Before the Dawn

by Jake Woodhouse

  He turns towards her.

  She looks up.

  And recognizes his face, the scar tissue almost forcing the man’s eye closed.

  69

  They’re soon out of the city, driving fast along the A12, the sun low behind them, dazzling off the road signs ahead.

  Jaap’s driving now. They had to stop for petrol. All cars are supposed to leave with a full tank but somehow this one hadn’t.

  ‘How far away now?’

  Arno’s tracking their progress on his phone. ‘Just under forty kilometres. How fast are we going?’

  Jaap checks the needle. ‘Hundred and sixty, slightly over.’

  ‘So if we’re doing that, and it’s forty Ks away …’

  ‘It’s like one of those maths exam questions they used to ask at school, you any good at that kind of thing?’

  Arno tries to work it out in his head. ‘No,’ he says after a few moments.

  ‘Right, me neither. I’m going to see if this can go any faster.’

  They’d alerted a local patrol but told them to stay away until called for. Nobody wants them crashing in there and ruining their chances of getting Haanstra.

  ‘You think this is another one, another killing?’

  ‘The location fits the pattern,’ says Jaap, putting his foot down. ‘So yeah, I do.’

  The needle swings higher, Jaap feels the road through the steering wheel.

  Twenty minutes later, Jaap’d had to slow once off the motorway, they’re there. The coordinates point to a quarry, disused, and there are four approach roads. They’ve already picked the one most likely to give them cover; it weaves through a bank of trees south of the quarry. Where the road ends, a track continues through the copse. He parks, the car hidden from view, and they set out on foot. The ground rises as the trees thin out and the quarry itself, a gaping wound slashed across the landscape, emerges ahead of them.

  The last ten metres or so are steep, and they resort to crawling up to the lip.

  Jaap scans for movement, but so far there’s nothing. It’s strangely quiet.

  The quarry is huge, the area of at least six football pitches. It’s a rough oval, a wider end to the west allowing the low sun to stream in and light up the raw limestone till it glows gold. The rock’s cut in terraces, studded with tracks where the machines had once moved back and forth.

  In the lowest section, the valley floor, two large pools are filled with sky.

  ‘See anything?’ Jaap whispers.

  ‘No,’ Arno says, ‘nothing.’

  Jaap looks again. Now he’s here he can see what the map hadn’t told them: the main entrance is to the east, where a track tears through the rock and then turns south. If someone’s coming along it, he really needs to be on the far side to see.

  ‘Stay here,’ Jaap says. ‘I’m going over there.’

  He retreats down the slope until it’s safe to stand and starts running.

  The ground’s uneven, and several times he stumbles, just managing not to fall fully. There’s a kind of tightness in his chest, but it’s not from the exercise, it’s from the excitement. Because he can just feel they’re onto it, onto the killer he’s been chasing for months. The rush isn’t in full flow yet, but he can feel it there, building in intensity. He knows it’s a kind of addiction.

  By the time he’s reached the far side and chosen a route up he’s badly out of breath. He pauses for a few seconds before starting the climb. It’s even steeper this side, and whereas the other slope at least had some grass on it, this one is made of rock, much of it loose on the surface. His feet keep slipping as he scrambles up, creating dry avalanches behind him.

  By the time he reaches the rim he’s managed to scrape a knee and has a wide graze on the palm of his left hand. He takes a breath and raises his head over, taking in the scene from the new angle.

  The quarry seems just as empty as before.

  He tries to make out Arno, but either he’s moved, or he’s keeping his head right down. He’s chosen the right spot though, he can see down the entrance track, a gorge between two crumbling rock faces before it hits the main area.

  He’s aware of his blood, thudding through him.

  As he’s watching, something moves in the corner of his eye. He swings his head.

  A car creeps through the narrow gap, towards the quarry itself.

  His stomach flips.

  He watches as the car inches forward on the potholed ground. It’s in deep shadow thrown down by the quarry’s side, and the driver flips the headlights on. Only one works.

  Just before it reaches the main area, out of shadow so Jaap can now see the car is a filthy white, it stops. The engine noise he’s just been able to make out in the still air cuts off.

  Nothing happens for a few seconds. Jaap finds he’s holding his breath.

  The driver’s door cracks open, sun flashing off the window as it swings in an arc.

  But no one gets out.

  Jaap becomes aware of a high-pitched sound. A buzzing really. He searches the sky for it, but even though the sound’s getting louder he can’t see it. He checks back on the car – no more movement.

  The buzzing noise is louder now, and he can hear it’s coming from behind him. He turns.

  And there, swooping down from the sky in a graceful arc, is a drone.

  It slows down, stopping a metre away from Jaap’s face.

  It has four sets of blades, one on each corner of its square body.

  A round lens, the glass convex like an eye, stares straight at him. A miniature sun burns in the top left corner.

  His phone goes off in his pocket. He pulls it out to see a text message.

  Just one word.

  SMILE

  Then his phone rings.

