2007 - The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam

by Chris Ewan

  “The truth is I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that night. I even came here and walked around and cast my mind back to how I imagined things had gone. And do you know what I decided?”

  I met the wide man’s eyes again. There was something different in them now. Intrigue perhaps, and maybe a touch of apprehension.

  “I decided you’d waited for a night when Robert Wolkers would be here on his own, at least for a little while. Maybe it was a case of waiting for him to tell you when it could happen or maybe you set the date and the time but, however it worked, Robert Wolkers was here by himself when the three of you turned up and he was the one who watched over you while Michael tackled the locks on the strong room. Once you were in, you took as much as you wanted, maybe even all of it. Then you killed him.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the thin man shaking his head manically. The wide man just squinted at me and said very calmly, “It is not true.”

  “No?”

  “We did not kill him.”

  “Hmm. Well,” I said, abruptly lightening my tone and shrugging my shoulders, “that was only my first idea. Guess I should have known not to trust it. There’s this book, you see, my latest novel, and I’ve been stuck on it for a while now. I’ve come up with maybe six possible solutions of whodunnit and how and none of them work. So why should solving all this be any different? I mean, I’m not going to strike lucky first time, am I?” I pointed at the wide man, then wagged my finger as if the two of us should have known better. “As it happens, I didn’t really think you did it. Why would you? What possible motive could you have? It’s not as if Robert Wolkers was going to give you up—he had as much to lose as anyone else. And let’s not forget Michael always denied it was him. And besides, we haven’t even factored in the mystery of the missing murder weapon, yet—the smoking gun, as it were. So I had a second theory. And at first, it seemed pretty outlandish, the kind of thing I might come up with for a book and then discard because it was just too far fetched. But the more I found out, the more it began to make sense to me. And then I worked on it some more, finessed it, removed a bum turn here and there. And guess what? It started to seem like the only way it could possibly have happened.”

  THIRTY

  The way I see it,” I went on, “Robert Wolkers was the one who contacted Michael, not the other way around. He told him who he was and what he did for a living and he told him there might just be a way they could help each other out. Michael, I’m guessing, didn’t like it at first. Most professional thieves find their own jobs. That way, they don’t have to rely on other people getting things right and they don’t have to share their take either. But, we’re only human, and no doubt he was tempted by the proposal Robert Wolkers put to him. He had an in to the Van Zandt strong room and Michael was a diamond purist. He probably thought about it for a little while and decided he wanted a piece of it but he didn’t want to take the risks all by himself. If what he’d heard was true, there’d be more than enough diamonds to go round and he could do with some back-up. So he found two local rent-a-goons and before very long he’d formed his very own gang.”

  I paused, and checked on the faces surrounding me, wanting to be certain that I wasn’t about to lose any of them. That seemed unlikely. I hadn’t held an audience like this since I’d given my first book reading—to two die hard fans and an embarrassed book store owner on the Charing Cross Road. If I wasn’t careful, all this’ attention would go to my head.

  “Wolkers,” I continued, “would have known some of the systems they had in place at Van Zandt’s, and he could easily have found out when shipments were due and what they were likely to contain. My theory is he waited for a large delivery and then he made sure that the guard who was supposed to be on duty with him would conveniently disappear for an hour or so. Then all he had to do was stand guard as Michael and his two Dutch friends tackled the steel cage and the strong room. With enough time on his hands, a skilled thief can get into any safe or strong room in the world. After all, a safe is only as good as the lock that secures it and sadly that lock is always susceptible to being forced or picked open. Once Michael had applied his own particular expertise, the gang emptied the strong room and, since they no longer had any use for Robert Wolkers, they killed him and made their escape with the haul of a lifetime.”

  I heard a sharp intake of air and turned to see Kim wincing, her eyes screwed tight and her fists balled together, nails pressing into her skin. It was hard not to say something then, to try to appeal directly to her in a way that would make things somehow easier. Instead, I pressed on.

  “There were too many jewels to put on the market immediately, though, and now that Robert Wolkers was dead, there was a lot more heat than they would have liked. The police had a hot new officer on the case, a guy called Burggrave, and he seemed to be solving everything he was asked to look into.”

  Burggrave’s ears pricked up. He straightened and his eyes narrowed behind his angular specs, as if someone was scratching his back just right. I tried my best to ignore it, focussing on Detective Inspector Riemer instead.

  “So the gang had to go to ground and, in the meantime, they agreed to store the diamonds somewhere safe. There was a place in Chinatown they’d heard of and, although it wasn’t ideal (because nothing ever is when one of your gang is a talented thief), they were each as confident in it as they could be. They couldn’t use a bank, because a bank would ask too many questions and require ID, but the place they found was just as secure as a bank without any of the hassles.”

  I turned to the wide man and the thin man and continued my explanation to them, trying to make them see I had it all figured out. They were listening closely now, waiting to hear what I said next and whether they’d need to deny any of it.

