True to Your Service

by Sandra Antonelli

  “Others…” Vlaming shook his head, hair tumbling back over his forehead.

  “One man had a painting taken and replaced with a forgery, another had botanical objects stolen from storage.”

  “What sort of botanical objects?”

  “To be honest, I’m not certain. Seeds, I think. I only skimmed over the notes this morning. It was part of another case Jill was investigating. Are you free for dinner?”

  “Dinner?”

  “It’s still early. I have plans for dinner this evening with two gentlemen whose stories are similar to yours. I have to make an apology to one of them. It makes sense to have you meet, to see if you know any of the same people.”

  Head still shaking, Vlaming glanced at his watch, his apprehension breaking the surface, tongue passing over his lips, his swallow thick and slow. “Well, I don’t know…I’m sorry, I’ve stuff for tomorrow’s garden party to tend to.”

  “It could be useful.”

  “Yes. I see. I understand. Let me ask my secretary about my schedule.” Vlaming licked his lips, pulled out his mobile, and dialled. “Hoi, Tanja… Ja…ja… Niet moeilijk… Is de hoofdtuinman er al?… Ik ben uitgenodigd voor het diner met Leslie Templar… Vanavond… Ja, ja, okee…okee…”

  Ahead, on either side of the canal, stood rows of Amsterdam’s distinctive, gable-necked, high, slim canal houses. Mae waited, taking a photo of the famous Magere Brug—the skinny bridge in so many tourist photos. She had a nonchalant look at her tourist map as Kitt and Vlaming passed by, and continued following their same cobbled path alongside a canal that skirted the Hermitage Amsterdam.

  Soon, the rear of the glass greenhouse structures of The Hortus came into view. Vlaming and Kitt had fallen into trivial conversation about football and English sports hooligans until they reached the front entrance.

  Mae went to the ticket counter in the gift shop, and paid the fee. She took the brochure the skinny man behind the cashier’s kiosk offered, went inside the gardens and waited for Kitt and Vlaming, still somewhere on the street outside, the Dutchman describing the history of The Hortus Botanical Garden.” It’s nearly four-hundred years old and relatively small, only one-point-two hectares, but we have over four thousand plant species from around deh world.”

  With historical narration playing in her ear, Mae moved to where the path opened to a wide expanse. A large tree stood in the centre of a circular area, benches sitting beneath the leafy bright green. To the left stood spring blooms on verdant stalks, white-striped red tulips, pale pink azaleas, purple bell flowers. Brown and yellow-striped bees buzzed about and alighted upon blossoms. A Buxus hedge formed a low semi-circle at the front of the white Orangery and a three-storey red brick building. When Kitt and Vlaming made their way into the garden, she headed for the largest greenhouse.

  The sign at the entrance read Dreiklimatenkas. Fluency in German allowed her to understand bits and pieces of the Dutch description. The Three-Climate Glasshouse, the newest greenhouse in The Hortus, held desert, subtropics and tropics under one roof. She passed a Phoenix palm in a large pot and went inside with Vlaming’s history lesson continuing in her ear.

  “Dat’s the original section. Early on it was all about medicinal growth,” Vlaming said. “Not so different as with marijuana now, but the Dutch East India Company discovered wealth to be had in trading various plants, coffee and such…”

  Mae wandered into the warm, subtropical zone, unbuttoning her pale green trench-coat and removing it, small, flattish handbag slung across her torso. Years ago, she’d come to the Netherlands with Caspar. They’d done a tour of botanic gardens and tulip farms all over the country. She’d learned a lot about the cultivation of tulips on that trip. She’d been here with Caspar too, and he was all around her again, the earthy, humid smell of soil and foliage and mulch and gardening a scent forever attached to him. He’d kissed her on the suspension walkway above the forest canopy, telling her the Latin names of plants of palms and trees below where Mae walked by the spiked leaves of an oversized Cussonia spicata, the compacted dirt path taking her deeper into the humid, lush tropical zone, her mind awash with bittersweet memories that came with a very sour tinge. She looked up at the catwalk overhead, the pathway curving as she moved on, shrugging off thoughts of the dishonest man she had loved and the lies he’d told her, thinking instead how the honest man she loved now told lies for a living. It was bizarre she could accept there was such a thing as an honest liar, yet that’s what Kitt was. Principled, dedicated, forthright, true, the lies he told were never for personal gain, and that was what made him honest.

