by David Hewson
Something in his face stopped her.
‘What was that look for?’
‘Braat was murdered,’ he said. ‘Greg Launceston too. De Graaf’s dead. That’s all we know. Three men dead. Annie Schrijver lived. As I just said in there . . . we don’t know she was raped at all.’
‘You’re not bringing her in. You’re not even talking to her. Not until I get a grip on this damned lawyer.’
‘It isn’t the same as before, is it?’ Bakker said. ‘If you think about it.’
Chandra wasn’t impressed.
‘You two overcomplicate everything. We’ve had a homicidal sex criminal loose in the city. One you should have put behind bars four years ago. The press know it. Sooner or later they’re going to throw all that shit my way.’
She tapped on the glass.
‘It’s him. Look at the DNA. The fact he can’t account for where he was when any of this happened. Most of all . . .’ One more rap on the window with her nails. ‘If he didn’t do it why the hell won’t he say so?’
Good question, Vos thought. But any answer she might think overcomplicated so he didn’t bother.
‘I want progress,’ she repeated. ‘Today.’
With that she bustled out of the room, Van der Berg in her wake.
‘I don’t think we’ll ever make that woman happy, will we?’ Bakker said. ‘Where do you get potassium cyanide by the way? Apart from a butterfly nut.’
He’d looked that up. It was a common enough chemical if people went looking. Used by the jewellery trade for gilding and polishing.
‘Not a hospital,’ he added. ‘That’s for sure.’
He told her to team up with Rijnders who was on a day shift. Give it an hour then the two of them could go back and try Sanders again.
‘Don’t push too hard. Don’t get sarcastic either. It’s counter-productive.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ she said with a quick salute. ‘What about you?’
‘I need to see someone. Call if he starts to talk.’
It was still quiet outside. The tram stop was right by the station front door. The number 10 ran all the way to Plantage and the zoo. Marly Kloosterman’s boat couldn’t be more than a few minutes away.
One was coming, a blue and white leviathan creaking down the deserted street.
Vos got in, found an empty seat at the back then took out his phone.
He worded the text carefully before he sent it off to the mobile number they had on file for Annie Schrijver. His name. His rank. A reminder that he was the one who found her at Zorgvlied. Then a brief message.
Rob Sanders is facing charges of rape and multiple murder. Not that I think he’s guilty but he won’t talk to us so the lawyers will think we’ve no choice.
If you know otherwise, Annie, now’s the time to speak.
Adnan Mathan, his wife and daughter turned up at the flower shop just before eleven. Gone were the busy stalls lining both sides of the street. Most of the shops and cafes were closed. Cars were taking advantage of the chance to park for free so close to the city centre for once. They ranged the length of the street and more were circling looking for spaces.
Bert Schrijver was waiting for the bell. He slid back the green wooden doors and greeted the family of three standing uncertainly in front of him. Schrijver wore a red waistcoat, braces holding up wide, baggy trousers with a sharp crease down the front.
‘Sunday best,’ he announced cheerily. ‘Been a while since I had the excuse.’
Mariam had four bags of shopping with her. She handed over sixty euros in change. Syrians ate cheaply, Schrijver guessed.
The bruises on Adnan’s face had gone down. Jordi Hoogland could have done much worse if he’d wanted.
‘The kitchen?’ his wife asked. She was wearing a threadbare purple cardigan and shapeless black trousers and looked thinner than ever in the bright sun. Adnan had a black fake leather jacket and jeans. Lia was in a red dress and pink jumper. Old clothes trying to look new, the best they had, Schrijver guessed.
‘Later,’ he said and showed them round. Annie’s living space at the front, a studio effectively with a double bed, a sofa, table, two chairs and a gas hob, a little shower and toilet. Then the courtyard. He’d salvaged an old football from one of the bins in the street and kicked it for Lia, laughing as the little girl started to boot the thing round the worn cobbles. After that the office at the back, ashamed a little of his bed in the corner. There was another gas hob and kettle by the sink. Mariam could choose where she wanted to cook.
