck you.’

  Jaap tweaked the poet’s arm slightly higher up his back towards his shoulder, grinding his face further down into the carpet – so stained it was hard to tell the original colour. It appeared to be moulting in patches, like a diseased dog.

  He and Tanya had found Akster in a standard dingy council flat, social housing at its worst. It smelt of vomit, gas, and some floral scent which Jaap couldn’t quite place.

  He didn’t like using strong-arm tactics, but when people drew knives on him just as he was asking questions he had to react, and was thankful that Akster, judging by the warm alcoholic stench rising off his breath, was drunk.

  ‘I didn’t barge in, you opened the door and let us in, remember? Or is your brain so addled by whatever it is you’re on you can’t even remember that?’

  The response was a spit, which backfired as Akster’s mouth was too close to the dirty fibres.

  ‘So I’ll ask again, where can I find Ludo Haak?’

  ‘Fuck Ludo.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about your love life, I just want to know where I can find him.’

  ‘FUCK YOU!’ – accompanied by a burst of wrestling and squirming, causing Jaap to jam the arm even higher.

  ‘Listen.’ Jaap bent down and spoke in his ear. ‘Either you tell me where Ludo is right now or I take you in for assault. You know what happens to people who assault police officers, don’t you?’

  Less squirming, just heavy breathing.

  ‘So I’m going to ask again. Where’ – he started to push the arm even further – ‘is Ludo Haak?’

  Voice tense, strained. ‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen him for, I don’t know, months.’

  ‘Cut the shit, you used to work with him. I know that, you were even arrested together for the same robbery.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that was then. Things change.’

  ‘Okay, what changed?’

  ‘He wanted me to help him out with something, he’d some plan to make a lot of money.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I said no, sounded too dangerous to me.’

  ‘Dangerous how?’

  ‘Weird shit, you know? Like making porn movies, and he said something about kidnapping someone –’

  ‘Kidnap who?’ Tanya asked. ‘Was it a child?’

  ‘I don’t know, yeah, it might have been, but when I said I wasn’t in he didn’t tell me any more, and he said that if I ever told anyone he’d kill me.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A while back, I can’t remember, a few weeks maybe.’

  ‘Where can I find him?’

  ‘Look, I don’t want trouble and –’

  Jaap yanked his arm even higher up his back, he could feel it was close, something would give if he went any further.

  ‘Where can I find him?’

  ‘Let go!’

  ‘Tell me what I need to know, then I’ll let go.’

  ‘Okay.’ His voice tight from the pain. ‘But don’t tell him you’ve spoken to me, he’s got powerful friends these days.’

  Jaap released it a bit. All the air went out of Akster’s chest, Jaap could feel it deflate. His phone had started buzzing in his pocket, he ignored it.

  ‘Trust me on this, I’ve got far more important things to discuss with him than you. Who are these friends?’

  ‘I think he hangs around with some people, foreigners, up by the ports, he’s got some work there.’

  ‘More specific?’

  ‘I don’t really know much about them, I think they’re Latvian or Albanian, or Russian. Something foreign anyway, I’ve heard they call themselves the dark tulips.’

  ‘Black Tulips.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever. Mean fuckers, they’d take you out just for fun, and they do weird shit to the people they kill as well.’

  ‘Where will I find him?

  ‘I don’t know, I really don’t. And can you get the fuck off me now?’

  Jaap could see that was as much as Akster knew.

  ‘Only if you promise not to do anything stupid.’

  Akster nodded, his cheek rubbing the carpet, and Jaap released his arm, standing up and back at the same time.

  ‘This your place?’

  ‘Kind of.’ Sullen, sitting up, twisting his shoulder and arm in a circular movement.

  ‘I’d get someone to come check the gas, and don’t smoke till you do.’

  Once outside Jaap checked his phone, he’d missed a call from Kees.

  ‘Korssen’s prostitute friend said that he’d left no later than half one. So he was ly
ing,’ said Kees when Jaap asked him why he’d called. They were driving past Dam Square, still full of tourists despite the freezing cold.

  ‘Which puts him right in the time frame for Friedman’s death.’ Jaap switched the phone to his other ear, one hand on the wheel. ‘Good work. We’re going to have to have another chat with Rint Korssen.’

  ‘And Zwartberg, Friedman’s dining partner. His address is up at Brouwersgracht, number seventy-three.’

  ‘I’m close to there now, I’ll cover that. You track down Korssen, find out where he is, and Kees?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Call me when you’ve got him, I want to be there when he’s arrested.’

  I want to see his reaction, he thought as he hung up, flicked on the sirens and lurched the car forward.

  ‘Looks like you joined us just at the right time.’ He glanced across at Tanya as she re-did her ponytail, snapping the band into place.

  She’s not bad looking, he found himself thinking.

  ‘I hope so.’

  They were there in four minutes. Jaap extinguished the siren and parked right outside. The house was older than Friedman’s; Brouwersgracht was in the Jordaan, a full century older than the central canal district, but just as expensive. Until recently the Jordaan had been a working class district, but had turned trendy during the boom years. Maybe now the Netherlands were in a triple-dip recession it was destined to return to its roots.

  They got out and ran to the door. Nobody answered the bell.

  He pushed it, and it swung open.

  Both he and Tanya drew their weapons, before stepping quietly inside. The hallway was dark, the only room on the ground floor empty.

  They found him on the first floor. Naked, lying on the floor, a purple stole with two white and gold crosses at each end round his neck.

  His mouth was slightly open. Jaap holstered his gun, pulled out some latex gloves, and wiggled the phone gently out of the body’s mouth. It was identical to Friedman’s. He didn’t need to open it up and look at the number on the screen, but he did anyway.

  Why is the killer leaving these?

  ‘What is it?’ asked Tanya from behind him.

  ‘This,’ said Jaap dropping the phone back into Zwartberg’s mouth, where it clattered against his teeth, ‘is us being too late.’