He’d been played.
Anger lashed him. He lunged at the bin, ripped it off the stake it was screwed to, and threw the whole thing back towards the building he’d been cooped up in, narrowly missing a woman cycling past.
She looked at Kees, then turned away and carried on pedalling.
He forced himself to think, trying to remember if there was anything that Isovic had said which might be useful.
The file Kees had been passed before taking on the job had been thin at best, and didn’t tell him any more than Isovic had himself. He was testifying against Matkovic, who he claimed had been involved in mass rape and killings, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, usually shortened to ICTY.
Why did he want to escape anyway? It’s not like he was on trial.
Kees forced himself to think. If he was Isovic, where would he go now? Try to leave the country? Or try to hide here? And why disappear anyway? It didn’t make sense.
He did mention something about friends in Haarlem, he thought. Car repairs, or valeting. Some immigrant shit.
Kees glanced at his phone. It was coming up to quarter to four. There’d be loads of businesses doing that out there, but as he headed back to the station, he realized that he didn’t have anything better to be doing.
He signed out a patrol car – all the unmarkeds were out – and called Frits as he left, telling him he needed addresses for all car-related businesses in Haarlem. As he pulled out of Amsterdam – traffic was starting to build up so he slammed on the siren – he wondered what would happen to him if he didn’t find Isovic.
His phone buzzed, a text message giving him a location for his collection later.
Kees deleted it one-handed while swerving around a truck which hadn’t moved over for him.
The collection was going to be tricky. The message he’d sent, via the woman, had not gone down well.
I could just not go, he thought.
He listened to the sound of the siren for a few moments, watched the road ahead.
Who was he kidding?
If he didn’t turn up they’d know where to find him.
And anyway, he seriously needed some more.
7
Saturday, 8 May
16.18
Total carnage.
And that was before Jaap even got anywhere near the body itself.
He pulled up outside a school playground in the gridded section which joined Amsterdam and its leafy southern neighbour Amstelveen to find it crawling with TV vans. Three uniforms were trying to herd the reporters back but not having much luck.
As he parked and stepped out of the car a journalist he vaguely knew spotted him and dashed forwards, holding a furry mike out in front of her, a cameraman rushing behind her, trying to keep up and not trip over his wires.
Jaap wanted to duck and run.
‘Inspector Rykel, is it true that this is the second body found without a head?’ she asked as she got into range. The rest of the pack turned to see what was going on, their camera lenses flashing in the sun like wolves baring fangs and moving in for the kill.
‘I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, you know that,’ he said as he fought his way through the pack to the playground. A uniform had managed to secure the entrance, but the cameras still had a clear sight-line to what was on the concrete.
Jaap stood by the body, trying to block the view of the reporters, and looked down.
Another corpse. Another head removed.
Frits had sent him the tweet, which had simply said there was a headless man at the listed address and gave a link to a photo of the body. The photo itself hadn’t shown the missing head, the top of the frame cut off just below the shoulders, but it was enough to get the media’s attention. Jaap had no idea how anyone had seen the tweet in the first place – as far as he could tell Twitter was a vast torrent of moronic shit – let alone acted so quickly.
Seems like journalists haven’t got anything better to do than surf the Internet, he thought as his phone started ringing.
It was Saskia. His promise to get this case over with quickly was now going to get broken for sure. He let it ring.
‘Not another,’ said a voice behind him.
Jaap turned to see the same forensic as earlier, then turned back to the body. He checked the hands.
‘Burned again?’ asked the forensic, putting down his bag.
‘Yeah,’ said Jaap, turning to the nearest uniform. ‘Let’s get a screen up around this.’
His phone buzzed a message, Saskia asking him to call her urgently. He touched the coins in his pocket before he called her back.
‘I’m kind of in the middle of something—’
‘I’ve just had a call from Ronald,’ said Saskia.
Jaap thought Saskia held Ronald, her boss, in way too high regard, and had recently wondered if there was something going on there. She was his ex, so it wouldn’t have been any of his business, but for Floortje. He found the thought of her having another father, even if it was only a stepfather, one he didn’t want to contemplate.
‘And?’
‘We’ve got a really bad situation going on. My main witness has been lost.’
‘What do you mean lost?’
‘He was under police protection, and someone screwed up.’
‘That’s the thing, the cops down in Den Haag?’ said Jaap, eyeing a reporter who was trying to edge round the newly erected screen shielding the body. ‘They’re rubbish.’
‘This isn’t a joke, Jaap. And anyway, it was in Amsterdam. I think it may even have been someone at your station.’
The body was lying at Jaap’s feet. His eyes travelled up to the severed neck.
Who is doing this? he thought.
‘Look, I’m not sure what I can do, I’ve got a second body here, and I—’
‘I was just hoping you could find something out. Without Isovic the whole trial is going to collapse. That means letting Matkovic get away with it.’
Jaap knew how much this meant to her. She’d been working the case since she’d gone back after Floortje was born. At times he thought she’d been working too hard, but then she was still trying to cope with Andreas’ death, and having a child. The same way he was trying to cope with Karin’s death and the new reality that the child he thought was Andreas’ was actually his own.
