Because each one was uploaded only hours after the deaths of Dafne, Nadine, Heleen and Kaaren.
84
‘You still here?’ Smit asks as he opens his office door to find Jaap running down the corridor towards him.
Jaap’s breathing hard, having raced up the stairs from the DCU’s basement home.
‘There’s something I think you should know.’
Station Chief Henk Smit’s a busy man, he has important things to do, important people to meet, and he lets Jaap know all this by the way he checks his watch.
‘All right,’ he says, standing aside, allowing Jaap to step through. ‘Two minutes.’
Inside, Jaap takes him through Roemers’ discoveries.
‘I’m sure he was working with at least one other person,’ Jaap finishes up. ‘Maybe more.’
Smit taps a finger on his desk, a frown curling his mouth down. ‘Could be,’ he eventually concedes.
‘It makes sense, the killings had two main variables, the victim and the man chosen to kill them. Would make it so much easier to cover them both if there were two of you.’
Smit nods, he can see the logic. ‘But two of them, both into killing the same way? That’s just … I just can’t see that. Serial killers generally work alone.’
‘C’mon, you know there are some.’
‘Fine, agreed. I’ll look into this,’ Smit says, standing, glancing at his watch again. ‘But I have a press conference called for midday, and I’m going to need a pretty compelling reason to not go out there and announce we’ve managed to neutralize the threat. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’
‘The thing is, I think I know who it might be.’
Smit freezes.
Yeah, got your interest now, Jaap thinks.
‘Who?’ Smit asks.
‘Bernard Kooy. He’s a possible for the supply of scopolamine. We were looking for him as a likely route to Haanstra just when everything kicked off, so no one’s spoken to him yet. If I can get him—’
‘Whoa, let me stop you there.’ Smit holds his hand out like the traffic cop he presumably once was. ‘I appreciate your drive for this, I really do. But given what you and Tanya have been through I cannot allow you to look into it. I’ll get someone else on the case.’
‘Really, it’ll be quicker if I do it, you’ll have to get someone up to speed and they’re just not going to have the full background quick enough.’
The stare Smit gives him is potent stuff.
But the fact he hasn’t yet spoken makes Jaap think he’s winning the argument. So he pushes his luck.
‘There’s one thing, though. I’d really like to put a guard on Tanya. Haanstra knew where we live, there’s a good chance whoever he’s working with will also.’
‘OK, here’s what we’re going to do,’ Smit says, all action suddenly. ‘You’re going to give me your badge and step off the case—’
‘But—’
‘And that way you can stay at home, make sure Tanya’s not in danger. It’ll be a weight off your mind,’ Smit says as he ushers Jaap to the door. ‘If we get anything significant I’ll let you know. You can hand your weapon in on the way out.’
The door swings shut behind him.
A few minutes later he’s leaving the station when he hears his name being called.
He turns to see Roemers.
‘You need to see this,’ Roemers says.
Jaap’s about to tell him he’s off the case, but when he finds himself, two minutes later, down in the DCU staring at a screen, the only conclusion he can draw is that he didn’t. Or Roemers didn’t hear him.
Or whatever.
‘So what am I looking at?’
‘These numbers here are bitcoins,’ Roemers says. ‘Which aren’t in themselves interesting. But the fact that I can see them is, because Haanstra really screwed up here. A phone of his was recovered from the garage he was operating from, and I could see there was a bitcoin wallet on it. The thing with these is, they’re as secure as the PGP encryption I was telling you about earlier, but I—’
‘Short version,’ Jaap says, knowing Roemers can get very technical.
‘Yeah, OK. Short version, he screwed up. I found his wallet key and was able to get in. See here? These are all deposits, and what’s interesting is the dates. Check them out.’
It doesn’t take Jaap long to see they come and go in waves. There are periods of virtually no deposits at all, then they start coming in with increasing frequency, growing towards specific dates where they reach a peak, then drop off a cliff.
Jaap’s stomach lurches as he sees the dates themselves correspond with each killing.
He focuses on the current total, B-347.87
‘What’s that worth?’
‘If I were to cash that in right now—’ He opens up a browser window, finds a conversion site, punches in the numbers ‘—just over two hundred thousand euros.’
‘Whoa,’ Jaap says. ‘How’d he get them?’
‘That’s the thing, bitcoins are actually traceable to some extent; each transaction is logged and verified by multiple computers on this open ledger called the blockchain, so in theory, by studying it, you can work out where they came from. In practice, though, people who’re not down with anyone knowing what they’re up to “tumble” the coins first, the digital equivalent of money laundering. You send your coins to a tumbler and they send back other coins, for a fee.’
‘Can you check the coins he’s got?’
‘Takes time, but I could get someone to have a look.’ He clicks back to the wallet. ‘Fuck.’
Jaap’s seen it too. A moment ago the balance had been showing B-347.87. Now it’s zero.
‘Someone’s just emptied it,’ Roemers says. ‘Looks like you were right, he was working with someone.’
85
It’s not the pain that’s bothering him. Kees is used to pain – he’s almost become a connoisseur, able to distinguish between the different types. The type he has now is the crushing, pressure type, like if he moves too quickly his head will explode.
