The Wrong Girl

by David Hewson

  Ferdi Pijpers never meant to drop the weapon. This was the end of a long journey, one that started on the far side of the world, across a bleak, dry landscape he’d come to hate.

  One more shot into the preacher on the ground. Then the uniforms opened fire and Pijpers was down, twitching, dying too.

  Three corpses. Ismail Alamy. Thom Geerts. A lost military intelligence officer, breathing his last on the Schiphol asphalt.

  Mirjam Fransen coming out of nowhere, shrieking for help. And Laura Bakker looking at the slaughter. Perhaps seeing for the first time a horror that would come to haunt her.

  Sirens started. The cameras, the floodlights, the reporters with their mikes and notebooks recorded every moment.

  Vos watched and thought.

  Never look back. Never think yourself so small or insignificant nothing matters. More than anything . . . never give up.

  He didn’t bother with the dead. Instead he found Hanna and Renata Kuyper and led them away from the carnage. Took them to the edge of the nightmare and tried to think of something to say.

  The words weren’t there. Instead it was Natalya’s mother who found them.

  ‘What will they do now?’ she asked, face pale, hands shaking.

  For the life of him Pieter Vos couldn’t think of any good answer.

  4

  The next morning Vos was woken just before six thirty. A damp nose on his cheek. A busy tongue licking at his ear. He put his arm round Sam, sighed, stroked his fur and said something about not getting up on the bed. Again.

  The dog had that wet fur smell about him. He must have been out on the deck in the rain.

  Vos got up, dragged on fresh jeans, fresh grey shirt and black sweater. Looked much as he did the day before when he peered through the ragged curtains. A damp morning. Drizzle and a gloomy sky.

  Sam followed him everywhere as he made coffee and toast, checked his messages, turned on the TV, watched the running newscast about the previous night.

  ‘What is it?’ Vos asked as the little terrier pestered him even more than usual.

  A small saucer of milk lapped up noisily. One corner of toast eaten at Vos’s feet. A dog’s breakfast. And still the flustered terrier kept whimpering and running around Vos’s ankles as he got ready to go to work.

  One hand went down to pat him from time to time. The other dodged between coffee cup, toast and his phone. Renata Kuyper’s handset sat attached to a charger by the porthole. Nothing on it overnight. His inbox was full of messages. From De Groot. And Rijnder working through the small hours.

  Nothing from Hanna Bublik. She’d stayed around with Renata Kuyper until it became obvious the mess at Schiphol was going nowhere. AIVD were running things by then, closing down the area, marshalling the media, uniform, passing spectators out into the terminal. Their night teams came in and handled the dead.

  Around nine she’d finally agreed to let Bakker drive her and Renata back into the city. Vos wondered what happened then. No family. No friends as far as he knew. She needed money. Something to fill the hours. She wasn’t going to hang around Marnixstraat like a distraught victim. That wasn’t in her nature.

  He passed another piece of toast to Sam hoping it would shut him up then called Marnixstraat. AIVD had retreated into its own shell of secrecy. The police night team had done a good job of chasing down background on Ferdi Pijpers, the man who’d come out of the crowd and shot Alamy and Thom Geerts. Former military intelligence officer. Discharged with post-traumatic stress two years before. To Vos’s dismay he’d come into the station the previous day and spoken to Koeman, making vague accusations about Alamy. Koeman had dismissed him as a nutcase. Probably with good reason. That didn’t mean the detective wouldn’t feel guilty.

  ‘Have you got an address for Pijpers?’ Vos asked the duty officer.

  A bedsit in the Oud-West. The man had an estranged wife who’d moved to Turkey. No other family they could trace.

  He told them to keep him up to date. De Groot had just texted in. An eight o’clock meeting with AIVD in his office.

  Not one of the messages spoke about Natalya Bublik. It wasn’t that they didn’t care. The case had simply spiralled beyond them.

  By the time Vos went through all his mail and tidied away breakfast it was close to seven. Sofia Albers would be up and ready to take Sam in for the day. There might just be time to walk him along the canal before that happened.

