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

by Jake Woodhouse

  She glanced over her shoulder, easing her gun out of her holster, and in the split second when she looked back up another figure had dropped out of a tree on the edge of the clearing, the branch he’d been on reverberating, flicking more snow to the air, and run at Haak, his hand raised, a knife glinting.

  She was up, running before she even knew what she was doing, branches ripping at her face, but Haak turned, just in time to receive the blade.

  It slipped into his throat with ease.

  A curved arc of slick blood, like a fountain, was the only colour in the scene.

  88

  Friday, 6 January

  10.58

  It was over. Their last chance gone.

  Snow was starting to melt on his shoes, Jaap could feel it soaking through to his toes, and it kept on falling.

  He remembered one of Yuzuki Roshi’s favourite phrases, no snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.

  He looked across to where the three crime scene officers were trying to erect a shelter, Haak’s body already covered in a thin layer of snow. He was surprised that the residual body heat hadn’t stopped it settling, but then he’d died, according to Tanya, nearly an hour ago and the air temperature was well below freezing.

  The wood was quiet, the snow muting everything, the only sounds the soft crunch of footsteps and the swishing of material as the tent finally went up. Not that there was going to be much gained from an examination they didn’t already know. Tanya had tried to chase Haak’s killer through the wood but he quickly lost her in a dense patch of evergreens which protected the ground from snow, leaving no trail to follow.

  She was standing off to his left – shoulders hunched despite the hood, her nose red – moving gently from one foot to the other. He felt a pang of regret about having to dash off last night, and he wanted to tell her about Karin. But he stopped himself.

  ‘You okay?’

  She nodded.

  ‘He was our last link,’ she said, her voice tailing off.

  How was he going to get Andreas’ killer now? How was he going to find out who killed Karin?

  He pulled out his phone and dialled Kees – he’d not been able to contact him all morning – but this time he answered.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Just working on some stuff.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to call, did you not have your phone on you?’

  ‘I, errr, forgot to turn it on.’

  A lie, as it had rung out each time he’d called.

  ‘So have you got anything?’

  ‘Yeah, Friedman and Zwartberg, they worked at the same school.’

  Maastricht. Where Andreas was brought up. The photo, the one he still had in his jacket pocket, must have been taken there.

  ‘Have you cross-referenced this yet?’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘The list from Grimberg. Are you telling me you haven’t got it yet?’

  ‘Tanya was in charge of that, I don’t know if she got it, but if she has then she didn’t give it to me.’

  ‘Okay, you try and get it. I’ll be back in about half an hour, but call me straight away if you get anything.’

  He put his phone away, hands finding pockets against the cold.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Might be getting somewhere. Did you get that list from Grimberg?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘He didn’t answer, and I didn’t have time to go round there with all this going on.’ She shuffled a bit of snow with the toe of her boot. ‘She could be anywhere,’ she said, staring straight ahead, her voice flat.

  Jaap didn’t want to say it, but he knew he should.

  ‘There’s a good chance she’s already dead.’

  ‘No! She’s not, I can feel it. She’s alive, she’s …’ her voice choked off. Jaap put an arm out towards her shoulder but she shrugged it off and walked away.

  Jaap looked over to where Haak’s body lay, the photographer ready to begin. Each flash froze snowflakes in the air round the body. It reminded him of Kyoto. He wished he was there now, and that none of this had ever happened.

  He pulled up his collar and stared out at the trees. He’d had cases like this before, where after days, sometimes weeks, he’d hit a brick wall. It was part of the job, you had to learn to let them go, and those Inspectors who didn’t learn never stayed for long. Old unsolved cases eating away at them until it became unbearable. Some recognized it for what it was and got out, others just couldn’t, until one day, in sheer frustration and rage, they stepped over the mark, beat someone up so badly that nobody could ignore it. Career over. With no pension.

  Was that going to happen to him? Karin and Andreas were dead, but should he, could he, learn to accept it?

  He’d learnt about life and death in Kyoto. Or he thought he had. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Inspector?’ Jaap focused his eyes. One of the uniforms who’d been at the scene when he arrived, taller than Jaap, was standing in front of him, ‘Are you okay?’

  Jaap shook himself.

  ‘Just thinking.’

  The officer, twenties, built like a marine, with a thin moustache covering his top lip, pulled out a cigarette and offered one to Jaap, who refused.

  ‘Weird job, isn’t it?’ he asked blowing smoke out.

  ‘Yeah, sometimes I don’t know why we do it.’

  ‘I know what you mean, someone asked me recently if I’d been bullied at school, and if that was why I’d joined up,’ he laughed.

  ‘You don’t look like you were bullied at school.’

  ‘No, quite the opposite, I just felt, because of my size, I kind of had a duty to protect others, you know what I mean?’

  Jaap looked out across the clearing.

  He did know what he meant.

  Then something struck him. Something someone had said a few days ago.

  He pulled out his phone, dialled Kees, who answered on the third ring.

  ‘Have you got hold of Grimberg yet?’

  ‘He’s not answering, I’m just heading there now.’

  ‘Meet me at the west end of the street his office is on, and find out his home address as well. And this time do not go in without me, understand?’ He hung up without waiting for a response.

