by David Hewson
He looked outside towards the boat. Above the line of the pavement there was little to see except the deck with its pots of dying flowers, feeble vegetables and the upright figure of the plastic ballerina. Vos told her how his daughter Anneliese went missing and was found, almost three years later. Alive but damaged. So much so she was still living with her mother in the distant Caribbean. And probably wouldn’t return. Not soon anyway.
As he recounted the story the little dog put his paws on Vos’s feet then leaned against his right leg, the way he did when he sensed something was wrong.
Sofia came over with a plate of liver sausage for them and Sam sniffed the meat, leapt out from under the table, jerked it with his lead, barked once, a high-pitched yelp for attention.
Hanna Bublik looked briefly amused. That only made the dog bark again.
‘Sam!’ Vos chided him. ‘Remember your manners.’
Another yap.
‘He wants some food,’ she pointed out.
Sam barked as if in agreement. Vos handed him a piece. The dog took it very delicately, ate the morsel, thought about barking for another, then changed his mind and curled up at their feet.
‘Is he all you’ve got now?’ she asked. ‘If your daughter’s on the other side of the world?’
‘No. I’ve got my work. My friends.’ A nod at the window. ‘Home.’
Sam started to snore.
‘But you learn things from a dog,’ he added.
‘Like what?’
‘Like . . .’ He’d never thought about this much before. ‘Like . . . Sam never looks back. Sometimes, on the boat, there are . . . accidents. When they happen he hangs his head. He’s ashamed. I get a bit cross on occasion. And then, five minutes later, it’s done. All that matters is now and what’s to come.’
‘Must be easy if you’re a dog,’ she said.
‘He never knows his size,’ Vos continued. ‘There’s a Great Dane down the street. A massive thing. He’s terrified of Sam. Every time we meet he goes for him. He doesn’t mind the creature’s three times his size. In Sam’s head he’s top dog. The boss. That’s all that counts.’
‘Like you?’ Hanna asked.
‘Sometimes. When I need to be.’ There was one other thing too. ‘You know the biggest lesson I learned from him? He’s a terrier. You saw it. When he wants something he doesn’t give up. He barks. He hangs on. He keeps going until he gets what he wants. Doesn’t matter how hard . . . how hopeless it looks. That’s Sam.’
He reached down, patted the sleeping dog’s head and got a growl in return.
‘Clever little animal,’ she said.
‘Not really. He’s just bright at the things he needs to be bright at.’
‘That’s clever, isn’t it?’
She pulled out her bag, ready to pay. Her fingers fumbled. Coins fell on the floor. He could see very clearly there was nothing in her purse but a single twenty euro note.
‘This is mine,’ he said.
‘I pay my way.’
‘Hanna!’ Her stubbornness could get infuriating. ‘I’ll get this.’
He pulled out four fifty euro notes and placed them on her purse. She closed her eyes for a moment than glared at him.
‘I’ve money of my own.’
‘Just take it will you? I don’t want you working while this goes on. I may need you at short notice.’
She didn’t remove the notes.
‘Jesus,’ she murmured. ‘I must be getting old and stupid. There was something I wanted to tell you. That man I saw today. Outside the police station. With the posh woman and her stuck-up kid.’
‘Renata Kuyper?’
‘Who is he?’
‘Her husband. Why?’
She grimaced.
‘All I was thinking about was Natalya. That maybe you’d find her.’
‘What is it?’
She sighed.
‘I could be wrong.’
‘You know him?’
‘We did business. A week or two ago. The usual twenty minutes.’
Vos rocked back on his rickety chair.
‘Let me get this straight. You slept with Henk Kuyper?’
‘If that’s his name. Came back for more four or five days later. He was the whiny type. I just listen. Don’t take much notice. He said he’d seen me in the street with my kid. He liked the fact I had a family. His own was a bit of a mess.’
She reached over and grabbed his glass of beer, took a sip.
