The Wrong Girl

by David Hewson

  ‘Enough. Enough.’

  He got paid by the hour and liked to lengthen things with gobbledegook if he could.

  ‘Sorry,’ Thijs said putting the Nokia back on the tray. ‘I take it you didn’t find the micro SD card.’

  ‘What?’

  He checked his watch. She scowled at seeing that.

  ‘Who was he?’

  She told him, with a little background.

  ‘So he was a secret squirrel?’ Thijs asked.

  ‘Used to be military police. Intelligence possibly.’

  He turned the phone in his hand.

  ‘Good kit for the job. You realize that if he took photos he’d have a GPS fix on them? The exact location. This little beast has A-GPS too. Probably accurate down to five metres or so if you’re lucky.’

  ‘Clearly I’m not lucky.’

  He found a tiny slot on the side. Then picked up a magnifying glass and took a good look at it.

  ‘If I was a spooky person I wouldn’t store my important stuff on the flash. I’d keep it on a little SD card and take it out until I needed it. Those things are smaller than a baby’s fingernail. No one ever looks. See?’

  He passed over the magnifying glass and pointed to the open card slot on the phone.

  Scratches there. Clean and recent from the look of it.

  ‘So someone removed the memory card too,’ he said.

  ‘And wiped the phone?’ she asked. ‘Why do both?’

  ‘To be careful?’

  ‘A careful spook would hide the card, wouldn’t he?’ She got to her feet and said, ‘Come.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked a little nervously.

  ‘To the morgue. To hunt through a dead man’s clothes.’

  Thijs turned pale.

  ‘No, no, no. I do phones. Corpses are so not my scene.’

  ‘You’re getting paid and you’re getting free coffee,’ she said then slapped him on the shoulder. Hard. ‘If I find something down there I want you to look at it.’

  ‘But . . .’

  Hands on hips she glared at him until there was silence.

  ‘Don’t touch anything nasty,’ she added. ‘That’s my job.’

  One drag and Hanna Bublik knew this was the first and last time she’d try dope. The message light was flashing on her phone. Vos demanding she go to Marnixstraat at three thirty. Important, he said. The call was coming in at four. The man was insistent on that. If she could talk to him perhaps . . .

  She thought about calling him back and asking if the security people might change their mind about putting together a real ransom. Then decided against it. There was a choice here. Between Cem Yilmaz, a man who’d just branded her as one of his own, the hurt still burning through her shoulder. And Pieter Vos, a decent police officer trapped in a system he seemed to know was flawed. Powerless to do what he thought right.

  Not much of a choice at all.

  So she left the dope cafe and walked along the little cobbled street, trying to dodge the stag-party Brits clutching beer cans and joints, the kind who’d ring her cabin bell out of bravado.

  Somewhere along the way her phone rang. She heard Renata Kuyper’s firm, clear voice in her ear.

  ‘We have to meet.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  A long pause then, ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  She looked around. Spuistraat.

  A pause. The Kuyper woman was using a computer.

  ‘There’s a cafe two streets down towards us. Florian. I’ll see you there in ten minutes.’

  The place was smart with twee furniture and paintings of Venice on the wall. The woman behind the counter gave her an odd look as Hanna came through the door, asked for a coffee and took a seat.

  The cannabis stink was probably on her. Just from that one deep drag she could taste it thick on her tongue. Feel it in her head, mingling with the pain of the Turk’s fiery iron brand.

  From the very beginning, that strange, cruel Sunday in Leidseplein, she’d been racking her head with a single, simple question: what to do? And there’d never been an answer. She was a stranger in this place. Alone. Illegal. Suspected. Hated by some. On Sunday the police told her to be patient and wait. To watch. To trust them. Yet it was Wednesday and they seemed no closer to knowing who’d taken Natalya. Or who might be holding her now the reason for her abduction, getting Ismail Alamy freed, had vanished.

  Cem Yilmaz might be her only option, however much she loathed the idea. And his seventy thousand wasn’t enough. She needed Renata Kuyper. There was nowhere else to turn.

