The House of Dolls

by Hewson, David

  Willemsen laughed. Shook her head.

  ‘What is this? Alex Hendriks has lost his mind. He planted a camera in my bedroom. Tried to blackmail Prins. Then some temp raided his secret home-made porn store and started this nonsense. He’s the criminal. Not me.’

  Bakker was ready to rise to the bait. Vos kept her quiet. Then they went to the adjoining room.

  Hendriks was shaking, terrified when the uniformed men delivered him to Marnixstraat. He had his own iPad with him. The phone log they’d seen already. The two videos. Some unrevealing email exchanges between Willemsen and Mulder the previous week.

  And one thing of substance: four months of statements for a private bank account in the name of Willemsen’s political group. Vos had got the numbers printed out. Passed them across the table after they sat. Then placed another set of statements, pulled by the night team from one of Mulder’s offshore accounts the previous night.

  ‘You need to look at this,’ he said, tapping the first printout.

  Willemsen didn’t even blink.

  ‘Once a month Mulder was getting eight thousand euros paid into an offshore account,’ Bakker said. ‘We’ve traced the source. Menzo.’

  ‘A crooked cop’s your business. Not mine.’

  ‘Here.’ Vos placed a finger on the second statement. ‘Once a month he transfers four thousand euros over to you.’

  Willemsen calmly picked up the sheet and examined it.

  ‘Not me. That’s a party account. I don’t run it. I don’t even know what’s in there.’ She frowned, thinking. ‘From what I remember this is used for operating expenses. We get lots of individual donations. Every political party does. You should talk to our financial officer. He can explain—’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Bakker yelled. ‘You’ve got the biggest crook in Amsterdam paying you a monthly stipend. Like you’re . . . the phone company or something. What did he get for it?’

  ‘Mulder’s finances are nothing to do with me,’ Willemsen replied, head to one side as if puzzled, not flustered at all. ‘I slept with him from time to time. It was sex. Not friendship. We didn’t do a lot of talking.’

  ‘Three days after Menzo paid him you got your kickback,’ Vos said.

  ‘Lots of people make a monthly donation. I do it myself out of my own salary.’ She smiled and asked, ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Not even the start,’ Vos said. ‘Hendriks told us you went for the deal with Prins so you could kill De Nachtwacht from inside. You were placed there for that.’

  ‘He’s a fantasist. Totally delusional.’

  Bakker cut in, ‘He thinks these thugs you sent round were going to kill him.’

  She laughed at both of them.

  ‘You mean I’m a murderer too? Have you found these imaginary people I supposedly sent there? Do you have anything to corroborate what he says?’

  Vos had despatched a team down to the Amstel but they’d drawn a blank.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Willemsen said. ‘I will speak very slowly in the hope you might understand. Alex Hendriks is insane. Delusional. Pissed off I fired him. I’m offended you even give him the time of day. And this will go further. I promise.’

  She leaned back in her chair and stared at them.

  ‘You dragged me from my office because of the ramblings of a disgruntled employee? The fact one of your own officers was making a contribution to a political party? Which was his right by the way.’

  She picked up her briefcase, checked her watch, got up from the table.

  ‘Are you charging Hendriks over those videos he made? I hope so. I’m going to be talking to a lawyer too. About libel. About wrongful arrest . . .’

  ‘We didn’t arrest you,’ Vos said. He looked at the three untasted plastic cups in front of them. ‘We just invited you here for coffee.’

  She did smile at that.

  ‘You’re a funny man. I hope you’re still laughing tomorrow.’

  ‘You can’t walk away from this, Margriet,’ Vos told her.

  ‘There’s nothing to walk away from. And we’re not on first-name terms.’

  ‘Dirty money’s going into your campaign funds. Even if we can’t prove it went to you. We can show it went to your party. And those videos . . .’

  She sat down again.

  ‘Forget about the money, Vos. You’ve nothing there.’

  ‘The videos,’ Bakker repeated. ‘The trouble is . . . they’re so available these days.’

  ‘They haven’t leaked,’ Vos added. ‘Which is a small miracle, given at least one of them was in the hands of a reporter.’ He sighed. ‘The trouble is . . . I don’t know if I can guarantee they won’t get out there in the future. From here. From wherever else they happen to be.’