  Bakker was waiting for him in the Drie Vaten, picking at a croissant, an empty coffee cup in front of her. She’d turned up in her old clothes, the ones her aunt made back in Dokkum. A pale-green suit, ill-fitting and ugly. It was as if she’d wanted to wrap something familiar and comforting around herself.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Pissed off.’ She hesitated. ‘Puzzled.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About why we didn’t stop that lunatic for starters.’

  ‘It’s hard enough to stop the things we can predict, Laura. Something out of the blue . . .’

  Silence. This wasn’t it.

  ‘What’s really bothering you?’

  ‘I don’t get it. They’re terrorists. They thought they were kidnapping the daughter of a minor Amsterdam aristocrat. A military man. A kid they could hold to ransom.’

  ‘That’s the way it looks,’ Vos agreed.

  ‘But they screwed up. They got the wrong girl. And when they knew Alamy was coming out they didn’t let Natalya go. They asked for money.’

  ‘You have to try to think the way they do,’ he suggested.

  ‘I told Van der Berg that last night. He gave me a nasty look and said he’d rather not.’

  ‘That’s Dirk. You’re you. What would you do?’

  ‘I’d get some money quick.’ There was a low curse over the coffee. ‘The mother gets bought and sold, doesn’t she? Why not her daughter?’

  Vos looked out of the window then got his donkey jacket, the dog lead and a plastic bag. There was time for a walk. He needed it and so did Sam still fussing around his feet. He thought he knew why the dog was being so frantically affectionate now. He’d sensed something in the atmosphere. The depression, almost despair, that was starting to hang around the dilapidated houseboat that was their home on the Prinsengracht.

  Maybe he feared where that might lead. Vos did if he thought about it too much.

  ‘Am I getting close?’ Bakker asked.

  ‘Quite. If you were smart you’d pass her on to someone in the extortion business in return for a cut. Selling things involves negotiation and a different kind of risk. They don’t have time or the talent for that.’

  ‘That must mean they’ve moved her again.’

  ‘Probably,’ Vos thought.

  ‘Or killed her. They gave me some kidnapping cases to study at college. Sometimes they’re haggling for money when the people they’ve taken are dead.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he agreed.

  ‘Can I hold Sam’s lead?’

  Bakker was stretching out her hand. She looked like a teenager at that moment. A hurt one.

  ‘No time for that. I’ve a meeting in Marnixstraat. I want you to join up with Dirk round the soldier’s place. Ferdi Pijpers. Call when you find something.’

  The long pause then, a silence he had come to recognize.

  ‘You don’t want me there?’

  ‘I want you in Oud-West. Like I said.’

  ‘You never talk to people, Vos! It’s like we’re all supposed to stay in the dark until you’re ready.’

  He groaned, found the dog, put on his lead and walked outside. The day smelled of coming winter: cold, damp, unforgiving.

  She followed, wouldn’t leave this.

  ‘You still make me feel I’m still an outsider.’

  ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to.’

  She walked to her bike and pedalled off into the grey morning, stiff and upright on the sturdy Batavus.

  ‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ he grumbled as the manic bundle of fur started to yap.
Sofia Albers was returning from the bakers, her arms full of loaves for that day’s customers. She smiled, waved. This corner of the Jordaan always seemed so normal, so mundane, whatever else was going on in the city.

  Sam tugged so much the lead fell from Vos’s fingers. The little terrier raced to the prow of the boat. To the silver statue he usually ignored.

  ‘What is it now?’ Vos sighed.

  Then looked and knew.

  They’d had a visitor some time that morning. A plain white plastic bag dangled from the mannequin’s arm.

  Vos walked over, took out a pair of latex gloves, unhooked it then looked inside.

  One sheet of paper. Letters cut from something like a colour magazine then stuck to the page to make a message. And an ancient Samsung handset, fully charged.

  This was the old way of doing things. The method of someone who didn’t want the risk of traceable mobile phones.

  The paper said, ‘Two hundred thousand euros. Don’t make us shoot her.’

