‘You mentioned. Who?’
‘Someone got out of bed the wrong side today…’
‘Not me.’ I hadn’t been to bed at all – courtesy of Kamilla…
‘He didn’t identify himself,’ she said.
I shifted my shoulder bag to my usual arm, my right, then winced at the bruise there. A groan escaped me.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Hopefully. What did he look like?’
‘Well-dressed. He seemed official.’
‘Official? How so?’
‘He had an air of authority about him.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘So what did he say?’
‘He asked if you were here. When I said you weren’t, he promised that he’d be in contact.’
‘Did you say I was in London?’
‘I just said you were away.’
‘OK…’ I breathed a little easier.
I tried to think of whether it could be related to my new role in Internal Investigations – or the trip to London. Franks, conceivably? Someone from the diplomatic service? In which case, why not intercept me at the airport?
‘I trust you picked up some English liquorice in London?’
I tried to match her lighter tone: ‘I’m going one better – I’m following through on my promise already.’
‘Which promise?’
‘Seeing Sonia Brinkerhof.’
‘I’m impressed. Though I’d expected nothing less, after revealing my source.’
Yeah, a fat lot of good Sergei did me, I felt like saying.
But I didn’t.
*
Sonia Brinkerhof saw me in her apartment – the same place she’d interviewed me for the Internal Investigations role a month ago. I drew solace from the knowledge that she’d gone on to endorse my candidacy for the Rijksrecherche.
‘Please,’ she gestured, glancing at the plasters on my knuckles as she showed me through to her stately living room.
I sat down on the worn leather sofa. ‘We’re meeting in a purely personal capacity, correct?’ I’d called ahead to go over the terms and conditions, yet still felt the need to confirm this. ‘Our meeting has nothing to do with my new police role?’
‘You don’t need to say that. I’m first and foremost a family psychologist, not an informant.’
Her remark throbbed with irony.
‘So, how do we do this?’
She glanced at a carriage clock on the stone mantelpiece. ‘I have to leave at two o’clock, as mentioned.’
‘Understood.’
‘Why don’t you start by describing in your own words what it is you want to resolve?’
‘OK,’ I said, crossing my legs protectively, and considering where to begin. ‘I’ve been having some flashbacks lately. It’s to do with… an incident, which occurred a year or so ago. A series of incidents, in fact. They…’
How to describe them, without implicating Johan? Could I tell her that someone I knew killed a man – and that I’d witnessed part of the incident but couldn’t remember how it happened?
That was the truth of it.
She waited, pen in hand.
‘I guess what I’m trying to say is, things built to a head, and at the crucial moment, I don’t remember what took place.’
She made a brief note. ‘You think that you’re suffering from a memory blockage, in other words?’
‘Yes. Only I wasn’t knocked out or anything like that. It wasn’t… that. It’s just, for some reason, I don’t seem able to recall events as well as I’d like to.’ I corrected myself: ‘As well as I need to.’
‘And this is causing you problems, in the present?’
I gave a cathartic exhalation. ‘Yes, in ways I don’t even understand. It’s like this hole inside.’ I grasped at my chest. ‘A missing part of me…’
A shudder, from the depths of me. Sonia reached for a box of tissues, but I waved them away.
‘It’s affecting my relations with my wife… and my daughter, and her fiancé…’
Perhaps she remembered me describing my family in our prior interview, as she said, more softly now, ‘Do you want to tell me what you do remember?’
The flash – illuminating the shell casing flying from the Sig… Johan’s outstretched arm moving towards Zsolt’s heart… I try to look away, only to hear the second gunshot explode low over the dykes of Waterland, forcing away my gaze further, to the hamlet nearby… A dog barks, distantly.
How could things have come to that? However hard I tried, I just couldn’t remember…
‘Could we try this a different way?’ I said. ‘Could you explain the different options for recalling something like this from the past?’
‘Generally, in these sessions, it’s me who asks the questions,’ she replied. ‘But, OK, since we’re short on time – the good news is that this event is in the relatively recent past. The bad news is that, depending on the extent of the trauma involved – and it seems clear that trauma is involved – that may be irrelevant.’
‘How so?’
‘All of our memories are theoretically available to us, from our earliest age. All are theoretically there in our subconscious. The conscious “remembering” mind is only a very small part of our mental being.’
I canted my head.
‘If it were a trivial memory, the conscious mind might have simply tucked it away, in which case it would only require a relevant prompt or trigger.’
The word choice made me wince.
She caught it, I was sure – she was too damn perceptive. ‘If it’s something you’re ashamed of, or afraid of, then the memory may be misshapen, so that you recall only the memory of an erroneous memory. Or nothing. The hole of which you speak.’
‘OK,’ I said slowly, uncrossing my legs. ‘So –’
‘The trick is to bring it to the surface consciously, and carefully. The memory is buried for a reason. Uncovering it could entail a very strong psychic release, which might overwhelm you.’
‘So…?’