  The uniform looked at him, catching the urgency in his voice.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jaap before starting towards Tanya. He told her what he thought was going on, and was interrupted by his phone. Roemers’ voice.

  ‘I’ve got it. It’s a computer owned by a shipping company.’

  ‘What are they called?’

  ‘BSC.’

  ‘BSC?’

  ‘Stands for Baltic Shipping Company, they’ve got an office up at the port.’

  Jaap hung up. Tanya looked at him.

  ‘Anything?’

  He wanted to tell her, but knew she’d be unable to wait, that she’d go after it right now, and he couldn’t allow that. It would be too dangerous.

  ‘It might be, you finish up here, then give me a call when you’re done, I may have something by then.’

  And then he turned and ran back through the woods to where he’d parked his car.

  89

  Friday, 6 January

  11.28

  ‘He’s all yours.’

  Tanya turned; she’d been staring into the trees, and looked back at the body. She was feeling numb, though she wasn’t sure if it was just from standing around in the freezing cold for so long, or something else. She looked at the body, under the tent, footprints wheeling round the area in psychedelic swirls.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She made her way back, the snow almost a centimetre deep now, and knelt on one of the sheets which had been laid by the body. Someone handed her latex gloves, which she snapped on and went to work. There was nothing unusual: wallet with cash and no ID, a large key ring, a crushed pack of cigarettes.

  Nothing which was going to help her. She stood up and bagged the items, dropping the keys into the s
now. Not that it mattered, what were they going to do, lift prints off them? She pulled them out and dusted them off. Then she went through the wallet again, separating out each note. In between two was a scrap of paper, folded in half; it looked like a receipt for the cigarettes. But on the back, scrawled in blue biro, was an address.

  And a number.

  She took out her phone, her hands trembling all of a sudden, and punched it in, getting it wrong twice. Finally it was right and it rang seven times before going to answer machine, a man’s voice saying the Baltic Shipping Company was closed until the following Monday.

  Baltic Shipping Company.

  Jaap had said BSC on the phone. It had to be the same thing.

  And he hadn’t told her, had just rushed off.

  Does he not trust me? she thought. Or is it some chivalrous thing, now that he’s kissed me he thinks I need to be looked after?

  A voice she recognized barked out her name and she looked up just in time to see Bloem striding across the clearing to her. His face was red, but it wasn’t from the cold.

  What is he doing here? she thought, even though she knew the answer.

  ‘Well, Sergeant van der Mark.’ He twisted her name, pronouncing it in tones of deep sarcasm. ‘I’m glad I’ve managed to catch up with you. Thanks for returning my calls.’

  ‘Listen, I know where the girl is being –’

  ‘No. Enough of this shit. You’ve caused no end of trouble’ – his eyes gleamed at her. He was enjoying this – ‘and you’re coming back up to Leeuwarden with me. Right now. And if you don’t end up on traffic duty for the rest of your career, well …’ He left it hanging.

  Tanya looked back down at Haak, the man responsible for kidnapping Adrijana. The little girl who looked like her and, like her, no longer had any parents, no one to care for her. But her eyes wouldn’t stay on him, and she glanced off into the woods, the snow even thicker now, visibility reducing.

  ‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘Just look at this one thing.’ She squatted by the body. Bloem looked at her, then bent down. As he did so she shoved him forward, grabbed his arm, and cuffed him to Haak’s cold, dead wrist.

  And then she ran, Bloem’s curses following her into the trees like shotgun blasts.

  90

  Friday, 6 January

  11.55

  When he saw it, the police car nosing into the street like a silent predator, his stomach lurched as if the whole world had suddenly tipped sideways.

  The snow had attracted him, the softness of its descent, and he’d wandered over to the window to watch the eddying flakes, to take a moment to breathe, to live.

  He’d been having moments like that recently, when everything seemed beautiful, the merest of things catching his attention; the liquid pattern in a particular cobble stone when the sun burnished its smooth surface, the intricacies of a bit of fabric, rich in the tiny details of weave and colour. And he’d found himself staring, marvelling at their beauty, as if he’d never seen anything so wonderful.

  Which in a sense he hadn’t, or at least not as far as he could remember. He must have been observant as a child. All children were, all had that capacity for intense concentration on an object which to them looked fascinating but to an older child, or adult, was merely commonplace.

  And now he was like a child again, a second birth, a new person, the skin which had been containing him, trapping and squeezing, trying to squash him into nothing finally split, allowing him to emerge blinking into a fresh world.

  And it was a surprise, the opposite of what he’d been expecting, what he’d resigned himself to. When he’d decided to kill them both it felt right, but he hadn’t anticipated any pleasure, it was just something he had to do, no question, it was inevitable, it was coded in his DNA, it was revenge, it was justice. He didn’t think there would be any release, or any closure to use that overworked phrase that the characters on TV dramas always talked about.

  But closure he’d got, and he was revelling in it. The first hint of what was to come had been when he’d watched Friedman die, watched the eyes flicker madly, as delicate as butterflies, before they suddenly stopped, frozen, and the light drained from his irises even as his grip round his neck tightened, feeling the panicking pulse in his jugular, there one minute, gone the next.

