They’re adults, he thought. They can sort it out themselves.
‘Position?’ Hank asked the radio.
‘Covering the rear exit,’ crackled the response.
‘Then we’re going in,’ said Hank as he lurched the car forward, skidding it to a halt right in front of one of the houses midway along the terrace.
Gulls flapped into the air with angry shrieks.
Jaap sprang out, ran round the front of the car and joined Hank by the door to the property. Hank drew, and Jaap followed suit.
Hank finger-counted down from three then stepped forward and kicked right by the lock. Wood crunched. The door gave.
‘Police,’ he yelled in a death-metal voice as they ran in.
A short corridor ended in a room to the back, and stairs led to the first floor. The rooms to either side were empty, Jaap clocked as they ran past. Hearing movement above them they took the stairs two at a time, Hank out in front.
On the first floor there was a small landing and two closed doors. It was dark, the one window above the stairs blacked out. Jaap could hear an electrical hum. They picked the room on the right where the hurried footsteps had come from, and positioned themselves either side of the door.
‘Police. Come out slowly,’ shouted Hank.
Noises from the inside again, whispering.
Jaap caught a herbal hit.
‘Come out now,’ Hank shouted again.
This time just silence.
He looked across to Jaap, motioned for him to cover and stepped into position ready to kick in the door.
Jaap watched as he raised his foot.
Then he watched as the door seemed to erupt, splinters of wood flying towards Hank, light trailing each individual piece.
It was then he heard the shot. His ears imploded.
Hank fell back, slamming his head on the wall behind him. Jaap found he’d shifted position, about thirty degrees off the door, his gun held out in front of him. He could hear Hank groaning on the floor.
Through the high-pitched ringing Jaap heard the unmistakable click and pump of a shotgun being reloaded.
He ducked across the doorway, light blaring out of the holes in the door, dust swirling in the solid rays, and pulled the trigger, emptying the clip before he got to the other side.
One of the eight must have hit home; there was a muffled scream and the sound of someone toppling over like a sack of earth dropped to the floor.
He squatted down, out of line of the door and grabbed Hank’s left arm, pulling him towards him. Hank groaned again, tried to help by scrabbling with his unhurt leg, but his foot kept slipping in a slick of blood.
Once Jaap had managed to manoeuvre him further away from the door he quickly went over the wound. Multiple shot in the foot and calf. It was messy, and it needed attention.
Quick.
He hoped Hank’s men covering the back had heard the shots.
‘I’m going to secure the place, then we’ll get you an ambulance,’ he whispered to Hank, who nodded and handed him his own gun. Jaap took it and moved by the side of the door. With one hand he reached out and gave it a shove, retracting his hand at speed. The door flew inwards, but there were no more shots.
He could hear his own breath, rough as sandpaper, and under that the techno track of his heart, pounding fast and hard. The grip of the gun suddenly appeared to be covered in moisture. He took a deep breath, then burst into the room, gun ahead of him.
It was hot inside, and there was a forest of weed, leaves clustered thick. The hum was louder now, overhead. He looked up to see high-power grow lights hanging from the ceiling. Jaap’s eyes were adjusting too slowly. A man lay slumped on the floor about four feet from the door, shotgun just out of his reach. There was a second man, standing several plants deep.
He had his hands up in the air like he was hanging from a cliff.
30
Sunday, 9 May
12.21
It hadn’t taken Tanya long to establish that the girl who’d worked at the estate agent, Esther, had done a runner.
Her housemate, a particularly grim specimen who’d opened the door, bare stomach drooping down over low-slung jeans, had seemed more upset that he was going to be short on the rent for next month. No, he’d not really known her, he’d said with one hand on the door frame, the other fiddling with his outie belly button.