Like Bart’s did.
But it’s kind of irrelevant, the movement thing, because right now he’s trapped in a tight space, limbs up near his chest, arms hooked round them. So that’s OK, he can check movement-induced head explosion off his list of worries.
The thing which is bothering him is that he’s finding it hard to breathe, like the air’s running out. He tries to shift his head, finds that there’s tape across his mouth, the edge riding up to his nostrils, closing them off. There’s clearly a tiny gap, because he’s getting just enough air to keep him alive, but he’s not sure how much longer he’s going to last.
He tries to focus on his breath, slow it down, his mind spinning through his options.
Which right now seem somewhat limited.
He’s in the car boot – even in the darkness he can work that out – but the car’s not moving. He doesn’t know if that’s good or not. He tries to move a leg into position, kick the boot open, but he’s too crammed in, can’t get a proper angle to do anything more than just tickle the thing. Next he works on the tape, but finds his wrists are bound – cable ties, he’s sure from the thinness of them – and he can’t move both arms up to his face. There’s also, he decides after a bit of exploration, a bag between them and his face; one of the sports-kit ones which had been filled with money is now making it impossible for him to reach his face.
He gives up and lies there, focusing on taking small sips of air, just enough to keep him going, even though his head is swirling. When he was younger he’d not really thought about death. Even in the years he’d been working as a homicide investigator, constantly exposed to it, he’d somehow managed to keep thoughts about it at bay. Sure, the victims were dead, but his focus had been on finding out the person responsible, and he had managed to avoid ruminating on death itself. It was something which happened to other people, and it almost felt like as long as he was the one doing the investigations he could keep himsel
f removed from its sting, like being around it constantly exempted him, made him immune.
But all that had changed with his diagnosis, and yet even though he knew it was going to kill him, that wasn’t the thing he feared. What he feared most of all was being alive.
Being alive whilst his body gradually broke down, the long slide into frailty and disability and reliance on others. The long, slow slide into a nightmare future of pain, regret and the tyranny of the everyday.
Now, trapped in the boot of the car – knowing that soon they’ll come for him, that they’ll kill him in an orgy of gore and hate, that it will at least, no matter how painful, be relatively quick – he finds an odd sense of peace.
Whoever kills him is actually doing him a favour.
Later – how long he’s not sure, time an irrelevance in the dark – he hears footsteps crunching dry grass, two people at least heading towards him, and finds his breathing is slow and calm.
86
There is someone else.
Jaap needed to get out of the station, so now he’s on a bridge spanning Prinsengracht, overlooking the canal itself. Clouds curdle in the water below. Behind him, further down the canal, a floating digger works on the daily task of removing tons of silt from the canal bottom, along with assorted bike frames, some twisted, others missing wheels.
He’d left Roemers trying to track the bitcoins, the bitcoins that prove Haanstra wasn’t working alone. Only someone he was working with would have access to his wallet, and it looks like they were emptying it and getting out.
But that’s not the worst thing about what he’s just seen.
The payments leading up to the deaths themselves mean that he’s been wrong about this case, even though he’s known all along there was something off with it.
TV and films perpetuate the myth that there’s always a bad guy, someone external, a lone sicko, the fairy-tale villain killing for reasons buried deep in their screwed-up psychology, the killer who is nothing more than the personification of evil. And it seems to be what people would like to believe.
There’s safety in the extra-ordinary, Jaap thinks.
But here the crime – or at least the motive – is so everyday, so ordinary, that he suspects no one will want to believe it.
Because Haanstra, and whoever he was working with, were doing it for good old-fashioned money. They’d found a product people would pay for and then, like any good businessmen, worked out how to supply it.
For a profit.
Which in Jaap’s mind is even worse than a lone psychopath or two.
He dials Tanya, noticing his hand is clammy on the phone. She answers and he tells her what he’s discovered.
In the sky a plane ducks behind a cloud.
‘I … There’s something you should know,’ she says when he’s finished taking her through it. ‘When I was on the case with Borst there were some rumours floating around that Van der Pol was involved in snuff movies, an urban legend kind of thing. But if what you’re saying …’
‘Looks like Haanstra could have been working with Van der Pol. He could be the missing man.’
‘Van der Pol could be behind it, but I doubt he’d be getting his hands dirty. So most likely it was Haanstra and someone else working for him.’
Below Jaap the tip of a barge emerges from under the bridge, the deck piled high with green-grey silt.
‘Could you do a couple of things for me?’
‘Sure, but I thought you didn’t want me involved.’
‘I don’t, but if you could call Borst, tell him what we’ve got, see what he thinks.’
‘I can probably manage that. What’s the other thing?’
‘Check into a hotel, and pay with cash. And get a pre-pay phone on the way, leave yours at the houseboat.’
The barge is still moving below. Suddenly he feels unsteady on his feet.
‘Tanya?’
‘Yeah, I’m here. You think it’s really necessary?’
Jaap thinks of his promise, that he’s never going to put her in danger again. He thinks of people who force others into killing for them, so they can make money by selling the videos. He thinks of Van der Pol, head of the largest criminal organization in the country.
