by Mark Hobson
“Did you get a look at him? What time would it have been?”
“Oh, very late. Past seven o’clock.”
“So it would have been too dark to see him clearly?”
“True. If he’d stayed inside his van, that is, but he didn’t. He got out at one point. Parked up exactly where you have down there – that’s a nice motor by the way, Mister – and walked along the street. Went right along the pavement on one side, crossed over, and then came back along the pavement on the opposite side. All the time looking over at the house there. Thinking about it now, it gives me the wobblies, knowing what he had planned.” He shivered extravagantly. “If it were your man, of course.”
“And what did he look like?” He tried to keep his voice calm, but inside he felt his excitement levels rising.
“Ah well, he was shortish. Stocky, like he worked out or something, or maybe had a manual job. He had arms like Popeye.”
“And his face?”
Ernie sucked in between his teeth and grimaced, then shook his head, the beret going all lopsided.
“Well that’s the problem. He had a hat on. One of those baseball caps. It was pulled down tight, and he had his collar turned up, so I couldn’t really make out his features, but he was wearing overalls, brownish ones, and he had huge working boots on. I could hear his footsteps quite clearly from up here.”
“Was this just the one night or have you seen him around here on other occasions? Was he a local resident?”
“I only clapped eyes on him that one time, and I’m sure he doesn’t live around here. This is quite an exclusive street, with well-off people walking their Shih Tzus or hosting dinner parties. That’s why he stood out so much, because of what he was wearing.”
Behind them, an elderly lady came up the stairs and walked by, and Pieter caught the look that passed between her and Ernie. He watched as she went down the passage and disappeared into one of the bedrooms. A moment later and she popped her head around the doorframe, looking their way.
Ernie shuffled about in his wheelchair. “Sorry I can’t be of much help. Now I have to dash, I have a date.”
Pieter felt his eyebrows shoot up.
Ernie had a big grin on his face. “I just tell them that I fought at Arnhem in 1944,” he laughed and swivelled his wheelchair about.
“Really?” Pieter said, doing the maths in his head.
“Yes, it works every time!”
And with that, he whizzed off down the hallway towards the open door.
While they had been chatting, the Chief Pathologist Prisha Kapoor had sent him a text message. The initial results from the toxicology tests had come in, and of the findings from the lab, one in particular had caught her eye.
Both bodies of the deceased couple contained a foreign substance in their bloodstreams. They had both been injected with the strong sedative Midazolam, an anaesthetic only available in hospitals or private medical facilities, and under strict licence. Certainly not something that you could purchase from your local pharmacy.
With Dr Bakker’s profession, it was feasible that he may have stored some at home, for whatever purpose, but would he have had cause to inject both himself and his wife with it?
Pieter couldn’t think of a plausible reason.
Chapter 11
Journeys Through the Night
When Tobias left the bookshop he could hardly think straight, and although he tried walking along Damrak as casually as possible, it felt like his head was all wobbly and lopsided, and the world appeared all askew.
The streets and people and traffic all around seemed different somehow, like he had suddenly awoken in a strange city inhabited by peculiar and unfamiliar beings. He felt lost and completely alone, a sensation that he recognized from his adolescence: as a young teenager, Tobias had developed a whole range of complexes, some of them so debilitating that even after years of counselling they still affected him now in his middle-age. Predominant amongst these was the crippling self-consciousness that had made having a normal day-to-day existence impossible, the feeling that whenever he left the house, everybody was watching him. On the bus or tram, at school and later at work, in the supermarket, or even when having a stroll along a quiet beach or through the park, he was convinced he was under constant scrutiny and observation. Thousands of pairs of eyes following his every move, every step of his leg or swing of his arm, people laughing and sniggering behind his back.
One of the results of this was the conviction that he was somehow different. Perhaps he was a robot made to look like a human? Or a guinea pig in some huge global experiment? Or perhaps he was dead, a ghost moving amidst the living.
As he had grown older these issues had lessened and faded. He learnt certain techniques to make them go away, or to push them to a part of his mind where they could be forgotten, some dusty shelf hidden away deep inside his psyche.
Yet every once in a while, when he was under extreme stress, these problems would return with a vengeance. They would come down on him like a dead-weight, making him sag both mentally and physically, and all of the bad thoughts would return with them. Thoughts of hatred. The blackness.
Moving along the street, with the hustling and bustling crowds bumping their way by him, and the cyclists and traffic criss-crossing his path, Tobias kept his eyes straight ahead, trying to ignore the grey and unfamiliar faces staring at him, the pointing fingers and the laughing teenagers calling out in derision. Walking as quickly as he could, he made his way towards Centraal Station, and, fighting his way against the tide of commuters exiting the train station, he cut left across Stationsplein and ducked into the underpass.
The tunnel below the busy station concourse was quieter with just a few homeless guys sitting in their sleeping bags, and Tobias felt his heart rate gradually begin to return to normal as he hurried along. Moving back into the open air, he went past the back entrance to the station and headed towards the free ferries that took foot passengers across the River IJ.
