The Wrong Girl

by David Hewson

  Then put the console on the table.

  She stared at the pink plastic toy. That had a pony on it too.

  ‘I don’t play kiddy games,’ Natalya said and stared at him.

  A man too cowardly to show his face. Who hid behind a balaclava in front of a schoolkid. She hated the ones she knew her mother dealt with in the street. Even the man who left the present.

  ‘Stay here. Do as we say. Be good. No harm will come to you, Natalya.’

  He was Dutch. Sounded . . . like one of the teachers at her school. Clever. Sure of himself. Surprised she wouldn’t cower in front of him.

  We, she thought.

  So she was right. He wasn’t alone.

  Outside a squabble between the ducks turned loud and aggressive. He picked up the little console, put it in his pocket, and got up.

  She reached for the colouring book.

  ‘This is for a baby,’ she said. ‘I want one with puzzles. Numbers.’

  He sat down, took the book off her. Flicked through the pages, found something at the back and handed it over.

  Sums. Addition. Subtraction. Multiply and divide.

  They were easy. Natalya got the pen and flicked through them, line by line, scribbling the answers.

  ‘This is for a baby too,’ she moaned.

  He got the book back, looked at it from behind the balaclava.

  A teacher, she thought. They did that too.

  ‘You got one sum wrong,’ he said and jabbed his finger at the fourth question down the page.

  Three times thirteen. She’d written in ‘forty-one’ for some reason. She scribbled over the answer and pencilled in a correction over the top. Then turned the page. The book went back to simple colouring games and ‘spot the difference’ pictures. She handed it to him and said nothing.

  ‘I’ll try and find you something harder,’ he said and left, shutting the little door behind him.

  A padlock, she thought. And a bolt on the other side.

  She ripped open the sweets, got a couple out and started to chew.

  Outside the city, in another cell, Ismail Alamy listened, nodding. When Vos was finished he opened his hands, frowned then asked, ‘And . . . ?’

  ‘An innocent child’s been kidnapped to free you.’

  ‘I have nothing to do with this,’ the Moroccan insisted. ‘No knowledge it was planned. No idea who these brothers might be. Do you have reason to believe otherwise?’

  His hand rose, a practised gesture. An index finger and a long orange sleeve jabbed at them. Alamy was the preacher from the videos then.

  ‘I’m as innocent as this child. And yet here I linger in captivity. Without charges. Without evidence. All so that you may send me back to a regime without the so-called democracy you worship. Where they torture men and women—’

  ‘This isn’t about you,’ Hanna interrupted. ‘It’s about my daughter.’

  ‘My hands are clean,’ he said, pretending to wash them. ‘Why waste your time? Besides . . .’ A sudden grin. ‘Soon there’ll be news from the court in Strasbourg. They’ll release me. I’ve no stain upon my record here. Nor my character. You’ve no reason to deprive me of my liberty.’

  He’d arrived on a fake Libyan passport. Claimed political asylum from the then Gaddafi regime. Vos knew all this and was determined not to rise to the bait.

  ‘All I want you to do is make a statement we can pass on to them,’ he said. ‘These people are your followers. If you ask them to release Natalya Bublik perhaps they will.’

  The Moroccan scowled at them.

  ‘I’m a man of God. I have no followers. Or any idea who these brothers might be.’

  Hanna blinked, clutched her hands, bent forward, looked at him.

  ‘She’s my little girl. All I have. No father. He died in one more stupid war.’

  ‘You think you’re alone in this?’ Alamy asked. ‘You think I don’t have a thousand . . . a hundred thousand tragedies . . . to set against yours?’

  ‘If you say something and they ignore you . . . so what?’ she asked, her strong voice close to breaking. ‘Where’s the harm? And if they listen . . .’

  ‘A statement?’ he asked curtly. ‘That says what?’

  ‘Let my little girl go,’ she pleaded. ‘Eight years old. She’s no part in this.’

  What amused geniality there was in his face vanished.

  ‘We’re all a part of this, woman. The world’s divided. Between good and evil. Right and wrong. Those who believe and may be saved. Those who deny and will burn for it.’