‘Three choices – one being mental reconstruction, which you could theoretically do on your own.’
‘Without you?’
‘Everything here is confidential, up to the point that I have a legal obligation to report something to the police. I’d hate for you to place me in that position.’
‘What if it involved a friend?’
‘Same difference.’
I recalled a question from the test I’d had to sit for my new role: Your best friend is driving; you’re in the passenger seat. He is careless going around a corner and hits a dog crossing the street. No one sees, and there are no marks on his car. He does not turn himself in – what do you do?
Sonia had seen my answer – along with those for every other question. She waited for me to nod my understanding before continuing: ‘What about your dreams?’
‘What about them? I don’t remember them either. I wake, damp with sweat, only aware that I’ve had a nightmare.’
‘Not being able to remember your dreams is usually a sign that your conscious mind isn’t ready to confront the dream content.’ She paused. ‘So there are very few options left. This simplifies things. I would suggest hypnotherapy –’
‘Being hypnotised?’
‘Yes, but that’s potentially most dangerous of all. I don’t practise it myself, and there’s no one I could reliably recommend…’
‘So what does that leave?’
‘Find the trigger. Have you tried talking to your friend? Properly, and carefully?’
32
WITHOLDING
Driving back from a welcome day trip to Petra’s cousin in Delft, I narrowed my eyes in concentration. We would decamp there yet, if I had my way.
The eastbound Amsterdam ring road was dark and sticky with rainwater.
Joost wasn’t returning my calls, but that wasn’t the problem – Joost’s lack of interest came as no surprise at this point.
I couldn’t pinpoint the source of this new anxiety…
‘Fatigue, maybe,’ I replied.
Chronic, I could have added.
She patted my knee and I eyed my watch. I was due to catch up with Johan in an hour’s time.
‘Good thing we’re almost home,’ she said, withdrawing her hand.
‘Yes.’
Vehicles swished by in the fast lane.
‘Should we drop in on Nadia?’ I asked.
Petra turned to me. I glanced across at her features, whitened by the oncoming headlamps. ‘Where?’ her eyes flashed in the reflected light and dimmed.
My gaze returned to the road, carrying with it a white impression of my wife’s face. Dimly I saw the vehicle edging past in the left lane, its engine rumbling.
‘The Kriterion?’ I suggested. ‘Doesn’t she work a late shift on a Sunday? We could stop by and say hello.’
It was mud-spattered, open and high-sided – like a refuse truck. Come to think of it, I’d seen it before…
‘Are you worried about her again?’
‘Not especially.’
‘Come on, Henk.’ I sensed her making a moue. ‘I know that look.’
‘I –’
Passing Schiphol, seven kilometres back.
‘Huh?’ she prompted.
A windblown dark head appeared over the side of the truck, then a hand…
‘Jesus!’
I swerved, sending Petra’s head bobbing left, almost colliding with mine. The object released bounced off the top frame of the windscreen with a metallic bang, the glass quicksilvering.
There was no road ahead anymore, only milky light patterns.
Petra had her head in her arms. I fumbled for my hazards while braking, hard, hearing a skid, a horn blare. Time stood still as I waited for the bang of a front or rear impact… I slowed and veered right, coming to a juddering halt with a grating sound as we ran into the concrete motorway siding.
We were stationary.
Short, shallow gasps escaped my mouth. I fought to catch my breath. The hazard lights flared orange across the spider’s web of broken glass.
‘Are you OK?’ I turned to my wife.
She was sobbing and shaking as I tried to cradle her.
Still I kept waiting for the bang.
Instead came flickering blue.
It was a piece of breeze block that had been hurled our way, the traffic cops eventually determined, after analysing the fragments embedded in the windscreen frame.
By the time that determination was made, far worse would have happened.
*
‘Christ, Johan, it’s good to see you,’ I said, clasping his forearm. I guided him to a candlelit table at the rear of De Druif. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘Yes, it has,’ he said.
I caught the accusation in his words.
‘Please.’ I gestured for him to sit.
I signalled to Gert to bring our usuals, making a pen-stroke gesture to ensure that it went on my tab.
‘What’s up?’ Johan asked.
‘I thought it would be good to catch up. It’s been too long.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’m hearing something else,’ he said. ‘Something you need.’
I looked across at the darkening canal outside. There were no boats; the water looked unusually still.
‘OK,’ I said, arriving at a decision. ‘You’re right. I keep thinking back to that time’ – there was no need to spell out which – ‘and what happened.’
‘You think I don’t?’ Johan asked, astonished. His pale eyes were as alert as they were distant. ‘Christ. All the times, Henk, that I kept searching for some comfort – that there wouldn’t be repercussions, with the police… or worse!’
I banged the table. ‘And I gave you everything I could! If there was anything more I could have given you, do you not think I would have? But –’
He sat back and crossed his arms as our beers arrived. I nodded my thanks to Gert, who made to leave again but then turned and said, ‘A man was in here earlier, looking for you, Henk.’