It was after 6pm by now, and fully dark. One of the small, blue boats was just arriving on the shore on this side, and he and a few other commuters waited while the ramp lowered to the quayside, and then he dashed forward to the front of the ferry and found a spot beside the gunwale, grabbing a hold of the handrail and sagging against the side, his eyes brimming with tears of fear and anger.
The journey over the river to North Amsterdam only took five minutes. A cold wind blew hard into his face, making his teeth throb and his cheeks go numb. As he stood there watching the lights of the city centre fade into the night Tobias finally felt himself relax and get himself back under control.
The phone call from Lotte had shaken him, not just the implied threat but the mere sound of her voice, and also the realization of just how deeply involved in her scheme he was. No matter how he felt about taking Nina, it really was too late to back out now. And this in turn filled him with dread at what was to come.
The bitch! She had taken advantage of his messed-up life, she had manipulated him and promised him all kinds of things, used him. And once he was hooked and passed the point of no return, there was no way out for him.
Tobias angrily wiped away the tears that rolled down his frozen face, and the blackness at the centre of his heart suddenly blossomed like a dead flower unfurling. It coursed through his veins, and he grimaced, and his head buzzed painfully.
By the time the ferry reached the far shore a lethal quiet had descended on him like a death shroud.
To avoid the traffic snarl-ups in the city centre Tobias had parked his black van in the large car park next to the old Tolhuis building in Amsterdam Noord, close to the river. He was soon driving through the suburban sprawl of this part of the city, and within ten minutes he was crossing the ring road. Here Amsterdam came to a sudden halt and beyond the countryside stretched away into the night, flat and featureless and devoid of all character, bisected by numerous ditches and watercourses.
There was very little traffic out here. The stro
ng and freezing wind which whipped unobstructed across the fields, together with the emptiness between villages, deterred anybody from making anything but essential journeys, especially in the middle of winter. Very soon, Tobias found himself completely alone, the van’s headlights cutting twin white beams through the cloudless night.
Just after seven o’clock he passed through the small community of Ransdorp, and beyond this the terrain became even more barren. If he continued heading north through Holysloot he would be able to pick up the N247 through Edam, and then make quicker progress home. However, he did not intend to head straight back home. The buzzing in his head had gradually worsened and was now more like a high-pitched whine that made his brain pulse just behind his eyes, and a cold fury squeezed his chest tight, and he knew he could not return to Nina like this, all pent-up and shaking. The sight of his pale face and bloodshot eyes would terrify the young girl. There was only one thing that would soothe the dark thoughts in his head. So he drove slowly along the unlit country roads, the tyres of the van gliding along the icy surface, his eyes roving back and forth. Looking and searching.
He spotted the lone cyclist just up ahead. Just what the heck he was doing all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, all by himself, pedalling sedately along without a care in the world, Tobias did not know. Perhaps he was on his way home to some shack in the countryside, having had a few drinks somewhere. He certainly seemed a bit wobbly, but that could just as easily been the strong wind buffeting him. Whatever the reason, Tobias didn’t really care. All he was bothered about was that here was a perfect opportunity presented to him.
Pulling out into the middle of the road, he drove carefully by the cyclist, whose scarf trailed along behind him. Driving on, Tobias glanced in his rearview, seeing the man give him a friendly wave. Tobias laughed quietly to himself.
A little further ahead the road widened to allow oncoming traffic to squeeze past each other, and Tobias steered into the side and then swung the van around in a tight turn until he was facing back the way he had just come. A few hundred yards ahead, the guy on the bike came pedalling along, as merry as can be.
Tobias waited for a few seconds. In his mind, he could already see the outcome of what he was about to do, and everything he saw was painted and splashed with the colour red.
Taking a deep breath, he gently pressed his foot down on the accelerator pedal and the van slowly moved forward, and then he gunned the engine and stamped down harder, and as the van roared and raced straight towards the cyclist, Tobias was hunched over the steering wheel, and his mind screamed in triumph.
◆◆◆
Sitting in Lotte’s cosy little study overlooking the old courtyard, Johan Roost read the text message sent by the Chief Pathologist to the cop.
After spending several hours the previous night outside Van Dijk’s house, shivering from the cold, he had decided instead to leave the hire car parked across the road from the narrow canal house with the IMSI – catcher running, while he listened in to any phone calls or intercepted any text messages from the comfort and warmth of Lotte’s apartment.
He read the message again. There was nothing alarming about it. The cops had pretty much worked out exactly how the abduction had taken place, but this knowledge should not provide them with any significant leads. And even if they worked out where Tobias had obtained the sedative from, it would not reveal Nina’s whereabouts.
Happy that all was in order for now, Johan leaned back in his chair and twisted his head from side to side to ease the ache in his neck muscles. Getting to his feet he wandered over to the small window, taking his steaming mug of coffee with him, and standing there and sipping the drink, he looked through the window pane at the frosty scene outside.
Lotte was sitting on the low wall that ran around the edge of the lawn, the statue of the Virgin Mary behind her seeming to glow in the moonlight.