  Vos watched, hoping.

  ‘One short statement,’ she persisted. ‘You say you don’t want my daughter held on your account. No sides there. No complicated arguments.’

  He was hesitating. Vos found this interesting on several fronts. Then the door burst open. Alamy looked up and all doubt fled from his face.

  Mirjam Fransen was there. Furious.

  ‘What’s going on, Vos?’ the AIVD woman demanded. ‘Who gave you permission for this?’

  Vos shook his head.

  ‘You’re following me?’

  ‘Geerts went into Marnixstraat. They said you were out. It wasn’t hard to find out where.’

  Alamy hunched up on his single bed and scowled at the three of them.

  ‘I’ve nothing more to add. This . . . discussion is ended.’

  Hanna was on him straight away, clutching at the arm of his orange suit, begging, close to tears.

  ‘Get this whore away from me,’ he spat. ‘Get—’

  She broke then. Hands flying. Screaming. Tearing at his sleeves.

  Vos strode over, took her arms. Led her to the door. Pushed past Fransen and the two detention officers until they were back in the corridor.

  ‘How does he know who I am?’ Hanna demanded. ‘Who told him? You?’

  ‘No one—’

  ‘Do I wear a badge? Is it in my face?’

  ‘Hanna. Hanna . . .’

  Mirjam Fransen followed, watched, arms folded, interested but uninvolved.

  ‘You touched him,’ Vos said. ‘That’s all—’

  ‘If I was that Kuyper woman . . .’

  ‘He would have said the same thing.’ Vos turned to Fransen. ‘If we talk to Alamy again he may make that statement. One sentence. That’s all. That he doesn’t support this action. That may . . .’

  She looked at the two guards.

  ‘This prisoner is our responsibility. The police have no business here. You allow no one in to see him again without my permission. Do I make myself clear?’

  They knew her. They nodded.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Vos pleaded. ‘Why would you object to this?’

  She pointed at the corridor and the electronic gate at the end.

  ‘There are matters of national security here that don’t concern you, Vos. Get back to Marnixstraat. Do your job. Stay away from ours.’

  ‘Five minutes,’ he begged.

  ‘Not possible.’ She beckoned to the guards. ‘Get them out of here.’

  Saskia’s school was a short walk away from the Herenmarkt. A private place with a small playground. Renata Kuyper got herself a cappuccino from a nearby cafe and sat on a bench near the gates trying to think. The coffee got cold. She fetched another, closed her eyes, called home. No answer. Called his mobile. Got voice-mail.

  After a while it was break time and a noisy gaggle of kids, all well-dressed, the offspring of Amsterdam’s middle and upper classes, tumbled out into the little square. She watched the children bouncing balls, chattering, playing on the slides, the swings and the single roundabout.

  Couldn’t force from her head the picture of another girl somewhere else in the city. Lost. Trapped. Not a word about it in the papers. AIVD had called Henk the previous night to tell them to keep quiet about what happened too. Publicity might endanger the child, they said.

  Across the road, in the playground by the canal, Saskia was running around with her classmates still wearing the pink jacket Henk had bought h
er. In spite of everything that had happened she’d demanded it that morning and Henk, to Renata’s disgust, had given in. She wasn’t a smart child. That disappointed Henk, not that he let his daughter know.

  Renata sipped at the new coffee. Then someone sat on the bench next to her. The suddenness of his appearance scared her a little.

  Heavy winter coat. Sad, long pale face with chiselled cheeks, smooth from a careful razor. Lucas Kuyper wasn’t elderly but he was getting there. The years and the pressure had worn him down.

  He was gripping a paper cup of coffee too. Steam rising from the top. He touched her cup and smiled.

  All the small words then, the easy pleasantries. Henk’s father was so old-fashioned. Gentle of manner, quiet and thoughtful in conversation. It was hard to imagine him as a military man. Just as it was hard sometimes to imagine Henk as a hectic freelance activist, throwing himself into endless campaigns, usually over the web. About what she wasn’t clear.

