by David Hewson
‘Seems so.’
‘How’s that?’
He shrugged.
‘It’s no big secret. A brigadier with a boat on the Prinsen. Also . . . I was running organized crime investigations here for a while. There were a couple of cases that got me into the papers. Anyone could find out if they wanted.’
On the desk was a photo of the note left in the bag on his silver statue. Hanna picked it up and examined it.
‘They called me when I got it,’ he said. ‘He was foreign. Good Dutch. I’d guess he’s lived here some time.’
‘Can’t you find him?’
He sighed.
‘We keep looking. Have you thought of anything since last night?’
‘Such as?’
‘Anything. ’
‘You must be desperate,’ she said, putting down the picture. ‘If you’re looking to me for answers.’
‘We’re exploring every avenue,’ De Groot cut in.
That annoyed her.
‘Do they teach you these words? In police college?’
The commissaris apologized.
She looked a little regretful then said, ‘Two days ago they’re calling you. Using Renata Kuyper’s phone. Now they leave notes and you’ve a different phone altogether. Their preacher’s dead. I thought this was about him. Why keep my girl? Do they need this money?’
Vos wasn’t surprised she’d worked this out already. He wondered what else she might be thinking.
‘It’s possible Natalya’s changed hands,’ he said. ‘The men who first took her may have passed her on to people who are more used to dealing with extortion.’
‘What kind of people?’ she wanted to know.
‘If we had to guess we’d say a local crime gang,’ De Groot suggested. ‘They’ve got experience. Plenty. Terrorist organizations use them from time to time to launder money. Get weapons. False documents. They have links.’
The way she took that news made Vos wish they’d kept quiet.
She looked at Mirjam Fransen and said, ‘You don’t have much to say.’
‘We’re doing everything we can,’ she answered. ‘Natalya’s release is a high priority.’
Hanna pointed at De Groot.
‘Did you go to the same lessons as him?’
No answer. She gazed at each of them in turn, finishing with Vos.
‘Renata Kuyper says she can help me raise some money. I don’t know if it’s as much as they want but maybe they’ll take less. We could go public. Make an appeal. People here are kind. She says it won’t matter we’re foreigners. If we can—’
‘Not going to happen,’ Fransen broke in.
‘Why?’ was all Hanna Bublik could think of.
‘Because there are rules,’ Fransen went on. ‘The government doesn’t sanction the payment of ransoms for two simple reasons. It rewards illegality. And it encourages more kidnappings.’
‘It’s not your money,’ Bublik protested. ‘Or your daughter.’
‘Doesn’t matter. It would be a criminal act to pay these people. The police . . .’ She pointed to De Groot, then Vos. ‘They can tell you that. If you—’
‘We’re not threatening anyone here,’ De Groot barked.
‘Fine!’ Fransen replied. ‘You tell her then. Are you going to authorize paying a ransom?’
Vos intervened.
‘We’ll go along with what they want, Hanna,’ he said. ‘We’ll be in contact every inch of the way. They want the money. That’s all. This is good. Maybe easier than before. If we keep talking to them . . . arrange a handover . . . While they think a transaction’s going on we’ll find Natalya.’
Hanna Bublik closed her eyes for a moment.
‘And if you don’t? If you screw up again?’
‘We won’t,’ De Groot insisted.
‘If you fail you won’t pay them, Vos.’ Her keen and burning gaze never left him. ‘Will you?’
‘I hope it won’t come to that,’ De Groot said.
‘Is this what my daughter’s life depends on? Your . . . hopes?’
She got to her feet, grabbed her bag and the black jacket.
‘Hanna,’ Vos tried to persuade her to sit down again. ‘Listen to me . . .’
‘Why?’ she cried. ‘To hear you plead you’re doing everything you can? Was this for my benefit? Or yours?’
There was a rush of curses in a language they didn’t understand. Then she stormed out slamming the door behind her.
No one spoke until Vos said, ‘For ours mainly.’
His phone rang.
In a car coming from the apartment in Oud-West Laura Bakker said, almost shouted, ‘Jesus Christ, will you answer when I call? You don’t even have voicemail turned on.’