  Then she turned up, immaculately casual as usual. Paid for the coffees, sat down, took her hand.

  Hanna withdrew her fingers.

  ‘What in God’s name have you done?’ Renata asked. ‘You look awful. You stink of something.’

  She shrugged, took a bite of the pastry Renata bought for her. The shoulder hurt like hell. She needed the toilet.

  A dash, a lurching race. Then she was inside and heard the door open and close behind her.

  She threw up in the basin. Breathless, gasping, she washed out her mouth and stood in front of the mirror, removed her jacket, and the sweater, the cheap shirt beneath.

  ‘Jesus,’ Renata whispered looking at her back. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Price of entry,’ she said when she got her breath. ‘It gets me some money for Natalya. Someone I know. Seventy thousand if he’s telling the truth.’

  She found the cream. Renata took it and smoothed on the ointment while she winced, nearly cried from the hurt. Then came the dressing. She put it on loosely, said they’d stop at a chemists and buy some more. It was important to change the thing frequently and avoid the risk of infection.

  ‘Infection?’ Hanna asked. ‘What does that matter? I need money.’

  ‘Henk took out what he could. Thirty. His father’s promised to match it. That gives us sixty. A hundred and thirty. That’s more than half what they’re asking. Still a lot.’

  She put her clothes back on.

  ‘We still need a way to get it to them, Hanna. Have you got any ideas there? Because I haven’t.’

  A middle-class woman from the Herenmarkt didn’t mix with criminals. But an illegal hooker from Georgia . . .

  ‘I’m trying,’ she said and left it at that.

  A long, well-manicured finger pointed at her shoulder.

  ‘And that was part of the price?’

  Some things were beyond tears. Beyond feeling.

  ‘Why do you care?’ This still puzzled her. ‘I’m just a whore from a place you couldn’t find on a map. You don’t owe me anything.’

  Renata got off the toilet, looked at her, nodded.

  ‘True.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘For God’s sake, does it matter?’ The sudden anger silenced her. Took Hanna by surprise. ‘Maybe I’m being selfish. Is that OK? Looking for something to do. Something that . . . makes me feel good about myself.’ She leaned against the mirror. ‘Not a lot does if I’m honest. Happy?’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  Renata paused, didn’t look at her then.

  ‘If you’d rather I wasn’t here . . .’

  Hanna put on her black jacket, walked out through the cafe and called Vos. He asked the usual questions. Where was she? Was there anything he could do?

  ‘You could tell me you’re getting somewhere,’ she said straight out. Her head felt clear now. The pain from Cem Yilmaz’s brand helped in a way.

  ‘I need you here in Marnixstraat,’ said the patient, thoughtful voice on the other end of the line. ‘I want you to talk to him when he calls. To talk to Natalya too.’

  Compassion. That was the word. He had it, and so, in a brittle, difficult way, did the red-haired young woman who worked with him. But was that worth anything? What was the point of kindness in a world that didn’t value it?

  ‘You think they’ve got a conscience, Vos?’
r />   A long pause on the line. Then he said, ‘I think we have to chase every option. We can go through with this handover—’

  ‘With what? Toy money?’ she shrieked. Renata was outside now, watching, listening. ‘What happens when they find out?’

  ‘Please,’ Vos begged, his voice riddled with embarrassment. ‘Just come into the station. I need you here.’

  He suspects, she thought. A clever man, he understood she might be pursuing other options.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ she said meekly then put the handset in her pocket.

  Renata walked over.

  ‘I’ve got our thirty thousand,’ she said. ‘Henk’s father promised to match it. He should have the money within an hour or so. Just call me and tell me what to do.’

  Silence.

  ‘Hanna?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will.’

  At three fifteen, while Vos was in De Groot’s office, engaged in one more phone plea to Mirjam Fransen for real money, Koeman got called to the station front desk. There was a small, frail Asian woman there. Old clothes. A supermarket carrier bag on her lap. A face that spoke of years of hard work, eyes that didn’t want to look straight at him.

  She wanted to talk to someone about the kidnapping. Koeman took a deep breath, determined to hear out this visitor.

