A Death at the Hotel Mondrian (Lotte Meerman Book 5)

by Anja de Jager

  My mouth went dry.

  ‘Of course,’ the boss continued, ‘I bragged that Ingrid used to work for me too. That DI Bauer should count himself lucky that I let her go to his team.

  ‘Are you talking about Erol Yilmaz? For Peter de Waal’s assault.’

  ‘They think he might have links to the people who carried out the other attacks too. That he’s been in some way involved. The method looks similar.’

  I rubbed my forehead.

  The boss frowned. ‘You don’t look happy.’

  ‘What did they get?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, did they find CCTV footage? Another witness?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose so, I didn’t ask. Anyway, well done.’

  ‘Do you want us to officially help Ingrid and her team out?’

  ‘No,’ the boss said. ‘I think they’ve got it under control at the moment. To offer help now would make it look as if we’re trying to steal their glory.’

  I felt she could do with all the assistance I could give her. I didn’t like the turn this had taken. But seeing as the boss was in a good mood, I might as well bring up the other thing. ‘We may have a problem.’

  ‘With Yilmaz?’

  Well, that as well, I thought, but I knew better than to voice that before I’d spoken to Ingrid. Maybe they’d found new evidence. Maybe it had been him after all. ‘The man who committed suicide in his hotel room yesterday morning claimed he was Andre Martin Nieuwkerk.’

  The boss sat back in his chair. ‘The Body in the Dunes? There’s no way. He can’t have been.’

  I knew why he didn’t want it to be true. It had been such a high-profile case, and solving the murder after the nameless skeleton had been found had been an enormous success story. The police commissioner at the time had been only too happy to talk about the force’s excellent work in cracking a case that had seemed unsolvable for so long. I could understand why he’d been proud. Even today, with modern forensics, it would have been hard to identify the skeleton. They had narrowed down who the dead man was by looking at the shape of the skull and comparing it to photos of men who’d gone missing at the time. Now it seemed possible that they’d got it wrong.

  I didn’t say any of that to the boss. ‘Whoever he was, there was something odd about him. He was travelling on a British passport but he spoke to Nieuwkerk’s sister in Dutch. She’s pretty sure he was Dutch.’ It was a good thing we’d met with Julia, so that I could put my observations into her mouth. ‘He also met Verbaan’s son. Daniel Verbaan recorded the conversation.’

  ‘Ah shit.’ It was unlike the boss to swear. ‘We can’t have any of that getting out. We can do without endless speculation about police mistakes.’

  ‘We’re doing a DNA test. Just to rule it out.’

  ‘Good, that’s good. What method did he use?’

  ‘OxyContin overdose. We found the tablets; they were in his name.’

  ‘Could it have been accidental?’

  ‘I’ll double-check that in the pathologist’s report, see what the amount in his blood was.’

  ‘Good, good.’ He took his reading glasses off and rubbed his eyes. ‘We’ll decide what to do when we know more. There’s no way he was Andre Nieuwkerk, so it will all be fine. How’s Charlie doing?’

  ‘He’s okay.’ Apart from arguing with Thomas, of course.

  It will all be fine. I repeated the CI’s words to myself as I walked back to our office. What did that even mean? A man had killed himself. A man who had told me that he wanted everybody to know he was still alive.

  More than ever I understood that I really shouldn’t tell anybody I’d spoken to him that morning. That I’d dismissed him to take Peter de Waal’s statement instead. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned it to Thomas or Charlie, and was going to make sure I kept it that way.

  By the time I got back to our office,Thomas and Charlie had gone to Julia Nieuwkerk’s to take a DNA sample. After watching the footage, that had seemed the sensible thing to do. She had agreed to it without any pushback. ‘It will be the quickest way to rule it out,’ she’d said. ‘It will put an end to all this.’

  Left alone in the office, I worked my way through the list of the people Theo Brand had met with. I dialled the number for the next person.

  ‘This is Laurens Werda,’ a man said.