  70

  Déjà vu has never been properly explained. There are all sorts of theories: the matrix we live in breaking down, a simple programme glitch which affects us for half a second or so before the system self-corrects. Or the theory that our lives are lived over and over in a continuous loop, the moment of déjà vu nothing more than a brief snatch of memory of what has already been. Or for those of a more prosaic bent, for whom repeating lives is just too out there, there’s the whole rational neuroscience angle, the experience just a temporary mismatch between neurons firing in the brain, nothing mystical, nothing special, nothing to get twisted up in existential angst about.

  Jaap doesn’t know which it is, but as he’s standing there, phone ringing in his hand, the drone hovering close, full of insectoid menace, he knows what’s happening next.

  He looks at the screen of his phone, caller ID unknown.

  His finger takes an age to hit the answer button. The drone’s eye tracks his movement as he brings the phone to his ear.

  ‘Listen carefully,’ says a voice. ‘If you do exactly as I say then I won’t hurt her. I see you brought a colleague with you. Too bad. Because you’re going to have to get rid of him.’

  ‘Hurt who?’ Jaap says. The quarry starts a slow, sideways spin.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ the voice says. ‘Didn’t I say?’

  The phone beeps three times, call disconnected.

  A picture message appears on screen. The background is indistinct, but the foreground’s visible.

  Tanya tied to a chair, her mouth prised open, a ball-gag stuffed inside.

  A tulip-shaped lamp’s blaring in her face. The light means there’s no doubt.

  The phone rings again.

  ‘I see you haven’t moved yet,’ the voice says. ‘You really should.’

  The drone tilts, moves round him a half-circle, the dark eye on him the whole time. Then it starts to herd him back down the slope.

  Jaap slips and skids down the loose rock, slicing the same hand he hurt on the way up, the pain nothing, non-existent.

  Because all he can think about is Tanya, tied up in a chair, at the mercy of Haanstra. They’d bumped into each other at the hospital, and it had taken Jaap too long to realize who
he really was. If he’d been quicker on the uptake then he might not be here now, Tanya not being held by a stone-cold killer.

  Jaap skirts the quarry, the drone following him, sometimes close, sometimes riding higher as if on lookout. But he realizes that it’s not going above the lip of the quarry, purposely trying to evade detection by Arno.

  Jaap pretends to stumble, and tries to pull Arno’s number up on his phone but the drone swoops in as if in warning, the rotors an angry buzz.

  He carries on, staggering over the rough ground, the image of Tanya burning through his head.

  Just as he’s nearing the last bend which will take him into view of Arno, his phone goes off again.

  ‘You need to get rid of him. Knock him out if you have to. And I’ve a sound feed on so don’t try to tell him anything.’

  71

  ‘… so don’t try to tell him anything.’

  The ball-gag is too big, it feels like the sides of Tanya’s mouth are splitting from being forced open so wide.

  She’s in a chair, in a garage somewhere, a desk at one end with computer equipment and a large screen.

  On the screen, she’s been watching Jaap.

  Even though part of her’s been trying to close her eyes, spare herself the horror, she’s glued to it like some moron watching a soap.

  She’d fought, but Haanstra had had surprise on his side. That and a gun, which he’d shoved into her stomach, forcing her into the back of the van where he’d cable-tied her wrists and ankles. Then he’d pulled out the ball-gag.

  On the journey she’d tried to follow the route in her head, keep track of where they were going, but when they’d pulled up to a stop no more than fifteen minutes later she had to admit she had no idea where in Amsterdam they were.

  As he’d taken her from the van to the garage she’d managed to glance around, but nothing she saw helped, rows of garage doors on some industrial unit the only feature she could see. Inside the garage he’d dragged her to a chair, sat her in it, and secured her tight.

  The fear had really started to kick in then, one of the chair legs tapping the floor as it transmitted her shaking to the ground.

  And that was before Jaap had appeared on screen.

  She watches as Jaap starts up the slope, heading towards Arno.

  72

  Ten metres out, Arno turns, sees Jaap and then the drone.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Arno says, pointing to it.

  Jaap slips on a patch of loose gravel as he steps towards him, the sound like fabric ripping. His heart’s hammering in his ears.

  All he can think about is the picture of Tanya.

  ‘He’s over there,’ Jaap says when he gets close, pointing across the quarry.

  Arno turns to look, following the line of Jaap’s arm. Jaap slowly bends down, his left hand searching the ground.

  ‘I don’t see him, and this drone is making me—’

  Jaap’s found what he needs, a rounded stone. He takes a swing, the stone hitting the back of Arno’s head. He hopes he’s judged it right.

  Arno’s head jerks round. Jaap sees his eyes.

  Fear. Surprise.

  Then he swings again.

  This time the lights go out, Arno crumples to the ground.

  The stone falls from Jaap’s hand. It starts rolling down the slope, knocking others into motion as it goes.

  His phone rings. He almost doesn’t hear it under the noise of stones cascading down the slope.

  ‘Good,’ Haanstra says. ‘She’s worth it.’

  ‘Don’t hurt her, you fuck. If you hurt her I’ll—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, spare me the macho bullshit. Right now the only thing you have to do is whatever I tell you.’

  Jaap’s breathing’s out of control.

  He notices a trickle of blood behind one of Arno’s ears.

