Before the Dawn

by Jake Woodhouse

  ‘I also think,’ Jaap continues when it’s clear Smit’s not going to say anything, ‘that both you and Van der Pol saw the danger Haanstra posed, he was going off the rails and he was going to get caught. When he did he might well have talked. Which wouldn’t be good for you. So you killed him. Bad timing on your part, if you’d left it just a few minutes later then who knows what might have happened.’

  Smit’s watching him now, very still, hardly breathing, a predator waiting for the right moment.

  ‘And it was you who killed Kamp, afraid he might talk. You gave me your cuffs, remember? Maybe you even took mine off me on the drive there. Then all you had to do was unlock them, claim I didn’t do them up. From there it would have been easy to shoot him, then fire a second gun, and claim Kamp had it on him, making it all look like my mistake.’

  Smit looks out across the water. There’s a small orange powerboat, the outside formed to look like a Dutch clog, the man at the wheel’s hair wind-buffeted.

  ‘And then there’s Pieter Groot. I checked the security tape in his cell. Someone went in to talk to him, someone who knew how to later delete a part of the footage, or had enough clout to get the officer in charge to do it. My guess is whoever went in there told Groot to keep his mouth shut, and when Groot realized that Haanstra had people inside the police he’d’ve taken the only way out he could think of. Make sense so far?’

  On the surface Smit’s impassive, unemotional. But Jaap senses he’s struggling hard to keep it together.

  ‘So, that’s all good. Someone who could potentially point the finger at Haanstra, which might end in other people higher up being exposed, had been neutralized. All that needed to be done was to get rid of any evidence, but the person deleting the footage screwed up. There’s a shot of someone leaving the cell just before Groot tries to kill himself. I’ve got an image of that person’s shoe. And guess what? It’s got a scratch, just like yours.’

  Jaap points. Smit looks at his shoes.

  They’re the same, patent leather, expensive. Only, Jaap can now see, without the scratch.

  ‘All just spinning stories,’ Smit says, still calm. ‘And seeing as there’s no proof for any of your totally outlandish claims, the only conclusion we can draw is the pressure of the job has got to you, maybe forced you into some psychotic breakdown. It’s been hard on you, I get that, what with Tanya being kidnapped and all, so we can probably work out some kind of medical leave.’

  ‘I’m not taking medical leave, I’m going to—’

  ‘The offer is on the table once, and once only. Think about that before you say anything else.’

  ‘There’s more, you and Van der Pol have been trying to get Haanstra as well, only when you found out that Borst and I were close to exposing this thing, the decision was made to kill both Borst and me. Were you part of that, or are you going to claim that was Van der Pol acting alone?’

  ‘I have no connection with Van der Pol, all this conspiracy you’re coming out with is just in your head. And really I don’t have to listen to any more of this—’

  ‘I know you’re connected to Van der Pol, but that you didn’t fully trust him either, that’s why you embedded Kees into his organization, so that you could keep an eye on him at all times.’

  ‘Crazy ramblings of an insane cop. Keep it coming, the more you talk the crazier it gets. And the easier it becomes to ignore.’

  ‘I spoke to Kees. He told me he’d given you enough information to put Van der Pol away many times over, but you never did. Why is that? Is it because you knew that if Van der Pol got caught he wouldn’t think twice about shopping you? Yeah, ring any bells? Or how about this: you’ve been working with him since you were in Rotterdam, you struck a deal where he was left alone to quietly take over the drug trade in your precinct, as long as he kept the violence out of sight. He got to expand his empire, you got great crime stats and a boost up the ladder.’

  ‘Seeing as you obviously talked to Kees, I’m guessing he told you why he went to prison in the first place?’

  ‘It was an undercover operation backstory. He was working for you, so he didn’t really go to prison.’

  ‘He did actually, but did he tell you what crime was used as his cover?’

  ‘No, but I don’t care. Fact is, Harry Borst’s dead, all very convenient for you. I guess you gave the order to Van der Pol to have him, and me, eliminated.’

