The Copycat

by Jake Woodhouse

  Feeling better than I’ve felt for a long time I climb up onto the houseboat’s roof, flop down in one of the pair of deckchairs I have up here, and roll a joint, my fingers revelling in the familiar, delicate movement. Once done I hold it up to the street light and am pleased to see it’s a perfect cone. Next up, flame. It dances into life – those ancients really were on to something – and I guide them together until the little twisted curl of paper at the very end takes light.

  I blow smoke at the cloud-smudged moon, imagining it might move a little. After the harshness of the first few pulls I find the world softening, but at the same time becoming more real, more solid, more full of meaning. The events of the evening start to seem distant, unimportant somehow. It was my old life, reaching out to me, a hand from the past trying to pull me back. But as the cannabis starts to work I feel a kind of strength, one which will allow me to resist the pull.

  A few minutes later, how many I’m not sure because time seems less important now, I find myself wondering about the air: where it came from, where it’s been. How far round the world has it travelled to get to me? What mountaintops has it brushed against, what swirling eddies has it been part of, what people has it caressed, blown a full gale at, what lungs has it already seen the inside of? What death and life has it touched? Where will it go next? Have I ever breathed it in before, will I again? Or is this it, our one contact, a single moment never to be repeated?

  Water laps the hull, and I spiral off into what might be.

  There’s an old story about the mind. They say it’s formed of a white wolf and a black wolf. The white is love, joy, the best of what makes us us. The black wolf is anger, jealousy, hate, the worst things a human mind can imagine. They’re locked in battle; neither has an advantage.

  Unless you feed them.

  And whichever one you feed is the one that will grow strong and win.

  I’ve lived for years dealing with the results of others’ black wolves, the death and pain and suffering they caused. And in doing so, unknown to me, my own black wolf quietly feasted in the shadows, growing stronger and stronger, waiting for the moment to pounce.

  And when it did, it nearly won.

  But I survived, am surviving, now that cannabis feeds my white wolf.

  Feeds it so it can be strong and flexible.

  So it can overcome.

  The gangplank separating the houseboat from the shore rings out with footsteps. Whoever it is reaches the deck and stops, as if considering what to do next. There’s a brief pause before three sharp knocks sound at my door.

  ‘Who is it?’ I croak down, the return to smoking having roughed up my lungs and throat.

  ‘Inspector Rykel? I’m Inspector Katja Vermeer. I need to have a word. I tried to call you but your phone was off.’

  ‘If you want to talk to me, you’ll have to come up here. Go to the aft and step on the wooden box. There’s a bit of rope you can use to pull yourself up if you need.’

  I listen to her progress, and soon she’s hauled herself onto the roof and is walking towards me. I almost double-take; in this light she’s the spitting image of Diana Rigg playing Emma Peel in The Avengers. Minus the leather catsuit, of course.

  I’d actually heard of her before tonight. She’s risen far and fast, partly because she’s reputed to be smart and tenacious, partly because she’s also known for being tougher than most of the other inspectors here. One story doing the rounds says she single-handedly took down three bikers who decided that they didn’t like her asking questions about their probable involvement with a people-smuggling ring, and wanted a little playtime before they acted on their plan to hoist her off a bridge, most likely with a bullet in the back of the head. All three of them woke up in hospital, hands cuffed to the bed frame, wondering just what the fuck happened to them. Reputedly one of them actually cried when Vermeer walked into his hospital room, though I don’t know if I believe that bit.

  ‘Nice,’ she says, looking around. ‘Quirky.’

  ‘Good to meet you,’ I say. ‘But I told Jansen everything I know so I’m not sure why you’re here?’

  ‘We need to have a chat.’

  ‘About?’

  She sniffs the air a couple of times. I’d tossed what was left of the joint a few minutes earlier, but I’m suddenly paranoid that it’s clinging to my clothes. Not that it really matters; having signed the letter I’m no longer officially a cop. Just a regular citizen medicating. Nothing to see here.

  ‘We checked up more closely on Sander Klaasen. He’s still in prison.’

