by David Hewson
The van landed on the muddy grass with a crash. Chandra didn’t wait before moving towards it, pulling on a pair of latex gloves.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Vos murmured. ‘Please . . .’
He dashed over, determined to stop one more breach of protocol. Forensic were always first to deal with evidence like this. They knew what they were doing. The rest stood back.
‘Commissaris,’ he said, trying to reach out and stop her as she approached the door. ‘You have to leave the entry to—’
‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ she said out loud, determined everyone around would hear.
Fine, he thought and stood back to watch her anyway.
It was an old Renault. White once, now covered in river mud and weed, the nose dented, front windscreen shattered. Water still stood halfway up the side window, kept in by the closed door.
He saw something there and checked himself.
‘I’d really advise . . .’
Chandra wasn’t listening. Watched by the shocked forensic officers she grabbed hold of the driver’s door handle, jerked on it, got nowhere, jerked hard again and then it began to move.
She briefly turned to grin at him, triumphant.
Grubby water tumbled out around her knees. Before she could step back something flopped sideways out of the van, fell against her legs, hanging there, half held by a failed seat belt. A long shape, that of a man, naked from the waist up.
Dead eyes staring, dead mouth grinning, teeth yellow and broken, biting on slimy green weed.
Jillian Chandra started screaming, a long, high frightened yowl quite unlike her usual breathy tenor. She stumbled away, shrieking at the corpse as a pair of dead arms slipped out from beneath the belt and flapped at her face and neck. One of the uniforms raced up and fought with the body, releasing it from the van. It dropped to the damp ground with a sudden thud. Chandra was fleeing through the band of forensic officers who’d automatically come to crowd forward, peering at what she’d found.
‘Their job,’ Vos told himself. ‘Not ours.’
Scene of crime people were always curious, never daunted. Experience did that to you and experience – of the city, the dark world around her – was something the new commissaris so visibly lacked.
Since the rules of conduct had vanished Vos joined them, down on his knees by the side of the body.
A well-built man of middle age. It looked as if something, a pike, a wandering zander, had nibbled at his lips and eyes, taken a bite out of his shoulder. The last wound wasn’t far from the butterfly tattoo that ran across most of the right side of his neck. Above was a face that, even in death, seemed easily recognizable from the photo Bakker had shown him.
There were scratches on his right shoulder and they had to be important. On Annie Schrijver, nothing. This man . . .
Vos pushed forward and saw.
Sleep Baby Sleep.
He stood up, took out his phone and got through to control.
‘You can call off the search for Jef Braat.’
‘You’ve found him?’ asked the woman at the other end.
Jillian Chandra sat on the muddy grass, hands to her mouth, shaking.
‘I believe we have,’ he said.
THREE
He got in the office early, determined to be on time. It was no surprise Laura Bakker was there already but he hadn’t expected to see Van der Berg an hour before the shift was due to begin.
‘Everything OK, Dirk?’
Van der Berg was in a creased dark pinstripe suit that had seen better days. His eyes were a touch bloodshot. Perhaps it had been a long night.
‘Wonderful.’
There was something odd by his computer. A bush hat. One that looked familiar.
‘Where did you get that?’
The thing was dark brown, broad-brimmed and made of suede.
‘It looks stupid,’ Bakker chipped in from the adjoining desk. ‘By the way . . . the summons is off. That posh bloke she brought with her from Zoetermeer. The PR man. Den Hartog. He came in to say she’s called a press conference at nine thirty. First off he’s got her doing some preparation. Then a couple of TV interviews.’ She screwed up her nose, thinking. ‘Never been stood up by a commissaris going into make-up before. Den Hartog says we’re going to have camera crews wandering round the office for a while so we’re supposed to be on our best behaviour. I don’t know what he thought we’d be doing. Pole dancing?’
A shifty look on Van der Berg’s face suggested he knew this already.
‘A press conference?’ Vos asked. ‘About what?’