She thought about that.
‘The front I think. You have table and chairs for outside?’
‘The courtyard?’ Schrijver frowned. ‘We haven’t eaten out there in years.’
‘We can use the stall,’ Adnan said. ‘It’s warm enough. I’ll do it.’
Mariam went off to Annie’s place and soon Schrijver heard the busy sound of chopping.
By the time Nina and Annie arrived a trestle table was set up in the yard. Fake green grass from the stall served as a tablecloth. Plastic knives and plastic forks. He didn’t have enough proper cutlery to go round.
Adnan detected some awkwardness at their arrival and wandered off to help in the kitchen. Nina gazed at Bert and said, ‘What is this? I thought that man had stolen from you. Are you going soft in the head now?’
‘He didn’t steal a thing. That bastard Hoogland took the money off him. Knocked him about a bit too. I got the money back. Would have phoned to tell you last night but it was late. You heard anything from the police?’
Annie walked off into the courtyard and started to kick the ball for the little girl, with no enthusiasm and not a shadow of a smile.
‘Not a thing,’ Nina told him.
‘Maybe they won’t call at all. Not with Petra Zomer on their case.’
‘What the police did was wrong.’
‘I still don’t like having that woman running things. Anyway . . .’ He gestured to the visitors. ‘We’ve got guests. Don’t know how long it’s been since I could say that. Adnan’s a good lad and I think his family’s nice too. Been through hell from what I can gather. I’m using him in place of Annie. He can shift flowers like nobody’s business. If he can keep it up we’ll be making money here, real money, before long. And I was thinking . . .’
She had that look about her, suspicious, the one that said he might be about to do something stupid.
‘Thinking what?’
‘Thinking it’d be nice to hear some cheery young voices around for a change. Instead of me whingeing on to myself like an old misery.’
She didn’t quite accept that.
‘I don’t want you asking Annie about Rob Sanders. If I can’t talk to her about it, you certainly won’t.’
He nodded.
‘All right. What happened was between them. None of my business. Any more than what you do. I understand that now. Takes a while when you’re an idiot but you get there in the end.’
He pointed to the trestle table with the green plastic grass and scratched his chin.
‘You know what that needs? Flowers. A few nice bouquets. Got a bit of old stock out back. Bet there’s something decent in there.’ He winked. ‘I knew a market girl who could run up a lovely bouquet out of a rubbish bin once upon a time. Wonder what happened to her?’
She looked at him askance.
‘Are you all right, Bert? You haven’t taken to the weed in your old age, have you?’
The smile vanished.
‘Don’t need that crap. Got a family here again, haven’t I? Even if half of it’s someone else’s.’
She seemed amused at that and said she’d go and look. There were smells coming out of the shop at the front. Warm, rich spicy ones. Mariam walked out into the corridor to get something from a bag she’d left there. Schrijver felt embarrassed at seeing what came next. Adnan following, putting his arms round her, kissing her tenderly in the shadows behind the green doors.
That was what love looked like. All the troubl
e and terror they’d been through could only have made it stronger. Perhaps that’s what marriage was really about. Building a barrier between you and the cold hard world, a wall the shadows and the blackness couldn’t penetrate. Not easily.
Nina came back, her arms full of lilies, pink and spotted orange, carnations, tulips and a flourish of white roses. With all the care she’d once used in the market she primped and cut and then arranged them on the plastic grass using the big silver vases from the stall. Six chairs he found from the office and the storeroom, and three cushions to get Lia’s little frame up to the table.
‘Looks lovely,’ he said when it was done, then realized his arm had gone round Nina’s shoulders, his fingers briefly running through her fine fair hair the way they used to. She noticed and touched his hand.
‘Going grey,’ she said. ‘Do you think I should do something about it?’
There were more flecks of silver he hadn’t noticed before. That was another trick he’d forgotten. How to look, how to see the things that were precious before they vanished from your grip.
‘Not for me. You look beautiful.’