  ‘You won’t tell him I was here, will you?’

  ‘Of course not, Lucas. Not if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘I think it might be best. After last night . . .’

  It wasn’t just last night. There always seemed a coldness between them. Sometimes it almost appeared deliberate.

  ‘You’re not going to hang around here all day, are you?’ she said. ‘Really . . . if the police thought there was any reason to worry about us they’d be here.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I know. I’m sure you’re right. It’s just . . . I don’t have a lot else to do to be honest. So I came out for a walk.’

  He’d been widowed three years earlier. Henk had barely spoken to his father at the funeral. Now Lucas lived alone near the Nine Streets, wandering the shops there when he felt like it, buying presents Saskia didn’t need, then going home to his grand and empty mansion, no company except for the cleaner who came twice a week.

  What happened in Bosnia appeared to have destroyed his life. His relationship with his son. Both were irrecoverable, and now it seemed it almost cost them Saskia.

  ‘Why do you blame yourself about Srebrenica?’ she asked. ‘They decided what happened wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘Henk doesn’t think so.’

  ‘No. But Henk doesn’t see much good in anyone.’

  ‘It can’t have been easy for him either,’ Lucas Kuyper said. ‘All the hatred. Some of it came his way.’

  ‘If they decided it wasn’t your fault who are you to argue?’

  That didn’t seem to please him.

  ‘Because I was there and they weren’t. We’d no idea those people were headed for a massacre. Even if we had . . .’ He closed his eyes and there was such a look of pain on his lined face she wanted him to stop. ‘The truth is . . . even then we couldn’t have stopped it. We were a peacekeeping force. Not an army. Not fit or set for combat. If I’d had the weapons and the clearance . . .’

  ‘Then you’d have died too.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Possibly. But if that had happened there would have been a reaction. Perhaps those eight thousand innocents would be alive. Or free to suffer another day.’

  The Kuypers were a military family. Lucas followed a long line of army officers going back more than a century and a half. That ended with Henk.

  ‘You did your duty,’ she insisted.

  ‘Did I?’ he replied with an uncharacteristic edge in his voice. ‘Henk was at boarding school when the publicity started. He had a terrible time. Me . . . I could cope. In a way I welcomed it. All that venom towards me . . . it was deserved.’

  She put a hand on his arm.

  ‘You mustn’t think that.’

  There was a moody expression on his face.

  ‘Really? Someone tried to abduct your daughter yesterday. Because of what I did . . . or didn’t do . . . nearly two decades ago. You think I can simply forget?’

  There were no words she could think of then.

  ‘And Henk seems to hate me more with every passing day,’ he added.

  Across the road the children were filing back into school. More lessons. Saskia would be safe in the comfy, private world Lucas’s money bought for them.

  He stared at her and there was a steely determination in his eyes that must have been there when he was in uniform.

  ‘Are you happy?’

  ‘No,’ she replied without thinking. ‘Are many people?’

  ‘You have every right to be,’ he said, and sounded almost cross. ‘We were. At Henk’s age I was a career officer. We had one enemy. The Russians. No one but a fool thought it would come to war. Then the Berlin Wall fell and everyone was cheering.’

  She smiled and patted his knee.

  ‘This is history, Lucas. The past. You should let it go.’

  ‘A friend of mine was there when the Wall collapsed. He told me everyone was delirious in Berlin. And then he said it would all get worse from now on. There’s no balance left to keep us in our place. We had sides back then. We knew where we stood. A decade later we were trying to stop ordinary men murdering their neighbours in the Balkans. Had Henk followed me into the army he’d have gone to Iraq, Afghanistan . . . God knows where.’

  He finished his coffee and crumpled the cup in his fist.

  ‘It wasn’t just me that failed. It was all of us. And every year we fall apart a little more.’ Lucas Kuyper’s face became stern and hard. ‘Terrorists in Amsterdam. Stealing children off the street.’

  ‘All the more reason not to blame yourself,’ she interrupted.

  ‘But Henk blames me. He hates me.’