  Her words are like a jolt of reality, not what I want to hear at all. My brain looks for a way out.

  ‘He could have told someone about what he did, the exact way he killed her. Then whoever he told kills Marianne Kleine the same way to confuse the police.’

  ‘Aside from that being a pretty far-fetched theory, it’s not actually possible.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it turns out the day he was convicted he was put in a van and transported from the court to Bijlmerbajes prison. Only he got in a fight with another prisoner during the journey, and when he arrived he was in a really bad state. Had to be loaded into an ambulance and sent straight to the ICU. He was in a coma for a few weeks, and when he finally came out of it they found he was severely brain damaged. He can move around, but he can’t talk, can’t write, doesn’t seem to remember anything or anyone.’

  For the second time tonight I find all the mellowness draining away. The breeze brings me a cloud of Vermeer’s perfume; it’s rich and spicy and floral. It’s a strong contrast to the taste of combustion in my mouth. The boat rocks gently and the gangplank creaks with it.

  ‘So what are you saying …?’

  ‘Klaasen had been kept in solitary from the time he was arrested right the way through to his trial. He had no contact with other prisoners.’

  I don’t like where this is going. I should tell her to get off my boat and leave me alone. But I can’t help myself.

  ‘You’re telling me that Sander Klaasen didn’t have the opportunity to tell anyone about how he’d killed Lucie Muller?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Which starts to make it look like it wasn’t him after all, and the real killer is still out there.’

  THREE DAYS BEFORE

  * * *

  Crumbled Away

  He’s laughing now, and before I know what I’m doing I have the gun in my hand. I shove it right in his face. That shuts him up. There’s a flash of fear in his eye. The barrel pushes his lip, revealing teeth so it looks like he’s sneering. A night insect buzzes by. I can feel the trigger, the tension of it against my finger. His Adam’s apple bobs and I …

  … wake on my back, heart thudding, hand clasped tight round something. I lift it to see it’s not a gun but an empty cup. A boat glides past and I lie gently rocking in its wake, the subtle movement gradually slowing my heart and breathing down.

  In the kitchen I take the letter off the table and stuff it into an envelope whilst trying to avoid looking at my signature. I spend a few moments puzzling over why the kettle won’t fire up before I remember about the electricity. My body’s aching a bit from the fall, the wound in my arm feels hot, and I really need some coffee. The electrician said he’d be round at ten, and, checking the time, I see I’ve got enough time to get out to the lock-up and finally finish the work I’d started months ago. But first I need to medicate.

  I collect the prescription every month at the pharmacy on Spuistraat. The paroxetine is blue and was the first one prescribed. Unfortunately it comes with side effects; it gave me the runs. And really, Uncomplicated PTSD is bad enough without the feeling that you’re going to shit yourself the whole time. In addition, it never seemed to do anything for the flashbacks and it only improves the hyper-real dreams by about five per cent, which is hardly a stellar job. So I was then given another, a pink pill to try and negate the bowel issues. Only there were side effects to that as well, and on
and on, until one morning I was staring at a pyramid of pill bottles on my kitchen table towering over me ominously. At which point I claimed to be side effect free because I couldn’t face any more. So, all told, there’s a rainbow of them: blue, pink, yellow, white, round, lozenge-shaped, ones that need to be cut in half, others that need to be taken in multiples, some with enteric coatings, some that dissolve right on your tongue.

  I prep them all, opening each one in turn until I have the required daily dose, and put the bottles back. Next I take the pills themselves, cradled in the palm of my hand, to the bathroom, lift the toilet seat and drop them in. They look pretty in the bowl, and when I flush they bob and swirl around and disappear in a most therapeutic manner.

  There, much better already.

  I gather up my stuff: vape, rolling paper and, a last-minute decision, my old glass pipe. Just in case. To get to Rashid’s I need to walk south-west along the canal, cross at the Lijnbaansgracht bridge, and then double back up the other side. The movement seems to shake loose the thoughts that I’ve been doing my best to ignore since I woke; Inspector Vermeer thinks I might have sent an innocent man to prison where he ended up with permanent brain damage. Worse, if Klaasen was innocent then I let the real killer walk free to kill again. On the bridge the breeze rolls a can towards me. I stomp on it until it’s completely flat. A couple of tourists, wary of me, cross to the other side.

