Before the Dawn

by Jake Woodhouse

  Now, years later, and given all that he’s seen, Jaap wonders why anybody would actually want to be frightened.

  Max is still working his phone. He’s probably the only person in the universe who’s left the clicker sound on for typing. Jaap’s not sure if he’s writing notes on the crime scene or just texting a friend, arranging a post-body drink.

  But, he decides, he doesn’t mind either way. Things will start soon enough. He thinks of the argument he’d had with Smit, adrenaline pitting them against each other. Smit’s tirade of accusations, Jaap’s robust defence of himself.

  Because he’d never be so sloppy.

  But was I? he thinks, going over it all again, trying to work out if the surge of anger he’d felt when he’d arrested Kamp had forced him into making mistakes which could have cost him his own, or Smit’s, life.

  A wave reaches out and strokes the sand. Jaap watches as it returns to the sea. Watches as one more comes to do the same. And another.

  Smit had been lucky, no question, Kamp’s shot going wide, allowing his boss to retaliate.

  And yet with that bullet, he realizes, standing here on the beach with the sea and the earth and the dark sky, his chance of finding out what really went on may have died.

  ‘So,’ Max says, putting away his phone, his face disappearing into the darkness. ‘Wanna see? We kept it fresh for you.’

  Max pulls out a torch, runs the beam along the sheet from the feet-end up, quietly singing the Jaws theme, da dum, da dum, da dum da dum then daaaaa as the light reaches the head and dances around in a frenzy. Jaap shoots his hand out, grasping Max’s wrist, forcing it still. Max gives in and holds the torch steady. In response Jaap releases his wrist as a uniform’s gloved hand reaches into the cold light and grips the end of the fabric.

  Jaap feels like looking away.

  The darkness all around is immense and suffocating at the same time, and he’s suddenly aware of his hands, heavy and ripe with blood.

  The glove whips away the sheet, the torch beam remaining steady.

  Jaap scans the body: a young woman, sandals, tight jeans ending just below the knee, and a sleeveless pink T-shirt with a cartoon kitten on the front, paw raised in a wave, head cocked to one side, eyes slits.

  Her arms are behind her back, forcing her torso off the ground so that for a second Jaap thinks of a woman doing yoga on the beach.

  He looks at the head.

  ‘Nasty, isn’t it?’ Max says.

  But Jaap hardly hears, sound receding into the background like he’s just plunged head first into the nearby sea.

  He moves in closer, feels the magnetic push and pull of death.

  In the victim’s mouth is some kind of round plastic tube, though it’s not hollow, the end covered with a narrow lattice. Silver tape wraps round her head, holding the tube in place, making a perfect seal round her mouth, and another stretch of tape completely covers her nose. Another young woman, killed in a different way, but ultimately the same: being deprived of the oxygen the body needs to burn fuel efficiently.

  None of this is conclusive, he tries to tell himself. Not unless she tests positive for scopolamine.

  But somehow he just knows what the report will say, can see it already, the positive mark next to the name of the substance he’d not even heard of three months ago.

  He squats down, getting a closer look, the toes of his shoes slowly sinking into the sand, moistened by earlier waves.

  ‘Bloods?’

  ‘Pulled earlier. They were due to be picked up by the chopper which dropped you off. Results back in the morning.’

  Jaap holds out his hand and Max places the torch in it. Jaap grips it overhand-style, and brings it closer to the woman’s head.

  He’s starting to make sense of it, even though part of his mind is resisting.

  ‘You know what it is?’ Max asks, jolting Jaap back.

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ Jaap says, straightening up, feeling the vast void in his stomach. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It’s a valve,’ Max says. ‘A one-way valve.’

  ‘So you’re saying …’ Jaap says, not wanting to hear it.

  ‘I’m saying …’ Max pulls out a cigarette and attempts to light it, cupping his hand round the Zippo to stop the flame writhing around like it’s in pain. He finally gets it lit and looks straight at Jaap. ‘I’m saying she could only breathe out.’

  4

  ‘So you’re the hotshot?’

  Station Chief Wieland Stuppor is a single syrupwaffel away from a major coronary event.

