The Wrong Girl

by David Hewson

  ‘And Natalya Bublik?’ Bakker cried. ‘What happens to her if we cook up some fake accusation to keep him in jail? Have you thought about that?’

  Geerts shrugged his big shoulders.

  ‘This isn’t about protecting one individual. Alamy’s had a hand in bombings, hijackings, assassinations. If we let him out he’ll be gone from Amsterdam for good. Causing us no end of shit from somewhere we can’t even touch him.’

  ‘And the girl?’ Bakker demanded once more. ‘Do you have anything to offer us?’

  ‘I told you before,’ Fransen said straight away. ‘If we did you’d know it. The chances are she was as good as dead the moment they took her.’ She nodded at Vos. ‘He understands even if you don’t.’

  Silence.

  Vos looked at Bakker then took out his phone. Pressed a button and started to play back the conversation they’d just had.

  ‘Give me that now,’ Geerts ordered.

  ‘I don’t have time for this,’ Vos said, pocketing the handset. ‘Nor do you. Asking a police officer to fabricate evidence is a criminal offence. Consider yourself warned.’

  Geerts was blocking the door. Bakker walked up and told him to get out of the way. She was almost as tall as he was. An imposing figure when she wanted to be.

  ‘They’ll never let you charge us with a damned thing, Vos,’ Fransen called after them as they walked outside. ‘Get real. This is our world now. Not yours.’

  Down the long corridor, Vos behind Bakker to make sure Geerts didn’t attempt anything.

  Then they were outside, listening to the two opposing mobs get ever more vocal.

  ‘What if they’re right?’ Bakker asked as they stood by the security gate. ‘What if . . . they’ve got a point?’

  He stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Are you really asking that?’

  She wasn’t listening. Bakker was pointing to the crowd. Two women there, pushing their way to the front, arguing with a couple of uniform officers along the way.

  ‘Isn’t that . . . ?’

  A different van. Different men. Three of them. They didn’t bother to hide their faces any more.

  Foreign. Dark. They’d carried her in the hessian sack, told her to stay quiet as they lugged it inside.

  Then a short journey to a new place. One that was worse. Worn, slippery steps down to a cellar. The light came on, a single bulb. Walls dripping with moisture. The place was cold even with a three-bar fire burning orange beneath a barred window with black plastic taped to the outside.

  ‘Here,’ the big one said and put a cold, greasy kebab on the red plastic table by the mattress on the floor.

  He pulled a bottle of water out of a plastic bag. The name on the side was Chinese, with oriental lettering and a roaring dragon spouting flames above it.

  Then they left her. No pens or drawing books any more. Probably no point in asking for them. These men weren’t the same at all.

  She looked around.

  The place must have been old. The floor was nothing but worn brickwork, like the walls. A storeroom. A cellar. The city centre. Where the shops were. Where her mother had said they might live one day. Not soon. Not ever maybe. They didn’t belong here. Natalya knew it then and, for the first time since she’d been taken, felt tears sting her eyes.

  There was a hurt in their lives that she could only guess at because it happened before she could know. Her father’s death was a part of the monster. But there was more and it lay in what followed as they travelled from place to place, never finding money or friendship, never staying long.

  Something abandoned them along the way and that loss scared her mother. Made her wonder if their old life, a happy one Natalya thought, would ever return.

  She’d seen that when she’d caught her mother behind that glass window, wearing almost nothing. Couldn’t help it sometimes when she was walking back from school. Though she always made sure she stayed out of sight, in the shadows, behind some other kids. They told her what her mother was. Not that they teased her. Much anyway. This was the city. Bad things happened alongside the good. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

  Tears formed in her small, sharp eyes then rolled down her cheeks as she stood in the chilly cellar, aware it would only get colder as the night wore on.

  You don’t cry. You do something.

  That was what her mother said when things turned bad in the past. Natalya wiped her face. There was silence from the place above. She stood on the mattress and managed to reach the bottom of the barred window. If she struggled she could just reach the edge of the black plastic set behind the iron frame to block out the world beyond.