  At a bend in a pathway heavy with lianas, epiphytes, and plants with elephant-ear-sized leaves, Mae paused beside a large, prehistoric-looking fern and a tall, white, paned-glass case holding small green plants with pretty, heart-shaped leaves. The case was a greenhouse within a greenhouse that felt like a steamy jungle. She bent forward and read the sign in the lower corner pane.

  The gympie-gympie (Dendrocnide moroides) is common to rainforest areas of Australia. A member of the nettle family (Urticaceae) this plant has stinging hairs on its leaves and stem. Gympie-gympie is considered the most painful plant in the world. The stinging hairs deliver a toxin called moroidin that causes burning, severe pain, which often lasts for months. The pain has been known to drive men mad or to suicide.

  The description of the valentine heart-shaped gympie-gympie’s sting sounded similar to the sixteen years she’d spent in agony after Caspar’s death. Those sixteen years of pain had been wiped out in a single afternoon by a professionally dishonest honest man who was currently feigning polite interest in the tour a Dutch horticulturalist gave. “Are these greenhouse frames aluminium?” Kitt said.

  “Yes, and here is one of our Crown Jewels,” Jan Vlaming said proudly, describing the very greenhouse she stood inside. “De Dreiklimatenkas was built in 1993, it encloses tropical, subtropical, and desert climates…”

  Mae looked closer at the love-heart leaves and her ear distinguished Italian being spoken. Vlaming’s voice became a murmur of description detailing the butterfly house, and she peeked around the gympie-gympie greenhouse case, peering between heavy green fonds, seeing a man just around the next leafy, hidden bend.

  Short, built like torpedo made of muscle, the man wore a faded green coverall dusted with soil that also dusted his curly dark hair. “Si, iddu sa chi devi dire.” he said. “Yes, he knows what to say.”

  What pricked Mae’s interest wasn’t the man’s impatience or even that his conversation was in Sicilian, the sort that made him sound like a very old man from a small village, rather it was the part where he mentioned Jan Vlaming. “Vlaming sa cosa dire,” he said, “iddu sa che su cessi sei essi iddu no fa como devi.” All of which translated to ‘Vlaming knows what to say and he knows what will happen if he doesn’t do as he is told.’

  The man went on. “Non posso andare per tra mezz’ura… Si, devo incuntrari il quell christiano a Openhartsteeg un naudro ura… Lo stanno pulendu… Unni sei picciridda?… Yo va in campagnia.” So, he said he couldn’t leave for another thirty minutes, they were cleaning something, he wanted to know where the little girl was, he was set to meet ‘the guy’ in an hour at Openhartsteeg, and then go to the farm. “Vai, vai, Tanja, yo capicio. Vai a travgire.”

  Mae stood stock still at the front of heart-shaped stinging nettles in a case.

  Tanja. The secretary.

  The man was telling Vlaming’s secretary he understood and she should get back to work. She leaned slightly, peering thought the greenery, lowering her phone to snap a photo of him through the foliage, but he moved about, tucked his mobile in a side pocket, picked up a rake, and begin walking down the partially-obscured wet path, right in Mae’s direction.

  Quickly, she turned about and headed back through the greenhouse, hurrying along the wet dirt path, making her way from one climate zone to the next where it wasn’t as sticky, until she was outdoors in cooler spring air, passing the potted Phoenix palm. Mobile
in hand, she sat on a bench beneath the wide, leafy tree, and rattled off a voice-to-text message, sending it to Kitt just as the Sicilian man exited the Three-Climate Greenhouse. Dark-eyed, he was handsome in a short, Roman statue sort of way, nose straight, mouth generous. She watched him go into the red brick building opposite the white building where Vlaming and Kitt stood amid people sipping coffee at green tables, their backs to her.

  “Deh Orangery is from 1875. Did I mention it houses deh café and store are—oh, Tanja, my secretary, here at last.” He gestured to the attractive woman coming from the café. Striking, mid-twenties, her very fair complexion was offset by straight, glossy black hair that reached her shoulders and kicked out slightly. She dabbed a tissue at a small nose, her wide-set eyes, fringed by black lashes, were an arresting shade of blue. Hand smoothing her hair, she met her boss and candidly regarded Kitt, looking him up and down as Vlaming made the introductions. “Leslie, here is my secretary, Tanja Goedenacht.”