  And the fact that Jaap’s been parachuted, almost literally, into his island fiefdom doesn’t seem to be helping much.

  They’re outside the island’s station, a building Jaap has yet to set foot in, but he can tell from where he’s standing that it’s little more than a converted bungalow with a blue POLITIE sign tacked on to the wall.

  The night is cooler here than the sweltering density of Amsterdam. The welcome too is turning out to be downright frosty.

  ‘Inspector Rykel,’ Jaap says, holding out his hand.

  Stuppor doesn’t take it. He has a face like a statue from an island thousands of miles away in another ocean. An island, Jaap remembers, where the population were so smart they used up all the resources available to them and ended their genetic legacy by killing each other off completely. Jaap imagines the last one alive, howling into the darkness on an island devoid of food, and with no trees left to build an escape raft.

  ‘I’ll need everything you’ve got so far,’ he says, retracting his unshook hand.

  Midnight can’t be far away and he still doesn’t know where he’ll be sleeping. Stuppor stares at him for a moment then nods him inside. Jaap follows, past the front desk, which isn’t manned, and into the main room at the back. Three more desks – two of which are being driven by uniforms – and morgue-like strip lights that hang from the ceiling and illuminate the general air of decay.

  Through a door is Stuppor’s office, which looks out onto the car park at the back and two cones of light shining down the wall of a building on the far side. They go in and Stuppor settles behind his desk.

  Jaap looks around for something to sit on.

  He’s somehow not surprised when he comes up with nothing.

  This is just petty.

  Then again, he figures there’s a reason Stuppor’s ended up in charge of an island where birds outnumber the population ten to one. Not that he really knows anything about the place; he just assumes from what little he’s seen of it in the last few hours that it probably is the kind of terrain where wildlife makes a bigger contribution to the carbon cycle than humans.

  ‘Here’s what we know—’ starts Stuppor.

  Jaap walks out. He selects the free chair, which happens to be at the furthest desk, and drags it across decaying lino the colour of used dishwater. One of the men, heavily tanned and not looking like police at all except for the uniform, jerks off a bit of air and nods his head towards Stuppor’s office.

  As Jaap tries to get it through the narrow doorway he gouges the door frame with a chair leg. Dry paint flakes off, showering the floor.

  ‘Oops,’ he says, positioning it opposite Stuppor’s desk.

  He sits down.

  ‘You were saying?’ he prompts. He wishes he had a syrupwaffel to offer Stuppor.

  ‘Body was discovered at 13:12,’ Stuppor says after a power-game pause. ‘Young couple going for a romantic stroll.’

  From Stuppor’s tone it sounds like he regards a romantic stroll as somewhat akin to a full BDSM orgy with a hefty dose of transgender chem-sex thrown in for good measure. He shuffles some paper on his desk, eventually finding what he’s after and holding it out to Jaap, forcing him to lean forwards.

  It’s a transcript of the call, and a few sheets detailing the first officer to the scene’s notes. He glances through it before dropping it back on Stuppor’s desk.

  ‘Says here the victim was wearing a bracelet with the name “Heleen” engraved o
n it. Has she been ID’d yet?’

  ‘No. We’re checking that now.’

  Jaap spots a map on the wall to his right and turns to scrutinize it. The island’s a thin, lazy sickle shape, one of a chain broadly mirroring the shape of the mainland. The west coast, where the body was found, faces out into the North Sea; Oost-Vlieland, the only ferry port, sits on the east coast, sheltered from the tide and prevailing winds.

  ‘How frequent are the ferries to the mainland?’

  ‘This time of year, every couple of hours.’

  Given his perfunctory answers, Jaap feels like Stuppor’s not totally invested in the process.

  ‘Say the killer wanted to get across the island quickly, how long would it take for them to get to Oost-Vlieland?’

  ‘If they had a bike they could do it in about half an hour.’

  ‘By car?’

  ‘Visitors to the island can’t have cars, only residents are allowed them.’

  ‘And you’re sure it’s not a resident because …?’ asks Jaap. ‘Actually, what I’m more interested in are the people who were booked on the ferries set to depart after the body was found – where did you keep them?’