  Smit heaves himself off the rail and turns to Jaap. He holds a file out. ‘Trust me, you’re going to want to see what’s inside.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You do. Because this is the investigation into the murder of Ruud Staal. Heard of him?’

  ‘No,’ Jaap says, even though he thinks he may have. He tries to remember, but nothing comes.

  ‘You might want to ask Tanya about it then. Why don’t you call her now?’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Jaap says, taking an angry step towards Smit.

  Smit holds his ground and continues to offer the file.

  ‘What I’m talking about is that she is guilty of the murder of Ruud Staal. He was her foster father, and he abused her sexually for years, before she escaped. Very sad story. Especially as it all became too much and she killed him for it.’

  Jaap finds the ground tilting away from him with a sickening slowness. Soon he’s going to slip and fall off the world. He does remember the name, he heard Tanya say it in her sleep two days ago.

  ‘It’s all in here,’ Smit says. ‘I think you should read it. And once you have, think about this – do you want your child to be born to a murderer in prison?’

  Smit drops the file into Jaap’s hand and walks away, pulling out his phone and holding it to his ear. He listens, walks back to Jaap and hangs up.

  ‘That was the hospital. Kees Truter’s dead.’ He leans close, whispers in Jaap’s ear. ‘So you see, right now I’m fucking untouchable.’

  He walks away, Jaap staring at his back.

  Five minutes later the commissioner’s secretary comes out of the Stopera to tell Jaap the commissioner is ready to see him.

  But she can’t find him anywhere.

  99

  Tanya’s lying on the hotel bed when she gets the email.

  She’s been staring at the ceiling, thinking, against the express wishes of the specialist, about the baby. She was sure she’d felt it kick whilst lying there. She tried to take that as a sign that it was OK, that it would make it, that the hole in its tiny heart would heal over well before it was born. Right now she feels like she’d do anything, absolutely anything, to make sure it’s OK.

  She finds herself online – Jaap had told her not to bring her phone, but she’s sure her laptop’s fine – researching everything about the heart, when the email comes in. She can hear a chambermaid chatting on the phone just outside her room.

  The email is from someone at the Schiphol morgue. They’d tried to get her on her phone but had no luck. They ask to be called as soon as possible.

  She grabs her pre-pay phone and dials the number, fear clasping her throat.

  She listens to the woman’s voice on the other end of the line, and then, once she’s finished, asks her to repeat herself.

  Then she thanks her and hangs up.

  She calls a cab which arrives just as she’s ready. On the drive she wonders about calling Jaap, but thinks this is the last thing he needs right now.

  She’s been to the city morgue out near Schiphol airport many times, but only in an official capacity. She’s never been called there because someone she knew needed to be ID’d.

  She’s met by a detective she’s never worked with but seen around a few times. She signs in, and he takes her through to where the official identifications are made. It’s like a dream; she doesn’t see how this is real.

  When the sheet is whipped back it turns from dream to nightmare.

  The woman she’d spoken to earlier said she’d been named next-of-kin. Apparently he’d actually had a document drawn up
by a lawyer which also gave her control of his estate, such as it was, and requested that she identify him.

  She steps forward, the slab Kees is laid out on seeming to move away from her in space-time as she does.

  She looks at the face.

  It was him she’d seen four days ago.

  Then, as the tears dribble down her cheeks and create a sour tickle under her chin, she nods.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s him.’

  100

  Jaap sits in the night, wondering if it’s going to work.

  He’s at Grote Vijver, a lake buried deep in Amsterdamse Bos, a place he and Tanya sometimes visit.

  They’d stroll along the reed beds, marvelling at how far removed from the city it all felt, even though the centre of town was less then twenty minutes away. The last time they’d come, a few months ago, they’d been walking back along the path hugging the northern shore when Tanya had stopped abruptly and grabbed his arm, using the other to point across the water.

