The House of Dolls

by Hewson, David

  He stood with Bakker and watched them leave.

  ‘Only one lawyer I can think of,’ she said when everyone was gone.

  She held up her phone again: the address was there already. Not far away.

  ‘You might have told me about that sock.’

  He frowned.

  ‘What sock?’

  She folded her arms.

  ‘Katja’s sock?’

  ‘Oh that? I made it up. It’s one of mine.’

  A pause then she said, ‘And you’ve still got Jansen’s gun.’

  ‘I know.’ He stuffed the weapon into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘We’ll take the bikes.’

  19

  Almost two and the sun spoke of summer. Locals cycling in a determined fashion along the track between footpath and road. Vos and Bakker were headed for a quiet back street in the Canal Rings. Closing on Leidseplein. He pedalled quickly, steadily. She kept up all the way.

  As they rounded the corner to the square she said, ‘I don’t suppose this is a slip of the memory, Vos. But shouldn’t we call for help?’

  ‘You’d think that.’

  He was sure she tut-tutted then.

  ‘Yes, actually. I would. I mean . . .’

  Vos heaved on the brakes, both feet on the floor, just managing to avoid a couple of tourists dawdling in front of them. Bakker came up beside him, stomped her big black boots on the ground. Waited for an answer.

  ‘Did you have a doll? When you were little?’

  She winced. Almost blushed.

  ‘Just the one. I wasn’t really into dolls.’

  ‘You don’t say?’

  ‘To be honest I hated the bloody thing. But my uncle bought it. Which shows how well he knew me. I really didn’t want to hurt—’

  ‘Have you still got it?’ he interrupted.

  Bakker laughed out loud. So much a couple of tourists stopped and gawped.

  ‘If I didn’t want a doll in Dokkum I’d hardly need one here, would I?’

  She got ready to pedal off. He wasn’t done.

  ‘But did you throw it away?’

  She thought for a moment.

  ‘Well . . . no. I don’t think so. It’s at . . .’

  ‘Auntie Maartje’s?’

  ‘Aren’t you the clever one? I wouldn’t chuck out something like that, would I? You don’t do that with dolls. You . . .’

  Her hand went to her mouth. Her eyes were wide open.

  ‘You said this once before and I wasn’t really listening. You keep them.’

  ‘You keep them,’ Vos agreed.

  Then pedalled on.

  20

  A lawyer’s house in a quiet street overlooking a peaceful stretch of still canal. Pale brick, tall windows, four storeys tall, a swinging hook on the gable roof. Red geraniums by the shiny black front door.

  On a low bridge nearby a herring stall was open for business. One customer alone, chatting to the man in a white coat behind the counter. A quiet, lazy, affluent corner of the Canal Rings. A mansion probably three hundred years old, the walls thick and impenetrable.

  By the front steps a few sacks of cement, a mixing board, scraped grey mortar.

  Vos got there first, threw his bike onto the pavement, strode up the steps, put his finger on the bell. Kept it there.

  Bakker close behind him. She looked around. Thought about the house. Big place for one man.

  There was a smell too. Fresh paint and plaster.

  Still Vos kept his finger on the bell. An angry voice from behind the black painted wood. Middle class, middle-aged.

  The door came slowly open, just ajar.

  Michiel Lindeman didn’t look the way he did when he was working. No grey suit. No slicked-back hair. He was in grubby stained overalls, flecks of white and grey on his shoulders. The building smell about him.

  ‘What’s this?’ the lawyer asked.

  Vos just stood there, looked at him. Bakker leaned against the shiny frame. Smiled.

  One moment and that was all it took. The man’s face fell, went from angry and resentful to terrified. He was trying to slam the door but Vos’s elbow was there already. Lindeman began yelling something about warrants when Vos put his shoulder to the wood, Bakker joining him, the two of them forcing the lawyer back inside.

  A light entrance hall, a chandelier, paintings, thick carpet. Sacks of sand and cement against the right-hand wall. Lindeman had stumbled under the force of their sudden entrance. Crouched on the floor, making threats, starting to wheedle and whine.

  ‘Close the door,’ Vos ordered and so she did.

  Then he took out Theo Jansen’s gun.