  Jaap sees that it might not even take a syrupwaffel to do the business. He also feels that he’s getting to the bottom of Stuppor’s lack of co-operation.

  ‘OK, you’re telling me you didn’t stop the ferries,’ Jaap says, not even framing it as a question. Because he knows the answer, both to that and the reason for the warm welcome.

  Nobody likes to be caught out on a colossal fuck-up.

  Which is, Jaap can see, exactly what’s happening here.

  The image of Kamp dying on the road with only one cuff done up makes a brief appearance, aligned with the word ‘fuck-up’. He pushes it aside just as Stuppor comes clean.

  ‘There was a ferry which departed at 15:00 for Harlingen. Unfortunately it wasn’t stopped,’ Stuppor says. ‘The person responsible has been reprimanded.’

  Jaap decides he needs to check just how long the surveillance team lost sight of Kamp for.

  ‘Well,’ he says, getting up, ‘that’s good. Looks like we’re going to have some fun here. Where am I staying tonight?’

  Stuppor smiles for the first time since Jaap met him. ‘Don’t worry, that’s all taken care of,’ he says, gesturing to the door.

  The reason for the smile soon becomes obvious. Turns out he’s staying somewhere which doesn’t even hold one star.

  The island’s cell block. Which contains two cells, both of them empty.

  ‘Tourist season,’ shrugs Stuppor as he shows Jaap to the nearest one, where a fresh set of towels is folded neatly on the solid bed. ‘The whole island’s booked out for the summer holidays.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Jaap says. ‘Looks comfortable.’

  5

  So comfortable he decides to head out for a walk.

  He hits the main road, a stretch of tarmac with no centre line and edges decaying into the sandy grasslands all around. It’s deserted, and doesn’t have any street lights. The stars are bright though, and the tip of a fat moon is just oozing off the horizon, spilling a greasy yellow slick onto the dark water separating the island from the mainland. He can hear the distant surf as well, a kind of muffled roar.

  It’s idyllic, a million miles away from the jumbled solidity of Amsterdam’s centre.

  Jaap thinks of the girl on the beach, the one-way valve taped into her mouth.

  Suddenly he’s not sure he likes idyllic.

  He checks his phone, hoping for a message from Tanya. There isn’t one, so he sends her a text. The progress bar falters halfway, hangs there for ages before zooming to the end in a fit of enthusiasm.

  He’s missing Tanya, hopes she’ll be posted back to Amsterdam soon. They’re going to have to start preparing, a big change coming their way. It strikes him suddenly that the change may be bigger than either of them thinks.

  His phone goes off and he pulls it out, expecting to see Tanya’s face on the screen. But it’s an Amsterdam number he doesn’t recognize.

  ‘Inspector Rykel, I’m Chief Superintendent Laura Vetter,’ a voice tells him. ‘I believe you were involved in an incident earlier in the day, the death of a suspect, Franceso Kamp. Is that correct?’

  Jaap’s suddenly aware of the back of his neck.

  ‘There was an incident earlier today,’ he concedes, wondering why he feels on full alert all of sudden.

  ‘Right. Well, as you know the death of a member of the public caused by a police officer is a serious matter, and I’ve been tasked with looking into this.’

  ‘Kamp wasn’t a member of the public, he was a murderer.’

  ‘Not until he’s been convicted in a court of law.’

  ‘He’s dead, so I guess that’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Precisely, which is why I have to get to the bottom of this.’

  Jaap had once gone to an exhibition of M. C. Escher’s work; he remembers the staircases leading back round to each other. He takes a deep breath before replying.

  ‘OK, what do you need?’

  ‘We’ve already taken a statement from Station Chief Henk Smit, and I need to take a statement from you as well. Then we can go from there. However, I’ve heard that you’re in the middle of a case and you’re out of town this evening, so we can meet tomorrow at ten a.m. at your station. Does that suit?’

  Not really, no, thinks Jaap as he hangs up, having agreed. He doesn’t even know if he’ll be off the island by then. In fact, all things considered, it seems highly unlikely, but he decides he’ll deal with that in the morning.