  The woman was a cleaner for Smits, owner of the rented houseboat in Westerdok where Natalya had been kept the night she was seized. When Vos came on them, thinking the girl was still inside, she was close to finishing her work there.

  ‘You won’t tell Mr Smits I’m here, will you?’ she asked in a faint, scared voice.

  ‘I don’t see why I should,’ Koeman replied. ‘Would that be a problem?’

  She didn’t exactly explain why it might be. But Koeman got the drift. Smits ran the boat rental on the side of his main business, a travel agency. The money he got from it all came in cash and probably didn’t go through the books.

  ‘So when the police called you wondered if it was about that?’ he said when he thought he had a little of her confidence.

  The woman nodded.

  ‘I didn’t know there was a little girl missing. Not until I saw the news yesterday.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’d taken out most of the rubbish already. It was in the bin down the street. No one ever asked me about that.’ She shrugged her narrow shoulders. ‘You should have.’

  ‘We should,’ he agreed.

  ‘When I heard I went back and got some of the stuff I put in there.’

  ‘When was that?’ he asked.

  She stared at him.

  ‘This morning.’ She looked round the waiting room. ‘Mr Smits doesn’t like the police. I thought you people might find her.’

  Koeman folded his arms and told himself to keep calm.

  ‘And?’ he asked.

  She reached into the bag and started to take things out.

  A crushed orange juice carton.

  Several screwed up tissues in a plastic bag.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Those I’ll take.’

  ‘No need to sound grateful,’ she muttered. And this.’

  A kid’s colouring book. Again in a clear plastic bag. She’d been thinking about this.

  ‘Thanks,’ Koeman said without much feeling.

  ‘I went through it,’ the woman told him. ‘I got to . . .’

  She showed him the inside back cover. He looked at it and said another thank you, meant it this time.

  There was a sound at reception. Hanna Bublik was there, asking for Vos.

  ‘Is that her?’ the cleaner asked. ‘The mother? The woman who . . .’

  ‘Thank you,’ he repeated, smiled, got up, shook her hand. Extracted a name, a phone number and an address.

  ‘Mr Smits won’t know it came from me, will he?’ she asked again.

  ‘I’ll see to it,’ he said and went to the desk.

  Twenty minutes to go before the call. Hanna Bublik sat in a side room with a woman uniform officer. Vos was with Bakker and Van der Berg in the morgue inventory office watching Aisha and her phone geek remove Ferdi Pijpers’s belongings from a storage box.

  A small pile of bloody clothes built up on the desk. She was sifting through them with gloved hands. Thijs watched, wide-eyed, looking a little green at the gills.

  The young forensic officer had requisitioned the on-board CCTV from the ambulance that had taken the dying Pijpers to the hospital. It was running on a PC at the end of the desk. Two medics had fought for Pijpers’s life in the race to the emergency department. Mirjam Fransen had watched them from a seat by the back all the way.

  ‘You’d think she’d be looking after her own man,’ Bakker wondered.

  ‘Thom Geerts was dead already,’ Aisha Refai suggested. ‘Pijpers . . . not quite. Our friend from AIVD doesn’t do anything but sit there. Not that I can see.’ She left the clothes for a moment and zoomed in on the video. Fransen leaned against the side of the ambulance glassy-eyed, in shock. ‘I’d say she looks in quite a state.’

  ‘All the same . . .’

  Bakker grabbed the mouse and scrolled backwards and forwards through the video. Fransen had sat and watched the medics working on the bleeding man on the gurney. She didn’t move a muscle until the ambulance came to a halt. Then the team took Pijpers out and she vanished with them.

  ‘We need to get footage from the hospital,’ she said.

  ‘Tried that,’ Aisha replied. ‘Not easy. There aren’t cameras in most places.’ She smiled at Vos. ‘You’re going to have to do it the old way I’m afraid. Go and talk to people.’

  ‘In good time,’ Vos said. ‘How did we get his things?’

  She pulled up a log on the computer.

  ‘An AIVD desk officer phoned just before midnight and suggested we pick them up. Along with his body for a routine autopsy here in the morgue. Two hours. It could have been anyone in there.’ She hesitated then added, ‘Or here.’

