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

by Jake Woodhouse

  She’d tried to get up, tried to explain to them what was going on, but she couldn’t speak, and they’d not let her move. She remembered lashing out in frustration, hitting Jaap. Then she must have blacked out again.

  ‘Where are they?’ she asked, and found her voice was working now.

  The paramedic was intent on his job, bare arms as hairy as a chimp’s, latex gloves already covered in blood.

  Her blood.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got another injury on this leg?’ he said as he split the trouser-leg open down the front and saw the stitches.

  ‘The girls, did they find them?’ she asked again and tried to sit up.

  ‘Careful,’ said the paramedic. ‘You don’t want to be moving right now.’

  He probed around, trying to find the entry wound amongst the gore. Grabbing a wipe from a box attached to the wall behind him he started to clear away some of the blood. Tanya flinched, her whole leg jerking back with the pain when he found the spot.

  She watched the top of his head as he bent closer, shifting continuously to get a better look. His hair was cut military short, but she could still see the whorl of his crown.

  ‘Cute,’ he said. ‘Though it looks like one of the two heads is now missing.’

  Tanya raised her head and glanced down. The bullet had obliterated part of her tattoo.

  ‘Wait there,’ he said to her with no trace of irony, as he clambered out of the ambulance.

  Tanya tried to shift her leg, but it made the pain worse. She had no idea how long she’d been out. But she was sure it was too late. She could hear the paramedic having a conversation with someone; he seemed to be saying she needed to get to the hospital quickly.

  Everything in the back of the ambulance began to distort, and she leant her head back on to the stretcher.

  Footsteps crunch-squeaked through the snow outside.

  She opened her eyes – she hadn’t even realized they were closed – and lifted her head.

  At the open doors stood Adrijana.

  They stared at each other for a few moments, before Adrijana climbed into the back of the ambulance and walked alongside the stretcher.

  She laid her head on Tanya’s shoulder, her little arm curved round her neck.

  Jaap had watched as the red-haired girl got into the ambulance, just as Kees stepped over to him, still clutching his gun.

  ‘Maybe now you could tell me what the fuck just happened?’

  Jaap looked at Kees; he seemed shaken, a look to his eyes he recognized all too well. It was the same look he’d seen for years in the mirror. He suddenly felt the day crush down on him, the snowflakes turned to lead.

  He wanted to tell Kees, but not yet. He needed to get it clear in his own head first.

  ‘Seriously, they’re going to be asking a lot of questions,’ said Kees. ‘I heard Smit’s on his way over with an internal investigation team. And the first thing they’re going to want to know is why I shot a senior Inspector.’

  Jaap’s legs were feeling unsteady, but Kees had just saved his life, and he figured he owed him a full explanation.

  ‘Okay, but do you want to put that away first?’ Jaap motioned to the gun.

  Kees brought his hand up and looked at it like he’d never seen it before. Then he stuffed it in his jacket holster.

  ‘You heard Andreas and I were working on that case with the Black Tulips?’ asked Jaap.

  Kees nodded.

  ‘Well, we knew what was going on, but we hit a brick wall. But you know what Andreas was like, he wouldn’t let it go, and the night he was killed he texted me to say he had a way in. Friedman.’

  If only I’d gone with him, he thought for the millionth time. Jaap’s hands were in his pockets, he could feel them trembling. His toes gripped the soles of his shoes in an effort to stay steady.

  ‘But whatever it was alarmed someone in the gang.’

  ‘De Waart?’ said Kees, not looking at Jaap.

  ‘Yeah. Andreas called the station looking for me. When he couldn’t get hold of me I reckon he talked to De Waart. Andreas must have told him about Friedman. They didn’t get on at all, but they were both cops so I guess Andreas didn’t suspect anything. De Waart panicked, and arranged to have him killed.’