Tanya’d asked to see her room, and had been forced to squeeze past the man to get in. She was sure he’d got some kind of thrill from it. The room itself hadn’t yielded much, Esther had either taken everything she owned, or hadn’t owned that much in the first place. Just as she was leaving something had caught her eye by the doorway; she’d bent down to look, finding it was a small silver cross on a thin chain. The clasp was broken. She’d bagged it up, then left.
Then she’d talked to someone at the tram company. She explained what she needed and he’d agreed to put the word out; any drivers on the route she specified seeing a man in a wheelchair were to call her.
Now she was in the tech unit reviewing every sighting on Centraal’s CCTV of the man who’d killed the homeless woman. The heavy metal T-shirted tech said they’d been through everything.
At no point was his face visible, his cap covering his features in the few moments when he was actually on camera. There was one short sequence of him, leaving once he’d pushed the woman in front of the train, when the camera caught the back of his head. Tanya could see the man’s hair was short. Much shorter than Kees’.
‘You okay?’ asked the tech.
Tanya realized she must’ve sighed.
‘Yeah, fine,’ she said, getting up.
So it wasn’t Kees.
Which didn’t mean he wasn’t involved; he was still the only one who could have made the calls, and she was sure he’d reacted when she’d aired her theory.
She made her way up the stairs from the basement, and just as she turned a corner she heard a man yell out from above. Toilet rolls cascaded down the steps towards her, several unspooling as they came. A man in white overalls stood on the landing, a two-wheeled trolley in his grip, now half empty.
‘Sorry,’ he called out. ‘Not hurt, are you?’
‘I’ve had worse things thrown at me than toilet paper,’ she said, picking up a roll. ‘At least this looks relatively unused.’
‘Normally it’s wrapped up, but for some reason when I picked it up at the depot today it was all loose,’ he said, starting down towards her, grabbing up rolls as he did, throwing them back up the stairs behind him.
Tanya stood and watched him for a moment. Something had just struck her.
The logs she’d requested had been for police staff only; she’d not thought of civilians. But there were loads of people who came in and out of the station on a daily basis.
Could it be someone from outside? she thought. Could they have got access to a computer?
It would be a risk, a huge risk, for someone to take. But then she thought of the night cleaners. There was a crew who passed through, cleaning not only the desks but the computers themselves. She remembered one night she was in late watching a man sitting at one of the inspectors’ desks wiping a computer keyboard.
And the calls had all been made at night.
She turned and ran down the stairs, a roll of paper chasing down after her.
31
Sunday, 9 May
12.24
There was no question in Kees’ mind.
He was in the same room as last night, and whoever had been on duty watching the CCTV had a seriously bad body-odour problem. Jaap had called a while back, asking him to help out with his investigation. As if he didn’t already have enough on his plate. He’d agreed though, because really, what choice did he have?
But that didn’t mean he still wasn’t going to try and get Isovic.
He was looking at the freeze-frame on the screen, and despite the poor quality, and the fact that the best shot they could pause on was only a two-thirds prof
ile, he was sure the face was Krilic’s.
The fucker, thought Kees as he stared at the image.
Krilic had been there the night before, probably the same time Kees had been, and it looked like he was leaving in a hurry.
‘Was he here on his own?’
‘I don’t know. I’d have to go back through the video, see if I can trace him back.’
‘Do it,’ said Kees.
‘The thing is—’
Kees turned to him. ‘Just do it,’ he said.
The barman did it.
They managed to work out his route. He’d emerged from the stairs in the main section of the club at 22.11, if the numbers on the bottom left of the screen were correct. He was moving fast.
‘What’s up those stairs?’
‘Another bar. It’s smaller, quieter.’
‘Cameras up there?’
The barman tapped a few keys, and a new set of images came on screen. A few minutes of searching and Kees spotted Krilic. He was at a small round table at the back. The figure he was sitting with was angled in just such a way he couldn’t make out the face.
‘Go forward,’ said Kees. ‘I need to follow his friend there.’
About five minutes after Krilic left, the figure finished off his drink and stood up, turning towards the camera as he headed for the stairs.