Van der Berg smiled a quick, sardonic smile and said, ‘Sleeping Beauty case put to bed. First trophy on the wall. Best not argue. Pointless.’
‘Sounds like it’s good news all round,’ Bakker added. ‘Annie Schrijver’s come round in hospital. She’s lucky. No long-term damage. They’ll probably allow her home soon.’
There was a bustle at the door. Outside the office a cameraman was filming Jillian Chandra walking down the corridor beaming broadly in a uniform so pressed, the buttons shining like little silver beacons, it had to be brand new.
‘Whole thing didn’t turn out so bad in the end,’ Bakker went on. ‘She’s OK. Sam’s fine. That sick bastard who got away four years ago is out of our hair for good and . . .’
‘There’s a corpse in the basement,’ Vos pointed out. ‘A murder victim. We don’t have a clue who he is. Unless something’s happened I haven’t been told about.’
Silence then.
‘Has it?’
Van der Berg went back to squinting at his screen. Bakker shrugged.
‘The hat, Dirk?’
Vos waited until the truth came out. Found underneath a table outside the Drie Vaten two nights before, just after Sam had been snatched.
‘I asked in the bar,’ he explained. ‘I told Sofia. If anyone came back to claim the thing I’d happily hand it over. But—’ He glared briefly at Bakker. ‘I like it.’
Vos reached into the drawer and pulled out a large evidence bag. Then, very gingerly, he picked up the crown between pinched fingers and dropped the hat inside.
‘Is there a DNA record anywhere with your name on it?’
‘What?’
‘This looks like the hat he was wearing. The man who took Sam. Who lured me all the way to Zorgvlied. Two bodies there and a can of petrol.’
Bakker laughed. ‘Jef Braat left it there? Oh, come on. That can’t be right. It’s just a coincidence, Pieter.’
‘Take this down to forensic,’ Vos told Van der Berg. ‘Get yourself swabbed. Ask them if they can find someone else’s DNA on the thing. Start with the sweatband. Maybe we’ll get lucky.’
‘If you’d mentioned we were looking for a hat . . .’
The two men had worked together for almost two decades with barely an argument along the way. Now there was a distinct chill between them.
‘I sent a team down to the Drie Vaten to see if anyone remembered the man. They might have found it.’
‘I didn’t know! Like Laura says. It’s probably not his anyway.’
Vos picked up the bag with the hat in it.
‘Take this downstairs. You know what to ask for.’
Van der Berg grunted something then grabbed it and headed for the stairs.
‘You didn’t need to talk to him like that,’ Bakker said.
‘Like what?’
‘Like . . . he’s in the wrong. If no one told him you were looking for stuff down there . . .’
‘Why’s everyone so touchy today?’
‘We weren’t until you turned up.’
He ignored that crack and started to read some of the overnight reports. News of Annie Schrijver’s recovery. The night team had taken a brief and remarkably uninformative statement from her in hospital. She said a man who’d bought flowers in the market had invited her out for a drink somewhere in the centre. She’d no idea who he was. Couldn’t even remember a first name. Or much about the bar either. Some time
later she’d been woken in the back of a van and told to talk to her father. By a man wearing an animal mask. A dog or a wolf. After that she’d passed out again and knew nothing until she came to in the hospital. The interview had ended early at the insistence of the medical team.
There were no missing person reports that matched the cadaver still lying without a name tag in the morgue. But Braat’s houseboat was gradually coughing up evidence. The place contained weed and cocaine alongside scores of butterfly chrysalises seemingly stolen from Artis. And a recently used portable tattoo kit. Clean of prints but there were traces of blood and ink.
The forensic nurse who’d visited Annie in hospital had found none of the usual evidence of violent assault. There was no sign yet of sexual activity anywhere in the boat. The victim’s clothes were missing which meant they had none of the usual sources of DNA.
Braat’s movements before his death remained a mystery. No one had seen him since he’d briefly turned up at the Amstelpark making excuses to the owner of the butterfly pavilion being built there.