  He goes over the whole scene again in his mind, trying to work out how he’d managed not to do the cuffs up properly. And the gun. How could he have missed it?

  Fucking idiot, he thinks.

  Headlights appear out of the darkness behind him and for a few moments his shadow shows him to be a towering giant. He feels like putting his hands up beside his head and growling like a beast from a kids’ horror story.

  Instead he steps off the road and the car slows, pulls up beside him. A window cranks down and Jaap recognizes the tanned uniform from earlier. Except he’s no longer in uniform.

  ‘Hey,’ the man says, leaning out the window. ‘I’m Arno Janssen, didn’t get introduced earlier.’

  ‘Jaap Rykel,’ Jaap says as they soul-shake awkwardly through the car’s window.

  ‘Thought you’d be staying in, enjoying your accommodation.’

  ‘It’s kind of luxury overkill,’ Jaap says. ‘Your boss going through the male menopause or something?’

  Arno laughs, puts the car into neutral, the engine shifting pitch. Jaap notices the hand on the gearstick has a tiny glowing ember floating just above it.

  ‘Don’t think you can blame it on hormones,’ Arno says. ‘I think he’s got asshole coded in his DNA.’

  ‘A wise man once told me you only need one asshole in your life. More than that’s just not necessary.’

  ‘Agreed. C’mon, you can stay at my place. Long as you don’t mind a sofa.’

  ‘A sofa will be just fine.’

  The glowing tip isn’t a cigarette, Jaap discovers when he gets in.

  ‘Uh …’ Arno says, holding up the blunt, ‘I’m off duty.’

  ‘Yeah, but they stopped that a while back, didn’t you hear? They said that police officers have a duty to uphold morality even when off duty.’

  ‘Morality, fuck. It’s just cannabis, not krokodil.’

  Jaap stares at him, reaches out and takes it. He notices the tattoo on Arno’s wrist, a circle of intertwining thorns. He winds his window, the car so old it has to be done manually. It creaks on the way down.

  ‘Don’t, that’s the last of my—’

  Jaap lifts the blunt up to the window space. He takes a hit. A big one.

  He’s not done it for years, not his kind of scene. But the day’s been shit, and he feels like he needs some help with it. He keeps the smoke in his lungs, the urge to c
ough growing urgent, but just about manages to hold it down.

  He hands it back. ‘Fuck it,’ he says, blowing an aromatic stream of smoke out the window, ‘we’re not paid for twenty-four hours, are we?’

  ‘No,’ Arno says, putting the car into gear and lurching it forward. ‘No, we’re not.’

  Jaap discovers the seat he’s in is actually quite comfortable, the world seems softer suddenly, more rounded, and he finds himself relaxing into it, enjoying the movement as the car heads into the night.

  He starts to feels more welcome.

  6

  ‘Fucker,’ Bart says. ‘Where is he?’

  Kees Truter takes one last hit, holding the smoke in till he feels the burn. He releases it, and flicks the cigarette away, ignoring Bart’s question.

  The flaring orange tip spirals in the darkness before extinguishing in the water below. He thinks of a fish, darting up as if alerted to a fly, cold lips clamping round the sodden butt.

  You’re welcome, he addresses the fish telepathically.

  He’s found he’s losing the taste for smoke, but he’s not sure why.

  Maybe it’s the drugs, he thinks.

  Beside him Bart shifts, releasing the deep animal funk of old leather. Kees feels tired and wired. It’s been a rough few days, three jobs in a row, and they had to break off at the last minute yesterday and race up to Amsterdam-Zuid, where he’d been told to sit tight in the car Bart had stolen especially – the one Kees had had to drive like his job description said ‘Chauffeur’ – whilst Bart went inside the house.

  Kees is used to being kept in the dark, it’s only natural. It takes time to get deep undercover, and it’s not a process you want to rush. One false move leaves you exposed, and Kees has absolutely no desire for that to happen here. As it stands, on Station Chief Henk Smit’s guidance, he’s been working his way into Van der Pol’s gang for the last year, inching closer to his ultimate goal.

  But yesterday had been a reminder that he’s still got a way to go.