  ‘Me too, I think.’

  ‘He’s no reason to hate you, Renata. I don’t believe that for a moment.’

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t need one.’

  He sat back on the seat, closed his eyes, trying to find the words.

  ‘You’re thinking of leaving him?’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’ she asked.

  He nodded and said, ‘It is.’

  ‘Where would I go?’ she asked and both of them understood she was fishing for an invitation. His house was big and empty. She could imagine living there.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘We all make sacrifices. The price of a little joy is often a little pain. You’ve a beautiful daughter . . .’

  She found herself blinking back tears and wondered what he’d make of them.

  ‘All I want is my family. A normal family. A loving family. All I ever wanted . . .’

  The playground was deserted. It seemed desolate that way.

  ‘Besides, Saskia would never come,’ she said and knew that was true. ‘There’s a closeness between them. As if they share some . . . secret. I don’t understand it. All I know is I can’t get inside that. I never will.’

  ‘This is not a time for rash decisions.’

  ‘Rash?’ she asked. ‘Do you think this only happened yesterday? We’ve been struggling for years. Didn’t you notice?’

  She waited and waited. The only answer was an unfamiliar ringtone from her bag. Henk had given her a spare phone of his that morning. The police had kept hers for the call about the Georgian girl.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I went for a walk.’

  She could hear him sigh. Traffic behind his voice. He was out in the street somewhere too. She thought she heard the rattle of a train.

  ‘That doesn’t tell me where you are.’

  ‘I’m near the school. OK?’

  ‘Those idiots at Marnixstraat called. They want to see us. Saskia too. Something about inconsistencies in the statements.’

  Lucas shuffled away on the bench as if he didn’t want to hear. The chaos of the previous day came back to her in an instant.

  ‘What inconsistencies?’

  ‘I don’t know. Get Saskia out of school. There’s a cafe in Elandsgracht, the Prinsen end, near the bridge.’

  ‘I can be there in fifteen minutes . . .’

  ‘Well I can’t. Busy. Eleven thir
ty I’ll see you in the cafe. Then we go in together.’

  Without another word he hung up. Lucas was clutching his hat, ready to leave too.

  ‘I’m glad we talked,’ he said, getting to his feet. She joined him. ‘As for Srebrenica . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not a subject I care to return to.’

  ‘Maybe you should. Maybe you and Henk . . .’

  ‘One small step at a time,’ he said. ‘A family must always try to stay together. Once those bonds are fractured it’s difficult to put the pieces back together again. Henk loves you. Saskia as well. We all do.’

  She didn’t know what to say. He tipped his hat and left.

  Vos drove Hanna Bublik back into the centre, Renata Kuyper’s phone in his coat pocket, silent. Accusing somehow.

  As they fell into heavy traffic she looked at him and asked, nervously, ‘What am I supposed to do if they ask for money?’

  ‘The important thing is to start the dialogue. After that we can deal with what they want.’

  She hugged herself in the cheap black jacket though it wasn’t cold in the car.

  ‘You can stay in my office as long as you like,’ Vos suggested. ‘The moment he calls I’ll let you know what’s happening.’

  She stared out of the window as they pulled into the long straight stretch of Marnixstraat that led to the police station.

  ‘You mean you’re going to sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring?’

  ‘I hope not,’ Vos said.

  ‘Then what’s the point in having me around?’

  ‘I’m trying to help.’

  ‘I’ve only got one thing to give anyone and it’s not something these people want.’

  ‘I can get a woman officer to be with you. We can try and get some help—’

  ‘I need my daughter back. That’s all. I don’t want anything else from you.’

  He rarely lost his temper but she was getting to him. Vos pulled into the side of the street by the secure entrance to the station.

  ‘We’re doing all we can, Hanna. We’ll find your daughter.’

  She glared at him.

  ‘You say that so easily.’

  ‘I mean it. Either we track down where this man’s keeping her. Or we negotiate some way out of it.’

  ‘She’s a whore’s kid. Illegal. What’s there to negotiate with?’