  On tiptoes she lifted the sheet a fraction then edged close to the damp brickwork and tried to peek out.

  A bright scarlet neon dragon just visible on a building on the other side of a narrow street. And a sign, flashing red, yellow and green. It said, ‘Golden Paradise Restaurant, Best of Szechuan Cooking’. Beneath the lettering was a glittering bowl with electric steam coming off noodles.

  She felt hungry, glanced at the cold kebab, couldn’t face it.

  You do something.

  She couldn’t raise the plastic any further so she got down from the mattress and walked around the cellar. It was bigger than their gable room in Oude Nieuwstraat. At the top of the stairs was a door, solid metal, locked from the outside. Next to the lintel was what looked like a light switch, taped over with black plastic so she couldn’t get at it easily. She gave up on that and went back down the steps. In the corner furthest from the door, next to the bucket she guessed was supposed to be her toilet, was a small cabinet on the wall just a short way up from the floor.

  It was metal. Grey and old. A tiny, rusty handle on the front that wouldn’t budge. But there was nothing else in the room and the fact the thing was locked seemed infuriating.

  Two days she’d been a captive, barely spoken to. And now a piece of stupid metal defied her too.

  So she kicked it and yelled when it didn’t budge.

  No sound from upstairs. They weren’t there. Something told her the place was empty. Just her and a stupid locked cabinet.

  She kicked it again. And again. Getting more violent, louder with every blow.

  Finally the hinge broke. She was able to get her fingers round the edge, avoiding the rust and the fresh sharp metal, then wrap her grubby pink jacket around her hand and prise it open.

  The lone bulb cast a weak yellow light inside. Tools. Chisels and screwdrivers. A small handsaw. A couple of retractable utility knives. Behind that a set of fuses and switches and the whirling wheel of an electricity meter.

  She thought about these things and wondered what her mother might do with them.

  Then, after she sat on the mattress for a while, listening for a sound from upstairs, still hearing nothing, she went back to the box on the wall and looked at the electricity panel and the little metal wheel going round and round.

  Natalya reached forward and tried the first switch. Nothing happened. Then the second. Nothing. Two more left. She tried the fourth and thought she saw the turning wheel slow a little.

  Then the third. The lone bulb in the room went off. She sat in the cold darkness, thinking.

  Guessing. That was all it was. She got herself comfy by the wall, put her finger on the third switch, started to flick it up and down in a steady, tedious rhythm. The solitary light flashed on and off.

  She’d no idea if anyone would see it. Or whether they’d think it was anything other than a faulty bulb if they did.

  After a few minutes she heard voices. Men. Angry. Puzzled.

  Then footsteps above the stone stairs. She left the switch on, did her best to push the cabinet closed, crawled to the mattress and tried to look asleep.

  Things were moving in Schiphol. Every last option had gone.

  Mirjam Fransen told Geerts to see Alamy all the way to his coterie of camp followers and then stick with him.

  The stocky AIVD man nodded, not happy a
bout this.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘How about immigration?’ he said. ‘If he tries to leave the country they can stop him.’

  ‘I wish . . .’

  She showed him the message on her phone from The Hague. Alamy had been offered visas for transit to three different countries. All ‘non-aligned’. He could wait for a direct flight – or find a private one – and leave. Nothing they could do to stop him.

  ‘The Americans have got a warrant,’ Geerts said. ‘They can track his airspace. Someone can force down the plane.’

  She scowled.

  ‘Like they tried with Snowden? Get real. It’s not going to happen. We’re the bad guys now, remember? We can’t pull those stunts.’

  There was a sound from down the corridor. A group of people approaching.

  ‘I’m going to nag Vos again,’ she announced. Then nodded at the coming crowd. ‘You deal with it.’

  He grunted something she didn’t hear then wandered over to Alamy’s people. A couple of lawyers he half-recognized. One of their civil rights people who was always on the TV. Two heavies who looked like hired bodyguards.

  The slight preacher was in a dark suit, beard freshly combed, beaming, happy. He had a small case with him. A man going somewhere.

