Death at the Orange Locks

by Anja de Jager

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘I asked him if he had any other credit cards. I could tell that the one he gave me was a company card, and thought maybe he could put it on a personal one. He started shouting that I was unreasonable, that this wasn’t the way to treat a loyal customer. That people like me were the reason companies went bust.’ She sighed. ‘I wanted to say that it was non-paying customers like him who were the reason that restaurants went bust. But instead I said: “I can’t afford it. If I could afford to give you credit, I would, but I can’t.” Look at this place.’ She gestured at the empty tables. ‘I’ve got to keep ticking over until summer, when the city is heaving with tourists and we’ll get the overspill. Until then, I need every cent I can get.’

  ‘But he paid up in the end?’

  ‘Yes. I think he put it on a personal card. Would you like me to check?’

  ‘Please. That’s what I came here for: the time stamp on the bill. If you have a copy of what they consumed, that would be useful too.’

  ‘Sure. Give me a minute.’

  ‘And can I get the CCTV footage of that night?’ I said.

  ‘I talked to your colleagues the other day,’ she said as she got up. ‘There’s no CCTV at the back.’

  ‘Not of the back; from the cameras here.’ I pointed at the ones on the ceiling. ‘You still have that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I can get it for you.’

  ‘One more thing: who was the waiter at their table that night?’

  ‘Oh, it was Gregor. I’ll get him for you too.’

  Shortly after the manageress left, Gregor ambled over and took a seat without being asked. It was the guy who’d brought me my cappuccino earlier. ‘I didn’t know you were the police when you were here last time.’

  He did remember me, then. People with good memories for faces were really useful.

  ‘You were working the night Patrick van der Linde and his colleagues were here?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah.’ He pulled a face as if he was drinking a particularly bitter cup of espresso. ‘I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but still …’

  ‘Still?’

  ‘I didn’t like him. He went too far. He once touched my colleague’s bottom, and when she said something about it, he complained that he was getting bad service. Nasty man.’

  ‘Did you see what happened that night?’ It was quite possible that this waiter was the witness that Thomas had found.

  ‘With the woman? Yeah, I saw that. I saw him get up after she’d gone to the bathroom. I knew what he was like, so I checked to see if she needed help, but the other guy had already stepped in.’

  ‘You mean Nico?’

  ‘I don’t know his name. He was here a lot with Patrick. He was sitting across from him that evening. Tall guy.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, that’s Nico.’

  ‘He stayed with the woman, made sure she was fine, so I went back to work.’

  ‘I’m curious about something,’ I said. ‘Do you think anybody else noticed?’

  Gregor shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. It was away from the eating area. Just around the corner there.’ He pointed it out. The corridor leading to the bathrooms was at the other side of the room. ‘You can’t see it from here.’

  ‘And where were they sitting?’

  ‘They had the table by the window, over there.’

  I got up and walked over to the table he’d indicated. It was tucked away. They must have wanted a bit of privacy for their party, or maybe management knew it was going to be a noisy dinner and wanted to make sure they didn’t disturb anybody else. I sat down. Gregor joined me at the table. I scanned the room. There was no way you could see the hallway from here either, and I didn’t think you would be able to hear anything, especially if you were talking to someone.

  ‘I’m surprised Nico noticed,’ I said.

  Gregor didn’t ask me what I was talking about. ‘Maybe he had to use the bathroom. At the same time as his boss. To have a private chat.’ He winked.

  ‘You think they were doing drugs?’ I found it hard to believe. Nico didn’t seem the type.

  ‘No, I really did mean just to chat. I’ve seen that guy do it before; he’d follow his boss out and talk to him in the corridor. Only this time he saw something he wasn’t supposed to see.’

  At least Nico had done something. He could have gone back to the table and ignored the scene in the corridor.

  ‘Did you notice when everybody left?’

  ‘Not really. I was tidying up. I remember Patrick shouting at my boss at the till. Then he went for a smoke.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Out the back; there’s a patio overlooking the water. We have ashtrays there.’

  ‘Was there anybody else out there?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It’s quiet this time of year. Most people had left even though it was a Friday night.’

  ‘Would you have seen if there was someone else there?’

  ‘You can’t see the patio from here. I saw Patrick go out, but I didn’t look too closely. We were clearing up, getting ready to close.’

  Thomas didn’t have a witness then. There must be something else. I thanked Gregor and finished my coffee while I waited for the manager to dig out the CCTV footage. She also had a copy of the receipt and the bill ready for me. Turned out the party had spent more on wine than on food. They’d drunk a lot. I remembered that Arjen had said he’d hardly drunk anything because he’d come by car. The others must have made up for that.

  I paid for my coffee, though I had to insist, because initially Gregor refused to take my money, then decided to check on the smoking area. I went across to the window, but all I could see was the water. Gregor had been right: from inside the restaurant, the patio was out of sight. I opened the door. There were steps going down. That explained it.

  To call it a patio was a stretch; it was a small patch of ground, completely concealed from view, perfect for someone who wanted to hide the fact that he smoked. From one corner a path ran along the water, probably leading out to the street. Thomas had said that Patrick hadn’t been spotted on the CCTV at the front of the restaurant, so either he had been murdered here or he had followed this path. I gave the area a quick scan. No sign of a struggle, or any blood, but then a week had passed.