‘You’d be amazed how many men tell me their wives as good as sent them.’
‘Do you remember anything else?’
‘I remember he seemed sorry for himself. Guilty. As if he didn’t want to be there at all. That’s not unusual. Truly. The thing is . . .’
She screwed her eyes tight shut for a moment as if this memory hurt.
‘That second time he left something. He said he’d bought it for his own little girl but realized he’d got the wrong size. I could have it if I wanted.’
Vos shifted on his seat. The dog got himself upright and stared at the pair of them.
‘The jacket,’ he said.
‘You don’t think I could afford something like that, do you? I went back to Marnixstraat to tell you. They said you’d gone out. Then all that stuff with the boat happened. It didn’t seem important.’
‘I need a positive ID. We can bring in Kuyper tomorrow.’
She cocked her head.
‘If you like. Do you think I take much notice of their faces? I think it was him. I just glimpsed the man today.’
She took the notes from her purse and threw them on the table.
‘And I don’t need this.’
He put his hand on hers and stopped her. Close up her face lost its hardness. She looked exhausted. But not defeated.
‘Men usually want something when they give me money.’
‘I got something, didn’t I?’ he said. ‘A reason to talk to the Kuypers again.’
She brushed the money into his lap.
‘Find my daughter, Vos. That’s all I want of you.’
‘And when I do. What then?’
Her face was hard again.
‘Then I go back to trying to stay alive. What else?’
‘As a sex worker?’
‘Don’t call me that. I’m a whore.’
‘There are ways out.’
‘It’s Natalya who needs saving. Not me.’ She put the purse with its pittance of money in her bag. ‘Call tomorrow whenever you like.’
She left then, a solitary figure stepping through the cold night back towards her tiny home in Oude Nieuwstraat. Sofia Albers came over, cleared the table and told him it was time to go.
Pieter Vos took Sam outside and called the night team. Rijnder was running the show. A good man. He’d check out Henk Kuyper. As they talked the little dog sniffed the air and tugged on his lead, always hunting something. Always curious.
Never look back. Never think yourself so small or insignificant nothing matters. More than anything . . . never give up.
Three good lessons he’d learnt without realizing it.
‘Come on, Sam.’ He reached down to stroke the dog’s wiry fur as they walked the gangplank onto the ramshackle houseboat with its peeling paint, dying plants and a silver ballerina glinting under the moonlight. ‘Time for bed.’
In the postbox there was another letter from the council telling him the boat needed to be cleaned up or he’d face legal action.
‘Not now,’ Vos muttered and threw the thing in the water.
3
Hanna Bublik slept throughout the night, not waking once. Which meant the guilt hurt even more when a hard winter sun flooded through the flimsy curtains of the gable window and brought the bleak world with it.
Exhaustion, physical and nervous, had taken its toll. The intriguing but evasive police officer Vos baffled her. Did he know or suspect more than he was saying? Or were the men and women in Marnixstraat just as much in the dark as she?
With
a low curse she rolled out of bed, checked her phone straight away. The message light was flashing. Even the ring hadn’t roused her. She fetched the voicemail: Vos, sounding friendly, determined and vague. They’d heard nothing more from the kidnapper. A team of forensic officers was still trawling through the boat in Westerdok. He wanted her to think about Henk Kuyper and whether he really was the man who’d visited her. They needed to make sure before approaching him.
Could she offer them that certainty? Going through the daily motions that seemed so strange without Natalya, washing, dressing, the same black jeans, shirt and jumper, she wondered. There was only one way to survive in the solitary, unattached life she’d chosen. That was to forge an absolute divide between the two parts of her existence: the woman in the cabin, the loving mother at home. The first was an automaton, unfeeling, unresponsive. The second as caring a parent as it was possible to be. For that to work she had to divide herself too. The prostitute, taking off her fake satin bra and pants, lying down, turning over, kneeling, doing whatever they wanted, never met the woman free of makeup walking round the city, dealing with school and the doctor, trying to make sure Natalya enjoyed the best childhood Hanna could provide.