  ‘But if De Waart knew Andreas had connected Friedman to his case he could have got you pulled off it, made it part of his own investigation into Andreas’ death,’ said Kees, still not looking at Jaap.

  ‘Yeah, but it was risky, he’d have to explain why he knew, that he’d talked to Andreas. It probably wouldn’t have mattered, but I think it was such a shock he didn’t really think it through, he just wanted to neutralize the threat as soon as possible.’

  Jaap paused, watched the blue lights freeze the snowflakes in the air for micro-seconds at a time.

  ‘It was him who broke into my houseboat that night. He’d have known Andreas was trying to contact me, that’s why he kept trying to press me, see what I knew, see if –’

  A voice called out Jaap’s name from behind him, and he turned to see a uniform running through the snow, feet slipping, clutching a phone.

  ‘You’re needed at the hospital,’ the uniform said, out of breath. ‘Saskia Hansen’s gone into labour.’

  112

  Friday, 6 January

  17.02

  That’s a month early, thought Jaap.

  Then another thought jack-knifed him.

  It can’t be …

  Jaap saw the paramedic start to close the ambulance doors, the little girl being taken out by a female uniform.

  He had to get to the hospital, for Saskia. He glanced over to the ambulance. Tanya was laid out on a stretcher.

  ‘Hey,’ he called out, starting towards the ambulance. ‘I want to ride with her.’

  The paramedic shook his head.

  ‘It’s better if you don’t. You can follow, it’ll be more comfortable.’

  ‘I’m going with her,’ said Jaap as he climbed in, past the paramedic. He could smell blood and disinfectant.

  The paramedic shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Okay, fine. But don’t touch anything.’

  The paramedic reached out to slide the door shut when a hand from outside appeared and pulled it back open. Kees stood with snow swirling around him.

  ‘I’m coming too.’

  ‘No, seriously. How are we all supposed to fit in here?’ said the paramedic.

  ‘Easy,’ said Kees. ‘You’re getting out and riding up front.’

  ‘I’ve got a patient to look after, and you’re delaying her treatment so –’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Tanya.

  They all turned to look at her.

  ‘Really, I’ll be okay. If Kees wants to come that’s fine. It’s not far, is it?’

  The paramedic looked at all three, shrugged, and got out.

  ‘Let’s stop pissing around then and get going,’ he said as he walked round to the front of the ambulance.

  Kees got in, slid the doors shut, and then banged twice on the metal wall.

  The ambulance started, the wheels spinning for a few seconds before they caught, lurching forward.

  ‘Not going to wait for Smit then?’

  ‘He can come get me himself,’ said Kees. ‘And anyway, I still need to know what really happened. We three probably need to get our stories straight. It’s going to be fucking chaos out there, and I’m the one who’s most at risk.’

  Jaap could see Kees was on edge; he hoped he could control it. He hoped he wasn’t high right now.

  ‘Okay,’ said Jaap. ‘You heard about my sister?’

  Kees nodded. Tanya shook her head.

  ‘De Waart was waiting for me, at my houseboat,’ said Jaap, feeling like he was listening to someone, not doing the talking himself. ‘Karin turned up, and he killed her. He said back there it was by mistake, but I’m not so sure.’

  Neither Kees nor Tanya said anything, then Tanya reached her hand out to Jaap’s. He realized he was about to cry
again.

  ‘And all that stuff about you killing Andreas, I heard the gun that shot him was found at your place, with your prints?’ asked Kees.

  ‘So you think I did it?’ Jaap said, anger throttling his voice.

  ‘Hey, easy. I’m just asking about what I heard.’

  Jaap felt his hand being squeezed by Tanya; he could see Kees was looking at their hands.

  ‘I met with him that second day, and he left his gun on the table. I stupidly picked it up and gave it to him when he tried to leave without it.’

  Kees breathed out slowly, releasing pressure.

  ‘You know what? I’m glad I wasted the fucker.’

  Tanya’s hand was still on Jaap’s, but it felt odd now.

