The Wrong Girl

by David Hewson

  Nothing now but black bricks and the sound of footsteps tap-tapping on the cobbles of the street above.

  Voices. All kinds. Men and women. Children sometimes. Dutch. Foreign. Chinese maybe. Something else.

  Waiting.

  Nothing else to do.

  She’d stay hidden as long as it took.

  An interview room. Hot and stuffy. From the canteen below rose the smell of cooking fat and pungent steam.

  Vos, Hanna Bublik, Bakker and Van der Berg. One of the specialist team from the snatch squad assembled for the ransom handover. The red suitcase, closed, ready to go. Vos was going to take it, a GPS tracker inside his jacket, another sewn into the lining of the case itself. Three pursuit teams ready to follow wherever the pickup was going to be. A helicopter would be in the air the moment they knew a location and time.

  De Groot was in a meeting beyond Marnixstraat, out of contact. That was odd but not unwelcome.

  The clock on the wall turned four. Vos stared at the old Samsung on the table, hooked to a charger, volume turned up to full. Four bars of signal. Everything ready.

  He’d told Hanna what he could. The truth mostly, if not all of it. She’d listened and not said a word. There was something wrong here. She seemed in pain. Physical as well as mental. Bakker had noticed it too, asked if she was OK. Offered to fetch a doctor.

  All she asked for was a glass of water. Vos thought there was a whiff of dope about her and didn’t want to think about that.

  So they waited.

  At five past four she looked at Vos and asked, ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘They don’t always keep to schedule,’ he said, making it up on the go as usual.

  ‘You told me he was adamant. It was four o’clock. On the dot.’

  ‘He said that.’

  She watched him.

  ‘And what else?’

  Decisions. The truth or a well-meant white lie. Vos felt they were beyond that now.

  ‘He said there’d be no phone call if he felt he couldn’t trust us.’

  ‘You’re the police. Of course they don’t trust you.’

  ‘What they mean,’ Bakker said, ‘is if they think we don’t intend to go through with the drop. If we . . .’

  Hanna Bublik stood up, got to the suitcase before any of them could stop her. Quickly unzipped it and ran her fingers through the notes there.

  One second and she was into the blank paper.

  ‘Shit,’ the woman from specialist operations said. ‘I wish you hadn’t done that. We’ve got ink on those things.’

  ‘Ink?’ Hanna shrieked. ‘What ink?’

  The officer pulled a detection lamp out of her bag and shone it on the notes. A numeric code appeared on all of them, and the blank pieces of paper underneath.

  ‘We’ll get them,’ the officer insisted. ‘We’ll bring these bastards to justice.’

  ‘Justice?’ Hanna shrieked. ‘I don’t give a shit about justice. I want my daughter back. That’s what matters. Not . . .’

  She shoved the case off the table. Real and fake money scattered everywhere. No one moved until Vos got to his feet. Persuaded her to sit down again. Then the operations woman took a deep breath and started to pick up the notes, trying to tidy them back into the case.

  Hanna waved a dismissive hand at the mess.

  ‘So they won’t call if they think you’re going to screw them around? And this is what you do?’

  ‘Standard practice,’ the woman said.

  ‘Standard practice is you fuck up?’

  Vos waited a moment then said, with the slightest of shrugs, ‘Sometimes.’

  He hated lying. So did Laura Bakker. It was one of the few things they had in common.

  And waiting. They both loathed that too, though in different ways. Bakker was young. For her it was just plain impatience. Vos, older, not wiser in his own eyes, just more experienced, found the empty hours simply increased his curiosity, his instinctive penchant to be mistrustful, occasionally about matters that were entirely innocent.

  They watched the phone.

  The phone didn’t ring.

  ‘We told you we couldn’t pay the full ransom,’ Bakker said as gently as she could.

  Hanna ignored her, turned her fury on Vos again.

  ‘Did you do something? Something they might have found out about?’

  ‘No,’ Vos said then looked at her. ‘Did you?’

