Purgatory

by Guido Eekhaut

  “A sacrifice. People who have been sacrificed. What else could it be? Unless they were criminals, and their execution is meant to deter others.”

  “No, we don’t think they were criminals. But, a ritual?”

  “Probably,” she said. Wondering why he asked her, as he was supposed to be a specialist in religious matters. But of course, he hadn’t seen the site and the victims. “You’re asking the wrong person, Colonel. I’m not religious, as you pointed out.”

  “That does not matter. I appreciate your rational answers.” He smiled again as if he wanted to reassure her. “Did those people want to die voluntarily?”

  She shivered. The suggestion frightened her. Would anybody want to burn alive out of their free will? “I can’t imagine they would. Will you visit the hills and see the place?”

  “Too late for that, I’m afraid. Not enough time, with the storm coming. It took a lot of effort to persuade the pilot to come here, under these circumstances. He will not fly toward the hills, I’m sure. Maybe he already heard about the dead people. Even the military are very superstitious in these parts of the world. Any details that struck you?”

  “What details? People, bound to stakes, burned. How many more details do you want me to remember?”

  “Like signs left behind. I mean text, maybe written in blood, or markings on the rocks.”

  “No,” Linda said. “Can’t remember. Did I miss anything?”

  “Not necessarily,” the colonel said. “I would not expect such details. The remarkable thing is, in fact, the absence of any message to the world.”

  “Are there more known cases?”

  “There was a man? He was arrested by the soldiers?”

  “Yes,” Linda said.

  “What did he have to say?”

  “He didn’t talk.”

  The colonel sat back. His chair wobbled dangerously on the uneven ground. He didn’t seem concerned by the approaching storm. “He did not talk.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Linda said, annoyed by his insistence. “Maybe he’s afraid to talk. He fears for his life, or whatever.”

  “He’s local?”

  “There are no locals, not in the strict sense of the word, Colonel. This is the desert, formerly a savanna. Occasionally smugglers and traffickers pass by, but that’s it.”

  “So, you don’t know where he comes from.”

  “I’m the local administrator,” Linda said. “Ask the lieutenant.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I did.” He got up. “Thank you for your time, ma’am. I will now look around a bit.”

  “Why are you really here, Colonel?” she asked.

  He glanced at her, surprised. “You assume I do not tell the truth?” His smile had disappeared, and she noticed he was not pleased by her question. “I come here in spite of the storm and with a military helicopter, kindly loaned to me by the Kenyans. Do you not think I would share only the truth with you?” He stepped outside, frowning at the sky. She followed him. He did not look back. She had offended him, but she didn’t care. The colonel joined the lieutenant and started a conversation. They walked away from her.

  The doctor came up to Linda. “Who’s that funny guy?”

  He isn’t funny. He’s dangerous. “No idea,” she said. “But this is one weird story.” She noticed both officers hurrying toward where the prisoner was kept. Then they disappeared behind a cloud of sand. Linda entered the tent again. Not much later the helicopter departed.

  14

  EEKHAUT DROPPED YET ANOTHER cream-colored cardboard folder on the stack of similar folders by his left elbow. After four months at the Bureau, he hadn’t been able to browse through a quarter of the information about criminal organizations active in Europe. He was astonished by the lack of quality information. The AIVD and other security services seemed to have gathered little or no real background stories and intel about these organizations. The files were pitiful and inadequate. He suspected the most dangerous enemies of democracy and order kept their secrets well hidden.

  Nobody, however, asked for his opinion. And he wouldn’t volunteer it either.

  What had he read about so far? Extreme right-wing parties and their violent but fortunately small private militia. So-called religious splinter groups founded on arcane belief systems. Radical left-wing movements preaching the violent overthrow of capitalist society (capitalism would by itself succumb to its inner contradictions, Eekhaut knew from his lessons on Marxism). Criminal gangs catering to all the perverse wants of wealthy clients. Syndicates providing young women (or boys, if requested) for the dark side of the flesh trade in large Western and Central European cities. Trafficking in anything with a high financial margin—from Chinese automatic weapons and stolen art to a wide variety of drugs. And religious sects with extreme predilections.

