Come on, you self-indulgent old bastard, he chastised himself.
He tried to conjure the therapist’s earnest voice – You have the wisdom to deal with this, Paul. Stop trying to impose order on chaos. You gain more control by letting go. Trust that it will all come good.
Wise words reverberating uselessly around his head.
But what had been George’s counsel? Grow a pair, old man. He felt suddenly bolstered by her mantra, far harsher than that of any €200-an-hour therapist.
‘We need Kamphuis and Dekker behind bars before they can cover their tracks.’
‘You going to get the uniforms to do it?’ Elvis asked.
‘No. They’ll forewarn him. Kamphuis’ arse-kissing brigade has infested the whole force like dry rot. Uniforms can pick Dekker up, but we’ll get Kamphuis ourselves.’
‘What about Hasselblad?’
Van den Bergen shrugged. ‘We’ll have to sit on that. Right now, everything Gordon Bloom said is no more than hearsay. But Kamphuis…’ He grinned, feeling the euphoria licking along his synapses again like a creeping, warming flame. ‘Even if we don’t have enough to convict him, we can make the bastard squirm. This will ruin him, whatever happens, and if I go down, for whatever reason, I’ll make damn sure I take him with me for what he’s done.’
CHAPTER 57
Maldives, North Male Atol, four hours ahead
In the crystal-clear water, twenty metres beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean, Gordon Bloom felt detached from the filth of life. Tropical fish darted to and fro around him as he clung to the reef. Oriental sweetlips – striped and spotted, monochrome, but for those flashes of yellow. Parrot fish in petrol colours. Bluefin tuna, darting in angry shoals like fat serrated blades through the water. Resisting the strong current that had tried to drag his diving party further out into the deep. Hadn’t he always been swimming against the current? In life, as it was in the North Male Atol.
He laughed to himself. Bubbles rose from his breathing apparatus in a column of silver, an offering to the sea gods, heading upwards to the tropical glare of the surface. Turquoise waters here, so different to the brown swell of the North Sea that lapped against the disappointing shores of Margate – froth and pollution sitting on the surface like crocheted doilies on the occasional tables of that shit B&B Rufus had set up, frequented by those lesser souls who sought young flesh for comfort. But not here. None of that here.
A hand signal from the diving instructor. A fin on the forehead fashioned from his fingers. Four black-tipped reef sharks swam into view, each two- or three-metres long. It was a majestic sight. Built for speed. Built for violence. The perfect predators. Just like him.
When the wiry, dark-skinned crew on board the wooden dhoni had helped him to remove his oxygen tanks, once they were sailing back towards the island resort with sea spray spurting merrily up towards them, he popped his glass eye back into its socket. He seated himself on the platform at the prow, which curved skywards to a point like a wooden scimitar. Nice to be away from the noisy Italians and Germans who were on this dive with him. Enjoying the sun on his winter-white English skin. Checking the photos on his underwater camera. There were the sharks, grinning at him as though they recognized one of their own.
The signal returned to his phone as soon as the resort’s long, wooden jetty stretched into view. An immediate call disturbed the paradise peace. The name on the screen told him this was Rufus’ replacement. An educated voice belonging to a hungry young warrior, trained by Rufus in the subtle art of flying like a Son of the Eagle. As if Danny Spencer could ever have fulfilled that role and stepped into those hand-lasted boots. The fucking monosyllabic oik, still stinking of shit from the ghetto gutter!
‘Ah, Calum,’ Bloom said. ‘Salaam aleikum.’
‘Having a good break, Lord Bloom?’
‘Do call me Gordon, dear chap. Yes, the Maldives rather agrees with me. Now, did you manage to deal with those loose ends that have been bothering me so terribly?’
‘I have a skilled professional who will remedy both problems by the end of the week. He has the job in hand.’
