Sleep Baby Sleep

by David Hewson

  ‘We need you to make a statement.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not going through all that crap again, especially not in court. Besides . . .’ She leaned against the wall. ‘It doesn’t change the fact Rob saved me. Maybe we both went a bit crazy afterwards but if it wasn’t for him I’d be dead.’

  ‘We can’t ignore what went on,’ Bakker told her.

  ‘Maybe you’ll have to. Rob wasn’t playing their games any more, was he? That’s why they hated him.’

  ‘Four years ago he was,’ Vos said.

  ‘The only way you can prove that’s through me. Not going to happen.’ A smile, confident, the first time they’d seen that. ‘Here’s an idea. Let him go and I’ll fire that pushy lawyer who came on to us. On the other hand you can drag me into court to testify and then I’ll do the same to you. Won’t be pretty for either of us, will it?’

  ‘Think about it, Annie,’ Bakker begged.

  ‘I have. I want my life back. I won’t let anyone take it from me again. Not Rob. Not you lot.’

  They walked her downstairs then stood in reception and watched her leave. Vos phoned custody to tell them Hoogland was free to go. Sanders would have to wait, a few hours anyway.

  ‘Can’t believe she doesn’t want that bastard in court,’ Bakker muttered as she left the building.

  Vos shrugged.

  ‘I can. Imagine what she’d have to go through. Her private life out there for everyone to pore over. Besides . . . even with her testimony it could be a tough one to prove. If it was just his word against hers.’

  ‘It’s never the woman they listen to, is it?’

  His phone rang and Jillian Chandra’s hard and angry voice rang in his ear.

  ‘I just heard you brought the Schrijver girl into the building. In spite of everything I said.’

  ‘I was about to come and explain—’

  ‘I’m sick of your explanations. Do I fire you now or wait until the morning?’

  Bakker was tugging on his sleeve. There was someone waiting on the bench seats in front of the desk. A young woman he’d seen before.

  Black and white costume, black and white face.

  The panda girl.

  ‘Morning would be best, I think.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked. ‘And don’t tell me Li Li.’

  Nola van Veen, a university student at the VU. She looked as if she’d been crying and couldn’t take her eyes off Annie Schrijver outside waiting for a tram.

  ‘That’s her, isn’t it? The woman on the TV? The one it happened to?’

  ‘That’s her,’ Vos agreed. ‘You took your time.’

  The white make-up was thick and streaked with grey tears.

  ‘I take it you don’t wear this stuff day in and day out?’ Bakker added.

  ‘No need to be horrible. I’m here, aren’t I?’

  She seemed much as Vos recalled from the noisy, crowded party on Wednesday night. Short with a round and featureless face. It was hard to imagine what she looked like out of the costume so he got an address out of her and Bakker wrote it down. His phone kept going: Jillian Chandra. In the end he turned it off.

  ‘You do realize where you sent me?’ he asked. ‘What I found there?’

  ‘Kind of.’ She was squirming. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Dead people. Pain. Misery. Whoever got you to do that’s a murderer and lots worse—’

  ‘I didn’t know!’

  He sat down next to her on the bench. Bakker took the other side.

  Her flat was near Artis so she’d got a tip-off about the party on Wednesday from a friend. It was organized by a bunch of people who thought it might be a good joke to try to steal a march on the charity event planned for the weekend. While she was there a man came up and offered her fifty euros if she passed on a message to someone who’d turn up later. He handed over the money there and then, the envelope and a cutting from the paper with Vos’s photo.

  ‘What was he like?’ he asked.

  The panda nose wrinkled.

  ‘Tall. Grey. Furry.’

  ‘Let’s just chuck her in a cell for a while,’ Bakker said. ‘She can think it over—’

  ‘It was a fancy dress party! He came as a wolf. Big fake head.’ She made a face. ‘Sharp teeth. Sounded quite . . . posh. Stuck up, I’d say. And old. Fancied himself. He gave me that thing to pass on. Fifty euros. Said you’d be along later. That was it.’

  ‘No questions?’ Bakker asked.

