“Stupid things I did when I was young.”
“That was four years ago, Carlo. You had put your youth behind you for some time by then. But that’s not why we’re here. A bomb. Someone who is good with bombs. Someone who can attach a mobile phone to a bomb without blowing himself up. Not something everybody can do.”
“I guess I know a few guys who can handle that sort of equipment. Mirko, to name one. The Serbian.”
“Yes, I had him in mind. But he’s in jail.”
“Oh? I didn’t know. Bad luck. He’ll be missed, the psychopath. Don’t tell him I said that.”
“Who else?”
“Who else? Why are you asking me?”
“Because I can have a word to customs and detectives, and you’ll need my support whenever you fall asleep behind the wheel of a truck again.”
Carlo looked at him disdainfully. “Always making trouble, Van Gils. Fucking up hardworking people like myself. If not the cops, then your boss.”
“You’re still alive, and the last time I saw you, you had a nice house and a family. You seem to be doing well for yourself. What’s with the complaining?”
“Because,” Carlo said, “things go downhill. Margins are getting smaller, and clients are getting choosier. As if you didn’t know.” Carlo looked up. “Now what’s that about?”
Prinsen glanced over to where Carlo was looking and saw three men enter the pub, take off their coats, and sit down at a table. They ordered something and looked around. One of them eyed Carlo and the two police officers. The other two ignored them, but it was obvious they hadn’t wound up here by coincidence.
Van Gils threw them a quick glance. “A concise explanation would be all we need, Carlo,” he said. “Because business may go downhill even further.”
Carlo shook his head and toyed with his cup. “There’s this Dutch fellow. They call him Mick. I don’t know his last name. He’s into explosives. You want to open a safe against the owner’s will, then he’s your man. Learned his trade in the army. Nobody said what army.”
“Mick.”
“But a lot of people are handy with the stuff. The explosive stuff. After that war in the Balkans, there are plenty of people around who can handle all sorts of weapons and explosives. And brought a bit of stock with them. That’s why so much of the stuff is around and for sale at basement prices. Even automatic weapons, and do tell me, Van Gils, who in my profession would want to use an automatic weapon?”
“Makes you nervous, doesn’t it?”
“I read the newspapers, Inspector. And I read about your man and the bomb on his front door. I look out for suspect packages.”
“What do you have to fear?”
Carlo whispered, “Those Russians take the best parts of the market. They have plenty of cash. You sell your business, or they pay you with an unannounced visit. You know Bernardo? Who had a hardware shop two streets down? Well, he sold his business—”
“Including his dealings in stolen electronics in the harbor, you mean.”
“Well, yes, that too. He got paid all right, but now he’s at home, doing nothing, and that’s driving him crazy.”
“But all that’s small change, Carlo. The people we’re looking for don’t get involved in minor stuff.”
“I couldn’t care less who you’re looking for.”
“Back to the bomb. Who can have done that?”
“I hear some Russians have the same problem. They’re asked to sell their business to one of their countrymen, someone with a lot of money. There are some new players around, Inspector. Big players. No financial limits. They’re not in the market for a hardware store. They don’t need a hardware store. That’s all I know. All I’m saying as well.”
Van Gils rose. “Well, thanks for the chat, Carlo. See you around.”
“I prefer not,” Carlo said. But it didn’t sound unfriendly.
Van Gils and Prinsen left the pub and walked back to the car. “I didn’t hear the name Keretsky,” Prinsen said. “But it was close.”
Van Gils shook his head. “Carlo probably never heard of Keretsky. Nor of his colleagues. This is another level of operations. But people are nervous. Something is happening. New players, yeah, tell me about it.”
Three men appeared in front of them. Black leather coats over black suits and sweaters, like a uniform. The men from the pub. “Gentlemen,” the first man said, “you are far from home.” He had no accent. But he wasn’t Dutch either.