  He’d thought it was going to be simple, thought that he and Tanya might … But if he was right about the timing of Saskia’s pregnancy things were going to get complicated …

  ‘So I checked his pockets back there,’ he said addressing Kees, trying to distract himself from the thoughts slamming round in his head. ‘He had two phones, and one of them was the last on the list, he was the one controlling Friedman and the others. He got himself put on the case, and arranged for a fake journalist to smear Andreas’ name. There are people higher up for sure, but I think we’ll find he was the head here in Amsterdam.’

  The ambulance slid round a corner; Tanya winced as the trolley she was on slammed against the side, her grip tightened on his hand. A box of syringes fell off a shelf behind Jaap.

  ‘So how long was he doing this for?’ she asked, once Jaap and Kees had secured the trolley.

  ‘I don’t know, must have been for quite a while for him to react like that, he obviously had a lot to lose.’

  ‘Is there going to be enough to get the rest of the gang, the people who actually smuggle the girls in?’ asked Tanya.

  ‘Now they know which shipping company to look at it should be easier.’

  Jaap looked out the back window. It didn’t tell him anything.

  Are we getting there yet?

  ‘I thought I told you not to come?’ said Jaap turning to Kees.

  ‘Yeah, well, there’s a story attached to that. You know the woman who ran from Friedman’s house that first day?’

  ‘The one that apparently looks like your girlfriend?’

  Kees winced.

  ‘Ex-girlfriend, more like. How did you hear?’

  ‘You hear all sorts of gossip when you’re in prison.’

  ‘I guess so. Anyway, she was the one who knocked me out at the loft. I figured that she was involved somehow, maybe worked for them. So I tracked her down after you left, but it turns out she wasn’t involved, or at least not in the way I thought.’ He reached up and rubbed the back of his head. ‘She was a private detective, hired by someone, and she’d come across the stuff that those two produced.’

  ‘It was Grimberg who hired her,’ said Jaap.

  ‘I guessed that, though she said it had been anonymous. Anyway, she’d got to the stage that she knew Friedman and Zwartberg were involved in something heavy. She found the loft, picked the lock and knocked me out thinking I was one of them.’

  ‘Why didn’t she come to the police?’

  ‘She was going to, but she recognized someone when she turned up at the station.’

  ‘De Waart.’

  ‘Must have been. She’d seen him meet with Zwartberg a couple of times. So she got scared, basically.’

  The ambulance came to a halt, Tanya’s trolley juddered.

  ‘Looks like we’re here.’

  113

  Friday, 6 January

  17.23

  ‘… Hansen. H-A-N-S-E-N.’

  The woman at the front desk was unmoved by Jaap’s urgency. She looked up the name with what seemed to Jaap maddening slowness, eventually finding a ward number on the fifth floor.

  He ran over to the lift and hit the button repeatedly, the numbers indicating that it currently resided on the ninth floor. Eventually it started to move down, stopping at number six, and then it was on the move again, only the next number to appear was seven. Jaap cursed and hit the button repeatedly, then gave up and tried to find the stairs.

  By the time he reached the fifth floor his lungs felt as if he had been breathing in mustard gas. He ran down the corridor, checking off the numbers in his head, and he could hear someone, a woman, screaming.

  Was that Saskia? He couldn’t tell, the human voice seemed to lose its personal characteristics when pushed to the extreme. Maybe, and he was surprised with the clarity of the thought which popped into his head, it was nature’s way of making sure that a cry for help was always answered, not on personal grounds, but as a matter of duty for the survival of the species.

  As he neared the number he was looking for the screaming got louder, and when he burst through the door, it increased in volume twofold.

  The doctor, clad in green, jumped as the door flew open, but he didn’t say anything, he could tell from the wild look on Jaap’s face why he was here, and he turned back to the bed.

  114

  Friday, 6 January

  20.41

  Tanya lay her head back on the pillow.

