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

by Jake Woodhouse

  Then the emptiness started to coagulate, to grow, urgent contractions racked his stomach, and he just made it to the bathroom, vomiting pure bile, electric yellow against the white porcelain, muscles straining hard in fits, until there was nothing left.

  Washing his mouth out under the tap, then tipping his head back and gargling, trying to rinse the burning out of his throat, all he could think about was what he’d seen, the few seconds playing in a continual loop, running across his brain like sandpaper.

  He’d never dealt with a case like this, but he knew a few Inspectors who had – Andreas was one of them – and to a man they’d all come out the other side thinner, harrowed, a look that never quite went away.

  ‘How many are there?’ Tanya asked, reaching out for a photo.

  ‘Who knows, hundreds.’

  He’d elected to go with the photos and leave the videos on the laptop for someone else; he’d thought maybe they’d be less disturbing – they were more stylized than the videos, more obviously posed, artistic in some evil way – but now he wasn’t sure.

  ‘We need to get these people.’ Tanya’s voice sounded, thin, shaken.

  ‘Pretty much all of them are wearing masks, they’re going to be impossible to identify. The ones that aren’t I’ve put in a pile over there.’

  Tanya picked them up and flicked through. ‘We can run them against known offenders in the database, I guess.’

  ‘And if that doesn’t get us anywhere then I’m going to give them to the press.’

  ‘Hang on … shit … you’re not going to believe this.’

  She handed Jaap a photo where an already familiar scene was being played out.

  ‘Look, off in the corner.’

  He peered closer, having to tilt the photo to get some light on it. There was a mirror on the set wall, and reflected in it, like a fleeting glimpse of the devil himself, was half a face.

  Half of Ludo Haak’s face.

  A voice cried out from the back of the room. Jaap looked over; one of the forensics was kneeling down by a large box, an antique trunk which must have been a prop for one of the shoots.

  ‘We’ve got a body here!’

  When Jaap made it to the trunk he looked down, a body curled up inside.

  It looked like Kees.

  45

  Wednesday, 4 January

  12.37

  ‘You have got to be clear on one thing, if I give you an order you have to follow it, you hear me?’

  Jaap was having trouble keeping his voice calm. They were sitting round a table, the cream Formica surface pitted by overuse, piles of photos turning it into a cityscape.

  A sip from the bottle of water he’d picked up on the way in drove a spike into his forehead.

  ‘Going in there on your own was stupid, you’re lucky whoever knocked you out didn’t put a bullet in the back of your head.’

  Kees’ eyes jumped around the incident room, before connecting.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sorry, it’s just I wanted to get on, you know? And there didn’t seem to be anyone inside. The door was locked.’

  Jaap watched him squirm. He didn’t enjoy it, but right now Kees needed to be reined in, for both their sakes.

  ‘So you have no idea who it was, you didn’t see them, they didn’t talk?’

  Kees shook his head. ‘Nothing, I was trying to find the light switch, I kind of sensed something was behind me then I blacked out.’ He rubbed the back of his head gently, and winced. ‘I know I fucked up, looks like I got punished for it as well. But I hear what you’re saying, I’ll stick to orders from now on in.’

  The room was stuffy, badly lit, and the air stank of the station toilet next door. Disturbing splashes filtered through the paper-thin partition wall.

  The Indonesian takeaway’s revenge.

  The door opened and Tanya stepped in, her face pale, muscles hard. She’d been watching the videos.

  At the scene one of the tech guys had gone through the laptop and discovered something which had made Jaap’s veins freeze up. It looked like the videos were accessed over the so-called darknet, where most of the web’s illegal activities took place. But even worse, the tech reckoned some of the abuse was streamed live, and, judging by some instant message logs he’d found on the laptop, was actually being directed by paying customers.

  Tanya tossed a still screenshot on the table.

  Jaap picked it up. He could see a girl with red hair.