  Then Zwartberg two nights later. Satisfaction had overcome revulsion.

  And then only an hour ago, when the knife had punctured Haak’s flesh, so easy until the tip of the blade hit against the neck bone, that he’d really started to fly.

  And so what if that woman, that police officer had seen it all, he was wearing a balaclava, and he’d easily lost her in the woods. There was nothing there to link him.

  Now he just had to get the fourth one, the one who was working for the Black Tulips, and he’d really be free.

  There was work to be done, he still didn’t know who he was. But he was going to find out. He was going to make sure of it.

  So the shock he felt when the patrol car turned up was like a battering ram to his skull. He tried to tell himself that the car was there for another reason, but as he watched, he saw the person at the wheel was the policeman he’d seen the other day. He tried to think how he knew, but then his mind kicked into gear, coming up with a single word.

  Run.

  91

  Friday, 6 January

  11.57

  Jaap leapt out of the car.

  He ran towards where Kees was parked right on the corner, the window sliding down with a quiet hum as he approached to reveal an empty passenger seat. Then Kees.

  ‘So what’s this about?’

  ‘I think Hans Grimberg’s our man.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was probably a victim when he was younger, his accent’s from Maastricht. He’s the right sort of age, he’d have been a teenager during the time Zwartberg was there, probably Friedman too, and he said something, about how abuse can affect everything the victim does, how they behave, what job they get –’

  Jaap’s phone was ringing in his pocket; he pulled it out and was about to answer but movement in the street caught his attention.

  A figure emerged monastically, hood up, from the door to Vrijheid Nu.

  ‘I’ll follow him,’ Jaap said to Kees as he pocketed his phone unanswered. ‘You check in the office.’

  The figure had just turned the corner, heading north along the Singel canal, and Jaap broke into a run, or as much of a run as the conditions would allow. As he rounded the same corner he could see the figure had started to walk faster. It must be Grimberg, though he couldn’t have seen Jaap. He increased his pace and once he was within a few metres, as if by some remnant of an ancient defence mechanism, the hood turned, recognition sparking in his eyes.

  Grimberg was off, bounding, his hood pushed back and ballooning in the airflow, jostling past the few pedestrians who were out, their indignant cries muffled by the snow, Jaap following. At the next block he skidded round the corner, and took off back towards Herengracht. Jaap expected him to charge over the bridge, but instead he turned north, running up the stretch of canal lined with houseboats.

  It was a mistake.

  Because heading down Herengracht were headlights, a car blocking the way. Grimberg saw it, hesitated for a moment then dived off to the right, jumping over the rail of the last in a line of barges.

  Jaap followed, catching his foot and crashing into the wooden wall of the cabin. By the time he’d made it to the end Grimberg was over the rail and on the ice, thick now with snow, stumbling across, bent over like a hunchback, trying to keep his centre of gravity low.

  Down on the ice, even more slippery than he’d thought, he started to close the gap when Grimberg went down hard.

  Jaap was within a few feet of him now but he realized that something was wrong. Grimberg was flailing, trying to get up, twisting round. Then he saw it – the impact had split the ice, still not frozen hard enough to withstand a battering.

  Water was seeping out of a ho
le broken by Grimberg’s weight, melting the snow in a circle, a dark wound. A few more feet and Jaap was there, grabbing his hood, trying to pull him back, but Grimberg’s thrashing was opening the hole more, and he was starting to slip into it. The water was reaching Jaap’s feet now, licking them like a hungry predator, and no matter how hard he pulled Grimberg was drawing him in.

  Then a cry from behind him, Kees, yelling ‘Get back!’ over and over like it was the only phrase he knew.

  That broke the spell.

  Jaap released his grip and started to edge away, afraid that any quick movement would cause more ice to split.

  Grimberg was in the water now, arms slapping on the ice, looking for purchase, but doing more damage, one blow from his left hand releasing a jagged split like an electric snake, racing towards Jaap. He tried to turn, run back but he could feel the water on his ankles – so cold it stopped his lungs from working. He threw himself forward, landing on his front a few metres from the barge.

  He felt something – his phone – crunch against his hip.

  A rope with a lifebuoy swung down and smacked him in the side of the face, he grasped it, Kees shouting at him to hold on to it, climb up.

  ‘Get me something to pull him back with!’ he shouted up to Kees.

  ‘Just get up here before it all goes!’

  ‘Get something!’

  He hauled himself up to his feet, and took the few steps remaining to get him to the boat’s hull, the ice holding, slipping the lifebuoy round his waist.

  Kees’ footsteps on the deck above him, moving fast then stopping suddenly. A pole flew down, clanging against the hull beside him, the reverberations shaking his back. He grabbed it and flipped the end over like he was a pole-vaulter. The curled hook landed by Grimberg, just short of his grasp.

  Grimberg didn’t need to be told what to do; he tried to heave himself up, but Jaap had to edge forward again to make sure he got it. The second he was sure Grimberg had a good enough grip he pulled and pulled until every muscle in his back and neck felt as if it was going to snap.