She hadn’t been entirely frank with Vos when she said she never looked at their faces. Things were never as simple as they seemed. When she was working her mind fled mostly, leaving her body to muscle memory, habits, tricks, old routines. All that mattered was to make this slow procession of men happy. Because that meant more money. Enough to go home early if she was lucky. The woman in the cabin focused on the physical alone. Skin to be touched, positions to be taken. Grunts and squeals to be uttered on cue, like an actress fallen on hard times.
And then the man came. As quickly as she could manage without risking his wrath. Which wasn’t always easy.
She watched their faces because that told her the moment their time would soon be up. Nothing more. What she didn’t see was a person there. An identity to be recalled. The hint of a relationship to be developed.
The man she’d seen the day before with the posh mother of the Dutch girl was familiar. The one who’d visited her twice and left, on that second occasion, a pink jacket that would, through a set of circumstances no one seemed to understand, rob her of her daughter.
And that only added to her burden. Barely a minute went by without her wondering about the possibilities.
What if Natalya had worn something different? Or they’d seen Sinterklaas earlier in the city then gone for pizza somewhere? This entire sequence of black events seemed to hang on coincidences and chances gone wrong, all of them within her ultimate control. Because she was a parent. The parent. The only one. It was her responsibility to make the right choices. Her fault when they went so badly awry.
She wasn’t a forgiving woman. History had made her that way. But when the blame fell she knew where it was properly directed. At herself. In the end when Natalya needed her she’d turned to be the thing she feared most: a bad mother. The worst.
With that bitter thought poisoning her mind she went downstairs, ready to retrace her steps to Marnixstraat again.
Chantal was in the hallway, looking stupid as usual in flimsy clothes, ready for whatever job the Turk had found for her.
Guilty too, a flash of uncertainty in her dark and darting eyes.
‘Did you hear anything about Natty?’
‘Her name’s Natalya,’ Hanna snapped without thinking.
Chantal glared at her.
‘Sorry.’
‘No. I haven’t heard anything.’
‘Maybe Cem can help.’
‘So you said.’
There was still something going on.
‘What is it?’ Hanna asked.
‘I saw Jerry last night. He’s putting up the rent.’
Jerry was the front for a foreign owner for the building. She was sure of that. The man had the worried look of someone who was always watching his back.
‘How much?’
‘For you six hundred.’
‘I only pay four fifty! He promised it’d stay that way for a year.’
The teenage shrug again.
‘Talk to Jerry. Not me. I said I’d tell you.’
‘And what about you?’
Cornered, Chantal glanced at the door.
‘Same for me.’ Her room was twice the size, with a bigger window. ‘He says it’s backdated. He wants the extra this week.’
‘Shame he can’t stop people breaking into my room and stealing all my money.’
The girl shifted awkwardly on the spot.
‘Same for me,’ she said again.
‘You can pay him. I can’t.’
‘Talk to Cem! I told you!’
Hanna walked right up to her and smiled. Not nicely.
‘You know what we do to thieves? Back where I come from?’
Nothing.
She picked up Chantal’s delicate, olive-skinned right hand.
‘We chop off their fingers. One by one.’
‘Trying to help you, Hanna. Why the fuck I bother?’
‘Because someone’s told you? Did Cem take my money? Does he own this place too?’
Fear. That was always there, however hard this stupid little kid tried to hide it.
So she did what little kids liked to do when caught. She started to cry.
There’s the answer, Hanna thought. No need for anything else.
Cem Yilmaz wanted her name on his list and wasn’t in the mood to be disappointed.
‘Tell him he’ll get his money,’ she said. ‘As soon as I can earn it.’
‘There’s always a man that owns you!’ Chantal yelled at her, sobbing. ‘You no different to me.’
Hanna slapped her round the face. Hard. Regretted it immediately.