Van Gils inspected him. “Is there something we can help you gentlemen with? A charge of illegal possession of a firearm maybe?”
The man shook his head as if deploring Van Gils’s statement. “You still happen to have some friends, Inspector Van Gils. Even in this part of the city. There aren’t many of them left, though. These friends don’t want anything happening to you. That’s why we’re here.”
“Like a bomb on my front lawn.”
“Something of the sort, yes. Very annoying if it should happen, for all parties involved. Nevertheless, some things can’t be avoided. Like when people talk too much or ask too many questions. Or annoy somebody. You know how it works. An overzealous assistant, someone misunderstanding a suggestion, and accidents are bound to happen.”
“I’ll take you off the street, gentlemen, any time one of your ugly mugs shows itself to me,” Van Gils said. “So stay off my turf. We won’t be told off by scum like you. Imported scum, on top of it. Ragheads from the Balkan. Goat fuckers. Worse: bastards of Balkan goat fuckers.”
The man’s face showed no emotion. He didn’t seem to take the insults personally. “I’m just informing you that you still have friends around here, Inspector. Have a nice day.” They turned, all three of them, and stepped away.
Van Gils toyed with his car keys. “Don’t ask me what’s going on, Prinsen,” he said.
“I’m not asking.”
“Good. Because I’m not in the mood to answer stupid questions.”
30
EILEEN HAD MANAGED TO get money out of an ATM. A couple of hundred euros, in twenties. It would get her through the coming days, even if she weren’t living frugally. She didn’t have to go hungry or be out in the cold and could even spend a few nights in a cheap hotel.
And she had been careful. She’d taken the money from a machine with a long line of customers. Not that it mattered much. Even if someone were checking up on her account, they wouldn’t be much the wiser. She’d gone to Central Station and bought a ticket, in cash, leaving no trace. She had become careful and paranoid. She didn’t lack for motivation: that frightful man and Pieter’s body were stuck in her memory.
She was sitting in a corner of the train carriage, watching the other passengers, at least the ones she could see from her position. She felt relatively safe. It would have been nearly impossible for the murderer to have followed her this far. And even if he had, he wouldn’t take any action on a train, not with so many witnesses.
She didn’t have much in the way of luggage. She’d quickly bought some underwear and toiletries, two T-shirts and a pair of jeans, and a small duffle bag. Whatever else she needed she would get in Belgium. There would be plenty of cheap clothes in Belgium. Her immediate goal was to create as much distance between herself and the murderer.
And she’d need to be invisible. There was the problem. She would have to learn many tricks. Always using cash, only using public telephones (both would be a problem in practice), no credit cards or anything that could pinpoint her on a map. Pieter had taught her about these tricks. Techniques for disappearing under the radar of the networked society. She had hardly listened then, but a few ideas had stuck nevertheless. And now they’d come in handy. Where had Pieter learned them? Had he ever needed them? She knew almost nothing about his previous life. Maybe he’d left her out of it on purpose because his past contained potentially dangerous things. And dangerous people.
Nobody knows where I’m going, she thought. Nobody can know. The advantage of Holland was the anonymity of its crowds
, at least in the big cities like Amsterdam—no individual stood out in the crowd unless he or she wanted to.
She had bought a cellophane-wrapped sandwich and a Coke from a stall in the station and started to eat a late lunch. She wasn’t hungry, but she had to eat. Otherwise, she would be in trouble with her glucose level and maybe even her blood pressure. She could do without that sort of trouble.
It would take her three hours to go all the way to Leuven. Her first time in Belgium. She had no idea what the country looked like, nor did she know what to expect from Leuven. A medium-sized university city, Annelies had written her on one of the all-too-rare postcards she mailed to her sister in faraway Amsterdam. Seemed a nice enough place, judging from the pictures on the cards. Not that it mattered much. She had crossed the border now, in both senses, an invisible but nonetheless real divide between fear and hope. Let’s not get too comfortable, she thought. Her life would never be the same again, not after this.
