Death on the Canal

by Anja de Jager

  Vincent was standing by the side of the nursery’s play area, looking frazzled.

  ‘Social Services are coming for Oskar,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, they just picked him up.’

  ‘No, they’re on their way.’

  ‘But the guy, he said …’ Vincent pushed his hands to his mouth when he realised the mistake he’d made.

  ‘What did he look like?’ I said. ‘The guy who picked him up, was he really good-looking?’

  He nodded silently.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  We rushed to the car park, Ronald and I. We had to go to Koen’s flat. Koen, the child’s father and Sylvie’s lover. Katja had tried to protect her nephew but had killed the wrong man, and now her fears had come true and the drug-dealer father had kidnapped his son. Ronald still had my car keys. He got in the driver’s seat. We didn’t have time to argue, so I let him. He seemed surprisingly familiar in my car.

  As he pressed down on the gas, I called it in. ‘Suspect potentially armed and dangerous. Class A drugs on the premises.’ I swallowed. ‘And an abducted child. Approach with care. I’d like some medical back-up too.’

  ‘Are we going to be in time?’ Ronald said after I disconnected the call.

  ‘We’d fucking better be.’

  Traffic was horrendous and even though Ronald did his best to get some speed up whenever possible, it seemed we crawled to Koen’s flat. He parked the car outside the block. I got out and walked into the shadows of the ten grey floors of apartments. We could not afford to let Koen see us, as that might spook him and force him into action. The wait for Ingrid, Thomas and back-up seemed endless. The wind floated calmly around the building, as if to mock the sense of urgency I felt inside. It carried the smell of dope. After ten minutes, I couldn’t wait any longer. I called Thomas again and asked him how close he was. When he told me they were at least fifteen minutes away, I swore under my breath.

  ‘Have you got a gun?’ I asked Ronald.

  He frowned. ‘Of course I haven’t. We should wait.’

  ‘And let him kill a child? While we’re standing here waiting because we want to be safe and careful?’

  ‘Because we’re being sensible.’

  ‘I’m not going to let this child die.’ I walked towards the elevator and pressed the button. The happy ping when it arrived set off alarms in my stomach. ‘You don’t have to come,’ I said.

  He followed me in. ‘I know how you feel.’ He spoke quietly. ‘But don’t let it cloud your judgement.’

  ‘I’ve been so blind. I should have figured out that Oskar wasn’t Petra’s grandson.’The first and second floors went by.

  ‘Then Koen wouldn’t have tried to kill Natalie.’

  I grimaced through the tension. ‘Keys,’ I said, and held out my hand. ‘Give me back my car keys.’

  Third floor. Fourth floor. He got them out of his pocket and handed them over with obvious reluctance. ‘Natalie must have been discharged from hospital by now. We should tell her not to come here.’

  ‘Leave it,’ I said. The lift doors opened.

  The wind tried to persuade us to go back. The wind tunnel of the corridor turned the gentle breeze from downstairs into a proper gale. I kept my gaze focused straight ahead to stop myself from looking into the abyss on my right-hand side. I switched from holding the balustrade to holding the gun on my hip. It made me feel safer. My heartbeat was racing.

  ‘What are you going to do? Ring the doorbell?’

  I wished that Ronald wasn’t sounding so much like my annoying inner voice. ‘Have a better idea?’ I was still torn between waiting and acting. One was sensible, the other necessary.

  ‘Yes, wait until back-up arrives.’

  As if his words had magically conjured them up, sirens became faintly audible in the distance. Ronald put a hand on my arm. ‘Let’s wait. Just a few minutes.’

  ‘If he’s drugged that child, every second will count.’ The sound of the sirens would alert Koen. What would he do? I wasn’t going to have another death on my hands. With every life I saved, I would alter the balance of my guilt.

  The ping of the elevator sounded from the end of the corridor. I turned around and saw a thin woman with long blonde hair. Natalie. Perfect. She would have the keys. She’d come home to her boyfriend as soon as she was out of hospital. How stupid. It never ceased to amaze me that public transport was so much quicker than going by car.