  I took a note of the surname. ‘I’m Detective Lotte Meerman. Do you know Theo Brand?’

  ‘Theo? Yes, he’s a good friend. Why?’ His voice was calm.

  A good friend. That was very different from how Julia and Daniel had seen him. Also, Laurens was the first person who had actually known him as Theo. This was great; someone who had talked to Theo on Tuesday morning, and who had been a good friend, would know what his mental state had been. ‘We’d like to speak to you.’

  ‘When? Now?’ There was still no real concern in the man’s tone. I could hear a number of voices in the background. He was probably in a busy office.

  ‘If possible.’

  ‘Of course. Let me go somewhere more private.’

  ‘I meant in person.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes, yes, of course. Can you come here?’ He gave me the details of his place of work.

  I looked up the address. It was close to the Amstel station. I told him I’d be there in half an hour.

  After disconnecting the call to Laurens, I dialled the final number.

  A woman answered. ‘Hello, this is Katja.’

  Katja? That name wasn’t in the diary. There was only Laurens, Julia, Daniel and Harry. ‘This is Detective Meerman from the Amsterdam police. Can I speak to Harry, please?’

  ‘You’ve dialled the wrong number.’

  I read it out to her. ‘Isn’t that your number?’

  ‘There’s no Harry here.’ The voice was resigned, as if she got these calls a lot.

  ‘Do you live on Frankstraat 12?’ That was the address in the diary.

  ‘Yes. But there’s nobody named Harry living here. As I’ve said, you’ve got the wrong number.’ The call disconnected with a dry click.

  Whoever Katja was, she had hung up on me.

  Maybe Theo had had an old number for someone, and an old address. The number in the diary was a landline, not a mobile, so that was possible.

  I got on my bike and cycled along the Singelgracht until it hit the wider water of the Amstel. Here, modern buildings stood uncomfortably side by side with eighteenth-century canal houses. Where I lived, on the canal ring, Amsterdam’s houses looked like a real-life history lesson. Around the Zuidas, all the buildings were modern and entirely new. Here it was different. Historical houses were preserved, but any space around them had been used to build modern flats and offices until the new towered over the old, taking precedence.

  And wasn’t that exactly the thought I’d had yesterday morning? At that moment, it had seemed the obvious choice to go with the urgent over the historical.

  No, I corrected myself. Yesterday I’d made the decision to go with the practical over the potentially crazy. It was because he’d said he was Andre Martin Nieuwkerk that I’d dismissed him. It was because that had been too outlandish to believe.

  I crossed the Berlagebrug and put my bike in the large stand on the left-hand side of the Amstelplein, then located the building where Laurens Werda worked. He’d told me he was on the eighth floor. There was security downstairs and they made me sign in before I could go up, even after I’d shown them my badge. I had to go through glass turnstiles of the kind that could snap your leg off if they shut before you’d reached the safety of the other side. I was glad we didn’t have those at the police station; ours was a more old-fashioned entry that was metal and actually rotated. None of this snapping business for us.

  I pressed the button for the lift. I was the only one here:

  4.43 was obviously not a popular meeting time. I guessed that if you arrived on the hour, it would be busy. It was the kind of place that sucked people in and chucked them out exactly when t
he large hand of the clock hit twelve.

  The lift pinged to let me know it was ready for me. I got in and hit the button, but just as the doors started to close, someone approached from the outside. I did the right thing and pressed the button to keep the doors open. I was ready to say good afternoon to the person getting in when I found myself looking straight into a familiar face.

  I’d known that Erol Yilmaz had an office job, but I’d never imagined that he’d work in the same building as Laurens Werda.

  Yesterday, Erol had worn jeans and a black T-shirt. Now he was smartly dressed and clean-shaven. The one thing that hadn’t changed was his attitude. He still radiated the same aggression as before. He threw me an angry glance as if he suspected me of having come to his workplace to question him. It was uncomfortable being in such a small space with him. It put us in closer proximity than I would have liked.

  He pressed 5. At least he wasn’t going to the same floor as me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ His voice was as inhospitable as it could be without actually sounding as if he was up for a fight.