Got you, thought Kees.
Ten minutes later he was back at the station, and he bumped into Smit in the corridor. Smit invited him into his office, and from the look on his face his boss wasn’t happy.
Smit hadn’t even asked him to sit. Which wouldn’t have been too bad, but almost as soon as he entered the room his legs started feeling odd, like bone was slowly melting away.
Which was probably something to do with the line he’d had, purely medicinally, before leaving his flat earlier.
‘… so now you’re telling me you still haven’t got anywhere?’
‘It’s not my fault the arrest report, the one good lead I had, wasn’t filled out right,’ said Kees. ‘If Piet hadn’t got the addresses messed up I’d’ve got them by now. But like I said, I’ve got a photo of Isovic at 57 last night and—’
‘I don’t want a photo of Isovic,’ Smit exploded, slamming a hand on his desk. ‘I can’t give a fucking photo to ICTY and hope they won’t notice the difference. They can’t put a photo on the stand and expect it to answer questions. I want Isovic, the man, the one who can testify in court.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I’m working on,’ said Kees. All of a sudden he felt like laughing. When he used to get bollocked at school he’d often had the urge to laugh. Sometimes he’d not been able to contain it. For some reason that had usually made things worse.
‘Actually you’re not,’ said Smit finally, as if suddenly exhausted. ‘I’m taking you off it and reassigning you to Jaap; you’ll be working with him on his investigation.’
I see, thought Kees. That’s why Jaap asked for help earlier.
‘Yes sir,’ he said and turned to go.
‘And Kees?’
‘Yeah?’ he said, turning back.
‘There are serious funding cuts coming our way in the next few months, so I’ve got to make a case for each and every inspector I’ve got here. As it stands, I’m going to find it really difficult to make a case for you, understood?’
Yeah, yeah, fucking understood, thought Kees as he got back to his desk. Fucking fucking fucking.
32
Sunday, 9 May
12.59
Jaap crouched down by the body, forcing himself to look at the dead man’s face.
Adrenaline was still jacking up his system, but the post-action sourness was starting to set in too. He could taste it. Or maybe that was the cannabis stench, heavy and thick in the air.
And he was starting to feel angry. Angry at whoever employed these people to do the job for them, putting them in harm’s way. Because it was obvious that neither of the men tending the plants were master criminals. This wasn’t their operation. They were just people who needed the work. And one of them had ended up dead.
The bullet had hit his left eye.
Gone straight through.
Jaap had killed two people in his career.
Now the number stood at three.
‘Nice shot,’ said a voice behind him.
He turned to see Pieter van Dael, one of Hank’s crew who’d been out back. They’d heard the shots and barrelled in. One of them was now hauling the uninjured man out. Jaap had tried to question him, but he barely spoke any Dutch, or English. Jaap was starting to think he was a relation of the dead man, as he’d been crying constantly.
He stood up, tried to push all thoughts of what he’d done away. This wasn’t the time to deal with it.
Looking around the room, he reckoned there were at least fifty plants, maybe more. The smell was intense, the humidity not helping. High-power grow lights beaming down from the ceiling at regular intervals flooded the room, causing him to squint. He checked a few of the buds, the pistils mostly a dark-brown colour.
Another few days and this lot could be harvested, he thought as he went to the window, pulling down the blackout material which had been taped across the glass. He fiddled with the latch, some cheap UPVC-type material which was bent out of shape, and managed to finally open the glass. Then he went in search of the switch powering the lights.
It was plugged into an automatic timer set for twelve hours at the back of the room; he had to brush past several plants, their sticky resin transferring to his hands. Cannabis was a tropical plant, and it grew best in conditions which mimicked its homelands. He knew that experienced growers would play with the timing of the lights to induce flowering and maximize yields towards the end of the growth cycle.
He flipped the switch and the humming stopped. He noticed the electricity wasn’t coming from the mains but a bunch of duct-taped wires sticking out of the wall.