  ‘Stay away,’ Ronald said. At exactly the same time as I shouted, ‘Hurry up and give me the keys.’

  She paused as if to consider, then dropped her bags, rushed forward and handed the keys over.

  My hands shook as I tried to fit the key into the lock with my clumsy left hand. My right hand never left my gun. The outside door opened.

  ‘Freeze! Police!’ I shouted as soon as I was indoors.

  ‘In here,’ a calm male voice responded. Was there even relief there?

  I wasn’t sure what to expect. I just kept going on the route I’d started, rushing down the hallway with my gun pulled. I pushed open the door to the living room. The sound of the sirens was louder now, and we would probably be in time to save Oskar’s life, if he’d been drugged. How much heroin would a small child survive? How would you even administer drugs to a toddler? Rub them into his gums?

  As the door swung open, I sighted along the barrel of my gun and saw Koen sitting on the sofa. He raised his hands in the air. The ring on his thumb flashed golden. My eyes had to leave him to scan the room for the child. He was asleep in the corner, on the sofa opposite Koen.

  ‘Ronald, get Oskar. Take him downstairs.’ I fell silent to listen to the sound of the sirens. I identified the different tones. ‘Have the paramedics check him over. I can hear an ambulance.’ Thomas must have got me one. He was a good guy.

  ‘I didn’t hurt him,’ Koen said. ‘He’s my son.’

  ‘You abducted him. We’ll just take him to the hospital.’

  Ronald picked the child up from the sofa. Rudely awakened from sleep, the boy started crying and screaming. It was a very welcome sound. Ronald held him carefully, clearly used to carrying children, and took him out of the flat.

  I waited for the rest of the police. My gun was trained on Koen’s face. He didn’t move. That sound of sirens so close was welcome. Back-up had only been minutes behind. Maybe I should have waited, but whatever. The child was safe and I could breathe easily again. My heart rate slowed down. I had made up for my earlier mistake. I had atoned for Piotr’s death.

  I took a seat on the sofa opposite Koen, on the exact spot where Oskar had been sleeping. It was easier that way to keep my gun pointed at him. ‘How did you know where Oskar was?’ I said.

  Koen frowned. ‘I’ve always known. Sylvie told me. She said he was in a good place, so I decided to leave him there.’

  ‘When did she tell you that?’

  ‘When she came to my flat that evening.’ He started to raise his hand to scratch his head but saw me looking and put it back on his knee.

  ‘Did you know she’d had a baby?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Were you angry with her?’ I kept my voice calm. Maybe he would admit to having killed Sylvie. He still hadn’t asked for a lawyer. He seemed to think that we were just having a conversation, and I didn’t want to destroy that illusion with aggressive questioning, whatever I might think about this man.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She had no real reason to tell me.’

  ‘I meant were you angry when she turned up on your doorstep?’

  ‘She wanted me to pay for child support. She said she needed the money.’ He stared out of the window for a bit. Then he shook his head. ‘I wasn’t going to give her anything, but Piotr cornered me. He was a good man. He asked me if I thought it was my child. I told him it probably was. He said that I should take responsibility. That I should do my bit to help raise my kid.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, it made sense. So I called her.’

  �
�You called her?’

  ‘Yeah. I asked her to come back. Sit down, talk through what she needed. What we were going to do. That was when she told me that she was living with her counsellor and her husband. That they were a good couple but that she needed some space. She wanted to get her own place and needed money for that. Crazy girl, not registering the child under her own name. Having him without any help.’ He leaned forward. ‘But her parents were nuts. You know she was adopted, right? And she told me she didn’t want that for her child. I said that if that was what she wanted to do, I’d give her some money whenever I had it.’

  ‘And then you took some drugs?’

  ‘Yeah, well. She told me she hadn’t been using for a while because she didn’t want to harm the baby. But she wasn’t breastfeeding any more – trust me, that was too much information – so why not.’

  ‘And she overdosed.’

  ‘That was the weird thing. We just did a couple of lines. At the time it didn’t make sense. It was only later that I realised what had happened.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That she’d been given the wrong stuff.’