  ‘I’m going to the eighth.’ I pointed at the button I had pushed, to make it clear that I had not come here for him.

  ‘You people should just leave me alone,’ he said. ‘You’ve already questioned me.’

  What I’d seen yesterday morning was the only reason I thought he was probably innocent. Nothing else, neither his attitude nor his answers, would have given me that feeling. I could imagine him beating me up, let alone someone he actually had a personal grudge against. But facts were more important than feelings. Just because he didn’t like the police, that wasn’t a good reason to think he was guilty.

  ‘Did you take a photo of your hands?’ I asked. ‘With something specifying the date, and with a witness?’

  I wished I wasn’t in a confined space with someone giving off those vibes.

  He frowned and held his hands out in front of him to examine them himself. ‘Why?’

  ‘Please just do it.’

  He turned to glare at me.

  There was no way I’d be able to take him in a fight. Not that there was going to be a fight: we were in his place of work and he was going to get out of the lift in a few seconds. I wanted to take a step back – I had space behind me to retreat further into the corner – but I stood my ground. Why was I even bothering trying to help him? By now it was a day after the assault. Still, if he’d beaten up Peter de Waal, there would have been marks left on his hands, as there had been on Daniel’s. A photo now wouldn’t be as conclusive as if he’d taken one straight away, but it would still give reasonable doubt.

  The lift arrived at the fifth floor and the doors opened.

  ‘Just do it,’ I repeated, but I was talking to his back as he walked away.

  The doors closed and I continued to the eighth floor by myself. The lift suddenly felt twice the size.

  The company that Laurens worked for was called Alliance First. Even though I had never heard of it, judging from the offices, with their separate reception area, it was a large firm. The girl behind the desk tried to contact Laurens Werda for me, but he was on the phone just now and would I mind waiting?

  I wasn’t a big fan of the conversation I was about to have – telling someone his friend had died – so I didn’t mind waiting at all.

  I wasn’t sure what line of work the company was in, but the walls of the reception area were covered with photos of happy people doing healthy, fun things. That didn’t narrow it down per se. It seemed to be the way everything was advertised today.

  Eat our food! Become healthy and happy.

  Join our gym! Become healthy and happy.

  I took a seat in reception. There were no leaflets around to read, so from the nice-to-look-at-but-uncomfortable-to-sit-on sofa, I googled the name on my phone. Alliance First was an insurance company.

  I remembered that Erol Yilmaz also worked for an insurance company. Maybe Alliance First had offices on the fifth floor too.

  Maybe Erol had thought I was going to talk to his boss. Or to HR. That was probably why he’d been so annoyed.

  I hoped he would still do what I’d suggested. He must understand why I’d said that, mustn’t he? I couldn’t really spell it out for him, because I didn’t want to hinder Ingrid’s case, but I did want to make sure that someone who hadn’t attacked the victim in the way described did not get falsely accused. Was Erol Yilmaz innocent? Who knew? But he hadn’t punched Peter de Waal in the face with his bare hands, I was sure of that. I trusted Ingrid, but I knew what the pressure could be like, and maybe she wouldn’t be able to control what the powers that be wanted. If Erol could prove his innocence, I wasn’t hindering her investigation; I was protecting Ingrid from that pressure.

  I looked at the posters again. Even knowing what the company did, I could not figure out what this advertising campaign was trying to say. Use our insurance and you’ll never be in an accident? If that was true, they were really amazing.

  It was a good thing I wasn’t in advertising. I would have gone with a picture of a car crash and the caption: You never want this to happen, but if it does, we’ll pay for everything. Surely the point of advertising for an insurance company should be to remind people that bad things could happen? These posters seemed to suggest that life was puppies and sunshine all year round. If that was true, nobody would need to get insurance.

  I stopped looking at them. I knew I was only thinking about these things to avoid thinking about the reason why I was here. I had the unpleasant duty to give Laurens Werda terrible news. It brought my mind back to Theo’s death, and the role I might have played in it.