  Van Gils appeared in the doorway. “What do you need me to look for?” he inquired. He wore a heavy winter coat and looked bulkier than ever.

  For a moment Eekhaut had no idea what the man was talking about. Was he supposed to be clairvoyant? Then he understood. “Oh, we need information on Adriaan Basten. Prinsen has his file. Ask him what is missing. What you can find out about the man that we don’t know yet. All that’s publicly known about Basten we already have on record. What we need to know is everything he wanted to keep hidden and secret. Since he lived here in Amsterdam, you’ll probably know where to look.”

  “No problem,” Van Gils said.

  “That’s what I thought. Is Prinsen around?”

  “He might be. I saw him talking to De Vries.”

  “De Vries?” Eekhaut couldn’t remember any officer by that name.

  “Thea De Vries. That brown-haired young woman, fresh from the police academy. You’ve seen her around. Clever girl. Sort of girl men notice.”

  “I hadn’t noticed her.”

  “I’m sure you did. You’re not immune to feminine charm. Don’t you look at girls in the street? Turn around to look at them?”

  “Shamefully enough, I do,” Eekhaut admitted. “And often enough, here in Amsterdam. A lot of gorgeous women around, in Amsterdam.” He got up. “Whatever. I need Prinsen. Can’t bear to look at another of these files.”

  He found Prinsen by the coffee machine. “Forget this crap, Nick. Let’s go out and pick up some decent coffee along the way.”

  Prinsen looked relieved. He wasn’t keen on spending too much time in the office.

  Outside, the air had cleared, and it had stopped snowing. The temperature had gone up a bit, and the snow in the streets was already melting into a watery gunk that would soon be a nuisance to pedestrians and cyclists. Eekhaut mused, for a moment, about some warm place by the seaside, Tenerife or Crete or wherever. He could have been in Somalia with Linda if he had insisted. He would go anywhere with Linda.

  “You’re talking about Sergeant De Vries,” Prinsen corrected him when he inquired. They had a quick espresso in a French snack bar across Reguliersgracht, east of Amstelveld. They were standing at the counter, among the early crowd and the sleepless. “She’s no inspector yet. You only get promoted on the fast track when you’re family of the chief.” He grinned maliciously, having learned to counter the gossip about him and Dewaal. That was also Eekhaut’s usual strategy: simply acknowledge the rumors, whatever they were. That usually made people doubt.

  “People gossip about you and De Vries,” he said.

  Prinsen eyed the pictures of French seaside resorts on the walls of the snack bar. Lithe girls bathing, or not, in the tiniest of bikinis. “Of course, they do gossip. She’s often around me. Why should I ignore her? She’s a nice girl, and she’s barely younger than I am. She’s not into older men, Walter. But you know I’m not interested in her.”

  “I’m sure you’re not. But what about her? Is she aware you’ve got that girlfriend of yours safely tucked away somewhere in the city?”

  “Haven’t told her,” Prinsen said. “Let’s skip this conversation, Walter. It’s leading nowhere.”

  F
ifteen minutes later they arrived at a brick building dating from the early twentieth century. It was well maintained and had been recently refurbished with a large glass entrance and an ugly logo over the door. INFODUCT, it said.

  The receptionist wasn’t surprised to see two police officers showing their credentials, as if the law often came knocking at their door. Would the gentlemen leave their coats at the cloakroom and wait in the lounge? She would call someone from Human Resources at once. She indicated a herd of straight-backed leather chairs that might have been used recently as accessories in a Batman movie. Whoever had designed the furniture seemed to expect only anorexic twentysomethings to use them. Prinsen sat down, fitting neatly, but Eekhaut preferred to stand.