  “In a neat twist of fate, the strong boxes that were used in this establishment required three keys to open them. It was ideal: each member of the gang could hold a key and be sure that none of them could make off with all of the jewels by themselves. The keys looked like this,” I said, pulling two keys from my pocket and placing them in my palm to show to the group. “But, before they were given out, they were encased in quick setting plaster that was poured into moulds in the shape of the three wise monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. It was the proprietor’s way of saying that they didn’t care what you kept in their facility—they weren’t about to ask any awkward questions. The two keys I’m holding were inside the two figurines that I stole for Michael. That’s why the third monkey was so important. Whoever found it could get their hands on a treasure trove of Van Zandt diamonds from the early nineties. And that, it seems, was worth beating Michael to death.”

  I handed the keys to Riemer and watched her weigh them in her hand. A few flecks of plaster were still attached to the coppery metal, giving my story a ring of authenticity. After a moment, she looked up from the keys and stared hard at me.

  “But you said before that they didn’t kill the guard,” she said, motioning towards the wide man and the thin man.

  “Yes,” I conceded, turning then to check on Karine Rijker. There was alarm in her eyes, though only because I’d looked directly at her for the first time in quite some while. I certainly didn’t get the impression that the English we were speaking meant anything to her, so I returned my attention to Riemer.

  “I’m afraid that’s where it all gets a little more complicated. To be honest, what I’ve just told you was like my first rewrite of the ending. But when I thought about it some more, when I really probed into the logic, it just didn’t add up. So what I did was I came at it from a different angle. I thought of something I hadn’t dealt with and I asked myself the question it posed. Do you know what that question was?”

  “Why did they kill my father?” Kim asked, from nowhere.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head and softening my tone. “That wouldn’t have helped. They could have killed him to tie up a loose end or to cut him out of the deal or just because one
of them was a hot-head. It left too many possibilities. No, what I asked myself was this: where did the gun come from?”

  “They could have been carrying it,” Burggrave suggested.

  “They could have, yes. And then they could have dumped it afterwards. But why? I’ve yet to meet a burglar who carries a gun with him on a job. And I know from experience that these two gentlemen favour baseball bats over firearms anyway. So I began to wonder, what if Van Zandt had made their guards carry guns.”

  “Pah!” Van Zandt said, throwing his hands up in the air and then letting his cane thud down again, as if now I really had lost my mind.

  “That would be illegal,” Riemer told me, interrupting his performance. “There are strict laws about this in the Netherlands.”

  “I imagined as much. But let’s suppose the head of Van Zandt security was more concerned with protecting his jewels than obeying the strict letter of the law. Let’s suppose he offered his guards the means to protect themselves.”

  “It is not so,” Van Zandt said, authoratively.

  “Makes sense to me,” I told him. “You always liked to keep security matters here confidential. You liked to keep things under your hat. Take the night of Wolkers death—you suffered the biggest robbery the company had ever endured and yet you refused to co-operate openly with the police, or to publicise the crime in anyway.”

  “That was a decision of the board. Our concern was for the privacy of Mr Wolker’s family. It was a difficult time.”

  “Yes it was. But it also let you bury the news that Van Zandt had armed one of its guards with the gun that killed him.”

  I looked towards Stuart, then motioned towards the handbag Karine Rijker was clutching so tightly.

  “Rutherford, could you oblige?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he told me, and then he lowered his face and said something in Dutch to the old woman. She listened for a moment, then nodded furtively and popped open the clasps on her handbag, parting the leather with great care and reaching inside very slowly, as if she had something incredibly fragile in there. Her hands emerged from the bag in much the same fashion, cradling a package wrapped in what appeared to be an old tea towel. She handed the package to Rutherford and he passed it onto me. As carefully as I could, I unfolded the material until I was holding the object it contained by a corner of the fabric.

  “This is the gun that Louis Rijker was provided with by Van Zandt security. He kept it in his wardrobe after he finished working here, in case the men who’d threatened his mother ever showed up again, and there it stayed until Mrs. Rijker was sorting through his things following his death. I’m as sure as I possibly can be that Robert Wolkers was killed with an identical gun. And it was a weapon his employer provided him with.”

  “This is just talk,” Burggrave said, looking towards Riemer. “The gun that killed him was never found. It is a pointless discussion.”

  “Well, it would be,” I said, meanwhile setting the gun down to one side and slipping on one of my disposable surgical gloves. “If it weren’t for this.”

  The ‘this’ I was referring to was a second handgun and I pulled it from my back pocket and held it in my gloved hand by the trigger guard, so that it was suspended in the air before them all. Every set of eyes seemed to be fixated on it, as if I was a stage magician about to perform a world-renowned act.

  “I’d be willing to bet serious money that this is the gun that killed Robert Wolkers,” I went on. “And it was the gun that Van Zandt armed him with. As you can see, it’s identical to the gun Mrs. Rijker brought with her here today. And do you know where I found it? In your apartment, sir,” I said, turning to face the wide man.

  The wide man sat upright for the first time. “But it is not mine,” he said, sounding genuinely perplexed.

  I waited a moment before responding, interested to see if his composure would slip any further.

  “I have never seen this gun before,” he added.