  ‘I think that’s her,’ she said, her voice hoarse, ‘it was shot just under a year ago.’ And I found one with Haak in, made just two weeks back.’ She started pacing back and forth along one side of the room. ‘We’ve got to get him.’

  Jaap watched the blaze in her eyes. He rubbed his face with his hands, trying to work this out.

  He’d been wrong about this right from the start. These were revenge killings, the killer had left the phones as he’d wanted to expose the link between them, show what they had been up to. But who was it? A victim, a member of a victim’s family? The thing was, seeing what he’d seen today, he could hardly blame them.

  ‘This isn’t that gang killing them off like we thought,’ said Tanya echoing Jaap’s thoughts. He could feel Kees’ ears pricking up. ‘It’s a victim.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s got to be one of their victims. And whoever it is we’re looking for might well be in here.’ Jaap indicated the pile of photos. ‘By the looks of things these go back years, so they could be an adult now.’

  ‘Or it could be a parent or relative who found out?’ said Kees.

  ‘The thing is, I think these kids here are smuggled in, and then sold on, so they’re on their own here. And you let someone who knows about this get away,’ she said, turning to Kees.

  ‘Jeez, and here I was thinking you’d just be happy I wasn’t dead,’ retorted Kees, smirking.

  ‘You think this is a joke?’ She stepped towards Kees.

  ‘Let’s just cool it,’ said Jaap, ‘we’ve just seen some shocking –’

  Tanya banged her fist down on the table.

  They looked at her. Jaap could see she was struggling to contain something.

  Then she stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

  ‘She takes things too personally. Always did. We saw each other for a bit, took it bad when I ended it,’ said Kees.

  Not what Tanya told me, thought Jaap. He wondered about going after her, before deciding to let her cool down by herself.

  ‘I don’t want to know about that. What I do want to know about is what we can do about this? We need to start … Kees, you with me?’

  Kees had leant back, massaging his temples.

  ‘Yeah, just my head, I’ll be fine.’

  Earlier Jaap had got a medic to give Kees a once over, even though Kees protested he was okay. Jaap had heard the medic tell Kees that if he felt dizzy, or had any other strange symptoms, in the next forty-eight hours he should get to a doctor.

  It was then Jaap realized he’d been hoping Kees would need to go for some tests, get him off the scene. The swelling on the back of his head looked painful, and Jaap had seen him swallowing more painkillers than the instructions normally advised.

  Kees stood up and walked round the table. Jaap looked down at the photos in front of him.

  Friedman, according to his lawyer, had been desperate for a child of his own, and was also the patron of the charity for abused children.

  How could that be? Unless it was some kind of weird atonement for what he knew was going on, a self-administered absolution.

  ‘Friedman’s wife, she said she’d found some porn on his computer, right before she left him,’ said Kees.

  ‘Yeah? And just when were you going to tell me this?’ Jaap found himself shouting. ‘This isn’t some fucking game, you know, this is real.’

  ‘I … it just didn’t seem important at the time.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ said Jaap, shaking his head. He thought back; he didn’t remember seeing a computer at Friedman’s house, but the
n he’d been called away to identify Andreas.

  ‘You checked his computer?’

  ‘I don’t think there was one at his house.’

  Kees looked uncomfortable now. Less cocky.

  ‘Get someone to go to Friedman’s, maybe there’s a laptop somewhere that was missed. And also find out where exactly he was a teacher before he inherited the business, see if there were any reports of abuse.’

  Whilst Kees made the calls, Jaap wondered what else Kees hadn’t told him about.

  Or what else he might have missed.

  ‘Any news from the patrol car?’ he asked when Kees had hung up.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Are you with me here? The address in Haarlem, Paulus Fortuyn?

  ‘Yeah, right, they’re there, outside the house. Waiting for orders.’

  ‘Got a contact?’

  ‘Marc Steenbergen, here’s his number.’

  Jaap knew him, they’d been at the academy together, friends who’d lost touch as they went their different ways. He’d have thought Marc would have made Inspector by now. Something had clearly gone wrong.