  It took Jaap a few moments to focus in, find what she was pointing at. Then it moved and he saw it, a heron, fish in its beak. The heron was disturbed by something, maybe sensing their presence, looking around for signs of danger. They watched as it finished its scan of the surroundings, satisfied itself that there was nothing amiss, and tipped its arching neck back, the slip of silver disappearing down its throat.

  But there wasn’t going to be any romantic stroll tonight.

  Jaap checks the phone he’d bought at a second-hand stall at Waterlooplein, an old model capable of taking the relatively ancient SIM. He’d sent the message, and had received a one-word reply less than ten minutes later.

  He breathes in deeply, suddenly aware that he can smell something sweet, almost sickly. It’s dark, the clouds overhead obscuring any moon, and the air feels totally still. After a few more sniffs he recognizes that scent – honeysuckle.

  Over to his left there’s a rustle, ending in a soft splash, as something slips into the dark water stretching away from him. He envies it, whatever it is. Right now he’d like to slip into that same water and disappear.

  Because ever since he’d opened the file Smit had handed him a kind of raw chasm had opened up in his stomach.

  He’d read through the investigation, the details of how Tanya had been abused by her foster father for years before she’d finally escaped. And then she’d gone back, finally plucked up the courage to confront him, and he’d wound up dead.

  He can’t believe she never told him. But he can see why. He feels like he should have known somehow.

  A voice says to him, You failed her again.

  He tries to block it out just as he hears the noise of an engine.

  His heartbeat doubles up.

  He can see the lights now, coming closer, and he instinctively shrinks back into the rushes to watch the car pull up. The lights go out, the car ticks, nothing else happens.

  Then the door opens.

  ‘Where the fuck are you?’ Smit says.

  Jaap steps out from the rushes, Smit turns, shines a torch right in his face. Jaap had used the SIM to send a message to Smit, hoping that Smit would think it was Van der Pol. Looks like it’d worked.

  Or, Jaap thinks suddenly, seeing the gun in Smit’s hand, maybe not.

  ‘Yeah, you think I’m stupid?’ Smit says. ‘Sorry to disappoint.’

  He flicks the torch off. Jaap can still see the trace of it wherever his eyeballs move.

  Smit holds up a photo.

  Jaap can see a man, curled up like a foetus in the boot of a car. A third eye in his forehead turns out to be bullet wound.

  ‘Van der Pol,’ Jaap says.

  ‘Looks like Kees killed him.’

  ‘Convenient for you, blame it on a dead man. I’m disappointed.’

  Smit laughs. ‘Really?’ he says. ‘Boo-fucking-hoo. Piece-of-shit inspector is judging me.’

  ‘How much did you make?’

  Smit stares at him, eyes shining in the dark.

  A flash in the sky behind him could be a plane coming in to land at Schiphol, or it could be lightning.

  ‘A lot. More than you can imagine. And you’ll never find it. It’s all well hidden.’

  ‘Did you watch the films, or did you just sell them to others?’

  ‘Oh I watched them,’ Smit says. ‘I definitely watched them. Someone like you will never understand I’m sure, all your righteousness gets in the way. But there’s an immense freedom in watching someone else die, this feeling of lightness. And let’s be honest here, all the victims were scum. People we’d only have to lock up anyway. It was unfortunate that Haanstra went rogue, started killing innocent people, but we got that under control. He’s paid for that.’

  ‘So what, you’ll just find someone else to carry on doing this?’

  Smit shrugs. ‘Don’t see why not. You’re not going to say anything.’

  He holsters the gun and steps back to his car, pulls the door open and gets in. The window slides down. Jaap suddenly notices the car’s a top-of-the-range Maserati, well beyond what Smit’s salary alone would buy.

  ‘Think about this,’ Smit says. ‘You don’t want to do this to Tanya. She’s been through a lot, what with being fucked stupid by her foster father and all, it just wouldn’t seem fair.’