  “Oh but you have,” I told him. “Though you seemed equally surprised by it on that occasion too. You see, it was the gun I pointed at you when I made my way out of your apartment, just after you’d kidnapped me. I could see in your eyes that you had no idea how I’d found a gun. After all, there was no gun on me when you searched me before tying me to that chair in your bedroom. The truth is this gun was in the crawlspace in your attic.”

  I waited again, drawing it out, but he didn’t bite. I got the impression it was because he was genuinely puzzled.

  “I first came across it when I was searching your room for the figurine on the night I robbed you. It was in your trunk originally, but I hid it in the attic because I happen to have a habit of concealing any weapons I find. Awful things, guns—they can do such terrible damage. But I admit, you seemed very surprised when I came out of your room with it. And I don’t mean surprised because you’d gone looking for that gun in your trunk and couldn’t understand where it had got to. I mean surprised because you had no idea there was a gun in your apartment in the first place. And I think the reason you had no idea was because Michael put it there.”

  The wide man’s brow furrowed and he squinted at me.

  “You don’t get it, do you? Michael wasn’t just casing the job for me when he broke into your apartment. He was also planting the gun.”

  There was a moment of silence. His brow became more tangled.

  “So he was framing him,” Stuart said, in a wistful tone.

  “No,” I said, turning to him. “Why would he do that? Why spend twelve years in prison without giving up the other members of your gang and then try and set them up once you get out? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “So what then?” Stuart asked.

  “Ah,” I said, “well that’s the tricky bit. Go back a step. Michael hired me to steal the two monkey figurines, correct?”

  Stuart nodded. I looked around again and found the wide man and the thin man nodding too.

  “The question is, why did he do that? Yes, it would give him an alibi of sorts with his friends, but why else? Well, at the most basic level, it meant he wouldn’t be the one to take them, at least not directly. And I think that was very important to him. I mean, he spent twelve, years inside and in all that time you two were patient. You didn’t try and get at the jewels. No, you agreed to wait until he was out and then share the take.”

  I circled my spare hand in a casual, thinking gesture, like a lecturer about to depart from his script.

  “Of course, there’s a good chance that had something to do with you being unable to move the stones, but it was also something else. You were a gang and you’d developed some degree of group loyalty. Michael wanted to steal the jewels from you but he didn’t want to be the one to do it. And meanwhile, he also wanted to leave you the gun, by way of compensation, if you like.”

  “How was it compensation?” Kim asked, her eyes beginning to glimmer.

  “Because it was the murder weapon. It would allow them to put your father’s real killer behind bars if he gave them any trouble.”

  “But I don’t understand,” she said. “How?”

  “Fingerprints,” I told her. “The killer’s prints would still be on the gun, even twelve years after the crime. Correct Inspector?”

  “It’s possible,” Burggrave conceded.

  “Just possible?”

  He shrugged. “The killer may have used gloves.”

  “Of course,” I said, striking my forehead with the heel of my palm. “I hadn’t thought of that. And did you?”

  “What?”

  “Use gloves? When you killed Robert Wolkers.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Burggrave was stunned for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite believe what I’d just said. He stood there, eyes wide, head loose on his shoulders. Then, all of a sudden, he pulled himself together and surged forwards as if to hit me square in the face. Before he could, though, the wide man and the thin man stood in unison and blocked his path. Burggrave wheeled around to look at Ri
emer, who was appraising him coolly, though not, I thought, from an altogether new perspective. He turned from her gaze and glared at me, face reddening.

  “This is a lie,” he said. “You are a fool for thinking you can say these things.”

  “Inspector Burggrave was very thorough in his investigation of the killing,” Van Zandt added.

  “You mean he was very amenable to the way you wanted it conducted,” I told him, from over the top of the wall of thugs I was stood behind. “You expect me to believe that an investigator as skilled and decorated as Burggrave wouldn’t have found out within two minutes that Robert Wolkers was on the take, that Louis Rijker had been bribed, that, in short, you had a fundamental failure in your security system? Please. He would have known immediately. But he knew that anyway. Because he was in on it too. You both were.”

  “Nonsense,” Van Zandt spluttered, then turned to Riemer. “Detective Inspector, I think you had better put an end to this performance before I instruct my lawyer to sue the department.”

  “Be quiet,” she said. “Let us hear what he has to say.”

  “But it is slander.”

  “Enough,” she barked. Then to me, she said, “Go on.”

  “Diamonds are worth a lot of money,” I told her. “Everyone knows that. And even the best security system in the world is fallible. So what does a company like Van Zandt do to protect itself?”

  “It takes out insurance,” Stuart said, the answer suddenly occurring to him.

  “That’s right,” I said. “In fact, it obtains a comprehensive anti-theft policy.”

  Just then, I realised how tired I was becoming of peering over the shoulders of my two minders and so I patted the wide man and the thin man on their arms, inviting them to retake their seats. Burggrave was still sizing me up, fingers clenching and relaxing, feet set shoulder-width apart, but he couldn’t do much with his boss stood beside him and if it came to it, I still had the threat of the gun in my hand anyway. I waited until the wide man and the thin man were seated and made sure that Van Zandt squirmed under my gaze before I resumed.