  I went down to the water. The restaurant had installed a single railing to stop people falling in after they’d drunk too much, or maybe to discourage them from going for an afternoon swim with enough alcohol in their system to make them feel it was a good idea to cool down fully clothed. There were no sharp edges anywhere, nothing that could have caused the type of wound that Patrick had on the back of his head. There were large buckets for cigarette butts on either side, but they were round, with no straight edges. It would also have been tricky to lift an unconscious body over the railing. I didn’t think this area was the murder site, but there was nothing factual to base my opinion on; purely experience talking.

  An oil tanker came past. Only a few months ago, one of them had rammed into the gates of the Orange Locks and damaged them so that they’d had to be closed for days. It was odd to think that the only visible border between Amsterdam and the villages surrounding it could be closed due to a ship’s captain messing up.

  An enormous cruise ship followed the oil tanker, as tall as the buildings on the other side of the water. It was a floating block of flats. I shuddered as I thought about the number of tourists it would drop into Amsterdam’s town centre. I remembered the morning we’d found Patrick’s body, and how I’d thought it was a good thing he hadn’t fallen from a cruise ship, because that would have been a nightmare.

  It had turned out to be a nightmare anyway.

  I couldn’t help but think that the list of people who had reason to kill Patrick was getting longer the more I found out about him. The fact that his credit card had bounced suggested to me that the company bank balance was not as solid as I’d been told. This could be another area where people had been hesita
nt to speak ill of the dead. Another area where it was just easier to keep their mouths shut.

  It was time to renew my acquaintance with Karin, the woman in charge of invoices at Linde Lights.

  Chapter 21

  Just as I arrived at Linde Lights’ front door, Karin came out. Stefanie wasn’t here yet to join me. I had only had to walk five minutes from the restaurant on the corner; she had to drive all the way from the police station. Most likely she was stuck in traffic somewhere, but she said she’d be right over when I called her.

  I stopped Karin. ‘Can we talk for a minute? I have a few questions for you.’ We could always start and leave the more in-depth financial questions for when Stefanie arrived.

  ‘I have to go to a meeting,’ Karin said. ‘Can we do this later?’

  ‘Patrick’s company credit card bounced.’

  ‘Yes, I’m off to speak to the bank manager right now.’ She looked at her watch. ‘In fifteen minutes actually.’ She started walking in the direction of the little car park behind the office.

  I followed her. ‘There are money problems then?’

  Karin didn’t break her stride. ‘I don’t know what’s going on. People have clearly heard that he died and now they’re here like vultures, trying to claw their money back.’

  ‘There are a lot of debts?’

  She bleeped her car unlocked. ‘It’s a cash-flow problem,’ she said. ‘Anybody who was owed money wants it now, instead of in ninety days as per usual, and anybody who owes us cash is delaying.’

  ‘But Patrick’s card bounced before his death.’

  She opened her car door. ‘I really have to go. I’m going to talk to the bank and clear it all up. I’ll call you afterwards.’

  ‘Please do. You have my number.’ I gave her my card again to be sure. ‘If I haven’t heard from you by the end of the day—’

  ‘I’ll call you as soon as we’re finished.’

  I had no reason to detain her longer. I wanted her to get answers from the bank and then she could report back.

  She pulled the door closed and started the engine.

  The voice in the back of my mind said that in other cases I had been more determined. I had also been more suspicious and would not have relied on one of the company employees to get this information for me. But then Karin had been extremely cooperative so far.

  I had just got my phone out to call Stefanie and tell her to turn back when she pulled into the car park right next to me. She opened her door.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said with one hand on the car roof, to stop her getting out. ‘The person we needed to talk to has just left. Let’s go back.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ she said. ‘I’ve come all the way here and now you’re telling me to leave again?’

  All the way? It had only been a fifteen-minute drive. ‘The woman who’s in charge of the finances had to go meet with the bank. Until she’s got the information, there wasn’t much point in keeping her here.’

  ‘There’s never just one person at a company who knows that things aren’t going well.’ She got out of the car, slammed the door behind her and beeped the lock. ‘Let’s talk to someone else.’ She stomped off towards the main entrance. She was wearing very high heels but was still shorter than me. Clearly it wasn’t a competition, but winning without having to make any effort was quite satisfying and I could wear shoes that were easier to walk in than Stefanie’s. I strode past her effortlessly and arrived at the front door of Linde Lights first.

  If we wanted to talk to other employees who knew what was going on, our best bet was probably the company’s lead designer, Nico. I could see him through the glass wall of the tiny reception area. He looked up from his desk, as if he’d felt someone looking at him, then waved and got up to open the door.

  I introduced Stefanie to him. They shook hands.

  ‘Shall we use Patrick’s office again?’ Nico asked.

  ‘Yes please.’ I was thinking of this as my interview room now. It didn’t seem to be used for anything else anyway.

  Before we got there, a young man approached Nico. ‘I fixed your printing problem,’ he said. He was good-looking, with short-cropped blond hair.