He’d turned the handset to silent the moment the meeting began, suspecting it might turn difficult.
‘Sorry.’
‘Was there a camera on Ferdi Pijpers when he got shot?’
‘I don’t know. Why?’
‘I’ll tell you when I get back. Can someone check his belongings in the morgue? This matters. OK?’
‘What was that?’ Fransen asked when he came off the call.
‘Nothing.’ He checked his watch. ‘I have to go.’
She got up and stopped him at the door. Looked back at De Groot.
‘I need you both to understand this. When they call this afternoon you agree to the ransom. You go through all the motions and try and pick up these bastards when they come to collect. But that woman doesn’t have the money. Even if she did I’d stop you using it.’
‘Mirjam . . .’ he began.
‘No. Don’t try and get friendly now. We don’t know who these people are. If they’re criminals or the men who snatched her in the first place. Either way they’re in bed with one another. You put together a dummy ransom and grab them before they find out.’
‘One phone call,’ De Groot said bitterly. ‘If they see it’s fake that’s all it takes. One call and that kid’s dead.’
‘Then make sure you get it right this time,’ she said then checked her watch, her messages, and left.
Hanna Bublik was halfway along the Prinsengracht when her phone rang. Renata Kuyper. She sounded both daunted and determined.
‘Can we meet?’ she asked.
‘What’s the point? The police won’t let me pay the ransom anyway.’
‘You don’t do what men always tell you. Do you?’
Her voice was odd. Dutch but with an accent to it. She’d said something about growing up in Belgium. Not far away but different. As if she was a kind of stranger in Amsterdam too. Just one with money.
Ten minutes later they were in a tiny, deserted place overlooking the empty space of the Noordermarkt. Steady breeze. Sheets of newspapers and rubbish rolling across the damp cobblestones. Some council workmen were putting up Christmas lights. A giant Sinterklaas picked out in red and green and white, two shorter, happy Black Petes next to him. December the 5th, the feast of Sinterklaas, was fast approaching. Natalya’s school had organized an evening for the poorer kids. A treasure hunt. Sacks of presents. She’d so wanted her to be there.
Renata wore a long tweed coat. Expensive. Her brown hair was perfect. Her face made up, composed as she stirred her cup of Earl Grey tea, picking at a tiny chocolate ginger nut.
‘Why do you keep talking to me?’ Hanna asked. ‘I screwed your husband. For money. You should hate me.’
‘I want to help.’
‘Why?’
She shook her head.
‘Do I have to explain? Henk gave you that jacket. If he hadn’t . . .’
‘You feel guilty. Now I get it.’
‘Does it matter? Help’s help. Who cares where it comes from?’
No answer.
‘What did the police tell you?’
Hanna took a biscuit off the table and nibbled at it. She’d barely been eating much of late. Food was something she shared with Natalya, always had. Now it was just a cruel reminder she was alone.
‘They think they’ve handed her over to criminals. They’re the ones demanding the ransom now. They want two hundred thousand euros. Vos said they’d call at four o’clock on the dot to tell him how to deliver it. Otherwise . . .’
The coffee was bitter and strong. Like punishment.
‘We can go to the media. Forget about politicians. About police. Ordinary people are kind. They’ll understand. I can find someone . . .’
She decided to say it.
‘Really? You didn’t even know your husband was hanging round the red-light district.’
Renata’s face fell, turned sour.
‘He said you were the only one. He’d been drinking. It was a mistake.’
‘They always say that. Two mistakes by the way.’
‘Do you want me to help or not?’
‘Two hundred thousand euros? Even if the police let me pay it . . . how would I find that kind of money?’
‘They’re bargaining. They don’t expect that much. We’ll meet them part way. We can find something.’
Hanna stared at the coffee cup and the wrapper for the Christmas biscuit.
‘Unless you have some other suggestion?’ Renata added. ‘If you want to go back and hide yourself in that little cell . . . wait for some other man to come along and pay you to open your legs?’