The line crackled but the implications were clear. Gordon Bloom ended the call. Waved the dhoni crew away, he remained seated on the paint-peeling bench, contemplating the myriad of plastic fins and life preservers at his feet. The warm breeze on his face. The salt tang in the air. Lazy palms waving to him from the strip of white sand at the opposite end of the jetty. If only he could suspend himself in this perfect moment, like Damian Hirst’s shark, pickled in formaldehyde. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. But even Hirst’s shark had started to rot after a while. Even those majestic creatures circling the Indian Ocean reef would become fish food one day. Change was inevitable. He thought about the changes his plans were about to effect. Ripples out at sea, becoming tsunamis on the shore…
CHAPTER 58
Amsterdam, police headquarters, later
‘What the fuck do you mean you want to question me? Question me about what?’ Kamphuis’ face had quickly changed from its usual boiled-ham pink to the colour of young Gouda. Scattered across his desk were project plans, strategy documents and spreadsheets full of stats.
Van den Bergen looked down at the Commissioner: his nemesis for two decades. He couldn’t quite believe this might be the beginning of the end. ‘The Deenen children have been found.’
Insipid Gouda, quickly blanching further to the colour of zuurkool – a man made from pickled cabbage, cheese and cheap sausage in Van den Bergen’s mind’s eye. Stamppot gone rancid – the feast for the eyes portrait that surrealist Giuseppe Arcimboldo forgot to paint. Van den Bergen almost laughed at the thought. He decided he would give it a go once he got home and dug out his watercolour pad.
Kamphuis’ forehead beaded with sweat. He reached for his naked lady statue and started to rub her breasts furiously. His eye, ticking like the indicator on an old car. ‘Great,’ he said, unconvincingly, the word seeming to strangle him. ‘Where were they?’
‘Oh, I think you know where they were, Daddy Olaf,’ Van den Bergen said, remembering George’s description of the scene she and Marie had found.
‘Just be glad we’re not slapping cuffs on you in front of every cop in the building,’ Elvis said at his side, clearly emboldened by the sight of a crumbling Commissioner.
Kamphuis gripped the tabletop of his desk. White knuckles. A quivering chin. Suddenly, the brass buttons on his jacket had lost their shine. ‘I’ll sue you for defamation of character,’ he said, almost whispering, sounding like somebody had punched the air from his overinflated body.
‘Yeah, sure you will,’ Van den Bergen said, winking, knowing it would drive the morally bankrupt piece of shit mad, silently praying that Marianne de Koninck and her forensics team would find enough physical evidence of Kamphuis being party to the abduction to stop the snake from blaming it all on his mistress.
In the interview room, Kamphuis sat in silence for a full ten minutes, though the tape was rolling, perspiring with such intensity that the dry air quickly felt clammy. Once or twice, he opened his mouth, poised to speak. But when words came out, he simply demanded his solicitor. The moment that Van den Bergen had been dreading. The point at which he would have to confess that Marie had not had a warrant when she had broken into Dekker’s house with George.
George. How would she deal with this? Understanding people’s motivations. That’s how she pieced together an accurate view of the world, triggering an avalanche of truth from the most reluctant witnesses. A criminologist, rather than a trained psychologist, but young Dr McKenzie had an innate grasp of how narcissists like Kamphuis were bolted together. Think like George …
‘You know Hasselblad has been accused of consorting with transnational traffickers, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Paedophile rings. Corrupt luminaries. The whole works.’
Wide eyes. Narrowed eyes. Suddenly leaning forward, head cocked, as if this was welcome news. The hint of pink in Kamph
uis’ cheeks again. ‘Hasselblad?’ The hint of a smile, which was unexpected.
Van den Bergen nodded. He leaned back in the interview chair and bounced his right foot on his left knee. The bullet hole in his hip aching, but wanting to piss Kamphuis off made the pain worthwhile. ‘Are you knee deep in the same mire as the Chief of Police, Olaf? Have you been renting out the Deenen children to every pervert in the Netherlands?’ He deployed his best supercilious voice, normally reserved for talking to his son-in-law, Numbnuts. ‘Maybe Belgium and Germany too, eh? That’s a nice big house and an Audi Q7 you’ve got there. That’s not your police issue car, is it?’
Kamphuis thumped the table. ‘Hey! I’m no bloody paedophile, you lanky ball-sack!’
Van den Bergen slid his glasses onto the end of his nose and pretended to examine his notebook. School-teacher stern. Tut-tutting and shaking his head. ‘Hmn. Two missing toddlers found sitting in their own filth in your mistress’ house. Photographic evidence of you with Carlien Dekker. Clear links between you, Hasselblad, Jack Frost, dead paedos, a basement full of sexually abused Roma children, the Son of the Eagle …’
Every time he referred to paedophiles or child abuse, Kamphuis winced. There was his Achilles heel.