  Five minutes later a tall woman, maybe in her late thirties (or maybe not), stepped into the hall and walked over to them on dangerously high heels. Her attire spelled a distinct amount of power. “Chief Inspector Eekhaut?” she said, evidently choosing the elder of the two police officers. “Madeleine Bunting. Responsible for human resources.”

  “We’d like to have some information about one of your employees, Adriaan Basten,” Eekhaut said, skipping introductions. And he thought, You will be. Responsible, that is. I’ll make sure of that.

  For a moment, she closed her eyes, as if trying to concentrate on the name, as if there were thousands of people working for her company and many shared that name. “Shall we go upstairs to my office?” she proposed. “We’ll be more comfortable there.”

  And, indeed, more private, Eekhaut thought.

  She led them across the hall toward the elevator. Her office was on the third floor and overlooked the canal in front of the building. This meant she was high up in the company’s hierarchy. The view, however, wasn’t great—gray streets and passing gray people. Eekhaut largely preferred Amsterdam in the spring and summer, awash with colors, its streets bustling with tourists, young people in exotic colors, florists—and the outrageously attired crowd of people who wanted to be seen.

  He wondered what sort of company this was that could afford offices on one of the grachten, the canals that surrounded the center, in the most expensive part of town. He would have to find out what exactly InfoDuct did. It probably was part of that elusive digital economy he knew too little about. Where the real money was these days.

  But not as much money as in crime.

  He sat down on a chair that looked more comfortable than the ones in the lobby. Ms. Bunting’s desk consisted of nothing more than a thick plate of glass on a brushed steel frame, with a small, elegant laptop, a smartphone, and a leather agenda the same size as the laptop. Next to it rested a massive Meisterstück pen. He liked the subtle mix of high-tech and tradition. We can afford both, this mix said. We can afford expensive but ultimately useless writing implements, and we can afford top-of-the-line electronics.

  The office told him the same story. The furniture was of Italian design, large abstract paintings hung on two walls, and the windows were flanked by panels of exquisite Japanese rice paper. A small fortune had been spent on this interior. And she was just the HR manager.

  Prinsen, next to him, didn’t seem impressed at all. He might have been used to this sort of decor.

  “I already spoke to your colleagues about Adriaan’s disappearance,” Bunting said. “There is probably nothing more I can tell you.”

  “That would be the local police, madam,” Eekhaut said. “We are here concerning an ongoing investigation of our own.” She had seen their badges, telling her they were not local police.

  Before Bunting could react, the door opened and a girl walked in carrying a white metal tray with cups, coffee, milk, and sugar. “You will have a coffee, gentlemen, I assume?” Bunting proposed. She didn’t seem in a hurry to get rid of the annoying police officers.

  They couldn’t refuse. The girl busied herself with cups and coffee with a smooth elegance that spoke of experience. Eekhaut wondered if this was the only thing she did around here: providing visitors and management with coffee.

  “Thank you, Annick,” Bunting finally said. Annick quickly glanced at Eekhaut and then disappeared silently.

  The coffee was excellent. Black, strong, and syrupy.

  “Adriaan Basten,” Bunting said. “He disappeared, now let me see, a few weeks ago? Is that right?”

  “Four and a half weeks ago, indeed,” Eekhaut said. “The thing that surprises me, ma’am, is that you were the one informing the police of the fact. That’s rather unusual. We’d expect members of the immediate family to come forward.”

  “Adriaan had no family, Chief Inspector. We felt it necessary to inform the police ourselves.”

  “No family? Really?” The information Prinsen had shown him had indeed made no mention of the man’s family. Eekhaut had, however, assumed the information was missing. Now it turned out the family itself was missing.

  “How did you find out he was gone?”

  Bunting spread her hands as if the matter was apparent. “He no longer showed up. As simple as that.”

  It could not have been as simple as that, Eekhaut assumed. They would have tried to contact him—messaged, phoned, even visited his flat. People don’t just not turn up for work one day without several people getting worried. Even if they’re not family. “Maybe he found another professional opportunity or decided to go on prolonged vacation?”