Cases often ended messily, with partial solutions and awkward questions left unanswered. This one didn’t feel it had attained even that status yet. Yet Jillian Chandra had decided it was over bar the details. That much was obvious from a quick look at the web. The news services were running stories already, ones that could only have come from her pet PR man Den Hartog. They’d dug up the cuttings on the Sleeping Beauty case and declared that the team involved four years before had failed to close it properly.
The media were predicting the police would soon name a third murderer, an Amsterdammer who’d escaped the earlier investigation and gone on to kill again. One victim, an unidentified male, had died already. A young woman from De Pijp had narrowly escaped with her life.
Bakker came and sat by his side as he read.
‘Where do they get this stuff?’ she asked. ‘Do they just make it up?’
The report said that, under pressure from the new commissaris, the Sleeping Beauty case had been reopened and seemingly resolved. The perpetrator was a recently released sexual offender who had been missed by the earlier investigation. His body had been recovered from the Amstel by a team led by the commissaris herself the night before. Suicide, the reports were hinting.
‘Sometimes,’ he said.
There was a sound beyond the door. Chandra was walking into the far side of the office, being filmed all the way by the crew.
‘Please get me out of here,’ Bakker begged. ‘I don’t want my picture on the TV. My nan will be on the phone straight off wondering why I’m not wearing a nice dress.’
Van der Berg nodded at the two of them as he came back in then sat down in front of his PC without a word.
‘The morgue,’ Vos said. ‘After that . . .’
He walked up to Van der Berg and put a friendly hand on his shoulder.
‘Laura and I are going to Bijlmerbajes.’
A pause, a nod, a sly glance then, ‘Oh yes. The prison hospital. I remember now. Is that doctor there still sweet on you?’
Bakker said gleefully, ‘Ooh. Gossip. Do tell.’
‘Nothing to tell,’ Vos said, aware he might be blushing. ‘I want to talk to De Graaf. He asked for us. Besides . . . I don’t think Laura’s ever been inside the jail. Have you?’
‘Always a first time. This doctor—’
‘No one’s sweet on me,’ Vos snapped.
They went quiet at that until Bakker said, ‘Perhaps we ought to have another go at talking to Annie Schrijver. That statement says so little. She has to remember more.’
‘Maybe,’ Vos agreed.
Bijlmerbajes wasn’t far from the hospital in the Zuidas. Any more than Zorgvlied, the Amstelpark, the river. It was as if everything was happening in a specific defined area. Like a village. That in itself was interesting.
Marly Kloosterman, who ran the medical unit, was interesting too. A bright, practical, attractive woman who’d briefly skirted his life. They’d met at one of the social evenings the prison organized with the police from time to time. It wasn’t long after he returned to the job. Life seemed complicated enough. He wasn’t ready for a relationship and in his own inept way he’d tried to tell her that before anything got too serious.
Van der Berg still didn’t look happy.
‘This is all very well. But you ought to clear it with the commissaris first. She specifically asked me to tell you. No more surprises. No more . . .’ He looked up, trying to recall something. ‘What were her exact words? Oh yes. We don’t fly solo any more.’
Across the room Jillian Chandra swept through the office with an imperious smile on her face, followed by the TV people.
‘She’s busy,’ Vos said. ‘You tell her.’
Schrijver slept in the office next to the desk. There was no other room left in what remained of the castle. A single bed, a hard mattress. Usually the early morning market traffic woke him but not today. He was starting to rouse, still half-dressed from the night before, when Jordi Hoogland rapped his knuckles on the desk.
‘You’ve got a visitor.’
He tried to shake himself awake, head full of confused, dazed memories. Relief that was somehow tainted with pain. For a moment he doubted himself. Was it really true Annie would be fine? The doctors had allowed them so little time with her. She was too tired, they said. But they still ushered the two of them out and let in the police.