  I’m first in and Rashid waves me over. He’s excited. In fact, he’s beaming from ear to ear. He points to the reason: a new coffee machine glinting like some alien spacecraft that came in to land during the dead of night.

  ‘They paid up?’

  Rashid’s still grinning, unless he’s had a stroke and his face is now paralysed. He grabs a cloth and fusses over the machine, rubbing off an imaginary smudge then standing back to admire it again.

  ‘No, I told you, I took a loan. This was delivered first thing this morning. Is beautiful, no? Is Elektra Belle Epoque,’ he says as if that means something, before taking me through the highly technical features. When he’s finished I ask him how much. He tells me. Now I really need a coffee. I hope the insurance company pays up in full, and soon.

  I take a table by the window and find a socket in the wall. There’s a moment of indecision: I’ve only got one charger cable and both a phone and a vaporizer that need electrons pooling inside them. Reluctantly I choose the phone. Rashid’s already at it, the hiss and scream of the new machine even more serious than the previous models. Once my phone’s live I pull up Sabine’s text. I hesitate for a moment, then fire one back. I find my heart’s beating a little faster as Rashid brings over the coffee. He hovers whilst I take a sip.

  ‘It’s like engine oil,’ I say.

  Rashid looks worried. ‘You don’t like? I can –’

  ‘Rashid, I’m kidding. It’s the best cup you’ve done me yet.’

  I need sunglasses for his smile. He goes off to serve a couple who’ve just stumbled in looking even more in need of coffee than me. I check my inbox, and buried in the usual onslaught of junk there’s one from Jansen, saying he’s following up my discussion with Vermeer last night and he’s getting someone to drop the full Kleine file at the houseboat this morning. Before I can stop myself I’ve tapped out a quick message telling him to leave it behind the cluster of flowerpots on deck if I’m out. Whereas I should have told him not to bother. Was Sander Klaasen innocent? Is Marianne Kleine’s death my fault?

  I finish up and leave a large tip for Rashid. To exit I have to step under a ladder which has appeared over his front door. I hope it’s not bad luck. I turn to see a man at the top of it fixing a CCTV camera to the wall. It’s good he’s getting it done, but really Rashid should have had one before.

  Now I’m on foot, forging through the city towards Centraal station. Bikes whizz, trams clang. I pass through pockets of air scented with coffee, pizza by the slice, sewage, before stopping off at a bank to pull some money out of the wall. I type in my pin then request 200 euros. The machine gives me a large frowny face and a message saying there’s not enough in the account for that. I try for one-fifty and this time get a smiley. Infantilized by a machine, this is what it’s come to. The 08:12 to Haarlem’s on time, so I optimistically buy a single, jump on, watch the scenery, before jumping off at Sloterdijk. From there it’s a short walk to the lock-up that holds the thing that has been keeping me sane these last months, and today is the day when all that work is going to pay off. I hope.

  It’s a 1969 Mustang SportsRoof in matt black, which I bought for next to nothing and have been trying to get roadworthy ever since. When I say kept me sane what I really mean is that it’s driven me crazy, but at least it was an externally focused crazy. I’ve scraped knuckles raw whilst trying to unscrew bolts deep in the engine cavity; I’ve banged thumbs and sliced flesh. I’ve also waited weeks for a part to arrive only to discover it’s not quite right, or opened up a pipe to have disgusting, and clearly dangerous, fluid seep over my fingers.

  It’s really my therapist’s fault. She’d been urging me to take up a hobby, something using my hands, something to get me out of the houseboat at least once a week. Which all sounded like a pretty tall order, and the thought of trying to find an activity that would fit all those criteria was starting to stress me out, until I passed a used-car place near Stadionplein. I spotted it almost immediately and had a weird out-of-body experience, a kaleidoscopic mash-up of every car ad cliché I’d ever seen. I cruise curvaceous mountain roads with snowy peaks and blue skies, I zoom across a never-ending bridge with a woman sat beside me, hair blowing in the wind, I park with a flourish in front of a modernist building in an impossibly beautiful setting. Of course the woman bears a distinct resemblance to Tanya.