  ‘That you’d given her the wrong stuff.’ I did my best to keep my voice steady, but my heart was pounding. Maybe he was going to admit to having killed her.

  ‘Me?’ he said. ‘No, not me.’

  ‘But you know who it was.’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘You didn’t think to go to the police?’

  He laughed. ‘I’m not really in the right situation to call in the police, now am I? Had I known, I would have phoned for an ambulance, of course. But I had to go to work and didn’t find out until the next morning.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘As a barman in a club. I start at midnight. Sylvie said she might come by later, but she never turned up.’

  I stared at Koen. There was something not right here. This didn’t make any sense. ‘So you knew where Oskar was. What changed?’ I kept the surprise out of my voice. ‘Why take him now?’

  ‘He’ll be protected in hospital, won’t he?’ Koen said.

  It was an odd phrasing that cut through my self-congratulatory thoughts. ‘Protected from whom?’

  Koen didn’t have a chance to reply. A stream of police officers appeared. Thomas was the first in the flat, wearing a bulletproof vest and holding a drawn gun.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ I said. ‘The situation is under control.’

  ‘I guess I should say well done,’ Thomas said. He handcuffed Koen and read him his rights. ‘Are you going to wait for us next time?’

  I stood up and holstered my gun. It was all over. Thomas threw a quick glance around the flat.

  ‘We need to search this place for drugs,’ I said. I wasn’t sure how much of what Koen had told me would be admissible in court. ‘Or maybe you just want to tell us where you’re keeping your stash. Saves us time. Might make the judge like you more.’

  Koen didn’t reply; just sat quietly on the sofa. Resigned to what had happened. ‘I want a lawyer,’ he said.

  ‘Of course you do,’ Thomas said. ‘We’ll get you one. As soon as we get to the station.’

  I felt giddy. This time we had been on time. This time I’d rescued the child and whatever reprimand I was going to get for it afterwards, it had all been worthwhile.

  ‘So that’s where the drugs were,’ Thomas said. ‘We were at the wrong flat. Instead of searching Piotr’s, we should have come next door.’

  He took Koen by the arm and helped him up from the sofa. I followed them out of the flat. As soon as Koen stepped through the door, he said, ‘Where’s Oskar?’

  ‘He’s fine,’ I said.

  Thomas led him down the corridor. ‘Where is he?’ Koen asked more loudly. ‘Where’s my son?’

  I was surprised to see Ronald standing in the corridor. ‘Is there a paramedic checking Oskar?’ I said. ‘You’re back here quickly.’

  ‘No, Natalie has him. She’s just …’ He turned around. I looked over his shoulder, but there was no sign of her. Natalie was gone.

  ‘You gave her the child? Ronald, I asked you to take him downstairs.’

  ‘I had to take a call. Sorry, Ilse called about the kids. Natalie helped me out.’

  ‘No!’ Koen screamed. ‘What have you done? Go after her. She killed Sylvie. She tried to kill Piotr.’

  What did he mean? Was it Natalie who’d swapped the drugs, not Koen? I wanted to stop and question him about that, but I had to get my priorities right. ‘Where’s Ingrid? Is she downstairs?’

  ‘Yes,’ Thomas said.

  ‘She said she was going to take my son,’ Koen shouted.

  I got my phone out. ‘There’s a blonde woman with a small child. Stop her urgently,’ I said to Ingrid as I started running towards the stairs. ‘Now! Now!’

  ‘She said she wouldn’t kill him if I took her back. If we got back together. Please!’ Koen was pleading with Thomas.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ Ronald said.

  I didn’t listen to him but ran down the stairs.

  ‘Where the fuck are you going?’Thomas shouted. He still had his hand on Koen’s arm.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I bashed the lift button on my way past but knew there was no point. Natalie had taken it down. The lift was now on the ground floor. I could see her. I had to run down after her. As the staircase was open, I had a perfect view of the street. She was pretending not to be in a hurry and she walked calmly, carrying the child, as if she had all the time in the world. Just a mother with her toddler. That she could easily have dropped the child over the flat’s balustrade was something that I pushed out of my mind. It hadn’t happened.