  ‘It’s got to be AIVD,’ Bakker cried. ‘They’ve been jerking us around ever since this began. Before—’

  ‘Laura,’ Vos cut in.

  ‘This is all wrong. If I can see it I’m sure you can.’

  He didn’t answer. Aisha Refai and the phone geek were getting embarrassed.

  ‘Or aren’t we supposed to question them? Are they above the law? They seem to think so.’

  The sound of heavy feet and a smoker’s cough interrupted the argument. Koeman was at the door. He had a book in a plastic evidence bag.

  ‘I’m not interrupting something, am I?’

  ‘No,’ Vos said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You remember the cleaner at that boat in Westerdok? She found something.’

  Koeman placed the bag with the book in it on the desk. It had a picture of a cow jumping over the moon on the cover. Bright and colourful.

  ‘Aisha,’ the detective said. ‘You’re the one wearing gloves.’

  They stood round her as she opened up the bag and started to turn the pages.

  Most bore nothing but printed drawings. Cats and dogs. Mothers and fathers. Children playing happily in the sun.

  ‘The back,’ Koeman said.

  She did as she was told.

  The writing was careful and clear. Each letter printed as if it mattered deeply.

  One of them is called Carleed or something. I think he’s a kind of boss.

  He’s got dark skin, a big beard, all black and shiny, like a pirate.

  I think he knows I’ve seen him.

  ‘How the hell did we miss this?’ Bakker wanted to know.

  ‘It was already in the bin by the time we turned up.’ Koeman glanced at the door. ‘The woman’s downstairs if anyone wants to talk to her. She’s scared as hell. Mr Smits isn’t the nicest of bosses apparently. I don’t think he declares his rent from that little boat. She’d rather we didn’t tell him she was here.’

  ‘Carleed,’ Bakker said. ‘Saif Khaled. The beard . . .’

  ‘It’s a really commo
n name,’ Aisha pointed out. ‘I mean really common. Like Smits. And as for beards . . .’

  ‘I know,’ Koeman added. ‘I checked. But after I talked to her I got a call from the team in Chinatown.’

  He checked his notebook.

  ‘They talked to a nosy old bird who lives down the street. She says she saw a little girl at the basement window last night. Long blonde hair. The window’s blacked out but the kid pulled back the sheeting apparently. Not long after she met our friend Khaled in the local shop. He was buying fruit juice and sweets. Oh and a colouring book and crayons. Did he mention that?’

  Vos checked his watch. Ten minutes. He needed to talk to Hanna Bublik.

  ‘He said the place was empty. The only visitors he had were young Muslim men in trouble.’

  Van der Berg took out his phone.

  ‘I’ll call De Groot and see if he can get us entry.’

  Vos shook his head.

  ‘No time. We need to take this call. Put a team close to Khaled’s place and a control van around the corner.’

  Van der Berg didn’t move.

  ‘Was I being cryptic?’ Vos asked.

  ‘It’s all there in black and white in the logs, Pieter. Saif Khaled’s on an AIVD watch list. We’re not supposed to go near him without their say-so.’

  ‘Just fix it, will you?’ Vos said, looking at his watch. ‘I need to take this call.’

  There was a place to hide. A kind of alcove near the bottom of the steps.

  The kid from Anatolia was weak and slow. She’d let him walk down the stone stairs, look around, food in his hand. Then come out and surprise him.

  She was eight years old. He was maybe twice her age. But she had the sharpest of the utility knives from the box. She’d use it too.

  Shivering in the pink jacket she could see it was getting dark through the tiny gap in the sheeting over the window. He’d come back before long, with food, to empty the bucket. She knew the routine for this place now.

  A noisy key opened the door at the top of the steps. He never bothered to lock it behind him. Too lazy for that. Because there was only a little girl at the bottom, scared and silent in the cellar.

  Natalya shuffled into the shadows at the foot of the steps and waited. Had no idea how long this would take. She didn’t have a watch. They’d removed that from her in the first place where she could hear the ducks outside and the water lapping against a timber hull.