  “Hello,” Kitt smiled. “Leslie Templar.”

  Vlaming’s secretary smiled back and shook the hand Kitt offered. “Good morning, Mr Templar,” she said.

  “I was just telling Leslie de Hortus is one of deh oldest botanical gardens in deh world.”

  “Yes,” Tanja nodded. “In 1638 it was an herb garden for doctors and apothecaries in the city. The Palm House,” she pointed, “is from 1912. It has quite a collection of cycads. The gate you came through was built in the early 1700s. The Orangery dates from 1875.”

  Vlaming stole a glance at his watch and made a face. “I am so sorry. My lecture is in twenty minutes and I have some papers or to organise. You are welcome to attend, or have a look around De Hortus, go see deh butterflies and greenhouse with tree climates. Whatever you decide, I’ll leave you with Tanja to arrange things for tomorrow.”

  “Yes, thank you for your time. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Vlaming’s smile wavered, and he swallowed. “Tomorrow, yes. Thank you.” He turned to his assistant. “Tanja, please look after Leslie.”

  “Of course,” she said and then dropped into Dutch. “Hoe gaat ‘t?”

  “Ja, ‘t gaat goed.”

  “Je bent pas dinsdag vrij. Ik sprak met tante. Ik zaal met hem gaan eten.”

  The two conversed in Dutch, Kitt fiddled about with his phone to read, Mae suspected, the messages she’d sent him, and she tried to follow the gist of a language she didn’t speak, listening to words similar to German or English, picking out good, aunt, dinner, and Tuesday.

  “Tanja,” Vlaming said, “we’re being rude.” He turned to Kitt. “Sorry. She tells me that I am not free for dinner until Tuesday. She will give you details for tomorrow. We have a nice packet of information we give to our tour guests. Perhaps before you go, you can have a look at deh antiques I mentioned.” Vlaming smiled amiably.

  So did Tanja. “Would you like to follow me, Mr Templar?” she said.

  “Yes, I would,” Kitt said, rather enthusiastically, pocketing his phone.

  The mobile in her lap buzz-buzzed. Mae snorted and watched Ms Goedenacht lead him along a bloom-dotted path that disappeared behind a garden shed. She looked at the reply Kitt had sent. Ten minutes. Meet me at the corner of the canal beside the Hermitage, the side where there are benches and you can see the Magere Brug. She shifted her gaze back to Vlaming. He had moved to stand near the café entrance, his eyes had been on the pair and the garden shed. The man blew out a lungful of air, tongue licking at his bottom lip. He rubbed his face, hard. Then he backed up a few steps and went left, heading for the red brick building with the paned-glass sash windows.

  Mae went back to her phone and did a search for the odd little plant she’d seen in the big greenhouse.

  “That is a rain gauge, this is a barograph, late nineteenth century…” Tanja’s voice filtered through Mae’s earpiece, “and it’s bigger than you thought it would be, isn’t it”? Tanja asked.

  “Yes, it is,” Kitt purred. “Is this oak?”

  “It is, and if you ask me, it look a bit like a marital aid,” Tanja giggled. “Sorry,” she giggled again, nervously. “I know that’s inappropriate, but…”

  “Goodness me, imagine the splinters…Tell me something, Tanja,” Kitt began, but there came a pop-pop-pop, and the conversation turned staccato and scratchy with static before a hiss fizzled and silenced the racy conversations.

  The stems and leaves of the gympie-gympie are covered with hollow, microscopic spines like a hypodermic loaded with a toxin. Touching or brushing against one leaf, and the miniscule, needle-like spines penetrate the skin, causing unimaginable pain that some describe as being burnt with hot acid and electrocuted at the same time. Even dried leaves can sting…

  The mobile vibrated in her hand. Mae swiped away the curious information on her screen’s display and read the message from her brother.

  Thank you, this is a better idea. A better idea? What the hell?

  “As much as I want to pretend you’re not here,” Kitt said, “I’m so pleased you followed my instructions,” Kitt said.

