For a moment, I stood on the doorstep, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The sky was still cloudy, offering only sporadic glimpses of a crescent moon. The only real light came from a street lamp that hung over the farthest corner of the garden, where overgrown shrubs clambered over the fence as though trying to escape. It was surprisingly quiet, considering we were in the middle of the city. An occasional car rumbled past. The breeze rustled the leaves of trees and bushes close by.
And then I heard Sam’s voice. “Vincent, come on. Time for dinner.”
I called out to Sam and jumped when he suddenly appeared in the rectangle of light from the lobby.
“I’m worried about Vincent,” he said. “I hate to leave for the night without knowing he’s okay.”
“I’ll help you look, but there’s no way we can find him out here if he doesn’t want to be found. Don’t you have your phone? Turn the light on.”
“Yes, but he won’t like the bright light. It’d probably frighten him off. It’s better if we just keep calling him. And I have a handful of kitty treats that should entice him out.”
When he turned and wandered off, I hurried after him. From my quick reconnoiter the day before, I remembered that the garden was huge, as wide as the house from side to side, and perhaps a hundred feet long. At the far end was an iron fence that formed the boundary between the garden and a neighboring property, a commercial building that faced out on to a different street. We had a lot of ground to cover unless Vincent decided to come out of his own accord.
A prickly bush snagged my shoulder and I pulled my sweater free. Once again, I wondered why the garden was so neglected. Very few of the house windows overlooked it, and it wasn’t really visible from the street that ran along one side, but I’d have thought that Tomas and Eline would have wanted to use it occasionally.
I looked up at the small house next door, where a window on the top floor was lit with a warm yellow glow. The people who lived there had surely been some of the neighbors who’d complained about the empty building. They may have been happy when the Janssens moved in, but it was sad for them that they still overlooked an unkempt garden.
Just then we heard a yowl. It had to be Vincent. He had a low, throaty voice that was quite distinctive. Sam headed towards the noise and I followed in time to see him scoop the cat up into his arms. Relieved that Vincent was safe, and eager to get out of the chill and dark, I turned back towards the house, careful to stay on the flagstones between the uncut lawns and untamed shrubs. It took a few seconds for me to realize I’d taken a wrong path and was walking away from the light coming through the back door. As I was about to turn around, something rustled in front of me. A muffled footstep made me freeze.
“Sam?” I whispered.
In the darkness, I was sure I heard breathing. Then another footstep. And then everything went quiet.
“Sam!” I called.
He materialized at my shoulder, still holding Vincent. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know. I thought I heard someone, just here.”
Sam cradled Vincent in one arm while he dug in his pocket for his mobile and handed it to me. I blinked in the sudden bright light, feeling silly that I’d left my own phone on the kitchen table. I turned in a slow circle, the light hitting the leaves of bristling undergrowth and the gnarled bark of trees choked by climbing vines. There was no sign of a person, though.
“Wait,” Sam said, “Look over there.”
He guided my hand to lower the light and pointed to a corner formed by the back of the house and a dense hedge separating the garden from the property next door. Among the shadows, I saw a green light blinking. It was small, the size of a pound coin, and seemed to be attached to the house.
“Is it an alarm?” I asked.
Vincent was squirming and suddenly launched himself from Sam’s arms. Thankfully, he made a dash for the open door. At least we wouldn’t have to find him again.
Sam and I moved towards the green dot, which pulsed steadily. When we were closer, I saw that it was set in a steel panel screwed to the wall of the house. It seemed like an odd place to be part of an alarm system, far from the back door.
“What do you think?” I asked Sam.
He moved closer and examined the wall. “I don’t really understand why it’s here. There are no doors or windows close by.”
I moved along the brick wall of the house until I reached the hedge that separated the property from the one next door. Half as tall again as I was, and very thick, the brambly foliage created a formidable obstacle. It was hard to see through the thicket of shrubs and weeds.
“Come on,” Sam said. “There’s nothing there.”
But then the light reflected on something and I pushed the phone up closer to peer in through the leaves.
“Look at that,” I said. “There’s a piece of metal in the ground behind the hedge.”
“It’s just a manhole cover,” Sam said. “Maybe part of the sewage system.”
We retraced our steps towards the back door, but something was nagging at me. “Sam, I was sure I heard someone out there, just before you showed up with Vincent. There’s a flashing green light in a strange place and I’m not convinced that piece of metal is a manhole cover. It’s square and about two meters wide. Can we go back and take another look?”
“Whatever makes you happy,” he said. “But we’ve only got five minutes before I turn into a werewolf… always happens when I’m hungry.”
“Five minutes, I promise.”
With the faintest of sighs, Sam followed me back to the hedge. Sharp twigs caught at our clothes and scratched our hands as we forced our way through the undergrowth to get a better view of the metal sheet. Sam tried to help by pushing ahead but accidentally let go of a branch, which rebounded and hit me on the cheek. The shock and the stinging pain that followed brought tears to my eyes. With my arms held up to protect my face, I wiggled the rest of the way through.