  The material was starched so hard it only gave in patches, the smell of fabric conditioner surrounding her. It was quiet, an occasional call for a doctor mixed with the soft snoring from the old woman who was the only other occupant of the room. Nurses periodically opened the door, spilling light in from the corridor, and left again, letting the door swing shut.

  They’d stitched her up – her leg now looked like a horror version of snakes and ladders – and told her she was lucky, that there was nothing to worry about.

  But that wasn’t true. She’d already had a visit from an officer telling her she was going to be booked for assaulting Bloem; they hadn’t decided on exact charges, but he’d made it plain that they were going to do everything they could to make sure she was punished severely.

  And then there was Adrijana. People had been congratulating her for saving her, but as she’d lain in the ambulance having her leg cleaned, the local anaesthetic just dulling the pain, not eradicating it, she realized she’d only managed to put her in just as much danger again.

  She would now get swallowed up in the same system which had placed her with her own foster parents.

  Taken into care, so the phrase went.

  Of course she knew that not every foster parent was a child abuser, they couldn’t be, but all she could think about was her own experience. She wrestled back and forth, slipping from end to end on a see-saw.

  She had done the right thing.

  If it wasn’t for her who knew what would have happened, but the pictures in her mind, images from her past, kept getting mixed up with images of Adrijana.

  The door opened and Jaap walked in, coming over to her bedside.

  They looked at each other.

  ‘Jaap, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘When we were out there, and De Waart was about to shoot us, you were smiling.’ Jaap nodded. ‘What were you smiling about?’

  ‘I thought you’d passed out?’ he said, looking away from her.

  ‘I had, but I must have come round for a second. And I’m sure you were smiling.’

  115

  Friday, 6 January

  21.05

  ‘So then what happened, you came in to save the day?’

  Kees sat back on Carice’s sofa, his hand accepting the cold beer she held out before flopping down beside him. Candles dotted the room, soft music crept from hidden speakers.

  ‘Yeah, I did actually.’ He took a swig, focusing back on Carice.

  ‘And you shot an Inspector?’

  He shrugged like it was no big deal, like he regularly shot people. He hoped Carice couldn’t see the bottle shaking in his fingers. He tightened his grip.

  ‘He was about to shoot Jaap.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  He relived the moment he’
d pulled the trigger and watched De Waart’s head explode.

  He’d always wondered what it would be like.

  Now he knew.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said before downing the last of the beer. ‘You might even get the autopsy.’

  ‘Great, piling up the work for me.’ She shifted, stretched her leg out, her foot landing slowly in his lap, toes burrowing. ‘It could be like some TV series, a partnership between us. Each week you kill someone off and I fake the autopsy, keep the suspicion away from you.’

  He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Jaap in the station car park. Jaap had told him he needed to get help and he was probably right. There were places you could go for that, people who’d been through it and could relate, could help you get off the stuff.

  He saw De Waart’s head bursting like a ripe watermelon, played in slo-mo in his mind again.

  He felt like he needed a line right now.

  ‘So is there anything I should look out for on this one?’ She tipped her head back and took a sip of her own beer. He watched her long pale neck flickering in the candle light.

  He really needed a line. Hell, he needed a whole motorway of the stuff.

  ‘Not really, just that he doesn’t have much of a head left.’

  Epilogue

  A sliver of dawn started to ease on to the horizon, pushing up the night’s hem.

  Jaap was awake, staring out of the hospital window, Saskia asleep in the bed next to him, exhausted, emotionally drained, drugged to the eyeballs. The snow had stopped at about three in the morning; he’d been watching the flakes for hours, like white petals, or feathers floating down from a ripped pillow.

  He’d only slept in episodes, partly as the chair wasn’t really designed to be sat in, let alone for sleeping, but partly because he was wired, too much having happened in such a short space of time, and he needed to digest it all. Needed to let his mind run though it, neutralize it.