They split the childcare as evenly as they could, but given both their jobs it was never easy.
‘Surely there’s someone working on it?’
‘Yeah, they said they had a team. Their best people. Which basically means they’ve probably got one washed-up old patrol guy on it.’
Jaap guessed that was the lawyer in her, cynical, unwilling to believe anything she was told. Which was probably why they’d split up in the first place.
But it didn’t make her wrong – they were understaffed as it was.
‘Okay. I’ll make a couple of calls, see what’s going on.’
Jaap pocketed his phone – he missed the old clamshell models where you could snap them shut at the end of the call – and looked around. The playground was wedged between two buildings on either side, a wall with primary-coloured murals blocking the far end. One of the images was a large bearded face. It took Jaap a few moments to realize it was probably meant to represent Jesus.
A Christian school.
Jaap wondered about his earlier thought, about home-grown terrorists.
So where are the demands? he thought.
Blue lights flickered as more patrol cars turned up, and the new influx of uniforms busied themselves stringing up police tape between lamp posts, and then pushing the journalists behind it.
Jaap turned back to the body. Like the first, it was dressed in jeans and trainers, but with a football shirt, the red and white of the local team.
Unlike the first victim though, where Jaap had found the lack of blood disturbing, this one was floating on a lake of the stuff, already going sticky from the look of it.
He could smell exhaust from one of the TV vans, and he caught snippets of a reporter giving a particularly graphic account to someone over the phone.
Not that it mattered; anyone with an Internet connection could see the photo. It had been retweeted, which Jaap didn’t understand, but he’d been told by Roemers that the only way to restrict access to it now would be to shut down the entire web.
Jaap had almost asked him if he could do it.
The forensic rummaged around in the body’s pockets and extracted a black phone, same model as the earlier body, a wallet and a bunch of keys.
‘Gloves?’
‘You should have kept the ones from earlier.’
‘I figured I didn’t want to cross-contaminate the scene, isn’t that what you lot are always on about?’
The forensic sighed.
‘Lucky for you I replenished my stock before coming out.’
He pointed to his kit bag a few feet past the perimeter of blood.
Jaap got some and then took the phone.
I hope I’m not on this one as well, he thought as he powered it on.
But this time it asked for a passcode.
He bagged it up, he’d have to get the tech department on to that, and stood back from the body.
Two victims, both killed the same day and their deaths announced on Twitter, which had notified the press. He dialled Frits.
‘That tweet,’ he said when Frits picked up. ‘Any chance of it being traced?’
‘I already asked someone to look into that, I haven’t heard back yet.’
‘Let me know the second you do.’
‘The thing is, that whole department is kind of tied up, Tanya’s got some case on and is storming around like a bitch on heat.’
Jaap had wondered if people at the station had figured out about him and Tanya, but Frits’ tone suggested he hadn’t. And Frits knew everything that went on there, so if he didn’t know, nobody did.
Unless he’s baiting me, he thought.
He toyed with the idea of calling Tanya, who must have got roped into something at the last minute. She was supposed to be going away with a couple of friends today – had been talking about it for weeks – and she’d be mad if she missed that.
‘Can you check that someone is doing it though? And what’s this about a missing witness?’
‘Oh man. Smit nearly shat his entire insides out when he heard about that. I tell you what, if Kees doesn’t find the guy soon I reckon that’ll pretty much be it for him.’
‘Don’t tell me it was Kees who lost him,’ said Jaap, knowing he was going to be disappointed.
‘The same.’
Once he’d hung up Jaap shook his head. It was kind of his fault.
Kees saved my life, thought Jaap. And I thought I was repaying the favour.
He should have told Smit about Kees’ reliance on coke instead of trying to help him on the quiet. But since the death of Inspector Andreas Houten over a year ago and the subsequent cover-up of the murder by Smit, their relations had never recovered.
‘Wanna rifle through his wallet?’ said the forensic, jolting Jaap back to the present.
‘What’s there?’ he asked, stepping over.
A tornado of flies circled the body, he could hear their buzzing.
‘Usual stuff. His driving licence says he’s called Martin Teeven. And …’ said the forensic handing it over ‘… several thousand euros.’
Jaap took the wallet, the brown leather still shiny. It looked brand new. He noticed the lack of any kind of card. He did a quick count of the cash, well over three thousand euros, and a fistful of receipts.
It’s usually only dealers who have this kind of cash on them, he thought as he turned to the receipts.
‘Hey, look at this,’ said the forensic.
Jaap looked down to where he was pointing. The trouser leg on the dead man’s left calf was rolled up. An ankle holster made of cheap black leather which looked like it was missing a knife. There was a roundel on the top strap, black plastic with the outline of an eagle in gold.
‘Pity he wasn’t carrying it today, might have been useful when he was attacked.’
The first victim had owned a gun but had not had it on him, and the second victim owned a knife but again had not been carrying. Unless whoever killed him had taken it.