She’d been there for nearly one hour now. Perfectly still, having not moved one inch, seemingly unaffected by the cold. Just sitting and staring straight ahead, with her eyes rolled up into the back of her head so that they looked like white marble. Twin spots of pale luminescence.
Johan shook his head. Christ, what was she doing?
Best if he didn’t know.
Whatever she was up to, it gave him the creeps.
Lotte was immersed in a deep and meditative trance.
It was a form of self-hypnosis, a technique that she had learnt from a fellow practitioner of the dark arts in Paris several years ago, and which she had since refined and perfected through controlled breathing and mental visualization skills. But even though she had done this many times before, inducing a trance state still did not come easy, and it always carried inherent risks.
Slowing her heart rate was the first stage. This in turn dulled her five basic senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste, so that all outside influences and distractions faded into the background, a little like turning down the volume on a radio. This left a vacuum in her mind. In this inner space she started to mentally construct her secondary body, her Body Of Light she called it.
Once she pictured her secondary body, which hovered just outside her physical form like a pale aura, she next transferred her consciousness across. Through a simple act of will she was able to visualize the detachment of her psyche from her person, and, with a slight vibration that passed through her bones like a tiny electric current, Lotte’s astral form slipped free.
Rising up from her discarded physical body, which remained seated on the wall, still alive but temporarily surplus to requirements, Lotte soared up and out of the old courtyard, higher than the surrounding rooftops, and headed out over the city.
Below her lay the streets and buildings and canals and traffic and people of Amsterdam, spread out like a map. The experience of travelling on the astral plane always thrilled her, and she revelled in the sensation of moving free from her body, to soar high or to swoop low above the rooftops, to move wherever she desired, unseen, unheard. Feeling euphoric, she moved over the city, aiming northwards over the river and within moments she was flying over the outer suburbs, and then the open countryside.
Earlier she had felt something was wrong. An alarm bell had been triggered in her sub-consciousness, something concerning Tobias, and although she could not fully understand what the nature of the problem was, she felt it was necessary to travel quickly to the source and see for herself. Thus she found herself drawn along like this, seeking him out like a bloodhound drawn towards the scent of blood.
There was no sense of time when travelling in astral form. She may have soared through the night for several hours, or for no longer than a few minutes. Additionally, the cold did not affect her: she could feel neither the temperature nor the strong wind blowing across the flat landscape. As for her physical body back in the courtyard: she could maintain her trance state for several hours, and her slow heartbeat would protect her from becoming hypothermic.
Below her a long and straight road stretched across the bleak countryside, visible as a pale grey strip to her hyper-sensitive vision. Further ahead she caught sight of a vehicle’s headlights and she swooped lower, and knew she was in the right place. Yes, now she could see Tobias, hunched over and pulling something along the roadway. Hovering above him silently, she watched.
He was dragging a body towards the grass verge, huffing and gasping with the effort and looking nervously around to make sure the way was clear, completely oblivious to the invisible observer floating overhead.
Lotte saw him roll the corpse into a waterlogged ditch at the roadside – she had no idea of the circumstances as to why he happened to be doing this, and she watched curiously and unalarmed. There was a quiet splash as the corpse disappeared below the surface of the water.
A few moments later and he threw in a crushed and misshapen bicycle, which also sank out of sight. With any luck the water in the ditch should freeze over overnight, sealing the corpse in and hiding all evidence, hopefully for a numb
er of days. Which would be long enough. At least he was staying calm and not panicking, Lotte thought to herself. Then Tobias was straightening and wiping his hands on his trousers and getting into his van.
Minutes later, having turned around, he drove quietly away into the night.
Lotte snapped back into full consciousness, finding herself safely back in her physical form at the old courtyard.
She went inside to see how her Uncle Johan was getting along.
Chapter 12
Kaatje
Madame Benoit was the Centre Manager at Hollandsche Manege, the prestigious riding school on Vondelstraat. She was short and very gaunt, and Kaatje guessed she was in her mid-fifties. She sported a colourful scarf around her neck to hide the first signs of aging, and she walked with a prominent limp and used a cane walking stick, perhaps as a result of some injury that had cut short her horse-riding dreams. They stood side by side on a balcony on the second floor overlooking the large riding hall below, where several horses and their riders, led by instructors, were trotting in slow, lazy circles. Behind them was a fancy tearoom. At 10am it was already getting busy, and soft chatter drifted through the open door.
It was a Saturday and was Kaatje’s day off. Still frustrated at yesterday’s unnecessary censure from Huijbers, she had resolved to do a little bit of her own private snooping regarding the Nina case, but only when off-duty to keep things low-key. Not that Madame Benoit needed to know that she was off-duty.
During their visit to the eye clinic yesterday, while Pieter had been poking about and causing trouble she had chatted with the receptionist. From their brief discussion Kaatje had learnt about Nina Bakker’s recent enrolment at Hollandche Manege, and so had decided this was as good a place as any to start with her little clandestine investigation.