A step too far. She backed off and said very carefully, ‘I’ll see if I can give her a hand in the kitchen. Keep an eye on Annie for me. She’s . . .’ Lia was back to kicking the ball around on her own. Annie was across the far side of the courtyard, staring at her phone, tears in her eyes, anger in her face. ‘She’s not good. I don’t know what to say. What to do any more.’
‘Me neither.’ Nina was watching him, waiting for the rest. ‘Hard to help people who won’t help themselves.’
Just a few words, spoken in haste, and he knew from the look of disappointment on her face they were the wrong ones once again.
She walked off to the source of all those strange alluring aromas. Annie now had her back to him across the yard.
Schrijver walked out into the empty market, found the grocer’s shop that opened Sundays, bought some beer and wine. He didn’t know if Adnan and his wife drank booze or not. But he would. By four he’d probably be on his own with nothing but bottles for company.
The tram stopped at the back of zoo, close to the staff car park where he’d been with Bakker two days before. A genteel part of the city if it wasn’t for the exotic bird shrieks and animal cries rising from the zoo. Water formed a natural border for Artis on half its perimeter here. On the other side of the canal called Entrepotdok stood a line of apartment buildings, a few houseboats in front of them. Marly Kloosterman’s was a ten-minute walk away, further than he’d expected, almost opposite the patch of waste ground used for the rave where he’d met the young woman in the panda costume who’d sent him on to Zorgvlied.
A young woman they still hadn’t traced, even with Annie Schrijver’s tearful plea on the television.
Vos’s home was a converted klipper barge that once worked the waterways of North Holland. Marly Kloosterman lived in a very different kind of vessel, a square green-timbered houseboat designed for nothing more than accommodation. It stood tall on the water, with French windows opening to the pavement and the canal beyond, a tidy garden at the back with deck chairs and a barbecue. Smoke was rising from the grill and he wondered for a moment if he was about to blunder in while she had a visitor. It seemed impossible such an attractive and intelligent woman was short of admirers.
Then a surprised voice behind cried, ‘Pieter! What on earth . . . ?’
He turned. She was there in a pale cotton shirt and cut-off jeans, short hair damp and uncombed, looking younger than she ever did inside the prison hospital. A brown paper carrier bag hung off her right arm. A shiny scarlet scarf was wrapped loosely around her neck. He could barely take his eyes off her.
‘You might have said you were coming. I’d have bought more food.’
‘I don’t need food, thanks.’
She picked something out of the bag. Sausages. The weather was changing. This might be the last chance anyone had to cook outside for a while.
‘Well, let’s see how it goes, shall we?’ she said and guided him on board with a firm hand, pointing to the rear deck where the barbecue was starting to smoulder. ‘Not inside please. I’m halfway through cleaning that mess and I don’t want to be embarrassed.’
‘It looks perfect,’ he said, glancing through the French windows as she took him past. It did too. Modern, clean, organized. Just as it was in the photos in the paper. Everything his own boat wasn’t.
‘Far from it. Give me good warning, I’ll happily let you inside.’ A smile. ‘If that’s what you really want.’
God, Vos thought. It was so long since he’d been through this odd ritual, the little teases, the delicate tango.
He took a seat, said no to her offer of a beer.
‘I wanted to make sure you were OK. What De Graaf said . . .’
She waved a dismissive hand in his direction.
‘It was just him being . . . him. Why skip a threat if you could utter it? No one’s come near me. No one’s been hanging around. Don’t worry. If they did I’d be straight on the phone. Besides . . .’
Silence then.
‘Besides what?’
She looked very serious, the way she did in her white coat in the jail.
‘I’m being presumptuous here. But from what I’ve read the man you’re looking for went quiet for the best of four years.’ A pause and then she added, ‘It’s OK, Pieter. I’m not prying. I’m not asking if I’m right.’
‘I don’t know if you’re right or not.’
She frowned.
‘Sorry. But it strikes me that if he could give it up just like that then maybe he can do it again. Just stop. Start again a few years down the line if he feels like it.’
