27
After the brief spat with Vos Laura Bakker walked into the basement canteen, bought a bottle of water and a cheese salad. Sat on her own at a table near the window.
Other officers came and went. No one spoke to her. No one took much notice.
Then, when she was nearly finished, Koeman, the beady-eyed detective back working with Mulder on the Jansen case, came over and took a chair.
He didn’t ask. Didn’t look like the kind of man who ever did.
About forty, nice casual clothes. A nice face too when she thought about it, though the overlong brown moustache was stupid. The kind of thing a drug squad officer might have affected once. Koeman had greedy, wandering eyes too. He looked at every woman who passed through Marnixstraat that way. Didn’t mean anything, she guessed. The others said he was happily married. Just a habit, one he probably never even thought about.
‘Tell me about cows,’ he said then tucked into a flabby-looking burger.
‘Not a lot to say about them.’
‘Do they go moo up in Friesland? Or talk funny? Like you.’
She smiled sarcastically. Picked up her tray. His arm came out, stopped her.
‘Let’s chat,’ he said. ‘There’s time.’
‘Why?’
He took his hand away and sighed.
‘Because I was trying to be friendly. That’s all.’ He put down the burger. Swigged at a pack of orange juice. ‘Really. I know people have been a bit . . . off with you.’
‘I never noticed,’ she lied.
Koeman laughed at that.
‘You stand out, kid. You look different. You talk different.’ He gestured at the floors above them. ‘This is a big place. We don’t like different.’ More quietly. ‘Makes us feel awkward. Sorry.’
She tried to remember the last time anyone in Marnixstraat had apologized to her about anything.
‘What does it matter anyway?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got the assessment next week. They’re going to kick me out. Everyone knows.’
Koeman shook his head.
‘Next week’s next week. A lot can happen between now and then.’
‘I don’t fit here. You said it. Vos said it. De Groot—’
‘No one fits here,’ he interrupted with a sudden vehemence. ‘I didn’t when I turned up. Pieter Vos neither. It’s a police station. Not a hospital or a monastery or something. We’re not here to fix things. Just find them if we can. Then pass the problem on to someone else.’ He shrugged. ‘The law.’ A wry laugh and then a nod at the window. ‘People outside. The . . . general public. Who mostly despise us if we do our job. And can’t wait to take a pop at us if we don’t.’
He was trying to tell her something and she wasn’t sure what.
‘I don’t give a damn if they kick me out,’ Bakker insisted. ‘I can do something else. Something sane. Something . . .’
‘You’ll mope and scream and cry.’
‘You don’t know me, Koeman!’ A couple of tables away people were starting to stare.
‘I know more about you now than I did on Monday. Back then I thought you were this dumb, frightened, talentless kid who’d somehow got on the wrong train. Found herself in the big, bad city. Too scared to go home. Too scared to stay.’
Bakker folded her arms. Watched him tuck into the burger again.
‘And?’ she asked.
‘And I was wrong. There’s something about you. Vos can see it. You’re like him, a bit anyway. He’s scared too. Scared of us. Scared of going back to where he was, because it was all so bleak and grim.’ He pushed aside the half-finished burger with a scowl. ‘Not just for him.’
‘He’ll be gone the moment this case closes,’ she said. ‘If it turns out Prins was behind Katja’s disappearance. That there’s nothing to connect the girl with his daughter. Or nothing he can find . . .’
‘Fine,’ Koeman said. ‘If that works for him.’
‘But it won’t, will it?’ she said slowly. ‘He wants to know.’
‘Don’t we all?’
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’
He groaned.
‘God you’re hard work.’
‘Koeman—’
‘No. Listen. This is important. We may be slow and stupid. We may be pigs from time to time. But we notice things. Like what you’ve done for Pieter since he came back. Maybe that’s all we do.’ He looked at her. A frank and friendly expression. ‘We’re good at it though. Noticing. Looking.’ A pause. ‘Hunting.’
She felt slow and stupid.
‘I haven’t done anything for Vos! Are you suggesting . . .?’