‘Yeah,’ he says, the barge finally breaking free from the bridge. The captain’s at the wheel, already starting to spin it in preparation for the tight turn up onto Leidsegracht. ‘Yeah, I do.’
87
A slit of light appears in the darkness.
Then it widens, Kees’ eyes complaining at the onslaught.
But he fights, just keeps them open, enough to see two figures standing against the clouded sky in the ever-widening gap. One of them reaches down and grabs him.
As they bundle him out, something on the lip of the boot catching his hip on the way, he can see it’s Lumberjack and Van der Pol himself.
They’re at the edge of a field, the grass brown and broken, a thin wire fence marking out the perimeter just a few feet away. Clouds press down on them, and the humidity feels like it’s going for some kind of record.
‘I know it was you,’ Van der Pol says. ‘I know you’re working for the cops.’
Kees is standing, Lumberjack to his left, using his physical presence to intimidate, an alpha dog claiming his space in the pack. But really the alpha here is Van der Pol, that’s where all the bad energy is coming from.
They stand as if they’re waiting for Kees to say something.
But really, what is there to say?
‘I know Smit sent you to spy on me,’ Van der Pol says after some more grass has died. ‘And the punishment for that is … Well, put it this way. It’s not pain-free, or quick.’
For some reason, the only thing which matters to Kees now is not saying anything. If he’s going to die, fine, but he’s not saying another goddamned word in this fucked-up excuse for a world. No matter what they do, no matter how hard they push, he’s going quietly. Stoically.
Beside him Lumberjack pulls out a knife.
88
Jaap pulls up on a street in Amsterdam-Zuid, scraping the front tyre hard against the kerb.
The house itself is easy to spot, festooned with red and white police tape. It’s the one Haanstra rented. Smit had told him in the debrief earlier that nothing of interest had been found there, but Jaap wants to see for himself.
One uniform stands guard. He’s overly tall with a narrow face, and challenges Jaap when he approaches.
‘I’ve orders not to let anyone in,’ he says, eyeing Jaap.
‘This is my case,’ Jaap says. ‘Who gave those orders?’
‘Station Chief Smit,’ the uniform replies, as if by saying those words he gets to bask in the exalted one’s glory. ‘He was very specific.’
‘Well, I’ll be even more specific,’ Jaap says as he steps past him, ducks under the tape and pushes open the front door. He’s always been a believer that actions speak louder than words.
The house is small, some prefab eighties job, and smells damp. There’s nothing of interest on the ground floor, Jaap concludes, after a search of a messy kitchen and forlorn living room looking out over a tiny concrete area filled with junk.
Upstairs are two bedrooms and a tiny bathroom, the latter so small that the door hits the toilet bowl. The main bedroom doesn’t yield much, but a yellowed pine wardrobe in the second bedroom is full of boxes. Jaap goes through them all, even though someone should have been through them already.
He’s on box four when he gets a call from a number he doesn’t recognize.
‘So I spoke to Harry,’ Tanya says when he answers.
‘And?’
She breathes out. He can hear reluctance in it, and something else he can’t quite place.
‘He confirmed what I’d heard, that there’d been rumours Van der Pol had been making snuff films. This was years ago though, and Harry says they never found any evidence of it. His view was that it was simply a story, probably put about by Van der Pol himself.’
&
nbsp; ‘Bigging himself up? Part of the image?’
‘That’s what Harry thinks,’ Tanya says. ‘You’re some small-time dealer and someone approaches you to take over your patch. If you’ve heard the man at the top is a total psycho who makes films of people being killed it’s probably gonna help sway your decision.’
Jaap’s still working through box four when he spots, at the bottom, the corner of a passport.
‘I don’t think it was an image thing,’ Jaap says, pulling it out. ‘After each killing Haanstra uploaded a large file to the internet. That’s not a coincidence.’
‘No.’
‘Is Harry still around or did he go back to Rotterdam?’
‘He was driving down when I got hold of him. He turned round once we’d talked, though, says he’s going to be in Amsterdam pretty soon. He’s gonna call you when he’s close. He really wants to get Van der Pol.’
‘We might just be able to help,’ Jaap says. ‘You’re somewhere safe?’
‘Yeah, I checked into the—’ She stops herself. ‘Well, somewhere.’
‘Promise me you’re not going anywhere.’
When they’d rung off, Jaap goes through the passport. Inside there’s a photo of a young man, staring angrily at the viewer.
A motorbike rips down the street, slowing down until its deep rumble shakes the world apart.
There’s something familiar about the face.
But it’s the name which grabs him: Bernard Kooy.
89
So much for going quietly, Kees thinks.
Resolutions are all very well, but at some level the animal-self kicks in. We haven’t evolved, had our genes carried through unthinkable numbers of repetitions from the first single-cell organisms to the fully functioning modern humans we are today, just so that in the face of death we give up. That’s not how it works.
In Kees’ case, the desire to survive flares into life when the blade starts towards his abdomen. And he’s grateful for it sharpening his focus, making things slow down enough so he can react properly.
Before the Dawn Page 28