  Beneath the snipped letters was an inkjet printout of a poor quality photo: Natalya on a low bed in the pink pony jacket, about to tuck into some food.

  The Samsung rang.

  He jumped. Looked around. They knew who he was. They had to be watching.

  ‘How do I know she’s alive?’ he asked straight away.

  Laughter. Deep and confident.

  ‘You find two hundred thousand euros. I hope you have an intelligent question for me too.’

  The voice had a practised cruelty to it.

  ‘How long do I have?’

  ‘Four o’clock this afternoon I’ll call on this phone. Not one minute before. Not one minute after. You answer. Have the money ready then. We do this tonight.’

  He sat down hard on the damp, broken wooden seat on the deck.

  ‘You’re giving me eight hours to put together a small fortune? The mother’s got nothing.’

  ‘Eight hours is all you have. Four o’clock precisely.’

  ‘For God’s sake give us a chance. You want your money. I want Natalya. Make it possible.’

  A low, unfeeling sigh.

  ‘It’s possible if you want it to be.’

  ‘Listen—’

  ‘No. There’s nothing else to say. Except . . .’

  A brief silence. Vos tried to imagine what he was thinking.

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘Trust is everything. If I feel you betray that at any point . . . that your intentions are anything less than serious then the deal’s off. You’ll hear from me no more. You understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The dry, mirthless laughter again.

  ‘I don’t think so. What I’m saying is . . . if this kid winds up dead it’s down to you.’

  An electronic click and then the line went silent. Vos stared at the photo of Natalya Bublik, alone with a plastic container of food. Cowed but not scared. Her mother’s child. He could see that in her eyes.

  Vos led Sam over to the Drie Vaten and said, ‘Sorry, boy. Not today.’

  Sofia would walk him. Not the first time. Nor the last.

  Eight hours and not a word about the shooting of Ismail Alamy.

  It couldn’t be done. And he wondered if they knew that.

  When he’d left the dog he called her. Hanna Bublik was wide awake already.

  ‘I need you in Marnixstraat,’ he said.

  Lucas Kuyper took breakfast in the same place every morning: a smart cafe in the Nine Streets on the corner of Wolvenstraat and Herengracht. Good coffee and fresh orange juice. This morning Wentelteefjes, fried bread dipped in egg, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, served with home-made apricot jam.

  A copy of De Telegraaf, not that he felt much like reading it. The European edition of the Financial Times was more to his taste. And a couple of pages of emails he’d printed out that morning, planning to deal with them at his usual quiet and solitary table in the corner.

  The streets were getting ready for Christmas. Decorations strung from wall to wall across the narrow lanes. Posters in the windows. Images of Sinterklaas and his Black Petes beaming at shoppers and schoolchildren everywhere.

  When he lived in France, working at a small and secretive NATO base, Kuyper had grown to love the French version of the dish before him. Pain perdu, lost bread, soaked in cognac before the slices went into the pan. On this cold morning, one full of bleak thoughts, he missed that added slug of spirit. The cafe knew him. Maybe they would have added in a shot of Dutch Vieux if he’d asked. But then his mouth would taste of spirit for the rest of the morning. And perhaps he’d meet someone . . .

  He turned to the FT. The death of Alamy, an AIVD officer and a vengeful former military intelligence officer made three paragraphs on the front page. He felt outraged it was there at all. This was not why he read the paper.

  There was only one other customer in the place, a middle-aged woman wrapped up as if the weather was about to turn arctic. She sat in the window. He watched her carefully. Professionally. She grabbed some kind of tablet out of her bag and started to play a game.

  Bored. Like him. He pulled out the sheets he’d printed that morning and began to go through them. Then he heard a familiar voice at the door and quickly stuffed the pages in his pocket.

  Renata Kuyper ordered a coffee and sat down.

  ‘I thought I’d find you here.’

  ‘It’s where I eat breakfast,’ he said. ‘Where else?’

  ‘I phoned you. Left messages. You never called back.’