‘No! No!’ He climbed to his feet, grabbed his tray. ‘I give up. This is impossible.’ He glared at her. ‘You’re impossible. I’m trying to help, Laura. So’s Vos.’
‘He’s sad,’ Bakker said in a quiet, frail voice. ‘Can’t you see that?’
‘I can,’ he agreed. ‘But when he’s around you he’s alive. Something makes him think. And when Pieter Vos thinks . . . eventually things happen. If we’re lucky. And God knows we could use some luck right now.’
He had to go back to work, he said. Koeman held out his hand. She took it automatically, getting to her feet, tray in hand. It tipped, tilted, was about to fall onto the floor, scattering plate and glass everywhere.
Another clumsy moment. But this time Koeman was there and grabbed it before the disaster happened, caught the thing and held it safe.
‘You haven’t been kicked out yet, kiddo,’ he said. ‘Go home. Get a good night’s rest. Think about it. Tomorrow’s likely to be a big day around here. Make your mark. Or try to. Get noticed for the right reasons for a change. That’s all.’
28
A few spots of rain out by the canal. A sharp wind. Vos stood next to the line of parked cars along the pavement.
‘Let’s end this now,’ he said. ‘You can’t keep running, Theo. You’re too old for this. So am I.’
‘What are you talking about? You don’t look a day older than when we were locking horns on the street.’
‘I feel it. What’s left to prove?’
‘Who killed Rosie for one thing.’
‘I’m not on that case.’
‘I wonder why. Do you know who took your girl?’
Vos hesitated then said, ‘No. I don’t. But I think we’re starting to get an idea about what happened to Katja Prins. And maybe that will take us there.’
A cyclist went past. A young woman on a granny bike. Stiff and upright, face in the wind. The way Laura Bakker rode.
‘You really think Prins killed his own daughter?’
‘I don’t know,’ Vos answered. ‘I just think . . . we’re closer. This is my business. Not yours.’
Jansen grunted, asked about the Doll’s House. Vos answered carefully. Talked about Menzo and how they’d learned the Surinamese gang had secretly taken control of the place from him.
‘Is that it?’ the voice on the line asked. ‘Is that all you have?’
‘Would I tell you everything?’
‘You should. You and me are in the same boat. We’re the innocents here. Don’t you get that?’
Vos thought of the scene out in the tulip field. Two burned corpses in a wrecked Mercedes.
‘Not entirely.’
‘We’ve been lied to. Strung along like fools. Those kids Menzo put on me. He sent them to that place out of laziness. He picked it up on a whim. Wanted out of there. Wanted the insurance.’
Van der Berg had come to stand outside the bar. He was smoking a cigarette, leaning against the windows, watching from across the narrow street, holding Sam’s lead while the dog sniffed around the pavement.
‘You know that, do you?’
‘I do,’ Jansen said with a pained sigh. ‘Whatever happened in that place – don’t ask because like I told you I’m an innocent. It was still on my watch. Not Jimmy’s. I didn’t know about it. I didn’t even know I owned the stinking dump. Kids? Little girls? Not my kind of business.’
/> Van der Berg was trying to get a trace on the line. Had his own phone to his ear. Shook his head as Vos watched.
‘You’re a good businessman, Theo. I find it hard to believe this was news to you.’
There wasn’t the expected explosion. Just the long sigh again.
‘You know what?’ Jansen said. ‘So do I.’
‘I’m standing out in the freezing rain,’ Vos went on. ‘Let’s discuss this face to face. A beer.’ He thought about this. ‘Maybe we can go our separate ways afterwards.’
There was laughter then, a long throaty boom.
‘What’s this? Pieter Vos? The straightest cop in Amsterdam? He’s going to talk to a wanted criminal? A murderer? Then let him walk?’
‘Not forever. Just until we’re both . . .’ He couldn’t find the right word to begin with. ‘Satisfied.’
‘We lost our daughters. Nothing makes up for that.’ A pause. There was something new and broken in Jansen’s voice. ‘Does it?’
Vos stayed silent.
‘I apologize,’ Jansen added. ‘Am I boring you?’