Chastened, she mumbled, ‘I told you. They won’t let us hand it over. Unless . . .’ She couldn’t stop thinking of Cem Yilmaz. Wondering what he was really like. Who he knew. ‘Unless I can find a way round them.’
The woman patted her hand.
‘That’s more like it.’
‘Maybe,’ she murmured, and just that admission made her feel guilty. ‘But not in public.’
She was thinking this through as they spoke.
‘The last thing Natalya needs is me plastered all over the papers.’
‘Fine,’ Renata said. ‘I can put together some people you can talk to in private . . .’
‘There isn’t time! They’re calling Vos at four this afternoon. They want their money by tonight.’
A truck turned up outside the window. A group of men started to unload scaffolding and more street decorations.
‘Then best you don’t talk to Marnixstraat,’ Renata said. ‘We do what we can ourselves.’
She got up from the table. Hanna didn’t move.
‘That woman from the security services. She hates me. She’ll stop us.’
Renata shook her head.
‘They said they could stop Ismail Alamy getting out of jail too.’
‘Someone did, didn’t they?’ she replied without a second thought.
Silence for a moment.
‘Don’t give up hope.’
‘You sound like the police.’
‘Forget the police. If you can get a message through . . .’
Hanna didn’t speak.
‘Can you?’
‘I can try,’ she said and went to the door then looked out at the lights, the Sinterklaas figure, the images of Black Pete everywhere.
Renata scribbled a mobile number on a napkin.
‘I’ll find some cash,’ she said. ‘You work on the rest.’
When they got back to Marnixstraat Van der Berg and Bakker sat down with Vos and Aisha Refai, the young technician in forensic, to look at the laptop.
‘Wow. I was probably at little school when that thing was made.’ She was twenty-five but looked nineteen, bright, pretty and outspoken in a headscarf, red ski sweater and jeans. ‘Can we sell it to the Rijksmuseum once we’re done with it?’
Bakker plugged in the lead and turned the thing on. When the login finally came up she typed in the password.
‘How’d you get that?’ Aisha asked, not waiting for an answer to her first question.
Bakker told her, adding, ‘It was a guess.’
‘Good one. Though to be honest . . .’ Her fingers tapped lightly on the keyboard as she worked her way around the system. ‘I could have got inside this piece of junk in about thirty seconds flat. Password or not.’
‘It belonged to Ferdi Pijpers,’ Bakker explained. ‘He was ex-military. Some intelligence experience. Old habits die hard I guess. If you look at the pictures . . .’
‘Wait, wait, wait,’ Aisha said, almost slapping her hand when it went to the keyboard. ‘There are procedures here. That’s what I do.’
Vos cleared his throat then looked at his watch. Not that it made much difference.
‘OK,’ she said when she was finished. ‘Your man got this laptop fifteen days ago. It was wiped before that. The thing’s deeply dysfunctional. I hope he didn’t pay much for it. There’s no Wi-Fi, no sign it’s ever been used for a web connection. So naturally no email. Nothing but—’
‘Nothing but a picture folder,’ Bakker interrupted.
‘Quite.’
Aisha pulled it up. Sixteen images taken the previous Thursday. The same two people in every shot.
‘That,’ Bakker said, ‘is Martin Bowers. Or Mujahied Bouali if you prefer. Either way he’s dead thanks to AIVD.’
Vos leaned forward and peered at the laptop screen. It looked like the young tubby Englishman with a ginger beard in the file photos they had. He was in a black anorak talking to a man of Asian appearance. Middle-aged. Smartly dressed. With a full beard, neat hair and a ready smile. If the date stamp on them was correct they were taken around midday. The background was familiar, a tall, medieval building, circular, surrounded by tourists.
‘Munt Tower,’ Van der Berg said. ‘Good place to bump into someone by accident. Or pretend to.’
‘Ferdi was following someone,’ Bakker said. ‘Bowers. The other man. He must have had a reason.’
The technician dumped the photos onto a flash drive and handed them to an assistant.
‘Get them to intelligence, community liaison officers and AIVD,’ Vos said. ‘Let’s see if we can pick up a name for the second man.’