  21

  In the dark she sits, hands on lap, fingers playing with the fabric of tiny pink and white squares.

  That’s all she can move now. All he’s left her.

  My little doll . . .

  How many times had he said that? How many times had she fought?

  Pink gingham pinafore frock. Soft cotton puffy sleeves. A halter neck.

  The black patent shoes are gone. The dress is frayed, too small for her.

  No longer the expectant, innocent schoolgirl. Now she knows. Now she sees, even with the blindfold over her eyes, the thick black tape across her mouth.

  The room is full of dust and darkness.

  My little doll, goodbye.

  No light, only cold. The vile plastic blocks her nostrils, covers her mouth. Coarse fabric scratches at her eyes.

  Kindness, he said.

  This was the best he could do.

  Love of a precious sort.

  And then she was alone. For the first time, it felt, since she walked alone into the place on the Prinsengracht one sunny day a lifetime ago. Thinking this was nothing more than a stupid experiment born of boredom and resentment. That soon she’d persuade her mother to let her go to Bloemendaal aan Zee, the party and the beach. Be with someone of her own age. Not sad and desperate old men in shiny suits.

  Memories.

  Tea laced with something else. Meagre meals served on a simple plastic tray while she listened to his stories, his pleas, his apologies. Trying to black out the sudden furious rush, the need, the violent, desperate lunge, hands tearing at her, at his own clothes too.

  Afterwards he’d weep. Talk of love. But that wasn’t for her. It was for the costume. The pretty pink fabric. The billowing dress. The memories of something lost before he could claim it. She didn’t exist. Only the doll did. And that wasn’t human at all.

  Trapped inside the basement cell he’d made she’d daydream. Recall the easy, comforting tedium of home. A TV programme, some music. A lost toy. The stupid doll’s house her father bought then put away for storage when she laughed at it. At him.

  These memories, both sweet and painful, fill her tired and troubled head. He’d fed her something that morning. It was different. Not funny tasting tea. An orange juice, sweetly metallic. She’d taken a sip, looked at him. Saw the guilt and sorrow on the only face she’d known of late.

  Pink bed. Pink sheets. Pink pillows.

  How long had she been here?

  She didn’t know. Her head was aching, roaming.

  Dreams.

  One came now with such sly and vivid detail it felt real.

  She was floating somewhere near the ceiling, like a small creature hiding in a high, safe corner. Beneath she could see a young girl strapped to a chair, drugged and blindfolded, mouth taped, locked in a sealed and airless room decked out in a single colour. Not frightened as the poison started to rush and roar through her feeble veins. Not worried any more. Just grateful that this endless night was coming to a close.

  Aware too that a storm was gathering somewhere, above her, not near, not distant.

  Sounds she’d never heard before in this new, small life. Other voices, angry desperate ones.

  Shouts. Cries.

  Then the short and cataclysmic roar of something like thunder.

  22

  Michiel Lindeman cowered on the floor in his
grubby overalls, looking up at them, scared and furious.

  ‘Where’s your warrant?’ he yelled. ‘You can’t do this—’

  ‘This is the warrant,’ Vos said, took one step forward, pointed the barrel of the black pistol straight into the lawyer’s face, raised it, loosed a bullet at nothing. ‘Where is she?’

  Bakker was beside him, looking round, doing what he was supposed to: thinking, reasoning, imagining.

  Lindeman, no fool, got himself into a crouch, put his hands round his knees, screwed up his weasel face and said, ‘What?’

  ‘My daughter. You took her from that privehuis. Where is she?’

  ‘You’ve lost your mind again, Vos,’ the lawyer muttered and shook his head. ‘This time you’ll pay for it.’

  The gun was back on him, closer now.

  ‘Pieter,’ Laura Bakker said quietly. Reached out with her hand, guided it away. ‘I think maybe—’

  ‘Where is she?’ Vos bellowed. ‘It was you at the Poppenhuis. Rosie Jansen said so—’

  ‘Rosie Jansen’s dead,’ Lindeman yelled. ‘Are you crazy enough to talk to corpses now?’

  Vos nearly lost it then. Would have done if Bakker hadn’t dragged Lindeman to his feet. Said in a cold, determined voice, ‘We’re looking round this place, mate. Everywhere.’