‘Frankly, yes.’
Silence. Maybe he’d gone.
Then the gruff voice in his ear said, ‘Let me give you something to think about then. Rosie was running that place behind my back. With someone else.’
‘Who?’
‘Patience, Vos. Indulge me and maybe you’ll find out. It was Rosie’s all along. She knew something bad happened there. Got scared and passed it on to Menzo behind my back. She tried to sell me out to him too. Families, huh? You think you know where you stand . . .’
Van der Berg started to cross the street. Vos put up a hand. Didn’t want him near.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked.
‘Your head really did get screwed up after you left, didn’t it? You’re slow now. You know that? Slow and stupid.’
‘Doing my best. A little help would be appreciated.’
The laugh again. Short and without feeling.
‘This is the state we’ve come to, huh? You and me.’
‘Theo—’
‘Two possibilities. Maybe someone on my side killed Rosie because I wasn’t the only one she was screwing. Second . . .’
He stopped. Vos had to prompt him.
‘The second . . .’ Jansen went on. ‘Like I said she knew something. Maybe about what happened in that Doll’s House place to close it down. Don’t ask me. No one I’ve talked to seems to know either. But I haven’t got to them all yet. And I will. So that’s why we won’t meet up for a beer. Not now.’
Rosie Jansen. One shot to the head. The gun was unlicensed, prints wiped. They found a pack of shells in a drawer of the flat. The forensic report indicated a struggle. It was possible whoever went to her place simply wanted to talk. That the gun was Rosie’s. She’d pulled it out, started a fight, lost it.
‘I’m not sure whoever it was went there to kill her,’ Vos said. ‘If that helps.’
‘But they did. And then they left her on your doorstep. Why was that?’
Vos had been asking himself that from the start.
‘I already told you. I’m supposed to be a part of this for some reason. It’s a mystery to me too. Do you have anything else for me?’
‘Just a promise,’ Jansen said calmly down the line. ‘I don’t like being cheated even when it’s my own lying daughter. I’m going to rip the heart out of whoever did this. Get in my way and I’ll tear you to pieces. I’ll squeeze the life out of this whole damned lying city if I need to.’
‘Would that make you feel better?’ Vos asked.
Silence. He was talking to emptiness.
Van der Berg walked over then and asked, ‘Anything?’
‘I’m not sure.’
Vos felt tired. Confused. Hungry. They went back inside the Pieper and got some sandwiches. Ate them then finished their beers mostly in silence.
‘The innocents,’ Vos whispered as the dog grew restless at his feet. He wanted his bed.
‘What?’ said Van der Berg.
‘He says we’re the innocents. Me. Theo Jansen.’ Vos felt Sam tugging on the lead. He needed to be outside. ‘Maybe he’s right.’
‘Jansen’s a criminal. You two have got nothing in common.’ Van der Berg put a hand on his arm. ‘Nothing.’
‘You’d think. But I’ve never heard him like that. He’s as mad as hell. We need to find him. Theo’s in a bad way.’
Van der Berg laughed.
‘As if we should care.’
‘We should,’ Vos said. ‘We should care a lot.’
29
Koeman had left her with an invitation. A challenge. She didn’t shrink from them. Laura Bakker went back upstairs to forensic, laughed when the one remaining officer joked about her clashing green trousers and tartan jacket. Then charmed him into talking about the work they’d done on the growing collection of photos and videos in the system. They’d fought to extract every piece of information they could from the pictures of Katja and Anneliese. It was fruitless. What they knew now was exactly what they knew when the photos first appeared. The girls in Vondelpark. Katja, apparently in distress, in an unknown location, against a plain background.
The newest pictures had been taken with a common smartphone. Recent dates, though they could be forged. No secrets inside. No subtle hints. No giveaway clues. It was as if the girl had been placed against a cinema blue screen, snapped, recorded, and every last detail of background information then removed.
‘Clever,’ Bakker said, going through the images one by one.
‘No,’ the forensic officer said. ‘Competent.’ He looked at his watch. Close to nine. ‘I’m going now. We’ll take a look tomorrow. Play around if you like. But don’t change a thing or . . .’