Van der Berg ran a finger across the screen.
‘I guess Ferdi had nothing else to do except work on his obsession. If he lost that boy in Afghanistan no wonder he went wild when the Bublik girl got snatched. We should have listened to him when he came in here.’
‘We should,’ Vos agreed. ‘Aisha?’
She was back to fiddling with the photos, looking at metadata on the files.
‘He didn’t exactly have a decent camera, did he?’ Bakker grumbled.
‘He didn’t have a camera at all,’ Aisha said. ‘He was using a phone. A Nokia N96. Fancy when it was new. Not exactly impressive now. The trouble is . . .’
She was doing things to the machine Vos couldn’t begin to understand. Suddenly a whole new set of photos came onto the screen. Nine. Every one of them half the size of a postage stamp.
‘Either your man didn’t know how to sync pictures to an old laptop. Or his software was screwed.’ She gestured at the screen. ‘This was Saturday. The day before Leidseplein.’
‘Great,’ Van der Berg cut in. ‘Just make it bigger, will you?’
He got a sarcastic smile in return.
‘That never occurred to me,’ Aisha said brightly.
Flying fingers again. The postage size images did get larger. But they were so pixellated it was impossible to see any detail.
They were taken outside judging by the wan daylight, against a wall in what might have been an alley. There were three figures in every shot. One around the size and appearance of Bowers. The second too tall for the unidentified man in the earlier shot. The third just as tall but slimmer perhaps. The same man. Someone else. It was impossible to tell.
‘Make it better,’ Vos pleaded.
She shook her head.
‘I can’t. The original files never got downloaded. All I have here are the thumbnails. I can blow them up as much as I like but they’re a hundred by fifty pixels or so. That’s five thousand dots. We’ve got software that can try to interpolate things but really . . .’ She frowned at the laptop. ‘There’s just not enough data there. Sorr
y.’
‘Shit,’ Bakker said.
‘There is another way,’ Aisha suggested. ‘You could get me that Nokia.’
Van der Berg called down to the morgue, asking for the inventory of items taken from Pijpers’s corpse when he came in.
‘It’s there,’ he said and went straight downstairs to fetch the thing. Puffing and panting he returned with an evidence bag in his hands, a hefty old Nokia inside it. There was a bloodstain on the case.
‘This looks interesting,’ Aisha said as she took it out with gloved fingers. ‘Let’s see if it needs charging.’ She seemed to know the right button to press by instinct. ‘Nope!’
The screen lit up and her face fell.
‘Is this a joke, Dirk? I asked for his phone. Not one from the charity shop.’
Van der Berg bristled.
‘That is his phone. AIVD took him to hospital. We picked him up when he was declared dead. The morgue did the inventory. That’s what came with him.’
She turned the phone away from her and showed them. The screen said: Start setup wizard?
‘It’s been reset. Wiped clean. No pictures. No call logs.’ She opened the back and poked around inside. ‘Dammit. There’s not even a SIM here. What gives?’
Bakker stared at Vos. So did Van der Berg.
‘You’re a genius, Aisha,’ Vos said. ‘You can do something.’ She didn’t look flattered. ‘Can’t you?’
‘I don’t know. I need to ask around. It’s one thing getting stuff off a hard drive.’ She waved around the back of the phone. ‘This is more complicated. Especially if someone’s hit reset.’
‘Why’s it wiped?’ Bakker demanded. ‘Can you do that by accident? Did it happen here? Or Schiphol? Or . . .’
Vos’s phone rang. He waved at her to be quiet. When he came off he said, ‘We’ll ask those questions later. Intelligence have got a name for Bouali’s friend.’
The street cleaners were finishing up in the red-light district. Washing down the narrow cobbled lane ready for another night of heavy trade. Hanna Bublik walked into Spooksteeg from the Oudezijds Voorburgwal end and stood outside the door of Yilmaz’s block, hesitant, thinking.
Then a big, muscular figure appeared by her side so quickly it made her jump. She found herself looking into the Turk’s beaming face.