They’d tapped into the neighbour’s supply. Their next bill was going to be huge. Of course by then the farm would have moved.
There was also a filter unit venting out the back wall. The new breeds of cannabis weren’t called skunk for nothing; the stuff stank and most growers would take precautions to neutralize the smell. It was clear that someone here had messed up; there was a space in the unit which looked like it was missing a charcoal filter.
That’s why the neighbours could smell it, he thought.
‘Not hydroponics,’ said Pieter, stepping beside him, looking at the pots the cannabis was growing in.
‘That’s fairly unusual, right?’
‘We’re seeing soil-grown more and more. It’s like a premium organic product. Fetches more.’
‘Can you tell the difference?’ asked Jaap.
‘You’re asking the wrong guy,’ said Pieter, pinching off a bud from the nearest plant. He held it to his nose and inhaled deeply with his eyes closed. ‘But I’m told you can.’
A breeze wafted in the window, the plants bowed and bobbed. Leaves rustled.
Jaap walked out to the landing and squatted down by Hank, who was propped up against the wall, his breathing rapid and shallow.
‘How’s it feeling?’
‘Like a fucking nuke just went off in my leg,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘Maybe I should smoke a bit, supposed to be good for pain.’
One of Hank’s guys laughed behind Jaap. A cannabis leaf spiralled down, landing just out of Hank’s reach. It reminded Jaap of autumn in Kyoto, the delicate acer leaves falling gently off the trees.
‘Those guys in there weren’t even foot soldiers,’ said Jaap. ‘They’re basically hired labour. I’m not sure the one left is going to know anything, even if I can find an interpreter.’
Hank nodded, then grimaced.
Jaap could hear a siren, still a few blocks away.
‘So you’ll want to know who I think is behind all this?’ said Hank.
‘Yeah, I’d like to talk to them.’
I’d like to make them pay for w
hat they forced me to do.
‘Thing is, I don’t want you to scare them off. I fully intend to bring them down –’ he pointed to his leg ‘– especially now.’
‘I get that. But if he’s the one behind the beheadings we can put him away for much longer.’
Hank grimaced. Jaap watched the blood oozing out of the wounds. It came in pulses.
‘Okay,’ Hank said finally, his breathing suddenly ramping up. ‘But promise me I get to be there when you arrest him.’
‘Done.’
Hank’s whole body stiffened, his face twisted in on itself with pain. Then his head flopped back against the wall, his mouth working silently.
‘So who is it?’ asked Jaap after a few moments. Hank’s eyes rolled like a frightened horse’s. Jaap could see white. Bloodshot white.
Hank’s eyelids closed.
Jaap reached out, gave him a slight shake.
‘Bart Rutte,’ Hank whispered. ‘He’s the one who—’
Hank’s head rolled to one side.
He was still breathing, but he was out cold.
33
Sunday, 9 May
13.28
‘Hey, can you stop that?’ called out Frits.
Tanya was sitting at her desk.
‘What?’ she said.
‘That thing you’re doing with your leg, it’s really annoying.’
Tanya looked down, she was jiggling her right leg, heel tapping the ground in a fast rhythm. She forced herself to stop.
She should be out, confronting Staal, but instead she was waiting.
Always waiting, she thought.
She’d checked in with the tech department, just to see if they’d got anywhere with copies of the CCTV images from 57. So far they’d not ID’d them. She wasn’t holding her breath, the task was an enormous one, and probably futile if the men didn’t have records.
The requested cleaning logs had still not come through, so she still couldn’t rule out Kees as being somehow involved.
She thought of Kees’ reaction back in the incident room. She’d been observing him out of the corner of her eye while she’d given her theory some air-time earlier. A split second before divulging it she’d wondered whether it was the right play, showing her hand too soon, but she’d decided that it was probably best to put it out there and see how Kees would react.
Into the Night: Inspector Rykel Book 2 (Amsterdam Quartet) Page 13