Jaap turned back to the receipts. The name on one of them caught his attention. It was a cafe on Bloemgracht, about twenty metres away from where his houseboat was moored.
‘How about we split it?’ said the forensic. ‘I mean, he’s not going to need it, is he? I could use a couple hundred for tonight. Flash it around a bit, impress the date.’
Jaap ignored him.
He’d just checked the other receipts.
And his mouth was now Sahara-dry.
He wondered if the forensic would notice his fingers. See the tremor there.
Of the fourteen, twelve were from the same cafe, going back over the last five days.
He turned to the driving licence.
The name was familiar, as was the face.
It took him a few moments to remember exactly.
But then it came.
Jaap had arrested him over eight years ago. He’d testified at the trial, where Teeven had protested his innocence.
Jaap could hear someone calling his name – one of the journalists asking for a comment – but he ignored him, thinking about the trial, remembering the two days with startling clarity.
Remembering the moment the judge announced Teeven was going down for murder and the look Teeven shot him.
Remembering, in a weird kind of slow motion like he was underwater, the threat Teeven had mouthed across the courtroom as he was led away.
8
Saturday, 8 May
16.59
‘You’re going to want to see this,’ Tanya said as Smit tried to tell her he was busy.
He looked at her for a second, then motioned back into his office, moved round his desk, sat down, and ran his hand over his head.
When she’d first transferred down to Amsterdam Smit had been large, but looking at him now she realized that he’d changed, lost weight. His face was thinner, and his body was almost lean-looking, helped by the well cut suit he was wearing. She knew people called him The Eel behind his back, a reference to both his slippery nature and the fact that his corpulent body had been the very opposite of an eel’s. But with the lost weight it was starting to sound less ironic.
There was a smell which Tanya couldn’t quite place. Something floral, like lavender. Or roses.
‘Make it quick. I’ve got to brief the mayor on what’s going on with these beheadings. And it looks like something else as well?’
‘I don’t think you’re going to want to brief them on this just yet,’ said Tanya, sitting in the chair opposite his desk. ‘It really is one of us.’
Smit exhaled and flicked something Tanya couldn’t see off his desk.
‘There was me hoping the guy had just managed to nick a police jacket from somewhere.’
‘Me too. But I checked those calls, the ones to the woman’s phone?’
He nodded.
‘They traced back to here. Someone made them from this building.’
‘Seriously?’ said Smit, breathing out. ‘That’s the kind of shit I can do without.’ He shook his head. ‘Any way of working out who?’
‘Not that I can see. We don’t have cameras in any of the offices, only the cells and interrogation rooms. I can get the tech team to see if they can pinpoint a specific computer, but I don’t think they can.’
I should have said ‘someone’, not ‘I’, she thought.
Smit pulled open a drawer in his desk, took out a pot of hand cream and dabbed it on his palms, rubbing it in slowly, before working his way up each finger. Fully moisturized, he replaced the pot and slid the drawer shut.
‘You were
right. I don’t want to brief anyone on this.’
He worked a bit of stray cream around one of his cuticles.
‘Normally in this kind of case I’d be obliged to let the Ministry of Justice know – they’d send their own team out to investigate – but …’ he tailed off.
‘I think that’s best. The thing is, I’m actually on leave already. I’m going away with some friends.’
The same lie I told Jaap, she thought. At least I’m keeping it consistent.
Smit was looking out the window. He didn’t give any sign that he’d actually heard her.
‘The problem is, getting an internal investigation team in is really unpopular. I’ve seen it done before, and it just creates chaos. I’d be much happier if you could go forward with this. Treading carefully, of course.’
‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea, and like I said, I’m supposed to be on—’
‘And I don’t want you saying a word to anyone about this. You report only to me. Is that clear?’
Smit stood up, glanced at his watch. He shuffled a few things around on his desk, placing a pen on top of a pile of paper. Adjusted it until it was at the perfect angle.
‘And this cannabis farm thing,’ he said as if mollifying her. ‘Let’s just sit on it for now. Concentrate on the killing, then we’ll go back to it.’
He stood up, still no eye contact.
‘I’ve got to get going now,’ he said as he went to the door, holding it open for Tanya.
‘But what about my leave?’
He looked at her as if she’d suddenly popped up out of the floor.
‘All leave’s cancelled,’ he said. ‘As of now.’
As she stepped out into the corridor, Smit closing the door on her heels, she could tell she hadn’t played it right.
9
Saturday, 8 May
17.57
After all the shitty luck he’d been having, Kees finally got a break.
Or thought he had. It was only the third place he’d visited, and the people working there had never heard of anyone called Isovic.
So they said.
But Kees could see they were lying.
He was in a shabby office out back. Unusually for a garage, there wasn’t a calendar featuring a semi-naked woman hanging from the wall. A window looked over a grimy work area, where three cars were hiked up on large platforms so that men in overalls could do things to their undersides.
Into the Night: Inspector Rykel Book 2 (Amsterdam Quartet) Page 4