  Laura Bakker nodded in agreement.

  ‘Even if the money doesn’t get you,’ she said. ‘I don’t think Amsterdam’s going to warm to seeing its council leader humping two dead men on YouTube.’

  ‘You’re threatening me,’ Willemsen said, to Vos not her. ‘I thought you were smarter than that.’

  ‘I need to know about Mulder and the privehuis on the Prinsen. I think you went there. I think—’

  ‘Once,’ she snapped. ‘Once only and it was with Wim. Not Mulder. Your man was there already when we turned up. This was a couple of years ago when I was just coming into politics. It was supposed to be some kind of . . . I don’t know. An initiation. A meeting place for like minds. OK?’

  ‘With Prins?’ Bakker repeated.

  ‘That’s what I said. I think he was new to it too. Mulder fixed it.’ She shrugged, looked briefly regretful. ‘Middle-aged men in suits. Young girls in party dresses. Sitting on their laps mostly. And God knows what else went on upstairs. I didn’t stay to find out, and neither did Wim. If you . . .’

  Margriet Willemsen was lost for the right words and that seemed rare.

  ‘If you people had been doing your jobs . . . if you hadn’t been taking kickbacks . . . none of that would have gone on.’

  ‘Didn’t stop you taking Jimmy Menzo’s money,’ Laura Bakker said with a smile.

  ‘You start from where you are!’ Willemsen yelled. ‘Not where you’d like to be.’ Then more quietly. ‘Wim didn’t get that. He thought he could tear up everything and begin again. Life’s not like that. Everything’s a compromise. A negotiation. Anyone can make peace with their friends. It’s cutting a deal with your enemies that counts. That changes things. With Mulder around we could have reached an accommodation. No more visible brothels. No drugs near schools. Turn down the red lights a little.’

  She stopped. Had said too much and knew it.

  ‘I was trying to make things better in a way that was going to work. Believe it or not. Now we’re back to square one. With Menzo dead and Jansen God knows where . . . I don’t know who’ll be calling the shots. I will talk to your superiors about this, Vos. They’re not naive. They live in the real world. Not the fairy-tale one you people seem to inhabit.’

  He didn’t object when she went to the door. Bakker was starting to tick, demanding to know why.

  Vos sat in silence, running his fingers through his long, straggly hair. Then excused himself, went down the corridor, walked into the washroom, went into the first empty stall, made a long phone call, thought about the answers he got. Issued an instruction.

  Bakker was outside waiting for him.

  ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Anyone there?’

  ‘I went to the toilet.’

  ‘You’re up to something. Where’s your mate Van der Berg?’

  ‘Til Stamm. Why would a casual housemate of Katja Prins, someone who said she wasn’t even a friend, try to steal information on Katja’s father?’

  ‘She didn’t kill anyone,’ Bakker said. ‘Why are you bothering about her when that bloody woman—’

  ‘I don’t have time for this,’ he said and marched through to the next room, pulled Koeman out of the interview. He’d got nothing fresh from Alex Hendriks. The records he’d brought proved Willems
en had communicated with Mulder. That Mulder had contributed to the party funds. That was it.

  Vos leaned on the wall by the window, staring at the street outside, listening to the rattle of the pneumatic drills.

  ‘He wants protection?’ Koeman asked. ‘Does he get it?’

  A puzzled frown.

  ‘Of course not. I’d really like a decent coffee. Not from the machine. Forensic have got a new one . . .’ He looked at Bakker. ‘And some biscuits. What kind do they do these days? Can you fetch a list?’

  She was taking a deep and angry breath.

  ‘That was good,’ he added quickly. ‘The thing about the videos. She’ll be on the phone to the people above Frank right now. But what the hell . . . ?’ A tug of the long hair again. ‘I really need to know why Til Stamm would do a thing like that. Good coffee might help—’

  ‘I am not your waitress, Pieter Vos,’ Bakker declared.

  Koeman threw his hands in the air.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake I’ll fetch the coffee. You don’t get a biscuit list. Any news from the hospital?’