  Then kicked and shoved him down the hall.

  Sitting room, living room. Kitchen. Bathroom.

  On the floor above an office, a small home cinema. Bedrooms, spare rooms. Empty spaces full of junk.

  Three more storeys. Twenty minutes.

  Not a sign of anything out of place. No woman’s clothes. Not a picture of a doll. Nothing young at all. Just room upon lavish room in a solitary middle-aged lawyer’s Canal Rings mansion.

  Lindeman kept getting more confident with every fruitless step.

  At the end they were back in the hall. The lawyer was throwing around heavier threats, demanding they leave, promising to call De Groot. The gun hung loose in Vos’s hand. Options lost. Ideas absent. Nothing to imagine except the worst: she was gone, disappeared, dead somewhere he’d never know.

  Laura Bakker walked behind the two of them and started to examine the bare fresh plaster there. Put a finger to it.

  ‘This is still damp,’ she said. ‘Amateur-hour stuff. My uncle’s a builder. You’re rubbish at it, Lindeman.’

  ‘If I want your opinion—’ the lawyer started.

  ‘You’re getting it anyway. Why’s a man like you doing this?’

  ‘Money,’ he said with little conviction.

  Vos came and looked. He knew nothing about buildings. Couldn’t even work on his own boat.

  ‘The rest of this wall’s fine,’ Bakker said, walking along, rapping on the plasterwork. ‘Why do just this bit?’ She looked at the tools and empty bags on the floor. ‘And all this stuff you’ve got? It’s for more than that.’

  ‘I want you gone,’ Lindeman said. ‘When I talk to De Groot—’

  ‘Ooh, not big, bad Frank. That’s scary,’ Bakker said then pulled a pickaxe from behind the cement-stained wheelbarrow along the wall.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ the lawyer asked.

  She smiled and swung it long and hard, fetched the sharp end into the fresh plaster. Once. Twice.

  Looked at Vos and said, ‘There’s a door behind this. He’s got a basement down there I reckon, and he’s blocking it up.’

  Lindeman made for the front of the house. Vos tripped him, caught him by the collar, took the pickaxe, gave her the gun, told her to watch him.

  The plaster was wet and soft. After a few blows he could tear it off with his hands, ripping long lines and curls until they littered the floor.

  The door behind was black, painted recently. Bronze handle. Locked.

  He looked at Lindeman, asked for the keys.

  ‘I’ll see you in jail,’ the lawyer said. ‘Assault. Illegal entry. This is my home . . .’

  Bakker pocketed the gun, found a sledgehammer amidst the tools, took three long powerful swings, shattered the fitting, kicked it open.

  A light switch behind. Vos grabbed Lindeman. Took him with him, hit the button.

  A fluorescent tube below flickered into life. Long stairs. Bare stone. Laura Bakker ran down the steep steps.

  ‘It was a wine cellar,’ Lindeman said wearily. ‘I didn’t need it any more. The damp—’

  ‘Vos!’ Bakker shouted from below. ‘There’s another wall he’s blocked up here. Probably did it this morning by the looks of things.’ She nosed around. ‘And there’s wine too.’

  She returned to the bottom of the bannister, letting the hammer hang loose by her side.

  ‘You must have been in a big hurry. Shutting off this place before you could even take out your booze.’

  Vos grabbed the pickaxe with one hand, the lawyer with the other. Down the steps, pushing Lindeman in front of him. A long flat facing wall. Plaster in the middle, a tall rectangle still fresh enough to show damp stains in places. He put his ear to it, heard nothing.

  ‘This is a big mistake,’ Lindeman said. ‘You don’t know—’

  ‘Shut up,’ Bakker said and took a swing at the wall.

  The sledgehammer bounced off easily. Vos let go of the man, heaved with the pickaxe. Kept swinging, blow after blow. Was aware she’d dropped the hammer now and was dashing in between, ripping at the thick brown shreds. Aware that Lindeman was slinking away too.

  ‘Get him,’ Vos ordered and went back to work.

  There was a rhythm to it. A steady pulse that took away his thoughts.