  ‘Who are you?’ one of the bodyguards asked.

  ‘AIVD.’ Geerts opened his jacket, flashed the badge. Let them see the handgun in its leather holster. ‘It’s noisy out there and we’ve got some people who don’t think Mr Alamy’s such a hero. I plan to stick with you until you’re clear of the crowd.’

  ‘You’re not wanted,’ the civil rights woman told him.

  ‘I rarely am,’ Geerts said cheerfully. ‘But I’m here. Get used to it.’

  They kept quiet.

  ‘Do you want me to call a cab?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ve an appointment,’ the woman said. ‘After we make a statement to the media.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise that,’ Geerts answered. ‘Like I said. It’s noisy out there.’

  They pushed past. Alamy didn’t look at him. He wasn’t wearing a raincoat and it was cold and wet outside.

  Geerts let them go a few steps ahead then called Mirjam Fransen and told her. It was obvious. He was going inside the terminal. On his way from Holland.

  A key in the lock. The metal door was thrown open. The big one marched down and stared at her. Then the light bulb.

  He said nothing. Walked to the cabinet. Saw the broken door. Came and sat down next to her on the bed. Put his strong arm on her leg and squeezed.

  ‘Do that again and I’ll hurt you.’ He pointed to the cabinet. ‘Don’t touch it. I will know.’

  She thought of the Chinese restaurant. He was there. Must have seen.

  Natalya pointed to the kebab.

  ‘That’s cold. Disgusting. I want hot food.’

  He looked at her and laughed.

  ‘They said you had spirit.’

  ‘Hot food,’ she repeated.

  ‘Such as?’

  The girl thought about this and said, ‘Noodles.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And if I get you noodles . . .’ A glance at the cabinet. ‘No more games? You stay here. Be quiet. A good girl. Then soon you get to see your mum.’

  ‘’Kay,’ she said and wondered if he thought she meant it.

  Five minutes later he came back with a plastic tray of food and a bottle of water. She began to wolf down the meal as he watched in silence. Then he took the bucket, went upstairs, emptied it somewhere, came back and placed it in the corner.

  While she was eating he took out his phone and snapped a picture. Natalya blinked at the sudden bright flash, plastic fork in hand, food to her mouth.

  ‘Give me the jacket,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because bad girls can freeze here in the dark. Give me it.’

  His fist came out, demanding. She shuffled it off. Looked at the pink fabric and the ponies. The jacket was getting filthy.

  ‘Learn your lesson,’ he ordered and left her there.

  A noise from outside. The single bulb went out and she knew there was no way to turn it back on.

  It wasn’t so cold, she thought. She could huddle under the blankets.

  There was the tiniest leak of coloured neon through a gap in the blacked-out window.

  Just enough to let her take out the tools she’d stolen from the cabinet before she played with the switches. The knives. The saw. The chisels and the screwdrivers. Hidden under the little bed.

  Big occasion. Lots of people. A few neo-Nazis on one side. The media in the middle. Alamy’s supporters and enemies kept apart. Just.

  No moon. Growing clouds had seen to that. Rain was starting to spit from the black sky.

  Decisions.

  In the army they were made for you. Soldiers like him, men in the ranks, weren’t there for their opinions. They existed to obey without question. He’d done that most of his life. And got what in return? Nightmares and an overreaching sense of guilt.

  Ferdi Pijpers looked at the two opposing sides in front of him and wondered which to join. The ones who hated the preacher. The ones who adored him.

  There was no middle. That was the place the police wanted to be and it was cold and lonely and full of pain.

  So he went with the preacher’s people. They didn’t ask questions as he wandered up, mingled among them, joined in their mindless, repetitive chant. They were much like the neo-Nazis on the other side. Same dumb rhythm. Just different dumb words.

  There were crowds like this in Afghanistan sometimes. Always for a lynching.

  Hanna Bublik wasn’t made for begging but she did it anyway and the Kuyper woman echoed her every plea.

  ‘Just get me to see him, Vos. To talk to him.’