  ‘He said it was a practical joke. If I’d known—’

  ‘Why did he choose you?’ Vos wondered.

  ‘How would I know? He came up. He gave me those things. I did it. Sorry.’

  ‘And that’s it,’ Bakker said. ‘You wait four days to tell us that? Do you live in that stupid costume?’

  The panda face glowered at her.

  ‘Not exactly. I didn’t know.’

  Vos thought of Marly Kloosterman, the event she was going to by Artis.

  ‘Didn’t know what?’

  She sniffed, scared.

  ‘I’d see him again. This afternoon. He was staring at me. Same costume. Same shape. Same size. Then he came over and said . . .’

  Her furry arm rose and wiped her nose. Black make-up smeared across the fabric.

  ‘He asked me if I wanted a drink. Said if I liked he could get me into the zoo. All for free. A private tour or something. He worked there. I couldn’t stop shaking.’

  She pulled a bottle of water out of her little rucksack and gulped at it.

  ‘Then he saw this woman just right by us and went off to talk to her instead. Didn’t even say goodbye. Like I didn’t exist. So I came straight here. It was him. I’m sure.’

  Vos got out his phone and pulled up the cutting from Het Parool. Marly Kloosterman smiling in the elegant living room of her houseboat.

  ‘That’s her.’ The girl’s eyes were wide with surprise. ‘How did you know?’

  Bakker had her car keys out.

  ‘Stay here, Nola,’ he said. ‘Someone will come down and take a statement.’

  The tram rattled towards De Pijp. Annie Schrijver sat on her own, staring at the familiar city. The busy square of Leidseplein. The Paradiso where she went to see bands from time to time. Then the quieter, leafier quarter opposite the Rijksmuseum. Next stop and she could walk all the way home.

  But not to the Albert Cuyp. That part of her life was over. Selling flowers in the market. Hanging round the little bars at night. Pleading with Rob Sanders never to leave her. Going through each unthinking day, running on empty, hoping the next might turn out better.

  It was laziness that had kept her there. That and fear. Her parents had been just about together four years before when she’d so nearly died. They were bickering on holiday somewhere in Spain while she struggled to come to terms with what had happened, only Jordi Hoogland to watch her, puzzled, uncaring in the shop. And Rob Sanders. Coming round daily, guilt and kind words in equal measure. That took guts, she’d thought at the time. She could so easily have shopped him.

  Except she was in a daze, unsure which way to turn. Her mother was already in a state, her father too as their marriage crashed around them. To tell the police would be to invite strangers into an intimate part of her life, one that had shame enough without others to add to it. So slowly, idly, she let Sanders talk his way there instead. It wasn’t love so much as need. Damaged, alone, she craved company and protection. A body to put between her and the cold hard world.

  Did it occur to her that what he sought most was selfish? A silence on her part that might save him from discovery?

  The stop loomed up. A decision to be made.

  Perhaps. But need was need on both their parts and always won in the end. When Vincent de Graaf came to court, Ruud Jonker dead in his studio, they agreed: put the past behind them. Try to forge a future around what lay ahead. It was love of a kind, but with a fault line running through it. One that had to crack some day.

  The tram be
ll rang. There was a bench by the stop. She sat down and called home.

  ‘Love,’ Bert Schrijver said and she could hear the concern in his voice. It had always been there. It was her spiteful choice to ignore it. ‘Where are you? Is everything OK? I worry—’

  ‘I know. I do that to you.’

  ‘If a father can’t worry about his daughter . . .’

  ‘I’m on my way to Mum’s. Nothing’s wrong.’

  He sounded in a good mood. Maybe the wine had helped. But it was more than that, she felt.

  ‘Plenty’s wrong, sweetheart. Always will be. That’s why we’ve got each other.’

  She thought of Lia, the little refugee kid with a history she couldn’t begin to imagine. Playing delighted in the shop with toys two decades old.

  ‘I’m sorry I screwed up, Dad. I’m sorry I’ve been an idiot. Some things are hard to say. To talk about—’

  ‘No need. You’re back. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.’

  A woman walked past tugging at a poodle on a lead. Another day in the city.