  He laughs.

  Rage explodes inside Jaap. Everything, the whole universe narrows in on Smit’s mouth and the laughter coming from it.

  Before he knows what he’s doing he has his gun right in Smit’s face.

  Smit’s no longer laughing. The barrel pushes his lip up, revealing teeth on one side of his face. It looks like he’s sneering. There’s a thin band of yellow plaque on one of his canines where he’s not brushed properly.

  Jaap sees his Adam’s apple bob.

  He can feel the clouds pressing down on him, the soft breeze which has sprung up caressing his right cheek, cooling it slightly. The ground’s there under him, it’s stable for now. The air is breathable, his lungs working perfectly, blood rushing round his body.

  He remembers the feeling he’d had, wrapping cling film round the woman’s head.

  The breeze offers up honeysuckle, the scent thick and cloying.

  His hand’s trembling, he can see the movement transferring to Smit’s cheek. It almost looks comical.

  He thinks of Tanya, feeling a rush of love which almost stops him.

  But maybe it’s love which pushes him on.

  He doesn’t know.

  The feeling that he’s not in control washes over him.

  Some physicists believe that there are multiple universes, where each and every variable can be played out; each time you make a decision another universe springs into being with the alternative action taken.

  For a second he knows he’s been here before, he can see many versions of himself, multiple copies of the whole scene. Repeated again and again and again.

  They speed up into a blur.

  Then they stop dead.

  Everything is clear.

  He takes a breath in, readying his finger on the trigger.

  Then he pulls it.

  101

  ‘This is the one?’

  The uniform’s voice jolts Tanya out of her head.

  She looks around, sees that he has brought her right back to the houseboat. She doesn’t recall seeing anything on the drive back from Schiphol. She should have gone back to the hotel, but the thought of sitting there thinking about Kees’ death had filled her with some emotion she wasn’t ready to go through. So as the car had hit Amsterdam proper, she’d told the driver to change destination.

  She thanks him and gets out, closes the car door gently, and walks across the swaying metal gangplank which leads onto the deck.

  The car pulls away as she inserts the key into the lock.

  She stands there for a moment, waiting for something, though she doesn’t know what.

  Eventually she turns the key and steps inside.

  The houseboat’s empty
.

  She’s half been expecting to find Jaap back, had yearned for it on the journey, but it’s clear he’s not.

  Ever since the moment she’d been guided into the room to ID Kees’ body and she’d seen his face as the sheet was lifted back, everything had been numb, like she was no longer part of the world. The numbness had persisted right up until now.

  Because now it’s turning into something sharper, sweeter almost.

  It’s rising, filling her up and she finds herself heading for the bedroom.

  By the time she flops down on the bed she’s crying hard.

  For Kees, for what he’d done for her.

  For herself, her past.

  For the baby growing inside her with a hole in its heart.

  And for Jaap, who doesn’t yet know.

  102

  Jaap’s feet are heavy, each step hitting the ground with too much force. He feels like there are many of him now, all the versions of himself he’d glimpsed earlier.

  Only this time all have made the same decision and are walking with him in solidarity.

  He’s walked this route so many times and yet it feels different, like it’s another world, a mock-up which has been put in place of the original just to fool him. Everything is familiar, the same houses huddling together on the canal side, the same trees with branches waving over the water.

  Everything the same, but also different.

  Up ahead is his houseboat, their houseboat, and the lights are on. The street lighting isn’t uniform, and he finds a patch of darkness where he can stand and look down on the boat. He stares into the living room for a few minutes, not seeing her. Thunder rumbles and the first delicate drops of rain quickly turn into something heavier. He’s soaked through in half a minute. He doesn’t feel it.

  Then she appears, walking from the bedroom towards the kitchen area. Rain cries down the glass, rippling his view of her.

  Rain hisses on the street, hisses round his feet.

  Or maybe the hissing’s in his ears.

  He’s not sure.

  He can’t tell any more.