They’d hung around until three, waiting in a private room for someone to allow them back to their daughter’s bedside. It never happened. A sympathetic officer gave them a lift back to De Pijp. An odd journey, next to his ex-wife, both of them too drained to speak.
Then he’d fallen on the single bed and tumbled into a black enveloping sleep.
He signalled to Hoogland to wait for a moment, got up, stiff and aching, found his phone on the desk.
There was a message from Nina. Annie was still resting. The doctors thought it best she had no visitors for a while. They were carrying out more tests. The prospects looked good but they wanted to be sure.
Hoogland remained at the door, leaning on the frame, burly arms crossed. Black leather jacket, black jeans, black T-shirt. Grey hair drooping down his back in the usual greasy ponytail.
‘I grabbed one of the immigrants from the market to help out. Afghan kid been hanging round asking for work. Says he knows flowers. He’s hasn’t got a licence to drive but he can man the stall. I’ll do the rounds. You OK with that?’
‘Can you trust him?’
Hoogland snorted.
‘He’s dead if he screws with me. Knows it too.’
Fine then, Schrijver said, and asked who the visitor was.
Hoogland’s wrinkled, unshaven face creased in a frown.
‘Says she’s from the estate agents round the corner. You made an appointment.’
‘Right.’
‘Anything I should know about?’
No, Schrijver told him. Then asked for a few minutes to get ready.
When he came out, shaved, washed, new clothes that were old, she was looking at the pile of previous day’s flowers the way people did sometimes.
That’s not fresh. Who do you think you’re fooling?
He could almost hear her say it.
A smart woman in a pristine navy blue suit, she came over and gave him a business card: Lies Poelman from the agency he’d walked into the week before. Big office. Lots of fancy places in the window. They’d said the going rate for apartments in the area was around five thousand a square metre. Schrijver had come back and tried to estimate the size of the remaining ground floor space left over from the castle. It must have been more than seven hundred with the yard, the bare warehousing, the office, the boxed-in storeroom that was now Annie’s. Then the shopfront on the market.
Even though it was a dump it surely ought to be worth two million or more. The bank had a charge against the property for the debts the business had run up. It was the only way he could keep afloat. Schrijver ha
dn’t looked too hard at those numbers of late but the debt probably amounted to somewhere north of two hundred thousand. Even so there ought to be enough money to get out of the market, split the proceeds with Nina, then give his half to Annie. She could buy a nice little flat somewhere close by, find a proper job. De Pijp was her home. His too, but he could throw himself on the mercy of the city and go wherever they wanted to put him.
‘You told us you had a property to sell,’ the Poelman woman said, sounding a little puzzled.
He gestured at the scruffy warehouse full of fading flowers. The smell wasn’t too good. Strong perfume, rotting foliage.
‘This is it. The yard. The shop the other side of that.’
She gazed at him, mouth half-open. Lots of lipstick and very white teeth.
‘These are commercial premises. Do you have permission for residential use?’
‘What?’ He didn’t understand. ‘It’s mine. We live here. Been in my family for years. The people upstairs bought those places off us.’
‘Who handled the sale?’
‘Some agent.’ Who swindled me, Schrijver nearly said. That man had rattled on about permissions and change of use too, then battered him down on the price. ‘They said in the office you get five thousand a square metre round here. God knows what idiot would pay that . . .’
‘For apartments. Legal. Converted. Modern heating. Fitted kitchens. Bathrooms. Rain showers.’ She gestured at the sliding wooden door. ‘Views.’
‘The shop at the front’s got a view. I’ll show you.’
They crossed the grubby courtyard. There was a dead pigeon by the drain. She stepped away from it then walked into the part that looked out onto the Albert Cuyp. Jordi Hoogland was behind the stall they set up each day, talking to a foreign kid amidst the buckets of tulips and lilies.
‘This could be a nice place for someone,’ he suggested.
‘A view of the market.’ She laughed. ‘I have to say . . . it’s not something we get asked for much.’