  ‘Look over the edge,’ Haanstra tells him.

  Jaap does, sees the car moving again. It creeps forward cautiously, then stops. The door opens, and this time a figure steps out. A woman he doesn’t know.

  White noise fuzzes up his ears.

  Then the noise stops dead.

  Everything is suddenly clear.

  73

  It’s terrible watching him, imagining what’s he’s going through.

  Tanya once again fights against her restraint. Haanstra notices, breaks away from the laptop and steps towards her.

  ‘Keep still, bitch,’ he says, slapping her across the face.

  It stings hard, her eyes watering in response. But she keeps them defiant, stares at him as if to say, I’m not afraid of you.

  Which earns her a second slap on the opposite side.

  ‘You want some more?’ Haanstra asks.

  This time she ducks her eyes, and Haanstra nods before going back to the laptop.

  She finds herself watching the screen again.

  After Jaap had knocked Arno out he started picking his way down to the quarry floor itself, towards the car.

  He’s doing this for me, she thinks.

  She’s been watching Haanstra too, but apart from the one moment when he’d gone outside and held a conversation with someone, he’s been at his laptop. Tanya can’t quite see, but she thinks he may have the drone controls there.

  The camera has swung out, giving a larger view of just what Jaap’s up against.

  She can see the route he’s chosen is leading to a large drop, a sheer face of limestone which will be too high for him to jump down. A few metres above it he slips, feet shooting out, and he’s scrabbling with his hands against the rough slope, speed gathering as he heads towards the edge. Stones and dust form a waterfall, marking out the route he’ll soon be taking.

  At the last moment he manages to grab a small outcrop, gets both arms round it and stops himself, just as his feet go over the edge.

  Tanya can see him panting hard, and the drone moves closer again, getting right into his face, until it take up the whole screen.

  It’s so familiar, and yet she’s never seen it look so twisted up with fear and anger.

  He pulls himself up the slope, slowly, the drone moving in close before zooming right out again. This time he picks the right route, although it takes him another ten minutes before his feet finally touch the quarry floor.

  74

  All the sickness in the world pools in him as he descends.

  But he fights it, fights the fear which he knows will make him weak.

  He needs to be cold to get through this, needs to push down emotion, keep rational. He needs to not think about Tanya, sitting there terrified …

  He’s running as fast as he can, even though he wants to delay the moment, delay what he knows he’s going to have to do.

  As he moves, his mind is looking for escape, but there’s nothing that can alter the fact that Haanstra has Tanya. He’s been in a situation like this before, his daughter held, and although he’d done all he could she’d still died.

  He can’t believe the universe is doing this to him, repeating a pattern like his life’s an endless cycle, a water wheel dipping into the same pool of suffering over and over and over.

  He slips and goes down hard, his hip slamming against jagged rock. He forces himself up, and makes it down to the quarry floor. As his feet hit the flat another thought breaks into his head. The case which had ended with Floortje’s death had been well publicized, the press had gone crazy over it and he’d had messages from agents in London and New York all promising him large sums of money for a ghost-written book telling his story.

  He’d never returned a single call.

  But now he realizes that Haanstra could, with a quick web search, have found out about his past, and decided to use it against him.

  It’s not the universe fucking with him, it’s not some metaphysical conspiracy designed to bring him down.

  It’s just one man.

  An evil man.

  The thought’s like a thunderclap in his head. It clears it out, gets rid of the self-pitying voice.<
br />
  He’s going to get through this, he’s going to save Tanya, no matter what it takes.

  He’s running along the track where the car came in. The car, and the woman, are hidden from view, round a large outcrop. His phone’s ringing, he answers whilst running.

  ‘I’ve made it easy for you,’ Haanstra says. ‘She’s an addict, so you don’t need to feel too bad about what you’re going to do. I even told her to bring her own roll of cling film. She thinks you’ll be giving her drugs in exchange for it, desperate bitch.’ He laughs, then adds, ‘Just remember, we’ll be watching you.’

  Jaap can see the drone, hanging in the dying light.

  He’s just at the outcrop now. He knows, if she hasn’t moved, that she’s only fifteen metres round the other side.

  He stops for a moment, tries to still himself, then steps round.

  Haanstra was right. She is an addict, wasted away, hollowed out. The kind of condition there’s no coming back from. In her hand she’s clutching a roll of cling film, the brand Albert Heijn, the supermarket where Jaap buys his groceries.

  He looks at her, and feels the world fall away from his feet.

  She starts out towards him, her eyes hungry for the fix, the roll held out like an offering.

  The drone buzzes closer.

  75

  Jaap wants to tell her to run.

  He knows he can’t.

  He’s standing by one of the pools he’d seen earlier. Its surface is calm, serene, reflecting the sky, vast and untroubled.

  The woman’s within five feet now, her eyes wild and bloodshot, her face sunken, as if being pulled towards whatever it is inside her, whatever weakness or trauma or fear that turned her into what she is right now.

  Jaap’s mind is trying its best.

  She doesn’t have a life, she’ll be dead in six months. Maybe slightly more, most likely less.

  And Tanya’s worth more than that, Tanya’s alive, vital, carrying his child.