‘Shit sticks, Olaf. Especially when it comes from toddlers’ nappies, eh?’ He savoured every moment. Kamphuis started to pant heavily, nostrils flaring, as though the truth was trying to force its way out of his nose. ‘Why did you take the Deenens’ kids, Olaf? You can tell me, can’t he, Elvis?’ He turned to Elvis to evoke some kind of intimate, chummy triangle of trust. ‘We’re colleagues of old, here, aren’t we? We’ve been through the good times and the bad, together.’
Elvis nodded. A lingering look told Van den Bergen that he understood the game they were playing.
‘You shouldn’t blame yourself if you’ve been bullied into supplying kids to politicians and celebrities, Commissioner.’ Right then Elvis was the sincerest detective that ever lived. ‘Even the strongest of characters would—’
‘Fuck you!’
‘I can understand the lure of the money,’ Van den Bergen said. ‘And peer pressure. When a person’s weak, they’re more susceptible to—’
Kamphuis was up and out of his chair like an overweight greyhound suffering from terminal optimism. ‘I took the fucking children on purpose. Okay? It was my idea. I’m not weak!’ Slapped himself on the chest. A self-saluting tyrant. ‘I knew about Hasselblad, for Christ’s sake! I’ve known for years that he was taking backhanders from that English ponce, Gordon Bloom, in return for keeping shtum. I’m nothing like Jaap goddamn Hasselblad. He’s a bent cop!’
‘And abducting two toddlers is the act of a straight cop?’
Kamphuis sat back down in his seat with a thud that signified surrender. He pulled on his bottom lip, tears welling in his eyes. ‘This has taken a year of planning. A year! You have no idea.’
‘Why?’ Van den Bergen sat up straight in his chair, sombre like a priest, no judgemental edge to his voice, praying for a confession.
‘Gordon Bloom is a murderer who pays other murderers to kill people like me and you if we so much as sneeze in his general direction. He had the protection of Hasselblad, for Christ’s sake.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Years ago at some drinks thing. We were out with a couple of politicians. Lads, you know? A couple of them started boasting about how they were beyond the law. One-upmanship. Jaap got blotto, snorted a load of confiscated coke he’d liberated from evidence. He’d blurted a couple of things that had jarred, so I started looking into his chummy golfing relationship with Bloom. When me and Carlien got it together – he’d treated her like shit, so she was looking for a way to settle the score … Anyway, Carlien had a tonne of dirt to dish, not least because she’d done Hasselblad’s personal accounts. Offshore money, not to mention Hasselblad’s missus being on the board of some of Bloom’s subsidiaries. All laundered cash changing hands.’
‘So, why steal children? I don’t follow your thinking.’ The headache that Van den Bergen had started the day with was clearing fast, the sun coming out behind storm clouds. Everything was being brought sharply into focus in perfect light.
Kamphuis examined his fingernails, chewed the inside of his cheek and fixed Van den Bergen with accusatory eyes. ‘You. You with your cast-iron sense of right and wrong and your contrary ways and this stubborn-arsed feud between us. I knew if two perfect little Dutch kids went missing and if I forced you to investigate outlandish lines of enquiry, you’d start hunting for the nugget of truth wrapped in a pile of crap. The more I insisted it was the parents, the more I knew you’d defy me. You’re predictable like a child! Do you know that?’
Willing himself not to respond, Van den Bergen settled for clearing his throat.
‘And that tiring bitch McKenzie would definitely start looking at traffickers, because that’s her thing. I hate your fucking guts, Van den Bergen, but I know you’re a stubborn son of a bitch, and once you got the bit between your teeth, it wouldn’t take long before you happened on Bloom and Hasselblad’s seedy little goings-on. You were going to expose them for me. Do my dirty work. Worst-case scenario, you get bumped off by Bloom’s people. Best-case scenario, there’s a huge scandal in the national press, blowing the lid of this whole sick shebang. Bloom’s taken out one way or another. Hasselblad gets arrested and goes to prison. I get to be the new Chief of Police with his scalp hanging from my belt.’