  Vos looked at his phone. A message from the officer there saying Katja Prins was ready to be discharged soon. She still hadn’t said a word. When they let her go she’d be staying with Liesbeth under medical supervision.

  ‘Two biscuits,’ he said. ‘No chocolate. I hate chocolate on biscuits.’

  Koeman stomped off. Bakker started to squawk again.

  ‘Quiet,’ Vos said. ‘I’m trying to think.’

  ‘It would be nice to be included.’

  ‘Depends what I’m thinking.’

  ‘I won’t give a damn when they kick me out of this place next week. I’ll go willingly and find a job working with normal people . . .’

  ‘Normal people will bore you, Laura. They do that.’

  A door along the corridor opened. Frank de Groot, red-faced, furious.

  ‘In!’ he shouted. ‘Both of you.’

  ‘I’m waiting for my coffee and biscuits, Frank,’ Vos objected.

  ‘In!’ the commissaris roared.

  12

  It wasn’t hard to find the place. Yellow sunflowers on the wall. One street behind the fragrant busy market where tourists paid through the nose for bulbs they’d never grow. Jansen stood outside in the cold, wondering what to do.

  A name. That was all he had. Nothing to link the American to Rosie. He didn’t even understand what the Yellow House was.

  Then a white Volvo estate parked clumsily along the road, a familiar figure got out and lumbered towards the building.

  Didn’t look at the big man with the dyed stubble darting into the shadows.

  Jansen fought for the name. He used to be good with these. Never forgot a face. Now it took a while.

  Van der Berg. A big, boozy friendly detective. Someone Jansen once thought might turn out to be flexible. But that was part of the act. In truth he was as stubbornly honest as his boss Pieter Vos. Who surely sent him here for a reason.

  13

  De Groot closed the door and told them to sit. Read a kind of riot act. About all the things they’d done wrong. How Margriet Willemsen was bringing down the wrath of distant gods.

  Vos listened patiently. Laura Bakker squirmed and twisted in her chair.

  ‘This,’ De Groot declared, ‘is where it finishes. I know there are holes. I want to hear what the Prins girl’s got to say just as much as you do. But it’s not going to change anything. We’ve got two names to put on the sheets. Mulder and Wim Prins. Both dead. I want that done. As far as the Willemsen woman’s concerned—’

  ‘She’s lying through her teeth,’ Vos intervened. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Maybe I do! But she didn’t kidnap Katja Prins. She didn’t murder that reporter or Rosie Jansen. Most of all we can’t prove a damn thing. You can’t . . .’

  Hendriks’s car with the suits near the Skinny Bridge had been spotted on CCTV. False plates, no IDs for the men inside. It looked suspicious but there wasn’t a single footprint back to city hall.

  ‘If we’ve got photos of them—’ Bakker started.

  ‘We can do what?’ De Groot asked. ‘Spend days finding them and then? They didn’t do anything. You don’t have a scrap of evidence to put her in the frame alongside Mulder. Or for corruption either.’

  He turned to Vos and asked, ‘Am I wrong?’

  ‘Probably not. You might want to pass the file to the anti-corruption people.’

  ‘That’s my call,’ the commissaris answered. ‘Not yours. I want to see the paperwork drawn up on Prins and Mulder. I want to be able to put out a statement. Case closed.’

  The two of them sat silent at that.

  ‘It’s not too much to ask,’ De Groot added. ‘I don’t see the point in chasing dead men. Leave Margriet Willemsen to me. And find Theo Jansen. If we can put him inside I’ll be able to sleep at night.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ Bakker said. ‘We still don’t know what happened to Anneliese. Why Mulder would have dumped Rosie on Vos’s doorstep—’

  ‘He was screwing with us!’ De Groot yelled. ‘He hated the idea Vos was back here. Maybe . . . I don’t know . . . thought it would be fun to give him some more pain. Do you think we’re going to find an answer to everything? Life’s not like that here. This isn’t . . .’

  ‘Dokkum?’ she asked. ‘Got that, thanks.’

  De Groot folded his arms. Kept quiet.

  ‘Can I see Katja Prins home first?’ Vos said. ‘She’s not talking but they say she can leave hospital. Liesbeth’s going to look after her. They both need some support.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be better off looking for Jansen?’ De Groot demanded.