  A straight question. And the way her hurt face flushed made him realize she hated lies just as much as he did. Which must have been difficult given the life she led.

  ‘We should talk.’ He gestured to the others. ‘Alone.’

  Bakker blinked and stared at him.

  ‘Vos! You’re waiting on the call!’

  ‘I can take a phone call without you. Come on.’ He nodded at the door. ‘Outside.’

  Shaking her head, the red hair flying everywhere in anger, she got up. Van der Berg and the specialist woman followed.

  The two of them then. The suitcase. The silent phone. Frying smells rising from the canteen. The air conditioning whirring as it pumped too much heat into the cramped interview room.

  ‘I can’t make these men trust me, Hanna,’ he said. ‘I can only hope they do.’

  ‘Hope. You keep using that word so much.’

  ‘That’s because we need it. Just as I need you to have faith in me.’

  Her narrow face was still flushed.

  ‘Well,’ he added. ‘Do you?’

  She kept staring at the Samsung.

  ‘Hanna?’

  ‘What do you want of me?’

  ‘Is there something I need to know? Something . . . relevant.’ He couldn’t put his finger on it. But she’d changed. ‘You look ill. You look different.’

  ‘My daughter’s been missing four days. How am I supposed to look? Like Renata Kuyper? All make-up and smart clothes?’

  ‘I just . . .’

  She sat back and closed her eyes.

  ‘You haven’t asked me,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why it hasn’t rung.’

  ‘Do you know?’

  ‘No. But we specialize in unanswerable questions here. It’s part of the job.’

  ‘Funny,’ she snarled. Then glanced at the clock on the wall. Four fifteen. ‘How long will you wait?’

  ‘Until it rings. At least . . . someone will.’

  Vos got up and called them back into the room. Told Van der Berg to stand down one of the three snatch teams and tell them to wait for new orders. The helicopter could stay on the ground.

  De Groot was still out of the building somewhere.

  ‘I want Koeman in here to sit by this phone. If it rings he answers and says I had to take a meeting because he was late.’ He glanced at the woman in the shabby black jacket. ‘Get Mrs Bublik something to drink. Something to eat if she wants it.’

  She was on her feet.

  ‘What’s this now?’

  ‘I have to go,’ he said and got his jacket.

  ‘And I’m supposed to stay here?’

  ‘Where else would you want to be?’ he asked.

  Outside, in the corridor, they could hear her yelling at the support team woman waiting on Koeman to turn up.

  ‘What the hell was that about?’ Van der Berg asked.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ Vos said. ‘Let’s pay Saif Khaled another visit. I want to see inside that place.’

  Mirjam Fransen’s office was behind Dam Square. Small room. Heavy security throughout the building. Miserable people that day. Thom Geerts’s colleagues may not have liked him much. But they respected him. Now there was a funeral to organize. The awkward business of negotiating pensions and compensation for his family. He and his wife were on the brink of divorce. The bureaucrats in The Hague might think that complicated matters. That it gave them the excuse to make the pay-out smaller.

  After the difficult briefing with De Groot she now had to meet one of the insurance people to talk through compensation
. A place round the corner. A chance to get out of the building.

  It was getting dark. Rain on the way. Christmas shoppers cramming the streets. On Sunday they’d had a couple of Black Petes abseiling down the building. Special ops men in curly black wigs and costumes, grinning all the time as if this were a game.

  Perhaps it was, she thought, as she stepped out into the cold street. A distraction gone wrong.

  Fransen hadn’t walked ten steps when he was on her. She glanced at him, couldn’t believe this was happening, then marched straight into an alley by the building.

  Henk Kuyper followed, grim-faced in a winter anorak, hood pulled over his head.

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ Fransen asked.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Jesus . . .’ She grabbed the lapel of his jacket and pulled him further into the shadows. ‘We really shouldn’t be seen together.’

  He looked bad. Tired and depressed.

  ‘No one tells me anything. I hear more from the police than from you.’