Elvis tugged at his quiff, frowning. ‘I still don’t understand why you chose the Deenens.’
Kamphuis chuckled mirthlessly. ‘It was Carlien’s suggestion. Piet Deenen had her do his accounts as a favour soon after they moved in. He didn’t pay his bill. Big mistake. Then, Carly and me got talking late one night. I told her this crazy plan I had and that I was sick of being broke.’ He looked up at Van den Bergen with watery eyes. ‘I’m up to my neck in debt. Do you know how much more Hasselblad bloody earns than me?’ He wiped his top lip, which glistened with snot, on his ceremonial jacket sleeve. ‘But Carlien knew Gabi Deenen was a PR woman and would make a really big deal over it if her kids went missing. The family was dysfunctional with that Josh being such a head-banger and her being a fucking robot.’ Head in hands, he leaned forwards and started to sob now.
‘How would Gabi being in PR serve you, you demented prick?’ Losing his temper now, Van den Bergen had the urge to slap Kamphuis across that bloated, idiotic face of his.
‘The bigger the stir caused over the abduction …’
‘The bigger the plaudits if the case is solved on your watch,’ Elvis finished. He gave a low whistle, shook his head, and raised his eyebrows at Van den Bergen. ‘And if the Deenens had issues, it would make it easier to point the finger at them and get you haring off to conduct your own investigation on the side. Jesus, boss. Kamphuis was jerking you around like some kind of a puppet.’
But Van den Bergen was stroking the knuckles of his balled fist, biting his tongue. He wanted to rise above the testosterone impulses of an alpha male. Breathing deeply through his nose, he reminded himself that he was better than this arrogant, scheming fool on the other side of the interview table. He was a father. A soon-to-be-grandfather that he wanted his daughter to be proud of. In any case, the tape was running. This fucker had dug himself into a very deep hole.
‘Did you hurt the children?’
Kamphuis shook his head. ‘A bit of opulent neglect maybe. Carly showered them in toys and snacks. But otherwise, they were looked after.’
Fuck it. Van den Bergen stood and punched his nemesis hard in the side of his head.
Kamphuis rubbed his red ear, wearing a wounded expression. ‘Ow! What the hell was that for?’
Almost growling, Elvis had to drag Van den Bergen back into his seat.
‘You call leaving two children under the age of five – one with Asperger’s – leaving defenceless toddlers alone all day long opulent neglect? Do you?’ Van den Bergen was yelling now, spit flying fro
m his mouth, pointing, though really he just wanted to gouge Kamphuis’ pissy eyes out with his long, vengeful fingers. ‘Who was looking after them last night when you were boning Dekker in that motel? Eh?’
It was the first time Van den Bergen had ever seen Olaf Kamphuis looking properly contrite. Even when he had been caught on CCTV sexually harassing Marie, he had merely strutted around the HQ corridors, calling Marie a whore to anybody who would listen.
‘You’re a sociopath, Olaf,’ Van den Bergen said, folding his arms in an act of self-restraint. ‘Morally bankrupt. Can you imagine the anguish those poor bastards, Gabi and Piet Deenen, have been through?’
Tears drying already on his cheeks, Kamphuis sat back, staring Van den Bergen down. ‘Anguish?’ His voice was small but deadly. He took his jacket off carefully – his shirt was wet through – and hung it carefully on the back of his chair. ‘Do you think I give a shit about their anguish, when taking down a transnational trafficking empire and a corrupt Chief of Police is at stake?’ An askance look. ‘They were collateral damage! Anyway, they’re dead, aren’t they? Why the fuck should I care about their sensibilities now?’
Van den Bergen stood, raising himself to his full six foot five, and barked like an angry dog. ‘They’re not dead. They’re very much alive, you idiot! You think you’re so fucking clever, but you didn’t work out who your icicle-wielding serial killer might be?’
Kamphuis’ mouth fell open, genuine surprise crawling across his face. ‘I ordered you to get off the Deenens’ case and get on the Jack Frost trail when potential key witnesses started being bumped off.’ He swallowed audibly like a cartoon character. ‘But I didn’t think for a minute—’ He shook his head. ‘They were dead!’
The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows Page 33