  Before I knew it I found myself walking up to the salesperson who’d obviously clocked my altered state and was mentally limbering up for the kill.

  Sure it needed some work, he’d said with a car salesman’s smile, a little TLC to get it back on the road. And sure, it’s a little effort now, but it will be worth it, cars like this are becoming rarer and rarer, he said. Also, and here he dropped his voice and took a quick look around to make sure we weren’t being overheard, he could envisage a not-too-distant future where a car such as the very one I was looking at, properly restored, would be worth considerably more than the minuscule asking price.

  ‘Can I do this myself?’ I asked. ‘Given that I don’t know anything about cars.’

  He didn’t even miss a beat. I got the feeling he never blinked.

  ‘Sure,’ he’d said. ‘Sure, sure. All the information’s online. You can find second-hand spares there too. And you don’t need a raised ramp or anything.’

  I called Mark Sattler who runs the car pool back at the station. He came out later that day, eventually agreed that it was probably doable, and grudgingly said he may, and he stressed the may, be able to help out occasionally if needed. Two days later I had it delivered to the lock-up I’d rented off the Marktplaats website. When the truck pulled away I wondered just what on earth I was doing.

  The lock-up door rattles as I haul it open and flip on the light. The bonnet’s up, a patient waiting for the surgeon, and I take a minute to check over everything I’d done yesterday. Satisfied that it was all good I turn to the final job: I need to attach the throttle body to the air induction system, and attach the air induction system to the air filter. Then it should be good to go. In the end the therapist was right, there’s something about working with your hands that changes your perspective. She’d said that it can actually alter your brain chemistry in such a way that old patterns can be disrupted.

  ‘Nice car. Rent please.’

  I turn to see Mark Liu silhouetted in the doorway. He’s second-gen Chinese, his parents fleeing the Cultural Revolution to scrape a living with one of the first Chinese restaurants in the city. How he’s ended up renting out these places is a mystery, but not one I’ve been overly inclined to delve into, not least because the rents he char
ges are well below market rate. As long as payment’s in cash. My wallet splits open, and I count the notes and hand them over.

  ‘So, how far off are you?’

  ‘I reckon about half an hour. I just need to connect up the throttle body.’

  I marvel at the fact that five months ago I didn’t know what a throttle body was. In fact, the words ‘throttle’ and ‘body’ usually had a whole other meaning for me.

  ‘Nice, but I still don’t know why you didn’t just buy a normal car.’

  ‘I’m not normal.’

  This seems to satisfy him, like he’d known that all along but just needed to hear it from me.

  Once Liu’s gone I stash next month’s rent in an old paint tin in a pile of old paint tins and fish out a can of Red Bull. I keep a few here for when I’m working on the car, but notice I’m down to my last three. I crack one open and get back to work.

  I’m done in twenty, with only a minor bruise to the back of my hand. I stand and look at the engine before taking out the keys, opening the driver’s door, and inserting them in the ignition. If this thing blows I don’t want to be inside it. I take a breath – this is months of work – and turn the key.

  The engine makes a series of choking noises before dying off.

  Fuck. At least it didn’t explode, though. I go back to the engine cavity and it takes me another ten minutes to see what I’d missed: two 8-mm bolts that hold the induction tube on to the throttle body weren’t properly tightened, allowing air to escape. I fix it and try again.

  This time it comes to life with a meaty roar. I can hardly believe it. I’ve done it. I get in and gun the motor. Oh. Yeah.

  I take it easy at first, but once I hit the A10 northbound I squeeze down the pedal and she responds beautifully. I’m pretty sure I hit warp speed before I realize that my exit’s flying towards me. I slow down and take the ramp on to the A5, curling back round the city in an elegant arc. This is the long way, and thirty minutes later I’m pulling up outside the houseboat completely exhilarated. I park, get out and take a moment to admire my work. Who’d’ve thought?