Beyond the spiky shrubbery, there was a strip of bare soil where the metal sheet lay, and then a six-foot-high concrete wall. If I had heard someone in the garden, it was unlikely that he or she had disappeared next door. The property line was impenetrable.
I knelt down to examine the metal while Sam held the light. “It’s not solid,” I said. “It’s slotted.”
The slots revealed nothing however, just darkness. When I ran my hand over the metal, I thought I felt a faint movement of air. That would make sense if the metal was covering a ventilation shaft of some kind. Half-expecting Sam’s sewage theory to be correct, I breathed in, but the air smelled fairly fresh, tinged with a hint of damp. Sam crouched down next to me and took a sniff.
“It’s probably just part of the house’s heating and cooling system,” he said. “We can ask Alex. She probably already has it marked up on her plans.”
“Oh.” I sat back on my heels. “That doesn’t explain the flashing light, though.”
“No, but I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.” Sam pushed to his feet, grimacing slightly. He massaged his injured knee for a few seconds and then straightened up. “Let’s go, shall we? I want to make sure Vincent found his food.”
Although there was no chance Vincent wouldn’t remember where his food dish was, I stood up, ready to follow Sam back to the kitchen. As we emerged, scratched and scraped, from the jungle-like foliage, Sam’s light hit the back wall of the house.
“Look at that,” I said, pointing.
Sam went over to look more closely. Then, reaching up as high as he could, he ran his fingers along the wall and down to the ground. “Huh. It looks like there used to be a door here. See this line?”
I copied him, sweeping my hand along the wall, until I felt a distinct indentation that didn’t follow the lines of grout between the old bricks. Instead it formed a door-sized rectangle just to the left of the green light.
“It’s been closed up like that for some time, don’t you think?” I said. “It’s barely visible to t
he naked eye. I wonder if there’s any sign of it from the inside?”
I hurried through the back door into the lobby. Sam came in more slowly and stopped to lock the door, sliding the bolt into place. “Dinner,” he said. “Now, or I can’t be responsible for my actions.”
“But that bricked-up door…”
“The door can wait. It’s been closed off for years.”
15
The cat rescue mission and subsequent foray into the bushes meant we were running late to meet Karen.
“We can still make it,” I told Sam.
“That sounds good,” Sam said. “Because I really need to eat something very soon.”
We locked up and decided to take a taxi to the hotel. I could tell that his knee was bothering him.
The hotel cocktail lounge could have been in London, New York, or Singapore. It was modern, all steel and glass, with cushioned bench seats and low lighting, aiming for sophisticated but settling for bland. Still, it was nice to sit down in a quiet corner where I felt myself relax, the tension of the bike incident and the garden exploration draining away in the candlelight.
Sam soon came back to the table with our drinks and several bowls of nuts and crisps and a plate of cheese. He tucked in immediately while I nibbled my way through a handful of nuts.
“Tall with red hair?” Sam said, looking at the door.
I saw Karen at the entrance. She scanned the tables, gave me a little wave and made her way over. This evening, she was wearing a green dress that brushed her calves and matching green suede flats. I introduced her to Sam, who asked her what she’d like to drink.
“Gin and tonic,” she said. “Thank you.”
While Sam went to the bar, I asked her how she was doing.
“Not so bad, I suppose. I had classes all day, which was a good distraction. Anything new with you?” She glanced over at Sam, who was chatting to the bartender, his aura eddying blue under the LED lights above the bar. “How is he doing?”
“He’s doing okay. He had a bike accident earlier this evening that freaked me out, but there was no serious damage.”
Sam came back with the drinks and we chatted for a few minutes about Karen’s class at the university.
“So, you had something you wanted to tell us?” I asked finally.
“Yes, I’ve been thinking about it all day. About three months ago, Eline said something that I didn’t pay much attention to at the time. She thought that Tomas had got caught up in some business deal that had gone bad. Well, I don’t know much about business, so I didn’t have a clue what that meant and didn’t pay much attention. But she mentioned several times that Tomas seemed very stressed although he wouldn’t talk to her about it. I wondered later if that stress contributed to his heart attack.”
“Before you go on,” Sam said. “I think we should tell you that the house project has been put on hold while the lawyer sorts out the paperwork. It could take months, and we’re not even sure the house sale will go through. Which means I’m not sure how relevant this stuff about Tomas is, to be honest.”
Karen’s neck flushed red, and little circles of pink bloomed on her cheeks. “Well, I don’t want to waste your time,” she said.
Sam looked mortified, his eyes lowered like a little boy who’d broken his mother’s favorite plate. “I didn’t mean that we don’t care about what’s going on,” he said. “And I am truly sorry that Eline died.”
I leaned towards him and put my hand on his arm. “The issue for me, Sam, is that we may be out of the picture on the house development, but you are not out of danger.” I spoke as gently as I could. “Your aura is still there. Maybe it will go away if the sale is officially canceled and you go back to London. I hope so, but I can’t count on it. I still believe that Eline’s death and your… situation are connected. Any information we can gather on Tomas and Eline might be helpful in uncovering the source of the threat to you.