He was wriggling. He knew.
‘Or that’ll go on my record too?’ she asked. ‘With the bent car and all the bumpkin stuff.’
‘It will,’ he agreed.
She watched him leave. Stayed playing with the computer. Flicked through all the various files there. Finally came upon one from another source. The email sent to Wim Prins the previous morning, snatched by Vos without his permission. An unknown man in bed with Margriet Willemsen. The woman now in charge of Amsterdam was arching, thrusting wildly, lost in herself.
No sound. No sign of the man’s face. She recalled Prins shrieking it wasn’t him. They seemed to accept that but she didn’t know why. It was impossible to see. The room was dark. Her pale body hid his face. And . . .
Laura Bakker pushed her chair back from the laptop. Watching this made her feel uncomfortable. Voyeuristic. Wrong.
A sound behind made her jump.
Tall figure there. She looked up. Klaas Mulder. Stony-faced as usual. Not a man to mess with. He wanted to know what she was doing in forensic at that time of night. So she told him: hunting.
Mulder came up to the screen, stared at the frozen image there, smiled.
‘Hunting?’ he asked with a snide grin. ‘You ought to get your kicks for real at your age.’
‘Thanks for the counselling.’
‘We’ve had professionals going through this material all day long,’ Mulder said. ‘People who know what they’re doing. They found nothing.’
‘Maybe they missed it.’
‘Go home,’ he ordered.
She went back to the screen.
‘I said go home.’
‘I work for Vos. Not you.’
Two naked bodies moving. Most of the technicians were men. They’d looked at this briefly and she knew what they’d stare at first. It was logical in a way. Bodies. Faces. Identities. But these were people making love in a busy bedroom. Crammed bookshelves on the walls. A duvet thrown on the floor. Clothes. There were other possibilities.
Bakker grabbed the mouse, drew a rectangle over what looked like a suit and a pair of shoes. Zoomed in.
Mulder sat on the desk next to the computer, close enough to make her uncomfortable.
‘If I tell you
to leave, you leave.’
‘When I’m ready,’ Bakker said.
‘Aspirant—’
‘If they’re going to fire me next week what the hell does it matter, Mulder?’ she asked. ‘You’ll get rid of me anyway. All you’ve got to do is wait.’
‘You’re not fit for this job,’ he said in a mild, infuriating tone. ‘You’re clumsy. You don’t understand discipline. Team work. Preparation. Planning. You don’t belong here. You don’t belong in this city. Go back to—’
‘No, no. Don’t say it,’ she broke in. ‘Go back to shovelling cow shit. Come up with something new, please. You’re stuck in a loop alongside everyone else round here.’
Shirt. Underpants. Socks. Shiny shoes. Black she guessed. Men’s office shoes. Sturdy. Not as tough as her own boots. But serious footwear and she always appreciated that.
He put his hand on her shoulder. Bakker turned and stared at his fingers.
‘Remove that now or I swear this gets formal in the morning,’ she said very calmly. ‘Maybe I’ll make up something about harassment too.’ She did glance at him then. Koeman ogled women and barely knew he was doing it. Mulder watched them covetously. She recognized that look. ‘Why do I think they might just believe that?’
Mulder removed his hand, smiled a bleak smile, shook his head.
She went back to the screen. Saw something in the corner near the discarded trousers. A wallet. A few of the contents had scattered out when it was flung on the carpet. Credit cards. Money.
‘I’m not saying this again,’ Mulder growled.
‘Don’t then.’
Another zoom. Up to maximum resolution. There was an icon on the toolbar to enhance the image. She hit it. A credit card upside down. Except it wasn’t. She blinked. Long day. Trying to make sense of this. Mulder got closer.
What was on the screen was familiar and she was struggling to understand.
Then one last look and Laura Bakker hit undo, threw the zoom out straight away. Stood up. Smoothed down the crumpled lines of her baggy tartan jacket. Tried to smile at him.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I got carried away.’
Didn’t look in his eyes. Didn’t want to see what was there.
The House of Dolls Page 27