  ‘Marc, it’s Jaap.’ A slight pause forced him to add, ‘Rykel.’

  ‘Hey, Jaap, how are you? Must be, what, eight, nine years?’ He didn’t sound that pleased to hear from him.

  ‘More like twelve, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nah, I was talking about how long I’ve been sitting around in this car with no idea what I’m doing here. Which I’m now assuming has something to do with you.’

  ‘We’ve got a bit of a situation here, sorry you weren’t kept up to speed but things were moving fast.’

  ‘My boss was livid, called me up and said some rude cocksucker from Amsterdam called him up and barked orders at him.’

  ‘I didn’t make the call.’ Jaap eyed Kees.

  ‘Well, whatever. I’m here now, so what’s up?’

  ‘What’s there? A residential address?’

  ‘It’s hardly a fucking cathedral.’

  ‘Any signs of life?’

  ‘Morgue-like.’

  ‘You got someone there?’

  ‘Me and my buddy Hendrick. Say “Hi”, Hendrick.’

  ‘Okay, sit tight, anyone tries to leave, hold them. I’m going to get over there as soon as I can. Anything changes, call me.’

  ‘Message received. And Jaap?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Bring some food, I’d like a bagel with that aged cheese they do, and Hendrick here wants a box of doughnuts. And coffee, two coffees.’

  Jaap hung up.

  ‘Friend of yours?’

  ‘Not any more it seems.’

  Kees rolled his shoulders and moved his neck from side to side, Jaap could hear gristle.

  ‘I need a coffee, you want one?’ Kees asked. ‘Or that green stuff you drink?’

  What’s this, Jaap thought, a peace offering?

  He shook his head as Kees got up and left. His hand reached for the water bottle, to see if it had warmed up. It hadn’t.

  He began on the second-oldest lot. The photos, some of them taken with a Polaroid, had colours fading into a sepia wash.

  They were different, apart from their age, not staged, mainly taking place in what looked like a bare room. But the abuse was the same, the same positions, the same body parts, the same thing over and over again. The only thing which changed was the faces.

  And then, about thirty in, his hand, which had been mechanically taking them from one pile and moving them to another, stopped. There was something that he recognized. He brought it closer.

  There was a child – a teenager really – wearing jeans but no top. He was sitting on a bed, face two-thirds to the camera.

  That can’t be …

  There was a man too, but he still had his clothes on; this was the first in a sequence which unfolded over several photos. He reached the end, and the boy’s face was, in the final shot, fully visible.

  He recognized that face.

  It was Andreas.

  46

  Wednesday, 4 January

  13.08

  On his way to the canteen Kees slipped into the toilets, found a cubicle, locked it and slumped down after lowering the seat lid. His head was still throbbing; the painkillers hadn’t killed much of the pain, and he was wondering if coke would help. Not that he had any.

  So much for trying to get Jaap to trust me, he thought as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a slim purse, worn red leather, and flipped it open.

  He’d found it under his hip when he’d come round in the trunk, Jaap’s grip on his arm shaking him back to consciousness, and even though he was only loosely aware of what was going on he’d slipped it into his pocket as Jaap had helped him out. Too bad Tanya’d been there to see it all.

  He’d been sure she was enjoying it.

  Nanoseconds before he knew he was going down he’d placed the smell – mothballs, camphor. The girl who looked like Marinette and had run from Friedman’s house on the first day. It had been her who’d knocked him out, and she must have dropped the wallet when she shoved him into the box.

  There was nothing that would identify her directly, no ID. He flicked through the contents, 150 euros in ten-euro notes – coke money now – a card for a taxi firm, a receipt for a journey taken yesterday, and folded up behind that a dry-cleaner’s receipt, for the same day.

  The dry cleaner had a name, and an address.

  He pocketed it again, and went to get the drink he desperately needed.