  Bakker had carved out some space for the four of them beyond the camera crews. Renata listened carefully by Hanna’s side.

  ‘I can’t,’ he told them. ‘Ismail Alamy’s been freed by the court. We’ve no legal control over his movements. No right to demand anything of him . . .’

  ‘What does this mean for my daughter?’

  He didn’t answer. Bakker looked at her boots.

  ‘I need to know . . .’

  ‘It means we carry on looking,’ he said. ‘And tomorrow they come back with a demand. More money I guess. A different. . . strategy.’

  ‘Alamy’s going to make a statement,’ Bakker added. ‘I’ve talked to some of the reporters. They’re going to push him about Natalya. See if he’ll say something useful. It’s better coming from them than the police. Really.’

  ‘Do you think it’ll work?’ Renata Kuyper asked.

  Vos couldn’t understand why she was there. How these two had got together.

  ‘I think it’s worth a try. I think . . .’

  His words were drowned by the noise of the media mob spotting their prey.

  Across the grey courtyard the high security gates opened. Alamy’s followers cheered wildly. The protesters on the other side howled with fury. Camera flashes seared the black night like brief snatches of lightning.

  Shouted questions.

  Mirjam Fransen came over, grabbed Vos’s arm, tugged him away from the rest of them.

  ‘This is our last chance,’ she begged. ‘I’m out of options. If you can’t think of a way to stop him we could lose years of work. There’s got to be . . .’

  He broke in with something feeble, about the law and due process. Then ran out of words.

  The reporters surged forward with such force part of the fence broke. A couple came through. Uniform men and women struggled to keep them back.

  Ismail Alamy strode forward, a victory smile on his face. Smart suit, more businessman than preacher, ready to depart the country and lose himself in a distant hotbed of jihad, probably in the Horn of Africa.

  The lawyers assembled behind as he pulled a prepared statement out of his pocket and began to read.

  Bakker grimaced. Hanna
tried to push through the mob. Alamy’s voice rang out, accented English, loud and defiant.

  ‘What about the girl?’ interrupted a woman reporter at the front, thrusting a microphone at Alamy’s face. ‘Natalya? What about her, Alamy?’

  The broadest of grins. He opened his arms wide. Thom Geerts shuffled behind him, scanning the crowd.

  ‘I know nothing of this child. I’m a man of peace and justice. That is why they seek to imprison me. To stop the truth being known. To prevent—’

  ‘She’s my daughter!’

  Hanna’s voice rang out as she fought to claw through the crowd.

  An odd silence then. Even the hacks looked lost for a moment.

  ‘My daughter,’ she repeated, almost at the fractured fence, hands out, clutching for him.

  The microphones and cameras hovered between the two: a woman in a cheap black jacket; a man in a smart grey suit, almost amused by the spectacle.

  Alamy smiled. Shrugged. Then said, ‘I must leave this damaged country to its own sad devices. Goodbye.’

  Geerts came up by his side. Vos watched the big AIVD man. Tried to work out what was going through his mind. Mirjam Fransen had vanished again. It wasn’t beyond the intelligence service to pull some last-minute trick at this stage of the game.

  The crowd of Alamy’s supporters rushed forward to embrace him.

  Then came the first shot.

  Vos heard it and found his right hand patting his jacket for the handgun. Just like it used to.

  Thom Geerts staggered back from the tall man in the grey suit, blood on his neck, spurting like a fountain.

  Second shot.

  Alamy was down. A shambling shape came and stood over him, screaming obscenities, free of the crowd for a brief moment.

  The media crews hovered, cameras running, flashes sparking, scared but unable to turn away.

  Third shot.

  The wounded preacher’s body shook with another impact.

  Uniform got there. Weapons out. Semicircle round the figure with the gun, calling on him to get on the ground, hands out. All the usual.

  In the Drie Vaten later, watching the short and bloody drama replay itself on the TV, Vos came to accept that none of this mattered. Events sometimes possessed a momentum all of their own. Nothing would stop them. However hard one tried.