  ‘That’s how it is. How it has to be. We’re in too deep to start breaking cover now.’

  Kuyper didn’t seem much impressed by that.

  ‘Will they get her back?’

  ‘Who?’ she asked, not thinking. Still astonished, outraged, he should turn up like this.

  ‘Who do you think? That little girl? This wasn’t supposed to—’

  ‘No blame games,’ she interrupted, and ran her hand down the front of his dark anorak. ‘Not now. Plenty of time for that later. And it will happen. Believe me. Those bastards in Marnixstraat will see to it.’ A pause. ‘How are you?’

  He pulled himself away from her. Fransen laughed.

  ‘Aren’t we friends any more, Henk? Don’t we get to meet again when this is over? I liked it when we did. I thought you did too.’

  He leaned back against the cold damp wall and closed his eyes.

  ‘This is just one big mess. I never—’

  ‘Will you listen to me for once?’

  Her voice was shrill, commanding. Hard to argue with. Always had been.

  ‘Well?’ Kuyper asked.

  ‘You stay low. You stay quiet. You go back to work as if nothing ever happened. Pretty soon things will calm down. They’ll see this for what it was. A brief criminal case. One that ended bloodily on both sides.’

  ‘The girl . . .’

  ‘The girl’s Vos’s problem now. There’s nothing either of us can do to change that.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘You’ve no idea where she is?’ he asked.

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘I gave Renata some money. As much as I had. She seems to think they can pay a ransom somehow.’

  She wanted to hit him.

  ‘For the love of God, Henk. Don’t turn stupid on me now. These are dangerous times.’

  He looked mad then.

  ‘It’s our fault that kid’s out there!’

  ‘And so’s Barbone. Have you forgotten that?’

  She waited.

  ‘Have you really got nothing for me there?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Sometimes people forget which side they’re on. Find themselves lost in the wilderness. No waypoints. No bearings. If I start to think . . .’

  ‘I know who I am. I know who you are too.’ A pause. ‘I know we owe that girl.’

  ‘All wars have innocent casualties. Only a fool thinks otherwise. And this is a war. One that’s never going to end.’

  He stared at her.

  ‘So you’re doing nothing?’

  ‘I’m still trying to break Barbone’s ring. Is that nothing?’

  Henk Kuyper turned to go. She grabbed his arm.

  ‘This is dangerous and stupid. Don’t do it again. If I want to talk to you I’ll initiate contact the way we agreed.’

  ‘And if I want to talk to you?’

  ‘Then you’ll have to bide your time. Go home, Henk. Be with your wife and your daughter. Act normal. Don’t give me reason to worry.’

  A scowl, a curse, and he strode back into the street.

  She went to the end of the alley and watched him. Then she called the office and got through to one of the surveillance people.

  ‘Henk Kuyper’s walking out of Dam Square. He’s headed for the Nieuwe Kerk. I think he’s going back to the Herenmarkt.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I want him watched. Tell me where he goes. Who he sees.’

  Silence and then the voice on the other end said, ‘Isn’t he one of ours?’

  ‘You heard,’ she said.

  On the way out Vos phoned Aisha and told her to keep looking for the missing memory card. Two minutes later he was in a van with a four-man armed entry team, all body armour, helmets, belts full of gadgets, ready for trouble.

  ‘This thing about not telling De Groot,’ Van der Berg began.

  ‘He’s still in a meeting somewhere.’

  ‘And skipping the paperwork . . .’

  ‘If you don’t want to come . . .’ Vos said as they parked themselves on the bench seats in the back.

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for anything,’ Van der Berg replied watching the officer opposite him slap his body armour then check his weapon.

  The van lurched out into the street.

  ‘Are we holding Hanna Bublik?’ Bakker asked.

  Vos shook his head.

  ‘We can’t. We don’t know she’s done anything wrong.’

  Bakker’s sharp eyes never left him.