‘Oh?’ I glanced around the bar. ‘Who?’
‘Didn’t say.’
‘Well, did he leave a message, or a number?’
‘I don’t think he wanted to be remembered. But I thought you should know.’
Johan’s eyes flickered between Gert and me, and I caught something there, too.
Suspicion? Anxiety?
‘I’ll be at the bar,’ Gert said, leaving us.
‘So what is it you want to know?’ Johan demanded.
‘What happened…’
Something was terribly wrong.
‘I shot the man.’
‘Yes,’ I said, recalling the Hungarian lying submerged in the dyke, like in a watery open coffin. ‘But what led up to that event? My memory’s… gone.’
‘Huh? It’s simple. I had the gun, you didn’t. You told me to shoot him, in the head and the heart. So I did.’
‘But –’
‘I take full responsibility for my actions,’ Johan was saying, his voice increasingly laced with accusation.
What was he withholding?
‘Let go of it,’ he concluded, ‘as I learned to. The hard way.’ He stood up, jostling the table and slopping the beers.
Again I fumbled for the associated memory, my palm wrapped around my hot forehead.
‘So long, Henk.’
And with that, he left.
I called Gert over. ‘What did this guy earlier look like?’
‘Hmm…’ he thought. ‘It’s not so easy to describe people, is it?’
If I had a fifty-euro note for every time a potential witness had trotted that line out, or similar…
‘Attire?’ I prompted. ‘Height?’
‘Smartly dressed, organised-looking. But pretty anonymous, too…’
The same man who’d been to the boat earlier, as reported by Petra?
‘Oh, there was one thing,’ Gert said.
‘What?’
‘He made strong eye contact. Not sure he meant to. Tough to forget, though.’
*
Who was he?
I was so preoccupied by the question that I missed three calls from Petra – I’d set my phone to silent while in the bar.
The mist was thick on Entrepotdok as I paced the short distance back to our houseboat. Its dark outline looked wrong, bouncing in my field of vision as I lengthened my stride.
The darkness… why no lights on?
I fumbled for my phone. By this time I was running, and the phone fell from my hand. My other hand, slick with sweat, sought haplessly to catch it; the phone flipped and fell, landing beside the water.
Its screen wasn’t cracked, mercifully. Rather, it was lit up and vibrating, almost over the edge.
Petra.
I grabbed it and answered.
‘Henk, thank God! Where’ve you been?’
‘De Druif, with Johan… Didn’t I mention that?’ I was sure I had. ‘Where are you?’
‘Nadia’s.’
‘Sergei’s?’
‘The same.’
‘Why?’
I stopped ten metres from the boat.
‘Someone came by again.’
‘Who?’ I asked, my heart hammering. ‘The same man?’
‘I don’t know, I didn’t answer the door.’
‘Why not?’
‘Just a bad feeling. I don’t like being there anymore.’
Not again.
I walked silently over the gang
plank. ‘Hold on, Petra.’ I removed the phone from my ear and looked around, listening intently. All I caught were creaking timbers, quietly lapping waters – a distant shout, the faint traffic noise on Sarphatistraat. The familiar.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Henk, what the devil is going on?’
‘I don’t know…’
I unlocked the door and entered the cabin, descending the steps warily. Turning the galley light on revealed nothing.
‘Petra?’
But she’d gone.
‘Henk.’ Sergei’s voice came on the line.
Christ.
‘Do you need help?’ His voice struck an appropriate tone of concern, but I caught a trace of triumph beneath.
‘I can manage, thanks. Is my wife –’
‘Because we’re family now, and where I come from, that means that we look after one another.’
I felt my chest and throat tighten. ‘Just put my wife back on the goddamn phone, will you?’
He did so.
‘I’m here now if you want to come home,’ I said, reaching for the clay bottle of jenever.
With that, I ended the call.
I found my usual spot beside the porthole, setting the full glass down on the little shelf I’d fixed up there. Staring out into the watery darkness, I tried desperately to remember.
*
‘There he is,’ Johan said in a low voice.
I stared at him as he walked down the dark street.
Between him and his almost-identical brother, I’d observed that gait often enough: it was definitely Zsolt, the informant.
We were sitting in my car, just one of a row of anonymously parked vehicles on a nondescript street in Zaandam, north of Amsterdam.
‘Should we wait for him to get inside his apartment?’
My gaze swept the quiet, suburban scene. In the three hours we’d been sitting there, I’d spied no sign of a security detail – personal or police-provided. ‘Let’s go now,’ I said, instinctively. ‘You ready?’
We pulled on our gloves and Johan quickly began soaking a handkerchief with the chloroform, spilling some on the seat between his legs.
‘Christ, careful!’ I said.
Chloroform sounds like a cliché from a bad action film, but it has the beauty of being fast-acting and self-regulating: victims knock themselves out fast, and nothing worse. I wanted Zsolt to remain alive.
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