  47

  Wednesday, 4 January

  14.28

  Ludo Haak sucked in his cheeks, pulling cigarette smoke deep into his lungs. He held it there for a few seconds before releasing a steady stream through pursed lips, head tipped back. The dirty kitchen surrounding him belonged to one of the council flats he was in charge of collecting the illegal sublet money from. But there were currently no tenants, he’d kicked them out yesterday, just after he’d collected the monthly rent, two weeks early.

  He’d had to.

  He needed a quiet place, and he figured by tomorrow, or the weekend at the latest, he could fill it again. There were no end of immigrants who were willing to pay for this, cramming in as many as they could, scrimping and saving what little money they earned on their shit jobs, just so they could send some back to the rest of their family in whatever shithole they’d crawled out of in the first place.

  It would actually work out better. He could pocket the difference between the rent from the old tenants and the new, a whole month’s rent he wouldn’t have to pass on. There was something in this.

  He should do it more often.

  And thinking of extra cash, there was a job he had lined up. They wanted that cop dead. And he was the man to do it.

  A faint sobbing came from the bathroom, the only room in the flat with a lock on the door – and what kind of a place had a lock on the outside instead of the inside? – where he’d put the girl.

  Which was a pisser, because he really needed to go. He stood up, grinding his cigarette out on the tabletop, and made his way to the sink. He pulled his trousers down, turned and managed to sit on it, balancing on the edge, the metal rim cold against his flesh and the tap poking into the small of his back.

  The new tenants can clear this up, he thought.

  When he was done, he had to use one of the kitchen towels to wipe himself – kind of smeary, he figured it must be the stress – he checked his phone. Someone was supposed to be calling him soon, to arrange the pick-up of the girl, the girl who’d bitten him yesterday as he’d brought her here. He examined the wound on his left hand, the teeth marks visible in red swollen flesh.

  Jan hadn’t been there to collect her, and he’d not been able to get hold of that creep Dirk either. Then he’d seen on the news that Dirk was dead, and he’d got a call to say the plan had changed. He was to find somewhere safe to hold her until today, when he would hand her off to someone else.

  And he’d got ragged on at t
he same time, saying he should never have sold her, should have had her shipped out like all the rest.

  But he didn’t have all day to hang around, he had shit to do, and where was this asshole anyway?

  As if on cue his phone rang and he answered.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You’ve got her?’

  ‘She’s here.’

  ‘Okay, I’m going to give you an address, you’ll need to take her there now. Come by car and put her in the boot, don’t let anyone see her. Or you.’

  Fucking asshole, he thought as he listened to the address, what does he think I am, some kind of moron?

  48

  Wednesday, 4 January

  15.16

  ‘I just can’t believe it.’

  The head of Vrijheid Nu, Hans Grimberg, looked like he’d been gutted, filleted and served up on a slab.

  ‘I mean, he sat there telling me how he wanted to help, and then I find out he was involved in this … this … are you sure it’s him?’

  Grimberg looked back and forth between Jaap and Tanya, who were standing in front of his desk, as if one of them would suddenly smile and tell him it was all a big joke.

  ‘There’s no doubt. He was involved,’ said Jaap.

  ‘So what was this, coming here to offer help and money? Was it like trying to make up?’ He stared at Jaap, his eyes on fire. ‘As if giving money to us would cancel it out? Was that it?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. But I need to find his killer.’

  Grimberg shot out of his chair and paced back and forth behind his desk, his head shaking, he was muttering to himself, so quietly that Jaap couldn’t make out the words.

  ‘And you think that whoever killed him was a victim of his?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Don’t you think they would have suffered enough?’ he asked suddenly swinging round. ‘If you’ve got proof of what he’s done then why does it matter who killed him?’ His voice closing up, rising like he was being strangled. ‘And what if that was a kid of yours, what would you do if you found out? You’d go round and kill the bastard, that’s what you’d do. But you’d get away with it because you’re police, you could cover it up.’