  She smiled, indulgently. “He would have told us. In this company, there are no secrets among employees. He would have told his supervisor, his friends. We would have known. We have responsible employees, Chief Inspector. That’s what alarmed us at once. I had somebody go to his apartment. See if he was ill or whatever. Nobody answered the bell. A neighbor let us in. The apartment was empty. So we called the police.”

  “And the police found no trace of him.”

  “I don’t know what the police found. They haven’t kept us informed, probably because we’re not family. Now you turn up. Do you have anything for us?”

  “I really cannot comment on an ongoing investigation, ma’am.”

  She didn’t like that at all. Suddenly, he noticed she wore the same sort of outfit Dewaal usually did. Business suit, white blouse. Might they shop in the same place?

  “Still,” he continued, “a young man falling off the face of the earth, that should surprise you, didn’t it?”

  “Well, aren’t the police supposed to solve mysteries like that?”

  “You didn’t feel concerned about his fate.”

  “I am responsible,” she said, “for the well-being of our employees, but I keep well away from their private lives. And I had to find a replacement at once, I’m afraid. A hard world we live in, Chief Inspector. People like Adriaan are tough to replace, but in the end, they must be replaced.”

  “What exactly was it Basten did here?”

  “He specialized in services to foreign visitors. Expats. Foreigners who have to settle in Amsterdam for a short while, a few months or whatever, and require specific services.”

  “Such as?”

  She seemed annoyed by his insistence, as if she feared giving away trade secrets. “Housing, of course. Residence permit, cable TV, an internet connection, a phone contract, and whatever else. Health insurance if not covered at home, a bank account for those staying longer. All the legal paperwork. Basten arranged it, so our customers wouldn’t lose time with local administrations and such. He facilitated their life.”

  “For which your company got paid. Handsomely, I assume.”

  “Obviously,” she said. “We’re talking about people who either can afford such services or work for companies that can. He worked for diplomats and embassy staff.”

  “Intriguing.”

  She breathed deeply. “And, of course, very useful. He was an expert in dealing with bureaucrats,” she said, not without malice. “He got things done when they needed to be done. Made life easier for whomever his clients were. Anyway, how is all this relevant to your investigation?”

  Eekhaut sipp
ed his coffee. He had other questions, but Prinsen beat him to it, “Had there, to your knowledge, been any contact between Mister Basten and religious organizations?”

  For a moment, it seemed she would ignore him. Then she said, “We take no interest in the private lives of our employees. As such, I have no idea what religion Basten adhered to.”

  Eekhaut deposited his cup on the glass surface of her desk as if moon-landing a fragile object. “The matter isn’t frivolous, Ms. Bunting. Basten might very well have been a member of some organization with strong feelings toward immigration, for example. He might very well have been a passionate follower of extreme ideologies. Do you get my drift?”

  She shifted in her chair, clearly uncomfortable. “Even then,” she said, “this might not be relevant—”

  “Depending on the sort of clients he had, this would be relevant,” Eekhaut continued. “If they were, let’s say, non-Caucasian, he might have been, well, embarrassed by the tension between his private beliefs and his professional responsibilities. Do you see my point?”

  Bunting leaned back, surveying both officers. “We have a very diverse customer base, Chief Inspector. And we offer a wide range of services while considering the needs of these people, including dietary and religious. We are part of a larger structure, as a subsidiary of TransCom. You know what TransCom is? No? Maybe you should check them out and their reputation. We cannot afford the private predilections of our employees to taint their professional behavior. And that includes, of course, Adriaan Basten.”

  “But, as you just mentioned, you know nothing of his personal life.”

  “We know what we need to know. We scan potential employees, or have them scanned by TransCom, and that includes religion and political affinities. However, the law forbids us to dig too deep there, as you certainly know.”

  “Since you obviously know very little about Basten,” Eekhaut said, “we would like to talk to some of his colleagues.”

  He made sure it didn’t sound like a request.