  A man had died of an opioid overdose in a hotel in Amsterdam. I knew what assumption I would have made normally, but there wasn’t anything normal about this situation. If the man hadn’t talked to me that morning, we would probably just have called it an accidental overdose to make it easier on the family, especially as there was no suicide note, and that would have been the end of it.

  Now I was left with a lot of questions that hopefully Laurens Werda could help me with. Maybe he could tell me what Theo had been like and why he had come to Amsterdam, but I would have to tread carefully.

  I’d been waiting for ten minutes when the door at the back of reception opened and a man approached. He was a decade or so older than Theo, in his mid fifties, and was wearing a combination of navy-blue jacket and red trousers that did nothing to hide the fact that he was overweight. The flesh of his neck strained against the collar of his shirt, and his tie only just allowed him room to breathe. His hair was thinning, but he’d made no attempt to conceal it. The shine of his balding pate made his head seem even wider.

  I could imagine that he’d been friends with Theo Brand. In fact, I could imagine that he’d be friends with a lot of people. He’d probably even be friends with Erol Yilmaz if Erol would offer to buy him a glass of red wine.

  Only I couldn’t imagine him having even the slightest interest in doing that.

  The man greeted me with a handshake, then cleared his throat as if he had to work up the courage to speak. ‘I’m Laurens Werda,’ he said. ‘You wanted to talk to me about Theo?’ His voice sounded slightly thick, maybe from nerves, or perhaps he had an inkling of why I was here. I was sure that he understood that being visited by the police wasn’t a good thing, but at least he wasn’t ready to beat me up.

  The eyes of the receptionist were on us and she was actually leaning forward so that she wouldn’t miss a word of what we said. ‘Can we talk somewhere private?’ I asked.

  Laurens threw a glance at the receptionist, but she shook her head. ‘All the meeting rooms are taken,’ she said without even checking.

  I tried to guess how strongly he might react to the news I was going to give him, but I realised I couldn’t. ‘You don’t have an office?’ I asked.

  ‘No, it’s all open plan.’

  ‘Okay. Well at least let’s go through here,’ I said, and pointed at the d
ouble doors behind us, the way I’d come in, which opened on to the corridor leading to the bank of lifts. Nobody had come through them in the ten minutes I’d been waiting on this uncomfortable sofa, and even if someone walked past, they would only catch bits of our conversation and not the entirety.

  The receptionist looked annoyed, as if I’d spoiled the most interesting part of her day. She shouldn’t have listened in so blatantly. If she’d put headphones on, even if she hadn’t been listening to music, I would probably have talked to Laurens right there.

  Instead I waited until he’d followed me out and we were standing outside the lifts before I spoke. As I’d expected, there was nobody around. ‘I’m sorry to give you bad news,’ I said with the sound of the whirring of lift cables behind me, ‘but Theo Brand is dead.’

  He stared at me, then swallowed. ‘What happened?’ he said eventually.

  ‘We found him in his hotel room.’

  Laurens jerked his head back and looked at the ceiling. He put his hands on his hips to keep his balance and took a few deep breaths.

  I gave him time.

  He rubbed his right hand over the bald centre of his head, as if that would wipe away the image. ‘You’re sure it’s him?’

  I nodded, keeping a close eye on him because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to carry his weight if he collapsed. ‘I understand this has come as a shock to you,’ I said, ‘but can I ask you a few questions? Or do you need a moment?’

  ‘Go ahead.’ His face was pale but his voice was steady. He reached for the wall as if he needed support.

  ‘Do you want a drink of water?’

  ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  ‘Okay.’ I got my notebook out. ‘When did you talk to him last?’

  ‘We had dinner on Friday and then he called me yesterday, early in the morning.’

  ‘How did he sound?’

  ‘Fine, I thought.’

  They had spoken at 6.43 a.m.. Theo had come back to his room at 8.37. By 9 a.m. he had killed himself. I was surprised that he had been fine two and a half hours earlier. ‘What did you talk about?’