Then went outside, blinking against the bright daylight. That brought the start of tears to her own eyes. She wiped them away and set off down the narrow cobbled street, past the cabins, looking for the best, preparing herself to smile at the passing men, do a come-on wave with her finger. Morning customers were scarce and always argued about the price. But it was money all the same.
The one she wanted was empty. So was the street. Outside the door she called Vos. It was a brief conversation.
‘Are you sure?’ Vos asked.
‘I told you. He was different. Sad. As if he felt guilty about the whole thing. They don’t normally leave a gift for your kid either. Something else I remembered . . .’
He waited.
‘When he left me the jacket he asked me something about Sunday and Sinterklaas. What we’d be doing.’
‘And?’
‘I think I said we’d be there like everyone else. In Leidseplein. I think . . .’
He hesitated then asked, ‘Did you tell him Natalya would be wearing that jacket?’
Hanna thought for a moment.
‘Maybe. I don’t remember. Pretty obvious she would be, isn’t it? Nicest thing she’s got. I really wasn’t taking much notice to be honest. We were done. I wanted him out of there.’
‘Thanks,’ Vos said. ‘It’s enough. I’ll call the moment I hear anything. Where will you be?’
She looked at the long window. The red glass. The stool and the single bed in the corner next to the tiny shower, sink and toilet. If she’d taken Vos’s cash the night before maybe she could avoid this. But not now. Not with Jerry demanding money she didn’t have. And besides there was something tempting about being in that place. Losing herself behind the glass. It was a selfish escape from her sense of impotence outside.
‘Around,’ she said and left it there.
Vos had got out of bed just after six, talked to Marnixstraat, gone through everything the night team had. It didn’t take long. Then he checked what information they’d found on Henk Kuyper and made two calls: one to the missing girl’s mother, the second to Laura Bakker, asking her to join him for breakfast in the Drie Vaten.
He was with Sam at their usual table in the raised secti
on at the back when she arrived. Bakker’s dress sense had regressed. She wore green tartan trousers and a brown jacket with heavy black boots. She marched in, feet clattering, glanced around and said, ‘You always look as if you live here.’
The little terrier ran up, tail wagging, and put his paws on her knees. She never told him to get down so Vos didn’t any more.
Coffee and croissants came without a word.
‘Is this really necessary?’ she asked when they were alone.
‘How long is it since you joined Marnixstraat?’
She shook her head, pulled back the red hair when it annoyed her, wrapped an elastic band to hold it in place in a loose, untidy ponytail.
‘Eight. Nine months.’
‘And you’ve taken no leave.’
Croissant crumbs went everywhere as she spluttered at this.
‘Seriously, Laura. It’s not good to work all that time without a break. Why don’t you go back to Dokkum for a week? I’m sure your aunt can—’
‘Right now?’ she cut in. ‘This very instant?’
He nodded and said, ‘I think that would be a good idea. This is a stressful case. I’ve noticed you’re getting worn down by it.’
‘What?’
Sam heard the beginnings of an argument, got up and trotted back to the bar.
‘I’m just saying . . .’
‘What have I done wrong? Tell me. I’d like to know.’
‘Nothing specific . . .’
‘Something unspecific then? You don’t want me here, do you?’
He took a long swig of coffee.
‘You can call in sick today. I’ll fix a holiday from tomorrow . . .’
‘Pieter! What is this?’
‘Nothing,’ he insisted. ‘I just—’
‘I’m not calling in sick. I’m not taking holiday. The only way you can get me off the team is to take me off yourself.’ She raised the cup in a toast. ‘That’s your prerogative but I’ll want to hear a reason.’
‘You’re young,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a career ahead of you. Cases like this can damage them.’
‘You want me to walk away from this girl’s kidnapping because it might hurt my prospects?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘No. Tell me, please.’
Too smart for her own good sometimes. Too judgemental and inflexible. He’d been like that once. Experience changed him, nothing else.