He frowned, drawing his brows together. “I wish…” He looked at Karen. “I’m sorry. I wish none of this was happening.”
Karen nodded. “Me too. This is all so far outside my usual routine and experience that I barely know what I’m doing or saying. I didn’t mean to criticize you.”
“So, back to the business deal gone bad,” I said. “Did Eline say anything more?”
“She mentioned several times that she was worried about Tomas. He took a lot of phone calls in his office, where he couldn’t be overheard, and went out for hours at a time without telling her where he was going. It wasn’t that unusual, of course, for him to be busy. He was on several company boards and attended a fair number of meetings. But Eline thought this was different. He never talked about where he’d been.” Karen took a sip of her drink. “Eline was very smart. But Tomas treated her like a child in my opinion. I know he loved her deeply, but there was a paternalism that irritated me. He was older than she was by about ten years and that age gap sometimes showed. He paid all the bills himself, for example, as if he didn’t trust her to do it, even though she’d successfully run an entire hospital department for years before they met.”
“Or maybe he just didn’t want her to see his financial details?” Sam suggested.
Karen looked thoughtful, running her finger around the rim of her glass. “It’s possible. They had several bank accounts. She had her own for buying clothes and jewelry and they shared one for joint expenses like travel. But once, when I asked her if Tomas had a big mortgage on the house, Eline said she didn’t know. She didn’t even know about any of their investments. So, yes, I think he kept his financial situation pretty close to his chest. Eline was stunned when she got a valuation on that house of nearly ten million euros. She had no idea it was worth that much.”
Karen drained the last of her gin and tonic, and Sam jumped up to order another round.
“Oh, and there’s something else,” she said. “Eline and Tomas had a safety deposit box. She gave me a key and, about two weeks ago, she had me go to the bank with her to sign some forms so I can have access to the box.”
That was a surprise. “What’s in it?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t looked yet.”
“Do you know why? I mean, do you know why she did that?”
“I’ve never married. Never seemed to have the time or the inclination. But Eline was really happy to be a wife. She loved having a life partner and called Tomas her soulmate. After he died, she was distraught. She told me she felt as though she’d been marooned on an island, alone. That upset me, of course. I told her she had me.” Karen smiled. “Anyway, she said she’d feel better knowing I had a key and access to the box. It has some of her mother’s jewelry in it, she said, and she wanted me to have it if anything happened to her. But I don’t know the legalities of it all.” She sighed. “I suppose I should contact her lawyer and find out.”
“Probably,” agreed Sam. “It’s possible that Pieter is entitled to half of whatever’s in that box, depending on how the will was drawn up.”
“Do you think we should ask Bleeker some questions about Tomas?” I asked. “If Eline was right about him being involved with something shady, perhaps Bleeker would know.”
“I doubt it,” Sam said. “If Tomas was stupid enough to get himself caught up in something illicit, would he talk to someone in the legal profession about it?”
“He might, if he needed legal advice,” Karen said. She stared off into space, biting her lower lip. “Eline was really upset yesterday,” she said after a long silence. “What if she’d found out why Tomas was so stressed? Uncovered some sort of crime?"
“I suppose it would be very distressing to learn that your husband was doing something illegal,” Sam said.
“Distressing enough to commit suicide?” Karen shook her head. “I can’t imagine that. But none of it makes sense. Where was Eline going last night? And why didn’t she tell me?” Her hands cradled her stomach as though it hurt. “What on earth happened to her?” She took a deep breath.
“Have
you had a look around the house? I’m wondering if Eline left anything that might give us a clue about what Tomas was up to.”
“Kate would know that better than me,” he said with a smirk. “She’s had a good rummage through Eline’s room.”
Karen raised her brows. “Did you find anything?”
“Just your address. Which is all I was looking for, Sam. I didn’t dig around more than I needed to.”
“Hey, it wasn’t an accusation. Just a statement of fact.”
“Shall we take a look then?” Karen said.
Sam swallowed the last of the peanuts. “I’m not sure about that. We’re supposed to be out of the house in the morning. We have to give the keys back to the janitor or whatever Henk is.”
“Well, we still have access to the house this evening,” she said. “I’d really like to get to the bottom of this thing about Tomas.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “Will you help me?”
I was torn. I wanted to find something that might explain what was going on because that could save Sam. But poking around that old house at night seemed unnecessarily risky. What if we were being watched? I thought of the hoodie man with the blond goatee. A glance around the bar assured me there was no sign of him. And this was our last chance. We wouldn’t have time in the morning, and Henk would almost certainly be around then. If there was a clue in Eline’s room, we’d never know.
And I needed that clue, anything that would point me in the right direction. Sam’s life depended on it.
“I say we do it,” I said.
Sam looked unhappy. “Is this a good idea?”
“It’s not a good idea to sit back and wait for whatever threatens you to happen,” I said.
Sam ran his hand through his hair, something I’d noticed him doing more each day. A nervous tic, or an unconscious attempt to detect the aura over his head perhaps. “All right,” he said. “I’ll get the bill and we’ll go.”
Assignment in Amsterdam Page 13