  I could hear the crying and screaming of the child over my heavy breathing and my echoing footsteps as I sprinted down the stairs. Sweat glued my T-shirt to my back. It was too hot to be running but I only went down more quickly, almost throwing myself down the steps, as if the sound of the child’s cries was pulling me towards the ground floor. Footsteps echoed behind me but I didn’t check who it was. Instead I kept watching Natalie. Everybody around her seemed to studiously ignore the crying. A man even smiled at her, as if to commiserate with her noisy child.

  Where was Ingrid? Why didn’t anybody stop Natalie? Behind her, to her left, I saw Ingrid with her hand on the arm of another blonde woman, with a child in a pushchair. I shouted, ‘Wrong woman, wrong woman!’ Ingrid looked in puzzlement at me, but before she could act, Natalie had reached a small grey car and my colleague was too late to stop her.

  Only one more flight of stairs to go. I considered jumping over the open balustrade, but I didn’t dare take the risk, so I kept running and finally pushed the door open to the street. I could see Natalie reversing her car out of her parking spot. I wouldn’t be able to get to her before she drove off, and then I would be stranded on foot. Better to go for the safer option. I’d left my car on the other side of the road. I crossed quickly and jumped in.

  I’d just fastened my seat belt and stuck my gun in the glove compartment when the door on the other side opened and Ronald slid in beside me. Not who I would have wanted to see, but probably better than nobody. I forced all thoughts of who was to blame for this out of my mind. Instead I jammed the car in reverse, screeched out of the parking space and sped after Natalie. We had to get Oskar back.

  ‘Koen wasn’t the one who swapped the drugs,’ I said. A car was coming from the right. I didn’t give way but accelerated across the junction. There were about four cars between me and Natalie. I was catching up with her.

  ‘Maybe Natalie just wants to keep Oskar safe,’ Ronald said.

  ‘You’re a misguided idiot.’ My voice was harsh, trying to stop myself from saying that he’d handed a child over to a murderer. After all I’d done to prevent it. ‘Koen had left to go to the club that night and Natalie gave Sylvie white heroin instead of cocaine. That’s what happened.’

  ‘Left! Left here,’ he shouted.

 
As if I wasn’t watching Natalie’s car like a hawk. ‘I see her. Call 112. Let them know where we’re going.’ I tried to sound calm, but my heart was racing. Sweat pooled on my upper lip and I rubbed it away with my shoulder without taking my eyes off the road.

  Natalie pulled onto a main road. The traffic was moving faster here.

  Ronald took his mobile out of his pocket. ‘I’m here with Detective Lotte Meerman,’ he said. ‘We are in pursuit of a grey Nissan.’ He gave the registration number, then slotted the phone into the holder and put it on speaker. A small car in front of us slowed down. I swore and used the gap in the oncoming traffic to made a quick evasive manoeuvre, swerving around it. My eyes stung from the intensity of staring at Natalie’s grey car. I tried to ignore the sweat that ran down my forehead. I couldn’t take a hand off the steering wheel to wipe it away.

  ‘Where are you going?’ a male voice said.

  ‘We’re in pursuit of a suspect with a kidnapped child,’ I said. ‘Ronald, can you give them the directions?’

  ‘We’re on the Transformatorweg.’ He checked my sat nav. ‘The S102.’

  ‘How far down?’

  Ronald tried to read the side roads. ‘We’re just beside a lot of building sites to our left. Looks quite industrial. Sorry, I’m not that familiar with the area.’

  ‘Coming up to the Spaarndammerdijk,’ I said. There were now three cars between me and Natalie. I overtook one more. I was no longer careful not to be seen. From the way Natalie was driving, she surely knew we were chasing her. My fingers started to ache from the tight grip I had on the steering wheel. I couldn’t let go. I could only clench even more strongly. ‘Fuck, fuck, where’s she going?’

  ‘She could go towards the IJ,’ Ronald said.

  If she was headed towards the large body of water to the north of Amsterdam’s Centraal Station, she would quickly run out of space. ‘Anywhere you can block her off?’ I asked the dispatcher.