  ‘The funny thing is,’ Annie said, ‘you only see kindness in strangers. Not your own. You take them for granted. As if you’re owed so it’s nothing special.’

  ‘You don’t have to say this. Say anything—’

  ‘I do. You’re special, Dad. Kind and patient and generous. Mum too. I should have told you what went on ages ago. I just felt . . . ashamed. And puzzled too. It’s like . . . like you walk into a tunnel and you never question why it’s dark. You’re just there and that’s all there is.’

  ‘There’s no tunnel now. You’re our daughter. We’ll always love you. We’ll always do what we can.’

  She watched the woman with the dog potter off down the street.

  ‘I’ll stay with Mum for a few days. After that I’ll find a job somewhere. Away from here maybe . . . I don’t know.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘What you’re doing with that foreign family . . . I think it’s brave. Nice of you. I hope it works.’

  Her father snorted.

  ‘If it doesn’t I’ll just have to get a real job too, won’t I? But I think we’ve got a chance. I’ve watched Adnan. His wife. They’ve got that lovely little girl. You always say to yourself . . . you want your kids to have something better than you had. They’ve got more reason than most. More than me.’

  She had to say it.

  ‘That man Vos wants to put Rob in jail. They need a statement from me. I won’t give it to them. I don’t want that. Don’t want it for him. Or me.’

  He didn’t speak.

  ‘I thought you’d be mad to hear that.’

  ‘I thought so too. But I’m not. You’re all that matters. If you’re fine with it—’

  ‘More than fine,’ she interrupted. ‘And that lawyer who came on to us. She can piss off too. I’m not having her badgering the police for what they did. I never made it easy for them. For any of you.’

  A happy sigh and he said, ‘Now that I’m glad to hear. We start again. All of us. We pick ourselves up from the floor, shake off the dust, get back in the fight. That’s who we are. It’s what we’re meant to do.’

  ‘Suppose,’ she whispered. ‘Got to go now. I’ll pop in and see you tomorrow.’

  Down the length of Ferdinand Bol she walked, past the old Heineken brewery and the ever-present queue of tourists outside.

  Past the Albert Cuyp, empty for Sunday. Not that she looked.

  In the car Vos tried to call.

  Marly Kloosterman’s unflustered, casual voicemail was all he got.

  Bakker had been on to control asking for backup. Two marked cars in the area were directed to the zoo, told to wait for orders.

  The traffic was light. The Artis staff car park almost full. From the waste ground came the sound of jaunty reggae. There had to be a couple of hundred people by the water, talking, dancing, drinking, eating. Half in costume, half in summer clothes. It was still warm for the time of year. The place had that Sunday afternoon feel to it: lazy, a little drunk, relaxed.

  Vos recalled the dry cold laughter when he’d phoned after the text two nights before and then the sarcastic robotic voice. This was a man who thrived on laziness, who saw his opportunity when others let down their guard. A time like this, he thought as he slammed the Volvo onto a patch of waste ground by the canal.

  Two security men were heading over already, yelling at them to move. Bakker came off the phone with her ID and a few choice words. The uniforms were the other side of the zoo, she said. Half a kilometre away.

  ‘Tell them to get to the party,’ Vos said. ‘And what we’re looking for.’

  Then they walked towards the crowd by the canal and began to push through the sea of bodies there.

  So many people, so many strange costumes. Deafening music and the occasional shriek from the zoo behind.

  Not a wolf in sight.

  He phoned Marly Kloosterman again and got the same calm recorded message.

  Someone was forcing his way through the dancers towards them. A young man in a wide sombrero. He wore large red spectacles, a bright yellow tropical shirt and blue shorts. In his right hand was a plastic cocktail glass with fruit and a straw popping out of the top.

  He came and stood next to Bakker, beaming.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here!’

  Bakker just stared.

  ‘Rik. The butterfly house. Remember? Rik Loderus.’

  ‘Vaguely,’ she muttered.

  Vos got straight on him, demanding to know who else was at the event from Artis.

  Loderus waved his cocktail glass at the crowd.