The papers that the murderer wanted were tucked away in her bag. Pieter’s list. What should she do with it? Keep it as a form of insurance? Something to barter with, for her life perhaps? Don’t be naïve, girl, she told herself. You’ve seen how Pieter was treated and how much his life was worth. The price of a bullet. That’s what your life is worth to these people. The ones now hunting you. Your life is worth less than that list.
She fought the urge to grab her bag and take the list out, to have a closer look. The information it contained didn’t mean much to her. That had been Pieter’s area. He’d given his life for that information, and so it was important to her that she put it to good use. Although she had no idea how.
Because anyone who had anything to do with that list would be in danger.
31
DEWAAL REMAINED A MYSTERY to Nick Prinsen. Aunt Alexandra, who had fled the family long before he did the same—fled from the awful village she was born in to build a new life in Amsterdam, on the other side of the world, or so it seemed to everyone in the village. She had been punished by God because her marriage had remained childless; her husband had divorced her soon enough. God knew how to punish the apostates, the sinners. That’s how the family saw it. After the divorce, the rector struck her name from the village’s official records. Although this was no more than a symbolic gesture, it meant that she no longer existed for his community.
How old had Nick been? Twelve, perhaps. Maybe going on thirteen. He had been impressed by the cold, dark church and the sinister rector who threatened the community with punishments so dark and far-reaching that everyone knew their immortal soul was at stake. Aunt Alexandra, who no longer existed, had committed many sins, and she had been punished accordingly. She wouldn’t be one of the Chosen at the end of days. The outside world lived in the latter years of the twentieth century, but this isolated village saw no reason to leave the Dark Ages behind.
But young Nick Prinsen had followed his aunt. Not immediately. He left the village when he came of age, was probably struck from the records as well, and he worked his way through a decent schooling in almost no time and through university afterward. He managed to get into the AIVD only by chance. He happened to enroll in the police academy by chance as well. He had studied law at university, but he grew tired of archaic legislation. He managed to graduate, and then his aunt phoned him one day. Would he like to enroll in the police academy? And come work for her after that?
He’d been surprised to hear from her. She worked for the AIVD, which explained how she got his phone number. She didn’t speak of her motives in bringing him into the AIVD. He got through police training in two years. The day after his graduation, he stepped into her office.
Later, he understood that she wanted him to work for her because she needed new faces and new ideas on her team. She wanted to partially replace the older guard, who had done too much time on the beat before joining the AIVD and whom she believed had been tainted by what they’d done before. She accepted the older guard for their experience and their ideas about running an investigation, but she needed new people as well—people integrated into the twenty-first century.
People like herself.
But then, after he’d joined the team, she mostly ignored him. Or only spoke to him formally, about cases and methods. She occasionally took one of the detectives out to lunch, for a personal talk, but never him. It was as if she wanted to isolate him to show people that there would be no favoritism between them.
Maybe she wanted to spare him.
And she never inquired about the family, his parents, grandparents, her sister, her home.
Where she no longer existed.
He wanted to ask her about all these things. About her past in the village, the way she’d escaped, what she felt now.
But there were more pressing things to deal with. He had cases to work. With Van Gils, among others. She never said much concerning the older detective. She’d only warned Prinsen that some people on the team could never fully be trusted, as had been proven by Breukeling. What about Van Gils? Could he be trusted? Close to his pension, always kept his hands clean. And he knew a lot of people from all walks of life, most of them from the criminal milieu. Which was to be expected: his work was that milieu.
“Three men,” he said, into his cell phone.
“What sort of men?” Dewaal asked. The connection wasn’t very good. Prinsen wondered where she was.
“Judging from their outfits, they could have been Russian mob. Somewhat southern types. Balkan. Mediterranean. Something like that.”