‘Then we might never find him.’
‘Quite,’ she agreed. ‘I hope you do. If not . . . if he’s just packed it in . . .’
‘I haven’t,’ Vos said. ‘I’m not retired. Not yet.’
The waste ground opposite was empty save for a few cars. He asked about Wednesday night, what she’d heard, what if anything she’d done.
‘I put in a pair of ear plugs and tried to sleep. I gather some of the neighbours called you. Called the police, that is. Didn’t do much good. I suspect I’ll be hearing lots of complaints about that when I go to the neighbourhood party this afternoon. We like to keep things quiet here.’
She tipped out the contents of the bag onto the table. Salad, bread, mustard.
‘We can share . . .’
‘No. No. Really.’
‘I said we can share.’
The charcoal was grey and ready. Vos had never got the hang of barbecues. Everything seemed to come out either undercooked or burnt. That never, he imagined, happened with Marly Kloosterman.
‘Your colleague, Bakker.’
‘What about her?’
‘Is she . . . happy?’
It seemed a curious question.
‘I think so. She’s still new to the city in some ways. She’s tough. Clever too.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt that. You’d never have slow people round you. I doubt you’d have the patience.’ She opened a pack of vegetable crisps, fancy ones. ‘Is that why you kept avoiding me? I wasn’t quite interesting enough?’
‘I told you. I wasn’t ready. The coward’s way out. It’s always easiest and being a lazy man I like the easy way. Consider yourself warned.’
She didn’t seem happy with that answer.
‘Also,’ he added, ‘you’re so . . . sane. I couldn’t work out why a woman like you would want to waste your time with a layabout living in a dump of a houseboat with nothing more to amuse him than a little dog.’
‘A lovely little dog,’ she corrected him. ‘And I don’t feel the term layabout quite works for you. Though what does . . .’
‘Am I forgiven?’
She wrinkled her nose, thinking, then turned the sausages round on the grill.
‘We’ll have to see. Are you really not going to have a beer?’
‘I’m working. And the new commissaris is rather strict on such things.’
‘Best start then.’
‘Start what?’
‘Working. You clearly came here with something on your mind other than my safety. Time is therefore short. I’m going to eat, drink two beers, take a nap and finish my cleaning before going to this shindig across the road. It’s for charity. I’ll get a bad conscience if I bomb out. The . . . um . . . courtship or whatever this is will have to take place some other time, won’t it?’
‘Right,’ he agreed and picked up a few of the crisps.
‘Let’s begin with you asking me a question,’ she suggested. ‘Anything you like.’
Schrijver didn’t know what the food was, just that it tasted delicious. Kebabs and vegetables, flatbreads, grains and hummus. Mariam made them so quickly he knew cooking had to be in her blood. Adnan had said she ran a street food stall back in Aleppo. That, though he’d never mentioned it to Nina, was one more reason he’d asked them round.
They ate and ate. They talked, awkwardly to begin with, but after a little wine more freely. When the food was finished, they relaxed around the makeshift table, quietly amused at how the little girl had fallen on every dish that came in front of her. Even Annie looked a little better for some food. Pensive too. As if there was something going on inside her she didn’t want to share.
When the meal was done Nina insisted on clearing the plates. Mariam, she said, had done enough. There was a brief tussle over that which ended in them both vanishing into Annie’s old room and attacking the washing up together.
He chatted idly with Adnan. Annie read an old picture book with Lia.
Then, slow as ever, he remembered the surprise he had in store. Lia had left her toys behind in Syria. Annie’s he couldn’t bear to throw away so without telling her he’d kept them crammed inside a locker in the warehouse, long forgotten by everyone but him.
So many she’d had over the years. Every time they argued, every time he felt he’d failed her, another one turned up as if love could be bought and bargained for like fish and flowers in the Albert Cuyp.
‘I’ve got something to show you two,’ he said, guiding Lia and Annie into the back. ‘We all need nice surprises from time to time.’