  A small TV was droning away up on the wall in the corner. The news was on. There seemed to be nothing to talk about in Amsterdam but the shooting of Ismail Alamy in the presence of a woman whose daughter had been kidnapped in order to secure his release. Not that they had an interview with Hanna Bublik, barely even a photograph. She’d refused to speak to the media.

  ‘I watched the early morning news,’ he said. ‘You were there. At Schiphol.’ A brief scowl and then he folded away the pink paper. ‘I thought I must have been dreaming.’

  ‘Of course I was there. This is our fault. Henk gave her the jacket he bought for Saskia. If it wasn’t for us . . .’

  He reached forward and took her hand. She fell silent.

  ‘You and Henk are responsible for nothing. The men who kidnapped that child bear the blame. Just as this deranged soldier must for what happened at the airport.’ Another scowl. ‘Though at least he’s paid for it.’

  The coffee came. She waited for the waitress to leave and said, ‘You know, don’t you? About Henk? About what he did?’

  Kuyper liked this woman but appreciated the burden his son sometimes had to carry.

  ‘He phoned me last night. He was worried. He didn’t know where you’d gone. Then he saw the pictures from Schiphol.’ He picked at the sweet, spicy toast. His appetite had vanished. ‘You didn’t even phone him. What do you expect?’

  ‘I don’t expect my husband to go screwing street women behind my back.’

  He looked at his food and kept quiet.

  Her head went to one side. She seemed permanently tense and angry these days. But at times the strained anxiety left her and he could see a shadow of the young woman his son had married. Though even then there’d been difficulties. It was an odd match. A rash one, based on passion rather than logic.

  ‘Is that unreasonable of me, Lucas?’

  ‘Marriages are always tested one way or another. Life’s not a bed of roses. Only children believe that.’

  ‘Do you think Natalya Bublik’s life’s a bed of roses now? Or her mother’s?’

  Her voice had risen. The waitress behind the counter was starting to look worried.

  ‘That’s the girl’s name?’

  ‘Don’t you read the papers?’

  ‘Not for that kind of news. There’s enough of it in the world already. It doesn’t need me to make it real.’

  He drained his coffee and said, ‘When I had to face all that nonsense over Kosovo Ruth left me. Henk
never told you, I imagine.’

  The look of surprise on her face said everything.

  ‘My husband doesn’t tell me much, does he?’

  ‘Perhaps he thinks that’s for the best.’

  ‘I thought you and Ruth were the happiest couple in the world. Until she fell ill.’

  He frowned.

  ‘Some of the time we were. Not when the press were at the front door wanting to know whether I was some kind of mass murderer. Or a coward. Or . . . God knows what. She left me. When I needed her most.’

  He wanted her to know the memory was still distasteful and that this was a conversation he resented.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lucas.’

  ‘Well there you are. Had she not fallen sick she’d never have come back.’ He leaned forward to emphasize the point. ‘Nor would I have accepted her. That’s how bad matters had become. But when she returned . . .’ He picked at a piece of the sugary bread in any case and placed a piece in his mouth. ‘After a while we realized that happiness doesn’t arrive of its own accord. Sometimes you have to build it. On occasion from nothing. Or ruins. And one happy day in a year of misery is sometimes the best you can hope for.’

  ‘I didn’t come here for a lecture.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘Hanna Bublik’s going to need money.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You think paying criminals solves problems? What about the next child who’s kidnapped by these scum? Would that lie on your conscience? It should. You don’t put out a fire by throwing petrol on it.’

  She hesitated at that. An intelligent woman. Kuyper was sure she understood the dilemma.

  ‘That’s an intellectual argument. Mine’s an emotional one. I’ve met her. She doesn’t deserve this any more than her daughter does.’

  He sighed and before he could speak she broke in, ‘If it was Saskia they’d snatched would you feel the same way? Would you let her die for these . . . principles? Can you call them that?’

  A grunt of impatience.

  ‘Of course I’d feel differently. But it’s not Saskia, is it? There’s nothing wrong with speaking from your heart. Sometimes you have to listen to the head too.’

  ‘So the life of the child of an East European whore is worth less than that of your granddaughter?’