  Mae looked up and forgot about trying to make sense of what Sean meant. Kitt had removed his jacket and tie, stuffed both into a cloth bag slung over his shoulder, and folded up his shirtsleeves. He wore a baseball cap, dark aviator sunglasses, and held a red and white paper cone loaded with chips in his left hand. “We’re on to disguises now, are we?” she said.

  “You don’t like my hat?”

  “You look better in the cowboy hat you wore on New Year’s Eve than in that ugly baseball cap.”

  “You miss my cowboy hat.”

  “Go on and think that if it makes you feel better.”

  “I feel just fine.”

  “Which is why you took your time getting here.”

  “I was being thorough.”

  “Is that what you call chatting up Ms Goedenacht, thorough?”

  “She was doing the chatting up. Weren’t you listening?”

  “No. The earpiece stopped working when the discussion turned to marital aids and splinters.”

  “Ah, of course it did,” Kitt said, lips bunching with a tinge of amusement. “What did you do to it?” he said.

  Eyes narrowing, Mae shook her head and looked out over the canal, to all the little flattish boats with glassed-in tourists sightseeing, taking in Amsterdam’s charm. “You want to pretend I’m not here. I want to pretend you didn’t say that.”

  “I apologise.” He bowed his head in contrition. “Forgive me. Equipment sometimes fails.”

  She tucked her mobile into her coat pocket. “Are we going to go Openhartsteeg?”

  “In a minute.” Kitt held the cone of golden-brown chips in front of her, two tiny plastic forks poking out near a yellowish blob of mayonnaise.

  “What are we doing now?” She slipped off her coat, the right sleeve dropping over the long-strapped handbag tucked against her hip.

  “Thinking,” he said, poking a fork into a chip, stuffing it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing, repeating the process.

  Mae thought too, only without cramming potatoes into her gob. “Could this have something to do with the cultivation of medical marijuana?”

  “You think because Vlaming is involved in horticulture, flower shows, herbology, and has an interest in legal medicinal marijuana that something nefarious is going on?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Possible. Come on. Work with me here.”

  “I always work with you.”

  “So what are you suggesting, someone here is trying to develop a new substance that can be used in chemical or biological warfare?”

  “That scenario is essentially the plot of—”

  He held a chip between his teeth, cigarette-like. “Yes, yes, but in this case, there’s no snow-topped mountain lair, no bald villains, no secret agents with a double-oh license to kill, and this is not a film.”

  “Actually, I was going to say Wonder Woman, not the film where Bond’s wife dies at the end—and tha
nk you again for that parallel that scares the shite out of you.” She laughed suddenly. “We keep coming back to Bond, don’t we?”

  “I thought we kept coming back to Brontës.”

  “Them too, but this is about your name.”

  “My name?”

  “Hamish.”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “No, Hamish. It’s the Scottish form of James and Kitt,” she waved her hand, head shaking, “is German.”

  “I have no German ancestors. I’m missing something here.”

  “Der Kitt ist veraltet.”

  “The putty is outdated? Is this your way to remind me you think I’ve passed my use-by date?”

  “I’d never be so cruel.”

  “Yes, you would, and may I point out that you’re older than me and you’ve yet to retire.”

  “That’s because when I did retire you dragged me back to work for you, Kitt, which is German for putty, cement, bond. Hamish…James,” she drew a little connecting line in the air, “Kitt…Bond, you see?”

  He stabbed a potato. “That’s quite a stretch, Mae, but as hare-brained as your notion may be, there’s merit in absurdity. We don’t know who’s the mastermind behind what are clearly orchestrated events, and these horticulturalists and gardeners may be plotting chemical and or biological warfare.”

  “I like how you change the subject.”

  He dipped a chip into curry mayonnaise. “As I was saying, anything is possible. Possible, yet not very likely. However, how about if we work from that ridiculous assumption, disassemble it, and speculate other possibilities?”

  “No matter how hare-brained?”

  “No matter how ludicrous. The bottom line here is Vlaming’s lying.”

  “The secretary is hiding something too.” Mae let her gaze follow the flat-front faces of canal houses with cookie-cutter rooflines, at people crossing the white bridge over the Amstel, the river glittering in the late morning sun. It was warm in the sunshine, but dark clouds hung in the distance. How fitting.