  ‘Thanks, Fabrice.’

  Fabrice. So this was Therese’s boyfriend. He hadn’t been here when I came to the company first time round.

  ‘I just needed to update the drivers. It didn’t take me long at all. I’m sorry—’ He checked himself when he noticed that I was listening carefully. ‘Sorry I didn’t do it sooner.’

  It was obvious that this wasn’t what he was going to say originally. I got the impression that maybe Fabrice and Nico hadn’t got on that well before, but that now Fabrice had a reason to be nice to the other man. Perhaps Therese had told him what had happened at the restaurant.

  ‘This is Detective Lotte Meerman.’ Nico introduced me. ‘She’s investigating Patrick’s murder. And Detective Stefanie Dekkers. Did I get that right?’

  ‘Detective Inspector,’ Stefanie corrected him.

  Nobody cared about using the proper titles.

  ‘Shall we go?’ I said to Nico, to end the awkward conversation.

  Once we were in Patrick’s office, Nico closed the door behind us.

  ‘I’m guessing Fabrice knows what happened?’ I said.

  ‘I think everybody does,’ Nico said. ‘It wasn’t me. I didn’t say a word.’

  ‘Did Karin tell you what was going on with the finances?’

  Stefanie shot me a look. She obviously thought I wasn’t asking the questions subtly enough.

  ‘She asked me for advice this morning. It seems we’re running out of cash. But it’s only a cash-flow problem.’

  ‘Patrick’s company credit card was refused on the night of the dinner,’ I said. ‘When he tried to pay at the Clipper, it bounced.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘You’d already left,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, things got a bit uncomfortable.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ I smiled. It had taken guts to interfere. It was always hard to go against your boss, especially if you were close enough that you’d been invited to his daughter’s wedding. ‘Did Patrick tell you beforehand that he was bringing his son-in-law in?’

  ‘He told me that morning. He said we should try something new. Instead of doing more of the same, we should look into different markets and new ways of monetising our products.’

  ‘How did you feel about that?’

  ‘It made no difference to me. I designed stuff, he sold it. That was how we worked. If there was a way to get more money from my designs, of course I was all in favour of that.’

  That made sense to me. Nico was the artistic one, Patrick the businessman. I could see how that would have worked well.

  ‘Did he say what kind of different markets?’ Stefanie cut in, bored with my ineptitude.

  ‘I don’t think even he knew exactly what the plan was. It sounded very explorative and in the early stages. Doing things differently doesn’t mean that we were doing it wrong before.’

  The fact that the company seemed to be running out of money implied to me that that wasn’t the case. Stefanie could confirm that for me later. ‘But there must have been a reason for Patrick to want to do something else?’

  ‘He was only looking into other possibilities. That’s all. It might be that nothing would have come from it.’

  Arjen wouldn’t have thought of it in that way, I was sure. Unless he was just doing his father-in-law a huge favour. What had Nadia said when I’d met them at their house? That he was getting bored of being a house husband. But I just couldn’t see him doing something pointless, even as a favour to someone.

  ‘When did you move into these offices?’ Stefanie asked.

  ‘When? About ten years ago now, I’d say.’

  ‘What about office supplies? Who orders those?’ She’d decided to take control of the questioning.

  ‘Karin does all of that.’

  ‘What does t
he company pay for?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you have a work phone?’

  ‘It’s my own.’

  She pointed at the notebook he was holding. ‘Did you buy that, or did the company?’

  ‘That’s mine too.’

  ‘Laptop?’

  ‘It’s mine, because I need specialised software.’

  ‘Did the company reimburse you for that?’ She was taking notes, working through a checklist in her head.

  ‘I didn’t ask for my money back. I’m a director in the company; it’s okay for me to buy my own things.’

  ‘What about the others? Do they have to bring in their own pens and notebooks?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? Everybody already has a pen.’

  Stefanie nodded. ‘I get it.’ She closed her notebook; obviously she’d got to the bottom of whatever it was she wanted to know. ‘That’s all from me.’ She looked in my direction. ‘We’ll know more when we talk to Karin later.’

  I nodded. ‘Thanks for your time,’ I said to Nico.

  As we walked out, a woman came through the door. ‘Nico,’ she said. ‘I got you a coffee – mocha, no cream.’

  ‘Thanks, Isabel.’ From the look on his face, I got the impression that he wasn’t used to people fetching him coffee.

  One intervention had turned him into the company hero.

  Fabrice was smoking outside the office building. He noticed me and I went over to talk to him.

  ‘Therese told me what happened,’ he said.

  ‘It’s good that she did.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so. I thought it was weird when I went to pick her up and she was outside with Nico.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The two of them didn’t really get on. There’d been some argument about a client who wasn’t happy with the designs. Nico blamed Therese; she blamed him.’

  He was very forthcoming with information and I wasn’t going to stop him. ‘When you saw them together …’

  ‘I thought it was weird. It was also weird that Nico went back inside as soon as I got there. I asked Therese what had happened and she said she’d drunk too much and didn’t feel well. That was all.’ It was possible that he just wanted to talk to someone about it. Sometimes a stranger can be a good sounding board.