  A noise from above. A shout. A scream. Vos glanced back, saw Bakker and Lindeman on the stairs. She fetched him a kick with her big right boot straight into the shin, sent the lawyer flying down the steps, turning, rolling, shrieking to the cold hard floor.

  ‘Oops,’ Bakker said when she got to the bottom. There was a length of wire cable in her hands. She wrapped it round the lawyer’s wrists, tied the end to the bannister rail. Came back, started heaving the sledgehammer alongside him.

  Mindless work. Repetitive. The only thing he wanted right then.

  She was the first through, almost fell on her face as the hammer broke another wooden door hidden behind new plaster. One more lock to be shattered. A final obstacle to be removed.

  Then they stood there breathless, Lindeman whimpering somewhere, apologies, excuses. Nonsense about love and devotion and how no one really understood.

  Laura Bakker put down the hammer.

  ‘Trouble is, mate . . . they do.’

  Vos kicked through the black wood, reached in, found a light switch on the left, flipped it.

  Pink, he saw. Pink walls. Pink carpet. Pink chair. Pink bed. And something else.

  A shape on a chair, bound to it with rope. Head slumped forward. Blonde hair. Slight figure. Childish pink and white gingham dress.

  ‘Anneliese,’ he whispered and walked inside.

  PART FIVE

  NINE DAYS LATER

  1

  Summer arrived early. The morning cyclists along the Prinsengracht were in shirts and shorts and skirts, sunglasses on their heads as they went about their daily rounds, pedalling beneath the green lime trees.

  Vos’s boat was still a mess. There’d been other cares. Dealing with the aftermath of his invasion of Michiel Lindeman’s mansion and the ensuing arrest. Seeing both the lawyer and Jansen into court and jail where they’d remain. The same process for Katja Prins and Barbara Jewell. They were out on bail on manslaughter and blackmail charges, headed for a suspended sentence from a judicial system that was already showing signs of sympathy. And probably the same for Suzi Mertens who was with Jansen when Vos went to interview him in prison. Arguing his case. Closer perhaps than the man himself wanted. But Vos was glad to see her there.

  The fallout had provided a field day for the papers. A bent cop. Warring gangsters. A dead politician and his partner, a crooked city lawyer who’d groomed and made captive the daughter of the detect
ive in charge of tackling organized crime. And most of all the discovery that Anneliese wasn’t dead at all. A miracle of a kind. It was made for the headlines.

  Margriet Willemsen remained vice-mayor of the city council, unchallenged, untainted largely. Alex Hendriks had fled, taking a large pay-off to London to look for another job, a different life.

  Then the media moved on to other stories. There was only so much scandal Amsterdam could take. What remained best suited criminals, be they lawyers or dead police officers, not a hard-bitten woman politician who seemed to have an answer for everything.

  De Groot had dropped the investigation into Mulder’s – and Menzo’s– illicit payments. That was the price of turning a blind eye to the illegal entry into Lindeman’s house.

  Vos wasn’t minded to argue. Anneliese was free, slowly emerging from her imprisonment and the sedative Lindeman had given her. Beneath the pain and passing bewilderment she was still the daughter he knew: bright, inquisitive, determined. But different too in ways Vos struggled to appreciate. There was a gap between father and daughter, even without this extraordinary hiatus. Her relationship with Liesbeth was closer, more intense, complex and difficult at times.

  There would be thoughts they’d share he’d never hear about. He didn’t worry or mind. His daughter would, the doctors assured them, recover one day. The scars of Lindeman’s doting incarceration might take years to heal. Even with help and counselling a few might never disappear entirely, not that he wanted to think about that right now. But she was alive, and the legal side of the case could proceed without her. Lindeman would plead guilty on grounds of insanity, arguing that he was himself the victim of an obsessive, selfless form of love. There would be no need for witnesses, cross-examinations in court. She would at least be spared that.

  He sat on a rickety old stool on the boat deck, between the dying roses and a few pots of herbs, Sam at his feet. The little dog was excited by the presence of someone young, listening to the footsteps echo through the cabin below. She was with Liesbeth, the two of them talking in low voices. Rootling around the boat she’d found the old doll’s house and to his relief had been able to laugh at it. Thrown at him the old accusation: How could you? Don’t you know me at all?