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Been here before, Laura. Think like her. There’s no call from the kidnapper. Even if there is we plan to give him a suitcase that’s mainly pieces of paper.’ He met her gaze. ‘What would you do?’

  No answer.

  The van had slowed. They were getting into the red-light district. Neon signs beyond the security glass. Sex shops and dope houses. It was dark now with rain falling on narrow, winding streets. Huddled figures going from window to window idly scanning what was on offer. Then the first signs of Chinatown. Garish neon lights. Exotic smells. Bunches of men gathered together talking by the little shops.

  Vos had been going through the files. There was nothing to suggest a connection between the oriental crime syndicates and extremism. They were too busy making money to get involved in politics. It was more likely to be one of the groups from the Middle East or North Africa. Of which there were plenty.

  But all that was speculation. When it came to Saif Khaled they had hard fact. The name in Natalya’s colouring book. The fact a neighbour had seen a blonde-haired girl at his basement window. The shopping trip.

  They had to make this raid. There was no choice. Even if he didn’t feel good about it.

  The van came to a halt. The senior man up front, full gear, all black, a belt with a Taser and pepper spray, semi-automatic cradled in his right arm, looked over and apologized for interrupting.

  Khaled’s tidy little house was across the road.

  ‘What do you want us to do? We can take down the door really quickly. Just flood the place.’

  ‘Stay here,’ Vos said and climbed out of the van.

  Two of the plain-clothes men who’d been quietly observing the address wandered up. They stood in front of the Chinese restaurant where Mirjam Fransen’s surveillance plant had gone through the needless argument. AIVD would have people in the area too. They were probably phoning her now.

  Bakker and Van der Berg joined him.

  ‘Something’s going on in the basement,’ one of the observation team said. ‘We saw a light go on down there. I don’t think we should wait.’

  Vos glanced back across the road. One of the officers in the rear of the van was playing with the ram they used to break down doors. The lead man came and asked again what he wanted them to do.

  He checked his watch. Quarter to five. Vos called Koeman in Marnixstraat. The phone hadn’t rung. Hanna was getting more and more agitated. De Groot was back fro
m the meeting that had detained him. He wanted to know what was going on.

  Don’t we all, Vos thought.

  He knew what she craved. Knowledge. Certainty. Doubt was a cruel companion in grim situations like this. It only served to torture her. Torture them all if he was honest.

  ‘You’ll wait,’ Vos told the man in black. ‘All of you. Stay here unless I call.’

  He strode across the street, ignoring their muttered curses, pressed the bell, stood on the front step close enough to get his foot inside the door if he needed to. There was a shape in the front room. It looked like Khaled himself. From the step Vos could see down into the well that fronted the basement. Blacked out windows. But the light behind it kept flickering as if someone was moving around down there.

  Saif Khaled had lied. And perhaps it was his name on the book the cleaner had found in Smits’s boat in Westerdok.

  Finally the door opened and the Egyptian stood there furious, glaring at him.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Vos said. He nodded at the corridor. ‘Inside. Now.’

  The man was nervous. That ought to be good.

  Without a word he slammed the door hard in Vos’s face.

  A decision made.

  He waved back to the van. It took seconds for the team to get there, bring the weighted ram with them, two men wielding the long steel cylinder.

  Vos stood back and watched. In the little street in De Wallen the din they made was loud. Turned louder still when they were inside.

  A sharp knife. A sharp mind. Natalya Bublik could get by in three languages. Her own. Dutch. English.

  None of the kids at school bullied her. A couple tried to begin with. It never happened again.

  She was Georgian. A Bublik. Her mother’s daughter. Life had been a battle for as long as she’d known. When trouble came you didn’t shrink. You fought back with all the force you could muster.

  Maybe she should have done that already. Would have if it hadn’t been for that first man. The one who sounded like a teacher. Who seemed interested in her. Not hard. Kind even given the chance.

  But he was gone and she was somewhere new.

  Crouching by the cold stone stairs, listening to people outside on the pavement beyond the taped-up windows.