“You see them in all shapes and sizes these days,” Dewaal said. “Van Gils messaged me about this. He doesn’t take it seriously. Me, I’m inclined to be careful. That bomb, that was not good. It can’t get worse. It’s supposed to be a warning for all of us. Such things should not happen between criminals and the police. It’s bad for relations and mutual understanding.”
“Carlo seemed to imply that a new breed of Russians had entered the picture,” Prinsen said. “People with money. With a different approach, non-criminal even.”
“It’s still a crime when you take over a Dutch company with foreign funds that originate from criminal activities, Nick. Politicians and the business world aren’t happy with the way things are drifting. On the other hand, some entrepreneurs won’t mind a capital injection, with no idea where the money comes from. Hard times, Nick. Fallout from the banking crisis and all that. They need funds, and many of them have cash-flow problems.”
“And then Keretsky has an intimate conversation with the president of Fabna,” Nick said. “He wasn’t shy about it either. Four and a half percent of stock. That’s a lot of stock. A lot of money too.”
“Not a secret, exactly. We’re worried about that conversation. The question is obvious: what did he talk about with Monet? He’s certainly not going to provide Monet’s companies with new capital. Other ideas have surely been worked out, over there in Saint Petersburg. And in Moscow. It’s precisely this sort of operation that we’re interested in.”
“You’re working this case with the Belgian, I hear?”
“That’s right. I’m keeping him separate because I want him to concentrate on this matter, which is extremely sensitive. So I need an outsider to take a look at it.”
“People talk. About him.”
“They always do. There will always be talk and gossip in the office. If I park my car in a different spot, they’ll talk about it. If I wear a pair of pants instead of a skirt, they talk. It keeps them busy. And it keeps them at a distance from the more sensitive cases where I cannot allow their interference.”
“We’re not getting anywhere.”
“With the Breukeling investigation? I don’t expect us to. That’s a dead trail. At least for now. Internal Affairs understood that much, so they’re doing nothing. I asked Van Gils to have a look at his files, to see if anything worthwhile pops up. Strictly speaking, that’s Internal Affairs’ backyard. And some people are getting nervous.”
“What do we get
out of it?”
“I don’t know yet. But stay focused. I need to go now. I’ll be in Belgium for a day or so. I’ll see you tomorrow. You and Van Gils keep working on the Breukeling investigation.”
“Will do,” he said. Breukeling investigation, she called it. As if it didn’t concern a colleague. As if it were nothing more than a manila folder that could be filed away, maybe forever.
This felt like the most intimate conversation he had had with her since his arrival. It didn’t amount to much, as intimate conversations went, but he was glad they’d spoken.
“Oh,” she said. “Before I forget. You do carry your gun with you, I assume? At all times?”
“Yes,” he said. “At all times.”
“Take it home as well. I insist. Will you do that?”
“I’ll think about it,” he promised.
“Good,” she said and was gone.
He remained at his desk for a bit longer. He stared at the screen of his laptop and then gazed outside for a while at the narrow stretch of world he could see from where he sat. Then he unearthed a key from his pocket and opened the top drawer of his desk. He had kept his SIG Sauer in there. The weapon was new and hadn’t yet been used, except for target practice. He took the weapon from the drawer and inspected the empty magazine. He found the box of cartridges and started loading them one by one.
32
“LET’S GO,” DEWAAL SAID, looking glum. It didn’t suit her very well, Eekhaut thought, but he wasn’t going to comment. She slid her phone into her handbag. It looked like an expensive handbag, but Eekhaut wasn’t an expert in the matter. He assumed that Dewaal didn’t buy cheap stuff. The phone looked expensive too. It was one of those devices that could do anything except brew coffee. Was she a nerd, in that sense? Permitting herself the most cutting-edge technological gadgets? What else would there be in that handbag? Her gun too?
“Right away?” he asked. He didn’t like these sorts of surprises. He preferred to plan his day in advance. Most surprises that had happened to him had been bad. Life wasn’t generous with positive surprises.
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