  ‘Everyone who can get away. We support local charities. Would be wrong if we didn’t.’ He grinned at Bakker. ‘Can I get you a drink or something? If you’ve got the time maybe a dance . . .’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ she snapped. ‘We’re looking for someone.’

  ‘Oh.’ He seemed disappointed. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Only if you know a man who’s wearing a wolf costume.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Do you?’ Vos demanded.

  ‘Well . . .’ He scratched his chin. ‘I think maybe . . .’

  There was a sudden deafening burst of feedback from the stage.

  ‘Who?’ Bakker asked.

  ‘Lucas. Lucas Kramer. He sent out for one specially.’ Loderus winked. ‘Been behaving a bit funny all week to be honest. I think he’s got a date.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘I got a right rollicking for sticking up for Jef Braat after you left. Don’t know what that was about. Now . . .’ He clapped. ‘About that drink—’

  Vos grabbed hold of his shirt front. Loderus went quiet, worried.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He looked around. ‘Could be anywhere. It’s my day off. Can’t say I was keen to spend it in the company of my boss.’

  ‘The zoo’s open?’

  ‘Course it is. Sunday’s busy.’ He thought of something. ‘But not the butterfly house. They’ve been doing some rewiring for the heating. We’re keeping the public out until tomorrow and . . .’

  Vos’s phone rang. Kloosterman’s number flashed up before he answered. Two steps away to try to get some quiet, he pressed the handset hard to his ear.

  Someone in pain, a wordless moan, then a curse.

  It was easy to picture things sometimes. Something had swept the phone away, sent it clattering across a hard stone surface. When it came to a stop all he could hear were her weak and distant cries.

  Then the frantic barks of happy sea lions.

  A ‘no entry’ poster was stuck to the wall outside the entrance to the butterfly house. Red and white tape attached to poles blocked the way. Vos ducked beneath, Bakker not far behind. The metal door beyond was ajar. He pushed through the thick plastic sheets and peered into the humid jungle ahead.

  The air was so oppressive it felt as if they’d been hit by a warm and heavy cloud. Bakker bumped against him, pressed fo
rward by Loderus, who was blinking at the interior, wiping his glasses clean with the edge of his tropical shirt.

  Red and yellow wings fluttered around them as if the insects were curious at this intrusion.

  ‘I’ve got to tell you,’ Loderus said, throwing the sombrero to one side. ‘This is a big place. A lot more to it than you can see.’

  Vos looked around.

  ‘He won’t be here. Too obvious.’

  The zoo man seemed to have sobered up on the spot. He pointed towards the area they’d visited before.

  ‘That leads into offices and storerooms and all kinds of stuff. It’s like a maze.’ He put his glasses back on. ‘I take it this isn’t a social visit?’

  ‘You take it right. Keep behind us,’ Vos ordered. ‘Stay out of our way. Do as you’re told.’

  Past the cocoon displays, past a plantation of lush and fleshy bananas, there was a notice that read, ‘Private. Keep Out’. Vos elbowed the door open and stared into the gloom ahead.

  This was the office they’d seen earlier. A computer was whirring somewhere to the right, the one on which they’d watched Annie Schrijver’s awkward performance on TV. Its screen saver cast an eerie sheen across the desks and chairs.

  Without being asked Loderus found the light switch. Fluorescent tubes flickered into life. The place was empty but there was something on the ground in front of them: a woman’s scarlet scarf.

  ‘Torch,’ Vos said and waited until Bakker gave him one. ‘Don’t touch the light switches again unless I ask for it.’

  Beam on the hard grey cement floor, he edged into the facing corridor. The next place was where they’d seen the butterfly collection stored so carefully in the metal cabinets around the walls.

  No one.

  Loderus led them to a second storeroom. A dead end. Nothing but filing cabinets lining the walls and storage shelves full of equipment and boxes.

  They were running out of options.

  ‘She tried to phone me . . .’ Vos thought of the brief call. ‘I heard an animal. A seal or something. Barking.’

  ‘Not here,’ Loderus said. ‘There are sea lions in the pool out front. He wouldn’t have come in that way. There’s just an emergency exit and it’s always locked.’