  ‘We don’t have a clue where he is,’ Vos said. ‘No one does. Even his own men I suspect. Maybe . . .’ A thought. ‘Maybe Theo will find us when he wants to. He’s out there for Rosie. If we put out a statement saying Mulder shot her—’

  ‘Don’t be long,’ De Groot ordered. ‘I want that on the evening news.’

  Back in the corridor Laura Bakker said, ‘De Groot doesn’t like me.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Because he doesn’t.’

  ‘Frank’s in a corner,’ Vos told her. ‘The Willemsen woman’s causing him pain.’ He dragged on his old blue jacket. ‘Do you know what Barbara Jewell and the Yellow House do?’

  ‘Cure people? That’s what she claimed.’

  ‘Regression therapy,’ he said. ‘Heard of it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘That’s where you say hello to your monsters. And then you end up . . . clear and clean.’

  ‘Does it work?’

  ‘I don’t have any monsters,’ Bakker said straight off. ‘It’s just you complicated city folk . . .’

  Vos laughed.

  ‘What’s funny?’ she asked.

  ‘You.’

  ‘I can’t believe that Willemsen woman’s going to get away with this. You saw her. We both—’

  ‘Politics, Laura. Sane people stay clear. Frank’s right too. We don’t have anything to throw at her except a couple of bedroom videos and a few suspicious bank records. Let’s try to fix the world bit by bit, shall we? The easiest parts first.’

  She nodded, a brief smile at that.

  ‘So are we going to the hospital now? I’ll get a car.’ He glanced outside the window.

  ‘Too nice for that. I want some fresh air.’

  An exasperated sigh.

  ‘We can’t cycle all the way to Oosterpark. If we’re picking up Katja . . .’

  He waggled his bike keys and smiled. She glanced back at De Groot’s office. The door was closed.

  ‘So where are we really going?’

  ‘Mystery tour,’ Vos said.

  14

  Just before noon Van der Berg came out of the Yellow House, phone in hand, having a conversation he didn’t seem to like. The sun was close to warm. The street had a few tourists clutching flowers and stupid souvenirs: clogs and pointed white hats.

&nb
sp; There was a woman with the cop. Maybe forty, stockily built with dyed hair. She wore a mannish long black jacket and an expression of bafflement. Didn’t want to be with Van der Berg. Didn’t have a choice. That was obvious.

  While the two of them stood outside the house with the sunflowers, Van der Berg gently arguing, eyeing the Volvo, Jansen quickly ducked out into the sunlight, looked at the street. A cab was trundling along looking for business. He clicked his fingers, summoned it. By the time the driver got there Van der Berg was back at the Volvo opening the door for the woman Jansen assumed was Barbara Jewell.

  Jansen pointed at the white police car, said, ‘Wherever they’re going.’

  The driver hesitated.

  ‘Friends of mine,’ Jansen lied as he climbed in.

  ‘Then why don’t they give you a lift?’ the driver asked.

  Jansen threw a couple of fifties on the front seat.

  ‘That’s why.’

  The Volvo edged out towards the end of the street, looking for an opening in the busy traffic. The cab driver frowned, picked up the notes.

  Two cars distant they followed Van der Berg through the cars and trams.

  Then they got to the Prinsengracht and the police car bore left.

  One way down the southern bank, away from Marnixstraat. A long, leisurely drive. After a while the squat white barn-like shape of the Amstelkerk came into view with the green open space of the park beyond it. Children playing on the swings. Rosie had come here when she was little and Jansen a single father, trying to be the best parent he knew.

  Another white patrol car came and parked outside the burned-out building opposite. Jansen stared across the canal. He knew where he was going now. A place he should have visited long ago.

  15

  Two uniformed women officers took Katja and Liesbeth Prins from the hospital to the blackened shell of a building that was once the Doll’s House. They were waiting in the street with their wards in the car as Vos had instructed. Watched as he and Bakker leaned their bikes against the smoke-blasted railings, took out the set of keys he’d brought from Marnixstraat, removed the padlock and the chain and pushed open the new metal security door.